Jesus came as the Christ to show us another well. We can get beyond the frames that have been put upon us. He came as a the new thing under the Sun. How can these things be? They are because as He told the woman at the well “I Am He.” (Ecclesiastes 1:4-10; John 3:3-10; John 4)

Speaker(s): Thomas Schaller
Sermon 12304
7:00 PM on 5/18/2022

P. Schaller –

Okay. Good evening. I have a picture frame here for an illustration I want to use in the message, so follow it
with me. We are in Ecclesiastes just for a brief few minutes in the book of Ecclesiastes chapter
1:4. I’m not teaching this. I’m just going to read it. vs. 4-10. The way it works is the sea,
evaporation. The clouds come off from the Pacific over California. As the air rises, the rain falls
on the west side of the mountains. It continues on and so on. Then the rivers run back into the
sea and the whole thing is repeated. Vs. 8. Paycheck to paycheck, job to job. Beltway driving.
Work. Back home. Work, church, back home. Work, back home. Church, back home. Work.
Eating. Sleeping. And the eye is not satisfied with seeing, vs. 8-10. Is there anything new under
the sun? There is no new thing under the sun. vs. 10. Can we say this is new?

You can think of an automobile. They used to have horses. We have horses today, but we’d
travel by horse and now we travel by automobiles. Is that new? No, not really. The physics of an
automobile is the same as it’s always been. Is there anything new? So, now turn to John. 4. John 3,
the Gospel of John and chapter 3. Nicodemus and the famous story of Jesus meeting
Nicodemus at night and telling him he must be born again, but Nicodemus did not understand
that idea of being born again. John. 3:4-7, then he describes in vs. 8. Born of the Spirit. Vs. 9. How
can these things be?

This is a sentence that is said all the time in the world we live in. How can it be? I don’t believe
it. I don’t believe there is anything more than the circuits of the wind, the operations of life. I
don’t see it. Religion. I don’t see that there is anything new. I cannot believe it. How can it be?
Vs. 10. You’re a professor of theology, a linguist, a rabbi, a teacher, a wise man, a studied
student of the Bible but you don’t know this, the things of the Spirit, what the Spirit says, what
the Spirit does inside a person. The new birth. The connection between this world and the next
world or this world or the unseen world. You do not know about it. This is what Jesus is saying
in John. 3.

Then in John. 4 he meets the woman at the well. I’d like you to turn here to chapter 4 and we’ll
explain this and I hope it ministers to you. The woman at the well. I’ll write it down here and
then what she says. Four things. And then Jesus says four things. Chapter 4:5-6, that means 12
noon. Vs. 7-9. First thing here I wanted you to notice is the well. This is Jacob’s well. The woman
went there on a regular basis. The woman knew the well. They needed water. It was everyday
life. She probably went in the heat of the day so she wouldn’t meet other women there. Jesus
knew this. Jesus went and sat there because he has something more to give her. And she says
this well is given to our fathers. This is our frame. I use this picture frame. This is my world. My
world is this well. My home, my people. This is how people live.

But remember Christ came into the world to give us more, what the world could never give us
because there’s nothing new under the sun in this world except Christ. He is that new life. And
not only are we believing in him at one point in our life, but we are actually living in the Spirit and learning and being renewed and refreshed. He talked to the woman about another well
and this is the key to the story. If you ask me, he said to the woman, if you ask me, I would give
you water and you’ll never thirst again. Vs. 10. She’s focused on this well here up on our screen.
You don’t have anything to draw with and the well is very deep.

That’s how people think about life. They live only in that frame that they are familiar with, that
world that they are born in. They say in their hearts I am tired. I am wearied. The well is deep. I
have to come here every day. Christ shifts the story and so do we as people that have seen and
understood something that many people even Nicodemus did not understand. He said how
could these things be? I’m living all my life in a frame, in a religious frame. I grew up in a
Christian home somebody could say. A teenager could say I’ve been to the Sunday School. I’ve
been to the youth ministry. I’ve grown up in it. I know what it is. But do you? Do you know what
it is to be comforted by Christ, spoken to by Christ, come alive by Christ? Do you know what it
means to find another well not made with hands but a well the world knows nothing about. Do
you know that there is something new under the sun? That there is a reality that God brought
to us and it is the Son of God. It is God himself that has come into this world to give us
something we didn’t have.

The second thing here in the story is her marriage. I’ll put it here. The man she was with. She’s
been married five times and now she’s with another man, the sixth one. What’s the meaning of
this? The meaning of this in my opinion when Christ talks to her about it is that he’s saying I
know you. I really know you. I’m not so far away that I cannot touch your life, that I cannot go
into the good, the bad, and the ugly. I know you. I know it all. You don’t know who I am but I’m
going to tell you by the end of the passage here that I am the Messiah. This is what is needed
when we talk to people. I want to encourage all of us in our lives, in our way of living that have
you seen something beyond the frame of your own life? Have you touched it or are you like
Nicodemus saying, how can these things be? There is no resurrection of the dead. When we
bury someone in the cemetery, it is over.

There is no Bible that speaks to people. There is no word that comes from God. There is no comforter in this terrible, troubled world. I have not found any. I just turn to my beer or my opioid or my addiction or my prescribed drugs or I turn
to the psychologist or a club or a girlfriend or I chase women. I do any number of things
because there isn’t anything new under the sun.

And Jesus says I know you. I know all about it. And I love you. I came to tell you something. I am
Christ. You have no idea who I am. You have no idea what I can do on a Monday morning, on a
Tuesday night. You have no idea how I can visit you on a Friday night when you are lonely and
tempted. When you come close to me, draw near to me, when you find me, when you find me
in a book that’s written by a man of God or a woman of God by the Spirit of God, and when you
read that book your heart is on fire. You find me in reading the gospel of John. I talk to these
people through the gospel of John and I draw them in faith and say without faith you cannot please me. But if you come with a little bit, a mustard seed of faith, I’ll show you what I’ll do for
you.

Let’s have Anu come up here and be my little – I have two more things to say here but here he
comes. Okay. So, what’s the meaning? He’s in life. It’s a frame. It’s something that doesn’t
change. You can say there’s nothing new there. It’s same old, same old every day. In the
Christian life, too. Because we are Christians, that doesn’t mean we have something automatic.
We do have the Holy Spirit is our minister. We are filled with the Spirit. But I want to make a
point. We are also human beings that have to put off the old man and put on the new. We are
human beings. Jesus is kind of saying to us, do you believe me? Can you trust me? Do you
realize who I am? Is there anything new under the sun?

According to this picture, there isn’t, but is it so? In the story with the woman at the well, she
was kind of stuck. I’ll put here the third one cause I think Anu can handle it. She goes our
temple, our temple and our worship. We are Samaritans. Jesus knows the woman’s challenges
and her five husbands and her pain and her hurt. We said before the woman must have
somehow been attractive or charming to have five husband and then have another man, but
there must have been something kind of wrong, too. Something that drove the man away after
a while. And he got rid of her. That must have been painful for that woman.

She met Jesus and she said come and meet the man that knows everything about me. Come
and meet the man who touched really not just fooling around but he is the answer. He is the
Christ. Come and meet him. Have you met him? Can you share it with people in the highways
and byways of life? Can we open our mouths and say believe me. It’s not what you think. It’s a
lot better. It’s a lot better. She talked about temple worship. Jesus said the Father seeks such to
worship him in spirit and in truth. He talked about real worship. Now come on. Jesus says here I
am. I want to show you who I am. Come on. That’s all. There’s another dimension.

That’s all. Is there? Is Anu alive? What about the world that we live in? It is a real thing. Our taxes, the
grave, the pain, the trouble that the woman has but she has more, doesn’t she? Is there
something new under the sun? Christ is. Think about it. Every day you are tempted to say there
is not anything for me. Then be corrected by the gospel of John because everything in this
gospel is saying to you and I that he is the transcendent Christ, the Christ that came in – no man
he said to Nicodemus – no man has ascended up to heaven but the Son of man who is in
heaven. I am here. I am the present reality.

The fourth thing that the woman said is that I have heard that the Messiah is coming. And he said, he that speaks to you is he. I am he. I am he. What did we find when we came to Christ? Go through the short list.

#1. There’s another well
that the world doesn’t know about and he gives to us.

#2. He knows you. He knows you and I.
#3. We are now worshippers. Wherever you go, put us in any direction and we are worshippers.
It doesn’t matter where we face. If we are looking down or looking up or east or west.

We are worshippers cause this is worship in the Spirit. God seeks us to worship him. Like Anu coming
through the frame and saying like we do, I am alive. You cannot frame my life and put it in a
frame when we have Christ in our life. You cannot limit us by our failure. Our failure can’t frame
our life. Our poor identity, self-image cannot frame our life. We came out. The tomb could not
frame Lazarus’ life. He came out of the tomb.

Nicodemus, Nicodemus, are you a teacher in Israel and you don’t know the things that God has
prepared for those that follow him and trust him? Thirdly, we are the worshippers and then
fourthly, he is the Messiah. Let’s stop here and finish the message.
I believe our country is at a very interesting place with a lot of ungodly and unrighteous
leadership that is seen in the media, in places of government and leadership and professorships
on university campuses. In all kinds of areas in Hollywood and celebrity-ism and everything.
And it’s okay. That’s okay if you’ve come beyond the frame and you have life like Jesus. Jesus
was in a hard country. Jesus was in a country that rejected him, resisted him, fought against
him. It couldn’t stop his miracles, his teaching, his authority. They could not stop it.

In the same way, we are like living beyond the boredom of every day life, driving the beltway.
We are driving it with joy in our hearts cause we have seen Christ. We are beyond complaining.
We are praising. We are singing. We are beyond analyzing the conditions of life and where we
are at in history. We are here but we are way beyond. We are messengers, ambassadors. We
have a message. Do you have a message? Can you share your faith? Can you talk about Jesus?
Can you use his name? Can you share and say I have seen. I have seen. I believe. I have a word
for you.

I was thinking if I was living every day in the world kind of like at work and everything, I think I
might have a Proverb like prepared in my pocket every day in a card. I might pull out the
Proverb from the Bible and say to my working colleague, I have a proverb for you today. I have
something to read to you. I was thinking which one would I use if I went to work today in a
place? And it would be, “he who digs a pit will fall into it.” And I’d say that’s a proverb from Ecclesiastes.
10. Be careful you don’t dig a pit and fall into it yourself. Or you break down a wall and a
serpent will bite you. What does that mean? I ‘m glad you asked. I have something to say about
it.

What are we saying? We are in a world that is kind of frozen in a frame. And they say there’s
nothing new. But we have the gospel. We have the forgiveness of sin. We have the mercy of
God. We have the grace of God. We have the doctrine of imputed righteousness. I believe all
you folks understand that doctrine. You are imputed with righteousness. You have been made
righteous by the grace of God. Instantly, the moment you believe, you are saved by his grace.
Incredible. Absolutely incredible. People need him and we are here for this reason. So, let us
pray as a church that God will fill these chairs. That God would bless our Convention.

By the way, a week from Friday is a dinner for Bible college, MBC&S, all graduates, all past post-
graduates, all teachers, all family members. Tickets will be on sale on line. It will be a beautiful
time together in the Family Center and you are welcome. There are so many things going on in
our church and just to bring somebody and maybe pray about this message tonight. Okay.
Amen. Would you pray with me.

Please enjoy these sermon notes from the messages preached at Greater Grace Church in Baltimore. These notes are provided to aid in your study and understanding of the Word. Note that these notes do not represent complete, word-for-word transcriptions. Also, they may contain omissions as well as some errors in spelling and structure, etc., as we attempt to provide them as soon as possible. Our hope is that these notes serve as a way to help you search and connect with messages on related subjects and passages. Thank you for your interest in the ministry of Greater Grace.