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Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard he was gaining and baptizing more disciples than John. Although in fact, it was not Jesus who baptized, but his disciples. Jesus never baptized anybody because in his divine foreknowledge and omniscience as God, he knew if he baptized someone, people throughout history would claim their baptism counted more than others. So in his knowledge, he chose not to baptize.
This is significant because we're baptizing hundreds of people today. The big idea is it doesn't matter who baptizes you—what matters is in whose name you're baptized. We are all baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ because he is the sovereign King of Kings, Lord of Lords, and he rules over the universe.
Jesus left Judea and went back to Galilee. He had to go through Samaria. Now here's the problem: he didn't actually have to. The journey through Samaria took three days, but it was a six-day journey if you went around it. Most Jews of that time would take the six-day journey rather than travel through Samaria because they hated the Samaritans so intensely. How much do you have to hate somebody to add three days of walking through the desert just so you don't have to be around them?
This is a thread that runs through the entire Bible, and it's important to understand. When Babylon conquered Israel and took the Jewish people into exile, two groups emerged. Some Jews obeyed God's commands and refused to intermarry with other nations. However, another group—what would become the Samaritans—intermarried with the Babylonians.
When they had children, something happened. The kids took some of their mother's religion (worship of the true God, Yahweh) and some of their father's religion (Babylonian false god worship), creating a syncretistic religion—a cult. The difference between a cult and a different religion is this: a cult started as the one true religion but then departed from it and became something else.
When the Jewish leaders Ezra and Nehemiah were commissioned by God to rebuild the temple and walls of Jerusalem, the Samaritans offered to help. But God told Ezra and Nehemiah to refuse them, saying, "You can't help because you disobeyed God and intermingled with pagan false god worship—now you're unclean."
The Samaritans stayed in their feelings for a thousand years. They decided to build their own holy city and their own temple on Mount Gerazim. By the time Jesus arrived, there was ethnic hatred, political hatred, and religious hatred between Jews and Samaritans. Jewish historians tell us that Jews called Samaritans "half-breeds."
We should never say things like that or label people that way. There is no breed of people. There is one race called the human race, and everybody is made in the image of God and is fearfully and wonderfully made.
When the text says Jesus "had to go through Samaria," his "had to" wasn't geographical—he could have gone around. His "had to" was a divine appointment. His culture told him not to. His ethnicity told him not to. His politics told him not to. But the Father told him he had to. And he did whatever the Father told him to do.
Here's the question for this entire sermon: What is the Father telling you that you have to do? What is the thing you are afraid to do, the thing you are uncomfortable having not yet done? That's probably the thing the Father is calling you to.
For some of you, there's a name that pops up in your heart when you hear about forgiveness—your mom, your dad, your son, your daughter. You know the Father is telling you to pick up your phone and start the reconciliation process, but you haven't done it yet.
For some of you, when you see LP News about mission trips, something in your heart says, "I need to do that thing." God is calling you, but you haven't answered yet.
For some of you, in the next few minutes, you have never taken the step of obedience to be baptized in water publicly. You've never gone public with your faith. What the Father is going to press on your heart is that today's your day. It's time to come home and make this thing public.
For some of you, this entire message about addiction will show you the one step you must take to get freedom—but you've always been too scared to take it. You will finish today knowing the Father is telling you, "I got to do that thing." Today's your day.
Jesus 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. Jesus, tired from his journey, sat down by the well. It was about the sixth hour—which means noon.
This is significant. The tradition was that women and children would go to the well in the first hour of the day, when it was cool, so they could carry the heavy water back in the coolest part of the day. Why is this woman there at noon, the hottest part of the day?
A Samaritan woman came to draw water. Jesus said to her, "Would you give me for a drink?" His disciples had gone into town to buy food. The Samaritan woman said to him, "You're a Jew and I'm a Samaritan woman. How could you ask me for a drink? For Jews do not associate with Samaritans."
This is scandalous. First, she's a Samaritan. Second, she's a woman. It was a divorceable offense in this culture for a married woman to speak to a single man alone. But there's something even more significant: she's there at noon, the hottest part of the day. In Dallas terms, if you see somebody walking their dog at noon in August, it's because they hate their dog and want it to die. That's the only reason. So why is this woman at the well at noon? That's the real question.
Jesus is using a physical reality to illustrate a spiritual truth. He's not talking about buckets or wells in a literal sense—he's pointing to the deeper issue: It's not about what bucket you have. It's about what well you're drinking from. If you spend your entire life trying to be sourced by something that cannot supply, you will never be satisfied.
Throughout the Gospel of John, Jesus uses these kinds of physical analogies to illustrate spiritual truth. Earlier in John 3, Jesus told Nicodemus, "You must be born again," using a physical analogy—birth—to point to spiritual rebirth. Here, Jesus uses the well the same way.
Jesus says to the woman: "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."
This woman had five husbands and was living with a sixth man who wasn't her husband. Jesus was essentially telling her: You've gone to that same well six times and your soul is still dying of thirst. Why don't you try a different well?
Here's what most of us do: We think it's about finding the right bucket. So we spend our whole lives trying different buckets.
First, we try the relationship bucket. When we're not satisfied, we think, "I just need a different job. I need a different paycheck. I need a different car. I need a different spouse." We switch buckets, but the thirst remains.
Then we try the moral bucket. We decide to clean our life up. We get really moral. We set New Year's resolutions. We lose weight. We do all the right things. We establish accountability structures. But we're still not satisfied.
So we try the bigger bucket. We get a bigger house, a bigger car, a bigger truck. We keep wanting more and more and more. Bigger kitchen. Bigger everything. But no matter how big the bucket gets, the thirst doesn't go away.
Some try the substance bucket. Night after night, seeking peace in something that only makes things worse. The more you drink, the worse it gets. You keep going back to the same bucket, and it never satisfies you. In fact, it destroys you.
Others try the minimalist bucket. We downsize our lives. We read all the books on minimalism. We get the tiny house and the tiny car. We cut everything out. But that doesn't work either.
Some try the food bucket. Every time there's an emptiness inside, every time you don't have peace, you hurl yourself into food. More food. More food. But it never fills the void.
Some try the appearance bucket. "When I get to my ideal weight, I'll be happy. When I get tanned, when I get the right look, when I nip it and tuck it and Botox it, then I'll be happy." Have you ever seen somebody at their ideal weight? They are not happy. They want your cheeseburger and you want their abs.
Jesus is saying: It's not about what bucket you have. That's not the issue. The issue is the well. You've been drinking from the wrong well your entire life.
Jesus says to this woman—and to all of us: "Come to me, all you who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest. I'm the one who has a fountain of living water. I can give you something that will satisfy that ache that you can't seem to shake."
What Jesus is doing for this woman is bringing her to what addiction specialists call the crystallization of discontent. This is the moment when somebody has an experience so real, so true, that their will hardens and they make an internal decision to get out.
It's the woman who's been enduring abuse for years, and finally there's one moment where something breaks inside and she says, "Never again." It's the moment people talk about when they say, "You've got to hit rock bottom"—that last time when something so bad happens as a result of the addiction that something crystallizes inside and they say, "I'm out. Whatever it takes. I'm powerless. My life has become unmanageable. I need help."
This is what Jesus is bringing the woman to. She's starting to see the truth about herself.
Step two: If you want to get out of whatever you're in, you must realize that you cannot satisfy an infinite thirst in your soul with finite drinks. You have to come to the place where you accept that the bucket you've been drinking from will never satisfy you. It will only destroy you.
Jesus tells the woman: "Go, call your husband and come back."
The woman tries to deflect: "I have no husband."
But Jesus responds: "You're 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."
Then something shifts. The woman says: "Sir, I can see you're a prophet. I know that Messiah (called Christ) is coming, and when he comes, he will explain everything to us."
She's beginning to understand. She's being brought to the moment of truth.
Step three is the hardest one: you must bring your issue into the light. This is where transformation actually happens.
When Jesus tells the woman, "Go call your husband," he's not asking a casual question. He's forcing her to drag the hidden thing—the thing she's been ashamed of, the thing she's been hiding—out into the open. She tries to deflect: "I have no husband." But Jesus doesn't let her hide. He exposes the truth so she has to face it.
For some of you, when you've been struggling with sin and trying and trying to get out of it but can't, you're not just struggling with a sin—you're experiencing a stronghold. The New Testament word for addiction is a stronghold, referring to a demonic stronghold.
A demonic stronghold is when you've given yourself over to something or allowed permission from the enemy enough times that there is literally a demonic influence—an evil force stronger than you—using that thing to enslave you.
Think about what addicts say. They describe four things:
What do you call that? That's a demon. There's a supernatural spiritual force at work there.
Now, good news: if you're a Christian, you can be oppressed by a demon, but you can never be possessed by a demon because you are a blood-bought possession of the living God.
Jesus had a very overt theology of the demonic. Jesus said that Satan and demons are like a strong man, and that part of his ministry was to come to earth and bind the strong man so that all the captives could walk away free. Jesus wants to do that in your life.
When this woman is trying to hide—"I have no husband"—Jesus drags it into the light. Here's why: If you try to fight the devil in the dark, you're always going to lose because the darkness is his domain. But the Bible says in 1 John 1 that if we walk in the light, as Jesus is in the light, the blood of Jesus cleanses us from sin and frees us from unrighteousness.
What Jesus does is force her to drag the hidden addiction out into the light where he is. If you want to get free, you must find spirit-filled men and women of God—people who love the Word, people who are engaged in a battle that matters, people with eternal purposes. Gather those people around you.
Take the thing you've been hiding in shame and say, "I believe God's love loves me. I don't have to walk in shame anymore." Drag that thing out into the light with them, where Jesus is. Let him reign victorious over it. That's what Jesus does—he will set you free, but you have to drag it out into the light.
Jesus is saying to you right now: "Bring that thing to me that's been enslaving you. You don't have to die a slave. Bring me the secret drinking. Bring me the pornography addiction. Bring me the substance abuse. Bring me the secret eating. Bring me whatever's become an enslaving thing. Bring me the depression. Bring me the anxiety. Drag it out into the light and let me set you free from that thing, because I will do it."
Here are two very practical things you need to do if you want to get free:
Number one: Some of you have been Christians for a long time, but you have this hidden thing that's enslaving you in the dark. In the next 80 seconds, text the word "group" to 20411. Don't just get into any group—get into Re:Gen. Get into that space where this family—this one big dysfunctional family that loves sinners—can gather around you. We can help you get out of that thing you're enslaved to.
Number two: Some of you need to take step number one. Jesus says step one in following him was to be baptized in water as a visible representation of the invisible reality that you've been cleansed from sin. If you've never been baptized since you've had a real, living relationship with Jesus—not as an infant, but as your own real decision of repentance and faith—then you need to take this step. We're giving every single person everywhere a chance to do what the Father is telling you to do, and to be baptized here. We're going to celebrate with you.
