John 4:1-42 “He Knows Me”

Intro

I use this study software called Logos Bible study…Its amazing…Thats where I do all of my reading and studying of scripture and even writing sermons.

One of the features is that when you open the software to a particular text and it shows you all the commentaries you have and all the impotrant words and cross references…

It also shows you every document that you have ever made using that text so you can go back and see how you used it in a sermon

And as we get into John 4 today, I realized as I am beginning to write the sermon that I have preached John 4 twice in the last 12 months…This is very uncommon for me…

first in a series we did at the beginning of last year called “One Matters”

“One matters” is our mission here…Jesus went after the one…he went out of his way to go after the one…and in John 4 Jesus goes out of his way to intentionally reach a woman who would have been considered the literal least of everyone in a town full of people that the jews declared unclean

And then at the end of last year we did a worship series…I still really like that series

And in that series we looked at what Jesus meant when he talked about how a day is coming when true worshipers will worship in spirit and in truth…And so we talked about what it means to worship in spirit and truth

And so as I sat down to write this week I was like…Man I just preached on this twice…I always like to preach on something new…But then I realized that John 4 is so thick that I am so glad I preached on this twice because while I will cover a little bit of territory from the last few times I taught this…there are 42 verses! There is a lot here!

So you might be here wondering…Did Pastor Dave just preach on this text…YES I did…

John Recap:

So what I didn’t do before is teach this text in the context of John

So we have been digging though the gospel of John this year

and I want to just recap where we have been really fast because it will be central to where we are going today…

The best analogy I can give of John’s writing is that as you get into it, it’s like a cartoon snowball….

It starts with this little fragment of snow and it keeps growing and growing to the point where it is a massive snowball

Whenever I do a book study I cary around a printed copy of that book of the bible in my bag and I just read it over and over and write in in so much because I am looking for the connections…And there are tons of them…That paper for the book of John is just a mess

So John 4 is highly connected to chapters 1-3 and it points forward to other chapters

John 4:1–3 NIV

Now Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard that he was gaining and baptizing more disciples than John—although in fact it was not Jesus who baptized, but his disciples. So he left Judea and went back once more to Galilee.

Now this is connected to what we looked at last week. Jesus and his disciples were baptizing and everyone was going to them….

There are these little notes in John that begin to turn up the heat on Jesus

There is this correlation in the book of John. As Jesus gains more prominence he has more run-ins with the pharisees…There is more conflict, his life is even more in danger than it had been

So these editorial notes show that Jesus has to leave some areas because he is gaining in prominence…and whenever he is beginning to draw a crowd he manages it by leaving…Why?

Because whenever Jesus draws a crowd he becomes a threat to the establishment and when he knows that the father has an hour prepared for him so he is not looking to die so soon…

John 4:4–6 NIV

Now he had to go through Samaria. So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about noon.

John just loves connecting his gospel to the book of Genesis

Jacob is one of the patriarchs of Israel…Remember there is Abraham, Issac & Jacob

Jesus goes to Jacob’s well because while this is samaritan territory it is the one part of ground that is sort of neutral ground…It has a shared lineage…

It sits between Mt. Ebal & Gerizim…A prominent place for Jews and a prominent place of Worship for the Samaritans

The Jews and the Samaritans share a lineage to Jacob

But these two groups couldn’t hate each other more

The Samaritans were viewed as an ethnically mixed raced of people who were decedents of Jews and Assyrian occupiers…

But at the time of Jesus entering Samaria tensions had reached a breaking point

Between 6-9 AD Samaritans defiled the Jerusalem temple by scattering human bones…Samaritans were considered strangers, and their mixed Jewish-heathen worship was an abomination to Jews.

They were excluded from worship in Jerusalem’s, there was a prohibition of intermarriage, and restricted dealings—effectively placing them on the same level as Gentiles.

So the text says…He had to go through Samaria…Why?

Jesus intentionally went through Samaria because God so loved the world (John 3:16).

John 3:16 NIV

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

There will be so many examples of this in the gospel of John…

See one of the main teachings of Jesus in Matthew, Mark Luke and John is to is love your Enemies as yourself and to bless those who persecute you…But the word enemies never shows up in John’s gospel.

It’s almost as if John wanted to show that Jesus had no enemies…He obviously did otherwise he wouldn’t have been killed but on Jesus’ side Jesus loved everyone including those who killed him Israel did have them…But Jesus loved Israel’s enemies without reservation

This whole story is John 3:16 lived out!

Ok before we go onto the next text we just have to set the scene…

Jesus. The very word of God, the son of God is tired and hot and he had to go this way…and he is sitting by the well at noon time…This is not the time that people came to get water

John 4:7–10 NIV

When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?” (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.) The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.) Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.”

So this woman is very obviously pointing out to Jesus…You are breaking the rules…You are breaking with social custom

Its funny…This woman knows the social stigma of a Jew and a Samaritan talking together and she is very dismissive to him

She dismisses him as a jew

and later in John’s gospel Jesus will get dismissed as a Samaritan

John 8:48 NIV

The Jews answered him, “Aren’t we right in saying that you are a Samaritan and demon-possessed?”

Jesus can’t win!

So Jesus says…Look if you knew the gift of God…You would have asked me for a drink!

What is the gift of God? Its’s Jesus..>It’s the love of God for the whole world

Also this woman is living under a paradigm where she is the least of the least and she knows that whoever she touches will become unclean

Jewish law says this about Samaritan women:

The Gospel according to John 9. Jesus and the Samaritan Woman (4:1–42)

the daughters of the Samaritans are menstruants from their cradle’ and therefore perpetually in a state of ceremonial uncleanness

But Jesus will give this woman hope..>What she doesn’t know is that whatever Jesus touches becomes clean!

Jesus offers this woman “living water.”

Now lets dive into this a bit more

John 4:12–15 NIV

Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his livestock?” Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.”

So you have to understand this…This is where the chopsticks and the snowball come into full effect

She is just understanding this on a physical level

Going to Jacob’s well every day is like Jacob giving you water…Jacob dug the well

But jesus is saying that he has living water…

Now again…Living water to this woman just means water that is running like a stream or a river…Water that is not stagnant water that is moving

But Jesus claims that he has water that will quench her thirst from time and memorial…

Jesus is basically saying I know that you are not satisfied! But come to me!

You come back to this spot day after day…But what would happen if you came to me!

It makes me ask the question, what stagnant wells do we go to in life? What tricks of the enemy do we continually fall for where we believe we are getting good water but its only a temporary satisfaction

But what Jesus is saying is what is in your notes:

Jesus is the source of living water that brings us eternal life

But we will be told exactly what the living water is that Jesus is talking about in John 7:39

Because in John 7 Jesus says that we can all have streams of living water flowing from us!

John 7:39 NIV

By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive. Up to that time the Spirit had not been given, since Jesus had not yet been glorified.

So Jesus is telling this woman…

You came here because you’re thirsty…

But I know your true thirst

And by the way…This is why many of you come on a Sunday morning…You have a thirst that this world doesn’t quench!

Maybe you even found yourself in church for the first time ever or even for the first time in a long time because you have a thirst …you have a desire…a longing in your life and you have just found that nothing can satisfy that!

I understand

I have the same thing, and when I was 14 years old and I read the gospels for the first time in my life and I surrendered my life to Jesus…I asked him to be the indwelling presence in my life….Finally I realized that Jesus is who I have been looking for my whole life…

And you know that the presence of the living God is the only thing that can satisfy you…He is your creator…your sustainer of life!

John 4:16–18 NIV

He told her, “Go, call your husband and come back.” “I have no husband,” she replied. Jesus said to her, “You are right when you say you have no husband. The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true.”

Ok. Here is where this woman needs a little bit of historical redeeming

She has been stigmatized by generations of preachers basically calling her a harlot. And the reality is that if you are a woman in the first century in Samaria, often times women had little to no power

So we have no idea of the grounds of divorce that this woman had but she had a few under her belt…We know that divorce was heavily stigmatized in Samaritan culture

But we also know that this woman was likely thrown out by men, Likely what she went through back then we would consider abuse today…and her only means of survival in that culture was a man

But instead of calling her names here is what I want to point out…Have you ever had someone say…hey your religion ought to stick to saving souls and stay out of ethical issues…

Well Jesus didn’t do that…He literally confronted her with all of the junk in her life…

He is almost saying…Look just like you keep coming to this well every day looking for water

You keep going to men to find what your looking for…And after the last 5 marriage the whole marriage ritual doesn’t even mean anything to you any more…

You’ve Gone to all these men, but have you come to me!

if you only knew the gift of God that was standing right in front of you! Everything would change!

John 4:19–26 NIV

“Sir,” the woman said, “I can see that you are a prophet. Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.” “Woman,” Jesus replied, “believe me, a time 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, for salvation is from the Jews. Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.” The woman said, “I know that Messiah” (called Christ) “is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.” Then Jesus declared, “I, the one speaking to you—I am he.”

Look at what is happening here….Once this woman hears the truth about her life…She knows that the person standing in front of her is great…

There is a progression with how she sees Jesus

First he is a Jew…And now he is a prophet and by the last time we see this woman she will call Jesus the savior of the world!

And by the way…I always tell people investigate Jesus…

You might start out with thinking he’s a philosopher or just a miracle worker, but I guarantee you that when you honestly search for truth you will come to the realization that he is not just the savior of the world, but he is your savior…

But because she now realizes ok, this isn’t just any Jew…So she has now moved to ….He must be a prophet…let’s ask him a theology question to see if he is on my side…

You know we all do this…It’s that one loaded question you ask of your pastor:

I get this all the time…let’s ask this guy a theology question to see if he reflects my values..>let me ask the pastor a political question to see if he’s on my side…YEAh I know what your up to!

But Jesus Shocks this woman…

She has grown up being told that true worship happens ion Mt Gerezim but the Jews say Jerusalem…So pop quiz prophet..what do you say…In other-words…Pick a side

And then Jesus lays on her something that we need to go back to chapter 2 to understand…

Geography won’t matter in the time to come…

And Yes if any of you were wanting to connect the word hour in chapter when Jesus said to his mom..>Woman…Why do you involve me, my hour has not yet come to the word Time here…It is the same word in greek…A time is coming…And hour is coming when Geography won’t matter any more

What will matter is worshiping God in spirit and truth

He is turning the conversation away from the place of worship to the nature of worship…

I get asked all the time…What’s the right church to go to…what’s the correct denomination etc…

And you know what as long as the theology is orthodox its not about where you worship but how you worship

and I think that the reality is that if Jesus would have entered into her argument about the right place of worship, he would have never confronted her sin

So instead of entering into her argument, he tells her what the father desires….He reveals to her that he wants to see holiness in her life and relationships!

The father desires worship that is in spirit and truth

I think the best way to understand this is by looking at the opposite…The opposite of spirit and truth is Flesh and Falseness…

the father is looking for the kind of people who are going to worship him by relying on him and living in the truth

And by the way…This is what Jesus did..he told the woman the truth about her own life…And by doing so he is telling her to live in truth!

So her response to all of this is to try to brush Jesus off and say…Ok look I know that one day the messiah will come and he will explain it all to us

So Jesus Says this and I want to zero in on it

John 4:26 NIV

Then Jesus declared, “I, the one speaking to you—I am he.”

This Phrase “Ego Eimi” “I am He” will be so impotrant…In the book of John it’s jesus favorite way of self disclosure…

He will tell us…I am the bread of life…the light of the world the good shepherd…the resurrection and the life…

And he is beginning it right now…

Think about this for a second…

Just one chapter ago. Jesus meets with the teacher of Israel… Nicodemus and he is talking about being born again..>An intense theological conversation

He is talking about being born of water and spirit

and Jesus says this to

John 3:10 NIV

“You are Israel’s teacher,” said Jesus, “and do you not understand these things?

jesus gave another kind of disclosure to Nicodemus…He said that the son of man has come from heaven and that he will be lifted up and that he will give everyone eternal life….

I mean if you are a theologian and Israel’s teacher you have the parts of the puzzle to put together to say..>Hey maybe this guy is the messiah…

And I think the sad truth about Nicodemus is that he probably believed that Jesus was the messiah but never had the boldness to proclaim it

Instead Jesus goes to a town that is rejected, to the lowest class member of that town and he tells her in a plain way

“Ego E-mee” I AM HE! I am the messiah!

Nicodemus fades away in chapter 2….

But lets see what happens next:

John 4:27–30 NIV

Just then his disciples returned and were surprised to find him talking with a woman. But no one asked, “What do you want?” or “Why are you talking with her?” Then, leaving her water jar, the woman went back to the town and said to the people, “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Messiah?” They came out of the town and made their way toward him.

Ok jump down to verse 39

John 4:39–42 NIV

Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me everything I ever did.” So when the Samaritans came to him, they urged him to stay with them, and he stayed two days. And because of his words many more became believers. They said to the woman, “We no longer believe just because of what you said; now we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this man really is the Savior of the world.”

The Samaritan woman left her jar behind: instead of bringing water to the town, she brought the living water of Jesus

For this Samaritan woman she goes into the town and now the town’s people believe her testimony about Jesus and they say….

Wow…We really believe now that Jesus is the savior of the world

I want to point out something that is often pointed out

This woman gets who Jesus is better than the teacher of israel…And when she gets it…This least of the least woman also gets the boldness to back it up!

She becomes the first missionary and she introduced her whole town to Jesus

And it says they urged Jesus to stay… The word is ABIDE with him…So he Abided for two days

The text is pointing us back to

John 1:14 NIV

The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

The radical nature of Jesus is that he comes to us

and that he goes to the people who are considered unclean and rejected

He goes to the people who are untouchable and camps out with them…He abides with them! And he will continually point out people’s sin…Not in a mean way but a grace filled way…Becuase he wants the best for them…He wants them to know redemption and wholeness…He wants them to leave their life of sin

It is the power of sin that Jesus will go to battle with on the cross

Because God so loved the world!

John puts the story of Nicodemus and the unnamed women next to each other

it actually reminds me of something that Luke says Luke 5:31

Luke 5:31 NIV

Jesus answered them, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick.

It doesn’t matter how religious you appear

if your granddaddy was a pastor and his granddaddy was a pastor

it doesn’t matter how much theology you read…

if you have allowed moral superiority to enter into your heart then Jesus can’t go there

The sick get it!

The woman who was 5 marriages and a boyfriend deep gets it

I know there are a few verses I am not going to cover, I will cover them another time It kills me

But what is this woman’s testimony

John 4:39 NIV

Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me everything I ever did.”

He knows me….EGO EMEE…The great I AM has come in person

It reminds me of something That John commented on chapter 2

John 2:24 NIV

But Jesus would not entrust himself to them, for he knew all people.

Maybe the reality that you need to grapple with today is that Jesus knows you

he knows your full heart

He knows who you are and where you stand in life

he knows the evil you struggle with and where you will compromise

He know’s literally everything you have ever done

And I believe that through the power of the Holy Spirt he is here in this room with you confronting you on that

Because he wants you!

He wants you to worship in spirit and truth

He wants you to lay down the past and accept him

He wants you to leave your jar at the well and seek after his living water

Christian thinkers have been talking about this for melenia

Jesus knows us fully, confronts our lives, and offers living water because we have a thirst that this world cannot satisfy—only He can.

Jesus sat down at a well in the heat of the day, tired and thirsty, just to meet one woman—one person everyone else avoided.

He knew everything about her: her failed marriages, her shame, her daily trek to the well looking for something to fill the emptiness. And instead of walking away, He offered her living water—

water that springs up to eternal life, that satisfies the soul… the thirst no well, no relationship, no achievement can ever quench.

That same Jesus is here right now.

Through His Spirit, He's speaking to you. He knows you—everything you've ever done, every regret, every hidden longing.

He knows the hole in your heart that nothing in this world has filled.

As C.S. Lewis put it, 'If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.'

Jesus isn't asking you to clean up your life first. He's not waiting for you to get it all together. He's inviting you right where you are, just like that woman.

He wants to give you living water—His presence, His forgiveness, His eternal life—freely.

So here's the invitation: If today you sense that thirst... if you've been trying to fill it with everything but Him... if you've never truly trusted Jesus as your Savior, or if you've wandered and need to come back home—today is the day.

Right where you sit (or if you're ready to respond publicly), pray something simple like this in your heart—or out loud if you want:

'Jesus, I know I'm a sinner. I believe You died for my sins and rose again.

I can't satisfy this thirst on my own. I trust You now as my Savior.

Come into my life and bring me Your living water. Forgive me, fill me, and help me follow You. Amen.'

If you prayed that—whether for the first time or as a fresh surrender—Jesus just met you at your well.

Like the Samaritan woman, you can leave your old 'jar' behind and step into new life. If you'd like someone to pray with you, talk more, or just tell me you made that decision, come see me after, text me, or raise your hand right now so I can celebrate with you.