The
Glory
in
a Conversation
A
Study in the Gospel of John
Preached
January 27, 2008
Dr.
Larry Thorson
First
Presbyterian Church,
This sermon was prepared to be part of a six week Lenten
small group series course at the First Presbyterian Church of
Pastor Larry Thorson
951/658-7153
Small Group Format
Begin with the “Get to Know Each Other Questions” – 15 minutes
Opening Prayer – sample provided or
use your own
“Almighty God, thank you for your Word and Your
presence. May we grow together in this
time and come to a greater understanding of your Word and each other. In Jesus’ name. Amen.”
Read the Included Scripture Passage in
the Group – (silently or out loud) – 5 minutes
Use the “Dig in the Word” Questions –
10 minutes
Use the “Application Questions – 10
minutes
Share “Joys and Concerns” with one
another as you are comfortable starting with something like “Does anyone have a
joy they’re grateful for today or a concern that we can pray about?”
Closing Prayer – Pray for each other
if you are comfortable doing so. You
might want to close with the Lord’s Prayer below:
Scripture: John 4:1-42
Today’s New International Version Copyright © 2001,
2005 by the International Bible Society
1 Now Jesus learned that the Pharisees had
heard that he was gaining and baptizing more disciples than John— 2 although in
fact it was not Jesus who baptized, but his disciples. 3 So he left Judea and
went back once more to
4 Now he had to go through
7 When a Samaritan woman came to
draw water, Jesus said to her, "Will you give me a drink?" 8 (His
disciples had gone into the town to buy food.)
9 The Samaritan woman said to
him, "You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a
drink?" (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.)
10 Jesus answered her, "If
you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would
have asked him and he would have given you living water."
11 "Sir," the woman
said, "you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you
get this living water? 12 Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us
the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his flocks and
herds?"
13 Jesus answered,
"Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, 14 but those who
drink the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them
will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life."
15 The woman said to him,
"Sir, give me this water so that I won't get thirsty and have to keep
coming here to draw water."
16 He told her, "Go, call
your husband and come back."
17 "I have no
husband," she replied.
Jesus said to her, "You are
right when you say you have no husband. 18 The fact is, you have had five
husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said
is quite true."
19 "Sir," the woman
said, "I can see that you are a prophet. 20 Our ancestors worshiped on
this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in
25 The woman said, "I know
that Messiah" (called Christ) "is coming. When he comes, he will
explain everything to us."
26 Then Jesus declared, "I,
the one speaking to you—I am he."
27 Just then his disciples returned
and were surprised to find him talking with a woman. But no one asked,
"What do you want?" or "Why are you talking with her?"
28 Then, leaving her water jar,
the woman went back to the town and said to the people, 29 "Come, see a
man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Messiah?" 30 They
came out of the town and made their way toward him.
31 Meanwhile his disciples urged
him, "Rabbi, eat something."
32 But he said to them, "I
have food to eat that you know nothing about."
33 Then his disciples said to
each other, "Could someone have brought him food?"
34 "My food," said Jesus, "is to do the will of him who sent me
and to finish his work. 35 Don't you have a saying, 'It's still four months
until harvest'? I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are
ripe for harvest. 36 Even now those who reap draw their wages, even now they
harvest the crop for eternal life, so that the sower and the reaper may be glad
together. 37 Thus the saying 'One sows and another reaps' is true. 38 I sent
you to reap what you have not worked for. Others have done the hard work, and
you have reaped the benefits of their labor."
39 Many of the Samaritans from that
town believed in him because of the woman's testimony, "He told me
everything I ever did." 40 So when the Samaritans came to him, they urged
him to stay with them, and he stayed two days. 41 And because of his words many
more became believers.
42 They said to the woman,
"We no longer believe just because of what you said; now we have heard for
ourselves, and we know that this man really is the Savior of the world."
Introduction
For
the woman in this story it was another lonely trip to the well. In those days going to the well was a sort of
daily social event for women— similar to small towns in
But
what looked like another ordinary, lonely, boring trip to the well, to fetch
the water needed for more ordinary mundane household chores, turned into an
extraordinary, unordinary, exceptional event in this woman’s life. It turned out to be the next unveiling of the
glory of God in John’s Gospel.
The
Appearance of the Mysterious Glory of God
This
time the mysterious glory of God appeared in a most unusual circumstance; a
Jewish man spoke publicly to a Samaritan woman. Ok, I know that’s not as big as turning water
into wine but to understand how unusual that was, in that day, in that culture,
men never, ever, ever spoke to women in public. From the Jewish perspective God
ruled over man, and man ruled over woman. Women were “kept” by men. A woman’s
only status was in relation to men: the man who fathered her, the man who
married her, the male babies she gave birth to, the man who widowed her. A
woman was some man’s daughter, some man’s wife, some man’s mother, some man’s
widow; she belonged to someone.
Women
were so discounted that there was a traditional prayer prayed by Jewish men
that included the phrase, “Thank God, I was not born a woman.” Men did not talk
to women in public. It was beneath them.
Who Were
the Samaritans?
Furthermore,
Jews despised Samaritans because they considered them half breeds. They were descendants of Israelites of the
northern kingdom who had intermarried with non-Jews. The Samaritans worshipped
the same God as the “purebred” Jews, but they were effectively cast out of the
Jewish mainstream because of their inter-racial marriage. Jews didn’t consider
them true heirs of God’s chosen people.
Even
worse, a Jewish man asked a Samaritan for a drink. To use a Samaritan bucket to draw water and a
water ladle to drink from would have been sinful for a Jew because the
Samaritan utensils would have been considered impure or unclean. Any Jewish man who asked a Samaritan woman
for a drink was asking to be contaminated.
Given
these “don’t talk, don’t touch” rules, you can imagine the surprise in this
woman’s voice, “How is it that you, a
man, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of
But
this was no ordinary man, this was God’s glory revealed to humans, Jesus the Christ. He responded…“If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you,
“Give me a drink,” you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living
water.”
“So
who are you?” the woman asked. His
answer: More than you’ve ever seen, or tasted, or known, everyone who drinks of
this water— this well water, this dead water, this mortal water-will thirst
again, but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give, will never thirst;
the water that I shall give you will become in you a spring of water welling up
to eternal life.
The
woman wasn’t sure what Jesus was talking about, but she knew that she wanted
some of that special, living water, right then!
Well, so much for her ordinary day.
The
Revealing of Our Secrets
Next
Jesus directed this surprised woman to bring her husband to Him, and she
bumbled back with a lie: “I have no husband.” What was she thinking?! Just give
me some of this living water… I want it! Or, He won’t give it to me if I’m not
righteous enough, good enough, or if he finds out how I’ve lived my life.
“You’re right, you’ve had five
husbands, and the man you’re with now is not your husband.”
How embarrassing. Here she was offered the gift of a lifetime but gets
caught in a lie. It’s like that football
coach who landed his dream job, to be the Notre Dame football coach only to
have discovered the week after he was hired that he had lied on his resume
about where he had gone to school. He
was fired the next day. I want you to note,
Jesus Christ knows everything about each one of us, even the stuff we lie about
and it still doesn’t change his offer of the gift of living water.
So
here’s this woman who had no company on her daily walk to the well, probably
had no real friends, probably had been exorcised from extended family
gatherings, certainly wasn’t welcome in the house of worship. Yet Jesus offers her eternal water. She gets so excited about what he’s offering…
and their conversation…that she hurries back to town to get everyone to come
out and meet him. She insisted they come.
Here’s
what I think. We’re not that much different than the Samaritan woman at the
well. We go about our daily chores of living, guilty of something whether it’s
overeating, not praying enough, whatever, no one is sinless. We’re thirsty for something but we’re not
clear what it is.
And
we keep trying to quench our thirst with temporal solutions. That’s what that
Samaritan woman was doing, trying to quench her thirst---that no husband and no
boyfriend would ever be able to quench---because it’s a deep, interior,
spiritual thirst.
The Thirst
of a Church
We
try to quench our thirst with temporal solutions that may satisfy momentarily,
but we always thirst again. It’s kind of
like drinking salt water when we’re stranded at sea.
In
my last church our attendance had stagnated after a spurt of growth following
9/11 and was declining. This made the
church thirst for growth. Some felt if
we could just build a gym like the Methodists had just done we’d start growing
again. So they hired a $90,000 fundraiser
(cash upfront) to help them raise money for a gym but that didn’t satisfy the
thirst. “If we could just get a new
senior pastor (I was the associate pastor) then we’d be satisfied.” Eventually the senior pastor left on his own and
guess what, the church declined even more.
I’ve
been reading the history of our church. The
way we’ve satisfied our thirst historically was to build new buildings whether we
needed them or not. As long as we were
building a fellowship hall, a new sanctuary or a gymnasium we grew. Then our thirst was satisfied for the moment. But once we stopped building we declined and
we got thirsty again. Anything we pursue
apart from Jesus Christ even if involves church is only salty water.
We Need
Living Water Not Salty Water
We’re
not much different than the woman at the well.
Something wasn’t working in her life.
Five husbands and living with her present boyfriend? Perhaps there’s something that isn’t working
in your life. You try to fix it but the
result keeps coming up the same. That’s
because salt water looks similar to fresh water but it just can’t satisfy our
thirst. But to get different results we
have to do different things. To get
different results we have to drink something different. That’s what Jesus is offering us, living
water, a chance to experience God’s glory.
Right
now as a church we’re trying to get the majority of those who come for weekly
worship to be a part of a six week small group.
For some people that’s a big step and a scary one at that. So many people grow up with a terrible self
image. They know from a distance that
they look ok but they fear getting close to anyone because they think once
people get to know them they won’t like them.
I know what that’s like because I’ve struggled with that all my
life.
But
imagine what can happen when the glory of God that now dwells in those who have
accepted Jesus Christ as their Savior and have been reborn of God’s Spirit meet
together. Imagine opening up to people
who won’t betray you when they find out what you’re really like.
That’s
why we’re doing these small groups. They’re
not forever, they’re only for six weeks.
You don’t have to qualify to get in one.
You don’t have to know anyone to join.
All you have to do is show up at the time that’s listed and commit to
the six weeks as best your schedule allows.
Jesus
is offering us living water right now.
And that living water comes through relationships with other
believers. Will you be part of a small
group starting February 3 or will you keep drinking the same salty water? Will you be part of a conversation with God’s
people about the future of our church or will you keep drinking the same water
of thought you always have thought.
Small
Group Bible Study
Get to Know Each Other
Questions -15
minutes
1.
Invite
small group members to share their name, hometown and what their hometown is
most famous for.
2.
Describe
a time when a stranger just started
talking to you. How did you respond?
Opening Prayer
“Almighty God, thank you for your Word
and Your presence. May we grow together
in this time and come to a greater understanding of your Word and each
other. In Jesus’ name. Amen.”
Read the Scripture
Passage (silently
or out loud) – 5 minutes
Dig in the Word Questions – 10 minutes
Why did Jesus
leave Judea and head back to
Why did Jesus
sit down by the well? What does that
tell you about his humanity? Vs4-6
Why do you
think Jesus didn’t just get a drink himself?
Vs7-8
Read Genesis
33:18-20 for story of Jacob buying land for well.
In the
Samaritan Scriptures,
Who does
Jesus claim to be? Vs.25-26
What was the
response of the woman to Jesus’ claim? Vs 28-29
What caused
the Samaritans to become believers? Vs.39-42
Application Questions – 10 minutes
Why was it
such a big deal that Jesus spoke to a Samaritan woman? What would be a comparable conversation
today?
What is your
understanding of “living water” in light of Jesus becoming thirsty and needing
a drink?
Name some
temporal solutions that satisfy momentarily but leave us thirsty again.
What had the
Samaritan woman done in her life to deserve
the “living water?”
How might
this group be like living water for you?
What would your group need to do to help sustain and growth your
faith?
Joys and Concerns – 15 minutes