Not Business As Usual | Is That In The Bible? The Chosen | The Woman at the Well | Pastor Levi Lusko

perfectly. Like I think you could try here just to up it just is that in the Bible week one teaching soft sticks. If you've ever felt like you're too broken, your past is too messy, or that you're not the kind of person God can use, this message is for you.

Hello to those of you at Fresh Life Church, to those at partner churches on the open network, or if you're watching and joining us online. My name is Levi Lusco, and I want to welcome you to Is That in the Bible? From the set of The Chosen, the first multi-season series about the life of Christ and the highest crowdfunded TV series or film project of all time.

No big deal. And what a great thing that so much attention is being focused on Jesus. This week we're going to watch a clip from season 1, episode 8 of The Chosen, titled I am He. Would you give me a drink? Did you hear me? That bad, huh?

What? You a Jew. Ask for her to drink from me. A Samaritan and a woman. I'm sorry. I should have said please. You know, it's not safe for you to be alone out here. Nor you. Why haven't you come with others? Why so late in the day? Don't women come to the wells in the the pool of the morning?

Yeah. Well, none of them will be seen with me, so I have to come out to live in the heat, as you have so kindly reminded me. Why won't they be seen with you? Long story. I I'd still like a drink of water if you can spare it.

Amazing what a parched throat will do. Aren't I unclean to you? Won't you be defiled by this vessel? Maybe some of my people say that about your women, but I don't. Yeah. And what do you say? I say if you knew who I am, you'd be asking me for a drink.

Really? And I would give you living water. Would except that you have nothing to draw water with. And this is a deep well. Besides, what do you need from me if you have your own supply of living water? Long story. But Jewish water is better than Samaritan water.

That's not what I said. Are you a better man than our ancestor Jacob, who dug this well? Your water is better than his. I know, Jacob. And everyone who drinks this water will thirst again. But whoever drinks the water that I give him will never be thirsty again.

Wouldn't that be nice? The water I give will become in a person a spring of water welling up to eternal life. Really? Yes. Really? Prove it. First go and call your husband, then come back. I will show you both. I don't have a husband. You are right. You've had five husbands.

And the man you're living with now is not your husband. I see you're a prophet. You're here to preach at me. No. Usually the one good thing about coming here alone is I can escape being condemned. I'm not here to condemn you. I've made mistakes. Too many. But it's men like you who have made it impossible for me to do anything about it.

How? Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews insist Jerusalem is the only place for true worship. They say that because the temple is there. Yeah, exactly. Where we're not allowed. I'm here to break those barriers. And the time is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father.

So where am I supposed to go when I need God? I've never received anything from God, but I couldn't thank him even if I did. Anywhere, God is spirit, and the time is coming and is now here that it won't matter where you worship, but only that you do it in spirit and truth, heart and mind.

That that is the kind of worshipper he's looking for. It won't matter where you're from. what you've done. Do you believe what I'm telling you? Until the Messiah comes and explains everything and sorts this mess out, including me, I don't trust in anyone. You're wrong when you say that you've never received anything from God.

This Messiah you speak of, I am he. The first one was named Ramin. You were a woman of purity who was excited to be married. But he wasn't a good man. He hurt you and it made you question marriage and even the practice of your faith. Stop it.

The second was Farzad. On your wedding night, his skin smelled like oranges. And to this day, every time you pass by the oranges in the market, you feel guilty for leaving him. because he was the only truly godly man you've been with. But you felt unworthy. Why are you doing this?

((music playing))
 I have not revealed myself to the public as the Messiah. You are the first. It would be good if you believed me. 
((music playing))
 You picked the wrong person. I came to Samaria just to meet you. Do you think it's an accident that I'm I'm here in the middle of the day?

I am rejected by others. I know, but not by the Messiah. 
((music playing))
 And you know these things because you are the Christ. 
((music playing))
 I'm going to tell everyone. I was counting on it. Spirit and truth. Spirit and truth. It won't be all about mountains or temples soon. Just the heart.

You promised. I promise. This man told me everything I've done. Oh, he must be the Christ. 
((music playing))
 Hey, wait. You what? You forgot your um your man who told me everything I ever did. Um Rabbi, we got food. What would you like? Ah, I have food to eat that you do not know about.

Who got you food? So very powerful. We're moving from screen to scripture and asking the question, is that in the Bible? And with this clip we just saw, the answer is an emphatic yes. And let's now look at John chapter 4. We're going to start in verse 7 and dig a little bit deeper.

This is a long passage, but it is well worth our time. It says, "A woman of Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, give me a drink. for his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food. Then the woman of Samaria said to him, "How is it that you, being a Jew, ask a drink from me, a Samaritan woman?

For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans." Jesus answered and said to her, "If you knew the gift of God and who it is who says to you," give me a drink, you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water." The woman said to him, "Sir, you have nothing to draw with, and the well is deep.

Where then do you get that living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as well as his sons and his livestock? Jesus answered and said to her, "Whoever drinks of this water will thirst again. But 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. The woman said to him, "Sir, give me this water that I may not thirst nor have to come here to draw." Jesus said to her, "Go call your husband and come here."

The woman answered and said,"I have no husband." Jesus said to her, "You have well said,"I have no husband, for you have had five husbands, and the one whom you now have is not your husband. In that you spoke truly." The woman said to him, "Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet.

Our fathers worshiped here on this mountain, and you Jews say that in Jerusalem is the proper place where one ought to worship. Jesus said to her,"Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem worship the Father. You worship what you do not know.

We know what we worship. For salvation is of the Jews. But the hour is coming, and now is when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth. For the Father is seeking such to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.

The woman said to him, "I know that the Messiah is coming, who is called Christ. When he comes, he will tell us all things. Don't miss this. Verse 26. Jesus said to her, "I who speak to you am he." And at this point his disciples came, and they marveled that he talked with a woman.

Yet no one said, "What do you seek?" or, "Why are you talking with her?" The woman then left her water pot, went away into the city, and said to the men, "Come and see a man who told me all things that I ever did. Could this be the Christ?

Then they went out of the city and came to him. In the meantime, his disciples urged him, saying, "Rabbi, eat." But he said to them, "I have food to eat of which you do not know." Therefore, the disciples said to one another, "Has anyone brought him anything to eat?"

Jesus said to them, "My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work." And father, we pray you'd speak to us loud and clear through your word. The title of this message is not business as usual because it is abundantly clear.

Everything about this interaction that Jesus is this is no ordinary day. This is not same old same old. In fact, this is a massive moment in the life and ministry of Jesus. For this is the first time on record Jesus has ever directly in his earthly ministry told someone point blank that he is the Messiah.

And everything about the impact and the way it was uh received was designed to raise eyebrows and to shock people. Everything about this was engineered to communicate that he is not the savior that the world wanted. He's the savior the world desperately needed. Here's a big thought for this whole series, this whole studying of who Jesus is as presented in the scriptures covered by the episodes that we're looking at in the chosen.

He's a different kind of king and he is inaugurating a different kind of kingdom. The language that's often used is that his kingdom is upside down. And that's why so often throughout his ministry, he would say, "This is how it works in the Roman world. This is how it works in the gentile world.

This is how it works even in the religious world of men, but not so in my kingdom." And the whole idea communicated in the sermon on the mount is that it is completely different than the way man sees it and the way man does it. It's something completely different.

Now, pausing that thought for a moment to introduce this whole series. When we talk about the question, is this in the Bible? We're watching these scenes depicting Bible stories lived out. We're asking, is this the same or different as what comes to us in scripture? And to help us serve us in that pursuit, we need to sort of establish three containers.

Like a child putting toys away. Let's think about three different bins to put things in. The three containers are scriptural information. That's bin number one. The second is church tradition or history. And then the third bin would be creative imagination. So that's fabricated uh made up uh but but but storytelling devices.

And the chosen is all at once from the very outset upfront to us about the difference between them. In fact, when you go back to episode one from season 1, the first words on the screen, the title screen are these words. The chosen is based on the true stories of the gospels of Jesus Christ.

Some locations and timelines have been combined or condensed. Backstories and some characters or dialogue have been added. However, all biblical and historical content and any artistic imagination are designed to support the truth and intention of the scriptures. And then I love this last part. It says, "Viewers are encouraged to read the gospels."

So, what are they saying to us? They're saying as we watch the show, we're getting things from these three different bins. So, let's circle back on them and think about this episode, this clip we just saw. The first bin is scriptural information. In the clip, in the scene, as we just read in the text, Jesus asking the woman for a drink, the conversation happening at a well, the disciples confusion when they get back, the woman having had five husbands and currently having a partner she's not married to.

All of that is pulled directly from scripture as of course is the most important part where Jesus says the title of the episode, I am he. I am the Messiah. The second bin that the show is clear about and we need to have our mind straight on the subject of is creative imagination.

This, as I said, is fabrication. As the show admitted, we're making up some backstory. We don't get all of the data in between. We don't get the little peculiarities. So, the fact that in the show her ex-husbands all have names, and we're told what one of them smelled like, Jesus's humor, the little moments of flourish that make him so human.

As scripture says, he's human like we are. Those are all storytelling and cinema to help us feel the character, to feel the scene, to give tone and texture to the art. But there's a third bin. This is one that we really need to be straight about that I think is so important to highlight.

The third bin is church tradition or church history. This is not Bible, but it's extra biblical historical information that we get from uh church history documents that have come to us preserved throughout the years. And this is something I've been so impressed to know that the show heavily relies on whenever possible, not only for uh depicting customs and culture and codes of the day, putting us into the moments of the Bible, but also using names.

For example, the name of the woman at the well in John chapter 4 is Fotina. That's what they call her, Fotina. Now, you don't read that in the Bible, but did you know they didn't just pull that out of a hat? Like, I don't know. Let's just call her Fotina, for example.

It's not random. Now, it's not biblical, but it comes to us from extra biblical church tradition. Now, you might go, "Oh, that's that's bad." If it's not in the Bible, hold on a second here. There are lots of times that we rely on this information that helps us.

For example, do you know how the Apostle Paul died? Now, you might go, "Well, yeah. Didn't he get beheaded? Didn't he have his head cut off?" Well, hold on. Where do we get that information from? That's nowhere in the Bible. Is that in the Bible? No, it's not.

John, the beloved, didn't he get boiled in hot oil before being banished? You go, "Yeah, I've been taught that my whole life. My pastors told me that. I've read that in in commentaries." Where do we get that information from? That's not in the Bible. Uh or how about this one?

Simon Peter is crucified, right? But you go, "No, no, he wasn't just crucified. He was crucified upside down." How do you know that? That's not in the Bible. And we could go on. Pontious Pilot committing suicide and other things that we've been taught and communicated our whole lives.

Those come to us not from biblical information and not fabrication but that third bin of historical information. Sources like origin, Ucius and Tertullian have given us those particular details I just mentioned to you. And what I've noticed and been so impressed by is that the writers of the chosen utilize church tradition as much as possible.

So naming her Futina or naming Veronica, the woman with the issue of blood that touched the hem of his garment. That's what church history tells us their names were. And it's really powerful to be able to dig deeper. Now you go, that's interesting, but what am I supposed to do with that information?

Well, here's what we're going to do with our three bins. We're going to take anything that comes to us as imagination and view it as art. Appreciate it, enjoy it, be moved by it, just like you would seeing Michelangelo's uh David. You wouldn't go, "Well, that's not exactly how he is in the Bible."

Of course, we don't know that. art. Da Vinci's Last Supper painting. It's beautiful. Obviously, not exactly as it happened. With the church tradition bin, we want to learn from it. It has a place, but we would never build doctrine based on something that just comes to us from tradition, though it has plenty to teach us.

The most important bin, of course, is the biblical information bin. And this is what the chosen pulls from so often. And where we find Bible, we're not just going to appreciate it. We're not just going to learn from it. We're gonna tremble before it because it's God's living eternal word that doesn't return void.

And I love watching the show, getting a sense almost like a a moving commentary that the show trembles and wants to unpack God's word, even with little things like the fact that this episode opens with Jacob digging a well, which Genesis 33 tells us took place in land that he purchased in that chapter.

So, what it becomes is sort of like a a cross reference that you can watch. And the Bible's full of cross references, some 63,000 cross references from Old Testament to New Testament. It's a hyperl book. And the show goes to great pains to show that, establishing Jacob as the one who got that well, dug that well, and and brought about this moment here in John chapter 4.

I also love that the art is good, too. The Bible matters most. The art's good. and the history we can learn from. All right. Well, again, we don't know her name for sure that it was Fotina, but we do know that Jesus's meeting with her was intentional. We're told in John 4:4 that Jesus needed to go through Samaria.

We didn't read those verses, but he had to get there. Why? He had an appointment. He wanted to meet with this girl. And it was completely different than anybody at the time would have looked at it because Jews avoided any interaction with Samaritans at all costs. In fact, the text told us point blank, Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.

Now, this uh points back to the Old Testament book of 2 Kings and the Assyrian invasion and captivity of the northern tribes of Israel. And they reseeded or repopulated the area after the captivity with heathens, with Gentiles who eventually married with some of the Jews that came back home and were still there and led to what the Jews viewed as sort of a a half breed.

And so they didn't want to do anything with them. And the Samaritans responded by building their own temple. And so you have these sort of two competing strains of religious thinking. And Jews detested and avoided them. And yet here's Jesus, a different kind of king, a different kind of kingdom.

He heads straight to Samaria to reach this girl, wanting her to be the first one to hear point blank, he's the Messiah, and wanting her to be deployed on mission to be his ambassador. And what we're going to do for the final few moments to really apply this teaching to our lives is let their interaction help us to see truth to combat four lies that the world tells us.

Okay, so jot them down. Lie number one is this. Religion can solve the problems in my life. This is clearly a lie. This woman is believing that religion can solve the problem. She says, "Well, this temple, we can go here. We can do this. This is what we need to do.

This is how God wants us to to live." And Jesus is communicating, "Hold on, hold on, hold on. If you knew the gift of God, you'd ask me for a drink and I would give it to you." He communicates not something she needs to do, but a gift she needs to receive.

Because this is so important. Salvation is a gift that God gives, not a wage that we earn. Romans 6:23 says that salvation is the gift of God. The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus. So, this woman thinks God needs to be appeased.

That I need to approach him like a like a slave to a master or like an employee to an employer as though he's up in heaven saying, "What have you done for me lately?" And he's saying, "I have a gift I want to give. I want you to be my child, my son, my daughter.

I want to give a gift to you. And so when she's quick to deflect to externals, Jesus cuts back to spirit and truth to the heart. So it's a lie that religion can solve the problems in your life. Lie number two is this. My past is so bad, there is no way that God can fix me.

Now, this woman was low on every conceivable man-made hierarchy that exists. She was a woman which in that day men woke up every day saying, "I praise God I wasn't born a woman." She was a Samaritan woman and the Jews had no dealings with Samaritans. She was a sinful Samaritan woman, rejected by her own people.

That's why she's here at the well in the heat of the day. And so here she's the lowest on the pecking order, the least likely to be chosen. And Jesus esteemed her highly to pick her to be the first to receive the revelation that he's the Messiah. What is Jesus communicating?

Here we go. The latter doesn't matter. The man-made ladders that tell us who's important, who's worthy. He says, "I'm completely ignoring all of that because in his kingdom, Galatians 3:28, there is neither Jew nor Greek. There is neither slave nor free. There is neither male nor female. for you all are one in Christ Jesus.

So, it's a lie to think that because I've done this, I've I've been there, I'm so low in man's eyes that I can't be used by God, it's a lie. He can fix you and he can deploy you. That brings us to lie number three, and that is I need to be an expert before God can use me.

I need to be an expert before God can use me. I love in John 4:39 after she goes back to town and starts talking to men, starts talking to everybody, eventually there's this massive revival that breaks out where so many people come to know Jesus because of the testimony of this woman, a sinful Samaritan woman who's only known Jesus for like five minutes.

So, this breaks through the lie that says, "Well, you need to be a seminary grad or a Bible college professor to be an evangelist." Listen to me very carefully. After you have come and seen, you are deployed to go and tell. God doesn't call the equipped. He equips the called.

And he's never been looking for great ability, great supernatural theological knowledge. He's just looking for availability for someone whose life he can fill with his love and who's willing to go and tell the simple story, come see a man who told me everything I ever did. Lastly, lie number four.

Following God will never be confusing. This, ladies and gentlemen, is a lie. And I point to you the disciples who were just completely shocked, baffled when they come back. Baffled he was talking to a woman, baffled when he told them, "I want to go through Samaria." And baffled as to why he sent them to buy food even though when they get back, he's already fed.

And they say, "Wait, how'd you eat? You told us to get you food." and and something should have tipped them off that he sent 12 people to get 13 lunches, right? So clearly he could have sent a couple of them. He wanted them all to go so he could have time alone and show with lavish attention his care for this woman to single her out as the recipient of a divine audience just one-on-one with the Messiah.

And he wasn't hungry because when they came back he said, "My food is to do the will of the father. I have food to eat you don't you don't know anything about." And here they're going, "Wait, who brought you food? what are you talking about? And that tells us this.

Listen, it's a theme all throughout the show that I love and it's a theme all throughout the scripture following Christ. If you are going to be a disciple of Jesus, to be deployed like this girl was to tell her story and see people come to know him, then you and I are going to have to get used to different.

There's going to be so many things about following him that aren't going to make sense, that aren't going to be how we would do it. Uh the Bible says that God doesn't see things the way that the world sees them. Remember, he's a different kind of king and he's inaugurating a different kind of kingdom.

And that means that we're going to have to walk by faith and not by sight. That means that every day is going to be an adventure full of mystery, full of opportunity to trust him, to walk with him, and to sense moment by moment what is he doing here?

What is what does he planned here? What does he What does he have for me here? It's never going to be how we would plan it. It's going to be so much better than that. And so, Father, we thank you for what you did for this girl to elevate her, to equip her and send her out as an evangelist, for the example that she is of just telling her story, telling it boldly, telling it proudly.

And I thank you for my brothers and sisters watching this right now who might have been looking to religion to to fix a problem, who might have been thinking, "Well, there's no way God could use me. I don't know enough or I'm so I'm so low on the on the on the pecking order."

Thank you, Jesus, for leading a kingdom where the latter doesn't matter. Where you send out tax collectors alongside sinners and all of us broken whom you love. We thank you Jesus for what happens when we look full in your wonderful face.