Intro

We are in Jesus’s last moments with his disciples. Today we will be remembering some of the things Jesus told the disciples (at least in the last moments with them) to face the world and spread the gospel and do the work of ministry.

This portion is important to us as it is easy to lose perspective and to forget the truths we should be tightly grabbed to.

So, let’s read the whole portion first

¹ “These things I have spoken to you, that you should not be made to stumble. ² They will put you out of the synagogues; yes, the time is coming that whoever kills you will think that he offers God service. ³ And these things they will do to you because they have not known the Father nor Me. ⁴ But these things I have told you, that when the time comes, you may remember that I told you of them.

To study this portion, I want to switch the order of our verses to make the point of what we should expect in this world first and what we should be reminded of every time as the disciples were.

They Have Not Known (John 16:2-3)

² They will put you out of the synagogues; yes, the time is coming that whoever kills you will think that he offers God service. ³ And these things they will do to you because they have not known the Father nor Me.

Jesus warned His disciples of coming opposition because He did not want them to be surprised and stumbled by it. Jesus knew the hearts of the pharisees, and teachers and He knew that His gospel was (and is) contrary to the norm. If Jesus was rejected by them, the disciples should expect exactly the same.

He also did not expect that His disciples would immediately leave them. They would be forced out of the synagogues because the gospel of Christ. Again, Jesus knew they would reject them, but they should endure and not stumble or get discouraged.

If you remember, Matthew 10:21-23, Jesus knew He would cause division.

²¹ “Now brother will deliver up brother to death, and a father his child; and children will rise up against parents and cause them to be put to death. ²² And you will be hated by all for My name’s sake. But he who endures to the end will be saved. ²³ When they persecute you in this city, flee to another. For assuredly, I say to you, you will not have gone through the cities of Israel before the Son of Man comes.

Now, we can read: The time is coming that whoever kills you will think that he offers God service: As people didn’t want to know Christ, therefore, to really know God, they would think that they were serving God. At the end they were serving themselves and their own idols.

The time is coming. Andthat time came quickly for the disciples, wasn’t it? Remember our very best friend Paul, known before as Saul of Tarsus? He had a little campaign against christians. He and the Jews had a sport of hunting them down. We know the story. And later the whole Roman Empire did the same with awful pictures described in the bible and history books.

In this context Jesus was talking about the Jews since then there have been many who persecute and kill the true followers of Jesus because they think God is pleased by that.

They thought they were: Offers God service

“The word Jesus uses for service is lateria, which is the normal word for the service that a priest rendered at the altar in the Temple of God and is the standard word for religious service.” (Barclay)

We cannot say anything or condemn the Jews. In fact, through most of history, most Christian martyrs were targets of those from other religions or even sects within Christendom. It is not just a one time and one people only. The history is repeated every time and everywhere there’s lacking a true knowledge of Christ.

The problem here, my friends, is the heart. We cannot serve God without knowing Him. No matter what you do, if you do something without knowing God your performing religious service and most likely, you are promoting a god that doesn’t exist and performing idolatry.

And these things they will do to you because they have not known the Father nor Me.

We ought to know God and love Him with all our hearts. Ignorance about God is the root cause of all human problems. We are by nature sinners and without God and an appropriate knowledge of Him we will be the same as the world.

Before even pretending to do something, our heart must be the Lord’s. The world doesn’t know God, but we as Christians, we should know Him. He wants our hearts, and the Lord wants us to know Him. He already knows us, but we can’t even think we know Him if we don’t read our bible and are not in prayer.

Remember: The world won’t change! It is time that the Christian start believing and living out the truth of the Word of God instead to this world’s truth. This world is not our HOME! That is true all the time and not just when we face adversity or circumstances that are contrary to our interests (political, financial, personal…). We must STOP trying to make the earth our heaven! The world we live in will be destroyed at the end. Our goal should be instead:

• Watching for the soon return of the Lord

• Working on our own heart and lives

• Witnessing to everyone we meet of the hope we have, taking as many people as possible with us OUT this world.

These Things (John 16:1)

Coming back to our matter here, now we can start talking about the things Jesus told them. To do so, we need to go back to the immediate passage.

But first: “These things I have spoken to you, that you should not be made to stumble. 

This word stumble we can think is just to make you trip and fall, but is wider than this:

Skandalizō: to put a stumbling block or impediment in the way, upon which another may trip and fall. To offend. To cause a person to begin to distrust and desert one whom he ought to trust and obey.

And the form mentioned here is: Skandalon that is not a stumbling-block which might trip you up. It is used of the spring of a trap which might ‘go off’ when you were least expecting it. It us the movable stick or trigger of a trap, a trap stick, a trap, snare. Like the cartoons, remember? It can kill you.

So now, knowing that we should not stumble we need to remember Jesus’s words as the disciples did.

First if we go to chapter 15, He just told them that the world will hate them. And when we read further back, we find the same phrase:

““These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be full.”
John 15:11 NKJV

I think we should go further back then. I will start reading some verses on chapter 14. We will find part of the conversation Jesus had the disciples in the last gathering they had before Jesus’s arrest. I encourage you to read these chapters and the whole book.

– The way. The Key
“Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.” John 14:6  

-You Know the Father, You Know the Son
““If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also; and from now on you know Him and have seen Him.”” John 14:7  

-Stay in His will. Pray in His Will
“And whatever you ask in My name, that I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son.” John 14:13

-Obedience Over Sacrifices
““If you love Me, keep My commandments. And I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may abide with you forever— the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him; but you know Him, for He dwells with you and will be in you. I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you.” John 14:15-18  

-Keeping His Word
“Jesus answered and said to him, “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him.” John 14:23

-The Helper, The Comforter
“But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you.” John 14:26  

-Peace Out of This World
“Peace I leave with you, my peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid. You have heard Me say to you, ‘I am going away and coming back to you.’ If you loved Me, you would rejoice because I said, ‘I am going to the Father,’ for My Father is greater than I.” John 14:27-28

Now in chapter 15:

-Abide in Him

“You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you. Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me.” John 15:3-4  

-Jesus is Our Friend
“You are My friends if you do whatever I command you. No longer do I call you servants, for a servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I heard from My Father I have made known to you.” John 15:14-15

-The World Hates Jesus
““If the world hates you, you know that it hated Me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love its own. Yet because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.” John 15:18-19  

-The Helper is with Us

““But when the Helper comes, whom I shall send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, He will testify of Me. And you also will bear witness, because you have been with Me from the beginning.” John 15:26-27

Having What We Need When We Need It (John 16:4)

⁴ But these things I have told you, that when the time comes, you may remember that I told you of them.

When the time comes, you may remember that I told you of them: Jesus did well to warn, because it comes as a great shock that a gospel so glorious is hated so widely. He did not tell His disciples these things at the beginning, but He certainly told them.

“During the earlier part of His ministry Jesus had spoken comparatively little to His disciples about the persecution which awaited them, because He had been in their company, and as long as He was with them the world’s hatred must inevitably be drawn to Himself.” (Tasker)

“While He was with them, they leant upon Him and could not apprehend a time of weakness and persecution.” (Dods)

They knew already and they grabbed tightly to Jesus’s words.

They were going to have to accept Christ’s words to them as true despite their own understanding and experience. Friends, life is a choice; we can not change our circumstances but we do have a choice in how we are going to react to them. We can react in panic or in peace; it’s our choice!

So often, our failure is due to our distrust of Jesus’ words to us! If we would only trust and obey His words, how much more peace would fill our day?!

Brothers and sisters, we can only grow closer to Him as we learn to trust His words through the storms of life!

Intro

During the last months we have been studying about warnings, false teachers, false teachings, our hope, and expectations in our life, how to be grounded in our faith… (1&2 Peter) and also about the time to come and the exhortations to the believers (Revelation) prayer, service, repentance, faith (Psalms and Colossians). We have been talking a lot about what to expect and what to avoid in this life.

And we know! There’s a lot of things going around the world, but it is our human nature the reason why we are always coming back to the things we should be away from and being away from the things we should be at.

We need to be reminded all the time. However, don’t even think that a year ago, pastor Dale, Bill and I sat together and said: “on October 2021 we will be reminding BVCC about the world and the deceitful currents because the world will be crazy”. No, we didn’t, but God ordained everything in the world and the last months teachings (verse by verse teaching) to be talking about this today. So, we cannot do nothing but to use this opportunity wisely to learn more about God and to be transformed by Him in this area.

During these days, we can see Christians and churches around the world getting mad and talking just about the current situations and they are even cursing their current circumstances.

Today we will be reminded about basic but indispensable knowledge told to us by Jesus himself. We will be looking our Christian life and the world from our own side. We discuss a lot about the things in the outside, but today we will be talking about the world from our own life’s perspective.

We need to examine our lives to see how much of the world is in us. We spend a lot of time talking about the world but sometimes we are the same.

The World Hates God (John 15:18-20)

Verse 18

The world hates God and there is nothing we can do about it. There’s no surprise about this. We can see it everywhere.

The context of this passage applies to hatred unto death. We know what happened with Christ and later with the disciples and saints through history. And even today in a lot of countries you will be killed just for saying you are Christian.

We need to understand we live in an extremely corrupt and sensual society, that could not be changed. It’s a fact. Trying to change the way the world behaves, through education, legislation, entitlements, changes to reach a Christian standard of life is not possible.

The problem comes when the world is the one that is invading our lives, our churches. If you bring a cow into the house, it won’t change the cow, but it won’t take long before you won’t recognize the house. It will smell like a cow and look like a cow bathroom. In other words, it’s more likely that the Christian and therefore the church, be more like the world and not the other way around. That’s why modern church is falling in equipping the saints. It is sad when the Christians and the church want to be accepted in the world. We start to be like the world to the point you cannot find any difference.

The world won’t change! This is the first truth that believers need to be constantly reminded of (2 Peter): There will be no reformation of this world, no amount of education or corrective reforms will spare this world (It is written). It is time that the Christian start believing and living out the truth of the Word of God instead to this world’s truth. This world is not our HOME! That is true all the time and not just when we face adversity or circumstances that are contrary to our interests (political, financial, personal…). We must STOP trying to make the earth our heaven! The world we live in will be destroyed at the end. Our goal should be instead:

• Watching for the soon return of the Lord

• Working on our own heart and lives

• Witnessing to everyone we meet of the hope we have, taking as many people as possible with us OUT this world.

However, we keep living as this is our home and as we are OK here. We think that we can change the world and we think this world will love us.

And the idea here is: we should stop worrying about the world. Be kind and loving (Yes!) witnessing others, stopping your war against the world but witnessing to everyone we meet of the hope we have in Christ; use the energy you spend fighting against the world to strength your relationship with God and your knowledge of Him. Strength your relationship with other Christians as well.

Many times (always), it is our pride and our knowledge (or what we believe to be knowledge) make us unable to be sensitive to this kind of exhortations and warnings, and we believe that we are OK as we are. Again, use that energy to strength your relationship with God and your knowledge of Him. There’s always a lot to work in our lives and we will never finish doing this until heaven, so stop trying to change the world and start changing your heart and watching your walk in this earth. When we think we are OK as we are and that we are better than others, we are lost. The more we think we are ok as we are, the more lost we are.

Jesus prayed for His disciples:

¹⁴ I have given them Your word; and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world.¹⁵ I do not pray that You should take them out of the world, but that You should keep them from the evil one.¹⁶ They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. ¹⁷ Sanctify them by Your truth. Your word is truth. ¹⁸ As You sent Me into the world, I also have sent them into the world.

John 17:14-18

Verse 19

Friendship with God results in enduring the world’s hatred. What means: being friends with the world is to be God’s enemy (James 4:4). (Walvoord)

A believer, having left the kingdom of darkness and having been transferred into the God’s kingdom, has a different joy, purpose, hope, and love. He now has certainty, truth, and a standard for life. Christians have been chosen out of the world system by Christ and they now belong to Him. Since they do not belong to the world the world hates them. (Walvoord)

For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

Mathew 6:21

We are looking know for the eternal matters.

The more comfortable we are in the world, the more like the world we become.

Verse 20

A servant is not greater than his master.

Previously Jesus used this phrase referring to their need to imitate His humble service. But the principle has other application here. Christians are to identify so closely with Jesus that they share in His sufferings (persecution). The positive side: some people followed and obeyed Jesus’ teaching, so they also responded to the apostle’s message. The root cause of the world’s hatred against the disciples is their identification with Jesus. They hate Jesus because they are ignorant of God, the One who sent Him. (Walvoord)

Imperfect Excuse (John 15:21-25)

Verse 21

First: don’t take it personal. We are not that important. It is not about us. They hate us because Christ. They hate God. Why?

“They do not know Him who sent Me.” 

Ignorance about God is the root cause of all human problems. We are by nature sinners and without God and an appropriate knowledge of Him we will be the same as the world.

Before even pretending to do something, our heart must be the Lord’s. The world doesn’t know God, but we as Christians, we should know Him. He wants our hearts, and the Lord wants us to know Him. He already knows us, but we can’t even think we know Him if we don’t read our bible and are not in prayer.

A knowledge of God leads us to submission to Him in praise and worship. We can understand better (with all our limitations. Never fully understand) about His majesty, power, love, mercy, and grace. Our life will be His (as it is anyway). We are going to understand the fear of the Lord as that sense of authority, supremacy, and holiness that He has, where we recognize that He is Holy, Perfect, Sovereign, King, Lord, Savior ..That’s why we can see things differently. Our hope is in God. This perfect God.

The more I know Him, the more I love Him. The more I love Him the more I obey Him. The more I obey Him, the more I know him. Repeat.

Our devotion to God is this rational cult to Him. We have a relationship with Him in the light of the scriptures. We talk to Him also in our prayers.They must go together: The more I know Him, the more I want to talk to Him, the more I talk to Him, the more I want to know him. The more I talk to Him, the more I want to hear.

Why the world hates God? Because the world love sin, it doesn’t know other way as they don’t know God. Is full of evil and the wicked person wants to do what pleases him.

The immorality, the violence, the lies, the perversity, and sexual depravation are examples of the wicked life of the world.

Verse 22-25

They would have no sin

Jesus was talking about the world doesn’t know Him, so now He is saying that they don’t have any excuse. He came so they can’t even try to plead ignorance.

But now that the Light has come, those who willfully reject it have no excuse. (Walvoord)

15:24-25. These two verses amplify the thought in verses 22-23. Jesus’ miracles were so distinctive that the fact of His identity was unmistakable. The nation thought it was serving God in rejecting Jesus but in reality it was serving Satan. Sin is basically irrational. Their hatred of Jesus was without any rational cause which also fits the pattern of hatred for righteous people, as seen in those who hated David (Psalms. 35:19; 69:4; 109:3). (Walvoord)

It was written. Jesus wasn’t surprised. It is written why are we surprised?

God reveals Himself to all, there is not excuse now. Recommend readingRomans 1:18-28

Testifying of Christ (John 15:26-27)

Verse 26-27

Jesus had told them that the Helper, the Holy Spirit, would continue the teaching work of Jesus (John 14:26). Here He explained that the Helper would speak of and about Jesus. (Guzik)

We have everything we need

In the face of the opposition and hatred of the world a believer might be tempted to try to escape from the world or to be silent in it. Monasticism, extreme separation, and lack of witnessing have been too common in the church’s history. Jesus encouraged His disciples by the promise of the Spirit’s work in the world. (Walvoord)

The Spirit of truth witness and you also will bear witness

The Holy Spirit He presents God’s truth to the world. The Spirit is sent from the Father, just as the Son was sent from the Father. Yet this mysterious work of the Spirit is not done in isolation from the church. The apostles were to bear witness to the facts that they came to know: You also must testify (Walvoord)

We need to deliver the gospel to the world and be light and salt. Our lives should be different! Bur, we want to look-like but not to become.

That’s why missions and evangelism are important. But we need also to witness Christ with our example.

It’s the way behave how we show the world and witness Jesus. As mature Christians, we cannot be part of sinful activities nor consent these. Is wisdom to avoid places and persons who are constantly dragging us to sin.

A transformed life produces that you hate your inherent sin that much that you repent and walk near to God. Produces accountability, produces a new way to live. We don’t miss our sin or anything from our past sinful life (now is sinful -yes-, but we have Christ now). We are born again in Christ and we need to look to the prize that is Jesus.

Our duty is to be separated of this world and seek Him only and please Him only. The separation from the world is a personal choice and we need to be intentional on it. However, we are dependent on God and need to pray to Him for strength, wisdom, examination and leading.

Following God’s commandments inevitably will make me a better witness in front of men. My heart will love my neighbor and I will be example of grace and mercy to others. I can be the best employee and my boss and co-workers will notice something different in me. The same with my family and my friends. Sometimes they won’t understand and will criticize for being obedient to God, but they will see something different. We can find examples in the Bible as Joseph, Moses, David. They were men after God’s heart, and whatsoever they did please the people; they served the people.

Or He is Lord of all my life, or He is not my Lord at all. There is no intermediate point. The problem in my life is that in some areas I think better of myself forgetting that I’m nothing. Modern Christianity and society have been told me that I’m enough and I deserve to feel good; they told me that everything is about me when everything is about Him only.

If I say I am a Christian, so let’s be Christian all the time. Not only when I am at the church. That is not what is like. I should exercise this gift from God in my private time. At home, with my family, friends, coworkers, at the supermarket, in the highway…

We are living in this world. We are not in a bubble so we should live but live differently. Be Light and Salt. It is a mistake of the church and Christians to try to be accepted by the world. If Jesus Himself was hated by the world, why we are expecting something different?

I. Intro.

It is interesting to realize that Jesus departure from Jerusalem through Judea into Samaria and finally to Galilee (the end of the earth) is the same route that Jesus will exhort his disciples to travel after receiving the Holy Spirit in Acts 1:8. But I think that the importance is not geographically important as it is relationally important and that is what will examine this morning.  

II. Vs. 1-6 The need to go

Vs. 1-6 The first six verses serve as a background to the story as John reveals three reasons for Jesus departure of Judea.

a. “When the Lord knew that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus made and baptized more disciples than John”: Notice the words, “When the Lord knew…He left…but needed to go through Samaria” The word “left” in verse 3 sheds light on one of the reasons Jesus left as it means an “intentional break or departure” a “send away or to dismiss”. Elsewhere in Greek the word is rendered “abandoned”. Jesus abandoned Judea as the Pharisees were making His popularity an issue. One of the most remarkable things about Jesus has to do with His priorities. This story happens early on in His earthly ministry as Jesus was on the verge of national popularity which had reached the Pharisees; yet Jesus takes leave of them and heads back home to Galilee. Jesus was never concerned with popularity, His only concern is for people and it was this that directed His route in life!

b. “He needed to go through Samaria”: Jesus could have taken one of three routes: Along the coast, Across the Jordan and then up through Perea, or straight through Samaria. Jews would never go through Samaria as they had a great racial hatred of the Samaritans. The Samaritans grew out of the Assyrian Captivity of the 10 northern tribes that were rejected by the Jews because they could no longer trace their ancestral heritage. When the Babylonians conquered the nation they took only the best people leaving the lower class people who inter mixed with the people brought there originally by the Assyrians. Because of this the Jews rejected them and wouldn’t allow them to worship in Jerusalem. This caused them to establish their own form of worship and they built their own temple on Mount Gerizim still based on the first five books of Moses but changing the stories making them happen on Mount Gerizim. The name “Samaritan” is what they will call Jesus in John chapter 8:48 and became a swear world. Jesus going through Samaria is more than a route taken it is a statement from Jesus against racial and religious prejudice. Jesus traveling this direction was setting a clear sign that HE came to bring people together not tear them apart.

c. “Now Jacob’s well was there. Jesus therefore, being wearied from His journey, sat thus by the well”:  Finally John takes us to the location to reveal that Jesus didn’t “need” to go through Samaria geographically nor politically, He needed to do so relationally. “He needed to go through Samaria”. Geographically it was the quickest way but not the normal way Jews would go to Galilee. The reason for Jesus NEED was because there was a woman in NEED! His need was brought about by another’s NEED.  

III. Vs. 7-15 Better water

Vs. 7 Typically young women would travel together, in the morning to get water for the day and there would have been a well close to them in Sychar but we see this woman having to come alone outside of the city in a time of day when no other person would be gathering water and she had done so for some time. We note that she is woman, not a young girl any longer but a mature woman. Her youthful foolish decisions have caught up to her, she has lived a lifestyle that now causes her to carry the burdens of her choices everyday. This suggests that this woman was an outcast among a people of outcasts; she has been shunned by people who had been shunned. It would take her an hour or more to walk alone along that dusty dirty with nothing but her thoughts. Oh how heavy those foot steps must have been. She had been through five husbands and now she is with a man not her husband. This tells us is that she has not learned from those foolish choices instead she is left carrying those choices.

As she came to this well because of her own foolish choices but this time there was someone sitting by the well of those choices, Jesus. Oh do not pass by the reality of this my friend, maybe you have come today to the well of your foolish choices that you haven’t learned from and now you aren’t young any more. Your impetuous dreams of being someone famous and important may have long ago been swallowed up by the choices you have made. Don’t get me wrong I’m not here saying that you made the choices because you just wanted to screw up your life. You didn’t sit down one day and say I think I’ll mess up my life, I think I’ll do drugs become an addict, have children outside of marriage, go to jail, but that is where you are now an outcast living outside of outcasts coming each day to the same pit to get a little something to quench the heartache. But this day Jesus is sitting at the well and He is waiting for you and what you haven’t seen is that He has been at the well everyday of your life, but this day you have seen Him. 

Jesus seeks out folks just like this woman who because of their own failings, society has deemed unworthy of attention and love. He finds them alone in life, having adapted a lifestyle around their sinful choices. Notice that Jesus gave this woman by the well the opportunity to turn Him down, He gave her that choice! It wasn’t Him that didn’t want her, it would be her choice not to want Him. Right this moment Jesus is sitting on the well of our choices giving us the opportunity to stop coming to that well that doesn’t satisfy, but it will be our choice.

One of the fascinating things in this passage of scripture is this women’s growing understanding of who Jesus is. In verse 9 she calls Him a “Jew”, then in verses 11 she is more respectful calling Him “Sir”. Next in verse 12 she asks if He is greater than the patriarch “Jacob”, in verse 19 she calls Him a “prophet” and finally in verse 25 she alludes to the fact that He is the “Messiah”. This progression all took place in a matter of minutes as she saw His heart towards her. I wonder if she ever gave Him that drink (verse 28 says that she left her water pot but it never says that she filled it) but there is an indication that she received His “living water”.

Vs. 8-10 The fact that the disciples were in town buying supplies from Samaritans shows that the Jews did have some dealings with Samaritans. His words shocked the woman as she said, “How is it that you, being a Jew, ask a drink from me, a Samaritan woman?” She had two strikes against her, one she was a woman and no respectable Rabbi would speak to a woman in public not even their own wife and she was a Samaritan and no Jew would ever drink from a cup of a Samaritan. In Matt. 8:13 Jesus said, “I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance”, so like this women by the well we all qualify. Jesus told her that she was ignorant of three things:

1. Who He is Jesus said, “If you knew the Gift of God, and who it is who says to you, Give me a drink”: She had questioned how it was that He being a Jew would ask a favor from a Samaritan woman and Jesus says, “You don’t know who I am, that is why you question Me.” This woman had been around men, she knew men, she knew what they wanted and here she has come to a well and yet another man asks for something. He had asked her for some of the water that she had to drink, but she didn’t realize that He wanted her to give to Him all that she had been drinking from the world year after year. Her response is, “What are you saying, you want to drink from my cup an outcast of outcasts?” Then Jesus said if you knew the “gift of God and who it is that says to you”. She had probably knew many men (at least six of them) that had thought they were the “gift of God”. Maybe she thought, “Oh I’ve heard that line before!”

2. What He offered “He would have given you living water”: He had asked for water from her and what He wanted was to give her that which would satisfy the longing of her heart. She had religion but she didn’t realize what He was offering as she was ignorant of both the gift and the giver. If you combine two phrases in this story in verse 7 “Give me a drink” and verse 16 “go call your husband” then I will give you living water; you realize what Jesus is trying to get this woman to do. As we give to Jesus that which can not satisfy, give to Him our sin, our substitute for Him and in so doing He will replace it with Himself.

3. How to receive it “Sir, you have nothing to draw with, and the well is deep”. Here before her was the living God offering her an exchange of her daily trip to that which never satisfied for that which if she would receive it would forever satisfy. Yet she seems to be more concerned with “where…do you get that living water” (verse 11) instead of simply asking for a drink of it.

Vs. 11-15  Jacob’s well today is around 150 feet deep; in most every other case it is Jesus who is the one giving and serving, but here in this story he invites the Samaritan woman to get Him a drink. What this demonstrated to her was that He was not against her, that He saw her as valuable. Jesus always reached people where they were at; to an aging Nicodemus He spoke of being born again, to fishermen He spoke of making them fishers of men and to this woman by a well He spoke of her about living water. She can’t seem to move beyond the physical even though she has been drinking from the physical world to satisfy what only the spiritual “Living Water” can satisfy. How many of us have lowered down our rope day after day into that pit only to find it dry? She asks, “Are you greater than our Father Jacob” and Jesus could have answered, “Let me think, I know I’m a better wrestler than Jacob, I know that Jacob liked to sleep at the bottom of my latter. Yeh, I’m greater than Jacob, you may know Jacob’s well but I know Jacob well!”  

But that is not how Jesus answered instead He went right back to her need as he said,“Whoever drinks of this water will thirst again”. He tells her that His living water is superior in three ways to what the world has been giving her:

A. Content “Whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst.” Living water is superior in that it quenches what the world can not satisfy.

B. Location And it “will become in him a fountain of water”:  The source of refreshment is from the inside so that a person will never have to seek refreshment from the outside. 

C. Duration “springing up into everlasting life”: Thirdly, Jesus says that it is superior as it will never end, she will be fulfilled forever.

Jesus has brought her to her need that the water of this world has not satisfied her and she wanted to know more. In verse 10 Jesus said it was by way of the “Gift of God”. The word “Drinks” in verse 13 in the Greek is a continual action where as Jesus says, in verse 14 speaking of the water they He shall give the word for “Drink” is a completed action a one time sip. Jesus superiority is upon what He offered when compared to what she had continually been drinking. Her twofold response is honest as she tells Jesus why she wants His water:

a. “That I may not thirst”: She is tried of living in serial relationships that never satisfy.

b. “Nor come to draw”: She tired have the outcome of her behavior as it has keep her from true companionship.    

IV. Vs. 16-26 Woman believe Me

Vs. 16-17a The only way to prepare this woman’s heart for the “Living Water” that He was offering to speak to her about her sins so she would confess her failure and this was her shortest reply in the entire conversation, “I have no husband”. Jesus asked for her husband because there is no conversion without conviction and confession.  

Jesus mentions the truth about her five husbands but doesn’t go into the sorted details; Jesus is into the gospel not into gossip! You cannot have living water unless you stop traveling to the water of this world. She came back with one of those statements we do when convicted, “None of your business”. But Jesus loved her and made her His business not to ridicule her but to rid her of that which never satisfied.

Vs. 17b-22 Jesus now needs her to move her to conviction so He brings her to her personal sin. “Your right”, Jesus tells her. “You don’t currently have a husband but you’ve had five and the one you’re with now you can’t bring yourself to trust in another person so you’re just playing house without commitment.” She tried to change the subject into theological to misdirect her need, but Jesus simply responded that worship is in the location of the heart not on the location of the body. How simple a life can be changed from emptiness if only people would trust in Jesus to satisfy the longing of the heart instead of the world.

Vs. 23-26 Then Jesus makes it personal as He says, “the hour is coming when YOU…the hour is coming and NOW is”. “The time is now and you are the person that I’ve come for”, Jesus tells her, “I’ve come to make you a true worshipper.” The well of the world was dug along ago and people have been coming to its water for far too long, why not now hear these words of Jesus to you, “I who speak to you am He”.      

Jesus says to her that, those true worshippers are those who worship in Spirit and in truth? Don’t just push it off as words spoken to an immoral woman, Jesus is still seeking out people to worship the same. Jesus spoke of “true worshippers” being balanced between the “Spirit of God and the Word of God”. It is a wonderful thing to realize that the Father is seeking those to worship Him. Perhaps you gone through a time where you feel distant from God, a time when you’ve walked away from His love for you and you don’t know how to get back, well He is seeking those that will worship so why not just start thanking Him and praising Him?

This is the first of Jesus’ I am statements and this one deals directly with Him being the Messiah. You can meet Him anywhere and everywhere if only you bring to Him that which you have been trying to medicate your life with so that He can replace it with that which heals. What did she do when Jesus said, “I who speak to you am He”? Well verse 28 says that she “left her water pot”; she left the well and the water pot for the living water. It is time for us to leave our water pots of the world and return to worshiping Jesus!

Teaching from the pulpit is intimidating by itself. And when I was praying for this message, I felt more intimidated as it will be the first time, I teach any passage on the gospels.

Normally I teach Proverbs on Wednesdays but I have the blessing to share with you guys in a Sunday (today) so I was praying as I cannot start and finish a book in one day. So, John 15 was to my heart -As you know here at Calvary Chapel we teach verse by verse, chapter by chapter, book by book-.

I had this passage in my heart and I remembered the first time I read it. My heart broke down and melted. This passage makes me worship Him even more and I want to try to explain you guys where my heart and mind goes when I read this. The whole Bible is a treasure for us and reading this kind of passages is incredible.

This study will be a verse-by-verse teaching in John 15:9-17 and we will be connecting and referencing to some passages in the same book of John. There’s a lot to say. I will try to keep it simple as possible.

The book of John is different than the other gospels. Mathew, Mark, and Luke are synoptic gospels and present similar information about Jesus’s life. John presents Christ as in a closer look with more detailed information and different events that are not present in the other 3 gospels. 

These particularities make John a very interesting book. You can read it just as an overview and get the same understanding about Christ as God, with God the Father and God the Holy Spirit. You can understand how God loved us so much and how we are redeemed by His death in the cross. It is the book that people normally recommend to new believers to study first because this. AND if you study this book deeply, you will find how John presents Christ as the fulfillment of all prophecies and the perfection of His ministry in earth. This book is amazing as all the Bible is. The whole Bible is about Jesus.

Today we are studying a segment of one of the last conversations that Jesus had with His disciples. He is close to be put to death by the Jews and Romans just hours later and He is still ministering His disciples. During this time (as in His entire life of ministry), He poured everything out. He loved us until the end. He washed the disciples’ feet (including His betrayer), He ate supper with them, He talked to them, He loved them… He was with them as He used to do. The hour was near, and He was still loving us.

And now we will jump into the conversation. We just came and Jesus is talking. The good news, you can read what He has said in the book of John.

Abide in His love (John 15:9-10)

⁹ “As the Father loved Me, I also have loved you; abide in My love. ¹⁰ If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love, just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love.

The first thing we see here: They are One.

There is just one Name that saves. There is One who is almighty. There is One who is creator. There is One who is just. There is One who is Holy. There is one who is God. 

We can do nothing outside of Him. Jesus is talking about His unity with the Father and our unity with Him. We should be one with Him.

Talking about God involves talking about His infinite love that sent His only begotten Son for our salvation.

Jesus came to save us and to show truly love. To DEMONSTRATE, to EXERCISE, to SHOW how real love looks like. He and the Father are One with Holy Spirit and, even though He decided to put aside His glorious throne to come to this Earth (to this fallen World) just to reconcile us with Him.

The infinite love of the Father towards Him and His love to the Father is revealed and shared to us by the work in the cross. At this moment Jesus’s words made less sense to the disciples as they didn’t understand yet that Christ was about to die and to resurrect later. For us in the other hand, we can see that He loved us until the end. Until death.

He loved us first now we love Him. There’s nothing like God’s love. He knows my heart. Even when I fail, I know He loves me. Being in His presence is the greatest gift I can ever receive. I surrender to Him now. I love Him now.

How is my love to God shown? With brokenness. How can I abide in His love? Obedience.

If I love Him, I will follow his commandments. It doesn’t say “If you love me you will share this on Facebook“ or ”If you love me you will put this in a bumper sticker, in a shirt, make it a tattoo…”. NO. It says: “You will follow my commandments”. To know His commandments, we have the whole Bible. No excuse.

Pay attention that says -IF you love me… You WILL follow…. You will follow because you love ME…- Our salvation, His love to us, our identity, are NOT based on the things we do (works). We love Him because He loved us, He saved us, He is Lord, He is God… and THEN (after we acknowledge all of this) we follow, we obey, we serve, we learn, we mature… Not the other way around. Sometimes people want to do and do without truly acknowledge Him.

Now, talking about God involves talking about holiness (His) and obedience (Ours).

Modern Christianity teaches that we can love God without any change in us. Without obedience without transformation, without maturity. That’s a lie. When you are really in Christ, your life will be different, and your delight will be to obey God. To love God, is to obey Him. It is a clear indication that you really love Christ. You cannot be the same. I need to die to myself and just walk to Him. I’m not saying that I won’t struggle, but I have my goal clear: Be more like Christ and less than me! I need to kill my sinful behaviors, quit to my old life, live for Him because I live because of Him. I have life because He died for me and now, I’m His.

I cannot say I love somebody if I do wrong to that person. I cannot say I love God if I still greave Him. I cannot say I love God if I love my sin more. I cannot love God without obedience. It is not just a Sunday morning thing. Come here and listen the sermon. No! I should be transformed (and be obedient) every single day. Be obedient in the little and in the greater things. I need to obey.

I have all His commandments in the Bible. How can I know His commandments if I don’t read His Word? And don’t say that you have read the Bible one or two or ten times during your life. The Word of God is alive, and we should be studying it every day until heaven. He is Holy and I am not, He is perfect, and I am not. He is God and I am not. I need Him.

Again, I cannot pretend to love Him without being transformed by Him. If I do so, I would be saying that I am enough and I don’t need Christ. The last time I checked in my Bible, there is no one good. None. Sanctification is a process that I need to walk and only with His presence and my obedience I will be able to grow. Abide in Him (John 15:4-5)

Joy and Peace OF Christ (John 15:11)

¹¹ “These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be full. 

What things? Everything He said in His Word. All His commandments. The whole counsel of God. He was talking to His disciples and these last chapters about this conversation refer to everything He spoke before during His entire life. And everything He said even before His first coming (in the Old Testament). And we have everything recorded in our Bibles. So now we know everything that He revealed in His Word and by knowing all these things will are free.

We are slaves no more. We are not slaves of fear, of death, of sin. We are free and free indeed. We have the truth, and the truth is making us free.

He is the Way, He is the Truth, and He is the Life. (John 14:1-6)

What can I desire of this world? I have everything in Christ. I am now a child of God. He rescued me and I can say it at loud. I am a child of God! And this is my joy. He made everything: He rose and conquered the grave.  Now I can walk unashamed through this life. His mercy and grace are bigger than my sin. He forgave me and gave me more than I deserved: He gave me life and ETERNAL life. He is the author of our salvation. He is the light of this world.

I can enjoy being in the Word everyday and I can have encounters with Him every time I open my Bible and every time I pray. I just surrender to my Savior. My joy, my peace, my love. My best friend (as we will see later).

He is our hope, and we are waiting for Him to come again. I can’t wait to see His glory. My soul should be waiting for Him. Worshiping adoring Him. We will be with Him. We need to start practicing now.

Everyday! Every new day I can see His hand in my life and other’s. He changes lives. He saves and transforms. There’s a lot of examples I can quote or tell but I want to talk about Jesus only. You know testimonies, you have witnessed some of them or maybe your life is one of these. Jesus changes lives and that is fact. How can I ignore this? I can do nothing but to worship Him and keep trusting in Him.

To this world, to difficulties, to fear, to despair, to evil, to nonsense… I can say: “This is not where I belong” I belong to Christ, and He is mine forever more because I am His forever more. My joy is full in Him. I don’t need anything else. His love will never fail according with His Word.

In this world you will have tribulation, but He has overcome the world (John 16:33). Do not condition your love or your trust in God according with your current situation or your feelings. No matter how big the challenge is, He is bigger, and He will never fail. That doesn’t mean that everything will be as we want, but He knows what to do and the reason why. Believe in Him. Trust and obey because who He is, not because what are you facing or experiencing or feeling. He is good no matter what, He is God no matter what. He made all! He is our joy!

If you have Christ, what are you lacking? If you don’t have Christ, what do you have? Find joy in Him. Joy is a byproduct of a right relationship with God. Joy comes because of Christ’s love and abiding in this love.

The Commandment (John 15:12-15)

¹² This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. ¹³ Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends. ¹⁴ You are My friends if you do whatever I command you. ¹⁵ No longer do I call you servants, for a servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I heard from My Father I have made known to you. 

Again: There is just one Name that saves. There is One who is almighty. There is One who is creator. There is One who is just. There is One who is Holy. There is one who is God. And that One who saves, saved me. The One who judges, justified me. The one who calls, called me. The source of infinite love loves me. He is my friend.

His love: has no beginning nor end, is close and personal, is unchanging. (Guzik)

God himself came to Earth to save us all. We were His enemies and now we are His children. God made it possible because His love. He revealed Himself in the Word and the Word became flesh to die for us.  There is no bigger love.

“I have called you friends”! I would ask: Really? The same guys that were about to deny You and betray You? The same guys that do the same things every single day today? Yes. That is why He came. To offer salvation to all.

The Lord taught and gave us all the things we need. We have Him and the Word of God. He is our friend.

We can see it through all the Bible: Jesus revealed Himself in the First Testament and later Jesus Himself taught the disciples everything we should know for living in this world and walk to/with Him. He completed all, He made this possible and now we are His friends.

Man! Wow. We cannot boast of anything. We don’t deserve it. Don’t believe if someone tells you that you do. No, we don’t deserve it. Is because His love only!

In this verse again, we can see Jesus’s relationship with the Father. They are One. He sent the comforter later, the Holy Spirit. They are One. (John 14, John 16:8)

The disciples were His friends because they were obedient. Friendship with Jesus cannot be disconnected from obedience to His Word. Friendship with Jesus cannot be disconnected from knowing His Word. Friendship with Jesus cannot be disconnected of a constant communication with Him in Prayer.

Now: They were friends because Jesus didn’t keep secrets from them, but openly revealed what He had received from God the Father. There shouldn’t be “secrets” between you and God. He knows everything anyway. So, talk to Him. Get closer to Him. He is near. He revealed everything to us through the Word, now we can come to the throne and talk to Him.

Now Jesus command us to love one another. There is no discussion here. There is not IF’s here. LOVE ONE ANOTHER. “Unity instead of enmity, trust instead of suspicion, obedience instead of selfishness must rule the disciples’ common labors.” (Tenney). God served, loved, and died. There is no greater love. That’s the measure we need to compare our love to one another.

Love one another (John 13:31-35). This world will hate you (John 15:18-19), but you love one another.

To Him The Glory (John 15:16)

¹⁶ You did not choose Me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain, that whatever you ask the Father in My name He may give you. 

We cannot boast of anything. We don’t deserve it. Don’t believe if someone tells you that you do. No, we don’t deserve it. Is because His love only!

We deserved death but He decided to make us His. Everything for His Glory and not ours. That you and I are here, is because of Him. All the Glory and the praise to Him alone. The disciples had a tremendous privilege and Jesus reminded them they cannot be proud of their calling as they didn’t earn it. Was His choice not theirs to follow Him. God is initiator, developer, finisher of all works and fruit in our lives.

And now, how do we respond to this calling?

Obedience. He commanded us to bear fruit and make disciples. Fruit in our lives and other’s lives.

His will for us is us to grow, mature and be sanctified, AND to drag others with us on the way. In Him, we will now that His will is perfect, and we can pray according to His will and be content. We can pray for strength, for wisdom, for peace, for joy. Everything in His will, not ours.

When we are truly in Christ, we will start bearing fruit. Everything is connected with our surrendering to Him. We will obey, we will love, we will grow, we will bear fruit.

THE COMMANDMENT (John 15:17)

¹⁷ These things I command you, that you love one another.

Emphasis here. It is not casualty this commandment is here again. LOVE ONE ANOTHER.