Introduction: 

We are in the fourth week of our sermon series, “Who Do You Say That I Am?” where we are focusing on how different people encountered Jesus and answered this question for themselves. 

First we looked at Peter, a worn out fisherman who didn’t think Jesus would want anything to do with him. 

Then we looked at the rich young ruler and Zacchaes the tax collector, two men who had great treasures on earth but only one who was willing to surrender all to Jesus. 

Last Sunday  we talked about Nicodemus, a wise Pharisee, who struggled to understand the gospel because his faith was in his good works and his own theological understanding. 

This week we will be looking at a person who, in the eyes of the world, was unwanted and undesirable, but who in the eyes of God was a lost treasure waiting to be found. 

Scripture Reading: 

• John 4:1-42
• Luke 15:3-7

Opening Prayer: 

Father God, we thank you for the honor and the privilege we have to gather here this morning to celebrate the gift of salvation made available to us through Christ. I pray that as we enter into this time of preaching, that you would give me words to speak. I pray that you would open up hearts and minds to receive your word. May all that is said and done be for your glory. Amen.

Introduction: An Encounter At A Well in Samaria

Our account begins with Jesus departing from Judea and passing through the region of Samaria, stopping in a town called Sycar to rest and break for lunch. We are told that Jesus and his disciples had been busy doing the work of ministry, and that Jesus had grown weary from his journey. Jesus sends his disciples out to purchase some food, and while he is resting by the well a Samaritan woman comes out to draw water from the well of Jacob. Before we go any further in the account we need to be aware of a few things.

 First, I want to note that Jesus was physically tired. This is an easy detail to skip over, but not only is this a testimony to his humanity, but it should also be a reminder for some of us that there is nothing sinful about having physical needs and limitations. If Jesus got tired then you are allowed to feel tired from time to time. At the same time, we also need to realize that being tired is not an excuse to neglect the call that God placed on our life. Jesus could have let this woman pass by. He could have said to himself: “I have been working extremely hard the last few weeks – my disciples have baptized more people than John (and he is called John the Baptist). I deserve some quiet time to myself. Besides, I am tired and it is my lunch break.” How grateful we should be that God does not make the same excuses that we make. This is not to say that rest is bad, your body needs rest and God commands it, but it is to say that if we want to be imitators of Christ we should not let our weariness be an excuse to pass on the opportunity to minister to someone who needs to encounter the love of God. 

Second, I want us to notice the way God arranged the timing of this encounter so perfectly. Jesus was traveling through Samaria at just the right time to warrant a stop in Sycar for lunch. This woman was coming to draw water at noon, in the heat of the day. We learn later that this woman probably chose the hottest hour of the day to do this chore so that she could avoid the other women in her community. It could be seen as a coincidence, but we know that God ordained for these two to cross paths at just this moment in time. I think opportunities like this still happen for those who look for them. 

And Third, I want us to notice what this account reveals about this woman. The first two things worth noting are the most obvious. She is a woman and a Samaritan. Both of those facts would have placed her beneath Jesus, a Jewish man, in the eyes of many in the first century world. She was a woman. The Rabbis of that day would not be alone or talk with women in public. They feared what people might think and say. Also, Jews in in the first century world generally saw the Samaritans as half-jews both in their ethnicity and in their worship. Around seven-hundred and fifty years before Jesus and this Samaritan woman crossed paths, the King of Assyria had captured the ten tribes of Israel and had scattered the inhabitants all throughout the empire. You can read about this event in 2 Kings 17 if you are curious. Not only that, but Asseryans moved into the former Israelite Kingdom and over time the two peoples began to blend into a new culture and people that would make up the Samaritans of Jesus’ day. For Jews who often struggled with making an idol of their heritage and lineage, this was unacceptable. At the same time, the division was more than racial. When the former Israelites eventually returned to their land, they brought their mixed culture and mixed religion with them. When Ezra led the Jews back from Exile in Babylon (a different exile from the Assyrian exile), the first thing the Jews did was to start rebuilding their temple. The Samaritan’s offered to help rebuild the temple, but the Jews rejected their offer to help because they were too impure to have any part in the temple’s construction. Out of spite the Samaritans built a second temple on Mount Gerizim, which is why the Samaritan woman asks Jesus her question about which mountain is best for worship, but we will come back to that in a moment. I know that was a lot of history, but you need a little historical background to understand why, when Jesus says  “Give me a drink” (John 4:7) she responds in shock by saying “How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?” (John 4:9). 

Living Water 

Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.”

John 4:10, ESV

One thing Jesus loved to do was to use everyday things like water and everyday experiences like thirst to teach spiritual truths. When Jesus mentioned living water, this woman probably thought he was referring to a body of flowing water, such as a creek or a river. In the ancient world “living” or moving water was better for drinking because still water was more likely to be stagnant and able to make someone sick. 

Of course Jesus was not talking about a hidden creek hidden somewhere over a hill in the distance. He was talking about a gift of God, a gift that he was able to offer her, that would quench her thirst forever. 

“Whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”

John 4:14, ESV

The word “gift” means it is freely given to any who ask. This Samaritan woman understood that Jesus was making an unusual claim, but she clearly did not yet understand what this strange man was talking about. You can see this in the questions she initially asks Jesus. She was naturally thinking of a physical thirst, forgetting that human beings also have a spiritual thirst that seemingly cannot be quenched. 

First, there is the thirst to know and experience God’s blessing and favor: 

“As a deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.”

Psalm 42:1-2a, ESV

Second, there is the thirst to be cleansed from sin and the corruption of this world: 

“On that day there shall be a fountain opened for the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, to cleanse them from sin and uncleanness.”

Zecheriah 13:1, ESV

In our secular world today people try to satisfy this thirst by finding meaning and purpose apart from God. They try to satisfy themselves with the pleasures of this world, or they try to numb their thirst by distracting themselves with trivial things. Sadly, many spend their entire lives trying to satisfy their thirst with things that can never fully satisfy. 

“For my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water.”

Jeremiah 2:13, ESV

As we will soon see, this Samaritan woman was hoping that the right man or a husband would satisfy her and make her feel whole. What she did not realize is that even the best husband is only a reflection of Christ, whose bride is the church. She needed to drink of the living water that finds its source in Christ, the living water that springs up into everlasting life.

“On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and cried out, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.”

John  7:37-38, ESV

“And he said to me, “It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give from the spring of the water of life without payment.” 

Revelation 21:6, ESV

The woman asks Jesus to give her this water “so that [she] will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water” (v. 15). We don’t know exactly what this woman expected to receive from Jesus, but she was still thinking physically. If he could give her water to quench her thirst forever and keep her from having to draw water in the heat of the day then she would gladly drink of it. 

Worshiping In Spirit and In Truth 

Before she can be given the living water of eternal life and spiritual rebirth, she needs to come to recognize two truths. She needs to recognize that she is a sinner in need of a savior, and she needs to believe the good news that Jesus is the Messiah who has come to rescue and redeem her from her sin.

Jesus asks her about her husband, and she tries to pull a fast one by telling Jesus that she has no husband. We call this a lie of omission because, while technically true, it was still an intentional attempt to mislead Jesus. I understand the temptation. Sin is wearisome and weighs heavy on us. Sin can be a deep source of shame, as was the case for this woman who would rather go out in the heat of the day to draw water than to be seen by people in her village. Why does Jesus call us to confess our sins to receive forgiveness? 

It is the same reason the first step to addiction recovery is “admit you have a problem.” Unless we admit that we have a problem, unless we acknowledge that we need a savior, we will never be able to receive the freedom and forgiveness that God offers to us. It’s a hard and often embarrassing first step, but a necessary one. 

As we already read this woman’s shame was that she had gone through five husbands, and the man she was currently with was not her husband. Perhaps she was a woman who was a serial-adulterer, or perhaps she was a woman who just seemed to attract the worst kind of men, but either way you look at it she had never found a man to stay by her side and it is implied that the man she is with has no intentions of marrying her. He will gladly keep her around, but don’t ask him to commit himself to her. 

But before we are too harsh on this woman, let’s examine ourselves. How many times have we ran after someone or something besides Christ, hoping it would satisfy us? How many times have we returned to an old pattern of sin, knowing it is not good for us, but too afraid to do what it would take to finally break that sin habit forever. 

She tries to evade, as most of us do when we have to confront our sins. She tries to change the subject to the old Jew and Samaritan debate about mountains and worship, but Jesus tells her that the question itself would soon lose its meaning. God’s presence was not going to remain confined to temples and mountain tops, very soon God was going to dwell in the hearts and lives of His people. 

You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. 

Romans 8:9a, ESV

It is not the place that is important in worship but how a person worships God. A person must worship God, as Jesus tells this woman, “in spirit and in truth.” This is a sincere and intimate form of worship that can only result from a soul who has tasted the living water and found satisfaction. This is the type of worship that comes from a soul that knows it has been seen, accepted, and loved by God. It cannot be done apart from the work of Christ or the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. 

The woman has not yet grasped what Jesus is saying, and is seemingly done with the conversation. She tries to end the discussion:

The woman said to him, “I know that Messiah is coming (he who is called Christ). When he comes, he will tell us all things.” 

John 4:25, ESV

This is the Samaritan equivalent of saying “I guess we will have to ask God when we get to heaven” but then Jesus shocks this woman again by saying: 

“I who speak to you am he.”

John 4:26, ESV

The Harvest is Ready

At this inopportune time the disciples return with lunch, and are confused by the presence of this Samaritan woman they had never seen before. Without saying a word she leaves her water jug behind and runs into town to tell the people that she has potentially just met the Messiah! The woman who had come out in the heat of the day to avoid people because of her reputation, was now telling everyone she knew about Jesus and urging them to come and meet him for themselves. What has changed? 

This woman had met the messiah! She left the water jug behind because her physical thirst and daily chores could wait. She also went into town and told everyone about Jesus, asking them to come and meet him for themselves. Her shame was no longer her identity because she had met the messiah and that changed everything! 

We are told that many Samaritans came to believe in Jesus because of that woman’s testimony. A conversation by a well indirectly lead to the salvation of many. Who knows what the harvest might be if instead of seeing people as problems to be avoided, we saw them as broken image bearers who need to hear about the love of God today. 

I worry that our tendency is to be like the disciples when they returned with lunch, more concerned with food and the task at hand, when there is a harvest of lost souls thirsty for the gospel. You don’t have to be eloquent or have all the answers, you just have to speak the truth as this woman did some two thousand years ago. I found the one who can quench the spiritual thirst that nothing and no one has ever satisfied! I found the one who knows me inside and out and loves me still! I found the wellspring of eternal life and his name is Jesus! May we never grow weary of being messengers of God’s love and the glory of salvation in Christ. 

Let us Pray! 

Prayer Of Decision:

Father God, we thank you for the goodness of your gospel. I pray that your Spirit would move in the hearts of any here this morning who may have bought into the lie that they are unwanted, unloveable, or undesirable. You see us, you know us, and you love us all the same. Help us to repent if there is any sin in our lives that is keeping us from coming to you in faith. Help those of us who know your love to be willing to see the harvest around us, to reach out in love to those who need love, and to not turn away even if the world tells us that we are fools. Open up their hearts to see the truth of your salvation, and the goodness of your love. Bless us Lord we pray, Amen!