The Disciples Rejoin Jesus/Many Samaritans Believe | John 4:27-42

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Good morning friends. My name's Alex. I get the privilege of being one of the pastors here, and great to see you today. If you're visiting, would love to meet you If you're at home watching later because you're watching the Broncos, I hope they lose. No, I know. Never will. I would never wish that on, on, on a team as inferior as the Broncos.

We're in a series on the Gospel of John. And so let me introduce this passage with a story. When I was about 20 years old, I had two distinct groups of friends. They were the friends that I had in church and they were some of the most lovely people that you'd ever meet. We went to the largest church in town together.

That's not advice, that's just a statement. It's not. Prescription for you. And we would have these long worship times where it felt literally like God was there amongst us. He was, but it felt like it was a distinct kind of experience. We would go out to eat together regularly to our favorite local restaurant, the Indian Dream.

As every good English person, we had a favorite Indian restaurant. It was open when we went, whereas it says closed here. And we would sit and we would laugh and we would eat together. And then at the end of the night, it would be time to collect the money for the bill, which came for one group of people.

And that's when the conversation with this group of people became difficult because nobody seemed to want to pay for what they'd eaten. They would slide together their five pounds and 23 cents or something like, or pence or something like that, and they would argue about whether they had one papa arm or whether they had two papa dumps.

People would say I shared a Maine with three different people, so I only have to pay a third of the price, and we would count all of the money together. And there was never enough to pay the bill, let alone to pay a tip. And so some of the rest of us would throw in some extra money just to make sure it got covered.

But you would end the evening feeling like nobody here has enough money. And certainly if they do rather stingy with it. At the same time, I had a second group of friends, the group of friends that I worked with. Now, none of these people would say they'd ever really entered the doors of a church.

In England, the church attendance is maybe 6% of the population. It's rare for people to go to church at all. And so these people lived a very different life for the friends that I had in church. They would try and pull me into that life. But I think I did a good job of emphasizing that I lived a different life.

'cause my nickname was Ned Flanders which. Said something good about me, I hope, I'm not sure. And so we would go out to eat together at the same restaurant, and during the course of the evening, the table would become littered with beer bottles and pint glasses, and then it would come time to pay the bill.

And there was always more than enough, there'd be so much money on the table after everyone had thrown in their contribution that you'd start to wonder, did some people throw in hundreds instead of tens? This seems like the generosity is just flowing. And it always made me wonder about the two cultures.

There, there were definitely things about the life of some of my friends that I certainly didn't approve of and didn't enter into that, that lived in that workspace. And there were things about my friends at church that looked beautiful, but for some reason, this one piece stood out. It. It was a generosity thing.

I suppose. A few years ago, a guy called David Kinnaman wrote a book called un-Christian where he tried to tap into what was the difference between the lives of Christians in America and how were we perceived by people outside of the church. And one of the things he noted was this, so one of the stats that just stood out to me, 84% of non-Christians said they personally knew at least one Christian, but only 15%.

Thought that person's lifestyle was significantly different from their own. There's at least an understanding of us, perhaps a amongst different parts of the world that actually maybe we don't live a lifestyle that looks like Jesus, that they found in amongst this, that Christians cuss less in public.

I guess that's a good thing, but in public is very much the qualifier there. I'll leave that with you. Give more to charitable courses. Seems a good thing. Buy few. A lottery tickets. If you came in here with this Hey, I didn't buy any lottery tickets, energy, then good for you. You fit with, most Christians are less likely to recycle, which I guess comes from the sense of, hey, the world's just gonna be destroyed.

So who cares about recycling? And then Christians were equally likely to watch porn, get drunk, do illegal drugs lie to get out of difficult situations and have intentionally gotten back at somebody. Within the last 30 days. Now, I'm not sure when Jesus came to bring his kingdom on earth, his goal was, Hey guys, don't buy lottery tickets.

But if that's how you read it we can have a conversation somewhere. In terms of how Christians self reported, there was not always much difference between them and the people around them. And when Jesus suggests that it should be. Otherwise, I think today our conversation in this passage is around transformation.

It's around change and what life looks like as a follower of Jesus. So maybe a question to ponder in the back of your mind is this, what does the term transformation mean to you? Now, I know there's a bunch of you here that are born in the eighties. So if this is the picture in your mind that you can't get out of it, we'll just acknowledge it and then we can move on together.

In Frank Kafka's brilliant novella metamorphosis. It begins this way as Greg o Samsa awoke one morning from Uneasy Dreams, he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect. Most interpretations of this today actually, usually have it as a cockroach, and I think we all have a universal hatred.

Cockroaches. My kids came running upstairs the other week to say if there's a cockroach in the basement, and Maise instantly was covered with the shame of what it means to have cockroaches in the basement. It speaks of just maybe certain social classes or something like that, and I was delighted to find it was a cricket, but a giant cockroach or giant cricket living under the couch in the basement would be a truly horrific thing.

Yeah, this isn't really about insects. In this book, it's about what it is to be an outcast from society, to be pushed to the margins in many ways. It's the same story that we read last week. What is it for you to have an experience of life? That means people save you, you don't belong, you don't fit. In.

Last week we read the story of a woman who is at a well. Alone. She's at the well alone because society has now said for some reason that we aren't quite sure of that she doesn't belong. Jesus says of her, you've had five husbands and the man you have is not your husband. We're left to try and figure out, has she been bad?

Has she done something wrong? Has she been unlucky? Have people left her through death or other devices? We aren't quite sure, but what we know of her is nobody finds her acceptable, and yet Jesus finds space for her. The story we led last week might be summarized as this, like this. The woman at the well has encountered Jesus as so many people do in these gospel narratives, and they find encountering him to be life changing.

Little aside, if you have entered into a relationship with Jesus and you haven't talked about it, we have baptism Sunday coming up on November 9th. And so if you'd like more information, drop us a message and we'd love to talk to you about that. This has been this thing that Christians have done for thousands of years that symbolizes that new life that, that we might say this woman has entered into.

You could have a theological debate about whether it was possible to believe in Jesus' death and resurrection before it happened, but. We'll save that for something like a podcast. The following story, the one we enter in today, shows the fallout of that encounter. It shows what happens next when this woman meets Jesus face to face.

As always, I think when you meet Jesus, there are always next steps. Jesus regularly gives people something to do. He says something like, go and sin No more. He offers them something to enter into and she does it perhaps even without being told she needs to do it. It's one of the reasons why we talk when we talk about what South does, we talk about not just experiences, not just gatherings together, but hopefully a space where things can get small enough for Jesus to say something to you personally.

To tell you that you are loved, that he has plans and purposes for you. This paree, this story is fascinating because it actually works like theater characters are introduced and coming out, so if you've ever read a play. Plays have directions for characters to let 'em know when they're supposed to come on stage and go off stage.

The most famous of these across any plays in Shakespeare's winter's Tail, where it says at one point Exit pursued by a bear, which has become this legendary moment that people look out for. But here sometimes the characters are told. To leave by Jesus. And sometimes they're told to do something else by Jesus, but characters flow in and out.

The characters in this perpe, they come and they go, Jesus' presence is the only constant. Everything takes place around this well. And we'll see these characters leave and come back and we're supposed to learn something, I think, from the pattern that takes place. So John 4 27. Just then his disciples returned so the characters reenter and we're surprised to find him talking with a woman.

We covered enough ground last week and so if you want to know something about the social understandings of how men and women interacted, we covered all of that last week, but they are doubtless surprise to find him talking with a woman. Jesus is a man of God who wouldn't be seen talking to a woman alone and especially a Samaritan woman at all.

But no one asked him, what do you want? Or Why are you talking to him? The disciples return from the town. That's the first movement, but the first thing we pick up on is this. They come back from this town and nothing has happened. They went to find food and they come back with just that. With food. Jesus' disciples, the ones most committed to him, enter this town.

And nothing happens. Part two, the woman then returns to the town. She has had this incredible encounter with Jesus and we're told simply the disciples come back then leaving her water jar the thing that represents the earthly water that she came for. And of course she leaves that behind. She now goes with this new spiritual experience that she's had of Jesus, and she goes down to the town that she came from, then leaving her water jar.

The woman went back to the town and said to the people, come see a man who told me everything I ever did. One of the most beautiful representations of what experiencing Jesus is like. It's like encountering someone who knows you better than everyone, and at the same time loves you more than everyone.

Come see a man who told me everything I ever did. This woman is known in the town, and something about her story being revealed by a holy man who still embraces her, who still is willing to receive those that she brings is compelling. Disciples go to the town and no difference. The woman goes to the town and her presence in the town brings change.

The disciples of Jesus go to the town and nothing happens based on their presence, but when she goes to the town, things begin to happen. We could have a whole conversation about what that means about the disciples current spiritual state, their understanding of Jesus' mission, but certainly what she says about Jesus to the people is compelling.

Perhaps it's the relationship they already have the change that perhaps is already happening in her, but something instigates excitement when she goes and shares what Jesus is doing. Could this be the Messiah? Is her question. And they came out of the town and made their way towards him. The woman is sent to the town by Jesus and now comes back with much of her town to meet with Jesus.

Somewhere else. Someone said to me once that following Jesus might be defined as this, or discipleship might be defined as this. Follow Jesus on the journey he has for you. Invite other people along. Could be the definition of pastoring as well. This woman has had a first experience of Jesus and now is inviting people in to that story.

And meanwhile, and this bit is just comic genius to a degree. Meanwhile, his disciples urged him. Rabbi, eat something. If you can remember all the way back to the start of this story, this is why they went to the town to get Jesus food. He's tired and hungry from a long journey. They come back with the food excited, I'm sure to present that food to their rabbi, eat something.

We brought you food. But he said to them. I have food to eat that you know nothing about. For the last few weeks, what we've seen last few chapters, what we've seen of Jesus is this. He says something spiritual and he says it off the cuff with no real preparation. Sometimes it's something like you must be born.

Sometimes it's something like you must have living water. It's something that speaks to a spiritual thing that he's doing, and the response is always fascinating because everybody doesn't understand Jesus. When I was pastoring students, I was at a training for. Youth pastors and being a youth pastor is hard work.

It's, regularly accepting that people don't listen to you and understand you. And one of the trainers said to me this, he said, if you've been doing this for three years. If you only have 12 students and if they constantly understand, misunderstand your illustrations, and if one of them wants to kill you, you are in a good spot because that's where Jesus was after that amount of time.

I have food to eat that you know nothing about. And then his disciples said to each other, could someone have brought him food? Because that, of course is the only answer. My food Jesus says is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work. So off stage, the woman is having a conversation inviting all of the town people back to meet with Jesus.

And on stage, Jesus and the disciples are having a conversation about what their purpose together. Really is, and then this is where Jesus is just brilliant in how he instructs them. Don't you have a saying, it's still four months to the harvest. Don't you have a saying that's harvests four months away?

Let's take it easy. There's no work to be done right now is maybe the best translation of that. It reminds me of my life as a green keeper. Some years ago, we would get to the end of summer where everything that could be mowed had been mowed. We would do some tidying of the course, and then my boss would say to me, these magic words, and now.

A little hibernation. We'd come in late, we take it easy. Instead of coming in at six, we'd come in at eight. We'd sit drinking tea for half an hour. We'd go and make sure nobody was dead on the golf course. We'd come back, we'd drink some more tea, we'd eat some breakfast. We'd go and rake some bunkers, some sand traps, and then my boss would say these magic words.

Okay guys, just lose yourself. For the afternoon, just go home with pay. Of course, it was the most wonderful time of the year and fell on the most wonderful time of the year as well. And now a little hibernation was how we turned it. But it was the words that told us that the hard work was done and now it's time to rest somewhere.

Jesus disciples have understood this. It's time to rest. This is the easy part. There's no work to be done. There's four months until the harvest, then we will work. But right now we get to rest. We get to take it easy, and Jesus' response to them is this, I tell you, open your eyes. Look at the fields. It's harvest time.

Now, of course, he's not talking physically. He's talking spiritually, even now, the one who reaps draws a wage and harvests a crop for eternal life, spiritual, not earthly things, so that the sower and Reaper may be glad together. Thus, the saying one souls and one reaps is true. Jesus says that we're in the business of rescuing people in this world, that this is a spiritual thing that's happening for returnal life.

Don't miss that I sent you to reap. He says, what you did not work for others have done the hard work and you have reaped the benefits of their labor and what exactly he means by others or who he means by others. Nobody seems quite sure, but somewhere these disciples are invited into what looks like an evangelistic mission that they have had no preparation for whatsoever.

We move back to the other story that's going on the other stage. Many of the Samaritans now back with Jesus at the well from that town, believed in him because of the woman's testimony he told me everything I have ever done. What she says, what she has experienced becomes this first impetus for curiosity, first impetus for them to experience change for themselves.

So when the Samaritans came to him, they urged him to stay with them and he stayed two days and because of his words, many more became believers. Jesus over and over again in the gospels, I think, does this practice. It's this beautiful word invented actually by JR R Tolkien, but it's gonna be new to many of you.

It's this one you catastrophe. So you know what a catastrophe is. It's when something bad happens to somebody, perhaps to you, perhaps to somebody around you, but it affects the community around you. So 2023, a tornado came through Highlands Ranch and dropped about a hundred yards south of our house. It affected us 'cause it was nearby.

But the people most affected were not us. They were just near to us. But everyone remembers the day a tornado came to town. And we see this happen in all sorts of towns all over the world. It's a catastrophe that affects people around them. But a U catastrophe is described as a good thing, something surprising that happens out of nowhere.

It might happen to you, it might happen to somebody near you, but something about it starts to bring change. People start to get excited about this thing. Jesus practices you catastrophe. He brings surprising good throughout the gospels will see moments where he'll walk into town. There may be a widow who's just lost a son and Jesus will bring healing to or bring that son back to life.

A mother has a son return to her. He may walk into a wedding where the wine has run out and he'll create wine and people will experience the blessing of that wine. All sorts of things happen when Jesus is on the scene, not to everybody, but to somebody, and suddenly a community gets awfully excited about it.

Thi this is what is happening here. One woman who is an outcast, who is a nobody. Experience is Jesus and the change starts to ripple through the community. People get excited about what and this Jesus is doing. They after talking to Jesus, say, we no longer believe just because of what you said. We are now heard for ourselves and we know that this man really is the savior of the world.

A much bigger story than the idea of Messiah that they had to start with. Suddenly this story is a world. Wide story, not just a Jewish story. The story ends here, but I think it leaves some questions unanswered. The question that we might ask is what happens next? What happens next? Where does this story go?

There is a woman who believes because of what Jesus told her, and a whole town starts to believe and then meets Jesus for themselves. They experience transformation, the kind of transformation that happens instantly. This is how the message of Jesus is described, that when you met Jesus, suddenly your story changed.

You were moved in a moment from the kingdom of darkness. Into the kingdom of light, and it's a once and forever for all time transformation that happens free of charge on the house as all grace things happen. But what happens after that? You experience that transformation. I experienced that transformation and we look nothing like Jesus looks.

And then somewhere the long, slow process of another kind of transformation begins to happen. We're slowly, perhaps quickly at first but over many years, and many of you have been following Jesus for many years and might say it's still taking its slow time. The work continues of us beginning to look like Jesus.

This is how Dallas Willard describes it. Turning away from a roadways with faith and holding Christ stands forth as the first natural expression of the new life. Imparted that life will be poised to become a life of the same quality as Christ's, because it is indeed Christ's. He really does live on it.

Us the incarnation continues. We become people that have instantly been transformed. But what happens when we read statistics like the one we started with, what happens when the second transformation doesn't take place? What happens when we have whole bunches of people that have had. At least came claimed to have that first transformation.

But look, nothing like the Jesus who brought that transformation. At its best, I would argue the church has mirrored Jesus' way. It has ended up in all sorts of places, all over the world and brought surprising good. The church has cared for orphans, started hospitals, has brought new life, has shared the story, the impact that Jesus has had on them, and it has brought the start of transformation, but I would say only a transform church can transform this world.

Somewhere that story has to impact us so much that we begin to look like Jesus too. Someone once described it like this, and it's a brilliant definition of these two types of transformation, so I try and tell it in the first person. It's like me joining a pro golf tournament. But in this tournament structure, I get to play with other people who have been doing it for a long time.

My golf game is average at best. And so we go out together and I hit my first few shots and I score an eight on the first hole. And I'm way out of contention. That's a reality for me, an eight. But the guy I am playing with he scores a three. And so the three goes on the card, the eight disappears, and that's how the first kind of transformation works.

It's a grace thing. You get somebody else's score and somewhere the Jesus story can be defined in a story like that. But then hopefully when you play with someone that good, there's another type of transformation. That happens. As you begin to play next to someone who's of a different caliber to you, they start to make comments under your swing.

They start to nudge you towards different kinds of movements, different kinds of ways of hitting the ball, and maybe at the end of it, you start to score better. Two, there's two types of transformation. It's the second one that I'm most concerned about here, only a transformed church. Can help transform this world.

And so it leads us to ask questions of what do we look like as a transformed church? What happens when the church doesn't look like Jesus? Does it have the impact on the world that this woman's story have had? Or does it start to have an impact that looks much more like the disciples? Impact. And so maybe like me, this quote from John Berg, it touches you too.

It connects with you too. This is what he says in his book the Life You've Always Wanted. I'm disappointed with myself. I'm disappointed. Not so much with particular things I have done as with aspects of who I have become. I have a nagging sense that all is not as it should be. I love that quote. I have a nagging sense that life is not, it's all, not all quite as it should be.

Somewhere. I think we are invited to a life that is qualitatively different. And this is Paul's version of that. This is his invite. Therefore, I urge you brothers and sisters, in view of God's mercy to offer your bodies as living sacrifices wholly and pleasing to God. And this is your true and proper worship.

Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. You and I are offered, not just the first kind of transformation, as good as that is. We're offered the second kind of transformation two, the word behind all this is where we get the English word metamorphosis.

Quite simply a transformation of the most spectacular kind. It's the, it is the transformation we see here between a caterpillar and a butterfly. What happens in that process is this, the old creature gets broken down and something altogether new. Takes its place. It is as extraordinary as if a mouse wrapped itself up into some kind of cocoon and came out looking like a hummingbird.

That's the kind of work that God offers to partner with you an eye in doing. And so I guess my question for me for you is, how is God inviting you into transformation? Now, here's another piece to that. You can't do this if you try really hard. It's beyond you and I. It's not the sort of work that we can do for ourselves, but there are things we can do to help us.

On the journey, and so maybe there's some options that might seem familiar. Practice is what this is called. It's the hardest part of learning and training is the essence of transformation. We get to practice and we get to train together. And so let me give you some old examples that perhaps are maybe things that God is calling you back to in new ways.

Perhaps the first thing you might call, feel called to try is prayer. I'm sure many of us in the room pray, but perhaps prayer might begin to look different if we hold it this way. Perhaps you might pray not being sure anybody is listening, and that in itself might not be a bad thing. Talking to yourself is actually probably fairly healthy, but what happens if you start to pray believing somebody might be listening?

What if prayer becomes an everyday conversation with God? Step by step? What if you actually start to include God in what's going on in your day? Bringing him into the everyday pieces. It's a first step to transformation. That means you're not doing this thing alone. Reading is a second one that, again, super simple, but I wanna redirect us back to these super simple things.

I used to struggle with the idea that reading scripture would change me if I'm honest. And then I did it for a season. I actually decided I was gonna read scripture way more than I ever had. A friend of mine was 70 and he was reading the Bible five times a year, and so I decided if he's 70 and doing it, I can too.

And so I just picked it up and would read huge sections of it every day and one of the most startling things that happened was this. I had all sorts of people that I'd known for years coming to me and saying something like this, what is going on with you right now? Something's different. You feel different in a good way.

What do, what are you doing? Let me tap into that too. And turned to them and said, this is the only thing. I can think of just started to change me from the inside. It was one of the ways God and I partnered together and the third is fasting. It's something that takes away something that we rely on every day.

It taps back into what Jesus said I have food that you do not know about. When I actually entered into that practice, the simple beauty of it was this. All throughout the day, I would feel deeply hungry. I would feel frustrated. I would feel annoyed, and what happened in that moment, it redirected me back to the idea that I can't do this alone.

It turned me back to God. Only a transform church can help transform this world. If we're going to be part of that story, we have to look different. We have to look like Jesus. I'm gonna leave you with this beautiful quote from Soren Ard. Now with God's help, I shall become more myself. Jesus' gift to us is to look like him, to become the people we were made to be.

So we're gonna close by an invitation. I'm gonna invite you to stand with me, and we're just going to take a moment to pause. Gather our scattered senses

to bring all the things that we carried in.

Maybe you feel the truth for you of that John Berg quote.

I feel like there's something, not a thing I've done. But just to carry a weight of not enoughness, and you get to let it go. You're invited here by the God of the universe. Just like a woman at a well 2000 years ago was invited.

You get to bring all of the junk that maybe comes up the guilt.

Maybe some of the things on that list of things that Christians do just as much as people that have never stepped foot into a church. Maybe you see a lot of things that your name might fall under and that's not to bring guilt. There is no space for guilt when you're with Jesus. It is to just to bring an honest reflection of that's actually what my life looks like.

And to know that in that moment, the one who sees you best is the one who loves you most,

and you get to hold some of those things in your hands.

And then just let go to know that you are accepted and loved simply as you are. Maybe you feel a desire in you to look different, and maybe then you see a list of three spiritual disciplines. And maybe the first thing that comes to mind is, I'm doing those and they don't feel like they're doing anything.

I've tried them and they didn't work,

and in this space we're just invited to come close to Jesus to know that perhaps he's right now walking the aisles. These Holy Spirit is present,

is coming along each side. Along each side of us. He's reminding us. We're loved. If we never open a Bible again, if we never prayed again, if we never fasted again, we're loved. These are just tools. Tools that enable us to become closer, to be transformed. We don't do those things 'cause we have to do them.

We do those things because we long to be present to the one. Who belongs to be present to us.

We come here because there is nowhere else to go.

We come here to the one that gives new life. Perhaps you're here and you've never experienced Jesus for yourself. It's always been somebody else's story.

For a moment, hold out your hands in front of you.

Maybe just quietly before Aaron begins to sing, just whisper your own prayer.

God, I need you, God, would you be with me? Would you reveal yourself to me? How would you transform me?

Jesus, you are everything. You are the air we breathe. You are our first desire.