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John: Face to Face with Jesus. (3 of 5)
The Woman at the Well: Living Water
John 4:1-44
We’re turning to different face-to-face interactions that individuals had with Jesus and in each case these interactions with Jesus left the lives of these different people transformed.
Nicodemus in chapter 3 was a highly respected Jewish leader and teacher. In chapter 4, we meet a Samaritan woman living a sinful lifestyle and Jesus points both of them to their need for Him.
John 3:3 (ESV, emphasis mine) –
“Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.”
John 4:10 (ESV, emphasis mine) –
“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.”
John 4:13-14 (ESV) –
“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.”
Nicodemus and the woman at the well both needed salvation, we all do. In each chapter Jesus uses a physical reality as a springboard to teach spiritual truth. In chapter 3 the physical reality of birth is used to teach about being born again and in chapter 4 our experience of thirst teaches us about living water.
All of us desperately need the living water that Jesus offers. He is the one and only solution to our deep spiritual longings. The Savior of the world has come and we all must ask and answer – What’s my response to Him and His coming?
John 4:1-9 (ESV) –
“Now when Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus was making and baptizing more disciples than John (although Jesus himself did not baptize, but only his disciples), he left Judea and departed again for Galilee. And he had to pass through Samaria. So he 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.)”
1. Jesus asks for a drink from a Samaritan woman.
We’re reminded that we’re talking about real people, real times, real places. They came to Jacob’s well and it was the sixth hour which is noon, a blazingly hot time in the dry climate of the Middle East.
John 4:9 (ESV) –
“How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?”
Jews looked down on Samaritans. Ethnic prejudice was a sinful and sad reality between these groups. The animosity ran both ways and had a long history.
Jesus broke the mold, He crossed cultural, ethnic and gender boundaries as He asked for a drink of water from this Samaritan woman.
Hebrews 2:17 (ESV) –
“Therefore he had to be made like his brothers in every respect, so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people.”
Jesus Christ was and is fully God and fully man! Our Savior fully understands what we’re going through. He experienced the full range of human experience and lived a perfect life culminating in His death and resurrection. Jesus never wonders how something feels.
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.”
2. Jesus teaches that we need Him more than water in the desert.
John 4:10 (ESV, emphasis mine) –
“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 theme of living water comes to the surface and the woman obviously didn’t grasp what Jesus was saying. She pointed out that Jesus had nothing to draw water with.
John 4:12 (ESV) –
“Are you greater than our father Jacob?”
The irony is that Jesus is infinitely greater than Jacob. He is God!
John 4:13-14 (ESV, emphasis mine) –
“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.”
Jesus uses a physical reality to teach spiritual truth. We need Jesus more than we need water in the desert but the woman still didn’t understand and thought never getting thirsty would be convenient.
John 4:15 (ESV) –
“Sir, give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water.”
The gift of God is salvation, being saved from our sins, from the punishment we deserve. The gift of God is a right, restored and forgiven relationship with God.
Ephesians 2:8-9 (ESV, emphasis mine) –
“For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.”
Romans 6:23 (ESV, emphasis mine) –
“For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
We’re all sinners and we deserve death for our sins and we can’t fix our sin problem ourselves. The good news is the gift of God is eternal life in Jesus Christ.
John 4:10 (ESV) –
“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.”
Just as we know what it’s like to be physically thirsty, we’ve all experienced spiritual thirst it’s part of being human. Longing for meaning and more to life than hear today, gone tomorrow is spiritual thirst.
The early church leader Augustine –
You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.
The French mathematics genus of the 1600’s Blasé Pascal –
There is a God-shaped vacuum in the heart of every man which cannot be filled by any created thing, but only by God the Creator, made known through Jesus Christ.
We experience spiritual thirst and Jesus is the only solution to that thirst. Anyone or anything other than Jesus will actually leave us with even greater thirst.
The conversation continues and Jesus gently exposes the woman’s sinful lifestyle.
Genesis 2:24 (ESV) –
“Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.”
Her reputation was probably why she was alone at the well during the heat of the day, women typically went to the well when it was cooler but she probably didn’t want to show her face when others were around.
Jesus knew everything and saw into her heart; He saw her sinfulness.
1 Samuel 16:7 (ESV) –
“...the Lord sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.”
John 4:19-20 (ESV) –
“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.”
John 4:22 (ESV) –
“You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews.”
Worshipers can worship God together through the enablement of the Holy Spirit anywhere. With the coming of the Holy Spirit, location is not the issue. Jerusalem was the right answer but that’s not the point anymore.
John 4:23 (ESV) –
“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.”
John 4:25 (ESV) –
“I know that Messiah is coming (he who is called Christ). When he comes, he will tell us all things.”
John 4:26 (ESV) –
“I who speak to you am he.”
Jesus claims that He is God’s promised Messiah, the long expected and promised Savior, prophesied about throughout the Old Testament.
John 4:27-38 (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.”
John 4:29 (ESV) –
“Come, see a man who told me all that I ever did. Can this be the Christ?”
The woman abandoned her original task, leaving her water jar behind and hurried to tell the town, this message was that important.
John 4:32 (ESV) –
“I have food to eat that you do not know about.”
John 4:39-44 (ESV) –
“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.”
“After the two days he departed for Galilee. (For Jesus himself had testified that a prophet has no honor in his own hometown.) So when he came to Galilee, the Galileans welcomed him, having seen all that he had done in Jerusalem at the feast. For they too had gone to the feast.”
3. Jesus is acknowledged as the Savior of the world.
The passage concludes with a picture of many Samaritans believing in Jesus!
John 4:42 (ESV, emphasis mine) –
“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.”
1 John 4:14 (ESV, emphasis mine) –
“And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world.”
We all need to ask ourselves – What is my response to Jesus, the one who is the Savior of the world?
All of us desperately need living water. The Savior of the world has come and we all must ask and answer: What’s my response to Him and His coming?
Ask – Have I received the gift of God, salvation? Have I received from Jesus the living water that He alone provides?
John 4:14 (ESV) –
“...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.”