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[0:00] Well, the reading from Scripture is from John chapter 4, the Gospel of John chapter 4, and starting at verse 4 and reading through to verse 42.

[0:18] So John chapter 4, verse 4. Now Jesus 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.

[0:35] 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.

[0:53] 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.

[1:12] 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?

[1:25] 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.

[1:39] 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.

[1:53] 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.

[2:04] What you have just said is quite true. Sir, the woman said, I can see that you are a prophet. Our ancestors worshipped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.

[2:18] 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.

[2:32] Yet a time is coming, and has now come, when the true worshippers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth. For they are the kind of worshippers the Father seeks.

[2:44] God is Spirit, and his worshippers 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.

[2:56] Then Jesus declared, I, the one speaking to you, I am he. Just then his disciples returned and were surprised to find him talking with a woman. But no one asked, what do you want or why are you talking with her?

[3:10] 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 have ever done. Could this be the Messiah? So they came out of the town and made their way towards him.

[3:22] Meanwhile his disciples urged him, Rabbi, eat something. But he said to them, I have food to eat that you know nothing about. Then his disciples said to each other, Could someone have brought him food?

[3:36] My food, said Jesus, is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work. Don't you have a saying, it's still four months until harvest? I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields.

[3:48] They are ripe for harvest. Even now the one who reaps draws a wage and harvests a crop for eternal life, so that the sower and the reaper may be glad together. Thus the saying, one sows and another reaps, is true.

[4:02] I sent you to reap what you have not worked for. Others have done the hard work and you have reaped the benefits of their labor. Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman's testimony.

[4:14] He told me everything I've ever done. 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.

[4:25] 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 saviour of the world.

[4:38] Thank you. Well, good morning. It's lovely to be with you again. Almost feel part of the family here now.

[4:52] And particularly to be entertained, although with less than the usual amount of water, that's Richard and Judy.

[5:02] Let's turn to John chapter 4, which was read earlier. I don't think Richard knew when he decided what to do for the children's talk that I was going to speak on this passage.

[5:23] So it's amazing, really, that the two talks have come together so well. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for your word, which is a lamp to our feet and a light to our path, and which is able to make us wise unto salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.

[5:46] Open our hearts and minds to hear your voice and to obey your word, we pray. In Jesus' name, amen. Well, I want to speak this morning on the single longest recorded conversation with an individual that Jesus ever had.

[6:08] Near the beginning of John's Gospel we have two conversations. One of them is with a very respectable Jewish clergyman called Nicodemus, and that's in chapter 3.

[6:20] But the next one is a conversation with somebody who's very, very different from Nicodemus. In fact, you could hardly think of anyone more different from Nicodemus than the individual here in chapter 4.

[6:33] But I want to stress this morning that Jesus treats them with equal respect. He treats Nicodemus, whose name we know, and the woman at the well, whose name we don't even know.

[6:49] He treats them with equal respect. They both matter to Jesus. Let's look at this individual in chapter 4.

[6:59] Three things that I'm sure most of you already know, but pretty well all of you will know this. First of all, she was a woman. And obviously that made a difference from Nicodemus, who was a man.

[7:16] The interesting thing is that Jewish rabbis did not teach women. Not only did they not believe that women should teach, but they also didn't think that women should be taught.

[7:36] They thought that husbands should teach their wives. Rabbis didn't teach women. And a respectable Jewish man would not engage in a private conversation with a woman other than his wife.

[7:54] He would not be seen talking to a woman in public other than his wife. And that's why in verse 27, when the disciples arrive at the well, they're surprised to see Jesus talking with a woman.

[8:09] That's what he says there. They're surprised that Jesus is talking with a woman. It wasn't the done thing. It wasn't the normal practice. And not only were the disciples surprised, the woman herself, according to verse 9, was surprised.

[8:26] Verse 9. You are a Jew, and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink? This just wasn't done in that culture.

[8:43] So she was a woman. Secondly, she was a Samaritan. I don't need to go into the historical reasons for the hostility between Jews and Samaritans.

[8:54] But I'm sure you know that there was centuries of hostility and enmity between the Jews and the Samaritan. It was a classic case of division amongst human beings based on immigration in the past.

[9:08] And racial and religious differences. The Samaritans were a different race. They had been imported into Israel by the Assyrians 700 years earlier.

[9:20] They had gradually adopted some Jewish beliefs. There had probably been some intermarriage. But there was still a difference between the Jews in the south and the Samaritans in the north.

[9:36] The Jews with their capital, Jerusalem. The Samaritans with their capital, Samaria. The Jews with their temple on Mount Zion in Jerusalem. And the Samaritans with a rival temple on Mount Gerizim near Samaria.

[9:48] And the two kept themselves very much to themselves. And Jews regarded Samaritans as little different from Gentiles.

[9:59] And they wouldn't eat or drink with Samaritans. They wouldn't share eating or drinking vessels with Samaritans. Hence again the woman's surprise in verse 9.

[10:09] How can you ask me, a Samaritan woman, for a drink? Jesus is breaking all the traditions. He's breaking all the rules here.

[10:24] So she was a woman. She was a Samaritan. And thirdly, she was probably far from respectable. She had five husbands.

[10:37] And she was now living with her latest boyfriend. We need to remember that women in those days didn't have much say in, for instance, matters of divorce.

[10:49] If their husband wanted to divorce them, they just divorced her. So you don't necessarily need to blame this woman for the fact that she's had five husbands.

[11:00] They may have all divorced her for no good reason, for all I know. We just don't know. But she was living with man number six. And it sounds as if she hadn't bothered to get married on this occasion.

[11:14] Because all the others had failed. So what was the chances of the next one being successful? So it seems that she was a far from respectable woman.

[11:25] And some scholars think that the fact that she turned up at the well alone points to that. Because getting water from the well was a communal thing.

[11:39] The women did it together. They would all go to the well. Usually first thing in the morning or round about dusk to get the water. It was a social community event.

[11:51] There'd be a lot of chatting and gossip. A bit like meeting the children at the school gate in our society. And it would usually be done at the cooler times of day.

[12:04] First thing in the morning or at dusk. She didn't go to the well at noon in the heat of the day. Excuse me. I'm going to have to. I will be coughing a little bit during the course of the sermon.

[12:17] I hope it doesn't put you on. So normally a woman didn't go by herself to the well. And she didn't go in the heat of the day at noon. The sixth hour.

[12:28] Which is where this conversation took place. So here's a woman comparatively despised in that society.

[12:40] A Samaritan despised by Jews. And a woman who was far from respectable. Probably despised even by the fellow women in the community.

[12:53] And so here we see Jesus the friend of sinners. The friend of sinners. That's what we should be. Have you got any friends who are sinners?

[13:05] I know all your friends are sinners. You're a sinner yourself. But have you got any friends who people might be surprised that you know a person like that? Or that you're friendly with a person like that?

[13:17] If not, you ought to have. Start working on it. Get some non-respectable friends. So it's hard to think of anybody more different from Nicodemus than this unnamed Samaritan woman.

[13:38] Whose name we don't know. But who mattered to Jesus. Mattered immensely to Jesus. Because as it says towards the end of the chapter, Jesus is the saviour of the world.

[13:55] He's not just the saviour of Jews. He's not just the saviour of respectable people. He's not just the saviour of men. He's the saviour of the world.

[14:06] So we've looked at the woman. I want to look now at the conversation that Jesus had with the woman. I want to look at it in two ways.

[14:19] I want to look first of all at the style of the conversation. The way he said what he said. And then I want to look at the content of the conversation briefly.

[14:31] What he said. So first of all the style of the conversation. I think that this conversation here in John chapter 4 is a classic example. A model.

[14:43] Of what we call these days personal evangelism. Evangelical Christians are under immense pressure to engage in personal evangelism.

[14:56] And we all feel guilty about it. Don't we? Well I do. I don't do it as well as I should. I don't do it as often as I should.

[15:08] And when I do it I tend to mess it up. So here is an example of how to talk to a non-believer.

[15:18] And it's an example from Jesus himself. And the first thing that strikes me is the respect with which he treats her.

[15:30] He doesn't talk down to her at all. At no time is he aggressive. At no time is he aggressive. Even when he's dealing with sensitive issues like five husbands, boyfriend number six.

[15:46] Even when he's got to tell her that she's been worshipping all her life at the wrong temple. Which isn't an easy thing to tell anybody. There's no hint of aggression.

[15:57] I used to do door to door work with somebody who was extremely aggressive on the doorstep. And so aggressive that I used to find myself sympathising with the person who would evangelise him.

[16:13] He's almost relaxed here. Non-threatening.

[16:25] In fact at times there's almost a kind of playful banter. It's a deeply serious conversation. But he manages to handle it in this lovely way.

[16:38] And I just wish I was better at it than I am. So he treats her with tremendous respect. He begins the conversation by talking about something they're both interested in.

[16:55] He doesn't start with her five husbands. He doesn't begin by saying, hey do you know you've been worshipping the wrong temple all your life? He doesn't start there.

[17:07] He starts with something they were both deeply interested in. You might think, well what does Jesus have in common with a Samaritan woman? Well they were both human beings and therefore they both needed water.

[17:19] As Richard and Judy have recently found out. They both needed water. And therefore he talks about water. That's why they were both at the well.

[17:31] They both needed water. So he begins by talking about water. Let's become people who can talk about lots of things.

[17:45] To non-Christian. Try and get interested in something that a non-Christian is interested in. You know sport or something. Try and be the sort of person who can go and get his hair cut and talk to the barber about Manchester United or somebody.

[18:06] Talk about something you're both interested in to begin with. And then notice how Jesus gradually arouses this woman's curiosity.

[18:22] I find this quite amazing. He gradually arouses the woman's curiosity. He doesn't answer questions that she's not asking. He gets her to ask the question.

[18:33] Because she actually really wants to know the answer. It's brilliant the way he does this. He arouses her curiosity. And you find this in the New Testament.

[18:44] You find very often in examples of personal witnessing. That the witnessing is in response to a person's question. So the Philippian jailer comes to Paul and Silas at midnight after the earthquake.

[18:57] And he says, sirs what must I do to be saved? He's heard them singing at midnight with their feet in the stocks. He wasn't used to that kind of behaviour from prisoners.

[19:09] They didn't usually sing at midnight with their feet in their stocks and their backs bleeding. He'd never come across prisoners like this in his life before. And after the earthquake when they're actually trying to save his life by stopping him from killing himself.

[19:22] He says, sirs what must I do to be saved? I've never come across anybody like you before. The question comes from him. And when Philip joins the chariot in Acts chapter 8.

[19:39] The question comes from the Ethiopian. Who's this guy Isaiah talking about here? Is he talking about himself or is he talking about somebody else? What's this about?

[19:52] He's reading his Bible. And he wants to know the answer. The question comes from him. And honestly, it is almost a waste of time to go around answering, forcing people to listen to answers to questions.

[20:08] They're not even interested enough to ask. So you've got to get them to want to know the answer. You've got to arouse their curiosity.

[20:21] And that's why Peter, in 1 Peter chapter 3, he says, Always be ready to give a reason for the hope you have to anyone who asks you.

[20:35] In other words, hope is so unusual. Real hope. Whether you're really genuinely looking forward to the future. Not just the next Christmas or the next holiday. But looking forward to a wonderful, brilliant future.

[20:49] That should be the characteristic of every Christian. Especially in times of difficulty. And that is so unusual. People should come to Christians and say, What is all this about?

[21:00] How can you have a hope like that? And that's when you start telling them about the resurrection of Jesus Christ. But they ask you. We've got to be living in such a way.

[21:13] That people come and ask us. The problem is that we're so like everybody else. Apart from the fact that we go to church on a Sunday morning.

[21:27] That nobody bothers to ask us. Nobody's interested. So, try and arouse people's curiosity.

[21:38] Jesus does it wonderfully here. He asks the woman for a drink. As I've just said, It was totally contrary to all the conventions of the day.

[21:50] And immediately the woman's curiosity is aroused. How come you, a Jewish man, Can ask me, a Samaritan woman, for a drink? I've never met any Jewish man like you before.

[22:01] I've never met a rabbi like you before. This is different. This is unusual. And notice that he doesn't, Even then, Give it a straight answer.

[22:16] He gives this intriguing reply. He says, If you knew What God could give you, And if you knew who you were talking to, You would be asking him, And he would be giving you a drink of living water.

[22:30] Water, Which can just mean running water, As opposed to water that's, Sort of, In a, That is just still, And, I'm trying to think of the word tepid or something, I don't know.

[22:43] I can give you real, Living, Running, Running, Water. If you knew who I was, You'd be asking me, And I'd be giving you, Living water.

[22:57] And again, Her curiosity is, Is aroused. She, She says, Well look, Jacob built this well, It's been here for centuries, Jacob built this well.

[23:08] Jacob, Whose name was changed to Israel. You couldn't get anybody, More important than Jacob, And Jacob built this well. And everybody who lives around here, Knows that this is the only water supply there is.

[23:23] Who do you think you are? Offering me water. Suggesting that you can give me water. And again, He doesn't tell her everything.

[23:35] Again, He just says, If you had, If you drank the water that I could give you, You'd never thirst again. You'd never have to come here again.

[23:47] You'd be completely satisfied. And she can't resist. Asking, Well, I'd like some of that water. But you see, Her curiosity is gradually aroused.

[24:02] And it's then, At the point where her curiosity is aroused, That Jesus says, Okay, Well you better share this with your husband. I haven't got a husband.

[24:14] Yeah, You're absolutely right. You haven't got a husband. You've had five, And you're living with man number six now. Go and call him. So you see how gently he does it?

[24:26] Do you see how he gradually arouses her curiosity? We have opportunities for personal Jerusalem so rarely, That when we do have one, We get somebody against the wall, And we fire loads of verses at them, And we try and get everything across in about five minutes, And we're surprised because they're frightened of.

[24:47] Don't do it like that. Do it like this. Do it like Jesus did it. I'm not suggesting it's not urgent, Because Jesus at the end of the reading says, It is urgent. Look at the fields, They're white unto harvest.

[24:59] It is urgent, But, Do it in such a way, That you don't frighten people off for the rest of their lives. Okay, So I just thought we'd look at the style of the conversation, And then we'll look briefly at the content of the conversation.

[25:17] What did he say to this woman? Well, He deals with two things. He deals first of all with her thirst, And then secondly, He deals with her temple.

[25:29] So first of all, Her thirst. Not doing very well with that member of the congregation, Are we?

[25:44] First of all, He deals with her thirst. And, It seems that he sees this woman's physical thirst, This daily trip to the well.

[25:55] And Richard has been reminding us earlier, What a drag this is for lots of people in our world today. Kids who, Because they've got to go to that well, Which may be miles from where they live, With heavy water, Can't even go to school.

[26:12] Well, This woman has a two mile trip every day, Just to get her water from the well. And then two miles back. At least once a day. And Jesus says, This water, You'll thirst again if you drink it.

[26:26] Keep you alive for a bit, Not for long. You have to come back and get for more. I can give you water, Which will give you eternal life. If you taste this water, That I can give you, You'll never thirst again.

[26:43] And I think, It seems as if Jesus sees this woman's daily trip to the well, For water, As almost being, Like the story of her life. One failed relationship after another.

[26:59] One man after another. Every time, She started a new relationship, She would be thinking to herself, At last, I found, I found Mr. Right, At last.

[27:13] And it never, Worked out. And before long, She was looking for another relationship, Or she'd been dumped by him, And needed another relationship.

[27:24] This was the story of her life. And it's the story of all our lives. We're all looking for someone, Or looking for something, That will satisfy us, Ultimately.

[27:40] Not just satisfy us for a little bit, And then we'll need something else, But ultimate satisfaction. Not just the next relationship, Or the next purchase, Or the next step up the ladder of promotion, Or the next holiday to the next exotic place.

[27:59] One thing after another. And we never find, What we're looking for. We never find that ultimate, Ultimate satisfaction.

[28:10] The reason for that is, The Bible says that, God, Is the one who satisfies, Our inner spiritual thirst.

[28:21] God is the source of eternal life. Only God, Can fill that gap. Can meet that ultimate thirst. Only a relationship with God.

[28:31] That's why, In the Old Testament, God is often pictured, In terms of water. He's like, Floods on dry ground. He's like showers of blessing.

[28:44] I know we get so much rain, In this country, That we can't understand, Why people got so excited, About rain in the Bible. But I'm sure some of you, Like me, Have been to somewhere like Kenya.

[28:56] I went to do a little bit, Of Bible teaching in Kenya, Some years ago. And it was, In the middle of a drought, The churches were praying for rain. Imagine it.

[29:07] Praying for rain. And, On my last day, In Kenya, The rains came. And, I was, In a, A building, Just a corrugated iron roof.

[29:23] And I never slept a wing. Because of the noise, Of the rain, On the roof. Unbelievable. And next morning, Everybody was rejoicing. Rain.

[29:35] Wonderful. And, The Bible says, That God is like rain. In a hot and arid, Country.

[29:47] He's like floods, On dry ground. The prophet Jeremiah, Has a lovely picture. Where he says, When Israel turns to other gods, False gods, The gods of the surrounding nations, Forsakes him, And for other gods, God substitutes, Substitutes for him.

[30:06] He says, You have forsaken me, The fountain of living waters, And have dug out for yourselves, Cisterns, Broken cisterns, That hold no water.

[30:17] What is, What's all that about? Well, In a dry country like Israel, Where it rains only, In spring and autumn, The former and the latter rains, During the dry season, You dig holes in the ground.

[30:36] Bottle shaped holes. Joseph was put in one. He couldn't get out, Because they were shaped like that. And they would be lined with clay.

[30:46] And the idea is, That they would catch the rain water. But the rain water would just, It wouldn't be running water, It would just, It would be, Just still water.

[30:59] All kinds of things would find their way into the water, Creepy crawlies, Or even were. And the clay lining, Would often crack.

[31:12] And the water would, Disappear. Now says Jeremiah, Or God through Jeremiah, Imagine somebody, With a spring of living water, On his doorstep, And he goes out, And digs, Water holes, To catch this rain water, And the rain water is just going to seep away, And he's just going to be disappointed.

[31:33] And he's got a, Spring of water, Readily available. How stupid is that? Well, To forsake the living God, And to turn to God's substitute, Idle, Is doing that, Spiritually.

[31:53] And people do it all the time, We all do it all the time, Even Christians, Who know, That there is nothing more satisfying, Than a relationship with God, Through the Lord Jesus Christ.

[32:04] We know that, And still, Even Christians sometimes, We insist on, Digging up, Digging out our little water holes as well, To catch a bit of dirty old water, Which seeks away, And we're left with nothing.

[32:20] Don't do it. No need to do it. No need to do it at all. Jesus says, Drink the water that I will give you, And you'll never thirst again.

[32:32] Every time you look to a created thing, Every time you look to a person, As your ultimate object of hope, Or trust, Every time you rely on, Something or someone other than God, For ultimate happiness, And significance and purpose, Everything that you say, Of it, I couldn't live without this, Then that is your idol, And you forsaking, The fountain of living waters, For this stagnant, Water in this water hole.

[33:07] We do it all the time. And Jesus offers this woman, Living water, He offers to meet all her needs, The needs that no husband can fulfill, The needs that nothing can fulfill, Except for a relationship with God.

[33:26] And you might ask, Well how does he do that? How does he do that? How does God bring us, How does Jesus bring us, Into a relationship with God, That eternally satisfies our thirst?

[33:39] You have to wait to the end of the gospel, To find that out. Because it's John who in chapter 19, Describes the cross, And he was there.

[33:52] And he says that, Just to prove that Jesus was dead, A Roman soldier pierced his side, With a javelin, With a spear, And out of his side, There flowed blood, But there also flowed water.

[34:08] And that's a physical fact, It's a biological fact, For which there is a medical explanation, I'm told, Although I can't remember what it is, But it is a medically proven thing.

[34:23] But I think that John sees it as, Symbolic as well, From the side of Jesus, From the cross of Jesus, There flows atoning blood, To cover our sins, And there also flows living water.

[34:40] And if you read the book of Ezekiel, You'll find that he has a vision, Of a great temple in the future. And from the threshold of this temple, There flows water, From the temple.

[34:54] And the water gets deeper, And deeper, And deeper, And eventually reaches the Dead Sea, And brings the Dead Sea to life. I think this is a marvellous vision.

[35:05] I don't think it's a literal thing. It's a marvellous vision, Of a temple, That was indescribable, For a prophet, Like an Old Testament prophet, Like Ezekiel, Who didn't know anything about Jesus, As we do.

[35:21] And what Ezekiel is actually describing there, Is Calvary, It's Jesus, It's Calvary. And when Jesus died on the cross, The veil of the temple was torn in two, From top to bottom, Sacrifices came to an end.

[35:37] It is finished, Christ Jesus. The temple became redundant, Nothing more to do with the temple, That's where you offered sacrifices, Don't need it anymore.

[35:47] And from the side of Jesus, There comes living water. And that's why Jesus could say, Earlier, At the harvest festival, The feast of Tabernacles, When, amongst other things, They remembered the provision of water, Through Israel's journey in the desert, Jesus stood up, And with a loud voice, Said, If anyone thirsts, Let him come unto me and drink.

[36:17] He who believes in me, Out of his innermost being, Shall flow rivers of living water. This he said, Of the spirit, Which those who believe in him, Should receive. Anybody thirsty here today?

[36:31] Anybody here, Who knows they need, A relationship with the living God, You're putting it, At the back of your mind, You're trying to forget it, You're trying to pretend, You don't need that relationship, You're turning to all kinds, Of other God's substitutes, Stop doing it, There is no substitute, For God, And Jesus can bring you, Into a relationship with God, And he does it, Through what he did for you, On the cross, When he took your sins, Upon himself, Took the curse, That you might have the blessing, And isn't it interesting, That it's John, Who, Records, That when Jesus was on the cross, He also cried out with a loud voice, I thirst, I thirst, He thirsted on that cross, So that you, Might never, Thirst, And you know, Jesus, The second thing that Jesus talked about, And I'm not going to say much about this, Because I get the impression, That we're probably near finishing time,

[37:33] Are we? As it's communion, But the, The second thing that Jesus talks to the woman about, Is her temple, And I hardly need to, To say anything about this, Because I've just said it, Really, Really, The big difference between, Jews and Samaritans, Was, Where's the holy pledge, Where is the sacred building, Where God wants us to worship him, The Jews said it was on Zion, In the temple, The Samaritans said it was on Mount Gerizim, In their temple, They wouldn't go to each other's temple, And, The woman asked Jesus to solve this problem, And I think it was a genuine problem, There are some people who say she was just trying to, Divert the conversation, Off the subject of her love life, Into something slightly less embarrassing, But I don't agree with that, I think this was a serious conversation, This was a major difference, Between Jews and Samaritans, Had been for centuries, And, This woman sees that,

[38:34] Jesus is no ordinary prophet, And she says, I want you to solve this problem for her, Where is the right place to worship God, And Jesus says, Up until now, It's been Jerusalem, That's where God put his name, In the Old Testament, That's where God commanded his people to go, And to, To be the, It was the symbol of his presence, In the midst of his people, It's there in the Old Testament, In Jerusalem, And it was where sin was atoned for, But the times they are a changing, Jesus said, That's all coming to an end, And the hour is coming, When you won't worship God in Jerusalem, Or in Samarit, You'll worship him in spirit, And in truth, He gives the spirit, And he is the truth, And as I've said, When he died on that cross, The temple became redundant, And it was finished, It only lasted,

[39:36] Physically, Another, Forty years, And there hasn't been a temple ever since, And we don't need one, We don't need one, Because Jesus is where we, Find God now, If you want to go to, If you want to find God, You don't have to go to the Holy Land, I worry about, Christians sometimes, Who say, Have you been to Israel, Have you been to the Holy Land, Oh, It's wonderful, You feel so close to God, Do you?

[40:01] Well, I can understand it, I can understand, That being in, Places like Bethlehem, And so on, Might make you feel, Might make biblical events, A bit more real to you, But, They, They don't bring you closer to God, The only, One, Who can bring close, Bring you close to God, Is Jesus, And you don't have to go to Israel, To find Jesus, You just have to get on your knees, And look to him, And you'll find God, Jesus is where you find God now, He is the locus, The focus, Of God's presence on earth, Emmanuel, God with us, The word became flesh, And tabernacled literally, Tabernacled, Amongst us, Full of grace and truth, We saw his glory, There's the temple, There's the temple, And Jesus is where, Sin is dealt with, You don't need the temple,

[41:03] You don't need sacrifices anymore, So, The times are changing, Jesus says to this lady, The temple, Your temple, And our temple, Will become no longer, Necessary, Okay, And it's at this point, Roughly, That the disciples arrived back, With some food, Jesus had sent them, To get some food, They arrived back, They see Jesus, Talking to this woman, They're surprised, They don't, Think any more about her, She goes off to town, Leaving her water jar behind, Which is surely, Also symbolic, Of the fact, That she's found water, That means, That she will never thirst again, She leaves the water jar behind, Which is the whole purpose, Of her going to the well, In the first place, Goes back to, To tell, The population of psycho, What she's found, Leaves Jesus, With his disciples, The disciples said to Jesus, Come on, It's lunch time, You sent us, To get you lunch,

[42:05] Here we are, Here's your lunch, Why don't you eat it? And Jesus said, I've got food, That you don't know anything about, And they said, Somebody else brought him, Some food, That we don't know about, And Jesus says, My food, Is to do the will of him, That sent me, To finish his work, In other words, What satisfies me, What nourishes me, Is bringing salvation, To women, Like this woman, Or people, Like this woman, Sinful, Needy, People, That's what satisfies me, That's more satisfying, Than any food, You could bring me, I wonder if there's anybody here, Thinking, Will Jesus save me?

[42:50] I've been a particularly big sinner, May not have been a big sinner, As far as committing spectacular sins, Are concerned, But, I've been associated with the church here, For some years perhaps, And actually if people just knew, What was going on in my life, They would know that I'm just a hypocrite, And I've been a hypocrite for many years, I don't know God, I've been far from God for many years, Although I keep up appearances, Have I out sinned God's grace?

[43:29] Will, Even at this late stage, If I turn to God, Will he have me? Will Jesus save me? Let me assure you, That Jesus is hungry, For your salvation, Whoever you are, Whatever you do, Jesus is hungry, For your salvation, Are we as hungry, For the salvation of our friends, As he is?

[44:03]  Amen.