How To Deal With A Difficult Past

A Sermon By Jim Hammond from John 4:1-42

In The Whisper Test, Mary Ann Bird writes: I grew up knowing I was different, and I hated it. I was born with a cleft palate, and when I started school, my classmates made it clear to me how I looked to others: a little girl with a misshapen lip, crooked nose, lopsided teeth, and garbled speech.
      When schoolmates asked, "What happened to your lip?" I'd tell them I'd fallen and cut it on a piece of glass. Somehow it seemed more acceptable to have suffered an accident than to have been born different. I was convinced that no one outside my family could love me.
      There was, however, a teacher in the second grade whom we all adored--Mrs. Leonard by name. She was short, round, happy--a sparkling lady. Annually we had a hearing test. ... Mrs. Leonard gave the test to everyone in the class, and finally it was my turn. I knew from past years that as we stood against the door and covered one ear, the teacher sitting at her desk would whisper something, and we would have to repeat it back--things like "The sky is blue" or "Do you have new shoes?"
       I waited there for those words that God must have put into her mouth, those seven words that changed my life. Mrs. Leonard said, in her whisper, "I wish you were my little girl." God says to every person deformed by sin, "I wish you were my son" or "I wish you were my daughter." [i]

Perhaps you have never known the difficulty of growing up with a cleft palate, but you do know what it feels like to have a cleft heart. Many people have struggled with overcoming difficult pasts. Sometimes it is a difficult past that creates our present pain. Do you still hurt over a difficult past? There are so many kinds of difficult pasts, abuse, divorce, abandonment, rejection, just to mention a few. A difficult past can give us problems like insecurity, or weakness, or shame. A difficult past can cause problems like guilt, or anger, and bitterness. There are many types of problems and many of them are linked to a difficult past. Some of our past problems were out of our control, as we became victims. Some of our past problems happened precisely because of our own mistakes, under our own control. But what can one do about a difficult past now that it is past? We can’t go back in time and fix the things that caused the problems, can we? What can we do about our difficult past now? Can we really put the past in the past? Hasn’t the past brought us to where we are now and hasn’t the past already altered our future?

Today we will meet a woman who had a difficult past. She probably felt stuck in her present circumstances as a result of her past. Some things were out of her control. But some things were difficult precisely because of the choices she had made. Regardless, she felt stuck and she felt alone. Her shame and her problems began to isolate her. People were talking. She couldn’t get away from it. It hurt her. Some things they said were lies. Some things they said were true. It didn’t matter. It all hurt. What does one do when you don’t know how to escape? You can’t escape when what you want to run from is yourself. Who do you turn to then? This woman was surprised by the answers she didn’t know existed. She was surprised by a hope she didn’t know was available. She was surprised by grace and love that transformed her life. She met Jesus. She wasn’t looking for him. Jesus was looking for her.

Focus: Meet Jesus where you are; he came here to meet you, and he offers you what is needed to deal with your difficult past.

I. Past Difficulties Can Cause Present Pain

A. The Pain Causes Avoidance Patterns

John 4:1-8 (NIV) ¹The Pharisees heard that Jesus was gaining and baptizing more disciples than John, ²although in fact it was not Jesus who baptized, but his disciples. ³When the Lord learned of this, he left Judea and went back once more to Galilee.

⁴Now he had to go through Samaria. ⁵So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph. ⁶Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about the sixth hour. ⁷When 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.)

Not a “Chance” Appointment—Jesus came through Samaria on purpose

There are a few important details you don’t want to miss about this woman’s encounter with Jesus. First of all, the detail that it was a “chance” encounter. John verse 4:4 tells us Jesus “had to go through Samaria”. Why? Most Jews avoided Samaria, even though this route was the more direct route. Most Jews went the long way in order to avoid the hated Samaritans. But Jesus wasn’t using this “avoidance pattern”!

You see there was a deep animosity between Jews and Samaritans. Samaritans were half-breeds. They compromised back in the days of the Jewish exile (2 Kings 17:24-41). Some of the Jews intermarried with the Assyrians, the conquering Gentiles. Jews never forgave these half-breeds for their compromise. Samaritans attempted to worship Yahweh and continue to practice some of their pagan practices. As a result, they were not accepted at the Temple site. The Samaritans went so far as creating their own temple for Yahweh at a different location. The prejudice between Samaritans and Jews was more deep-seated than any current prejudice we deal with today in our culture.

In view of this prejudice the phrase Jesus “had to go through Samaria” is profound. He came for a reason. He came to bring the good news across these religious and cultural barriers. He was keeping an appointment in Samaria.

The Time Notation

The second detail I want you to notice is the time notation. John tells us, It was about the sixth hour. This would have been about high noon, in the heat of the day. It accounts for a couple of things. One, Jesus is thirsty and ready for a drink. Two, it is an unusual time of the day for someone to be going about their daily chores of drawing water. Drawing water around the well was often women’s work, and it was often a social time. So even the setting tells us something about this Samaritan woman. She was avoiding people.

Now given this information, what is she feeling when she comes up to a well she hoped would be free of people, and sitting there is a Jew? She has several strikes against her for such a setting. 1) She is a woman, and he is a man. 2) She is a Samaritan, and he is a Jew, and 3) we will find out she is feeling shame, and he is a Rabbi, a holy man.

DIVINE APPOINTMENTS

Jesus’ appointment with the woman at the well was not a chance appointment, but a divine appointment. The text tells us Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. Here’s my theory. I haven’t read it anywhere and it cannot be substantiated. I think when Jesus sat down by the well; he sat on the ground on the opposite side of the low well wall out of view from the approaching Samaritan woman. The Samaritan woman never saw Jesus until she was there. I believe this because she was avoiding people. She came to a well outside of town (rather than the one in town). She came at noon (“the sixth hour”) in the heat of the day, rather than the normal social time with other women drawing water in the cool of the day. Given this information, it seems likely that had she seen Jesus sitting at the well, she would have turned around and waited for another time to go draw water. She didn’t know he was there until she drew water and he then got up from his resting place to speak to her.

It was no accident that this meeting at the well took place precisely how it did, with Jesus hidden from view, with Jesus tired and thirsty at precisely that time, with the disciples gone off to get food, leaving Jesus alone, with the woman coming out at this “wrong” time to draw water. This was an amazing “accident” don’t you think? Divine appointments are rarely planned appointments— that is, planned by us. But God had a plan. Jesus speaks about how thrilling and sustaining it was to him to participate with God’s plan (4:31-34). It was better than food and refreshment to him.

Look For Divine Appointments. A difficult past usually leads to avoidance patterns. Here’s one point I want to make sure you hear today: even if you are avoiding God, he is not avoiding you. Be on the look out for divine appointments. Sometimes you will tell yourself “it was just a coincidence.” Has God set up divine appointments with you? You may be on the receiving end or the giving end of a Divine Appointment. God is at work all around you and is constantly setting up divine appointments. Open your eyes and heart to look for God at work in your life.

II. How to Deal With A Difficult Past

A. Meet Jesus (He came to meet you)

It is unlikely this woman would have sought Jesus on her own. How true was this for you? Would you have sought Jesus on your own, or did he come to meet you. What were the circumstances for you? Look for divine appointments!

He Came to Meet Us On Our Turf

We can’t get to his level, so he comes to us. Whether you sought him or not, it is still true that had Jesus not come to meet us on our turf, we had no hopes of meeting God on his turf. Jesus came into our dark world to show us the way. He came to meet us, and this time I’m not just talking about my theory. I’m talking about the Gospel. That’s what the Gospel is all about.

When this Woman met Jesus she saw him progressively. First she saw

· A thirsty man,

· Then a Jew,

· Then an extraordinary Jew,

· Then a Rabbi,

· Then a prophet,

· Then the Messiah, the Savior of the World.

Watch Jesus reveal himself to this woman.

⁹The 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.)

¹⁰Jesus 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.”

¹¹“Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? ¹²Are 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?”

¹³Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, ¹⁴but 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.”

¹⁵The 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.”

¹⁶He told her, “Go, call your husband and come back.”

¹⁷“I have no husband,” she replied.

Jesus said to her, “You are right when you say you have no husband. ¹⁸The 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.”

¹⁹“Sir,” the woman said, “I can see that you are a prophet. ²⁰Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.”

²¹Jesus declared, “Believe me, woman, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. ²²You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. ²³Yet 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. ²⁴God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth.”

²⁵The woman said, “I know that Messiah” (called Christ) “is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.”

²⁶Then Jesus declared, “I who speak to you am he.”

2 QUESTIONS

Let me ask you two questions to which there are no definitive answers. 1) Do you think this woman was attractive or unattractive? And 2) Why do you think she has been married 5 times? These questions get you to thinking about this woman and her past.

Here are my assumptions. I think this woman was attractive. It doesn’t seem difficult for her to attract a man. Here is another assumption. I don’t believe her other husbands died. Otherwise she would have had the sympathies of the town’s people. She is avoiding people because she is an outcast. It seems to me, she’s been divorced 5 times, and possibly because of unfaithfulness. All of this is guess work. All we have are the details before us. She seems to be a lonely woman with many failed relationships behind her. Imagine being this woman and meeting Jesus. People like her go through a process coming to terms with a person like Jesus. There are many like her today.

Those with a difficult past are often like this woman when they meet Jesus,

· First they try to evade the man,

· Then they dislike him because of their preconceived notions about him (as a Jew).

· Then they try to heckle him as the Rabbi.

· Then they are surprised, even shocked by his relevancy as a prophet.

· Then they may come to adore Him as Savior.

· Then they become the best candidates to introduce others to the one who helped them.

Their preconceived notions about God or Jesus, or Christians, create a kind of prejudice, not unlike the prejudice we observe here between Jew and Samaritan.

Like the woman, they argue with the truths they hear. The heckling, and the arguments are not usually for answers, but in order to stay unhooked by what the teacher is saying.

Usually in this progressive revelation of Jesus to the person there is a point of surprise when they discover his relevancy

You don’t know how often someone tells me after a service, you were talking right to me. How did you know? Even more thrilling, is when someone recognizes that God is talking right to him or her. Often guests don’t know quite what to do with this feeling. He is talking about me. It is really bad when someone invites someone and begins to have suspicions that their friend has been talking to the preacher. People, it’s not like that. The Holy Spirit is taking the truth and bringing it home to your heart. I’m not busy thinking about anyone in particular when I bring a message. I’m simply trying to present to you the truth as I see it. That truth is extremely relevant. When a person first begins to see how relevant it is, they begin to feel what the woman was feeling when suddenly everything was very personal. God knows. Jesus knows, SHE REPLIES NOT TOO CALMLY, heart beating faster, a catch in her voice and breathing, “Sir,” the woman said, “I can see that you are a prophet.” (4:19). Notice the next thing she says is an attempt to take the pressure off of herself.

Jesus had a remarkable rapport with people who would not appear to make good church members. Notice, Jesus does not condemn, but kindly leads this woman to a faith that would change her life forever. What can we note here about Jesus and outcasts? That is an important question, for in one way or another we have all been outcasts. It is a wonderful thing to be accepted, and to be forgiven, and to be loved. We adore Jesus our Savior for what he has given us. This progressive revelation of Jesus is not an unusual experience for those who meet Jesus!

B. Meet Jesus Right Where You Are Because

1. He already knows about your difficult past

Jesus already knew everything about this woman. There was no longer anything to hide. He knows everything about us. You have nothing to hide from him either. This truth can be troubling or it can be liberating. How does this truth affect you? Do you feel like squirming when you discover there are no secrets? The woman did at first but she didn’t stay there long.

2. He Accepts You Anyway

Jesus dealt with this woman gently and sensitively. Sin cannot separate us from His love. You may ask, “How can the one who really knows us love us so much?” He knows what we are made for. He knows how hurt we are. He knows how to help us. He sees our potential. We all admire the person with the gift to see potential. It is a great skill to look at a young child and say, “He could be a great athlete,” “She could be a great doctor,” “He could be a great musician,” or “She could be a great artist.” Jesus had that special insight. He could look at people rejected by the world and say, “She could make a great disciple.” He looks at each of you this morning and says the same thing. “You’d make a great disciple. Come follow me.”

3. He Cares Too Much To Let You Stay As You Are.

This woman had many problems, and because Jesus loved her he wanted her to have a better life than she had previously known.

Although Jesus loved this woman just as she was, he loved her too much to let her remain there. That’s why he brings up the painful truth that she herself is busy trying to ignore.

He provides for us “living water,” satisfaction that never runs dry, life to our dry and thirsty souls.

Jesus treats people who know they have problems differently than those who do not know. If you think you have no problems, he confronts your pride. He’s hard on those with hard hearts. But he is extremely gentle with those who have broken hearts. I have met people with broken hearts however, who have hard hearts toward God. They blame him. Jesus is the most gentle with people who have soft, broken hearts. That’s why confession, telling God the truth is so important. Jesus gently leads us to the truth about ourselves. Then he begins to help us past those places where we are stuck.

4. He Meets Your Deepest Needs.

Our deepest need is for salvation. We may not know it. But our deepest need is for a right relationship with God. When we experience peace with God, everything else is better. Please notice something important in this chapter. Salvation is a gift from him.

John 4:10 (NIV) ¹⁰Jesus 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.”

Jesus offers this gift freely. He doesn’t ask the woman to earn it, but encourages her to ask for it as a gift. Salvation is a gift of forgiveness of the past, a fresh start. This gift is forgiveness for the past, a promise for the future, and power for the present to live life in a manner pleasing to God. That’s salvation, a gift from God to you, through Jesus. Do you know when we need love and acceptance the most? When we don’t deserve it. Salvation is a gift we don’t deserve. That’s why it comes through Jesus. He earned it for us, so that we could have it. It comes through a personal relationship with Jesus Christ as our savior. Once we see who he is and who we are, we can’t help but be changed. The union between the two comes through a faith relationship that you must ask for. Have you asked for the gift of God?

III. Jesus Releases You to Help Others

Remember where we left off? The woman discovered who Jesus is. Watch what she does when she finds out. The woman left her water pot at the well and took off (4:28). She came to get water, but doesn’t take any water home. Or does she? She came for one kind of water and finds another kind. Watch what she does with it.

²⁷Just then his disciples returned and were surprised to find him talking with a woman. But no one asked, “What do you want?” or “Why are you talking with her?”

²⁸Then, leaving her water jar, the woman went back to the town and said to the people, ²⁹“Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Christ^£?” ³⁰They came out of the town and made their way toward him.

³¹Meanwhile his disciples urged him, “Rabbi, eat something.”

³²But he said to them, “I have food to eat that you know nothing about.”

³³Then his disciples said to each other, “Could someone have brought him food?”

³⁴“My food,” said Jesus, “is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work. ³⁵Do you not say, ‘Four months more and then the harvest’? I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest. ³⁶Even now the reaper draws his wages, even now he harvests the crop for eternal life, so that the sower and the reaper may be glad together. ³⁷Thus the saying ‘One sows and another reaps’ is true. ³⁸I 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.”

³⁹Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me everything I ever did.” ⁴⁰So when the Samaritans came to him, they urged him to stay with them, and he stayed two days. ⁴¹And because of his words many more became believers.

⁴²They 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.”

The Harvest

Jesus looked up and talked about a harvest.

³⁵Do you not say, ‘Four months more and then the harvest’? I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest.

I think he looked up and literally saw something with his eyes that reminded him of harvest. The people were coming out in great numbers from town to see him. They were wearing those white cloth head coverings. The crowd resembled a wheat field with white heads ready to harvest blowing in the wind. Jesus asks the bewildered disciples to raise their heads and take a look at the harvest.

An Oasis In the Desert

The people came looking for the Oasis in the Desert, the Living Water.

Not too long ago, our family did an overnight backpacking trip, and camped out at Fossil Springs. It’s really an amazing place. These unusual springs continuously produce 43 cubic feet of water per second, that’s one million gallons of water per hour. Literally a river comes gushing out of the ground starting from these springs. It is high desert all around, yet out of the ground comes millions of gallons of water. A river of water pours out. I did what I would normally never do on a backpacking camping trip. I put my water bottles directly into the source of the spring and filled them up and drank fresh water gushing out of the ground. Normally, I use a backpacking-purifying pump to pump all our drinking water. Normally, on a back packing trip, it takes a lot of effort to draw water. Not this time. All the water bottles were filled up from a clean source. It is a place worth seeing. In fact, so many people already know about it that they have a well-established trail, and trail heads to go see it. It is a busy place. The secret is out, kind of like the source of living water found by a well just outside of a town called Sychar, this time the source wasn’t an old well, but a person, Jesus Christ. Where he stood, just outside of Sychar became a busy place, and fast.

Think of how great it would be to find an oasis in the desert when you are dying of thirst! First you’d make sure it’s not a mirage or a stagnant pond. You’d be overjoyed if you found it was a gurgling spring, springing right up out of the ground! Then you would drink till you were satisfied. You might even play in it. Cool down a bit. But then what? You’ve just got to tell somebody about this discovery! That’s what the woman did.

John’s Source of Info

Have you ever stopped to consider where John got the details about the conversation between the Samaritan woman and Jesus? As far as we know there wasn’t anybody else there. The information came from one of the two; either from Jesus, or from the woman. Read 4:28 and 29 again.

²⁸Then, leaving her water jar, the woman went back to the town and said to the people, ²⁹“Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Christ?”

Now where did John get the information about what the woman said in town? Jesus wasn’t there. There are a couple of possibilities here. One possibility is that the people who came out to see Jesus told the disciples what they had heard in town and why they came out to see Jesus. The disciples obviously spent some more time in Samaria harvesting where they had not sown. You know what else happened that day? The woman came back for her water jar. Well, not really for the water jar. She left it because she knew she was coming back, not for her water jar, but in order to spend more time learning from the Messiah. It was there, in the hearing of the disciples that they spoke again to the woman, after they had met Jesus.

John 4:42 (NIV) ⁴²They 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.”

She came back to the well with the crowd. I think the disciples learned a lot about what happened at the well that day from a very excited woman who had been socially dying of thirst for a long time. Once Jesus changes us we can’t help but tell others. Jesus gave her living water. It was flooding up within her. Everything was different for her. Suddenly people were listening to her. She was not the outcast anymore. I think she talked and talked and talked. And it wasn’t boring. Others were listening. This was out of character. John, a stranger, listened with interest to her description of the conversation she had with his friend, Jesus. Jesus was so full of surprises. John for the first time began to see an outcast sinner, a Samaritan of all people, through the eyes of grace. The way Jesus treated people was different, and it was contagious. John was catching it.

INVITATION

Whoever thought of reaching the Samaritans! Jesus did. That’s why he “had to go through Samaria.” He was the Savior of the world.

Whoever you are, don’t be afraid to meet Jesus. He has something to tell you and something to give you, too. He wants to tell you, just like the teacher to the little girl with the cleft palate "I wish you were my son" or "I wish you were my daughter." Then he has something to give you, wholeness. Salvation. Forgiveness. Acceptance. Love.

So many others have come to meet him and found him to be all that he claimed to be. This oasis spring of living water is large enough for everyone. Since it is large enough, why would you keep it a secret from stragglers dying out in a desert? You wouldn’t. Neither did the Samaritan woman, neither did Jesus, neither did the disciples; neither am I going to let you go thirsty in the desert if I can help it.

Have you been avoiding his well? Are you in pain? Maybe it is a difficult past that keeps you from him. But maybe your difficult past is precisely why you need to see him. Meet Jesus where you are; he’s here to meet you.

If you’d like to ask for the gift Jesus offers, would you pray with me as I pray?

Dear Jesus,

I have a difficult past. You already know about it. But you have asked me to confess it, to speak to you about it. [Tell him about it.] You know about my sin. [Tell him about it, admit it, and ask for the forgiveness he offers] I want your gift of living water. I want to be released from my past pain. Please give me forgiveness. Help me to release those who have caused me pain, even as you are releasing me from my sin. I release the offenders [name them] who have caused me pain [name the pain]. I release these offenders into your hands for you to deal with them. I cut the strings of bitterness that tie me to my past so that I can be free to put the past in the past and walk with you in freedom from this point forward. Thank you for offering to me your spirit’s power to live for you today. Thank you for offering to me your promise for a beautiful future with you. I am thirsty Lord; teach me to drink from your “living water.” In Jesus Name, Amen.

[i] Leadership, Vol. 16, no. 1.