Andy Davis preaches a verse by verse expository sermon on John 4:1-26. The main subject of the sermon is Jesus’ evangelistic interaction with the Samaritan woman.
sermon transcript
I hope all of you saw this morning this pamphlet called GAP Ministry, I’m just holding it up in front of you. This is a beautiful little booklet, the first of its kind that says volume 1, 2007. That’s hopeful, isn’t it? We’re looking for a volume 2. It’s the missions committee mostly, Ron Halbrooks and others, that worked hard on this, many people involved in this. I hope you got one and I hope you took only one per family unit. In other words, if you get home and find that each of your kids got one in their Sunday School and there’s six of them, bring five of them back, okay? We would like every family unit to have one of these, and these will, I think, focus our prayer attention over the next number of months throughout the year as we’re praying for missions around the world, so I hope you get one of those.
I also wanna call your attention this morning to another insert, and that’s a little card, go ahead and get it out of your bulletin. In this card, we’re urging everyone in the assembly this morning to think about a lost person that you’d like to bring to faith in Christ in the year 2007. We’d like you to write that person’s name down, we’d like you to write your name down and pass them in. We’ve pushed the offering to the end of the service so that you can put these in the offering plates as they go by. And we will pray with you regularly for these folks, and we look forward to a chance to ask you about any encounters you may have had with them, or for you to come and tell us. We want to just stimulate people to love and good works by these kinda stories, and if you really cannot think of a name of a lost person to write down that you’d like to lead to Christ, then write down, “I don’t have anyone but I wanna get someone, and I wanna change my life so that I can make some non-Christian friends, neighbors, co-worker, somebody that I could lead to Christ,” so write that down and we’ll pray for that for you.
But think about that through my sermon, don’t think too much about it during my sermon, think about some of what I’m saying during the sermon. Think about a person you might wanna write down and write down a few details about their lives as well, so that we can have a sense of how to pray for you as you try to witness to them. So hold on to those cards and when the offering plate goes by, go ahead and put them in with your name and the person’s name.
We’re looking this morning at one of the most glorious passages in the Bible on personal evangelism. I actually think this is probably the best passage in the whole Bible on technique of personal evangelism. You’re gonna learn how to witness, how to share your faith. I will take you first to John chapter 4, and here we see the master, our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, skillfully attracting or luring a woman to eternal life. Now, we know that Jesus went by the Sea of Galilee and he saw Peter and John, and James and Andrew plying their trade, for they were fishermen, repairing their nets or getting their boat ready, and Jesus walked by purposefully, just walked right by them. And said, “Follow me and I will make you fishers of men.” Follow me and I’ll tell you how to attract people into the kingdom. I’ll teach you how to do it. I think this is one of those times that he did that. John chapter 4.
Fishing Instructions from the Master
Now for myself, I’ve never been much for fishing, I don’t desire to insult those of you that really love to fish, for myself, I never like sea food. Some of you that know me know that, and so I don’t like the product and the process seems a little dry too, quite frankly. But for others, it’s a great sport and there’s a lot of skill involved, and I think all the more, when you consider the different kinds of fish that you’re trying to catch, of which I know nothing, some of what I’ve learned, I’ve learned from movies and books, and not from personal experience. But if you’re gonna go after a swordfish, for example, in the deep water, you’re gonna use a different kind of bait than if you’re gonna go after a clever lively river trout. If you’re going after that swordfish, you’re gonna use 500 test line with a J-Hook and some live bait like mackerel or squid, and you’re gonna perhaps intersperse your bait with fluorescent light sticks to attract them at night. Or you might just have one you’re going after with a pole and you’re gonna be there an awfully long time. There’s different theories on how it is you’re gonna land a 500-pound fish.
And so it is with a swordfish, if you’re gonna go out to a mountain stream in the west and you’re gonna try to land a river trout, you’re not gonna use that same technique. They probably have very little interest in squid. But instead you’re gonna use the fly fishing technique, and you’re gonna learn how to cast out and make it float over the water as the trout looks up and sees, and it better look like the kind of bugs they’re eating that day, or they’re not gonna be interested in it. Well, there’s just different techniques to drawing fish in, to alluring them and attracting them.
Now when Jesus said, I will make you fishers of men, he’s not saying you’re gonna use the same technique for everybody. As a matter of fact, he uses different approaches all over the place, it’s very different between him and Nicodemus as it is with the Samaritan woman at the well. He has a different approach, but what he’s trying to do is draw or attract people into the kingdom. He said, “No one comes to me unless the Father who sent me draws him.” And there’s the drawing. There’s an attraction that Jesus has, a pull, and we see it so powerfully in this encounter with the Samaritan woman at the well. Now, as I look at the American church scene, as I look at our own church, FBC Durham, as I look at what’s happening here and around, I feel that we have to embrace the Great Commission better than we’ve ever done before.
The Need of the Hour: A Fully Faithful Great Commission Church
Jesus said, in the Great Commission, “Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded. And surely, I am with you always to the end of the age.” That’s the Great Commission, it stands over us as our purpose. But I have noticed that there are very few churches that are faithful to the entire thing. Some churches are faithful to no part of it, frankly. They do not honor or revere the Word of God, and they’re not faithful to any part of the Great Commission.
There are some churches that are set up for, and especially skilled at bringing unchurched people into an initial commitment to faith in Christ, but at that point, they have a hard time bringing them on to full maturity. The church doesn’t seem set up for maturity or plumbing the depths of the Word of God. It doesn’t seem skillful at doing that, and so they go for a while, but then they say, “I’m just not being fed, I’m not growing here.”
And then there are other churches that are better at that part, at plumbing the depths of the Word of God and bringing established Christians on to maturity and helping them to understand the mind of God and growing in maturity and accountability and all that, but they don’t seem very fruitful at bringing people to an initial commitment to Christ. I think that’s what our church is more like. And for me, I would love to be one of those few churches that is faithful across the board to all aspects of it. Amen? That we would see at our new member class a percentage of those folk giving testimonies like, “Well, so and so talked to me in this situation. I realized I didn’t know the Lord, and he brought me or she brought me to faith in Christ, and then I got baptized a few weeks ago, as you remember, and now I’m here for membership.” I would love to see that happen in our church.
I would love to see that happen, and I think that it can happen. As a matter of fact, I think it will happen. I think it’s going to happen. As we follow our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, I wanna keep Luke 19:10, last week’s sermon text, in front of us all year long. And that is, “the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.” But here we see seeking and saving going on again, this time it says the Father is seeking and Jesus is doing the saving, and it’s so beautiful to see, isn’t it?
Feeding on the Father’s Will
Now, Jesus was one who fed on the Father’s word. He fed on the will of God. He came into the world to do the Father’s will, and the Father, as I just mentioned, was seeking true worshippers, that’s who He’s seeking, that’s what he came to do. And Jesus came to do the Father’s will, relentlessly, at every moment. In effect, he ate the Father’s will. Look at verse 34, it says, “My food,” said Jesus, “is to do the will of Him who sent Me and finish His work.” Jack didn’t read that this morning, it’s not in the focus of what we’re looking at this morning, and I hope to be able to look at that in a couple of weeks, but Jesus fed on the will of God. Now, Jesus knew precisely why he had entered the world. It says in John 6, “I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but to do the will of Him who sent me. And this is the will of Him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all that He has given me, but raise them up at the last day. For my Father’s will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in Him shall have eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day.”
Jesus Came to Do the Father’s Will
So Jesus came to do his Father’s will, his Father’s will was to lose none of those people that he entrusted to him before the foundation of the world. He wasn’t gonna lose any of them, but he was there to save them, and he would save them. Now, Jesus had been very fruitful in his Father’s will, look at verses 1 and 2, the Pharisees heard that Jesus was gaining and baptizing more disciples than John. Although, in fact, it was not Jesus who baptized, but his disciples. It’s hard to overstate how powerfully effective was the ministry of John the Baptist. Huge regions of people were flooding to the Jordan river to be baptized by John, huge quantities of people wanted to hear him preach, but now in a very simple statement, the very thing that John the Baptist said would happen, “He must increase and I must decrease,” it’s now happened.
Christ Fruitful in His Father’s Will
Jesus was making and baptizing more disciples than John. Although, in fact, it says, it wasn’t Jesus who was doing the baptism, but it was his disciples. Now see the wisdom of Jesus here. He’s already drawing these new disciples and making them leaders, getting them ready to take on for him after he is going to ascend to the Father. They are gonna carry on that baptizing and disciple-making ministry, and already they’re being trained for it. See, therefore, the wisdom of Christ here. He wants to train up laborers for the harvest field.
Christ Surprisingly Compelled to Go to Samaria
Now, in verse 4, we see a surprisingly compulsive statement on Jesus’ part, and I know it doesn’t come across very strongly. But it’s very strong in the original language, it says, “Now he had to go through Samaria.” He had to go through Samaria. He must go there. Very important. We’ve already seen this word once in the Greek in John chapter 3, verse 7. He said to Nicodemus, “You must be born again. If you wanna go to heaven, Nicodemus, you wanna see heaven, you must be born again.” We see it also in John 3:14 and 15, “Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes in Him may have eternal life.” Jesus must die on the cross if we’re gonna have eternal life, he must. John chapter 4, verse 24, which we heard read already, “God is a spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and in truth,” or else it isn’t worship.
And we’ll see it again in chapter 9, verse 4, “As long as it is day, we must work the works of Him who sent me. Night is coming when no one can work.” There’s an urgency there. Do you see it? Does that urgency capture your life? Is there an urgency to you? Is there a Samaria you must go through? And why must Jesus go there? Well, because the Samaritan woman is there, and of all that the Father has given him, he must lose none, but raise them up at the last day. And she is one of the ones the Father had given, and so Jesus’ heart, like a compass, is gonna go after those and he’s going to hunt them down and find them, and you know what? He’s still doing it now, and he uses us to go find those people. We don’t know who they are until we start sharing the gospel, but when they start to respond and come, then we know they are Christ’s sheep, and so he’s going after…
Now the Jews ordinarily would have avoided Samaria, they would have gone the long way around, they don’t want any encounter with the Samaritans at all, at least not of that type. They wouldn’t have minded a military encounter with the Samaritans but they didn’t wanna go through there for a friendly encounter ’cause it wouldn’t have been friendly. They ordinarily would have gone way around. Jesus had to go through Samaria because she was there. Another ‘must’ verse that is on my mind when I think about this, is John 10:16, and Jesus said this, “I have other sheep that are not of the sheep pen, I must bring them,” so that there’ll be one flock and one shepherd. That covers the last 2000 years. That covers the last 2000 years.
Jesus Seeking the Lost Even When Weary
He must bring those sheep and there’ll be one flock and one shepherd, and he’s working that must inside me, the love of Christ constrains us, 2 Corinthians 5. We must go to whatever Samaria God has in mind for us. So he comes to this town in Samaria called Sychar near the plot of ground that Jacob had given to his son, Joseph, and Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus tired as he was, sat down by the well; it was about the sixth hour. The must overrode his physical weakness and weariness and thirst. Jesus had a body, he got tired like you and me. He was busier than you and me, he had three years to save the world, okay? So that’s busy, very busy, okay? And he got weary. And he’s weary that day. And it says, it’s about the sixth hour, that’s high noon friends, it is hot in Palestine at high noon. It’s not a good time to be going to get water, and Jesus is sitting there dusty and tired, and yet his heart is ready for work, he’s ready to do the Father’s will, and here comes the Samaritan woman, and he’s ready even when weary, even when busy, even when tired, he is ready to do the Father’s will and seek and save the lost.
That’s a lesson for me to not make excuses, say, “I’m too busy, I’ve got important things to do,” when God brings somebody that we’re ready to witness to. And now we see Jesus’ technique as she comes. We see him baiting the hook or luring her into eternity, he’s luring her to life. And it’s so beautiful. When the Samaritan, verse 7 and 8, the 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. Jesus, as always, takes the initiative, he’s always taking the initiative. But he does so here in a fascinating way. Usually he takes the initiative by meeting other people’s felt needs: they’ve got a son or daughter who’s sick or dying or dead, they’re hungry, the feeding of the 5000, they have needs, they’re sinful and they need forgiveness, he’s always meeting their needs and drawing them in that way. Here, he begins to attract her by having her meet one of his needs. “I’m thirsty. Would you mind getting me a drink?” Hey, whatever it takes to get into a conversation. If that’s what it takes, then do it. [chuckle]
And so, fascinatingly, Jesus is drawing her in into a conversation. What’s even more fascinating is who it is he’s seeking to reach. This is a Samaritan woman, and he is reaching out to her. I will never forget Ronnie Stevens at Mike Waters’ house a number of years ago. I was a disciple now, and he talked about this, you know how some things just stick in your mind, and he said it with such a beautiful poetry. That’s the way Ronnie talks. He’s poetical in the way he put thoughts together, but he said this, he said, “The Jews were the rejects of the world. The Samaritans were the rejects of the Jews. The Samaritan women, the rejects of the Samaritan men, and this Samaritan woman, the rejects of the other Samaritan women.” She was pretty much at the bottom of the pile. She was the lowest of the low in the way people thought, but not in the way Jesus thought. And isn’t it fascinating how he can use this encounter with this woman to give the clearest description of what true spiritual worship is, the clearest statement he ever made concerning his messiah-ship, and for us this morning, the clearest display of evangelistic technique we’ll find anywhere in the Bible, he uses her to do that.
Baiting the Hook: Making the Gospel Attractive
Amazing grace. Amazing grace that the eternal Son of God would talk to any of us. And we think, “Oh well, we’re better than her, we’re better than him.” I’ve often talked to somebody about that, people that feel self-righteous, feel that they’re good people, moral people, and all that. I especially like doing it if it’s a guy who’s taller than me. I do. A guy who’s 6’2″, 6’3″, look up at him a little bit I’ll say, “Between the two of us, which of the two is closer to the sun right now?” He said, “I don’t know what you mean.” I said, “Well, I mean, between the two of us, which of us is closer to the sun?” He said, “I guess I am, I’m taller than you.”
I said, “Now, if I stand on a step ladder, which of the two of us is gonna be closer to the sun?” He said, “What are you getting at?” I said, “Well, the sun is 93 million miles away. Does it really matter which of the two of us is closer? The real infinite distance was covered by Jesus when he came from heaven to earth and walked on this guilty land that we all call home.” That’s the infinite journey, and which of us is naturally a little more moral, a little better, it’s not even worth discussing, what’s really amazing is not that Jesus talked to the Samaritan woman. What’s really amazing is that he talks to you and me. That’s what’s really incredible.
A Lure With Four Hooks
So there is the amazing grace, and so he’s talking to this Samaritan woman, and he lays out for her what I’m gonna call a lure with four hooks on it. Verse 10. It’s worth memorization. It’s just so powerful. “If you knew the gift of God and who it is who speaks to you, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.” Now she’s shocked he’s even talking to her.
“What are you talking to me for? I’m a Samaritan woman, and you are a Jew, we don’t have anything to do with each other.” But Jesus said, “Let’s get to the… Let’s get to the heart of the matter. If you knew the gift of God and who it is who speaks to you, you would have asked Him and He would have given you living water.” Do you see the four hooks? He is drawing her very powerfully into an evangelistic conversation. He doesn’t say, “Hey, would you like to have an evangelistic conversation with me?” Go ahead and try that technique sometime, see how far that gets. There is some technique involved here, okay? There’s some approach, and Jesus lays out four enticement saying, “Come on, come on, let’s have a conversation, let’s talk, open up, talk to me.” And so he’s drawing her in, and it creates within her four questions, I think, she’s… No not right in the text, but it’s not easy… it’s not hard, sorry, to find. The first is, “What is the gift of God?”
And the second is, “Who are you?” Or at least, “Who Do You Think You Are?” And the third is, “Why should I ask you for anything?” And the fourth is, “What in the world is living water?” There are four enticements into a conversation. She’s hooked in four ways and let’s take them in the order she asks them back, okay? The first question is basically, “Why should I ask you for anything?” All right, look at Verse 11, “Sir,” the woman said, “You have nothing to draw with and the well is deep.” All right, let’s just stop there. She said, “I may not be expert at many things, but I know about drawing water from this well, that’s why I brought my water jar.” All right, “I perceive that you have nothing to draw with, and I also know probably better than you do, ’cause I’ve been here many, many times, that this is a deep well.” She knows how to get water out of this well. She also knows right away that Jesus has nothing apparently in his hands to offer, and yet he’s talking about asking her for something.
The Woman is Hooked Four Ways
And so the question I’m sure popped in her mind, “Why should I ask you for anything?” All she can see is the outside surface, she can’t see the spiritual reality behind it. At that moment, she can’t. At the end of the conversation, she will. But not at this moment, all she’s seeing is physical, and I tell you, it will seem that way again when it comes to Jesus. When he is up hanging on the cross, when all of his clothes have been confiscated and gambled for in fulfillment of prophecy, when his blood is being shed out and he is clearly dying, it would be easy to say at that moment, “Sir, you have nothing. What do you have to offer me? Your disciples have all deserted you and fled, there’s no one left, what do you have to offer me?” And only the gift, the supernatural gift of faith can see Jesus properly at that moment, as God gave to the thief on the cross, that dying thief that we talked about who looked over and said, “Remember me Lord, when you come in your kingdom.” Kingdom? Oh yes, he’s coming and he’s coming with the kingdom. Only the eye of faith can see through the outward surface, and she can’t do it yet, but she will at the end. She says, “Sir, you have nothing.”
You know what I get out of this? The better you know Jesus, the more you’re gonna ask him for things. The better you know Jesus, the more you’re gonna ask him for something. Ask him right now for a name to put on that card. Ask him not just to put a name on the card, ask him that you would have the privilege of bringing that individual person to Christ this year. Ask Him for it. Ask him for boldness in witnessing, ask Him for what you want. If you knew who it is who speaks to you, you would have asked him for something. The second question in her mind is, “What is living water?” She said, “Where can you get this living water?” We’re gonna come back to that. But she picks up this mysterious phrase, she can scarcely understand what it might be, but she’s certainly intrigued, and she wants to know about it. Her initial issue at this moment is whatever it is, you don’t have it to offer because you have nothing to draw with.
So she goes immediately at that point to her next question, and that is, “Who are you?” Verse 12, “Are You greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his flocks and herds?” Jesus speaks like this, “If you knew who it is you’re speaking to you… ” She’s saying, “All right, who are you? You apparently think you’re somebody, are you then greater than Jacob, our father?” She obviously assumes the answer to the question is, “No.” She set the bar really high, Jacob was a great patriarch from the Old Testament revered by both Jews and Samaritans. He was the one who God had appeared to when he was sleeping with a rock as a pillow, and angels were ascending and descending, his mind filled with heavenly light, and God making him a promise of eternal consequence, “To you and to your offspring, I will give this land and it will be yours forever.” This is the same one who wrestled with an angel and overcame, this is the father of the 12 tribes of Israel. Are you greater than him? The one who gave us the well? It’s the very same thing that Jesus is gonna face later in John 8, when he made another outrageous statement, he said, “I tell you the truth, if anyone keeps my word, he will never see death.”
Wow. And Jesus said that to his enemies who are not favorably disposed to his speaking at that moment. And they said, “Are you greater than our father, Abraham? He died, the prophets died. Who do you think you are?” And Jesus said, “Before Abraham was born, I am. I am God in the flesh, that’s who I am. And if you knew who it is who’s speaking to you, you would have asked me for something.” “Are you greater than Jacob?” “I created Jacob, and I’m the one that made him those promises, and I’m actually the ladder on which the angels ascend and descend. Yes, I’m greater than Jacob. But I’ll prove it to you by the gift that I give.” Fourthly, “What is this gift of God? Jacob gave us the well, that was his gift. What about your gift? What are you gonna give?” Jesus said, “You know, I will prove how much greater I am than Jacob by what I give you compared to what he gave you. Have you noticed that you have to keep coming back here to draw water? It doesn’t really satisfy? Actually then the water that I give you will become inside of you a well of water springing up to eternal life, and if you drink the water I give you, you will never thirst again. That’s how much greater I am than Jacob. That’s the gift of God.” Now, I believe at this moment, though she doesn’t understand everything, she’s hooked.
She’s enticed. She’s intrigued. She is interested. And so she says, “Sir, give me this water so that I won’t have to keep coming here to draw water. I’d like some indoor plumbing. That would be pretty good.” She wants to keep talking to Jesus, Jesus is fascinating, but she doesn’t yet fully get it, although there’s something opening up inside her that she can’t really fully understand. And now Jesus has to go painfully to the heart of the matter, painfully. Yes, she’s interested in living water, she’s interested in the gift of God, we know that the living water… We know that the gift of God is eternal life. It’s eternity in the presence of God. In your presence are eternal pleasures at your right hand, eternally forevermore, Psalm 16, that’s what he’s offering her, forever pleasures in the very presence of God, but she cannot have it as she is, she is sinful, and so are we all. And so he must save her from sin.
Dealing Directly with Sin
Save from what? Save from sin. He must be a Savior from sin. And so he skillfully, but painfully and very bluntly and directly opens up the issue of her sin, “Go call your husband and come back.” He brings up her marital life, he brings up her sexual life. This is very personal, all sin is personal, but especially this kind of sin, very intensely personal. And for this reason, she speaks an evasion, a partial truth, it amounts to a lie, “I have no husband.” I don’t know if that’s how it was, but maybe I’m thinking she’s not wanting to talk much about that right now. And what’s so remarkable to me about Jesus’s holy approach here, he knows everything but he actually takes the time to commend her evasive answer. He says, “You know, you’re right actually, as I come to think about it. You’re right when you say you have no husband, the fact is you’ve had five husbands and the man you’re now with is not your husband, but what you’ve said is quite true.” You know Jesus, while dealing very directly and bluntly with her sin, is doing it in a very winsome and appealing, and I would say, supernatural way.
A Supernatural Touch
She’s not turned off at this moment. To some degree, I think she wants to go there because she wants to know, “Am I going to hell? Can I be forgiven? Can I be reconciled to God or is it too late for me? I’m already spurned by all of my neighbors, nobody wants me, my life is ruined. Is there a way back for me?” She wants to talk about it, just like someone with a mysterious and growing pain in their chest wants to talk to a doctor about it, they really do, ’cause they’re anxious about it. And Jesus does it in a winsome and sweet way. Now he probes her life with supernatural skill. I don’t know what so amazed her about his statement, but there was something that really amazed her, I think it’s either the word ‘five’ or the word ‘now’ as I’ve meditated on it. I think her neighbors know about her sordid lifestyle, I think they know that. But they may not know what led to it in the past. It may be that in the past, she had all kinds of encounters with other men and bad situations in the first marriage, and all this stuff that happened, and finally it just falls apart, and then she ends up relocating and trying to start afresh in a new community, who knows?
But probably she kept all that hidden and no one knew about the one, two, three, four, five husbands she’d had. Jesus knew the exact right number. It could be that, it could be the word ‘now’, “The man you now have, the one you’re drawing water for, well, he’s not your husband,” it could have been that. Either way, he clearly has supernatural knowledge of her life. And may I say to you, that some day you’re gonna stand before this one, the one whose eyes are like flaming fire, who sees all things, who knows everything, there’s no secrets with him, he sees it all, and he will talk to you very directly about every careless word you’ve ever spoken. And it’s good for us to be reconciled to Him, isn’t it? It’s good for us to feel the forgiveness that only he can offer, very good. Now, obviously, Christ does this in a supernatural winsome way, you could say, “Boy, witnessing would be so much easier if I could just get a little file on somebody before I talk to him, and really wow him with some kind of secret knowledge or something.”
“Oh, Lord, send me the information.” You don’t need the information friends, no temptation has seized us except what’s common to man. Use the law of God. Look at the 10 Commandments. “You’ve heard that it was said, ‘You shall not murder,’ But I say that anyone is angry with his brother is in danger of the fire of hell. You’ve heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery,’ but I say if you even look at a woman lustfully, you committed adultery in your heart.” You don’t need to know. Just know the law and know that they’ve broken it, they’re transgressors.
Some Lessons for Us
Use the two greatest commandments, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength every moment of your life. And love your neighbor as yourself. Have you done that?’ “No. Well, no one’s perfect.” “Well, you need to be. As a matter of fact, if you’re not perfect, you can’t go to heaven.” Now you’re talking… Now we’re talking about sin. But you must do it, without it, we are not truly witnessing.
Seeking a True Spiritual Worshipper
There’s another thing we can do that Jesus can’t do. We can commiserate with him in a horizontal level and say, “Look, I’m just as sinful as you, there’s no difference between us, really, I’ve violated the law of God and I am saved only by the grace of God. I know what it feels like to be a sinner.” Jesus can’t say those words, but we can, and so in that way, we can be both winsome and clear about sin. In verses 19-24, we see Jesus seeking a true spiritual worshiper. This is the greatest passage on worship in the New Testament. The word worship is mentioned 10 times in five verses. Amazingly, as this woman tries to evade the force of his inquiry, she leads him precisely where he wants to go. Ask God for that, say, “God help me, I’m not good at witnessing, lead me where I want to go, ’cause I don’t know how to get there.” And so here is this woman and it seems, at least outwardly, that she’s put up an illogical smokescreen behind what she can affect a quick retreat and get out of there before she has to talk anymore about her five husbands and the one she now has that’s not her husband. And she says, “Sir, I perceive that you’re a Prophet. Our fathers worshipped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place were you ought to worship is Jerusalem. Now, tell me what you think about that hot controversy.” Come on let’s debate that please.”
That was a hot topic. John Piper, in Desiring God, said this, “A trapped animal will chew off its own leg to escape; a trapped sinner will mangle her own mind and rip up the rules of logic.” “Why yes, as long as we’re talking about my adultery, what’s your stance on the issue of where people should worship?” Have you ever done that, you’re witnessing and they suddenly bring up evolution or dinosaurs, say, “What does that have to do with if you’re angry, you’re in danger of the fire of hell, the fact that were there dinosaurs on Noah’s Ark, you know?” But you know the thing is I don’t think this is a smokescreen, I actually think this is going to the heart of her problem, “Can I still worship God?” And Jesus takes it that way, he goes right to this matter, the issue isn’t so much where you worship, the issue is whom you worship, and how you worship. Whom is answered in verse 23, and verse 21. Look at verse 21 “Believe me, woman, a time is coming when you’ll worship the Father, neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem.” Verse 23, “A time is coming and has now come when the true worshippers worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshippers the Father seeks.”
Three times, verse 21 and verse 23, three times, the answer to whom is given, the Father. We worship the heavenly Father, not where, but who should we worship? And how should we worship? Well, and spirit in a truth. In spirit means with all of your heart, with all of your soul, with all of your strength, with all of your mind, but also in truth. You see the Samaritans rejected the rest of the scripture after the first five books of the Old Testament, they rejected it. Jesus said, “You Samaritans worship what you do not know, you’ve rejected the Word of God. You can’t worship the one you do not know, and so the Word of God comes to tell you who to worship.” And so when you’re witnessing, when you’re evangelizing, you’re telling them who God is, how glorious, how holy, how powerful. Tell them things about God. And what’s gonna happen is they’re gonna start getting enticed, they’re gonna start moving inside themselves, and they wanna know who this is. This is the living water friends, it is God himself satisfying, refreshing, delightful for all eternity, enough within himself to keep you fascinated for the rest of all eternity.
Revealing the Savior Plainly
That is God. He is the spring of water opened up inside you, which can refresh you forever and ever. But you cannot know him apart from Jesus. You cannot know him apart from Christ, no one can. And so Jesus reveals himself plainly in verses 25 and 26, we end where he began with the question, Who am I? This is, as I’ve already mentioned, the clearest messianic statement Jesus ever made in the gospels. You know how frequently they asked, “Tell us plainly, are you the Messiah?” He answered something like this, “I already did tell you, but you didn’t believe me because you’re not my sheep.” You see how it works? See but here, she says this, “I know that Messiah, the Christ, is coming. And when he comes, he will explain everything to us.” In the original language, he answers, “I am, the one who’s speaking to you, I am.” What is he claiming? He’s claiming to be God. He reveals both that he’s Messiah and the Messiah is incarnate God. He reveals both of those things to her immediately. And her reaction is eternally priceless. Verse 28 and 29, leaving her water jars, I imagine she’s running. It doesn’t say that, it just says ‘went’ but let’s put run in there, at least in our minds or imagination. She is running back to people that she up to this point had been trying to avoid, and she runs back into the Samaritan town and said to the people, “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Christ?”
Application
If you’re listening to me this morning and you are lost, you have not trusted in Christ, you don’t need technique on evangelism, not yet. You need to come to Jesus and drink from the living water. You need to see in the cross of Christ, the blood shed on the cross, sufficient for all of your secret, hidden sins that are not secret and hidden from Jesus. You need to bring those sins and confess them and put them at the foot of the cross and let him save you, let him open up inside you a spring of water welling up to eternal life. Trust in him for the salvation of your soul. Trust in him. And all you have to do is ask him for it. You wanna know, “What do I do?” He said right there in verse 10, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is is speaking to you,” you would have what? Asked him. Ask him, and he’ll give it to you, simply, freely. For those of you that are Christians, I want you to learn from the master, I’ve given you a sheet in there, in your hand out with evangelistic questions.
We’re hoping that you’re going to rise above, “Hey, would you like to have an evangelistic conversation with me?” If you wanna try that one, go ahead. I’m urging that you not, or if you do, please don’t give the name of this church while you’re doing that, okay? “I went to the FBC Durham Evangelistic Class, would you like to have an evangelistic conversation with me?” We’d like you to do a little better than that. We’d like to be winsome and attractive, come up with your own John 4:10. Or use living water, talk about it, but draw people into conversation. Yesterday, I was getting some gas, it was at the gas pump and there was a guy right next to me, a beautiful day, and he had a Harley Davidson hat on, so I asked a stupid question, but he indulged me, I said, “Hey, do you like to ride motorcycles?” That’s a stupid question. It just is, it’s a stupid question, but he lowered himself to my level and we had a conversation. It was a good conversation. It was a really good conversation, I enjoyed it. Open your eyes, there are people around you all the time, and what we’ve got is some categories of questions which you can draw. Questions are very effective because they draw people into conversation. Read them over.
I’m not gonna read them right now, but there are questions about listener’s background, questions about listener’s opinion or advice, you wanna get their opinion about something, questions that involve the listener’s opinion or advice, questions that asks for listeners emotions, that’s on their twice it. You’ll have to figure out a better heading for one of those two, I’m not sure which one. But these are good questions, these are very good questions. Get into good gospel conversations. On the back, there’s more questions in which you’re gonna go from opening to a closer, to closer and closer with the gospel. Read through and pick one that you’d like to try the next time you’re gonna get a chance to talk to somebody. Make this your own. And now as we close in prayer and the time for the offering comes, I want you to offer up a name of somebody that you’d like to lead to Christ this year, and we will pray for you to have a chance to witness to that person and lead them to faith in Christ, and hopefully we’ll have a chance to hear from you how you brought them to Christ or whatever, for us to ask, “Have you had a chance to witness to that person?” We would love for you to lead many people to Christ this year. Let’s focus on one person that God has laid on your heart I hope during the time that I’ve been preaching. Let’s pray.
sermon transcript
I hope all of you saw this morning this pamphlet called GAP Ministry, I’m just holding it up in front of you. This is a beautiful little booklet, the first of its kind that says volume 1, 2007. That’s hopeful, isn’t it? We’re looking for a volume 2. It’s the missions committee mostly, Ron Halbrooks and others, that worked hard on this, many people involved in this. I hope you got one and I hope you took only one per family unit. In other words, if you get home and find that each of your kids got one in their Sunday School and there’s six of them, bring five of them back, okay? We would like every family unit to have one of these, and these will, I think, focus our prayer attention over the next number of months throughout the year as we’re praying for missions around the world, so I hope you get one of those.
I also wanna call your attention this morning to another insert, and that’s a little card, go ahead and get it out of your bulletin. In this card, we’re urging everyone in the assembly this morning to think about a lost person that you’d like to bring to faith in Christ in the year 2007. We’d like you to write that person’s name down, we’d like you to write your name down and pass them in. We’ve pushed the offering to the end of the service so that you can put these in the offering plates as they go by. And we will pray with you regularly for these folks, and we look forward to a chance to ask you about any encounters you may have had with them, or for you to come and tell us. We want to just stimulate people to love and good works by these kinda stories, and if you really cannot think of a name of a lost person to write down that you’d like to lead to Christ, then write down, “I don’t have anyone but I wanna get someone, and I wanna change my life so that I can make some non-Christian friends, neighbors, co-worker, somebody that I could lead to Christ,” so write that down and we’ll pray for that for you.
But think about that through my sermon, don’t think too much about it during my sermon, think about some of what I’m saying during the sermon. Think about a person you might wanna write down and write down a few details about their lives as well, so that we can have a sense of how to pray for you as you try to witness to them. So hold on to those cards and when the offering plate goes by, go ahead and put them in with your name and the person’s name.
We’re looking this morning at one of the most glorious passages in the Bible on personal evangelism. I actually think this is probably the best passage in the whole Bible on technique of personal evangelism. You’re gonna learn how to witness, how to share your faith. I will take you first to John chapter 4, and here we see the master, our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, skillfully attracting or luring a woman to eternal life. Now, we know that Jesus went by the Sea of Galilee and he saw Peter and John, and James and Andrew plying their trade, for they were fishermen, repairing their nets or getting their boat ready, and Jesus walked by purposefully, just walked right by them. And said, “Follow me and I will make you fishers of men.” Follow me and I’ll tell you how to attract people into the kingdom. I’ll teach you how to do it. I think this is one of those times that he did that. John chapter 4.
Fishing Instructions from the Master
Now for myself, I’ve never been much for fishing, I don’t desire to insult those of you that really love to fish, for myself, I never like sea food. Some of you that know me know that, and so I don’t like the product and the process seems a little dry too, quite frankly. But for others, it’s a great sport and there’s a lot of skill involved, and I think all the more, when you consider the different kinds of fish that you’re trying to catch, of which I know nothing, some of what I’ve learned, I’ve learned from movies and books, and not from personal experience. But if you’re gonna go after a swordfish, for example, in the deep water, you’re gonna use a different kind of bait than if you’re gonna go after a clever lively river trout. If you’re going after that swordfish, you’re gonna use 500 test line with a J-Hook and some live bait like mackerel or squid, and you’re gonna perhaps intersperse your bait with fluorescent light sticks to attract them at night. Or you might just have one you’re going after with a pole and you’re gonna be there an awfully long time. There’s different theories on how it is you’re gonna land a 500-pound fish.
And so it is with a swordfish, if you’re gonna go out to a mountain stream in the west and you’re gonna try to land a river trout, you’re not gonna use that same technique. They probably have very little interest in squid. But instead you’re gonna use the fly fishing technique, and you’re gonna learn how to cast out and make it float over the water as the trout looks up and sees, and it better look like the kind of bugs they’re eating that day, or they’re not gonna be interested in it. Well, there’s just different techniques to drawing fish in, to alluring them and attracting them.
Now when Jesus said, I will make you fishers of men, he’s not saying you’re gonna use the same technique for everybody. As a matter of fact, he uses different approaches all over the place, it’s very different between him and Nicodemus as it is with the Samaritan woman at the well. He has a different approach, but what he’s trying to do is draw or attract people into the kingdom. He said, “No one comes to me unless the Father who sent me draws him.” And there’s the drawing. There’s an attraction that Jesus has, a pull, and we see it so powerfully in this encounter with the Samaritan woman at the well. Now, as I look at the American church scene, as I look at our own church, FBC Durham, as I look at what’s happening here and around, I feel that we have to embrace the Great Commission better than we’ve ever done before.
The Need of the Hour: A Fully Faithful Great Commission Church
Jesus said, in the Great Commission, “Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded. And surely, I am with you always to the end of the age.” That’s the Great Commission, it stands over us as our purpose. But I have noticed that there are very few churches that are faithful to the entire thing. Some churches are faithful to no part of it, frankly. They do not honor or revere the Word of God, and they’re not faithful to any part of the Great Commission.
There are some churches that are set up for, and especially skilled at bringing unchurched people into an initial commitment to faith in Christ, but at that point, they have a hard time bringing them on to full maturity. The church doesn’t seem set up for maturity or plumbing the depths of the Word of God. It doesn’t seem skillful at doing that, and so they go for a while, but then they say, “I’m just not being fed, I’m not growing here.”
And then there are other churches that are better at that part, at plumbing the depths of the Word of God and bringing established Christians on to maturity and helping them to understand the mind of God and growing in maturity and accountability and all that, but they don’t seem very fruitful at bringing people to an initial commitment to Christ. I think that’s what our church is more like. And for me, I would love to be one of those few churches that is faithful across the board to all aspects of it. Amen? That we would see at our new member class a percentage of those folk giving testimonies like, “Well, so and so talked to me in this situation. I realized I didn’t know the Lord, and he brought me or she brought me to faith in Christ, and then I got baptized a few weeks ago, as you remember, and now I’m here for membership.” I would love to see that happen in our church.
I would love to see that happen, and I think that it can happen. As a matter of fact, I think it will happen. I think it’s going to happen. As we follow our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, I wanna keep Luke 19:10, last week’s sermon text, in front of us all year long. And that is, “the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.” But here we see seeking and saving going on again, this time it says the Father is seeking and Jesus is doing the saving, and it’s so beautiful to see, isn’t it?
Feeding on the Father’s Will
Now, Jesus was one who fed on the Father’s word. He fed on the will of God. He came into the world to do the Father’s will, and the Father, as I just mentioned, was seeking true worshippers, that’s who He’s seeking, that’s what he came to do. And Jesus came to do the Father’s will, relentlessly, at every moment. In effect, he ate the Father’s will. Look at verse 34, it says, “My food,” said Jesus, “is to do the will of Him who sent Me and finish His work.” Jack didn’t read that this morning, it’s not in the focus of what we’re looking at this morning, and I hope to be able to look at that in a couple of weeks, but Jesus fed on the will of God. Now, Jesus knew precisely why he had entered the world. It says in John 6, “I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but to do the will of Him who sent me. And this is the will of Him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all that He has given me, but raise them up at the last day. For my Father’s will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in Him shall have eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day.”
Jesus Came to Do the Father’s Will
So Jesus came to do his Father’s will, his Father’s will was to lose none of those people that he entrusted to him before the foundation of the world. He wasn’t gonna lose any of them, but he was there to save them, and he would save them. Now, Jesus had been very fruitful in his Father’s will, look at verses 1 and 2, the Pharisees heard that Jesus was gaining and baptizing more disciples than John. Although, in fact, it was not Jesus who baptized, but his disciples. It’s hard to overstate how powerfully effective was the ministry of John the Baptist. Huge regions of people were flooding to the Jordan river to be baptized by John, huge quantities of people wanted to hear him preach, but now in a very simple statement, the very thing that John the Baptist said would happen, “He must increase and I must decrease,” it’s now happened.
Christ Fruitful in His Father’s Will
Jesus was making and baptizing more disciples than John. Although, in fact, it says, it wasn’t Jesus who was doing the baptism, but it was his disciples. Now see the wisdom of Jesus here. He’s already drawing these new disciples and making them leaders, getting them ready to take on for him after he is going to ascend to the Father. They are gonna carry on that baptizing and disciple-making ministry, and already they’re being trained for it. See, therefore, the wisdom of Christ here. He wants to train up laborers for the harvest field.
Christ Surprisingly Compelled to Go to Samaria
Now, in verse 4, we see a surprisingly compulsive statement on Jesus’ part, and I know it doesn’t come across very strongly. But it’s very strong in the original language, it says, “Now he had to go through Samaria.” He had to go through Samaria. He must go there. Very important. We’ve already seen this word once in the Greek in John chapter 3, verse 7. He said to Nicodemus, “You must be born again. If you wanna go to heaven, Nicodemus, you wanna see heaven, you must be born again.” We see it also in John 3:14 and 15, “Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes in Him may have eternal life.” Jesus must die on the cross if we’re gonna have eternal life, he must. John chapter 4, verse 24, which we heard read already, “God is a spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and in truth,” or else it isn’t worship.
And we’ll see it again in chapter 9, verse 4, “As long as it is day, we must work the works of Him who sent me. Night is coming when no one can work.” There’s an urgency there. Do you see it? Does that urgency capture your life? Is there an urgency to you? Is there a Samaria you must go through? And why must Jesus go there? Well, because the Samaritan woman is there, and of all that the Father has given him, he must lose none, but raise them up at the last day. And she is one of the ones the Father had given, and so Jesus’ heart, like a compass, is gonna go after those and he’s going to hunt them down and find them, and you know what? He’s still doing it now, and he uses us to go find those people. We don’t know who they are until we start sharing the gospel, but when they start to respond and come, then we know they are Christ’s sheep, and so he’s going after…
Now the Jews ordinarily would have avoided Samaria, they would have gone the long way around, they don’t want any encounter with the Samaritans at all, at least not of that type. They wouldn’t have minded a military encounter with the Samaritans but they didn’t wanna go through there for a friendly encounter ’cause it wouldn’t have been friendly. They ordinarily would have gone way around. Jesus had to go through Samaria because she was there. Another ‘must’ verse that is on my mind when I think about this, is John 10:16, and Jesus said this, “I have other sheep that are not of the sheep pen, I must bring them,” so that there’ll be one flock and one shepherd. That covers the last 2000 years. That covers the last 2000 years.
Jesus Seeking the Lost Even When Weary
He must bring those sheep and there’ll be one flock and one shepherd, and he’s working that must inside me, the love of Christ constrains us, 2 Corinthians 5. We must go to whatever Samaria God has in mind for us. So he comes to this town in Samaria called Sychar near the plot of ground that Jacob had given to his son, Joseph, and Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus tired as he was, sat down by the well; it was about the sixth hour. The must overrode his physical weakness and weariness and thirst. Jesus had a body, he got tired like you and me. He was busier than you and me, he had three years to save the world, okay? So that’s busy, very busy, okay? And he got weary. And he’s weary that day. And it says, it’s about the sixth hour, that’s high noon friends, it is hot in Palestine at high noon. It’s not a good time to be going to get water, and Jesus is sitting there dusty and tired, and yet his heart is ready for work, he’s ready to do the Father’s will, and here comes the Samaritan woman, and he’s ready even when weary, even when busy, even when tired, he is ready to do the Father’s will and seek and save the lost.
That’s a lesson for me to not make excuses, say, “I’m too busy, I’ve got important things to do,” when God brings somebody that we’re ready to witness to. And now we see Jesus’ technique as she comes. We see him baiting the hook or luring her into eternity, he’s luring her to life. And it’s so beautiful. When the Samaritan, verse 7 and 8, the 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. Jesus, as always, takes the initiative, he’s always taking the initiative. But he does so here in a fascinating way. Usually he takes the initiative by meeting other people’s felt needs: they’ve got a son or daughter who’s sick or dying or dead, they’re hungry, the feeding of the 5000, they have needs, they’re sinful and they need forgiveness, he’s always meeting their needs and drawing them in that way. Here, he begins to attract her by having her meet one of his needs. “I’m thirsty. Would you mind getting me a drink?” Hey, whatever it takes to get into a conversation. If that’s what it takes, then do it. [chuckle]
And so, fascinatingly, Jesus is drawing her in into a conversation. What’s even more fascinating is who it is he’s seeking to reach. This is a Samaritan woman, and he is reaching out to her. I will never forget Ronnie Stevens at Mike Waters’ house a number of years ago. I was a disciple now, and he talked about this, you know how some things just stick in your mind, and he said it with such a beautiful poetry. That’s the way Ronnie talks. He’s poetical in the way he put thoughts together, but he said this, he said, “The Jews were the rejects of the world. The Samaritans were the rejects of the Jews. The Samaritan women, the rejects of the Samaritan men, and this Samaritan woman, the rejects of the other Samaritan women.” She was pretty much at the bottom of the pile. She was the lowest of the low in the way people thought, but not in the way Jesus thought. And isn’t it fascinating how he can use this encounter with this woman to give the clearest description of what true spiritual worship is, the clearest statement he ever made concerning his messiah-ship, and for us this morning, the clearest display of evangelistic technique we’ll find anywhere in the Bible, he uses her to do that.
Baiting the Hook: Making the Gospel Attractive
Amazing grace. Amazing grace that the eternal Son of God would talk to any of us. And we think, “Oh well, we’re better than her, we’re better than him.” I’ve often talked to somebody about that, people that feel self-righteous, feel that they’re good people, moral people, and all that. I especially like doing it if it’s a guy who’s taller than me. I do. A guy who’s 6’2″, 6’3″, look up at him a little bit I’ll say, “Between the two of us, which of the two is closer to the sun right now?” He said, “I don’t know what you mean.” I said, “Well, I mean, between the two of us, which of us is closer to the sun?” He said, “I guess I am, I’m taller than you.”
I said, “Now, if I stand on a step ladder, which of the two of us is gonna be closer to the sun?” He said, “What are you getting at?” I said, “Well, the sun is 93 million miles away. Does it really matter which of the two of us is closer? The real infinite distance was covered by Jesus when he came from heaven to earth and walked on this guilty land that we all call home.” That’s the infinite journey, and which of us is naturally a little more moral, a little better, it’s not even worth discussing, what’s really amazing is not that Jesus talked to the Samaritan woman. What’s really amazing is that he talks to you and me. That’s what’s really incredible.
A Lure With Four Hooks
So there is the amazing grace, and so he’s talking to this Samaritan woman, and he lays out for her what I’m gonna call a lure with four hooks on it. Verse 10. It’s worth memorization. It’s just so powerful. “If you knew the gift of God and who it is who speaks to you, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.” Now she’s shocked he’s even talking to her.
“What are you talking to me for? I’m a Samaritan woman, and you are a Jew, we don’t have anything to do with each other.” But Jesus said, “Let’s get to the… Let’s get to the heart of the matter. If you knew the gift of God and who it is who speaks to you, you would have asked Him and He would have given you living water.” Do you see the four hooks? He is drawing her very powerfully into an evangelistic conversation. He doesn’t say, “Hey, would you like to have an evangelistic conversation with me?” Go ahead and try that technique sometime, see how far that gets. There is some technique involved here, okay? There’s some approach, and Jesus lays out four enticement saying, “Come on, come on, let’s have a conversation, let’s talk, open up, talk to me.” And so he’s drawing her in, and it creates within her four questions, I think, she’s… No not right in the text, but it’s not easy… it’s not hard, sorry, to find. The first is, “What is the gift of God?”
And the second is, “Who are you?” Or at least, “Who Do You Think You Are?” And the third is, “Why should I ask you for anything?” And the fourth is, “What in the world is living water?” There are four enticements into a conversation. She’s hooked in four ways and let’s take them in the order she asks them back, okay? The first question is basically, “Why should I ask you for anything?” All right, look at Verse 11, “Sir,” the woman said, “You have nothing to draw with and the well is deep.” All right, let’s just stop there. She said, “I may not be expert at many things, but I know about drawing water from this well, that’s why I brought my water jar.” All right, “I perceive that you have nothing to draw with, and I also know probably better than you do, ’cause I’ve been here many, many times, that this is a deep well.” She knows how to get water out of this well. She also knows right away that Jesus has nothing apparently in his hands to offer, and yet he’s talking about asking her for something.
The Woman is Hooked Four Ways
And so the question I’m sure popped in her mind, “Why should I ask you for anything?” All she can see is the outside surface, she can’t see the spiritual reality behind it. At that moment, she can’t. At the end of the conversation, she will. But not at this moment, all she’s seeing is physical, and I tell you, it will seem that way again when it comes to Jesus. When he is up hanging on the cross, when all of his clothes have been confiscated and gambled for in fulfillment of prophecy, when his blood is being shed out and he is clearly dying, it would be easy to say at that moment, “Sir, you have nothing. What do you have to offer me? Your disciples have all deserted you and fled, there’s no one left, what do you have to offer me?” And only the gift, the supernatural gift of faith can see Jesus properly at that moment, as God gave to the thief on the cross, that dying thief that we talked about who looked over and said, “Remember me Lord, when you come in your kingdom.” Kingdom? Oh yes, he’s coming and he’s coming with the kingdom. Only the eye of faith can see through the outward surface, and she can’t do it yet, but she will at the end. She says, “Sir, you have nothing.”
You know what I get out of this? The better you know Jesus, the more you’re gonna ask him for things. The better you know Jesus, the more you’re gonna ask him for something. Ask him right now for a name to put on that card. Ask him not just to put a name on the card, ask him that you would have the privilege of bringing that individual person to Christ this year. Ask Him for it. Ask him for boldness in witnessing, ask Him for what you want. If you knew who it is who speaks to you, you would have asked him for something. The second question in her mind is, “What is living water?” She said, “Where can you get this living water?” We’re gonna come back to that. But she picks up this mysterious phrase, she can scarcely understand what it might be, but she’s certainly intrigued, and she wants to know about it. Her initial issue at this moment is whatever it is, you don’t have it to offer because you have nothing to draw with.
So she goes immediately at that point to her next question, and that is, “Who are you?” Verse 12, “Are You greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his flocks and herds?” Jesus speaks like this, “If you knew who it is you’re speaking to you… ” She’s saying, “All right, who are you? You apparently think you’re somebody, are you then greater than Jacob, our father?” She obviously assumes the answer to the question is, “No.” She set the bar really high, Jacob was a great patriarch from the Old Testament revered by both Jews and Samaritans. He was the one who God had appeared to when he was sleeping with a rock as a pillow, and angels were ascending and descending, his mind filled with heavenly light, and God making him a promise of eternal consequence, “To you and to your offspring, I will give this land and it will be yours forever.” This is the same one who wrestled with an angel and overcame, this is the father of the 12 tribes of Israel. Are you greater than him? The one who gave us the well? It’s the very same thing that Jesus is gonna face later in John 8, when he made another outrageous statement, he said, “I tell you the truth, if anyone keeps my word, he will never see death.”
Wow. And Jesus said that to his enemies who are not favorably disposed to his speaking at that moment. And they said, “Are you greater than our father, Abraham? He died, the prophets died. Who do you think you are?” And Jesus said, “Before Abraham was born, I am. I am God in the flesh, that’s who I am. And if you knew who it is who’s speaking to you, you would have asked me for something.” “Are you greater than Jacob?” “I created Jacob, and I’m the one that made him those promises, and I’m actually the ladder on which the angels ascend and descend. Yes, I’m greater than Jacob. But I’ll prove it to you by the gift that I give.” Fourthly, “What is this gift of God? Jacob gave us the well, that was his gift. What about your gift? What are you gonna give?” Jesus said, “You know, I will prove how much greater I am than Jacob by what I give you compared to what he gave you. Have you noticed that you have to keep coming back here to draw water? It doesn’t really satisfy? Actually then the water that I give you will become inside of you a well of water springing up to eternal life, and if you drink the water I give you, you will never thirst again. That’s how much greater I am than Jacob. That’s the gift of God.” Now, I believe at this moment, though she doesn’t understand everything, she’s hooked.
She’s enticed. She’s intrigued. She is interested. And so she says, “Sir, give me this water so that I won’t have to keep coming here to draw water. I’d like some indoor plumbing. That would be pretty good.” She wants to keep talking to Jesus, Jesus is fascinating, but she doesn’t yet fully get it, although there’s something opening up inside her that she can’t really fully understand. And now Jesus has to go painfully to the heart of the matter, painfully. Yes, she’s interested in living water, she’s interested in the gift of God, we know that the living water… We know that the gift of God is eternal life. It’s eternity in the presence of God. In your presence are eternal pleasures at your right hand, eternally forevermore, Psalm 16, that’s what he’s offering her, forever pleasures in the very presence of God, but she cannot have it as she is, she is sinful, and so are we all. And so he must save her from sin.
Dealing Directly with Sin
Save from what? Save from sin. He must be a Savior from sin. And so he skillfully, but painfully and very bluntly and directly opens up the issue of her sin, “Go call your husband and come back.” He brings up her marital life, he brings up her sexual life. This is very personal, all sin is personal, but especially this kind of sin, very intensely personal. And for this reason, she speaks an evasion, a partial truth, it amounts to a lie, “I have no husband.” I don’t know if that’s how it was, but maybe I’m thinking she’s not wanting to talk much about that right now. And what’s so remarkable to me about Jesus’s holy approach here, he knows everything but he actually takes the time to commend her evasive answer. He says, “You know, you’re right actually, as I come to think about it. You’re right when you say you have no husband, the fact is you’ve had five husbands and the man you’re now with is not your husband, but what you’ve said is quite true.” You know Jesus, while dealing very directly and bluntly with her sin, is doing it in a very winsome and appealing, and I would say, supernatural way.
A Supernatural Touch
She’s not turned off at this moment. To some degree, I think she wants to go there because she wants to know, “Am I going to hell? Can I be forgiven? Can I be reconciled to God or is it too late for me? I’m already spurned by all of my neighbors, nobody wants me, my life is ruined. Is there a way back for me?” She wants to talk about it, just like someone with a mysterious and growing pain in their chest wants to talk to a doctor about it, they really do, ’cause they’re anxious about it. And Jesus does it in a winsome and sweet way. Now he probes her life with supernatural skill. I don’t know what so amazed her about his statement, but there was something that really amazed her, I think it’s either the word ‘five’ or the word ‘now’ as I’ve meditated on it. I think her neighbors know about her sordid lifestyle, I think they know that. But they may not know what led to it in the past. It may be that in the past, she had all kinds of encounters with other men and bad situations in the first marriage, and all this stuff that happened, and finally it just falls apart, and then she ends up relocating and trying to start afresh in a new community, who knows?
But probably she kept all that hidden and no one knew about the one, two, three, four, five husbands she’d had. Jesus knew the exact right number. It could be that, it could be the word ‘now’, “The man you now have, the one you’re drawing water for, well, he’s not your husband,” it could have been that. Either way, he clearly has supernatural knowledge of her life. And may I say to you, that some day you’re gonna stand before this one, the one whose eyes are like flaming fire, who sees all things, who knows everything, there’s no secrets with him, he sees it all, and he will talk to you very directly about every careless word you’ve ever spoken. And it’s good for us to be reconciled to Him, isn’t it? It’s good for us to feel the forgiveness that only he can offer, very good. Now, obviously, Christ does this in a supernatural winsome way, you could say, “Boy, witnessing would be so much easier if I could just get a little file on somebody before I talk to him, and really wow him with some kind of secret knowledge or something.”
“Oh, Lord, send me the information.” You don’t need the information friends, no temptation has seized us except what’s common to man. Use the law of God. Look at the 10 Commandments. “You’ve heard that it was said, ‘You shall not murder,’ But I say that anyone is angry with his brother is in danger of the fire of hell. You’ve heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery,’ but I say if you even look at a woman lustfully, you committed adultery in your heart.” You don’t need to know. Just know the law and know that they’ve broken it, they’re transgressors.
Some Lessons for Us
Use the two greatest commandments, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength every moment of your life. And love your neighbor as yourself. Have you done that?’ “No. Well, no one’s perfect.” “Well, you need to be. As a matter of fact, if you’re not perfect, you can’t go to heaven.” Now you’re talking… Now we’re talking about sin. But you must do it, without it, we are not truly witnessing.
Seeking a True Spiritual Worshipper
There’s another thing we can do that Jesus can’t do. We can commiserate with him in a horizontal level and say, “Look, I’m just as sinful as you, there’s no difference between us, really, I’ve violated the law of God and I am saved only by the grace of God. I know what it feels like to be a sinner.” Jesus can’t say those words, but we can, and so in that way, we can be both winsome and clear about sin. In verses 19-24, we see Jesus seeking a true spiritual worshiper. This is the greatest passage on worship in the New Testament. The word worship is mentioned 10 times in five verses. Amazingly, as this woman tries to evade the force of his inquiry, she leads him precisely where he wants to go. Ask God for that, say, “God help me, I’m not good at witnessing, lead me where I want to go, ’cause I don’t know how to get there.” And so here is this woman and it seems, at least outwardly, that she’s put up an illogical smokescreen behind what she can affect a quick retreat and get out of there before she has to talk anymore about her five husbands and the one she now has that’s not her husband. And she says, “Sir, I perceive that you’re a Prophet. Our fathers worshipped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place were you ought to worship is Jerusalem. Now, tell me what you think about that hot controversy.” Come on let’s debate that please.”
That was a hot topic. John Piper, in Desiring God, said this, “A trapped animal will chew off its own leg to escape; a trapped sinner will mangle her own mind and rip up the rules of logic.” “Why yes, as long as we’re talking about my adultery, what’s your stance on the issue of where people should worship?” Have you ever done that, you’re witnessing and they suddenly bring up evolution or dinosaurs, say, “What does that have to do with if you’re angry, you’re in danger of the fire of hell, the fact that were there dinosaurs on Noah’s Ark, you know?” But you know the thing is I don’t think this is a smokescreen, I actually think this is going to the heart of her problem, “Can I still worship God?” And Jesus takes it that way, he goes right to this matter, the issue isn’t so much where you worship, the issue is whom you worship, and how you worship. Whom is answered in verse 23, and verse 21. Look at verse 21 “Believe me, woman, a time is coming when you’ll worship the Father, neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem.” Verse 23, “A time is coming and has now come when the true worshippers worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshippers the Father seeks.”
Three times, verse 21 and verse 23, three times, the answer to whom is given, the Father. We worship the heavenly Father, not where, but who should we worship? And how should we worship? Well, and spirit in a truth. In spirit means with all of your heart, with all of your soul, with all of your strength, with all of your mind, but also in truth. You see the Samaritans rejected the rest of the scripture after the first five books of the Old Testament, they rejected it. Jesus said, “You Samaritans worship what you do not know, you’ve rejected the Word of God. You can’t worship the one you do not know, and so the Word of God comes to tell you who to worship.” And so when you’re witnessing, when you’re evangelizing, you’re telling them who God is, how glorious, how holy, how powerful. Tell them things about God. And what’s gonna happen is they’re gonna start getting enticed, they’re gonna start moving inside themselves, and they wanna know who this is. This is the living water friends, it is God himself satisfying, refreshing, delightful for all eternity, enough within himself to keep you fascinated for the rest of all eternity.
Revealing the Savior Plainly
That is God. He is the spring of water opened up inside you, which can refresh you forever and ever. But you cannot know him apart from Jesus. You cannot know him apart from Christ, no one can. And so Jesus reveals himself plainly in verses 25 and 26, we end where he began with the question, Who am I? This is, as I’ve already mentioned, the clearest messianic statement Jesus ever made in the gospels. You know how frequently they asked, “Tell us plainly, are you the Messiah?” He answered something like this, “I already did tell you, but you didn’t believe me because you’re not my sheep.” You see how it works? See but here, she says this, “I know that Messiah, the Christ, is coming. And when he comes, he will explain everything to us.” In the original language, he answers, “I am, the one who’s speaking to you, I am.” What is he claiming? He’s claiming to be God. He reveals both that he’s Messiah and the Messiah is incarnate God. He reveals both of those things to her immediately. And her reaction is eternally priceless. Verse 28 and 29, leaving her water jars, I imagine she’s running. It doesn’t say that, it just says ‘went’ but let’s put run in there, at least in our minds or imagination. She is running back to people that she up to this point had been trying to avoid, and she runs back into the Samaritan town and said to the people, “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Christ?”
Application
If you’re listening to me this morning and you are lost, you have not trusted in Christ, you don’t need technique on evangelism, not yet. You need to come to Jesus and drink from the living water. You need to see in the cross of Christ, the blood shed on the cross, sufficient for all of your secret, hidden sins that are not secret and hidden from Jesus. You need to bring those sins and confess them and put them at the foot of the cross and let him save you, let him open up inside you a spring of water welling up to eternal life. Trust in him for the salvation of your soul. Trust in him. And all you have to do is ask him for it. You wanna know, “What do I do?” He said right there in verse 10, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is is speaking to you,” you would have what? Asked him. Ask him, and he’ll give it to you, simply, freely. For those of you that are Christians, I want you to learn from the master, I’ve given you a sheet in there, in your hand out with evangelistic questions.
We’re hoping that you’re going to rise above, “Hey, would you like to have an evangelistic conversation with me?” If you wanna try that one, go ahead. I’m urging that you not, or if you do, please don’t give the name of this church while you’re doing that, okay? “I went to the FBC Durham Evangelistic Class, would you like to have an evangelistic conversation with me?” We’d like you to do a little better than that. We’d like to be winsome and attractive, come up with your own John 4:10. Or use living water, talk about it, but draw people into conversation. Yesterday, I was getting some gas, it was at the gas pump and there was a guy right next to me, a beautiful day, and he had a Harley Davidson hat on, so I asked a stupid question, but he indulged me, I said, “Hey, do you like to ride motorcycles?” That’s a stupid question. It just is, it’s a stupid question, but he lowered himself to my level and we had a conversation. It was a good conversation. It was a really good conversation, I enjoyed it. Open your eyes, there are people around you all the time, and what we’ve got is some categories of questions which you can draw. Questions are very effective because they draw people into conversation. Read them over.
I’m not gonna read them right now, but there are questions about listener’s background, questions about listener’s opinion or advice, you wanna get their opinion about something, questions that involve the listener’s opinion or advice, questions that asks for listeners emotions, that’s on their twice it. You’ll have to figure out a better heading for one of those two, I’m not sure which one. But these are good questions, these are very good questions. Get into good gospel conversations. On the back, there’s more questions in which you’re gonna go from opening to a closer, to closer and closer with the gospel. Read through and pick one that you’d like to try the next time you’re gonna get a chance to talk to somebody. Make this your own. And now as we close in prayer and the time for the offering comes, I want you to offer up a name of somebody that you’d like to lead to Christ this year, and we will pray for you to have a chance to witness to that person and lead them to faith in Christ, and hopefully we’ll have a chance to hear from you how you brought them to Christ or whatever, for us to ask, “Have you had a chance to witness to that person?” We would love for you to lead many people to Christ this year. Let’s focus on one person that God has laid on your heart I hope during the time that I’ve been preaching. Let’s pray.
