Breaking Through Barriers

John 4

This journey through Lent is not always easy. There are tough looks into our lives. It is a
time of preparation for Good Friday, then Resurrection Sunday.

We take this time because examination is necessary in our lives. We examine our walk of
faith. We allow the Spirit room to work in us.

This is a time of preparation for us. This 40 day journey to Resurrection Sunday is so vital.
The Spirit is speaking to us through the Word, through his gifts, through worship. We need to be
paying attention.

The first part of the journey we examined was the journey of the wilderness. There are
times the Spirit calls us to the desert so we can understand what is going on in our lives. We pull
the plug on the noise in our lives so we can more clearly hear the voice of the Spirit. Last week we
looked at John 3 and the journey of being people of the Spirit. We need to have the Spirit birth us
into new thinking. Our mindsets need changing. The Spirit brings us into the new paradigm of the
Kingdom.

Today our text brings us to the familiar story of the woman at the well. In this part of the
journey we are looking at breaking through barriers in our lives.

There are a couple of types of barriers we find in this story. I want to start with the
woman at the well.

1. The Barriers to Christ

Why is this woman out at the well in the middle of the day? In that time period there isn’t
any running water, so you have to go out to the well. The well for this village was outside town. But
you plan those trips. You don’t go in the middle of the day when it’s hot. You go early in the morning
when it’s a bit cooler and other women are going and there is conversation along the way.

But she isn’t one of that crowd. She is on her own. She is there at that time of day because
she wants to AVOID the crowd. This woman is carrying secrets with her. Now, here is this guy
sitting at the well! All she wants to do is get this water and get back to her house. Hopefully this
guy will ignore her and she can get what she needs and go on her way.

Frank Warren, started his blog PostSecret.com in 2004 as a temporary community art
project. He invited people to mail in postcards that had one of their secrets written on it. The rules
were that the secret needed to be anonymous, and something you had never shared with anyone
else. Still going strong today, PostSecret generates thousands of postcards, many of them
decorated by their senders. Warren reads them all and picks ten to twenty to post on his blog

1
Breaking Through Barriers Pastor Dan Thompson
Columbia Heights Assembly of God
every Sunday. He has published several books that are compilations of postcards. Secrets cover the
emotional spectrum from humor to heartache:

In high school I was so desperate for a boyfriend I dated a guy who went to Star Wars
Conventions . . . and he dumped me.
Even vegetarians think of meat from time to time. I know I do.
I suffer from an eating disorder and I fear my mother's suffering.
My insomnia is going to get me fired.
I can't stand my stepmother.
I was 7 years old the first time I attempted suicide.
I'm in love with my marriage counselor.
When things go well for me I have to wreck my life all over again.
I watched One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest in a mental hospital.

1. The Barrier of Secrecy

We all need breakthrough in our lives. There are barriers that need to be busted in our
lives. One barrier may be the barrier of secrecy. We carry things in us that we don’t want others
to know, and we think God may not know, or we don’t want him to know, or we hope he doesn’t know,
or we know he knows and we’re ashamed that he does know!

The woman doesn’t want to engage the man at the well because she just wants to get back
to her own life, her own business.

But he engages her in conversation. AND HE IS INTERESTING! He is willing to help her

out! He has some offer of water where she won’t have to come out to this well any more. THAT is an
intriguing offer! No more noon time trips. No more avoiding the crowd.

She takes the bait, “Sir, please give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to
keep coming out here.”

Then, her secret is laid bare.

“Go and call your husband. Come back with him.”

We work so hard to keep those secrets. They become barriers. We will avoid places. We will
certainly avoid church. We’ll avoid believers. We’ll avoid crowds. We’ll avoid certain conversations.

And will we allow that barrier to block our way to Christ. In this journey of Lent we need to
examine this very tough area in our lives.

We don’t want the noise turned off in our lives sometimes because we are deathly afraid of
the silence and what it might reveal. The toughest part of our journey may be for us to pray:

2
Breaking Through Barriers Pastor Dan Thompson
Columbia Heights Assembly of God
 “Search me, God, and know my heart;
test me and know my anxious thoughts.
See if there is any offensive way in me,
and lead me in the way everlasting.” (Ps. 139:23,24, NIV)

2. The Barrier of the One Who is Greater

Another barrier in our lives is to acknowledge the One who is greater. The Samaritan tries
to deflect the real issue and throws up another barrier.

“I see that you are a prophet. Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim
that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.” (vv. 19,20)

When the pressure gets too great, we begin to argue theology. We throw up all kinds of
excuses.

There is the argument from ethnicity. While we may not be familiar with that in our culture,
it is a barrier all around the world, and we will encounter people in our city with this barrier.

“I am Muslim because I am Egyptian. I am Orthodox because I am Slovak. I am Hindu

because I am Indian.”

The barriers are there. It’s still found in our own culture. “I am Catholic because my family
is Catholic. My family has always been Assemblies of God.”

We don’t open up to what God may be doing because we are ready to hide behind our ethnic
or social identities. It’s easy to do!

We allow social orders to keep us away from breakthrough. “Well, that’s a WEALTHY
church! We can’t learn too much there!”

We find all kinds of excuses to hide us from true breakthrough in our lives. “I’m German.
I’m naturally stubborn.”

Anything to avoid change and growth!

This woman is trying to throw off the pain of her secrets. She really doesn’t want to visit
this raw emotion, so she throws up her ethnic identity. And it’s a strong one! Samaritans are low
class in the eyes of the Jews. And she has attitude! “You Jews say the ONLY place to worship is
Jerusalem! How arrogant! What’s wrong with this mountain? Who is to say YOU are right and I am
wrong? Who died and made you God?”

There are times when we just don’t want to acknowledge the One who is greater in our lives.
Even as believers it can be a barrier.

3
Breaking Through Barriers Pastor Dan Thompson
Columbia Heights Assembly of God
 “Sin? What sin? You talking about something from an ancient book that is tied to only that
culture and that time period? What SIN could you be talking about?”

We’ll make our arguments! We’ll do anything to avoid dealing with the tough issues in our
lives.

3. The barrier of pain.

We can create a barrier out of our own pain. We can be so used to the pain in our lives it is
actually a new comfort to us.

The Samaritan woman was used to her pain. She was used to avoidance. She was used to the
harsh looks. She was embracing the pain of being the outsider and allowed it to become her comfort
zone.

The pain level we can tolerate in our own lives is tremendous. We will do SO MUCH to avoid
change in our lives. The pain of change overwhelms us so we stay rooted in our pain. We find that we
actually don’t want to give it up. The process of change is just too frightening.

I can remember working for my dad as a teenager in his TV shop. Me and another guy
delivered a TV back to a customer. The guy was up in years and hooked up to an oxygen tank
because of emphysema. Years of smoking had robbed his lungs of their capacity to breathe. He was
incredibly hard to hear because he couldn’t get over a whisper.

As he talked to us he began to complain about the disease, the lack of air, being hooked up
to the oxygen tank, the whole nine yards. Then, as he’s complaining about the disease, HE LIGHTS
UP A CIGARETTE!

The other guy and I thought he was going to blow us all up! He was so hooked on the CAUSE
OF HIS PAIN he couldn’t let it go. He was well beyond wanting to change! (And willing to blow
himself up in the process, it seems!)

We can get that way. We can be tethered to some spiritual oxygen tank crippled by some
pain in our lives and we just won’t change! Christ wants to come and heal us and we just let the pain
be our comfort.

There are definitely barriers that keep us from seeing Christ truly formed in us.

There are also barriers that keep us from reaching out to others. Jesus shows us the way
through those barriers as well. He demonstrates such grace and power in those times and we need
to pay attention!

Barriers to Others

4
Breaking Through Barriers Pastor Dan Thompson
Columbia Heights Assembly of God
 Jesus steps into a lot of land mines culturally when he makes this journey into Samaria. He
goes through a country no Jew really wants to visit. Samaritans are low-lifes in their book. Then, he
engages a Samaritan woman in conversation! In all of this he demonstrates barriers that need to be
broken down in our own world to effectively reach others.

1. Ethnic/racial/gender barriers

We can allow so many fears and misconceptions play into our hesitations to reach out to
others.

We can trip over language barriers and quit rather easily on trying to reach out to someone.
We have a hard time understanding their attempts at English and we quit.

We can trip over the hot political issues of our day and allow fear to take over. We can
create barriers in reaching Muslims because of 9/11 or terrorist reports.

2. Class/culture/status barriers

We can allow the status of someone else keep us from reaching out. We are so comfortable
around our “own kind,” no matter what that status may be, we have a hard time reaching out. We
can be in great financial condition and have a hard time with someone who is poor. “They got
themselves into this situation.”

We can be on the needy side and resent someone with money.

We can live in Columbia Heights or NE Minneapolis and carry a chip on shoulder about
someone living in Minnetonka or Edina.

There are real barriers that we need to acknowledge in our lives.

One other barrier that is tough for the church, and I think we MAY be getting better. It is
the barrier of homosexuality. We still battle the tough issues and sometimes we allow political
debate to cloud our ability to truly reach out to people of different lifestyles.

I don’t want to repeat too much that you’ve probably heard me say several times before, but
this issue is something the American evangelical church needs to deal with in reaching out. If we’re
not careful, we treat the homosexual community as Samaritans. Several years ago as I was studying
Acts, I came to chapter 10. The story of Cornelius. I asked the Lord, “Who is our day would be like
the Gentiles? In that day the Gentiles coming to you blew the theological doors off the church. In
our day, who is this?”

The Spirit spoke clearly to my heart: “The homosexuals. The evangelical church has treated
them like Gentiles. They CAN’T be saved. But I have Cornelius’ in that community crying out to me

5
Breaking Through Barriers Pastor Dan Thompson
Columbia Heights Assembly of God
and I need Peters who will go to them!”

I will not pretend I have a full grasp on this. I will tell you it’s a barrier we need to address
in our own lives and allow the Spirit to do some work on! This journey through Lent can just be
BRUTAL, can’t it? Can we talk about something else? PLEASE???

3. The barrier of busyness

We can just get our lives so full we just don’t slow down for people. We just don’t see
someone there.

The disciples saw the Samaritan woman and had problems with class and culture, but they
also had problems with just being busy. Jesus stayed at the well. They HAD to go to town to get
something to eat!

We can allow our lives to be so full of activity we don’t stop and see people. We don’t listen.
We don’t acknowledge they are there.

BREAKING THROUGH THE BARRIERS

1. See the Man at the Well

To break through barriers to Christ, we need to SEE the Man at the well. He is THERE.

That man that day came to see HER. He was there for a specific reason. Jesus comes to
YOU.

I can remember specific times in my life, especially in my darkest days, when I couldn’t
ignore the Man at the well. There he was, and he came FOR ME.

Jesus came into hostile territory to reach this woman. He comes into hostile territory in our
lives sometimes to reach us. We can be hostile with our noise, our busyness, our avoidance, but
THERE HE IS!

And He won’t move! Jesus is stable. The disciples come and go. There is Jesus, and he is
engaging the woman. He stays with her to help her find freedom.

Friends, Jesus isn’t going anywhere! He will be there ready to take you on. He will be there
to bring healing into your life.

And here is the thing. The woman thought she had secrets. She found out she had NO
SECRETS. This man already knew!

Why hide? See the man! Once you engage him you’ll find that the barriers are busted and
6
Breaking Through Barriers Pastor Dan Thompson
Columbia Heights Assembly of God
healing can flow!

2. WATCH the Man at Work!

To overcome the barriers to others, JUST WATCH JESUS!

Jesus heard the voice of the Father. He HAD to go through Samaria! He needed to take
that trip that day.

We need to hear the voice of the Spirit. We need to pay attention to promptings in our
hearts. Learn to listen. You’ll goof it up. But we walk in grace!

We need to learn to walk slowly through the crowd. Cut the hurry! Watch people. Listen to
their words in conversation. See what the Spirit may have you do. But in all of it, learn to take a
slower walk through the crowd.

We need to learn to acknowledge people. One habit I try to develop is to at least ASK
people something. When I’m in a checkout line, I try to remember to ask, “And how is YOUR day
going? “

I want people to know they aren’t passing through the day in total anonymity. We need to let
people know they are seen. They have value.

These are tough issues. I don’t have all the answers, and I don’t pretend to have all the
answers. There are challenges the Spirit is bringing to us as a Body and we need to hear.

The best place to hear is in his presence. As we come to the Table today, we come to listen.
I want to invite you to walk through this time with some great intention. Come with the intention to
hear.

Lord, what ARE some barriers that might be keeping me from you, or from hearing your
voice more clearly?

Lord, what ARE some barriers I need to break through to reach out to others?

Take time with the Lord in this table to TRULY REFLECT.

7
Breaking Through Barriers Pastor Dan Thompson
Columbia Heights Assembly of God