He was in the world, and the world was created through him.

And yet the world did not recognize him.

He came to his own, and his own people did not

receive him.

But to all who did receive him, he gave them

the right to be children of God.

To those who believe in his name, who were

born not of natural descent, or of the will of the flesh, or of the will of Mandev, but of

God.

That's John, chapter one, verses ten to 13

g'day.

And welcome to stories of a faithful God.

I'm Dave Whittingham.

What does it mean to believe in the name of

Jesus? I mean, it's pretty clear that it's not just

You can believe that and not even believe that God exists.

But what does it mean? Have you ever noticed how people can believe

different things about the same person or event?

Some people believe the american civil war was about slavery.

Others believe it was about states rights.

Some people believe that Adolf Hitler was a

murdering racist, evil conspiracy theorist.

That's what I believe.

Other people believe that he was a hero who showed the way to deal with big problems.

There are some beliefs that are personal and it doesnt really matter what you believe.

Do you believe that a particular flower is beautiful or ugly?

It doesnt really matter.

Its up to you.

Other beliefs really can be right or wrong.

If your car breaks down while crossing a train

line with a train hurtling towards you, if you say you dont believe theres a train there, it

doesnt actually change.

The fact that there is a train of your belief

is just plain wrong and you're going to pay the consequences for getting it wrong.

A lot of people make the mistake of thinking that what you believe about Jesus belongs in

the first category.

It's up to you to decide.

And it doesn't really matter what you believe.

You believe that he was a good teacher, fine.

You believe that he was delusional, fine.

You believe he only really exists in our

hearts, fine.

It's up to you.

Except it's not up to us.

We don't get to decide who Jesus really is any

more than I get to decide who you are or you get to decide who I am.

Jesus is who he is.

He invites us to know him as he really is.

He invites us to believe and trust him as he really is.

John wrote his gospel so that we'd know and believe in the real Jesus.

Because if you believe in the real Jesus, the one who's both God and the son of God, the one

who's always been God but also became a man.

If you receive him as your God and king, then

you'll be welcomed into the family of God.

For those of us who have received him, we need

to keep growing in our understanding of this real Jesus, so that as the apostle Paul put it

in Ephesians, chapter three, verses 18 and 19, we may comprehend with all the saints what is

the length and width and height and depth of God's love, and to know Christ's love that

surpasses knowledge, so that we may be filled with all the fullness of God.

And so let's take a fresh look at the real Jesus as I present to you our next episode of

stories of a faithful goddess.

We finished our last episode with Jesus in

Cana.

He'd just performed his first miracle of

turning water into wine.

His disciples got to see the first tiny

glimpse of his glory, and for the first time, they truly believed in him.

John tells us that after this, Jesus, his mum and his disciples headed down to Capernaum, a

village on the edge of the sea of Galilee.

They're only there for a few days, though,

because the biggest celebration of the jewish year is about to happen.

Passover.

If you've listened to our last episode on

Exodus, you should have the first ever Passover, fairly fresh in your mind.

It's the great celebration of when God saved his people from slavery in Egypt.

It remembers when God killed the firstborn in every egyptian family, but not the israelite

firstborns.

For them, a lamb had died in their place and

they smeared its blood on the door.

When God saw the blood, he passed over that

house and moved on to the next one.

When we looked at it, we saw the rich imagery

that God established to get people ready for recognizing Jesus and understanding his death

on the cross at a much later Passover.

That Passover's a couple of years away.

For now, the crowds aren't cheering him as the coming king as he approaches Jerusalem, no

one's baying for Jesus blood.

No one's trying to trap him or betray him.

For now, he can just go and enjoy the festival.

I heard recently that on the night before the first episode of the hit tv show Friends

aired, the producer took the cast out for a night on the town.

He gave them some money and he said, go and enjoy yourselves because this is the last

night of your lives where no one will know who you are.

And he was right.

That's a bit what it's like for Jesus.

Sure, he's done the miracle up in Cana in Galilee.

But that's a long way from Jerusalem.

For now, he can just go to the city, go up to

the temple, worship God and celebrate God's salvation of his people.

When he gets to the temple, though, what he sees horrifies him.

The temple is meant to represent God's home on earth, the place where people can come to pray

to him, to sing his praises, to seek his forgiveness and make promises to him.

When Jesus arrives, instead of hearing the prayers of God's people, he hears animals and

salesmen and bargaining.

John, chapter two, verse 14 says, in the

temple he found people selling oxen, sheep and doves.

And he also found the money changers sitting there.

Of course, these people would claim that they're helping people worship God.

The animals are for the sacrifices people want to make to God.

The money changers would say, you don't want to use filthy roman money in God's temple.

It's not clean in God's eyes.

You want to use proper hebrew money.

But of course, that's just excuses.

They're out to make money and they're making

it impossible for people to come and pray.

Jesus, the son of God, is outraged.

He's outraged for the honour and glory of his father.

If someone visits the temple, what can they possibly think of this God?

Are they going to think he's the glorious, powerful creator, ruler of the world, saviour

of his people, defeater of Egypt, who's kindly provided a place on earth for you to come and

honour him and speak with him and seek mercy from him and learn about him?

Probably not.

They're more likely to think he's just after

your money.

And so Jesus deals with things.

Verse 15 says, after making a whip out of cords, he drove everyone out of the temple

with their sheep and oxen.

He also poured out the money changer's coins

and overturned the tables.

He also told those who were selling doves, get

these things out of here.

Stop turning my father's house into a

marketplace.

And then we're told in verse 17, his disciples

remembered that it is written, zeal for your house will consume me.

What theyre remembering is psalm 69.

Nine.

Psalm 69 was written by King David about a thousand years before, David had been anointed

as king.

Remember, the word for an anointed one is

Messiah or Christ.

So David is a Christ.

So much of David's life is reflected in the ultimate Christ in Jesus.

In psalm 69, David's being mocked and laughed at.

He's become the object of gossip.

And the reason is because of the way he's been

acting in the temple.

He went up to the temple not as a glorious

king in all his splendor, but wearing sackcloth to show his sadness at his sin.

Instead of feasting, he's fasting as a sign of his repentance.

He trusts God.

He honours God.

He worships God.

And that's expressed by how he comes to God's

temple.

He's zealous for God's temple because he's

zealous for God and so is Jesus.

Now, if someone clears out a market in the way

Jesus does, people are going to start asking questions.

John tells us that the Jews start challenging Jesus.

They want to know where he gets his authority to just come in here and kick all the animals

and money changes out.

They ask in verse 18, what sign will you show

us for doing these things? I presume they're asking for a sign of his

authority because if the priests, God's representatives on earth, have said that this

is all okay, you're gonna have to prove you've come from God if you want to change things up.

Jesus answer is a little mysterious.

All throughout John's gospel, John records how

Jesus deliberately throws people off balance by saying things in a weird kind of way.

It has the effect of getting rid of the people who are never really interested in the answer

anyway and invites the more honest people to investigate further.

So he says in verse 19, destroy this temple and I will raze it up in three days.

The Jews are kind of stunned.

This sounds like the ravings of a madman.

They respond in verse 20, this temple took 46 years to build, and you'll raise it up in

three days.

Just a super brief history of the temple.

King Solomon, son of King David, had built the first temple on the Temple Mount, in

Jerusalem, on Mount Zion.

It was pretty spectacular.

The wealthy has been able to pour into.

It is a sign of the blessings God has given

them.

But when Judah was conquered by the

Babylonians in 587 BC, the Babylonians tore down the temple and took most of the

population into exile.

God had removed the blessings because of their

sin.

70 years later, God kindly brought them back

and they built a new temple.

But it was a temple on a budget.

When they laid the foundations, all the younger men cried because they were so happy

that they were getting a temple.

But all the old men cried because they could

see how pathetic it was compared to the original.

If the first temple showed God's blessing, the second showed how far they'd fallen from that

blessing, all because of their sin.

Fast forward 500 years and King Herod is

ruling the area as a kind of puppet king for Rome.

He's pretty rich and powerful.

He wants to keep the population happy.

So he says, I'm going to do the ultimate renovation and create the most wonderful,

spectacular temple you can imagine.

He turned the whole complex into the largest

religious site in the world.

As you can imagine, this made the Jews pretty

proud at a time when they didn't have much to be proud about.

Now Jesus is saying, though, destroy this temple and I'll raise it up in three days.

Except he's not talking about the massive complex they're standing in.

He's actually talking about something much greater.

The temple represents where God lives on earth.

And John the Baptist has already said, back in chapter one, where God's living, he said he

saw God's holy spirit come down and stay on Jesus.

The temple only represents God's home on earth.

Jesus actually is that home.

He's the real deal in verse 21, we're told.

But he was speaking about the temple of his body.

So when he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this,

and they believed the scripture and the statement Jesus had made.

It's kind of nice that John, who's one of the disciples, is saying, yeah, we didn't really

get it at the time either.

We only really understood what he meant when

he was raised from the dead.

Jesus knows that the jews will destroy the

true temple, his body, by sending him to the cross.

And on the third day, he's going to be raised to life.

This is the great sign that'll show his authority to clear the temple.

How will you know that he has the right to do that?

Because he's the conqueror of death, the giver of life, the saviour of the world.

And there's only one person who can claim those titles.

God.

Jesus resurrection will prove once and for all

who he is and what authority he has.

John says that Christ's resurrection made the

disciples believe the scriptures, meaning the Old Testament.

I'm not sure.

There's a specific passage about rebuilding

the temple in three days.

But there are passages that refer to the

resurrection of the Christ.

For example, psalm 16 nine says, therefore, my

heart is glad and my whole being rejoices.

My body also rests securely.

For you will not abandon me to Sheol.

That's the place where the dead go.

You will not abandon me to Sheol.

You will not allow your faithful one to see

decay at the moment.

In John chapter two, the disciples belief in

Jesus is real.

It just isn't fully formed yet.

It hasn't sort of come together.

It needs more.

They don't fully understand who he really is yet.

That's possibly why John is so sympathetic to us and doesn't just say, hey, believe in

Jesus.

He gives us the time and space to follow and

explore and grow in our understanding, just like Jesus gave him.

Well, Jesus seems to get away with what he's done in the temple.

He hangs around in Jerusalem for the whole celebration, which is seven days.

And John implies that while he's there, he's doing miracles or signs.

Notice that John doesn't call them miracles.

He uses signs because signs give you the

information you need, where you are, what you're looking at, who you're talking to.

These miracles, these signs show us who Jesus really is.

The people in the temple asked Jesus for a sign to prove his authority.

But he refused to give them one.

Then, at that time, he isn't a show pony or

magician who just does tricks when people demand them.

Especially people who don't really care about the truth.

But he does do signs at other times.

Verse 23 says, while he was in Jerusalem

during the Passover festival.

Many believed in his name when they saw the

signs he was doing.

That sounds really positive, doesn't it?

After all, belief in Jesus name is what we're after.

However, belief doesn't mean full understanding.

It doesn't mean that you're really good.

In fact, we're not good enough for God.

We need to believe in Jesus to get us into God's family.

He does for us what we can't.

And so while John tells us that lots of people

believe in Jesus.

He then goes on to say in verse 24, Jesus,

however, would not entrust himself to them.

Since he knew them all.

And because he did not need anyone to testify about man.

For he himself knew what was in man.

Which sets the scene for the arrival of a man.

This man embodies everything that those last few verses talk about.

He seems to believe, but he is hesitant.

And Jesus is wise not to entrust himself to

him.

Chapter three, verse one says there was a man

from the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews.

PhARisees are one group of religious leaders.

They're one of the groups that sent people to

John the Baptist to find out who he is.

If you're an avid BIblE reader, you'll

probably have pretty negative views of pharisees.

But just suspend that for a moment.

Sure, lots of pharisees turn against jesus,

but not all of them you have to take them as you find them in each passage.

In this passage, NiCodemus comes at night.

In a sense that's negative, right?

The night is the time when evil deeds are done, when sin is covered by a cloak of

darkness.

And yet, right at the beginning of the GoSpel,

Jesus is called the light.

John says that the light shines in the

darkness.

So maybe this is really good.

Nicodemus is coming from the darkness into the light.

It certainly starts very positively.

Nicodemus says in verse two, Rabbi, we know

that you are a teacher who's come from God, for no one could perform these signs you do

unless God were with him.

Jesus doesn't respond with, oh, I'm so glad

that people are starting to get it.

What a relief.

No, Jesus knows what's in the heart of man.

He knows to look deeper than the words.

And so he uses the same strategy we'll see time and time again, saying something

mysterious to throw people off balance, to draw the genuine people in, to keep looking

for answers.

The Jews in the temple didn't look much

further.

Let's see how Nicodemus goes.

Jesus says in verse three, truly, I tell you, unless someone is born again, he cannot see

the kingdom of God.

A bit of a conversation jump there.

The kingdom of God will be a pretty familiar idea for Nicodemus.

After all, the Jews are waiting for the anointed king to come and establish this

kingdom.

The Old Testament's prepared them for that.

But born again, that, that's a new one.

There's no Old Testament passage that uses

that specific phrase.

And besides, the Pharisees believe they'll be

getting into the kingdom of God by their strict obedience to the law, by their good

behavior, not by some abstract new birth.

So he replies in verse four, how can anyone be

born when he's old? Can he enter his mother's womb a second time

and be born? I could be wrong, but I don't think Nicodemus

is saying that.

That's actually what Jesus is suggesting.

I think it's his way of saying, what on earth do you mean?

A bit like the guys at the temple saying, what do you mean?

You're going to rebuild the temple in three days?

So Jesus doubles down in verse five.

He says, truly, I tell you, unless someone is

born of water and the spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.

What's this water and spirit birth? Generally, when Jesus says something strange,

he's usually picking up on old Testament references.

The book of Ezekiel was written when the people of God had utterly failed the northern

kingdom of Israel had been wiped out.

The southern kingdom of Judah was in exile in

Babylon.

The temple of Jerusalem was destroyed.

God had kicked his people out of the land because of their sin.

Over the roughly thousand years between when he had given them his perfect lore at Mount

Sinai and their exile, they'd proven time and time again that sinful humans find it

impossible to obey God properly.

Our selfishness and evil is just too much for

us to overcome.

And yet, God gives hope.

The faithful God, who made his promises to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, to bless the whole

world through them, he hasn't given up.

He never expected people to succeed because of

their own efforts.

The basis of his promise is his faithfulness.

And so in Ezekiel, he gives hope.

That doesnt depend on them, but on him.

Listen to what he says hell do, and how he talks about water and spirit.

This is Ezekiel, chapter 36, verses 25 27.

God says, I will also sprinkle clean water on

you, and you will be clean.

I will cleanse you from all your impurities

and all your idols.

I will give you a new heart and put a new

spirit within you.

I will remove your heart of stone and give you

a heart of flesh.

I will place my spirit within you and cause

you to follow my statutes and carefully observe my ordinances.

Do you hear the emphasis in that passage? God will clean you with water.

God will create a new spirit in you.

God will give you a new heart.

God will put his spirit in you.

In the end, the people of God will be good and

godly.

Not because they've transformed themselves by

a program of self improvement like the Pharisees are trying to do, but by the work of

God to make them into new people.

You could almost say he's going to make them

be born again.

The Pharisees haven't understood these things

at all.

They're still stuck on we must try harder,

rather than we must stop having faith in ourselves and start having faith in the

faithful God.

So Nicodemus asks in verse nine, how can these

things be? He's completely confused.

And Jesus replies, are you a teacher of Israel and don't know these things?

In other words, you're one of the guys who, every Sabbath in the synagogue, you're opening

the Bible, reading it out, explaining it to the people of Israel.

But you haven't got a clue what it's trying to teach you.

Jesus, on the other hand, isn't just another teacher with slightly different ideas.

He's God the Son, come from heaven.

He has come with authority and understanding.

And the ability to piece it all together.

So he says in verse eleven, truly, I tell you,

we speak what we know and we testify to what we have seen.

But you do not accept our testimony.

If I have told you about earthly things and

you dont believe, how will you believe if I tell you about heavenly things?

No one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven, the son of man.

That's Jesus way of speaking about himself.

It's another Old Testament reference from

Daniel, chapter seven that we'll have to get into another time.

But do you see Nicodemus's problem? Not only has he understood what God said in

the Old Testament, he isn't understanding what God, the son's saying to his face right now.

The person who can give him new birth can give him a new heart, who can wash his soul clean

with water, is standing right there in front of him.

That's why John told us at the beginning that whoever believes in Jesus is given the right

to become children of God.

It's like we're born again into a new family

through Jesus.

And Jesus tries to hammer home this need to

trust and believe in him.

He says in verse 14, just as Moses lifted up

the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of man must be lifted up so that everyone who

believes in him may have eternal life.

Another Old Testament reference.

Someone tried to tell my daughter the other day that we don't need the Old Testament, just

the New.

She said, how do I explain that that's not

right? I said, the Old Testament is referenced on

every single page of the New Testament.

So if you're anti old Testament, you're also

anti New Testament.

The Old gives us the framework to understand

the new.

So back in Exodus, after God had rescued the

Israelites from Egypt, time and time again, they turned against him.

One of those times, as punishment for turning against the God of life, he sent death in the

form of a plague of snakes.

People were dropping like flies.

Moses prayed and asked God to forgive them, and God did.

Not because they deserved it, but because of his mercy.

He told Moses to make a bronze snake and lift it high on a pole, and anyone who looked at

the snake would live.

They're not saved by the power of the snake

statue.

They're saved by believing, by trusting God

and his solution.

If you believe God's word that by looking at

the snake you'll live, you're going to look at the snake and you'll survive.

If you keep disbelieving God and so don't look, you'll die.

Belief is the key, which is what makes it the perfect example for understanding Jesus, who's

going to be lifted up on the cross.

Let me read again from verse 14.

Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the son of man must be lifted

up, so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.

For God loved the world.

In this way he gave his one and only son, so

that everyone who believes in him will not perish, but have eternal life.

What astounding love that God would offer a gift of life to sinful people like you and me.

People who only deserve death for rejecting the God of life.

And that gift isnt free for God.

Hes the God of justice and fairness.

And so, to meet the demands of justice that requires a death in order to give life to his

enemies, he offers his one and only son, who he loves, who hes loved for all eternity, who

hes one with as one God.

He gives this son to take our death.

The Pharisees had it so wrong, as do many people today.

We can't undo our evil or do enough good to earn our way into God's kingdom to get eternal

life.

But we can believe in the solution he's

offered.

In the greatest act of love in the universe,

we can believe in his son.

So Jesus says in verse 17.

For God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world

through him.

Anyone who believes in him is not condemned.

But anyone who does not believe is already condemned, because he has not believed.

In the name of the one and only son of God.

It's a stark warning, isn't it?

This is a promise of hope and joy and life.

Jesus is the lifeboat to safety, the lifeboat

that'll take you from the sinking ship to eternal life.

If you don't trust that lifeboat, though, if you keep trying to fix things by shifting deck

chairs on the Titanic, you'll go down with the ship.

Unfortunately, that's what lots of people choose.

Verse 19 says, this is the judgment.

The light has come into the world, and people

love darkness rather than the light, because their deeds were evil.

For everyone who does evil hates the light and avoids it, so that his deeds may not be

exposed.

But anyone who lives by the truth comes to

that light.

So that his works may be shown to be

accomplished.

By who?

By themselves, they have achieved all these good works.

No. So that his works may be shown to be accomplished by Goddesse.

After this, Jesus leaves Jerusalem and takes his disciples out into the judean countryside.

Remember Judea in the south, around Jerusalem, Galilee, in the north, he spends some time

with them and also does some baptising.

Meanwhile, John the Baptist is still around

and also still baptizing, and his disciples come and have a bit of a grumble about Jesus.

They come to John in verse 26 and say, rabbi, the one you testified about and who is with

you across the Jordan is baptizing and everyone's going to him.

Do you see their problem? They think this is pretty disrespectful.

Surely John, who came first, should be the one in the spotlight.

But even though they acknowledge that John testified about Jesus, it's like they didn't

actually listen to what he said.

They didn't understand that Jesus is the much

more important one.

So John tries to explain it again, this time

with wedding imagery.

At a wedding, if the groom's friend arrives

first, that doesn't mean he can jump in and marry the bride.

It isn't about who arrives in what order, it's about who's the most important.

So he tells them in verse 27, no one can receive anything unless it has been given to

him from heaven.

You yourselves can testify that I said I am

not the messiah, but I've been sent ahead of him.

He who has the bride is the groom, but the groom's friend who stands by and listens for

him, rejoices greatly at the groom's voice.

So this joy of mine is complete.

He must increase, but I must decrease again.

Their problem is a failure to understand who

Jesus is.

Even today, lots of people like Jesus.

Lots of people talk about Jesus.

But if they've got the wrong understanding of

who Jesus actually is, if he's a Jesus of their imagination and not the true Jesus, then

they're not actually believing in Jesus.

If they'll only receive Jesus on their terms,

not his, they're not actually receiving Jesus.

John again tries to reiterate how much more

important Jesus is, that he's come from heaven, from goddess, that he's the one who's

going to give people the Holy spirit and eternal life.

He wants people to understand how wonderful Jesus is, but also how dangerous it is to

reject Jesus, to not receive him or believe in him.

I'll read from verse 30.

He says, the one who comes from above is above

all.

The one who is from the earth is earthly and

speaks in earthly terms.

The one who comes from heaven is above all.

He testifies to what he has seen and heard, and yet no one accepts his testimony.

The one who has accepted his testimony has affirmed that God is true.

For the one whom God sends speaks God's words, since he gives the spirit without measure.

The father loves the Son and has given all things into his hands.

The one who believes in the Son has eternal life, but the one who rejects the Son will not

see life.

Instead, the wrath of God remains on him.

If you ever find someone telling you that you can know God without Jesus, or you can do

enough good things to earn your way into heaven, or that Jesus is great and you need

someone else as well, run a mile.

John could not be more clear.

The only way to have eternal life is by believing, trusting in Jesus.

This Jesus, the Jesus who came from heaven, the Jesus who gives the Holy Spirit, the real

Jesus, anything else, anyone else, leaves you in your sin and under the wrath of God.

If you do have that belief, that faith in the true Jesus, you have eternal life.

Not will have, not might have, not could have you have it.

Of course, true belief isn't passive belief.

It's belief in the Jesus who's the Christ, the

king, the one you want to listen to and obey.

But the amount of life he gives doesnt go up

and down based on your obedience.

Its a free gift to everyone who comes to him,

recognises their sin and need for him, and says, I cant save myself.

I place myself in your care.

And you know what?

No matter what youve done, no matter what youve been involved in, no matter what youve

been in your old life, it doesn't matter anymore.

Jesus gives you a new life.

You're born again as a child of God and you

have eternal life with him.

Jesus fame is starting to spread, so much so

that his disciples are outnumbering johns.

He isn't the unnoticed guy who can just travel

up to Jerusalem anymore.

Jesus learns that the Pharisees have heard

about this.

He doesn't want to spend too much time bogged

down by them, though.

So he decides to leave Judea and head back up

north to Galilee.

That takes him through Samaria, which is the

most common route.

It's the easiest route, but it can be super

awkward as well.

There's a lot of animosity between Jews and

Samaritans.

Sometimes it's only low level, sometimes it

breaks out into violence and murder.

To find out the origins of the Samaritans, you

have to read two kings, chapter 17, that describes the fall of the northern kingdom of

Israel.

Samaria was its capital, and the northern

kingdom had persisted despite heaps of gracious warnings to worship idols instead of

God.

So God sent the assyrian empire to conquer

them.

The Assyrians took the Israelites and settled

them in different parts of the empire.

Then they took people from lots of other parts

and settled them in the land that had been Israel.

They became known as the Samaritans.

They were a melting pot of people, and they

had a melting pot of religions.

They mixed the God of Israel in with all their

other gods, and it was a disaster.

You just can't do that.

Anyway, this is what we read from verse four.

He Jesus had to travel through Samaria.

So he came to a town of Samaria called Sychar, near the property that Jacob had given his son

Joseph.

Jacob's well was there, and Jesus, worn out

from his journey, sat down at the well.

It was about noon, so it's the middle of the

day.

It's hot.

Jesus has been walking all morning, and because he's human, he's tired.

This is something he never would have experienced in all eternity.

But having become human, he gets worn out.

He sits down by Jacob's well, and a woman just

happens to arrive to draw water.

Jesus is alone.

The disciples have gone into the town to get some supplies, and he does something which,

without the cultural context, seems perfectly normal to us.

He asks the woman for a drink.

He's been working hard.

There obviously aren't any taps.

She's got the tools for drawing water.

Why wouldn't he ask her? It's because of the anger we talked about

before between the Jews and the Samaritans.

You hear it in a shocked reply.

Verse nine says, how is it that you, a jew, asks for a drink from me, a samaritan woman.

She asked him for, Jews do not associate with Samaritans.

That's John spelling it out for us, in case we haven't quite got it yet.

How great is it then that Jesus is willing to cross the cultural boundary?

It's another reminder that no matter who you are, where you've come from, what you've done,

Jesus is keen to speak to you.

And so, yet again, Jesus snaps up the

teachable moment.

Again, he throws the person off balance with a

mysterious answer.

Again, there's a chance for this person to

learn something amazing if they're willing to engage in verse ten, Jesus says, if you knew

the gift of God and who is saying to you, give me a drink, you would ask him and he would

give you living water.

We've already seen how the identity of Jesus

is at the heart of everything.

So, yes, if this woman had any idea who's

speaking to her, it would change everything.

For now, though, he's a complete stranger from

an enemy nation, rambling about living water.

Like Nicodemus, she runs for the literal

meaning rather than some big spiritual idea.

Sir, she says in verse eleven, you don't even

have a bucket and the well is deep.

So where do you get this living water?

You aren't greater than our father Jacob, are you?

He gave us this well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and livestock.

Now, Jesus wasn't actually talking about Jacob at all, but yes, he is greater than Jacob.

In fact, it illustrates the point perfectly.

Jacob dug this well, and it gives water.

But Jesus, who's greater, has greater water to give than this whelk ever can.

So he says in verse 13, everyone who drinks from this water will get thirsty again.

But whoever drinks from the water that I will give him will never get thirsty again.

In fact, the water I will give him will become a well of water springing up in him for

eternal life.

This is an astounding offer.

Eternal life.

I mean, how often do you drink water or

something with water in it in a day? How long is it after you've drunk that you get

thirsty again? We need water to live, but it can never

satisfy for more than a little while.

You have to keep having more and more and

more, and even then it only delays our inevitable death.

Jesus is offering something much more powerful, much more satisfying, much more

sustaining.

It's something that, again, has an Old

Testament background.

In Jeremiah, when God is describing the sin of

his people, he reflects on the sadness and foolishness of it, how people choose curse

over blessing, pain over joy, death over life.

In Jeremiah 213, he says, for my people have

committed a double evil.

They have abandoned me, the fountain of living

water, and dug cisterns for themselves, cracked cisterns that cannot hold water.

People sin because we think we know better than goddess.

We think our way is better.

We think we'll be more free and fulfilled.

We think that we're the ones who can give ourselves real life.

But really, we're abandoning the cool, refreshing fountain of living water.

We're like desert dwellers sucking on the dry rocks of the empty hole we've spent our whole

lives digging.

Once again, though, theres hope.

Not hope from us and our efforts, but from God.

In Zechariah, God describes the day of final victory over his enemies.

In Zechariah, chapter 14, verses eight and nine, it says, on that day, living water will

flow out from Jerusalem, half of it towards the eastern Sea and the other half toward the

western sea in summer and winter alike.

On that day, the Lord will become king over

the whole earth.

The Lord alone and his name alone.

What a tremendous eternal hope.

And now this king's arrived, sitting at this

well in the heat of the day, announcing that this living water has arrived.

Sir, the woman says to him in verse 15, give me this water so that I won't get thirsty and

come here to draw water.

You still kind of feel that she doesn't quite

get it.

So Jesus changes direction.

He says in verse 16, go call your husband and come back here.

That feels like a really serious gear shift in the conversation.

I don't have a husband.

She answered, you have correctly said, I don't

have a husband.

Jesus said, for you've had five husbands, and

the man you now have is not your husband.

What you have said is true.

There's a couple of things going on in this interaction.

One, this isn't the sort of woman that religious leaders of the day would normally

associate with.

She's got a past with a capital p. Even if her

five marriages were all legitimate, her current arrangement doesn't fit with God's

plans for marriage.

Jesus has just announced his awareness of her

sin and notice that it doesn't make a scrap of difference in how he relates to her.

He's crossed cultural boundaries.

He crosses the boundary between sinful people

and God because he wants her to have eternal life.

Don't ever think that your past will stop Jesus from wanting to have anything to do with

you.

He came into the world precisely because he

loves saving sinners.

Even more than that, though, this interaction

actually gets her closer to being saved.

What's just happened is similar to when Jesus

spoke to Nathaniel back in chapter one.

In our last episode, he showed his miraculous

knowledge about Nathaniel.

A reader, just to refresh our memories,

chapter one, verse 47, says, then Jesus saw Nathaniel coming toward him and said about

him, here truly is an israelite in whom there is no deceit.

How do you know me? Nathaniel asked.

Before Philip called you when you were under the fig tree, I saw you, Jesus answered.

Rabbi Nathanael replied, you are the son of God.

You are the king of Israel.

Jesus miraculous insight drives Nathaniel to

recognize something of Jesus identity, and it's the same for this woman, though she

doesn't go quite as far.

She says in verse 19, sir, I see that you are

a prophet.

Given this understanding, she raises a major

source of contention between the Jews and Samaritans.

She says, our ancestors worshipped on this mountain, but you Jews say that the place to

worship is in Jerusalem.

This is actually a really big deal in

Deuteronomy chapter twelve, verse five.

Moses had told the people to worship God at

the place where he puts his name.

For various reasons.

The Jews believe that's Mount Zion, where Jerusalem is, and the Samaritans believe it's

a place called Mount Gerizim.

This is about obedience to God, and in the

past, it's turned pretty ugly.

A jewish king had destroyed the samaritan

temple on Mount Gerizim, though the Samaritans kept making sacrifices there.

A while later, some Samaritans had snuck into the Jerusalem temple and thrown animal bones

in there to make it ceremonially unclean.

It couldn't be used unless it was ritually

cleansed.

Essentially, this woman's cutting to the heart

of the matter and asking, what's the right way to worship God?

Jesus replies with some groundbreaking news.

He tells her that her question is becoming

irrelevant.

Something much better is about to happen, a

time when the mountains won't matter, he says in verse 21, believe me, woman, an hour is

coming when you will worship the Father, neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem.

You Samaritans worship what you do not know.

We worship what we do know, because salvation

is from the Jews.

But an hour is coming and is now here, when

the true worshippers will worship the father in spirit and in truth.

Yes, the father wants such people to worship him.

God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and in truth.

What does that mean, in spirit and truth? Back when Jesus was talking to Nicodemus about

being born again, he'd said, whatever is born of the flesh is flesh, and whatever is born of

the spirit is spirit.

In other words, you've had your flesh birth.

You need your new birth into a spiritual family, into God's family.

Just like Jesus said to this woman, God is spirit.

So how do you get that spirit birth? How do you worship God in spirit?

Surely by having God's spirit live in you, guiding you, directing you, giving you life.

In Ezekiel 30 712, God describes how he'll rescue his people from sin and death.

He says, this is what the Lord God says.

I'm going to open your graves and bring you up

from them, my people, and lead you into the land of Israel.

You will know that I am the Lord my people.

When I open your graves and bring you up from

them, I will put my spirit in you, and you will live, and I will settle you in your own

land.

Then you will know that I am the Lord.

I have spoken, and I will do it.

So when's that time coming?

When will God bring this new life.

When will he put his spirit in people?

Well, we've already heard the answer from John the Baptist.

In John chapter one, verse 32, the Baptist testifies about Jesus.

He says, I saw the spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and he rested on him.

I didn't know him, but he who sent me to baptize with water told me, the one who you

see the spirit descending and resting on, he is the one who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.

So what about truth? Jesus wants us to worship in spirit and truth.

Again, we've already heard about this.

In chapter one, verse 17, we're told, for the

law was given through Moses grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.

In fact, later on in the gospel, in John, chapter 14, verse six, Jesus famously says, I

am the way, the truth and the life.

No one comes to the father except through me.

If you know me, you will also know my father.

So how do you worship God?

In spirit and truth, you come to Jesus.

Even the Old Testament command to worship God.

Where he puts his name isn't thrown out the window.

Instead, it comes to its full and right conclusion.

God puts his name not in a city anymore, but in a person, his son, the Lord Jesus Christ.

I'm sure the woman doesn't fully understand all that, but she does something that the

other people we've seen in this episode don't do.

The people in the temple, Nicodemus, they seem to back away when Jesus says things they don't

quite understand.

This woman, though, she sees that there's

something, someone worth pursuing here.

She doesn't back away.

In verse 25, she says, I know that Messiah is coming who is called Christ.

When he comes, he will explain everything to us.

And because she's still engaging, because she's shown herself to genuinely want to know

the truth, then Jesus rewards her persistence with a very straightforward answer.

He says, I the one speaking to you, am Hedenae.

Right? At that moment, the disciples arrive.

They've just missed the greatest revelation in history.

All they see is Jesus talking to a woman.

They're actually quite amazed that he's

talking to a woman alone.

That's really culturally inappropriate.

Their shock is contrasted with Jesus willingness to engage with her.

Nothing stopped him from sharing the good news with her.

Not her ethnicity, not her gender, not her fairly promiscuous past.

He just wants to save her.

And indeed, she is being saved.

She wants what Jesus is offering.

John gives us a beautiful little detail that

highlights the difference between normal water and the living water.

Jesus offers this woman who came to the world to draw water.

She leaves her water jar behind and runs into the town to tell people about Jesus.

She went to the well for one thing, but she found something much better.

In verse 29, she cries out to the town, come see a man who told me everything I ever did.

Could this be the messiah? They left the town and made their way to him.

Meanwhile, it's the disciples turn for a lesson, to be thrown off balance by a

mysterious response.

Remember, they've just been into the town to

buy food.

And so we read from verse 31.

In the meantime, the disciples kept urging him, rabbi, eat something.

But he said, I have food to eat that you don't know about.

The disciples said to one another, could someone have brought him something to eat?

Again, it's that same pattern of misunderstanding.

So he says to them, my food is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work.

Jesus told them, don't you say there are still four more months.

And then comes the harvest.

Listen to what I'm telling you.

Open your eyes and look at the fields.

Because they are ready for harvest.

The reaper is already receiving pay and gathering fruit for eternal life so that the

sower and reaper can rejoice together.

Now, when Jesus says, open your eyes and look

to the fields, if they were to glance up and look around, what are they going to see?

John hasn't told us what time of year it is.

We have no idea what the crops are doing.

But he has told us something they will see.

They'll see the whole samaritan town coming

out to meet Jesus, to discover if this could be the messiah, to get the living water that

brings eternal life.

And just like the woman left her water jug

behind because she's found something so much more satisfying.

Jesus isn't eating his food because of his own joy and satisfaction in doing God's work, in

bringing people into eternal life.

And he's inviting his disciples into that same

joy, that same work.

He says in verse 38, I sent you to reap what

you didn't labour for.

Others have laboured and you have benefited

from their labour.

How many labourers had come before this?

All the prophets, all the writers of the Old Testament, even John the Baptist, preparing

the world for the arrival of the Christ.

And now he's here.

Now's the time of harvest.

Now's the time to give eternal life.

Now's the time when God will pour out his spirit through his son, Jesus the Christ.

Don't miss the harvest.

For those of us who are followers of Jesus, we

need to look with those same eyes.

The world is sucking on wells that have no

water.

When we see the world's evil and hatred and

arrogance, we can't just turn away in disgust.

We can't just try and box them in with rules

and laws so that we can get on with our lives.

We need to look with Jesus eyes.

We need to look with the eyes of love and compassion.

This is the harvest.

And what these people need most of all is

Jesus.

The Jesus who gives living water and eternal

life.

The Jesus who gives true joy, not the fake joy

that leads to so much pain.

Now's the time.

Now's the moment.

Let's not miss it.

Just like Jesus didn't miss it with these Samaritans.

Verse 39 says now many Samaritans from that town believed in him because of what the woman

said when she testified.

He told me everything I ever did.

So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them and he stayed there two

days.

Many more believed because of what he said.

And they told the woman, we no longer believe because of what you said.

Since we have heard for ourselves and know that this really is the saviour of the world.

This is a wonderful day of salvation.

As for the Jews, the Israelites of Jesus day,

are they going to recognize their saviour? Will they drink from the living water?

Well thats the story for next time.

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