In this sermon, the preacher emphasizes the importance of being in the right mood and place as we move about in our lives. He refers to the disciples in the book of Acts who recognized the need to be in the right spirit and location. The preacher also mentions the story of Jesus and the woman at the well, highlighting Jesus' compassionate mood and how it led to a significant encounter. He encourages the audience to let God choose their place and to have peace in their spirit, even in uncomfortable situations.

Now, Father, we thank you for the reading of your Word, as we've just read this passage in John chapter 4 about the woman at the well. And we pray that you would open up our hearts this morning to your Word as we're here, that we would worship you in spirit and truth as the Lord Jesus said to her that the Father was seeking those to worship Him in spirit and in truth. And now we pray that we'd be attentive and that we would really have contact with you in our spirit, that we wouldn't just be here with our mind and our body, but that our spirit would be listening to what you're saying to us. Thank you now in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, I know the boys and girls are wondering, what kind of thing do we have today? Well, you usually have a Word picture. Well, I was listening to the Lord this morning waiting for a Word picture and said, Lord, I don't know what to use for a Word picture. And so I usually go down and walk down our little road down here coming into our place. And I just prayed, Lord, show me what you want me to have for a Word picture. And I looked down over there in the road and there was this leaf. What kind of leaf is that? If you're a great nature naturalist like myself, you would say it's a dead leaf. And this one would be a live leaf, except that I've just sort of disconnected it from its source of life and it'll end up looking like this red one. It's got some splots on it. I don't know what the splots are. Some kind of fungus. Okay. Anyway, that's probably what? Is that a maple? Elm? The elms aren't doing too good around here. All right. There's a difference between these two. If you can imagine this bunch of leaves here still hooked onto the branch that I've pulled off. There's a difference between these two, isn't there? Difference in color. And there's one word. There's one word. These leaves were in their place. This leaf was out of its place. Place. Our fathers worshiped in this mountain and you say that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship. And then Jesus really took her to the heart of the matter and he said, the place is in spirit and in truth. The true place. Because he said, the hour cometh when you shall neither in this mountain nor yet at Jerusalem worship the Father. Now, this is an interesting passage. I've sought to do some research this week about the background of this passage. Why would Jesus have to go to Samaria? We know that they had to go out of their way to go back to Galilee if they were really of the more stricter type of Jews and they wouldn't go through Samaria because the Samaritans and the Jews, they didn't get along. By the way, do you know why they didn't get along? That's what I've been studying on this week. Listening to the Lord. Well, Lord, what is this passage about? Why is it that the Jews and Samaritans didn't get along? Now, I've come up with a statement. When you're in the place God wants you to be, I believe that you will experience His blessing. That's not to say that there won't be some trials and tribulations, but when you're in your place, just like those leaves, when they're in their place, they experience the blessing of the sap and they have the juice flowing in there, nice and green and everything, but when the leaf gets out of its place, it's on the way out. It actually dies. Now, the woman of Samaria came to Jesus. Actually, she came to the well. Jesus was there. He was tired and weary and thirsty. She happened to be coming to the right place at the right time because who was there? Jesus. She was coming to the right place. Now, in verse 9, Then said the woman of Samaria unto him, How is it that thou, being a Jew, askest drink of me, which am a woman of Samaria? For the Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans. She was a little bit shocked. When the disciples came back later on, they were shocked that Jesus was talking with this woman. She was shocked that He would talk to her. As a matter of fact, when the disciples came back, Jesus just came right to them and He said, Lift up your eyes. Look on the fields, for they are white, and the harvests are ready. Now, did the disciples see the Samaritans as needy people? Probably not. Do we always see people as needy people? Probably don't. As a matter of fact, yesterday, I was going to share this at the last, but I'll share it now. We had to go to Joplin. We just had to go. I had to get the van fixed, the sears. People had broke a stud off my wheel, one of those things that the nut screws on. Back in May, and I hadn't had time. I've gone in a couple times, and they didn't have time to do it because it took some time. I didn't have the time. So finally, with a wife and the kids fixing to take off on a long trip, we've got to get that done. So we went in, and we got that done. While we were there, we needed to do a little business. Wife needed to shop for some shoes. So that's okay. We'll get both birds done. So we were there. I didn't really want to be there yesterday in town, but that was okay. But as we went along and we looked at every white tennis shoe in the mall, I was beginning to not want to be there more and more. I come to the conclusion, if possible, it's not best to go shopping with a wife for shoes. I didn't mind it the first few stores, but by the time we went through the whole mall, you know how it is. That's the way. You don't want to go with me if I look for shoes, for sure. It's just some people. But I wanted to be a support to her and help her out, and she wanted me to be along. And so by the time we were all done, we bought shoes for two kids, but not for her. And I was to the point, just buy some shoes. No, they got to be just right. And not only that, they got to be on sale. Don't you buy like that? Certain things, you just got to get them on sale. And it just can't stand to pay that price. You know they're going to be on sale because they go in cycles, all the shoes. And we'd ask them, well, next week, maybe they'll be on sale. Will you do it now? No, we can't do it because, you know, they're just all working at those places anyway. I was at this place yesterday, and I didn't mind at first, but as it began to go on and the hours began to go by, I didn't want to be there more and more. And so my mood wasn't the best. You know how it is. You're in the right place, but maybe your attitude's not the best. Anybody else have things like that happen to them? Good. I'm glad I'm with a bunch of perfect people. Y'all can help me out. All right. But here's the deal. As we had the prayer request this morning, Sean said, do you want to share what the Lord has done to you this week? He said, I think just like that. And I said, boy, I don't want to share what the Lord's done to me. But he sort of run over me. About here I was in this place. I'd put some tracts in. And do you know how many people I shared the gospel with? None. Just as backslidden as I could be. All these opportunities. So don't ever lift me up on some kind of pedestal. I was in the place where God wanted me, but my mood was not too good, especially as time... And that happens to us. Now, let's see what we can get out of all of this. Now, the disciples, they had that happen to them sometimes too. So I'm glad to see that here's the great disciples of Jesus. They got bent out of shape a little bit sometimes too. Being in a certain... They were probably not too excited to be drowning in a boat and to have a bunch of people out there to feed and different things. But the Lord is always in on all this. Now, the disciples didn't really care for Samaritans either because that's the way they'd been raised up, not to care for Samaritans. They were just... They were enemies, Samaritans and Jews. Do you know why? That's what we're going to do. We're going to dig through here a little bit. In verse 3, it says, He left Judea and departed again into Galilee. And the reason He left was when He heard that there was a jealous spirit, Jesus removed Himself from there. And He went into Galilee. So He left Judea representing Jews, went into Galilee representing Gentiles. And He came and He stayed there two days. That's got some prophetic symbolic meaning to it, two days. But we won't get into that because a day is a thousand years with the Lord. And so He stayed there two days with the Gentiles. We're almost at the end of two thousand years or two prophetic days of the Lord reaching out to the Gentiles. Now, our two days might be close to being over, but is there a pivot point in this passage? Something that would really show us what's the purpose of Jesus going there? I think it's in verse 20 about the word place. This place. And next week, the Lord willing, we'll go to the well. We'll learn about that well. But this particular place, let me give you a little bit of background on this place. Now, we're going to do some history. Then we're going to come back with some closing lessons. Quite a bit of history here. Christ is being rejected by the Jews at this particular point. In 322, after these things came Jesus and His disciples into the land Judea. And there He tarried with them and baptized. And we come on down through it and we see that He is being baptized. John said, No man receiveth his testimony. Actually, it looked like He was very successful, but He was really being rejected. Now, Christ is turning to the Gentiles at this point. Now, what about Samaria? It says He must, needs go through Samaria. Joshua 16 and 17 give us some background on Samaria. It was allotted to Ephraim of the tribes. This was their area. Now, as we're back in the Old Testament, and I'm going to go back to 1 Kings. If you want to, you can also. If you want to just listen, that's fine. In chapter 12, verses 25 through 33 gives us a little bit of background about the setting here. Starting in 24, there had been a split in the kingdom. Ten of the tribes had been taken into captivity. The Jews were taken into captivity. And the particular area was the king of Assyria. I think it was. Yeah, the king of Assyria had planted a colony of various nations in this area. And so there were some Jews still there with all these foreigners coming in. And there was contention between these two tribes also. They were fixing to go to the war. And the Lord told them in verse 24 of 1 Kings 12 that they were not to fight because this thing is from the Lord, what was going on. There is King Jeroboam and King Rehoboam. In 19, it says, Israel rebelled against the house of David. And to this day, and it came to pass when all Israel heard that Jeroboam was come again, that they sent and called him unto the congregation and made him king over all Israel. There was none that followed the house of David, but the tribe of Judah. So you have Israel with Jeroboam being the king. Rehoboam would be over Judah at this time. Now listen to what happens. In verse 25, Then Jeroboam built Shechem in Mount Ephraim. We're right in the spot. What did he do there? And dwelt there and went out from thence and built Peniel. And Jeroboam said in his heart, Now shall the kingdom return to the house of David. And what's he going to do? He said, If this people go up to do sacrifice in the house of the Lord at Jerusalem, then shall the heart of this people turn again unto their Lord, even unto Rehoboam king of Judah, and they shall kill me and go again to Rehoboam king of Judah. So what he's saying, it's best that they not go back and worship at Jerusalem. So in order to keep them from going back to Jerusalem, getting their emotions and their hearts all stirred up that that was the place where they were supposed to be, he's going to set up another worship center. Whereupon the king took counsel and verse 28 and made two calves of gold and said unto them, it is too much for you to go up to Jerusalem. Behold thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt. And he set the one in Bethel and the other put in Dan. And this thing became a sin for the people went to worship before the one, even unto Dan. And he made an house of high places and made priests of the lowest of the people, which were not of the sons of Levi. And Jeroboam ordained a feast in the eighth month on the 15th day of the month and went through it. So we have a convenient worship system now that's instituted. And so when the argument was, which was the right place to worship then? So when Jesus comes along, this is what the woman is asking him. And you know, actually this developed into just a year after year after year argument with the Jews for just forever. It seemed like almost like the war over there. And where is it? In Ireland between the Catholics and the Protestants. By the way, that's got an interesting history in it too. But anyway, it's just been going on forever. Where do we worship? And then the Samaritans had developed a pagan worship mixed with the Jude, with the law. They believed in part of it and part they didn't. They didn't expect, except some of it. And so they adopted paganism. So it became really quite a mess. And it was really detailed in a lot of their things they had. And it became just another system of worship and another place to worship. And we may not have known that that was there, but that was there. And that was the setting. Now in Ezra 4, 1 and 2, this is an interesting little side light. When they came back to the land, you remember Ezra and Nehemiah and they had the commission to come back. When they came back into the land, guess who were the guys that gave them trouble in building Jerusalem and getting the temple going? You got it. It was the Samaritans. Sanballat. You remember him? Sanballat? This is their camp. They didn't want another place. This was their place. Now it brings a little bit more light on the subject. Now when Jesus would come along, why would she ask this question? Where do we really worship anyway? There's this argument been going on forever. Is it this mountain here or is it Jerusalem? Josephus said that Manasseh, the son of, this is interesting little side light, Judah the high priest, married the daughter of Sanballat, the chief of the Samaritans. The Jews insisted that he repudiate his wife or renounce his sacred office as a priest. So what did he do? He kept his wife and so when he did that, he had to flee to Sanballat, there to his father-in-law. So while Sanballat gave him an honorable reception and Josephus said by permission of Alexander the Great they built a temple to Jehovah on Mount Gerson and he became the priest and his seed after him in that system. And so they officiated as the high priest in the place instead of the temple at Jerusalem. So you can see why they're a little bit upset that the Jews are going to come back and rebuild Jerusalem and rebuild the temple again. They had their thing going. This is why many times in the revival ministry some do not want revival in a church because they've got something going. They got a little kingdom. They got a little system and they actually will run out the revivalists or do whatever they can to keep their kingdom. Now let me throw you a little more light on this to you. In John 8, 48, if I can flip over here to John chapter 8, verse 48, now listen to this, "...then answered the Jews and said unto him, Say we not well that thou art a Samaritan and hast a devil?" Now you might see a little bit about this jab they threw at him. You're a Samaritan and you have a demon. Putting them down, that's as low as you could go in the whole world. I mean the other nations around them were not as bad an enemy as the Samaritans were to them. So it was not a friendly compliment. And of course he had just said, "...he that is of God heareth God's words, ye therefore hear them not because ye are not of God." And their answer back, well you're a Samaritan and you have a devil. And of course he answered back, I don't have a devil. Actually they had the devil. Now when he came along in Luke 10, for instance, and gave them the story of the good Samaritan, how do you think that set with him? Not too good. Set about as good as buttermilk and lemon. You know, it was a sour deal. And so when he gave them the story, and it'd be, I'm not going to do it at the time, but it'd be interesting to go back now and look at that story of him coming and mixing the Samaritan with the Jews, the priests and all that together. The Lord knows how to put his finger on the sore spots. Now, so what's the purpose of Jesus going to Samaria? With that background, doesn't that help you understand a little bit of Jesus coming to this woman at the well? And not only do the Jews not talk to the Samaritans, a Samaritan woman for sure. Now, there was a need, a moral need there. It just wasn't a geographical thing, but there was a moral need there. He said back in John 10, he said, other sheep I have, which are not of this foal, and I must, I must, he's saying I must bring them in. Here was all these people, all these multitudes. You see, he came to the Jews, but also he, for God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten son, the world. Here was a part of the world that nobody cared about. And there may be a part of this world that nobody cares about, but God will send you into a place. The place where God puts us is not always maybe of our choosing. That's why it's always best if we want to get along with God to let him choose our place. As Hudson Taylor said, God always gives his best to those who leave the choice to him. That way, if we leave God the room to orchestrate our lives and put us into the place and to direct us where he wants us to be, we can have peace. And if it's a very uncomfortable place or whatever, we say, well, God has put me here. I'm going to be at peace in my spirit and see what he wants to do instead of getting all upset. So there was a need there. And what is your purpose for being in the place that you're at or going to be? You say, what do you mean going to be? You never know when God might want to move you to another place or if you're in a process. Now, Jesus, here he is. He's weary. He's sitting at the well and he's waiting. And here comes this woman. And what was his mood? It was a lot better than my mood at the mall yesterday, I'll guarantee you. As a matter of fact, if I'd been in the same mood that he was in, I would have had what he had for this woman. He was in the mood, we'd say, love of compassion. The reason we will be in a place that will not have compassion is because we're not in the same spirit as Christ is. The disciples, they came back, were they with him? No, not in his mood. He was full of compassion. He was moved with compassion. He must go to Samaria to bring them back. There'd been this division for all these years. I can't even count up how many years, hundreds of years. He must bring them back, bring them in together. Interesting. And of some have compassion, Jude said, Jude 22. And of some have compassion making a difference. What makes the difference in reaching our neighbors and our relatives is this one very thing that Jesus had as he sat in that place is compassion. He had compassion. So, as God takes you on your shopping trip this week, or maybe me on another one, and we find ourselves in a place, and as we need to remember that God will put us in the place, but it'd be up to us to make sure that we're in the same mood as he is. You remember what the scripture says about Abraham? By faith, Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place, when he was called to go out into a place, Hebrews 11, 8. By faith, Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place which he should after receive for inheritance, obeyed. And he went out not knowing whether he went. We don't always know what's going on, what God's doing, but we must obey. That's what Jesus was doing. I must. There's some things that we must do, and everybody in the whole world may be against you, but if you know in your spirit that you must do it, then you must obey. So, God is bringing you from a place to a place, out of, into, continually. We have maybe, oh well, I got my place here where I live, but he may want you to get your gas in a different place, or do this or that in a different place. Our job, as we move about, in him we live and move and have our being, as the disciples said in the book of Acts, is to be in the right mood, in the right place. We have to watch our mood as God moves us. Now, sometimes it helps us to know the background of a setting like this, to understand the spiritual meaning of this passage. As I studied on this, I began to see things, and there's a lot more here. The well. Next week, we'll look at that well. What about that well? Was that significant? What do wells speak of? But for today, we must understand that the place that God puts us, is that we might be blessed and be a blessing to others, and so he brings this woman to, you must worship. If we bring people to Jesus, I wrote down this statement, when a man gets to Jesus, he will worship in spirit and in truth, but we must get them to Jesus. And so that's what the Lord is doing. He's getting them to the Father. Then she will be in her place. You see, she had a restless spirit, she knew, she just knew in her heart there was something not right. And they were looking for the Messiah. Isn't that interesting? All these Samaritans were looking for the Messiah as the Jews, and who found the Messiah? Well, some of the Jews, and a lot of the Samaritans. And even though the Jews had it all doctrinally right, and a lot of everything, they had a bad attitude. The Samaritans had it all scrambled up, but they had open hearts, and he stayed there two days with them. Jesus may put you someplace for two days. Let's bow. Lord, we just submit to you. We pray that you'd minister to our spirit. We pray that you would open up our hearts to not be so stubborn and rebellious and going around with our breaks on. So minister to us in Jesus' name. Amen.