Lord, we thank you. We can sit here at your feet, Lord Jesus, by your spirit, and we ask you to speak into our lives, to encourage us, to build us up, to strengthen us, to transform us. We invite you, Lord, to be speaking to each of us in this host name. In Jesus name, amen.
When I worked with Operation Mobilization with we were taught about how to share our testimony of how we became a Christian. It was to be in three parts. First how our life was before we encountered Christ. Second, what happened? Was it in a moment? Was it over a year or, and why did things change?
And third, how our lives have changed since our encounter or commitment to Christ. We were asked to reflect, to look back, to write it all out and then keep shortening it.
To keep shortening it until you could get it down to three minutes. Why three minutes? Well, there was a couple of reasons. One was practical. On mission teams in different countries, you work with translators and so you speak, three minutes in English becomes doubled up to six minutes, which was enough for a mini talk.
Second reason was that if work colleagues or friends would ask you What happened? Why do you believe in God? Or something like that. Three minutes usually is long enough, time You have to share with them and if they want to know more, they’ll obviously ask questions. Three minutes. Sorry. Three minutes.
The Samaritan woman, well she did her testimony in less than 10 seconds, and she only used 11 words. Come see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Christ? The result, they came out of town and made their way towards Jesus. The story is easy to imagine, I think, but I wanna explore through the lens of being with Jesus. So I’m gonna explore the story through the lens of being with Jesus. The three goals of a disciple as we share with him practicing away is to be with Jesus. To become like Jesus and to do what Jesus would do. The three goals of a disciple. So we’re gonna explore this passage through the lens of being with Jesus.
There’s only one slide. There’s the main points are on the screen. So if we’re focusing on being with Jesus, then we have to ask, well then who can be with Jesus? Who can be with him? At the end of John’s Gospel, John 20, John shares his mean aim of writing his account of Jesus life. These are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in His name.
And from the start of the gospel, we see stories about people believing in Jesus, John the Baptist. Behold the Lamb of God, and he also points others to to Jesus. Then we have Andrew, an anonymous disciple who followed Jesus. Then Andrew goes to his brother, Peter come and see, he says, we have found the Messiah.
And then Phil finds his friend Nathaniel. We have found the one Moses wrote about, and then Nathaniel leader says, rabbi, you are the son of God. You are the king of Israel. And then comes a wedding, a Cana. End of chapter or halfway through chapter two, and you read the disciples, put their faith in him, and then there comes Nicodemus, a seeker with questions.
No indication about a step of faith, but somebody who’s searching, who can be with Jesus. Well, if you’re reading John up until that point, you might say, well, you’ve gotta be Jewish, you’ve gotta be devoted, you’ve gotta be serious. But fifth. Andrew, the disciple Nathaniel, were all serious people about their faith.
He may also say, you gotta be male ’cause they’re all male. To that point, our daughter Terza had her birthday on Friday and we played, partying Co. And one of the categories you may know is about drawing sketches. You know, you draw the word and you hope that your team will somehow understand the three lines you put down actually is the River Nile or something like that.
But imagine you drew out a card in that game and that card said someone open to becoming a Christian. What would you draw? How would you draw someone open to becoming a Christian?
I wonder what our pictures would look like in uk. It was often said that men were not open to becoming Christians,
that Muslims would not be open to becoming Christians, and that anyone under 30 were not open to becoming Christians. That is one of the reasons why the document you’ve heard about called The Quiet Revival got such attention, United Kingdom Netherlands. It was saying that the data, in fact, showed that our thoughts were wrong, that in general Gen Z, age 30 13 to 30 were significantly more open to Christianity than a generation before millennials.
So what would your picture be? Of someone open, what would it look like?
Who is she? Well, John four introduces us to someone who’s open. What we see in this amazing chapter is that Jesus reaches out to someone who’s marginalized by gender, by culture, by religious differences, and by historical conflict. So we’re gonna spend a few minutes just going deeper into this. So gender In Jesus’ day, men rarely spoke to women in public, and single man would never speak to or touch a woman at any time.
As a rabbi, as Jesus has called verse 31, a rabbi would’ve observed these cultural rules closely, hence her surprise in verse nine. You are a Jew and I’m a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink? And also explains why the disciples are surprised in verse 27. They were surprised to find him talking with a woman.
We read, see, their minds were full of questions like they didn’t feel they could ask like, what’s going on here? And why is this really a regular conversation happening? Why are you talking with her alone as theologian, Gary Berg puts it. The surprising thing is not that, the surprising thing is not that Jesus would ask her for help with a drink.
Rather it is that he would ask her anything, anything
surprising that he would ask her anything that’s gender, culture. Most people would know of Samaritans through the parable. Good Samaritan, but who were Samaritans? Well, in the eighth century, um, the Assyrians had finally conquered and taken into exile the people in the northern kingdom of Israel. By that point, Israel split into two sections.
The area around the city of Samaria was resettled by non-Jews. And so the remnants of the defeated Israelites over time, married with the people group, and a new group was established called Samaritans. The Samaritans worshiped the same God as the Jews, but they rejected all the Bible books except for the first five.
The Worship was focused on a temple on Mount Garrison above Shaham, and they rejected Jerusalem as a place of pilgrimage. And Ezra. Before Bel, the governor, rejected Samaritan helped to help rebuild the temple. And in the fourth century when Alexander the grid was in power, he made Samaria an important base as he expected to find anti-Jewish allies There.
And then about 200 years later, in 128 BCs, the Jews attacked Samaria, destroyed Shaham, burned a temple on Mount Garrison. So by the time Jesus sat down that well, there is tension between Jews and Samaritans for years. Tension based on race, on religion, and on historical conflicts. So when Jesus meets a Samaritan woman, she is again, as Gary Berg puts it, a lady bearing the history, language, religion, and attitudes of people on the far margin of Judaism.
A first century reader would barely expect Jesus and the woman to acknowledge each other’s presence, much less speak. You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink? But there’s one more issue. She had questionable moral standing in the culture of the day to draw water was the responsibility of women.
It was a world where women could be isolated socially, and so wells became a place where women could meet and talk. And also water was normally drawn in the early morning or at the end of the day to avoid the heat. This woman. Draws her water at the sixth hour or noon when it’s hottest, when the women are not normally about what appears to be revealed is her reputation is poor. She’s broken the morals of her community. Jesus draws this out through Divine Insight when he talks about how she has had five husband and she’s currently living with a man to whom she is not married. We don’t know if the previous marriages were due to divorce, death or some other form of exploitation, but in that community she would’ve been seen as morally questionable, which may be one of the reasons she’s drawing water at Moon to avoid people or knowing people would not welcome her at the well if she came at other times.
So who can be with Jesus? Jesus opens the door to someone totally unlike anyone we’ve heard about so far. If we are reading John’s gospel, where is Samaria today? Not a physical location, I mean, but as a metaphor. What boundary needs crossing today? Gender, cultural, religious, historical. Sometimes mission out becomes thinking about people we think who are most receptive to the message.
Remember I asked, who would you draw about someone being open? And I think if we had asked Peter and Andrew and the guys, they would not have drawn a Samaritan woman on that piece of paper. The pastor G. Campbell Morgan was once asked. What would’ve happened if Jesus invited his followers to study the prospect of going to Samaria?
He said, if those disciples have been appointed as a commission of inquiry as to the possibilities of Christian enterprise in Samaria, I know exactly the resolution they would’ve passed. The resolution would’ve been Samaria undoubtedly needs our master’s message, but it is not ready for it first. There must be plowing, then sowing, then waiting.
It is needy, but it is not ready.
Of course, the story shows that that whole village were ready as he pour out to Jesus John for challenges us to take a risk to examine the margins of our world and to cross them, and we see people can be more open than we’d ever expect. But who can be with Jesus? Anyone. That’s a tremendous message. We bring that all sorts.
Any background, Jesus welcomes, he invites, he offers his gift. You may know someone like that Samaritan woman, but the gift of eternal life is offered to them as well.
Or maybe you feel like the Samaritan woman, that there’s something that cuts you off in your mind from Jesus that stops you being with him, but it is not a barrier or boundary in his eyes. He said, if you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink. You would’ve asked him and not that he might give you, he consider giving you, if he’s got enough, he’ll give you, he says he would have given you living water, but what does he offer? Jesus mentions living water. And in verse 13, everyone who drinks this water, he means the water to dwell 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.
Jesus, in these words, is offering the woman and all of us satisfaction and transformation. The words translated as living water. Mean fresh flowing water. Fresh, flowing water. So it means water is not stored in a bucket, stored in a well or stored in a cistern. The words living water, take us to the words of Jeremiah.
I said in Jeremiah two, God spoke through Jeremiah and said, for my people have done two evil things, they have abandoned me, the fountain of living water, and they have dug for themselves cracked cisterns, such pots that can hold no water at all. So God was saying his people who began in the right path had turned from faith to other things, or had merged their faith with other practices, which God compares to going from fresh flowing water to drinking water in cisterns, and the cisterns are cracked and there’s usually not much water in anyway.
And being thirsty that Jesus talks about and receiving reminds us of those words in Isaiah. Again, God cries out to his people. Is anyone thirsty? Come and drink even if you have no money. Isaiah five, Isaiah 55. Come take your choice of wine or milk. It is all free. Why spend your money on food that does not give you strength?
Why pay for food that does know you good? That does you no good? Listen to me and you will eat what is good. You will enjoy the finest food. Are you thirsty? Jesus asks, come to the right place.
And then Jesus promises living water. And if you think that sounds familiar, it is ’cause Jesus explains what living water is. In John seven on the last and greatest day of festival, Jesus stood said in a loud voice, let anyone who’s thirsty come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them.
By this he meant the spirit whom those who believed in him were later to receive. So Jesus, Jesus, this incredible image of water for the spirit. I don’t know what image you have of the spirit. Sometimes it’s dove, sometimes it’s fire. But think about it. Jesus here is choosing an image of fresh flowing water.
Is his image about the spirit.
What difference does that image make for us when we think about trying to describe a presence and work as spirit, what difference does it make to us for those of us who are here, who’ve traveled, or those of, from from nations where water is more scarce or there’s more desert lands, the, the power of water you can testify to and you’ve seen.
For us, us. For those of us from green wetlands like Netherlands and Ireland, it’s harder to imagine.
But here by the well Jesus promises, that is a spirit who can bring satisfaction and transformation satisfaction. Whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst again. He, he says, never thirst. Not like might thirst. Could thirst, never thirst. The desire for God’s sense of spiritual restlessness.
Spiritual thirst he can satisfy. So are you spiritually thirsty? Jesus says, come and drink and he will satisfy you by a sprint. But also transformation. He says, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life. It’s not a cup he gives, not a feeling he gives, he gives a spring a constant source.
The water from a well had to be pulled up. This water was bubble away. And that word welling up is a very vibrant phrase as the Old Testament. In the Greek that translates, old Testament says that the seizure is the same word to say. The spirit leapt upon Samson and Gideon. And the same Greek word is used to say how the paralyzed man stood up after being healed in acts.
It’s a vibrant word of activity, so says the spirit is present in a believer, active in a believer, constantly, in a believer seeking to satisfy and to transform us until eternal life is fully received when our Lord returns. But as Jeremiah and Isaiah warn us, it is possible we turn away from the living water and turn the cisterns and other things that just don’t satisfy.
Are you thirsty to be satisfied, to be transformed, have you become dry? Turn into other sources,
John four, to finish shares about a person who became a believer in Christ. We understand how her life was. We see what happened and whom she met and why she trusted in Jesus. And we saw the first examples of how it changed her life. So how do we respond to, to finish? We talked about being thirsty. Maybe it’s a longing that you’ve tried to meet in other ways than Jesus.
You’ve tried those broken pots that Jeremiah says, but Jesus says, all who are thirsty come to me, that anyone who’s thirsty come to me and drink. So do you need to come to him for the first time or have you left those waters and turned other things and do you need to return?
And how can you do that? Well, the main way I feel is through prayer and worship during communions. People receive. Use that time to get sorted. You may find helpful also to pray with our prayer ministry team, but that is up to you. That’s the first response. Are you thirsty? And what do you need to do? The second response really is about crossing boundaries.
Is there someone you know who comes to mind, who others maybe even you would say they would never believe in Jesus? Never be interested.
Is that a person? God could be laying on your heart today, and I would say. To respond to that, think about how you can reach out to that person, but perhaps think about using Jesus model. I mean, sometimes a text is helpful if they’re far away in a different country, but if they’re in the same location, the Jesus model may be to spend some relaxed time with them to sit down at the well and to talk because it says they matter, but you’re willing to spend time with it.
And to ask them that question about God and Jesus and church and things. But maybe you feel like the Samaritan woman this morning. Maybe you’re here, but you’re thinking, why would Jesus be interested in me? Why would he welcome me to be part of his family to receive his gift to the spirit and eternal life?
Well, the Samaritan woman is a true story. It can be your story also today. If you feel that is right, talk to our prayer ministry team and they’ll pray with you.
We’re gonna end now with some words from a song. So invite us to bow our heads. It’s, it’s not really a prayer, but you can obviously use it as a prayer. If it’s helpful, I’ll read it slowly, but, and then we’ll continue in our worship.
All who are thirsting, all who are weak, come to the final. Dip your heart in the stream of life. Let the pain and the sorrow be washed away in the waves of his mercy. As deep cries out to deep come. Hm, Lord Jesus. Come, come Lord Jesus. Come as deep cries out to deep. Come Holy Spirit. Come. Come. Holy Spirit.
Come.