May 24, 2020, Psalms 74, John 4

Happy Sunday

I hope that your day is filled with beautiful ideas, thoughts, and deeds.

Psalms 74

A Maskil of Asaph

O God, Why have you rejected us forever?

Why does your anger smolder against the deep of your pasture?

Remember the nation you purchased long ago, 

the people of your inheritance, 

whom you redeemed---

Mount Zion, where you dwelt. 

Turn your steps toward these everlasting ruins, 

all this destruction the enemy has brought on the sanctuary. 

Your foes roared in the place where you met with us; 

they set up their standards as signs.
they behaved like men wielding axes to cut through a thicket of trees. 

They smashed all the carved paneling with their axes and hatchets.

They burned your sanctuary to the ground;

they defiled the dwelling place of your Name. 

They said in their  hearts, We will crush them completely. 

They burned every place where God was worshiped in the land. 

We are given no signs from God, 

no prophets are left, 

and none of us knows how long this will be.
How long will the enemy mock you, God?

Will the foe revile your name forever?

Why do you hold back your hand, 

your right hand?

Take it from the folds of your garment and destroy them!

But God is my king from long ago; 

he brings salvation on the earth. 

It was you split open the sea by your power; 

you broke the heads of the monster in the waters.
It was you who crushed the heads of Leviathan 

and gave it as food to the creatures of the desert. 

It was you who opened up springs and streams; 

you dried up the ever-flowing rivers. 

The day is yours, and yours also the night;

you established the sun and moon. 

It was you who set all the boundaries of the earth;

you made both summer and winter.
Remember how the enemy has mocked you, Lord, 

how foolish people have reviled your name.
Do not hand over the life of your dove to wild beasts;

do not forget the lives of your afflicted people forever.
Have regard for your covenant, because haunts of 

violence fill the dark places of the land. Do not 

Let the oppressed retreat in disgrace; 

may the poor and needy praise your name. 

Rise up, O God, and defend your cause; 

remember how fools mock you all day long. 

Do not ignore the clamor of your adversaries, 

the uproar of your enemies, which rises continually. 

John 4 

Jesus Talks With a Samaritan Women 

Now Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard that he was gaining and baptizing more disciples than John-although it was not Jesus who baptized, but his disciples. So he left Judea and went back once more to Galilee. 

Now he had to go through Samaria. So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacobs well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about noon. 

When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, "Will you give me a drink? (His disciples had gone into town to buy food.) The Samaritan woman said to him, "You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink? (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.) 

Jesus answered her, "If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water." 

Sir, the woman said, you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? Are you greater than our Father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and livestock?

Jesus answered, "Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life. 

The woman said to him, "Sir give me this water so that I wont get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water. 

He told her, "Go, call your husband and come back." 

I have no husband," she replied. 

Jesus said to her, "You are right when you say you have no husband. The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you have now is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true." 

"Sir," the woman said, "I see that you are a prophet. Our ancestors worshiped on the mountains, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is Jerusalem. 

"Woman," Jesus replied, "believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You Samaritans worship that you do not know, we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. Yet a time is coming and has now com when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is Spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth. 

The woman said, " I know that Messiah (called Christ) is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us. 

Then Jesus declared, "I, the one speaking to you--I am he." 

The Disciples Rejoin Jesus

Just then his disciples returned and were surprise to find him talking with a woman. But no one asked, "What do you want?  or why are you talking with her?" 

Then, leaving her water jar, the woman went back to the town and said to the people, Come, see a man who told me everything  I ever did. Could this be the Messiah? They came out of the town and made their way toward him. 

Meanwhile his disciples urged him, Rabbi, eat something. But he said to them, "I have food to eat that you know nothing about" 

To

Then his disciples said to each other, "Could someone have brought him food?"

My food, said Jesus, "is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work. Don't you have a saying, "its still four months till harvest? I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! Thy are ripe for harvest. Even now the one who reaps draws a wage and harvests a crop for eternal life, so that the sower and the reaper may be glad together. Thus the saying, One sows and another reaps is true. I sent you to reap what you have not worked for. Others have done the hard work, and you have reaped the benefits of their labor. 

Women have changed since Eve......

Eve basically helped the Devil get the man to do what God did not want them to do. 

She did not ask her husband...

She ate it, and she took the fruit and gave it to her husband. In these passages Jesus supports the woman. Throughout the New Testament he really supports them. They love him and seek forgiveness and they express themselves differently at times. One woman used her hair. She had a bad reputation but God did not act like the Pharisees he allowed her to anoint him. I really love how Jesus builds bridges and makes connections among people in order to bring people together. She was not only a Samaritan she was a woman. 

He also tells her God is a Spirit. 
He is not limited to male or female (mental states) (or ideas about each other), Jew or Samaritan division; but he is deeper than that well. He is deeper than man. 

God sees deep within us, she tells everyone I met a man who told everything about me. (she met a man but he didn't act like regular men) 

He also does not condemn her for having five husbands. We can assume a lot about a woman who has been married five times.  Maybe she married five bad men, or maybe these men divorced her. The Lord says the fifth one is not her husband either so my guess is that relationship would not work either. (She knows what he says is true and most importantly she believes what he is saying, and how could he know so many intimate things about her). 

 Maybe she was searching for what some woman look for...... fulfillment in a relationship but it's a false belief.


With Jesus a woman can be a good influence.

Many Samaritans Believe

Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman's testimony, "He told me everything I ever did. So when the Samaritans came to him, they urged him to stay with them, and he stayed two days. And because of his words many more became believers. 

Then they said to the woman, "We no longer believe just because of what you said; now we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this man really is the savior of the world. 

Have a great day!