Foundry Community Church
3rd Sunday in Lent - Year A
  • Lift High The Cross (Crucifer)

      • Psalm 95NIRV

      • Romans 5:1–11NIRV

  • Guide Me O Thou Great Jehovah

      • John 4:4–12NIRV

  • Last week, we talked about God’s Grace, being “Born-Again,” we talked about these phrases being very “Christian-ese” where most people, maybe even people of religious background and standing may not understand them.
    This week, building upon that, we’ll add another “Christian-ese” term, “justified by faith,” and unpack it, hopefully granting us more understanding of God, and His work through Christ.

    Justified by Faith.

    Paul, writing to the Romans gives us the introduction of this term.
    Many people define “justification” simply as “just as if I’d never sinned.” I like that, but again, like Grace, there’s more!
    Let’s dive in. Romans 1.
    Romans 5:1 ESV
    1 Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
    Paul later in other writings, uses the term, “Saved by Grace” in Ephesians 2:8-9 which is 100% accurate. We are “Saved by God’s Grace.” ~ through Faith. It is God’s gift to us. We don’t deseerve it. We can’t afford the price of it, rather it is a free gift of God through Christ. So, how do we allow God’s Grace to work in our lives? Good works? Church attendance? Tithing? Being a good person? All good things, but no. We are saved by Grace through faith. That is what gives us standing, Justification, the only way we have Peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ!
    Romans 5:2 ESV
    2 Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God.
    We don’t have access by our own doing, it is by our faith in Christ, granting us His Grace, so we are able to rejoice in the hope of the glory of God.
    That’s really good news, but again, there’s more!
    Romans 5:3 ESV
    3 Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance,
    In suffering? Preacher, you call that good news? ~ Absolutely, because we know that sometimes in every life, there is suffering and that produces endurance…
    It’s kinda like training for a marathon ~ not that I’ve ever run very far in my life, but one doesn’t wake up one day and say, “Hey bubba, today’s a good day to run a marathon…” Rather, they train, usually incrementally to build up their endurance. Now, I must say, running in my life produces suffering and that suffering is not endurable to me, but the illustration still holds true. But wait…
    Romans 5:4 ESV
    4 and endurance produces character, and character produces hope,
    Endurance produces character. Now we all know some “characters.” This isn’t what we’re talking about. Character is what you are ~ who you are when no one is looking. Is that a good thing or a bad thing?
    Character produces hope. Having good character is what brings us hope. Times are uncertain. Times are tough. Politics, Wars, Social injustice, Sickness, Diseases, Trials and tribulations. WE NEED HOPE! When things are good, work on your character, it produces hope!
    Why?
    Romans 5:5 ESV
    5 and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.
    Grace, Justification, Faith, Endurance, Character, hope ~ now no shame!
    But what does that look like?

    Thirsty for more? …or just thirsty?

    Jesus encountered a Samaritan woman at the well and he
    John 4:7 ESV
    … said to her, “Give me a drink.”
    Let’s be honest. All of us are thirsty. We’re not needing water from the tap. Like the woman of Samaria, we need something different.
    First, we have some cultural issues that were at play in this interaction. Samaritans were not liked by the Jews. And worse, she was a Samaritan woman. It was simply culturally not ok for men and women ~ especially Samaritans and Jews to be interacting.
    John 4:9 ESV
    9 The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?” (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.)
    She recognized all of the issues that society was judging her by. She also had some rather significant personal issues that were holding her back…
    John 4:10–12 ESV
    10 Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” 11 The woman said to him, “Sir, you have nothing to draw water with, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? 12 Are you greater than our father Jacob? He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock.”
    This “water thing” seems to have people, both Jew and Gentile, religious and not all hung up… Jesus was saying things that, because she was trying to comprehend with “natural understanding,” she became befuddled, confused and bewildered.
    John 4:13–26 ESV
    13 Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, 14 but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” 15 The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water.”
    When someone realizes that their human condition is extremely deficient, and when they are shown the hope that is in Christ, they realize that the thirsts they have been trying to satisfy are not the thirsts that need to be satisfied. One finds that only Christ satisies our deepest thirsts.
    Then Jesus drives to the deepest place of her needs.
    John 4:13–18 ESV
    13 Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, 14 but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” 15 The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water.” 16 Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come here.” 17 The woman answered him, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’; 18 for you have had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband. What you have said is true.”
    Remember, I said something about “personal issues” earlier? Well, here we are. Let’s be truthful. We all have deep, dark things in our lives that we want no one to know about, and here’s Jesus showing her the darkest place of our existence. We can only imagine, that ‘five husbands’ is due to divorce, being widowed, maybe just guys she’s lived with, And here’s Jesus, telling her everything about her life.
    The discourse goes on and Jesus reveals himself as the Messiah to her. Of course, his disciples were not thrilled with Jesus talking to a Samaritan woman, but she left a changed woman. Keep in mind, because of her past, she was an outsider to her own people, and even more so, the Jews.
    She becomes an immediate evangelist in verse 29.
    John 4:29 ESV
    29 “Come, see a man who told me all that I ever did. Can this be the Christ?”
    Here then, Jesus gives yet another lesson of Spiritual living to His Disciples. Keep in mind who Jesus was just interacting with, and her response. These guys have been walking and talking with Jesus and look what Jesus has to say to them…
    John 4:34–38 ESV
    34 Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work. 35 Do you not say, ‘There are yet four months, then comes the harvest’? Look, I tell you, lift up your eyes, and see that the fields are white for harvest. 36 Already the one who reaps is receiving wages and gathering fruit for eternal life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice together. 37 For here the saying holds true, ‘One sows and another reaps.’ 38 I sent you to reap that for which you did not labor. Others have labored, and you have entered into their labor.”
    Jesus wasn’t talking to an outsider now, she had already heard the message and was spreading the Word of Christ. He was talking to those who had been following Him for a bit now, and He kinda gives it to them. To paraphrase, “What are you waiting for?” “There are people out there dying and going to hell and you’re here judging a Samaritan who got it in twenty minutes while you were eating at McDonald’s…
    She was transformed…Justified. Her actions bore it out! His “Disciples…” Not yet. She recognized that He was the Messiah, the One who can transform lives, while those closest to Him were standing around wondering if He ate recently.
    So, how are we supposed to respond to a Life-altering encounter with Christ?

    Respond with Reverent Worship

    Worship is often thought of as singing, praying etc… Yet I would contend that a Justified life, one transformed by Salvation by Grace through Faith would look different. Feel different. Act different. The Psalmist wrote these words…
    Psalm 95:6–7 ESV
    6 Oh come, let us worship and bow down; let us kneel before the Lord, our Maker! 7 For he is our God, and we are the people of his pasture, and the sheep of his hand. Today, if you hear his voice,
    While I believe that Worship is often a physical display of love, honor and respect, I believe that the offerings of Worship that please God the most, are when we, like the Samaritan woman go and demonstrate that transformation to a world who needs the Messiah.
    Too many times, we as Christians allow the ‘first love’ to wear off, and like the Children of Israel in the Wilderness, start griping and complaining about our human condition ~ that we caused!
    It upset God so much that He told Moses to go and “smite the rock” so that the people would have water in the desert. ~ better smiting the rock, than the people.
    The Psalmist continues by referecing that event:
    Psalm 95:8–9 ESV
    8 do not harden your hearts, as at Meribah, as on the day at Massah in the wilderness, 9 when your fathers put me to the test and put me to the proof, though they had seen my work.
    Again, these are God’s people. The ones who experienced the amazing miracle of deliverance. They had seen the Red Sea parted. They walked over on dry ground. They watched as Pharaoh’s army was drowned. They had seen the hand of God work on their behalf over and over, yet this is what their actions and attitudes drove God to…
    Psalm 95:10–11 ESV
    10 For forty years I loathed that generation and said, “They are a people who go astray in their heart, and they have not known my ways.” 11 Therefore I swore in my wrath, “They shall not enter my rest.”
    Now, we need to understand what is being said throughout this message today. Justification, being able to be like the Samaritan woman who forgot that she was an outcast by the whole world. She didn’t care about what people thought about her anymore. She just went and told people about Jesus! She had been Justified. Salvation by Grace through Faith had come to her house.
    …Just like it had for the Disciples. Just like it had for the people of Israel. Let us not grow complacent and complaining or worse, apathetic. Rather, let us live a live that demonstrates the good works of God through Christ in our lives.

      • Romans 5:5NIRV

      • John 4:7NIRV

      • John 4:9NIRV

      • John 4:10–12NIRV

      • John 4:13–26NIRV

      • John 4:13–18NIRV

      • John 4:29NIRV

      • John 4:34–38NIRV

      • Psalm 95:8–9NIRV

      • Psalm 95:10–11NIRV

  • MYSTERION
  • Doxology
  • Amazing Grace
  • Now Unto Him
Foundry Community Church
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