But Jesus, the spiritual trumped the physical. Dr. Tony Evans says when we prioritize God's kingdom, everything else falls into place. If you could ever get this and operate on that principle, the reality of God would expand. This is the alternative broadcast featuring the timeless biblical teachings from the archives of Dr. Tony Evans. A road sign isn't the destination, but it points the way there. Today, Dr. Evans looks at how Jesus used physical acts as signposts to reveal deeper spiritual truths.
Let's join him as he unpacks how these object lessons can continue to guide us today. The good news of eternal life, that's what the book of John is about. And it is designed to show you the giver of this life, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Messiah. It is surrounded by a number of miracles that God did to verify or validate his messianic role that he is the fulfillment of the Old Testament prophecies regarding the coming of Messiah. We'll see some of that in John chapter 4. John the Baptist has now been leading the way of shifting the focus from himself over to Jesus Christ, because his job was the forerunner.
He was out in front, running interference, letting them know that the Messiah had come and that the Lamb of God had arrived. When the Jewish leaders, verse 1 of chapter 4, discovered that Jesus was making and baptizing more disciples than John, because the shift is occurring, Jesus, not ready to enter into a confrontation with them at this time, makes his way from Judea in the south, verse 3, to Galilee in the north. He has to pass through Samaria, which was not the normal custom. Usually it was Judea, Samaria, Galilee.
They would generally skip Samaria, even though it was the direct route, because of who lived there, the Samaritans. He comes to the city, verse 5, called Sychar, the parcel of ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph. Jacob's well was there, so Jesus being wearied from his journey. Jesus is a hundred percent God and a hundred percent man. He is the God-man. We call that in theology the hypostatic union, two natures in one person, unmixed forever.
So you have this unique being, Jesus Christ. So he's weary from his journey because he's a man. In this weariness, he comes to the well about the sixth hour. That means noon.
Sixth hour in Jewish time clock is 12 noon. Now, typically, Jewish women would not come and draw water in the heat of the day. They would come in the evening time to draw water.
She comes in the heat of the day when nobody else is there, because this is a very questionable lady. Jesus then says, give me a drink, verse 7. Let me have some of your water. For his disciples had gone into town to buy food. So they had gone into town.
It's about a five-mile walk, by the way, from the well to the city of Sychar. The Samaritan woman says, how is it that you, being a Jew, verse 9, asked me for a drink, since I am a Samaritan woman, for the Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans. The Jews and the Samaritans did not like each other.
It was the racial divide of the first century. Jesus says to her, if you knew the gift of God—remember, grace is a gift—and who it was who says to you, give me a drink, you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water. Well, she doesn't understand what he's saying now. So she says to him in verse 11, well, wait a minute, you don't have anything to draw water with.
What you talking about? Where you getting this water from? Then Jesus moves her a little bit further to the spiritual. Everyone who drinks this water will thirst again. Everybody who drinks out of your water, they're going to get thirsty again. The water I give becomes its own well. So the woman says, well, I want some of this water, but she still doesn't get the point yet. She says, so then, verse 15, I will not be thirsty nor come all the way here to draw.
You're going to save me a lot of hard work. He says, go call your husband and come here. The woman answered and said, I have no husband.
Well, that's half true and half not. Jesus said, you've said correctly, you have no husband, for you've had five husbands, and the one whom you now have is not your husband. So you're living in an immoral relationship. Now he's speaking from his deity. He's speaking from his deity. So we saw him in his humanity, he's tired, but now we see him in his deity.
He knows all about this woman who he's just met for the first time, and he knows specifically how many times she'd been married and how she living right now. The woman says, sir, I perceive you are a prophet. I guess so. Our fathers worship in this mountain. Now behind her is Mount Gerzium.
Mount Gerzium is where the Samaritan temple was located. So when she says we worship in this mountain, our fathers, she's talking about the mountain behind her where the Samaritan temple was, Mount Gerzium. She says, you people say that in Jerusalem is the place where we ought to worship. So we got this worship issue where you go to church. We're divided by faith.
So who's right? Jesus answers her and says, woman, believe me, an hour is coming when neither in this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. Now regularly Jesus talks about the hour. Remember he told his mother Mary, my hour has not yet come. So when he talks about the hour, he's talking about his death and resurrection.
So the hour is coming after my death and resurrection when the physical location will not matter anymore. He says, you worship what you do not know. We worship what we know for salvation is from the Jews.
That is Messiah was going to come out from the Jewish lineage. But an hour is coming, that is after his death and resurrection, when true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth for such people the Father seeks to be his worshipers. One of the major reasons for your salvation is to become a true worshiper. In order for worship to be authentic or true and therefore acceptable to God, it must be the kind of worship he can receive. And the kind of worship he can receive, he says, is worshiping him in spirit and in truth. God is a spirit, so God at his core essence is a spirit being.
So that requires a spiritual relationship and a spiritual perspective in order to worship God spiritually. That's why God never allowed any images to be made of him. God never allowed, thou shall not make any image, be idolatry, because he is a spirit.
He is invisible. Of course, he became visible in Jesus Christ, but in his essence, he is invisible as a being and he operates in a totally different realm, a spiritual realm. He gives us physical things, physical illustrations to help us to grab the spiritual, like when he told Nicodemus, you must be born again. He uses something that he can identify with physically, as Jesus did with the water, identify physically to help take us to a spiritual realm. So unless the physical takes you to the spiritual, you're not yet a true worshiper.
If your worship is only limited to the five senses, then you haven't gone to the level of authentic worship. And then worship must also be in truth, that is, must be according to his guidelines and according to his standards as set forth in his Word. What is staggering about this passage is that he is looking for them. Such worshipers the Father seeks. So God is on the hunt.
He's on the hunt for some real worshipers who are worshiping him spiritually based on his truth. The woman says, I know that when Messiah is coming, who is called Christ, when that one comes, he will declare all things to us. So she knew enough to know to expect Messiah.
Now, this is very important. There was a messianic expectation by this Samaritan woman while Jesus is being rejected by his own people. So Jesus meets her at the well at 12 noon as opposed to what a Jew would normally do. He meets her at the well on purpose.
It wasn't just he happened to be there. He went there on purpose to meet this woman. And the reason he goes to meet this woman is that as messed up as her life is, there is a messianic expectation. We know that when Messiah comes, point being, God will meet you if you want to be met.
He'll meet you if you want to be met, even though this is a flawed lady. She's in a sinful situation. But there is a messianic expectation. And so, who is called the Christ, which means Messiah, when that one comes, he will declare all things to us. I'm looking for Messiah to straighten this out, because I'm all confused about where to worship and all that. Jesus said to her, I who speak to you, am he. So here is Jesus's self-declaration he is Messiah. Of course, in the Old Testament, Messiah is God. So it is another way of claiming deity, but he speaks in terms of his messianic mission. And so he says, I am the Messiah that you're expecting. He reveals himself to a lady who's looking for him. Dr. Evans will tell us what happens next when he returns in just a moment.
Don't go away. How do you share the gospel with confidence? What's God's plan for our communities?
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Let's get back to more now from Dr. Evans. Now at this point, verse 27, I love this, the disciples were amazed He was speaking with a woman and yet no one said, what do you seek or why do you speak with her? What's ticking them off is He's talking to a Samaritan woman because that's the problem, the Jews and Samaritans.
Why are you hanging out with them people? Okay, why are you, which now tells you why He let them go into town to buy food. He wasn't going to have them racist hanging around while he trying to do his father's work. Verse 28, so the woman left her water pot and went into the city and said to the men, come see a man who told me all the things I've done. Verse 30, so they went out of the city and were coming to Him. So they left the city, they're coming to Him. So the Cyprus was saying, Rabbi, eat, because we went to town to buy lunch.
That was a long walk, time for you to eat. And He said to them, I have food to eat that you do not know about. Because for Jesus, the spiritual trumped the physical because they're bringing Him food, physical.
The spiritual trumps the physical. If you could ever get this, if you could ever get Matthew 633, seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. If we could ever get and operate on that principle, the reality of God would expand because the spiritual, He says, my satisfaction, my food is to fulfill God's will. So these men come and many believe, many of the Samaritans believed in Him, that is responded to the good news of the gospel, the good news of eternal life. Because of the word of the woman who testified, so she testified even though she's brand new to the faith.
He told me of all the things I've done. So when the Samaritans came to Jesus, they were asking Him to stay with them and He stayed there two days. Please notice that. The Jews and Samaritans don't have dealings with each other. And in a couple of hours, they're hanging out and spending the weekend together. Because racial reconciliation doesn't take that long. Doesn't take 244 years and generally, it doesn't take that long.
Not when you're operating spiritually, but if you're operating in the flesh, it takes forever. Many more believe, verse 41, because of His word. And they said to the woman in verse 42, it's no longer because of your word, we've heard for ourselves. So He comes to Cana of Galilee where He had performed the miracle of turning water into wine in verse 46. And there is this man, official, royal official, verse 46 says, who wanted Jesus to heal his son for he was at the point of death, verse 47 says. Jesus says to the man, unless you people see signs and wonders, you simply will not believe.
Why does He respond to this man like this when the man is saying, I want you to come heal my son? Jesus had been doing all of these miracles and Jesus had been proclaiming that He was who He declared Himself to be. What they kept doing is asking for more miracles after miracles in order to believe. His point is, have you seen what I've been doing? And have you heard what I've been saying?
You ought to be believing by now. But still, even with that clarification, because He was talking about more than this man, He says, you people, He's talking about this atmosphere that He's in, He says, sir, come down before my child dies. Jesus said to him, go, your son lives. The man believed the word that Jesus spoke to him and started off.
Okay, watch this. The man went into faith and believed Jesus because of His word. This is the second sign that Jesus performed when He came to Judea in Galilee. So we come to chapter 5, Jesus is still performing miracles as a means of validating His messiahship. He goes to Jerusalem. In Jerusalem, by the sheep gate, there is this pool of Bethesda, verse 2, having five porticoes. A man was there who had been ill 38 years.
Jesus sees him there and He asked him a very interesting question. Do you wish to get well, verse 6? Have you ever run into anybody who doesn't want to get better, don't want to change? They have become so stuck in their circumstances that they have given up hope that things can ever change.
Well, that's our friend here, because for 38 years, he's been in the same place and nothing has changed. The sick man said, sir, I have no man to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up. But while I am coming, another steps down before me. He says, I can't get there. And not only can I not get there.
I don't have anybody to help me. This man said, when I'm coming, I try to do a little something, but I can't get there. So that's the status of this guy. And he's in a hopeless situation. And Jesus says, get up, pick up your pallet and walk.
The pallet's a little mat that you sleep on, like a beggar you see, a homeless person. He says, you get up, you get up and you walk. Immediately the man became well and picked up his pallet and began to walk. So he's responding to a divine command. The problem is it was the Sabbath. So the Jews were saying to the man who was cured, it is the Sabbath and it is not permissible for you to carry your pallet.
Now, this man been laying down for 38 years and you're telling me it's not permissible for him to carry up his bed. See, that's what religion will do for you. Religion will keep you stuck right where you are. But he answered, he who made me well said to me, pick up your pallet and walk. So Jesus finds the man in the temple afterwards, because he slips away not wanting to deal with the Jewish leaders right then. He found him in a place in the temple, behold, you have become well, do not sin anymore, so that nothing worse happens to you.
So the reason he was stuck for 38 years was because of an unaddressed sin in his life, because sin will keep you crippled. The man went away and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had made him well. And for this reason, the Jews were persecuting Jesus. Now you would have thought the religious leaders would have been excited, but they were persecuting Jesus because he was doing things on the Sabbath. They're playing religion and Jesus is changing lives. Whenever you're not in the business of changing lives, you're not in the Jesus business. No matter how much religious protocol you may be engaged in. So you can believe in God all you want. If there is a rejection of Jesus, the father has been dishonored.
It's a family matter. Closing verse, truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. So we're back to the good news of eternal life. And does not come into judgment, but has passed from death unto life. So when you hear the word and you believe what God says about the son and his offer of eternal life, you do not come into judgment. Eternal security. You don't come into judgment anymore. But has passed from death to life. Faith in God's promise of eternal life through Jesus Christ guarantees the person who believes in him that eternal life. That is the simple summary of the good news of the gospel. And Dr. Evans will have more on that thought when he returns with his closing comments in just a moment.
Next though, don't miss out on your chance to take advantage of that resource package I mentioned earlier. All 14 messages from both volumes of Tony's current audio series on the Gospel of John, along with his encouraging book on revitalizing your faith called Dry Bones Dancing. They're yours with our thanks when you make a donation to help keep this listener-supported program coming your way. Just visit tonyevans.org to make the arrangements or call our resource center at 1-800-800-3222, where team members are standing by to assist with your request.
That's 1-800-800-3222 or online at tonyevans.org. Just as the promise of a harvest is contained in a single seed, one accepted truth has the ability to transform the course of a life. Next time, Dr. Evans reminds us that understanding Scripture is not just about learning.
It's about embracing the life it offers. Right now though, he's back with this follow-up for today's message. The greatest need in all of our lives is for the forgiveness of sins. And there's only one person who can do that. That's Jesus Christ. That's why He died on the cross and rose from the dead. And He offers forgiveness of sins. If you're carrying guilt for what you've done, fear for what you've done, Jesus Christ is right here, right now. If you go to Him, confess your sinfulness to Him, and trust Him to forgive you, He will do it on the spot and also grant you eternal life. If you're ready to accept that offer of salvation and forgiveness, take the time to visit tonyevans.org and click on the link at the top of the home page that simply says Jesus. Tony has more information there about becoming a follower of Christ, as well as some free resources to help in your journey.
