January 31 - John 4

SERMON NOTES

JOHN 4

DRINK!

Neither does one pour new wine into old wineskins. If they do, the skins will burst, the wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined. No, they pour new wine into new wineskins, and both are preserved."

Matthew 9:17

CHALLENGE CARD (Last Week)

QUESTION: Are there times when bitten by the “venomous snake” that you look to other places than the cross (God)? Why?

WHERE DO PEOPLE LOOK:

1. the bottle (country and western song)
2. drugs (Rock song)
3. ??? (Jazz)
4. loneliness (Blues)
5. TBD (Classical)
6. Solitude (isolation from society & turn back our backs on society)

NEXT SUNDAY: What group of people do you find offensive? Difficult to love as your neighbor?

PASSING OF THE PEACE

Scripture: Jeremiah 2:13 (God tells the people through Jeremiah)

"My people have committed two sins: They have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water.

Question: Have you ever dug your own cistern and drew water?

INTRO TO JOHN

Signs (not) miracles

THREE WEEKS AGO

John 1: John the Baptist baptizing (old wineskins) Jews (new wine)

TWO WEEKS AGO

John 2: Wedding at Cana (purification vessels filled with water transformed wine)

Temple (institution) cleared out for new wine

LAST WEEK (John 3)

Question: Who did Jesus talk to?

Answer: A respected Pharisee (representing: tradition/law - old wineskins)

Question: What person represents the antithesis?

Answer: A Samaritan woman

Why? Samaritans were despised by the Jews. Women were...(Bible in 90 Days)

And this woman was questionable moral character (5 husbands +)

THIS WEEK

The story begins with Jesus, thirsty and a woman who is at the well drawing water

INTRO TO SCRIPTURE

Here is a person in real need. (we all have needs, each is different)

Her need is to have a better relationship with God and the man she lives with (“husband”)

themes: thirst, love, racial acceptance

The woman comes to the well for one PURPOSE

To draw water to live.

Question: do you have a well that you draw water to live?

JUDAISM has a well: LAW/TEMPLE/TRADITION

What is your well?

How do you draw from it?

What BUCKET do you use?

The Pharisees thought they had a problem with John (old to new) baptizing, here’s Jesus.....

SCRIPTURE: John 4

1The Pharisees heard that Jesus was gaining and baptizing more disciples than John, 2although in fact it was not Jesus who baptized, but his disciples. 3When the Lord learned of this, he left Judea and went back once more to Galilee.

4Now he had to go through SAMARIA.

NOTE; even though this route is quicker; it is not preferred by religious jews

Samaria

Question: Why were they despised?

Answer: 722 B.C. Assyrians conquered the 10 tribes to the north and dispersed the throughout their kingdom (II Kings 17:23 & 24). The remnant that remained inter with Persians and other conquered kingdoms (i.e. they’re not “pure blood”). The Samaritans only accepted the Torah (and excluded prophets, etc.) and they worshippped at a new temple on Mount Gerizim (not temple in Jerusalem). In 128 B.C. the Jews attacked Samaria and burned down their temple.

5 So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph. 6Jacob's well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about the SIXTH HOUR.

Sixth Hour

What time is it? NOON (light)

What time was it when Nic came to Jesus? NIGHT (dark)

She’s a Samaritan Woman (immoral)

He was a Pharisee Man (moral)

7When a Samaritan WOMAN came to DRAW WATER

Woman

it was the responsibility of the woman to draw/collect the water

Draw Water

women met at the well and fellowshipped.

typically they would draw water at morning/dusk (sunrise/sunset)

But this woman comes at the heat of the day,

perhaps indicating she does not want to fellowship with other women

implication: an attempt to avoid social ridicule (ie. she is socially issolated)

7b Jesus said to her, "Will you give me a drink?" 8(His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.)

9The 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.

RULE: Single men did not talk/touch women. (esp: rabbis)

10Jesus 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."

Living Water

Living water is water not from a well/cistern; but from a river/stream.

Living water is the only water that can be used for purification

(ritual washing to make pure unclean worshippers)

There were no river/streams in Shechem

That is why Jacob had to dig a well for water.

She is aware of every water source in her community.

How could an outsider, a jew, know of a water source of 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?

earthly question to a spiritual statement

12Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his flocks and herds?"

13Jesus answered, "Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, 14but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will

become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life."

PASSING OF THE PEACE

Scripture: Jeremiah 2:13 (God tells the people through Jeremiah)

"My people have committed two sins: They have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water.

Question: Have you ever dug your own cistern and drew water?

POINT: God is the source of our spiritual renewal (NEW WINE)

Jesus is talking about a new life that is available through the spirit of God.

13 "My people have committed two sins:
They have forsaken me,
the spring of living water,
and have dug their own cisterns,
broken cisterns that cannot hold water.

NOTE: In other words, Jacob’s well is no match to Jesus’ well

Question: Which well do you draw from?

CHALLENGE QUESTION

Jesus takes a step further. It is not simply an experience that changes or transforms us, but a dynamic experience that makes a life as living as the water itself. we are transformed into a well of living water.

15The 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."

NOTICE: that the woman is intrigued and incredulous.

she sounds more like Nicodemus (John 3:4)

BUT: Jesus raises the dialogue

16He 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. 18The 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."

HENCE: The reason for the noon drawing of water and the social isolation.

She has broken the rules of relationship, she is an immoral woman

Question: Have you ever been shunned by society (venomous snake)

NEW: Jesus is talking not only to a samaritan, who is a woman, but who happens to be a woman of questionable character (reputation)

What’s next? eating with tax collectors and prostitutes?

NOTICE: That Jesus dialogues with her at where she is (husbandless)

(begin with the listener)

19"Sir," the woman said, "I can see that you are a prophet. 20 Our fathers worshiped on THIS MOUNTAIN,

This mountain

The first place Abraham (torah) built an altar was at Shechem beneath Mount Gerizim

but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in JERUSALEM."

Jerusalem

this is where David built the temple

NOTE: The change in subject/tone (from romance to religion)

Question: Why?

Answer: Jesus sees her heart

21Jesus 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.

salvation is from the Jews

23Yet 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.

NOTE: Theological debate (Mt Gerzim vs Mt. Zion “Jerusalem”)

The Mount represents:

1. identity
2. refuge
3. sometimes they function negatively: as substitutes (badge)
4. old wineskins: (neither cure thirst)
5. an end int themselves (and not the means)
6. wars erupt

POINT: It’s not about the mountain (mean), it’s about God (end)

Question: which mountain are you willing to die on?

NEW WINESKINS: “will soon be over”

24God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth."

25The woman said, "I know that Messiah" (called Christ) "is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us."

26Then Jesus declared, "I who speak to you am he."

am he

Exodus 3:14 (I am)

QUESTIONS

1. Why did Jesus spend time with a Samaritan woman (NEW WINE)
2. Have you ever felt like this woman?
3. Have you ever been disenfranchise by society/group?
1. WHAT IS THE JAR?
1. It is a means of pulling out water from the well
2. It is a means of providing the needs for Jesus as well as for her
3. It is something she leaves behind when she discovers something NEW
4. Have you ever felt like the jar?

in some ways we go to a WISHING WELL

And we cast down our bucket down deep into the well, in hopes of drawing up something that fills our bucket with hope

IN THE NEWS: STATE OF THE UNION ADDRESS

For some, their buckets were filled; Others, their buckets remain emptied

POINT: But we all go somewhere to fill our buckets

JESUS SAYS The bucket is cast down and needs to contiously be cast down into the well, but then he offers the woman hope, not the kind of hope of repeatedly casting down the bucket into the wishing well, but the kind of hope that truly sustains. It’s LIVING WATER, DRINK!

MAYBE THROW THE NOTES OF HOPE INTO THE BUCKET:

IMAGINE YOURSELF HOLDING THIS JAR. (FIREPLACE?)

A jar that brings water. This is your water spigot at home.

INTRO TO SCRIPTURE: John 4: 27 - 30

notice the disciples reaction and what that says about racial acceptance

or the issue of clean/unclean holy/unholy

The Disciples Rejoin Jesus

27Just 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?"

REMEMBER THE RULE: No single male is to talk to a female

28Then, 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 Christ?"

NOTE: The Samaritan woman responds positively to Jesus (living wagter)

Nicodemus, were not sure?

IRONY: The religious seem to remain silent and the anti-religious was vocal

NEW: Jew talking to a SAMARITAN and WOMAN!

NOTE: For complete sermon notes go to: wwwNorthridgeumc.org

BENEDICTION

Lord, accept the hopes and burdens of these disciples. Give us the Living Water. Let us DRINK. Amen.

INVITATION (11 am only) (Katherine’s bottles)

All and any are invited to come forward to drink from the Living Water as a symbol of renewal of putting Jesus back in our hearts

CHALLENGE CARD THIS WEEK

QUESTION: Are you open to hear the words “drink from the well of the living water”?

NEXT SUNDAY: What ailment have you had for “38 years”?