Podcasts about you samaritans

Join Nathan Oliver as he delves into John chapter 4the story of Jesus and the woman at the wellto explore a faith that truly impacts our daily lives. Discover how faith is thinking, deeply personal, and actively lived out. If you're seeking a faith that goes beyond Sunday and meets you where you are, this message offers refreshing insights. To catch up on the latest sermons from Deep Creek, go to iTunes, Spotify ordeepcreekanglican.comand check out the website for more info about whats happening. We are a welcoming and growing multigenerational church in Doncaster East in Melbourne with refreshing faith in Jesus Christ. We think that looks like being life-giving to the believer, surprising to the world, and strengthening to the weary and doubting. Transcription Bible Reading: John 4:4-45 This morning's reading is taken from the Gospel of John, beginning at verse chapter four, verse four. Now he had to go through Samaria. So he came to a town in Samaria called Saco, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob's well was there. And Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about noon when a Samaritan woman came to draw water. Jesus said to her, Will you give me a drink? His disciples had gone into the town to buy food. The Samaritan woman said to him, you are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink? For Jews do not associate with Samaritans. Jesus answered her, if you knew the gift of God and who it is that asked you for a drink, you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water. Sir, the woman said, you have nothing to draw with, and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his livestock? Jesus answered, everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life. The woman said to him, sir, give me this water, so that I won't get thirsty, and have to keep coming here to draw water. He told her, go call your husband and come back. I have no husband, she replied. Jesus said to her, you are right when you say you have no husband. The fact is, you have had five husbands and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true. Sir, the woman said, I can see you are a prophet. Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain. But the Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem. Woman Jesus replied, believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You Samaritans worship what you do not know. We worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the father in the spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the spirit and in truth. The woman said, I know that the Messiah called Christ is coming. When he comes, we will explain everything to us. Then Jesus said, I, the one speaking to you, I am he. Just then his disciples returned and were surprised to find him talking with a woman. But no one asked, what do you want? Or why are you talking with her? When leaving her water jar, the woman went back to the town and said to the people, come see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Messiah? They came out of the town and made their way toward him. Meanwhile, his disciples urged him, Rabbi, eat something. But he said to them, I have food to eat that you know nothing about. Then his disciples said to each other, could someone have brought him food? My food, said Jesus, is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work. Don't you have a saying? It's still four months until harvest, I tell you. Open your eyes and look at the fields. They are ripe for the harvest. Even now, the one who reaps draws a wage and harvests a crop for eternal life. So that the sower and the reaper may be glad together. Thus the saying one sows and another reaps is true. I sent you to reap what you have not worked for. Others have done the hard work and you have reaped the benefits of their labor. Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman's testimony. He told me everything I ever did. So when the Samaritans came to him, they urged him to stay with them. And he stayed two days. And because of this words, many more became believers. They said to the woman, we no longer believe just because of what you said. Now we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this man really is the Savior of the world. This is the Word of God. Opening Remarks Happy Mother's Day, I suppose. I don't know if that's a good introduction. It's too much of me. That's the first thing. But, And I'm here again. You know, Amy said a quiet life, not on a stage. I'm sorry about that. Thank you. That was. Pedram, you made us look way better than we are. That was good. I'm proud of Amy. and I love hearing her share her heart, too. So it's good. And, you know, before I begin, I'm going to pray. Father, thank you for your Grace. And free love. I love that line. That, you are greater. then, then our failures. So, God, I pray now that we would see your goodness this morning by your Holy Spirit. Would you make that clear to us? In your name we pray. Amen. So, Yeah. Like, I don't know how many people, would have known us before the video on the screen just now. we have been part of Deep Creek for about 12 months or so. you might know us. You might know us as, the family with the noisiest baby. Or you might know us as the family that's always late. which is fair. I didn't know there was music at the start until today. So this is the earliest we've turned up on a Sunday, so it was a good habit for us to begin. It's good. it's really good to be here and a good opportunity. Thank you for having me share with you this morning. My background is in church leadership, and, but it's been a couple of years since I've preached the until 8:00 this morning, and it was okay. so, you know, appreciate you, Grace and me having lots of nerves. I'm more nervous after the video than I was before. but I'm also nervous just just through the week. Thinking about this passage. I appreciate the Bible reading this morning. That was a long one. I'm sorry. and we're not going to go through it verse by verse if you wanted, though. open a Bible or have it in front of you. The text is going to jump around a little bit. but I'm nervous because, thinking about this passage and just actually applying it to my own heart. It's a big thing. there's a lot. There's a lot for us to think about. We're talking about everyday faith and how our faith makes a difference for us on the daily. Right. That's a big thing. And I think in my reflections this week, I'm feeling that very personally. And there's a there's a bunch that we can take out from this interaction that Jesus has, with the woman at the well. And so, what I want to look at, are three things about, I think, what this lady learned and definitely what we can learn about faith in everyday life. I want to look at how, our faith is a thinking faith, a personal faith and an act of faith. Just also want to clarify that when I. When I say faith, I mean faith in God. We're going to shorthand that today. we often in today's day and age, we talk about faith quite broad and quite generally, faith can mean that I just have general hope. have faith in myself. I have faith that we can get through. But definitely what we're talking about this morning is faith in everyday life is faith in God. The difference that he makes when we put our hope and trust in him? Okay, so thinking faith, personal faith and living faith. Faith in God is a Thinking Faith So the first one. Faith in God is a thinking faith. Okay, now, we read the passage, and one of the things that you'll notice at the start, or maybe I'll give words to you for that is there's six verses of context, six, six verses, just to set the story up. Now, the reason that's interesting to me is because you don't get that in every passage. I wish we did, but we don't. Often you'll get maybe one line, maybe one word, maybe just a really brief intro to what's happening. Maybe sometimes there's none. But here we get six whole verses on context, and so we need to learn from that and take well, the setting actually must be quite important. And it is. We need to know that the setting is significant to the people of Samaria. This is a Samaritan woman at the well. The setting where they are in Samaria is important. I like the way that the the passage was read this morning for us. It said Jesus had to go through this place, and it's sort of like, well, why else would he if he didn't have to? He probably wouldn't. And that's the case. Jews and Samaritans were not the best of friends. This was a time where where you came from determined significantly. What you believed today might not be that different, but it was very much the case in this time. Judea and sorry, Judea and Samaria were at this stage politically the same. They were both under the same Roman rule, technically within the same sort of like, country, I suppose. But historically, Samaria stood out. If you go back to one Kings, you'll see that there was a point in Israel's history where Samaria was made the capital of the northern Kingdom. Why that's significant is because when the Assyrian empire came in and took over Israel, they went for Samaria. They went for that city. It was strategically the smartest thing to do. And one of the ways that they defeated that city was to take all of the prominent Israelites out of it and put their own people in. Right. And so the people who influenced culture the most were now gone, and it was mixed in with the new Assyrian flavor. It became this sort of dual culture. And they changed. They mingled everything. They, they, they, they shared each other. They learned new recipes from each other and their background and their cultures. They they whatever. They watched each other's movies. I don't know how you learn someone else's culture, but they they sort of mixed everything up, including intermarrying and including borrowing from each other's religious perspective. So much so that Samaria kind of adapted this alt alt alternative version of the Hebrew faith. It's it's alt Jew Judaism, that's what it is. And, They sort of during this phase, they sort of like only focused in on the first five books of the Bible of the law. That's how they interpreted everything in Samaria. And so, the Jews actually had a further breadth to draw from, to understand God's Word, but it was just reduced. And because it was reduced to those five chapters or, sorry, five books of the Bible, the literal implications of that meant that they thought that the place where you worshiped God was in this specific setting on Mount Gerizim. And it was so important to them that they actually built a rival temple there. And that's. Does that make sense? Now, as you think about the conversation Jesus was having with this woman. And and he's saying, you believe this. And she's saying, well, we believe this. And you. And what about where you worship, right? That's why it's because of this, this background. And it was such a rivalry that was built between the two 200 years after that temple was built. There was an uprising by certain, Jewish people, and they destroyed their temple, the Samaritan temple. And that was 200 years before this story took place. This is a rivalry that is both historical and religious, and it's centered at the location where we're reading this story. Add something to the text. It adds something. Jacob's well was there, and Jesus finds himself there, and there's no one else there except this one lady, the Samaritan woman. And here we have a Jew and a Samaritan, and they begin to talk. If you need further confirmation of the rivalry, just look at verse nine where it says, the Samaritan woman said to him, You're a Jew. I'm a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink? And here it is, just there for you. For Jews do not associate with Samaritans. Clear as day. And yet they did associate. And it doesn't seem heated either. There is a reasonable exchange. And in the end, the woman Jesus is speaking with seemingly expresses faith in God the way that Jesus was talking about it. And by the end of the passage, we see she's a believer. Through this conversation. This is a powerful conversation. A reasonable exchange of thoughts and ideas took place, and it led to something very significant happening. It's not a normal conversation because Jesus uses all sorts of vivid imagery about water and, you know, water that doesn't run out. It's very metaphorical, right? I don't know. I don't know if you would if you would find that frustrating or not. Talking with someone who's speaking in metaphors and hey, the wind is a bit of, I don't know, I don't even want to pretend like I can do that. But she doesn't know what Jesus means. But that's kind of the point. He says something, she clarifies. Jesus doubles down on his claims. She questions, how does that fit with my beliefs? Even the part Jesus miraculously knows her family history. She changes the topic and Jesus lets her, doesn't pull it back and say no, no, no, no. It's a very even conversation. Jesus gives room for the penny to drop. Because, you know, she needs to think this through. Even when the location question is brought up in verse 20, she says, but what about where you worship and where we worship? It's different. Jesus says, believe me. A time is coming when you will worship the father, neither on this mountain or in Jerusalem. A time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the father in spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the spirit and in truth. In other words, Jesus says to her, where? Think about it. Think about it. Think about who God is and what he's like. Maybe think about how big he is, how great he is. Do you really think he cares which side of the hill you worship on? There is a coming time where none of that will matter. Not from your side or from my side. No, no, no. He cares about your heart. And you might say, well, why bother with all of that, right? We saw in the passage there was a moment he pulled the husband trick out, and he. And like, that was pretty impressive. Like like he pulled out the thing. He had no knowledge of that beforehand. He just says it like, why bother with all the interaction? Just do that again. She was on the ropes. Get her over the line now. Right. You could even say, why are we even reading this at all? If Jesus is like this, that people like do the the miracle trick on me, you know, and I'll believe 100% no gaps at all. Right? And the reason why he doesn't just zap us into faith is because faith requires thinking. I don't think you can have faith without thinking. Is that good news for you this morning? You can't have faith without thinking. Which I think that's good news, because I think there is a perception out there that Christians are people who have switched their brains off, and the people who think would never believe what we believe or what a Christian believes. But I don't think it can work like that to have faith in God who we can't see. We have to acknowledge that you can't prove God's existence, and at the same time, you can't disprove his existence either. So that puts the whole thing in a bit of a dilemma. Either side of that equation, you are going to have to stand on faith one way or the other. I do believe it or I don't believe it. Both are faith standpoints. You can't prove it either way. So the question becomes you have to what? What can you live with from that position of faith that you take? Whichever one is what has the least issues for you? And so you have to think about that. What am I content to live with? One person says God can't be real because there's so much pain and suffering. Another person says the pain and suffering led me to God. Do you see what I'm saying? This week, as I was hanging out with a friend at the pub, we were talking about politics because I'm a boring person now and have grown up conversations. We were talking about politics and everything that's wrong in the world. And he got really agitated about one specific thing. I'm not going to say it's too divisive. Don't even ask me about it. but, it was. Are you Team Naga or Brookie? Which one? And we said, I'm not going to go into it. No no, no. Three people are on social media. Okay, okay. No no, no, it was something else more global than that. And, and he he was super agitated. Right. And I was thinking to myself, how do I even help my friend? What's my role here? And so I had this strange idea to ask him a question. Okay, that's fair enough. I agree with you. It's bad. But where do you get peace from now? But what will bring you peace? How are you going to live with that? And what I really want to say was, because if you intellectualize issues and push them aside because they're too much, then you have to acknowledge that the only way to do that by is by faith that nothing matters ultimately. If if you intellectualize it and then say, well, I can't deal with it, I just have to push it aside. Well, then the only way to do that, really is the faith that nothing really matters in the end. But it does matter to my friend. It does, obviously it does. See, faith comes from thinking, and thinking leads to faith. Don't just leave it there. Think. Be a thoughtful person. Think. Think about what? Why is it that when you see a beautiful sunset, it does something in you? But why? Why so much art based on the things around the world that we would describe as beautiful? Why do photographers take pictures of things that's done? Why? Why do we like it when we see it? Think about these things. What is it? And then what's the next question after that? You got to think. Remember Jesus on the road to Emmaus talking with the disciples. And he said, guys, remember, this is what the Bible said, this and this and this. Put it together. Think about it. Remember Jesus when he taught on worry and he's lying to the people he was speaking to. He was you of little faith. Why? Because. Just think about it. Look at the lilies of the field. Look at the sparrows. They eat their feel right. Don't worry. Think about that. Think this faith is a thinking faith. Faith in God requires thinking. Faith in God is also Personal Faith in God is also personal. We need to accept faith in God, which means we need to let it in. Sometimes that's hard because the personal stuff we feel can run pretty deep and it's real stuff. And actually, that's what I want to talk about, the real stuff, where it is personal. It was very personal for this lady, at least in three ways. She had three. She she had she had hurdles to get over. Firstly, she was a Samaritan. Secondly, she was female. And thirdly, she had a personal history that was difficult. The fact that she's a Samaritan, I've already covered a bunch of that. It wasn't just a racial division, it was a religious division. Certain associations with the Samaritan would have made a Jew ritually unclean. In fact, the verse is in so verse nine where it says, For Jews don't associate with Samaritans. The Greek is a bit dubious there, and is often used to sort of like translate a different way, which would say for Jews and Samaritans don't share, don't share the same dish. Right. And yet Jesus pursues her. He jumps that hurdle. Secondly, she's female. Everything of note in regard to a Samaritan background of the woman would be intensified by the fact of her being female. There's a bit of a pause in the story when the disciples catch up with Jesus and see him chatting with a woman, right? Remember that bit at the end? And I think it says they were surprised. Huh? What are you doing? Jesus is you at a lady? And it says. But no one said anything. The implication being, normally they might write. She wasn't supposed to be chatting with him. In fact, there was a traditional law created in the oral tradition that declared all Samaritan women were unclean from birth. It just really shouldn't have been doing this. And yet, if you flick back just one chapter to John three, you know, for God so loved the world that he gave. Right? That and this chapter are eerily similar. It's Jesus speaking with one person, having a deep and meaningful about all the big things of life. Except in that instance, it was a man, a powerful, educated, religious Jewish man. And he treats what's what. What is so stark about the two passages is he treats them both identically. Jesus shows this lady the same dignity and respect as anyone else. He jumps that hurdle. And then it's the private life that Jesus is talking about needs. Using water as a metaphor, anyone who would drink the water that I could offer them, they'll never be thirsty again. And she hasn't really got it right. And so Jesus changes the topic and addresses something in her life. Go tell your husband. Go tell your husband. Which she says, well, I don't have a husband. Jesus knew that. But what she said wasn't entirely true. Jesus clarifies that he knew that too. Now, it's not the whole picture. You've had five husbands. The man you're with now currently is not your husband. And yet, here's the key. Jesus doesn't rub it in her face. He commends her honest answer. And then he reveals the full story. There's no doubt this woman would have experienced stigma in her day. And at no point does Jesus embarrass her. Tease her. Mock her. Look down on her. And neither does he condone her situation. But he doesn't treat her unfairly. Instead, the offer to her is the same to you. And I have faith in God from exactly where you are, exactly where you are. I don't know about you, but like, so often I think I'm like, in order to even have faith in God, I'm supposed to be at a certain standard, even when I pray. I'm not honest all the time because I'm. And I pretend like like God. Like I could schmooze him over to think that I'm actually worthy. You know what I'm saying? Do you relate to that at all? But it's it's the gaps in our life that are that show us where we need God. It's personal, it's deep, it's real. But it has to come from those gaps. I've been getting into, becoming cultured in the last couple of years and learning about art history. I'm grown up now, and I can have conversations with other grown ups, too. And so I'm just I just want to impress people that I know stuff about art. That's all it really is. No, but I find it fascinating. I've loved this guy's writing called Russ Ramsey. he tells the most beautiful stories about famous, art, events throughout history. Right. And as I was reading the passage this week, it made me think of one particular story about Van Gogh. van Gogh. here he is. Vincent van Gogh. People would know him mainly for two things. The starry night painting. And let me test the second thing. How else? What's famous about Van Gogh? It's not. He cut his ear off. All right. There you go. It's exactly what I thought. So that's true, except the lead up to the event where he cut his ear off. Lots of people don't know that. And it's pretty, pretty powerful, actually. maybe you be the judge. Anyway. so the reason that came to be. Let me tell you the story. Right? It's a true story. Van Gogh was desperate as an artist to be in community with other people. he was he was a very, passionate guy, I suppose is a good way of saying it. And he was desperate to be in a community of artists and, always wanted to, like, do art and better himself, become the greatest artist he could ever be. Right? never really had it. Never really found that community. his brother was an art dealer. And so through the work that he did, he connected with some other artists, including, Paul Gauguin, who was like someone that Van Gogh looked up to. Right. And so, through that connection with his brother, they actually got to know each other a little bit, and he slipped the invitation and say, would you ever consider coming and living in France with me? Go again? After some deliberation, said I will on a trial period. Right. But we won't know each other. We don't know each other. How are we going to get to know each other? We can't find each other on Facebook yet, so I don't even know what you look like, right? So through their letter exchanges, they said, well, let's paint a self-portrait of ourselves as a way of introduction and mail it in the mail. I like this better than social media. And and then they said, how about we also attach like, like a literary thing, like a, like expression to it so that we can get each other where we're at. Right? And so they did. and so can we have the next slide up. This is Gauguin painted a picture of himself. He painted himself in the image like he presented himself as Jean Valjean from, Les Mis. Which I think is pretty bold. so he's a hero. He's what he's saying, right? And this is what he wrote in the letter. It is the face of an outlaw, ill clad and powerful, like Jean Valjean. That's fun to say. With an inner nobility and gentleness. The faces flush, the eyes accented, and the surrounding colors of a furnace fire. This is to represent the volcanic flames that animate the soul of the artist. The girlish background, with its childlike flowers, is there to attest to our artistic purity. As for this Jean Valjean, whom society has oppressed, cast out, is he not equally the symbol of contemporary Impressionist painters and endowing him with my features? I offer you as well an image of myself, a portrait of all the wretched victims of society. So he writes and says, I'm a hero. I'm representing all the all the outcasts out there and. And that's that's why I do what I do. Van Gogh presented himself in the sort of like nature of a Japanese monk. Right. He was really influenced by Japanese culture. He loved that. You'veseen some of his famous paintings. You can see that. and, so he got his idea from the, you know, the book that became Madame Butterfly, right? The opera, which is about French soldiers stationed off the coast of Japan. He was, you know, sort of like that. He was into that. And this is what he wrote in his letter. If we study Japanese art, we see a man who's undoubtedly wise, philosophic and intelligent, who spends his time doing what he studies a single blade of grass, but the blade of grass leads him to draw every plant. And then the seasons, the wide aspects of the countryside, then animals, then the human figure. Come now. Isn't it almost a true religion which these simple Japanese people teach us, who live in nature as though they themselves were flowers? Now, here's the thing. Like, he's he's like none of these. Neither of the guys were like, what? They said they were right. They weren't. Came from a super broken. He'd just been kicked out by his family. He couldn't make any money. He was a failed stockbroker, and he really just needed a place to live. And he cast himself as his hero. And then, like, sorry, it's troubling history of Van Gogh, but he was he was a troubled man. He was deeply anxious. Deeply. He struggled with self-doubt significantly. And yet they present each other as like, hey, this is this. It sounds like it's going to be a great community. And they did produce some good work, but they could only stick it out for 63 days. They argued bitterly every day. They were so like they had such different views. And so. And it actually ended in one boozy beef up one night when they were drinking in a cafe, discussing where art should come from in the artist's eyes. Right. And it says, the cafe owner said, like Van Gogh threw his absinthe across the room, and then he went up to his apartment. He got a razor to come back, and his intention was to kill Gauguin. He got a few steps away from him and then freaked out when Gauguin turned around and he just ran off and he ran up to his apartment, which is where the next thing he did was cut his ear off. What a tragic tale. What? What a tragic story. And the thing is about that Russ Ramsey, who I mentioned before, who writes about these things, what he says in this particular section is that to truly know someone. To truly know someone is to know their pain, is to know the gaps in their life, to know their area of need. That's how you know someone, not by their aspirational self, but by their actual self, when maybe even no one's looking. And then he points out that when you look at Jesus's ministry, that's in fact how you know anyone that Jesus related to. Think about all the people that Jesus ministered to. That we know them by their deficit. That's how we know them. Blind Bartimaeus. We know that the woman who was bleeding, we know the child who, like, was only sleeping like, you know what I'm saying? Like everyone that Jesus ministered to. It was at the point of need. It was the gaps in their life that actually made Jesus good news for them. And look at what Jesus is saying in this passage, verse 13 and 14. It says, everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I given will be coming them a spring of water welling up to eternal life. The gaps in your life, in other words, the things you ache for, the things that have hurt you, the things that make you broken, the things that put you at a distance from God do not preclude you from faith in God. In fact, it's the opposite. The prerequisite for faith is thirst. Jesus isn't saying it's bad to want things, or to desire things, or to to be broken or anything like that. He's saying that if you put your faith in those things, though, that if only my job was better, if only I had more money, if only I had if whatever. Your if only statement is that if you put your faith in those things, you will be left wanting. There is nothing big enough to contain the dreams of your heart, the daily lives that you live. There is nothing big enough to contain it other than the one who made you. That's what he's saying. Because he knows he's the only one he can hold us. Our hopes and dreams, our hearts hurts and our fears. He's the only one big enough who can handle that. He's the only one. Therefore, he's the only one who we could really, truly have faith in that can meet us where we're at. Do you see Jesus at the cross and what he's doing? He he goes to the cross for our sin, right? And he pays the penalty. He gets rid of the gap between us and God. The things that cause the hurt, the things that cause the act. He he deals with that. But do you notice what happens that kind of like the climactic moment, the moment where Jesus breathed his last, everything goes black. And then what happened in the temple? The holy place, the place where God resided. The place where he dwelt, the place that was the most special dwelling of him in earth at all, was protected by a thick curtain. And at the moment Jesus died and passed cross that thorn for us. It tore into, because nothing could keep his holiness away from our own holiness. Nothing could keep his love away from us. And so he says, no, it's not. You show me how good you are and then you earn it. I'm coming to you in love so that you can respond to me in faith. It's your thirst for all things is the prerequisite for faith in Jesus. And in doing these things, Jesus validates those aches. He validates the hurts. He validates the gaps in your life and says, yes, it was intended to be different. And one day all those things will be realized in him. If faith is not personal, I don't think it's worth it. So, friends, I ask you in love today. Where are the gaps in your life? These are the spaces where God wants to have wants us to have hope and trust and faith in him. This is what this is the conversation he's having at the well with this woman. And he is the very gift himself that he offers for it to happen. It's good news. So where are the gaps in your life? These are the spaces where our faith comes from, needs to come from, not the bits where you got to work out. Faith in God is a Living Faith The third thing leads from that, and it's that faith in God is a living faith. Once we have faith in God, then what? I'm going to be short here, so don't worry. So it's going along well. Let's look at the woman at the well. Can we read verse 28 to 30? It's like she hears and then she goes. She receives that. She leaves her jar there. People like talk symbolically like that. She's she's given up her mechanism to keep drawing from the physical water because she's received from Jesus. I don't know if that's what is actually going on or not. She just might have forgotten a jar, I don't know, but either way, like, she's gone and she's like, she's acting. She's like and telling people, guys, you'll never believe I just spoke to this. Man. He knew everything. He's. He's got to be the one. He's got to be. She did something. She acted. I love it, I love it how it says at the end. We no longer believe just because of what you said. Now we have heard for ourselves. You see, they're going through the process. We're thinking. We're applying it to ourselves. And now we believe. And so now we are in response. Yeah. There's two ways you need to respond to God in faith. If you believe it's true. Faith. I've been thinking about what faith is and you can sum it up as belief. You can sum it up as just what you think. I don't know, but one thing I think the Bible describes faith as is responding to what you know is true about who God is. Right. Which then helps us identify how we need to have faith in him. What do you know is true about God? Do you know that God is the most generous being in all the universe? Well, then, what does that say about how you use your resources, your finances, your time, your energy, keeping to yourself? Like, how could you if you know what God's like? What about how God welcomes strangers? Well, then who gets to eat at your table? How many times? This is for me too. How many times do people get to sit at your table who don't share the same surname as you? What does it mean to make new friends? Isn't that what God's like? I'm not saying you have to do it that way. But what do you know about God to be true? And then how do you live? What about that? That he will return one day to judge the living and the dead? Okay, so where do you cut corners? What are the small gaps in your life that you can offer to him in faith and trust him in those spaces? The second thing that we can see here is that faith is for ourselves to to live out. But then it's for the benefit of others, too. That's what happened. A whole community of people came to faith in Jesus because one woman responded. In my role, I raised money for churches during the week. That's what I do. and it means I get to go and speak with lots of wonderful people. And I had a meeting not long ago with, with a big, foundation that is not from a Christian or any sort of religious background, and they'd never worked with an organization that was a faith organization. And I didn't know that until we met. And but I just approached it the same way I normally would. and so we just met for coffee and had a really good time, and it was just lovely. It was so, so much fun. And we kind of got carried away and just having a good time having coffee together. That's sort of my life. But, And then she sort of caught herself unnoticed. She caught herself and went, oh yeah, I've got to ask that question. And she, I could tell, like her face dropped a bit and she said it was like she had this important question that she needed to check before we passed the test, you know, and she said, but what do you say about the fact that, churches already have loads of money, that churches are rich? I said, you should see my church. No, I said, that joke worked better this morning. and I said, well, yeah, institutionally, I can see that's true. But the reality is, every church that I know, they're in it because they believe it and nothing else, that they're writing off their own steam. They're pushing as hard as they can with every resource that they've got. And I just had happened to have come from a meeting where I met with someone who was leading a church, and in their congregation, they told me that there's a number of instances, serious instances, and one of them was domestic violence. And so he had actually invited a woman to come live with his family. And that's what had happened. And so I relayed that to this person. I said he's not doing it because he has to. This is out of hours work. He believes this is what to do. This is how to live by faith, because this is the way that God has treated him. And then it looks like that. And she said, I need to figure out how I can tell this to the people at my work, because we need to figure out how to make that more common. And then she indicated that she wanted to just to talk more about how this was real. Do you see? Do you see how it works? Faith that you think through then becomes real for you personally and you live out is compelling. It's beautiful. It's just like the good news that Jesus shared with us. Would you consider what it might look like to be a person of faith in God? And what that would look like for your life? Think it through. Personalize it. Let it get in the gaps and then live it. Concluding Prayer Let me pray. Father God, thank you for your grace. May we live humbly in response to it. Amen.

Morning Worship Sermon with Rev. Bob Turner Scripture reference John 4 Jesus Talks With a Samaritan Woman 4 Now Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard that he was gaining and baptizing more disciples than John— 2 although in fact it was not Jesus who baptized, but his disciples. 3 So he left Judea and went back once more to Galilee. 4 Now he had to go through Samaria. 5 So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph. 6 Jacob's well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about noon. 7 When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?” 8 (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.) 9 The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.[a]) 10 Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.” 11 “Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? 12 Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his livestock?” 13 Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, 14 but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” 15 The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water so that I won't get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.” 16 He told her, “Go, call your husband and come back.” 17 “I have no husband,” she replied. Jesus said to her, “You are right when you say you have no husband. 18 The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true.” 19 “Sir,” the woman said, “I can see that you are a prophet. 20 Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.” 21 “Woman,” Jesus replied, “believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. 22 You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23 Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. 24 God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.” 25 The woman said, “I know that Messiah” (called Christ) “is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.” 26 Then Jesus declared, “I, the one speaking to you—I am he.”

In our modern world, Christmas is all about… ANTICIPATION Anticipation: Waiting eagerly for something you know is going to happen Gifts Food Gatherings Lights The Story of Christmas is actually about a DIFFERENT type of waiting… LONGING Longing: A strong desire, especially for something unattainable Let's talk about longing before we get to how it is a part of Christmas We have all experienced some sort of longing Nostalgia – Longing for a time in the past Sorrow – Longing for something lost Grief – Longing for someone who is gone We can long for… An opportunity that may never come Health outcome Financial windfall Etc   Longing – The Cracked Bowl Regardless of how much is put in, it always runs low Our hearts/souls also leak We are constantly needing to FILL BACK UP This leak is LONGING The trouble is… Our world offers MANY things that claim to “FILL OUR BOWL” To fix the longing Things like… Stuff – But it is never enough (The bowl leaks) Relationships – But we always get let down (The bowl leaks) Physical pleasure – We always have to have more (The bowl leaks) “If we find ourselves with a desire that nothing in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that we were made for another world.” ~C.S. Lewis New Series Called… THE SONGS OF CHRISTMAS More than any other holiday, Christmas is defined by it's MUSIC Some are “Jingle Bells” But some speak a powerful truth… Each week… Taking a different song and discovering it TRUTH SONG: O come, O come, Immanuel History: Over 1,200 years old Originally written in Latin Sung for centuries of Christians speaking to the LONGING of our souls and world Let's look at a few lines from the song… 1 O come, O come, Immanuel, and ransom captive Israel that mourns in lonely exile here until the Son of God appear. 4 O come, O Branch of Jesse's stem, unto your own and rescue them! From depths of hell your people save, and give them victory o'er the grave. 5 O come, O Key of David, come and open wide our heavenly home. Make safe for us the heavenward road and bar the way to death's abode. 6 O come, O Bright and Morning Star, and bring us comfort from afar! Dispel the shadows of the night and turn our darkness into light. 7 O come, O King of nations, bind in one the hearts of all mankind. Bid all our sad divisions cease and be yourself our King of Peace. But then there is the REFRAIN Refrain: Rejoice! Rejoice! Immanuel shall come to you, O Israel. You can feel the LONGING Not at home Something we wait for but cannot get ourselves How should we respond to a song like this? John 4 7 A woman of Samaria came to draw water. “Give me a drink,” Jesus said to her, 8 because his disciples had gone into town to buy food. 9 “How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a Samaritan woman?” she asked him. For Jews do not associate with Samaritans. 10 Jesus answered, “If you knew the gift of God, and who is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,' you would ask him, and he would give you living water.” 11 “Sir,” said the woman, “you don't even have a bucket, and the well is deep. So where do you get this ‘living water'? 12 You aren't greater than our father Jacob, are you? He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and livestock.” 13 Jesus said, “Everyone who drinks from this water will get thirsty again. 14 But whoever drinks from the water that I will give him will never get thirsty again. In fact, the water I will give him will become a well of water springing up in him for eternal life.” 15 “Sir,” the woman said to him, “give me this water so that I won't get thirsty and come here to draw water.” 16 “Go call your husband,” he told her, “and come back here.” 17 “I don't have a husband,” she answered. “You have correctly said, ‘I don't have a husband,'” Jesus said. 18 “For you've had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have said is true.” Jesus points out the area of LONGING in her life It's uncomfortable for her It's uncomfortable for us The Longing in our heart must be filled with something… So make sure it's the right thing Jesus is the answer to the Longing of our hearts 19 “Sir,” the woman replied, “I see that you are a prophet. 20 Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews say that the place to worship is in Jerusalem.” She tries to shift the conversation off of herself She's uncomfortable Having your heart examined by God is UNCOMFORTABLE 21 Jesus told her, “Believe me, woman, an hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. 22 You Samaritans worship what you do not know. We worship what we do know, because salvation is from the Jews. 23 But an hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in Spirit and in truth. Yes, the Father wants such people to worship him. 24 God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in Spirit and in truth.” This should be our goal every day. To Worship God in… SPIRIT: In the Spirit, by the Holy Spirit. Not driven by our own emotions but deeply emotional TRUTH: The revelation of God in Jesus Christ. There is no other truth but Him   25 The woman said to him, “I know that the Messiah is coming” (who is called Christ). “When he comes, he will explain everything to us.” 26 Jesus told her, “I, the one speaking to you, am He.” She knows that the answer to the LONGING in her heart is not all these relationships How do we respond? 1: Every Christmas, we RECOGNIZE the longing in our hearts and in the world This is why our world is so broken, just a bunch of letdowns and heartbreaks We constantly examine ourselves to make sure that our longing is not driving us to TEMPORARY THINGS   2: Every Christmas, we ANSWER our longing with the HOPE of JESUS – Immanuel – God with us   We have a HOPE-FILLED LONGING Christ HAS COME, He will COME AGAIN   The HOPE of Christmas is… ALL OUR LONGING IS FILLED IN THE HOPE OF JESUS CLOSING PRAYER Father in Heaven, You know my hopes, dreams, and disappointments. I have deep needs that only you can meet. Please forgive me for putting my confidence in so many other things instead of in You, the Giver of life. Help me know that You see me and know me. In Jesus' Name, Amen.

When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?” 8 (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.) 9 The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.[a]) 10 Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.” 11 “Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? 12 Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his livestock?” 13 Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, 14 but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” 15 The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water so that I won't get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.” 16 He told her, “Go, call your husband and come back.” 17 “I have no husband,” she replied. Jesus said to her, “You are right when you say you have no husband. 18 The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true.” 19 “Sir,” the woman said, “I can see that you are a prophet. 20 Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.” 21 “Woman,” Jesus replied, “believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. 22 You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23 Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. 24 God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.”

When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?” 8 (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.) 9 The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.[a]) 10 Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.” 11 “Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? 12 Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his livestock?” 13 Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, 14 but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” 15 The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water so that I won't get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.” 16 He told her, “Go, call your husband and come back.” 17 “I have no husband,” she replied. Jesus said to her, “You are right when you say you have no husband. 18 The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true.” 19 “Sir,” the woman said, “I can see that you are a prophet. 20 Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.” 21 “Woman,” Jesus replied, “believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. 22 You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23 Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. 24 God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.”

Dr. Julio Guarneri (Executive Director, Baptist General Convention of Texas), "Building Bridges Instead of Barriers", Modern Worship Praise Team (11:15 Service).       4.  Now he had to go through Samaria.  5.  So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph.  6.  Jacob's well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about noon.        7.  When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?”  8.  (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.)  9.  The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans)       10.  Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.”  11.  “Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water?  12.  Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his livestock?”  13.  Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again,   14.  but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”  15.  The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water so that I won't get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.”  16.  He told her, “Go, call your husband and come back.”  17.  “I have no husband,” she replied.  Jesus said to her, “You are right when you say you have no husband.   18.  The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true.”       19.  “Sir,” the woman said, “I can see that you are a prophet.  20.  Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.”  21.  “Woman,” Jesus replied, “believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem.  22.  You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews.  23.  Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks.  24.  God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.”       25.  The woman said, “I know that Messiah” (called Christ) “is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.”26.  Then Jesus declared, “I, the one speaking to you—I am he.”       27.  Just then his disciples returned and were surprised to find him talking with a woman. But no one asked, “What do you want?” or “Why are you talking with her?”  28.  Then, leaving her water jar, the woman went back to the town and said to the people,  29.  “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Messiah?”  30.  They came out of the town and made their way toward him.       39.  Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman's testimony, “He told me everything I ever did.”  40.  So when the Samaritans came to him, they urged him to stay with them, and he stayed two days.  41.  And because of his words many more became believers.       (John 4:4-30; 39-41)

Dr. Julio Guarneri (Executive Director, Baptist General Convention of Texas), "Building Bridges Instead of Barriers", Orchestra, Choir, Blended Worship Praise Team (8:45 Service).       4.  Now he had to go through Samaria.  5.  So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph.  6.  Jacob's well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about noon.        7.  When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?”  8.  (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.)  9.  The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans)       10.  Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.”  11.  “Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water?  12.  Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his livestock?”  13.  Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again,   14.  but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”  15.  The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water so that I won't get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.”  16.  He told her, “Go, call your husband and come back.”  17.  “I have no husband,” she replied.  Jesus said to her, “You are right when you say you have no husband.   18.  The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true.”       19.  “Sir,” the woman said, “I can see that you are a prophet.  20.  Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.”  21.  “Woman,” Jesus replied, “believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem.  22.  You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews.  23.  Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks.  24.  God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.”       25.  The woman said, “I know that Messiah” (called Christ) “is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.”26.  Then Jesus declared, “I, the one speaking to you—I am he.”       27.  Just then his disciples returned and were surprised to find him talking with a woman. But no one asked, “What do you want?” or “Why are you talking with her?”  28.  Then, leaving her water jar, the woman went back to the town and said to the people,  29.  “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Messiah?”  30.  They came out of the town and made their way toward him.       39.  Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman's testimony, “He told me everything I ever did.”  40.  So when the Samaritans came to him, they urged him to stay with them, and he stayed two days.  41.  And because of his words many more became believers.       (John 4:4-30; 39-41)

Dr. Julio Guarneri (Executive Director, Baptist General Convention of Texas), "Building Bridges Instead of Barriers".       4.  Now he had to go through Samaria.  5.  So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph.  6.  Jacob's well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about noon.        7.  When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?”  8.  (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.)  9.  The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans)       10.  Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.”  11.  “Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water?  12.  Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his livestock?”  13.  Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again,   14.  but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”  15.  The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water so that I won't get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.”  16.  He told her, “Go, call your husband and come back.”  17.  “I have no husband,” she replied.  Jesus said to her, “You are right when you say you have no husband.   18.  The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true.”       19.  “Sir,” the woman said, “I can see that you are a prophet.  20.  Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.”  21.  “Woman,” Jesus replied, “believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem.  22.  You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews.  23.  Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks.  24.  God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.”       25.  The woman said, “I know that Messiah” (called Christ) “is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.”26.  Then Jesus declared, “I, the one speaking to you—I am he.”       27.  Just then his disciples returned and were surprised to find him talking with a woman. But no one asked, “What do you want?” or “Why are you talking with her?”  28.  Then, leaving her water jar, the woman went back to the town and said to the people,  29.  “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Messiah?”  30.  They came out of the town and made their way toward him.       39.  Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman's testimony, “He told me everything I ever did.”  40.  So when the Samaritans came to him, they urged him to stay with them, and he stayed two days.  41.  And because of his words many more became believers.       (John 4:4-30; 39-41)

Dr. Julio Guarneri (Executive Director, Baptist General Convention of Texas), "Building Bridges Instead of Barriers", Modern Worship Praise Team (11:15 Service).       4.  Now he had to go through Samaria.  5.  So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph.  6.  Jacob's well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about noon.        7.  When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?”  8.  (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.)  9.  The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans)       10.  Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.”  11.  “Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water?  12.  Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his livestock?”  13.  Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again,   14.  but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”  15.  The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water so that I won't get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.”  16.  He told her, “Go, call your husband and come back.”  17.  “I have no husband,” she replied.  Jesus said to her, “You are right when you say you have no husband.   18.  The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true.”       19.  “Sir,” the woman said, “I can see that you are a prophet.  20.  Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.”  21.  “Woman,” Jesus replied, “believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem.  22.  You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews.  23.  Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks.  24.  God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.”       25.  The woman said, “I know that Messiah” (called Christ) “is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.”26.  Then Jesus declared, “I, the one speaking to you—I am he.”       27.  Just then his disciples returned and were surprised to find him talking with a woman. But no one asked, “What do you want?” or “Why are you talking with her?”  28.  Then, leaving her water jar, the woman went back to the town and said to the people,  29.  “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Messiah?”  30.  They came out of the town and made their way toward him.       39.  Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman's testimony, “He told me everything I ever did.”  40.  So when the Samaritans came to him, they urged him to stay with them, and he stayed two days.  41.  And because of his words many more became believers.       (John 4:4-30; 39-41)

Dr. Julio Guarneri (Executive Director, Baptist General Convention of Texas), "Building Bridges Instead of Barriers", Orchestra, Choir, Blended Worship Praise Team (8:45 Service).       4.  Now he had to go through Samaria.  5.  So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph.  6.  Jacob's well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about noon.        7.  When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?”  8.  (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.)  9.  The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans)       10.  Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.”  11.  “Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water?  12.  Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his livestock?”  13.  Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again,   14.  but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”  15.  The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water so that I won't get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.”  16.  He told her, “Go, call your husband and come back.”  17.  “I have no husband,” she replied.  Jesus said to her, “You are right when you say you have no husband.   18.  The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true.”       19.  “Sir,” the woman said, “I can see that you are a prophet.  20.  Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.”  21.  “Woman,” Jesus replied, “believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem.  22.  You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews.  23.  Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks.  24.  God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.”       25.  The woman said, “I know that Messiah” (called Christ) “is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.”26.  Then Jesus declared, “I, the one speaking to you—I am he.”       27.  Just then his disciples returned and were surprised to find him talking with a woman. But no one asked, “What do you want?” or “Why are you talking with her?”  28.  Then, leaving her water jar, the woman went back to the town and said to the people,  29.  “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Messiah?”  30.  They came out of the town and made their way toward him.       39.  Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman's testimony, “He told me everything I ever did.”  40.  So when the Samaritans came to him, they urged him to stay with them, and he stayed two days.  41.  And because of his words many more became believers.       (John 4:4-30; 39-41)

Dr. Julio Guarneri (Executive Director, Baptist General Convention of Texas), "Building Bridges Instead of Barriers".       4.  Now he had to go through Samaria.  5.  So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph.  6.  Jacob's well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about noon.        7.  When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?”  8.  (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.)  9.  The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans)       10.  Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.”  11.  “Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water?  12.  Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his livestock?”  13.  Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again,   14.  but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”  15.  The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water so that I won't get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.”  16.  He told her, “Go, call your husband and come back.”  17.  “I have no husband,” she replied.  Jesus said to her, “You are right when you say you have no husband.   18.  The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true.”       19.  “Sir,” the woman said, “I can see that you are a prophet.  20.  Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.”  21.  “Woman,” Jesus replied, “believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem.  22.  You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews.  23.  Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks.  24.  God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.”       25.  The woman said, “I know that Messiah” (called Christ) “is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.”26.  Then Jesus declared, “I, the one speaking to you—I am he.”       27.  Just then his disciples returned and were surprised to find him talking with a woman. But no one asked, “What do you want?” or “Why are you talking with her?”  28.  Then, leaving her water jar, the woman went back to the town and said to the people,  29.  “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Messiah?”  30.  They came out of the town and made their way toward him.       39.  Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman's testimony, “He told me everything I ever did.”  40.  So when the Samaritans came to him, they urged him to stay with them, and he stayed two days.  41.  And because of his words many more became believers.       (John 4:4-30; 39-41)

IMAGE DESCRIPTION Oxyrhynchus Papyrus fragment with text of John 6:8-12. 3rd century. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:POxy1596-III.jpg LINKS Words of Jesus ("All the Red Letter Scriptures"): https://www.jesusbelieverjd.com/all-the-red-letter-scriptures-of-jesus-in-the-bible-kjv/    Parallel Passages in the Gospels: https://www.bible-researcher.com/parallels.html#sect1     Miracles of Jesus reference list: https://sunnyhillschurch.com/3301/the-37-miracles-of-jesus-in-chronological-order/    Venetian folk tale of Saint Peter's mom: https://iamnotmakingthisup.net/5663/saint-peters-mom-bless-her-heart/ Judas Boo: https://pixabay.com/sound-effects/boo-6377/ Joke Rimshot: https://pixabay.com/sound-effects/rimshot-joke-funny-80325/ TRANSCRIPT   Welcome to the Popeular History Podcast: History through Pope Colored Glasses. My name is Gregg and this is episode 0.21h: Sayings of the Savior Part VIII: The Last Gospel   All of these aught episodes are made to let us build our Pope-colored glasses so we can use the same lenses when we look at history together. If you're lost, start at the beginning!   Today we continue our Sayings of the Savior series with a look at the Gospel according to John, covering everything Jesus said there that we haven't yet discussed–yes, still leaving off things like the miracles we did in 0.20 and the parables and other sayings we did in earlier Sayings of the Savior installments--once again leaving you in suspense right before the concluding few chapters discussing Jesus' death and such, which we'll cover as we finish the remaining mysteries of the rosary in future episodes of our Catholic Worldbuilding series.   Before we get into it, a quick reminder that the Gospel of John is the odd one out of the four canonical gospels, that is, the Gospels that made it into the Bible. There are other Gospels, but not others that the Catholic Church holds as part of Scripture, that is, the inspired word of God.   As you likely remember very well from the other episodes unless you're starting here for some reason, and if you're starting here because you don't know where to find the others you can check out the Catholic Worldbuilding section of my website, Popeularhistory.com, in any case, as you probably do recall the other three Gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, are all known as synoptic gospels, that is, Gospels that should be read together, and clearly have a close relationship, with most of all of them being found in the rest of them. Luke Is the most unique, something like 35% of its material being standalone, much of that parables, some of that is Luke's memorable infancy narrative, while the approximately 20% of Matthew that's only in Matthew is a hodgepodge including Matthew's take on Jesus' infancy, and the 3ish % of material that's unique to Mark is… well Mark is the shortest Gospel so 3% of it isn't much but even so we haven't hit the most memorable bit of that small slice of the synoptics. We'll get there, but of course not yet because like I said today is about John. And I don't mean John Mark, the guy who wrote the Gospel of Mark, which really should be called John because you know, John is his actual first name, Mark's just a second part of it, anyways, uh yes so guy named John wrote half the gospels, don't worry about it, it's fine, one's the Gospel of Mark, one's the Gospel of John. I'm sure that's not confusing anything. Anyways, ignore the fact that I haven't said much about John yet today. I needed to give the Synoptics a bit of a collective farewell before we moved on and it seemed like a bit of statistics might be just the thing to get you all ready for me to change the topic.   Now, though John's Gospel (not John Mark's Gospel) isn't one of the synoptics, there are a few parallel areas I'll flag as we go, so don't think we're leaving the other Gospels behind entirely. Even if we tried, they're a big part of looking at history through Pope Colored glasses overall, which, in case you've forgotten, is the actual main plan for this podcast. Allegedly these worldbuilding episodes are just the background materials for that.   Overall, John stands out as the most theologically sophisticated of the Gospels, which has generally led scholars to argue it's the last-written of the bunch, a stance that actually aligns with tradition that credits the Gospel of John to, well, John, the longest-lived of the Twelve Apostles. Scholars, of course, aren't so sure about that specific attribution, as we've mentioned here and there they often like to think of a school of multiple authors writing the texts attributed to John, not just the Gospel but his three letters and the Book of Revelation.   In any event, that sophisticated theology is on full display right from the beginning of the text, and the opening verses of John, often called the Prologue, are extremely well known and influential within Christianity. Which I know is a given for pretty much every section of the Gospel texts, but I mean like even more so than the average Gospel text. As in, these verses used to be read as an epilogue to nearly every Mass, something that gave it the nickname of “The Last Gospel”.   Let's take it in:   JOHN 1:1-14 1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning. 3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. 4 In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. 6 There was a man sent from God whose name was John. 7 He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all might believe. 8 He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light. 9 The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world. 10 He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. 11 He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. 12 Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God— 13 children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband's will, but born of God. 14 The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.” GREGG First, I'll simply note that it would have been a straightforward enough matter for me to start the podcast here, rather than back in Genesis. In fact, the basics of Christian theology, the trinity I discussed in that first episode before launching into Genesis' actual narrative, all that is more at home in a discussion of these verses than in that creation story, because here is what makes Christian history: the Incarnation. The Word made Flesh. This word and flesh and light and darkness business is also a pretty natural tie-in to the oldest wrong theology in the history of Christianity, and it's fair enough that various commentators have seen hintings at gnosticism in the text of John's gospel. In fact, some have theorized that the Gospel of John was written as a refutation of Gnosticism, but of course I'm treating this as a start-from-scratch beginner friendly kit, so it wouldn't be right of me to just keep saying “gnosticism”, “gnosticism” without spelling out what that means. Oh, and speaking of spelling, it starts with a silent “G”, check out the transcript I'm now consistently creating for the show notes in the episode description if you'd like the full spelling. Gnosticism, in a nutshell, is the idea that the physical world is evil, created by a flawed God. To the gnostics, this evil, broken world is something to be rejected, to escape from. For many of the gnostics, Jesus is the servant of the higher God, and is our ticket out of the icky yucky material, fleshy world. The knowledge of the evil of the world and how to escape from it is the secret that gives gnosticism its name, “gnosis” being Greek for “knowledge”. Gnosticism had a habit of piggybacking off Judaism and Christianity, with Gnostics basically forming secret clubs within the already generally secret Christian communities. We'll talk plenty more about Gnosticism as we go, as it was a sort of theological cancer within the Church for many years, but there's your official high-level overview. Getting back to John 1, the first verse is probably the most famous: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” The notion that Jesus has been around since the beginning, as outlined in this chapter, is ultimately what cemented the victory of Catholic theology over Arianism, another wrong belief found among some Christians, aka a heresy, this one teaching that Jesus is not God Himself but is simply a creature-an important creature sure but in the end still one of God's creatures and so not as exalted as God Himself. Like gnosticism, the The Arian refrain of “there was a time when he was not” cannot be be squared with John 1, hence the fundamental importance of The Last Gospel to Nicene Christianity. And yes, we'll talk about what “Nicene” Christianity is in the future, specifically in 0.24. But we'll need to get past the first verse of John to get there. The second verse, “He was with God in the beginning” really solidifies the anti-Arian interpretation, but believe it or not I'm actually not going to repeat the rest of the prologue, because ultimately this section, while very, very,  important to Christian history, isn't one of the sayings of the Savior we're focusing on in this series. So, when does Jesus show up? Well, after a focus on John the Baptist, Jesus appears in verse 36, and speaks in verse 38:  JOHN 1 38 Turning around, Jesus saw them following and asked, “What do you want?” They said, “Rabbi” (which means “Teacher”), “where are you staying?” 39 “Come,” he replied, “and you will see.” GREGG This particular calling is a favorite of the tv series The Chosen, which I know I've mentioned before but am not expecting to mention again, as we're heading out of their wheelhouse, at last as far as they've gotten up to this point. But it's worth checking out if you've got the time, and let's be honest, if you're listening to this, you probably do. What's next? Andrew and Simon Peter! JOHN 1 40 Andrew, Simon Peter's brother, was one of the two who heard what John had said and who had followed Jesus. 41 The first thing Andrew did was to find his brother Simon and tell him, “We have found the Messiah” (that is, the Christ). 42 And he brought him to Jesus. Jesus looked at him and said, “You are Simon son of John. You will be called Cephas” (which, when translated, is Peter ). GREGG This section allows us to introduce the split between Catholicism and Orthodoxy, though first off, there's been many splits and resolutions in that relationship over the years, not just the one in 1054, and second, while there's not currently unity there's not as fundamental a split as there has been previously since the mutual excommunications were lifted sixty years ago. Oh, and we've also made some reference to the difference already, when we were talking about the differences in biblical canons back in 0.7. Anyways, that's all years in the future. For now, just know that the tie-in is that eventually St Andrew would be credited with founding the Church in what wouId become Constantinople, the chief see of Orthodoxy, while St Peter would go down as the first Bishop of Rome, the beating heart of Catholicism. Having Saint Andrew as the first-called of the two--and the first-called Apostle overall–is therefore a point of pride for Orthodoxy, and one that I daresay as I look through these pope-colored glasses is a sorely needed one given Peter's elevation on pretty much every count afterwards. Note that he's already picked up his Peter slash Rocky nickname, much earlier in John than in the other Gospels, for example in Matthew that didn't happen until Chapter 16. Before we move on, I want you to know that I tried to look into Peter and Andrew's mother, considering we featured Peter's mother-in-law already and therefore it would seem to be quite the oversight to skip his actual mother, especially since she was apparently also the mother of Saint Andrew. Plus, it happens to be Mother's day when I'm writing this. But it turns out there's surprisingly little tradition on Peter's mother. Google seems to think her name is Joanna, but she's definitely not the better-known Saint Joanna mentioned at a few points in the Gospels. In fact, she's not a saint at all, according to the one story I did find about her, from, and this is the actual name: iamnotmakingthisup.net. Which isn't exactly an authoritative source but it points to a Venetian folk tale that describes Saint Peter's mother as irredeemable to the extent that Saint Peter has no way to let her into heaven based on her deeds. Which to be clear is incorrect theology considering your deeds aren't what get you into heaven, but let's roll with it. Apparently there was a time she gave someone an onion, so she got to try to climb to heaven via a string of onion roots, an effort which failed but got her promoted to taking care of Heaven's used wine barrels, ‘cause Venice. Speaking of promotions, before Chapter 1 is out Jesus promotes two more randos to disciple status, first Philip, who He tells “Follow me”, and then Nathanael, who gets to hear “Here truly is an Israelite in whom there is no deceit.” When Nathanael asks Jesus how He knows him, Jesus replies, “I saw you while you were still under the fig tree before Philip called you,” to which Nathanael replies “Rabbi, you are the Son of God; you are the king of Israel.” Which leads us to Jesus's reply in the last couple verses: “You believe because I told you I saw you under the fig tree. You will see greater things than that.” 51 He then added, “Very truly I tell you, you will see ‘heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.” The next chapter begins with Jesus' first public miracle, the miracle of the wedding at Cana, turning water into wine to keep the party going, which we covered in our miracles roundup in 0.20. The next scene is Jesus driving the moneychangers from the Temple, another one that shows up much earlier in John than it did in the synoptics, and always a crowd pleaser. Here's John's version: JOHN 2 13 When it was almost time for the Jewish Passover, Jesus went up to Jerusalem. 14 In the temple courts he found people selling cattle, sheep and doves, and others sitting at tables exchanging money. 15 So he made a whip out of cords, and drove all from  the temple courts, both sheep and cattle; he scattered the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. 16 To those who sold doves he said, “Get these out of here! Stop turning my Father's house into a market!” 17 His disciples remembered that it is written: “Zeal for your house will consume me.” 18 The Jews then responded to him, “What sign can you show us to prove your authority to do all this?” 19 Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days.” 20 They replied, “It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and you are going to raise it in three days?” 21 But the temple he had spoken of was his body. 22 After he was raised from the dead, his disciples recalled what he had said. Then they believed the scripture and the words that Jesus had spoken.” GREGG Considering John is already talking about the resurrection in Chapter 2, I guess my running gag of treating it as a spoiler is done. In John 3, we have the first appearance of Nicodemus, a man unknown to the Synoptics but a recurring figure in John's account. If you've ever heard the phrase “born-again Christian”, you've got this colorful exchange to thank for the imagery: JOHN 3  Now there was a Pharisee, a man named Nicodemus who was a member of the Jewish ruling council. 2 He came to Jesus at night and said, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the signs you are doing if God were not with him.” 3 Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.” 4 “How can someone be born when they are old?” Nicodemus asked. “Surely they cannot enter a second time into their mother's womb to be born!” 5 Jesus answered, “Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit. 6 Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. 7 You should not be surprised at my saying, ‘You must be born again.' 8 The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.” 9 “How can this be?” Nicodemus asked. 10 “You are Israel's teacher,” said Jesus, “and do you not understand these things? 11 Very truly I tell you, we speak of what we know, and we testify to what we have seen, but still you people do not accept our testimony. 12 I have spoken to you of earthly things and you do not believe; how then will you believe if I speak of heavenly things? 13 No one has ever gone into heaven except the one who came from heaven—the Son of Man.14 Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, 15 that everyone who believes may have eternal life in him.” GREGG If you're thinking, “gosh that last part sounds like crucifixion imagery”, good job reading ahead; if you're *not* thinking “gosh that last part sounds like crucifixion imagery”, perhaps It would be helpful if I reminded you that the bronze serpent Moses had lifted up in the wilderness was lifted up in a pole, and that anyone who looked at it, according to Numbers 21, was cured and saved from the “firey serpents” that were plaguing the grumbly Israelites at the time. Interestingly, at least to me, the dominant symbol of healthcare worldwide is another serpent on a pole, which more cautious scholars don't necessarily connect with Moses' bronze serpent as it's definitely a symbol of the Greek god Aesculapius so not a Hebrew slash Jewish thing directly, but still, serpents on poles associated with medicine has to be a relatively limited field. And yet, not as limited as you might think, as there is apparently a shocking amount of controversy over whether to use one serpent or two on a pole to symbolize healthcare. But let's get back to John 3, which doesn't assign any speaking lines to Jesus, though the next few verses are, like John's prologue, a reflection that's proven *quite* influential in the history of Christianity, especially John 3:16, which reads: JOHN 3 16 For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. GREGG The next verse hammers the same sort of anti-gnostic point we saw in the prologue: JOHN 3 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. GREGG So yay world! It's not all bad. Though it is pretty bad. Let's hear the rest of John's reflection without further interruption: JOHN 3 Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God's one and only Son. 19 This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. 20 Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed. 21 But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what they have done has been done in the sight of God. GREGG The chapter finishes with a heavy emphasis on John the Baptist, during which John says “He must become greater; I must become less.” So we'll take that and run with it, keeping John as a side character and chasing the sayings of the Savior into chapter 4, another classic scene, this time it's the Samaritan woman at the well. The parenthetical thoughts you'll hear early on are part of John's account: JOHN 4 7 When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?” 8 (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.) 9 The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.) 10 Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.” 11 “Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? 12 Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his livestock?” 13 Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, 14 but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” 15 The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water so that I won't get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.” 16 He told her, “Go, call your husband and come back.” 17 “I have no husband,” she replied. Jesus said to her, “You are right when you say you have no husband. 18 The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true.” 19 “Sir,” the woman said, “I can see that you are a prophet. 20 Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.” 21 “Woman,” Jesus replied, “believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. 22 You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23 Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. 24 God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.” 25 The woman said, “I know that Messiah” (called Christ) “is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.” 26 Then Jesus declared, “I, the one speaking to you—I am he.” GREGG We've spoken about Samaritans before, though it was during my daily show experiment, specifically in the context of Samaritans Deacon Philip baptized in Acts 8. In case you missed that, in a nutshell the Samaritans are traditionally descendents of the ten “lost” tribes left behind when Assyria invaded the Northern Kingdom of Israel, though the fact that they're generally called the “lost” tribes gives an indication of how that tradition is generally received outside the community. The mountain the Samaritan woman is referencing Is Mount Gerizim, in Samaritan tradition the holiest place on earth and the proper site of worship, never mind that Jerusalem Temple business. So, yes, there are some similarities and some differences between Samaritans and Jews. Oh, speaking of Jews, next time you're talking to a Christian antisemite, remind them that here we have Jesus saying, and I quote, “salvation is from the Jews”. Also note that the woman lied to Jesus and also  had five husbands before her current non-husband partner, which is probably not something Jesus approved of. And yet, no reproach is recorded. Because you don't have to be hammering people's faults all day, every day. Of course, we did stop at an odd point, with Jesus telling the woman–who Eastern Churches know as Saint Photine and consider not only a martyr but Equal to the Apostles, a level of veneration I genuinely wasn't expecting-anyways we left with Jesus telling the future Saint Photine He is the Messiah, and then I just cut things off. Why? Well, because my bible considered that the end of the section, but of course that just begs the question still. The reason we don't see her direct reply is the Apostles show up and interrupt things. Let's continue where we left off: JOHN 4 27 Just then his disciples returned and were surprised to find him talking with a woman. But no one asked, “What do you want?” or “Why are you talking with her?” GREGG Interesting the specific call out for what they didn't ask, perhaps John wants to draw attention to how Jesus was bucking normal expectations here but the disciples were used to it. Anyways, JOHN 4 28 Then, leaving her water jar, the woman went back to the town and said to the people, 29 “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Messiah?” 30 They came out of the town and made their way toward him. 31 Meanwhile his disciples urged him, “Rabbi, eat something.” 32 But he said to them, “I have food to eat that you know nothing about.” 33 Then his disciples said to each other, “Could someone have brought him food?” 34 “My food,” said Jesus, “is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work. 35 Don't you have a saying, ‘It's still four months until harvest'? I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest. 36 Even now the one who reaps draws a wage and harvests a crop for eternal life, so that the sower and the reaper may be glad together. 37 Thus the saying ‘One sows and another reaps' is true. 38 I sent you to reap what you have not worked for. Others have done the hard work, and you have reaped the benefits of their labor.” 39 Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman's testimony, “He told me everything I ever did.” 40 So when the Samaritans came to him, they urged him to stay with them, and he stayed two days. 41 And because of his words many more became believers. 42 They said to the woman, “We no longer believe just because of what you said; now we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this man really is the Savior of the world.” GREGG  One aspect of this section is it has confirmation that my Sayings of the Savior series will always be incomplete, which isn't a surprise, presumably Jesus said lots of things that weren't recorded, in fact John basically says as much towards the end of his Gospel. Perhaps he hit the Samaritans with more of his patented harvest metaphors. Whatever it was, he spent two days at it. After that, Jesus went on a healing spree with miracles I covered in 0.20, including one on the Sabbath that got him into trouble with the local Jewish leaders. Here's the aftermath of that starting in Chapter 5 Verse 16: JOHN 5 16 So, because Jesus was doing these things on the Sabbath, the Jewish leaders began to persecute him. 17 In his defense Jesus said to them, “My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I too am working.” 18 For this reason they tried all the more to kill him; not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God. GREGG Jesus has a very lengthy response to this pushback, and it's another one that helped solidify Christian theology, so brace yourselves: JOHN 5 19 Jesus gave them this answer: “Very truly I tell you, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does. 20 For the Father loves the Son and shows him all he does. Yes, and he will show him even greater works than these, so that you will be amazed. 21 For just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, even so the Son gives life to whom he is pleased to give it. 22 Moreover, the Father judges no one, but has entrusted all judgment to the Son, 23 that all may honor the Son just as they honor the Father. Whoever does not honor the Son does not honor the Father, who sent him. 24 “Very truly I tell you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be judged but has crossed over from death to life. 25 Very truly I tell you, a time is coming and has now come when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God and those who hear will live. 26 For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself. 27 And he has given him authority to judge because he is the Son of Man. 28 “Do not be amazed at this, for a time is coming when all who are in their graves will hear his voice 29 and come out—those who have done what is good will rise to live, and those who have done  what is evil will rise to be condemned. 30 By myself I can do nothing; I judge only as I hear, and my judgment is just, for I seek not to please myself but him who sent me. 31 “If I testify about myself, my testimony is not true. 32 There is another who testifies in my favor, and I know that his testimony about me is true. 33 “You have sent to John and he has testified to the truth. 34 Not that I accept human testimony; but I mention it that you may be saved. 35 John was a lamp that burned and gave light, and you chose for a time to enjoy his light. 36 “I have testimony weightier than that of John. For the works that the Father has given me to finish—the very works that I am doing—testify that the Father has sent me. 37 And the Father who sent me has himself testified concerning me. You have never heard his voice nor seen his form, 38 nor does his word dwell in you, for you do not believe the one he sent. 39 You study the Scriptures diligently because you think that in them you have eternal life. These are the very Scriptures that testify about me, 40 yet you refuse to come to me to have life. 41 “I do not accept glory from human beings, 42 but I know you. I know that you do not have the love of God in your hearts. 43 I have come in my Father's name, and you do not accept me; but if someone else comes in his own name, you will accept him. 44 How can you believe since you accept glory from one another but do not seek the glory that comes from the only God? 45 “But do not think I will accuse you before the Father. Your accuser is Moses, on whom your hopes are set. 46 If you believed Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote about me. 47 But since you do not believe what he wrote, how are you going to believe what I say?” GREGG The next chapter, chapter 6, opens with a couple extra familiar miracles- feeding the five thousand and walking on water- and then gets real. Like, really real. Like, prepping for some Eucharistic mysteries level real. And the Eucharistic theme is touched off by folks from the five thousand looking for more bread. When they pursue him across the lake, he gives them a big old talk about what Catholics are happy to identify as the Eucharist, which we'll obviously be talking more about as we go. JOHN 6 “Very truly I tell you, you are looking for me, not because you saw the signs I performed but because you ate the loaves and had your fill. 27 Do not work for food that spoils, but for food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. For on him God the Father has placed his seal of approval.” 28 Then they asked him, “What must we do to do the works God requires?” 29 Jesus answered, “The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent.” 30 So they asked him, “What sign then will you give that we may see it and believe you? What will you do? 31 Our ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written: ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.'” 32 Jesus said to them, “Very truly I tell you, it is not Moses who has given you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven. 33 For the bread of God is the bread that comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” 34 “Sir,” they said, “always give us this bread.” 35 Then Jesus declared, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty. 36 But as I told you, you have seen me and still you do not believe. 37 All those the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never drive away. 38 For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me. 39 And this is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all those he has given me, but raise them up at the last day. 40 For my Father's will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day.” 41 At this the Jews there began to grumble about him because he said, “I am the bread that came down from heaven.” 42 They said, “Is this not Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How can he now say, ‘I came down from heaven'?” GREGG It's worth noting how controversially this is landing. Let's continue: JOHN 6 43 “Stop grumbling among yourselves,” Jesus answered. 44 “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws them, and I will raise them up at the last day. 45 It is written in the Prophets: ‘They will all be taught by God.' Everyone who has heard the Father and learned from him comes to me. 46 No one has seen the Father except the one who is from God; only he has seen the Father. 47 Very truly I tell you, the one who believes has eternal life. 48 I am the bread of life. 49 Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, yet they died. 50 But here is the bread that comes down from heaven, which anyone may eat and not die. 51 I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats this bread will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.” 52 Then the Jews began to argue sharply among themselves, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” GREGG Controversial for sure, but Jesus certainly shows no indication of a willingness to change analogy–or clarify that he's speaking metaphorically. So believers in the Catholic understanding of the Eucharist are perfectly willing to note that he must indeed be being literal here when he says this next part: JOHN 6 “Very truly I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. 54 Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day. 55 For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. 56 Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in them. 57 Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me. 58 This is the bread that came down from heaven. Your ancestors ate manna and died, but whoever feeds on this bread will live forever.” 59 He said this while teaching in the synagogue in Capernaum” 60 On hearing it, many of his disciples said, “This is a hard teaching. Who can accept it?” 61 Aware that his disciples were grumbling about this, Jesus said to them, “Does this offend you? 62 Then what if you see the Son of Man ascend to where he was before! 63 The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to you—they are full of the Spirit and life. 64 Yet there are some of you who do not believe.” For Jesus had known from the beginning which of them did not believe and who would betray him. 65 He went on to say, “This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless the Father has enabled them.” 66 From this time many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him. GREGG After letting many of his followers walk over this whole bread is flesh and you must eat it business, and given passages like this and the Last Supper it's no wonder most Christians are big on the Eucharist, anyways, after that, Jesus turns to the Twelve: JOHN 6 67 “You do not want to leave too, do you?” Jesus asked the Twelve. 68 Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. 69 We have come to believe and to know that you are the Holy One of God.” 70 Then Jesus replied, “Have I not chosen you, the Twelve? Yet one of you is a devil!” 71 (He meant Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot, who, though one of the Twelve, was later to betray him.) GREGG It's always nice to see Peter stepping up, and it's always fun to queue up the boos when Judas Isacriot gets a mention . In the next section, chapter seven now, we see Jesus interacting with folks in the Feast of Booths aka the Festival of Tabernacles aka Sukkot. The scene naturally starts with Jesus declaring that he will do no such thing. JOHN 7 “My time is not yet here; for you any time will do. 7 The world cannot hate you, but it hates me because I testify that its works are evil. 8 You go to the festival. I am not going up to this festival, because my time has not yet fully come.” 9 After he had said this, he stayed in Galilee. GREGG Wait, didn't I promise Jesus at the Festival? What gives? Well, read on! JOHN 7 10 However, after his brothers had left for the festival, he went also, not publicly, but in secret. 11 Now at the festival the Jewish leaders were watching for Jesus and asking, “Where is he?” 12 Among the crowds there was widespread whispering about him. Some said, “He is a good man.” Others replied, “No, he deceives the people.” 13 But no one would say anything publicly about him for fear of the leaders. 14 Not until halfway through the festival did Jesus go up to the temple courts and begin to teach. 15 The Jews there were amazed and asked, “How did this man get such learning without having been taught?” 16 Jesus answered, “My teaching is not my own. It comes from the one who sent me. 17 Anyone who chooses to do the will of God will find out whether my teaching comes from God or whether I speak on my own. 18 Whoever speaks on their own does so to gain personal glory, but he who seeks the glory of the one who sent him is a man of truth; there is nothing false about him. 19 Has not Moses given you the law? Yet not one of you keeps the law. Why are you trying to kill me?” 20 “You are demon-possessed,” the crowd answered. “Who is trying to kill you?” 21 Jesus said to them, “I did one miracle, and you are all amazed. 22 Yet, because Moses gave you circumcision (though actually it did not come from Moses, but from the patriarchs), you circumcise a boy on the Sabbath. 23 Now if a boy can be circumcised on the Sabbath so that the law of Moses may not be broken, why are you angry with me for healing a man's whole body on the Sabbath? 24 Stop judging by mere appearances, but instead judge correctly.” 25 At that point some of the people of Jerusalem began to ask, “Isn't this the man they are trying to kill? 26 Here he is, speaking publicly, and they are not saying a word to him. Have the authorities really concluded that he is the Messiah? 27 But we know where this man is from; when the Messiah comes, no one will know where he is from.” 28 Then Jesus, still teaching in the temple courts, cried out, “Yes, you know me, and you know where I am from. I am not here on my own authority, but he who sent me is true. You do not know him, 29 but I know him because I am from him and he sent me.” 30 At this they tried to seize him, but no one laid a hand on him, because his hour had not yet come. 31 Still, many in the crowd believed in him. They said, “When the Messiah comes, will he perform more signs than this man?” 32 The Pharisees heard the crowd whispering such things about him. Then the chief priests and the Pharisees sent temple guards to arrest him. 33 Jesus said, “I am with you for only a short time, and then I am going to the one who sent me. 34 You will look for me, but you will not find me; and where I am, you cannot come.” 35 The Jews said to one another, “Where does this man intend to go that we cannot find him? Will he go where our people live scattered among the Greeks, and teach the Greeks? 36 What did he mean when he said, ‘You will look for me, but you will not find me,' and ‘Where I am, you cannot come'?” 37 On the last and greatest day of the festival, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink. 38 Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them.” 39 By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive. Up to that time the Spirit had not been given, since Jesus had not yet been glorified. GREGG The rest of the chapter is devoted to describing various responses to this preaching, from believing Jesus and accepting Him as the Messiah to wanting to execute him. Here Nicodemus pops up, perhaps unsurprisingly recommending the authorities hear Jesus out. Chapter 8 starts out with something of a tense scene, with Jesus effectively being given power of life and death over a woman who had been caught in adultery–no mention of the man. This woman, like many others, is unnamed in the text. The most common tradition in my experience is to associate her with Mary Magdalene, but that seems to miss the mark on several accounts, not least that John seems to like spelling out connections like that like when we saw Nicodemus pop up again last chapter when he was not only called Nicodemus but also described as “Nicodemus who had gone to Jesus earlier”, which is pretty straightforward. Also, Mary Magdalene's reputation as a reformed prostitute–apparently first popularized by none other than Pope Gregory the Great–doesn't have much of a leg to stand on unless you confuse her with the other Mary of Martha and Mary fame. Anyways, Mary Magdalene or not–probably not–but Mary Magdalene or not, the woman's life is in Jesus' hands: JOHN 8 “3 The teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery. They made her stand before the group 4 and said to Jesus, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. 5 In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?” 6 They were using this question as a trap, in order to have a basis for accusing him. But Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger. 7 When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, “Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” 8 Again he stooped down and wrote on the ground. 9 At this, those who heard began to go away one at a time, the older ones first, until only Jesus was left, with the woman still standing there. 10 Jesus straightened up and asked her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?” 11 “No one, sir,” she said. “Then neither do I condemn you,” Jesus declared. “Go now and leave your life of sin.”” GREGG First off, note the presence of a call to repentance here, because my point earlier was not that it should never happen, but that it does not have to happen every time. This is also the only time we see Jesus writing, which I honestly probably wouldn't be pointing out if it weren't for the fact that we have no idea what he wrote. Like none. You tell me if you have ideas, Popeularhistory@gmail.com. One surprising bit about this passage is that apparently most Scripture scholars argue that it's a later addition, not an original part of the Gospel of John. An early addition, mind you, but an addition nonetheless. From the whole Pope-colored glasses perspective it doesn't matter, the canon of Scripture is settled and this passage is part of it. As we've discussed before, from a Catholic perspective the human authorship is theologically irrelevant. Of course, the number one use for this passage in Catholic water-cooler circles is a mariology joke: “Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone”... *rock whizzes by*- mom! *drum sting* In verse 12, the scene shifts abruptly, possibly due to the later addition scenario I mentioned a minute ago. Let's pick back up without any gap, and see yet another passage of John's Gospel at pains to explain Christology, which just in case I haven't said it already is the mainstream Christian theological understanding of Christ. Anyways: JOHN 8 12 When Jesus spoke again to the people, he said, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” 13 The Pharisees challenged him, “Here you are, appearing as your own witness; your testimony is not valid.” 14 Jesus answered, “Even if I testify on my own behalf, my testimony is valid, for I know where I came from and where I am going. But you have no idea where I come from or where I am going. 15 You judge by human standards; I pass judgment on no one. 16 But if I do judge, my decisions are true, because I am not alone. I stand with the Father, who sent me. 17 In your own Law it is written that the testimony of two witnesses is true. 18 I am one who testifies for myself; my other witness is the Father, who sent me.” 19 Then they asked him, “Where is your father?” “You do not know me or my Father,” Jesus replied. “If you knew me, you would know my Father also.” 20 He spoke these words while teaching in the temple courts near the place where the offerings were put. Yet no one seized him, because his hour had not yet come. GREGG It's interesting to see Jesus referencing court here, or at least the temple courts, because I've got to say there's no way the argument He's giving would hold up in court. I probably would be pretty skeptical myself if I were one of the Pharisees here. Then again, I definitely get the sense that He's not primarily talking for *their* benefit here. Anyways, let's continue: JOHN 8  21 Once more Jesus said to them, “I am going away, and you will look for me, and you will die in your sin. Where I go, you cannot come.” 22 This made the Jews ask, “Will he kill himself? Is that why he says, ‘Where I go, you cannot come'?” 23 But he continued, “You are from below; I am from above. You are of this world; I am not of this world. 24 I told you that you would die in your sins; if you do not believe that I am he, you will indeed die in your sins.” 25 “Who are you?” they asked. “Just what I have been telling you from the beginning,” Jesus replied. 26 “I have much to say in judgment of you. But he who sent me is trustworthy, and what I have heard from him I tell the world.” 27 They did not understand that he was telling them about his Father. 28 So Jesus said, “When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am he and that I do nothing on my own but speak just what the Father has taught me. 29 The one who sent me is with me; he has not left me alone, for I always do what pleases him.” 30 Even as he spoke, many believed in him. 31 To the Jews who had believed him, Jesus said, “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. 32 Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” GREGG This is the high water mark for this group following Jesus. It goes very far downhill as we continue, and understandably as Jesus has some hard things to say. You might also detect some feelings Jesus has about His own fate: JOHN 8 33 They answered him, “We are Abraham's descendants and have never been slaves of anyone. How can you say that we shall be set free?” 34 Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, everyone who sins is a slave to sin. 35 Now a slave has no permanent place in the family, but a son belongs to it forever. 36 So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed. 37 I know that you are Abraham's descendants. Yet you are looking for a way to kill me, because you have no room for my word. 38 I am telling you what I have seen in the Father's presence, and you are doing what you have heard from your father.” 39 “Abraham is our father,” they answered. “If you were Abraham's children,” said Jesus, “then you would do what Abraham did. 40 As it is, you are looking for a way to kill me, a man who has told you the truth that I heard from God. Abraham did not do such things. 41 You are doing the works of your own father.” “We are not illegitimate children,” they protested. “The only Father we have is God himself.” 42 Jesus said to them, “If God were your Father, you would love me, for I have come here from God. I have not come on my own; God sent me. 43 Why is my language not clear to you? Because you are unable to hear what I say. 44 You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father's desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies. 45 Yet because I tell the truth, you do not believe me! 46 Can any of you prove me guilty of sin? If I am telling the truth, why don't you believe me? 47 Whoever belongs to God hears what God says. The reason you do not hear is that you do not belong to God.” GREGG Only after being called children of the devil do the Pharisees turn on Jesus here. Some might argue that they were never on his side to begin with, because that's how some similar accounts play out elsewhere in the Gospels, but there's no hint of that here, in fact quite the opposite, remember partway through this section John had noted that some of the Jews were starting to believe in Him and Jesus began speaking to them in particular. This is heavy stuff. Anyways: JOHN 8 48 The Jews answered him, “Aren't we right in saying that you are a Samaritan and demon-possessed?” 49 “I am not possessed by a demon,” said Jesus, “but I honor my Father and you dishonor me. 50 I am not seeking glory for myself; but there is one who seeks it, and he is the judge. 51 Very truly I tell you, whoever obeys my word will never see death.” 52 At this they exclaimed, “Now we know that you are demon-possessed! Abraham died and so did the prophets, yet you say that whoever obeys your word will never taste death. 53 Are you greater than our father Abraham? He died, and so did the prophets. Who do you think you are?” 54 Jesus replied, “If I glorify myself, my glory means nothing. My Father, whom you claim as your God, is the one who glorifies me. 55 Though you do not know him, I know him. If I said I did not, I would be a liar like you, but I do know him and obey his word. 56 Your father Abraham rejoiced at the thought of seeing my day; he saw it and was glad.” 57 “You are not yet fifty years old,” they said to him, “and you have seen Abraham!” 58 “Very truly I tell you,” Jesus answered, “before Abraham was born, I am!” 59 At this, they picked up stones to stone him, but Jesus hid himself, slipping away from the temple grounds. GREGG So in the end, let it never be said that Jesus was unwilling to antagonize. Chapter 9 opens with a miracle, and the entire chapter is devoted to the fallout from that miracle. It was the case of a man who had been blind since birth, and we did cover the miracle itself and its immediate aftermath in our miracles series--now that we're making sure we hit all the sayings of the Savior it's time to cover a later portion of the chapter, after the Pharisees conduct an investigation that does not go well for the healed man. We're picking up in Verse 35: JOHN 9 35 Jesus heard that they had thrown him out, and when he found him, he said, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?” 36 “Who is he, sir?” the man asked. “Tell me so that I may believe in him.” 37 Jesus said, “You have now seen him; in fact, he is the one speaking with you.” 38 Then the man said, “Lord, I believe,” and he worshiped him. 39 Jesus said, “For judgment I have come into this world, so that the blind will see and those who see will become blind.” 40 Some Pharisees who were with him heard him say this and asked, “What? Are we blind too?” 41 Jesus said, “If you were blind, you would not be guilty of sin; but now that you claim you can see, your guilt remains. GREGG The next chapter opens with one of the closest things John has to a parable, and it's a big one: The Good Shepherd. JOHN 10 “Very truly I tell you Pharisees, anyone who does not enter the sheep pen by the gate, but climbs in by some other way, is a thief and a robber. 2 The one who enters by the gate is the shepherd of the sheep. 3 The gatekeeper opens the gate for him, and the sheep listen to his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. 4 When he has brought out all his own, he goes on ahead of them, and his sheep follow him because they know his voice. 5 But they will never follow a stranger; in fact, they will run away from him because they do not recognize a stranger's voice.” 6 Jesus used this figure of speech, but the Pharisees did not understand what he was telling them. 7 Therefore Jesus said again, “Very truly I tell you, I am the gate for the sheep. 8 All who have come before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep have not listened to them. 9 I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved. They will come in and go out, and find pasture. 10 The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full. 11 “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. 12 The hired hand is not the shepherd and does not own the sheep. So when he sees the wolf coming, he abandons the sheep and runs away. Then the wolf attacks the flock and scatters it. 13 The man runs away because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep. 14 “I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me— 15 just as the Father knows me and I know the Father—and I lay down my life for the sheep. 16 I have other sheep that are not of this sheep pen. I must bring them also. They too will listen to my voice, and there shall be one flock and one shepherd. 17 The reason my Father loves me is that I lay down my life—only to take it up again. 18 No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again. This command I received from my Father.” GREGG The image of the Shepherd is all over Christianity. Priests are called pastors, bishops carry a shepherd's crook, and archbishops' pallia are made from the wool of lambs from Tre Fontane Abbey in Rome. Of course some overtones of the imagery predate Christ's parable, with the blood of the passover lamb marking Jewish door lentils since the Exodus. More on the Lamb of God soon. Later in the chapter, Jesus gets asked a pretty blunt question, and gives a pretty blunt answer: JOHN 10 “How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Messiah, tell us plainly.” 25 Jesus answered, “I did tell you, but you do not believe. The works I do in my Father's name testify about me, 26 but you do not believe because you are not my sheep. 27 My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. 28 I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one will snatch them out of my hand. 29 My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father's hand. 30 I and the Father are one. GREGG And, like last chapter, this declaration is not well received: JOHN 10 31 Again his Jewish opponents picked up stones to stone him, 32 but Jesus said to them, “I have shown you many good works from the Father. For which of these do you stone me?” 33 “We are not stoning you for any good work,” they replied, “but for blasphemy, because you, a mere man, claim to be God.” 34 Jesus answered them, “Is it not written in your Law, ‘I have said you are “gods”'? 35 If he called them ‘gods,' to whom the word of God came—and Scripture cannot be set aside— 36 what about the one whom the Father set apart as his very own and sent into the world? Why then do you accuse me of blasphemy because I said, ‘I am God's Son'? 37 Do not believe me unless I do the works of my Father. 38 But if I do them, even though you do not believe me, believe the works, that you may know and understand that the Father is in me, and I in the Father.” 39 Again they tried to seize him, but he escaped their grasp. 40 Then Jesus went back across the Jordan to the place where John had been baptizing in the early days. There he stayed, 41 and many people came to him. They said, “Though John never performed a sign, all that John said about this man was true.” 42 And in that place many believed in Jesus. GREGG All right, I need to address how I can possibly have hope for everyone when Jesus is walking around calling many of the people he interacts with children of the devil, as he did in chapter 7, and specifically not his sheep, as he does here. It's one thing to hope for universal salvation in the face of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, John's been hitting different. And yet in John 12:32 we'll hear Jesus say “I will draw all people to myself”. How do we get there from here? Well, ultimately, from a Christian perspective, the same way we get anywhere: by the grace of God. Not only at a higher level–the ”draw all people to myself” business is framed as being part of the Crucifixion–but also at a more intimate and personal level. Yes, I am suggesting that calling folks children of the devil is intimate and personal. When my children mess up, I parent them by clearly pointing out what they've done that's wrong and contrasting it to what they should be doing. It's not the warmest, fuzziest part of parenting, but it's an important part of parenting. I submit to you that Jesus is doing the same here. Of course in the end you may well not agree with me. That's to be expected. As long as you're getting something out of listening to all this, and presumably you are since you're a good chunk of the way through episode whatever, carry on. Let's get back to John's narrative. “If you do not believe me, believe the works”, Jesus said, and the next section, Chapter 11, is dominated by one of Jesus' most famous works, the resurrection of Lazarus. Of course we covered that among the miracles, and the Savior is silent outside of that portion, so on to Chapter 12, the anointing at Bethany. Those of you that listened to the daily show and Cardinal Numbers will recall the use I got out of the Martha/Mary dynamic, and I'm not the only one to use this Gospel scene as a parable. Let's go ahead and take it from the top, where it clearly ties in to the resurrection from the previous chapter: JOHN 12 12 Six days before the Passover, Jesus came to Bethany, where Lazarus lived, whom Jesus had raised from the dead. 2 Here a dinner was given in Jesus' honor. Martha served, while Lazarus was among those reclining at the table with him. 3 Then Mary took about a pint of pure nard, an expensive perfume; she poured it on Jesus' feet and wiped his feet with her hair. And the house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume. 4 But one of his disciples, Judas Iscariot, who was later to betray him, objected, 5 “Why wasn't this perfume sold and the money given to the poor? It was worth a year's wages.” 6 He did not say this because he cared about the poor but because he was a thief; as keeper of the money bag, he used to help himself to what was put into it. GREGG Judas, Judas. Get yourself together, man. And so we set the stage for one of the most badly applied sayings of the Savior, see if you can spot it: JOHN 12 7 “Leave her alone,” Jesus replied. “It was intended that she should save this perfume for the day of my burial. 8 You will always have the poor among you, but you will not always have me.” GREGG The interpretation I'm referring to is the idea that because there will always be poor people we should do nothing to help those in poverty. Thankfully, that's straightforwardly rebutted by the beatitudes and by every parable that shows acts of compassion for the least among us as the way to love Christ. This section is, however, a reminder that the “sell the Vatican, feed the world” position is also wrong, not only economically–you'd feed the world for a day and then what–but spiritually as well. We're a physical people, the more our senses are engaged the more fully we can participate in liturgy. And yet for someone who has an allergy to incense, incense isn't going to help them worship, and for someone who has baggage associated with one style or another, they may be served more effectively by another approach. One of the most controversial things you'll hear me say is that there are multiple right answers as far as liturgy goes. Worship is made to draw people to Christ, and people are coming from different places. As long as it's within bounds according to the Church, God can and will supply what is lacking. And sorry for getting into a “what kind of Mass is best” discussion here, that's decidedly looking into the future,  but this passage features prominently in such discussions, and you all know I like teasing things before they properly emerge, so yes, get hype for 0.31: Guess Who's Coming to Dinner. John 12 continues with that standard sign that we're coming towards the end of Jesus' time on earth, the triumphal entry into Jerusalem. Jesus doesn't say anything in John's account, but it's a significant scene, so let's check out John's version: JOHN 12 12 The next day the great crowd that had come for the festival heard that Jesus was on his way to Jerusalem. 13 They took palm branches and went out to meet him, shouting, “Hosanna!” “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!” “Blessed is the king of Israel!” 14 Jesus found a young donkey and sat on it, as it is written: 15 “Do not be afraid, Daughter Zion;     see, your king is coming,     seated on a donkey's colt.” 16 At first his disciples did not understand all this. Only after Jesus was glorified did they realize that these things had been written about him and that these things had been done to him. 17 Now the crowd that was with him when he called Lazarus from the tomb and raised him from the dead continued to spread the word. 18 Many people, because they had heard that he had performed this sign, went out to meet him. 19 So the Pharisees said to one another, “See, this is getting us nowhere. Look how the whole world has gone after him!” GREGG The most particular feature is that last bit, with the frustrated Pharisees still getting a spotlight even among the triumph. John's account is really very interested in that conflict. The next section opens with a surprisingly long message chain: JOHN 12 20 Now there were some Greeks among those who went up to worship at the festival. 21 They came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee, with a request. “Sir,” they said, “we would like to see Jesus.” 22 Philip went to tell Andrew; Andrew and Philip in turn told Jesus. 23 Jesus replied, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. 24 Very truly I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. 25 Anyone who loves their life will lose it, while anyone who hates their life in this world will keep it for eternal life. 26 Whoever serves me must follow me; and where I am, my servant also will be. My Father will honor the one who serves me. 27 “Now my soul is troubled, and what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour'? No, it was for this very reason I came to this hour. 28 Father, glorify your name!” GREGG Jesus is a bit less direct about predicting his death in John than He was in the synoptics, calling it his “glorification”, but it's definitely still there, with the talk of seeds dying to spread growth. You get the sense that it's not really His first choice with His own description of His troubled soul, something that parallels Luke 22:42, Jesus' prayer in the garden at Gethsemane, pretty closely. And, yet while we will discuss that scene and that prayer, we actually haven't gotten to it yet, as Luke has it as part of his overall Passion narrative, a passion narrative being something discussing Jesus' finale of life, patior being a Latin term meaning to suffer, or to endure. By my counting, and folks vary, we're not *quite* to John's passion narrative yet, but the overlap is a sign that we're really very close. Then, God the Father, apparently, speaks, in a first for John's Gospel as John skipped the voice-from-heaven part of Jesus' baptism: JOHN 12 Then a voice came from heaven, “I have glorified it, and will glorify it again.” 29 The crowd that was there and heard it said it had thundered; others said an angel had spoken to him. 30 Jesus said, “This voice was for your benefit, not mine. 31 Now is the time for judgment on this world; now the prince of this world will be driven out. 32 And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.” 33 He said this to show the kind of death he was going to die. 34 The crowd spoke up, “We have heard f

John 4:1-42    So then, when the Lord knew that the Pharisees had heard that He was making and baptizing more disciples than John2 (although Jesus Himself was not baptizing; rather, His disciples were), 3 He left Judea and went away again to Galilee. 4 And He had to pass through Samaria. 5 So He *came to a city of Samaria called Sychar, near the parcel of land that Jacob gave to his son Joseph; 6 and Jacob's well was there. So Jesus, tired from His journey, was just sitting by the well. It was about the sixth hour. 7 A woman of Samaria *came to draw water. Jesus *said to her, “Give Me a drink.” 8 For His disciples had gone away to the city to buy food. 9 So the Samaritan woman *said to Him, “How is it that You, though You are a Jew, are asking me for a drink, though I am a Samaritan woman?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.) 10 Jesus replied to her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who is saying to you, ‘Give Me a drink,' you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water.” 11 She *said to Him, “Sir, You have no bucket and the well is deep; where then do You get this living water? 12 You are not greater than our father Jacob, are You, who gave us the well and drank of it himself, and his sons and his cattle?” 13 Jesus answered and said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again; 14 but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall never be thirsty; but the water that I will give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up to eternal life.” 15 The woman *said to Him, “Sir, give me this water so that I will not be thirsty, nor come all the way here to draw water.”16 He *said to her, “Go, call your husband and come here.”17 The woman answered and said to Him, “I have no husband.” Jesus *said to her, “You have correctly said, ‘I have no husband'; 18 for you have had five husbands, and the one whom you now have is not your husband; this which you have said is true.” 19 The woman *said to Him, “Sir, I perceive that You are a prophet. 20 Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, and yet you Jews say that in Jerusalem is the place where one must worship.” 21 Jesus *said to her, “Believe Me, woman, that a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. 22 You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, because salvation is from the Jews. 23 But a time is coming, and even now has arrived, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for such people the Father seeks to be His worshipers. 24 God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.” 25 The woman *said to Him, “I know that Messiah is coming (He who is called Christ); when that One comes, He will declare all things to us.” 26 Jesus *said to her, “I am He, the One speaking to you.” 27 And at this point His disciples came, and they were amazed that He had been speaking with a woman, yet no one said, “What are You seeking?” or, “Why are You speaking with her?”28 So the woman left her waterpot and went into the city, and *said to the people, 29 “Come, see a man who told me all the things that I have done; this is not the Christ, is He?” 30 They left the city and were coming to Him. 31 Meanwhile the disciples were urging Him, saying, “Rabbi, eat something.” 32 But He said to them, “I have food to eat that you do not know about.” 33 So the disciples were saying to one another, “No one brought Him anything to eat, did he?”34 Jesus *said to them, “My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me, and to accomplish His work. 35 Do you not say, ‘There are still four months, and then comes the harvest'? Behold, I tell you, raise your eyes and observe the fields, that they are white for harvest. 36 Already the one who reaps is receiving wages and is gathering fruit for eternal life, so that the one who sows and the one who reaps may rejoice together. 37 For in this case the saying is true: ‘One sows and another reaps.' 38 I sent you to reap that for which you have not labored; others have labored, and you have come into their labor.” 39 Now from that city many of the Samaritans believed in Him because of the word of the woman who testified, “He told me all the things that I have done.” 40 So when the Samaritans came to Jesus, they were asking Him to stay with them; and He stayed there two days. 41 Many more believed because of His word; 42 and they were saying to the woman, “It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves and know that this One truly is the Savior of the world.”     BIBLE READING GUIDE - FREE EBOOK - Get the free eBook, Bible in Life, to help you learn how to read and apply the Bible well: https://www.listenerscommentary.com     GIVE -  The Listener's Commentary is a listener supported Bible teaching ministry made possible by the generosity of people like you. Thank you! Give here:  https://www.listenerscommentary.com/give     STUDY HUB - Want more than the audio? Join the study hub to access articles, maps, charts, pictures, and links to other resources to help you study the Bible for yourself. https://www.listenerscommentary.com/members-sign-up   MORE TEACHING - For more resources and Bible teaching from John visit https://www.johnwhittaker.net    

Sunday 19th May, 2024 - West & North Sites Sunday 28th April, 2024 - Central Site AM & PM Speaker - Dan King Dan invites us into a life being seen and known by the "God who sees us". He encourages us that we are created to live in close relationship with God and those around us and to resist the temptation to hide away. ------- Luke 12v1-3 1) In the meantime, when so many thousands of the people had gathered together that they were trampling one another, he began to say to his disciples first, “Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy. 2) Nothing is covered up that will not be revealed, or hidden that will not be known. 3) Therefore whatever you have said in the dark shall be heard in the light, and what you have whispered in private rooms shall be proclaimed on the housetops. Genesis 16v7-14 7) The angel of the Lord found Hagar near a spring in the desert; it was the spring that is beside the road to Shur. 8) And he said, “Hagar, slave of Sarai, where have you come from, and where are you going?” “I'm running away from my mistress Sarai,” she answered. 9) Then the angel of the Lord told her, “Go back to your mistress and submit to her.”  10) The angel added, “I will increase your descendants so much that they will be too numerous to count.” 11) The angel of the Lord also said to her: “You are now pregnant and you will give birth to a son. You shall name him Ishmael (which means God hears), for the Lord has heard of your misery. 12) He will be a wild donkey of a man; his hand will be against everyone and everyone's hand against him, and he will live in hostility toward all his brothers.”  13) She gave this name to the Lord who spoke to her: “You are the God who sees me,” for she said, “I have now seen the One who sees me.” 14) That is why the well was called Beer Lahai Roi (which means well of the Living One who sees me). John 4v13-26 13)  Jesus answered, ‘Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, 14)  but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.' 15)  The woman said to him, ‘Sir, give me this water so that I won't get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.' 16)  He told her, ‘Go, call your husband and come back.' 17)  ‘I have no husband,' she replied. Jesus said to her, ‘You are right when you say you have no husband. 18)  The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true.' 19)  ‘Sir,' the woman said, ‘I can see that you are a prophet. 20)  Our ancestors worshipped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.' 21)  ‘Woman,' Jesus replied, ‘believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. 22)  You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23)  Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshippers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshippers the Father seeks. 24)  God is spirit, and his worshippers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.' 25)  The woman said, ‘I know that Messiah' (called Christ) ‘is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.' 26)  Then Jesus declared, ‘I, the one speaking to you – I am he.' ------- Recorded at North Site - 19May2024

In today's message, Alex Becker shares 3 key truths about true worshipers, based on John 4: 21 - 24. “Woman,” Jesus replied, “believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. 22 You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23 Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. 24 God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.”

Today, as yesterday, take time to pause and reflect on these scriptures after you read each. The audio version (above) includes a musical interlude for this time.  What is the Spirit saying to you today? Psalm 51:1-6 Have mercy on me, O God, according to your unfailing love; according to your great compassion blot out my transgressions. Wash away all my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin. For I know my transgressions, and my sin is always before me. Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight; so you are right in your verdict and justified when you judge. Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me. Yet you desired faithfulness even in the womb; you taught me wisdom in that secret place. Joel 2:1-2, 12-13 Blow the trumpet in Zion; sound the alarm on my holy hill. Let all who live in the land tremble, for the day of the Lord is coming. It is close at hand— a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and blackness. Like dawn spreading across the mountains a large and mighty army comes, such as never was in ancient times nor ever will be in ages to come. … “Even now,” declares the Lord, “return to me with all your heart, with fasting and weeping and mourning.” Rend your heart and not your garments. Return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love, and he relents from sending calamity. Galatians 2:15-16, 19-21 “We who are Jews by birth and not sinful Gentiles know that a person is not justified by the works of the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ. So we, too, have put our faith in Christ Jesus that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law, because by the works of the law no one will be justified. … “For through the law I died to the law so that I might live for God. I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!” John 4:22-26 You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.” The woman said, “I know that Messiah” (called Christ) “is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.” Then Jesus declared, “I, the one speaking to you—I am he.” Prayer Have mercy on us, O God.  We know that we can never be justified before you by our own works, righteousness, or worship which are always, despite our best efforts, tainted by impure motives and imperfect action.  Remind us today that we have been crucified with Christ, our Messiah, such that we no longer live by our own doing, but by faith in him which gives us life.  

“Woman,” Jesus replied, “believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. 22 You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23 Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. 24 God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.”

·      Isaiah 9:6 - For to us a child is born, to us a son is given,     and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. ·      Jesus can steer you in the right direction; it is up to you to go in the right direction. ·      Become just like Jesus. ·       Go to Jesus for the counsel you need.  ·       John 4:3-3 So he left Judea and went back once more to Galilee.  4 Now he had to go through Samaria. 5 So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph. 6 Jacob's well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about noon. 7 When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?” 8 (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.) 9 The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.) 10 Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.” ·      Jesus builds bridges.  ·       11 “Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? 12 Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his livestock?” 13 Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, 14 but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” ·      See a new reality. ·      15 The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water so that I won't get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.” 16 He told her, “Go, call your husband and come back.” 17 “I have no husband,” she replied. Jesus said to her, “You are right when you say you have no husband. 18 The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true.” ·      See the Deep Wounds ·       19 “Sir,” the woman said, “I can see that you are a prophet. 20 Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.” 21 “Woman,” Jesus replied, “believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. 22 You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23 Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. 24 God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.” ·      What really matters? ·      What really matters is giving all of who I am to all of who God is. ·       25 The woman said, “I know that Messiah” (called Christ) “is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.” 26 Then Jesus declared, “I, the one speaking to you—I am he.” ·      Jesus is the answer, for the world today, above him there's no other, Jesus is the way.  ·       Will you let Jesus be your answer? Life Group Resources Starter Question: Who do you turn to for counsel?  How do they help you? Going Deeper:  1.     Read John 4:3-10 2.     Imagine this scene.  What is going through the woman's mind?  What is going through Jesus' mind? 3.     Read John 4:11-14. 4.     What do you think Jesus means when he talks about living water and a spring within that wells up to eternal life? 5.     Read John 4:15-18 6.     The woman has deep relationship wounds around marriage.  How would you describe them? 7.     Read John 4:19-24. 8.     In your opinion, how would a person behave if they worshiped God in the Spirit and truth? 9.     Read John 4:25-26.

13. Jesus Teaching the Needy!   We are on Day 13 of our adventure through the Gospels, looking together at the life of the most amazing person in human history - Jesus Christ of Nazareth. John 4:1-26 Now Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard that he was gaining and baptizing more disciples than John— although in fact it was not Jesus who baptized, but his disciples. So he left Judea and went back once more to Galilee. Now he had to go through Samaria. So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob's well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about noon. When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?” (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.) The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.) Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.” “Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his livestock?” Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water so that I won't get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.” He told her, “Go, call your husband and come back.” “I have no husband,” she replied. Jesus said to her, “You are right when you say you have no husband. The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true.” “Sir,” the woman said, “I can see that you are a prophet. Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.” “Woman,” Jesus replied, “believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.” The woman said, “I know that Messiah” (called Christ) “is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.” Then Jesus declared, “I, the one speaking to you—I am he.” Jesus was travelling via Samaria as it was the shortest route back to Galilee. It was hot. Jesus was thirsty and wanted a drink. His disciples had gone into town to get food. So he asks a Samaritan woman to fetch him some water from the well. That he asked a Samaritan would have been bad enough, but to also talk to a woman! The woman: We don't know the name of this woman. But by looking at this conversation between Jesus and her, we discover several things about her. That she was a Samaritan. There was equal animosity between Jews and Samaritans. The Samaritans were a mixed race people of both Jewish and Assyrian descent from the time of the division of Israel into two parts and the annexation of the Northern kingdom by Assyria. As she was fetching water at the hottest part of the day, she was probably an outcast! This was probably due to her sexual immorality having had 5 husbands and currently in a 6th relationship. Jesus: Jesus here reveals his genuine humanity. He was tired, drained, hot, thirsty and hungry – normal human feelings and reactions. It also shows that Jesus contravened tradition in that he spoke to a woman who was a Samaritan and a sinner. By asking for a drink of water; he was putting himself in this woman's debt and showing his humility. It also reveals his divine nature! He knew the woman's life of sinfulness (John 4:17) and again, when he offered her the water of eternal life (John 4:14) and he was able to spiritually satisfy her (John 4:14)! Jesus, loved the woman, an outcast from her community, and gave her the most revealing and explicit statement we have in the Gospels as to who He really was (John 4:26). In showing love for the woman, he transcended cultural barriers. Ordinary Jewish men would never ask a woman for a drink, let alone a Samaritan woman! But Jesus is no ordinary man. The Gospel accounts show Jesus' love is for all people: rich, poor, learned, unlearned, male, female, wanted and unwanted! This encounter between Jesus and the woman shows us that Jesus' offer of salvation is for all people, and not just the Jews. The woman, did however, misunderstand one thing - the living water Jesus offered as she probably thought he meant running water or water from a river! But the living water Jesus offered was spiritual water to cleanse her from sin and give eternal life. Elsewhere in the Old Testament, God is described as “a fountain of living water” (Jeremiah 2:13; Jeremiah 17:13). When the disciples returned, the woman left her water jar and went back to the town to tell other people about Jesus (John 4:29-30). We read of the many people coming to faith because of the Samaritan woman's story (John 4:39-42) knowing Jesus as the saviour of the world (John 4:42). Again, I ask, who do you say this Jesus is? But further, what are you going to do with this Jesus and let Him do to you? Come back tomorrow for Day 14, as we continue to look together at that extraordinary man, Jesus Christ, through the Gospel accounts! We will see together, Jesus rescuing and teaching somebody who is contrite of heart - unlike her accusers! See you soon! Right Mouse click or tap here to save this as an audio mp3 file

Bible readings (NIVUK) John 4:1-30 Jesus talks with a Samaritan woman 4 Now Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard that he was gaining and baptising more disciples than John – 2 although in fact it was not Jesus who baptised, but his disciples. 3 So he left Judea and went back once more to Galilee. 4 Now he had to go through Samaria. 5 So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph. 6 Jacob's well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about noon. 7 When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, ‘Will you give me a drink?' 8 (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.) 9 The Samaritan woman said to him, ‘You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?' (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.) 10 Jesus answered her, ‘If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.' 11 ‘Sir,' the woman said, ‘you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? 12 Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his livestock?' 13 Jesus answered, ‘Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, 14 but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.' 15 The woman said to him, ‘Sir, give me this water so that I won't get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.' 16 He told her, ‘Go, call your husband and come back.' 17 ‘I have no husband,' she replied. Jesus said to her, ‘You are right when you say you have no husband. 18 The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true.' 19 ‘Sir,' the woman said, ‘I can see that you are a prophet. 20 Our ancestors worshipped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.' 21 ‘Woman,' Jesus replied, ‘believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. 22 You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23 Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshippers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshippers the Father seeks. 24 God is spirit, and his worshippers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.' 25 The woman said, ‘I know that Messiah' (called Christ) ‘is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.' 26 Then Jesus declared, ‘I, the one speaking to you – I am he.' The disciples rejoin Jesus 27 Just then his disciples returned and were surprised to find him talking with a woman. But no one asked, ‘What do you want?' or ‘Why are you talking with her?' 28 Then, leaving her water jar, the woman went back to the town and said to the people, 29 ‘Come, see a man who told me everything I've ever done. Could this be the Messiah?' 30 They came out of the town and made their way towards him. John 4:39-42 Many Samaritans believe 39 Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman's testimony, ‘He told me everything I've ever done.' 40 So when the Samaritans came to him, they urged him to stay with them, and he stayed two days. 41 And because of his words many more became believers. 42 They said to the woman, ‘We no longer believe just because of what you said; now we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this man really is the Saviour of the world.'

Welcome! Church Online is a community of people all over the experiencing God and connecting with one another like never before in history. Introduce yourself in the chat and let us know where you're from! Get Connected Check us out on Facebook, YouTube and Instagram Find a Small Group www.southpoint4u.com/groups Learn more about SouthPoint at Growth Track www.southpoint4u.com/growthtrack Find out more at www.southpoint4u.com Notes Now he had to go through Samaria. So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob's well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about noon. - John 4:4-24 (NIV) When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?” (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.) The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.) - John 4:4-24(NIV) Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.” - John 4:4-24 (NIV) “Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his livestock?” - John 4:4-24 (NIV) Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” - John 4:4-24 (NIV) The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water so that I won't get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.” He told her, “Go, call your husband and come back.” “I have no husband,” she replied. - John 4:4-24 (NIV) Jesus said to her, “You are right when you say you have no husband. The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true.” - John 4:4-24 (NIV) “Sir,” the woman said, “I can see that you are a prophet. Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.” - John 4:4-24 (NIV) “Woman,” Jesus replied, “believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. - John 4:4-24 (NIV) Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.” - John 4:4-24 (NIV) Barriers Gender Race Lifestyle Political/Politics Social/Economic Class “The woman was surprised, for Jews refuse to have anything to do with Samaritans.” - John 4:9 (NLT) Who do you engage with that people are surprised about? Pour from the well God has given you LOVE shows up through our actions. Love because of its action, is a barrier breaker! It is tangible It is identifiable It is powerful Love because of its action, is a barrier breaker! It is a witness of the power of God It is the power & demonstration of the Holy Spirit @ work within you It authenticates our witness

Welcome! Church Online is a community of people all over the experiencing God and connecting with one another like never before in history. Introduce yourself in the chat and let us know where you're from! Get Connected Check us out on Facebook, YouTube and Instagram Find a Small Group www.southpoint4u.com/groups Learn more about SouthPoint at Growth Track www.southpoint4u.com/growthtrack Find out more at www.southpoint4u.com Notes Now he had to go through Samaria. So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob's well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about noon. - John 4:4-24 (NIV) When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?” (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.) The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.) - John 4:4-24(NIV) Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.” - John 4:4-24 (NIV) “Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his livestock?” - John 4:4-24 (NIV) Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” - John 4:4-24 (NIV) The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water so that I won't get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.” He told her, “Go, call your husband and come back.” “I have no husband,” she replied. - John 4:4-24 (NIV) Jesus said to her, “You are right when you say you have no husband. The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true.” - John 4:4-24 (NIV) “Sir,” the woman said, “I can see that you are a prophet. Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.” - John 4:4-24 (NIV) “Woman,” Jesus replied, “believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. - John 4:4-24 (NIV) Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.” - John 4:4-24 (NIV) Barriers Gender Race Lifestyle Political/Politics Social/Economic Class “The woman was surprised, for Jews refuse to have anything to do with Samaritans.” - John 4:9 (NLT) Who do you engage with that people are surprised about? Pour from the well God has given you LOVE shows up through our actions. Love because of its action, is a barrier breaker! It is tangible It is identifiable It is powerful Love because of its action, is a barrier breaker! It is a witness of the power of God It is the power & demonstration of the Holy Spirit @ work within you It authenticates our witness

'When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?” The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans. ) Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.” “Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his livestock?” Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water so that I won't get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.” He told her, “Go, call your husband and come back.” “I have no husband,” she replied. Jesus said to her, “You are right when you say you have no husband. The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true.” “Sir,” the woman said, “I can see that you are a prophet. Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.” “Woman,” Jesus replied, “believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.” The woman said, “I know that Messiah” (called Christ) “is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.” Then Jesu -- To connect with Lauren, follow her on Insatgram @laurenahargrove

John 4:3-42 CEV 3 Jesus left Judea and started for Galilee again. 4 This time he had to go through Samaria, 5  and on his way he came to the town of Sychar. It was near the field that Jacob had long ago given to his son Joseph. 6-8 The well that Jacob had dug was still there, and Jesus sat down beside it because he was tired from traveling. It was noon, and after Jesus' disciples had gone into town to buy some food, a Samaritan woman came to draw water from the well. Jesus asked her, “Would you please give me a drink of water?” 9  “You are a Jew,” she replied, “and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink of water when Jews and Samaritans won't have anything to do with each other?”[a] 10 Jesus answered, “You don't know what God wants to give you, and you don't know who is asking you for a drink. If you did, you would ask me for the water that gives life.” 11 “Sir,” the woman said, “you don't even have a bucket, and the well is deep. Where are you going to get this life-giving water? 12 Our ancestor Jacob dug this well for us, and his family and animals got water from it. Are you greater than Jacob?” 13 Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will get thirsty again. 14 But no one who drinks the water I give will ever be thirsty again. The water I give will become in that person a flowing fountain that gives eternal life.” 15 The woman replied, “Sir, please give me a drink of that water! Then I won't get thirsty and have to come to this well again.” 16 Jesus told her, “Go and bring your husband.” 17-18 The woman answered, “I don't have a husband.” “That's right,” Jesus replied, “you're telling the truth. You don't have a husband. You have already been married five times, and the man you are now living with isn't your husband.” 19 The woman said, “Sir, I can see that you are a prophet. 20 My ancestors worshiped on this mountain,[b] but you Jews say Jerusalem is the only place to worship.” 21 Jesus said to her: Believe me, the time is coming when you won't worship the Father either on this mountain or in Jerusalem. 22 You Samaritans don't really know the one you worship. But we Jews do know the God we worship, and by using us, God will save the world. 23 But a time is coming, and it is already here! Even now the true worshipers are being led by the Spirit to worship the Father according to the truth. These are the ones the Father is seeking to worship him. 24 God is Spirit, and those who worship God must be led by the Spirit to worship him according to the truth. 25 The woman said, “I know that the Messiah will come. He is the one we call Christ. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.” 26 “I am that one,” Jesus told her, “and I am speaking to you now.” 27 The disciples returned about this time and were surprised to find Jesus talking with a woman. But none of them asked him what he wanted or why he was talking with her. 28 The woman left her water jar and ran back into town, where she said to the people, 29 “Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done! Could he be the Messiah?” 30 Everyone in town went out to see Jesus. 31 While this was happening, Jesus' disciples were saying to him, “Teacher, please eat something.” 32 But Jesus told them, “I have food you don't know anything about.” 33 His disciples started asking each other, “Has someone brought him something to eat?” --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/mildred-kingsley-okonkwo0/message

Scandalous Grace - The Woman at The Well John 4:1-30 Now Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard that he was gaining and baptizing more disciples than John— 2 although in fact it was not Jesus who baptized, but his disciples. 3 So he left Judea and went back once more to Galilee. 4 Now he had to go through Samaria. 5 So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph. 6 Jacob's well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about noon. 7 When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?” 8 (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.) 9 The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans. 10 Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.” 11 “Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? 12 Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his livestock?” 13 Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, 14 but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” 15 The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water so that I won't get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.” 16 He told her, “Go, call your husband and come back.” 17 “I have no husband,” she replied. Jesus said to her, “You are right when you say you have no husband. 18 The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true.” 19 “Sir,” the woman said, “I can see that you are a prophet. 20 Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.” 21 “Woman,” Jesus replied, “believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. 22 You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23 Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. 24 God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.” 25 The woman said, “I know that Messiah” (called Christ) “is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.” 26 Then Jesus declared, “I, the one speaking to you—I am he.” 27 Just then his disciples returned and were surprised to find him talking with a woman. But no one asked, “What do you want?” or “Why are you talking with her?” 28 Then, leaving her water jar, the woman went back to the town and said to the people, 29 “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Messiah?” 30 They came out of the town and made their way toward him. John 4:39-42 39 Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman's testimony, “He told me everything I ever did.” 40 So when the Samaritans came to him, they urged him to stay with them, and he stayed two days. 41 And because of his words many more became believers. 42 They said to the woman, “We no longer believe just because of what you said; now we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this man really is the Savior of the world.” 1. Invitation There is no cultural barrier or distance too far for God to find you and invite you into true life. John 7:37-39 37 On the last and greatest day of the festival,Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink.38 Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them.” 39 By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive. 2. Revelation So often we tangle up and reorder our desires in such a way that Jesus has to confront the false wells in order to expose our need for living water. It's not about where you are coming from or what you have done on the road to get you there. The only thing that matters is your response when you come face to face with Jesus. 3. Proclamation The scandalous grace of Jesus and unexpected inclusion of one woman was the spark that lit the flame of revival in a whole town.

John 3:1-9 Now there was a Pharisee, a man named Nicodemus who was a member of the Jewish ruling council. 2 He came to Jesus at night and said, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the signs you are doing if God were not with him.” 3 Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.” 4 “How can someone be born when they are old?” Nicodemus asked. “Surely they cannot enter a second time into their mother's womb to be born!” 5 Jesus answered, “Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit. 6 Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. 7 You should not be surprised at my saying, ‘You must be born again.' 8 The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.” 9 “How can this be?” Nicodemus asked. John 4 4 Now he had to go through Samaria. 5 So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph. 6 Jacob's well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about noon. 7 When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?” 8 (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.) 9 The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.) 10 Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.” 11 “Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? 12 Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his livestock?” 13 Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, 14 but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” 15 The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water so that I won't get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.” 16 He told her, “Go, call your husband and come back.” 17 “I have no husband,” she replied. Jesus said to her, “You are right when you say you have no husband. 18 The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true.” 19 “Sir,” the woman said, “I can see that you are a prophet. 20 Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.” 21 “Woman,” Jesus replied, “believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. 22 You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23 Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. 24 God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.” 25 The woman said, “I know that Messiah” (called Christ) “is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.” 26 Then Jesus declared, “I, the one speaking to you—I am he.” 27 Just then his disciples returned and were surprised to find him talking with a woman. But no one asked, “What do you want?” or “Why are you talking with her?” 28 Then, leaving her water jar, the woman went back to the town and said to the people, 29 “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Messiah?” 30 They came out of the town and made their way toward him. John 19:38-42 Later, Joseph of Arimathea asked Pilate for the body of Jesus. Now Joseph was a disciple of Jesus, but secretly because he feared the Jewish leaders. With Pilate's permission, he came and took the body away. 39 He was accompanied by Nicodemus, the man who earlier had visited Jesus at night. Nicodemus brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about seventy-five pounds. 40 Taking Jesus' body, the two of them wrapped it, with the spices, in strips of linen. This was in accordance with Jewish burial customs. 41 At the place where Jesus was crucified, there was a garden, and in the garden a new tomb, in which no one had ever been laid. 42 Because it was the Jewish day of Preparation and since the tomb was nearby, they laid Jesus there. Psalm 68:6 God sets the lonely in families, he leads out the prisoners with singing; but the rebellious live in a sun-scorched land.

John 44 Now he had to go through Samaria. 5 So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph. 6 Jacob's well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about noon. 7 When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?” 8 (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.) 9 The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.) 10 Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.” 11 “Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? 12 Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his livestock?” 13 Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, 14 but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” 15 The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water so that I won't get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.” 16 He told her, “Go, call your husband and come back.” 17 “I have no husband,” she replied. Jesus said to her, “You are right when you say you have no husband. 18 The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true.” 19 “Sir,” the woman said, “I can see that you are a prophet. 20 Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.” 21 “Woman,” Jesus replied, “believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. 22 You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23 Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. 24 God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.” 25 The woman said, “I know that Messiah” (called Christ) “is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.” 26 Then Jesus declared, “I, the one speaking to you—I am he.” John 1:14 The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth. John 14:6 Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. 1 John 1:8 If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. John 8:32 Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” John 17:17 Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth.   Your truth will set you up. The Truth will set you free.   1 John 3:18 Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth.

Big Idea: We're aligning our vision with God's vision for 2023! We're aligning our vision with God's vision for 2023! 1. We will match or work and worship. Jeremiah 7:3-4 “‘This is what the Lord of Armies, the God of Israel, says: Correct your ways and your actions, and I will allow you to live in this place. Do not trust deceitful words, chanting, “This is the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord.” 2. We will worship from a changed heart. John 4:21-24 Jesus told her, “Believe me, woman, an hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You Samaritans worship what you do not know. We worship what we do know, because salvation is from the Jews. But an hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in Spirit and in truth. Yes, the Father wants such people to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in Spirit and in truth.” 3. We won't confuse church with Christianity. Matthew 7:21-23 “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven. On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, didn't we prophesy in your name, drive out demons in your name, and do many miracles in your name?' Then I will announce to them, ‘I never knew you. Depart from me, you lawbreakers!' Next Steps: I need Jesus to change my soul for the first time. Through the power of the Holy Spirit, I will make 1 disciple in 2023.

Dr. Brian Hill, Studies in John            22.  You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews.  23.  Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks.  24.  God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.”       25.  The woman said, “I know that Messiah” (called Christ) “is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.”Dr. Brian Hill, Studies in John       26.  Then Jesus declared, “I, the one speaking to you—I am he.”       27.  Just then his disciples returned and were surprised to find him talking with a woman. But no one asked, “What do you want?” or “Why are you talking with her?”       28.  Then, leaving her water jar, the woman went back to the town and said to the people,  29.  “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Messiah?”  30.  They came out of the town and made their way toward him.       31.  Meanwhile his disciples urged him, “Rabbi, eat something.”       32.  But he said to them, “I have food to eat that you know nothing about.”       33.  Then his disciples said to each other, “Could someone have brought him food?”       34.  “My food,” said Jesus, “is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work.  35.  Don't you have a saying, ‘It's still four months until harvest'? I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest.  36.  Even now the one who reaps draws a wage and harvests a crop for eternal life, so that the sower and the reaper may be glad together.   37.  Thus the saying ‘One sows and another reaps' is true.  38.  I sent you to reap what you have not worked for. Others have done the hard work, and you have reaped the benefits of their labor.”  (John 4:22-42 NIV)       39.  Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman's testimony, “He told me everything I ever did.”  40.  So when the Samaritans came to him, they urged him to stay with them, and he stayed two days.  41.  And because of his words many more became believers.  42.  They said to the woman, “We no longer believe just because of what you said; now we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this man really is the Savior of the world.”

Dr. Brian Hill, Studies in John         9.  The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.)  10.  Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.”  11.  “Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water?  12.  Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his livestock?”  13.  Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again,  14.  but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”  15.  The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water so that I won't get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.”  16.  He told her, “Go, call your husband and come back.”  17.  “I have no husband,” she replied.  Jesus said to her, “You are right when you say you have no husband.  18.  The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true.”19.  “Sir,” the woman said, “I can see that you are a prophet.  20.  Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.”  21.  “Woman,” Jesus replied, “believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem.  22.  You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews.  23.  Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks.  24.  God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.”  (John 4:9-24 NIV)

http://bible.com/events/48934667 Church of the Nazarene Harrisonburg Your Un-Churched Neighbor Part 1: Understanding“ People don't care how much you know, until they know how much you care.” Series Purpose: To inform, inspire, equip and challenge us as the people of God to embrace our unique calling to be a counter-narrative people, to do His will and serve others, and to speak the truth in love, to those who are lost/far from God, as we tell of what He has done in our lives and for the whole world.‭‭ Luke‬ ‭19:10‬‬For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.” The focus for today is: UNDERSTANDING Only 21% of non-Christian people have a positive perception of the local church Half of non-Christian Americans don't trust local pastors Millennials think the local church is detached from the real issues people are facing. The percentage of people who attend church 1 or two times per month decreased from 34% in 2019 to 28% in 2022In the same time frame, the percentage of people that never or seldom attend church grew from 50% to 57%There is an increasing % of people who are spiritually/biblically illiterate - especially in younger generations - but open to spiritual things Non-Christians are pretty sure we're not interested in them for who they are. Non-Christians tend to think Christians are against more than they're for. Non-Christians don't see much difference between the way Christians live when compared with non-Christians.‭‭John‬ ‭4:1-30‬‬Now Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard that he was gaining and baptizing more disciples than John— although in fact it was not Jesus who baptized, but his disciples. So he left Judea and went back once more to Galilee. Now he had to go through Samaria. So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob's well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about noon. When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?” (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.) The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.) Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.” “Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his livestock?” Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water so that I won't get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.” He told her, “Go, call your husband and come back.” “I have no husband,” she replied. Jesus said to her, “You are right when you say you have no husband. The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true.” “Sir,” the woman said, “I can see that you are a prophet. Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.” “Woman,” Jesus replied, “believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.” The woman said, “I know that Messiah” (called Christ) “is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.” Then Jesus declared, “I, the one speaking to you—I am he.” Just then his disciples returned and were surprised to find him talking with a woman. But no one asked, “What do you want?” or “Why are you talking with her?” Then, leaving her water jar, the woman went back to the town and said to the people, “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Messiah?” They came out of the town and made their way toward him. Dean Flemming“ Jesus' love and restoring power intersect people at the point of their life circumstances.”WORK TO UNDERSTANDBEFORE WORKING TO BE UNDERSTOOD As we continue in our series over the coming weeks, we will unpack other areas of focus for bridging the gap or being effective in sharing Jesus in our ever-changing world. We will see that no matter how much our world has changed, evangelism, or reaching the lost, is a supernatural pursuit that must begin in prayer. We will see that perhaps one of the greatest ways we can show people the love of Christ, is to serve them. We will be reminded that evangelism takes real work. And finally, we will understand that the ultimate expression of love is sharing the honest and compelling truth of the Cross of Christ

Church of the Nazarene East Rock Your Un-Churched Neighbor Part 1: Understanding You can't reach someone with whom you don't empathize, and you won't empathize until you understand. As we came through our services last week having to make a few adjustments to our normal routine, it was a reminder of just how many things are different today, than they were 2 years ago. Some of these differences are not so bad, but there are more than a few changes that remind us, it is a different world out there. The world health organization estimates that depression and anxiety have increased 25% globally since the onset of the pandemic. The fragility of our lives has been brought to the forefront of our thinking through many ways. I think many of us have some memory of toilet paper being more valuable than gold. A conflict a world away right now is affecting our supply chains, energy costs, and so many more things. When we say it's a different world, we are not just saying it for effect. It's not just establishing a reason for our new teaching series. It's really a different world. And where is the church in all of this? One look at recent surveys or polls may surprise you. Here are just a few that caught my attention: Half of non-Christian Americans don't trust local pastors The percentage of people who attend church 1 or two times per month decreased from 34% in 2019 to 28% in 2022 In the same time frame, the percentage of people that never or seldom attend church grew from 50% to 57% Only 21% of non-Christian people have a positive perception of the local church yet 80% of Christians have a positive view. (This represents a huge gap in our understanding of the people around us.)As a church that is committed to the mission of Christ, committed to seeing people find relationship and restoration in Christ, this should alert us! If we are committed to being Transformed by God to bring hope to others through Christ, we must also be committed to making changes in ourselves and in our approach to our mission as the church to reach our new and different world. Yes, the message is always the same. But the world is different. The people all around us are different. Today we are beginning a new teaching series called “Your un-churched Neighbor” Through this series we want to be more informed, better equipped, and yes, even challenged to reach the lost and seeking hearts all around us .We begin our series today by unpacking the need for understanding. You can't reach someone with whom you don't empathize, and you won't empathize until you understand. As we begin will see that until we are able, or willing, to work to understand others – especially those who are different from us– we can't begin to know them or empathize with them. And if we can't do that, we can't reach them.‭‭John‬ ‭4:1-30‬‬Now Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard that he was gaining and baptizing more disciples than John— although in fact it was not Jesus who baptized, but his disciples. So he left Judea and went back once more to Galilee. Now he had to go through Samaria. So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob's well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about noon. When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?” (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.) The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.) Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.” “Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his livestock?” Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water so that I won't get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.” He told her, “Go, call your husband and come back.” “I have no husband,” she replied. Jesus said to her, “You are right when you say you have no husband. The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true.” “Sir,” the woman said, “I can see that you are a prophet. Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.” “Woman,” Jesus replied, “believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.” The woman said, “I know that Messiah” (called Christ) “is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.” Then Jesus declared, “I, the one speaking to you—I am he.” Just then his disciples returned and were surprised to find him talking with a woman. But no one asked, “What do you want?” or “Why are you talking with her?” Then, leaving her water jar, the woman went back to the town and said to the people, “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Messiah?” They came out of the town and made their way toward him. Did you catch that? She didn't say “The Messiah chose me!” or “I am the first!” She said: “Come see a man who told me everything I have ever done!” Of all the amazing things about the encounter at the well, THAT is what stood out to her. Maybe, for that woman, it was the first time in her life she was understood. Really understood. Not judged, not condemned, not abandoned. Understood. The message she carried back to town was that she had met someone who KNEW her. The power of understanding is news worth sharing...Of course, we don't have the understanding of Jesus, nor will we ever. But we have opportunities every day to understand those around us, to learn, to discover, to hear their stories. To WANT to listen To NEED to understand. The question today is will we do the hard work of understanding others so that we can love them better for Jesus' sake? Will we put others first? As we continue in our series over the coming weeks, we will unpack other areas of focus for bridging the gap or being effective in sharing Jesus in our ever-changing world. We will see that no matter how much our world has changed, evangelism, or reaching the lost, is a supernatural pursuit that must begin in prayer. We will see that perhaps one of the greatest ways we can show people the love of Christ, is to serve them. We will be reminded that evangelism takes real work. And finally, we will understand that the ultimate expression of love is sharing the honest and compelling truth of the Cross of Christ When we think of all that we have said this morning…from this new normal we're living in to the way the church is perceived, from how Jesus approached the Samaritan woman to the ways we have sometimes approached those He has put around us…Here's the point: Before someone needs my judgment, they need my compassion Before they need my opinion, they need my understanding.

THE THESIS: In the ugliness of this fallen world, it's sometimes hard to remember that Christ's Love wins, it always wins.  THE SCRIPTURE & SCRIPTURAL RESOURCES:  John 1:1-5  -  The Word Became Flesh 1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning. 3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. 4 In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. John 4:7-38 7 When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?” 8 (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.) 9 The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.[a]) 10 Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.” 11 “Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? 12 Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his livestock?” 13 Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, 14 but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” 15 The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water so that I won't get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.” 16 He told her, “Go, call your husband and come back.” 17 “I have no husband,” she replied. Jesus said to her, “You are right when you say you have no husband. 18 The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true.” 19 “Sir,” the woman said, “I can see that you are a prophet. 20 Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.” 21 “Woman,” Jesus replied, “believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. 22 You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23 Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. 24 God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.” 25 The woman said, “I know that Messiah” (called Christ) “is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.” 26 Then Jesus declared, “I, the one speaking to you—I am he.” The Disciples Rejoin Jesus 27 Just then his disciples returned and were surprised to find him talking with a woman. But no one asked, “What do you want?” or “Why are you talking with her?” 28 Then, leaving her water jar, the woman went back to the town and said to the people, 29 “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Messiah?” 30 They came out of the town and made their way toward him. Romans 1:24 24 Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. THE NEWS & COMMENT: The Party Vs. God - the people who run Biden have made it actual policy! Biden's global initiative to replace Christianity with atheism faces GOP backlash; The 2021 federal grant program is designed to promote atheism and humanism overseas and encourage "dissent from religious belief." Meanwhile, they pretend to love. That is not love. This is selfless, Christ-like love. A young man stands outside an abortion mill and with compassion and respect reaches out to a pregnant, young woman headed in to have an abortion. Watch him as he balances Truth and Grace . . . [AUDIO] -  “My baby has a heartbeat?”...a pregnant woman asked pro-life person witnessing outside PlannedParenthood. Fact: Peaceful pro-life witnessing SAVES LIVES. This is why Warren & the abortion industry wants to “crack down” on us. This is self-love. A man enamored, maybe obsessed by sexuality places his fleshly, adult desires, lusts and interests into the minds of children too young to use them and too much under his authority to walk away  . . .  [AUDIO] - 4th grade teacher shows books he read to 9-year-old students about pronouns, gender identity, and kids being non-binary. Self love causing self-hatred in kids. A Disney movie pretends men get periods . . .  [AUDIO] - Leaked Footage Of Baymax Show Says Men Can Get Periods, Shows Trans Agenda, Disneys Indoctrination! MUSIC REVIEW: [AUDIO] - Damiyr singing a self composed song[AUDIO] - This is Alice Tan Ridley singing Midnight Train to Georgia. You see the utter shock on people's faces as they listen to her voice? It's magical. Oh, and she's also the mother of famous actress Gabourey Sidibe. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Book of Job: “The Question of the Ages—Why?” Lesson 4b: When Tragedy Strikes, How Should We Respond? Job 1:20-22 (NIV) – [20] At this, Job got up and tore his robe and shaved his head. Then he fell to the ground in worship [21] and said: “Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked I will depart. The LORD gave and the LORD has taken away; may the name of the LORD be praised.” [22] In all this, Job did not sin by charging God with wrongdoing. 1. Job grieves. 2. Job worships. a. Job falls down and worships God. b. Worship (shachah) means to bow down, to prostrate oneself, to crouch, to fall down, to humbly beseech, to do reverence, to worship. (Complete Word Study Dictionary) Exodus 4:29-31 (NIV) – [29] Moses and Aaron brought together all the elders of the Israelites, [30] and Aaron told them everything the Lord had said to Moses. He also performed the signs before the people, [31] and they believed. And when they heard that the Lord was concerned about them and had seen their misery, they bowed down and worshiped. c. Worship may seem like the most unnatural, insincere and unrealistic response to tragedy, but it is the best response. d. Job could worship God after these tragedies because worshipping God was Job’s custom. Psalms 95:6-7 (NIV) – [6] Come, let us bow down in worship, let us kneel before the Lord our Maker; [7] for he is our God and we are the people of his pasture, the flock under his care. e. Worship during crisis is the greatest expression of faith. Hebrews 11:36-39 (NIV) – [36] Some faced jeers and flogging, while still others were chained and put in prison. [37] They were stoned; they were sawed in two; they were put to death by the sword. They went about in sheepskins and goatskins, destitute, persecuted and mistreated—[38] the world was not worthy of them. They wandered in deserts and mountains, and in caves and holes in the ground. [39] These were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised. f. Worship isn’t about a PLACE of worship; it is all about an ATTITUDE of worship. John 4:21-24 (NIV) – [21] Jesus declared, “Believe me, woman, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. [22] You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. [23] For a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. [24] God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth.” g. God is not just seeking WORSHIP; He is seeking WORSHIPERS.

he Book of Job: The Question of the Ages—Why? When Tragedy Strikes, How Should We Respond? Job 1:20-22 (NIV) – [20] At this, Job got up and tore his robe and shaved his head. Then he fell to the ground in worship [21] and said: “Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked I will depart. The LORD gave and the LORD has taken away; may the name of the LORD be praised.” [22] In all this, Job did not sin by charging God with wrongdoing. 1. Job grieves. a. Job tears his robe and shaves his head. b. This is the customary sign of intense mourning and grief for people of that day. Genesis 37:29, 34 (NIV) – [29] When Reuben returned to the cistern and saw that Joseph was not there, he tore his clothes… [34] Then Jacob tore his clothes, put on sackcloth and mourned for his son many days. Micah 1:16 (NIV) – [16] Shave your heads in mourning for the children in whom you delight; make yourselves as bald as the vulture, for they will go from you into exile. c. The process of grief is God’s gift of healing through tragedy. Ecclesiastes 7:3 (NIV) – [3] Sorrow is better than laughter, because a sad face is good for the heart. Ecclesiastes 7:3 (NLT) – [3] Sorrow is better than laughter, for sadness has a refining influence on us. Ecclesiastes 7:3 (MSG) – [3] Crying is better than laughing. It blotches the face, but it scours the heart. d. We grieve without losing hope. 1 Thessalonians 4:13 (NIV) – [13] Brothers, we do not want you to be ignorant about those who fall asleep, or to grieve like the rest of men, who have no hope. Lamentations 3:19-23 (NIV) – [19] I remember my affliction and my wandering, the bitterness and the gall. [20] I well remember them, and my soul is downcast within me. [21] Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope: [22] Because of the LORD's great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. [23] They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. e. We are comforted to comfort others. 2 Corinthians 1:3-4 (NIV) – [3] Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, [4] who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God. 2. Job worships. a. Job falls down and worships God. b. Worship (shachah) means to bow down, to prostrate oneself, to crouch, to fall down, to humbly beseech, to do reverence, to worship. (Complete Word Study Dictionary) c. Worship may seem like the most unnatural, insincere and unrealistic response to tragedy, but it is the best response. d. Job could worship God after these tragedies because worshipping God was Job’s custom. e. Worship during crisis is the greatest expression of faith. John 4:21-24 (NIV) – [21] Jesus declared, “Believe me, woman, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. [22] You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. [23] For a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. [24] God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth.” f. Worship isn’t about a place of worship; it is all about an attitude of worship.

A FAITH IN ACTION: TODAY I PRAY YOU ACCEPT THIS INVITATION TO BECOME A CHRISTIAN, A SERVANT, A BELIEVER WHO IS WILLING TO START WALKING OUT YOUR FAITH AND SHARING YOUR TESTIMONY OF GOD'S SAVING GRACE! PLEASE ANSWER THE CALL TO A NEW LIFE SO YOU CAN GET TO WORK!INTRODUCTION: THE POWER OF TRUE WORSHIP! John 4:21-24-  21 Jesus replied, “Believe me, dear woman, the time is coming when it will no longer matter whether you worship the Father on this mountain or in Jerusalem. 22 You Samaritans know very little about the one you worship, while we Jews know all about him, for salvation comes through the Jews.  23 But the time is coming—indeed it's here now—when true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth. The Father is looking for those who will worship him that way.  24 For God is Spirit, so those who worship him must worship in spirit and in truth.”Worshipers who worship in spirit and in truth will illustrate this new type of worship. Listen to this y'all, Jesus said, not me, but Jesus said, that God is seeking a worshiper, one who will worship Him in spirit and in truth. This is what's important to God, God doesn't care about how big your church is, where it's located, what style of music is played, or (oh yeah) what color of the carpet is, or what the choir is wearing! God doesn't care about that stuff. Greek word for worship is sebó (seh-bow) which means Revere/ruh-veer or Adore, Spirit is pneuma means wind or breath, and the truth is translated as alétheia    (a-lay-thee-ah). English words (truth, true, surely)Ain't you glad that the God of this universe is seeking us to worship Him? He is not satisfied with the millions/zillions or even the duo-tri-gin-trillion (10 to the 99th power) of angels who worship Him, He wants us to worship Him, believers. There is something in our worship that angels just don't have. We can give worship because of the salvation we have in Christ Jesus, Amen y'all. Angels can't do that.  We, who have been saved by His grace, bought by His blood.Spiritual worship is more than emotional worship. Worship is not about how it makes YOU feel. The measure of spiritual worship is NOT how it touches your emotions. I'm not suggesting that we should never manifest emotions in worship, no, we just need to be cautious that we don't mistake an emotional experience for a spiritual experience, that's all I'm saying. A person can respond emotionally to what they see God do in someone else's life, but it never touches them spiritually.   A spiritual response brings about a change. SCRIPTURES TO LIVE BY: Psalm 95:6-Come, let us bow down in worship, let us kneel before the Lord our Maker.Hebrews13:15-16-  15 Through Jesus, therefore, let us continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise—the fruit of lips that openly profess his name. 16 And do not forget to do good and to share with others, for with such sacrifices God is pleased.For the next year starting in MAY 2022, TOUCHED BY MERCY & LIVING ON GRACE PODCAST will allow you all to see OUR FAITH IN ACTION! Once a month we will post a video along with an encouraging message. You can find us on FB/Instagram, Google, Apple iTunes, Spotify, Buzzsprout. Continue to share, tell a friend, tell somebody.Thanks for joining this podcast. Starting in April there will be ONLY ONE new episode uploaded every month on the 1st Thursday starting at 6 am. In May you all will be able to see us on YOUTUBE! Are You Ready?REMEMBER MY SISTERS AND BROTHERS, IT TAKES GRACE TO MAKE IT!

THE THESIS: The Left has destroyed all meaning to the word racism. This is good for them, since they are building what will become the most racist culture in history. We have the challenge of exposing this to people who can no longer see true racism, we have only one solid place to turn, the word of God who made all people and the ministry of Christ, who openly ignored tribal hatred in his ministry, for instance, to the Sammarians. The Great Commission itself was an order to reach all people.  THE SCRIPTURE & SCRIPTURAL RESOURCES:  John 4: 1-42: Jesus Talks With a Samaritan Woman 4 Now Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard that he was gaining and baptizing more disciples than John— 2 although in fact it was not Jesus who baptized, but his disciples. 3 So he left Judea and went back once more to Galilee. 4 Now he had to go through Samaria. 5 So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph. 6 Jacob's well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about noon. 7 When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?” 8 (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.) 9 The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.[a]) 10 Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.” 11 “Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? 12 Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his livestock?” 13 Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, 14 but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” 15 The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water so that I won't get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.” 16 He told her, “Go, call your husband and come back.” 17 “I have no husband,” she replied. Jesus said to her, “You are right when you say you have no husband. 18 The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true.” 19 “Sir,” the woman said, “I can see that you are a prophet. 20 Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.” 21 “Woman,” Jesus replied, “believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. 22 You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23 Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. 24 God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.” 25 The woman said, “I know that Messiah” (called Christ) “is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.” 26 Then Jesus declared, “I, the one speaking to you—I am he.” The Disciples Rejoin Jesus 27 Just then his disciples returned and were surprised to find him talking with a woman. But no one asked, “What do you want?” or “Why are you talking with her?” 28 Then, leaving her water jar, the woman went back to the town and said to the people, 29 “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Messiah?” 30 They came out of the town and made their way toward him. 31 Meanwhile his disciples urged him, “Rabbi, eat something.” 32 But he said to them, “I have food to eat that you know nothing about.” 33 Then his disciples said to each other, “Could someone have brought him food?” 34 “My food,” said Jesus, “is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work. 35 Don't you have a saying, ‘It's still four months until harvest'? I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest. 36 Even now the one who reaps draws a wage and harvests a crop for eternal life, so that the sower and the reaper may be glad together. 37 Thus the saying ‘One sows and another reaps' is true. 38 I sent you to reap what you have not worked for. Others have done the hard work, and you have reaped the benefits of their labor.” Many Samaritans Believe 39 Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman's testimony, “He told me everything I ever did.” 40 So when the Samaritans came to him, they urged him to stay with them, and he stayed two days. 41 And because of his words many more became believers. 42 They said to the woman, “We no longer believe just because of what you said; now we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this man really is the Savior of the world.” Matthew 28:16-20: The Great Commission 16 Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. 17 When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. 18 Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” THE NEWS & COMMENT: Stewart showed off a video by Saturday Night Live “comedian” Leslie Jones where she proclaimed “Racism is a spectrum” and asked viewers: “what degree of racist are you?” Here's the Director of Race and Equity at @UCLA wishing for the death of a black Supreme Court justice. KING-5 “News” Tweet: “Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson had to endure hours of public scrutiny during her Senate hearings, and that's something familiar to many Black women.” The KING-5 “News” story, via AP: Black women feel sting of 'traumatizing' Jackson hearings - 9 News legal analyst, Whitney Trailer.  “It was really traumatizing to watch,” said Melanie L. Campbell, president and CEO of the National Coalition on Black Civic Participation and convener of the Black Women's Roundtable. From questioning of Jackson's view of books on critical race theory that drew her exasperated sigh — “They don't come up in my work as a judge,” she said — to the loaded suggestion that the sentences she imposed on child pornography defendants were too lenient, the questions from the Republicans tapped into long-standing American grievances over race, class and public safety. The insinuations that Jackson, a distinguished jurist and mother of two, is a secret radical liberal or poses a danger to the safety of children felt to some supporters as yet another example of highly qualified Black women having to endure indignities and distortions of their credentials, even as they shatter racial barriers in American society. Campbell told The Associated Press that “the othering of her, in a sense, like she's against our children,” seemed like a tired political tactic. “My spirit feels it was to bring this Black woman down because she's about to break the glass ceiling that, once broken, opens the door to more.” Anti-Kavanaugh protesters bang on the doors of the Supreme Court 'A Huge Red Flag': Chuck Todd Panics Over GOP Lead in NBC Midterm Poll ABC's Karl: GOP's Questioning of Judge Jackson 'A Message to QAnon' CNN Lets Race-Baiter Guest Accuse GOP of 'Race-Baiting' on Jackson THE LISTENERS: Deb B.: Finding contentment. Listening to your podcast right now. You encourage us to ask God to please draw JoeBiden to Him but that's not how some of us pray. After 60 years of walking with the Lord, I've learned to say Thy will be done. Period. Because I've only found true contentment in the center of God's will and although I know we can ask, I also know my request could be wrong. Jesus showed us in Gethsemane how and what to ask for: it's simply His Will - not mine. I go where He leads, whether I'm in a wonderfully surprising place or a dark, sad or lonely place, and once I get past "what are You thinking????" there is a peace that passeth understanding and contentment. He may want an unstable, demented, seriously sinful person leading this nation for such a time as this but only God truly knows the greater good. Surrendering to His will and His will alone makes us part of that goodness I think but it is definitely a path to a contented life. Thank you for your program - it is a blessing. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

THE THESIS: Will Smith seems like a compassionate man, who is hearing a voice he thinks to be God, but clearly is not. He is a creation of his time, a man who has his very own god who tells him everything he wants to hear. But, Will Smith also wants to be a vessel for love which, despite his evident compassion and maybe even empathy, he doesn't actually understand. THE SCRIPTURE & SCRIPTURAL RESOURCES:  Matthew 19: 3-15 3 Some Pharisees came to him to test him. They asked, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any and every reason?” 4 “Haven't you read,” he replied, “that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,'[a] 5 and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh'[b]? 6 So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.” 7 “Why then,” they asked, “did Moses command that a man give his wife a certificate of divorce and send her away?” 8 Jesus replied, “Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning. 9 I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another woman commits adultery.” 10 The disciples said to him, “If this is the situation between a husband and wife, it is better not to marry.” 11 Jesus replied, “Not everyone can accept this word, but only those to whom it has been given. 12 For there are eunuchs who were born that way, and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by others—and there are those who choose to live like eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. The one who can accept this should accept it.” The Little Children and Jesus 13 Then people brought little children to Jesus for him to place his hands on them and pray for them. But the disciples rebuked them. 14 Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.” 15 When he had placed his hands on them, he went on from there. John 4: 1-42: Jesus Talks With a Samaritan Woman 4 Now Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard that he was gaining and baptizing more disciples than John— 2 although in fact it was not Jesus who baptized, but his disciples. 3 So he left Judea and went back once more to Galilee. 4 Now he had to go through Samaria. 5 So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph. 6 Jacob's well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about noon. 7 When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?” 8 (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.) 9 The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.[a]) 10 Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.” 11 “Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? 12 Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his livestock?” 13 Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, 14 but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” 15 The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water so that I won't get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.” 16 He told her, “Go, call your husband and come back.” 17 “I have no husband,” she replied. Jesus said to her, “You are right when you say you have no husband. 18 The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true.” 19 “Sir,” the woman said, “I can see that you are a prophet. 20 Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.” 21 “Woman,” Jesus replied, “believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. 22 You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23 Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. 24 God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.” 25 The woman said, “I know that Messiah” (called Christ) “is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.” 26 Then Jesus declared, “I, the one speaking to you—I am he.” The Disciples Rejoin Jesus 27 Just then his disciples returned and were surprised to find him talking with a woman. But no one asked, “What do you want?” or “Why are you talking with her?” 28 Then, leaving her water jar, the woman went back to the town and said to the people, 29 “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Messiah?” 30 They came out of the town and made their way toward him. 31 Meanwhile his disciples urged him, “Rabbi, eat something.” 32 But he said to them, “I have food to eat that you know nothing about.” 33 Then his disciples said to each other, “Could someone have brought him food?” 34 “My food,” said Jesus, “is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work. 35 Don't you have a saying, ‘It's still four months until harvest'? I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest. 36 Even now the one who reaps draws a wage and harvests a crop for eternal life, so that the sower and the reaper may be glad together. 37 Thus the saying ‘One sows and another reaps' is true. 38 I sent you to reap what you have not worked for. Others have done the hard work, and you have reaped the benefits of their labor.” Many Samaritans Believe 39 Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman's testimony, “He told me everything I ever did.” 40 So when the Samaritans came to him, they urged him to stay with them, and he stayed two days. 41 And because of his words many more became believers. 42 They said to the woman, “We no longer believe just because of what you said; now we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this man really is the Savior of the world.” Luke 15:11-32: The Parable of the Lost Son 11 Jesus continued: “There was a man who had two sons. 12 The younger one said to his father, ‘Father, give me my share of the estate.' So he divided his property between them. 13 “Not long after that, the younger son got together all he had, set off for a distant country and there squandered his wealth in wild living. 14 After he had spent everything, there was a severe famine in that whole country, and he began to be in need. 15 So he went and hired himself out to a citizen of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed pigs. 16 He longed to fill his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating, but no one gave him anything. 17 “When he came to his senses, he said, ‘How many of my father's hired servants have food to spare, and here I am starving to death! 18 I will set out and go back to my father and say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. 19 I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your hired servants.' 20 So he got up and went to his father. “But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him. 21 “The son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.' 22 “But the father said to his servants, ‘Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. 23 Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let's have a feast and celebrate. 24 For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.' So they began to celebrate. 25 “Meanwhile, the older son was in the field. When he came near the house, he heard music and dancing. 26 So he called one of the servants and asked him what was going on. 27 ‘Your brother has come,' he replied, ‘and your father has killed the fattened calf because he has him back safe and sound.' 28 “The older brother became angry and refused to go in. So his father went out and pleaded with him. 29 But he answered his father, ‘Look! All these years I've been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders. Yet you never gave me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends. 30 But when this son of yours who has squandered your property with prostitutes comes home, you kill the fattened calf for him!' 31 “‘My son,' the father said, ‘you are always with me, and everything I have is yours. 32 But we had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.'” THE NEWS & COMMENT: Will Smith's Oscar's Acceptance Speech From The Advocate, to which I will not link: Will Smith Confirmed He And Jada Pinkett Smith Have An Open Relationship And Admitted She's "Never Believed In A Conventional Marriage" A Year On From That "Entanglement" Drama THE LISTENERS: MUSIC REVIEW: A PERSONAL NOTE: See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Special Guest Speaker Angel Pakaz brings this week's message, “Worshiping in Spirit and in Truth.” Key Verses John 4:23–24 NLT “But the time is coming—indeed it's here now—when true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth. The Father is looking for those who will worship him that way. For God is Spirit, so those who worship him must worship in spirit and in truth.” John 4:19–22 NLT “Sir,” the woman said, “you must be a prophet. So tell me, why is it that you Jews insist that Jerusalem is the only place of worship, while we Samaritans claim it is here at Mount Gerizim, where our ancestors worshiped?” Jesus replied, “Believe me, dear woman, the time is coming when it will no longer matter whether you worship the Father on this mountain or in Jerusalem. You Samaritans know very little about the one you worship, while we Jews know all about him, for salvation comes through the Jews.” James 4:7–8 NLT “So humble yourselves before God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Come close to God, and God will come close to you. Wash your hands, you sinners; purify your hearts, for your loyalty is divided between God and the world.” John 14:6 NLT “Jesus told him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me.””Sermon Topics: Worship, Truth, Spirit

John 4:4-26 NIV4 Now he had to go through Samaria. 5 So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph. 6 Jacob's well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about noon.7 When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?” 8 (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.)9 The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.[a])10 Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.”11 “Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? 12 Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his livestock?”13 Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, 14 but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”15 The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water so that I won't get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.”16 He told her, “Go, call your husband and come back.”17 “I have no husband,” she replied.Jesus said to her, “You are right when you say you have no husband. 18 The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true.”19 “Sir,” the woman said, “I can see that you are a prophet. 20 Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.”21 “Woman,” Jesus replied, “believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. 22 You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23 Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. 24 God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.”25 The woman said, “I know that Messiah” (called Christ) “is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.”26 Then Jesus declared, “I, the one speaking to you—I am he.”Footnotes[a] John 4:9 Or do not use dishes Samaritans have used

John 4:4-26 NIV 4 Now he had to go through Samaria. 5 So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph. 6 Jacob's well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about noon. 7 When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?” 8 (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.) 9 The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.[a]) 10 Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.” 11 “Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? 12 Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his livestock?” 13 Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, 14 but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” 15 The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water so that I won't get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.” 16 He told her, “Go, call your husband and come back.” 17 “I have no husband,” she replied. Jesus said to her, “You are right when you say you have no husband. 18 The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true.” 19 “Sir,” the woman said, “I can see that you are a prophet. 20 Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.” 21 “Woman,” Jesus replied, “believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. 22 You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23 Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. 24 God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.” 25 The woman said, “I know that Messiah” (called Christ) “is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.” 26 Then Jesus declared, “I, the one speaking to you—I am he.” Footnotes [a] John 4:9 Or do not use dishes Samaritans have used

Hebrews 1:1-3a NIV1 In the past God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets at many times and in various ways, 2 but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom also he made the universe. 3 The Son is the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word. Hebrews 1:3a NIV3 The Son is the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word.  John 1:14 NIV14 The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.  John 4:1-2 NIV1 Now Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard that he was gaining and baptizing more disciples than John— 2 although in fact it was not Jesus who baptized, but his disciples.  John 4:3-8 NIV3 So he left Judea and went back once more to Galilee. 4 Now he had to go through Samaria. 5 So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph. 6 Jacob's well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about noon. 7 When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?” 8 (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.) Meet people where they are.  John 4:9 NIV9 The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.)  Meet people where they are.Make the Person the Point.  John 4:10-11 NIV10 Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.” 11 “Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water?  John 4:13-15 NIV13 Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, 14 but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” 15 The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water so that I won't get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.”  John 4:16-18 NIV16 He told her, “Go, call your husband and come back.” 17 “I have no husband,” she replied. Jesus said to her, “You are right when you say you have no husband. 18 The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true.”  John 4:19-20 NIV19 “Sir,” the woman said, “I can see that you are a prophet. 20 Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.”  John 4:21-24 NIV21 “Woman,” Jesus replied, “believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. 22 You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23 Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. 24 God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.” Operate in Both Spirit and Truth. John 4:23-24 NIV23 Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. 24 God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.”   Matthew 22:35-40 NIV35 One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question: 36 “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” 37 Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.' 40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”  Ephesians 4:14-16 NIV14 Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming.  John 4:25-26 NIV25 The woman said, “I know that Messiah” (called Christ) “is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.” 26 Then Jesus declared, “I, the one speaking to you—I am he.” Always Point People to the Lord  QUESTIONS:     1.    What does it mean that the fullness of God is revealed through Jesus? Why does this matter?     2.    What are a couple of ways that you can check yourself daily to make sure that you are more concerned with people and the opportunities God is giving you than just your “to-do” list?     3.    What does it mean to operate in spirit and truth? Why is it important to always operate in both?

The Holy Bible - The Gospel of John Chapter - 4 - (Audio Bible - NIV) 1 Now Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard that he was gaining and baptizing more disciples than John— 2 although in fact it was not Jesus who baptized, but his disciples. 3 So he left Judea and went back once more to Galilee. 4 Now he had to go through Samaria. 5 So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph. 6 Jacob's well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about noon. 7 When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?” 8 (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.) 9 The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.) 10 Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.” 11 “Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? 12 Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his livestock?” 13 Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, 14 but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” 15 The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water so that I won't get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.” 16 He told her, “Go, call your husband and come back.” 17 “I have no husband,” she replied. Jesus said to her, “You are right when you say you have no husband. 18 The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true.” 19 “Sir,” the woman said, “I can see that you are a prophet. 20 Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.” 21 “Woman,” Jesus replied, “believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. 22 You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23 Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. 24 God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.” 25 The woman said, “I know that Messiah” (called Christ) “is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.” 26 Then Jesus declared, “I, the one speaking to you—I am he.” 27 Just then his disciples returned and were surprised to find him talking with a woman. But no one asked, “What do you want?” or “Why are you talking with her?” 28 Then, leaving her water jar, the woman went back to the town and said to the people, 29 “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Messiah?” 30 They came out of the town and made their way toward him. 31 Meanwhile his disciples urged him, “Rabbi, eat something.” 32 But he said to them, “I have food to eat that you know nothing about.” 33 Then his disciples said to each other, “Could someone have brought him food?” 34 “My food,” said Jesus, “is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work. 35 Don't you have a saying, ‘It's still four months until harvest'? I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest. 36 Even now the one who reaps draws a wage and harvests a crop for eternal life, so that the sower and the reaper may be glad together. 37 Thus the saying ‘One sows and another reaps' is true. 38 I sent you to reap what you have not worked for. Others have done the hard work, and you have reaped the benefits of their labor.” 39 Many of the Samaritans fr --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/thedayofthelordisnear/message

John 4:19-24  “Sir,” the woman said, “I can see that you are a prophet. Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.” “Woman,” Jesus replied, “believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.” We are saved to worship God. All that Christ has done in the past and all that He is doing now leads to this one end. -A.W. Tozer True Worship is Spiritual (v.23-24) Spiritual Worship is From the Heart (v.23) “And the duty of singing praises to God seems to be appointed wholly to excite and express religious affections. No other reason can be assigned why we should express ourselves to God in verse rather than in prose, and do it with music, but only that such is our nature and frame that these things have a tendency to move our affections.” —Jonathan Edwards True Worship is Authentic (v.24) Authentic Worship is Biblical Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth. -2 Timothy 2:15 (NIV) Authentic Worship is Honest These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. They worship me in vain... Matthew 15:8–9a (NIV)

Summary:Will you answer the trumpet call and come together at God's appointed time? He is calling His family together.Show Notes:• God intends for the whole world to celebrate His presence. The Kingdom of God on the earth is the fulfillment of the Feast of Tabernacles.• There's one scripture that ties the Feast into what we believe and its Matthew 5:17. The question of the Feast and the law was presented. “I did not come to abolish the law or the prophets, but I come to fulfill.”• As the kingdom is established on this earth, we live with the Father under the Lordship Jesus Christ.References:Zechariah 14:16-1816. “ Then it will come about that any who are left of all the nations that came against Jerusalem will go up from year to year to worship the King, the Lord of armies, and to celebrate the Feast of Booths.17. And it will be that whichever of the families of the earth does not go up to Jerusalem to worship the King, the Lord of armies, there will be no rain on them.18. And if the family of Egypt does not go up or enter, then no rain will fall on them; it will be the plague with which the Lord strikes the nations that do not go up to celebrate the Feast of Booths. This will be the punishment of Egypt, and the punishment of all the nations that do not go up to celebrate the Feast of Booths.”Matthew 5:17“Do not presume that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I did not come to abolish, but to fulfill.”Leviticus 23:4-32The Required Feast.Romans 11:17“But if some of the branches were broken off, and you, being a wild olive, were grafted in among them and became partaker with them of the [j]rich root of the olive tree.”John 4:22-“You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, because salvation is from the Jews.”Quotes:• God's presence is what Tabernacle is, being with Him. When you're in the tabernacle you are in the presence of God.• The origination of the Feast started in scripture; it also says that this will be a perpetual feast for all your generations. It never says that they are going to stop.Take Away:As the kingdom is established on this earth we live with the Father under the Lordship Jesus Christ.

Verses 15 to 24 of John chapter 4. “Please, sir,” the woman said, “give me this water! Then I'll never be thirsty again, and I won't have to come here to get water.” “Go and get your husband,” Jesus told her. “I don't have a husband,” the woman replied. Jesus said, “You're right! You don't have a husband— for you have had five husbands, and you aren't even married to the man you're living with now. You certainly spoke the truth!” “Sir,” the woman said, “you must be a prophet. So tell me, why is it that you Jews insist that Jerusalem is the only place of worship, while we Samaritans claim it is here at Mount Gerizim, where our ancestors worshiped?” Jesus replied, “Believe me, dear woman, the time is coming when it will no longer matter whether you worship the Father on this mountain or in Jerusalem. You Samaritans know very little about the one you worship, while we Jews know all about him, for salvation comes through the Jews. But the time is coming—indeed it's here now—when true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth. The Father is looking for those who will worship him that way. For God is Spirit, so those who worship him must worship in spirit and in truth.”

Jeremiah 17:9, John 4:3-30"noverim me noverim te"“Let me know myself, let me know you.”Augustine – Confessions1. You Have A Story2. You Are A Whole PersonSocial, Intellectual, Spiritual, Physical, and EmotionalJeremiah 17:9The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?“The reason we don't want to feel is that feeling exposes the tragedy of our world and the darkness of our hearts. The route to facing what we feel is not by valuing the darkness of what we feel, but by valuing the deep structure of why we don't want to feel. Once we face why feeling is so hard, then we can move beyond what we feel to the deeper energy within is that keeps us from grappling honestly with our emotions. Then we will not only feel more deeply, but more importantly, we will feel our feelings in a way that exposes our struggles with God.”Tremper Longman and Dan Allender, The Cry of the SoulJohari Window Graphic1. God is An Emotional Beingcontempt, despise, weep, bewail, weeping, dread, rejoice, rejoicing, abhor, loathe, tears, murmur, growl, roar, be boisterous, be indignant, indignation, raging, rage, love, pity, look upon with compassion, burning anger, rage, compassion, delight in, delight, pleasure, burn, be kindled, anger, be attached to, love, howl, make a howling, be vexed, indignant, angry, provoke to anger, vex, vexation, comfort, be sorry, console, rue, repent of, ease oneself, infuriated, overflow, arrogance, fury, exult, vexed in his heart, jealous, ardour, zeal, jealousy, be wrath, and make wrathful 2. You an I Are Made in the Image of GodThe personality that emerges from the Gospels differs radically from the image of Jesus I grew up with, an image I now recognize in some of the older Hollywood films about Jesus. In those films, Jesus recites his lines evenly and without emotion. He strides through life as the one calm character among a cast of flustered extras. Nothing rattles him. He dispenses wisdom in flat, measured tones. He is, in short, the Prozac Jesus. In contrast, the Gospels present a man who has such charisma that people will sit three days straight, without food, just to hear his riveting words. He seems excitable, impulsively "moved with compassion" or "filled with pity." The Gospels reveal a range of Jesus' emotional responses: sudden sympathy for a person with leprosy, exuberance over his disciples' successes, a blast of anger at coldhearted legalists, grief over an unreceptive city, and then those awful cries of anguish in Gethsemane and on the cross. He had nearly inexhaustible patience with individuals but no patience at all with institutions and injustice.Philip Yancy – The Jesus I Never KnewJohn 4:3-30 3 So he left Judea and went back once more to Galilee.4 Now he had to go through Samaria. 5 So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph. 6 Jacob's well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about noon.7 When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?” 8 (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.)9 The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.[a])10 Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.”11 “Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? 12 Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his livestock?”13 Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, 14 but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”15 The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water so that I won't get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.”16 He told her, “Go, call your husband and come back.”17 “I have no husband,” she replied.Jesus said to her, “You are right when you say you have no husband. 18 The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true."19 “Sir,” the woman said, “I can see that you are a prophet. 20 Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.”21 “Woman,” Jesus replied, “believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. 22 You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23 Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. 24 God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.”25 The woman said, “I know that Messiah” (called Christ) “is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.”26 Then Jesus declared, “I, the one speaking to you—I am he.”27 Just then his disciples returned and were surprised to find him talking with a woman. But no one asked, “What do you want?” or “Why are you talking with her?”28 Then, leaving her water jar, the woman went back to the town and said to the people,29 “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Messiah?”30 They came out of the town and made their way toward him.“Ignoring our emotions is turning our back on reality; listening to our emotions ushers us into reality. And reality is where we meet God.”Tremper Longman and Dan Allender, Bold LoveEmotional health and spiritual maturity are inseparable. It is not possible to be spiritually mature while remaining emotionally immature.” Peter Scazzero – Emotionally Healthy Spirituality

Based on John chapter 4 verses 1 to 42 Life-Giving Water As Jesus and His disciples travelled north to Galilee they went through a part of Israel called Samaria, filled with people who weren't pure blooded Jews. The pure Jews looked down on the Samarian's and, the Samarian's hated the Jews. Both did everything they could to avoid each other. As they travelled through Samaritan territory, they came to the village of Sychar. Jesus was very tired from the long walk and sat down at the side of a well - at about midday, while His disciples went on into the village to buy some food. Now, normally, the women of the village would come at a certain times of day to collect water for their families. A woman wouldn't usually go on her own to the well unless there was some kind of trouble – maybe the other women were being nasty about her, or there was some kind of emergency. But, for whatever reason, today, as Jesus sat beside the well, a Samaritan woman came to draw water from the deep well. As well as not liking Samaritans, Jewish men – and especially teachers and leaders – avoided contact with all women outside their house, even Jewish women. They wouldn't even talk to a woman out on the street – it wasn't the ‘done thing'. So can you imagine this woman's surprise when a Jewish man looked over to where she was drawing water and actually spoke to her? A Jew talking to a Samaritan was unusual enough, but a Jewish man talking to a Samaritan woman! This was unheard of! ‘Please, would you give me a drink?' Jesus asked. As the woman poured a drink for Jesus she looked at Him with a puzzled look on her face. ‘You're a Jew,' she said, ‘and I'm a Samaritan woman! Why are you asking me for a drink?' ‘If you knew the gift God's got for you - and who I am,' Jesus replied, ‘then you'd be asking me for a drink and I'd give you living water.' The woman laughed to herself, how could this man, without bucket or rope, draw water from the well? ‘You don't have a bucket or rope,' she said. ‘So where are you going to get this ‘living water' from then?' She asked. ‘Those who drink the water from this well end up getting thirsty again.' Jesus replied, ‘But the water I give takes away thirst altogether. And not only that, it becomes a never ending spring inside them, giving them eternal life!' You see, Jesus wasn't talking about ordinary water He was talking about the Holy Spirit who gives eternal life! But the woman still hadn't understood, and thinking how wonderful it would be to not need to come to the well each day she said. ‘Oh, please sir, give me some of that water. That way I won't get thirsty again and need to come here everyday.' ‘Go and get your husband,' Jesus told her. This was suddenly getting uncomfortable for the woman. ‘I don't have a husband,' she replied. ‘That's right,' Jesus said. ‘In fact you've had five husbands and the man you're living with now you aren't even married to!' The woman hadn't expected this! Who was this man? She wanted to change the topic as quickly as she could. ‘I can see you're a prophet. Erm, tell me, why do you Jews insist on worshiping God at the Temple in Jerusalem while we Samaritans say we should worship God here at Mount Gerizim?' ‘A time's coming soon when it won't matter where you worship the Father.' Jesus replied. ‘You Samaritans don't really know much about the God you worship, while we Jews know all about Him, because salvation comes through the Jews. But a time's coming, in fact, it's already here, when true worshippers of the Father will worship Him in spirit and in truth.' The woman was beginning to struggle with all Jesus was saying, ‘I know the Messiah will come,' she said, ‘the one they call the Christ and He'll explain everything to us.' ‘I am that Messiah!' said Jesus. (PAUSE) As Jesus spoke, the disciples returned. (P) And they couldn't believe their eyes! Jesus was talking with a Samaritan, and to make things even more uncomfortable, a Samaritan...

John 4:5-26 (NLT) 5 Eventually he came to the Samaritan village of Sychar, near the field that Jacob gave to his son Joseph. 6 Jacob's well was there; and Jesus, tired from the long walk, sat wearily beside the well about noontime. 7 Soon a Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, “Please give me a drink.” 8 He was alone at the time because his disciples had gone into the village to buy some food. 9 The woman was surprised, for Jews refuse to have anything to do with Samaritans.[a] She said to Jesus, “You are a Jew, and I am a Samaritan woman. Why are you asking me for a drink?” 10 Jesus replied, “If you only knew the gift God has for you and who you are speaking to, you would ask me, and I would give you living water.” 11 “But sir, you don't have a rope or a bucket,” she said, “and this well is very deep. Where would you get this living water? 12 And besides, do you think you're greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us this well? How can you offer better water than he and his sons and his animals enjoyed?” 13 Jesus replied, “Anyone who drinks this water will soon become thirsty again. 14 But those who drink the water I give will never be thirsty again. It becomes a fresh, bubbling spring within them, giving them eternal life.” 15 “Please, sir,” the woman said, “give me this water! Then I'll never be thirsty again, and I won't have to come here to get water.” 16 “Go and get your husband,” Jesus told her. 17 “I don't have a husband,” the woman replied. Jesus said, “You're right! You don't have a husband— 18 for you have had five husbands, and you aren't even married to the man you're living with now. You certainly spoke the truth!” 19 “Sir,” the woman said, “you must be a prophet. 20 So tell me, why is it that you Jews insist that Jerusalem is the only place of worship, while we Samaritans claim it is here at Mount Gerizim, where our ancestors worshiped?” 21 Jesus replied, “Believe me, dear woman, the time is coming when it will no longer matter whether you worship the Father on this mountain or in Jerusalem. 22 You Samaritans know very little about the one you worship, while we Jews know all about him, for salvation comes through the Jews. 23 But the time is coming—indeed it's here now—when true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth. The Father is looking for those who will worship him that way. 24 For God is Spirit, so those who worship him must worship in spirit and in truth.” 25 The woman said, “I know the Messiah is coming—the one who is called Christ. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.” 26 Then Jesus told her, “I am the Messiah!”

Episode 003 - When Jesus Changed Religion Forever Across the history of human religion we see the same structure over and over. In order to access God, or become enlightened, or get a blessing you have to go to that certain special spiritual place at the certain special time and there the special spiritual people will help you offer your sacrifice, or offering, or gift -- and maybe then you'll find what you need. The benefit of that system is that it is abundantly clear and concrete. But in a conversation with a Samaritan woman Jesus upended this structure forever. Show Notes Show notes will not be a transcript. At least not now. You'll find a few key bullet points, any scriptures references, as well as any other books or resources referenced. Much of religion is marked by special spiritual places staffed by special spiritual gatekeepers who have the power to keep you from getting what you need. This model of religion was clear and concrete. But what if you didn't live near the special place? What if you couldn't afford the sacrifice? What if the gatekeepers excluded you? Jesus challenged this idea in a conversation with the Samaritan Woman. (See John 4:1-26) She deflected the conversation with a theological controversy. "Which temple should we worship in?" How should we seek God? John 4:21-24  "Jesus told her, “Believe Me, woman, an hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You Samaritans worship what you do not know. We worship what we do know, because salvation is from the Jews. But an hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth. Yes, the Father wants such people to worship Him. God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.” God is Spirit, which means God isn't locked in anyone's temple. All of the world is God's temple! That means we can find God anywhere. The Apostle Paul told the philosophers something similar. Acts 17:28 "For in Him we live and move and exist..." This means God is present in every moment of our day. God is with us in this one present moment. Greg Boyd - "To forget that God is present in any given moment is to forget the most important aspect of that moment." (Present Perfect: Finding God in the Now. p. 15) Other Links Subscribe to The Apprenticeship Way on iTunes and all other podcasting apps. Find it here on my website--this page that you're on right now! Find a video version on my Youtube Channel. Subscribe to my Email List. Check out the Apprenticeship Lab Member Community.