Chris McCurley: If you would be turning in your Bibles to John chapter four, we're going to take a look tonight at a very familiar text from the early part of Jesus' ministry. Let's just dive right in and read a few of the first verses here. Therefore, when the Lord knew that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus was making and baptizing more disciples than John, although Jesus himself was not baptizing, but his disciples were, he left Judea and went away again into Galilee, and he had to pass through Samaria. He had to pass through Samaria. Well, to go from Judea to Galilee, you don't have to pass through Samaria. In fact, most devout Jews would not pass through Samaria. They would take the long way around so they could avoid going through Samaria. even though it meant crossing the Jordan River twice to take the long way around. So when we see this, Here that he had to go to Samaria. And the reason the Jews didn't want to go there is because they saw the Samaritans as being unclean. But we see this same word in some other passages in the book of John. John three verse seven. Jesus speaking to Nicodemus said, Do not be amazed that I said to you, You must be born again. That's the same word when he says he had to go to Samaria. He must go to Samaria. In John 3:14, where it says, As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up. So this phrase has to pass through Samaria. needs to be understood as a God-directed route. God was wanting to fulfill something in Samaria through his son. Back to verse 5. So he came to a city of Samaria called Sikar, near the parcel of ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph. And Jacob's well was there. So Jesus, being wearied from his journey, was sitting thus by the well. It was about the sixth hour. And we'll get back to the well of Jacob and all in in just a moment, but I just want to point out one thing here. John uses the phrase it was about the sixth hour, only in two places in his gospel. The first place is right here, where ultimately this Samaritan woman is going to accept him. The other place that we see this phrase is in John 19, starting at verse 14. It was a day of preparation for the Passover. It was about the sixth hour. And he said to the Jews, Behold your king. So they cried out, Away with him, away with him, crucify him. So these two instances that John refers to as at about the sixth hour. On one of those, he is accepted by someone that we would really not expect to accept him. And on the other instance, He is rejected by the very people that he came to be their Saviour. Perhaps John has put this in here for us just to conceive so we can see that it's not always the people acting as we expect when it comes to Jesus. And as I said, he went around he went around Samaria. Let's get a little background on on why the Jews saw the Samaritans as being unclean. In the year 722 BC, the Assyrian Empire overtook the northern kingdom of Israel. You can read about that in, I think it's 2 Kings, maybe 17 or so and 18. 17 is where that account begins. But the king of Assyria exiled a lot of the people from Israel into other places. And then he brought in people from Babylon and several other places into the cities of Samaria, and the foreigners intermarried with the people that were living there, brought their gods in. So now it's a mixed it's a mixed race of Situation. It's a mixed religion situation. They're still trying to serve Jehovah God, but they're doing it in the wrong way. They're still trying to serve other gods that they have brought in. Now, that's the story of the Samaritans from the viewpoint of the Southern Kingdom. The Samaritans' story about themselves was considerably different. They thought they were the true faithful followers of God. They were the true faithful followers of their father Israel. They only accepted the first five books of the Old Testament, the books Moses wrote. That's their entire scripture. They didn't have the prophets, they didn't have the Psalms, the Proverbs, Minor Prophets, they didn't have any of that. But we need to understand that both the Jews and the Samaritans claimed Jacob as their patriarch. When the Jews returned from exile in Babylon, they set out to rebuild the temple in Jerusalem. The Samaritans opposed that project, and eventually the Samaritans built their own temple on Mount Gerizim. They worshiped Jehovah, but not where he said he wanted to be worshipped. They built their own temple because they were not welcome on the mount in Jerusalem. Jerusalem where the Jews were worshiping. So they worshiped Jehovah in their own temple with their own priests. And about a hundred and fifty years before Jesus sat down at this well. A Jewish ruler brought soldiers north into Israel and completely obliterated their temple, totally destroyed it down to the ground. It was never rebuilt. The first century historian Josephus records that men from Samaria to kind of repay that deed that was done by the southern tribe against their temple, that during Passover in Jerusalem, some of the men of Samaria brought dead men's bones and scattered them in the temple. That is the ultimate and direct affront to everything that the Jews believed about holiness and defilement. It also helps us maybe understand why the Jews and the Samaritans didn't get along very well. This is a deep, deep, long-term disagreement between them. In fact, verse 9 says, for Jews have no dealings with Samaritans. And no dealings with Samaritans needs to be considered as something that's not negotiable at all. It has to do with the idea of not sharing anything, particularly not sharing a vessel. You don't drink out of the same vessel, you don't eat out of the same vessel, you don't use the same utensils. Literally everything that the Jews looked at about the Samaritans that was that they were ceremonially unclean. Fact they even believe that a Samaritan girl was born unclean and stayed in a state of uncleanness her entire life. That's the viewpoint of the Jews. Also let's consider something else. The social norms at this time are about to be violated. Men did not speak to women strangers in public. Rabbis Jewish rabbis will not even speak to their own wives in public because they thought it looked demeaning to them. It was beneath them to acknowledge the woman, and she was walking behind him. Jesus, weary from his journey, was sitting thus by the well, and it was about the sixth hour. I'm reading from the New American Standard Translation. There came a woman of Samaria to draw water. Now with the background that I just gave you Look at the first thing that Jesus says to this woman, give me a drink. He violated everything. He's talked to a Samaritan, not only that, a Samaritan woman. He is alone with her in the middle of the day. Which is a little bit of a contrast to what we read in chapter three when Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews, came to him but at night. The guy who's supposed to be close with Jesus wants to hide, and the woman who should be rejected by Jesus is right there in the middle of the day. And he asked her for something that is completely out of bounds for any Jewish man. He has nothing to draw water with. He's asking for a drink. What's he going to drink it from? Her vessel. That has touched water with her own hand. Everything about that the Jews would be considering unclean. And the reason he's alone is verse eight. His disciples had gone into the city to buy food. So it's just he and this woman. And we've read this account so many times and heard so many lessons and sermons on it. I want you to jump down to verse twenty seven. At this point his disciples came, they returned. And I want this to soak in for just a moment. These disciples come back and they see Jesus and they see the Samaritan woman alone at a well and they're talking. At this moment, those disciples don't know anything about the conversation. They don't know about the husbands, they don't know about the living water, they don't know about any of those things. What they are seeing is shocking to them. Because keep in mind when James and John realized during one of Jesus' trips that a city of Samaria rejected him, remember what they asked him to do? They said, Let us call down fire from heaven and burn up this city. These are supposed to be devout godly men, but that's their reaction when it comes to someone from Samaria. So He asks her for a drink. And at verse nine, therefore the Samaritan woman said to him, How is it that you, being a Jew, ask me for a drink, since I am a Samaritan woman? She just summarized in one short question everything that's going on between the Jews and the Samaritans for seven hundred years. You see me as unclean. I don't like you, so why are we talking? And beyond that, why are you asking me for a drink? But I want us to look at something Jesus does here. He asks her for something. Now we all know that what he has she needs worse than he needs the water. But he has put himself in a vulnerable place, a place that he is the one in need, which is breaking down a barrier. She has something important, he has a need, and he is asking her for something. Now another little background on what's going on here. Where is this happening? It's happening at Jacob's well. near a field that Jacob gave to Joseph near a stown called Sikar. John's first century readers would have seen a very familiar pattern of events right here. Especially if they knew their Old Testament very well. A man is traveling. He meets a woman at a well. Water is drawn. She goes home to tell her people. Then there's a marriage. In Genesis 24, Abraham's servant met Rebekah at a well. He asked her for a drink. She gave him water. She ran home to tell her household about what happened. In a short time, Isaac and Rebekah are married. Genesis 29, Jacob meets Rachel at a well. The very beginning of the entire nation of Israel. Started at a well. In Exodus 2, Moses sat down by a well. in the land of Midian. The priest's daughters came out to draw water, and ultimately Moses ends up marrying one of them, Zipporah. John has already alluded to Christ in chapter three as the bridegroom. I think there's some significance there. It's entirely possible that an early Jewish reader would be looking at this and r remembering those three other accounts and thinking, Wait, Jesus is at a well with a woman and they're talking about water. Is there going to be a marriage? Let's move it up a notch to spiritual. We know she's going to accept Jesus as the Messiah. So at that point, yes, he is the bridegroom. And she is going to become part of the bride of Christ. Think about that. There's still that same implication there. So she asked him, you know, basically, why? Why are you asking me this? Verse 10. Jesus answered and said to her, If you knew the gift of God and who it is that says to you, Give me a drink, you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water. Living water it should be understood as as moving water. It's like water that comes out of a spring or or or a artesian well, something like that. Whereas non-living water would be in a pond or in a cistern or something like that. And we all understand that the best water is the moving water. It's always better. And living water here is really a metaphor. For a deep and satisfying relationship with God that fills our greatest spiritual needs. Let's look in John chapter seven, verse thirty-seven. Now on the last day, the great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out, saying, If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. He who believes in me, as the Scripture said, from his innermost being will flow rivers of living water. Let's go ahead and get verse thirty nine. But he spoke this of the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were to receive, for the Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified. The Jews who read John's account of this when they see this living water would possibly have remembered some words from Jeremiah chapter two verse thirteen for my people have committed two evils they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, that's how God described himself there, to hew for themselves cisterns, broken cisterns. That cannot hold water. God's condemnation right there was their rejection of something great, living water, for something substandard. But remember, this Samaritan woman doesn't know that scripture 'cause it's not in her Bible. It's not in her scriptures. Because she has only got the first five books in her in her in her repertoire of of spiritual documents, we'll call it, okay? So verse eleven She said to him, Sir, you have nothing to draw with, and the well is deep. Jacob's well is about a hundred feet deep. Where then do you get that living water? You are not greater than our father Jacob, are you? Well little does she know. Who gave us the well and drank of it himself and his sons and his cattle. Notice how she describes Jacob, our father, Jacob. The Jews and Samaritans both claimed him as their father, but they could not get along. And a family feud is bad, but I suspect a religious family feud is about as bad as it could get. So let's see what he says in verse thirteen. Jesus answered and said to her, Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again. But whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall never thirst. But the water that I give him will become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life. The woman said to him Give me, sir, give me this water, so I will not be thirsty or come all the way here to draw. She still doesn't quite understand. But we can easily understand this question from the woman. Think about this, her entire life revolves around the daily task of walking to the well, lowering the bucket, pulling up water, returning home, all to do it again the next day. Of course she wants her thirst to end, but she's not on the same page with Jesus just yet. So verse 16, he said to her, go call your husband and come here. The woman said to him the woman answered, sorry, and said, I have no husband. Jesus said to her, You have said correctly, I have no husband. For you have had five husbands, and the one you whom you have now is not your husband, this you have said truly. I want us to stop right here for just a minute. Most people, if they're not careful, will think this part of the conversation is the main subject and the main point of this encounter is for this conversation to happen. So Jesus can point out this woman's failings. You notice the only thing he has to say about her statement? She tells the truth. He said, This is true, and yes, you have spoken truly. There have been a lot of sermons preached about this woman and her moral failings, and we jumped to the conclusion that she ended five marriages. We need to remember something. In this time, a woman could very difficult probably for a woman to end a marriage. A man could write her a certificate of divorce and hand it to her, and it didn't have her signature on it, it had his. And how important was it for a woman in this culture to be married? It meant survival in most cases. Women were considered as property, and as bad as we hate to look back at some of the way women were treated in the past, even in the commandments given to Moses in Exodus chapter twenty verse seventeen, you shall not covet your neighbor's wife. or your neighbor's livestock or his house or his servant. His wife is lumped right into all of his other possessions. So that shows kind of the cultural view that has come along with this. And there are other ways that this woman could be married five times. It may have been five funerals. You ever heard a sermon about that? Probably not. But if a young girl was married sometimes at thirteen or fourteen years old, she could very well be married to a man that's three or four times her age. She could have outlived these husbands. There's also something that's described in Deuteronomy 25 called leveret marriage. And what that talks about is if a man dies and he has no son, his brother is required to take his wife or as as his own wife, bear children with her, so his family name can carry on. And what's the importance of a family name carrying on? Land. The possessions. The inheritance. Also consider Matthew 23, or 22, rather, verses 23 and following, when the Sadducees were questioning Jesus, and they talked about this hypothetical woman that's been married to a brother, and then he dies, and another brother marries, and he dies, and another brother marries seven brothers. And the magical question the Sadducees has, whose wife is she going to be in the resurrection? You notice in that entire conversation there's no mention of scandal. It's just like hey this is a hypothetical situation. What we can ascribe to this woman is that she has had a life of pain and grief. Either pain of rejection by husbands, or pain of the death of husbands, or some of both. And what about the man she's living with? All we know that Jesus acknowledged she was truthful about her current situation. I doubt seriously that a woman that had been married five times would be considered a valuable catch. So it could be that the man she's with has just taken her in as a as a matter of being merciful. But the main thing is this part we do not know. So I think when we've made some assumptions about her moral standing, the scripture doesn't say anything about it. Not a word. All Jesus has to say about her is that she tells the truth. Jesus was not very shy about telling people go and sin no more. He said that to all kinds of people when he met them and healed them. He'd say, Go and sin no more. But nothing is brought up about sin right here. So what's Jesus' purpose in asking her about her marriage and revealing what he does? He wants her to know that he knows her and knows all about her past, just like he knows all about my past and all about your past. And one of the reasons that God wants to talk about our past is so he can op of offer us a hope for the future. Verse 19. The woman said to him, Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet. Many sermons and lessons have been written about this woman and her attempt to change the subject. I will tell you, even in my own teaching, I've called this woman out for changing the subject. But the more I've studied this, I've realized with her background. And the relationship between the Samaritans and the Jews, she's not changing the subject. There's a prophet in front of her. And she is going to ask the deepest theological question she can come up with. You say we mount worship over here. We say we worship over here. That question goes to the very heart of the belief systems of two different people. So look what she says. Verse 20. Our fathers worshiped in this mountain. And you say that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship. Two cultures, two temples, Mount Moriah in Jerusalem, Mount Gerizim near Shechem, which is in the West Bank, that kind of help you get your geography there. Which one is the right one? Isn't that the question everybody in an argument wants to know? Who's going to be right here? Jesus is about to let her know that the real answer is neither. Look what he says. Jesus said to her, Woman, believe me, an hour is coming when neither in 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. Jesus is not shying away from the reality that the Jews are the chosen people of God, and that's where the lineage for the Savior was going to come. He's not mincing any words there. But he goes on to explain verse twenty three. An hour is coming, and now is when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth, for such people the Father seeks to be his worship worshipers. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth. Verse twenty five. 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. Remember she does not have Isaiah or Jeremiah or any of the other books of prophecy about Jesus. All she has are the books of Moses and the promise from Deuteronomy eighteen, verse seventeen, where God said to Moses, I will raise up a prophet from among their countrymen like you, and I will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them of All that I commanded to him. Do you realize this is the longest recorded conversation between Jesus and any other human being? And look who he's talking to. The last person you would expect. He is about to say something to her. That he has not said to anyone else until this point. She has said, I know that Messiah is coming. He will declare all things to us. Jesus said to her, I who speak to you am He. In the original language it's even more stark. The words are ego a me I am, which is how God described Himself at the burning bush. It's how Jesus has described himself throughout the New Testament. I am the way, I am the light. And here he says when she is mentioned Messiah, I am he. That's the most clear revelation he has given to any person. It's the greatest truth of who he is. And he has just handed it to the least likely person that anybody would ever pick. All through his ministry, when he would heal people, when he would teach people, what would he tell them often? Keep it to yourself. Be quiet about it. Don't publish this. But he has given this woman the gift of knowing who he is. And here we go back to verse twenty seven. At this point his disciples came, they were amazed that he had been speaking with a woman, yet no one said what do you seek or why do you speak with her? That's the most shocking verse, I think, in this whole chapter. They're seeing something that they've never seen before. Because they certainly would not speak to Samaritans. They would call down fire and brimstone from heaven if they could, if they needed to. But here, they see what's going on, but they keep it to themselves. And maybe that's because by this point in Jesus' ministry they've learned that not everything. is what meets the eye. Verse twenty eight. The woman left her water pot, went into the city, and said to the men, Come see a man who told me all the things I have ever done. This is not the Christ, is it? So she's not making a decision yet, but she's saying, Could this be the one we've been looking for? I think the fact that John mentions too that she left her water pot is indicative of a first hand account. She he knows that she's there to to fill her water pot, but she's got something that she has never had before. And she runs back to the city and says, Come see this man that told me all the things I've ever done. Which leads me to believe that their conversation was even more than what's recorded here. They had probably quite a bit of time if the disciples were going all the way to the city and coming all the way back out. We don't know, but clearly she heard him say enough about her that she considered that he knows everything. What happened when the people heard? Verse thirty, they went out of the city and were coming to him. I'm gonna make another little sidebar here on this woman's character. If she is the person that we've heard so many sermons about, a woman of loose morals, if she ran into the city and said, Hey everyone, come with me, I don't think she would get quite that reception. There may be more to her than what we have been told. She told the people to come, they dropped what they were doing. And that just doesn't sound like the the response that a that a woman of ill repute would receive. Meanwhile, verse thirty one, 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 were saying to one another, No one brought him anything to eat, did he? Jesus said to him, My food is to do the will of him who sent me, and to accomplish his work. Now remember where they are. They're outside the city of Sikar. Who just went to the city of Sikar? The woman. And she told the people, Come. I think we may have found the Messiah. These people are all coming out of the city. With that in your mind, let's read verse 35. Do you not say there are yet four months and then comes the harvest? Behold, I say to you, lift up your eyes and look on the fields, for they are white for harvest. I can imagine what they would see. All these people dressed in their light summer linen clothing, coming out to the well to see Jesus. Think about that. A whole city walking toward the Messiah. Let let's just say it that this woman we don't know a lot about her, but we do know she's a very good evangelist. She's spread the word. Verse thirty-six Already he who reaps is receiving wages and is gathering fruit for life eternal, so that he who sows and he who reaps may rejoice together. For in this case the saying is true one sows and another reaps. I sent you to reap that for which you have not labored. Others have labored and you have entered into their labor. As a result of what's happened here. Let's go to verse 39. From that city many of the Samaritans believed in him because of the word of the woman who testified, he told me all the things that I have done. So when the Samaritans came to Jesus, they were asking him to stay with them. And he stayed there two days. Jesus is not only talking with the Samaritan woman, he is now eating with them, drinking from their vessels, sleeping under their roof, and it says many more believed because of his word. And the beautiful thing is in verse word forty two. And they were saying to the woman, It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and know that this one is indeed the Savior of the world. The Savior of the world. We read places all through the scriptures where Jesus is the Savior of the Jews. He's described as the Savior of this. But the Samaritans are seeing something deeper. They call him the Savior of the world. Look what he did. He was in what anyone could describe as a very awkward situation. He crossed the line first. He made the first move. Do you think that Samaritan woman was planning on speaking to him? I don't think so. He let her know that he needed something from her. Maybe we need to apply that a little bit of that when we're trying to have a spiritual conversation with someone. Don't always be the one giving. Let the other person give. Be needy sometimes. He knew all she ever did. Think about this. Is that anything unusual? Not for God. He knows all we ever did. And even though he knew all she ever did, he gave her something he had never given anyone up until that moment. He gave her the firsthand knowledge, I am the Messiah. He knows all I've ever done, he knows all you've ever done, and he is still giving us the living water. So the question is, have you drank from the living water? Is that living water flowing up within you? If you have not obeyed the gospel, this would be a great time to do that, to be baptized for the remission of your sins and to receive that gift of the Holy Spirit, where those living waters flow up through you. If you have any need that we could help pray with you tonight, we'd be happy to do that as well. But if you need have a need, come as we stand and sing.