Alright, well if you have your Bibles, you'll find our text this morning in John chapter 4. The book of John chapter 4. We are beginning a new series this morning on the thought of divine appointments. Divine appointments. I was sitting on the boat, on that ferry boat up in Skagway, Alaska. We'd left the port there. We had to make a short stop over in Haines. As I'm standing there looking over the port in Haines, I'm just trying to meditate some and just thinking on what the Lord would have in my life at that point. I was dealing with some different things in my life. And I had a young boy, a young man come up and began to talk to me. And I was honestly in the mode of just get this guy out of here because I'm busy wallowing in myself. Never been like that. I was like that. And as I was sitting there talking to this boy, God began to Convict my heart and impress upon my heart that he can take a guy from Lander, Wyoming and bring him all the way to Skagway, Alaska to ride a boat with a boy from central Idaho to talk to him about the Lord. And he began to deal with me on this thought of divine appointments. Appointments that you and I, we can't make and we can't predict when they happen. All we can do is get in on it when it happens. And in John chapter 4 we will begin our series on the thought of a divine conversation. A divine conversation. Here in John chapter 4 and verse 3 is where we will pick up. It says, He left Judea and departed again into Galilee. And he must needs go through Samaria. Then cometh he to a city of Samaria, which is called Sychar, near the parcel of ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph. Now I'm going to stop right there. We're going to continue reading as we go along in the message. But I want you to understand as we get ready to pray and we get ready to go into the message that there are some divine appointments that as a believer God will ordain for you and I. That if we're willing to go where God would have us to go, something miraculous may just happen. Father, we need your help this morning. I desire a touch from you. Lord, I need your help in the preaching, in giving out the thoughts that you've given. Lord, I pray that you'd use these messages in the hearts of your people. I pray for this church, Lord, that you'd help us to continue in your power and in your presence. Lord, we're thankful for the privilege to be here and the privilege to stand and preach. Lord, we ask that you just meet with us in our service time now. We thank you for all that you've done already in Jesus' name. Amen. Looking at a divine conversation, Jesus here is departing from one place and he's headed ultimately to another. But in the midst of all of this, we see a divine appointment take place. If you ain't careful, you'll miss it and it'll sneak up on you. But he says there, he departed And it says in the next verse, he must needs go through Samaria. I want you to understand something. Where he was headed and where he went is not in the same location. He had to go out of his way to go to Samaria to talk to the woman at the well. And he begins to have a conversation with this lady. He begins to talk to her. But the first thought that I want to give you here in this idea of a divine conversation is a divine destination. There in verse 3 down through verse 6 you can see where Christ again has left. He left Judea, departed again unto Galilee, and he must and needs go through Samaria. Then cometh he to a city of Samaria, which is called Sychar, near the parcel of ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph. Now Jacob's well was there. Jesus therefore being wearied with his journey sat thus on the well and it was about the sixth hour. A divine destination. Christ was willing to be led where he needed to go. So often, and I fight this on occasion, and no doubt maybe you do too, we've got our plans and our ideas and our itineraries for where we would desire to go and what we would desire to do and our desired outcome. Would that be a fair statement? You get on an airplane, what do you have? You have an itinerary that tells you you're going from here to here to here. You get in your car to go somewhere, you punch it in your GPS. And I don't know about the ladies, but I know about the men. Our goal is to beat whatever time it says on that GPS. If it says it's going to take 5 hours and 22 minutes, we're going to try to do it in 5 hours. And so often we can get in such a rush with trying to get to our destination that we might just miss God's destination. Just like me standing on the boat up there in Haines, Alaska, I did not desire to take time out of my day to talk to this fella. I really and honestly didn't. But I'm glad I've got a God that can get a hold of you and can get a hold of me. And remind me that my time is not my own. That if I'm a believer and I walk in His will, my time belongs to Him. It says there that he must, needs, go through Samaria. Why did he need to go through Samaria? I mean, it was out of the way, it wasn't in the direction that he was going. It was kind of a detour, if you will, because the will of God had a woman sitting there at the sixth hour that was going to need a conversation. That if Christ had not been willing to be led to Samaria, she would have never gotten I'm saying that sometimes God desires to take you somewhere that you might deem out of the way, you might deem inconvenient. But it might just be that in that place He has a divine appointment for you to keep. He's the appointment maker. I don't have any power over the appointments. I don't have any ability to predict them. He knows where they're at. And I would challenge you and I to lay down our itinerary and to pick up His itinerary. You say, what is His itinerary? Where He leads, I will follow. A divine destination. There is a place and a time that has been set apart that Christ is desiring to be there for this woman. I was interested in verse 6 there. Now I'm going to ask you a question I would like for your honesty because I try to be very honest in my preaching. How many of you like to be inconvenienced, raise your hand. How many of you would prefer not to be inconvenienced? Raise your hand. But I've seen something in this text that I guess I had read it but I'd never seen it in the light that God began to pour it out to me this week. Now Jacob's well was there. Jesus therefore being wearied with his journey. This journey that he had that God told him to go on was one that was tiring. We so often desire when we're tired not to be around anybody. Am I right? I see it all the time, people are too tired to do this, too tired to do that, too tired to go here, too tired to go there But I sure am glad that my God was not too tired for me It says, being wearied with his journey, he's sitting there, but understand this woman is about to come and is about to take up a lot of his time. In fact, the disciples are kind of wondering, why in the world you ever brought up a conversation with this woman? But he was not bothered by the inconvenience, and I say that with the Hashtags or whatever, quotation marks, whatever you call it, of this woman coming up to him. He was not bothered by it. In fact, he understood that she was the very reason he was there. I have began to understand. I do not have it all, because when I get tired, I don't really want to have to put out any effort in anything. In fact, today, if I'm honest, I'm wore out. My daughter there screamed half the night, and Emily coughed the other half. I'm tired today. And the flesh would desire to not have to put any effort into the things of God. But God desires for me to put the effort into His will. Therefore, I must needs go. I've got a job to do. A divine destination, that is here. But then in verse 7, we'll begin to read there, it says, There cometh a woman of Samaria to draw water. Jesus saith unto her, Give me to drink. For his disciples were gone away unto the city to buy meat. Then saith the woman of Samaria unto him, How is it that thou, being a Jew, askest drink of me, which am a woman of Samaria? Notice what it says here, For the Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans. I not only notice a divine destination, but I notice a divine Drawing, divine drawing. Christ is sitting here at the edge of the well. He's minding his own business, so to speak. A woman comes up to Him in the middle of the day. She's not drawing at the normal time. And we see Christ begin to draw her with His Word. We see a conversation begin to form and begin to take shape here. It says there, The woman cometh from Samaria to draw water, and Jesus saith unto her, Give me to drink. He was willing to engage with this woman. And the conversation began to draw her unto himself. She began to talk back with him. You'll notice in this text, when Christ begins to talk to the woman at the well, she does not turn away and walk off. She was so intrigued by what Christ said, she began to engage him in conversation. I'm going to tell you something this morning that might strike you as odd, I don't know. But when you're operating in the power of the Holy Ghost, and you're keeping the divine appointments that God would have, you'll find that people are interested. This boy that I was talking to on the boat at Skagway, we began to talk. We talked for probably 30, 35 minutes there. I'm trying to tell him about the Lord. I'm doing the best I can to show him who God is. And then he just walked off. He said, well, I got to go do something else. I'm going over here. And I thought, well, that was the end of that conversation. And so I go on about my business, and I start to get kind of hungry. I'm chubby and need to eat a lot. So I got kind of hungry sitting on a boat. And so I go to the galley there on the boat and I get me some chicken tenders and a drink. And I'm sitting there watching the mountains as we're going by and I hear a voice from behind me speak up and he says, Oh, I'm glad I found you. I've been looking all over the boat. And I turn around and it's that young man. I had put the conversation out of my mind. That was it. But that divine appointment God had led us to was drawing him. It wasn't me. The conversation had already ended on my part. But something on the inside of that fella just kept drawing him back to where this week he sent my children stuff from Sitka out of nowhere. What I'm trying to tell you is when you're following the Lord and you're in those divine appointments, the Holy Ghost has a drawing power. that will keep the attention of those you have an appointment with. The woman did not run. She did not say, you're crazy. She kind of said you're crazy a little later, but she didn't run away and go back to the place that she come from. No, she began to engage. She began to ask questions. She began to inquire about what the Lord is telling her. How do I know that? You go on down and read in the text. He says, give me to drink. The woman saith unto him, How is it that thou being a Jew askest drink of me? She says, this is not usually done. This is not normal. This is out of the ordinary. When you have those divine appointments, I want to tell you God will take you out of the ordinary. And He'll put you in the extraordinary, divine conversation, divine destination, a divine drawing. Then you notice down in verse 10, He begins to deal with her about this divine drink. Jesus answered and said unto her, If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that saith to thee, Give me drink, thou wouldest have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water. Now we see the conversation continue. The woman saith unto him, Sir, thou hast nothing to draw with, and the well is deep. From whence then hast thou that living water. Art thou greater than our father Jacob which gave us the well and drank thereof himself and his children and his cattle? That question that she asked there in verse 12 began to ring true in my soul this week. Art thou greater? She had an understanding of her heritage, but she had just encountered the heritage giver. Are thou greater than Jacob? You go back to the Old Testament, what is it that it talks about all the time? The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. Talking about a divine drink, he's offering her, he says, woman, if you knew who I was, if you understood what I'm offering you, I wouldn't ask you for a drink, you would ask me for a drink. Because your drink, I'm going to be thirsty again here in a little while. Oh, but the drink I'm offering, it has everlasting sustainability. You take a drink of my water and you'll never thirst again. She asked a logical question. You sitting there on the side of a whale? Ain't got no bucket. What you gonna draw with? The whale's deep, and you ain't got no bucket. It's almost like he said, lady, I am the whale. And I got the power to draw the water. I am the rope. I am the bucket, and it's only by me that you'll ever get the living water. You cannot get it any other place. Jacob has no power. Joseph has no power. The Samaritans had no power. The Jews had no power. There was only one that had the power to bring in the living water. And he said, I'm offering you a divine drink from the well. I liked that question, it just began to stir my soul. Art thou greater? Oh, I'm so thankful that my God is greater. He's greater than anything else in this world. He's greater than all I could ever muster. I began to sit on that boat and I began to try to tell that fellow about a God that was greater. He was looking for something. He told me, he said, I'm just out here trying to fulfill my life. And I said, I just happen to know the one that can do that. And I got to talk to him about the Lord. And so far that was in April and May. We're in August and we're still conversing. What is that, a divine appointment? And I'm glad that I've got something to offer Him better than what this world has. I can offer Him a divine drink. Not because I have the power to draw it, but I'm sure hooked to the one that can. He's good at what He does. He's good at His timing. But remember, if Christ had not been willing to be led, The woman would have missed out on this divine opportunity. Verse 15, or verse 14, let's go back there. Jesus tells her in verse 13, you drank of your water and you're going to thirst again, but whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst. But the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life." That woman, she decided that sounded like a pretty good idea. The woman saith unto him, Sir, give me this water that I thirst not. Neither come hither to draw." Boy, she didn't understand what God was offering her. She's thinking that she wasn't going to get thirsty no more down here on the earth. But he said, I'm about to, if you'll take me up on the offer, I'm about to bring forth in you a well of water that will never run out. It'll never run dry. You'll never be able to pull all of it out of the well. It's going to keep a springing up. It's going to keep bubbling up. And there's nothing anybody else can do about it. She said, that sounds great. I don't want to be thirsty no more. But then he begins to explain to her, I'm not talking about what goes in your mouth. I'm talking about what goes in your soul. About that well of water bubbling up, springing forth. Leads me to the next thought here. She asks, Sir, give me the drink. I want that water, I want that drink. Then Christ begins to give her some divine directions. Some divine directions. Gives her instructions, if you will. Down in verse 16. He says, Jesus saith unto her, Go call. He says, Go call thy husband and then come. Go call thy husband and come hither. Gives her a divine direction there. The woman answered and said, I have no husband. Boy, you better be careful about what you're trying to tell God. The woman answered and said unto him, I have no husband. Jesus said unto her, thou hast well said, I have no husband. He says, matter of fact, you're right, you have no husband. For thou hast had five husbands, and he whom thou now hast is not thy husband. He said, and that, you's telling the truth. You ain't got one, you had five. And the one you're living with ain't it. The woman saith unto him, Sir, I perceive that thou art a prophet. Our fathers worshipped in this mountain, and ye say, in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship. Then Jesus saith unto her, Woman, believe me, the hour cometh when ye shall neither in this mountain nor yet at Jerusalem worship the Father. You worship you know not what. We know what we worship, for salvation is of the Jews. But the hour cometh now is when the true worshipers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth. For the Father seeketh such to worship him. God is a spirit, and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth. The woman saith unto him, I know that Messiah cometh. which is called Christ. Oh, I like this part. When He has come, He will tell us all things. Jesus saith unto her, I that speak unto thee am He. He gave her some divine directions. He says, go and I want you to tell your husband I want you to bring him back. She says, I ain't got no husband. He said, you're right. You ain't got one, you got five. And the one you're with now, you ain't married to, but I want you to bring him anyway. He said, because the only way you're ever going to get anywhere is if you begin to worship the Father. You're not going to worship over here. You're not going to worship over here. He says, if you're ever going to get to God, you're going to have to begin to worship Him in spirit and in truth. He says, then she begins to talk about the Messiah. And I love that phrase, I that speak unto thee am He. I'm sure glad for the day in my life that He came to where I was and He began to speak unto me. And the one that spoke to me was He. It ain't about religion. It ain't about jumping through religious hoops or religious rhetoric. It ain't about all that. It's about Him. That's what He told Moses there in the Old Testament. He said, who do I tell them has sent me? He said, tell them the I Am has sent me. That's where all the power comes from. That's where all the authority is found. It's not found in man's religion. It's not found in man's worship. It's found in the worship of the one true God. It's found in the worship of the Father. And I sure am glad that He came to where I was and He began to speak to me. He offered me a drink from that well that is everlasting. And you know what? I ain't been thirsty for it since. I ain't had to worry about what was coming. I ain't had to worry about whether I was going to have another drink today or tomorrow. That first drink He gave me of His good Holy Ghost, it sustains me. I sure am glad that He gave her some directions, some divine directions. He said, you go and you tell them. By the end, she begins to understand a little bit of what she's hooked up to. She hasn't had a clue what she's hooked up to till this point. And then we see what leads us into our final thought. A divine demonstration. A divine demonstration. Now I'm going to say something that's controversial, but it's the truth. If you got it really in you, You can't help but desire to show it outside. I hear a whole lot of people talk about how much they love God and then how much they hate everything else. They're not willing to serve, they're not willing to do anything that God asks them to do. I heard a Christian comedian one time said he was doing a show and said there's a guy come up to him at the end of the show and he walked up to the fella and he shook his hand and he said praise God I've been a Christian for 37 years and the comedian looked at him and he said well you might want to send missionaries to your face because it has not received the good news you ever met somebody like that? They claim to love the Lord. They claim to love God. They claim to be a servant of God. But when it comes time to demonstrate it, you'll find them not around. I'm saying anybody in the Bible that you ever look at that encountered Christ, it changed them. It changed them either for the good or for the bad. So what are you talking about? The rich young ruler, what did he do? He went away sorrowful when he encountered Christ because he said he just couldn't give up what he had. You will never encounter Christ that it will not change who you are. Saved, lost, right, wrong, or indifferent. You will always be changed when you encounter Christ. Every time. You'll either be changed for the better or you'll be changed for the worse. This woman She got what I like to call a case of the Cain Hippies. Now, after she was given the direction, most believers in the world we're living in today, most people we're living in the world today, when you tell them to do something, they usually do the opposite. You ain't gonna tell me what to do. I'm my own person. I control my own life. Is that not fair? But that's not what this woman does. Look at what she does. She doesn't get upset. I mean, this guy called her out. He said, woman, you got five husbands. You're living with somebody you ain't married to. Your life's a mess. You're searching for something you can't find, and I got the answer. Now in a lot of cases in the world we live in, people turn around and walk right back out the door. But not this woman. She has a divine demonstration. Look down in verse 27. And upon this came his disciples and marveled that he had talked with this woman. Again, I found that interesting. He was surprised that he talked to her. He said, Yet no man said, Why seekest thou, or why talkest thou with her? But then verse 28. The woman then left her water pot. She done forgot what she come for. She done got so much of the Cainepets that she left the one thing she was coming to do. The woman then left her water pot and went her way into the city and saith to the man, Come see a man which told me all things I ever did. Is this not the Christ? Then they went out of the city and came unto him. In the meanwhile the disciples prayed him, saying, Master, eat. But he saith unto them, I have meat to eat ye know not of. Therefore the disciples said one to another, Hath any man brought him aught to eat? But then look at what Christ says again here in verse 34. Goes back to what he said before they ever left. My meat is to do the will of him that sent me and to finish So we see this woman is beginning to demonstrate. She says there in verse 28, 29, and 30, you see her, she's not satisfied with containing what God has given her. She's not satisfied to sit on the pew and say, I'm glad I got it, but good luck to everybody else. No, she runs into the city and she begins to tell everybody around, boy, you better come look. You better come and see. I just encountered something that was of a divine nature. I done had me a divine appointment with a great physician. And he's filled me with his power. He's filled me with his love. You gotta come see this man. A divine demonstration. You take somebody that's born again, that's truly born again. That truly is in the blood of Christ. They can't help but want to share it with those that they're with. Why wouldn't we want other people to have what we have? I mean, she done found a well that never dries. She done found a well that never runs out. She found a well that's ever satisfying. Why wouldn't she want everybody in town to know? So often we'll say, we'll pick and choose who's good enough and who isn't. You're worth my time to talk to you, but you're not worth my time to talk to you. But she went and she began to tell the men of the city, come see a man. A divine demonstration. I'm sure glad that we get the opportunity, and it is an opportunity. It's not a burden. Sometimes we take it as that, but it is a divine opportunity that we get to share Christ with those we encounter. Go down to verse 39. You say, what I do don't matter. What I say don't matter. Not according to the Word of God. Verse 39. And a couple. Is that what your Bible says? A couple of the Samaritans? No, no, no. It might say that in the Passion or something, but it ain't in this. And many of the Samaritans of that city believed on him for the saying of the woman which testified. He told me all I ever did. Talking about a divine demonstration. This woman done got that can't help it so bad. She done went to the city, probably looks like a lunatic. Running around saying you gotta come see. I mean if somebody come up to you and said, boy you better come talk to this guy. He told me every wrong I ever did. He knows everything about me. I believe if it was me, I'd be like, I probably don't want to know that guy. But there was something so different about this woman. Something so divine about this woman. After she had her drink. That it says there were many Samaritans that came. and believed, all because one little woman had a divine appointment. I'm saying you never know the effects of where God desires to take you. And you'll never know this side of heaven more than likely, the effects of you keeping your divine appointments. This whole town got turned upside down in one afternoon. All because one little lady got a good dose of a divine appointment. All because of what he said in the very beginning, he must indeed go through some area. And what he said there, I believe it's around verse 33, his meat is to do the will of the Father and to finish his work. So many of us quit halfway. We jump ship when things aren't going the way we desire for them to go. But if we'll be willing to stick around to the finished work, oh God can do great things through those divine appointments. He's good at what He does. Changed an entire town all because of one little woman who was willing to take a drink. from a divine appointment and a divine conversation. You notice the divine conversation that she had with Christ spilled over into a divine conversation between her and the town. You did catch that, didn't you? It didn't stop right there, it kept flowing and it kept going. I don't know if I can find it for the sake of time, but you keep on going. And it talks about, there it is in verse 40, we see, So when the Samaritans were come unto him, they besought him that he would tarry with them, and he abode there two days. So one little conversation led to him staying there several days. Verse 41, And many more believed because of his own word. And said unto the woman, Now we believe not because thy saying, for we heard him ourselves. And know that this is indeed the Christ, the Savior of the world. Boy, that thing done grew, didn't it? It done grew from one divine conversation, one divine appointment. From a little lady telling the town about a God that could change their lives. To by the end of it, he says, There's so many of them, they're not looking at you anymore, they're looking at Him. Because of what He said. Because of what He did. In fact, He got so big in their hearts that they begged Him, can you just stay a couple more days? When's the last time you asked Christ to stick around in your life for a couple of more days? So often we take Him out of our pocket as a get out of jail free card. And then as soon as our life is back to what we want, we put it back in our pocket. Only to be used again in a dire need. But when is the last time you can honestly say, I just want His presence in my life? One day wasn't enough. So many believers, one day's enough. They'll sit the rest of their life on their blessed assurance, and that's as far with God as they'll ever go. But what if, what if our attitude changed a little and we just begin to cry out, God, I want your presence ever with me. I can't make it without you. I don't want to make it without you. I want you in my life every day. Divine conversation, divine appointments. We have a responsibility as believers to be about the Father's business. You never know what that inconvenience in your life will breed for somebody else. It might just be the little pebble that tips the scale and points them to Christ over going to hell. We better be careful about not missing our appointments. We better be careful about not being late to our appointments. Father, what a joy it has been to be in your house this morning. Lord, I'm so thankful for the privilege to be able to stand and preach. Lord, and feel your help and feel your presence and your power. You're so good and you're so kind to your people. Lord, I'm thankful for that divine appointment that happened all those years ago in my life when you become my will. Lord, I thank you for all that you've done in my family, that you've done in our church, that you've worked in our town. Lord, you've been so kind to us, and we're thankful. Help us now in this invitation if there's somebody here that does not know you. Lord, what a good day to be introduced to the well. I pray that you'd work in hearts and lives, whatever needs to be done, that you'd do it. In Jesus' name, amen. As we stand, this altar is open.