This is The Living Word Bible Study for Sunday, March 10, 2023 (Lent 3)
Theme: God’s sheer goodness to undeserving people
Exodus 17:1-7 — God shows grace giving water to the grumbling tribes
John 4:5-42 — The gift of God in Jesus is love for the Samaritans
Romans 5:1-11 — What Christ did for undeserving, ungodly sinners
Psalm 95 (excerpt)
1-2 Come, let us sing for joy to the Lord; let us shout aloud to the Rock of our salvation. Let us come before Him with thanksgiving and extol Him with music and song.
6 Come, let us bow down in worship, let us kneel before the Lord our Maker; for He is our God and we are the people of His pasture, the flock under His care.
7-9 Today, if only you would hear His voice, “Do not harden your hearts as you did at Meribah, as you did that day at Massah in the wilderness, where your ancestors tested Me; they tried Me, though they had seen what I did.
///////
Exodus 17:1-7 — God shows grace giving water to the grumbling tribes
• The people are not trusting God or their leader, but He delivers them again
1 The whole Israelite community set out from the Desert of Sin, travelling from place to place as the LORD commanded. They camped at Rephidim, but there was no water for the people to drink.
“No water” — with their animals, a big problem.
2 So they quarrelled with Moses and said, “Give us water to drink.” Moses replied, “Why do you quarrel with me? Why do you put the LORD to the test?”
“So they quarrelled” — the underlying issue was not trusting in God’s provision of it.
3 But the people were thirsty for water there, and they grumbled against Moses. They said, “Why did you bring us up out of Egypt to make us and our children and livestock die of thirst?”
“Grumbled” — even after bitter water made pure at Marah, and finding food in the Desert of Sin, Exodus 15:23-26, 16:2-3.
4 Then Moses cried out to the LORD, “What am I to do with these people? They are almost ready to stone me.”
“Moses cried out to the Lord” — in prayer and dependence, unlike those who blamed him.
5 The LORD answered Moses, “Go out in front of the people. Take with you some of the elders of Israel and take in your hand the staff with which you struck the Nile, and go.
“Take… some of the elders” — some were for him and he needed witnesses to what God would do.
6 I will stand there before you by the rock at Horeb. Strike the rock, and water will come out of it for the people to drink.” So Moses did this in the sight of the elders of Israel.
“Strike the rock” — for Paul, a sign representing Jesus, 1 Cor. 10:4.
• For further study: the Lord as “the Rock”, Deut. 32:4, 15, 18, 30; 1 Samuel 2:2.
7 And he called the place Massah and Meribah because the Israelites quarrelled and because they tested the LORD saying, “Is the LORD among us or not?”
“Massah and Meribah” — meaning testing and rebellion; they doubted despite God’s deliverance at the Red Sea, the pillar of cloud and fire, and manna, Psalm 95:7-8, Hebrews 3:7-8.
Reflection
SUMMARY A low point in the Israelites’ history of deliverance from Egypt. They had seen truly staggering signs and wonders, yet this latest test found them faithless and untrusting.
APPLICATION This is the opposite of the relationship God seeks with us. It also underlines God’s grace. Such appalling behaviour made Him angry, but He helped them overcome this lapse and learn from it.
QUESTION How good are we at seeking and trusting God in a difficulty?
///////
John 4:5-42 — The gift of God in Jesus is love for the Samaritans
• How revival came to a tribe of unbelieving, hostile and rejected people
5-6 So He came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired as He was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about noon.
“Sychar — village (with a 40m well) opposite Mt. Gerazim where Jacob had bought land, later giving it to Joseph, Gen. 33:18-19, 48:21-22.
7-8 When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give Me a drink?” (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.)
“A Samaritan woman came” — unusual; most women would not draw water in the heat of the day.
9 The Samaritan woman said to Him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can You ask me for a drink?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.)
“How can You ask me” — Jesus was seeking to drink from a well used by (ritually unclean) Samaritans and addressing a lone woman.
10 Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked Him and He would have given you living water.”
11-12 “Sir,” the woman said, “You have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can You get this living water? Are Yyou greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his livestock?”
“Living water” — God reproves the Jews for rejecting Him, “the fountain of living waters” in Jer. 2:13.
• Further study: see also Zech. 14:8; Ezekiel 47:9.
13-14 Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”
“A spring… welling up to eternal life” — the new life of the Spirit, John 7:37-39.
15 The woman said to Him, “Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.” He told her, “Go, call your husband and come back.”
17-18 “I have no husband,” she replied. Jesus said to her, “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 just said is quite true.”
“I have no husband” — expressing shame for her immoral life while seeking this “living water”.
19 “Sir,” the woman said, “I can see that You are a prophet. Our ancestors worshipped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.”
21-22 “Woman,” Jesus replied, “believe Me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews.
“A time is coming” — with all temples and priests replaced by the “living stones” of the church, 1 Peter 2:5.
23 Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshippers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshippers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and His worshippers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.”
25 The woman said, “I know that Messiah” (called Christ) “is coming. When He comes, He will explain everything to us.”
26 Then Jesus declared, “I, the One speaking to you — I am He.”
“I am He” — showing why “salvation is from the Jews”, v.22, able to disclose His identity in Samaria free of political connotations.
27 Just then His disciples returned and were surprised to find Him talking with a woman. But no one asked, “What do You want?” or “Why are You talking with her?”
28-29 Then, leaving her water jar, the woman went back to the town and said to the people, “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Messiah?” They came out of the town and made their way toward Him.
“Could this be…” — she met Christ as a Jew, v.8, then a prophet, v.19, now the Messiah.
31-33 Meanwhile His disciples urged Him, “Rabbi, eat something.” But He said to them, “I have food to eat that you know nothing about.” Then His disciples said to each other, “Could someone have brought Him food?”
34-35 “My food,” said Jesus, “is to do the will of Him who sent Me and to finish His work. Don’t you have a saying, ‘It’s still four months until harvest’? I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest.
“My food” — or fulfilment, is carrying out the mission. Jesus’s sayings were often understood by the disciples only after the Spirit had been given, John 2:22.
“Fields… ripe for harvest” — sowing at the well was already resulting in a supernatural harvest in the village.
36-38 Even now the one who reaps draws a wage and harvests a crop for eternal life, so that the sower and the reaper may be glad together. Thus the saying ‘One sows and another reaps’ is true. I sent you to reap what you have not worked for. Others have done the hard work, and you have reaped the benefits of their labour.”
“Even now” — there is a foretaste of the Messianic age where “the one treading grapes” overtakes “the ploughman and the planter”, while remembering that we harvest what others have planted, Amos 9:13; Micah 6:15.
39-41 Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in Him because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me everything I ever did.” So when the Samaritans came to Him, they urged Him to stay with them, and He stayed two days. And because of His words many more became believers.
42 They said to the woman, “We no longer believe just because of what you said; now we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this man really is the Saviour of the world.”
“Saviour of the world” — also in 1 John 4:14. The Samaritan revival is the first sign of Jesus’ saving mission beyond the Jews, the pattern for the way the early church moved out to Judea, Samaria and the Gentiles, John 3:1-15, John 4:1-42, John 4:46-54, Acts 1:8.
Reflection
SUMMARY The Samaritans were not exactly hot favourites for revival. Early settlers returned from exile, they had changed Scripture to accommodate them worshipping on their own mountain and following their independent tradition.
APPLICATION Many Samaritans became believers and the movement gained momentum with the life of the Spirit, Acts 8:14, 9:31, showing God’s grace to the least, the lost and the last.
QUESTION Where are the ‘unlikely’ places we know, where God might be working?
///////
Romans 5:1-11 — What Christ did for undeserving, ungodly sinners
• When we have trusted Jesus, the tough times grow our faith and expectation
1-2 Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God.
“Justified through faith” — we are all under God’s judgment for humankind’s rebellion, which only believing, trusting faith can release.
“Peace with God” — free from the fear of judgment, with joy in a personal relationship with God through Jesus.
3-5 Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.
“Glory in our sufferings” — believers experience adversity with extra grace to grow in faith and character.
6-8 You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates His own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
“The right time, when we were… powerless” — as unregenerate sinners we cannot help ourselves —which magnifies what Jesus has done, dying for us who were utterly undeserving.
9-11 Since we have now been justified by His blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through Him! For if, while we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to Him through the death of His Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through His life! Not only is this so, but we also boast in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.
“Justified by His blood” — i.e.violent death, Leviticus 17:11.
“We were God’s enemies” — because we inherited Adam’s independence.
“Saved from God’s wrath… reconciled… having been reconciled… saved” — repetition to emphasise. Believers are declared not guilty by Christ’s blood poured out on the Cross and will meet God’s eternal love, not wrath.
Reflection
SUMMARY This attempts to put into words one of the deepest and also most difficult truths about God — His undeserved grace , bias even, to the undeserving. It’s a big concept to grasp.
APPLICATION This spring of God’s life within us is what holds us and grows us, through good times and tough times.
QUESTION How do we praise God for His love when our feeling and experience say the opposite?
PRAYER Lord, I thank You for loving me when I wasn’t even looking Your way and for dying for me before I ever came to believe and trust in You. As I learn how You delight to bless, beyond anything we could ever deserve, so grow me in this Lent season to be more generous-spirited and gracious to others — like You. Amen.
///////
- Listen to the podcast This Is the Story of God’s Amazing Grace
This Is the Story of God’s Amazing Grace
Listen now (26 min) | We understand why God blesses obedience, but His loving grace bestowed on the lost, the last and…
- Read the article explaining God’s grace which came out of this study
///////
Leave a Reply