What Love Does

We have a love deficit.  Don’t get me wrong.  We love a lot of things. Most of us really love our families.  I mean, I love how my grandson Hudson loves me.  Courtney and Austin brought the boys down a couple of weeks ago, and as Hudson was walking up to the door, he was saying “Papa’s house, papa’s house.” And Courtney asked him, “Do you like to come to Papa’s house?”  And he responded with one word, “Happy!”  When I heard that it just filled my heart with love.  We love our families.  I really love my family. But that’s not all we love.  We love simple things, like a beautiful sunny day.  Thursday afternoon, Becky and I were sitting outside and talking during lunch, the sun was shining, it was just the perfect temperature, and there was a nice gentle breeze.  It was one of those perfect days.  It’s why we love living here.  We love a beautiful sunny day.  But that’s not all we love.  In fact, if I were to sit down with you, you could probably begin to rattle off all kinds of people, experiences and things you love. And we might share some of those loves in common.  Like, I love a perfectly grilled ribeye, the smell of orange blossoms in the Spring, a plot twist you never saw coming, and rolling in a 20 footer for a birdie!  There are all kinds of things I love and all kinds of things you love, BUT when it comes to loving like Jesus loves, I know I have a love deficit!  And the reason I have a love deficit, is that when I compare how I love people to how Jesus loves people, there’s really no comparison.  And my guess is that when you compare how you love people to how Jesus loves people, you come to the same conclusion.  For when we look at how Jesus loves, he doesn’t love like we love.  He loves those who don’t deserve to be loved. He loves those who’ve made a mess of their lives, and He loves those most of us would have nothing to do with.  In other words, Jesus loves the unlovable.   And yet, it his kind of love that our world needs desperately today.  That’s why we need to learn from Jesus how to love like Jesus.

So, if you brought your Bible with you this morning, let me encourage you to find John 4:1-26, where Jesus is going to show us what love does as he encounters a woman in desperate need of God’s kind of love.  So, if you’ve found John 4, we’re about to see what love does as Jesus and his disciples are making their way back home 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.  Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired from the journey, sat down by the well.  It was about the sixth hour.

John’s a master of detail.  He tells us Jesus “had to go” through Samaria.  We’re not told why.  But this is significant because Jews would avoid traveling through Samaria at all costs. You only went that way if you had to get somewhere in a hurry.  Not only that, but Jesus is tired and it’s the sixth hour, which is noon, the hottest part of the day.  Jesus had been on the road for maybe five hours, and Jacob’s well is a great place to take a break. So what happens next? When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?” (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.)

So here’s the scene: A Samaritan woman approaches the well at noon to draw water.  She is alone.  Women who live in a village like hers just don’t do this.  They avoid the heat of the day by coming early in the morning or just before sundown.  And they always go to and from the well as a group.  Yet, this woman comes ALONE to the well at noon.

But John wants us to know that Jesus is also alone.  This too is significant, for when any woman would come to a well like this, alone, the appropriate action for any Jewish man would be to get up and move at least twenty feet away so the woman could go about her business.  Jesus doesn’t do that.  Instead, Jesus breaks a BIG SOCIAL TABOO by talking to this woman.  And she is shocked by this:  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.)

She wants to know “How is it possible, that a Jewish man would even dare make such a request?” A normal Jewish man would never cross this social barrier. What gives?

Well not only has Jesus broken a sacred social taboo of the Jews by talking to a woman in a public place, but he also crosses racial, religious, historical and moral barriers.  Jews and Samaritans had hated each other for around 500 years.  One, the Jews despised Samaritans because they were a mixed race.  Back when the Assyrians took over Samaria they deported many of them and replaced them with people from all over their empire.  These people brought their own gods and practices with them, and then added to their religious shopping cart the worship of Yahweh. As a result, in Jesus’s day, Jews held Samaritans in disdain as a polluted race – polluted both racially and religiously.

But that wasn’t all. 300 years earlier the Greeks had used Samaria as a base for their control of Jewish territory.  The Jews found the occasion to retaliate by destroying the Samaritan temple on the summit of Mt Gerizim.  The Samaritans responded by penetrating the Jewish Temple a few years prior to the birth of Jesus and scattered bones of the dead across the area on the eve of Passover, thus defiling their temple and making it impossible for the Jews to keep the feast.  As a result of that defilement a Jew would not be caught dead associating with a Samaritan.  For if you did, it meant you we’re befriending an enemy. So you would never befriend a Samaritan, rather you would  hold a deep seated hatred for any Samaritan.

Now along comes Jesus, a Jewish stranger asking a question of a Samaritan woman in a public place, a woman of a despised and polluted race, a women hated by the Jews.  But there’s one more thing:  Jews believed that Samaritans were unclean from birth.  So to a Jewish man, a Samaritan woman was an inferior human being in every way imaginable.  You simply avoided a Samaritan at all costs.   So, what’s Jesus doing here?

He’s illustrating for us what love does.  What God’s kind of love does.  And what does God’s love do? Love cuts through our man-made barriers   Jesus lets nothing separate us from His love…  His love breaks through every social, racial, historical and religious barrier that we put in place that keeps us from loving one another.  Simply put, we are experts at building barriers that separate us from one another.  We make up all kinds of excuses for why it’s acceptable to avoid people: “She’s socially awkward.”  “His skin color is different.” “He’s a vile and mean-spirited person.”  “She doesn’t dress appropriately.”  “He’s a crusty curmudgeon.” “She’s an emotional basket case.”  YOU fill in the blank…  We all have our reasons for keeping people at arms length.  And we feel justified in putting up man-made barriers so we don’t have to love those who are not like us – so we don’t have to love unlovable.

But Jesus doesn’t allow man-made barriers to keep him from loving.  Here he cuts through them with a simple question: “Will you give me a drink?” Asking that question cuts through every barrier: social, racial, religious and historical.  For when Jesus asks her for a drink, he simply meets her on level ground – as a thirsty human being. He’s thirsty.  She’s thirsty.  She has access to the well.  He asks her for help.  Here at the well, there are no barriers.  Jesus ignores the walls that are supposed to separate them and treats her as an equal. By making this simple request, Jesus values her as a person – not as a hated Samaritan. That’s what love does.  Love treats people with dignity and respect.

We need this reminder every day.  Jesus loves everyone.  He judges no one.  Jesus doesn’t build barriers, he tears them down. 

Can you imagine the impact you can have if you learn to love like this?  When Jesus’ kind of love flows through you, there is no one you cannot love.  When we love like this, we impart value to people the way they are meant to be valued… as people created in the image and likeness of God.  When we love like this we impart dignity to them.  That’s the way of Jesus.  He loves with a humble love.  He looks down on no one. This is what the love of Jesus does.  And this is the kind of love our world needs.

This is where loving like Jesus begins:  To see every person you lock eyes with as someone worthy of love – no matter what their background, their race, their religion or whatever they have done. To see them as a person who has dignity and value, because they bear the image and likeness of God.  This is what love does.  Love doesn’t build barriers, it tears them down.

And when Jesus loved this way, he cut through decades of division, hatred and disdain and made a connection.  And so we read Jesus answers 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.” John 4:10

Here is the second thing love does:  Love gives more than what we are looking for.   That’s what Jesus offers the Samaritan woman.  He is speaking metaphorically, offering her “living water.” Now, this image is a little lost on us, because most of us know very little about real physical thirst. But those who lived in an arid climate like this Samaritan woman, knew a lot about it.  Because our bodies contain so much water, to be in profound thirst is to be in agony.  And then to taste water after you have been truly thirsty is about the most satisfying experience possible. So, what is Jesus saying to her is this: “I’ve got something for you that is as necessary to you spiritually as water is to you physically.  Something without which you will never be satisfied.”

But the woman doesn’t immediately grasp what Jesus is offering. She thinks Jesus is talking about the water in Jacob’s well.  You can hear her skepticism and disdain in her reply: “Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water?  Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his flocks and herds?”  John 4:11-12

Jesus answered her, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” John 4:13-14

Again, she has no idea what Jesus is talking about, because Samaritans only held to the first 5 books of the Old Testament.  But elsewhere in the OT, God is identified as “the spring of living water” as “the fountain of life” and as Isaiah wrote: “Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters.”  Which is to say: The gift Jesus offers is the abundant life of God Himself:  The cleansing, invigorating life of the Spirit of God come to live in the depths of her soul.  He’s talking about a deep soul satisfaction that doesn’t depend on circumstances outside of us.

Think of it this way: All of us have some idea of what we believe will satisfy our deepest desires. We all thirst after happiness so we drink at the well of experience thinking that good times will quench our thirst.  We all thirst after intimacy so we drink at the well of relationships, believing that being with another will fulfill our souls. Or we all thirst after significance, so we drink at the well of accomplishments or the well of performance, thinking that if we make ourselves look better, we’ll feel better about ourselves…

But the Bible tells us that everything we think might fill us actually leaves us empty: “My people have committed two sins: they have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water.”  Jeremiah 2:13

We look for soul satisfaction from created things than can never fully satisfy.  But Jesus wants to give us far more than created things.  He wants to give us the very life of God Himself to dwell within us. Jesus wants to give you a whole new life with God.

Here’s what sets the love of Jesus apart from any other love.  No other kind of love can give you a new life.  Our whole world is looking for something to satisfy the longing in their hearts, but what the world offers can never give them life.  But we can offer people far more than what they are looking for.  We can offer them a new life with God through faith in Jesus Christ.  In fact, the most loving thing you can ever do for another person is share with them the good news of God’s grace to them found in Jesus Christ.

So one of the best things you and I can ever do to love like Jesus, is to learn how to tell the story of Jesus, to communicate the grace and mercy of Jesus, and to tell how Jesus did for us what we could not do for ourselves when he gave His life for us on the cross.    For when He gave His life for us on the cross, he made it possible for us to receive this new life with God – this living water!

Now, we can see that this woman was still thinking on the physical level, and so the woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.” 

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

“I have no husband,” she replied.  John 4:15-16

Jesus said to her, “You are right when you say you have no husband. The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true.” John 4:17-18

She still did not understand the nature of the water, but she was open to something that promised to change her life.  Jesus abruptly shifted the subject from his living water to her style of living.  So, he turned the conversation to reveal his knowledge of her personal life – and her sin and shame of adultery.

You might think at first glance that Jesus is judging her.  But he’s simply telling her the truth.  Jesus is revealing to her that she needs to stop drinking at the well of relationships to find true soul satisfaction.  She needs to understand this first, and then she can receive the living water Jesus offers her.   And so, what we see in Jesus revealing her sin, he’s not judging her, but loving her.  Because that’s what love does:

Love breaks through our brokenness and sin Telling her the truth about her sin was one of the most loving things Jesus could do for her.  Until this woman understood the depth of her sin, she would continue to drink at the well of relationships.  Until this woman understood that that she had broken her relationship with God by going her own way, she would not long for the new life Jesus offers her…   Telling the truth about her sin was how Jesus’ love was able to break through her brokenness.

You see the bumper sticker Christianity that says, “God wants you to be happy just as you are” is a lie.  It’s impossible for you to be happy just as you are.  Each one of us a sinner in need of rescue.  God’s Word describes you as dead to God, alienated from Him, blind to His goodness, sin-sick, and enslaved by sin.  How happy does that sound?  It’s not fun to talk about sin.  But love, the love of Christ, never talks about sin to condemn us, but to set us free.  And that’s what we see here.  Jesus came to love her, heal her, and give her a new life.  She was drinking from a broken cistern that did not hold water.  Now, she could drink at the well of eternal life, if she turned from her sin and received what Jesus offered.

That’s why what Jesus offers is such good news to us.  Jesus speaks the truth about our sin in love, so He can rescue us and give us a life that’s so far greater than what this world offers. Jesus did not come to judge you, but to rescue you. This is what love does.

And in speaking the truth in love is often quite shocking.  It’s like ripping a band-aid off a wound.  For now, this woman realizes Jesus has seen the true nature of her heart.  Shocked by his insight into her soul, she recognizes that Jesus is no ordinary man, and so we read, “Sir,” the woman said, “I can see that you are a prophet. Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.” John 4:19-20

“Sir, if you’re so spot on about me, then who has the truth about worshiping God?  Answer me that, Prophet:  Our fathers, (Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob) they worshiped right here on this mountain, and you Jews, you claim that Jerusalem is the place to worship. Who’s right?  Sir, if you’re a man of truth prove it, because I’m more than a bit freaked out right now; because I need the truth.  I want the truth.  And if you are truly a prophet, then give me the truth.” And what an answer Jesus gives: Jesus declared, “Believe me, woman, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem.  You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. John 4:21-22

Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth.”  John 4:23-24

Can you imagine what she was hearing?  This was her life:  she spent her days shunned by the women in her village, her soul bruised and broken by the men who had discarded her and on top of that she was not allowed to worship God, neither here nor Jerusalem.  Jesus has just told her the truth about her total existence.  And so how does Jesus answer what seems to be her changing the subject?  He tells her what salvation is like!  That’s what love does.  Love awakens hope for a new kind of life.  That’s what Jesus describes here.  This woman had lived without this hope for so long.  But now Jesus tells her that the new life with God is not about what religion you embrace or what place you worship, but about a relationship of true worship with the Father.  The now a time has arrived when true worshipers can worship the Father in spirit and truth.  That’s why I have come.  What Jesus was saying is this:  Everything you have hoped for is right here in front of you:

Dignity and value as a human created by God

A whole new way of life where you can experience true soul satisfaction

And spiritual relationship with the Father who is seeking you.

And so at this moment Jesus not only offers her living water, but tells her she can experience everything her heart has ever longed for with God. And so the woman said, “I know that Messiah” (called Christ) “is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.” Then Jesus declared, “I, the one speaking to you – I am he.” John 4:23-26

Love awakens us to a new kind of life with God.  A life that’s no longer about religion, but a life about a relationship with God as our Father.  This is salvation!  This is what Jesus has come to give us.  Jesus has come to awaken hope for anyone, anywhere, anytime to be able to worship our Father in heaven.  Jesus has come to make the Father known, so we might turn from our sin to worship Him in Spirit and in Truth.  This is what love does.

Love treats us with dignity!

Love fills the thirsty with life!

Love sets us free from sin!

Love restores us to life with the Father!

The love of Jesus Christ fills our love deficit so we might love others like He loved us.!

So let me ask you: Do you know that the Father has always been seeking you?  Do you know that He wants to give you living water?  Do you know He wants to set you free so you can know Him?                                                 And do you know that everything He wants to give you is found in Jesus?  That’s what love does.  He makes His love known to you in Jesus.

So do, you want the gift Jesus offers?  It’s free.  And all you need to do to receive His gift is turn from your sin and trust in Jesus, and He will give you this new life with God as your Father.  Do you want this gift?