A Well of a Story

Introduction

Well, good afternoon!

Welcome to FBC. This is our fourth lenten lunch of the year…of course, it’s the Easter season…a season where we as Christians observe the final moments of Jesus’s life prior to Him being resurrected on that Sunday morning.

The cross, the resurrection, those things are the center piece of our Christian faith. Without the cross…without the resurrection, we’d have no reason to be here this morning…we’d have no reason for hope. And so, I hope that you, your family…you just spend some time this month reflecting on the reason we have to celebrate…The grave’s empty, Amen? And for that reason, there’s nothing left for us to fear.

Over the past many weeks, we’ve been following the life and the ministry of Jesus. We’ve seen a great deal about His character…we’ve seen His heart really come out through these passages…And listen, today’s no different. As we turn to John chapter 4, we really get to see the heart of Christ on display here…we get to see the whole reason He came to begin with.

John 4, it’s the story of an outcast…not only is the woman in question a Samaritan woman…but also she’s lived a public life of sin. The reason the story starts in the sixth hour…or at noon…it’s because the woman had to come at the heat of the day…she had to come when no one else was at the well, drawing water. She was an outcast, she was despised. She was despised by the Jews because she was a Samaritan…she was despised by her own because of her lifestyle.

This story, its the complete opposite from what we find in John chapter 3, just one chapter before this with Nicodemus…Nicodemus seemed to be a man that had everything together. He was a pharisee…he was everything opposite of the woman at the well.

But I think the reason John does this…it’s a comparison…while Nicodemus and the woman couldn’t be any more different… they both shared a common need…they both shared a need for Jesus. And what I love about how John writes, he shows us two things…number 1, he shows us Jesus’s love for all people made in His image…and number 2, he shows us that all humanity has fallen into sin and needs Jesus’s redeeming work in their lives.

Listen, its fascinating to become immersed in a culture completely different from your own. I’ve traveled the world during my time in the service…I traveled to places like Honduras for different mission trips…and I always find it amazing just how different these places are from the US. They speak different languages…all I can say sometimes is, “No entiendo de espanol.” They eat different foods…it’s nothing like Taco Bell or any other hispanic place here in the United States. Our Japanese and Chinese food is different than places in China or Japan. Their schedule’s different…everything about their culture, its different…And traveling the world, its helped me to see and to really appreciate the things that make us different.

But listen, despite the differences, there’s one thing that always remains the same. No matter where you go…no matter who you talk to…you always discover sin. No matter where you look…no matter how far you go, you’ll find men and women who are sinners in need of Jesus Christ. And listen, that’s the point of John’s gospel from start to finish. It’s to get people to see their sin nature…and it’s to get them to see Jesus, to believe Jesus is exactly what the Bible claims. We could search the globe, investigating every nook and cranny on planet Earth…and everywhere we found people, we’d find sin. We can’t escape sin because sin travels with us. It’s woven into the very core of our hearts.

In John chapter 4, salvation, it spreads beyond the borders of Israel. In the previous chapter, again, we get to eavesdrop on a conversation between Jesus and Nicodemus where Jesus showed him his need for a Savior. Now, in this chapter, Jesus is gonna encounter an entirely different person…a Samaritan woman…and He’s gonna show her the exact same thing…her need for Jesus.

And so listen, I have three points for us as we walk through this text…number 1, I want us to pay attention to “the encounter.” Number 2, the revelation…and then finally, number 3, the transformation.

And listen, as we walk through this…I really want you to reflect on your own life…for a lot of people, they affirm all the right things but they’ve never actually had an encounter with Jesus…there’s never been genuine revelation in their hearts and minds…and for those reasons there’s not been a real transformation. And my fear for a lot of so called Christians, its that they would die and they would open their eyes to that terrible reality.

And so, as we walk through this…I want you to think about your own encounter with Jesus, I want you to think about your own revelation and understanding of the gospel…and I want us to close thinking about our transformation…I think that’s what would be most honoring to Jesus this Easter season.

I. The Encounter (vv. 5-9)

And so, with that…let’s look at this first point together…the encounter.

If you have a Bible, look at John chapter 4 with me…starting in verse 5:

John 4:5–9 ESV

So he [Jesus] came to a town of Samaria called Sychar, near the field that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. 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. A woman from Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” (For his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.) 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.)

So there’s two main things here when it comes to the heart of Christ…I tell my congregation all the time, when it comes to Scripture…the point is for us to understand and to know Jesus in a greater way…so that we can act it out, right?

Two things…number 1, Jesus came to us because we’re all united in our depravity…we all share the same sin problem.

And then number 2, if we’re gonna have the heart of Christ…or the mind of Christ as Paul says in Philippians 2:5, we have to remember that all people are created in the image of God. Not only do we share the same problem…but we share the same origins. If you start to see things through those two filters…you’ll start to take on the heart of Christ.

Look at this story again…there’s a lot here and so we don’t have enough time to go through all of it…but look at some of the key things we see.

Jesus, He had been ministering to people publically in and around Jerusalem and He’s decided it’s time to head back to Galilee. And so, He leaves Jerusalem, and He heads to Samaria.

Him and the disciples, they decide to take a break after a long journey…the disciples, they head into town to get some food while Jesus decides to rest by a well. Keep in mind, Jesus being God, He’s sovereign…and the point of Him being at this specific well, it was to encounter this very woman.

Of course, as the text shows, it wasn’t long before the woman shows up and Jesus asks her for a drink of water.

She answers, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a Samaritan woman.”

I think this verse, this verse is the key to understanding the rest of the passage.

John never did anything by mistake…he never wrote anything without intentionality. When you go back to chapter 3 and the story of Nicodemus…these two people, they couldn’t be more different. Their genders were different…their status was different…their nationality was different…even their morality was different. Jesus had every reason, culturally to not talk to this woman…that’s why she asks the question.

But pay attention to the details…in both this story and in Nicodemus’s, Jesus started the conversation. He encountered them first…He knew their hearts…He knew their condition…Both of them were in desperate need of salvation from sin…and without Jesus encountering them first, they would have never seen it.

Guys, the greatest part of the gospel…its that God, He saw our condition, He saw our need…and He came to us…He encountered us.

It drives me nuts when people say “they found Jesus.” As if they were the ones looking or as if they were the ones that initiated this gospel encounter.

Pauls says in Romans 3:11

Romans 3:11 ESV

no one understands; no one seeks for God.

Because of our sin nature…we’re blinded to God without an intervention…without Jesus encountering us first. That’s what makes the gospel so special. We sinned against God, but yet God still chose to come to us and reveal Himself to us, to offer reconciliation.

And to really drive this idea home. Paul says in Ephesians 1:13

Ephesians 1:3–4 ESV

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him.

The Bible says that even before time began, He knew us and He chose us.

Jesus came and He encountered us, because without Him, there’s nothing we could do about our sin problem on our own. We’re united in this problem…it doesn’t matter your gender, your nationality, your actions…we’re all united in this…and without an encounter from Jesus…its impossible to see past ourselves…it’s impossible to see past our sin.

And listen, once we’ve had that encounter, Jesus says in Matthew 4:19, “Follow me and I’ll make you into fishers of men,” right? We begin to see people like him…we look past all those earthly labels and we see people for what they are…people made in the image of God that are in bondage to sin…and we bring Jesus to those people…because we realize without an encounter from Jesus, they’ll never be reconciled.

The gospel, its starts in a humble place…us realizing our own depravity and our own inability to save ourselves…its us realizing that Jesus encountered us first.

II. The Revelation (vv. 10-26)

And so, Jesus encounters this woman…but the second point, He doesn’t just encounter her…He gives her revelation about Himself, right? He’s answering her question.

Look at verses 10 through 26 with me:

John 4:10–26 ESV

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.” 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? Are you greater than our father Jacob? He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock.” Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, 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.” 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.” Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come here.” The woman answered him, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’; for you have had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband. What you have said is true.” The woman said to him, “Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet. Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship.” Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. 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. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” 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.” Jesus said to her, “I who speak to you am he.”

Listen, again…there’s a ton here, I just don’t have enough time to cover it all…but a couple of things that I really wanna highlight. The first, its how Jesus seems to have this way of taking the physical things and turning those conversations toward spiritual matters.

The woman thinks they’re talking about physical water but Jesus flips that on its head and He begins to show her, her spiritual needs. He might be thirsty physically…but she’s thirsty spiritually. And so, He begins to give her revelation about the living water.

He starts with the bad news…again, that she’s living in sin, right? He reveals that to her.

He talks about the worse news…there’s nothing she can do about that sin problem on her own…she needs living water to quench that thirst…which is why she says, “Give me that water…I WANT THAT WATER!”

And then He gives revelation about Himself. “I am the living water…I am the One that brings restoration.”

But pay attention to the story…Jesus says, “Go, call your husband, and come here,” right? She can’t have this living water until she’s addressed her sin…until she’s acknowledged it. There had to be a turning, a repentance before reconciliation could happen. Jesus revealed her sin and called her to address it, head on…acknowledge it…and then after that, He called her to believe in Him as the living water.

Jesus was revealing to her the good news of the gospel…that He was the Messiah…God with us. That He was coming to take on the penalty of our sin…He was revealing that He was gonna take on our death. And in that revelation, He was calling this woman to repent and believe.

Which as we move on, we see that she does repent and believe…and it transforms her…which is the third thing we see here.

III. The Transformation (vv. 27-42)

We see a transformation in this woman…and we see the continued transformation of Jesus’s disciples.

Look at the last several verses with me…Verse 27:

John 4:27–42 ESV

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?” So the woman left her water jar and went away into town and said to the people, “Come, see a man who told me all that I ever did. Can this be the Christ?” They went out of the town and were coming to him. Meanwhile the disciples were urging him, saying, “Rabbi, eat.” But he said to them, “I have food to eat that you do not know about.” So the disciples said to one another, “Has anyone brought him something to eat?” Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work. 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. Already the one who reaps is receiving wages and gathering fruit for eternal life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice together. For here the saying holds true, ‘One sows and another reaps.’ I sent you to reap that for which you did not labor. Others have labored, and you have entered into their labor.” Many Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me all that I ever did.” So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them, and he stayed there two days. And many more believed because of his word. 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.”

Listen, again, there’s two transformations we see going on in this text. We see it with Jesus’s disciples…and we see it with the woman at the well.

In the first parts of this story…we see the woman, she runs back into town and she goes and she tells everyone what this man Jesus just did…what He revealed.

You see, you can’t have an encounter with Jesus and you can’t be given revelation about Jesus and not be changed by it. This woman’s concerns, it had shifted from himself and it was placed on Jesus…and part of this new heart, she wanted everyone she knew to experience this Jesus. And listen, remember who she was…she was someone despised…she was someone hated. And yet she went to those people because the reality of her transformation was real…she was given a new heart. She was given eyes to see truth…she was give ears to hear truth…she was given a heart to act out truth.

And listen, as a result of this woman’s testimony…as a result of her new heart…as a result of her proclamation…people believed in the truth of the gospel…that Jesus was the Messiah…that He came to take on the sins of His people.

And to drive His point home…Jesus uses this situation as an example to further transform His disciples. He refers to the people as a field ready to be harvested…and He refers to His followers as those who sow and reap.

Closing

Listen, I wanna close with this…I mentioned this a few minutes ago…Matthew 4:19…Jesus says, “Follow Me, and I’ll make you into fishers of men.” When Jesus encounters you…and when He reveals truth to you…everything about you, it changes…the woman at the well is proof of that…Jesus’s disciples are proof of that.

You see when you follow Him…Jesus says, “I will make you…” It’s a promise…its a promise of transformation.

Listen, there’s so much we could talk about when it comes to this. But as we reflect on this Easter season…as we reflect on the crucifixion and on the resurrection…let’s honor Christ today by remembering our transformation.

Your affirmation of truth…its not enough. It’s very possible to know truth about Jesus and even affirm truth about Jesus…and yet not really know Jesus…That’s why Jesus says to repent and believe…when we’ve encountered the risen Christ…and when He reveals truth to us, we turn from the world…we recognize we’re sinners, we acknowledge that our sin deserves the punishment of death…we realize there’s nothing we can about that problem on our own, by our own effort.

And listen, that encounter…and that revelation…it begins to transformation us because we understand that Jesus, being God, came to us, that He willingly took on our sin…and that it’s by His efforts and His work alone that we get something entirely different than we deserve.

That’s what’s happened in this story with the woman at the well. She encountered Jesus…she received revelation about Jesus…and her life, it was transformed forever.

And so, as close…that’s what I really want you to reflect on…if you’ve encountered Jesus…and if you’ve turned to Jesus…I just want you to reflect on your transformation…because the purpose of Easter…that’s the point of everything Jesus did. And so be thankful…be grateful…communicate that to God.

But listen, as you reflect, if you realize you’re just the same ol’ John Doe you were before…there’s been no transformation…You’ve encountered Jesus…I just revealed truth to you…turn to Him this morning. All you have to do is confess with your mouth, believe in your heart…and you will be saved.

Let’s pray!

[Prayer]