Jesus, The Living Water (Part 1 of 3)

Key Texts:

REFLECTION: Psalm 36:7-9

Psalm 36:7–9 ESV

7 How precious is your steadfast love, O God! The children of mankind take refuge in the shadow of your wings. 8 They feast on the abundance of your house, and you give them drink from the river of your delights. 9 For with you is the fountain of life; in your light do we see light.

SERMON READING: John 4:1-15

MEMORY: Matthew 5:21-22

Matthew 5:21–22 ESV

21 “You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder; and whoever murders will be liable to judgment.’ 22 But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council; and whoever says, ‘You fool!’ will be liable to the hell of fire.

BENEDICTION / CLOSING: Romans 15:5-6

Romans 15:5–6 ESV

5 May the God of endurance and encouragement grant you to live in such harmony with one another, in accord with Christ Jesus, 6 that together you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

INTRODUCTION

(4th scene in John / backdrop:

Wedding

Temple

Pharisee

Sacred Well)

Jesus & Nicodemus

Nicodemus is a man of high intellect

religious authority

public recognition

reasonably well-to-do

civil, moral, upstanding

If many of us are not careful, we can envision in our minds that this is the ultimate catch for the church.

Many pastors in some circles from the 70s-80s used to call them “big fish”.

Jesus didn’t ignore the up-and-in crowd…

His message to Nicodemus was, “You must be born again”

He didn’t ignore the up-and-in crowd! BUT He could be found with the same heart and message among the down-and-out crowd.

He moved among the marginalized, the outcasts, the vulnerable and the voiceless.

TRANSITION

Jesus & the Woman at the Well

Compare these 2 different individuals:

Opposite People in Opposite Situations

Noble Religious Leader

// Woman of ill repute

Moral Upstanding Citizen

// Immoral ostracized community member

One of the “chosen” nation

// a hated ethnicity of the day

One comes to him by night with questions

// Jesus makes His way to the other with demands

Opposite people

Opposite situations

ONE COMMON NEED... Jesus!

Rich or poor,

religious or secular,

Republican, Democrat, or Independent,

African,

Asian, or

American.

EVERYONE EVERYWHERE NEEDS JESUS CHRIST!

This morning we’re going to look at 2 aspects of Jesus’ engagement with this woman at the well.

Yes, He is God’s own Son.

Yes, He is truly God and truly man.

Yes, the epistles are more specifically instructive on the mission of the church...

BUT in 1 Corinthians 2:14-16, Paul reminds the local church that we - the body of Christ - don’t just think earthy thoughts.

We can have the mind of Christ.

If the Spirit of Christ lives within us, then it follows that we can see Christ in action as He draws this woman at the well to NEW LIFE!

I’d like to read the entire passage this week, though for context…then two lessons that emerge from the first bite out of this passage.

READ ENTIRE PASSAGE

John 4:7–42 ESV

7 A woman from Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” 8 (For his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.) 9 The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?” (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.) 10 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.” 11 The woman said to him, “Sir, you have nothing to draw water with, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? 12 Are you greater than our father Jacob? He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock.” 13 Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, 14 but 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.” 15 The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water.” 16 Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come here.” 17 The woman answered him, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’; 18 for you have had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband. What you have said is true.” 19 The woman said to him, “Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet. 20 Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship.” 21 Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. 22 You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23 But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. 24 God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” 25 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.” 26 Jesus said to her, “I who speak to you am he.” 27 Just then his disciples came back. They marveled that he was talking with a woman, but no one said, “What do you seek?” or, “Why are you talking with her?” 28 So the woman left her water jar and went away into town and said to the people, 29 “Come, see a man who told me all that I ever did. Can this be the Christ?” 30 They went out of the town and were coming to him. 31 Meanwhile the disciples were urging him, saying, “Rabbi, eat.” 32 But he said to them, “I have food to eat that you do not know about.” 33 So the disciples said to one another, “Has anyone brought him something to eat?” 34 Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work. 35 Do you not say, ‘There are yet four months, then comes the harvest’? Look, I tell you, lift up your eyes, and see that the fields are white for harvest. 36 Already the one who reaps is receiving wages and gathering fruit for eternal life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice together. 37 For here the saying holds true, ‘One sows and another reaps.’ 38 I sent you to reap that for which you did not labor. Others have labored, and you have entered into their labor.” 39 Many Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me all that I ever did.” 40 So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them, and he stayed there two days. 41 And many more believed because of his word. 42 They said to the woman, “It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is indeed the Savior of the world.”

A Heart of Outreach

John 4:1-6

There a few elements from this account that show us this incredible HEART OF OUTREACH - that Jesus has…that WE CAN HAVE.

Notice verse 4. “He had to pass through Samaria.

John 4:4 KJV 1900

4 And he must needs go through Samaria.

John 4:4 NET

4 But he had to pass through Samaria.

Jesus INTENTIONALLY WENT SOMEWHERE that most people wouldn’t go.

What’s the big deal about Samaria…if you look on a map, you’d be like - OF COURSE HE WENT THIS WAY, IT’S THE SHORTEST DISTANCE.

(I know most of you have heard most of the drama before. / My goal is not an anthropology. / But it is a big deal - context is needed.)

ALTHOUGH IT WAS THE SHORTEST DISTANCE, Jews avoided Samaria because they could so easily be “CONTAMINATED” by Samaritans.

From a Jewish Perspective:

A mixed up people!

The Samaritans were a blended people - part Jew and part Gentile,

Resulted from the Assyrian captivity of the ten northern tribes in 727 b.c.

A rejected people!

They could not prove their genealogy. They traced it back to Jacob - but the Jews rejected this claim. (“Finding Your Roots” Dr. Henry Louis Gates, Jr.)

They continued to intermarry…which violated Jewish customs and laws of the day.

A confused people!

The Samaritans established their own temple and religious services on Mt. Gerizim. (Since they were not welcome in Jerusalem.)

They worshiped the true God along with some false idols

They were so hated that some Pharisees prayed that no Samaritan would be raised in the resurrection!

It was insult in that day to call someone a Samaritan. (This would later be hurled at Jesus as an insult.)

And yet…JESUS, goes there.

Jesus goes where other people won’t go.

Why?

Because there is ONE Woman that He will reach.

Jesus goes where other people won’t go.

Jesus does what other people don’t do.

Notice Jesus’s humanity here…He is TIRED!

John 4:6 ESV

6 Jacob’s well was there; so Jesus, wearied as he was from his journey, was sitting beside the well. It was about the sixth hour.

It is around noon.

Jesus is tired physically from His journey.

No doubt hot.

Tired, hot, and…READY TO DO HIS FATHER’S WILL!

Not like many of us, tired, hot, and ready to veg out…be left alone.

Most of us flake out when we’re tired. But not JESUS…not here. He carries on when he is at the edge of his physical capacity.

Oswald Sanders said, “The world is run by tired men.”

One commentator writes:

Most souls are won by tired people!

The best sermons are preached by tired men!

The best camps are run by exhausted youth ministers!

The 10/40 window…the unreached Third World is being evangelized by tired missionaries!

Christian organizations are being run by tired men and women!

You show me a super VBS and I will show you some tired workers!

We will never do great things for God until we have learned to minister when we are tired.

2 Corinthians 12:9–10 ESV

9 But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. 10 For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

A heart that is bent toward others (not just in acts of kindness - the world can do that).

A heart that is bent toward others

to lean in (when you don’t feel it)

to push through (when there’s not much left)

to have courage (when your strength is failing)

to sense strength from above when you are just about to tap out…!

BECAUSE THE ETERNAL LIFE IS AT STAKE

THE GOSPEL MUST BE SHARED

THE NAME OF JESUS, THE WILL OF THE FATHER, THE POWER OF THE HOLY SPIRIT COMPELS US TO REACH OUT

BEYOND OURSELVES TO THAT PERSON THAT GOD PUTS RIGHT IN FRONT OF US

That divine appointment for the one who needs JESUS!

Jesus HAD to go through Samaria so the Gospel could get to Samaria.

The Gospel came to you on the way to someone else...

You were saved to be sent too!

ILLUSTRATION:

The fire station across the street, is in standby mode most of the time.

- The firefighters work out, train, clean their equipment, make sure everything is in tip-top shape.

- They do these things to pass the time while waiting for fire calls.

We can be like that, too...

we stay close to the familiar surroundings of the church community,

applying another coat of worship or getting a theological tune-up,

while all the time waiting for some sinner to request a gospel presentation.

The problem with this approach to evangelism is RARELY does an unbeliever come up and say… “I KNOW I’M ALREADY CONDEMNED, CAN YOU HELP ME AVOID THE WRATH OF GOD!”

The world is already ablaze, and the emergency call went out two thousand years ago!

A heart for Jesus is one that causes us to

go where others won’t go

do what others won’t do

and REACH WHO OTHERS WON’T REACH...

A Heart that Overcomes

JOHN 4:7-9

John 4:7–9 ESV

7 A woman from Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” 8 (For his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.) 9 The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?” (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.)

Jesus took the initiative,

Jesus took the initiative in speaking.

Jesus took the initiative in speaking to a Samaritan.

Jesus took the initiative in speaking to a Samaritan woman.

This is a massive break with culture and tradition.

WHY WOULD HE DO THIS?

Jesus could have appeared on Samaritan television to spread the message.

He could have written a book and placed it in every bookstore in Samaria.

He could have held a huge evangelistic crusade in Samaria’s capital city.

But he didn’t.

He went out of his way to find this one woman and show her her greatest need.

He came to her personally.

People don’t need SOMETHING ELSE IN THEIR LIFE…they need SOMEONE...

…THEY NEED JESUS

And HE has appointed US HIS ROYAL AMBASSADORS to carry the good news of the Gospel to a lost a dying world.

Jesus had EVERY reason NOT to talk to this woman. In addition to her nationality...

Her gender is an issue in this day. It is inappropriate for men and women to have a religious conversation together.

Her status is an issue. She is 5x divorced and now living with a man. She is chief sinner among the women in her village...

Mark 2 records Jesus at a dinner with a lot of sinners...

Mark 2:16–17 (ESV)

16 ...“Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?” 17 And when Jesus heard it, he said to them, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.”

Jesus had EVERY REASON NOT to engage this woman...

But he knows her heart - she doesn’t…she only knows her situation.

He knows her condition - she doesn’t…she only knows her situation.

If Nicodemus was sure his works were going to count for his eternal life; this woman was sure that her horrible past would keep her from eternal life.

Jesus personally makes time for both.

He overcame every barrier in the moment TO HAVE A CONVERSATION.

one that would lead to life.

one that would reveal Him as the Messiah

one that would result in Sychar being reached with the good news of the Kingdom.

CONCLUSION

Jesus is the Living Water!

In Him is life and light.

For those of who know Jesus personally, we should take note and pray to have HIS heart as we leave this place today.

A heart that leans toward others.

Going places others won’t go.

Doing things others won’t do.

Reaching those who others won’t reach.

A heart that overcomes.

NOT overcoming things for our own sake...

BUT overcoming those barriers in the way of us sharing the Gospel with others!

ILLUSTRATION:

Once, when walking down a certain street in Chicago, D. L. Moody stepped up to a man, a perfect stranger to him, and said, “Sir, are you a Christian?”

“You mind your own business!” was the reply.

Moody replied, “This is my business.”

— THIS IS OUR BUSINESS.

INVITATION TO THE LOST:

Dear Friend,

We’ve talked to the Nicodemuses before.

You don’t have high enough credentials or good enough morality to earn eternal life

You must be born again

But what about you?

Convinced that Jesus wouldn’t have anything to do with you. Maybe like this Samaritan woman:

You’ve broken too many promises

You’ve hurt too many people

You’ve been battered, broken, abused, cast aside by your friends and family

CHRIST HAS COME TO YOU THIS MORNING -

BY His Holy Spirit....

Through the Preaching of the Word....

Through the loving embrace of God’s people today

TO DRAW YOU TO HIMSELF!

Come to the Living Water today.

Come to one that is pursuing YOU today.

Personally, powerfully, Jesus is commanding you to repent and trust Him…with arms outstretched and nail scars in his hands and feet where He hung, bled, and died for your sins on the cross.

This resurrected King knows you…and still calls you to be His!

Let’s pray.