A Place You Encounter The Savior Of The World Series

THE WELL – A Place You Encounter the Savior of the World

John 4:39-42 April 17, 2022(Easter)

Introduction:

Have you ever had someone save your life? Or have you ever been involved in saving someone’s life?

My grandson Peyton was 2 years old when my daughter screamed “He’s not breathing...if you ever asked me the time I felt the most fear and uttered the quickest most fervent prayer...As I laid him on the bed and began CPR...and had Karissa call 911...“As I breathed life into his little lungs...I prayed for a response and that I wouldn’t hurt him...as the EMTs arrived, Peyton began to respond and I fell to the floor crying and thanking God.

I’ll never forget the day my father saved my life. I was 10 and had set fire to myself after spilling the contents of a rubbing alcohol lamp on myself. Dad heard me scream and put the flames out with his own hands and arms. 3rd degree burns over 50% of my body, but because of his intervention I’m still here.

Dad’s hands were scarred from that day on. His left little finger wouldn’t straighten out because of the scar tissue. When he died they opened the casket and they had his right hand on top of his left...trying to cover the scars...and I told them to change it...put the left one on top so the world could see how much he loved me.

People that have been “saved” from the flames want to tell the world about the one who saved them.

I’ve been part of the saving from both sides. So has the Samaritan woman at the well in John Chapter 4.

What does Jesus the Savior of the whole world do for those he’s saved?

I. HE TAKES AWAY THE SHAME OF OUR PAST

When you’re running back into the town filled with the same people you tried to avoid just hours before...something important just happened. In this case, someone important has happened.

That someone important person between noon at the well and running into town saying “Come see a man that told me everything about myself...could this be the Messiah?” was Jesus...and he clearly claimed that title “I Am He.”

Messiah (a Christ) (one Hebrew one Greek) means “The Promised One.”

In the amazing book, “Evidence That Demands of Verdict” Josh McDowell writes:

The Old Testament contains over 300 references to the Messiah that were fulfilled in Jesus. What chance did Jesus or any other man have of fulfilling these prophecies? The mathematical laws of probability can give us a clue.

In his book Evidence That Demands a Verdict, Josh McDowell mentions the work of the mathematician, Peter Stoner, on just eight of the 300 prophecies: “We find that the chance that any man might have lived down to the present time and fulfilled all eight prophecies is one in ten (to the seventeenth power). That would be one in 100,000,000,000,000,000.

In order to help us comprehend this staggering probability, Stoner illustrates it by supposing that we take ten (seventeenth power) silver dollars and lay them on the face of Texas. They will cover all of the state two feet deep. Now mark one of these silver dollars and stir the whole mass thoroughly, all over the state. Blindfold a man and tell him that he can travel as far as he wishes, but he must pick up one silver dollar and say that “This is the right one.

What a chance would he have of getting the right one? Just the same chance that the prophets would have had of writing these eight prophecies and having them all come true in any one man.

It’s essential on this Easter Sunday morning to remember prophetic references like this:

ISAIAH 53:3-12

and

PSALM 22:1,7,8,18

King David and Isaiah write hundreds and hundreds of years before Jesus is born, lived, died and rose again.

Not only did the Jews and Samaritans know that a Messiah was coming...but the Old Testament gives clear indication that this “promised one” would die, be buried, and rise again.

King David is quoted by Peter on the day of Pentecost after the resurrection, “The Messiah’s body will not see decay.”

ACTS 2:25-37

This history lesson for the Israelites did exactly the same thing Jesus’ history lesson for the Samaritan woman did.

He didn’t tell her to go, call her husband for show or embarrassment. He revealed her past so she could see her need. “I know that Messiah is coming” reveals she understood who would meet that need.

Peter’s history lesson on Pentecost reveals what has been done... “You rejected, you crucified Jesus, who was both Lord and Messiah.”

The shame of my sin is just as real as the Samaritan woman at Jacob’s Well...and Peter’s “fellow Israelites” who are “cut to their hearts” because of their guilt.