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Is the Gospel for all races? Even the ones we do not want to associate with? What about folks who have lived very bad lives?

The early church would struggle with differences and we still see our world divided by racism and prejudice behaviours.

Core message for today is Men make barriers to relationships with God and man. But Jesus breaks the barriers and opens relationship with God and man.

A. The Mission: Rescue a Samaritan woman!

A. Jesus goes thru Samaria and stops at Jacob's Well 1/2 mile from Sychar, Samaria

Jews avoided their enemies. Some would walk a 6 day journey around Samaria rather than the 3 day journey going through Samaria. Why?

a. 720 Assyria conquered northern Israel. They took most of the people away. Put other captured peoples in their land. Thus those left would intermarry with them. This made the Jewish blood impure.

b. 450 Nehemiah comes to rebuild temple. Samaritains want to help but are rejected as they are half-breeds. Manasseh married Sanballats daughter and built a revial temple in response. Here starts the serious problem.

B. Jesus will challenge the norms of Jewish society to show the gospel is for all.

A. Jesus walks through Samaria. He has someone to meet. A lost daughter will be found.

a. Who is the woman? She is a Samaritan from Sychar. There is a well at her home but she comes to a well 1/2 mile away. She also comes at noon. She is a lost daughter, her life is not what God wants her to be.

b. This is a second barrier Jesus will confront. Rabbis don't talk to women in public - not even their wives or daughters.

c. Rabbis and any respectable Jew would not talk with a woman with her character and lifestyle.

C. Conversation: Topic 1

a. living water in everyday language meant fresh flowing water like a stream. Jacobs well was percolated from the soil water

b. She misses the offer as she seeks fresh flowing water so she will not have to come get water everyday. She even criticises Jesus as she calls Jacob her father built this well. How can you be any greater than he? (Jews denied that the Samaritans were children of Joseph)

c. She again addresses you don't even have a bucket! How can you give fresh flowing water! She's ready to fight this Jew!

d. Jesus was using the spiritual meaning that is used in the scriptures. A living water that rescues the thirsty heart. The woman was blind she could not see.

D. Conversation: Topic 2

a. She actually ridicules Jesus again. Give me some of this water. (hinting he must be a little crazy)

b. Men hunger and thirst but like walking in a fog we cant see what is in front of us - our deepest need we are blinded from seeing.

c. Jesus now turns her heart to hear him by asking for her husband. He is pointing to her sin and where she is hurting most.

d. Man does not understand his need of God til he sees his sin makes life hurt. That his sin is his own doing. "A prophet points out to a man or a nation what is wrong; but he does so not to push them into despair but to point the way to cure and to amendment and to rightness of life." (Barclay)

E. Conversation: Topic 3

1. She knows she is a sinner and needs atonement. But Jews say their temple is right and Samaritans say only their temple is right. Who is right? Where do I find rescue from what I have done? Where is God that I can find Him?

a. Jesus answer: God is worshipped not by a place but by spirit and truth. God can be found anywhere!

c. Who gets to hear the direct announcement from Jesus - that is me! The most unlikely! Jesus came to rescue a lost daughter but also to announce the Messiah was present for Samaritans too!

F. False Worship

a. A false worship is a selective worship. It chooses what it wishes to know about God and omits the rest. The Samaritans took as much of scripture as they wished and paid no attention to the rest.

b. A false worship is an ignorant worship. Worship ought to be the approach to God of the whole man. Religion may begin with an emotional response; but the time comes when that emotional response has to be thought out. 1 Peter 3:15

c. A false worship is a superstitious worship. It is a worship given, not out of a sense of need nor out of any real desire, but basically because a man feels that it might be dangerous not to give it.

d. Jesus taught we must worship God in spirit. If God is spirit, God is not confined to things; and therefore idol worship is not only an irrelevancy, it is an insult to the very nature of God. If God is a spirit, then the only gifts that befit the nature of God are the gifts of the spirit--love, loyalty, obedience, devotion.

G. Is he the one? John 4:27-30

A. Now the woman reacts in amazement. She has to tell someone in fact everyone!

a. They are beginning to know him; and they had already arrived at the conclusion that, however surprising his actions were, they were not to be questioned. A man has taken a great step to real discipleship when he learns to say: "It is not for me to question the actions and the demands of Jesus. My prejudices and my conventions must go down before them.

So What?

This story addresses how we must turn to God
1. First the woman had to see who she was - what her life had become and take responsibility for what she does

2. Then she needed to see how God knows where she was and is, as well as where she needed to be. But also offer her living water.

c. Max Lucado tells a story about a man who was told his dad was dead. When he got to the hospital the chart to the dead body was his fathers information but not the body. They searched and found his dad was alive! He went about shouting he is alive, he is allllive! We need to tell others that we are alive becasue of Jesus!

d. The church must break barriers that men set up (not God set up) and be a forgiving - witnessing community. Racial barriers have no place in God's kingdom - on earth as it is in heaven!

John 04 @Exogete@

Editor

@Introduction@