2/4/07 Worlds In Collision Pt. 5

JOH 4:27-30, 39-42 And at this point His disciples came, and they marveled that He had been speaking with a woman; yet no one said, "What do You seek?" or, "Why do You speak with her?" So the woman left her waterpot, and went into the city, and said to the men, "Come, see a man who told me all the things that I have done; this is not the Christ, is it?" They went out of the city, and were coming to Him... And from that city many of the Samaritans believed in Him because of the word of the woman who testified, "He told me all the things that I have done." So when the Samaritans came to Him, they were asking Him to stay with them; and He stayed there two days. And many more believed because of His word; and they were saying to the woman, "It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves and know that this One is indeed the Savior of the world."

We return this morning to our study of the 4^th chapter of the Gospel of John.

On the surface

this 4^th chapter simply presents us

with the account of Jesus’ conversation with an unnamed Samaritan woman,

a conversation that resulted in her recognizing Jesus as the Messiah.

But there is so much more happening in this account

than just what we see taking place on the surface.

We’ve seen so far in our study of the passage

that through His interaction with this woman

Jesus gives us tremendous insight

both into the way He approaches each of us,

and in the way we so often respond to His first intrusions into our lives.

He began with a clear offer of a whole new life,

a new life that He Himself would give her,

one that He described as a well of water within her springing up to eternal life.

She liked the sound of what He was offering

and asked to hear more,

but then almost immediately

He reached into her life,

drew out a handful of her absolute worst failures,

and in the process said to her,

“Oh, by the way, I know about all of this.”

It scared her, of course,

scared her bad.

And she tried briefly to hide behind a religious debate,

but in the end recognized that He wasn’t bargaining with her.

He wasn’t offering her some kind of an exchange

in which He would give her this new life

if she would promise to clean up her act to His satisfaction.

All He wanted her to realize

was that He knew her,

he really, truly, completely knew her just as she was,

and it was in the full face of that knowledge

that He presented to her His offer of a new life.

And somewhere in that exchange

she got it.

She understood that this Jesus,

this Messiah understood her,

and accepted her,

and loved her not for anything she could deliver,

not for anything she could offer Him,

but rather simple for who she really was.

And it was that knowledge,

that realization that transformed her life.

Have you ever been loved like that?

Have you ever had a person find out about the worst junk in your life

and then discovered that, even in the face of that knowledge,

they still truly, deeply love you?

It’s not all that common in our human relationships,

but even when it happens at that level

it has a powerful impact on our lives.

And when it happens between us and our God,

when we finally get it,

when we break free from all of the religious sewage floating around us

enough so that we begin to understand

that what He’s offering us is the same thing He offered this woman -

deep love and eternal life with Him in the face of His full knowledge of all our junk,

that knowledge will transform our lives as well.

Well, we reached this point in our account,

and then ran out of time,

so we’re going to pick it up here and see what happens next.

And John’s account continues,

And at this point His disciples came, and they marveled that He had been speaking with a woman; yet no one said, "What do You seek?" or, "Why do You speak with her?"

What John is saying, of course,

is that when the disciples, who had gone into town for food,

came roaring back onto the scene with their bags of Bic Macs and sodas

and they suddenly saw Jesus engaged in this conversation with a Samaritan woman,

there followed one of those agonizing silences that takes place in a group

when someone suddenly does something or says something that shatters accepted social custom.

Sort of like if a group of people

were all seated at a formal dinner party,

with everyone making polite, quiet conversation,

and then someone in the group passes air.

It’s just hard to come up with the right thing to say.

And the social taboos Jesus had broken with this conversation

were far more unsettling than that.

The disciples simply couldn’t believe

that Jesus would commit such a massive social blunder.

And yet he had,

and no one could think of anything to say.

The awkwardness continued for a few seconds,

and then the woman excused herself and went roaring back to town

to tell someone, anyone what had just happened in her life.

And what John says next gives us tremendous insight

both into who this woman was

and into her excitement at what had just happened.

The excitement is obvious

because John says,

So the woman left her waterpot, and went into the city...

She left the waterpot.

Why?

Because she didn’t care about it any longer,

she didn’t care about anything any longer

except getting back to town as fast as she could

so that she could tell someone about this Man.

And it’s in what John says next

that we really get a fascinating glimpse into this woman.

John says,

So the woman left her waterpot, and went into the city, and said to the men, "Come, see a man who told me all the things that I have done; this is not the Christ, is it?"

Now, we should have known this already,

given the fact that this woman had been married five times,

and was living with number six,

but it is clear from this statement

that she was at her best with men.

They were her life.

They knew her

and she knew them.

She understood them.

It’s significant first of all

that she didn’t go to the women in town,

she went to the men.

And they listened to her,

and what she says to them helps us understand why.

You see, she is clearly a master at understanding the male temperament.

She knows how the male mind works.

She understands the male ego.

And so, rather than trying to tell the men anything,

she simply gives them the facts,

and then asks them for their help

in figuring out what those facts mean.

Now that’s just brilliant!

Do you think she had any doubts about who Jesus was?

Of course not.

But she also knew

that, given the nature of the male temperament,

it’s often very tricky for a woman to be able to tell men anything

and have them accept it and believe it,

so rather than trying to tell them anything

she simply lays out the facts

and then asks them for their help in understanding what those facts might mean,

while at the same time nudging them strongly in the right direction.

"Come, see a man who told me all the things that I have done; this is not the Christ, is it?"

That one sentence captures

one of the most crucial dynamics

of the male/female relationship in a fallen world.

And the root of what’s happening here

traces all the way back to the Garden of Eden.

I’ve called it male ego,

but that isn’t really what this is.

There are two far greater ingredients in the male make-up

that come into play here.

And they both find their roots into the male/female relationship

at that point at which sin entered into the human race.

One of those aspects is an utterly irrational residue of mistrust within the male spirit

to the female judgement or reasoning processes.

And the more insecure a man is in his own identity,

the more powerfully this mistrust expresses itself.

It is a mistrust that finds its first roots

in Eve leading Adam into rebellion against God.

You remember Adam’s response, don’t you,

when God asked him for an account of his actions?

GEN 3:12 The man said, "The woman whom You gave to be with me, she gave me from the tree, and I ate."

And though truth, experience, and common sense

can and often do overcome this irrational response,

there is within the male make-up an inborn resistance

against trusting and submitting to female leadership.

And as I mentioned,

the more insecure a man is in himself and his own identity,

the more resistant he is.

I’ve known more than a few men

who, when it comes right down do it,

simply will not trust and submit to female leadership in their life ever.

They simply have to win,

have to dominate,

have to control at any cost.

And you talk about tough marriages.

It has been both my observation

and my experience

that God has a fascinating technique

that He uses in marriage relationships

to help men rethink their irrational suspicion of the female.

What He does

is to place within the wife

the information the husband needs

in order to make some crucial family decision.

This frequently happens in the area of finances.

And if the husband will listen to and trust the wife’s input

things turn out fine,

and if he doesn’t,

they turn into a financial disaster.

But no matter how we may try to educate society to the contrary,

this male suspicion of female leadership

is a fundamental part of all male/female interaction.

And the second ingredient in this mess

is that even though men tend to be suspicious of female leadership,

yet at the same time they are also insecure

in assuming their own leadership role especially in the family structure.

Men tend to be self-doubters when it comes to assuming healthy family leadership.

And all too often

the husband goes into marriage feeling like he’s way over his head

and the wife goes into marriage believing he’s right.

But my point here

is that these two common characteristics of maleness,

the suspicion and distrust of female leadership

and the tendency toward self-doubt

are key ingredients in the whole spectrum of male/female interaction.

And what we see this Samaritan woman doing here

shows an absolute brilliance on her part

of these inherent male attributes.

Rather than trying to tell these men a difficult but obvious truth,

she simply presents them with the facts,

points them in the right direction,

and then asks for their help in figuring out what they mean.

JOH 4:29 "Come, see a man who told me all the things that I have done; this is not the Christ, is it?"

I think probably their first response to her statement

would have been, “No, of course you haven’t found the Christ.

Why in the world would YOU find the Christ?

You’re a Samaritan.

You’re a woman!

You think the Christ would just suddenly appear to you of all people?

Get a grip!”

But then I think they would have asked for a little more information

about just exactly what He knew about her past

because her history and some of those men’s history were certainly intertwined,

and they would definitely have wanted a little more clarification on who knew what.

And I think it was probably that more than anything

that motivated those men

to drop what they were doing

and head out to the well.

And so the next thing we read is, JOH 4:30 They went out of the city, and were coming to Him.

And I can’t let that phrase, "Come, see a man who told me all the things that I have done...”, slip by

without pointing it out as well

because it, too, tells us so much about the way our minds work.

She tells these men that this Jesus, "... told me all the things that I have done...”.

Now really,

is that what Jesus did?

Did He really tell her all the things she’d ever done?

Of course not.

But when He’d told her the worst things,

none of the rest of it mattered,

because she knew - this Man knows her, really knows her,

because He knows the hidden places of her life.

And I need to prepare you for this in your own relationship with your Lord

because He does the same thing with us.

With each of us

there are countless failures in our lives,

wrong thoughts,

wrong actions,

wrong thinking patterns,

wrong emotional responses.

But with each of us there is also one issue,

one area,

one churning point at the top of the list.

There is one stain next to which all the rest just don’t seem to matter.

And guess which one

He most wants to deal with in our lives.

And He does it for two reasons.

First, He does it for the same reason He did it in this woman’s life -

because we need to know that He knows,

and that He knew when He first called us to Himself,

and that it had no power to push Him away from us then,

and it has no power to cause Him to turn away from us now.

In other words,

we need to know that it has no affect on His love for us whatsoever.

And the fascinating thing

is that when we finally allow Him to bring it out into the open

it affects us the same way it affected this woman.

"Come, see a man who told me all the things that I have done...”

To know this

is to know everything.

We need to know

that His acceptance of us

and His love for us

truly is without limits, without conditions.

And we also need to know

not just that He knows about it,

but that He’s adequate for it,

that His grace is sufficient for this too.

And what that means in our specific situation

is totally up to Him.

What we want, of course,

is healing - absolute, total, and complete.

And sometimes that is exactly what serves His purposes best in our lives.

But then, there are other times

when we can discover His love best,

and understand the true nature of His commitment to us best

through His leaving the wounded area in place in our life

and then allowing us to discover one day at a time

that once again this day

He is adequate for us.

2CO 12:7-9 And because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, for this reason, to keep me from exalting myself, there was given me a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to buffet me-- to keep me from exalting myself! Concerning this I entreated the Lord three times that it might depart from me. And He has said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness." Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, that the power of Christ may dwell in me.

Do you know what the healthy Christian life looks like?

Do you think it is a life that exudes power,

and might,

and strength?

Well, yes, sometimes,

but not in the way we so often think.

The truth is that it is a power,

and a strength that grows out of a daily deep dependance upon our God,

a dependance that gives Him the freedom to live in us and through us.

And most often

that kind of dependance requires the presence of a chronic need in our life,

some ongoing unresolved

or unresolvable issue

that reminds us every morning

of our desperate need for our Creator.

What is it you hate most about your life right now?

What do you hate most about yourself right now?

Have you told yourself that

if you could just resolve that one issue,

if you could just find freedom from that one struggle,

if you could just fix that one broken place in your life

then you would really be able to soar?

And why in the world hasn’t your Lord fixed it?

Isn’t He able?

Doesn’t He care?

Or is it just possible

that He has left it in your life

because its existence creates within you

the desperate daily dependance for His love,

His grace,

and His presence in your life?

I’ve been in this God thing

for more years now than many of you have been alive.

And I’ll tell you honestly

that it is so different from what I once thought it would be.

It has very little to do with great warfare,

and great victories,

and great accomplishments in His name.

It has a great deal to do

with discovering each day once again

that His grace is sufficient for me this day,

and I can and will find Him adequate

for whatever I face.

Well, our woman at the well rounded up her heard of men

and then sent them off to find out for themselves

who this Jesus really was.

And John concludes his account of this remarkable encounter by saying,

So when the Samaritans came to Him, they were asking Him to stay with them; and He stayed there two days. And many more believed because of His word; and they were saying to the woman, "It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves and know that this One is indeed the Savior of the world."

And once again we see it happening.

So many of the Jews in Jesus’ world

brought to the Master all of their religious hoops,

and when He wouldn’t jump through them the way they wanted

they threw Him out of their lives.

But then there were these Samaritans,

these cast-offs of society

who knew they had nothing to offer their God

except lives filled with failures.

And wouldn’t you know it,

they were the ones

who found it so much easier

to see His love,

and to believe it,

and to place their lives into His hands.