Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Last week we had an assembly out at Longford and your music team come out and did a brilliant job. So I just wanted to say thank you for releasing them and thank you for them to come and doing their job. It was awesome. The assembly was good and we all had a great time.
[00:00:17] Since then, life has been interesting.
[00:00:22] Some of you may know that I have three daughters.
[00:00:26] Two of them have had very contrasting fortnights.
[00:00:30] One has taken delivery of a brand new car.
[00:00:34] And this is the first brand new car she has ever had. And she is all excited that she gets to open the door and all of these little lights come on and it does its thing and wow. And her kids are, wow, look at this. I got a car. And telling all of their friends and they can't understand why when they go to school, all of their friends are not excited that they have a new car.
[00:00:57] It just makes no sense to them at all. Everyone should be excited we have a new car. Yeah, okay.
[00:01:06] One of my other daughters is having a very contrasting time.
[00:01:12] On Monday, she went to a funeral of somebody who a week earlier was working with her at work, who went home and ended his life.
[00:01:26] And she had the task of standing up and doing part of the eulogy.
[00:01:31] And she struggled with that.
[00:01:33] And she struggled with that, not just because it was somebody that she knew and worked with and spent so much time with, but because one of her other friends, this was the 10th person in the last five years that had been through this.
[00:01:53] And they, as a group of people, were just struggling with the weight that people are carrying in this world and the difficulties that they face.
[00:02:05] And as we come together as a church in our midst, there are people that have had better weeks than the daughter who got a car.
[00:02:14] And there are people that have had worse weeks than my daughter standing up, doing a eulogy.
[00:02:20] We all come in here in different places. We all come from different backgrounds. And as we sit and we look across our rows, we struggle to see which is which.
[00:02:33] But on most weeks, this is the reality.
[00:02:39] But most of us, when we come in here, it's just another week.
[00:02:44] It's just another thing.
[00:02:46] And for Jesus and the disciples, in going from Jerusalem up to Galilee, it was just another journey. They were just doing this because they'd done it before. And, you know, Jesus was a bit of a wanderer. And the disciples just went, well, where are we going this time, Lord?
[00:03:06] Well, apparently we're going to Galilee, and apparently we're going to go through Samaria. Right, okay, awesome.
[00:03:15] And we get to about noon, and Jesus Goes, I'm tired. I'm going to have a rest now. I don't know how long they'd been walking, probably from sunrise. So it's probably about six hours of walking.
[00:03:29] And we don't know whether it's a hot day, a cold day, or what it is. But whatever happens, Jesus has got to the point where he's just going, I'm tired. I need a break.
[00:03:44] Anyone ever felt like that when you've been halfway through doing something and you just go, I'm done.
[00:03:51] I just want a break.
[00:03:53] And he sits down by this well and relaxes.
[00:03:57] Now, I don't know about you, but every now and again I tend to forget how human Jesus was.
[00:04:07] I sort of get this little thing in my head that goes, he's this super person who can do all sorts of great things, but verses like this just remind us of his humanity.
[00:04:19] He's tired, he rests, he's exhausted.
[00:04:24] And as you read through different verses, you go, oh, yeah, and he wept at the tomb. Yep. And he wept over Jerusalem.
[00:04:35] And, oh yeah, that's right, he went into the temple and got a little bit angry and chucked a few tables around.
[00:04:42] And oh yeah, in Gethsemane, he wasn't exactly on top of the world either then, was he? He was a little bit stressed and struggling.
[00:04:52] So, yeah, it's just another normal day for him.
[00:04:56] Normal emotions, normal thing.
[00:04:59] I sit down at this well and along comes this woman.
[00:05:09] For her, it's probably a normal day, too.
[00:05:12] She comes and gets water at this well most days. I reckon we don't know much about her, do we?
[00:05:18] We don't know what sort of week she's been having. We don't know whether she's one of the most prettiest ladies in this town or one of the most despised ladies in this town.
[00:05:30] We know nothing about her except that she's getting her water at noon.
[00:05:38] When would you get your water if you had to go and get it at a will?
[00:05:43] Would you go and get it in the heat of the day, or would you go and get it first thing in the morning?
[00:05:51] From what I've read, most people get it first thing in the morning.
[00:05:55] The very fact that she's getting it at noon suggests to me that she was a lady that was not well regarded by the other people of the town.
[00:06:08] And perhaps she was a little scorned.
[00:06:11] Perhaps the fact that she'd had multiple husbands was not well received by some of the other people in the town.
[00:06:20] And we don't know why she had multiple husbands.
[00:06:24] We know that that culture was a male based culture. So it wasn't her choice to have multiple husbands. It was the husband's choice to go, no, I've had enough of you.
[00:06:37] Maybe she was barren and her husband wanted children and she couldn't provide.
[00:06:45] Maybe she had an illness, a sickness of some form, and various husbands thought, oh, yeah, well, I can put up with that for a little bit. But no, too much, go away.
[00:06:56] Maybe she had a mental illness, we don't know.
[00:07:00] All we know is that this lady had been rejected by five husbands and put back on the scrap heap and had to go and find another.
[00:07:11] And these two people, one tired and exhausted, sitting by a whirl, one scorned and rejected by so many, have this encounter on this day.
[00:07:27] She didn't know that this encounter was going to change her life.
[00:07:30] She had no idea that this was going to change everything.
[00:07:37] Just like Mary and Martha had no idea that their encounter with Jesus was going to change everything.
[00:07:43] Just like you. And I have no idea when Jesus comes and changes things in our life, and that can happen each and every day, God comes along and just changes things.
[00:07:59] The conversation here starts with a very gentle request.
[00:08:04] Jesus sitting there going, can you get me some water?
[00:08:08] I'm thirsty.
[00:08:12] And then with every back and forth, the conversation shifts from a simple discussion about water to living water.
[00:08:23] What is living water?
[00:08:26] From the temporal to the eternal, from the worship of routine to the worship of spirit and truth.
[00:08:35] It's a very gentle discussion. But in the process, Jesus is shifting her focus from being a focus on the things that are here and now to a focus on the things that are of God and are of eternal.
[00:08:50] In the midst of her hurt and her pain and her rejection, Jesus is shifting stuff because who knows that hurt and pain and difficulty warps our perspective that we're in the midst of darkness. It's very hard to see, right?
[00:09:08] It's very hard to balance things.
[00:09:11] And Jesus is just calling her out bit by bit and going, hey, there's more. Look up.
[00:09:19] See beyond, see above.
[00:09:22] This passage reminds me of a woman in the Old Testament, a lady by the name of Hagar.
[00:09:28] Some of you may know her.
[00:09:31] Her story is in Genesis 16, but it's only a small part of the story.
[00:09:38] You see, she was a lady who was given to Abraham as a slave.
[00:09:47] The Jewish writings that aren't in our Bible say that she was once a princess of Egypt, that she was one of Pharaoh's children.
[00:10:00] And when Abraham went down and Pharaoh almost took Sarah as a wife in Compensation. He gave her Hagar. And Hagar become a servant.
[00:10:14] Now you think for a moment that's a fall from being the princess to being a servant.
[00:10:22] And Hagar comes along as this servant, and Sarah mistreats her, Abraham makes her pregnant, and the family gets a little bit rough and she runs away.
[00:10:43] I understand that.
[00:10:45] Just thinking for a moment of how I would feel in that situation. I would not be happy.
[00:10:50] But you think of the pain that this poor girl would be feeling.
[00:10:55] The separation from her family back in Egypt, the separation from all the hopes and the dreams that she would have had as a kid growing up.
[00:11:05] And all of a sudden, here she is in the desert, pregnant and alone.
[00:11:13] And in that place.
[00:11:15] Genesis 16:13 records this.
[00:11:18] She gave this name to the Lord who spoke to her.
[00:11:24] You are the God who sees me.
[00:11:27] For she said, now I have seen the one who sees me in this spot.
[00:11:35] God sends an angel who stands beside her and says to her, God knows your name.
[00:11:45] God knows your situation.
[00:11:48] God knows your problems, and he has a future for you. He has a place for you.
[00:11:57] Now, I don't know about you, but when I'm in those dark places, I need someone to come alongside me and remind me that God sees me, that God knows my name, that I matter.
[00:12:15] In speaking to the woman at the world, Jesus does exactly that by telling her about her husbands.
[00:12:23] He points out, God has seen you.
[00:12:26] God has seen your story. God has seen your journey. God knows who you are.
[00:12:30] You are not alone in this.
[00:12:35] And so often when we're in these difficult spots, isn't that what we need to hear?
[00:12:42] That is God who walks with us.
[00:12:45] It is God who's got his arm around us, and it is God that is leading us.
[00:12:51] John 4 goes on a little bit further in verse 39 and says, Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman's testimony.
[00:13:02] He told me everything I ever did.
[00:13:06] So when the Samaritans came to him, they urged him to stay with them.
[00:13:11] And he stayed two days.
[00:13:13] And because of his words, many more became believers.
[00:13:17] They said to the woman, we no longer just believe because of what you said, but now we've heard for ourselves and we know that this man really is the savior of the world.
[00:13:30] This is the power of the gospel.
[00:13:33] This is the power that starts with one person telling a story that brings hope and life to somebody else.
[00:13:43] And I believe that in this place, every person here has a story of how Jesus has stepped in at a moment and helped you.
[00:13:54] A story of how Jesus has changed something, opened your eyes, given you hope in a place that was dark.
[00:14:03] That story is powerful and can change other people's lives.
[00:14:11] See, Jesus starts with you and I.
[00:14:16] He reached an entire town through one person.
[00:14:22] His story starts with you and I realising that we matter.
[00:14:28] Who's heard of the phrases the apple of his eye, the pearl of great price?
[00:14:39] These phrases mean something.
[00:14:41] That's how God views you and I.
[00:14:44] He sees us as precious and valuable and important.
[00:14:50] Is that how we see ourselves?
[00:14:57] And yet God sees us that way.
[00:15:00] And God wants us to know that when we understand that, then we are in a place to show others that they too are precious and important and valuable and meaningful, and that their stories matter.
[00:15:17] Because isn't it so easy in this world to think that our story is immaterial and small and nothing?
[00:15:26] That the things that we do don't matter, that the things that we do don't change stuff?
[00:15:32] But the reality is, the things that we do have greater impact than we can possibly understand.
[00:15:38] Because we don't do it alone.
[00:15:41] We do it with God, with us.
[00:15:45] This is the day of Pentecost.
[00:15:48] This is the anniversary. This is the day when the church was born, when the Holy Spirit was poured out and dwelt within each one of us.
[00:16:01] Jesus said, there's a day coming when you will worship in Spirit and in truth, in spirit.
[00:16:09] Because the Spirit has now come, dwells in us, lives in us, leads us forward.
[00:16:19] Romans 8 says this. In the same way the Spirit helps us in our weaknesses, for we do not know how we ought to pray. But the Spirit Himself intercedes for us through wordless groans.
[00:16:35] And he who searches the heart knows the mind of the Spirit.
[00:16:38] Because the Spirit intercedes for God's people in accordance with the will of God.
[00:16:45] Isn't that awesome?
[00:16:47] That the Holy Spirit dwells in us and knows our thoughts, our fears, our doubts, and brings the groanings of those before the Father.
[00:17:02] And the Father responds and knows our hearts, our fears, our doubts and acts.
[00:17:11] I don't know about you, but I get amazed at that sort of stuff.
[00:17:15] That the God who would create the universe cares enough to know that detail about me and you and everybody else on the earth.
[00:17:26] It blows my mind.
[00:17:31] You worship in truth because truth, our understanding, is opened. We no longer live in condemnation.
[00:17:39] We no longer live in a place where we've got to prove ourselves to anybody, do we?
[00:17:43] We don't have to justify ourselves because we walk in the love of God. We walk in his grace, in his mercy. We stand because He Makes us stand because of his strength.
[00:17:59] God so loved the world he gave his one and only Son. We all know that verse, don't we?
[00:18:05] That whoever believes in him should not perish, should have eternal life, because God did not send his Son to the world to condemn, but to save.
[00:18:16] We know these verses, but do they rest in our hearts?
[00:18:22] Do they sit inside of us and beat inside of us that we can stand?
[00:18:29] Because as a church, every week there are people that walk through this door that will be at the bottom.
[00:18:39] They will be struggling.
[00:18:41] On the outside, you might look at them and you might never know.
[00:18:46] But on the inside, they're fighting hard to stop the tears rolling down the cheeks.
[00:18:53] And sometimes as you walk into church, there will be people and they'll be sitting there and they'll just be.
[00:19:00] But on the inside they go, oh, what an awesome week. It's been a great week.
[00:19:04] And they're containing it for others.
[00:19:08] But whatever the season is, as the children of God in the middle, our job is to make sure everybody is seen.
[00:19:19] Our job is to make sure everyone knows there's someone here that can put an arm around them, that there is someone here that cares.
[00:19:28] Because God cares and he wants his church to act the same way.
[00:19:34] My call for each of you today is simply know that God sees you.
[00:19:42] Know that he sees every part of your life.
[00:19:47] Allow him to reframe the way you see things when it's necessary.
[00:19:52] Allow him to lift your eyes when you get focused on the things of the earth.
[00:19:59] Allow him to show you eternity.
[00:20:01] When you're worried about temporal things, know that he has seen the absolute ugliest parts of you and the people. Biggest mistakes you've ever made and goes, I love you.
[00:20:20] Rest in him because he really is the Savior of the world.
[00:20:27] Let's pray together.
[00:20:31] Father, you are awesome.
[00:20:36] You are the creator of everything.
[00:20:39] All that we see around you, it's yours. You made it and you made us and you love us.
[00:20:49] Regardless of the things that we've done, the mistakes that we've made, the rejections that have happened, the stuff that goes on on planet Earth, you still look at us and go, we're special, that we're worth something.
[00:21:05] So much so that Jesus would come and die for us.
[00:21:10] Father, help us to live out the knowledge of that truth.
[00:21:15] Help us to know our value in your eyes, that we are seeing, that we are valued.
[00:21:24] If we're struggling with that this morning, Lord, let your spirit rest upon that person and help them.
[00:21:32] And Father, if we're on top of the world, help others to rejoice with that.
[00:21:39] But Father, let your spirit be upon each and every one this morning we ask this in Jesus name, Amen.
