Latest / The Immutable Word / EP037 Masterclass in Witnessing: Jesus and the Woman at the Well

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EP037 Masterclass in Witnessing: Jesus and the Woman at the Well · The Immutable Word

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Welcome to The Immutable Word. In this episode, we're going to take a look at
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John 4, where the text shows us how Jesus deals with the woman at the well,
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which, you know, I think it's really a blueprint on personal witnessing.
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Some have commented that this passage is a masterclass on apologetics,
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and I think folks listening can probably take a look at this passage and extract,
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the profound way Jesus does handle this interaction with this woman.
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It's almost like a how-to guide on witnessing or talking with people about your
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faith, and also recognizing taking advantage of the open door that could be
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presented in the course of an interaction,
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and also navigating the many objections that could be thrown at you.
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In other words, distractions.
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And I'm sure many have found that when you're trying to witness to people,
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you might find yourself derailed in conversation because they might throw something
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at you that really isn't relevant to the topic that you're talking about,
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which is something of an eternal nature.
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So I'm sure in this case, you know, where Jesus is talking to this woman, this is 2,000 years ago.
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And of course, as expected, Jesus masterfully navigates this conversation with this woman,
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focusing on what was relevant and simply not acknowledging any of the objections
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that were in this passage that this woman had, which would have only distracted
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from what was truly important.
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So the way I look at it is it could be a best practice guide when it comes to
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witnessing. We see a lot of books written about it.
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We've got a lot of people that have different opinions about what's the best
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way to witness or handle objections. And I think we have it right here in John 4.
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And I know you're pretty familiar with this passage. And I think we're just
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going to walk through it and break it down and go from there.
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But, yeah, Robert, any thoughts?
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Yeah, I've got a couple. One or two. Very, very, very brief.
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Let's see if they have anything to do with this episode.
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Yeah, no, John 4 has always intrigued me just because, well,
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John 4, but in particular, the Lord's behavior.
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Because if you really examine the Lord Jesus Christ and the way he interacts
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throughout the Gospels, I really think that people, if you pay attention,
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we connect with it emotionally because he's our Savior.
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But in all honesty, Jesus Christ was a master logician.
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Here's something that's interesting. The Bible calls Jesus Christ before he
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was the incarnate son of God, right?
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God in the manifest in the flesh. He was called the word.
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John 1, 1 in the beginning was the word. That's what he was pre-incarnate Christ.
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And the word in the Greek is logos, which is logic.
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That's where we get logic. That's where we get logician.
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Jesus Christ was a master logician. He knew how to respond to arguments,
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objections, distractions, red herrings, all the fallacies, things that we talked about.
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And in this particular instance, the reason why we wanted to kind of do a little
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exposition is to kind of show,
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here's a lady that literally represents probably 70 to 80% of the people we'll
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run into when you try to witness to somebody.
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The question is, you know, well, how do you deal with people?
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How do you witness to them?
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Where are the open doors? What advantages can I take, you know,
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or what openings can I take advantage of in a conversation? And you see that
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with the way Jesus Christ interacts with this lady from Samaria.
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So I think it's a very interesting passage. I think it's, you know,
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a master lesson on witnessing.
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And what you see really predominantly with the way Jesus Christ deals with her
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is how he just stays on point.
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He does not allow her objections to derail her, derail him, I'm sorry,
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derail him, distract him, move him off of topic.
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He obviously can read her heart. We can't read a person's heart.
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But the way that he responds, he creates an open door.
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He does that. And a lot of times, you know, we'll struggle with witnessing to
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people because we don't see the open door.
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Rather than try to maneuver our way in the conversation and create an open door,
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the fear of man takes over and we just don't witness to somebody.
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We don't talk to somebody.
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And I just, I believe that when you look at the way the Lord Jesus Christ kind
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of provides a template here with
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the Samaritan woman, And I think we can learn a lot from it ourselves.
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And, you know, there's no reason why we can't utilize some of the lessons that,
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you know, the Bible gives us here in John chapter 4 about this interaction with
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the Samaritan woman in our own lives, our own witness, right?
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Yeah, I really think it's really
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the best, the only blueprint we really need, a template, as you say.
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And the thing is, I've read through John 4 before many times,
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and I'm sure many people have. And sometimes you just, I'm guilty of it.
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You just read through it. You don't pick up on those things.
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You don't see what Jesus is doing here.
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And you just kind of take it for granted. But like, when this was presented
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to me, I know, you know, you help with that in this way.
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I'm like, wow, it's all right here.
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And I had mentioned like, you know, you got a lot of books I'm like,
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here's the best method of, you know, witnessing to people Or talking to people
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in discussions It's kind of an external resource to have But,
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you know, we have the answer in the Word of God Obviously from the best,
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you know, source, Jesus Christ.
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And this was really profound It's really had an impact, you know, on me about Wow,
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this still, I mentioned this was 2,000 years ago,
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It still applies today. And the things that are mentioned in here.
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Still relevant. It's still very, very relevant.
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I think of that verse where the Bible says that Jesus knew what was in man,
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which means that he understood human beings better than anybody on the face of the planet.
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So that's why when again when we kind of examine kind of step by step how does
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he talk to her how does he respond to her objections what is his behavior.
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We can look at that and say, man, I can probably exercise some of that.
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I could probably try to exhibit some of that or, you know, utilize or leverage
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that whenever I'm in a conversation with somebody.
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Yeah. Before we go into it, some of the most interesting is that open door or
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finding open doors is usually the hardest entry point.
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Right. There's that barrier of entry and sometimes it's hard to,
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I hate the word organic, but organically take advantage of that.
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And I think in one of the episodes you had mentioned,
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I think we did an episode where you mentioned where our dad had talked to this
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guy about football for like 15 minutes,
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but it was an open door to be able to bring up the gospel. You find a commonality, right?
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I mean, I think because of the age of fundamentalism and the old salesman approach,
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that's kind of been the template people use.
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And they go, oh, well, you know, I've got to use this specific wording and I've
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got to use this, you know, specific style and this approach.
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And I remember years ago when I was in a church, I remember they used to tell
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us, hey, when you knock on the door, make sure if you have a Bible in your hand,
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have it behind your back so they don't immediately see that,
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you know, and always have a, you know, a smile and, you know,
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ask them about the church they go to.
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And I'm not saying you can't use some of that, but when you turn a witness into
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a robotic method and, and, and, and something that's not natural,
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it's not a natural conversation.
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I really think that the people can sense that and they're not interested in you.
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The old saying is, you know, when you show people that you're interested in
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what they're interested in, then they'll listen to what you have to say.
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You know, what was the old saying about, you know, they, people won't.
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You know, care what you know until you know that you care or something like that.
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So at the end of the day, it's like what you see here is it's a very natural
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interaction, but you see Jesus Christ doesn't force himself.
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And that's one thing that kind of stood out to me is that the Lord didn't have
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to go there and force truth on this lady.
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He eventually brought her to a point of decision, but he did it masterfully.
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And so I think as we go through the passage, it'll kind of be self-evident.
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Nice. Well, let's do some exposition on it. So, John 4, right?
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Yeah. So, just as a background, so obviously, you know, some people may know,
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some listeners may understand...
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A little bit of the cultural tension that was going on between Jews and Samaritans.
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But why did Jews hate Samaritans so much?
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We think about the Good Samaritan, the parable, the story of the Good Samaritan.
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And of course, the story behind that was, or the emphasis and theme behind that
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was to love your neighbor.
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And of course, their neighbor geographically in the heart of Israel was Samaria.
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Samaria is where, just north of where Jerusalem was.
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So in order to go from Galilee to Jerusalem, you had to either go through Samaria
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or you had to go completely bypass it along the coast of the ocean there.
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The Red Sea, or not the Red Sea, but the... Sea of Galilee. Not Sea of Galilee, the Mediterranean.
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So they had to go near the coast of the Mediterranean and completely,
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or go on the other side of the Jordan and go around Samaria to get to Jerusalem.
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So it's like very inconvenient, obviously, if you're traveling on foot.
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But the Bible says, you know, in the chapter, in the passage,
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the Bible says in verse 5, then cometh he, speaking of Jesus Christ,
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oh, I'm sorry, verse 4, it says, well, I'll start in verse 3,
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he left Judea, speaking of Jesus Christ, and departed again into Galilee.
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And he must needs go through Samaria, is what it says.
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Then he cometh to a city of Samaria, which is called Sychar,
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near to the parcel of ground that Jacob gave to his son, Joseph.
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And so what's interesting is that he, on purpose, goes through Samaria.
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And to Jews, again, there was so much racism and hatred there that the Jews
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didn't want to have anything to do with Samaria.
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That's why it was such a powerful illustration about the good Samaritan,
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you know, helping the Jew that was basically completely overlooked and discarded by Jewish society.
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Anyway, the history behind it is you go back to 2 Kings 17.
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When the Assyrians basically took over and defeated northern Israel,
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there was a king, Esar Hayden, in 677 BC. He resettled and moved immigrants.
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Sounds familiar, right? He did forced immigration into Samaria from the Assyrians.
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So he took, and then he exiled all the Israelites.
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And then basically what happened is there was an integration.
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So you had Syrians that integrated with Jews and they became Samaritans.
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So they're half breed Jews, essentially.
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And so that obviously created a huge cultural divide.
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Bunch of hatred culturally, right? And of course, after the Babylonian captivity,
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the Jews refused their help.
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Like, you know, after they tried to rebuild the temple, the Samaritans tried
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to come in and help them, and they refused their help. And you see that in Ezra chapter 4.
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And then so the Samaritans ended up building their own rival temple on Mount
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Gerizim, which was destroyed in 130 BC.
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But the Jewish Samaritan tensions obviously carried on until the time of Christ.
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So we're talking hundreds of years. Right.
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Yeah, exactly. There's this huge political, religious, cultural animosity between Samaritans and Jews.
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So, you know, when you provide that kind of background, that's to me,
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that's what drives the interest in this interaction.
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Here's Jesus on purpose going into Samaria, and he on purpose knows that this
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woman is going to come to the well.
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And she's doing it in the middle of the day, which is interesting because most
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of the well-drawn they would do towards the evening, you know,
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things like that, towards—and then they would come with groups of women.
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This woman obviously came by herself, which indicates there might have been
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a background, and we find out later on that there is.
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So, but Jesus Christ, again, this is—I believe this was a, you know,
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they call it a divine appointment. I believe he, on purpose,
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knew he was going to run into her, goes directly through Samaria to interact with this lady.
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And of course, what we see in the interaction is probably one of the greatest
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acts of personal witnessing in the Bible.
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And you see Jesus Christ, again, just kind of teach a master class on how to deal with somebody.
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But what he does, what's interesting, in verse 7, he asks her a question.
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He creates an open door we were talking about.
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Sometimes that open door is not always there. But notice the first thing he
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says out of his mouth is give me to drink,
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He doesn't go into spiritual matters. He doesn't argue with her about her being a Samaritan.
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He doesn't start talking about Abraham and Jacob and the ownership of the well.
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And he doesn't talk about the political divisions between, you know, Judea and Samaria.
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And so he doesn't bring up any of that. All he says is, hey, can you give me a drink?
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He doesn't ask, hey, why are you here by yourself? Why are you coming in the
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middle of the day to draw water?
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He doesn't create tension.
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What he does is he just asks her something naturally. Hey, I'm thirsty.
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I'm sitting next to a well.
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It's like the perfect conversation, right? So he starts, again,
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it's a simple request, but it's something that opens a door and he wants to get her to talk.
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Now, he obviously knows her background. He's God Almighty, right?
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He knows her problems. He knows her sins.
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He knows everything about her. but instead again and
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I think this is important for us is like you don't
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need to immediately dive into bible
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and start preaching to people right when you start talking to
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them right sometimes the best thing is hey how are you doing man it's a beautiful
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day out today oh man are these your kids how old are your kids do they go to
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school anymore and like oh yeah hey have you lived here in Austin lately and
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you could I mean you can introduce yourself not to be a weirdo right you say
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hey I'm Robert you know we're just uh kind of we're from Capital City Baptist
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just kind of walking through.
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Man, you got a beautiful house here. Have you lived here long?
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You know what I mean? Just you find something that'll create an open door that'll
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open that person up to you. It creates a connection.
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Right, because you don't want to immediately, you know, just close them off
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because, hey, I know, I don't like people knocking on my door.
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You know, Saturday, 10 o'clock in the afternoon, or in the morning,
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right? I just, I'm just not in the mood to talk to people.
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So you got to be very careful with that time and respect their time and be respectful
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with the interaction. You see Jesus here being very, I don't know if tactful
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is the right description, but I think it's very tactful.
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I think another point that you brought up is that Jesus knew all this stuff about her already.
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He didn't just go in and start diving in about her sin.
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He didn't go right into a theological treatise, right, and start preaching to
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her. You just have discourse with her and it started very, very naturally.
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And I think what's so interesting about not just his opening,
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but her response. I think this is so typical.
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Because what does she say? She goes, how is it that thou, being a Jew,
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askest drink of me, which am a woman of Samaria, for the Jews have no dealings with Samaritans?
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So in a single response, she brings up four typical objections.
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I think this is beautiful because she brings up race, gender,
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religion, and politics.
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How about that? All in one sentence. Does that apply today? Yeah.
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How much would you like to drink? It's like, wait a minute.
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You're a man. I'm a woman. You're a Jew. I'm a Samaritan.
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We have no dealings with each other. Why are you asking me? It's funny because
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that almost kind of shows you and demonstrates how defensive people can be.
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Now, Jesus Christ could have said, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa,
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whoa, sorry to bother you.
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Whoa, excuse me, ma'am, I'll just go my way and get my drink in another well,
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right? But he doesn't do that.
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And that's why I think it's so beautiful, because one, he creates an open door.
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Two, she's defensive right off the bat and brings up all the objections in the
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world. And of course, Jesus can say, okay, well, wait a minute, let's talk about this.
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This is the nation of Israel. It belongs to us.
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It was given to Abraham, not to you Assyrians, you half hybrid Jew, you know what I mean?
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He could have said that, he could have argued with her, he could have done all
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that. But obviously, he wasn't interested in trying to win a debate.
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He was interested in winning her, which I think is interesting.
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And here's an important dispensational cue here.
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He's obviously operating outside of the lost sheep of Israel.
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That's who he told his disciples he was going to reach. So this is actually
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a different dispensation.
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He's actually reaching to a hybrid Gentile Jew going outside of the mandate.
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So it's just interesting.
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And it's in the book of John. John is such a great book, especially it's closely
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tied to Pauline revelation and stuff.
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But anyway, with that aside, it's just interesting that Jesus Christ,
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you know, he opens the door and then she responds like everybody in the world normally does.
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And that's what's really crazy about it is that this was 2000 years ago,
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race, gender, religion, and politics. Right, exactly.
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Same thing. It's like, you know, I've never heard those objections ever, right?
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Yeah. And it's really cool. Like, I'm not going to spoil it,
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but it's, you know, in the next first preceding verse, it's really cool how
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Jesus responds. You're alluding to it, too.
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Yeah. If you notice there in the same passage, like in verse 10,
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I mean, lost my place. Let me get there.
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John 4, he says in verse 10, eh, here is it. I can read it if you want.
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Here he goes. He goes, Jesus answered and he said unto her. So she brings up the objections, right?
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And he says, if thou knewest the gift of God, who it is, he goes,
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that saith to thee, give me to drink, thou wouldest asked of him.
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He's speaking of himself in the third person. and he would have given thee living water.
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So it's funny because he doesn't respond to any of her objections.
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He doesn't respond to her being
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a woman. He doesn't respond to him being a Jew, her being a Samaritan.
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He doesn't respond to the political tension, the cultural and religious stuff.
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He doesn't bring any of it up.
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He doesn't allow the distraction to derail the conversation.
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He has a very specific goal in mind.
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He wants to reach this woman, but he knows in order to reach her,
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he's got to bypass whatever her objections are.
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So he doesn't get drawn into debates about the race, gender,
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you know, religion, politics stuff.
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And he can completely redirects the issue, the entire conversation to him.
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Because at the end of the day, when you're witnessing somebody and they bring
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up, and this has happened to me before, when people will come up to me,
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it's like, like if we're street preaching and go like, why are you out here?
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You're preaching against us drinking.
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Or, you know, I'll have, you know, I've had a couple like lesbians come to me,
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you know, you're just preaching to us. because we're lesbians.
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And I often say, what does that have to do with the fact that one day you're
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going to stand before God?
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And you're going to have to give an account for your life and you've rejected the truth.
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What is your lifestyle? What is your drinking? What is your pleasure?
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What does that have to do with the fact that one day you will step into eternity?
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So I'm trying to do is bypass all that because that's all irrelevant.
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That doesn't matter. But that's exactly what Jesus Christ is doing.
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He's showing her, hey, these objections you have, Great.
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I understand that's a problem, but what does that have to do with the fact that
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the person that's asking you for drink can actually give you drink that's eternal?
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He refocuses the entire conversation on what actually matters,
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and that's Jesus Christ, right?
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So, and of course, the lesson for us is, you know, that we've got to be intentional
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in our conversations, right?
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We've got to avoid the unnecessary distractions, staying centered on Christ,
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and we've got to use wisdom attack to do that.
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We should try to steer away from the conversations, you know,
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that are going to distract us and get us drawn into these endless debates that's not fruitful at all.
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And at the end of the day, what really, really matters is the Lord Jesus Christ.
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And that's what you want to approach them with.
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You know, so, and of course, you know, they don't want to deal with that.
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And obviously what this lady's doing is rather than, you know,
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and she doesn't know what the topic of conversation is, right?
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She just sees this Jewish man wanting to come and talk to her and she just doesn't get it.
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Why? You guys hate us. So rather than try to delve on that and dwell on the
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culture of hatred and the problems and the obstacles, he's like,
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look, if you really knew who I was, you would ask me drink, right?
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He's trying to draw her in, trying to get her curiosity going.
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He keeps it at the eternal nature.
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And so what does she do? What does she respond in verse 11? She says,
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then the woman says, sir, thou hast nothing to draw with, right?
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Because he said, if you asked me, you would ask me to drink.
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If you knew who I was, you'd ask me to drink.
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It's just like, you don't even have anything to draw with. And the well is deep
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from whence that, how this, you know, whence that, then hast thou this living water, right?
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And he, she says in verse 12, art thou greater than our father,
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Jacob, and so forth and so on.
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So he starts to draw her, her curiosity.
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So he gets past the distraction and then she's like, okay, I'll bite.
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How are you going to give me this water? Where is this from?
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And so Jesus Christ, he kind of created a turning point in the conversation
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with her by saying, you know, you would ask me to drink.
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Now, she was previously resistant, and now she actually listens to what he actually has to say.
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And that's what you want to get to. You're going to get to a point where if
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you're talking to the individual, where they stop and actually hear what you're saying.
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Look, I'm not trying to attack you. Look, I'm not trying to judge you.
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I'm not trying to condemn you.
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I'm here because I'm genuinely interested in giving you the truth. That's what matters.
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And so you know and of course when
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she starts to ask the questions like she stopped and said okay well how
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are you going to give me a drink what she's doing is she's she's jumping
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she's crossing that bridge from skepticism to actual genuine curiosity right
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and that's where you want to get somebody when you're dealing with is you want
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to be focused you want to be attentive but the meaningful conversation is not
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going to appear right away it takes time you got to build up to it.
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So listen carefully for the next opportunity. Listen, when you hear that curiosity
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spark, you know, seize the moment, use it, leverage it, right?
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So to me, this is a beautiful example of how truth, when presented with wisdom
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and patience, like Christ is doing, can actually move hearts toward understanding,
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not skepticism, not objections,
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not, you know, argumentation. That's not what you want.
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You don't want to get into an argument and a debate necessarily.
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Really. Jesus is very prepared to do that.
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But what he's trying to do is he's trying to navigate and get to the point that really matters.
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So, and then what you see in verse 12 and 13, she brings up some more objections, right?
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She goes, art thou greater than our father, Jacob, which gave us the well and
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drank thereof himself and his children and the cattle?
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And Jesus answered and said unto her, whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again.
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But, Verse 14, whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never
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thirst, but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of spring
25:00
water up into everlasting life. So Jesus Christ—,
25:04
Her next objection is, are you greater than Jacob? So again,
25:08
this is another deflection on her part.
25:12
It's like the common objections that were brought up. And again,
25:15
because she can kind of sense that this conversation might get a little too personal.
25:20
And uh she's like okay i gotta put up some kind of an objection here i gotta
25:25
push back i'm not really interested no i'm not really interested in what you're selling right and so,
25:31
what what what she's doing is she's trying to get away from the eternal conversation
25:35
and she goes to something more real and historical and in place in reality like
25:41
hey jacob is the one that gave us this will,
25:43
You didn't give us this well. How are you going to give me something to drink
25:46
beyond what our father Jacob did, right?
25:49
So people will bring up sometimes, well, Jesus drank wine. Where did Cain get his wife?
25:55
It's like something completely, totally irrelevant.
25:59
You know, oh, you go to church? Oh, that's nice.
26:02
You know, I used to go to church, but there's a lot of hypocrites that go to church.
26:05
It's like they'll bring up something to try to derail again the conversation
26:09
because they don't want to talk about eternity.
26:12
And so some Christians, again, what happens sometimes is a Christian will get,
26:16
they'll get baited into it.
26:19
Like, well, you know what? It's not about hypocrisy. Sometimes you can be the
26:22
biggest hypocrite because you don't need whatever.
26:24
And you lost them. And again, you lost the person and you're more interested
26:28
in being right than doing the right thing.
26:31
And then you allow the distraction. Yeah, you're looking for ways to respond to those objections.
26:37
And that happens a lot, right? Right. Probably more often than not, unfortunately.
26:42
Yep. And I would say, look, it's beneficial to understand how to scripturally
26:47
respond to the objection, right? And be ready to give an answer.
26:50
I mean, that's what we've been talking about quite a bit with apologetics and fallacies and stuff.
26:55
But engaging in every objection isn't always necessary. And it may not even
26:59
be beneficial or fruitful, right?
27:01
Sometimes it can actually be detrimental to the overall objective,
27:04
which is you're just trying to win the person.
27:07
Okay? If there's a genuine need to respond to an objection, like say,
27:13
for example, the objection is preventing that person from moving forward,
27:17
then deal with the objection.
27:20
But if the objection is just trying to throw you off track because they really
27:24
don't want to talk about eternity, then you need to learn how to navigate back.
27:29
And Jesus doesn't take the bait.
27:31
He remains focused on eternity. That's exactly what he does rather than getting
27:36
lost in the irrelevant arguments.
27:38
So the lesson for us is to prioritize answering the questions that impact eternity.
27:42
Don't allow the trivial objections, again, to derail a conversation and stay
27:48
centered on Christ and the truth.
27:49
That's really what Christ is illustrating here. And it's such a powerful illustration.
27:55
Then verse 14, you know, when Jesus says, But whosoever drinketh of the water
28:00
that I, again, it's about him, shall give him, not about Jacob,
28:05
shall never thirst, but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well
28:09
of water springing up into eternal life.
28:11
And so this is the first time he mentions everlasting life.
28:17
And he's discussing everlasting life, not everyday life.
28:21
And that's where people are going to be the most, you know, distracted.
28:26
Distracted because to them, they're paying bills.
28:28
They're dealing with problems. They're dealing with health issues.
28:31
They're dealing with children issues, family issues, work issues,
28:35
job issues, whatever the case is.
28:37
And so that's what they're going to try to focus on. You start trying to witness
28:40
to somebody about Christ and all of a sudden they're going to start bringing
28:43
up how, oh man, the federal government stopped and I can't get my snap coupons, you know, whatever.
28:49
But you know what I'm saying? That they'll try to bring up something that's
28:52
completely irrelevant.
28:52
I mean, how many times it's happened to me dozens of times where I'm trying
28:56
to talk to somebody about, you know, trying about the Bible,
28:59
church, eternity, and all of a sudden they start talking about,
29:02
you know, their kid graduating from high school, you know, or, you know,
29:06
their kid doesn't have enough money to go to college.
29:09
And, you know, they're trying to work on a scholarship. Completely, totally irrelevant.
29:12
And because that's what matters to people. And so, and not, you're not trying to be rude.
29:17
You're not trying to be a bull in a china shop. But what Christ does is he says,
29:21
look, I have something to offer you that is greater than what this life has to offer.
29:27
And that's kind of how you need to navigate that conversation.
29:30
Look, I understand that life is hard.
29:33
I understand that there's problems and there's trials and tribulations,
29:36
but I'm trying to show you that there's something more important than the affairs of this life.
29:42
One day you will step into eternity. You're going to face God and God forbid
29:48
that you have to go to hell because somebody didn't tell you the truth.
29:52
How awful would it be that you would stand before God for all eternity and go
29:58
to either heaven or hell because of something somebody would have explained
30:03
to you that you could have made a decision.
30:05
And how unimportant would it have been whether your son or daughter gets a scholarship to college?
30:11
You know what I mean? And so you got to learn how to navigate that.
30:14
And really the best way to do that, honestly, is using questions.
30:19
Use a lot of questions that navigate the conversation to where you need to be.
30:24
But look what she does after he tells her that, verse 15, all of a sudden her
30:28
conversation and her demeanor changed.
30:30
She goes, sir, you know, give me this water that I thirst not,
30:35
neither come hither to draw. He got her.
30:38
He got her to finally stop focusing on the
30:41
politics the religion the gender the everyday life and
30:44
and she says i i want to know more
30:47
about this like you've got my attention now and so
30:50
she was she responds with a willingness
30:53
to learn more but she doesn't have a full understanding of
30:56
what she's what he's saying right and so her
30:59
focus again she says give
31:02
me the drink so you know and of course
31:05
she's still focused on her everyday problems and
31:09
sometimes that's what somebody and you got to be careful not to
31:11
present the gospel this way that hey this is just an
31:14
aid to fixing your problems today oh this
31:18
jesus is just another you know a medicine in your cabinet your medicine cabinet
31:22
to take whenever you're feeling you know oh you know he's he's my good luck
31:26
charm you also find that there's this perception like well if you if you turn
31:31
to god then your life is automatically gonna fix yeah and be fixed It'll fix all your problems,
31:36
the health and wealth type of approach.
31:39
Yeah, exactly, because they see that they think that you're presenting Christ
31:46
and the gospel as some kind of, you know, a pass for everyday daily life and struggle.
31:52
Like, oh, you're giving me a cure for all the problems I had.
31:56
Getting saved is not going to solve all your life problems. What it's going
32:02
to solve is your eternity problem.
32:05
And so the things of this earth, you know,
32:08
one, you know, one song says we'll grow strangely dim because when you get heaven
32:13
on your mind and eternity on your mind, you realize there's a much bigger picture
32:18
that you're not seeing and the distractions of this life. And I'm not saying that they're not real.
32:23
I'm not saying that they don't, you know, that people don't struggle with it,
32:26
but what you're trying to show the person, look, I'm not here to fix your finance problems.
32:32
I can't do that. I'm not here to fix your health and emotional problems That's
32:37
not I can't do that But what I can do is tell you that once you're done with this life,
32:43
There's something you can take care of for eternity and you can take care of
32:48
it today Okay, now it doesn't it's not going to fix all your problems and I
32:52
and you don't you might have to say that you might not Unless it's it's brought up.
32:57
You got to be tactful and have some discretion, right? but,
33:01
The open door, and this is where Jesus Christ wants her, because he finally
33:06
got her to a point where she's interested, and now she's listening to what he has to say.
33:11
And so the real obstacle is her sin, but he can't get there until he gets her to this point.
33:18
And this is for us, the lesson is, the conversation cannot progress,
33:23
basically, until sin is confronted.
33:25
Before someone gets saved, they have to realize they're lost.
33:29
You can preach to somebody all day long about Jesus and they just think,
33:33
oh, I need to make Jesus my eternal best friend. No, no, no.
33:37
The reason why I'm presenting Jesus is because you've got a big problem and
33:40
it's called sin. And sin, the Bible says, the wages of sin is death.
33:44
There is an eternal consequence for sin.
33:48
And there is a big, huge gap between you and God. And the only person that can
33:52
reconcile that is Jesus Christ.
33:54
And that's what you've got to get them to that point. Right.
33:57
But before you get there, you kind of have to navigate through the excuses,
34:02
the objections, whatever the roadblocks. I'm a good person.
34:06
You know, I do all these things, you know, these should be considered.
34:10
And in reality, you know, there's
34:11
a problem that's still underlying that needs to be addressed first.
34:15
Yep. And so, so notice in verse 16, what he says, he says in response to her,
34:21
he says, go and call thy husband.
34:24
It seems like such a weird conversation.
34:29
And Jesus saying, you know, he says, go call thy husband. And the woman answered
34:33
in verse 17, I have no husband.
34:36
Then Jesus said to her, thou has said, well, well said, I have no husband for
34:41
thou has had five husbands.
34:43
I mean, I can only imagine this conversation and the thought going through her
34:47
mind And he whom thou hast now hast is not thy husband and thou saidest Truly
34:55
thou truly So he he actually commends her but he's also condemning her Okay,
35:01
so he recognizes That she's being honest.
35:05
That's what he that's what he needs. He needs her to be honest Okay,
35:08
you cannot get any further with a person if they're not going to be honest about their sin.
35:15
But I want you to notice, Jesus didn't call her a whore or an adulterer or a
35:19
fornicator. He just simply asked her to go call her husband.
35:22
So what he was doing essentially is testing her sincerity.
35:26
Is she really interested in the truth? Let me check it out. Hey,
35:30
why don't you go call your husband?
35:31
And she could have easily said, well, you know, he's busy. He's working today.
35:35
She could have lied about it. But she says, actually, he's not my husband.
35:40
He says, you're honest, at least you're honest with me, that I can work with honesty.
35:45
Christ can't work with deception and people that are self-deceived and not willing to face the truth.
35:50
And it's the same way with us when we're trying to witness to somebody,
35:54
look, you can't get past their objections and their lies and the deception.
36:00
You can't get the truth to them until they're willing to basically move past
36:05
that and be honest with you and up front. That's why I think there's a good
36:09
question I hear sometimes apologists if they're dealing with, like, say, an atheist.
36:14
And the person says, well, I just, I have problems with believing.
36:17
I can't believe what you believe to be true about the Bible.
36:20
And this one apologist, Frank Turek, he sometimes, he asks, he goes,
36:24
if I can prove to you that Christianity is true, would you be a Christian?
36:29
And of course, that answer tells you everything. If they say yes,
36:33
then that tells you that person may genuinely want the truth.
36:37
But if the person says, no, it doesn't matter what you tell them.
36:39
It doesn't matter how convincing your argument is. It doesn't matter how much evidence you produce.
36:44
That person has already settled their mind that they are not interested in the truth.
36:49
So, but Jesus Christ, and this is what, this is the lesson that we learn,
36:54
is he didn't get angry with her.
36:58
He didn't berate her. He didn't belittle her. He didn't, he also didn't ignore
37:02
her sin, right? He didn't just overlook it.
37:06
He actually dealt with it. He's not rude. He's not obnoxious.
37:11
But what he's doing is he's providing a model of how to deal with people that
37:16
have open sin in their lives.
37:18
And what he does is he shows you have to be clear. You have to be loyal and
37:23
committed to the truth. And you need to be patient.
37:26
He doesn't excuse her. He's not making excuses for her wrongdoing.
37:31
But neither does he attack her and belittle her, right? Bible says in Colossians
37:36
4 verses 5 and 6, walk in wisdom toward them that are without redeeming the time.
37:40
Let your speech be always with grace, seasoned with salt, that you may know
37:44
how you ought to answer every man.
37:46
And that's why, you know, the point here is, and this is a question we have
37:50
to ask ourselves, are you generating more heat than light?
37:54
Is your conversation raising temperatures or is it opening people's eyes?
38:01
That's what you got to ask yourself. how is my
38:04
behavior conducive to this conversation am i operating in a way that's showing
38:09
grace and patience and clarity you know what i mean that i'm showing understanding
38:14
like hey i'm not here is your enemy i'm just here to try to tell you the truth
38:18
you may not like the topic and i get that.
38:22
And and i've done this this is i can tell you i personally have had interactions with people,
38:28
where they wanted to start a fight with me because they knew that i was on the street preaching.
38:32
We have scripture signs. It's pretty obvious what we stand for.
38:36
And they're out there partying, you know, they're living up their lifestyle
38:39
and they're just, they come up to you ready to argue and ready to get into it with you.
38:44
And I remember one guy came up to me and he's like, and he's got a beer in his
38:48
hand and he's like, man, he goes, why are you out here judging everybody? That's what he said.
38:52
And I just asked him, I said, what do you mean by judging?
38:55
And he goes, well, you know, where you think you're right and everybody else is wrong.
38:58
I said well can I ask you a question He said yeah what I said well do you think
39:02
that you're right and I'm wrong right now,
39:04
And he stopped for a second. He's like, man, yeah, you got me.
39:08
And I didn't, you know, like, I got you, right? But I used that and I said,
39:13
man, hey, look, I'm not out here to try to judge you. That's not what we're here doing.
39:17
I said, we're just out here because nobody has told you about Jesus Christ.
39:23
And he says, well, I've heard about Jesus Christ. I said, well,
39:25
tell me about it. Where'd you hear about Jesus Christ?
39:27
Come to find out the guy grew up with his grandparents who used to take him
39:30
to Sunday school in their church growing up.
39:34
And so I used that and I said I said can I ask you another honest question and
39:37
he said sure and of course he's calming down the bible says that you know a
39:42
soft answer to earth away wrath,
39:45
and I and he said he started talking about his grandparents and I said well
39:47
let me ask you a question I said what would your grandparents think of you being
39:51
out here partying going out drinking what would they think and he kind of looked
39:56
down he's kind of ashamed he's like man And he goes, they wouldn't like it.
40:00
I said, oh, okay. I said, were your grandparents ever mean to you?
40:05
Were they ever unfair to you? Were they hypocritical in their religion?
40:08
He goes, no, they were actually really good people.
40:10
And then about 15 minutes into the conversation, the guy that wanted to argue
40:16
with me, that was his fists were already balled up. You know,
40:20
he was red in his face. He was angry.
40:22
About 15 minutes into it, he asked me if I could pray for him.
40:26
Wow. Now, he didn't profess to be saved, you know, but he just asked that I would pray for him.
40:32
I gave him a track, and he said he would read the track, and he said he really
40:35
appreciated the prayer.
40:36
So there was an open door there, right? But what I did was I didn't try to berate him.
40:41
I didn't try to belittle him. I didn't try to judge him just because,
40:44
you know, I could have gotten into a debate with him, but that wasn't going
40:47
to accomplish what I wanted to, which is I wanted an open door.
40:51
I just wanted him to hear the truth and make some kind of a decision with that truth.
40:58
And whatever the outcome too, obviously that's something that's going to stick with him.
41:03
And maybe, you know, we talk about, we talk about the stone in the shoe.
41:08
Maybe he didn't get right there. Maybe he didn't consider, you know,
41:11
eternal life at that point in time.
41:13
But there's no telling, you know, whoever this young man might be,
41:17
how that affect that interaction and how you responded, you know,
41:21
in a Christian way, the behavior that you exhibited is the right way to do it. Yeah.
41:27
And it reminds me, Brother Knox, James Knox, pastor in Florida,
41:31
says, he said one time in a sermon, he says, a politely turned down track today
41:36
might be an accepted track tomorrow.
41:39
Yeah, there you go. So he may have an opportunity down the road where somebody
41:42
else might witness to him and he'll remember, oh man, you know what?
41:45
I used to prejudge these Christians and I used to paint a picture of how they
41:52
are, but I ran into a guy that actually was pretty reasonable.
41:54
And I've had people say that to me, you know, because again,
41:58
I'm not out there and I, and I can get real emotional. I can get in the flesh
42:01
and I've got to check myself for that.
42:04
The Bible says an angry man hath no rule over his spirit. So you've got to be
42:08
careful about how you are interacting with the lost world. Look, they're lost.
42:12
How else do you expect them to respond? But I've had them after I've had a conversation
42:16
with them and tell me, say, man, you know what?
42:19
You're actually pretty pleasant to talk to. I appreciate today.
42:22
I've had people say that.
42:23
And so that's my aim and that's my goal is, again, I'm not trying to be everybody's enemy.
42:29
And I can be obnoxious and rude, but that's not. But, and again,
42:33
just because, you know, we're trying to cite the behavior of the Lord here, how he's behaving.
42:37
It is effective. It works all the time.
42:41
Maybe not. But what it will do, hopefully, like you said, is put that stone in their shoe.
42:45
It'll make them think, man, maybe I was the jerk.
42:49
And I've had people apologize to me because they came off belligerent and then
42:53
come to find out that I wasn't trying to get into an argument with them, you know.
42:57
And sadly enough, and I've been with a group of people where the other guy was
43:02
a jerk, the other Christian I was with, and they were argumentative,
43:06
you know, unfortunately.
43:08
And so that's why kind of going through this lesson is, and that's why I asked
43:13
that last question is, are you generating more heat than light?
43:16
And that's the idea. We just want to turn the light on because these people
43:19
are walking in darkness. The Bible says in 2 Corinthians 4.4,
43:23
and whom the God of this world hath blinded the minds of them,
43:26
you know what I mean, that obey not the gospel.
43:29
And so, lest the glorious light of the gospel should shine on them.
43:32
And that's really what we want. We just want to turn the light on.
43:36
So, but here's what he does. So, here's Jesus Christ. He deals with her.
43:40
And he says, you know, look, you got sin in your life. And then in verse 19,
43:44
look, here's one last objection.
43:46
She knows that her number's pegged. Right.
43:50
He's got me there. He knows about my husband's. Hello.
43:54
And she says this, the woman saith unto her, sir, I perceive that thou art a
43:58
prophet. Oh, gee, I wonder why.
44:01
Verse 20, our fathers, uh-oh, our fathers worshiped in this mountain,
44:06
and ye say that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship.
44:12
And then here's, so it's interesting that the last objection is,
44:17
she's already got past the politics. She's gotten past the gender,
44:22
the culture, all that other stuff that she could bring up.
44:25
She's already tried to, you know, bring up the distractions.
44:27
Christ is navigated like a master, right?
44:31
Dude, it's like going through a minefield and not even getting close to a mine.
44:35
And that's exactly how Christ did. And he says, then all of a sudden she brings
44:40
up religion. Now she's dealing with worship.
44:43
She goes, well, you have your truth. You know, you believe in God,
44:47
your way, all roads lead to God.
44:49
I have my own religion and my truth.
44:53
And so when it comes to religion, all of a sudden it becomes a personal thing.
44:58
Because again, what she's doing here is she's bringing up this objection about religion.
45:04
It's the last ditch effort to move all the visibility off of her.
45:10
Like, hey, let's stop talking about me and my personal life.
45:13
And what's, you know, let's talk about religion. You know what?
45:16
You have a particular religious belief and maybe, you know, it's got some merit,
45:20
but you know what? I have my religion too.
45:22
So let's just respect each other's religion. Let's learn how to coexist.
45:26
That's what she's doing. She's literally compromising truth.
45:30
She doesn't realize it, but it's again, it's a human, it's like a built-in human
45:35
mechanism, escape mechanism.
45:37
Like, hey, I'm going to bring up religion. What's he going to say about that?
45:40
Oh yeah, yeah. I'm sorry. I apologize. guys, you got your way to God and I got my way to God, right?
45:44
And that's, of course, the way she's dealing with it. But notice what Christ says in verse 21.
45:49
He says this, Jesus saith unto her, woman, believe me, the hour cometh when
45:54
ye shall neither in this mountain nor yet at Jerusalem worship the Father.
45:59
Verse 22, ye worship, ye know not what.
46:03
He goes, ye know what we worship, for salvation is of the Jews,
46:09
but the hour cometh and now is when the true worshipers shall worship the Father
46:14
in spirit and truth, and the Father seeketh such to worship.
46:18
In verse 24, God is a spirit, and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and truth.
46:26
Notice the complete change in Christ's strategy here.
46:30
He went from avoiding the distractions. He went from avoiding getting tangled
46:36
in the debate to, I'm going to deal with this now because now we're dealing with truth.
46:41
It's now shifted from the cultural anomalies, the political discussions,
46:47
the rabbit trails about gender and ideology and politics.
46:52
Now we're dealing with worship. And that's why you said that Jesus has her number now.
46:57
Right. Now she's addressing the right things. Like, gotcha. He couldn't get
47:01
her to this point until he had navigated through all the other stuff.
47:05
Now he opened the door, but he's not going to let this go.
47:09
Christ is about worship. And this is what obviously should kind of teach us
47:14
the lesson is, look, we're not there to try to be a jerk.
47:18
We're not there to try to incite violence and get into an argument,
47:23
like a heated argument and debate. That's not what we're there.
47:26
However, we're also not there to compromise the truth.
47:30
I'm not going to go, you know, in order not to offend you, for example,
47:34
I'm not going to bring up the fact that sin is sin.
47:37
And true worship is not through mary true worship is not through muhammad true
47:43
worship is not through baptism It's not through works. It's not through religious effort.
47:47
It is through jesus christ and him alone so the important,
47:54
Insight there is that we've got to make sure that we're not going to Open the
48:00
door for religious compromise because christ does he says look.
48:05
You know, when it comes to the doctrinal truth being at stake,
48:12
this is where precise clarification becomes essential.
48:15
It is imperative that Christ clear the air here. Like, whoa, whoa, wait a minute.
48:21
This isn't about the way you worship and the way I worship.
48:24
You don't even know what you worship.
48:27
And what does he say? He says, the true worshipers of God, you're a fake worshiper.
48:33
He just literally is attacking her religion, if you essentially think about it, right?
48:39
So he's not playing nice guy here at this point.
48:42
He's like, well, we've gotten a point in this conversation where we've got to
48:46
address truth. We cannot overlook it.
48:48
We cannot just ignore the fact that there is not a glaring, huge glaring dichotomy
48:54
between what you believe and what I believe.
48:56
And so he speaks plainly. He doesn't mix words, but he completely dismantles
49:01
the idea that worship is tied to a specific location.
49:05
God is a spirit.
49:07
You can't just go, oh, well, you know, if I'm in Indonesia, you know, Hinduism is true.
49:13
Oh, if I lived in China, Buddhism is true. Oh, well, if you lived in the Middle East, it would be Islam.
49:20
No, truth is not tied to a geographic location.
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He says the true worshipers of God worship him in spirit and in truth.
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It's not tied to physical location. Then he says, you worship what,
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you know, you know, you know, not what. We know what we worship for salvation of the Jews.
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He directly challenges her understanding, stating that her worship is rooted
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in ignorance, and he draws a clear distinction between error and truth.
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He emphasizes that salvation is divinely ordained and comes through God's revealed truth.
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God revealed himself to the Jew, not to the Gentile.
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And so he's clarifying all this. And he says, when the true worshiper shall
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worship the Father, it's spirit and truth, for the Father seeketh such to worship.
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Here he defines true worship.
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He says, there is such a thing as true worship and false worship.
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That's the implication, right? If you have true worship, well,
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there must be false worship.
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It's not about a ritual. It's not about location, but it's about sincerity and
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truth. That's what Christ says. That's what I'm interested in.
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So, worship has to align with God's revealed truth.
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It has to be led by the Holy Spirit. It's not about false profession.
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It's not about like, oh, you know, I'm a Catholic.
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Oh, yeah, I've been a Methodist all my life. Oh, yeah, I was baptized when I
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was nine. No, what you're doing is you're making it all about your version of worship.
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God says that's not worship. True worship honors and magnifies and glorifies God.
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And whatever honors and glorifies and magnifies God is honoring and glorifying and magnifying truth.
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Truth. You cannot separate truth from worship in God. You can't separate the two.
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And so he says, God is a spirit.
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They that worship him must worship him in spirit and truth.
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So worship is not external, but it's spiritual, which means both truth and spirit.
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So truth is alignment with God's word. Bible says, John 17, 17,
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sanctify them by thy word. Thy word is truth, right?
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Jesus says, I am the way, the truth. So truth and Christ and God are,
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they're interchangeable and they're indistinguishable from each other.
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Okay. So that's, it's got to align with God's word and And spirit is genuine devotion.
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It can't be fake religion or religiosity, some people might say.
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So, again, what Jesus does is he stops and says, look, true worship isn't about tradition.
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It's not about location. It's not about human doctrine.
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Rejecting truth has eternal consequences. Worship is not about empty ritual,
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but it's about knowing and honoring God as he revealed himself.
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It's not on your terms, it's on God's terms. And that's what Christ is doing here.
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He's illustrating true salvation is not your choice and your terms.
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It's God setting the terms. It's whether you accept it or not at the end of the day, right?
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And so...
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To kind of close all this out, look at verse 25, you know, he says,
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and the woman saith unto him, I know that thou, that Messiah cometh,
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I'm sorry, I know that Messiah cometh, and which is called Christ, which is him, right?
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When he has come, he'll tell us all things, and Jesus send her,
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I that speak unto thee am he. So he reveals, I am the Messiah.
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And of course, the disciples returned, verse 27, 28.
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The woman then left her water pot, and the Bible says, and went her way into
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the city and saith to the men, verse 29, come see a man which told me all things
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that I ever did. Is not this the Christ?
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Then they went out in the city and came unto him. And in the meanwhile,
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his disciples prayed, and they're asking about his meat.
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But then notice what it says in verse 39.
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And many of the Samaritans of that city believed on him, watch,
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for the saying of the woman, which testified, he told me all things ever I did.
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So when the Samaritans were coming to him, they besought him that he would tarry
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with them, and he bowed there two days, and many more believed because of his own word.
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So because of the witness of the woman, her conversion, it influenced the conversion
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of the other people in Samaria, and they came to hear what Christ has to say
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directly, and they believe Christ's word.
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So you see, what you see is the fruit of effective witnessing.
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And what Christ demonstrated in this interaction with the woman at the well
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is he learned, he showed you how to navigate through all the distractions and
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the irrelevant, we call it irrelevant thesis, the irrelevant conversations and the rabbit trails.
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And he navigated through all of that to get her to a point where she would listen
54:15
to the truth because she would not, if he would have opened up with,
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you know, oh, you're a Samaritan, I'm a Jew,
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we have the truth, you have false religion, she would have just shut the door and walked away.
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She wouldn't have listened to anything he had to say, but Christ knew her heart.
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He knew where he had to get to, and he had to get to the point of her dealing
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and confronting her sin and then dealing about truth, about spiritual truth and true worship.
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He couldn't get there until he had gone through all of that,
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navigating all those previous steps to get to that point.
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So that's why this entire encounter is, you know, it's really a master lesson
54:57
in how to deal with somebody in a single conversation.
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You know, and again, if you manage that, those conversations with people,
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you manage it tactfully and appropriately and biblically without compromising
55:10
the truth, you never know what the Lord will do.
55:13
So, you know, as a result of this interaction with this lady, you know, he...
55:18
Completely moved her from skepticism to belief. The people were stirred by her
55:23
testimony and they were willing to hear the truth because it was a genuine conversion.
55:28
It wasn't a fake conversion.
55:30
It wasn't a pressured conversion. I think Brother Lester Roloff said many years
55:36
ago, he says, when the fruit is ripe, you don't have to yank on it.
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You don't have to pull it.
55:42
You don't have to stress it. It'll literally just fall on your hands.
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When a person is ripe and they're interested in the truth, all you got to do is lead them.
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You don't have to yank them. You don't have to pull them. All you got to do is lead them.
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That's the difference in leading somebody to the Lord versus trying to force
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conversion or trying to persuade them through emotional manipulation.
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You can't do that. And so what Christ did here is literally,
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to me, the way that I see it, is a perfect model of how a Christian ought to
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witness to others, how to use and take advantage of opportunities,
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create doors of opportunity, learn how to navigate through the objections,
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focus on what the priority is, and that's eternity.
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And so, anyway, that's John 4, that's the woman at the well.
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I mean, it's amazing that all of that is in those passages of Scripture in John 4.
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And you can see all the elements of Jesus being a master logician.
56:43
Being able to identify the things that would have been distractions,
56:48
and he focused on what really mattered, staying on topic.
56:52
And some of those things we've been touching upon in the fallacy series,
56:56
you see all those elements in there, including soft skills.
57:00
I mean, in modern terms, soft skilling, being very, very tactful when dealing
57:04
with people and looking for those open doors, or what you call a soft opening,
57:08
right? Well, here's the thing.
57:09
Jesus Christ is God Almighty, but he became a man. And the Bible says he was, in the Hebrews,
57:15
we have high priest that's not, you know, we have not a high priest that's not
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touched by the feeling of our infirmity, but was in all points tempted like
57:24
as we are, yet without sin.
57:26
That means Christ understood the human element. The reason why God had to come
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down in the form of a man is because God can't understand hunger and starvation
57:38
and pain and loneliness,
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but as Jesus Christ in the flesh, he could understand those things.
57:46
And so he demonstrates that amazing emotional intelligence and connection in
57:53
this interaction with this woman, showing that, hey, she's a human being.
57:56
I know exactly where she's coming from, and I know exactly how I need to deal with her.
58:00
And it serves as a lesson for us. I mean, it's not an accident that it's preserved in Scripture.
58:05
And I believe that the lessons we can learn from it—I mean, I think there's
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a lot of prophetical implication there. But aside from that,
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I think that it's just a good practical demonstration of how to deal with people.
58:18
Agreed. So just taking all of this, you know, I challenge those to look,
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our listeners, read through John 4 with what you've learned today.
58:28
And really the call to action here is, you know, put these principles into practice,
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you know, take a moment, reflect on, you know, your own conversations.
58:36
Are you generating more heat than light when discussing spiritual matters?
58:41
And then finally, commit to being intentional in your witnessing opportunities
58:46
now that you have this knowledge and looking for those open doors and navigating in the right way.
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1 Peter 3.15 says to be ready to give an answer for the hope that is in you,
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but to do so with meekness and fear. So don't let distractions derail you.
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Keep the focus on Jesus Christ and the gift of everlasting life.
59:04
Especially your behavior. Yeah. Right?
59:07
You're dealing with eternal matters here. it's not a personal offense.
59:12
If somebody doesn't believe and they're calling you names and they're attacking
59:16
you and your integrity and who you are, don't take it as a personal offense.
59:20
This is a person steeped in unbelief and they're manipulated by the devil and
59:26
the God of this world has blinded their eyes. So they're lost.
59:30
Expect them to act like they're lost. Don't be surprised by that.
59:34
So your job is to be as kind
59:38
as compassionate and not become the
59:41
hindrance to the truth because the idea is you need
59:44
to be an open channel that the truth can be received right without manipulation
59:49
right you're not trying to trick them you know with pizza and candy and and
59:55
drinks and all this stuff i'm not saying you can't use that stuff to open a
59:58
door but that cannot be the reason why they receive the truth.
1:00:01
It needs to be a full understanding that, hey, you're a sinner.
1:00:06
You've sinned against the holy and righteous God, and you're on your way to
1:00:10
a devil's hell, but for the mercy and the compassion and the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.
1:00:16
And they need to stop and understand that and acknowledge it.
1:00:19
But in order to get to that point, you may have to navigate all the messy waters
1:00:24
and remove all the objections and bypass all that stuff to get to the conversation
1:00:30
that actually matters, which is truth.
1:00:32
It's going to take time. It takes patience. It'll take a little bit of work
1:00:35
to navigate to that point. But it's always worth it in the end.
1:00:39
And sometimes it's not a conversation in one night. It could be 100 conversations.
1:00:43
It could take a year. It could take three weeks. it could take 24 hours.
1:00:46
You never know. But the key is, is you have to. The Bible says it,
1:00:50
I think, perfectly in 2 Corinthians 4.
1:00:53
It says that we're not trying to manipulate the Word of God,
1:00:56
but it says we commend ourselves to every man's conscience, meaning that I'm
1:01:01
going to recommend myself to your conscience. I'm going to give you as much
1:01:05
clear, objective truth as possible.
1:01:07
I'm going to lay it right at the feet of your conscience, and now it's between you and God. That's it.
1:01:13
I'm going to try not to be a jerk. I'm going to try not to be the distraction.
1:01:16
I'm going to try not to be the excuse. You reject the truth.
1:01:18
And that's really, at the end of the day, that's our job, is to be as clear
1:01:22
in our witness as possible and just between God and that person. Yeah, agreed.
1:01:28
All right, we'll go ahead and close it out there. If anybody has any questions,
1:01:32
let us know or have any comments.
1:01:34
If you'd like the show notes, just let us know.
1:01:38
We'll share with you while we're still working on ways where we can be a little
1:01:42
bit more systematic about where to put a lot of the information,
1:01:46
resources, and show notes.
1:01:47
So hopefully we'll have something like that available soon.
1:01:50
But thanks again for joining us, and we hope to.