CHILDREN'S SERMON

Do any of you like to swim?

Where do you usually go swimming?

As a kid, our church had picnics at the Duda farm. We would swim in the pond.The water was dark and muddy — kinda like the water in this glass, not water we’d want to drink, right?

But the pond had a source. A natural spring. Clear and cold water bubbled from the ground into a steam that ran into the pond.

You could dip your hand in and take a sip.

It was delicious and refreshing.

So why do you think the pond was so dirty?

It picked up dirt along the way and all that filth just built up.

Let’s see how that works, I have two bowls of water here.

They're both clean, but we're going to do an experiment.

You see these bowls of sand, dirt and debris, labeled:
mean words, lies, and hurting others.

I want each of you to come and scoop a little into this bowl.

We're a little like that pond.

We come from God's pure and clean image but we pick up dirt along the way.

Now that it's all dirty, do you think we could make it clean again?

What if we work really hard at it?

Here's the thing.

Only Jesus can make us clean again.

Just like this other bowl of water — still pure and clean. Something we'd be excited to drink on a hot day.

We're going to learn more on this topic in today's message.

We're going to meet a woman who had a lot of dirt dumped on her. People came to look at her as filthy and probably even counted her NOT worthy of God's love.

They probably looked at her just like we look at this dirty glass of water and said eww, she’s no good.

But we're going to learn that God accepted her as she was and offered His love despite how dirty the world saw her. That He was the way to get clean.

So let's pray. Repeat after me.

God, help us look past the dirt this world scoops on people.

Help us love others even when they don't look nice to us.

Help us when we feel dirty.

Help us see Your clean image in ourselves and others.

Clean us up, and restore Your joy in us. Amen.

MESSAGE: "Yay, God, YAY!"

Earlier this year, I went on a mission trip with the church youth.

The week started off full of excitement and energy. Everyone was eager to do the work we had gone there for. As the week went on, I watched people lose that initial joy. Things didn't always go as planned. The work was hard. People got hurt. And tired.

One of the girls kept asking to go to a gas station called 7-Eleven because she’d heard they had something special that you couldn’t get anywhere else, The Big Gulp.

Allegedly, it would quench your thirst like nothing else.

What a perfect reward for all the hard work. So on the last day, we took the kids there.

As they got off the bus, they lined up and all hollered YAY! — and marched single file into the gas station.

The attendant must have been really confused.

It was just a gas station. But to those kids, in that tired and weary moment, it felt like heaven.

And tonight, we meet a weary and worn woman who also wanted the satisfaction of an ice cold Big Gulp.

Let's pray.

Lord of all wisdom, we come to You thirsty. Meet us just as You met this woman. Open our ears, soften our hearts, and speak.
In the refreshing name of Jesus, Amen.

-READING OF JOHN 41:30 & 39-

The word of God for the people of God.

Thanks be to God!

I hope your ride here wasn’t too hot and that you were able to get some water 

Something stood out when I read this story. It happens at noon — the hottest hour.  Why was she there at that time of day?

In those times, it was normal for people to go for water in morning or evening while it was cool, and they came together, as a community.

But she came alone, at noon. Why?

I’m guessing she was there at that hour because she wasn't welcome when the others were there. She’d been outcast. Looked at, as dirty.

She isn’t even given a name.

And I bet some of you know what it’s like to be labeled instead of named. To become a list of all the wrong you’ve ever done.
To be marked as unworthy and set aside.

This woman knows that pain, that isolation. Thirsty for something her bucket couldn’t reach, something no water can quench.

But it’s an ache we all feel, listen to this quote from a renowned theologian about this passage, he says:

"We are all desperately unhappy about something — and we don't know what it is. In each of us there is this nameless unsatisfied longing; this vague discontent; this something lacking; this frustration. A longing which makes us discontent and we don’t even know why"

And I feel that more than I like to admit.
Like on the mission trip, after the work, we went to Worlds of Fun.

I planned to slip off by myself because deep down, something lied to me saying no one wanted me. Go to the well alone. You’re not welcome here.

Thank God the kids spoke against that lie and made me feel welcome. So I got in line for the first roller coaster with them.

As I stood there, the kids were filled with an excitement that I very obviously lacked.

I was emotionally flat while the kids whooped and hollered at every car flying down the rail.

As I watched them, I couldn't help but notice that I had taken the stance of a stiff old man who had been robbed of joy by the difficulty of life.

So I told those kids the truth.

When I was their age, I started a life of booze and drugs.

From the time I was fifteen into my thirties, I chased so much false joy through substance abuse that I used up all my joy early.

   The kids thought that was sad but went on leaping with joy when the cars came by. And their excitement over something as simple as a roller coaster — over a gas station — pointed me back to something.

Real joy isn't something you manufacture.

And it was never at the bottom of a bottle or in a puff of smoke.

Real joy is received. It comes from a source outside of me. So I loosened up, let my guard down, threw up my fist, leaped in the air and I let out a loud YAY!

(PAUSE)

But that kind of joy fades fast and the woman at the well knew it, 5 times over she knew it.

Jesus tells her: "Anyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again. But the water I give will become a spring within them, bubbling up to eternal life."

She says, give me this water.

Then Jesus oddly replies: "Go and get your husband."

Probably taken back by the offhand remark, she says, "I have no husband.”

To which Jesus goes deeper and says, "You're right, You've had five. And the man you're with now isn't your husband."

What a shocking place for Him to go.

Five husbands. Think of that weight — to be left again and again by the very ones who promised to stay.

In her world, a woman couldn't file for divorce — men held that power.

So five husbands very likely means five men who left her or who she lost to death.

Seen in that light, she's an abandoned woman — passed over and passed around, surviving with a sixth man rather than becoming homeless.

That sting of divorce and loss, it’s one I know. It's hard, painful, devastating. Everyone is effected, the whole family, mom, dad, children. I can't imagine going through it five times.

And I bet some of you know that pain yourselves.

But look, this is exactly where Jesus shows up. He finds this woman at her lowest, and He sits down with her. Talks with her. Understands her.

And offers the one thing that can truly heal her wounds.

A wound that started early in life when that first pile of dirt shamed her. And then scoop after scoop just built up until her life became a stagnant pool of hurt and ache. Making her an outcast, alone at the well in the seat of the day.

Like her, we all long for something more.
We want to be clean, to be loved

During communion, we'll hear a song built on that same ache — the lyrics are in the bulletin. Listen close. The chorus cries,

Who will love me for me.

And the answer is Jesus. Jesus sits down with the woman and tells her everything she's ever done — All the things people used to classify her as dirty and unworthy.

And he doesn’t shame her, He doesn’t turn his back and leave. He stays and offers to make her fully clean!

He tells her that HE is the fulfillment of the world's deepest longing:

those words, "I am the Messiah.", carry more weight than we have time to unpack.

It’s the ultimate answer to her void, as well as ours.

(PAUSE)

You know, God has a cool way of orchestrating things. Last Sunday, the pastor asked us to write down one thing —
                                    how do you want others to treat you.

Well, someone dropped theirs on the floor, and I found it.

It's anonymous.

It reads:
"Respect me for who I am on the inside, and not judge me for what I look like and for my past."

That’s exactly what Jesus did for this woman, he sat with her and said 

I see everything. All your dirt. And I'm not leaving.
       I'm staying.

(PAUSE)

So why does the world do the opposite? And why do we?

The world's math is simple: dirt equals distance. The more dirt people see on you, the further away they stand.

The kids showed us that  — the mean words, the lies, the hurting people.

That's how a whole town shames one woman and pushes her out of the community.

And if we're honest, we've all held the scoop.
We've all added dirt to somebody's water.

We’ve all put our hope in the wrong things, gone to various wells thinking they will satisfy the void. Only to be left empty.

My well was booze and drugs.

Maybe your well is money. A relationship. The next party.

And there were a lot of parties this weekend. America’s 250th.

Think about the fireworks. All that buildup — and in a flash, it ignites, it's beautiful, and then it's over. Smoke drifting in the dark.

And we wake up the next morning right back in the loop — desperately unhappy about something and not even knowing what.

But, I know what it is. It’s Jesus, the well of living water who becomes a fresh, bubbling spring within you.

The source of water that never gets dirty and never runs out because the source is God Himself.

And this woman, she received the water and all her shame was washed away because Jesus loved her for her. And that love changed her.

Look how her story ends. She leaves her jar at the well — forgets the very thing she came for — and runs back to the very people who pushed her out, crying: "Come see a man who told me everything I ever did! Could this be the Messiah?"

And because of her many believed.

                      The outcast became the evangelist.

That's her YAY. That's the kids marching into the gas station.

 
That’s Joy so real it can't stay quiet.

(PAUSE)

So here's the Gospel, plain, for anyone who's never heard or believed it:

God knows everything you've ever done — and He came anyway. In Jesus, God sat with outcasts, ate with sinners, went to a cross, and paid for all of it.

On the third day He rose, and death couldn't hold Him.

Now He offers you exactly what He offered the woman — living water, free. You don't clean up first. You just receive Him.

And when you do, John 1:12 says you're given the right to become a child of God — not born of blood or human will, but born of God.

He doesn't just forgive us and leave us in the mud. He adopts us. A good Father doesn't leave His children dirty, He cleans us up.

That's the best YAY in the world — not "I got something," but "I have a Father who knows everything about me, and stayed."

And for those who already follow Jesus, we’re not perfect, those disciples in this story, they missed it, they too pushed that woman aside, questioned her worthiness.

So I ask, who have we pushed aside? Who's drawing water alone tonight because we decided their dirt made them untouchable?

What will it take for us to see that Jesus crossed every line to sit with her, and we should too.

INVITATION TO THE TABLE

Now look at the table set before us.

The same Jesus who sat down at that well sits down here with us.

He has seen everything each of us has done — and still He welcomes us to eat with him at His table, dirty hands and all.

So come, quench your thirst.

            Taste and see that the Lord is good.

CALL TO ACTION AND BENEDICTION

The woman left her jar at the well and ran to tell her whole town. Now it's our turn.

You walked in here tonight carrying your past. You are walking out as people who are fully known and fully loved.

So go the way she went. Go find someone who is drawing water alone at noon. The one everybody else stepped back from.

And tell them: I met a man who knew everything I ever did — and He didn't leave. Come and meet Him.

So go, filled with living water — and let it bubble up out of you.

Yay God, YAY!