3rd Sunday of Lent 11
Sin and worship
Charles Swindoll, in his book Growing Deep in the Christian Life, tells the true story of a man who bought fried chicken dinners for himself and his girlfriend to enjoy on a picnic one afternoon. He was in for a surprise because the person behind the counter mistakenly gave him the wrong paper bag. Earlier, the manager had taken the money from the cash registers and placed it in an ordinary bag, hoping to disguise it on his way to the bank. But when the person working the cash register went to give the man his order, he grabbed the bag full of money instead of the bag full of chicken. Swindoll says, “After driving to their picnic site, the two of them sat down to enjoy some chicken. They discovered a whole lot more than chicken — over $800! But he was unusual. He quickly put the money back in the bag. They got back into the car and drove all the way back. Mr. Clean got out, walked in, and became an instant hero. By then, the manager was frantic. The guy with the bag of money looked the manager in the eye and said, ‘I want you to know I came by to get a couple of chicken dinners and wound up with all this money here.’ Well, the manager was thrilled to death. He said, ‘Let me call the newspaper. I’m going have your picture put in the local paper. You’re one of the most honest men I’ve ever heard of.’ To which the man quickly responded, ‘Oh, no. No, no, don’t do that!’ Then he leaned closer and whispered, ‘You see, the woman I’m with is not my wife. She’s, uh, somebody else’s wife.’” Swindoll closes the story by saying, “Harder to find than lost cash is a perfect heart.”
Unfortunately, these stories are all too common in a culture which has lost its moral foundation.
I’d like to introduce you to a woman, who is a lot like us. All of us before we come face to face with our Creator is like this woman. In listening to her story, we discover our own story. As we see her receive something from God. We ourselves learn to receive from God. I want to introduce you to the woman at the well.
She didn’t know she was in need of Christ, she didn’t know she was dying of thirst. She didn’t realize that her life was parched, wilted and dry. She didn’t realize what she was hungering for, or that she was longing for an intimate partner, Jesus, the One who created her. All she knew was a unending sense of dissatisfaction, an unsettledness, an uneasiness. She had five husbands, each one different than the others, each one offering her a different balm or medicine to soothe her itch, to ease her anxiety. But none of them worked out. One maybe left her for another woman, another complained of irreconcilable differences. Still another she left because of the constant bickering. But though the excuses were all different, what was the same was her loneliness. She came to the well alone, in the heat of the day, when it was so hot she knew no one else would be there. She came to draw water from Jacob’s well, which was deep. What she found was the Spring of Living Water, Jacob’s Creator, who touched her in the depths, the part of her heart no one else saw. In fact it was a part of her scarcely known by her herself. Let’s look at how our Lord brought her to that place, the place where He meets us also in the deepest, most tender parts of our hearts, the place most wounded, most unredeemed.
The first thing Christ does is invite us to see Him for Who He IS. We find this in verses 7-10. Jesus sees her as someone who he can receive ministry from. Jesus looks at us in much the same way. Even with her past, when Jesus was tired, he invited her, a woman, a Samaritan woman with whom no good Jew would have any contact, a Samaritan woman with a bad past, to minister to Him.
In verse 9 we see how she responds to Jesus. Because of her past, she saw him as only another Jew, one more person to reject her. We do that as well. We look at our past, all of our past sins, and think that we can’t minister to the Lord, we’ve been disqualified. But Jesus still seeks us out.
Notice Jesus’ response to the woman in verse 10: “If you knew the gift of God...” Jesus basically says, if you knew who I am, you would have asked me for the thing that quenches your thirst, heals your hurts, and binds your wounds. He is saying to the woman, “You don’t know me!”
When our hearts see God, who does it see? When you look at God do you see someone scary, or distant, or unavailable, or unconcerned, or angry, or violent, or countless other negative thoughts that prevent you from seeing God for who He is? Put yourself in the place of this woman for just a moment.
When we’ve been rejected...we tend to see God as rejecting. When we’ve been judged harshly.... We see God as a harsh judge. When wounded by another person’s anger...we see God as someone who is angry.
How do we tell if this may be our problem? Jesus told the woman if she really knew, she would. In other words, you can tell by how you respond to God. Jesus says that we respond to God perfectly, based on how our hearts truly sees him. For example, if you know in your head that God is your friend, do you find it hard to spend time with him? Do you come to God with all your hurts or do you hold on to them expecting God to handle them because that is what He is supposed to do? Jesus invites us to see him for who he really is.
The second Invitation from God is to Let Go of the Inferior Thirst Quenchers. This comes from verses 11-14.
To give you background on this scripture, Samaritans and Jews were bitter rivals. Each one claimed the distinction of being the people of God. The Samaritans believed that their land, and especially Mount Gerazim, was particularly holy and set apart for God. They clung on to the traditions of their forefathers, hallowing the places that God appeared in the past. Hence Jacob, the father of Jews and Samaritans, was an important figure. His land, his well, which he had dug so long ago, was seen as special.
The Samaritan woman was saying to Jesus I have my traditions, my culture, my history, even Jacob’s well to draw water from. What do you have? You don’t even have anything to draw water from... What can you give to me? She was holding on to what she had, what she knew, what she thought would satisfy her. But Jesus invited her to drink from that which would truly satisfy.
So here is how this applies to us. Some of us have missed great blessings because we’re so committed to quenching our thirst in tried and true ways of the World. We run to relationships, or alcohol and drugs. We become co–dependent, abdicating the responsibility of thinking for ourselves, or even feeling our own feelings, and taking on the thoughts and feelings of others. We become addiction addicts, addicted to this, to that, or countless combinations in order to try and quench the thirst that constantly cries out for relief.
We know from the following verses that one of the woman’s issues was relationships with men. She was married five times, she tried to find relief over and over again. But she was also tied to family traditions. They had the potential to keep her from the very thing she longed for.
What Jesus said to the woman, he also says to us. He says, the old ways don’t work. You have to keep coming back. We get a good feeling, and for a while forget our problems, or find courage to take a risk. We try it again and again, but each time the results are less than what we expect. So we try harder and harder, doing it over and over, but instead of relief, we get more and more dry, and thus more and more thirsty. How many times have we tried and tried to get relief from the same things that no longer work? We try the good things, like quiet times, or going to church but eventually, Jesus brings us to a point where we’re confronted with the futility of our efforts. He invites us to see Him for who he really is. He invites us to let go of our ways to find satisfaction, to give up our attempts to draw water from things that do not satisfy.
Sometimes God does it through the Holy Spirit, working in our lives. Other times he works through people, members of the body of Christ coming up to us, in the power of the Spirit; sometimes God speaks through the Bible to speak that truth into our lives. God pursues us, and seeks us out, calling to us, until we are ready to open up that area of our lives. Jesus got the woman’s attention, and she invites him give her the better water, the one that truly satisfies. Jesus will do the same for you as well, BUT he will do it, but only at YOUR invitation.
When we invite Christ into our lives, He will start to effect the area of our life where we need the most change. Let me illustrate: In verse 16 Jesus opens up the key area, the one, most sensitive place, where she has most walled up. "Go, call your husband..." Husband? O no! Husband? I’ve had 5, and they never worked out. Jesus hit the most sensitive place in her life, the place where she experienced the most failure and shame. He hit her past life’s failure that she was trying to hide.
THIS NEXT POINT IS CRITICAL...WHAT WILL YOU DO WHEN THE HOLY SPIRIT REVEALS A WOUNDED PLACE IN THE HEART? Notice what she did in verse 17. She could have said, OK and left. She could have turned away. But she didn’t . She stayed there in the presence of Jesus. And confessed. “ I HAVE NO HUSBAND.”
When we confess, when we agree with Jesus that we’re hopelessly defeated in a certain area, we’re allowing Christ to enter into that place of brokenness. And to give the woman some credit, she didn’t back away. BUT, How many of us do? When we face something too painful, do we revert back to our old ways when the spirit is clearly prompting us to look at it, examine it, and bring it to him?
Even though she did not back away, she did try to change the subject. When God catches us in the blinding light of his the power and presence we often try to squirm, avoid the subject, run away. We don’t like being there, but God is relentless. Once you invite Him to address an area, he is not content until you begin to look at it like He does.
How does he do it? God invites us to enter His Presence and simply Worship. We see this played out in verses 21-26. Jesus invited her to see Him for who He really is. He was inviting her to give up the inferior things, things that don’t really satisfy. Why? In order to get the best, you have to give up the rest.
What was he wanting for her and us is True Worship. Jesus put it this way in Matthew 4:10: “‘You must worship the Lord your God; serve him only.’” In other words, focus on God alone and respond or act accordingly. Here’s the way that life is supposed to work. “The more we focus on God, the more we understand and appreciate how worthy He is.” Then we respond with gratitude, with joy, with a willingness to forgive others, and with love for God and people created in his image.
People often confuse singing or praying or shouting praise or raising hands or reading the Bible as worship, but they are not. They may lead us to worship, but they are not worship in and of themselves. Worship is intentional focus on God and response to him.
In short, you get out of worship what you put into it. You may or may not like the music, you may or may not like what the preacher says some Sundays, but to the extent that you focus properly to that extent you will get something out of worship. Thus if you desire God’s character you must intentionally make him your focus and respond accordingly. I think it’d be best to see how this worked out in the life of a woman who experienced the presence of God, but it took her a while before she focused and responded appropriately.
Once we intentionally focus on God, the Holy Spirit touches our heart. When this happens, we get a glimpse of who God is and what he has done for us and that compels us to respond.
Ways that I can achieve my purpose for worship?
1. Focus on God daily.
2. 1 Thessalonians 5:17 tells us “Pray without ceasing”
3. Experience different forms of worship. Don’t discount the form just because it’s doesn’t suit your particular taste or style.
4. Learn to let go. Don’t worry if it is OK or not to raise your hands in worship or to say AMEN when you agree with what is being said. And finally…..
5. Look at worship as an offering to God. Don’t let your worship be a burden to you but offer it to God with thanks.
So true worship has nothing to do with buildings or places, it has nothing to do with style, contemporary or traditional. True worship happens when first we are connected and focused on God, and we respond to that focus. So let me ask you: Are you truly worshipping God this morning?
