Rule Breaker - Part 1
Message Text
John 4:4-26
Now he had to go through Samaria. So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about noon. When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?” (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.) The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans. ) Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.” “Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his livestock?” Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.” He told her, “Go, call your husband and come back.” “I have no husband,” she replied. Jesus said to her, “You are right when you say you have no husband. The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true.” “Sir,” the woman said, “I can see that you are a prophet. Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.” “Woman,” Jesus replied, “believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.” The woman said, “I know that Messiah” (called Christ) “is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.” Then Jesus declared, “I, the one speaking to you—I am he.”
John 4:39-42
Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me everything I ever did.” 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. They said to the woman, “We no longer believe just because of what you said; now we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this man really is the Savior of the world.”
Proverbs 29:18
If people can’t see what God is doing, they stumble all over themselves; But when they attend to what he reveals, they are most blessed.
Message Notes
1. Rule breaker or follower?
We tend to either be rule breakers or rule followers. Jesus was more concerned about revealing what God had done for them than obeying rules that didn’t point people to God.
The woman at the well was concerned about the rules and Jesus paid no attention to cultural norms.
2. Rules are easy to make but hard to follow.
Oftentimes, we experience difficulty when we try to follow the very rules that we created.
Rules are often created where vision is lacking.
3. Clear consistent revelation brings blessing.
“If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.”
Oftentimes we are only known for what we are against. As the church, we need to be presenting the glorious hope that we have been given.
Connect Group Questions
- Are you a rule maker or rule breaker?
- Why is it easy to make more rules?
- Do you find it difficult at times to keep the same rules that you made?
- Talk about the contrast between the Samaritan woman reciting the rules and Jesus casting vision for the future.
- Do people know what you are for?
- What would have to change for you to cast vision for a preferable future?