Satisfaction | Week 2

If I haven't got the chance to meet you, my name is Daniel. I'm the young adults pastor here at Rock Point. Me and my family just moved out here, a couple months ago from San Diego, and we're just excited to be here. And we we could not love this place anymore, and we think Bill and Carrie and our entire leadership team is just amazing and incredible. And Bill will be back here next week. But today, I get to share with you the second part of the story that we started looking at last week in John chapter four. If you weren't here, I'll try my best to catch you up a little bit. You can always go online to watch the the messages that are are from weeks past. But essentially, in John chapter four, we started looking at the original desperate housewife. Okay? This lady was the first of of many

that was this this lady that had all kinds of issues. We start to realize she has some issues with guys, and she's trying to go to be by herself and going to this well, and she has this encounter with Jesus. And and last week, essentially, the big idea, if you missed it, is that I believe that finding satisfaction in this life, this elusive thing called satisfaction,

purpose, meaning, that if you want to find satisfaction at all on this side of heaven, the only way we will ever do that is we have to actually begin to understand that you and I are created

beings, that we're made by a God who loves us, who has a plan for us, and has a purpose for our lives, that you will find no purpose and value in this life outside of understanding that you and I have to actually know who we are in light of Christ. That that is the beginning and the foundation of understanding

any type of meaning on this side of heaven.

But I also think that there's a little bit more to it. The beginning part of the story of the woman at the well is one of the most popular stories that most of us know, but there's a whole second part of the story that a lot of us haven't heard. And so I wanna take some time and look at that. We're gonna read the whole story. I'll do my best to kind of break it down and break it up a little bit, but we're going to read almost an entire chapter. And worst case scenario, you get a leave today and you got to read almost an entire chapter in the Bible. Like, tell me that's not a good day. Right?

Okay. John chapter four. We got two people excited to read the Bible. That's awesome. John four. Say amen if you're there. Amen. There we go. John chapter four, we start reading in verse four. It says, Jesus, he had to go through Samaria

on the way. Eventually, he came to a Samaritan village Sychar near the field that Jacob had given his son Joseph. Jacob's well was there, and Jesus, tired from the long walk, sat wearily beside the well about noon.

Soon, a Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, please give me a drink. He was alone at the time because his disciples had gone into the village to buy him some Chick fil A.

Verse nine, the woman was surprised for Jews refused to have anything to do with Samaritans. She said to Jesus, you're a Jew and I'm a Samaritan woman. Why are you asking me for drink? So here's what's happening. Jesus is going on a trip with his disciples.

He tells the disciples, hey, go get me some food, and he sits down because he's tired.

And all of a sudden, this woman comes up, and the Bible is very indicative to tell us that it's about noon, which we said last week, if you had to go in the middle of July and August and go walk up the San Tan Mountains every day to get your daily supply of water,

odds are you would not do it at noon. Why? Because we're not stupid people. Right? We are logical, rational, normal people, and we would probably choose to make that journey if we had to do it like this lady did. If we had to make that journey, we would do it in the morning or at night because it was cooler. You want to go at the hottest point of summer? It's like a million degrees at noon o'clock.

Noon o'clock. It's my fifth time. I'm sorry. That you wouldn't go at the hottest point of the day. The only reason that you would go then is if you were trying to make sure you saw nobody else, which is exactly what this woman was trying to do.

As the story is going to unfold, we start to see she's got a bit of a past, and her past she believes has disqualified her from having worth and value in her society.

So she has relegated herself to living life alone, going to this well day after day to get her water, to be by herself, to not have to hear all the gossip, to not have to hear all the things that are being said about her. And she goes, and one day she encounters a guy named Jesus.

And he's sitting at the well, and she starts to tell him, you shouldn't talk to me. You're a dude. I'm a girl. You're a Jew. I'm a Samaritan. There are so many reasons why this should not be happening, so stop talking to me. And Jesus just keeps pressing in. He keeps pushing in to the heart of who this lady is.

And he starts by being very surface level, and he starts to just go, hey, can you get me a drink of water? And she thinks that Jesus is only talking about physical thirst. She thinks that he's only talking about external thirst that he's trying to quench.

But you're going to see as the story unfolds, he shifts it and he says, okay, you want the water, go get your husband. And he gets right to the heart and the core of what this woman struggled with. That she had always been trying to fill her life with guys.

She was trying to satisfy the deepest and darkest places of her heart and her soul with men, and Jesus is here sitting at this well. He had to go through Samaria because he knew this conversation was going to happen, so he could tell this woman that you will never be fully satisfied by filling your life with things of this world. But take heart because I'm here. I'm the Messiah, and I've overcome the world. You guys tracking with me?

Verse 10, Jesus replied to her, if you only knew the gift that God has for you and who you were speaking to, you would ask me and I would give you living water.

But, sir, you don't have a bucket or a rope, she said, and this very well is deep. Where would you get this living water? And besides, do you think that you're greater than our ancestor Jacob who gave us this well? How can you offer better water than he and his sons and his animals enjoyed?

Jesus replied, anybody who drinks this water will soon become thirsty again. But those who drink the water I give them will never be thirsty again. It becomes a fresh bubbling spring within them, giving them eternal life. Please, the woman said, give me this water.

Then I'll never be thirsty again and I won't have to come here to get water. Go get your husband, Jesus says. I don't have a husband. Jesus said, you're right when you say you don't have a husband for you've had five and you're not even married to the guy that you're living with now. You certainly spoke the truth.

Sir, the woman said, you must be some kind of prophet. So tell me why is it the Jews insist that in Jerusalem is the only place to worship, but we Samaritans claim that it's here at Mount Gerizim where our ancestors worship.

So Jesus goes right to the core of this lady's issues. He he boils everything down and he goes, here is what you've been struggling with.

That's what I'm here to solve. And she does the classic human thing, and she tries to divert and diverge the attention away from the spotlight on her issues, and she starts talking about mountains.

She goes, okay, I can see you're kind of a prophet. You know some stuff about me that I haven't told you. This is kind of crazy, but there's this whole mountain thing that we have to address. Okay? And what she's talking about is that in April,

the Samaritans built a temple on Mount Gerizim, and that was the only place that they were allowed to worship. But the problem was that the Jews said that Jerusalem was the only place that you could actually worship God. Because up until this point, worshipping God was a location based thing. It was a task

based thing. It was not a relationship based thing. Well, then in January, the Jews go to Mount Gerizim. They Spartan this temple. They kick the whole thing down. They destroy the Samaritan's temple. So now they have no place to worship.

And so this lady is saying, hey, dude. Obviously, there's something to you. You must be some kind of prophet. But here's the problem. I'm a Samaritan. You're a Jew, and I don't even have temple to begin to even worship God, and you're talking about living water.

None of this makes any sense because I'm not even qualified to worship you is essentially what she's saying. And Jesus is going to illustrate the gospel for us the very first time in human history.

He's essentially going to tell her, but the incredible news about who I am as the Messiah is that it is no longer about our ability to ascend mountains and to go to the temple to worship God because God has come down the mountain. Jesus came out of heaven, stepped down to earth. He descended the mountain, so you and I no longer have to work and achieve and try and strive to be good for God. What he's saying is that God has come to you.

And he explains essentially the gospel for the very first time in verse 21. He says, believe me, woman, a time is coming when it will no longer matter whether you believe whether you worship the father on this mountain or in Jerusalem.

You Samaritans know very little about the one you worship, while we Jews know all about him, for salvation comes through the Jews. But the time is coming, and indeed it's here now,

when true worshipers will worship the father in spirit and truth. The father is looking for those who will worship him that way. For God is spirit, so those who worship him must worship in spirit and in truth.

The woman said, I know that the Messiah is coming, the one who's called the Christ, and when he comes, he will explain everything to us. And then Jesus told her the first time he announces the news to the world, I am the Messiah.

We talked last week about the significance of understanding that Jesus would use a broken woman with a past at a well with nobody else around to announce the greatest news the world has ever heard. It tells us everything we need to know about the heart of the father, that he uses broken people to accomplish his tasks.

That God has not come. The the Bible says that it's not the healthy who need a doctor, it's the sick, it's the broken. That perfect people, good people don't go to heaven, it's forgiven people that go to heaven. That you and I all sit in the same boat of being condemned,

and God is using broken people to restore and redeem all of humanity. That is the good news of the gospel. And he tells her, I am the Messiah. And then just then, his disciples come back up.

They were shocked to find him talking to this woman, but nobody had the nerve to ask, what do you want with her? Why are you talking with her? The woman left her water jar beside the well and she ran back to the village telling everybody, come and see a man who told me everything I've ever done.

Could he possibly be the Messiah? So the people came streaming from the village to see him. Meanwhile, the disciples were urging Jesus, Rabbi, you have to eat something. But Jesus replied, I have a kind of food that you know nothing about.

Did somebody bring him in and out while we were gone? The disciples asked each other. Then Jesus explained, my nourishment comes from doing the will of God who sent me and from finishing his work. You know that saying, four months between planting and harvest?

I say wake up and look around, the fields are already ripe for harvest. The harvesters are paid good wages, and the fruit they harvest is people brought to eternal life.

What joy awaits both the planter and the harvester alike. You know the saying, one plants and another harvest? And it's true, I sent you to harvest where you didn't plant. Others had already done the work, now you will get to gather the harvest.

Many Samaritans from the village believed in Jesus because the woman had said, he told me everything I ever did.

When they came out to see him, they begged him to stay in their village, so he stayed for two days, long enough for many more to hear this message and believe. Then they said to the woman, now we believe not just because of what you told us, but because we have heard for ourselves.

Now we know that he is indeed the savior of the world. We did it. We we read the whole thing. Now let's pray and beg God to show up. K, Jesus. We need you. We ask for you to do what you do. God, speak through one person, but speak individually and specifically to a room full of people.

Holy Spirit, we can't do this without your guidance and and your nudging. Would you open our ears? Would you open our hearts to hear the transformative truth of what the gospel does

for us, in us, and through us? God, would you change us this morning? Would you let us walk out of here with our heads held high knowing that you're for us, that you have good things planned for us, and that you love us. In the mighty name of Jesus, everybody said, amen and amen. Hey,

how many people in here, really quickly, quick show of hands, how many people are single in the in the house of God this morning? How many single people? It's okay. Throw your hand up proudly. It's cool. It's okay to look around just a little bit. Just don't be weird about it. Okay? It's okay to look around and go, see you. Just don't, like, talk to them now. Like, wait till after service or something. Okay? Here here's why I'm asking you. I'm not I'm not trying to belittle you or make fun of you at all. I'm just trying to highlight something that I I think Jesus is kind of addressing in John chapter four that I think has to be illustrated a little bit. K? I I was I was thinking about it this week, and, man, I am just I am eternally grateful. I've been married for almost ten years, and I'm just I'm so thankful that my season of singleness has come to an end.

Singleness is kind of the first couple of dates of getting to know somebody, we can all agree, it's just kind of painful. Right? Like, it's kind of awkward at best. It's it's it's beyond frustrating

at worst. Like, you're you're in that season where you're trying to get to know people, and you have to, like, micro analyze absolutely every single detail of everything that's happening, and you don't really know each other at this point at all. The proof is I took my wife on a first date, and our very first date we went on, we we went to dinner, then we went to a movie. And at the end of dinner, I was like, hey, do you wanna get dessert? And she's like, no, it's cool. I don't really do dessert. And I'm like, man, this is awesome. She's gonna be a cheap date. Like, this is incredible.

Well, I didn't know that the reason that she didn't wanna order dessert is because her preference is to order all of the desserts, and she was just trying to be courteous the first time we were hanging out. And now she tricked me. So every time I have to take her out now, she orders every single dessert that's on the menu. And I have to buy 36 of them. And I'm like, you snaked me into thinking that you were a cheap date, and now you were, like, the furthest thing from it.

And the truth is within that process of getting to know each other, it's kind of an awkward, like, you know, dance and balance where you you have to go, man, she said my hair looked good, but I'm not sure if she meant like good, good. And then, like, I went to give her a hug at the end of the night and she kinda side hugged me. And then she sent me a text and it said, good night, but it didn't have like an exclamation point or a smiley face. So I don't know if she meant, like, good night, like, I'm never gonna see you again or just, like, good night tonight. So you have to take a screenshot of the text and send it to your mom and your three best friends and ask them, what do you think about this? Like, I could not imagine having to try to micro analyze all of the details if emojis were in the picture. Like that's a whole another world that I thank God I don't have to even try to understand.

And I think part of the awkwardness of first dates is what makes The Bachelor and The Bachelorette such a compelling set of television shows. Is anybody willing to admit that they watched The Bachelor or The Bachelorette and not just going to stand here and secretly judge me the whole time?

Wow, this is not going well. This is going downhill quickly. I started watching The Bachelor and The Bachelorette with my wife, but then there's something about that copious amounts of alcohol and steroids in a confined space in competition that just fuels incredible television. Like, there's really nothing about it.

If you look at the success rate, I think of The Bachelor and The Bachelorette, there's been like thirty five seasons or something crazy, and there's been three marriages that have come from it that they consider successes.

One of the three, the guy went to a reunion show and ended up breaking up with the girl that he proposed to and going with a different girl, and they consider that a success. So we can all agree the bachelor and bachelorette do not lead to love, but it gives us an incredible firsthand side view of watching the awkwardness of these first dates in people's lives. Because you watch these shows and almost every episode ends with them at like a concert, and then there's gonna be like a private dance show at the front of the concert, and they're gonna put tons of lights and thousands of people watching them for all of us to stand there and enjoy. And I watch that. I don't know about you, and I just go, man, stab me in the eye with a fork. That is the last thing I would ever want to do in front of that many people. Could you imagine having your first few dates televised?

The incredible part is we get to watch that with the bachelor and the bachelorette. Right? Because part of, I think, what makes

that beginning part of searching for the one that you're gonna be with so awkward and uncomfortable as guys is we're pretty simple beings. Right? Like, we are not the brightest. Like, chewing gum and walking at the same time is about as complicated and as difficult as we can get. Well, women are like the complete opposite of that. The most complex beings I have ever been around in my entire life, and they they change and they progress like as they have children. But the thing that I didn't know when I was first dating my wife that I wish I knew that if I could go back and tell myself that I would give myself a huge head start. I'm trying to help my dudes out that are here this morning.

Women have a code language that they use. Like, they don't they don't speak in simple terms. They actually have a complete code language that we know nothing about. I think at some point in the natural maturation cycle of women that moms take the 13 and 14 year old girls and they go on a private retreat out into the wilderness and they teach them the details and the nuances of the secret women code language.

I promise you, I'm going to prove to you in a second that it's true because I think the first lesson is they go and they tell them, hey, if your husband ever asks you if he can play golf, and you say, sure.

And then he actually decides that that's enough that he needs to go and actually play golf, and he actually does go play golf, and then he comes walking back in the door four hours later after you did all the homework and got the kids ready, and you made dinner, and he comes strolling in, and he asks you how you're doing, and you are so mad at him and you hate him and you are so frustrated you don't even know how to tell him how stupid he is and you you like, there's not words to put in reference to how mad you really are at him. Here's what you're gonna say when he asks you how you're doing. You just say, I'm

fine. See? I proved to you the language exists. Every woman knows it. It is part of the DNA that happens. I don't know at what point in their life it happens, but I'm assuming my wife and my daughter will get it worked out together. That if you guys if gentlemen in the room, if your wife or your significant other ever tells you that she's

fine, let me tell you, she is the furthest thing from fine. She is beyond frustrated, and she is so mad at how dumb you are that she doesn't even know how to begin to tell you how frustrated that she is. So she's trying to sum it all up for your simple brain like my wife does with me and say, I'm fine.

And if she's saying she's fine, it's like the furthest thing possibly

from it. And that one's free. It's not gonna cost you anything this morning. But you're wondering why I'm telling you any of this because here's where I'm going. And, yes, I know it's a stretch, but mostly I just want us to be able to laugh and have fun in church. But here's where I'm going. I think that dating,

it shows us, it illustrates a season of our life that I think is actually there throughout the duration of our life, but I think it's easiest to see in the season of life when we're dating. Dating really shows us this, puts a spotlight on the season where you and I are searching for something. We're searching for the one we're going to spend the rest of our life with. We're searching for the one that we're going to spend the rest of our memories with. The one that we're going create a life with. We're searching for the one that we think is going to fulfill us. We're for our better half as we say a lot. Right? Like that it really shows this perfect example of what we're searching for. But the truth is is dating is not the only season of our lives that we're searching for something.

That I think if we were to really take a step back and look at much of life, much of life is spent in these seasons of searching for something. Searching for for purpose, searching for for meaning, searching for significance, searching for promotions,

and we start to think that, man, if I just get that thing, then I'll finally have significance, then I'll finally have satisfaction, then I'll finally have all of these things that I've wanted. And and and I don't think that the searching is the problem. I think that the problem begins to exist when you live long enough,

you desire these things enough, and you experience enough disappointment where you don't get them. What do you do when you don't get the thing you think you need to satisfy you? That becomes a really difficult place in where honestly, I think a lot of us get really frustrated with God, but we don't know how to say it.

That we go, God, I hear about these plans that you have for me. I hear that you're forming, that you have good things planned, but I'm just looking for a spouse and I'm still single and I'm 34 years old and I'm getting I'm not getting any younger and I I want to have kids, but I've obviously got to get married first, and we start to go, God, where are you in all of this?

God, I I need a better job. I need to make more money. I need whatever the thing is, we're searching for things, and the problem is when we don't get them. I think what we start to do is the exact same thing that this woman at the well was doing. We start to develop coping mechanisms to deal with the disappointment that we feel in the here and now. I think what we start to do when we experience disappointment

is we start to cope with it by telling ourselves that even though today sucks and today is not everything that I want it to be, someday everything's incredible, and we create and almost start to live in this fantasy land called Someday. You know, Someday,

my job is gonna recognize me for being the employee that I am. Someday, they're gonna actually give me a promotion. Someday, my kids will stop pooping in places that I don't want them to go to the bathroom in. Like, someday,

all of this stuff is gonna be incredible. Someday, my spouse will begin to reciprocate how I feel. Someday, all of this is gonna make sense. And the problem with the someday mentality is it robs us of the joy that God has for us in the here and now.

That God is a God of today. He says, don't even worry about tomorrow because it has enough of its own concerns that just enjoy today. And I think sometimes we miss the simplicity of the enemy's plans for our life as he wants us to be so distracted

and focused on a fantasy land down the road that we don't enjoy the blessings that we have today.

Man, even this morning, today's Father's Day, and my kids, I woke up and they're in my bed. I'm like, why are you in my bed? You have your own bed. You go to sleep in that bed, and somehow you wake up in my bed and you all sleep horizontally and kick me in the face. And I was looking at my kids this morning, and I I had this thought where I was like, man, I can't wait for the day until my kids stay in their own bed all night.

That day is gonna be amazing. And it almost hit me like, I know that there's going to be a day where I wish my kids would come back into my bed. But here's the dilemma of humanity, that there's some of you who've experienced that and you know that that's true, yet in the moment, it's so hard

to just enjoy it. It's so hard to just be present and to embrace the mess that it's so easy for me to look at simple things like that and go, someday my kids are gonna be enjoyable. But right now,

right now, all they do is fight. I'm just trying to get them to brush their teeth, and it's like you are talking about moving mountains. Like bedtime, like perpetual bedtime is basically my version of hell. Like perpetually trying to get kids ready for bed is my version of what eternal damnation is.

They just don't listen, and someday it's going to happen. And here

is my simple point to you guys, that we serve a God of the here and now. We serve a God that has so many blessings for us today. But what we have to do is stop taking our focus off of the things down the road. We have to stop living for someday, some fantasy day down the road, some romanticized

not real day that's going to come, and we have to start living in the blessings that we have today. And here's how I know this is true. This woman at the well is having the exact same it is that you and I have.

She's literally standing before God in human form, the alpha and the omega. She's having a conversation with the creator of the universe, the guy who always has been and always will be. She's having a conversation with him, and she doesn't get it at all.

And Jesus starts to tell her some stuff about her and she starts to realize, maybe there's something about you. Maybe, just maybe, you could be the Messiah. And look at what her response to Jesus is when she starts to come to the conclusion

that maybe, just maybe, there's something more to who Jesus is. She says the exact same thing that we do. Verse 25, the woman looked at him, and she said, hey, I know that the Messiah is coming, the one who's called the Christ, and when he comes, he will explain everything

to us. You can almost put the word someday right there. I know the Messiah is coming someday, and you see what she believes is going to happen in her fantasy someday. She goes, here's what the Messiah's gonna do. He's gonna sit down, he's gonna tell everybody everything.

You know, nowhere in the Old Testament does it have any prophecies that allude to the fact that the Messiah is going to come, and here's what he's going to do. He's going to sit down every single person, and he's going to tell them everything about everything.

You know how long that would take to try to tell all of us about everything? What is this lady doing? She's doing the exact same thing that we do. She is romanticizing the future. She's painting this picture of the day when reconciliation

is going to happen. She's painting the picture of the day when everything's going to finally make sense, and she's making it out to be so much greater than what we know the reality of it will ever be.

I can't tell you how many conversations I have with young single ladies that are trying to find a spouse and they talk about what they're hoping for in the future. I'm like, that spouse of your future is not a human. That's a robot. Like, that doesn't exist. That's not a real person.

But we have this insane ability to, like, fantasize and romanticize about what the future is going to be, and we do the exact same thing that this lady does. She just goes, man, someday he's going to come, and when he comes, he's going to tell us everything about everything. Like, that was never promised.

And you would think that Jesus would have to have some complex answer to try to wake this lady up to tell her, stop living for tomorrow. It's here and it's now. But he doesn't give a complicated answer. All he responds back to this lady is he says, I am the Messiah.

Everything that you've been waiting for, all of the prophecies that you've heard, everything that your entire people group has been in anticipation for, I'm it. I'm all of it. I am the guy that you've been waiting for. And in that moment, it's almost like a bombshell goes off inside of this lady's heart.

Think about this. This lady went to a well to avoid the people that she was living with.

She goes up, and it's conjecture, I know, but this conversation with Jesus is maybe an hour or two because she sends the disciples away, they get food, they come back to the well, and that's the conclusion of this conversation. It's an hour or two conversation at best. There's no way Jesus could have broken down the the nuances of astrology

and how science works and how molecules and stuff all prove and point to the creator and a greater good. All he says to this lady is I am the Messiah. And in a moment, everything changes. In an instant, in an encounter with the living God, absolutely everything changes about her.

And all of a sudden, she becomes willing to run back to the same people group that she was just running from just a few hours before, which really you and I have to answer the question, what happened at that well? What happened in that conversation that would lead somebody

to go back to the same people that they were trying to avoid? And maybe you're here and you go, man, I don't buy all the stuff about Jesus. And what I'm trying to tell you is look at all of the auxiliary evidence of the proof of him being who he says that he is. This lady is just one example. Look at the disciples.

How did a bunch of guys go when they realized that Jesus was arrested from hiding? All of them were hiding. One of them publicly denied Jesus three times. All of them were hiding and saying, I'm not with that guy. I don't know who he is.

And then the Bible says that he rose from the grave, conquered death, came back, and visited these guys. And that might sound crazy to you, but all the sudden, those same 12 guys who were in hiding became willing to all die brutal martyr deaths. Something happened. Something changed. Something transformed.

And we don't know exactly what happened in the heart of this lady, but what we do know is what she said to the her village when she got back to them. She makes the statement to her villagers when she gets back that on the surface almost makes no sense. Look at what she says.

Verse 28 says, the woman left her water jar beside the well, and she ran back to the village telling everybody, come and see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could he possibly be the Messiah?

Now, we all just read the same story together, and this is not a trick question. Did Jesus just tell this lady everything that she had ever done? No. Like, lady, you've got a bit of a pass. This would have taken a lot longer than an hour or two to walk through everything that you've ever done.

All he said to her is you have a bit of an issue with guys. You've been married five times. The guy you're with now is not your husband. And then he tells her, I'm the Messiah. And yet this woman's response, her verbalization to her people is you guys have to come see a guy who just told me everything that I've ever done.

And here's what I think she was trying to do. I don't think this lady was just crazy. I think what she was trying to do is she was trying to verbalize the incredible internal experience that she had just had.

She's trying to put words to essentially her revelation of the grace of who Jesus really is. And if you've had that moment, you will know exactly what I'm talking about. When you fully understand what grace has done for you, it's almost like you're standing there and you realize that the God of the universe,

the guy who made every single thing, he knows every single part of who you are. He sees all of it. He sees the darkest places of your heart. He sees the things that you do in secret. He sees who you really are, not who you pretend to be.

And when you have that moment, I understand now why this lady was trying to say, she just goes, it feels like I just met the guy who knows everything about me. He knows the deepest and the darkest places of my heart, and here's the incredible news of the gospel is that he chooses me

in spite of knowing everything bad about me. That this guy could have

lambasted this lady. He could have destroyed her and told her about how she had no worth. He could have told her to go home and fix all of this stuff before you're ever gonna come back to worship God, but he didn't do any of that. And this lady was trying to say the same thing that I'm trying to tell you is that you have to. You have to have an encounter with the living

Jesus. You have to fully grasp what grace is. What I am not telling you is that religion will save you or that a system of beliefs is what's going to to change you. That Christianity is not a behavior modification program.

That what this is is the greatest news the world has ever heard. That God has come and in spite of your mistakes, he loves you and he chooses you and he has a plan for you and he wants to take you and he wants to turn you and put you on a path of righteousness

and grace, and goodness. And he wants to give you purpose, and he wants to give you a destiny, and he wants to give you a legacy. And everything that you've done has led you to a point where there's still brokenness, but that's where Jesus steps in and does his greatest work.

That that's the gospel. And this lady realized if this is okay for me, if this changes things for me, I have to go tell people about this. And she starts to gather a party to bring a party back to the same well that she just went to, to be by herself. Think about that.

She's going to a well to be by herself, and just a couple hours later, after having a powerful transformative interaction with Jesus, she goes, if this is real, it changes everything, and I'm bringing a party to it.

And then the scene switches, it goes back to the well. And this is the part of the story that I want to kind of wrap up with this morning, is this is the part of the story that we don't often see.

That I think a lot of us sit in church, and maybe we've had that moment like this lady. Maybe we've had that moment where we understand who God is. We understand who Jesus is. We accept him as our savior. And then we kind of settle into just doing church. We kind of just settle into our areas of comfort. We give God the broken places of us that we really need his grace, we really need his help, and then we kind of keep some stuff back for ourselves, and we just go, hey, we're just kind of doing church.

And that's what Jesus is going to address with his disciples, because the disciples come back up, and they're bringing food to God. They are doing tasks for God. They are doing the kingdom work, while at the whole time missing the heart of the kingdom. They're walking back up the well,

and I imagine Jesus is sitting at the well, and he sees this Samaritan lady who he's talking to leaving the well. He watches the disciples walk right past her,

come up and they go, hey, Jesus, we're here. We brought you food. We're doing the work of God. And he goes, you guys have been walking with me for a while, and I've been talking to you about grace and about restoration and about a new kingdom, a new time that's coming where I'm going to restore the broken.

And you thought that you accomplishing tasks for God was more important than seeing the broken person that was right next to you. And he tells him, guys, I don't need that kind of food. I don't need that food because you're missing it. You think that I'm only here to satisfy

your physical thirst and your physical hunger, but what he's saying is there's a level of nourishment that you need that you don't even know about. He goes, I get nourishment from something else. I get nourishment when I do the work of my father.

He tells him if you want to know how to truly find satisfaction in this life, if you want your soul and your heart to truly be nourished, here's the simple way to do it. You have to know who God is,

but then at some point, you have to do what Jesus is encouraging his disciples to do. At some point, you have to get off the sidelines. You have to get in the game. You have to push your chips in the middle of the table and say, I'm all in, and say, I'm not just here to play church. I am willing to do the work of God. I'm willing to tell others about the goodness of God that I've experienced,

that I think finding satisfaction in this life is pretty simple. We have to know God. We have to become willing to tell other people about it. That is, in a nutshell, the simple two step process to finding worth, meaning, value, and significance on this side of heaven.

That your lives will not be fully alive until you actually step past your comfort zones. That you step past the places you've told God you're not willing to go, and you tell him, I'm all in. The hardest part about the journey of Christianity is that it is all or nothing.

You don't get to just stick your toe in the water called faith. Jesus wants every single part of who you are. He wants your relationships. He wants your finances. He wants your your He wants everything because here's why. He knows that his plan for your life is better than your plan for your life. But do you believe that?

I think it's so funny how you and I can trust God with our eternal destiny. We go, hey, I know I'm going to die someday, and I'm going spend eternity somewhere. God, I trust you with my eternity. Forever. I trust you with that part. But like my money?

Nah, I'm not going to let you go there. You know how much money I make? Know how much 10% of that would be? I'm not going to trust you with my relationships. Yes, you can have my eternity. You can have my forever. But my next forty years? No, no, no. That's me.

Like, think about the craziness of that statement. But we do that all the time. We do that all the time, and Jesus addresses this with his disciples. He goes, guys, don't get so busy doing things for God that you miss the broken and the hurting people that are right around you.

He tells them there are people all around you that are hurting and broken that you're interacting with every day, but in your busyness, you miss them. And his challenge to these disciples is the same challenge I have for you this morning. Slow down.

Don't get so busy that you miss what God's put right in front of you. Don't get so focused on someday that you forget what's happening right now. That God has incredible things for you to step into, but sometimes we miss them because we're so focused on this thing down the road.

And I love what Jesus does. The very ending of the story, Jesus looks at the disciples and goes, guys, don't you guys have this thing? I've heard you say it a bunch. He's like, James, think you tweeted this twice. Right? You said you said four months and then we harvest.

He goes, that's you guys' saying. Right? And all the disciples are like, yeah, man, that is our jam. Like, I'm getting a tattoo to my arm, like four months in the harvest. That is our motto that we live on. Four months and then the harvest.

And in our context, it doesn't make a ton of sense, but he's essentially doing the farming equivalent of the excuse that you and I give. He's telling them, you guys have this mentality where you plant your barley,

you plant whatever it is, and then in four months, you get to hang out. For four months, you get to play Xbox. For four months, you get to do nothing. And then in four months, you know the harvest is coming. And if you look at the Jewish calendar, the Jewish calendar was built on a four month calendar.

Every four months, there would be a huge festival, the feast of the tabernacles, Passover, Pentecost, all of these things that would happen. And the Jews knew that every four months, we would come together, we would harvest

both in the physical realm, but also in the spiritual realm. Every four months, God would show up, and we would put our church clothes on, and we would do the church thing, and we would all celebrate all the incredible stuff that God was doing.

And what Jesus is telling the disciples is the same thing that I'm trying to tell you today. If you're going to understand how the kingdom of God operates, you have to understand that the moment that Jesus came, he changed all the rules and all of the regulations. He's telling the disciples,

I am your feast of the tabernacles. I am your Pentecost. I am your Passover. I am the fulfillment of all of these things that you've been waiting for, which now means there's no longer lag time

in the kingdom of God. You don't have to wait to celebrate who I am. You don't have to wait to put off the reasons of why you're not doing what you know God has asked you to do. He's essentially saying the excuse that you have of that I will eventually step in. I will eventually

start giving. I will eventually start being obedient. I will eventually whatever yours is, he says that it's irrelevant now because the kingdom of God is here and it's now. You don't have to wait four months because tomorrow has enough worries of its own. Live for today.

And he tells the disciples, he stands up and he points, and most theologians believe at this point that Jesus would have been pointing to the village that the Samaritan people had just gone to. And he stands up and he points and he says, look, the harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few.

Look at how many broken and hurting people are there. You missed one, but there's a whole village that's down there. And he's trying to tell them, here's the key to finding satisfaction in this life. You have to know God, but you have to, at some point, step in the game and become willing to tell others about who he is.

And I'm trying to tell you, you don't have to go to Africa or Thailand to be a missionary. God has put you in the mission field that you are supposed to be in. It's called your job. It's called your family. It's called your team. It's called your classroom.

Do you notice this lady? She goes right back to where she came from. Nothing about her circumstances changed. The only thing that changed was everything inside of who she is.

The promise, the good news of what Jesus has come is that it's not because it's not that God will change all of our circumstances. Can he? Absolutely. But the greatest promise is that in the middle of our circumstances, we can be completely different.

We can be made completely brand new. You can come here on Sunday and hate your job on Friday, feel no purpose on Friday, come here, have an encounter with Jesus, and walk back in on Monday and understand you're not there just to be an accountant. You're there to be a missionary.

You're there to bring the goodness of Jesus. You are there to bring the good news of God because he is the hope of the world that the world is dying to know about, and you are the only person that can reach the people that God has put in your life. That that is the simplicity of finding purpose in this life.

And my encouragement to you is don't do what I did.

When I was newly saved, I I man, my my life was a mess when I was a freshman in college, and literally the wheels fell off of my life. I had to drop out of college. I went to rehab, and and I I I I ended in this spot where I just I felt like this woman at this well where I had no worth, and I had no value.

And somebody was willing to risk and invite me to church, and I walked in and I started to hear about the grace of God, and it felt like this woman felt, and it felt like something became alive in me that had never been there before.

And the bible says that that is him taking out and removing our heart of stone and giving us a heart of flesh, that we begin to get made new and to be born again. And I began to be a completely different person. And I remember going, this is the greatest thing I've ever experienced.

And then I got a sales job, I started making tons of money. And I told God, hey, this is going be awesome. I get to spend heaven with you, and I'm going serve you this way, and I'm going make a bunch of money over here, but you can have this time. Don't worry. All this time is yours. And my plan was to become super wealthy and to give God like 15, maybe even 20% if I made a lot of money. And that's how I wanted to be used. I told God, this is what I want my life to be. This is where I'm willing to go. This is what I'm not willing to negotiate about.

And then, like, the worst thing ever happened to me, and I felt God was calling me to go into ministry. That was kind of a joke. I felt like God was calling me to ministry, and I'm telling you, I was so upset and I was so frustrated because all I could see is what it was gonna cost me.

All I could see, especially after I saw what a youth pastor made, was how difficult this road was going to be. But I knew that I knew that I knew that I had to. And it wasn't easy. It wasn't comfortable. There was never a point where I was like, this is gonna be incredible, but I knew that I trusted God.

And if this is what he was asking me to do, I believed that he was for me. I believed that he was good. I believed that he wouldn't take me somewhere. He would not transform my life to then take me to a place and just drop me off the edge of a cliff. And I said, God, I'm all in.

And I walked away from an incredible job. I remember the day that I resigned. There was so much fear and hesitation in my heart. You would think going into ministry would be like you rode in on a white horse and like doves ascended with you, but that wasn't the process for me.

I was really full of fear. I didn't like public speaking. I still don't, but I felt like this is what God was telling me to do, And I had to do it, and I wish that I knew then what I know now. I thought that what God was asking me to do was only gonna take from me,

but I didn't realize that God was trying to give me all of the things that I had always been trying to find. He was trying to give me the key and the real means to finding purpose and satisfaction,

which is entrusting him, believing him for every single thing in our life. I would, if I could go back, I would make that decision so much quicker because now I've experienced this on the other side of my fear.

And it teaches me something that I want to encourage you with this morning. Sometimes the very thing that you've been wanting is right on the other side of doing the thing that you're the most afraid of. Sometimes being obedient is hard. It's not easy and it's not comfortable,

but the incredible promise of Jesus is that it's always, always, always worth it. So what is it this morning that you've been holding back from God? What is it in your life? What is it in your heart that you've told God you can go here, but you can't go here? I'm trying to encourage you,

Be bold. Be encouraged that God is for you. He will not lead you to a place and just drop you off a cliff. He has good things planned for you. Be bold and take a step of obedience. Amen? Let's pray. Father, God, you're so much better than we even think you are. That God, when we experience the deepest

places that we've gone with you, that Lord, that is just the beginning of the iceberg. That is just the tip of the iceberg. Father, would you this morning remind us and show us about how good you are.

And father, for those of us that are in this room who who've never experienced the transformative power of who you are and have never had their rejection replaced by

grace and forgiveness. God, would you move on their hearts to really ask the question who Jesus is? Would they realize that they don't have to earn it? That salvation is a free gift that we get through faith? God, would you move on their hearts

and let your kindness lead them to repentance. And God, for the rest of us in this room who have maybe just settled into places of comfort, into just kind of going through the motions, and yes, we go to church, but we kinda just do the stuff.

But we don't actually let you have full access to every single part of who we are. God, would you shake us this morning?

God, would you show us the things that you're asking us to step into, the things that you're wanting us to start doing, the broken people around us that we can start to share the goodness of Jesus with. God, would you show us the places that you're asking us to go? Father, give us purpose. Give us destiny. Give us a legacy

that is more than just what this world can offer. Father, we are so grateful for who you are. I thank you for every father that's here as we celebrate Father's Day this morning. Jesus, we love you. In God's precious name, we say, amen.