Whitehall Baptist Church
February 8th | John : Jesus is God | John 4:5-26

      • 1 John 5:13KJV1900

      • Acts 1:8KJV1900

      • Psalm 103:8–12KJV1900

  • Bless The Lord, O My Soul

      • Colossians 1:13–14KJV1900

  • Saved by the Blood

      • 1 John 4:9–10KJV1900

      • Psalm 107:1KJV1900

  • Magnificent Marvelous Matchless Love
  • Goodness Of God

  • JOHN 4:5-26 | JESUS AND THE BROKEN WOMAN

    ILLUSTRATION: I always look forward to the holidays.
    Tressa and I were talking the other night about different traditions we had growing up and ones we want to emphasize with our family now.
    For Tressa’s side of the family, there isn’t a bigger holiday than Thanksgiving.
    I remember the first Thanksgiving I got to be a part of, with Tressa’s family while we were still dating.
    We had driven from California to Montana along with some friends from college to be a part of this important holiday.
    All the family was coming to the house and there was going to be somewhere around 40 people there.
    Tressa was tasked with the all important job of making the deviled eggs.
    Now, I had never made deviled eggs before, but somehow I got suckered into helping with the task
    I was given the job of making the part that goes into the egg and we were quadrupling the recipe
    I went about measuring everything, while trying to keep an eye on the tv as well.
    I don’t know how it happened, or why no one stopped me… but somehow when I got to the mayonnaise, I saw the 1/4 cup measurement… and so I quadrupled it… making 4 cups.
    We had so much of the yellow filling with a hint of mayonnaise left over.
    Thankfully, at the time, Tressa’s dad was still a bachelor, so he froze the deviled egg filling and ate it over the next 6 months or so.
    I remember another time me and a friend were heading to watch a basketball game in my 1998 Ford Ranger.
    There had been a winter storm the night before, and the road were icy as we headed out.
    We were going around a corner when my rear wheel drive truck lost traction and we slowly slid off the road and ended up hitting an embankment.
    The front bumper on the passenger side had a plastic part on the bottom and we hit just right as to crack it.
    I remember later that week crawling underneath and drilling a few holes through the plastic on either side of the crack, and the black plastic matched perfectly to some black zip ties that I used to cinch it all together.
    You know sometimes in life we make mistakes, messes, or have accidents that thankfully have minimal consequences.
    Some ever small enough that your father in law just ends up eating it, or it can even be fixed with just a zip tie.
    But for every story I tell you up here during messages there are other stories that I’ll never share.
    Stories from a decision in my past that I regret
    Stories that I don’t want anyone to know about.
    And the truth is, you probably have those stories too.
    They are the mistakes and the regrets that we’d give anything to go back and change.
    And for so many, they are the stories that the devil reminds you of, and he tells you that God could never do anything with your life because of them.
    The stories that leave you broken.
    EXPLANATION: The woman who Jesus was speaking to, was a Samaritan
    The Samaritans were considered half breeds and were despised by the Jewish people.
    They were offspring of a resettlement policy by the Assyrians who had spent 3 years destroying the Northern Kingdom of Israel, and in 722 BC, the Assyrians transported a large number of those conquered Jews into other conquered areas.
    The result was an intermingling and intermixing of different races of people who came from various culture and different religions.
    From these groups of defeated people came the Samaritans.
    To the Jews, these were a race of people comprised of reminders of defeat and failure.
    After Persian authorities allowed Jews to return from Babylonian captivity around 538 BC, Samaritans were rejected when they offered to help rebuild the temple;
    Angered, they appealed to the Persian king and successfully blocked the reconstruction of Jerusalem’s city walls.
    In addition to these negative reminders, when the Samaritans had faced their rejection by the Jewish people, they turned away from portions of the Scriptures and constructed there own temple on Mount Gerizim around 322 BC
    While Samaritans considered themselves true Israelites and revered the Scriptures, they maintained their own version of the Pentateuch, the first 5 books of the Bible, with variations differing from the Jewish text
    So this woman already had multiple strikes against here when talking to a Jewish man, before we even get into the most obvious issue she would have run into… she was a woman.
    In the culture of the day women were treated as property more than people.
    They were expected to remain in the background and stay silent.
    Men wouldn’t speak to their own wives in public let alone a stranger.
    This further deepens her surprise when Jesus speaks to her.
    This woman had a strike against her nationally as the Jews hated the Samaritans.
    She had a strike against her biologically because she was born a woman.
    And she also had a strike against her morally.
    The Jews labeled Samaritan woman as unclean.
    Anything they touched was considered unclean for a Jewish person to touch.
    Jesus ask her to get Him a drink was likely the first time in her life being asked such a thing by a Jewish man.
    And then the capstone of her broken life: She had been married 5 times and was living with a man that wasn’t her husband.
    Now there are two schools of thought here.
    Some believe that the woman had 5 husbands who had died.
    If that was the case, what a tragedy of a life.
    To watch on 5 separate occasions as your husband died.
    In this culture, widows had to rely on family to take care of them, but we find no one in the story willing to step in on behalf of this woman.
    However, a more accepted belief would be that the woman had been married and divorced 5 times.
    In the culture she lived in, woman were not able to easily initiate a divorce, so it’s far more likely that the divorce had been initiate by the man she had been married to.
    Jesus actually would go on to address the problem of divorce in their culture, and it was something that started all the way back in the days of Moses.
    In the culture, if a man wanted out of his marriage, he could make up any number of excuses to initiate divorce.
    If she burned the food, if she didn’t clean the house, if he just wanted to move on to a new relationship… the man would initiate the divorce and be freed, according to their law, to be with someone else.
    That’s why Jesus challenged them about their flippant approach to marriage and divorce.
    But this woman had been the victim of this culture.
    She undoubtedly in her younger years dreamed of the day that she would marry the man of her dreams.
    Maybe she played with her dolls and had pretend marriage ceremonies
    Maybe she coaxed her younger siblings into make believe weddings.
    She looked forward to the day when she would be the matriarch of her own home.
    And then the day came that she was given to her husband.
    We don’t know what the day was like.
    If it was like many of the weddings they were often arranged and there was a celebration that could have lasted anywhere from a day to weeks.
    Maybe those early days were sweet and she believed it was going to be everything she had dreamed of.
    She looked forward to the days of kids running around the house and even taking them to their temple.
    We know from later in the story she had knowledge of worshipping on their temple on Mount Gerizim and about Messiah Who would one day come.
    So we know she had some background knowledge in her faith.
    But the day came when all of her hopes and dreams were shattered.
    Maybe it came as a surprise… maybe she saw it coming.
    Either way, it was a day of brokenness.
    For a woman to be divorced in that culture was to put a label on her life.
    All of her dreams had come painfully crashing down.
    This wasn’t like today where she could just pick up and move across the country.
    She likely would have been left to live in the same town… where everyone knew what had happened… what she had been through.
    From there, we don’t know how it happened, but somewhere along the way another man came along and made promises that wouldn’t be kept.
    When he was finished with her he discarded her and moved on.
    Then a third time, and a fourth, and a fifth…
    What once was a dream in her mind had turned into a nightmare of a reality.
    Sin had ravaged her life.
    Now she was onto a sixth relationship with a man who was likely just using her.
    Her reputation in her little town of Samaria would have be well known.
    And on this day, with a life of nothing be pieces, she makes her way to the well at noon.
    All of the other women are gone, they had come early in the morning in the cool of the day.
    She was coming when no one would be there.
    She didn’t want to have to walk by as people whispered about her and shook their heads.
    She didn’t want to see fingers pointing at her.
    She didn’t want the glances and the people avoiding her presence.
    She just wanted to be alone to get her water and go back to her broken life.
    And as she approached the well, she was likely surprised and probably a little distressed to see someone sitting at the well.
    And not just anyone… a Jewish man.
    Maybe she could just come up to the opposite side of the well and he would just ignore her.
    She could fill her water bucket and then leave without having to deal with any derogatory comments.
    But as she began to draw of the bucket from the well, the unthinkable happened…
    This Jewish man spoke to her… and He didn’t curse her or her situation as she would have expected.
    He didn’t something that completely caught her off guard… He asked her from a drink of water from her bucket.
    She didn’t realize it, but this woman with a broken, messed up life, who was the most unlikely of candidates, was being given an opportunity to use the vessel she had to serve Jesus.
    ILLUSTRATION: For 40 years he had been in hiding on the backside of the dessert.
    It was the middle of nowhere, doing a task viewed as worthless as a shepherd.
    In the first 40 years of his life he had been the adopted son of Pharoah in Egypt
    He had power and lived in comfort and luxury.
    But he knew the truth of the Bible, that God had a plan to deliver his people to a promised land, and one day when he saw an Egyptian soldier beating a Hebrew slave, Moses took matters into his own hands and killed the Egyptian.
    But word got back to Pharoah and he was furious against Moses and sought to kill him.
    So he fled to this place in the middle of nowhere, and became a nobody.
    He married an Ethiopian wife, Zipporah, and even had 2 sons, Gershom and Eliezer.
    He was content to live a life of peace and quiet outside of the center stage of God’s plan.
    But one day, as he was taking care of his father in law’s flock of sheep he found himself on a mountain and he saw a burning bush.
    Moses was 80 years old now, so he had undoubtedly seen bushed on fire before from lightening strikes or other natural events
    But on this day there was something different that caught his attention… the bush was on fire but wasn’t being consumed.
    Exodus 3:3 KJV 1900
    And Moses said, I will now turn aside, and see this great sight, why the bush is not burnt.
    And when Moses walked up to that bush he heard a voice he hadn’t heard in years… Exodus 3:4
    Exodus 3:4 KJV 1900
    And when the Lord saw that he turned aside to see, God called unto him out of the midst of the bush, and said, Moses, Moses. And he said, Here am I.
    Now I don’t know exactly how Moses responded… God doesn’t really give him a chance as he started sharing with him His plan…
    But how would you respond if a bush that was on fire started talking to you?
    I imagine Moses was a little freaked out.
    Maybe he started looking around rocks thinking Aaron was playing a trick on him
    Maybe he thought he’d spent too much time alone with the sheep.
    And then something happens that Moses never dreamed could happen… God tells Moses.
    Exodus 3:9–10 KJV 1900
    Now therefore, behold, the cry of the children of Israel is come unto me: and I have also seen the oppression wherewith the Egyptians oppress them. Come now therefore, and I will send thee unto Pharaoh, that thou mayest bring forth my people the children of Israel out of Egypt.
    And Moses goes on to give every excuse he can think of for why he shouldn’t go back to Egypt… but his first excuse is maybe most telling:
    Exodus 3:11 KJV 1900
    And Moses said unto God, Who am I, that I should go unto Pharaoh, and that I should bring forth the children of Israel out of Egypt?
    Moses says, “I’m a nobody.”
    He had to be thinking back on the last time he tried to do something for God and how that turned out.
    He had to think of the 40 years that he just assumed God was finished with Him.
    He had to look at who he was now… just a lowly shepherd taking care of his father in law’s sheep…
    80 years old and he didn’t even have his own sheep to take care of…
    Moses didn’t realize it yet, but this man with a broken, messed up life, who was the most unlikely of candidates, was being given an opportunity to use the life he had left to serve God.
    ILLUSTRATION: He was just floating there on his boat.
    So much of his life had been spent on this little vessel, but this day was different.
    He had went fishing before and not caught any fish, in fact, we never find him catching any fish without Jesus’s help…
    But, never had he been on the boat and felt so defeated.
    You see for Peter, the look of Jesus from just a few nights ago was still fresh in his mind.
    Earlier that evening he had told Jesus that no matter what happened he would stand by Jesus and would even die for Him.
    And Jesus had warned him, Luke 22:31
    Luke 22:31 KJV 1900
    And the Lord said, Simon, Simon, behold, Satan hath desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat:
    But when the moment came, he had been given the opportunity to admit to being a follower of Jesus… and he denied Him.
    3 Times he did it!
    And after the third time, that rooster crowed and Jesus’s eyes caught his… and he remembered.
    And now here he was just a few days later, on his boat with a few other disciples who had joined him in his retreat, sitting on his boat catching nothing.
    From the shore there’s a figure just to far away to make out but his voice is clear… “Cast your net on the other side”
    This feels strangely familiar, but Peter has just enough faith beyond his skepticism to give it a try.
    When they do the fish begin to leap into the net… so many that the boat begins to sink!
    It’s then that John leans over to Peter and tells him… “It’s Jesus on the shore.”
    Peter jumps into the water and begins to swim to the beach, and when he gets there he finds that Jesus has a little fire already started and some fishing cooking over the coals.
    The rest of the disciples join Peter seated around that fire and Jesus instructs them to bring some of their fish they pulled in over to be cooked on the fire as well.
    And Peter seems to take his time coming back to the fire… John tells us they counted every one of the fish they had caught and there were 153.
    I kind of wonder if Peter didn’t count them all a couple times just to make sure he got it right.
    Finally he rejoins them around the fire and they eat the fish and some bread that Jesus had cooked.
    And then Jesus singles Peter out.
    John 21:15–17 KJV 1900
    So when they had dined, Jesus saith to Simon Peter, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me more than these? He saith unto him, Yea, Lord; thou knowest that I love thee. He saith unto him, Feed my lambs. He saith to him again the second time, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me? He saith unto him, Yea, Lord; thou knowest that I love thee. He saith unto him, Feed my sheep. He saith unto him the third time, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me? Peter was grieved because he said unto him the third time, Lovest thou me? And he said unto him, Lord, thou knowest all things; thou knowest that I love thee. Jesus saith unto him, Feed my sheep.
    There has been many questions about what the these are in the verses…
    Some say Jesus was asking if Peter loved Him more than the fish
    Some think Jesus pointed to the disciples asking if Peter loved Christ more than he loved the disciples.
    I like an explanation I heard from Kurt Skelly… that Jesus was asking if He loved Him more than the other disciples loved Him.
    Jesus was taking Peter back to Matthew 26:33
    Matthew 26:33 KJV 1900
    Peter answered and said unto him, Though all men shall be offended because of thee, yet will I never be offended.
    “You were saying you loved me more than they love me… is that still true?”
    And each time Peter says, “Yes, I love you…”
    And then Jesus does something Peter didn’t expect… He tells Peter He still wants to use him… He even tells Peter it will cost him his life: John 21:18-19
    John 21:18–19 KJV 1900
    Verily, verily, I say unto thee, When thou wast young, thou girdedst thyself, and walkedst whither thou wouldest: but when thou shalt be old, thou shalt stretch forth thy hands, and another shall gird thee, and carry thee whither thou wouldest not. This spake he, signifying by what death he should glorify God. And when he had spoken this, he saith unto him, Follow me.
    And right away, Peter starts looking for a way out… for a reason he can’t be the one: John 21:20-21
    John 21:20–21 KJV 1900
    Then Peter, turning about, seeth the disciple whom Jesus loved following; which also leaned on his breast at supper, and said, Lord, which is he that betrayeth thee? Peter seeing him saith to Jesus, Lord, and what shall this man do?
    Peter point to John and says, “What about him…”
    Peter was thinking, “John didn’t deny you… John didn’t do what I did… How could you use me?”
    John 21:22 KJV 1900
    Jesus saith unto him, If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee? follow thou me.
    Peter didn’t realize it yet, but this man with a broken, messed past, who was the most unlikely of candidates, was being given an opportunity to use the life he had left to serve God.
    APPLICATION: Friend, God sees you where you are.
    That Samaritan woman couldn’t hide her sinful broken life from Jesus any better than a toddler can hide the fact he ate the cookie because he has chocolate all over his face.
    Proverbs 5:21 KJV 1900
    For the ways of man are before the eyes of the Lord, And he pondereth all his goings.
    Proverbs 15:3 KJV 1900
    The eyes of the Lord are in every place, Beholding the evil and the good.
    Jesus sees you and He knows your sin that you think no one else knows about.
    So stop going doing that road and stop living like He doesn’t see!
    If you don’t know Christ as Savior, Jesus has made a way to pay for your sins.
    Romans 5:8 KJV 1900
    But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
    Jesus has paid the price for your sins and you can receive forgiveness if you’ll ask Him.
    Romans 10:13 KJV 1900
    For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.
    If you are saved and you are continuing in sin, friend God has called you to something better.
    1 Peter 1:15–16 KJV 1900
    But as he which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation; Because it is written, Be ye holy; for I am holy.
    Friend, you aren’t called to just try to clean things up and do the best you can, you are called to a life of holiness before God.
    You are supposed to be changing more and more into the image of Christ!
    So stop doing the sinful things you know you shouldn’t do, and confess it and turn to Christ
    1 John 1:9 KJV 1900
    If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
    Jesus sees the broken decisions you’ve made in your life and He knows the heartbreak you’ve faced because of them.
    But He doesn’t leave you in your brokenness…
    Psalm 147:3 KJV 1900
    He healeth the broken in heart, And bindeth up their wounds.
    Psalm 34:18 KJV 1900
    The Lord is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart; And saveth such as be of a contrite spirit.
    Psalm 51:17 KJV 1900
    The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: A broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise.
    Jesus wants to heal your brokenness…
    Jesus wants to use your life for His glory.
    The woman at the well could serve Jesus by giving Him a drink of water…
    Moses could serve God by surrendering his life to God’s will…
    Peter could serve God by not living in his mistakes, but purposing to live for Jesus going forward.
    And you may not be able to go back and change what happened yesterday… but you can sure do more for Jesus today and every day after!
    Learn a lesson from the woman at the well, and from a Bible full of other broken people… and allow God to use your life moving forward.

    CONCLUSION

    ILLUSTRATION: In Japan there is a pottery technique called Kintsugi.
    It is where they take broken pottery and they repair it with liquid gold.
    The process doesn’t make the cracks and imperfection disappear, it doesn’t disguise them like they aren’t there.
    Instead it is meant to point back to the history and to the story of the pottery.
    With the new veins of gold, the pottery is now actually stronger than it was before.
    Now, instead of the broken cracks taking away from the value, the gold that fills now makes them even more valuable than before!
    And maybe most importantly, it can then be used as a vessel that it was made to be.
    APPLICATION: Here we are 2000 years later, looking at this story form John 4 of a woman with a broken life that was an unlikely vessel
    And yet today we read the story and we see the beauty that came from her transformation through Christ.
    Friend, today, allow your life to be used as something beautiful because it has been transformed by Christ!
    Allow the Holy Spirit to filter through the broken veins of your life and turn you into something stronger and more valuable that you could have imagined.
    Take the club out of the devil’s hand that he has used to beat you with, and turn it against him as you allow the life changing power of Jesus to shine out of the broken spots of your life.
    Your story and what Christ has done in the broken parts of your life is made to shine the glory of Christ out of your life!
    This morning, give your story to God.
    Stop running from who you’ve been
    Stop living under the power of sin
    Start allowing Jesus to win!
    Because the truth is, we are all just broken vessels… but when we put them into the hands of Jesus, He creates a story that is truly beautiful!

      • John 4:5–26KJV1900

      • John 4:26NKJV

      • Exodus 3:3KJV1900

      • Exodus 3:3KJV1900

      • Exodus 3:4KJV1900

      • Exodus 3:4KJV1900

      • Exodus 3:9–10KJV1900

      • Exodus 3:10NKJV

      • Exodus 3:11KJV1900

      • Exodus 3:11KJV1900

      • Luke 22:31KJV1900

      • Luke 22:31KJV1900

      • John 21:15–17KJV1900

      • John 21:17NKJV

      • Matthew 26:33KJV1900

      • Matthew 26:33KJV1900

      • John 21:18–19KJV1900

      • John 21:19NKJV

      • John 21:20–21KJV1900

      • John 21:21NKJV

      • John 21:22KJV1900

      • John 21:22KJV1900

      • Proverbs 5:21KJV1900

      • Proverbs 5:21KJV1900

      • Proverbs 15:3KJV1900

      • Proverbs 15:3KJV1900

      • Romans 5:8KJV1900

      • Romans 5:8KJV1900

      • Romans 10:13KJV1900

      • Romans 10:13KJV1900

      • 1 Peter 1:15–16KJV1900

      • 1 Peter 1:16NKJV

      • 1 John 1:9KJV1900

      • 1 John 1:9KJV1900

      • Psalm 147:3KJV1900

      • Psalm 147:3KJV1900

      • Psalm 34:18KJV1900

      • Psalm 34:18KJV1900

      • Psalm 51:17KJV1900

      • Psalm 51:17KJV1900

Whitehall Baptist Church
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406.285.1003
http://wbcmt.org
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