John Chapter 4:1-9

He needed to go through Samaria. Why did he need to go? Because he was being obedient to the will of his father.

It's important. And here's the first life lesson. Do not consider an option to disobey your father in heaven. Will you disobey him?

Yes. Sometimes you'll mess up. But what we need to do is incorporate on a decision-making level what God wants us to do.

See, if you're really sitting there and you're going, well, should I cheat on my taxes or not cheat on my taxes, or you know, this person gave me too much change back. Oh, it's a blessing from God. Thank you, Jesus.

You're waiting too long to make the decision. What you need to do is make a decision to follow the Lord, and every other decision is filtered down through that. Welcome to Cross the Bridge with David McGee. David is the senior pastor of the Bridge in Kernersville, North Carolina. Today, Pastor David's message is, give me a drink. And we're happy to have one of David McGee's associate pastors here in the studio with us today. Welcome, D.A.

Brown. Bob, the Word of God is living and powerful, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, joints and marrow. And here's the key, listen to this, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of our heart.

God knows what you're going through. He knows what's been going on in your week. He knows what's ahead. He wants to speak to you right now today. Are you ready? Sure.

So, let's jump in and listen as David McGee teaches, give me a drink. John chapter 4, verse 1. Therefore, when the Lord knew that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus made and baptized more disciples than John, though Jesus himself did not baptize but his disciples, he left Judea and departed again to Galilee, but he needed to go through Samaria.

Now, this is interesting to me. What's going on is Jesus is leaving the area because of his popularity. Now, there's a couple reasons for this, I believe, making sure that time clocked to his crucifixion was his perfect time. Also, perhaps, you know, allowing John to minister in that area. And, you know, as I was looking at this and as I was studying it, this is really, as a pastor, this is my heart.

I'm not trying to be involved in a popularity contest. As a matter of fact, some mornings, some evenings, I'll say things that are very unpopular. And also, what I'm desiring to do, and I'm reminded because up here I've got this little index card, I've had it for years, and I used to, well, anyway, it says, sir, we would see Jesus. And that reminds me, it's not about me, it's about him.

And let me say something else, too. If I create the situation where you guys are pastor dependent, I'm creating a danger situation. Now, you won't hear many pastors say what I'm getting ready to tell you, but it's important. I want to share my heart. God's called me to be the pastor, teacher, and to be the spiritual leader or overseer of the church.

There's no doubt about that. God has uniquely called me to do that. But you know what I want to do is I want to give away ministry.

I want to raise up people in this body to minister to one another. So let's understand the setting here because there's a contextual historical setting we need to understand. That is the Samaritans and the Jews. The Jewish people hated the Samaritans and the Samaritans hated the Jewish people. Now, with a hatred that we really in this country can't understand.

See, there was a long history here. What had happened is when the Assyrians conquered Israel and took them away into the captivity, they actually intermingled, interbred if you will, with the Jewish people. And the people produced through that were the Samaritans. So they were viewed from the Jewish people as an unclean race. And then also they did things. They only believed the first five books of the Bible, which is the Pentateuch.

Penta meaning five, tuk meaning scrolls. That's the first five books of the Bible. And they discounted the rest. They said that Jerusalem was not the place to worship, that this place Mount Gerizim, which we'll talk about later, is the place to worship. And so they differed. And so as time went on, it got worse and worse and worse to the point when the Jewish people came back to build a temple, if you've wondered why the Samaritans, you know, some of them wanted to help. And then when they said you can't help, then they got real mad and they wanted to tear it down. That's because they wanted people to keep worshiping in Mount Gerizim.

So there's this real long history, about 700 years at this point, of animosity and bitterness and hatred between these two people groups. That's why when Jesus told, you remember, he told the parable, the good Samaritan. Well, that just flew in the face of everybody.

And when they accused Jesus and call him a bad name, they called him a Samaritan. Again, it kind of shows the backdrop here. To the point that actually, and so Jesus is in Judea, and I think we have a map here, and they've armed me with a laser.

I hope I don't hurt anybody. Okay, so down here, you see that? That's Judea.

This is in the southern part. Okay, right there you see Samaria, and up here is Galilee. Now it makes sense, especially since you were walking, that if you were walking, you'd go from Judea straight through Samaria up till Galilee.

Well, that's not what they did. They hated the Samaritans so much. What they would do is they would actually, from Judea, they would go east over into Ammon, or Perea is what it was called then, and they would go north. And then after they passed Samaria, they would go back west again.

Now keep in mind, you're thinking, well, that's not a big deal in a car. They didn't have cars. These guys, they were walking, but they hated the Samaritans so much that they took this long journey around. As a matter of fact, when you were buying goods, one of the things you wanted to know was have these gone through Samaria? Because if they had gone through Samaria, they were no longer clean, and you wouldn't want to eat them.

So they had obviously gotten really caught up in this thing. But Jesus goes through Samaria. And it's interesting the way this verse is worded. It says, but He needed to go through Samaria. Why did He need to go? Because He was being obedient to the will of His Father. He was being obedient to the will of His Father.

It's important. And here's the first life lesson. Do not consider it an option to disobey your Father in heaven. Do not consider it an option to disobey your Father in heaven. Will you disobey Him?

Yes. Sometimes you'll mess up. But what we need to do is incorporate on a decision-making level what God wants us to do. See, if you're really sitting there and you're going, well, should I cheat on my taxes or not cheat on my taxes or, you know, this person gave me too much change back.

Hmm. Oh, it's a blessing from God. Thank you, Jesus.

You know, no. See, you're waiting too long to make the decision. What you need to do is make a decision to follow the Lord and every other decision is filtered down through that. Make the decision to be obedient. That's what Jesus did. As He had the leading of the Spirit, He followed the Holy Spirit and here He is going through Samaria. Now, guys, we need, we actually, I believe we need to ask the Lord for His help in this and that we would be obedient, that we would desire to be obedient.

Now, this is not something that you have internally. This is something that is the renewing and the regeneration and all things being made new as you ask for the Lord to give you the desires of His heart and to become more and more obedient in verse 5. So He came to a city of Samaria, which is called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph. Now, Sychar was called Shechem in the Hebrew Scriptures in the Old Testament and today it's called Nablus. And if you remember when we were studying in Deuteronomy, Shechem is one of the cities of refuge. A city of refuge was where people went who were guilty of manslaughter, but not murder, accidental killings. And so they would go to the city of refuge and hide out there, if you will. And it's kind of interesting that this is a city of refuge. It kind of sets the backdrop to the exchange that's getting ready to happen.

Let's read on. Verse 6, Now Jacob's well was there. Jesus, therefore, being wearied from his journey, sat thus by the well.

It was about the sixth hour. Jesus being wearied. You know, I think sometimes I forget, sometimes we forget that the Son of God, the Creator of the universe, wrapped Himself in a mortal coil. He became a man and everything that went with that. Jesus got tired. Jesus got hungry. And you can see times of Him trying to slip off to pray and people interrupt in that prayer time.

I think sometimes we forget that. Now, I'm not trying to take away from His deity. He was 100% God.

He was also 100% man. But He ministered long days sometimes and and He got tired and He got hungry and He got thirsty. And see this, you know, as a pastor, this ministers to me because sometimes the days get long and, you know, sometimes late at night there's phone calls and whatnot. But Jesus is our model. And at no point do you see in the Scriptures where Jesus goes, well, that's just entirely inconvenient.

I'm not going to do that. He doesn't do that. We're reminded in Hebrews chapter 4 verse 15, it says, this high priest of ours understands our weaknesses for he faced all of the same temptations we do, yet he did not sin. This is an important Scripture for your theological perspective. You have to understand Jesus understands us. He understands our weaknesses because He was tempted in those ways.

See, it wouldn't have been a temptation when Satan took him out to the desert if he didn't get hungry, didn't get thirsty and wasn't tempted to have pride. And that helps us because we realize that Jesus does understand because there will be times in your life when no one around you will understand. No one, your best friend, even your spouse will not understand.

But you know what? Jesus will. Jesus will understand exactly what you're going through and you can talk to Him about it. He longs for us to talk to Him about it.

And that's second life lesson. Whatever you're going through, Jesus understands like no one else. See, because as you go through trials, it's good to remember this, that whatever you're going through, Jesus understands like no one else. And that gives us comfort to know that we have a high priest who understands our weaknesses. He understands our frailties.

And how ironic it is that we try to hide. We try to hide our weaknesses like God's not going to see it. God sees it. God sees it whether you're in church or not. God sees it whether you're praying or not. He sees these things.

And what He longs for is for us to come to Him with whatever's going on in our life. What says about the sixth hour. Now, to be fair, there's some dispute. I believe that John is using the, here using the Jewish time as opposed to the Roman time.

So the sixth hour would be at noon. We'll come back to this. It's important. And by the way, Jacob's Well is still there today. It's one of the places that we know what it is, where it is. It's about 100 feet deep. It's about about a yard wide. And there's a little, there's a Greek Orthodox church that's built on top of it. And the hole is still in the ground. And it's been called Jacob's Well for 3,000 years or so.

3,000 years or something. So once again, the Bible is geographically and historically correct. We'll be right back with more from David Magee on Cross the Bridge. Right now, here's a word from associate pastor D.A.

Brown. Hey, Bob, we want to take a minute to pray for our listening audience, those living in these cities in California, Oroville, Paso Robles, Pine Grove, Quartz Hill, Red Bluff, Redding, and Ridgecrest. God, we thank you for those listening in these cities and the surrounding areas. Lord, we pray that you would speak right to them right where they're at today, that they would be excited about following you, that they wouldn't fear that they're going to fall short because you're going to do the work in them.

God, we pray that they would get plugged into a Bible teaching, Bible believing church. And Father, did you give the pastors in those churches wisdom on how to encourage those whom God brings? In Jesus' name, amen. Amen.

Thank you, brother. And now, let's get back to David Magee as he continues teaching verse by verse. Verse 7. A woman of Samaria came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, give me a drink. That sounds a little abrupt to our English ears, but in our modern verbiage, it would probably be, please give me a drink.

But don't miss this. Look how the exchange starts. This is intriguing to me. Jesus asked her to do something. He says, please give me a drink of water. Who ends up getting blessed?

A woman at the well. Here's something that's so important, as I believe that we're all called to serve. We're all called to minister. I don't believe that only those who are salaried or paid to be in the ministry are the ones that are supposed to minister. That's the way that it looks like in some churches. It has, you know, you've got the pastor who is a professional Christian, you know, and then everybody else is spectators.

I don't know where we got that. It's completely unbiblical. We're all supposed to be serving. We're all supposed to be serving God. And there are things that Jesus will ask you to do. And obviously, this lady is going to get a little uncomfortable with what Jesus has asked her to do. Of course, now Jesus is never going to ask you to do anything that would make you uncomfortable. Some knowing laughs.

No, occasionally He will. He will ask you to do something that's beyond your comfort level and you'll be stretched. I remember years ago I was praying about a situation. I was in ministry and traveling and stuff. And the Lord was really saying, you know, I desire you to enlarge the circle of ministry. And I was like, oh, Lord, I don't know about this. And I had a tight little circle kind of drawn around me in chalk. And I was going, wow, look, I got a nice circle here. It's a nice circle. And it's pretty big.

I mean, it's like that wide. And the Lord was like, hand me the chalk. And I'm thinking, oh, He's going to draw a bigger circle, I guess, you know.

He threw the chalk away. He said, do away with the circle. Go wherever I call you to go. Do whatever I tell you to do. And that, guys, that embarked on a seven-year adventure with the Lord.

Actually, with a 12-year adventure, they hadn't stopped since. But sometimes the Lord will ask you to do something that's beyond your comfort level. And it'll be good for you. And if you're so concerned with your comfort that you're not, that you disregard what the Lord's saying, you know who's going to lose out?

You are. You're going to miss a blessing. Teach children. I can't teach children. Don't ask me to teach children. God may want you to teach children.

It may stretch you. You know, when we were still at home fellowship, it was interesting. We had, you know, I had my wife and three kids, and they came pretty faithfully. Of course, I'd spank three of them if they didn't show up, so maybe four. So, you know, they would come in, and then we had another family that would actually drop their kids off. They had three kids. They'd drop them off, and they'd go out on date night and stuff.

So that was the beginning of the church Bible study we had. And then there was two neighborhood kids that came in that one of them had been banned from every other house in the neighborhood for his activities. I mean, he was, he burned his neighbor's fence down.

You know what I mean? He was nine. I mean, this is, I could relate to him a little bit.

Not a lot, just a lot. But so that was the beginning of the church. You know, these seven or eight kids sitting around. And amazingly enough, they would just sit and listen as I taught the Bible.

And even after we're done, they would start asking questions. It was an amazing thing. God sometimes asks us to do things that are outside of our comfort level that will come with a blessing.

And it's an amazing thing. See, when you do something for other people in the name of the Lord, you get blessed. And whether it's just knowing you did the right thing or whatever, there's a blessing that comes with it.

And I don't understand. Sometimes it's tough. Sometimes it's hard to do the right thing. But with that obedience comes a blessing.

Third life lesson. When we are obedient to Jesus, there is a blessing that comes with that obedience. There's a blessing that comes with that obedience. When you do what the Lord has laid on your heart to do. And again, he was going to, he's going to ask you to do things that are beyond your comfort level, just to see what's your priorities. And if your priorities are your comfort, your comfort levels, you're going to miss it.

But if your priority is to serve the Lord, then you'll be obedient and listen. Now, back to this time thing, about the sixth hour thing. It's noon in the desert. I don't know how many of you have actually been to a desert. I've been to several. I'll never forget, we were ministering out in California and I went out, we were going to North Edwards to minister. There's a church there, Calvary Chapel. And I've never been there, you know. I was kind of surprised and I should have been clued in, went on the map.

It's at Mojave Desert. But so we went in, we pulled up Stop for Gas and it was scorching. And it was late afternoon. I went inside and I said, man, you know, how hot, it's hot out there.

And he goes, eh. I said, how, you know, how hot did it get here today? And he said, about 115. I said, man. He said, oh, it wasn't near as hot as yesterday. I said, how hot did it get yesterday?

123. One word came to my mind, move. I mean, there's other places to live. You know, what they say is that they were going west to settle the west and they got to this place and all the horses died. So they had to stop.

So it's probably some truth in that. But they were in the desert at noon. What time do people usually go get water in the desert? Well, because of the heat, because the heat in the middle of the desert in the middle of the day exceeds 100 degrees, they go in the morning and they go in the evening. But this woman went at noon.

Why? Because she didn't want to see anybody. She won't talk to anybody. She wanted to go to the well when she thought no one else would be there because she was an outcast.

She was an outcast. And look how Jesus interacts with her. Jesus maintained no social aloofness. He was not uppity.

He was not uppity. So many people destroy a ministry opportunity by trying to be uppity or aloof or condescending or whatever word you want to plug into that and they blow it. They lose an opportunity to minister because they're so busy looking down their nose at the person and the person senses it. You know, I've been involved in several ministry opportunities. I was ministering to an alcoholic ministering to an alcoholic that was on the street and ended up getting saved. You know, and then some well-meaning brother or sister goes by, you know, you're just a drunk and then, you know, kept walking. I guess that was their interpretation of spreading the good news or something.

I don't know, but they blew it. Actually made my job harder. Another brother was ministering to, um, with a group of people was ministering to some dancers, some, you know, erotic dancer people and outside of the place and was talking to her guys. Don't no, no, no, no. I'm going to minister, honey.

No, no, no, no, no, no. He was ministering outside the establishment and was really, uh, he was communicating with this lady and she was receiving the truth of the gospel. And right as he was getting to the point where he was going to invite her to pray, a lady came up and said, you know, if you keep doing what you're doing, you're going to burn in hell.

And the lady got a tear and looked at the man and walked off. Guys, we can put obstacles in the way and people need to know Jesus before they even have a desire to change their life. We've got to bring them into contact with Jesus. Oh, I tried to change my life before I was a Christian. Man, what a miserable failure I was at trying to change anything. I needed the power of God. I needed a clean slate. I needed forgiveness so I could start. And God was faithful to give me that power to desire to do what he'd asked me to do.

What he'd asked me to do. And it's interesting because, you know, John 3, he's talking to Nicodemus. Very different conversation.

This time he's talking to the woman at the well. So I'm not sure formulas really work in witnessing because these are two very different approaches. It also tells us that the gospel is for the very religious and it's also for those who have made a mess of their lives.

Aren't you glad? In verse 8, for his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food. It's interesting. Now, first of all, they seem like they're always missing it. Here they, you know, something's going on, ministry opportunity, they're going to go buy food. But also notice this, they went to buy food.

That tells me Jesus and the disciples completely rejected this prejudice thing against the Samaritans. They went into a Samaritan village to buy Samaritan food, which they were going to eat. Also, on the practical sense, to buy food, you got to have what? You got to have money. Where did they get money?

They didn't always just pull it out of mouth of fishes. Scripture tells us, that's a cool trick, but Scripture tells us that there were certain people that helped support the work of the ministry there with Jesus to purchase practical things like food and whatnot. And that's the way that it works now and where, you know, the Lord lays on people's heart to give and to help with the practical expenses.

Because the reality is, if we don't keep, you know, we didn't keep the power on, the AC wouldn't be on, we ultimately wouldn't have a building. These are very practical things, but they enable us to minister in the spiritual realm. We certainly praise God for those who give faithfully. So, verse nine, then the woman of Samaria said to him, how is it that you, being a Jew, ask a drink of me, a Samaritan woman? For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.

Now, notice what got her attention. His lack of prejudice. The lack of being weird about this Jewish Samaritan thing. See, with Jesus, it's not a case of a whole lot of heat and a little bit of light. Be careful if that describes you as a believer. Be careful with that. This lady is interested because Jesus is not being prejudiced.

He's not being weird. Friend, do you know what your sins have been forgiven? You can know right now. I want to lead you in a short, simple prayer, simply telling God you're sorry and asking Him to help you to live for Him. Now, God wants you to pray this prayer so much that He died to give you the opportunity and the ability to ask Him to forgive you.

Please pray this prayer with me out loud right now. Dear Jesus, I believe You died for me, that I could be forgiven. And I believe You were raised from the dead, that I could have a new life. And I've done wrong things. I have sinned.

And I'm sorry. Please forgive me of all those things. Please give me the power to live for You all of my days. In Jesus' name.

Amen. Friend, if you prayed that prayer, according to the Bible, you've been forgiven. You've been born again. Jesus said He would not turn anybody away who comes to Him.

And He came for those people who knew they needed forgiveness, those who were sick, not the righteous. So congratulations, friend. You just made the greatest decision that you will ever make. God bless you. If you prayed that prayer with David for the first time, we'd love to hear from you. You can visit crossthebridge.com to receive our First Steps package with helpful resources to help you begin your walk with Christ.

Or you can write to Cross the Bridge at P.O. Box 12515, Winston-Salem, North Carolina, 27117, and share how God is working in your life. Well, D.A., before we go, what are some ways that we can bless our listeners? Each day, you can wake up with encouragement from pastors, each day you can wake up with encouragement from Pastor David through the Word of God, with his email devotional, life lessons to consider, a daily reading plan, and a thought to meditate on throughout your day from the heart of David McGee. That sounds good, Pastor D.A.

And again, it's been great to have you with us on the program today. But tell us, what else can our listeners find on crossthebridge.com? If you're not able to make it to your home church this Sunday, why not join us for our live stream at 10 a.m. Eastern Time, or on Thursday nights at 7 p.m. Eastern Time? Just visit crossthebridge.com and click on our live stream link. There, you'll experience a live service from David's home church, The Bridge, in North Carolina. Again, that website is crossthebridge.com. Thanks again for listening, and join us next time as David McGee continues teaching verse by verse in the Gospel of John.