Vision Comes When We Love as Christ Loves

The Lonely

Text: Jesus loves the lonely past their self-excluding thoughts, past their disappointments and past their past to a place of life that’s like living water.

Introduction: It all began with a simple statement in Genesis 2:18, “And the LORD God said, “It is not good that man should be alone; I will make him a helper comparable to him.” That was the Creators observation about humanity, it was the only thing in all creation that was ‘not good’. It was a reference to man’s need of woman, the one with man who would exercise dominion over the world. Then sin entered into creation and it had the effect of reversing man back to a place of isolation, of being alone. The fact is sin constantly seeks to separate us not only from God but from each other. It seeks to exalt self, constantly.                                                                                                                         

To be sure you don’t have to be alone to be lonely and to be alone may very well be God’s design for some. Consider the Apostle Paul. Researchers say that loneliness really doesn’t have to do with the numbers of people around you, you can be lonely in the midst of 10,000. Instead loneliness is more a state of mind, a perception we have of ourselves and of others. Loneliness knows no boundaries of age, sex, race, class or geography. From recent immigrants, to the poor, to people in successful careers, to young mothers, to soldiers in distant places or a child standing by the fence, it is not good when people are isolated in loneliness.                                                                                                                   

Here’s the good news, Jesus loves the lonely which is really good news for everyone here today because we all have known this place. So let me share with you this morning a story about a lonely person whom Jesus waits for. He sits and waits in the midday heat and then helps her passed her past. Have a look at John 4: 3-30.                                                                                                  

I. Appointments With the Lonely Come At Unexpected Places and Times.        

This story could easily have been about the prostitute who washed Jesus feet with tears and wiped them dry with her hair or the lame man by the pool of Siloam or the ten lepers whom Jesus healed. All were locked up in loneliness. In each situation for the disciples who walked with Him it was unexpected in both place and timing. Look at how this begins, verses 3,4 say, “He left Judea and departed again to Galilee. But He needed to go through Samaria.” Usually the Jews avoided Samaria, they would go all the way down to the Jordan in order to bypass it. In fact most other times that was the route Jesus took. But this time Jesus ‘must’ go through Samaria. The love of God sovereignly pursues us, He goes where we typically wouldn’t. Jesus and the disciples stop at Sychar, what is believed to be Shechem in the Old Testament. 1500 years earlier Abraham had stopped here and purchased this plot of land. Now it is the sixth hour, about noon, and Jesus is exhausted. He sits on the edge of a well just outside of the city while all the disciples walk into town to find food for the rest of the trip to Galilee. This picture shows Jesus as a person who is more vulnerable that we typically think Him to be. He isn’t as strong as the others, worn out in the middle of Samaria with a long way to go, and yet… this is the place He must go to, alone outside of Sychar, tired and thirsty. It’s a simple point that I make, when God sets you an appointment with the lonely, a place you too must go to, it will often be on their ground and in the context of what they are needing and will likely be inconvenient in time and place. You could call such a place Jacob’s Well, a place where people who would ordinarily never meet suddenly have a conversation about the obvious needs of them both.                                                                                                                               

II. Lonely People Never Want You to Know They Are.                                                            

Look at how the story unfolds, “Now Jacob’s well was there. Jesus therefore, being wearied from His journey, sat by the well. It was thus about the sixth hour. A woman of Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give Me a drink.” It’s a strange encounter because women seldom went to get water by themselves and rarely would they do it in the midday heat. She’s here at this time by herself, perhaps for a variety of reasons yet…alone. The other obvious thing is that Jesus sees what she has, a bucket with a long rope and He needs what she can provide, a drink of cool water. Sometimes conversations start out with the obvious and sometimes the obvious gets awkward. Jesus asks her for a drink of water, look at her response, “Then the woman of Samaria said to Him, “How is it that You, being a Jew, ask a drink from me, a Samaritan woman?” It’s really a two edged question, ‘Why would you a Jewish man condescend to ask me, a Samaritan woman, for a favor and why should I even give you this favor?’ The obvious leads to the awkward and it would have been easy to have it end here, to perpetuate their differences, to push away the lonely. This is where Jesus excels at something I still struggle to grasp. He recognizes the moment and speaks to the greatest need within the moment. Jesus pursues the conversation, He nudges her to see a greater need, a need of forgiveness, a need of restoration and life. It’s as though He says, ‘I am asking you for a very small thing but if you knew Who I am you would ask Me for the greatest thing’. This conversation about water is no longer about liquid but about longing, a longing for more, for life, a longing to leave loneliness forever. She challenges Jesus, she even in a sense laughs at the fact that He doesn’t hold the rope and bucket necessary to reach down into this deep well. But then Jesus offers her an invitation, “…whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst. But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life.” Her response to this invitation is instant, “Sir, give me this water, that I may not thirst, nor come here to draw.” So Jesus invites her to the next step, a place of no longer hiding. He tells her to go and bring her husband that he too would have this everlasting life. That’s when it tumbles out, a partial answer at first… ‘I have no husband’. Gently yet firmly Jesus presses her with truth, “…you have had five husbands, and the one whom you now have is not your husband…”. There it is, a past that locked her in, a heart that though lonely was hoping not to be discovered yet now is. He who knows us best loves us most. Jesus motive is always pure, even when it hurts.

III. Worship God From the Depths of Your Spirit in Transparent Truth.    

Jesus tells the Samaritan woman three things about worship. Worship is not about place, it’s not in Mount Gerizim nor is it even restricted to Jerusalem. Worship is about Person, the Person of the sovereign God, He chose the lost and least nation of Israel to be His scribe. Through His Word He has made Himself known. Worship is about purpose, the chief purpose of man. It is about pursuing God Who is Spirit with your spirit and with transparent truth. It is a ‘must’ condition if you desire to know and worship God. It’s then that the woman tells Jesus what she knows about God, verse 25, “The woman said to Him, “I know that Messiah is coming” (who is called Christ). “When He comes, He will tell us all things.” Messiah means ‘Anointed One’, sent by God. He will tell us all things, meaning the things God wants us to know. What do you suppose the ‘all things’ are that God wants you to know? Is it that He knows everything about you? Is it that He knows the way sin has influenced you? Is it that He knows how sin has separated you from Him? Is it that He loves you so much that He is going to come to where you are because you could never come to where He is? Is it that He is making a way called the cross, a Savior called Jesus and a salvation called gift? Is it that He who knows you best loves you most?                                                                                

Let me suggest to you that Jesus loves the lonely because it is something found in each of us. Loneliness is almost always either about a place, a person or a purpose and Christ has come fill in the void of all three. The cross of Jesus Christ meets our sin head on, by His blood, through His body, we gain His everlasting life. Because of His resurrection we have restoration as He saves us past our past.