Wisdom From The Well

Well, what's up guys, welcome to the Forgotten Jesus Podcast. My name is Andrew. With us today, I don't know why I introduced you guys like you're a new guest, but we have Pastor Robby Gandhi. Five seasons and we're still here. We do. We do. So we have Pastor Robby and Candy. And right now we are live. We got a couple of people watching with us. On Instagram. So Pastor Candy, say hello. I want to encourage you, if you are not following us on social media, you need to connect with us on Instagram at The Forgotten Jesus. And we have a new Facebook page, The Forgotten Jesus Podcast. What I'm learning is that a lot of our listeners naturally engage with Facebook. So we want to engage with you there as well. So each week we're posting episodes there. You can comment, we can have conversations. It's going to be a lot of fun. Share it with a friend too. Share it with a friend. Share it with a friend. Yeah, you're exactly right. So hey, real quick live. Okay. Let's see. Let's read something. All right, Darcy. You guys are great.

Really love the podcast. Thank you so much, Darcy. Hello from Hamilton, Alabama. Thank you, Carrie. Okay. That's a lot of fun. So you know what? I'm just going to set you guys up and we'll just have fun. Look at this. All right, Pastor. Where are we going today? They're going to stay with us. They're going to stay with us. Wow. Okay. Awesome. Today we're at John chapter four. So if you're watching this live, this is recorded. Listen, this is the perk. It's kind of like the Matrix. This is the perk of following us on social media. That's true. That's one of the perks. You're getting it live when nobody else is. That's one of the perks, yeah. That's true. No pressure, Pastor. Yeah. No pressure. We're going to dive into John chapter four, finally.

I'm so excited. Yeah. Kandi just spoke on this actually this weekend. Yesterday. Yesterday at a women's event. So it's fresh for her. I don't know how we're going to get through. I've got seven pages of notes and Kandi's probably got the same. I'm like, we won't get very far. But let's try to get into it. So it's the woman at the well, the Samaritan woman. And before we get into it, Andrew, it's interesting about John is John loves the number seven. We know that. Yeah. Can you guess what the three sets of seven are in the gospel of John? He outlines his book based on three sets of seven. Okay. Yeah. First is easy. You pick one. He ate seven locusts and wild honey. No. No. We're talking about John the gospel writer. I thought we were talking about John the Baptist. We've been talking about John the Baptist for so long. I never heard that one. That's true. We did. We did.

We did. That's about John the gospel writer. All right. Kandi, that's not going to work. One. Okay. John the gospel writer. He mentioned the men running naked in the Olympic games. No. That was John. That was Luke. Okay. Sorry. I'm done. I'm done. The seven. Seven I am statements. Seven sayings. I am. However, if we just really think about that, there are actually 10 I am statements. So why? It's always been said that there are seven, but there are more places where he uses I am than just the seven. In this chapter he does. When he reveals his identity to the woman at the well, it's literally I am. Yeah, but. You see what I'm saying? Yeah. Yeah. But you're taking every time he says the word I am, that would be like saying every time

Robbie says I, I preached. But in the, in the context of revealing his identity and he uses those words. Yeah. Do you see what I'm saying? Yeah, but no. Yes. But there are. Yeah. But there are only seven times he identifies himself as something different. You're trying to say, he says before Abraham was, I am. That's not an I am statement or the, I am the Messiah you've been waiting for. That's not an I am statement. An I am statement is when he says I am with a descriptive title of himself, a characteristic of himself. So I am the door. I am the resurrection. I am the bread. I am the, the, uh, good shepherd. That's what an I am statement is. It's not, I am the Messiah or I am who you say I am, whatever, or I am, you know, before Abraham was, I am. That's not the, I am statements. There's only seven, according to John number two, Andrew, what's the second thing? Oh, I have no idea. I was on John in the bag when you asked. Seven miracles in John. So he's going to going to start with the one we've already studied, which was what do you Uh, candy. You were just talking. No, we just, we just studied this the last, uh, two weeks ago.

We took a break. Jesus's first miracle was turning the water into wine and then he's going to do seven of those seven miracles. And then the final one, which is what we're going to see today is the beginning of the seven testimonies about who Jesus is. So people encounter Jesus and then they go out and testify about Jesus. That's what this woman is. Now, before we get into John four, if you're learning, I mean, if you're listening, you can turn to John chapter four and we'll start in verse four, but we have to give you a background of the Samaritans because the Samaritans. were an interesting group of people, and there was a huge rift. It was a rivalry. You could even say it was racist. They were racist. They were prejudiced, better yet, between one group to another, and they were prejudiced for a reason, okay? So when the Northern and the Southern Kingdom were attacked by, well basically the Northern Kingdom attacked by the Assyrians, they came in 722 BC, the Assyrians came in and they deported the Jews away, before the Babylonian captivity for the Southern, but the Northern, they take them away, okay? So they ransacked, the people didn't keep the Sabbath, got punished them, they rejected the Lord. So they took them away, and what was left were Jews that weren't deported or couldn't, or escaped deportation, but they stayed. So some Jews stayed in Israel. A lot of them settled in Samaria. So what happens is, then all of a sudden, Jews start coming back in the land, but other nations are coming back into the land, foreign nations. The Assyrians had conquered other areas, and they moved in conquered people into the area of Samaria. Yeah, foreigners, yeah. Yes, foreigners that came, and then at that point, you had remaining Jews, you had conquered foreigners that all ended up in the same area, and then they intermarry. And then once that starts happening, because all the different cultures are taking place, and all the religions, pagan worship is now, you know, infiltrating that whole area, and then they become, the Jews on the outside of Samaria looked at the inside of Samaria

and said, there is no way we're associating with these people. Because of one reason. One main reason. Do you know what it is? I do not. They're mixed breeds. They're half breeds to them. The Jews were not supposed to intermarry with other nations for one reason. It wasn't because they look different, or act different, or have different customs. No. It was because they would bring in false gods to worship. Yes. And they brought in these false gods to worship, and so when Nehemiah, and Ezra, and Zerubbabel are rebuilding the temple, basically what's gonna happen is, this is interesting, in 400 BC, they exclude these half-breed Samaritans from participating in the rebuilding of the temple in Jerusalem. They say, we don't need you. Go home. We don't need, we don't want you. Yeah. So guess what they do? In 400 BC, I'm sorry, yeah, before that, Nehemiah rejects them, but in 400 BC, they decide to build a rival temple on Mount Gerizim, which is another hill. You'll see another mountain in Samaritan, or Samaria. So that's where we find ourselves. This woman is an outcast. This woman is a half-breed. This woman is an adulterer. This woman's in sin, and she's a woman. So she's got a lot of strikes against her. So we'll start in verse 4. Okay, before we read that, y'all just say goodbye to our live audience. You have to catch the rest of the episode when it's posted. Thank you for joining us. Yes. Love you guys. Look at this guy. That's cool, Andrew. All right, verse 4. Here we go. John 4, 4. He had to travel through Samaria, so he came to a town of Samaria called Sychar, near the property that Jacob had given his son Joseph. Jacob's well was there, and Jesus worn out from his journey sat down at the well. It was about noon. Okay, let's stop there. So you have this animosity between these two, which makes the disciples question why they're even walking there. Why would we go through Samaria when we could go around, which is the normal route? So when you went from Galilee to Jerusalem or Jericho, you went down, you crossed over the river, the Jordan River, you walk down, then you cross back toward Jericho. You never went through Samaria, even though it was a quicker route. Guess how many days it added to the journey by doing that? Two days. They added two days to the journey to get away from them. But Jesus says something here that's pretty insightful

right away. Matthew says this, Matthew 10, 5. Jesus instructed his disciples to not go to the way of the Gentiles or to preach in Samaria. So Jesus is gonna tell them at times, don't even deal with these people. But on this day, it's different. Jesus says, I must go. You remember what we just read? He said he had to travel through Samaria. He had to travel through Samaria, which shows us that this is not a happenstance meeting. This is the divine appointment with God that has to take place between Jesus and this woman, which is fascinating to me. So he meets the woman at the well, and we have two clues about the well. We have the hour of the time, and we have the place of the meeting. Okay, the hour of the time, the text says is the sixth hour, but the translation of that is what? Noon. Now this is an interesting time to go to the well. Why? Why would 12 be odd? It's an oddity in the text. And remember, when we read the text, we're looking for things to happen. that stand out in the text to us. So why is this thing odd in the text? 12 o'clock, noon. Well, it's the hottest part of the day. Hottest part of the day. Women normally did not draw water in the middle of the day. It was normally in the morning or the afternoon when it was cooler. You have to understand the well is the water cooler, the old back in the day. Vivian, you remember this. The water cooler or the- Vivian, you remember when you drew water from wells? That's what he's saying. No, no. We don't call it water coolers anymore. But the break room, think of it as the proverbial break room for employees to catch up from the previous day or the weekend. So you'd hang with your buddies, like how was the game? Did you see the football game? What did you think about the weather? Did you catch any fish? And so that was the well. This woman coming at 12 shows us one thing about her. What? She didn't want to be around other people. Okay. Want, could be. Okay. But it could be stronger. Okay. Could be stronger. She was not allowed.

Oh, really? Allowed because of her sin that was known well through the town. This is a woman, as we're going to learn, who was married five times and is living with a guy now. So it is assumed she's an adulterous woman who's not her husband. She's an adulterous woman living in sin. So the community, even though they were mixed breed and they still had a standard to live and they said, no, this woman is not acceptable. What was not acceptable in addition to that was a rabbi talking to this woman in public. Let me back up. It was not acceptable according to the rabbis for a man to talk to a woman in public. There was even a reference I found as I was studying this, where they said a husband should never even talk to his own wife in public as to start gossip in the town about something. I don't even know what that would be. But they just said men in public did not normally entertain conversations with a woman, including his wife. I don't understand it all. But much less a woman who's not your wife, much less a woman who's a Samaritan, much less a woman who is an adulterer. Right. Now, a lot of that would be like cultural parameters that were put. Yeah, it's not. I'm not saying this is the case. That's not today, but that's the way it was back then. Prescriptive. That's just a descriptive text. But what I love about that is that Jesus doesn't go by the rules. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? The cultural rules. Yeah, because the most important thing to them, to him, is the heart of this woman.

Yeah. It's not the fact that she's a female. And you know what I'm saying? He's going after her heart because she's been filling her life with something other than him. Yeah. Right. And that's the most important thing. Yeah. That's why he had to go to Samaria. This is also awesome. Yeah, it's way bigger than a meeting. Yeah. What I think is fascinating, too, about this passage and these verses that we just read, to me, shows the sovereignty of God. Because he knew that he had to go there. He knew who he was meeting. He knew what time he was meeting her. And he knew exactly what he was going to talk to her about. Yeah. Right? Exactly. That shows, number one, yes, he's Jesus, but he's also God. You see? There's humanity here. There's divinity here. There's so many things. And I find that how comforting it is because we forget that he is sovereign over our own lives. He knows exactly where we're going today. He's already gone before us. He's going to come behind us.

Right? He is sovereign over our life. And if we tend to forget that, we need to be reminded. Just like he's sovereign over this woman's life. Yeah. Yeah. And I love that he keeps his appointment. And he meets you right where you are. Exactly. Like he didn't make her clean up and all this stuff. To come to him. Yeah. He met her right where she was. I love it. Well, and he initiates the conversation. Remember, that's another point you got to remember. And it's another reminder of God's sovereign over all of our goings and comings and doings. Then we have to realize that how many times in life do we miss a divine opportunity of an appointment with somebody who you think on the surface wouldn't be interested nor care about what I would have to say. And yet Jesus picks the outsider. Yeah. He picks the outcast and says, no, I'm going to share with you the good news today. How many times have we missed opportunities like this to share the good news with people like that, right? I got one more thing. Can I say it before we move on? Okay. So this is one of my, out of the whole chapter, this is one of my favorite parts of the chapter when it says in verse six, so he's sitting down at Jacob's well and it says, and Jesus

worn out from his journey sits down at the well. And that so popped off the page to me when I was reading this earlier this year, because Jesus, it's the hottest part of the day. He's been traveling for two extra days, right? He's tired. He's completely. worn out and exhausted, and he sits down, and he's about to change somebody's life, right? And he's exhausted. And I'm thinking to myself, when I'm worn out, I don't want to be bothered. I don't want you to talk to me if I'm tired, if I'm hungry, or if I'm overwhelmed. I'm normally completely agitated. I miss opportunities if they're in front of me all the time, because I just want to be left alone to, like, be in my misery or whatever. And Jesus sits down, completely worn out, and it's an opportunity for him. Do you see what I'm saying? Yeah. And it makes me wonder, how much do we miss, just because, you know, we may be worn out, stressed out, whatever the case may be, because I know how I react when I'm that way. Yeah. But Jesus doesn't. Yeah. And I just think that's important. I think Jesus completely, I mean, one, he's Jesus. Right. But two, he has a purpose and a mission. And when we live with that same purpose and mission, I think that's a filter that we will respond differently instead of reacting when we're tired, when we're weak, when we're frustrated. We'll see opportunities that we may not see otherwise. I think it's just really challenged me this year to be mindful, even if I'm tired, or worn out, or in a bad mood, agitated, whatever the case may be, to not maybe miss something that God has for me, even in those moments. And that was all based on him being worn out. But yet he's about to have this, the longest conversation with any woman we have recorded. Yeah, exactly. Okay, go ahead. Yeah, that's pretty good. That's good. Okay. Now let's get into what's happening here, because this is way bigger than a conversation with a woman. What we're gonna see here is a picture of the paradigm of well-encounters in the Bible. Because just like the water was a paradigm, remember chaos, water, God's Word, order, all that. There is a paradigm, I don't know if you knew this Robert or Vivian, for well-encounters. There's a paradigm all through the Bible

for well-encounters. Like Jonah? No, a well, not water, but the well. Yeah, Jonah. See, you got that. And not a whale. Speaking of the whale, did we tell him when we went to New York what we saw? This was so incredible, Andrew. So we went to the National History Museum, okay? And we walk in to this one exhibit, and across the entire ceiling is mounted this enormous whale, okay? And I forget, I don't know exactly what type of whale. I could not get over the massiveness of this creature. Really? Because I thought, this is like, for me, it was my faith becoming sight. Because I've never seen a creature that big, and it totally put in perspective Jonah and the whale. I was so excited, I really didn't want to leave the room, so I made him take a picture of me under the whale. Because I'm like, here's his picture. Yeah, I'm like, look at this. No, we can put the picture in. We'll give you the picture. Look at Chris. Chris just popped up, he was a little angry. But I'm like, it was so incredible, and it was like something that you know and you believe in for so long, and then you get a glimpse of maybe what that could have looked like. Yeah. And I'm like, people are walking by this creature, and they're not, I mean, maybe some of them were thinking about Jonah and the whale, but I'm like, people don't realize, like, the truth that is in this type of creature that's hanging above our heads right now. Yeah. It was incredible. It was the whale. For some reason, I don't know how things come to be sometimes, but there is a law in Tennessee that you cannot shoot a whale from a moving vehicle. Did you know that? No. No, you can Google it. I'm like, how? A whale or a whale? Oh, like Candy's talking about. A whale. Where would you find a whale in Tennessee? I don't know, like, how does that come to be? Like, we don't have those in Tennessee. What happens in Tennessee to make somebody put that in law books years ago? Moving on. Apparently, somebody saw one. Encounters. The Loch Ness Monster in Old Hickory or something. Yeah, exactly. It was a big catfish. Cumberland River, yeah. Weirdest thing I've ever heard. Alright, let's get into the paradigm of the whale. W-E-L-L-E. Whale. Yeah. There are six parts to this paradigm. Okay. I'm gonna give them to you, and then we're gonna look at a few Old Testament examples. The first one is this. Number one, you travel to a particular place. Number two, there's an encounter with a woman who's sitting on a well. Okay. Okay. The woman's there at the well, and a man normally encounters a woman. Number three, then you have the drawing of the water from the well, either by watching the woman do it or the participation of it. Number four, after the well water's drawn, then you have news of the encounter shared with the community or the family after, hey, I just met this man, or I just met these visitors. Number five, there is then hospitality shown to the visitor, either welcomed in the home or come to hang out or stay the night. And then number six, this is the big one, there is a joining, a marriage, a relationship between the two parties.

Okay, now I'm gonna let you pick first Andrew you're gonna have I know it's early Okay, what where in the Old Testament? Do we find this six-fold paradigm of? Well encounters right in Deuteronomy close guess you went too far though. That is a weightiest book. That's always my guy That's true. Genesis. Oh, wow. Genesis 24 candy. Word is the first one. Do you know? Is it it's when Abraham's servant goes to look for a wife for Isaac? Yes, Rebecca at the well with Isaac who will be the husband Genesis 24 Okay, 11, I think is where it starts. You can go back and look at the paradigm It's always the same thing. You have the people traveling from far away. They see a woman at the well She's drawing water that all of a sudden the woman encounters and shares I got to go tell my family about and then they say hey Why don't y'all come stay with us and then they go back and Isaac is married to Rebecca, but it happens again Genesis 29 We have the second time we see it. Do you know what it is? I do not is it Jacob? It's Jacob and who? Rachel Rachel Jacob and Rachel you supposed to know that so when when this is happening live with Jesus Are the people thinking about those accounts in Genesis or is that not coming to their mind probably not lie I think the history would have been there because we're talking about the same. Well, are we getting there? Yeah, probably not live. Okay, but as they come back and Jesus unpacks it Yeah, okay, but definitely reading it when they read it now, they definitely know the connections So Genesis 29 Rachel at the well Jacob's gonna be the husband. Here's another one. This isn't kind of a off one Exodus chapter 2 verse 15 with Moses and Zipporah Very similar account there. They're at the well the news travels the welcoming So now we get to this account and I want you to notice what the text says the text is going to clue us About what kind of well it is in verse 6. It doesn't want us to miss John gives this addition It's good because he doesn't want us to miss the connection here. What is the connection? This is Jacob's well, he says Jacob's well So if you have a Bible I'm gonna show you all six and you can write them down in your notes verse 4 is the first part the journey Okay, verse 4 says what he had to travel through Samaria Okay, number 2 the second the woman is verse 7 right over 7 a woman of Samaria came to draw water okay, number 3 is

Draws water so that's number 3. Okay number 4 verse 28 Says then the woman left her water jar went into the town and told the people yeah, come see a man Yeah, okay. Number 5 is verse 31 in the meantime The disciples kept urging him rabbi eat something and then they said, you know have food to eat where we brought you something So they show hospitality to Jesus number and then and then you could go down to verse 40, which is another one of hospitality Yeah because he goes and stays in the town for two days for two days verse 41 number 6 the Joining or the marrying of G of the person to the purse to the other person or Jesus to the people watch this many more Believed because of what he said, okay. So there we have it This is way bigger than just Jesus and a casual conversation at a well. This is a Marriage, I'm gonna love this a marriage Between the Jews and Samaritans Wow, that's what this is. It's way bigger than now. It's about worship. Don't get me wrong. It's about Restoration it's about salvation. Yes, but it's a picture of a marriage a Covenant between the outcasts the outsiders the overlooked the Samaritans. Okay, did they pick up on this in the moment? Like are they? Experiencing a change in their culture right now because of all this I'm sure because if you look at the account ends, it says that many more people. Yeah, okay So obviously it did have an effect. Okay, let's get to the awkward question here in verse 7 Jesus is gonna ask her a question. We're going back to verse 7 before verse 7 A woman of Samaria came to draw water. Give me a drink. Jesus said to her because his disciples had gone into town to buy Food. Yeah, here's the here's the thing between verse 7 and Verse 9 there is a long pause So Jesus says hey, would you give me a drink and the woman's thinking herself? Are you number one? Are you talking to me right now? Mm number two? Are you asking me for a drink number three? Where are you gonna drink it? Because I only have one jar. It means we got a share. Mm-hmm And and now we got to have an interaction together. That's bigger than just high and by so she has a long pause And she's thinking what in the world are you going to ask me this question verse 10? Jesus basically is gonna give her an explanation of what he's talking about. Okay, she she asks him how How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a Samaritan woman? Yes.

She asked him. She knows better. For Jews do not associate with Samaritans. Yes, she knows this. You want me to keep going? For time, we won't read it all, but you can get the idea. And so she asked for a drink. Jesus said, if you knew the drink I had, it was living water. It's not the regular cup. But if you knew the gift of God. Yeah, where's that at? In verse 10. Verse 10, yeah. Which is so awesome, because we're in Christmas, right? All about gifts right now. That's right. It's the season of gift giving. And the greatest gift in the world is sitting before her, in front of this encounter, and she has no idea yet. Yeah, she doesn't know either. And Jesus says, if you knew the gift of God who was saying to you, give me a drink, you would ask him and he would give you living water, right? Living water, yeah. So good. And she says, sir, you have nothing to draw water. So she already knows he can't drink out of her cup.

She says, well, you don't have anything to draw water. What are you gonna do? And Jesus says, no, I'm gonna give you a different kind of water here. And then the woman said to him, sir, well, then give me this water so I can drink of it. And it's interesting that she says that, because she knows all of the disconnections. She knows all of the separation that happens between the two parties. Now, Jesus is not talking about water here. But water is a metaphor for a deeper picture. Jesus is talking about satisfaction for her soul, which she has been searching for all of her life, relationally with men. And he's gonna make the connection here between living water, which is always synonymous with transformation or rejuvenation, or better yet, eternal life. In the Bible, living water is a connection to eternal life. Why? Because you're drawing on something that is living. Here's the question. What is the difference between living water and still water or well water? What's the difference? Do you know? Well, I don't know. Are still water and well water the same? If I go drink out of my pond, it's not moving.

It's gonna be stagnant and dirty. Not safe. Yeah, well, wells are similar. A lot of wells, you gotta think, we think there's two ways to build a well. You could dig a well where it has a source of water, or you can dig a well as a catch for water from the rainwater. That was predominantly, that was what this probably is. It is a well that catches water from the rain and fills up. And so after time, the water can become stagnant, but you didn't have any other choice because for seven months, it didn't rain much. So you were stuck with the well water, okay? So the well water is normally stationary water filling a cistern, cistern well. You dug cisterns, Jeremiah. And so living water is different. What's the difference between the living water and the well water, the standing water? Do you know? Well, it comes from a source that's living. It's not dead. So it's coming from a spring or something that is living water. Yeah, it's the difference between drinking from a puddle of water on the side of the street and drinking from an artesian spring. That's the reference here, by the way. When Jesus says living water,

think of artesian life-giving spring. In fact, there were seven, I think there were six or seven. I don't have the notes I was studying this morning, but there's six or seven different classifications of water and how you can use certain different types of water. Like certain kind of water was not good for ritual cleansing, but it was good for cleaning feet and hands. Then there was some that was good for mikvah cleansing, of the ceremonial cleansing. There was some that was good for drinking, but then there was the highest form of water, which was the well-received, most anticipated, when everybody wanted the living artesian spring water. And that's what Jesus says. I'm going to give you this living water, an artesian spring that will never run dry. Because that's the problem with these, even ponds or even wells, they would rise and fall depending on the season. Jesus says, my spring never runs dry. Now there's two things worth noting here in this passage. Number one is this, the woman had to know who was offering the water. So she had to know, number one, the source of the water, right? You have to know, and why is this important? Because you have to know the person you're putting your faith in for your source of satisfaction, i.e. Jesus.

It's more than just information. It's a relationship. But the woman had to ask for the water. Did you catch that? Verse 10. Jesus said, if you knew the gift, you would what? You would- You would ask him and he would give you living water. And that's a wonderful picture of salvation. Not only if you're listening, do you need to know who offers salvation, who gives you satisfaction, Jesus. But you- Who prompted this whole conversation just like he prompts it with us, correct? Yes. Jesus initiated, yeah, that's a great, you're getting real deep here theologically, but yes, here's the paradigm. The woman wasn't seeking. Jesus before he sought her. It's a great picture, I never thought about this. She's seeking something, but it wasn't Jesus. Right, she's seeking, yeah, because everybody's created with a desire to seek. You're seeking something, that's what worship is. You're seeking something to satisfy. Yes. But the problem is, until someone comes to you and offers what you, like the real thing you're seeking

to satisfy you, i.e. in this case, Jesus comes to her, and you can say even in your own life, and I say it all the time, no one was looking for Jesus when he came looking for them. I wasn't looking for Jesus, you weren't looking for Jesus, so Jesus made the first step toward us. Now, just because Jesus made the first step doesn't mean that she's accepted Christ and she's saved. She needs to respond to the act of Jesus acting on her life. But in first, she has to realize who she is. Yeah, well that's, we're getting into that right now. Because that's truly when salvation or faith is born. We're gonna see in the rest of the passage, if you go there, that he confronts her about who she is, the truth of who she is. Yeah. And then when she receives and acknowledges that, then he tells her who he is. Yeah. And when those two things happen, when you realize who you are, and you realize who he is, Yes. Faith is born. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, because just because she knows he has water to give doesn't lead to salvation transformation. that he's using the physical water to teach her a spiritual truth yet. She doesn't get it yet. Yeah.

But the thing is, and this goes for everybody, we walk around spiritually dehydrated. Yep. You know, most of us are physically dehydrated too, if you wanna go there. But we walk around spiritually. How can you tell if you're physically dehydrated? Well, you can get headaches, you can have all kinds of problems. I'm sorry. I was thinking, what was you thinking? I was thinking like the color of your pee. You know what I'm saying? Oh, 100%. Yeah, yeah. No, that's true. Bright yellow, you gotta drink more water. There's a problem. Yeah, your lemonade is bad, yeah. Your skin can be funny, you know, like if you're dehydrated. So my dad used to be dehydrated all the time. But anyway, spiritually dehydrated is what she is. So he's using this, you know, metaphor of the physical water, but we do this, the same thing. Even as Christians, we walk around spiritually dehydrated because we're not going to the source of the living water, period. We just do that.

So we're all, I mean, I would say, most of us are walking around spiritually dehydrated if we're not going to the source as often as we can, which is daily, you know what I'm saying? Yeah, and she doesn't understand yet her need for Jesus. So here's the point. Jesus acts upon her, or Jesus approaches her, and he says, if you would just ask, you could have it. But she doesn't understand the need to ask until he pinpoints her sin. This is why the law or the commandments and the acknowledgement of sin is necessary for salvation. Necessary, not sin in general, but your own sin. She's going to have to acknowledge that she's a sinner who is inadequate of satisfying herself. So we get to verse 16, okay? So let's read verse 16, where it gets really heated. It says, go call your husband, he told her, and come back here. I don't have a husband, she answered. You have correctly said, I don't have a husband, Jesus said. For you have had five husbands, and the man you have now is not your husband. What you have said is true. Okay, so Jesus here is going to turn up the heat, and if he had a proverbial mic in his hand, he would have dropped it at this point. That's all he says is one line. Okay, ma'am, go ahead and call your husband, and we'll talk.

Mm-hmm. Now, that's a crushing line for her, because this is a woman who has sought love reciprocated, and never received it. And she's found it in five, or tried it in five men, she's on her sixth one, and she still hasn't found it. And so the water discussion was actually a picture of sexual brokenness, believe it or not. Jesus took something, this is the genius of Jesus, by the way, he always does this. He takes something very familiar to our everyday life, and he uses it as an analogy for something spiritual. He takes her going to the well to quench her thirst, and he pivots and says, that's actually, ma'am, what you're doing sexually with men to satisfy the thirst of your soul, which, as you know, just like you have to come every day to get water, you're gonna have to go through man after man in order to be sexually satisfied, and it will never satisfy. That's what he's saying. Now, here's what's interesting. Even though the woman is at the well, her sin was apparent to the community because of what she did, but here's the reality. It may not be, and I wanna support the woman here somewhat, because it may not be entirely her fault. You have to remember, back then, a man, and could divorce a woman for any justifiable reason he came up with. And the woman was the one left alone.

She was the one who was looked at as the problem. And so maybe it was because of adultery. I said earlier, obviously she's living with this man. We assume that she's engaged in sexual, right? We don't know if it's adultery, but it could have been adultery. But the reality is this woman is a broken, rejected woman who is beat down and overlooked and passed by by a lot of the men in town. And so she's an outcast here. And what's interesting about Jesus is he's not condemning the woman without purpose. That's the thing you got to understand. He's not putting her down to make her feel bad. He's exposing her sin to reveal a need for healing in her life. He's pointing out the darkness, but he's also shining a light on the way to get it right. One commentator when I was studying said this, no one values the physician until he or she feels the disease. No one seeks a doctor until you are acknowledged with it. That's what you said earlier, by the way, no one seeks repentance or forgiveness without acknowledgement of one's own sin. And I would say here are the two hallmarks to transformation. They have to be present acknowledgement of sin and confession to the Lord. So you acknowledge my, my sin, not sin in general, but my sin put Jesus on the cross and then you acknowledge it. And then you confess that which confession biblically means one thing. You know what it means? Not just to speak. Is it to think the same way about your sin that God does? Yes. Yeah. Agree to say God says this is sin. And I cause what we do in the Christian life is we minimize or justify or rationalize, but I was just, everybody's doing it. So my,

yeah, I'm not as bad as, I don't curse as bad. Yeah, exactly. That candy. She's bad. But what she does, I love what she does is, I mean, she could have lied to him, right? But she's completely honest with him in this moment. And I find that he has just revealed the truth to her. And the truth sometimes is hard to hear. Right. Yeah. But I remember being very similar to this woman being confronted with the truth of who I was and what I was doing. And it was one of the hardest moments of my life. You know, like I was complete, completely broken in that moment of realizing what I had done, how I had affected Christ on the cross with my sin. Right. But you have to face the truth in order for there to be change. Right. And we're going to see, even though she's honest with him, I don't know if she's ready yet at this point because she changes the subject because she doesn't want to talk about her sin. Yeah. So she starts, well, she's uncomfortable. Yeah. Cause he pinpointed exactly. Yeah. This is one of the eight times, by the way, in John, there are eight encounters in John where Jesus demonstrates his omniscience. The fact that he knows something in innately about a person that they haven't revealed. And that's really what blows the woman away. Now we're going to speed up cause I want to finish this, but there are two more nuggets here that are going to blow your way. That's pretty insightful. I want you to notice the number of men in the woman's life. Okay. This is really cool. And I just found a new insight. That's going to blow you away. I already think of it. Okay. Watch this. So the woman has five husbands and she's now presently with what? With the six number six now sick. Now we know from the study of revelation and we know Gematria in this podcast. Yeah. It's not by happenstance. We learned this with the number six.

I know we've already seen the number six. If you remember two chapters earlier and number in chapter two with the six purification jars of Judaism, which couldn't satisfy because they were insufficient to forgive sins and take away, uh, you know, guilt from one's, from one's mind. Okay, here we go again with the number six. What is the number six candy? What does six mean? Do you remember? Incomplete, incomplete, not satisfying, insufficient. Yeah. Never enough. That's what the number six means. Okay. Which is why we have seven days of the week. We don't have six. There's the seventh day of rest, which is completion. Six is incomplete. Now watch this. The woman has how many men in her life up to this point? Six, six. And where is the seventh man in this encounter? He's sitting right in front of her. He's right in front of her, which he's saying without saying, Hey, what you're looking for is not found in these men. It's found in a savior name, but it's deeper than that. Watch this. You're going to love this. The five husbands, they make a reference to five husbands instead of six men. You think they would say six men, but the five husbands is key because according to Josephus back in his book antiquities chapter nine, for those who are interested, uh, the Samaritans actually were formed. according to Josephus, from guess how many pagan groups that were brought into Samaria to intermarry with the present Jews. Guess how many groups he said came in there? Five. Five. According to Josephus, five pagan groups, or five pagan nations, came into Samaria

and brought with them in the land of Israel all of their pagan gods for anyone to choose from at their disposal. In fact, in the 8th century BC, you can fact check this from the Bible, but the king of Assyria actually brought foreign people to intermarry with the Jews in Samaria based on 2 Kings chapter 17, 24, 25, 29, and 32. Why is that important? Could, you gotta love this, could the woman be a symbol to the nation of Samaria? Why? Since marriage is a picture of a covenant relationship between a man and a woman, which is actually a picture of a relationship between a person and God, or gods. So that's what the marriage picture is. And her five husbands, could it be, is a picture reflective of the Samaritan people who were supposed to covenant with the one true God, but instead interacted with false gods based on the five different nations instead of the one true God, Yahweh. Wow. Who knows? Wow. But I think it's interesting they make that note there. Now, John includes another illustration about a woman in chapter eight, remember? The woman caught in adultery. And John says to the woman caught in adultery,

at the end of that encounter, we don't have to read it, but you remember the end of that encounter, what does he say? Go and what? Sin no more. Go and sin no more. That's interesting. That's an interesting thing to say. Jesus says to her, I don't condemn you, present tense, with a future implication. So there's no condemnation for me for the past of what you did in the present moment or in the future. Some commentators say that since the woman was caught in the very act of adultery, John eight, that they brought her out before Jesus half naked or partly dressed, meaning they caught this woman scandalous. We're gonna show Jesus to give him proof of what this woman's doing. And they bring her to Jesus and Jesus doesn't say, you would think Jesus would say this. If you don't sin again, I won't condemn you. That's what you would expect the person to say. Like, hey, if you don't cheat on me again, we're gonna have a good relationship. He doesn't say that. Here's what he says. Neither do I condemn you, go and sin no more. J.D. Greer, who's a friend of mine was preaching on this. And here's what he said.

I love this insight. He said, Jesus was telling the woman to change, not in order to be accepted, but to change because he had already accepted her. Religion usually tells you to change first. Change comes first, acceptance second. But the gospel reverses religion. It tells us that change comes first, change comes from acceptance, not for acceptance. I love that. And so God's acceptance in her life leads to liberation from sin, liberating ourself from trying to earn our salvation. And what a great insight for us. And Kendi said this earlier. Salvation at the beginning of this passage is the gift that Jesus says, if you knew the gift that I was giving to you. Notice the times you see the emphasis on the word give or gift in chapter four. John chapter four, verse 10, gift, give, given. And that one verse you have three times, gift, give, given. Verse 12, he or gave to her. Verse 14, give, give. Verse 15, give. The water is a gift from God, not a reward for our service. And friends, that's what's so amazing about this woman receiving this gift.

Now what's fascinating, and you're gonna appreciate this is, in this encounter, and remember with our podcast, we're not just randomly picking passages. If it comes next, it is chronologically in order of when it happens. Meaning, Jesus hasn't chosen disciples yet. We haven't gotten there. Jesus hasn't even chosen the Fab Five. Well, he did, yeah, they're with him, but not official disciples, sorry, correction. Because they went into town to get the food. Yeah, so it's not the 12, it's just a few guys. So he's not formally starting his ministry yet, and yet here we have this woman encountering Jesus early on. Now watch this. This is the first time in the ministry of Jesus that he, this is so cool, that he is going to reveal his true identity to someone. And of all people, he says, verse 26, Jesus said, yes, I'm the one. Just like at the resurrection. Yes, bro. Now you start to see a pattern. Lee, that is crazy. That means nothing to us today. women are equal. Well, I'm just saying, it does, but because we know the podcast, but to the normal person reading the Bible, they just think, oh, it's a woman. No, you don't understand. Like I said earlier, women were not even supposed to talk to their husbands in public some places,

right? Because of gossip or whatever. Who knows why, but that was the culture. But women had no rights. In fact, I found one reference that women back then at times were considered servants of the home. That's it. That was their job. Okay. And that wasn't right, but that was the culture. Now watch this. Jesus elevating a woman, even trusting her with his identity when he's told no one up to this point, who he is, is a profound statement and a liberating statement to every woman listening today. Jesus broke the mold for every rabbi. And he's on the Gentile side. So he's a little bit more open about who he is and his ministry on that side. Not on that side. He's in the middle, but he's talking to one thing that is really just hitting me hard now is the aroma of Christ and the grace and mercy that Jesus encounters people with. And so often as believers, we, we think, unfortunately, we don't have to have that same aroma. Like we encounter people in sin in a lifestyle that think different, believe different. We do. And we hit them with everything but grace and mercy when Jesus meets them with grace and mercy first. And just how important it is to encounter people the same way that Jesus did. Yeah. And not hold their past against them. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. Jesus didn't say, man, you know, you're a screw up. Look at you, your life's a mess. You can't get it right now. He didn't say any of that. He just says, Hey, the reason you're acting that way, there's something deeper you're searching for. And you don't realize what it is, but it's actually made. Now let's finish this up, but notice how it ends. We're not going to go all into it, but watch this. She immediately runs into town and tells people what's what is happening. Look at verse 27. And let's read just a snippet here. And I want to show you one cool insight before we're done. It says verse 27, just then his disciples arrived and they were amazed that he was talking with the woman yet. No one said, what do you want? Or why are you talking to her? Then the woman left her water jar, went into town and told the people come see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Messiah? They left the town and made their way to him. Did you notice something odd in that text right there? A couple of things. She left her what? Water jar. She left the water jar. Which is the whole reason she came out. Which is the whole reason she came there. But here's what's interesting. It's like Barna Mae is throwing the cloak away. It's like Barna Mae is throwing the cloak away. Well, I mean, how many jars do they have? One. Yeah. She has one. It's prized possession. Probably, probably one, especially her. It's a heavy pot. So maybe, okay, there's a couple of reasons. Maybe it slowed her down. Maybe she was too excited. She was too excited. It's normally how salvation works. You

get overwhelmed and you're like, man, I forget. And you go tell everybody. Yeah. And then she goes to tell everybody. Now here's the problem with her telling everybody. Why don't, why don't, why doesn't one of the disciples stop her and say, Hey, you hadn't been to seminary. What are you doing? Or man, you're a woman. Nobody's going to believe you. Neither had they. True, true, true. Yeah. Touche. But no, but the, but the, but the point is, why don't you never read the Bible? You don't know enough. You're going to mess it up. No, no, no. This woman goes and is the catalyst for a Samaritan revival because it says many people believed. And she literally has no theological education. She hasn't probably studied the Torah. Like at least the disciples have. She's an outcast. She's a woman. She's a half breed. And she just met Jesus. What possibly could this woman have in her repertoire or arsenal of, of insight to share? She has her story. Exactly. Exactly. Her testimony. That's what she has. And do you notice when she goes into town? She, I was reading this when I was studying it, when she says, could this be the Messiah? Like how carefully she worded that because a woman wasn't supposed to teach men. So if she was like, you know, saying this to a crowd, instead of saying, Hey, I just met the Messiah. And people would have been like, what are you talking about? She says, could this be the Messiah? Cause he's just revealed to her. When she says, I know that the Messiah is coming. He said, I, the one speaking to you, am he. Yeah. And so it's good. Well, here's what's interesting too, is you think about what every one of these people do what, what the demoniac in Mark chapter five, when, when, when he goes back to town and wins people over into the capitalist, it's always the same. They never say, Hey, come meet me or come listen to me. Here's what they say, Philip and Nathaniel, Simon and Andrew, you have to go meet this man. Yeah. I need to introduce you to Jesus. And so it's never, Hey, I'm the one look at my life, your life. If you're listening. is a means to the road to Jesus. Like you're pointing people to Jesus. And I know he's not physically here, but he's just as physically here spiritually as he was back then. So how many people, and think of the excitement. She says two things that are really exaggerated.

She says, I met a man who told me everything about my life I've ever done. Well, let's be honest. Yeah, we all know that. Did he tell you everything about your life? No, but he told her enough to impact her. And the excitement and the exaggeration is there because she's passionate. And then finally she says, hey, I want you to meet Jesus. And everybody comes in, man, whatever happened to you, I wanna meet who did this. And here's the question I wanna ask you. What happened to that excitement in your life that you once had? Right? Because when we first got saved, we first were transformed by the gospel and got into the word and it started to make sense and our lives were changed. We told a lot of people. And I jokingly say, I would share Christ with a telephone pole if it listened back then. I mean, I was telling everybody about Jesus. What happened in your life if you're listening to that excitement in your life? And so I wanna close with one walking point that I think will be helpful for everyone. Because this is how we can tie this up. And here's the point.

Do not let your past condition or past situation or your present situation prevent you from surrendering your life to Christ or telling other people about Christ, okay? Wherever you are, wherever you've been, whatever status you're in, whatever intellectual class you're in, whatever schooling you've had or not had, it doesn't matter. Because here's what John just did for us. John just put, you ready for this? John just put side by side, polar opposite people for us to see how Jesus can transform a life regardless of who you are. That's what he did. In John three, he bookends. And listen, by the way, you couldn't find two people more apart than these two people. John chapter three, you meet who? Nicodemus. Who's what? What, a man? He's a man. He's a religious man. He's a leader, yeah. He's a moral pillar. He's a rabbi. He's part of the Sanhedrin. He's wealthy.

He's upper class. And the man is actually the cream of the crop of Jewish society. He's the rabbi. He's the teacher of all teachers. And then you go to chapter four and you meet the bottom of the barrel of economic society that day. You have a woman who is adulterous. You have a woman. You have an unmarried woman. You have a woman who's an outcast. You have a half-breed woman. Nicodemus also was a man, a Jewish man. The woman is a Samaritan woman. Nicodemus was educated, accepted by society. The woman was uneducated and unaccepted by society. Nicodemus was upper class. The woman was lower class. Nicodemus was moral. She was immoral. Nicodemus sought Jesus. The woman was sought out by Jesus. What's the point of all of this? This is what John's saying without saying. The invitation to follow this Messiah Jesus is available to everybody. Whether you're a fisherman, whether you're a tax collector, whether you're a political zealot, a business owner,

whether you're a stay-at-home mom, a lawyer, doctor, salesman, or college student, the ground is level at the cross. And as the old preacher used to say in South Louisiana, it's one of my favorite lines, I'm just trying to tell everybody about somebody that can heal anybody. And that's it. Really, at the end of the day, that's all we have. We're trying to tell everybody about somebody who can heal anybody because he healed me. That's amazing. And I wanna just read a scripture as we close with this passage because I think it's so amazing. And I would just say, too, to encourage everybody to think about the fact that Jesus is living water and what is feeding the fountain of your own life, right? Where are you gathering your source of sustenance, hydration from, spiritually? Proverbs, what? Is that what you're reading? No. He thinks he knows me. Amos? Okay, listen to this verse. This is so good. It may become one of your favorites. It's Psalm 36, seven through nine, okay? This is perfect to close.

How priceless your faithful love is, God. Please take refuge in the shadow. People take refuge in the shadow of your wings. They are filled from the abundance of your house. You let them drink from your refreshing stream for the wellspring of life is with you. By means of your light, we see light. Is that not amazing? Like the fact, I mean, there's so much there. That's three verses. But the fact that God is our refreshing stream. If we need to be refreshed, we go to the source, right? Because our life is the wellspring, right? And then by his light, we see light. I love that. I love that. I love that. Well, as we close, I want to encourage you to share your story. Who in your life has God strategically placed in your life, at your workplace, in your household, in your neighborhood, on your Facebook, you know, friends, whatever, that you can share your story with? And I want to close a little bit differently. Pastor, would you just pray for them real quick, that they have the courage and boldness to share their story? And then we'll just close after that. So before he prays, be sure to follow us on Instagram, join the new Facebook page. We'd love to see you there, yeah. Glory, thank you for your word. It's always encouraging and challenging. And it's a wonderful reminder that anybody at any time, filled with the spirit of God, can preach and teach the word of God and share the testimony of God on their life for the glory of God and trust you with the results. And so I just pray right now that you'd give us boldness, clarity, and confidence to know that we're on the winning team and that you have already prepared divine appointments in our life. We just have to be okay to clock in and speak when you give us opportunities. We love you, Lord. We ask it in your name. And everyone said, Amen. Thanks, Pastor. We'll see you guys on the next one.