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The God Who Bleeds 2 Jesus The Savior of the World

Now he had to go through Samaria. 5 So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph. 6 Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about noon. (John 4:4)

When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?” 8 (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.) (John 4:7)

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.) (John 4:9)

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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.” (John 4:42)

WTD: Jesus – The Savior of the World.

The end of this story is not just the saving of a woman, but an entire town that came to believe in Jesus. – As ‘the savior of the world’.

This idea: Savior of the world.

Become to me, past year – one of my predomanant thoughts re God. It’s become my hope for humanity. I just want to say, that I believe that. I really do. Even though it seems cliche, I believe that more now than I ever have.

We have to rescue it from cliche. Cliche steals an incredible amount of beauty from the story of Jesus. Cliche – “overused phrase – lacks originality.”

Real problem: for someone like me who preaches about Jesus for a living. There’s these beautiful ideas that were so revolutionary, but now they’ve been handed down generation to generation and now it means next to nothing. It’s just something you’d see in Hobby Lobby on some weird art.

There’s these life changing ideas, but they no longer move us, no loner mean anything. Boring.

We say “Jesus is the savior of the World.” – Cool man.

Some of what I’m trying to do at Outlet, is to do something a little bit different so we hear some of this stuff with fresh ears. Rescue the beauty of Jesus from cliche, or you could even say: The prison of religion.

What I mean by that is the place where Jesus can come and speak into our ‘Religious Life’ and keep him out of our real life.


Here’s our story:

Jesus was on a journey. – Things were getting a little heated between him and the pharisees.

Jerusalem – Galilee. (Map)

In order to do that, pass through Samaria.

The samaritans were a people who were related to the jews but with a different ethnicity. Their faith had come out of the jewish faith, but then in morphed and kinda changed into something else.

These were people who had a different ethnicity and a different religion.

LOTS of hostility – Jews & Samaritans. Hated each other TBH.

Deep hostility. Possibly similar to Israelis & Palestinians.

Ok, so Jesus is traveling, it’s noon, so it’s hot. He’s tired.

Disciples go into the town, he stays on the outside.

Sits down next to Jacobs well. – Noonday sun, it’s hot. He’s thirsty.

There comes a woman from Sychar. – Come to get water.

Running water. What a miracle. – Pipes right into your house. Back in the day, had to go to the well to get water for: drink, cook, bathe.

Here’s a woman with her water pot.

Jesus: “Hey, give me a drink.”

She’s suprised that Jesus would stoop to even speak to her.

She carries: hostility towards jews, and towards men probably.

She “Well, how bout that? How is that a jew would even speak to a samarian woman like me?”

Jesus “Well, if you knew who it was that asks for for a drink, you’d ask Him for a drink and he would give you living water.” – And when you’d drink from that water you’d never be thirsy again, but you’d have eternal life.”

Woman: Well give it to me.

BTW: She seems like a perfectly intelligent woman, so I think she understood the metaphor. Not that “Wow, if I drink your magic water I’ll never be thirsty ever again.” No, I think she understood. She’s basically saying “Well this has been my life, coming to this well. So if there’s some new way of life, give it to me.”

Jesus: “Alright, we get your husband and you both come talk to me.”

Woman: “Well as it turns out I don’t have a husband.”

Jesus: “Ha! That’s right. You’ve told the truth. You’ve had 5 husbands and now you’re just livin with a guy.”

Woman: “Well I can see that you’re a prophet!”

BTW I sense no condemnation is Jesus here. Just expressing that he understands her life up to this point.

Interesting: So she’s able to tell that this guy is some sort of prophet, and so she switches from real life, to religious life. Asks him a theological question.

“You jews say Jerusalam is where you’re supposed to worship. With your big fancy temple and all that. – BUT Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, they worshipped on these mountains. So what do you say about that!?!?!?”

Jesus : “Well. Fine. You’re a little confused. You worship in a way that’s confusing to you.”

Jews are worshipping in the way that they know.

Because salvation is from the jews.

All he means by that is that the messiah would come from abraham and goes through a jewish line ultimately ending on Jesus.

Salvation FROM the jews. Not FOR the jews.

But then he goes on “All this debate about Jerusalam and bla bla, none of that is the point. – A time is coming when it won’t be a places, mountains, temples. – That’s all going away and something new is happening.

God is raising up a new people who will worship him in spirit and in truth.

You could say it like this: “Ever since Jesus, and his death, burial, and resurrection, the new temple is the body of Christ. And the new ‘Holy Land’ is the whole world.

Instead of being about this people vs that people, now it’s about everybody. The Whole World.

God is not the savior of the Jews, circumcised, law-keepers, he’s the savior of the whole world.

That’s what he’s communicating to this woman.

“It’s not all about the jews.”

The woman said, “I know that Messiah (called Christ) is coming. (Messiah and Christ are the same word. Messiah:Hebrew / Christ:Greek) When he comes, he will explain everything to us.” (John 4:25)

Then Jesus declared, “I, the one speaking to you—I am he.” (John 4:26)

He’s saying: “I am the savior. And not just of the jews, but of the whole world.” “I am the solution for this broken world.”

It’s believing that Jesus is the messiah that connects you with eternal life.

So I wanna say: “Believe that “Jesus is the messiah. The Christ. The solution. For you and for the world.

  • Applies small – you
  • Applies big – the world

It’s personal, AND global.

The way that he comes and repairs your world is the way that he comes and repairs the whole world.

So this woman runs back to town. So excited she leaves her water pot.

“Come see a man who told me everything I ever did!”

They go and see Jesus, and they’re impressed too.

“Come stay with us!”

So he spends 2 days with them.

I love thinking of the disciples during this time. Never stayed there!!! – These guys are kind of our enemies you know!

What did Jesus do there for 2 days?

Assume he healed the sick. – He always did that.

It says that they believed in Him even more b/c of what he said.

What was Jesus talking about? Well what he was always talking about of course. The Kingdom of God! God’s way of rearranging a world gone wrong.

He’s always talking about how God is setting right a world gone wrong. And I can picture them saying “Yeah that makes a lot of sense.”

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.” (John 4:42)


Odd: Why would they be so quick to jump to that conclusion? That’s a big compliment! Especially remembering that these are samaritans.

I think it has something to do with how they saw Jesus as a ‘Healer of Hostilities.’

They understood this permanent conflict between the jews and the samaritans. – Jesus started looking like he was a bridge that would pull those two things together. And they thought, “Man, if someone can do that. He would be the savior of the world.”

B/C even since Cain and Able, humanity has been defined by our hostilities. Our identity if formed by who we hate.

What group we identify as our enemy.

We’ve arranged our world around this system, but in the end, it’s death. It’s sin and death.

Whoever can save humanity from this, will be the savior of the world.

We confess that it’s Jesus the Christ.


Hebrew Phrase

“Tikkun Olam”

“To repair the world.”

We believe that that’s found in Jesus. He’s what God has sent to repair the world.


Amazing – growing up as an american – school, the news, politics, religion,

Handed a script of hostility for whoever we’ve decided is our enemy.

Before my time – 60’s-70’s – during the cold war. – Taught our kids how to hate the russians.

Bob Dylan says:

“I’ve learned to hate russians
All through my whole life.

If another war starts
It’s them we must fight.

To hate them and fear them
To run and to hide

And accept it all bravely
With God on our side.”

I remember when I was young, hearing of places like:

  • Lebanon
  • Grenada
  • Panama
  • Iraq
  • Kuwait
  • Saudi Arabia
  • Somalia
  • Haiti
  • Bosnia
  • Serbia
  • Afganistan
  • Pakistan
  • Libya
  • Syria

Without knowing it, I started feeling like the people of the world were my enemies.

In different parts of american history, they would have a drill where the kids would have to get under their desks in case the Russians decided to send nukes. – Cuz that’ll help.

Crazy: at the same time, Russia had the same drills preparing for us to send nukes bomb russian schools.


Sometimes I zoom out and I just think: God save us.

Amazing: People growing up in communist countries – and they find Jesus as the savior of the world.
What they were looking for in communism, and countn’t be found, they find in Jesus – the savior of the world.

At the same time – there’s people growing up in American – and we find Jesus as the savior of the world.
What we were looking for in capitalism, and we cannot find – we find in Jesus – the savior of the world.


Jesus saved me from my hostility and I don’t want to kill russians. I love them.

And there’s russians over there that don’t want to kill me, they love me.

And we UNITE under Jesus – the savior of the world.

Going – another part – world. – HEALTHY

I think that’s one of the good and healthy things about going to another part of the world. Realize that Jesus loves that place too.

Everywhere you go:

  • Children – play – streets.
  • Moms – work 3 jobs.
  • People – volunteer – care – sick.

They’re not my enemy.

Call me idealist: But I believe that forgiveness can bring healing to our world.

“Tikkun Olam” “To repair the world” – is found in Jesus.


Sometimes it just become apparent to world that this world is broken. And the world needs mending.

We’ve so privatized/individualized Jesus – shrunken the mission of Jesus – changed it to – Jesus saves us FROM the world.

No, Jesus is the savior OF the world.

Yes there’s a world – Condemned – Won’t last. – Babylon. –

Yes there’s a world that is to be condemned, and that won’t last. – Babylon. – Formed by hatred, unforgivness, jealousy. Fueled by power and greed. – Yeah that’s passing away.

But God’s IDEA of this society. Where nature and people live together. That’s GOOD and God’s gonna do it through Jesus Christ.

Jesus is the savior of the world.

(BAND)


Our vocation, our job as followers of Christ:

1. We are not called to conquer the world.

Some would say: Romans 8:37

We are more than conquerors in Christ.

Yeah, but not like that.

You need to back up a little:

“For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.” 37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. (Romans 8:36)

  • We conquer by following the lamb.
  • We don’t conquer the way of crusaders.

We don’t go in with sword to slay the enemies of Christ.

We’ve been very wrong about this in centuries past. – We’ve thought that we bring the Kingdom of God around by force. By destroying the opposition. No.


Think about this:

“Emmanuel” – means God with Us. “Got mit Uns” – Means the same thing. – God with Us.

  • “Emanuel” was a saying of Christians while giving their life for Christ.
  • “Got mit Uns” was a saying of Nazi germany while taking lives for Christ.

This is what happens when ‘God with Us’ turns into ‘God against our enemies’.

This is the idea that James and John had when they wanted to call down fire on the samaritans. – Jesus rebuked them “You don’t know what spirit you are of.”

Not called – Conquer for Christ.

We’re called to follow the lamb, who lays down his life.

2. We are not called to escape the world.

We’ve talked before about ‘Escapist Theology’

“God, I can’t wait for you to get me out of this hell-hole.” – NOPE

This is the heresy of gnosticism. – Condemned from the beginning of Christianity and we have to continue to condemn it.

God has you here to help him save this place. Buck up, because you have a job to do. You’re not here waiting for your ticket out.

Our prayer is “Come Lord Jesus” – not “Let’s get the flip outta here!!!”

3. We are called to help Jesus HEAL the world.

We are healers.

There is a world to be denied: World of lust, greed, violence, injustice. But the idea of humans and nature living together in harmony, that’s good. And it’s our mission.

We’re not conquerors, we’re not escapists, we’re healers.

When we send people to devastated parts of the world, being healers of the broken.

Picture a broken down house : This world. – People living together and harmonizing with each other.

Someone has come and put a sign on it: CONDEMNED. – Let’s say that was the devil.

But that’s a lie. – The house is not condemned.

God has sent his son, not to condemn the house, but to save the house.

Sent his son. The great carpenter.

“I’m here to repair this thing.”

So we are working with christ to repair the world. That’s our job.


Jesus Christ is the savior of the World. The Healer of Hostility.

Close communion

Amazing about Jesus

  • Savior of the world
  • Savior of your soul.

Some of you need repairing in your heart.

As they pass:

Spend a minute thinking about Jesus – who calms the storm.

Whatever storm your up against, invite him in and he’ll begin repair what’s broken.

(Pass)

Amazing: Let the mysterious healing that flows from the wounds of Christ, come and help you.

Comes & repairs – what’s broken – you.

  • Jesus comes and takes all the brokenness.
  • Jesus comes and takes all the pain.

Makes all things new.