John 4:1-42 - Samaritan: "Jesus, I'm Thirsty"

Intro

What do you think about when you think about Jesus?

I asked a guy one time to tell me about Jesus and he said:

“Jesus is a cool guy with brown crocks”

Some might talk about the picture of Jesus

Long brown hair with no spit ends

With a long white robe

His upper body doesn’t move when he walks

This is the picture of Jesus that a lot of people think about.

He’s peaceful and etherial

Too perfect for this world

Extremely delicate and fragile

How did He get white?

A white Jew in the Galilee is just not likely.

I don’t think this guy can help me. I don’t think this is the guy that the Bible calls Jesus.

We have so many misconceptions as to who Jesus is, it’s no wonder that many people don’t tell others about Him.

We know facts about Jesus, but some of us don’t know Jesus.

The same was true for the woman in our passage today.

The context

Jesus was traveling, ministering around Jerusalem and decided it’s time to head home toward Galilee

It was a long trip from Judea to Samaria alone, and the heat of the day caused Jesus and His disciples to need some rest.

The Jesus from the picture doesn’t look like a guy that would be traveling in grimy conditions, have dirt under his nails, or sweat.

The Jesus that we find in John 4 sounds like a guy that has come to work on behalf and with people.

The disciples go into town to get food and Jesus takes a break at this well in Samaria.

Jesus meets this woman there from Samaria

He’s sitting at this well with no cup, no bucket, sweating miserably and asks this woman for a drink.

Her response reveals some cultural issues (v. 9)

Jews and Samaritans had a very broken relationship

They did not get along at all. They hated one another.

Samaritans thought Jews were illegitimate and Jews thought you couldn’t call someone anything worse than a “Samaritan.”

They were the lowest of the low

The scum of people

Some Jews refused to say the word “Samaritan”

They would pray in the Temple that the Lord would not hear the Samaritan’s prayer and that He would not forgive them!

Talk about some heart issues.

The Jews thought Samaritans were dogs.

Her comment was a jab.

“Oh, is it okay for you a Jew to drink after a dirty old Samaritan?”

Jesus answers her rhetorical sarcasm with a winsome challenge.

Jesus is only challenging her tone toward Him, not her identity.

He answers her snarkiness with gentle kindness.

His response reveals her spiritual thirst.

Jesus Offers Living Water

“Oh, if you only knew the gift of God and who I am” (v. 10)

Jesus gives her a fitting metaphor of God’s gift: Living water.

They’re sitting at a well.

He has no bucket. No cup. and says, “You’d ask me for a drink if you knew who I was.”

This living water He is referring to as they both sweat under this blazing hot sun is the rest and satisfaction in God—The Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit.

He’s referring to eternal life

She doesn’t understand the metaphor that he’s talking about

“You have no bucket. How do you plan to do that?”

She doesn’t understand that Jesus is addressing her spiritual need for eternal life, not His physical need of water.

Jesus’ response helps her cross the bridge (v. 14)

Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again.

After drinking the cool water on a hot day, you’ll still need more. You’ll never be satisfied.

He draws an immediate contrast between physical water and living water (v. 14b)

She still doesn’t understand the point of what Jesus is saying

She playfully says, “Yeah! That sure sounds great! I have no idea what you’re talking about; all I know is, I need water.”

Jesus reveals our emptiness

“Go, call your husband” (v. 16)

Jesus transitions to speak to the reason she is there at the hottest point of the day.

Before walking up to the well that day, Jesus knew everything there was to know about the woman.

She doesn’t know or understand Him, but He knows and understands her.

This just got personal.

She answers him short and sweet to avoid shame and detection of truth.

“Let’s talk about something else. I have no husband. Move on.”

She tried to make herself look unmarried so that she kept what little dignity she had.

She’s avoiding any further investigating

She’s trying to make Jesus think she’s not as bad as she is. She’s trying to be careful to cover her sin.

Bumper sticker Christianity says that “God wants you to be happy with who you are”

Jesus doubles down—“I know, you’ve had 5. Now you’re with Shaggy.”

Marriage didn’t work out, so let’s try living together.

This is not the way to do relationships/romance

Her life and her sin is now exposed—which is exactly what the water Jesus talked about was supposed to quench.

For whatever reason, this woman had been left 5 times.

Divorce/widow

No wonder the 5th guy is out.

“The other guys died? Nah. I’m not going that way.”

She’s living and sleeping with a dude that’s not her husband and Jesus is speaking directly and candidly with her.

She was living in adultery.

But Jesus doesn’t use the same tone that the church has historically.

When addressing sin, many churches simply say you’re going to hell then cast out the sinful party.

Not Jesus. He’s not trying to flex His muscles or stump her.

He simply states the facts and leaves her conscience to the rest.

Jesus says hard things gently.

Jesus commends her honesty. She intended to simply withhold information, but Jesus interpreted it as a confession of the fault.

Jesus shows us that when we are trying to confront a sin that corrections are most productive when they are least provoking.

Jesus doesn’t address her with his torch lit and pitch fork sharp

He addresses the sin in her life with the gentleness of a surgeon.

He’s going into the most sensitive part of her life

He’s not touching a scar. He’s touching a wound.

You can touch a scar. You can’t touch a wound without some retreat.

She’s trying to hide

You don’t go to the well at noon

That’s a 5am chore.

She doesn’t deny the truth that Jesus presented to her, but she puts up a religious wall to compress the sore spot Jesus just touched.

John 4:19-20 “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.””

She responds by trying to mask it with theology.

She’s willing to keep the conversation going after He just aired out all her dirty laundry.

Because He’s approaching it gently

Sometimes, the people that we sharply disagree with receive a sharp tone from us or we avoid them all-together.

We just can’t get along

This isn’t what Jesus models for us.

The people that we work/live with don’t deserve our hateful tones and words.

Jesus is sitting here with major racial issues present, and He speaks to her in a winsome and gentle way.

These two were so opposite.

This woman was a Samaritan.

The Samaritans believed that the temple in Jerusalem and all the Jewish priests were illegitimate.

They thought Jews were jokes

Although their named similarly to their town Samaria, they took their name from the Hebrew word which means “Keeper of the law.”

She is trying to evade the conversation from her sin to religion.

“I’m doing my best to serve God.”

I pray every night before I go to bed

I try to read my Bible

I try to be good!

Jesus answers her with meekness and patience.

He teaches her a lesson about true worship (v. 21)

“Soon, you wont be going to a location.”

At that time, Temples and Tabernacles were the locations of worship.

This is what this woman is saying here: “I go to the right church!”

Jesus just said that it’s not about the building or the particular service.

It’s about worshipping in Spirit and in Truth!

Not becoming religious by going to a religious building!

That would constrain us to be on our best behavior for church alone!

Some people are Christians just for the sake of the building that the worship is performed in!

Notice how Jesus said, “The house is coming, and is now here” (v. 23)

Don’t be Christians that forget that the gospel is for right now!

Notice that He draws her attention to a person of worship, not a place of worship

God is the center focus of our worship

“If you only knew who it is you were talking to.”

She’s talking to the one who was going to bring her back to God

She was talking to the one who would save her from her sin

She was talking to the one who was going to restore her to real life.

He was going to give her true life!

A relationship with a heavenly Father!

He was going to make her into a joyful worshipper of a real God!

She continues to pretend to understand what He’s addressing (v. 25)

“I know the Messiah is coming.”

Then Jesus takes the veil off. “That’s me. I’m Him.”

Wide eyes. “Stop.”

This rocked her to the core of her being.

Life at she knew it at that moment changed.

Jesus came to save sinners

There is not a person who does not have a past.

Every one in this room has done things they’re not proud of

Perhaps for some, that is actually your present.

Just like this woman, you come to the well at the time of day to avoid the people that might judge you because of your past.

Some of you may have relationships from the past that still haunt your thoughts.

“If anyone found out about this...If anyone knew what happened”

Some of you have been chasing something in your life to try to make you whole, yet you remain unsatisfied.

If that describes you, Jesus invites you to come to Him.

“Jesus doesn’t know me.”

Here’s what the Bible invites you to do:

Isaiah 55:1 “1 “Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and he who has no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.”

He had every social reason to reject the Samaritan woman, but that’s not the Jesus we find in the Bible.

This Jesus is unlike the Jesus many of us heard of.

The Jesus we find in the Bible is a friend to sinners.

He endures our arrogant pride

He is patient with us when we fail consistently

He doesn’t leave us in our sin, He pulls us out of it.

Jesus doesn’t condone our sin, but He draws us out of it.

He doesn’t leave us behind.

He invites you and all your baggage to come to Him.

Some of you have some hard home lives

You feel like you can’t catch a break sometimes

Some of you feel like you’re in a desert and the weight of the world is on your shoulders

You’ve done your best to cope and muscle your way through it without showing another person you’re struggling.

That’s okay, but you have permission not to

You now have an open invitation from Jesus to come to Him and find water when you’re thirsty

I want to invite you to pray with me:

Psalm 63:1 “1 O God, you are my God; earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.”

“Jesus, I’m thirsty. I need you to...”

Psalm 63:2 “2 So I have looked upon you in the sanctuary, beholding your power and glory.”

“God, thank you from bringing me to camp because...”

Psalm 63:3-4 “3 Because your steadfast love is better than life, my lips will praise you. 4 So I will bless you as long as I live; in your name I will lift up my hands.”

“God, I want to love you more. Help me to...”