Gospel

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Sunday 10/20/2013 Pastor Michael sermon Come See a Man-The Divine Bucket List John 4:4-15, 20-30
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The 2008 movie, The Bucket List, has two men that meet in the hospital, both diagnosed with a terminal disease. They write a list of things that they want to do before they died-The Bucket List. They go out to complete the list and do a lot of things and go a lot of places. They both realize they are not satisfied because they need to get things right with their families. They realize external things don’t satisfy. In our text, the woman at the well has had five husbands, had given up on marriage and is now shacking up with a man. She has discovered that relationships with people won’t satisfy the internal thirst that we have. She is a disgraced woman who stole other women’s husbands, so she goes to the well at the hot noon hour to be alone. She is hot, she is perspiring, she is tired and then she meets Jesus.

Aren’t we glad that we met Jesus? God sent Jesus to help us and not judge us. This may be why Jesus sent his disciples away to get food because they would have judged her and got in the way when Jesus was talking to her. This is like church folk-always judging and talking about you. Watch out for these kinds of people who can’t be happy when God blesses others. They are okay with things when people are doing worse them they are. But when God blesses someone to be at a higher level than them, that’s when they start talking about the blessed person. Watch out for those folk who forget what they used to do before they got with God. They were not born in church themselves, but they want to always remind you of your past history.

God does not want you to de-value yourself for what you used to be. This woman had no female friends and came to the well at the hottest time of day. Being a woman she need to talk but she had no one to talk to. Men just used her for what they could get and then left her. She is trying to fill an empty void in her life with all these men. Jesus showed up at the well when she would be alone so he could help her.

1) Jesus realized her predicament and started a conversation with her:
Jesus told her about the living water that He could give her and that would change her. She was spiritual bankrupt and needed spiritual water. She needed an encounter with God. This came just in the nick of time. Have any of you seen God show up in just the nick of time to save you from trouble?

2) Jesus received her personally by having a conversation with her:
Jesus was breaking many barriers- the barrier between a rabbi speaking to a woman and the barrier between Jews and Samaritans. Jesus was saying that He was not condemning her but was trying to save her and get to her needs. Has Jesus ever blessed you when you know you were not doing the right thing?

3) Jesus redeemed her and confirmed her worth:
Jesus wants her to get spiritual water from God’s bucket and not the world’s bucket. Jesus was giving her life value. The value of a US $20.00 bill keeps its value no matter how dirty, how stepped on or how used its gets. God says we are valuable no matter how dirty, how stepped on or how used we get. We have the value God places on us! God says we are valuable to Him! Thank God for not leaving us on the side of the road but instead He picked us up and turned us around! Thank God!

AMEN

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