Coming to the Well

Open your Bibles with me, if you will, to John chapter 4

We are in the second week of our 6 week series called the Way to Jesus

Each week, we are looking at a different personal interaction that people had with Jesus in the Bible and learning what each one can teach us about following Jesus.

Last week, we were in John 3, looking at a conversation about what it means to truly alive.

This morning, we’re going to be looking at a conversation about the source of life

Water is considered the key ingredient in life as we know it

While scientists have recently argued life in some places in our universe might be possible without water, water is indisputably necessary for life in every form of life on earth. You need water to live

On average, about 60% of a human body is made up of water

While you may be able to go weeks without eating, depending on your body type, your body can only go a few days without getting more water

And this morning, I want us to hold onto this picture of water as our life source as we turn towards God’s Word

So, let’s turn to God’s Word together in John, chapter 4

This is a long passage, so I won’t ask you to stand, but we’ll start in verse 1

Let’s read God’s Word together

John 4:1–42 CSB

When Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard he was making and baptizing more disciples than John (though Jesus himself was not baptizing, but his disciples were), he left Judea and went again to Galilee. He had to travel through Samaria; so he came to a town of Samaria called Sychar near the property that Jacob had given his son Joseph. Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, worn out from his journey, sat down at the well. It was about noon. A woman of Samaria came to draw water. “Give me a drink,” Jesus said to her, because his disciples had gone into town to buy food. “How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a Samaritan woman?” she asked him. For Jews do not associate with Samaritans. Jesus answered, “If you knew the gift of God, and who is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would ask him, and he would give you living water.” “Sir,” said the woman, “you don’t even have a bucket, and the well is deep. So where do you get this ‘living water’? You aren’t greater than our father Jacob, are you? He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and livestock.” Jesus said, “Everyone who drinks from this water will get thirsty again. But whoever drinks from the water that I will give him will never get thirsty again. In fact, the water I will give him will become a well of water springing up in him for eternal life.” “Sir,” the woman said to him, “give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and come here to draw water.” “Go call your husband,” he told her, “and come back here.” “I don’t have a husband,” she answered. “You have correctly said, ‘I don’t have a husband,’ ” Jesus said. “For you’ve had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have said is true.” “Sir,” the woman replied, “I see that you are a prophet. Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews say that the place to worship is in Jerusalem.” Jesus told her, “Believe me, woman, an hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You Samaritans worship what you do not know. We worship what we do know, because salvation is from the Jews. But an hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in Spirit and in truth. Yes, the Father wants such people to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in Spirit and in truth.” The woman said to him, “I know that the Messiah is coming” (who is called Christ). “When he comes, he will explain everything to us.” Jesus told her, “I, the one speaking to you, am he.” Just then his disciples arrived, and they were amazed that he was talking with a woman. Yet no one said, “What do you want?” or “Why are you talking with her?” Then the woman left her water jar, went into town, and told the people, “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Messiah?” They left the town and made their way to him. In the meantime the disciples kept urging him, “Rabbi, eat something.” But he said, “I have food to eat that you don’t know about.” The disciples said to one another, “Could someone have brought him something to eat?” “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work,” Jesus told them. “Don’t you say, ‘There are still four more months, and then comes the harvest’? Listen to what I’m telling you: Open your eyes and look at the fields, because they are ready for harvest. The reaper is already receiving pay and gathering fruit for eternal life, so that the sower and reaper can rejoice together. For in this case the saying is true: ‘One sows and another reaps.’ I sent you to reap what you didn’t labor for; others have labored, and you have benefited from their labor.” Now many Samaritans from that town believed in him because of what the woman said when she testified, “He told me everything I ever did.” So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them, and he stayed there two days. Many more believed because of what he said. And they told the woman, “We no longer believe because of what you said, since we have heard for ourselves and know that this really is the Savior of the world.”

Pray, Invite the people to be seated

I love this passage. There is so much here that we could talk about it for weeks.

But this morning, I want us to focus in on the actions of Jesus, and what He is saying to this woman and to us through them.

To do that, we are going to look at this passage through the lens of its problems.

You see, there are some really big problems in this story.

They come out of the culture and the context of the situation

And until we talk about them, we can’t fully understand what Jesus is doing and how it helps us understand what He says.

What are the problems in this story? Let’s look at them together.

For starters, this is about a conversation in Samaria and it is a conversation between a Samaritan and a Jew

Look at verse 9:

John 4:9 CSB

“How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a Samaritan woman?” she asked him. For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.

Jesus is a Jew.

The Jews hated the Samaritans

The Samaritans were half-Jews that had intermarried with the pagan nations around them

They still worshipped the God of Israel, but had been cast out by Israel

They no longer had God’s Law, and were doing many of the things the nations around them did

They believed God should be worshipped on a holy mountain, not in the Temple of Jerusalem

The Jews hated the Samaritans so much, they built a longer road to Galilee that went around Samaria just so they didn’t have to go into Samaria

Yet Jesus doesn’t take that road. He walks right into the heart of Samaria to have a conversation with this woman.

And His intentional journey into Samaria teaches us something about the source of Life, that

You are never so far away that Jesus can’t reach you

He does not carry our biases or prejudices.

He is not limited by social, cultural, or political boundaries

He is the answer to every division and every contention

Jesus is ready to meet you where you are at, and He is willing to be the one that crosses the lines drawn in the sand.

There is no wall you could put up, no sin you could commit, no failure you could fall in, no distance you could run that is too great for Jesus!

His visit into Samaria and His death on a cross point us to the reality that there is no depth too great for Jesus to reach you.

Let’s continue with our passage:

Another issue with this passage is that it is a conversation between a man and a woman.

By cultural norms, Jesus wasn’t supposed to talk to a Samaritan

But this Samaritan was also a woman

At this time, in that area of the world, women were not treated the same as men

A man would not speak to women in public,

The higher prestige, and the more respect a man commanded, the less likely he was to speak to a woman

In the ancient Middle East, Women were treated more like possessions than people

They would talk about them in front of them without ever even addressing them

For her part, this woman isn’t even supposed to look a man in the eyes, much less have a conversation with one.

Jesus is breaking down the cultural expectations here in a big way

We already saw her surprise in verse 9

Look at how the disciples respond in verse 27

John 4:27 CSB

Just then his disciples arrived, and they were amazed that he was talking with a woman. Yet no one said, “What do you want?” or “Why are you talking with her?”

The disciples didn’t want to ask why, even though they knew that Jesus was breaking down another barrier because they also knew that there was more going on than what they saw:

This is the second thing we need to see about the source of life:

Jesus is the source of life for anyone and everyone who believes

It doesn’t matter what your skin looks like

It doesn’t matter what gender you are

It doesn’t matter how educated or uneducated you are

It doesn’t matter how you dress, the language that you speak, or if I can pronounce the name of your favorite dish.

All of us need Jesus

This woman came to the well looking for water because everybody needs water

She found water at the well, it just wasn’t the water she was expecting

And this morning, you and I need to come to Jesus looking for His water.

He is right here, to freely give to anyone who asks for it.

Look at verse 10

John 4:10 CSB

Jesus answered, “If you knew the gift of God, and who is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would ask him, and he would give you living water.”

We need to know that as we seek Him. We also must remember it as we share Him

We must not avoid those that make us uncomfortable.

We must be willing to go to those that everybody hates and share water with those that nobody shares with.

A third issue is the job she was doing and the time of day

Drawing water is hard work, and they lived in a place that is always hot

Women would gather to draw water in the mornings or in the evening

It was a chance to be social

It was safer, because there were numbers of people there

It was more pleasant because it wasn’t hot

That this woman came in the middle of the day tells us that she didn’t want to be around other people

Having five husbands and living with another man made her an outcast and the one that everybody talks about

She shows her disdain for having to be at such a public place in her answer to the offer for living water

John 4:15 CSB

“Sir,” the woman said to him, “give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and come here to draw water.”

She comes to the well at this time of day to avoid people and their judgment

She knew the things that she was doing were sinful

She just didn’t want to be judged for them. She didn’t want the looks and side comments and snickering or scornful disdain

And yet, when she comes to the well, instead of the avoidance she sought, she finds Jesus

Jesus treats her with dignity, asking her for something instead of the condescension she expected

Did the Son of God really need her to give Him water if He was thirsty?

Jesus confronts her sin, but does not condemn her. Look at verse 16 and following

John 4:16–19 CSB

“Go call your husband,” he told her, “and come back here.” “I don’t have a husband,” she answered. “You have correctly said, ‘I don’t have a husband,’ ” Jesus said. “For you’ve had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have said is true.” “Sir,” the woman replied, “I see that you are a prophet.

Jesus meets this woman right where she is

Instead of judgment, she gets gracious dignity

He doesn’t ignore Her sin-it is laid bare and exposed, but it is done as a call on her to deal with it as opposed to attacking her with it.

And in this, Jesus shows us something about Himself as our source of life

Jesus meets us where we are and He is the water that cleanses us.

Jesus isn’t waiting for you to get ready or clean

He isn’t waiting for you to make things right-that’s His job

Jesus wants to meet you in your loneliness. In your shame.

Jesus comes to you in your most vulnerable moments of life as the living water

Jesus can wash away your deepest cuts from struggles and failures

He can quench the thirst of your deepest longings and most desperate need.

And like this Samaritan woman, we are invited to His well to drink deeply, that He might change us.

We can exchange the struggles of this dying world for the joy of His eternal Kingdom.

A Jew and a Samaritan. A man talking to a woman. A woman showing up at noon to draw water. The lens of these problems have shown us a lot about Jesus, but there is one more problem to look at.

And that problem is the well itself

In Genesis 33:18-19, Jacob buys the land where this well was dug.

He later leaves it to His Son, Joseph.

Something fun about the well is that it still exists and produces cold water

It is one of the undisputed sights of ancient Israel

When the woman in the text says it is deep, she isn’t kidding

The depth fluctuates, but is between 128 and 151 feet down to the water line.

At the time of our text, the well was in Samaria, but the Jews considered it their well.

It was significant to both groups of people because it was dug by Jacob, who was the father of both nations

It was a real point of tension, and Jesus capitalizes on it.

When Jesus offers the woman living water, her response is to throw the tension in his face

She tells him he is without a bucket

She reminds Him who dug the well

And basically, what she is saying to Him is “Who do you think you are!”

And it is in this context, that Jesus says in verse 13

John 4:13–14 CSB

Jesus said, “Everyone who drinks from this water will get thirsty again. But whoever drinks from the water that I will give him will never get thirsty again. In fact, the water I will give him will become a well of water springing up in him for eternal life.”

Jesus just offered this woman eternal life, but she still isn’t getting it.

She asks Him for the living water, so she won’t have to come back to the well again

And so Jesus confronts her sin in asking about her husband and showing her that He knows everything by His response to her

She is right there, but she changes the subject. She points Him back to the divide

This is our well, we, the people that worship on that mountain

You are a prophet of a different people who say you have to worship in Jerusalem’s temple

Jerusalem is built in mountains and to go to the city you have to go up.

SO, basically, she is point at this divide. Both groups are worshipping on “God’s mountain,” but it can’t be both. She isn’t ready for Jesus’ answer

Jesus tells her that now it no longer matters where you worship because God’s Spirit is everywhere and He brings about true worship.

In other words,

Jesus is the object and the source of our worship

Jesus is both who we worship and the reason that we are able to worship Him

It is only by His gift of life through His death and resurrection that we can live in relationship with God

Until we drink of the living water that Jesus is, we cannot know true life or true joy.

It is only in true life and true joy that we can truly worship

I love the end of this passage

Jesus tells this woman, this Samaritan, this sinner, this thirsty soul that HE is the Messiah.

John 4:25–26 NASB95

The woman said to Him, “I know that Messiah is coming (He who is called Christ); when that One comes, He will declare all things to us.” Jesus said to her, “I who speak to you am He.”

This woman encounters the truth of who Jesus is.

God comes close to a far away heart, meets her and offers love instead of hatred. He confronts her sin and brings her cleansing, and Her response is breathtaking

She forgets all about the well

She forgets about her bucket, her thirst, and her reputation

She goes into the city overjoyed

She invites anyone and everyone to come meet Jesus

And right before our eyes, Jesus’ words to her are fulfilled

She is no longer thirsty

She is a spring of living water, sharing Jesus with anyone and everyone

She is transformed to be a worshipper that worships with her life everywhere

Jesus told this woman seeking water that He is the true source of life.

AND

Today, Jesus wants you to make Him your source of life.

This morning, won’t you allow Him to tear down the barriers of your heart

Won’t you allow Him to meet you where you’re at?

Won’t you let Him confront your sin and bring the cleansing that only He can?

Let today be the day you begin again. Come drink of the Living Water.

Come and Thirst no more.

I’m going to invite the worship team up…

I will pray

meet me at welcome table

QR Code, next steps

Pray