The Gift & The Giver | Sunday, May 16, 2021

So he came to a city of Samaria which is called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph. Now Jacob's well was there. Jesus therefore, being wearied from His journey, sat thus by the well. It was about the sixth hour. A woman of Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, "Give Me a drink." For His disciples had gone away into the city to buy food. (John 4:5–8)

Lessons from Jesus and the woman at the well on how to share the good news with a world in desperate need of connection.

Living in Interesting Times

It has been said that life is better in uninteresting times. I'm not sure if that's true, but we have not lived in uninteresting times for a very long time. Think about the upheavals of the last 25 years: a presidential scandal and impeachment in 1998, the tumultuous 2000 election with its hanging and pregnant chads in Florida, settled finally by the Supreme Court.

Then came the worst terrorist attack on U.S. soil in September 2001, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the subprime mortgage crisis and market crash of 2008–2009, the Great Recession, the unlikely presidency of Donald Trump, and all the craziness of COVID-19 and the chaos that followed. We are still in that cycle—political chaos, market chaos, racial chaos, global chaos, problems in Asia and once again in the Middle East. We are most certainly in interesting times.

And before all of this, there were the problems of the 1970s, the tumult of the 1960s with political assassinations and the Vietnam War, the Red Scare and Korean War of the 1950s, World War II in the 1940s. Is there ever really an uninteresting time? It doesn't seem so, because we live in a broken and fallen world—a world affected by sin, experiencing both natural and moral evils, a world in desperate need of restoration. In Romans 8, Paul says the whole of creation is groaning as in the pains of childbirth, right up to the present time.

Created for Connection

For the last five weeks we have been revisiting our vision as a church. For those who have been here a while, this is review—but reviews are important, especially right before the test. I believe we are in a time of testing and trial, and you need to be prepared, because there are things you're going to be tested on.

We were created for connection. God made us to live life in connection with him—the vertical relationship—and in connection with one another on the horizontal level. I believe we see this even at the level of being. You have a soul, the real you, where intellect, emotion, and will reside. Your soul is animated by the body and connects with God at the level of the spirit and with others in this world at the level of the body. At the very level of being, we were made to live in connection with God and one another.

But though we were created for connection, we lost that connection through rebellious disobedience—through sin in the fall in Genesis 3. We are born separated from God and divided from one another, and yet we deeply desire to be connected with God and one another. The biblical gospel, the good news about Jesus, is the story of how God set out to bring us back into connection with him and with one another. Jesus is the mediator of this reconciliation and the means by which it is possible, because in his body on the cross he defeated sin and death.

For He Himself is our peace, who has made both one, and has broken down the middle wall of separation... so as to create in Himself one new man from the two, thus making peace, and that He might reconcile them both to God in one body through the cross... Now therefore, you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God. (Ephesians 2:14–19)

Called to Carry the Good News

We are called to carry this good news to the world. Our vision is life in connection with God, with one another, and with the world through Jesus. Jesus told his early followers, "Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature" (Mark 16:15) and commissioned them to make disciples of all nations (Matthew 28:19). If you are a believer in and follower of Jesus, you are called and commissioned to share this good news.

The idea of sharing the gospel—what Christians have long called evangelism—often frightens us, but it doesn't have to. Sharing the good news is just like sharing about a really good restaurant you ate at last week, or your favorite author or recipe. Still, it makes some of us anxious. So today I want to give you some practical tips from Jesus about sharing the good news, found in one of the great stories of Scripture where Jesus brought light to someone in darkness.

Jesus Sought Out the Needy

On his way from Jerusalem back to Galilee, the Scriptures say Jesus needed to go through Samaria. Even at the start of this story there are key things to consider.

First, Jesus sought out people who were in need. He went where needy people were. We've considered many times that Jesus came to seek and to save that which is lost (Luke 19:10). One of our challenges, because of our tribalistic tendencies, is that we tend to avoid lost people who are in need. The Jews in Jesus' day did the same. A faithful Jew was required to go to Jerusalem three times a year—Passover, Pentecost, and the fall feasts. Samaria lay between Galilee and Judea, but Jews would cut across to the east side of the Jordan to bypass it, because Samaritans were an ethnic minority they did not like.

My wife and I love to visit Santa Barbara, but I'll do almost anything to avoid driving through Los Angeles. The Jews basically did the same with Samaria. But not Jesus. The Scriptures say he needed to go through Samaria, because his purpose in coming was to seek and to save that which is lost. So we have a simple application: if you want to be faithful to Jesus' commission, stop avoiding lost people.

No Excuses, No Comfort Zones

Second, Jesus interacted with lost people even when he was tired and hungry. The first verses of John 4 tell us he was weary and thirsty, and his disciples had gone into the city to find food, so he was probably hungry too. A better way to say it is that Jesus didn't look for excuses to avoid talking with people about the gospel. We, on the other hand, are excuse-prone: I'm busy, I'm tired, I have somewhere to be, they might ask a question I can't answer, I'm not an evangelist. We need to stop making dumb excuses for not engaging with lost people.

Third, Jesus was willing to step out of his comfort zone to interact with outsiders. The woman he meets had several strikes against her. She was a woman—and in that culture, interacting with a woman who was not your wife or family was out of bounds. She was a Samaritan, and no Jewish rabbi would have dealings with a Samaritan woman. And, as we'll see, she was likely a moral outcast; the fact that she comes to the well at noon, rather than in the cool of morning or evening, suggests she was avoiding the other women.

If you're going to fulfill the commission to preach the gospel to every creature, you need to be willing to step outside your comfort zone. I won't lie—that isn't always easy. But I can promise you this: if you stop avoiding lost people and are willing to step out of your comfort zone, God will enable and empower you by his Holy Spirit. How can I make such an audacious promise? Because God does not command what he does not also enable. As Jesus said, "You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth" (Acts 1:8).

Don't Take the Bait

Here's a side note before we go on: evangelism is, at its base, about persuasion. We go to people who don't believe as we believe and try to persuade them. According to persuasion experts, the first rule of persuasion is reciprocity—if I do a favor for you, you feel inclined to do one for me. By asking for a drink, Jesus employs this rule and starts a conversation.

Then the woman of Samaria said to Him, "How is it that You, being a Jew, ask a drink from me, a Samaritan woman?" For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans. (John 4:9)

Most of us might be completely shut down by that. This is the first-century equivalent of "You shouldn't be talking to me—don't you know you've crossed a cultural line?" There were long-standing ethnic, cultural, and political issues dividing Jews from Samaritans, going back hundreds of years. But note that Jesus was not distracted by political drama. Let me say that again, because it's so important at this moment in our country: Jesus was not distracted by political drama. He didn't take the bait.

Don't be trolled into worthless, divisive, and unnecessary conversations. So many of our conversations spiral down into division. Don't get bogged down in things with no eternal value—arguments over politics, strange theological debates, arguments over preferences. If you're going to fulfill the commission, do your best, as enabled by the Spirit, not to be distracted or drawn into debate about worthless things.

The Gift and the Giver

Instead of being distracted, Jesus zeroed in on what was really important. In John's Gospel we see many of these private conversations—with the woman at the well, with Nicodemus, with the lame man, with the man born blind. Jesus focuses on what matters and reveals that this woman is ignorant of two things.

Jesus answered and said to her, "If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, 'Give Me a drink,' you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water." (John 4:10)

She was ignorant of the gift of God and the giver of the gift. The Samaritans were a very religious and spiritual people—like many people we interact with who say they're "spiritual but not religious"—but they were aimlessly worshiping in the wrong way and missing the point. Jesus suggests to her that he might be more important than she realizes, and that he has what she really needs. This is another rule of persuasion: scarcity. He's introducing the idea that she's missing out on what she really desires. When we tell people they were created for something more than they're experiencing—life in connection with God and one another—we're introducing scarcity, and it makes people ask, "What am I missing? What am I really searching for?"

The woman said to Him, "Sir, You have nothing to draw with, and the well is deep. Where then do You get that living water? Are You greater than our father Jacob...?" (John 4:11–12)

Jesus has sown seeds of inquiry to trigger deeper talk. She assumes his limitations, thinking the gift is purely material, and she invokes the patriarch Jacob, a common ancestor to both Jews and Samaritans. His aim is to reveal her need and then the solution by talking about the gift and the giver.

Jesus answered and said to her, "Whoever drinks of this water will thirst again, but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst. But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life." (John 4:13–14)

The gift is not material. If you seek the things of this world, you will not be satisfied; but if you drink of Christ, you will be fully satisfied—not only in this life but into everlasting life. And you'll become a source of life-giving satisfaction for others, able to share this living water.

The woman said to Him, "Sir, give me this water, that I may not thirst, nor come here to draw." (John 4:15)

Revealing the Giver

She's begun to understand what the gift is and asks for it. But Jesus doesn't immediately give it, because he said you must know both the gift and the giver. So now he reveals who he really is.

Jesus said to her, "Go, call your husband, and come here." The woman answered and said, "I have no husband." Jesus said to her, "You have well said, 'I have no husband,' for you have had five husbands, and the one whom you now have is not your husband; in that you spoke truly." (John 4:16–18)

That's a little awkward, but here is an important point: don't be afraid to offend, because the message we carry is in some respects offensive. Before a person can experience the saving grace and forgiveness of Christ, they have to acknowledge their lostness and their sin. Jesus' response reveals that he is something more than a Jewish man at a well.

The woman said to Him, "Sir, I perceive that You are a prophet. Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, and you Jews say that in Jerusalem is the place where one ought to worship." (John 4:19–20)

The Samaritans worshiped near Mount Gerizim; the Jews in Jerusalem on the temple mount. She gives Jesus a kind of prophet's test: who is right?

Jesus said to her, "Woman, believe Me, the hour is coming when you will neither on this mountain, nor in Jerusalem, worship the Father... But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth... God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth." The woman said, "I know that Messiah is coming... When He comes, He will tell us all things." Jesus said to her, "I who speak to you am He." (John 4:21–26)

In the original Greek, verse 26 literally reads, "I AM is speaking to you." If you've read from Genesis through Exodus, you know that in Exodus 3 Moses asks God who is speaking from the burning bush, and God says, "I AM WHO I AM... tell them I AM has sent you." Jesus mirrors those exact words. When the woman says the Christ will reveal all things, Jesus says, in effect, "I AM the Christ is speaking to you." He has now revealed both the gift—living water that satisfies eternally—and the giver, his true nature.

Leaving the Water Pot

The woman then left her water pot, went her way into the city, and said to the men, "Come, see a Man who told me all things that I ever did. Could this be the Christ?" Then they went out of the city and came to Him. (John 4:28–30)

She left her water pot—an indication that she found what she had been looking for. And she became an instant evangelist. Immediately after discovering the gift of God and the giver, she goes into the city and tells everyone, "Come and see."

Don't be shy about sharing with others what you have found in Jesus. If you've discovered through the gospel this good news—the gift of life more abundantly, everlasting life, living water, the bread of life, the path of life, the gate, the door—whatever metaphor you choose—if you've tasted that Jesus brings connection with God and one another, don't be shy about sharing it. That's what we're commissioned to do, and that's what we as a church are all about. Jesus has reconciled us to God and given us new life forever. Once we've tasted that, we cannot keep quiet.

Connected to God, One Another, and the World

This past week I was listening to a psychiatrist, a doctor who trained and taught at Oxford University. He said—and this blew my mind—that science and the social sciences have discovered three very important things humans need: connection to one another, connection to this world (literally getting out into nature), and connection to a body of like-minded people who worship and share the same values. And this man isn't even a believer. Yet he was saying we need to be connected to one another, to God, and to the world.

This is exactly what we find when we come to the pages of Scripture and the gospel. This is what we as a church want to share with our neighbors, family members, co-workers, and friends—that the way we experience life, and that more abundantly, is to be brought into connection with God, with one another, and with all that God has made. That is where we fulfill the purpose for which we were made. So if you are a believer, if you've trusted Jesus Christ, don't be shy about sharing this good news of what you've found in him.

Closing Prayer

Father God, I pray that you would cause these things to be in our hearts—and not just in our hearts and minds, but on our lips, that we would share them with other people. I pray for anyone watching right now that you would give us those opportunities this week that we have a hard time getting out of, that we cannot deny. And when we have those opportunities, that we would share the good news of who you are and what you've done in our lives, so that others might know this life and life more abundantly that we have with you and in you—that they might experience connection with you, with one another, and with all that you have made. We ask this in Jesus' name. Amen.