Frankie Mazzapica - A Tale at the Well
Thank you for tuning in today. My name's Frankie Mazzapica. The title of today's message is "A Tale from the Well". A Tale from the Well. Let's just jump right into it straight away. Now, incidentally, if you wanna take notes and you wanna see my notes as I'm speaking, go to your app store, type in "Celebration Church TW," our app will show up, and all my notes are right there. You can follow along. But here's the scripture that we're gonna just lay the foundation for the message. It's in John chapter 4, verses 7 through 9, okay, you ready? Say I'm ready. Come on, say it, I'm ready. Here we go. It reads like this, "And a Samaritan woman went to the well to draw some water".
Now, Jesus was sitting on the well. He went to Samaria specifically to meet her. So he's sitting on the well, and he looks at her and he says, "Please give me a drink of water". Now, the Samaritan woman, this is what scriptures say, she was surprised because Jesus was a Jew, she was a Samaritan, Jews have nothing to do with Samaritans. They stay away from 'em. And so she responds by saying this, "Why are you asking me for a drink when you people have nothing to do with us"?
So I got three major points. Number one is clearly she had an attitude. We're gonna talk about that. Number two, she was... number one, did I say number two? I knew I missed something. Number one, she had an attitude. Number two, she had these distractions that she had to wrestle with while she was in the presence of Jesus. I know we've all been there. We've been in church, but there's just too many distractions. And then number three, I wanna talk about the miracle that took place while she was talking to him. So let's just look at the first one. She had this attitude.
Now, there's a reason for the attitude. She has had so many men in her life promise her one thing, and then in that exact area, they abused her. She was taken for granted. She was hurt time and time again. And so she had no trust towards any man, any man. She's coming up to the well to draw some water, and here this man with this beard and long hair sitting on the well, and he says, "Give me a drink of water". She's heard that too many times, and now she's got an attitude about it. "How are you gonna ask me for some water? You ain't even supposed to be here. You don't even like us".
Now, you may ask why in the world... what's up with the attitude? Has no one ever come up to you with an attitude and you're like, oh, whoa, whoa, whoa, you come at me with an attitude, you're gonna get an attitude. You're not ready for my attitude. I will go nuts on you. So she shows up with an attitude and Jesus does something unreal. He's patient with the attitude. See, hurt people are so hurt that they can't trust anyone else. Keep that in mind when you're talking to someone and out of nowhere they have this attitude or you're in a discussion and the discussion is bothering them, so it's fair for, on a scale, for them to have anger at this level, but they get angry at this level. It doesn't call for this level of anger. Maybe here but not there.
See, they have troubles and problems that you know nothing about. And so Jesus is just kind of patient with her, but he understands she is not okay. She's not okay. In her head, she doesn't like herself. She's got this history that she's ashamed of. Am I talking to anybody today? This isn't for you, it's the person next to you, okay, so now am I talking to anyone today? Blink two times if you know it's them, just... they got a history, and so when you have a history and you've done things, you've said things, you've gone through seasons where you're like, Jesus, I love you, and then right after that, you live your life as if he's not there. And then you come back to him and there's just this distance there because you've got all this weakness.
If you're taking notes, write this down, there is a difference between weakness and wickedness. The Lord opposes wicked people. But he looks at the weak and he says I will be your strength. So he doesn't punish you for being weak. In Psalms 103, verse 14, it says this, he goes, "I know how you were made. You were made from dust". "I know," here's another version of the Bible, "I know your frame". I know what you are capable of doing and what you are not capable of doing, and you are not capable of living life without weakness. I understand, I got it. And here you go, write this down. Hold on.
God would not have given you an invitation if he was overly concerned about your limitation, he sees your limitations and he goes, "I know it, I understand it, but I'm patient with it, and if I have to be patient your entire life, then so be it. I'm not walking away from this well. I'm not walking away from you". And so she had these things, these troubles, these distractions, these problems. See, the moment you say, "I'm gonna go to church," the moment you say, "As of today, I'm gonna pursue you with my whole heart. I know I'm not gonna be perfect. You know I'm not gonna be perfect, but whatever happens, I'm gonna not stop pursuing you. Prayers are always gonna be on my lips. I'm gonna pray even if they're short prayers. I'm not gonna stop..."
The minute you and I do that, the enemy sends hordes like wild dogs, just rawr, rawr, like pit bulls coming to get you, rawr, just, he sends these hordes of wild dogs to do what? Discourage and distract. If he can overwhelm you with discouragement and distraction, now you're so distracted that you can't even worship if you wanted to. And then these deceived moments where you don't trust him, you're fully, here, write this down. Do not get dramatic when you are surrounded by drama. Just because everybody else is going crazy, just because you got every single red light, just because Mrs. Know Everything and Mr. Jerk is talking to you, you don't have to get caught up in that.
You know, our kids are going to talk about us after we die. Well, the truth is they're talking about us anyway. But what we want them to say is my mom was cool. It didn't matter what happened, she was cool. My dad, just cool. It didn't matter what had, just cool. And as of today, I'm gonna be that guy because I'm a little bit nervous about how my kids, you know, I've lost it a couple of times. All right. I'm saved, but I'm barely saved. That was supposed to be funny. Anyway, don't write that down, but don't get caught up in this drama and get distracted. She got distracted. Jesus and her are talking about a glass of water, and she says back to him, she goes, "But the Jews say we're supposed to worship only in Jerusalem. But our people believe that we should worship here, where our ancestors worshiped".
Where did this come from? We're not even talking about that. Jesus is trying to have a moment with us. He's drawn you. If you have any desire at all for the Lord, that's a drawing from God. In John 6:44, it says, "No one has a desire unless drawn by God". You have been drawn to him. And what the enemy wants to do is, all of a sudden, you're being drawn, you come to church, you put your mind's attention on him in the middle of the day for no apparent reason, your mind goes on him, and all of a sudden, these distractions that have nothing to do what was on your mind a moment ago. Where did this come... Now you wanna talk about worship? This is the enemy's way of getting you off your path.
Raise your hand if you've ever seen the movie "Wizard of Oz". Just wait, this is gonna be fun. Wave your hand at me if you've never heard of "Wizard of Oz". Okay, I saw three hands. Not gonna embarrass you, but before you die, this is a very important thing, to watch "The Wizard of Oz". It's been around, I looked it up, since 1900, 124 years. I mean, that's some staying power right there. Let me give you a quick summary. So, Dorothy is living in Kansas with her parents. A tornado comes, picks everything up, throws it somewhere. The house disappears, her mom and her father disappear.
And so now, this wonderful witch from the north. I I don't like the word witch, pretend I didn't say that. They messed it up when they wrote it. What they meant to say, this princess comes down and she says, "Dorothy, get on this yellow brick road. Follow the yellow brick road, and you will meet this, you will arrive in Oz, and when you talk to this certain guy," I forgot his name. Anyone remember his name? The wizard. I don't like that word either. "This really cool guy, and he will make everything okay. He'll send you back home. Everything's gonna be fine". So she gets on the yellow brick road, and while she's on the yellow brick road, she has these characters jumping in her path. She has a scarecrow without a brain.
Now she's got to deal with that problem. And then she's got the tin man that jumps in. He has no heart. We all know the tin man. Jump in. Now she's got this problem. A big lion jumps in, rawr. Has no courage, but he's got a big mouth. Now she's got to deal with this guy. And all of these people pulling her, distracting her, and the big question is: With all these pools, without these distractions, what is she gonna do now? And she says to them, Look, I'm going down the yellow brick road. You can come with me or you can stay, but I'm going down the yellow brick road. You're ahead of me now, okay? When you are distracted, and the enemy loves to distract.
So what do we got right now? We got the woman at the well, she's got an attitude about everything she's ever experienced. She's got these distractions tormenting her, but this is the cool part for me. She doesn't walk away. When I'm talking to an imbecile, I got one thing on my mind. See you later. Bye. I don't know if this is cool anymore. I'm past the point of being cool, but there was an era where you look at people and you say: talk to the hand, right? Like, I'm done with you, talk to my hand, bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla blah, talk to the hand, and immediately after you do that, what do you do? Deuces? Bye. See you. I'm changing your name in my phone to Do Not Answer. Changing, you are gone to me.
It seems like this Samaritan woman would be so offended and irritated that she's like, you're gone to me. But she keeps talking to him. It's almost like she can't walk away. She's distracted. She's overwhelmed. She's ticked. She's mad. See, a lot of people get mad at God because he didn't answer a particular prayer. And it's interesting. It's not because he hasn't answered any prayers, but there's one particular prayer he didn't answer. And so now it makes you distrust all together. We give no license to God to make a sovereign decision that we don't understand. You're not allowed to do that. See God has this complex. He thinks he's God. And the rest of us are like, you know what, no, no, no, no, no. That's why church bores me. That's why no message applies to me. That's why I'm drug here.
See, my parents had a drug problem. They drug me to church. "No, no, no, no, no". Drug me, "Shut up," my dad's Italian. "Shut up. Get in there and sit down". Some of us are like, I would not be here if this person didn't have a drug problem and drug me here. Why? Because God has disappointed you. How has he disappointed you? He didn't meet your expectation. You believe he's there, but there's this gap between knowing he's there and having a relationship with him. But the awesome thing is: you're still here. Maybe you "got" drug here, but you're a grown man. You could have said, "Bang". You didn't.
What does that mean? There's still an ember flickering. And with this woman at the well, confused, distracted, offended, but she kept on talking to him. And then something unbelievable happens. The Lord sees that she's discrediting everything she's saying. She doesn't believe it. She's distracted, but he notices that she keeps talking to him. And so, something incredible happens. I don't know, I've thought about this over and over and over again. How did this happen? He looks at her and he says, "I'm the Messiah".
Now, she hasn't believed anything that he said so far. Nothing. At one point, she kinda threw him a bone and she was like, "Okay, so you're a prophet". She's not even all the way there. She's got an attitude. But, but, but but, but when he said, "I'm the Messiah," a miracle happened. Her eyes get big, all the anger, all the offense, poof, gone. And she freaks out because she's realizing she's standing in the presence of God. Now, how did that happen? You know, there's a guy in the Bible named Saul, and all of a sudden the scales fall off of his eyes, like, they fell, and he saw Jesus for who he was.
Is that what happened? But what happened? I don't know. But she believed nothing, and then all of a sudden, she's so convinced and enraptured in the moment, that when the disciples came up to Jesus and, like, "Hey, what are you doing here? Why you at the well? We're in Samaria". She takes off. Pshew! "Well, hold on, man. Where'd this girl go"? Takes off to her town. She's like, "I found the Messiah. You got to come see him". How did she get, I don't wanna, I still don't know. How did she get from here to there? Get to you're a liar to you're the... How did... there was a miracle that God did in the moment because she kept talking to him. There are times when praying is so easy, like when you're in the sanctuary.
Oh man, easy, cheesy. Worshiping with our worship team, especially, worshiping is easy. But catch us on a Thursday afternoon, a Tuesday morning, and we're feeling the weight of the world now. Praying under those conditions, we are just like the woman at the well. We got an attitude about everything in our life. We got an attitude to her, him, that, that, and you. We're not gonna say it out loud. We know that's bad. But I wanna tell you: do what the woman at the well did. And this is how I pray. When I am in the spiral, 'cause I say it all the time. You know what I'm gonna say? I'm anointed to preach it, but I gotta live it just like everybody else.
So here's what I do. Exactly like the woman at the well, her conversation, her sentences were so short. When I'm in the truck, I look at my passenger seat when nobody's sitting there. I imagine Jesus is in the seat. I don't have the energy, the passion, even the faith, 'cause my faith wanes too. I look at the passenger seat and all I say is, "Help me. Help me". I'll probably say it four or five times. "Help me. I need you to help me". I'm keeping the conversation going. I'm keeping it going because in Romans 2:11 it says, "I don't have any favorites".
And so, if the woman at the well could just keep on talking. Boom, something happens. I used to teach chapel at my kids, when Presley and Luke were little, when they were little, they went to this private school in elementary school, they ended up going to public school, but they would invite me to teach the chapel. And when I'd show up, I would do, "1 Thessalonians". Everybody had to say back, "1 Thessalonians, 5:17". "Never stop praying" in the second grade. They were, "Never stop", and their little things, that little bag back there. "Never stop praying". "1 Thessalonians 5:17, never stop praying".
And so, just recently, my son has a friend of his, he's 16 years old. We lost track of him. He left the school, the private school. We don't know what happened to him. My son ended up catching up with him, and he's like, "I need your dad's cell phone number". So he texts and he gives me, "Hey, Joey is about to send you a text message". I'm like, "Joey who"? And so he sends me this text message and he says, "I got a tattoo". Now, I know Joey, and I'm like, "Okay, this is gonna be fun". He shows me the tattoo. It's got three crosses and a scripture. And what scripture is it? 1 Thessalonians 5:17, never stop praying. Never stop talking to the Lord because he will move. Come on, put your hands together for that.
Now, I'm gonna go back to that chapel right now, and I'm gonna talk to you guys the same way I talked to these second graders. So this is what's gonna happen. I'm gonna say 1 Thessalonians, just like this. 1 Thessalonians, you're gonna yell with the... 1 Thessalonians. Then I'm gonna do this: 5:17. And then here's the... this is the big part. We're actually gonna memorize the whole scripture. "Never stop praying". All right, are you guys ready? Say yes. Let's get warmed up. Say yes real loud. Everybody ready? Yes. Here we go. 1 Thessalonians 5:17. "Never stop praying".