Gateway Church's Podcast
The Woman at the Well
I want you to turn your Bible to John chapter 4 and we're in the middle of a series called Encounters and I'm going to continue that series today Pastor Robert will finish the series next weekend and then we'll head into the holidays, we'll have a series during the holidays as well. John chapter 4 is the story of the woman at the well and if there ever was an encounter in the Bible, this is a real encounter with Jesus and if you know the story in John chapter 4, Jesus is sitting beside a well, kind of the way I see it, he's propped up against the well and his disciples are in town at Subway getting some sandwiches for lunch and he's waiting for him and while he's waiting, he meets a woman, a woman that lives in Samaria, she walks up and they have this conversation. Have you ever wondered who actually wrote down the conversation? Jesus must have had to tell John later what happened because he was apparently alone but we get a lot of details here but Jesus must have sat down and said look, get your tape recorder out and let me tell you about this story and make sure this gets in the book because it's a really good one but he writes it all down and this is a great story of how a woman's life who was an absolute hopelessness, I mean she had nothing to live for and just a matter of minutes after meeting Jesus, her whole life was changed. This is a real encounter and I want you to catch some things today, now this happened outside of town called Saikar in Samaria, Saikar by the way, the word Saikar means town of drunkards, how it's like to be the chamber of commerce president there, come to business and Saikar, the town of drunkards, not good, anyway, so this town had a bad reputation and not only did it have a bad reputation, it was in a bad country, Samaria was the lowest of low countries, the Jews despised Samaritans, it was just a town that was kind of a bad town in a bad country, by the way only poor women came to the well, so this woman not only was alone but she was poor, this was a task of getting water that was really reserved for the very poor people, people that didn't have servants, now this well was the Starbucks Saikar, this is a place where the women came twice a day, normally early in the morning and late in the afternoon to get water and while they were there, most people believe this is where they could really be themselves, where they could maybe take off some scars and kind of relax, take off their shoes and they actually spent more time talking and visiting and talking about this woman probably than gathering water, but it was kind of a real social place for the town, it was outside the town away from the normal crowds and this is where they would hang out, have some girl time, early in the morning, late in the evening, now I believe that the reason this woman came to the well at noon time was because she was trying to escape the condemning glares and the spiteful whispers of maybe her neighbors, and she had been married five times, and now she was living with the man whom she was not married, so she had a bad reputation, she was front page tabloid material in Saikar, she was the subject of all the rumors and gossip, can you imagine when she walked down the street as soon as she walked by how people would talk about her and ask about her and say nasty things about her, so when she walks up to Jesus this day at the well, she was probably one of the lowest points in her life, I mean she was very insecure, she felt worthless, she felt like a Shetland pony in a John Wayne movie, it's pretty insecure, so she walks up and this is what happens, I want to show you three things that happened in her encounter with Jesus that we're supposed to learn, I believe the Lord is going to show you some things today, that you're going to walk out of here different because of what God's going to show us about this encounter, and here's the first thing that when I read this story that I understand Jesus understands timing, I want you to read in John chapter 4 verse 4, it says that he had to go through Samaria on the way, now they were going from Judea to Galilee by the way, which is not that far of a trip, eventually he came to the Samaritan village of Saikar near the parcel of ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph, and Jacob's well was there, and Jesus, tired from the long walk, sat wearily beside the well about noon time, and soon a Samaritan woman came to draw water and Jesus said to her please give me a drink, and he was alone at the time because his disciples had gone into the village to buy some food, now this was the other way the shortest route between Judea and Galilee was this route through Samaria, however it was not the preferred route for Jews, in fact most of the time they would take the long route around to Galilee just to avoid Samaria, but Jesus said the John said in verse 4 that he had to go through Samaria this day, and that he wanted to be by himself at the well, so his disciples were away, I want you to think about all the details that had to be worked out for Jesus to have this encounter with this woman, Jesus had to work out a lot of details for him to be alone at the very moment that she was going to come to the well that day, to get the water, by the way nothing happens by chance with God, do you agree with that, Proverbs 16, 33 says we may throw the dice, but the Lord determines how they fall, now recently a young man came to my office and I was meeting with him and his marriage was falling apart, his wife had left him and he was praying that God would restore his marriage, and for several months and during this time he was praying Lord I pray she would come back, Lord I pray that my marriage would be restored, I pray that you would just put back together everything that the enemy has destroyed, well it didn't work out like that, the woman continued on and filed for divorce and they separated and went their separate ways, and about two days after the decree was finalized in court he called me, and he was real upset, and he's a brand new believer, he'd just been born again, and so he actually believed what he read in the Bible, and that kind of threw me off guard, so he said Brady I was reading this scripture, and he said I think it said this, that if I pray anything in accordance to God's will that it would be done to me, he said Brady do you think it's God's will that my marriage be restored, I went absolutely, he said I prayed then according to God's will why did it not happen, that's a great question isn't it, you answer that one, so I'm on the phone you know and I'm shuffling through my pastoral response list I can't find anything, I know the answer though, the answer is this, it's timing, you see Jesus operates on a divine timeline, not a human timeline, and can you imagine that there must have been someone praying for this woman at the well too, I believe that someone stopped criticizing her and started praying for her, I believe that someone cared enough about this woman at the well to start praying for this woman for her to have an encounter with Jesus, and what if, let's just say we don't see this in scripture, let's just pretend for a minute that you were that person, and you started praying for the woman at the well after her first marriage fell apart, and then the second one fell apart, and then the third one, then the fourth one, then the fifth one, and now she's living with a man, she's given up on the whole idea of marriage so she's living with the man, and you're the person praying for this woman, I believe most of us had already given up, most of us had already said Lord, obviously it's maybe it's not your destiny for her to meet the Messiah, I believe that most of us give up because God's not following our timeline, and yet God sees things from the beginning to the end, let me show you scripture, and to clean the Aztees chapter 3 verse 11, God has made everything beautiful for its own time, and he has planted eternity in the human heart, by the way most of you understood eternity, and that's the reason you were born again, because you understood that this life that we live on the earth is but a short time, but afterwards there is an eternal destiny for all of us, and when God planted that idea in all of our heart according to scripture, so that we would understand that we need a redeemer, we need a savior, that eternity really does matter, and so do you understand that that's probably why most of us were born again, we understood were eternal beings, and he says, but even so people cannot see the whole scope of God's work from beginning to end, Romans 5, 6 says when we were utterly helpless, Christ came at just the right time and died for us sinners, and I want you to think about this morning when you were born again, I want you to think about the series of events that had to happen in order for you to be born again, think about the timely events, the people who came and witnessed for you, the messages that you heard, the encounters that you had with people, think about when you met your spouse, think about the series of events that God had to work out in order for you to meet your spouse at just the right time, and for your heart to even be open to meeting them, think about the house that you own, the series of events that had to happen in order for you to buy the home that you're in, listen God doesn't have a general plan for our life, God has a detailed minute by minute time a plan for your life, and he's concerned about every minute, he's concerned about minutes, not just hours, days and years, he understands the timeline, he sees around the corners of our life, he sees over the next hill a lot better than we do, he understands timing, and timing is critical, Ephesians 1 verse 9 says God's secret plan has now been rebuilt to us, it is a plan centered on Christ designed long ago according to his good pleasure, and this is his plan, and I want you to understand when God says this is his plan, I pay attention to things like that, and it says at the right time, he will bring everything together under the authority of Christ, everything in heaven and on earth, now listen you are today praying for something to come under the authority of Christ, everyone in this room on your prayer need list, on the prayer request list that you have, what you're actually praying for is for something, your job, your health, your children, your marriage, something to come under the authority of Christ, is that right, do you agree with that, that's how we're praying, right, we're not praying for it to come under our authority, we're praying for things to come under the authority of Christ, listen here's good news today, it says that just the right time, everything will come under the authority of Christ, please hear this today, write this down if you're not taking any notes, write this down, there will be no unfinished business in the end, when all is said and done, everything will be said and done, there will be no unfinished business with God, it's what you're praying for in accordance with God's will, according to Ephesians, all of it, everything we're praying for in accordance with His will, it will be brought under the authority of Jesus Christ in the end, so quit worrying about the unfinished business, quit worrying about the unanswered prayers, everything is going to be brought under the authority of the Lord Jesus Christ, here's the second thing I want you to hear about this story is that Jesus understands our need for purpose, John 4-10 says if you only knew the gift God has for you and who I am, you would ask me and I would give you living water, you see this woman had been seeking fulfillment in relationships, she had been seeking after joy and fulfillment in a man and she had gone through six of them at this point and apparently she had not found the joy that she was looking for, she was looking for something, searching for something, running after something, all of us in this room are running after that source and you either found it or you haven't, you either have found it through Jesus or you're running after it through money and success and prosperity or pleasure, popularity or security, whatever well you're dropping your bucket down today, I'm telling you either draw it up one or two kinds of water, you're either bringing up the water that gives you eternal life, it's a perpetual spring that's always in you or you're bringing up a bucket that's got holes in the bottom and you're having to go back down to that well every day looking for something that's going to give you fulfillment and this woman had not found her fulfillment, by the way every life in this room needs a purpose, we need something that we can give our passions to, I know that finding our life's purpose is a big topic right now in the church and I appreciate Rick Warren's book "The Purpose Driven Life", I think everyone here should read it, I think it's excellent, but a lot of times when we read books like that we think Lord give us this detailed blueprint for our life, Lord give us 10 or 12, 15, 20 year blueprint with all the details written in, all the blanks filled in, I believe if you're looking for that you're going to be disappointed, but I believe if you're looking for purpose today, if you came into this room and you can't tell me what your purpose is, let me tell you how to find your purpose, pray for the Lord to give you enthusiasm for today, Lord give me something to be excited about now, give me a purpose, give me enthusiasm for the hour, if you can't think about the rest of the day, Lord at least give me enthusiasm for lunch today, give me enthusiasm for my nap this afternoon, we can get excited about that can't you, give me enthusiasm for the night that I'm going to spend with my family today, Lord I can't worry about Monday and work, but Lord give me enthusiasm for right now, you see I believe if you begin to pray day by day, if you'll begin to look at your schedule of events every day and say Lord I declare my absolute dependence upon you, and Lord this appointment I pray to day that you'd give me enthusiasm for this assignment today, but this is my purpose and your purpose is found in your daily details, that's where your purpose is found, what are you doing, that's your purpose, pray for enthusiasm for right now, you see this woman after she met Jesus she walked to the well with nothing going far hurt in her life, you agree with that, I mean this woman didn't have very good prospects for the future, and yet when she met Jesus it says that she dropped her bucket and ran back toward the village to go tell them about the Messiah that she had just found, you know she got excited about the hour, I don't know if she was thinking in her life, man I wonder what the next ten years are going to be like, I don't think she was thinking that, I think what she was excited about was the next two hours, I'm about to go tell the village that I've just met the Messiah and maybe I can't be excited about my financial prospect and maybe I'll never recover my reputation in this village, but I can tell you one thing, I'm excited about meeting Jesus and I know what I've got to do this next hour, and some of you just need to start praying for some enthusiasm for the moment about what you're doing right now, and by the way you know where your purpose is, your purpose is people, you see she didn't, most of us, if we had met Jesus like that, we went and ran toward the village, we just said God tell me give me a prophetic picture of my future, Lord tell me everything about me, Lord you know now that I've met Jesus can you just tell me a lot of stuff about me, what are my kids going to look like, what's the next house going to look like, Lord I'm not going to retire safely, can you tell me all those things in advance, but see when you meet Jesus, let me tell you what, you'll find your purpose and that's loving God and going after people, she met the Messiah, she fell in love with God, and her first thought in her mind was not about herself, the first thought that came to her mind was I need to go back to my village because there's some people there that need to meet Jesus like I just met him, you want to know what your purpose is, it's the people that you're surrounded by, that's your purpose, put looking for ministry callings, your ministry calling or your neighbors are the people that God puts you around you at work, that's your purpose, listen we all talk about building the kingdom of God, expanding the kingdom of God, God's kingdom come, God's will be done, how do you think God's kingdom is coming and it will be done, how do you think that happens, one person at a time, going after your next door neighbor, going after the people that's on your soccer team, going after people that you know, going after people that work, the person sitting next to you at work, the person you're always running into at the grocery store, that's your purpose and this woman discovered that, she discovered a purpose, I wrote down this quote I read this morning, I read it this week, listen to this, it's pretty exciting, I like this, life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty well preserved body, but rather to skid in broad side, thoroughly used up, totally worn out and loudly proclaiming wow Lord, what a ride, that's the ride isn't it, here's the third thing I think we're supposed to get from this story about the woman at the well, is that Jesus understands our need for hope, all of us in this room need hope, let's read in John 14 it says, if you only knew the gift God has for you and who I am you would ask me and I would give you living water, but sir you don't have a rope or a bucket, she said and this is a very deep well, where would you get this living water, besides are you greater than our ancestor Jacob who gave us this well, how can you offer better water than he and his sons in his cattle enjoyed, and Jesus replied, people soon become thirsty again after drinking this water, but the water I give them takes away thirst altogether, it becomes a perpetual spring within them giving them eternal life, now I want to take a moment right now, I want to introduce you to a modern day woman at the well, her name is Connie, I want you to watch the video. I was the woman at the well, Jesus met me in September 1985 when God called me into his presence, I had been raised in an abusive home, my parents were alcoholics, and on more than one occasion they tried to kill one another, my parents divorced when I was eight years old, frequently my mother kicked me out of the house because she did not want me, once she held a gun to my head in an attempt to kill me, my heartfelt desire was to be loved, and yet I did not have a clue of the meaning of life, I cried out to God, Lord there has to be more to life than this, something is missing, I don't see you in my life, I don't see you in church, the world in the church looks the same, what is missing? After three failed marriages and unwise choices God brought me to my knees, he forgave me, and through his heart of love, I could forgive my parents, and those who had hurt me in those vulnerable, impressionable years, he opened the door for my son and me to witness to my former husbands and their wives, both former husbands and one of the wives except to Christ, when he met me at the well that fateful morning, he opened his arms without judgment, or condemnation, and loved me into his presence. Great story, let me give you the end of that story, Connie today is on our staff at Gateway Church, she's a part of our pastoral care team, and every day she helps people that are in great despair find hope, because Connie found the source of hope one day, that's a great story because God's still redeeming men and women today, God is still trying to offer you hope, there's a difference today between hope and wishing, let me tell you what wishing is, wishing is, I want a new bike, I want a new car, I want something, wishing is that Ed McMahon's going to show up at your front door, I want you to turn to your neighbor and say this, Ed is not coming, Ed's not coming, that's wishing, let me tell you what hope is though, I want you to write down this definition of hope, hope is trusting God for the future, but you're convinced that the future belongs to the Lord, it's believing that God will be with me on the journey, hope is believing God for your future, that he's going to be with you on the journey, you see what we're praying for today, most of your prayer requests, you're praying for a destination, and yet God is more concerned many times about the journey than the destination, and God wants to walk with you every day, God wants to walk with you an hour by hour, right now my dad is in late stage 5 of cancer in the liver, and the doctors have said you have maybe months to live, he's 63 years old, and I wish him my dad was healed, but you know what, I have now found hope, because I found it in God's word, I found hope not because of what people said to me, but because I believe that God's blessings will overtake my dad, why hasn't God healed him right away, why hasn't God healed him today, you know why, because God's doing something much more powerful than just healing his body, he's with him on a journey, and I begin to see things happen in my dad's life in his last three years since he was diagnosed, you know what, God is a part of the journey and not just the destination, and God's with you on the journey today, and some of you are wondering, God why aren't you answering my prayers, why aren't you doing this for me, listen God's with you on the journey, and my hope comes from knowing that my future belongs to the Lord, that his blessings will overtake me, that his favor is upon me, that he is for me and not against me, and no matter what my present circumstances say, I know he is with me, he will be with me tomorrow, he'll be with me the next day, he's not going to leave me nor forsake me, that's what gives us hope this morning, do you agree? But many times when the battle is the most intense in our lives, that's when we lose hope, when the battle is the most intense, when things around us are falling apart, I remember the day and not so long ago that I got that call, that's not doing good, you know, that's not doing good, you can hear the tone in my mom's voice that that's not good news, and so I remember that when the battle is intense in my heart, that's when I have to go back to God's word, you see in August of 1988 when I was born again, I had to make a decision, am I going to believe the promises of this word or not, so here's some scriptures that I quote out loud, and this is a method that I use to get hope back in my heart, I just quote God's promises for me, Isaiah 54 says no weapon forged against you will prevail, and you will refute every tongue that accuses you, including the tongue of the enemy that says that cancer kills, that you're destined for cancer yourself, every man in my family has died of cancer, every male on my dad's side of the family is died of cancer, you know what the enemy tells me, that's my destiny, and so I quote back to him, Isaiah 54, that no weapon forged against me shall prevail, and I quote back to him, Matthew 28, and be sure of this, I am with you always, even to the end of the age, and that by his strikes I am healed, that Jesus saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven, and the same authority he gave Jesus he gave me, that I'm an heir according to Christ, and all the promises that he gave Jesus belong to me and my family, so you have to quote back to scriptures of promises that God gave you if you want to have hope today, because if you're listening to people or you're trying to find it through some other means you're not going to find hope, all you'll find is despair and emptiness, there's God's word that gives us hope, quoting and memorizing and quoting back to God, many times in our staff meetings here at the church when we are going through a difficult time at Gateway Church, one of the things we do as pastors will begin to pray, and we'll just begin to quote the promises of God out loud, and what it does is hope begins to fill the room. Try this at home, you and your wife just begin to read some promises of God's word out loud over your children and over your home, and see if suddenly you begin to believe that the future is not so bad, that God is going to be with you tomorrow and the next day. I want you to read 2nd Peter chapter 1, then we're going to close. To me this is one of the best scriptures that I've, I just love this scripture in 1st Peter, 1 verse 3, says, "As we know Jesus' fetter, his divine power gives us everything we need for living a godly life," and that's a great promise, isn't it? Now he has called us to receive his own glory and goodness, and by that same mighty power, he has given us all of his rich and wonderful promises, and he has promised that you will escape the decadence all around you, caused by evil desires, and that you will share in his divine nature. Now this morning I just choose to believe that. I choose to believe that I'm not going to fall away at my older age, and I'm not going to be one of those pastors who can't live out the life of godliness, that I'm going to escape the decadence that's all around me, and not only am I going to escape, but I'm going to share more and more and more in the divine nature of God, and that's my prayer for you that as you grow older and you walk with the Lord, that you don't grow further apart from God, that actually you become more and more like him, that as you grow older in your age, that you become more like Jesus, that you share in his divine nature, because that's his promise for us, and I want to give you hope this morning. I believe there are many of you here today that you've given up hope, that you've been praying for something over and over and over again, like someone prayed for the woman at the well, maybe things haven't turned out exactly the way you wanted them to, but if you pray according to God's will, everything's going to come under God's authority. There will be no unfinished business, including the business of your own personal life. I want you to stand with me this morning as you stand, I want you to close your eyes and prepare your heart for the Holy Spirit to minister to you this morning. I want you to just close your eyes right now, and I want you to look inside your heart, and I want you to ask yourself this question, do I have hope for tomorrow, and my field with God's hope? Do you know what the moral of the story at the woman at the well, if you want to know what the real moral of that story is, you want to know the one thing that we're supposed to take away this morning from that story, God's all about giving us a second chance. Some of you need to hear this morning, God wants to give you a second chance, and just a minute we're going to call for the ministry team and they're going to come forward. There are those of you here this morning, you need to come down, you need to ask them to pray for you to receive the Lord in your heart as your Savior, because that's the only source of hope. See, the Lord this morning is offering all of us this living water, the Lord's offering us this morning, the same thing, He offered the woman at the well, He's offering us living water. So I'm going to pray, and then we're going to sing another song, and as we sing I want you to worship, I want you to enter back into worship, I want you to ask the Lord. Lord is that me? As we begin to sing, as soon as we start singing, I want our ultra ministry team to come forward, and if you're here today, I don't want one single person to leave this room if you have an area of your life where you're hopeless. I want the Lord Jesus to feel you so completely full of hope that you walk out of here today not confident in me or not confident in Gateway, but confident in God, confident in His Word, confident that God is for you and not against you. So I'm going to pray, and we're going to sing a song, and as we begin to sing the song, I want our ultra ministry team to come forward, and if you need prayer, I want you to come right with them. Just come on down. They're going to be here, they're going to pray for you, and we'll stay as long as we need to pray for every person in the room today. So let's just pray together, Lord, we thank you so much for your Holy Spirit, and I choose today to believe, Lord, that you are a source of a hope, that your Word is true, that your promises are yes and amen, that your promises will not fail. Lord, I thank you that you're the same today as you were yesterday, and you'll be the same tomorrow. Lord, today I pray over every person in this room, that they would be filled with the hope of the Holy Spirit, Lord, that they would hope, that they would have a godly expectation for the future. Lord, I pray that they would see that you are working out things about your divine timeline. I pray today that we would discover our purpose, but more than that, I pray today that we would discover your hope, the real hope that you've given us, Lord, we bless your name, we thank you for all you're doing in our lives, in Jesus' name, we pray, I want our ultra ministry team to come forward right now, if you need prayer, come right now, come right now and Let us pray for you. (upbeat music)