Bromley Baptist Church – John 4:1-42 – Pictures of Jesus (3)

Years ago my children loved Transformers! Toys based on TV cartoon characters—robots that transformed into cars, trucks and planes, It was all very daft, but quite ingenious—not least as a money-spinner for toy manufacturers. It seemed clever, fascinating, what appeared at first wasn’t what it turned out to be, marketed as ‘More than meets the eye.’

But God has been doing transforming work since creation! Transforming chaos into order, death into life.

This event takes place in the God-forsaken town of Sychar. That is how Jews regarded the place. Jews hated Samaritans and Samaria and Samaritans hated Jews. Jews travelling to and from Jerusalem from the north usually took a detour across the river Jordan to avoid going through the area.

Why? They were mixed race & religion, Israelites, compromisers. As various empires overran the place it had been systematically and ethnically cleansed—a strategy designed to disperse and disempower a conquered people. In time marriages took place across the people groups and the pure Jewishness disappeared. They couldn’t worship at Jerusalem across the border so they effectively designed their own religious cult.

Jesus transforms the unlikely

John tells us that Jesus HAD to go through Samaria. He didn’t have to—there were other ways—every Jew was brought up to know the other ways to Jerusalem—but Jesus had an appointment with one person and with the town as a whole. His ministry was to all, regardless of race or creed.

Look at the kind of woman this was! 5 husbands and now co-habiting! (And what had led to her 5 husbands ditching her?) Does he tell her ‘you mustn’t live with him any more—or you must get married before I do anything for you’? No—he offers her the water of life without strings!

Jesus goes out of his way to transform unusual people.

That’s what makes many comfortable Christians so hopping mad! - He transforms the needy, he loves and blesses the prostitute, he eats with the traitor, and he sends the religious righteous packing!

It’s just what Mary and Zechariah said in their songs – e.g. Luke 1:50-53.

It’s His mercy! - Not giving us what we deserve! And Grace—giving far above anything we could ever deserve on a good day with a following wind!

Do you sometimes find yourself gagging at the mercy and grace of Jesus? Do your emotions hold you back from blessing the immoral and associating with those who don’t live a ‘Christian’ lifestyle?

One of the cures is to take a look at yourself and realise that Jesus didn’t hold back—he didn’t say to you ‘change your life first then I’ll give you the water of life’ Jesus took you as you were—with all your sin—yes—when you came to Jesus you came as a sinner—however much you may have forgotten.

One of my heroes is Samuel Martin, the first pastor at Westminster Chapel. He preferred to emphasise the positive aspects of the gospel rather than run down someone else. He made this observation of the moral and theological purist—’We see Christian men run from some error in doctrine and in their zeal to reach the utmost point of distance, embrace another error.’ That’s what happens when Christians run from moral compromise so far—they end up cutting out the grace of God both from showing in their lives and allowing God to do great things in their lives!

Jesus has always been transforming things—caterpillars into butterflies, sinners into saints!

Jesus transforms communities

When a person is touched by Jesus they can’t contain it! Jesus gets to work in their lives so deeply, that it starts to pour out of them. It’s the new wine of the Canaan wedding at work. It’s not Actimel,—it’s the water of life, the wine of the Spirit! A woman who was converted was told by her husband ‘you’re not the same person I married’. My understanding is he felt he had a better deal than he’d started with!

One thing Jesus does is to turn us inside out! Before conversion we live by & large for ourselves and perhaps those who are ours. It’s an inward looking life—we are looking after number one—me and mine.

There are 2 verses in John 4 which symbolises this move—one is v.30 They came out of the town and made their way towards him. A spiritual appetite was stimulated for Jesus—they started seeking and we know from v42—they found.

Paul saw this—Eph. 2:3 All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath. The main theme of this passage in Eph 2 is God’s grace and the transforming power of that grace to change us from gratifying ourselves to those who seek God’s pleasure and work. v19 …you are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow-citizens with God's people and members of God's household,

Paul writing to Titus has the same idea - Titus 3:3-4 At one time we too were foolish, disobedient, deceived and enslaved by all kinds of passions and pleasures. We lived in malice and envy, being hated and hating one another. But when the kindness and love of God our Saviour appeared, He saved us!

Paul’s great hymn about the nature of Jesus in Phil 2—forsaking glory for humanity and for our salvation tells us that we should take the same attitude—3 Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, ...4 Each of you should look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others.5 Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus:6 Who, being in very nature God, ...7 but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.

This woman had been a loner, isolated—and well she might be. Jesus met her, shattered her reserve and gave her living water. She went round the houses and told all she could find about Jesus! And they came to him because of her testimony and encountered Jesus themselves.

Jesus turns communities from looking in to looking out as Christ himself does. In Sychar the windows had opened and the light streamed in.

But He also seeks to transform the disciple community— I mentioned 2 verses in ch4. The second is v.35 –‘Open your eyes and look at the fields…’ not those who needed to turn to Christ this time but Jesus encouraged his own disciples to look wider and outward—Look at what God is doing. Be an outward looking community—the church is a community with its eyes open!

Jesus wants to transform your home, your street, Bromley—your church!

Jesus transforms worship

What a mess the Jews and Samaritans had got into! Racist and religious divides –even over the right place to worship God! How absurd to argue about the right place to worship is? That was the hot issue then. Today we argue about more important things—the instruments and the age of songs we sing.

What would Jesus say in our church meetings? If the woman had said ‘Our fathers used the organ and sackbut but you claim the guitar is the holy instrument,’ what would Jesus say? Probably ‘Believe me, a time is coming when you will worship neither with organ nor sackbut, nor guitar—a time is coming—and has now come when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshippers the Father seeks. God is spirit and his worshippers must worship in spirit and truth.’

The same is true of any mode or style of worship. It is all manmade—it is all cultural—and Jesus poses the question ‘who is it for?’ You can understand over the centuries that radical groups wanting to get back to the roots of worshipping God have cut out singing or instruments or formal stuff. They got out of the ruts the church had got into—and they got into their own of course -and either died or had to change.

Has the living water changed our approach to worship? You may not be most comfortable with other styles but can you.-.occasionally - worship from your heart, the living God who saved you, in settings which are far from your own style. Using the stimulus—songs, chants, liturgy, etc. to stimulate your relationship with God.

Samuel Martin ‘It is not creeds men want, but a living Christ; It is not Churches men want, but a real Christianity; It is not orthodoxy men want, but the reality of religious life.’ We might add ‘it is not a specific form men want but the reality of Jesus and a lifestyle that reflects his reality.

The world needs something that is more than meets the eye! – people who have met the transforming power of Jesus! Will you come to Christ and drink of his life giving water? Will you come to him with your sin and shame and isolation? Will you come and set these down at his feet and say—yes—give me to drink—give me that spirit, that forgiveness which only you can give?