A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Water Cooler
Tom Shrader explores Jesus' revolutionary encounter with the Samaritan woman in John 4, demonstrating how Christ breaks down cultural barriers and addresses humanity's deepest spiritual needs. He emphasizes that while we may think we need physical solutions, our ultimate need is for the living water that only Jesus provides. Shrader challenges believers to recognize that God sovereignly places needy people in their lives for evangelistic opportunities.
“You have longings that can be met with a person, place, or thing, but you have a crucial longing that could never be met with a person, place, or thing, but can only be met with Christ.”
— Tom Shrader
Series: John: The Essence of Life
Recorded: 2008
Duration: 43 min
Themes: evangelism, grace, redemption, prejudice, barriers, witness, hope, acceptance, feeling rejected, struggling with prejudice, new believer, seeking purpose, social outcast, missionary, witnessing opportunities, broken relationships
Scripture: John 4:1-42, John 3, 1 Samuel, 2 Samuel, Judges 21:25
Theological Themes: soteriology, salvation, living water, eternal life, incarnation, divine encounter, gospel witness, cultural barriers
Full Transcript
We today start session three of a series titled "The Essence of Life." What we're looking at is an overview of the Gospel of John. I remind you, and I assume I'll go back to this every week because it defines what this book is all about, that John writes this Gospel and tells us at the end of the book why he's writing. He said, "Therefore, many other signs Jesus also performed in the presence of the disciples, not written in this book, but these have been written..." So he said, this is why I wrote these. "These have been written that you might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing in Him you might have everlasting life." You might have life itself.
He said the operative word as we look through the study is the word "believe." We looked last week at John 3 and saw that word "believe" four or five times. "God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whoever believes in Him might have eternal life." That's the constant theme of this book. This Gospel is a little different than the others. It's the only one that contains no parables. More theological than the others, at least considered that way. It's just a wonderful, intimate picture of the life of Christ.
John writes and says, "I've written this book that you might believe that Jesus is the Christ." There is no story in the entire Gospel that probably better illustrates that point than the story we look at this morning.
The Journey Through Samaria
In John 4, we see the story of the Samaritan woman or the woman at the well. We pick right up at John 4, verse 1: "Therefore, when the Lord knew that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus was making and baptizing more disciples than John, although Jesus Himself was not baptizing, the disciples were, He left Judea, went again into Galilee, He had to pass through Samaria, so He came to the city in Samaria called Sychar near the parcel of the ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph. Jacob's well was there. So Jesus, being wearied from His journey, was sitting thus by the well, and it was about the sixth hour."
It might be helpful - most of your Bibles, if you flip to the back, have a section with maps. In the back of my Bible, when I go back there, I find eight pages of maps. It's probably a section of the Bible that you go to more out of curiosity or boredom than anything else. But in my Bible, there is a map titled "Palestine in the time of Christ." My suspicion would be you would have a map similar to that.
As you look at it, you can trace the journey that Jesus is on here. He is in the south. He is in Judea. He is moving to the north, trying to get up to Galilee. There are two ways to accomplish this. One is to go inland. The other is an absolute direct route. But as you look at that, that direct route takes you through Samaria. That is the route that Jesus chooses.
What gives us this whole setting at the beginning of this chapter is that for the Jew, this is the route they would be least likely to choose. They wanted nothing to do with Samaria. The area of Israel had been conquered and split. It had been inhabited by alien forces. Those alien forces had intermarried with the Jews. Those people there in Samaria were considered by the Jews themselves to be absolute outcasts. So for Jesus to be moving from south to north, or reverse, north to south, typically that route would be inland, making the route considerably longer. But that's how much the Jews typically hated these people and would avoid them.
Jesus the Great Liberator
Here's the point for today, and it's an ancillary point: Jesus really is the great liberator. So often when you hear people talk about Christianity, they will paint it with this idea that Christians are these bigoted, chauvinistic people. If we are that, if that's the vibe or in fact the reality you have, that is exactly the opposite of where Jesus is. You see Him in here, you'll see it today, breaking down barriers. He's breaking down these barriers between the Samaritans and the Jews and hugely breaking down the barrier and lifting up the women in that culture.
I'll digress here, and I'm not really looking for input. I just want to make a point. I was trying to make this point Sunday. There is within the guys that I hang with - I'm basically a pretty conservative person. I hang with pretty conservative guys. Within the culture you're in, you're on the pretty conservative email list. Everybody who thinks they know you wants to send you these pretty conservative emails.
In the last three months roughly, I've gotten more emails that suggest to me that the end of the world is here because of the new President and that He's 666 and that He must be the Antichrist. It's amazing the stuff I'm getting. There is this general perception of this huge demise. I want to be really clear here because I could be misunderstood. I have some profound and serious differences. His general approach, it seems to me everything that's just happened or will happen are just not what I would do.
But there is something that I'm afraid you can miss in the midst of this. I was struck in October, beginning of October, there were these solid conservative blacks - I'm talking about JC Watts, Colin Powell (you'll argue whether he's conservative or not), but JC Watts, Colin Powell, Armstrong Williams, a bunch of these guys who were saying, "I don't know who I'm going to vote for here." Inside I'm going, how could you struggle here? I mean, there's one candidate who lines up with everything that really you believe in and then there's another candidate. How could you struggle? I will tell you, because most of you...
In this room, probably all of you are middle-class white people, there is a component here of being black in this country that we're never going to get. If you've been to college and you've never read this speech, you've been to the wrong college. But in July 4th, 1852, Frederick Douglass delivered a speech on what does the 4th of July mean to a slave? And it is a powerful speech.
When you begin to put that in your economy, when you begin to understand that when I was a boy, young boy, blacks couldn't play in the major leagues, when I graduated from eighth grade, I couldn't vote. When you begin to feel this, you can understand. I'm not asking you to buy in and agree with it, but at least you can understand what's happening in that mindset. This is a huge deal.
And again, please don't email, and I don't want to argue politics with you. I'm just not going to do it. I'll lay it out. I got profound differences on about every level, but I see the significance of this moment for a group of people who feel hugely suppressed, who were chattel, who would show up on your balance sheet. And to go from 40 years ago not being able to vote and being president today, that is a big, big deal.
Jesus Crashes Cultural Barriers
Jesus moves along and He is crashing barriers like that when He's dealing with this situation we have here. These Jews would have nothing to do with these Samaritans, based primarily on the fact they're intermarrying. There's now this hatred that's developed. And Jesus is going to crash that wall down.
Bigger than that wall and a bigger issue than any is the issue of the gospel. The Samaritan woman doesn't just need to be accepted by the culture, she needs Christ. She needs the gospel itself. That's what we're going to see today. That's kind of a heavy introduction, but I hope you kind of get the feel of that whole thing.
So that's the context. Jesus is, and I love this idea. If you want to see humanity of Christ, Jesus is in verse six, He's pooped. He's tired. He's sitting at the well.
The Encounter Begins
Verse seven, "there came a woman from Samaria to draw water and Jesus said to her, give me a drink. For His disciples had gone away into the city to buy food. Therefore the Samaritan woman said to Him, how is it that you being a Jew asked me for a drink since I'm a Samaritan woman?" And then the parenthetical insert, John's saying maybe you're not going to understand this, but the Jews would have no dealings with the Samaritans.
So you get that kind of feel, see that backdrop in there. Jesus says, "give me a drink" and she said "I don't understand how you can ask me that because we have a barrier here we got a barrier in that you are talking to me when we wouldn't even speak" and Jesus answered and said to her "if you knew the gift of God who it is who says to you give me a drink you would have asked him and he would have given you living water"
Using the Ordinary to Teach the Profound
Now we saw this last week when we looked at John chapter 3. Frequently in Christ's life He will use common ordinary everyday either experiences or relationships father-son. He'll use sheep shepherd. He'll use water, bread, common experiences, common relationships and from them teach these profound spiritual truths. That's what's happening here.
We saw it last week John 3 you just said you got to be born again remember and Nicodemus says mama's not happy about this because she's got me and all these other boys and that is not a pleasant thought and Jesus said well you didn't get it. It's the same thing here. Jesus says give me a drink. Now we're going to come back and talk about evangelism in a relationship when I got done yesterday I said this is this almost sounded like a Barry Asmus talk it was all over the place so I'm going to try to tie this together for you if I can do this at the end but because there's a lot of subpoints there's a lot of ways to teach this.
But Jesus says "give me a drink" she's saying "this bewilders me I don't understand why you talk to me how is it you'd read I mean how desperate must you be or what kind of a Jew really even are you" and Jesus is saying "you missed the whole point if you understood who I was you'd be asking me for a drink."
The Woman's Confusion
She says in verse 11 that didn't make any sense "you don't have a bucket this is a well this is Jacob's well not a spring it's a well it's about a hundred feet deep it's not something that's easily accessed you're asking me for a drink and now you're telling me you'd get me water and I don't see how that could possibly be because you'd have the fundamental instrument that you need to get the water out of the well to give it to me how can you do that where are you going to get this living water"
Now still a woman talking verse 12 "you're not greater than our father Jacob are you who gave us the well and drank of it himself and his sons and his cattle" and Jesus said "everyone who drinks this water will thirst again" okay now what's He doing now this water He's for here's the well but He drinks this well water He'd be thirsty again but now He shifts emphasis "but whoever drinks the water that I will give him I'll never thirst but the water that I will give him He will become in him a well of springing up of eternal life"
Parallel Lines of Communication
Okay now you get the picture is still we still got parallel lines here. She's thinking physical, He's thinking spiritual. And she's all of a sudden "this is pretty cool" I love this she's going "well give me that" I love that verse 15 "sir give me this water so I won't be thirsty again I won't have to come here again"
She's saying "listen I see two huge benefits to this living water springing up inside of me one I'm not going to get thirsty two I don't have to go through this work every day I'd love to find a way to get rid of this if you indeed can do it boy do it in a hurry"
And Jesus now responds to her and He says verse 16 "go call your husband and have him come here" and the woman said "I don't have a husband" and Jesus said "you have correctly said I have no husband you have five and the
The man with whom you now have and now have a relationship is not your husband at all. This you said is true. And the woman said to him, "Sir, I perceive you're a prophet. Our fathers worshipped in the mountain, and you people in Jerusalem say there's a place where men ought to worship."
And Jesus said to her, "Woman, believe me, an hour is coming whether in the mountains or in Jerusalem you shall worship. You worship what you do not know. We worship what we know. Salvation is of the Jews. But the hour is coming and now is when true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for such people the Father seeks to be worshipers. God is spirit. Those who worship Him must worship Him in spirit and truth."
The Desperate Isolation of the Samaritan Woman
Let's talk about the woman a bit. There's something not just going on here that's dramatic in that the Jew is speaking to the Samaritan, but it would be really unusual for a woman to go and be engaged in this task and to do it alone. They would typically do it two, three, four, five. So I want to add maybe just a little more desperation.
I will grant you this is outside the scripture because I'm not going to build some huge case about it, but my suspicion is that her reputation within the community—now because if I'm going to guess that in Sychar is no different than here, that people love to talk and gossip—so she's had four or five of these guys and now has another one, and Lord only knows what's happened in between. Pretty well everybody in the community knows what's going on here. So she's not just an outcast from Judah Samaritans. I'm suggesting even the Samaritans don't want to have anything to do with her. She's extraordinarily isolated and lonely and desperately needy.
She's absolutely bewildered by Jesus' response. The rabbis themselves would not speak to a woman in public—not their wife, not their sister, not their mother. Begin to let that culture, and again you start to see barriers that Jesus is breaking down. She is a desperately needy lady.
People Around You Who Are Desperately Needy
Now I want to stop and talk a little bit here about people in your life that are around you that are desperately needy. You have—and I believe in this, I believe in, and I would assume you do if you read the Bible—the sovereignty of God. When we most often talk about that, we talk about it in the context of how God causes us to be born again. But God's sovereignty is huge. God has sovereignly placed you where you work, where you live, brings people into your life.
I want you to get that there are people all around you who are physically different and circumstances are different, but spiritually and emotionally identical to this woman at the well. And they may have a perception that what they need is a drink of water, and what they really need is Jesus and a drink of water. I don't want to minimize the physical and hurting needs of the people around you.
So I will spend a chunk of time with people who for whatever reason will want to get together and want to talk with you. People come to church or whatever it is and they want to get together, and they'll say here's my need. We'll see it all the time. People are so trained now that when they come into church they immediately almost inevitably ask two questions: Do you have small groups because I want to get plugged in? Do you have counseling because I need help?
Discerning the Real Need: Evangelism or Discipleship
You begin to talk to Him and after a period of time you have to stop and determine real quick, right? Because we said in every relationship at every moment you're either manipulating of the other person or ministering to them. Well, in every relationship on a grand scale you're either evangelizing or discipling. So you have to quickly say when this person says I need help, you have to quickly figure out: Is this somebody who doesn't know Christ and the gospel is what they need to hear? Or somebody who does know Christ—they too need to hear the gospel but applied a different way. You see that? That makes sense to you. See what we're saying there?
You have people all around you who have real legitimate needs and they express them. They'll say I've got a problem, I drink too much. I met because this lady is absolutely at the end of a rope. She's been married 54 years. Her husband is a sex addict. He's got woman after woman after woman. He's 75 years old now and it's still messing around with a 77 year old. And I said I've got to go to sleep tonight, help me get this picture out of my mind.
Well, in the conversation I'm trying to say because there's about 48 plots going on, but I'm trying to say does this guy know Christ? And the answer is no. Well, his problem might be some sort of addiction or he likes girls or whatever it is, or is this media, it could be He's some other thing, whatever it is. That may be the way it expresses itself in a need, but His deep problem is He doesn't know Jesus. He doesn't have the power to stop.
The Need to Replace Affections
And so this is big. I'm going to give you something right now that's really, really, really big. This is gigantic. And whether you don't know Christ or you do know Him, this is really big.
If what you have is this sin in your life, and you're struggling with this thing, if all you're doing is trying to discipline yourself, trying to respond out of duty, then you're always going to have this struggle, and you're going to lose a whole lot of battles. What you need to do is replace the affection in your heart.
So when we're babysitting, this is the way it looks like. When we're babysitting, if Brayden's going after something I don't want Him to have, I'm constantly going, "No, no, put it down, no, no, no." Susan will come over, take away what we don't want Him to have, and give Him something that He can love more. I'm yelling, "No, no," and all I'm doing is producing havoc in the house. She takes five seconds and flips His affections.
That's what needs to happen to you. You need to have your heart fall in love with somebody new, with Jesus. It's not just have Jesus as Lord and Savior. You need to fall in love with Him. The affection and desire for Him has to
exceed this sin. I now love Him so much. Think about it now: "Those who love me keep my commandments." So we focus all the time—I tend to, I don't want to put you in my boat—I tend to focus on be obedient, be obedient, be obedient. The verse is about just love me. Because if you love me, that affection will spill over to everybody else. That, by the way, my friends, is a huge truth.
Switching Users in Your Heart
So on our computer, Susan and I are at home, we're on the same computer, so you can go on it. I don't know why, she has a place and I have a place. When you come on, you can get on to my thing, and then when I'm out, I want to log off, and it'll say, there's a little icon that has arrows, it'll say "switch users." I'm saying to you, that's what you need to do in your heart. You need to switch users. The heart that's fallen in love with sin has to be switched to the heart that falls in love with Jesus. So this is what she needs.
Two Different Types of Longings
You've got longings. Now you're going to see a little bit of confusion here, because we've got legitimate longings, needs, that can be met with a person, place, or thing, and only met that way. So we're not saying come to Christ and you'll never need a sandwich again. But you have a crucial longing that could never be met with a person, place, or thing, but can only be met with Christ. See what I'm saying?
So if you have this huge need—and let's just be really honest, some of you, we're all over the age range here, and some of you are really cool, some of you have given up trying to be cool, some of you have this whole thing, and you don't want to show... So you don't need to show me anything. You don't need to show me any emotion. But I'm telling you, I don't care who you are, I'll give you some things you really need. You really need to feel loved. You really need to feel cared for. You really need to feel nurtured. You really need a father. Right? Too cool to say it, but yes is the answer to that.
Here's the deal: the only place that need, that longing can be met is in a relationship with Christ. If you try to meet that longing with a person, place, or thing, you're doomed to frustration. So you want to feel loved. So if your idea is, "Here's what I'm going to do. I'm just going to get such a control of the company that I'll now run it, and they'll have to love me." Well, how dumb is that? Or "I want to feel significant, so if I can just accumulate these things."
So like the woman at the well, she has a need. She needs a drink of water. But she has a deeper need that that water, that physical water, can't possibly meet, but the Spirit of God can meet. And Jesus just confronts it head on.
Sovereignly Placed People in Your Life
When I say people are sovereignly placed in your life, I'm saying these people are all around you. And there's a whole bunch of ways to approach them. But if you've got people in your life who don't know Christ, what they desperately need is to know Him.
So I remember talking years ago to a guy, and there was an outreach lunch going on. So I'm sure this stuff goes on, but I must be out of the loop now. But what happens is they bring in a guy, usually somebody that's very famous or infamous, or an athlete or something, and he'll tell a story, drop his load, and ask you to come to Jesus. That's kind of the deal. And I'm not putting that down. I'm saying that's a good thing. I'm not putting that down at all. I'm just saying that's a good thing.
I'm talking to a guy, and I said, "Are you going to this lunch?" And he's saying, "No, I don't have anybody to bring." And I said, "You don't have anybody in your life who doesn't know Christ?" And he said, "I do, but I wouldn't risk the relationship by inviting them to this." Here's what I'm saying to you: then the relationship isn't worth having. If this is somebody you really care for, then it's not a matter of risk the relationship. They desperately need this.
Maybe you're here in this study, or you're going to be listening on a tape that somebody's given to you. And you're going, "You know, my person, they brought me to this thing. Why would they do this?" Here's why: because they really love you, and you think you need a drink of physical water, but what you need is that living water of the Holy Spirit. So that's what's going on in this entire story.
By the way, your life, if it is devoid of people who don't know Christ, then you aren't near the spiritual giant you think you are. There should be a log of people who are in your life, who you're in the process of loving and caring for and hanging out with, and all along the way, you're letting them see a transformed life so that you are the person that God can use in their life at a moment of need, in a moment of crisis. So that's the whole backdrop.
The Crucial Declaration
Jesus said, listen, there's this whole idea it's bigger than religion. It's not going to be here, it's not going to be there. I'm going to worship in spirit and in truth, and we could go off on that, but that's only going to distract us maybe a bit from the guts of this thing. So I want to stay on message.
Verse 25, the woman said to Him, "I know the Messiah is coming. He who is called the Christ. When that one comes, He will declare all things." Now, let me remind you again of the reason John's writing the book: these things have been written that you might believe that Jesus is the Christ. So we're at a key moment here. She says, "Listen, here's what I know. I know the Messiah is coming. I understand that. And I understand when He comes, He's going to declare all things."
And Jesus says to her, "I who speak to you am He." Now in most of your translations, that word "He" is going to be in italic. It's been inserted. It's been inserted to give meaning, to broaden that meaning, to deepen it for us. It literally reads, "I who speak to you am." I am. Well, the Jew, this woman, they get this. At this point, Jesus is saying I am God. And this whole relationship now and this whole discussion takes on a whole new depth. It started with Him saying I need a
Her saying, "I got this, but you don't have a bucket. You're going to give me a drink. I need a drink from you." And then she says maybe you're a prophet. And now, she's into this Messiah realm. A whole new depth of conversation here.
At this point, His disciples came and they were amazed, not at the discussion of the content, and to be fair to them, it's possible they weren't privileged to know what the content was. They were amazed not at what He said, but to whom He spoke. He spoke to the woman. Yet not one said, "What do you seek her? Why do you speak to her?" There's a little humor there. They're all wondering, "Jesus, what are You doing?" But there's nobody calling Him out. My assumption is at this point, they're going, "You know, we'll just let this surface at another time."
She Left Everything Behind
So the woman left her water pot and went to the city and said to the men, "Come. I see a man who told me all the things that I have done. This is not the Christ, is He?" And they went out of the city and were coming to Him.
There's a ton of stuff in here that preaches really, really well. You notice what happens to her. She is so absorbed in this moment, this reality of who Christ is, that you see it in verse 28. What happens there? She left the water pot. She dropped everything that was going on. The daily chore, the need for the drink, the mission she was on is overshadowed by what's happening.
And she goes back into the city, think with me now, where she's an outcast. She's a ho. We all know who she is. You know in moments like this, if all of a sudden, I don't want to pick a name because I don't want to slam somebody unnecessarily. But you pick a name. You pick somebody in the culture that you would see like that. And all of a sudden, they start to deliver this message, this Gospel message. Your immediate reaction is what? "Who do you think you are? I've seen your movies. I've seen your website. I know what you're all about."
Think of you being afraid to risk a relationship and think of her saying, "Water pot, no water pot, nothing's going to stop me because there's something in my life now that's big, that's dramatic, that I can't contain anymore."
When You Can't Contain Your Experience
It's as simple as a movie. Susan and I haven't been to any movies at all, but over Christmas, we saw two movies. We saw Frost and Nixon, which I really liked it, but the most compelling scene in the movie is totally fabricated. And then we saw Marley and Me, which I wanted to euthanize the dog about 15 minutes into this movie. It drove me crazy. Have you seen that movie? Oh my gosh, I just couldn't handle it. I just couldn't handle the movie at all.
But if you see a movie that you really like, you say to everybody you meet, "You need to go see this movie." If you go to a restaurant that you go to that you really like, you say "You need to go to this restaurant." Susan and I have a restaurant we like to go to and in it there's a gal that plays the piano. And it's a hike, it's 30 minutes from our house to this restaurant. And it's downtown, downtown, downtown Phoenix. And Susan, I don't go out hardly at all anyway. You know, everything is carried out for us. I'm not looking for people once I'm done. But we will continually take our friends down there just to have them share the experience of Nicole playing the piano.
Well, this is bigger than a movie or Nicole or anything else. This is God who transformed your life. And I'm telling you, honestly, you have to wrestle with this. If truly God has done in your life this radical work, then there ought to be something inside of you so bubbling up that you can't put it down.
The Problem of Outgrowing Your Fire
So I'll hear all the time, "Boy, when I first came to Jesus, I was on fire for Christ." And what that usually means is "I was pestering all my friends. I was driving people crazy. I was talking to everybody." But kind of what everybody says is "That's how I used to be, but I've kind of outgrown that." And what you've got to ask yourself is how do you outgrow that?
Now, we're going to go down a road here. We'll take ten minutes. How do you outgrow that? Well, you know what? Because if you think about it, all that's happened is I've read more books, I've studied more Bible, I've been more to church. Then here's what I'm saying to you. Your Bible study, your church, your books are getting in the way. They're not helping you.
If you were on fire for Christ, you couldn't wait to tell people about Jesus, and now you know more, you've been to more of these things like this, and you have lost the passion to share the faith, then this stuff isn't helping you much. You've got more doctrine, but you are dry and dead. And you have moved, and I keep harping on this now, we move from this religion into a relationship with Christ, and we aren't there very long before we want to turn it right back into religion again.
So I mentioned that book, The Prodigal God. Several of you have called out to church, and I think we sold them out. So if you want, I'm making a shipment in next week, bringing them in. So if you want me to bring you that book, it's a great little book. If you can call down there and you can pay them over the phone, and I'll bring it. And I don't make any money. I'm not trying to make money here. But that book's going to bring you face to face with this reality we're talking about.
Their Curious Response
There's another little side. I'm operating outside the Scripture now. I'll just tell you that. So you can blow this off if you want. But she said, "This guy's told me all that I've done," and they went out. I want to give them the benefit of the doubt and say they went out because they couldn't wait to hear who this Christ is. But in my mind, I'm kind of wondering if they went out going, "I wonder if he mentioned my name in the middle of all of this. I wonder if he's talking about the time I was with her down there behind the well."
It doesn't really matter. It doesn't matter what the motive is. The effect is perfect. They go out and they meet with Him.
The Response of the Samaritans
There is this discussion that takes place in verses 31-38 where Jesus is talking to the boys and unpacking that. We're going to skip it. Verse 39: "From that city, many of the Samaritans believed in Him. Because of the word the woman had spoken who testified, He told me all the things I've done." So when the Samaritans came to Jesus, they were asking Him to stay with them. And He stayed with them two days.
Verse 41: "And many more believed because of the word. And they were saying to the woman, it's no longer because of what you have said we believe, for we have heard for ourselves and know that this One is indeed the Savior of the world."
In the woman's life, there's the progression we talked about from "give me that water," "are you a prophet?" "Are you the Messiah?" "Indeed you are." And there's the response from the people around who hear this truth, and they begin in their own life now to understand who Christ is.
Application for Our Lives
I can approach it from any perspective really at this point. So I'm going to approach it from none and say to you, you need to apply this in your life. You may be like the woman at the well. You may be like the person who has come alongside that woman at the well and they begin to share that story. In either case, it doesn't matter. Ultimately, I've got to get to Christ Himself who begins because of the Spirit of God working in my life to show me these truths.
Let me encourage you to put in your heart this desire to love God so much. Haven't you heard somebody say, "I love my family so much I would never..." "I love this country so much I would die for it." Here's what I'm saying to you. Those are all good, but you need to switch users. It's Jesus more than anything else. It's God more than anything else. And then to take Him and make Him such a part of your life.
The Problem with Compartmentalized Faith
I, years ago, was teaching about priorities. And I said, we need to get priorities straightened in our life. And I can't make yours for you, and I don't necessarily want to take mine and thrust them, but let me say that this would be my priority. God would be number one. Susan would be number two. Kids would be number three. Christians would be number something like that.
And when it was all done, a guy came up and he said something really profound. He said, "I think your priorities are out of whack." And I said, "Really? Why is that?" And this is absolutely incredible. He's exactly right. When you take God and make Him number one, the implication is when I drop down to number two, I'm done with number one. When I get to number three, I'm done with one and two.
It's not that God's the number one priority in my life, and then, and then, and then. It's that I have these things in my life, and it's as though either my relationship with Christ is an umbrella or the hub of that wheel, but it's not segmented. If I see God as segmented in my life, I'm going to live this isolated religious life, compartmentalized life. I'm going to become a God worshiper on Sunday and live like hell Monday through Saturday. See that? This is a huge deal.
God as the Center of All Relationships
A priority in my life is Susan, and in that context of relationship with Susan, the number one priority within that is God, Christ, with my kids, so that my faith absolutely affects every area of my life.
So if you go back, and I want to go back to the beginning. So if you go back to the Civil Rights Movement, and you get down into the deep South, they will tell you the most segregated hour of the week was Sunday church. It's very hard for us to rewind, and it's not fair to look from this perspective back, but I can't imagine sitting in a church, studying this message, and somehow in my life coming up with separate water fountains, separate restaurants, separate hotels, and a separatist attitude. That is anti-biblical and anti-Christ. But if I segment God to church, I can do that.
The Danger of a Segmented Faith
So somebody the other day, and then we'll close, somebody the other day I was in a class and this guy was teaching and he said, "9-11, huge day for the country. Bigger day for the country was the collapse of Enron." And he said, "Here's why. Because that was overseen by a guy who declared himself to be an evangelical Christian who was in church on Sunday, who was even engaged in Sunday school classes, but was able to flip off a switch on Monday when he went to work."
And at that point, and this is where you are now. At that point, you've segmented your faith from your culture, from your business, from your life, and the decline of the nation is right there.
Living Without God's Authority
I'm teaching First and Second Samuel on Sunday now, and the context for that is the end of the book of Judges. I think it's chapter 21, verse 25, when it says the nation of Israel had no king, and what comes next? "And everybody did what was right in their own mind." That's where you are right now. That's the culture and the world you live in.
There's a whole bunch of stuff there, so we're going to unpack all of that over the next week. We're just going to live in the whole tension of that, and ask the Spirit of God to apply this lesson to our life.
Let's do that. Thank you for the wonderful truths that we find here. We thank you that you know our deepest need, and you are there to meet it. That need to be loved and to be cared for. You know in our life, our biggest single issue is our sinfulness. Our natural instinct, which is to push away from you, run away from you, justify our sin, explain away our behavior.
God I pray that even as I sit and just think of these last 43 minutes and 54 seconds, that they do feel even to me like they're all over the map. So God, as is the case with every lesson, we ask your Spirit to apply it to our hearts. We do at this amazing time in our country pray desperately for the government that we have in place. A new governor, a new president, a new administration, probably the same old Congress. God, we pray that somehow you would bring enlightenment to these people, and give us good government that loves you, and that understands that they serve because they're—
There, placed there by You. God, do that work in our life, would You please? We ask it of You, in Jesus' name, Amen.