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Living water is salvation that leads to eternal life · Cultural Wars | America Out Loud News

• 0:35
  Welcome to Faith Is.
• 0:36
  I'm Pastor Rick Stevens, and this is the place where faith is absolute confidence in the trustworthiness of God.
• 0:44
  In fact, that's how we define faith because that's how we stretch toward God's high calling.
• 0:50
  And we want to have confidence that God is trustworthy.
• 0:55
  So we challenge each other.
• 0:57
  We rise to the occasion, shall we say?
• 1:02
  We have determined that we are going to have absolute confidence in the trustworthiness of God.
• 1:09
  Well, we got a few things to talk about this week.
• 1:11
  And the first thing is I want to remind everybody, this is the third Sunday, third weekend, if you worship on Saturday of Lent.
• 1:20
  And I know not everybody pays a lot of attention to Lent.
• 1:24
  I know it's my perspective as well that too much emphasis on penance and remorse diminishes the reality of the forgiveness and the freedom of the gospel, and I don't want us to get trapped in that, nor do I want us to take what God has done for us for granted.
• 1:44
  Salvation was a costly free gift.
• 1:48
  It costs God everything, but he has made it available to us, and for that we give thanks.
• 1:53
  So perhaps your perspective during Lent will focus more on being thankful.
• 2:00
  And if you didn't choose a Lent project, then it's fine if you didn't.
• 2:04
  That wouldn't beat anybody up or condemn anyone or cause you to feel anything other than thankful that the Lord has provided salvation.
• 2:15
  So maybe your Lent project is simply to give thanks, and then that's good.
• 2:20
  Now, if you did give up something for Lent, like chocolate or whatever that might be.
• 2:27
  Chocolate seems to be a favorite one to bring up.
• 2:30
  I don't know if you gave up a favorite food for Lent.
• 2:34
  And what that means is that you have determined you won't eat that favorite food during the week before Sunday or the week after Sunday, but you have determined that you will feast on that food on Sunday because Sunday is a feast day.
• 2:54
  So wherever you fall in all of that, this is the third Sunday of Lent.
• 2:58
  We are moving toward holy week and the remembrance of the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus.
• 3:07
  So that's a reminder about Lent.
• 3:09
  Second thing is, I would not want us to forget that we should pray for the peace of Jerusalem.
• 3:17
  I know that's become almost a cliche these days because of the war that's going on over there, and I don't mean it as a cliche, I mean it as a proper biblical admonition that we need to take to heart to pray for the peace of Jerusalem.
• 3:31
  Now I'm happy to report that as of right now.
• 3:34
  I have heard from my few acquaintances that I made when I was in Israel visiting back in December, and all of them are safe.
• 3:43
  One of the gentlemen sent a text to our group and said that he was fine, but he accompanied that notice with some video pictures of where a missile had fallen, and it was only a 10-minute walk from his residence.
• 4:01
  So that kind of brings it home, makes it real.
• 4:04
  But at any rate, at this point, the people I'm acquainted with are safe.
• 4:09
  The other family that runs a shop in the old city of Jerusalem.
• 4:13
  I talk to them, and they are gathered together all together in their house and staying safe mostly inside.
• 4:21
  There's a lot of response to the air raid sirens, and they have to take shelter.
• 4:26
  That's pretty much the day-to-day experience, I guess, in Israel.
• 4:30
  Perhaps that will diminish as the war continues and as Iran's ability to strike back is diminished.
• 4:37
  But at any rate, we should pray for the peace of Jerusalem.
• 4:41
  And I hope you will.
• 4:43
  I hope you'll pray for the peace of Jerusalem when you go to church.
• 4:46
  I hope your church will pay will pray.
• 4:48
  Maybe your Bible study group, and if none of them do, at least you and I can.
• 4:52
  And so I want to thank you for praying for the peace of Jerusalem.
• 4:58
  Now it's also very interesting, and you probably noticed this, that here we are right after the celebration of Purim.
• 5:08
  Or purim.
• 5:10
  It's Julie said Purim is the way I've heard it pronounced, P-U-R-I-M.
• 5:14
  It's a word that comes from the ancient word meaning lots, and that's related to the story of Esther that we'll get to in just a minute.
• 5:22
  But you may have noticed that Purim was celebrated on March 3rd, just a few days ago.
• 5:29
  It begins in the evening, as often do Jewish celebratory days at sundown on the second, and it was celebrated as a festive day on the third.
• 5:39
  It's it they they joyfully celebrate the feast of Purim.
• 5:45
  Well, the reason for that is because that's a celebration of how God saved his people from annihilation, from destruction.
• 5:53
  You know, we will sometimes hear people talk about it's a threat.
• 5:58
  It's a terrible threat.
• 6:00
  It's a threat that will lead to death, or they'll use the fancy word, it's an existential threat, as though that heightens it.
• 6:09
  Well, any threat that threatens our lives is pretty serious, and this feast of Purim celebrates the existential threat that God delivered his people from back in ancient times in Persia.
• 6:25
  Now, one of the reasons this is particularly significant, and I've noticed that it's been highlighted by some Jewish acquaintances on social media, is because the threat took place in what we now call Iran.
• 6:41
  It was in Persian controlled territory in ancient times, generally understood geographically as the area we call Iran.
• 6:50
  So that has a connection to now because the Jewish people have been viewing and understandably so and rightfully so, Iran as an existential threat.
• 7:09
  Not by a long shot.
• 7:10
  You and I understand the difference between governments and the people, and they don't always share the same uh how should I say ideals about things.
• 7:20
  But anyway, Israel has recognized that the government in Iran has been an existential threat to their country, to their people.
• 7:29
  So now along comes this war that's by all indications, minimizing the threat from Iran.
• 7:36
  And so it happens that the war is taking place during this celebration of Purim.
• 7:42
  And I don't know whether they're able to celebrate this very much in Israel, but Jewish people would certainly recognize it.
• 7:48
  Now, where did this festival come from?
• 7:52
  Well, it came from the Bible.
• 7:55
  It says in the Bible in the book of Esther, when Esther is the story that's related to Purim or Purim, however you choose to pronounce it, that they should celebrate this as a festival.
• 8:06
  So what happened?
• 8:08
  Now, some of us learned this story a long time ago.
• 8:11
  We may not have learned every detail when we were children, and you can read the story, it's not long.
• 8:17
  It's in it's in what we call the Old Testament.
• 8:19
  You can look up the book of Esther and read it for yourself.
• 8:23
  Sometimes we get intimidated by the Bible.
• 8:24
  Don't be intimidated.
• 8:25
  This story is a short story, we would call it if we were talking about literature.
• 8:31
  And typically in a Jewish household, they will read the story of Esther on the evening that begins the feast of Purim the next day.
• 8:43
  Well, uh we're not going to get into every detail, but I do want to get in some of the important things from this story in the book of Esther.
• 8:52
  Now, I already mentioned that it was set in the Persian Empire.
• 9:04
  Probably not at the same time, maybe just after that.
• 9:08
  I'm not sure we know exactly.
• 9:10
  But if you're trying to kind of place it in your mind, it's in the Persian kingdom.
• 9:15
  The Babylonian kingdom fell to the Persians, and you remember that happened during the writing on the wall episode in Daniel.
• 9:23
  And so this event that is told to us in the book of Esther, took place in the Persian Empire in the Persian kingdom, and was a clear existential threat to the Jewish people.
• 9:37
  Why were the Jewish people there?
• 9:38
  Well, they were taken into exile, and they had lived there and developed their families and their homes, just as God had told them to.
• 9:46
  And so the story opens with the king, Xerxes throwing a lavish banquet, showing his wealth and prestige to the people, letting them come and view the palace splendor.
• 10:00
  And he made it available to them.
• 10:03
  Apparently, all the food and drink they could consume were cared to consume.
• 10:08
  So they have this rather lavish and likely drunken party.
• 10:13
  And along with that, there was a separate party that the queen threw for the women, because the men and the women didn't party together.
• 10:23
  And so the queen threw this other party separately for the women.
• 10:27
  Well, the party had been going on for seven days, and the king, again, likely drunk the way the story is told in the scriptures, calls for the queen, Queen Vashti, to come and let everybody see her royal beauty.
• 10:42
  Well, he wanted to kind of show off for his guests and officials, but but the queen said, Nope, not going to do it, don't want to come.
• 10:49
  We don't really know why.
• 10:51
  It doesn't explain the why of it, but clearly she refused to come, and that caused quite a stir.
• 11:00
  You didn't usually say no to kings in those days, because to say no was to say yes to your own execution.
• 11:08
  Well, he didn't execute Vashti, but he realized that it had been an insult, and so he consulted with his advisors and what to do about it, and they gave him some advice, and it's a little bit of an interesting and peculiar story because they kind of framed it as well.
• 11:31
  And we'll have chaos in the households because men won't be able to be the masters of their own house.
• 11:37
  So they convince the king, and he banishes the queen from her royal position, that she will no longer be welcomed into his presence, and they set out a notice that everybody should read and be aware of throughout the kingdom that the Persian king controlled, that every master of his house was to be obeyed.
• 11:58
  And the man who ran the household was to be obeyed by all the people in the household.
• 12:02
  They believed that would be an appropriate response to that.
• 12:06
  Seems a little interesting that they went to that extent, but that's that's the way the story is told.
• 12:11
  Well, the king settled down a little bit, and they began to think about what are we going to do to replace the queen, because the queen has now been banished.
• 12:21
  There's no queen to to fulfill the queenly functions.
• 12:25
  And so the king's advisors again tell him, well, he should he should look for a replacement and just send out people all through the kingdom and to bring in all the young beautiful girls that might qualify to be queen.
• 12:43
  He liked that advice, and so he took it.
• 12:46
  Now, at this point, we need to introduce a gentleman named Mordecai.
• 12:50
  Mordecai was a Jewish man living there.
• 12:52
  His ancestors had been taken into exile, and he had adopted a young girl by the Jewish name of Hadassah, also known as Esther.
• 13:03
  That was her Persian name.
• 13:05
  We usually call her Esther, that's the way stories typically told.
• 13:08
  Well, Esther's father and mother had died, and Mordecai was a relative of theirs, and so he adopted the girl as his own daughter.
• 13:18
  Well, the king posted these orders looking for girls, and they discovered Esther, and she went to the palace to be prepared, given beauty treatments and all the stuff to get her ready to see if the king would be impressed by her and make her queen.
• 13:34
  Well, lo and behold, she was the queen, and she was chosen to be the king's replacement queen for Vashti.
• 13:45
  And so that solved that problem.
• 13:48
  But it's also interesting that it says in uh the book of Esther that the king fell in love with her.
• 13:53
  It was more than just a replacement for this person that had fallen out of favor, but actually he fell in love with Esther.
• 14:02
  And so they had these gatherings and all the things, and Esther was part of all of the royal court and all those kind of things.
• 14:12
  But through all of that, she kept a secret that she was Jewish.
• 14:16
  Mordecai was Jewish, they were part of the descendants of the exiles, as I mentioned.
• 14:22
  Well, one day Mordecai, and apparently this was his job, and one of the things I read said it was kind of like he was the secret police.
• 14:30
  Well, I don't know about that, but that's kind of the way they described it.
• 14:34
  But anyway, he was sitting at the king's gate, and he overheard a couple of the people that guarded the entrance there plotting to kill the king.
• 14:42
  Well, he learned about the plot.
• 14:44
  He went and told Esther about that, Queen Esther now, who then went to the king and told King Xerxes what it what was about what was going on, what was going to happen, the threat to his life, and that Mordecai had been the one to tell her what was going on, and so they needed to remember Mordecai.
• 15:02
  Well, they investigated the report, found out that it was true, and they executed the plotters against the king, and all of the details and the story were written down in a log book, a record, so the king could refer back to it later.
• 15:18
  Well, time continued to pass, and and it entered the story was a man named Haman, and he was one of the high ranking officials, and he was uh kind of like one of the guys who really liked being a high-ranking official, and he liked the honor given to him by people who would bow and kneel before him as the king had commanded.
• 15:39
  And everybody seemed to pay him that kind of honor except Mordecai.
• 15:43
  Now, again, we don't really know why Mordecai behaved the way he did, but he didn't honor Haman the way Haman thought he should be honored, and it really really bothered Haman.
• 15:58
  Well, keep in mind when you consider this.
• 16:02
  Well, was this a petty slight?
• 16:04
  What's going on here?
• 16:05
  Why did Haman get so upset about it?
• 16:07
  Remember, in honor and shame cultures, which this was, it was important that you avoid shame and increase honor.
• 16:16
  And so Haman would have viewed this as a diminishment of his honor, and maybe a shame that Mordecai didn't kneel and honor him.
• 16:26
  Well, long and the short of it turned out to be that uh Haman decided he would figure out a way to get back at Mordecai.
• 16:38
  And so what he did was he looked for a way to eliminate Mordecai, and then really all the Jews throughout the kingdom.
• 16:48
  So he cast lots to determine the best time to do that, and the lot turned up a certain day, that's roughly equivalent to this year to our March 3rd.
• 16:59
  And so he went to the king, and he said to the king, now you have an odd bunch of people in your kingdom, and they don't follow our ways or your laws.
• 17:09
  They're uh we'd maybe say in short, he called them rebellious people.
• 17:14
  And he said to the king, I will pay a whole lot of money, 375 tons of silver.
• 17:21
  So this is the rough equivalent today.
• 17:23
  It was roughly equivalent, according to one source that I read, to the entire amount of taxes collected by the king in a year.
• 17:31
  So it was a vast sum of money.
• 17:33
  And so Haman said, I'll deposit this in the king's bank if you'll let me finance an operation to kill all of these people.
• 17:42
  Well, the king went along with it, told him to do that.
• 17:46
  He made the law, sent it out to everybody, and uh that really set off a chain of events, because now everybody had received the word that on this certain day, what is now called purim, after the lots that he cast to determine the day, that's where the word purim comes from from the word P U R pure for the lots, and it turns out they were gonna go destroy all the Jewish people on the appointed time.
• 18:17
  It was posted everywhere.
• 18:19
  And so Haman was pretty pleased with himself.
• 18:22
  Well, Mordecai and other Jewish people began to mourn the problem and begin to fast and weep and and cry out, what were they going to do?
• 18:33
  They were set up to be destroyed.
• 18:35
  Well, the uh the word got back to the queen because Mordecai went and appealed to her and said, uh, well, we need to do something about this, we need help doing that.
• 18:49
  And uh essentially, and I'm skipping over some of the things, essentially he said to Esther, uh, you think you're gonna survive and avoid this just because you're in the palace, just because you've hidden that you're Jewish, do you think you'll avoid all this?
• 19:04
  Well, uh Esther took it all to heart.
• 19:07
  They called a fast for the people, and she decided she would uh after three days go to the king.
• 19:14
  Now, the reason that was a problem, if you go to the king without being invited, uh the king could have you executed.
• 19:21
  And the only way you knew you were okay is if the king welcomed you into his presence.
• 19:26
  So they did the fasting, they did the preparation.
• 19:32
  She said to Mordecai she would do it, and Mordecai's challenge to her was, you know, perhaps you've come to the kingdom, meaning the royal court there at Persia for such a time as this.
• 19:44
  And that's a rather famous phrase you'll hear people use.
• 19:47
  Well, so Queen Esther got herself all prepared in her royal finery and approached the king in the inner court of the palace.
• 19:55
  That's where the king was, that was the place that you didn't go unless invited.
• 20:00
  And the king saw her and invited her in.
• 20:04
  Now it had been a while since the king had called for her, but he welcomed her in.
• 20:09
  And the king asked, Well, why did you come?
• 20:12
  What do you want?
• 20:13
  And offered her in the rather normal language of the court that he could have that she could have up to half the kingdom.
• 20:20
  And Esther simply replied, Would you and Haman please come to a dinner that I've prepared for you?
• 20:28
  And the way she said it, and you can read the text, it was as though she was going to honor Haman.
• 20:34
  So it kind of appealed to his ego and his sense of, oh, look at this.
• 20:38
  I'm going to be welcomed in to special meal for just the king and I.
• 20:44
  So they did that, and then they did it again.
• 20:47
  I mean, they had a good dinner, and then Esther requested the same thing to be repeated again, that they would come again.
• 20:54
  Well, as this was going on, Heyman was infuriated because Mordecai continued to ignore him and not honor him the way that he should.
• 21:04
  So he he was determined to do something about this.
• 21:09
  So his friends said they should that he should build a gallows and uh get ready to have Mordecai executed and hung on the gallows.
• 21:18
  So he did.
• 21:18
  He had that built.
• 21:19
  Well, of course, this all happening.
• 21:22
  The king couldn't sleep one night, and so he ordered the logbook or the record book that we mentioned earlier to be brought to him and read so that he could kind of kept keep up with what had gone on.
• 21:34
  And they read the part where Mordecai had exposed the plot against the king, and where the people were plotting to assassinate the king.
• 21:43
  And the king said, Well, have we honored Mordecai for his work on this?
• 21:47
  And the servant said, No, we didn't do anything for him, but he was the one that gave us the tip that that saved your life.
• 21:55
  And about that time, the king said, Is there anybody out there that can help me?
• 21:59
  And Haman had just come in, and so the king called him in and says the Heyman.
• 22:04
  Um, what should be done for a man the king wants to honor?
• 22:08
  Now, Haman, never to be shy about how important he was, thought that the king must be thinking about honoring him.
• 22:15
  And so he came up with this great elaborate honors uh ceremony or procedure where the man that the king wanted to honor should be dressed in a robe that the king had worn.
• 22:26
  He should ride on a horse the king had ridden on.
• 22:28
  And it it was as though, and really it was as true that he he wanted to have the person be all but the king and honored in a way that was uh and and even have someone lead the horse through the streets and and honor the rider, saying this is what happens when the king wants to honor someone.
• 22:49
  Well, the king liked his idea and said, Well, go right away and do that for Mordecai.
• 22:54
  Well, Haman was absolutely horrified, but he did it.
• 22:58
  What else did he what choice did he have?
• 23:01
  He had to do it.
• 23:02
  He couldn't disobey the king's order.
• 23:04
  So he went and did it, but he was so embarrassed and so humiliated he fled to his house and they all realized and commiserated that oh, something really bad had happened or was about to happen to Haman.
• 23:18
  Well, now it was time for this dinner, the second dinner that the queen had invited them to, so Haman got ready and went to the Queen's dinner, and as in the course of the dinner, the king asked Queen Esther, what is it you would like?
• 23:34
  And and the queen said, and I'll read this from the message the way what it says here.
• 23:39
  Queen Esther answered, If I have found favor in your eyes, O king, and if it please the king, give me my life and give my people their lives.
• 23:48
  We've been sold, I and my people to be destroyed, sold to be massacred, eliminated.
• 23:53
  If we had just been sold off into slavery, I wouldn't even have brought it up.
• 23:57
  Our troubles wouldn't have been worth bothering the king over.
• 24:00
  And the king explodes in angry anger, who's who's plotting to kill you?
• 24:05
  And and Hester says, Well, this evil Haman.
• 24:08
  Well, Haman now, having been exposed in what he was doing, was terrified.
• 24:15
  And the king was raging, he stomped out into the palace garden, and Haman was pleading for his life with Queen Esther, and as the king came back as Haman had prostrated himself to beg the queen for his life.
• 24:29
  The king thought that he was now preparing to do harm to Esther, and the king was even more infuriated, gave the word that Haman should be executed and hung on the gallows that he had built for Mordecai.
• 24:44
  And the king calmed down.
• 24:47
  Well, there's a little bit more to the story, but now you know that the people have been at least helped partly because the evil plotter has been exposed.
• 24:59
  Now, how are they going to survive even because the edict had already gone out?
• 25:04
  What's going to happen and how are they going to survive that?
• 25:07
  Well, that's turns out that they appeal to the king, and the king says, Well, you can defend yourselves against your enemies.
• 25:16
  And that's what they did.
• 25:18
  So that was the way God used to keep his people from being annihilated.
• 25:22
  In fact, they were able to fight against their enemies.
• 25:27
  Well, we're going to conclude the story in just a minute, but we need to take a break.
• 25:30
  You need to take a break.
• 25:31
  I'm Pastor Rick.
• 25:32
  We'll be right back.
• 25:35
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• 25:35
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• 30:32
  That's B E A R.
• 30:34
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• 30:36
  dot com forward slash out loud.
• 30:40
  America turns the big two-five zero.
• 30:44
  Two hundred and fifty years on July 4th, 2026.
• 30:48
  Tell us your uniquely American story by email at Liberty at America Outloud dot news.
• 30:57
  We'll publish the results on a special webpage celebrating the best of America.
• 31:07
  Now is our time, my fellow.
• 31:10
  America outloud dot news.
• 31:13
  Liberty and justice for all.
• 31:23
  Who knows?
• 31:25
  Perhaps you have come to your royal position for such a time as this.
• 31:30
  Those are the famous words, as recorded in the scriptures in the book of Esther.
• 31:35
  This comes from the Christian Standard Bible.
• 31:37
  But those are the famous words that Mordecai spoke to Esther, urging her to intercede for her people so they could be delivered from the evil Haman.
• 31:48
  She did that.
• 31:49
  You heard the story that Haman was exposed.
• 31:52
  He was executed by the king, and the Jewish people were allowed to defend themselves, and actually many of their enemies were killed because of this action that Haman started.
• 32:04
  And Mordecai became a hero and was honored in the royal court and promoted, and he walked out of the king's presence with a royal robe and all of the rest of that that made him now a significant figure in the royal court there in Persia.
• 32:23
  So that's the essence of the story of Esther.
• 32:27
  Goes on to explain a little bit of the rest of the story, and you can read the other details in in the book of Esther.
• 32:34
  And that's where the whole idea for this festival of Purim comes from, or Purim comes from.
• 32:42
  It's from the book of Esther and the pur, as I said, that word purim, the comes from the word pur, which is the word for lots in the original language that the scriptures are written in.
• 32:54
  So now you know why, because the connection between Persia in the story of Esther and Iran, the present description of the area that had been the Persian Empire.
• 33:06
  So you get the connection then why Jewish people would consider this a particularly significant time and particularly remarkable that the war started just before and continues through the celebration of Purim.
• 33:20
  So we shouldn't overlook that.
• 33:23
  Now some of you might say, Well, we're Christians, we're not Jewish, why does that matter?
• 33:27
  I'm not here to argue that you have to become Jewish to do that, but I do think that as Christians we need to recognize that the Jewish people are our ancestors, and when we look read the Old Testament as Christians, those are our people now, because God has included us among his people and given us that gift to be part of his family and part of his tribe, if you will, part of his nation.
• 33:54
  And so that's kind of why I mentioned it.
• 33:56
  We need to make those connections and not be unaware of them.
• 34:00
  Christians don't typically celebrate Purim.
• 34:03
  I understand that.
• 34:04
  Maybe we should just to remind ourselves.
• 34:06
  We remind ourselves of Passover and some other significant events.
• 34:10
  But anyway, that's I just want to make sure that we talked about that and we realize, and and we can marvel at, but I can't explain.
• 34:18
  Maybe we'll be able to after the fact, but I can't explain the timing that God has orchestrated for these events that are happening right now, and the parallel between the existential threat to the Jewish people then, and now, if the Iranians had gotten a nuclear weapon, uh, would they have used it?
• 34:38
  Lots of us think they would have.
• 34:40
  So, all right, so let's turn in a different direction, shall we?
• 34:43
  Uh I want to turn now to a story from the life of Jesus, and this is a time of year when we tell the stories of Jesus.
• 34:52
  And so I want to turn to a story that took place in the region of Judea and Samaria, often referred to these days as the West Bank.
• 35:02
  I don't like that reference.
• 35:04
  I think it's better to refer to it as Judea and Samaria.
• 35:08
  That's actually the correct description of it.
• 35:12
  But not everybody kind of gets too excited about that, but we need to recognize the reality.
• 35:18
  And we're going to look at an event that takes place at Jacob's well.
• 35:22
  Now you can still visit Jacob's well.
• 35:24
  I have not visited Jacob's well, neither of my trips to Israel included that stop, but it is a real geographical location.
• 35:32
  You can go there.
• 35:33
  It actually has been preserved by the Greek Orthodox Church.
• 35:38
  They built a church above the well to preserve it.
• 35:41
  Now I know you and I think, well, why did they do that?
• 35:43
  Why didn't they just leave it like it was?
• 35:45
  Well, you can argue that with somebody else, but many sites in Israel have been preserved by having churches built over them.
• 35:53
  The Church of the Holy Sepulchre is built over what many people believe is the actual location, geographic location of where Jesus was crucified, where his body was prepared for burial, and where he was actually entombed.
• 36:08
  You can argue that with other people.
• 36:10
  I'm not really interested in arguing that.
• 36:42
  So if you want to get your Bible and follow along, or if you just want to listen, however it suits you, here we go.
• 36:48
  Starting with verse one.
• 36:50
  When Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard he was making and baptizing more disciples to John, though Jesus himself was not baptizing, but his disciples were, he left Judea and went again to Galilee.
• 37:02
  He had to travel through Samaria, so he came to a town of Samaria called Sycar, near the property that Jacob had given his son Joseph.
• 37:09
  Jacob's well was there, and Jesus, worn out from his journey, sat down at the well.
• 37:14
  It was about noon.
• 37:15
  A woman of Samaria came to draw water.
• 37:18
  Give me a drink, Jesus said to her, because his disciples had gone into town to buy food.
• 37:23
  How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a Samaritan woman?
• 37:27
  She asked him.
• 37:28
  For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.
• 37:42
  Sir, said the woman, you don't even have a bucket, and the well is deep.
• 37:46
  So where do you get this living water?
• 37:49
  You aren't greater than our father Jacob, are you?
• 37:52
  He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and livestock.
• 37:57
  Jesus said, Everyone who drinks from this water will get thirsty again.
• 38:02
  But whoever drinks from the water that I will give him will never get thirsty again.
• 38:06
  In fact, the water I will give him will become a well of water springing up in him for eternal life.
• 38:13
  Sir, the woman said to him, give me this water so that I won't get thirsty and come here to draw water.
• 38:20
  Go call your husband, he told her, and come back here.
• 38:22
  I don't have a husband, she answered.
• 38:24
  You have correctly said, I don't have a husband, Jesus said, for you've had five husbands, and the man, the man, pardon me, the man you now live with is not your husband.
• 38:37
  What you have said is true.
• 38:39
  Sir, the woman replied, I see that you are a prophet.
• 38:42
  Our fathers worshipped on this mountain, but you Jews say that the place to worship is in Jerusalem.
• 38:47
  Jesus told her, Believe me, woman, an hour is coming when you will worship the Father, neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem.
• 38:54
  You Samaritans worship what you do not know.
• 38:58
  We worship what we do know because salvation is from the Jews.
• 39:03
  But an hour is coming, and now here when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth.
• 39:09
  Yes, the Father wants such people to worship him.
• 39:13
  God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and in truth.
• 39:18
  The woman said, I know that the Messiah is coming who is called Christ.
• 39:22
  When he comes, he will explain everything to us.
• 39:25
  Jesus told her, I, the one speaking to you, am He.
• 39:32
  Now there's a little bit more to the story that we call the woman at the well, but I'll leave that for you to read another time.
• 39:38
  I want to circle back to one of the things that ought to really catch our attention about this.
• 39:44
  Now certainly one of the things is that Jesus said to her that he was the Messiah, and that's that's significant.
• 39:50
  But even before that, when we look at that, he says to her, if you knew the gift of God, and who is saying to you, give me a drink, you would ask him.
• 40:00
  And he would give you living water.
• 40:04
  Now, this is quite fascinating.
• 40:06
  Now we could get all caught up in, and people have, and it's fine, you can explore that.
• 40:11
  I just don't want to get too caught up in it right now.
• 40:14
  The idea that Jesus was talking to a woman, which was a social foe paw, you could say in those days, and the fact that she was Samaritan was worse because the Jews and the Samaritan had this ethnic stuff going on between them and religious stuff, as you as you will see as you explore the passage between where to worship and all of that sort of thing.
• 40:34
  But I don't want us to think about that so much this time.
• 40:38
  I want us to think about this idea that Jesus said he could give living water.
• 40:46
  Now, we do know, you know, I know, we all know that water is important to living.
• 40:52
  Without water, you cannot survive.
• 40:55
  That was especially true in those days because they needed a supply of water.
• 41:00
  We go turn the faucet on in our house.
• 41:03
  So that's very different in those days.
• 41:04
  And in fact, they had to live near a water supply to survive.
• 41:09
  Often when they looked for a place to build a city, place for people to live, they had to look for two things, a water supply and the ability to defend themselves.
• 41:20
  Was it a physically defensible location?
• 41:23
  Well, here Jesus is talking about water at Jacob's well, and describing it as living water.
• 41:30
  Now we there are many ways that water is talked about in the Bible, and you understand that from baptism to to this idea of living water, and here Jesus takes it even a little bit farther and connects it to eternal life.
• 41:44
  Now, one way of thinking about living water is that living water was not stagnant.
• 41:49
  It was water that came from a flowing stream, maybe a spring of some kind.
• 41:54
  In this case, a well that we don't know for sure, but likely was fed by an underground spring of some kind, perhaps also from rainwater that would percolate through the soil and end up in the well.
• 42:07
  But all of that gives a little bit of context to the use of the phrase, but what did Jesus mean when he said living water?
• 42:16
  Was there more to it than that?
• 42:18
  Well, there are some other connections that we have to think about.
• 42:22
  One of them is that there are some mentions of this type of water in the old testament.
• 42:28
  So in Zechariah chapter 14, verse 8, we read, On that day living water will flow out from Jerusalem.
• 42:36
  And the verse goes on, but I just want to stop there.
• 42:39
  Living water will flow out from Jerusalem.
• 42:41
  Now that's an interesting phrase and an interesting reference, and there's likely some messianic overtones to that, and we would say messianic in the terms of the second coming of Jesus.
• 42:55
  There's also this interesting idea that it will flow out from Jerusalem, meaning flow from the temple, perhaps, but it will flow out from Jerusalem in both directions, east and west.
• 43:09
  Living water.
• 43:23
  So again, referring to a river that brings life, that supports life.
• 43:30
  Isaiah similarly says, you will draw joyfully from the springs of salvation.
• 43:36
  Isaiah 12, chapter chapter 12, verse 3.
• 43:40
  So there's more going on here than just this idea of water.
• 43:45
  It's the idea of living water, and it's the idea of eternal life.
• 43:50
  And often water is associated, and I mentioned this a moment ago, with the ability to sustain life.
• 43:59
  And then Jesus extends it to eternal life.
• 44:02
  Well, what's going on here?
• 44:04
  Well, let's let's think about this.
• 44:05
  Let's go back to the Garden of Eden.
• 44:08
  You might remember Adam and Eve were there in the garden.
• 44:11
  It's perfect place to live.
• 44:12
  Everything was just like they needed it to be.
• 44:15
  And God said, Everything's here you need, everything you need to eat, but you can't eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
• 44:23
  Just leave that alone.
• 44:24
  Well, you know, the rest of the story, the serpent comes along and tempts them and they eat, and their eyes are, as the Bible describes it, opened.
• 44:33
  Now God had warned them that if they ate from that tree, they would die.
• 44:40
  Now a lot of people read that story and they say, but they didn't die.
• 44:46
  Well, they were cast out of the garden of Eden, as the Bible describes it, and an angel was placed there to protect them from eating any further, lest they eat from the tree of life and live forever.
• 45:02
  Well, so how do you explain this idea that they were told they were going to die?
• 45:10
  Well, the best way to think about that, and the correct way to think about that is to realize that the sentence was pronounced when they were sent from the garden, because they were cut off from the source of life.
• 45:28
  You see, being exiled, should we say, I think that's a good word, from the Garden of Eden, meant they were disconnected from God, the source of life.
• 45:38
  And we know from that moment on people died physically.
• 45:44
  So we could describe that they were cut off from the source of life, both in the spiritual sense because they were cut off from God, because they sinned, and in the physical sense, because now they weren't connected to the source of life, so they would die.
• 45:58
  Now, along comes Jesus, and he says to the woman there, the Samaritan woman, that he would give living water, and it would lead to a type of water springing up in our souls that would lead to eternal life.
• 46:15
  That's a really remarkable description, and what Jesus is saying is that in him we come to the source of life.
• 46:25
  He even puts it rather bluntly, he doesn't say it in the same way I'm saying it, but he says to her, I'm the Messiah, I've come from God.
• 46:35
  So he's saying that he can now reconnect people to the source of life.
• 46:43
  Well, how can that be?
• 46:45
  How can that be?
• 46:47
  What's going on here?
• 46:49
  Well, remember the gospel is the story of Jesus.
• 46:54
  And so Jesus is putting himself squarely in the middle of the good news that brings leads to eternal life.
• 47:05
  Now you remember I have mentioned from time to time that the gospel can be summed up in one word.
• 47:13
  That one word is Jesus.
• 47:15
  And here he's definitely doing that.
• 47:17
  He's putting himself up and saying, I am the good news that leads to eternal life.
• 47:24
  Too often we separate Jesus from the gospel, and we shouldn't.
• 47:29
  He is the gospel.
• 47:30
  That's why he says, if you ask me, I would give you.
• 47:35
  And he's really saying to us, why don't we ask?
• 47:40
  Okay, so what what are what's the whole story?
• 47:42
  The whole story is this.
• 47:44
  In five simple steps, what are they?
• 47:46
  Well, Jesus came.
• 47:47
  That's the first part of the story because God had promised a Messiah, and we celebrate the birth of Jesus at Christmas.
• 47:54
  We anticipate it through Advent, and we celebrate that Jesus came.
• 48:00
  What a great good news.
• 48:02
  We follow the story of his life, and we realize that Jesus came to die for the sins of the world.
• 48:11
  Bible's quite clear about that, that he had not sinned at all.
• 48:16
  But as the phrase goes, the Lord laid on him the iniquity of us all.
• 48:24
  The covenant required faithfulness to the law.
• 48:27
  We all sinned, broke the law, we were subject to death.
• 48:31
  In the same way, Adam and Eve were cut off from the source of life, so were we, because of sin.
• 48:39
  And so Jesus came, and Jesus died.
• 48:44
  The perfect sacrifice, the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world.
• 48:52
  What a concept.
• 48:53
  What an amazing.
• 48:55
  When you think about your sin, when I think about mine, and we don't like to think about it, it's kind of ugly.
• 49:02
  But we realize that Jesus came and died for that uglyness.
• 49:10
  Well, what happened next?
• 49:12
  Well, they buried him.
• 49:14
  We talked about that, and I even mentioned that if you go to Jerusalem, the church of the Holy Sepulchre, you can see the place where they believe the cross stood, where they believe Jesus' body was prepared for burial, and where they believe he was buried.
• 49:28
  Jesus came and he died.
• 49:32
  But then on the third day he rose to life.
• 49:44
  And resurrection is the word we use to describe that.
• 49:49
  So God gave him new life plus.
• 49:54
  And now he lives, and because he lives, then we can live.
• 49:59
  Because Jesus
• 50:00
  Who was disconnected in his death from the source of life was reconnected in a remarkably transformed way at his resurrection.
• 50:10
  Now, because of that, the Bible teaches us, we too can have life.
• 50:16
  That's what it means when it says to be born again is to have life.
• 50:21
  That's the good news of the gospel.
• 50:25
  Now, the gospel goes on, not just from the fact that he came, that he died, that he rose, but 40 days later, after the resurrection, Jesus returned to the Father.
• 50:37
  We call that ascension.
• 50:39
  Now, ascension means he goes back to heaven, understood as the place where God is, not the eschatological heaven that will one day be made and is being prepared for us.
• 50:50
  But he goes back to be with God.
• 51:05
  That Jesus reigns with God now.
• 51:09
  He is king.
• 51:13
  And he died as king of the Jews.
• 51:15
  It was clearly labeled at the cross, but we sometimes forget that right now he is reigning over all of creation.
• 51:23
  I just read about that in the scriptures this morning.
• 51:26
  Jesus reigns over all of creation.
• 51:35
  So we who were dead in our trespasses and sins.
• 51:41
  See Jesus take that sin, overcome that, break the power of cancelled sin, and now reign in heaven with God Himself.
• 51:53
  Jesus came from God, he went back to be with God, and he's king.
• 51:59
  And one day that king who decisively dealt with the sin of the world will return.
• 52:06
  He will come again, and he will take his place as king.
• 52:13
  Now, it's a fair question to say, well, what do we do about that?
• 52:19
  What do we do about that?
• 52:20
  Well, that's the gospel.
• 52:21
  The good news is that sin has been managed, it has been annihilated, it is the effects of sin has been broken.
• 52:29
  It no longer needs to plague us again because Jesus rose again, he reigns in heaven, and he will return.
• 52:37
  But but what do we do?
• 52:38
  Because when he comes back, the Bible tells us he's going to judge the world for its sin.
• 52:46
  What are we going to do?
• 52:49
  Well, what we're going to do is what Peter told the crowd at Pentecost.
• 52:53
  We are going to turn to Jesus.
• 52:56
  And people say, Well, well, how do I do that?
• 52:59
  Well, it's not a formula.
• 53:02
  It's not a certain prayer you have to pray.
• 53:05
  It's a decision to give your allegiance to Jesus.
• 53:12
  Who are you going to serve?
• 53:14
  Him or some other agenda.
• 53:18
  And so we turn to God.
• 53:21
  That's what we mean by repentance is a turn to God.
• 53:25
  And it's a giving of allegiance.
• 53:28
  Jesus announced himself in the first chapter of the Gospel of Mark, when he said to people, the kingdom of God has come near.
• 53:35
  It's come near in the story of Jesus.
• 53:37
  It came to earth.
• 53:38
  That's why we visit Israel to see those amazing places.
• 53:47
  Repent, which means turn to God, away from sin to God, and give allegiance to this new creation, Jesus.
• 54:02
  That's the key to salvation.
• 54:05
  It's turning to God and giving him the allegiance that we would give to any king, except he is the ultimate transcendent king.
• 54:20
  Now, what does that mean?
• 54:22
  Well, that means it's a it's a covenant of love or an allegiance of love because Jesus said we fulfill all that the law, the covenant requirements demand when we love God with our heart, soul, mind, and strength, and our neighbor as ourself.
• 54:40
  It's a covenant based on our love for God.
• 54:43
  So when we turn to God, we say, it is all about you, Jesus.
• 54:49
  Our love for God is focused on Him.
• 54:53
  And then we live that out by obeying what He said in the way we treat Him and our neighbor.
• 55:01
  It's all about expressing our love for God and our love for neighbor.
• 55:07
  And by doing that, we fulfilled all of the law and the prophets.
• 55:11
  That's what Jesus said.
• 55:13
  So it's not really complicated, but most people don't really want to do that.
• 55:18
  They would prefer just to pray a prayer, make their conscience feel a little bit better.
• 55:22
  But Jesus said, I don't want your conscience to feel a little bit better.
• 55:26
  I want you to have a wellspring of life that springs up into eternal life.
• 55:32
  That's what he said to the woman at the well.
• 55:34
  That's the idea.
• 55:36
  It's a deliverance from evil and it's a life.
• 55:40
  It's a saving of our lives, just the same way as the Jewish people were saved in Esther's story, and now celebrate Purim, we are saved by Jesus and what he did.
• 55:52
  And so we celebrate unto eternal life.
• 55:55
  And so we celebrate the coming, the life, the death, burial, and resurrection, resurrection of Jesus, the ascension of Jesus, and we anticipate the return of Jesus.
• 56:07
  And we do that by pledging our allegiance to him and following the pattern of life that he lays out, which is love God and love your neighbor.
• 56:18
  So go and do likewise.
• 56:20
  I'm Pastor Rick.