The Well - A Place Where Your Past Can Be Forgiven
John 4:16-19 March 27, 2022
Introduction:
“Here’s a really really important question...“If your past never becomes your past is it really your past?”
If you never deal with the Elephant in the room, isn’t the Elephant always there?
H. Norman Wright said, “Forgiveness involves letting go. Remember playing tug of war as a child? As long as the parties on both ends of the rope are tugging, you have a “war.” But when someone lets go, the war is over. When you forgive...you are letting go of your end of the rope...if you have released your end, the war is over for you.”]
You see when it comes to sin and our struggle with it and its consequences it’s not God that has a problem letting go of the rope...it’s Rick...it’s us.
Have you ever heard these words from scripture: “Anyone who has been stealing must steal no longer, but must work, doing something useful.” (Ephesians 4:28)
But wouldn’t you agree that we could put almost any sin in that scripture...Those who gossip must stop gossiping and start speaking words of encouragement.
Those who commit sexual immorality must start seeking purity and stop using people.
Those who are greedy and love money must stop loving it, and start being generous with those in need.
Real forgiveness requires us letting go of the rope...whether that rope has been adultery or lying (perfectly...no, not while we live in this body, but is there an evident change of direction and priority? Absolutely...
If you look just a few verses earlier in Ephesians chapter 4 you read these words starting in verse 22:
EPHESIANS 4:22-24
Former (past) way of life...put it off...and put on a new attitude in your mind...put on the new self, created to be like God.
Until we deal with our former way of life, or better put...let God deal with it we cannot be made new...we cannot begin to be created anew by God’s Spirit.
That’s why when the Samaritan woman says, “Give me this water so I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.”
Jesus says, “Go call you husband and come back.”
I. UNTIL YOU DEAL WITH WHAT MADE YOU SO THIRSTY YOU CAN’T DRINK LIVING WATER
[I have sat with more broken and divorced people than I care to remember. I have witnessed pain that goes to a place I’ve never experienced, but I’ve seen people I love taste...and deeply feel.
Here’s the deal...just because you don’t want someone to love someone else...or reject, you doesn’t stop the other person from doing just that.
The one you’ve been faithful to sleeps with a guy she met at work...the one you said, “Til death do us part” to starts spending weekends away “on business” and you know deep in your soul...it’s not business.
Men tell me “she became uncaring and frigid” and women tell me “He became distant and unkind.”
That kind of hurt is something you don’t want to let go of...or let just anybody see...not wonder this woman in John 4 at the well tries to cut this conversation short.
“I have no husband,” she replied.
It’s kind of like the addict who is temporarily straight or the drunk that is sober momentarily saying “I don’t have an abuse problem, right now!”
Unless you focus on what has left you dying of thirst spiritually over and over again in your past....you can never change your future.
The old cannot become new if it’s still what you do!
This woman, just like us would just as soon not talk about her former (and present) way of dealing with life.
Mike Yaconelli in his book Messy Spirituality writes:
Talk about a woman who is a mess. The Samaritan woman in the fourth chapter of John gives new meaning to the word mess.
When it comes to immorality, this woman is a pro. Of all the people to bump into the Son of God, it had to be a woman whose past suggest she is as far from God as anyone could be. Surprisingly, Jesus initiates a conversation with her. A respectable Jewish male (especially a respectable Jewish Messiah male) should not be talking to a woman like her, period. A woman with her reputation could only damage Jesus’ reputation, but he doesn’t seem to care!
Strangely, this woman has studied religion. She knows messiahs, and divorced five times, she definitely knows men, but she’s never met a man or a Messiah like this one. This man treats her with respect. What kind of a man is he? He listens to her, dialogues with her, takes her question seriously, and treats her with dignity and kindness. Thank God, she thinks, he doesn’t know what kind of woman I am.
But he does know what kind of woman she is.
Turns out she doesn’t know what kind of woman she is. Jesus brings her face to face with herself. She would do anything to avoid facing who she has become. Jesus knows she can’t pretend her sin away; she has to face it, look at it, admit it. Jesus knows that in order to get well, she has to get real!
Jesus doesn’t lecture, condemn, or humiliate; instead, he gently reminds the woman where her choices have led her.
“You’re right when you say you have no husband. The fact is, you have had 5 husbands and the man you now have is not your husband. What you’ve first said is quite true.”
(I tell this story during a lot of my counseling sessions....I can almost promise you'll hear it again...."Suppose every morning for decades you get up, take a shower, get dressed and eat breakfast. Then you walk down the same path every day that leads to the barn. Every day for 30 years this is your routine. You know this deeply well worn path to the barn...but one day you get up, take a shower, get dressed, eat breakfast and decide you want to go to the pond today. as you start down this overgrown path that even hard to find and it's covered in stick tights....you head back and decide you'll take the comfortable well worn path to the pond....only it never leads to the pond...it'll always take you were you've always gone.
I think there is a lot of this story in Jesus reply to the Samaritan woman...."You're correct....you've had 5 husband...you've walked down that path over and over....so much so you gave up...now you're living with some guy."
Let me ask you...who do you think has the greatest chance to influence Kari Burdette’s
self esteem and self worth. I believe it’s Rick Burdette...Sr.)
5 times the woman at the well has taken that leap to be loved in hopes that this time she might find what she wants more than anything else in the world...to be loved...she thirst for it like a person lost in the desert.
Standing at this unlikely place, her past and her reputation no longer a secret, she admits her deepest longing - her longing for the Messiah. Now she can admit that in her futile search for relationships, she really had been looking for water - living water. In her lifetime of fumbling around for the right man, what she really had been fumbling around for was God. And now he stands before her.
“I know that Messiah (called Christ) is coming when he comes He’ll explain everything to us.”
Folks:
II. JESUS IS THE LOVE WE LONG FOR
When Jesus declares “I AM HE” He uses the name of God in this declaration.
When Moses asked God “what do I tell the Israelites when they ask me who sent you? What is His name?” (Ex. 3:13)
God says, “Tell them “I AM” has sent me to you...Tell them the God of your Fathers, The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob has sent me to you.” (Ex. 3:15)
I AM is present tense...God doesn’t say I was sent you...or I will be sent you. God is God right now. He’s God in your slavery. He’s God in your mess. He’s God in all circumstances. He is I AM and even with 5 divorces and sexual immorality in your past...He is your Messiah...RIGHT NOW!
2 things are necessary for change. One you have to have a desire for things to be different...and two you have to have hope that they can be different.
Satan attacks both those necessary things with his lies. Just numb the pain...you’ll be happy if you find the right guy...the next guy...and then he attacks hope...“you’ll never change...look at your reputation...you’ll never be any different.
The Holy Spirit works for God in those two areas as well. He shows us the truth and consequences of our lives. He reveals the truth about who we’ve hurt including most of all, God...but then He becomes an agent of hope...He reveals a Savior who can forgive all our past...and a king who has an inheritance for our future...and a purpose for us in His kingdom...why?
“For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son...” (Jn. 3:16)
“He did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved though Him..” (Jn. 3:17)
Jesus is at the well because He loves lost sheep. He loves lost sons and daughters. he is able to forgive sin...and say, “Go and sin no more.”
His mission “I’ve come to seek and save that which is lost.” (Lk. 19:10)
Think about it...Jesus took the initiative in every situation. Here at the well...with Matthew at his tax booth and Zacheaus up a Sycamore tree...with fishermen and zealots...even with the Apostle Paul (called Saul at the time). Jesus met him on the Damascus road, not the other way around.
He is God searching...seeking...the lost. Why? Does He need us? Do we supply for God anything He lacks? so why? Listen to
1 JOHN 4:7-17
Love! It comes from God...He loved first. He gave His first and best. In fact, God is love...and if He lives in me then that love flows to others. I don’t have to worry about the future...because in this world I’m like Jesus...“We love because he first loved us” (v. 19)
Soren Kierkegaard, the great Danish theologian told this story:
A prince who wanted to find a maiden suitable to be his queen. One day while running an errand in the local village for his father he passed through a poor section. As he glanced out the windows of the carriage his eyes fell upon a beautiful peasant maiden. During the ensuing days he often passed by the young lady and soon fell in love. But he had a problem. How would he seek her hand?
He could order her to marry him. But even a prince wants his bride to marry him freely and voluntarily and not through coercion. He could put on his most splendid uniform and drive up to her front door in a carriage drawn by six horses. But if he did this he would never be certain that the maiden loved him or was simply overwhelmed with all of the splendor.
The prince came up with another solution. He would give up his kingly robe. He moved, into the village, entering not with a crown but in the garb of a peasant. He lived among the people, shared their interests and concerns, and talked their language. In time the maiden grew to love him for who he was and because he had first loved her.
The Samaritan woman knew about men...and how “love” had always worked in her past. I’ll love you “if” you’ll meet my my needs or I’ll love you because you give me what I deserve.
But Jesus is different. he loves “regardless of”...Regardless of our pasts...regardless of our reputation...regardless of how the world values us...He first loves...like a shepherd loves wayward sheep...and a Father loves a prodigal son or daughter....as a groom looks at his bride.
Joni Eareckson Tada, a quadriplegic who was paralyzed in a diving accident as a teenager, talks about her wedding day. She says, “I felt awkward as my girlfriends strained to shift my paralyzed body into a cumbersome wedding gown. No amount of corseting and binding my body gave me a perfect shape. The dress just didn’t fit well. Then, as I was wheeling into the church, I glanced down and noticed that I’d accidentally run over the hem of my dress, leaving a greasy tire mark. My paralyzed hands couldn’t hold the bouquet of daisies that lay off-center on my lap. And my chair, though decorated for the wedding, was still a big, clunky gray machine with belts, gears, and ball bearings. I certainly didn’t feel like the picture-perfect bride in a bridal magazine. I inched my chair closer to the last pew to catch a glimpse of Ken in front. There he was, standing tall and stately in his formal attire. I saw him looking for me, craning his neck to look up the aisle. My face flushed, and I suddenly couldn’t wait to be with him. I had seen my beloved. The love in Ken’s face had washed away all my feelings of unworthiness. I was his pure and perfect bride. How easy it is for us to think that we’re utterly unlovely — especially to someone as lovely as Christ. But he loves us with the bright eyes of a Bridegroom’s love and cannot wait for the day we are united with him forever.”
My wife Kari will tell you that she didn’t even see my scars when she fell in love with me, she loved me more than my flaws.
Jesus loves like that...His bride is scarred, unattractive, frightened, paralyzed and imperfect. I look toward Jesus through eyes unworthy of His grace...unworthy of His love. And He looks back through eyes which sought out the broken...proclaimed freedom for those captive to their pasts...out of His love flows cleansing and purity for my scarlet letter...and mud stained soul.
Redemption means to “Buy back” and He made me...but I chose to reject Him...He bought me back...cleansed me, took away the wrinkles, the blemishes in my soul. he made me new and He’s not through yet...either.
The writer of Revelation proclaimed: “I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.’ He who was seated on the throne said, ‘I am making everything new!’ Then he said, ‘Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true”” (Revelation 21:2-5)
Isn’t it time for you to meet Jesus at the well?
Let’s pray.
