Signs and Wonders

Main Point: Faith is believing Jesus’s words before seeing His works.

Bible Passage: John 4:46-54

Announcements:

Welcome 5th Graders!!!

VBS

Icebreaker: "Would You Believe It?"

How It Works: Read a series of unusual but true statements. Students move to one side of the room if they think it's true and the other side if they think it's false.

Octopuses have three hearts. (True)

Goldfish only have a 3-second memory. (False)

A group of flamingos is called a "flamboyance." (True)

The Great Wall of China can be seen from space with the naked eye. (False)

Bananas are berries, but strawberries aren't. (True)

Cows have best friends and can become stressed when separated. (True)

Your nose and ears never stop growing. (True-ish; cartilage changes over time.)

A day on Venus is longer than a year on Venus. (True)

Peanuts are nuts. (False — they're legumes.)

McDonald's once sold bubblegum-flavored broccoli. (True)

Hunger and Thirst

"Those questions were fun because some of them sounded completely unbelievable at first. Most of us wanted some kind of proof before we were willing to trust the answer. That's usually how we operate in life—we want evidence first, then we'll believe.

But what happens when you're facing something much bigger than a trivia question? What happens when you're desperate, hurting, or facing a situation you can't fix on your own? In those moments, you don't just need information—you need hope.

The question is: Where do you place your hope when you can't see the outcome yet? That's exactly where we find the man in our passage today. Before we read, let's think about this together."

Who is the most powerful person you know?

Can you think of a time when you really needed help from someone?

When have you hoped for something without knowing if it would happen?

When Jesus began his public ministry and demonstrated

Context

Now as you open your bibles to John 4, but since we have some first time guests we have a few things that we need to go over before we can continue. First is our ground rules.

Review of Last week- Now since we have some new students how about we go ahead and give a quick summary of the lesson last week so that they can begin to understand where we are in the Biblical narrative. As I said earlier we are in the book of John. We have already discussed the Baptism of Jesus, Nicodemus coming to Jesus in the night, and last weeks lesson who were we talking about? John the Baptist that’s right. Now what was happening with John the Baptist and his disciples? They were starting to realize that Jesus was beginning to gain a ton of followers. Some of which were some of the disciples of John the Baptist. And how did they feel about that? They were upset, and they went to John to talk him about it.

Now going back to John 1 and Malachi 3, what was John the Baptist’s role? He was a prophet, but most importantly John was sent to prep the way so that Jesus’s ministry could take off. He cleared the run way lets say. So, when they came to John, John gave an analogy to them saying. The friend of the Groom is not jealous when his friend gets married. He is celebrating with him and is happy that this awesome thing is happening for his friend. In the same way, John was so excited to see that Jesus’s ministry was taking off because that meant that He did his job. The groom is here, and the Kingdom of God is at hand. Now, tonight we are going to be talking about something that would have been completely foreign to the Jews at the time and that is who is allowed in that Kingdom? So that is where we pick up in John 4:7

God’s Love Breaks Barriers

John 4:7–14 “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.)

Before we go any further, we need to understand why this conversation is such a big deal.The relationship between Jews and Samaritans was filled with hostility. To understand why, we have to go back to the Old Testament. Remember when the kingdom of Israel split into two kingdoms? The Northern Kingdom of Israel and the Southern Kingdom of Judah. Was the Northern Kingdom mostly good or entirely evil? Entirely evil.Eventually, the Northern Kingdom was conquered by Assyria. Many Israelites were taken into exile, but some remained in the land. Assyria then brought in people from other nations to settle there. Over time, these groups mixed together ethnically and spiritually.2 Kings 17:33 says:“So they feared the Lord but also served their own gods...”

In other words, they combined worship of the true God with pagan beliefs and practices.The tension only grew over time. When Jewish exiles returned from captivity to rebuild the temple in Jerusalem, the Samaritans offered to help. Their offer was rejected, and what started as political conflict eventually became religious conflict. The Samaritans built their own temple on Mount Gerizim and claimed to be the true people of God.

Over the centuries, the hostility escalated. The Samaritan temple was destroyed by Jewish forces around 128 BC. Later, Samaritans retaliated by desecrating the Jerusalem temple. By the time of Jesus, the two groups wanted little to do with each other. They worshiped separately, rarely associated with one another, and marriages between the groups were forbidden. Many Jews viewed Samaritans as outsiders and would even take longer routes when traveling just to avoid passing through Samaria.

So with all of that history in mind, how does the woman react when Jesus speaks to her?

She's shocked. And honestly, that's putting it mildly. From her perspective, a Jewish man had just crossed multiple social boundaries. Not only was there deep ethnic and religious hostility between Jews and Samaritans, but there were also cultural expectations regarding men and women. In that society, it was uncommon for a man to initiate a public conversation with a woman he didn't know.

Imagine the scene. It's the middle of the day. You're alone at a well, drawing water in the heat. Then a man from a group that has hated your people for centuries walks up and asks you for a drink. This simply wasn't supposed to happen. What's fascinating is that Jesus intentionally ignores all of the social barriers everyone else accepted. While the culture around Him divided people into categories of worth and importance, Jesus treated this woman with dignity and value.

That raises an important question for us: How does our culture value some people more than others?

It's sad, but our culture often tries to determine a person's worth by all kinds of different standards. How attractive are you? How successful are you? How much money do you make? How popular are you? How many followers do you have? The list goes on and on.The message we constantly hear is that if you check enough of the right boxes, then you're valuable. Then you're important. Then you're worth paying attention to.

But that's a lie.There is no material thing, achievement, or social status that can determine your value. No matter what culture tells you, your worth isn't found in any of those things.And here's the problem: if you spend your life trying to check all those boxes, you'll discover that the goalposts keep moving. The moment you achieve one standard, another one appears. The moment you reach one level, culture tells you that you need something more.

But look at Jesus.When everyone else saw a Samaritan. When everyone else saw a woman. When everyone else saw someone they considered less important, Jesus saw a person made in the image of God. Just like this woman at the well, Jesus values you—not because of what you've accomplished, what you own, or how others see you, but because of who you are. Now let's keep reading.

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.””

What was the difference between the well water and the water Jesus offered?

The water from the well could only satisfy the woman's physical thirst. She could drink from that well today, but tomorrow she would be thirsty again and have to come back for more. The water Jesus offers is completely different. He's not talking about physical water. He's talking about something that satisfies a much deeper thirst—the spiritual longing that every person has. Before we talk more about that, let's look at Jeremiah 2:13: “For my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water.”

In this passage, God describes Himself as the fountain of living water—the true source of life, satisfaction, and joy. Yet His people had turned away from Him and tried to find fulfillment elsewhere. Instead, they dug for themselves broken cisterns. A cistern was basically a large container used to collect and store water. It was an important resource in a dry climate. But imagine spending all the time and effort to build a cistern only to discover that it's cracked. No matter how much water you pour into it, it can never hold what you put in.

That's the picture God is painting. People often look for satisfaction in things other than Him, but those things can never truly satisfy. They may seem to work for a little while, but eventually they leave us empty and wanting more. But what Jesus is offering this woman is completely different. He offers her living water—something that doesn't just temporarily satisfy but addresses the deepest need of her soul.

The woman has a spiritual thirst, just like every one of us does. Deep down, there is a longing to know God, to be known by Him, to be forgiven, loved, accepted, and restored to the relationship with Him that we were created for.Jesus is telling her that He is the answer to that longing. The satisfaction, purpose, and life she has been searching for cannot be found in a well, a relationship, an accomplishment, or anything else this world offers. They can only be found in Him. Unlike the broken cisterns we often run to, Jesus offers a fountain of living water that never runs dry. Through Him, our deepest spiritual thirst can finally be satisfied because the very thing we need most—a restored relationship with our Creator—is available to us.

God’s love satisfies

Now let’s look back in the passage and continue to read starting in verse 15. John 4:15–30 “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,

Now let’s pause right here. I want you to imagine Max, I have barely talked to you thus far and I do not have the same relationship that I have with Cooper, or Finn, or Sammie, or Olivia. But if I came in the first conversation that we ever had and I told you deepest sin issue. You would be weirded out wouldn’t you. And guess what so was this woman. Look at her response.

“Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet.

Ding ding ding, you are correct ma’am. But she instantly tries to shift the conversation. let’s keep reading.

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.”

Now this is where if we are going to understand anything this is where we need to sit in park for a minute. What point is Jesus Making?

The temple is my people. This fight that the Samartains and Jews are having will be unimportant because the temple is going mobile baby. Jesus responded by telling the woman that a day was coming when worship would happen everywhere, even outside of Jerusalem. Jews considered the temple to be the only acceptable place for worship, so these words were bold and pointed to the truth that salvation was for all people—even Samaritans, even her. Let’s keep reading.

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.” 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.”

So this woman’s dirtiest laundry gets aired out. But, I want us to look at something. Was Jesus’s attitude toward the woman condemning or something else?

Romans 8:1 “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” Jesus knew the woman’s past sin and the truth about her living situation at the time. Yet, He still chose to speak to her. Jesus approached her to offer life, not shame. But she needed to confront her sin before she could experience freedom.

What does this show you about Jesus’s Heart?

Jesus knows our sin too. He knows the shame we feel and our struggle to let go of sinful habits. He confronts us with our sin, not to shame us, but to lead us to freedom. Before we can drink from the living water Jesus mentioned, we first have to realize our thirst—our great need for something, for someone, to satisfy our souls forever. We have to recognize our sin before we can be reconciled, or made right, with God

What did the woman do after Jesus exposed her sin?

The Samaritan woman was face-to-face with the Messiah. He knew everything about her, even the pieces of her life she desperately tried to hide. Jesus brought her sin into the light, but instead of feeling judged by Him, she ran joyfully to tell others! She didn’t hide, argue, or justify her sin because exposing it led to her freedom.

What does this help you realize?

When God brings our sin into the light, we often respond with anger or shame. If the Holy Spirit uses other people to hold us accountable, we get defensive and claim that they’re judging us. God opening our eyes to sin is proof of His great love for us, not judgment. He wants us to experience freedom and to run joyfully to share His love with others.

Conclusion

As we wrap up tonight before heading into breakout groups, there's one thing I want you to think about.

Jesus did not die for the best version of you. He didn't die for you only on the days when you're doing everything right, reading your Bible, praying consistently, and walking closely with Him.

Romans 5:8 tells us: "But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us."

Jesus died for you at your worst. He chose you knowing every failure, every sin, every moment of rebellion, every moment of shame. He loved you when you couldn't fix yourself. He loved you when you felt unworthy of love. He loved you when you felt beyond redemption.

That's who Jesus died for.

And that's exactly what we see in John 4. Jesus intentionally sought out a woman that others overlooked, avoided, and judged. He saw her value when everyone else saw her labels.

The same Jesus who pursued her has pursued us.

So as we leave tonight, I want you to think about these questions:

Who around you needs to hear that God loves and values them?

How can you show the love of Christ to people that our culture tends to overlook, ignore, or write off?

The woman at the well discovered that Jesus saw her, knew her, and loved her. As followers of Christ, we have the opportunity to help others see that same truth.