Many people are dissatisfied with their lives.
A lot of people have this overwhelming sense that their lives have been wasted. Do you ever feel that way? You started off with all sorts of hopes, dreams, and aspirations. You thought that you would have that kind of job, and that kind of house, and live in that kind of neighborhood, with that kind of spouse and have those kinds of kids, and those kinds of friends, and you'd have recognition, and you'd be more healthy, and things would just be normal.
But things haven't been normal, and now you feel as if your life is one big disappointment. Your life isn't anything like you'd hoped or expected. You're unhappy about the things that have happened. You don't know whether to be mad at God, at other people, at dumb luck, at Democrats or Republicans, or at yourself.
Here is something to think about. The more wasted you feel your life has been, the more impulsive and desperate you become. You start grabbing and grasping for anything to fill that gaping void in your life. And the more desperate you grow, the more reckless and dangerous you become to yourself and others.
A while back, I was working with a few guys in someone's backyard, when I noticed an old lady walk out on her patio with a cane. She was smoking a cigarette and pulling an oxygen tank behind her. I didn't think matches and oxygen tanks went together! The woman came over to the fence and started supervising us. She was so obnoxious! I felt sadness for her. We probably cared more about her health than she did about her own health. But what do you say?
A person who feels his life has been wasted stops caring about himself and others. He'll drink himself senseless, destroy his liver, kill his brain cells, destroy his lungs, and engage in immoral behavior. Why not?
The Bible refers to an, "empty way of life".
We're not talking about rationality here. We're talking about a mentality that says, "What do I have to lose? I'm already wasted. I've already started down this road. I'm already an addict. I'm already a felon. I'm already sick, or diseased, or disabled, or damaged, or dysfunctional. I've already corrupted myself."
The Bible refers to this as the, "empty way of life." There are young people leading empty lives. There are just as many older people leading empty lives. There are non-Christian people leading empty lives. Tragically, there are Christian people leading empty lives. Some of you are leading empty lives. You've stopped caring about yourself and you've stopped caring about others. Whether you would say it in so many words, I do not know, but you believe your life is beyond redemption.
God's power can make a person begin caring about himself and about others.
I believe it is the power of God that a person can begin caring about himself and about others. Think about it! In preparation for this Sunday, many of you agreed to read John 4. In John 4 we have this bizarre account of Jesus traveling with his disciples. In John 4:4 (NIV) we read, "Now he (Jesus) had to go through Samaria. So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar..."
Why is this verse bizarre? Here's why. What Jewish person in their right mind would ever have to go through Samaria? What upstanding Jewish person would ever have to take a short cut through a Palestinian ghetto? The truth is that most Jews saw the land of Samaria as a land beyond redemption. The Jews saw Samaritans as being beyond repentance, both in this life and in the life to come. In return, most Samaritans also hated the Jews. But in John 4 we find this Samaritan woman who was doubly ostracized, not just by Jews, but also by her own people, because of her wasted life.
The Samaritan woman led a wasted life.
She was the kind of woman people would whisper about. Every day was the same. No one really spoke to her or smiled at her. In fact, few would even make eye contact with her. She could go for weeks on end without a single person stopping for her, or taking time to listen to her story. When people did mention her name, it was always with negative, condemning overtones. The many men that had taken interest in her through the years repeatedly left her abandoned and even more damaged after exploiting her for their evil desires.
On most days she would hide from others and avoid all contact. For example, in John 4 she found it better to go out to the city well to draw water by herself than to suffer the malicious talk of her townspeople. The woman in John 4 was the kind of woman who carried an overwhelming sense that her life had been wasted and that her life was not able to be salvaged. She was content to exist in the best way she could. And this is important- she was resigned to continuing in the empty way of life that was destroying her.
That is how it is with us too. We just keep overeating. We just keep pumping our bodies full of bad sugar. Energy drinks. Soda. Caffeine. Fatty foods. Alcohol. Marijuana. And we get defensive about it when we're confronted.
For this particular woman, her empty way of life involved sexual immorality. As Jesus talks to her, he mentions her empty way of life. In John 4:16 (NIV) he says to her, "Go, call your husband and come back." If you have a pen, underline the word your in your bible. Go call your husband and come back.
In John 4:17 (NIV) the woman replies, "I have no husband." What Jesus says next is altogether tragic, sad, and a moral outrage. In John 4:17-18 (NIV) Jesus said, "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 said is quite true."
The Samaritan woman was a home wrecker.
A few weeks ago, someone pointed out the likelihood that this woman was more than a fornicator. A fornicator is someone who never moves into a covenant relationship, yet continues living with, and being intimate with, and having children with someone she may never marry. Fornication is epidemic in our culture.
In all likelihood, this woman was also more than an adulterer. Adulterers are people who violate their oath before God to remain faithful to the wife or husband of their youth. Adultery is epidemic in our culture.
What the language in John 4:17 seems to suggest is this woman is a home wrecker. She has set her sights on someone else's husband. Notice that Jesus doesn't say to her, "You are not married." Jesus does say, "...you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband." Again, underline the word your as in your husband. Just whose husband is she with?
There is at least a small possibility that this woman had wrecked not one, not two, not three, not four, and not even five, but six marriages! Six families! Is it any wonder she was being ostracized by her community? Is it any wonder why in John 4:19 she immediately changes the subject and tries to distract Jesus with one of the most controversial and heated and divisive theological topics she could think of? She asked whether Jerusalem or Mount Gerazim was the true place of worship for God's people!
The Samaritan woman was standing before the Son of the living God.
What this woman comes to discover is that even though she was more than a fornicator, and more than an adulterer, and more than a one time offender, she is standing before the Son of the living God! And the living God is offering to fill her empty way of life with living water!
Look back at John 4:13-14 (NIV). Look what Jesus tells her at the start of their conversation. "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."
Put yourself in the shoes of this woman. Suppose water is a precious and finite resource. Each day you go to the same old well and draw out a single bucket of water. And each day you are careful to conserve that water, and not spill it, or waste it in any way.
Suppose that, like this woman, you saw each day of your life as a drop of water in that bucket? Imagine the despair of seeing so many days of your life spilled out of that bucket. Imagine the despair of seeing your bucket go from full, to half-full, to half-empty, then to completely empty. And for what?
Now suppose you handed this woman a wide open garden hose with an endless supply of water-- a supply she could never possibly exhaust. This was a supply greater than all the water in Lake Michigan. Imagine water spraying out everywhere. She's filling her own bucket, her neighbors' buckets, and she's hosing people down. Imagine what it would mean for her not to worry about wasting water any longer?
Now suppose Jesus offered you eternal life. And suppose Jesus could cause eternal life to well up within you like an inexhaustible spring of water. What if all the days you have wasted, all years of your life, were as if they were not wasted any longer?
Jesus was the one man who gave dignity to the Samaritan woman.
There is more. Jesus, "had to go through Samaria." What an incredible thing it must have been for this woman to meet the Son of man. A man who spoke plainly to her as no one else had. A man who smiled at her, made eye contact, and refused to avoid her as others had. A man who not only stopped for her, but clearly went out of his way to meet her. A man who took time to give her dignity and listen to her story, but who could also transform her story. A man who had no interest in exploiting her to satisfy some evil desire. A man who left her with an overwhelming sense that her life didn't have to be wasted no longer!
I love what 1 Peter 1:18-23 (NIV) says, "For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your forefathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect. He was chosen before the creation of the world, but was revealed in these last times for your sake. Through him you believe in God, who raised him from the dead and glorified him, and so your faith and hope are in God. Now that you have purified yourselves by obeying the truth so that you have sincere love for your brothers, love one another deeply, from the heart. For you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God."
Now realizing how precious her life was to God, now realizing that her damaged life could now be forgiven and redeemed by God's grace, now caring about her own life, and now caring about others, she raced back to her village. Because of her testimony of Christ's power, many believed on Jesus for eternal life. See John 4:39. How could they not? She had a new mentality, a new heart, a new mind, a new spirit, a new identity, and a new life. She was a new creation!