With The Perrys - How to Minister to Women at Wells

Episode Date: March 25, 2024

The story of the woman at the well is a lesson from Jesus about how to do ministry. Jesus leads with His humanity and His neediness, is curious about the woman’s life, and exposes her sin to reveal her need for God. Jackie and Preston talk through common preconceived ideas about this story and how we – like the woman – can be set out on mission after simple yet impactful encounters with Christ. Subscribe to the Perrys' newsletter: https://withtheperrys.myflodesk.com/zhfus4jx1s Join Preston's discipleship community for men: https://www.patreon.com/PrestonPerry/membership To support the work of the Perrys, donate via PayPal: https://paypal.me/withtheperrys Shop BOLD Apparel: boldapparel.shop Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Greetings, Earthlings. What up with y'all? How are you? Shilling. Had a great morning, huh? No. What happened? I was running around this whole city.

The whole one. The whole city. Northwest, east and south. I haven't eaten. Thank you for the coffee that you brought. No problem. But I'm very hungry. Okay.

And a little tired. All right. But I'm here. How are you doing? Get your little makeup on? So I woke up this morning. I was like, I would. talk about this. So I got a text from someone who's not in my phone. They obviously sent it to the

wrong person and it's a picture. I'm going to show it to you. You see. Oh my goodness. So it's a picture of a girl with no shirt on with her tongue out, but it looked like a hot topic tongue, like a rock star. So it has this like kind of grunge erotica given type stuff. I'm literally just hearing about this guys. Because you left. Who? I don't know who it is. They thought they was probably sending it to somebody.

They were obviously sending it to some boy who likes Gothic erotica because it's given scary. Oh my goodness. The devil is a liar. I responded and I said, hi. I don't think you intended to send this to me. But since you did, I just wanted to say that Christ loves you and he made you for himself. Life is hard and awkward and strange and we often seek ways of living that on the surface serve us. but on the deepest level, none of it satisfies.

But the good news is, because the good news is important, there is satisfaction available in Christ. Go to him and you will find what you need. Quote, then Jesus said, come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Come on my yoke upon you. Let me teach you because I am humble and gentle at heart

and you will find rest for your souls. And I put my names just in case you went to like. You completely ruined her mood. No, she hearted it. She hearted it. Because I was like, if she responded to be like, I ain't weary trick. Like if she did that, I'd be like, dad, like, your heart is hard, hard.

Oh, my gosh. Because that's embarrassing, right? There's a level of shame that I sent this sensual picture to somebody that I did not intend to send it to. And God forbid she sent it to somebody who would have, like, exploited it. You know what I'm saying? Like in a negative way. But I'm like, if she sent it to me, I'm going to like give her the Lord real quick. Isn't that crazy?

But think about like the sovereignty and the mercy of God. For sure. Because he was like, oh, you're just trying to be a freak freak. But I'm going to make sure you get the gospel to that. Yes. Because underneath that is some dissatisfaction, right? Like you sending this to somebody, like got the tongue all out and all the thing. Maybe she sent to her husband.

That could have been the thing. But I just, I don't, I just don't, don't send those types of things on the interwebs. You show them your breast and person. you're married. If you're married. Yeah. Does this intro kind of weirdly go with the topic? Exactly.

Because we're talking about ministry to women at Wales. I see what you did there. I didn't intend to do that. Oh, my goodness. The Lord is with us. You're so great. You must do this. That was hard.

I don't have no equilibrium. You got to stop that. What are we talking about today? So during glory, I taught. Not heaven, but you have an event. People know that. Not everybody. It's probably somebody named John,

don't know about the glory conference. Context clues would have said, oh, she's talking about the conference where she teaches. No. If you would have let me finish the sentence. Okay. Sorry.

I would have said, at glory, I taught a message on John 4. So at heaven. Automatically, it would have been like, oh, okay. So you've been to glory. But if I'm new here, I could be like, man,

at glory, so you've been to heaven? But that's why you got to keep... And you taught in heaven? That's why you got to keep listening. Context clues. Help us interpret things. Okay.

Okay. So at glory, I taught John 4. because I think when we talk about Jesus and his ministry to the woman at the well, we all know that text. Yeah. And one of the things is when you know a text, you kind of come to it with some preconceived assumptions or notions that the text might not even be saying because you've heard it so many

times. But I also think that, you know, as it, as people who are attempting to do ministry, whether that's evangelism or teaching or preaching or discipleship or mothering or sistering or unteeing whatever it might be. I think we can learn from Jesus on how to do ministry from Jesus. That's good. Because social media, TikTok, Instagram, we have so many people doing ministry in the name of Jesus, but not like him.

And so I think we have to learn from him so that we do it in a way that honors him. Yeah. And I want to just say I saw you teach on John. for at the Glory Conference and the approach I really respected and appreciated the approach because I've heard so many people preach about the women at the will and it's always blaming her or not blaming her but adding things to her character not dignifying not dignifying her add things to her character that the text necessarily doesn't say and so I think that your approach is really really good so what we're going to start it today like when you think about the woman at the will

I mean, I could read a little bit of it just so the people that are listening and watching have a sense of the story. So, John chapter four, Jesus goes to Samaria with his people. Tech says that Jesus was weary from his journey. So he sits down at a well. He's tired. This lady shows up. He's like, hey, give me a drink. Yeah.

Somebody could look at that and be like, huh, what? that got to do with this conversation. It has everything to do with this conversation. Because if you read John chapter one, it establishes the nature of the one sitting down, which is that in the beginning, this person, this Jesus was actually in the beginning. Therefore, he's eternal. Therefore, he's God. Therefore, he's divine. So it should intrigue you when you see a divine being manifested as a human who's tired. That's good. Tired? Yeah. Like weary? So like what we see is like the incarnation at work. in this text. How this relates to ministry is I don't find it,

like I find it so deep to me that when Jesus sits down and he has every intention to minister to this lady, he does not begin with, hey, I am that I am. He begins with give me drink, which means he begins with his humanity first. Yeah, that's good. That's good because it points to his incarnation, the fact that God will even humble himself to meet a woman because one, he walked a long way to meet this woman.

And the first thing that he do is really points to his neediness. Right. Like God is needy. He's asking you to give him something. Right. Which automatically points to his humility, which is really powerful. The way this, like, has, like, really good application for ministry is that we don't like, like doing ministry as humans.

Break that down. To be human is to be weak. Yeah. To be human is to be fragile. We have this treasure in jars of clay. Clay cracks. Clay is like it just breaks easily, right? And so I think there's a sense in which we want to do ministry as strong people as as close to like we want to, we don't want to display our weaknesses.

You know what I'm saying? We don't want to be humble in that way. But that's actually, like, that's the foundation of our ministry is that we're human beings. It actually reminds me of the post that I made, I think a couple of weeks ago when I talked about how when Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead. And when Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead, Jesus knew Lazarus was going to die, which is one of the reasons why he told, you know, Martha and Mary that Lazarus sickness would not lead to death, not because he wasn't going to die. die physically, but he knew that he was going to raise him from the dead. And so when I posted that, one of the things that I said was, is that Jesus, he came all the way to Bethany with the sole purpose of raising Lazarus from the dead. But when he saw what Lazarus was laid, the Bible says

that he wept with him. Now, when I posted it, I challenged me to look at the humanity of Jesus, because even though Jesus is being a leader, even though he's taking initiative, he's saying, the disciples, come on y'all, we got to go to Bethany because my friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, he's died, right? He's being a leader there. But when he gets there and he sees everybody said, one thing that he doesn't do, he doesn't rush to just raise him from the dead

to turn that morning into a celebration, but he stops and he cries with him first, right? And so Jesus is both leading in initiative, but he's also leading in vulnerability. Because showing your humanity as a minister is also a form of leadership, right? And so Jesus cries with them first because if it was me,

I told people on the Instagram post, I said, if it was me and I saw my loved ones crying, I'd be like, yo, watch this. Y'all ain't got to cry. Watch me raise them from the dead real quick, you know? And I would have took their tears away, but Jesus had the emotional intelligence to be human, right?

And he didn't stray away from his humanity. And I think that's kind of what you're saying. Yeah. Yeah, when you look at people like, Jim Jones and not Jim Jones, the rapper, okay? This ain't about dipset. The co-leader. Yeah, the co-leader.

Jim Jones and most cult leaders, well, I won't say most, a lot of them, they will often present themselves to their followers as a kind of God. You know, they are, he said he was Jesus and the Buddha. He could be both, I have no idea. But it's like, that's how they do ministry. Yeah. Is that they try to deify themselves.

They try to make themselves. more big or more sufficient than they actually are. But the way Jesus does ministry is that he displays his neediness. That's good. You know what I'm saying? And so like, it's really good. What this does is I think, I think it's okay to honor your humanity by saying,

you know what, I'm not strong enough to fight every battle. I'm not smart enough to provide all the wisdom in the world. I'm not omniscient enough to know all the things and discern all the stuff. I'm not omnipresent enough to fix all the problems. And so what your humanity and ministry does is it positions you where you are utterly dependent on God to do ministry. Yeah, but it also, because when I posted the post about Jesus late raising lives from the dead, I told you about this, but it got deem me and was like,

why are you teaching men how to be weak? Right. Weakness is not going to do anything. Weakness is not going to help the people around them. And it's like, no, like if, if you, if you. if we truly have that mindset, which I think a lot of people try to stray away from weakness, we essentially are saying we should not be like Jesus. Right.

He was a God who humbled himself and became man. Right. Right. So for the first time in all of eternity, God got sleepy. Yeah. He got tired. Right. He needed the same water that he created.

He needed to wash his body. Right. And so he chose weakness to lead. Right. And so if you don't want to choose weakness to lead, you're not being like Jesus. Right. And so it's not about. making men be weak, it is saying, no, prove that you're strong by choosing weakness in order

to lead. Which is actually weakness. Yeah. Because it's pride. Yes. You know what I'm saying? It's good. So it's like the same thing you're trying to resist is the thing that you're actually embodying because your entire framework as a human being is weakness. Like you weren't created to sustain yourself. You can't. Like you are, you like it is in God that we live. and move and have our being. So to ever think that you could be a good husband or a good leader or a good pastor or a good Bible teacher independent of God's sustaining power, that's foolish. That's really good.

And I honestly think that's a part of the reason why people experience so much burnout is because they're not honoring their weakness. And by that, I mean, if I recognize that I'm needy and I'm pouring out, pouring out, pouring out, pouring out, then I need to prioritize Sabbath rest. Yeah. Because he created that for us. Yeah. Right?

Yeah. I need to prioritize getting in my word and getting fit. I need to even prioritize fellowship with other people where I'm not the only one pouring. I'm also being poured into because I need it. I need it. And because I can get it, then I'm able to have like sustenance to serve other people. Doesn't make sense what I'm saying. That makes sense.

I think we can just learn a lot from Jesus when it comes to the. the fact that he was God and he was human. We are not God, but we are human. And so from him, we can learn what it looks like to lead with our humanity. And so we don't despise our humanity. We don't try to be bigger and badder and better than we actually are. We honor our humanity by being realistic about what God made us. We are made of flesh and blood.

And if I'm made a flesh and blood, that means I need a divine being to fill me with his power to give me all that I need. But also, too, we can't underestimate how powerful leading with our humanity is because we see that God in his sovereignty chose to reveal himself to his creation by becoming human. That's true. And leading in his humanity, leading us in his humanity, we need to see that, man, leading in our humanity is also equally powerful. Yeah. Right? Well, not equally because we're not the son of man.

But it's also powerful, right? And because, like, I think I told the story before, but I gave my life to Christ because the man who was disciplining me failed. Right. He was not afraid to be human in front of me. And so I tell the story about how I thought I was a Christian because I started doing everything that I saw Gary do. And when a girl flirted with him and he flirted with her back at the bank, he got convicted. And we drove off and 10 minutes later, he pulled the car on the side of the road and said, Preston. I feel so convicted that I flirted with that girl and I had lustful thoughts and I did it in front of you.

Will you pray with me? And he pulled over the side of the road and he began to cry and he began to pray. And in his failure, God showed me, you don't love me like he loves me. And I gave my life to the Lord that night. And so I did not give my life to the Lord by seeing him be strong. By seeing him be perfect. By seeing him be flawless. I gave my life to the Lord because I saw this man.

depend on God in his weakness. That's good. Right? And so we have to understand that people are not looking for strong, like God doesn't want to use strong people. He wants to use weak people that can point to him. Yeah. I do have to say this because that triggered a thought, which is I think when we say or when I say things like, honor your humanity or lead with your humanity, some people conflate that as human means sinful. Yeah.

And that's not what I mean. I mean, like the species. Like you are a human being. You are a creature made of flesh and blood, therefore you are dependent. And I think, I think what's his name? Gary. I should know his name. Gary, what he shows is like, I think conversion being made right with God is it doesn't make you less human.

It makes you a realistic human. Yes, that's good. Because pride, you live in this false reality when you're in sin that like, I don't need God for nothing. I'm good. So even like if he was like in his flesh at that moment, he would have flirted, felt convicted, and then made up excuses about it. Yeah, that's good. That like that's a fallen human nature. Right.

But because he's redeemed, he actually has a realistic, like holy humble human nature that says, you know what? I was being weak there and now I'm going to be weak by putting myself. under like Christ's lordship and saying like sorry you know what I'm saying yeah because people make excuses it's like oh I'm just I'm living on my humanity yeah deal with I mean I'm sure that's not what we're saying and it's like no you can actually leave people astray or or show people a very bad example if you don't if you don't show your neediness in your humanity and how much you are convicted and how much you need a holy and a righteous God to help you and so what Gary's life did Gary life showed me that not only was he justified but

practically how God was sanctified. I saw sanctification worked out through him and I was like, man, God is not calling me to be perfect. From that situation, I was like, man, if I can have a heart like that, I can run to God like he did. Right? And so it taught me so much. That's good.

So Jesus, human and divine, asked this lady for a drink and she's befuddled. Befuddled. Befuddled by the question. She says, how is it that you? A Jew. Ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria. For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans. Pause.

Now, she didn't gave a whole, one, low key, you can see that Jesus, obviously, his appearance was very human. Yeah. Because she says, how is it that you, a Jew, a man, like he looks like a Jewish man, which tells you that the incarnation worked because he does not look. look like the creator of glory. What's that, what's that theological word for that? Where he's, like, hidden it?

Where he's hidden what? Like, he's hidden his glory. Because, like, the, the, the, the, the mountain of trend, this is a really random thing. Remember on the Mount of Transfiguration is like, he unveiled his glory. I remember that, but I don't know, I don't know a theological term.

Yeah, especially when people ask me stuff on the spot, I literally go blank. I don't know what you're saying. He's hidden himself in, in a way, because he's in the flesh, okay? And by flesh, I mean human. And so she's like, how is it that you, a Jew asked for a drink from me? The thing is, with Samaritan, Samaritans were basically half-breeds.

So they, like, were the product of a time when Israelites were basically having babies with people from foreign nations. So they were mixed ethnicities. And because of that, Jews considered them not as pure as the sons of Abraham, right? So any dealings that Jews had with Samaritans, they thought always had the potential to make them unclean. We know Jews had a very high standard when it come to ritual cleanness, right? So the assumption was that if I touch anything of Samaritan touches, then I am made unclean. Hence, why she is surprised that Jesus asked for a drink because it means he's willing to touch what she touched. He's willing to enter into the public assumption that he's becoming unclean just by interacting with this lady.

But not only is it a problem that he's a Jew. interacting with a Samaritan, but he's a Jewish man interacting with a Samaritan woman. Yeah. I read this text when I was studying this about, it was like this old Jewish thing of my thing. I don't remember. And they were saying that they believed Samaritan women were basically, they minustrated. Is that how you say it? Mestrated.

Manistrate it. Minestrated. They had their periods. He said they have their periods from the cradle, which is another way to say that they are uncleaned from birth. So you got to understand the dynamics here of this Jewish man interacting with this ritually unclean woman by asking her for a drink. And that's why she's surprised.

That's one thing I love about Jesus. Jesus didn't just come to save us, but he came to come against so many cultural norms of his society. He came to break them all. He's like, I didn't just come to die, but I came to undo all of these preconceived notions that you guys have about ministry and what it should look like. Yes. I came to break all that down.

Yes. Which is dope. The thing that I think we can learn from this is what you just said, sometimes entering into things that might look crazy to other people. Yeah. But it's actually an act of love for the person that you're like doing ministry with. But another thing is people's cultural, religious, social, economic contexts influence the way. way they see Jesus. Yeah.

Okay. So because she is a Samaritan woman, all she sees is a Jewish man. She does not see what John said in John chapter one yet. Yes. Right? And so there's a sense in which we need to acknowledge or be aware of or be curious about the social or cultural world people live in when we give them Jesus. For example, if I'm in Dallas, right, I'm in Texas.

if I start preaching Jesus in Texas, everybody know about Jesus. Everybody got WWJD braces. I got one on now. Everybody then growing up in church, everybody's members of church, half of the people vote Republican and they think that make them Christian.

Like everybody is associated with Jesus on some level. And so if I'm doing ministry in Texas, the problem with not being curious about cultural context is, I will enter into a conversation with somebody who is a member of a church, you know, votes a certain way, da-da-da-da-da. And I will have the assumption that they know God because they've been around him. Right? When I need to, I need to acknowledge the fact that no, like a lot of false conversions exist in cities like this.

Right. So that means I need to be a little more curious and a little more discerning to see. Is this a form of godliness? So if it's a form of godliness, you need advantage. evangelism, not discipleship. You get what I'm saying? That's really good. Versus if I'm in Portland,

ain't nobody rocking with Jesus like that. We're atheists. We're proud. Huh? So because of that cultural context, I know, okay, what are some of the, what are the assumptions they have about Jesus that I need to answer as I give them the gospel?

That's really good. That's really good. Yeah, because I think that we, not only do we not see Jesus coming with preconceived notions, but we also see that people come with preconceived notions or whatever. Like, for example, a couple of years ago, I taught on John 9 on this podcast. And when Jesus healed the man that was blind from birth in John 9, one of the things that the disciple says is that Jesus, who sinned this man or his parents

that he was born blind? Right. Right. And Jesus' response says it was not that this man's saying nor that his parents saying, but he was born blind so that the glory of God can. be revealed in him. So one, Jesus is one, tearing down one of the culture norms there, right? That's what they believe. They believe that people who had been born blind, it was because of their sin or their parents' sin. And Jesus is saying, that's not true. He was born blind so that the

glory of God can be revealed in him. But I love what you're saying about Jesus. And because he saw her. He didn't see a woman who had been bleeding from birth. And I think that if our ministry don't start off with us truly seeing people for people. Well, even if he did see her like that, he's God. Right. I think the problem is how she sees him needs to be, needs to be tear down so that she could receive from him. But what I'm saying is the way Jesus, yeah, I agree with that.

But what I'm saying is the way Jesus approached ministry, he saw, like he was able to do ministry correct with her. It's because he saw her. He didn't see what the people saw, right? And so that's why I love John 9 because Jesus is walking past. the synagogue and it starts off about saying Jesus saw a man that was blind from birth. He didn't see a man who was cursed. He didn't see a man, right?

He was able to see her through the lens of because he was going to God. And so we have to just focus on how can we see people, how God sees them, not how the region says that they are, that they live in. We have to see people for who they are. And then when we see people for who they are, I feel like we can minister to them effectively. I think a part of seeing people is being curious about. them about where they live. So like even practically, before I teach anywhere since I'm teaching all over the place,

not like all, but because I don't teach in one singular city, I will always have conversations with the people who invited me about the place I'm teaching in, right? Like, what are some of the things that you think need to be addressed? What are some of the belief systems that the women in this church might have? What are some of the stumbling blocks? So like in one place I might have people say

like when I went to Iowa, I was teaching at a particular church. And they were like a lot of the women here are just very comfortable because they're very wealthy, right? And so there's a sense in which they have to be shaken up to have zeal. But then there's another place that might be like, yeah, they're very curious about faith, but they don't necessarily care about faith. So that means that my message now is like I have in mind the context I'm speaking to. And I think another example was like even when you were talking to the, the young lady who was molested by somebody.

And like on the surface, it's like, oh, she worships her ancestors. But underneath, there's something that she's dealing with that's affecting the way she's viewed religion, right? And so it's like, I'm basically saying, like, we need to get underneath, like, stuff so we can stop being so superficial in our ministry. Yeah, that's good because I think it looks different. I mean, when you go into a place and speak, you can't speak to everybody individually. Right.

So you have that, you have to have a overall. All the sense of what these people believe, got it, got it, got it. But you're still inquisitive. You're still asking questions. But I think even on a one-on-one evangelism ministry level, right, I think a lot of times we have the temptation to look at somebody and try to minister to them what we think that they're at and not individualized people. And so I guess what I'm saying, even with bringing up to John 9, Jesus had an advantage

that we don't have, right? Because Jesus knew that he was born blinds of the glory. God can be real to him, right? Because he was God and man, right? And so we can't be like Jesus in that way all the way, but we can strive to be like Jesus in this sense that when we meet somebody, for example, I minister to Jehovah's Witnesses,

but one of the things that I do is I try to dignify them individually by knowing, but not assuming that what this Jehovah's Witness believe is not what the last one believe, right? And so I ask questions as if it's a whole new person and not treated them according to the religion that they hold to. For sure. Right.

And so there's a way to individualize a person, even if you have some type of preconceived notions about the worldview that they come from. I think there's a sense. So I'm just about to bracket it. I think there's a curiosity from a general sense. Yes. So what is the religion? What is the region?

What are some of the socioeconomic, you know, context? And then there's a more specific kind of. ministry, especially if it's like a small group or a one-on-one, how did you grow up? What kind of parents did you have? What are some of the fears that? And obviously, this is very much dependent on the degree of the relationship, right? Because that's a bit inappropriate to be in Starbucks. Me like, yeah, so tell me how you grew up, right? Does you know your dad? But I think what I'm, I think sometimes we could say, oh, that's a sinner. This center needs the gospel. Contextualization says,

this person is also an image bearer with a very unique story, history, and view. How can I apply the gospel to them? So the gospel doesn't change. It's just the way I apply it shifts. That's good. That's a really good distinction. Yeah. Yeah.

That's good. So just be curious. Ask more questions. I think I said this in our gospel conversation, which is I think curiosity just, it's a, it's a form of hospitality. That's good. Yeah. It's a way to serve people where they are.

You know what I'm saying? Because like you might have someone who is gay, right? And you're like, oh, I'm just going to give them Romans 1 in Leviticus 18. Sure. They need that too. Yeah. But what if there is a bigger thing that's underneath all of it, which is that they need to be reminded of Christ's lordship over their body?

Yeah. Like what if that's the strategy rather than the, you know what I'm saying? And so asking good questions helps us to understand. and what they actually need. Being discerning, reading books, all of that. Jesus answers the lady. He says, if you knew the gift of God and who it is that is saying to you, give me a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.

Jesus, first of all, that's a weird response. You don't realize how weird his responses be? Yeah, yeah, because if I was her, I'd be like, huh? It's like, what are you talking about? What are you saying? Like, why did you have to say that? You didn't have to say that. You could just say, hey, I'm Jesus.

If you knew, like, the parabolic response is crazy. I feel like we, we, we read into a lot of texts. Like, we interpret tone or how things are said a lot. But I feel like with this particular text, I feel like it's done. Like, because I've heard people preach it like, he said, if you knew who I was, you will give me a drink. And I'm like, I don't know if Jesus was talking like Samuel O. Jackson right here. I think he probably was a little

a little more gentle. Like God. Right. Yeah. Like a father. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? So I feel like with other,

even other sentences and other situations in that text, I feel like we kind of read into it. Yeah. What's deep is Jesus is beginning, beginning to poke at her blindness. Because she begins by saying, how is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, right? So she recognizes him on a superficial level. Like she recognizes his ethnicity, his gender.

But now he's saying, if you knew who you were talking to, you would have asked me a different question, right? Yeah. And so there's a sense in which ministry is presenting the whole Jesus so that people go to him for what they need and not what they think they want. That's good. Right. Like, if you knew who was before you, you wouldn't be asking me the kind of questions you

asked me. So to me, it makes sense then when you got people who are addicted to the prosperity gospel because they don't see them. Like, y'all are asking him for money, from increase, for blessing, for all it is. It's like, oh, you don't see that he's bigger than that. Yeah. Because you would be asking him different questions. That's good.

That's good. The woman says, sir, you ain't got nothing to draw water with. it and the well is deep. Where do you get that water? She don't get it. She don't get it yet. No, she don't. But Jesus is going to make it real clear.

She don't see it, which is fine because Jesus is very patient with her. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? Like I think sometimes in ministry, especially I learn this as a parent, you get tired of repeating yourself. You want them to understand immediately. So do you think that Jesus is saying these things? with the understanding that she might understand everything that he's saying, or is he slowly but surely trying to draw her?

I think it's a drawing. Drawing. Because I can imagine that Jesus wouldn't understand how a woman would understand him saying, if you knew who I was, you would give me a drink, right? It's like, you're a man, a Jewish man, you're sweating. because you just walked all the way here. What are you talking about? Right?

I've never in my life imagined Jesus sweating. I know he did. I just, because even on Chosen, he don't be sweating. But I'm saying, though. He was sweating when he was screaming at the Pharisees. But what I'm saying is like they like on Chosen, when they be having Jesus and the disciples walking from mouths and mouths and they don't be sweat, it's like, okay, y'all, y'all can get some little water and spray it on them so it can make a little real.

Because y'all, y'all in one of the hottest places of the world. They are. And in this particular story, Jesus walked, it wasn't around a corner. No, it was a miles. It was miles. He walked miles. And so not only did he choose to come and dwell on his own creation, but he chose to walk to people. Yes.

He didn't even find a camel. My God. To go to this woman, right? He went early in the morning. Somebody say inconvenient ministry. Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He went, not went early in the morning.

He went in the evening, right? Yeah, it was around noon. Right? Because that's at a time where the Samaritan woman would go because nobody was at the well. Right. And so if it was evening, the sun was at his hottest. Right. And so he arrived at this whale to approach her.

And he was, so he's like, man, so basically you're trying to tell me that you're God and you're sweating. Shut up. The point is, is that I. I think Jesus is doing to her what conversion has looked like for most of us. That's good. Break that down. Jesus has always been drawing me, right? Like he was always planting seeds through this situation or through this conversation or through this conversation or through that message from my auntie or whatever.

And it wasn't until October 2008, 19 years later that I responded by the power of his spirit. And so I think that I think that's just how he moves is that it's just a it's a great it's never overnight. It's always a gradual drawing. And so I think how we how that kind of tempers us in ministry, it says don't get weary and well doing. Yeah. Right. Like when it comes to your children, when it comes to your disciples, keep planting the seed because it's ultimately God who waters it and brings it. You know what I'm saying?

It's his work. and it's his work in his time. Yeah. Like the Lord was building a testimony in my life by allowing, like he was planting the seeds, but he was allowing it to get to a point where he could use everything that I went through before I was converted. Yeah. Right.

And so there's even a story that God is often building in people's lives as we pray and as we plant seeds. That's good. So I think what Jesus is essentially doing is he's teaching us how to do ministry by lowering people. Patients. Patience, lowering people. But he's also being wise and how he acts. He's asking her.

strategic questions because he's luring her, right? I think about when I go fishing. When I fish, I throw the bait in the water. And sometimes I have like a fake fish. And what I'm doing is I might cast out in the water three or four times knowing that fish will see this fish in the water and I'm lowering fish to my hook, right? And I think a lot of times people try to frotic fish before they catch it, right? Which means they want to just give somebody like the hammer them hit.

over the head with the gospel. And it's like, no, you didn't do no luring. Yeah, yeah. You didn't, you didn't make anything attractive, right? And so when you fish, you have to make things attractive in the water for the fish to even bite it. And so the reason why this woman is even engaging in conversation with Jesus is because he's asking her and he's saying very intriguing things.

He really is. What do you mean? You know what I mean? And so like, Jesus is teaching us how to do ministry, which is dope. Yeah. She says, sir, you have nothing to draw water with and the well is the, where do you get that living water. Are you greater than our father, Jacob? Plot twist. He is. He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons in his livestock. Verse 13, Jesus said to her, everyone, everyone,

universally, who drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welding up to eternal life. The woman said to him, sir, give me this water so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to. to draw water again. Listen, she still don't get it. She's still, she's like,

oh, okay, you got an endless supply of water. And what she's hearing is that Jesus has come to make her life easier. Which is given

2024 the Neo-Prosperity gospel, which is that Jesus is here so that you don't have to work. That's not, that's not what he's saying. He's not saying, I've come so you don't have to work.

He's saying, I've come to satisfy your thirst. That's a completely different invitation that he's offering her. That's good. That's good. Now, Jesus hits her with the boom bat that everybody loves to preach. Jesus said to her, go call your husband and come here. How have you heard that portion taught typically? Where he said, go call your husband.

She like, sir, I ain't got no husband. He's like, yeah, I know. You don't have five. And the one you would now ain't even your husband. How have you? Yeah, I've heard that pre-year. preached as if she's a whore or maybe a

prostitute you know like she is promiscuous for the most part and so like man like Jesus is calling her to repent of

how many men she has been with what's funny is when I was reading commentaries on this passage that was a very predominant assumption Yeah, yeah. And I say assumption because that's not in the text.

Yeah, yeah. The text don't call her a prostitute. The text don't call her a whore. The text says that she had five husbands. So she was in a covenant relationship with these men. That's one. Two, the text doesn't tell us why she had five husbands. It's possible that the husbands died.

It was common back in those times that people did not live long lives. This ain't Methusel of them. You know what I'm saying? This is a regular decade when Jesus was around. They lived in 78 years. So, like, it's possible that she was widowed, right? Yeah. And so I think taking this text to just point out, oh, let me say this way, I think I understand

looking at this text and saying Jesus is drawing attention to her sinfulness as a way to call her to repentance. I think that can be true on one level. Yeah. But I also think that when you read through the narrative of John, you see that Jesus actually does this in other places too. So this isn't a new thing, for example. In the earlier book of John, you see that Jesus, he sees Nathaniel and he says, hey, Nathaniel, you are an Israelite in whom there is no deceit. He's like, hey, how do you know about me? He was like, when you were

under the fig tree, I saw you. The thing is, Jesus wasn't by the fig tree. He had supernatural, divine insight of this man because he was God. And another place you have where there's all these invalids and sick people around the pool of Bethesda. And it says that Jesus, looking at this one man who had been there for a long time and he kept trying to jump in the water and they kept getting in before him. Jesus was like, he knew that he had been there a long time. Nobody told him that he had been there a long time. But because he's God, he had divine insight of his situation.

So what's ultimately happening is that Jesus is exposing the amount of women she had to expose himself. Yeah. He is trying to show her that I am not just a Jew. I am not just a male. I am actually God in the flesh who knows everything about you. Yeah, that's what's happening. That's good.

That's a good distinction because I think a lot of times when Jesus is saying something to someone like that, like, where's your husband? I know your husband is like, because you have five. The first thing that we can think about is her. We put way more attention into God trying to bust her out or put her on front street. Then we do. No, God is saying that because he's trying to reveal who he. This is revelation.

Right. Because even the book of John, towards the end of John, John chapter 20 or 21, I think, John gives us the mission statement of his book. That's good. And he says, these are written so that you would know that the Christ, Jesus is the Messiah. So the whole thrust of John is to show you who Jesus really is. And so when we get the John chapter four, that, the whole thrust of John,

that's submitted to that, which is like Jesus is revealing himself. And remember, she don't know who she talking to. And she doesn't have the means by which she can know who she's talking to unless God reveals himself. That's what conversion is. That's the reason why I love, yeah, that's good. And I never, when I heard you teach on this, I didn't hear you say that. But that's good because that's the reason why the Book of John is literally my favorite

gospel because the other three gospels are called the synoptic gospel because they're so similar. They're not revealing God's nature in that way. But Jesus is in every text from even in the beginning. In the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God. From the onset, Jesus is trying to reveal his nature. And so when Jesus is talking, because if we understand the context of why John wrote the book of John, we would then read, we won't read into Jesus trying to call her a whore, but more so Jesus trying to reveal, no, his nature to us. Right.

So that's good. Because applying this to ministry now, it isn't to say that we don't address sin, right? We do address sin. We do if there is sin in the situation. Like, because we don't necessarily see sin in this text. It's an assumption. If there is some sin, it's the fact that she's living with somebody that she's not married to, which might be implying fornication. Right.

but we address sin or leverage sin to point people to Jesus. So we don't just call out sin just to do it. We call out sin so that people can see that this sin is indicative of their need for God. For example, if we have a young lady who is moving like her who got all these men, you know what I'm saying, like it's like what's happening is the men, that's just a, that's just a people often will talk to women at wells and just deal with the fact that they've had all these men on their roster, but not deal with the underlying thirst that the men actually points to. And so if we're dealing with the underlying thirst, it means, oh, like, let me, let me address

that so I can show you Jesus. That's good. I have to talk about the golden calves so I can point you to the living God. Like that's, that's the point of ministry. So I don't want to just talk about, oh, she's a horse. She's just that, okay, but what are we going to give her Jesus? or we're just going to talk about how many people did she been with. Yeah, that's good. That's good. You're teaching.

What we got next? We almost never. Stop it. Jesus says, you have had five husbands and the one you have is now, not your husband. What you have said is true.

The woman says, sir, I receive that you are a prophet. So her revelation is growing. She's like, okay, she's a light bulb doing all. Jewish. Now, when you were telling me you drink a water, okay, okay, sir. When when you start talking about the Pacific number of men I've been with,

you might be somebody. So Jewish male now he's a prophet. We're getting close to God status. She's like, you know Greg and all that I've been with? You know all that you know things you were supposed to know. Oh, you know I have five of him. My God. She said our fathers worshipped on this mountain that you say that in Jerusalem is a place

where people are to worship. We don't got to go through that. Jesus begins to say like basically the time is coming where people will not worship. on this mountain on that mountain, but like we will worship the Father in spirit and truth. But Jesus is ultimately saying that, you know, y'all have been living in a time

where y'all got to go somewhere to worship. Y'all got to go to a temple, y'all got to go to a city. But now you're not going to go to a place. You're going to go to a person. Like the worship of God now is going to be, like Jesus becomes central to the worship of the Father.

That's good. And this happens by way of the living waters that he's promising, which is the infilling of the Spirit of God. I need people to recognize that Jesus is teaching an entire seminary class to this lady. Like he is downloading things on her that he ain't downloaded on nobody else up until this point. The disciples come back. They say all this type of stuff.

Verse 24, God is Spirit and those who worship Him must worship him in spirit and truth. The woman said to him, I know that Christ, Messiah, remember the main point of John. remember it all these things are written so that you would know that jesus is the christ the messiah i know that messiah is coming he who is called christ when he comes he will tell us all things here goes verse 26 jesus said to her i who speak to you am he this is beautiful like let me i got to read something because I don't think I don't think y'all not excited enough of me. John chapter one in the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God. He was in the beginning with God.

All things were made through him and without him was not anything made that was made. And him was life and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it. And this word, verse 14, became flesh and dwelt among us and we have seen his glory. Glory as of the only son from the father, full of grace and truth. Then we go to chapter four. It is a woman at a well by herself who to have five husbands. And is now with somebody that she ain't even married to.

And this God who was in the beginning, who made everything, is presenting himself to her and says, you know what? I'm the Christ. That's good. My goodness. That's really good. Yeah. Is that not exciting? Am I the only one?

No, no, I've heard you teach this a bunch of times, but yeah, no, no, no, no, it's exciting. Because what do you suppose God did when he saved you? When he came to Chicago to this little black broke boy. Hey, why I got to be all the beast. You are black and you were broke. It's past tense. Oh my goodness gracious. When he came to this black broke Chicago boy who was sleeping.

Well, all of these women just, hey, man. No, listen, you were thirsty. You were thirsty. You didn't know where to go. And God revealed himself in your room as the Christ and filled you with His Holy Spirit. And now you out here like, yeah, I know him. You know him. Yeah.

You know God. We praise God on today. No, but I think, I think from me, a lot of people always say, you know him. A lot of people always ask me, why do I teach about the deity of Jesus so much? And I always teach about Jesus being God. I even had Christians say, Preston, like, you did podcasts about it, you do rills about it, you done poems about it, like you have merch about it. Because for me, when I was trying to find out who God was and I was thinking about, you know,

should I get my life to this Jesus, understanding that Jesus was not just a man that God sent into the world to show me how to be a good teacher or a good moral leader and all of these other religions who say that, you know, he's a prophet or he's a, or he's a good teacher or he's Michael the archangel. But no, when I understood that he's God, right, that he's authoritative, right? And because he's God, everything that he came to do on the earth, right, I can trust in it because he wasn't just a man. And so the fact that God step off of his throne and reveal, build himself to his creation and that same God has made himself known to me. Yes.

I was like, man, I can't worship any other God except this God. Yes. Because no other God stepped off of his throne. Yes. Buddha can't say that. The Jehovah's Witnesses can't say that. The Muslims can't say that. And so the fact that God not only die for her, but God met her.

Yes. God walked to her. Right. And it's just indicative to how if you belong to Jesus, even today, that's how God, that's what God did to us. That's exactly what it is. came and met us. He didn't send somebody. He himself came. Because we have

the assumption that we saw God because we worked hard enough. Because we grew up in church. Because we read the Bible. Because we know theology. Because we're good thinkers. This is divine revelation. The Bible says in 2nd, Corinthians 4, the enemy

has blinded the minds of unbelievers so they cannot see the light of the glory that is in the face of Jesus Christ. But it is God who said let there be light. That means that we are dependent on divine revelation for us to even see Jesus as he is. And so this is a grace and a mercy. Like Jesus is doing this to a woman and to a Samaritan who has had all of these people that we want to talk about. She was a whole. But guess what? God set this lady on mission. Yeah. Because as soon as he

reveals himself, what happens? She became an evangelist. It says that the water, the lady left her water jar. She didn't even leave with the thing that she came with. Hello. So the woman. So the woman and left her water jar and went away into town and said to people, come see a man who told me all that I ever did. Can this be the Christ? Mind you, ministry. She's just learned that Jesus has living water. She's just learned that all of like worship will center on Jesus like, oh, we ain't got to go Jerusalem no more. We ain't got to do it. She don't learn everything. She ain't say none of that. She, she, one, I think, it's too much to understand their, let alone communicate.

But the way Jesus started with her was simple. Come give me a drink or give me a drink. The way she begins her ministry to him is simple. Come and see. Because she recognizes that even if I don't know all the things, I know him now. So if I just give people him, they're going to learn everything they need to know. So you could go to seminary if God's called you to it, but you don't have to know all 66 books of the Bible to be faithful. That's the reason why the old saints are so effective because they didn't know how to break down presuppositional apologetics.

They didn't know how to explain propitiation. They knew how to point you. For sure. To Jesus, right? And so that's why they were so effective. Yes. That's why their ministries were so effective because they knew how to do what she did. Yeah.

It's like, what do you know about him today? Yeah. You know that he's faithful. You know that he's savior. You know that he's king. You know that he's good. you know that he's Lord. Whatever you know today share that.

That doesn't mean you don't grow. That doesn't mean you don't study. That doesn't mean you don't work to study to show yourself approved and handle the word of God rightly. But it does mean that sometimes we set these highest standards for ourselves in ministry. Whereas I have to know more than I know to be a fit or effective. And that's not true. She just got introduced to the man.

Yeah. And she says, come and see. I don't met the Christ. And what happens? I'll read it. I feel like I'm the only one excited in this room about this text. It says, verse 39, this, I told people at glory, this needs to be the mission statement of our ministry.

Verse 39, many Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman's testimony. He told me all that I ever did. And many more, let me fast for it. Verse 42. And they said to the woman, you know what, it's no longer because of what you said. that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we now know that this is indeed the Savior, the Messiah of the world. That's the whole point of ministry.

Yeah. Is that people won't just believe because we said it, or because we were good communicators. They have to see for themselves. Or because we had a podcast or because we was on YouTube or because we did a really good. Like we want people, like push people to Jesus and then they will believe because they saw him. That's good. That's good.

That's the point. That's the goal. Good job, Jackie. could tell you really sat with their text. I got stirred up and I just... Hey, I mean, I just... We appreciate your passion. Be shaw.

Bye. With the Parish is produced by the Parys with support from Amanda Reed and Channing McBride, video recording and audio production by Kim Powell, Abashai Perez, and Xavier Fairley, edited by the team at Tread Lively, artwork by Hop and Music by Swoop. Thank you for listening.

Now go with God.