See how Jesus’ winsome boldness irresistibly draws the Samaritan woman into a life-changing gospel encounter.
These are only preliminary, unedited outlines and may differ from Andy’s final message.
I. Fishing Instructions from the Master
Matthew 4:19 Follow me, he said, and I will make you fishers of men.
A. Christ’s Mission:
Luke 19:10 “To seek and to save the lost”
B. FBC: Our greatest challenge as a church… we need to have the same passion for seeking and saving the lost that Jesus did
II. Feeding on the Father’s Will (vs. 1-6)
A. Father Seeking Worshipers All Over the World
John 4:23 Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks.
Jesus has come to carry out His Father’s will
B. Jesus Came to Do the Father’s Will… Relentlessly
Jesus “ATE” His Father’s will
John 4:34 “My food,” said Jesus, “is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work.
C. Christ Surprisingly Compelled to Go to Samaria
John 4:4 Now he had to go through Samaria.
D. The Doctrine of Election
John 10:16 I have other sheep that are not of this sheep pen. I must bring them also. They too will listen to my voice, and there shall be one flock and one shepherd.
E. Jesus Seeking the Lost Even When Weary
John 4:5-6 So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph. 6 Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about the sixth hour.
III. Baiting the Hook: Making the Gospel Attractive (vs. 7-15)
A. Amazing Grace: Jesus Reaches Out to a Samaritan Woman
John 4:7-8 When a 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.)
1. Jesus takes the initiative, but in a fascinating way… HIS felt need, not hers!
2. Amazing who He seeks to reach: a Samaritan woman!
3. Clear statement from the woman
John 4:9 The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?”
4. Clear statement from John
(For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.)
5. BUT the distance from heaven to earth is infinitely greater than any distance between one sinner and another
B. A Lure with Four Hooks (vs. 10)
John 4:10 Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.”
1. It is a lure with four hooks… and it works to provoke four questions in her
a. “What is the ‘gift of God’?”
b. “Who are you?”
c. “Why should I ask you for anything?”
d. “What in the world is ‘living water’?”
2. All four of those questions become the focus of the rest of their conversation
C. The Woman is “Hooked” Four Ways (vs. 11-15)
1. “Why Should I Ask You for Anything?” (vs. 11)
John 4:11 “Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water?
a. All she can see is the outside, the surface… it seems like He has nothing to offer
b. BUT this destitute and dusty Jewish man was actually the richest and most powerful man in history… Jesus thus couches His statement this way:
“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.”
c. The real issue here is I have infinitely more to give you than you can possibly imagine… the better you know me the more you’ll ask me for things
2. “What is ‘Living Water’?” (vs. 11)
John 4:11 Where can you get this living water?
3. “Who Are You?” (vs. 12)
John 4:12 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?”
a. Jesus said “If you knew who it is who is speaking to you…”
b. Basically, she is interested finding just who He is, and how great He thinks He is
4. “What is the ‘Gift of God?” (vs. 19-20, 25, 29)
a. Jesus in effect says “I will prove how much greater I am by giving you a gift that will last for eternity. That’s something Jacob could not do. I am greater than Jacob because I give better water than he did!”
John 4:13-14 Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, 14 but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”
b. Now see the response… the “Gift of God” is eternal life, and eternal life is knowing and loving God
John 4:15 The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.”
5. The woman is now “hooked”… I believe Jesus has already started to draw her into His glorious net; she feels an accelerating interest in this man, something she can barely explain… Jesus is the most magnetic, the most appealing man who ever lived; I believe He has already opened something in her heart that is as real as the sensation of cool mountain water going down a parched throat
6. But she still doesn’t understand fully… and there is a vital matter she must face first
7. He opens her up to face her own heart… its darkness, its sin; if she will not face it, He can give her nothing
IV. Dealing Directly with Sin (vs. 16-18)
John 4:16-18 He told her, “Go, call your husband and come back.”
A. Salvation from What?
1. He brings up her marital life, her sexual life
2. All sin is intensely personal, but this is the most personal of all, the one that causes the most shame
3. For this reason, she tells an evasion, a partial truth that amounts to a lie
Vs. 17 “I have no husband.”, she replied
4. Jesus amazingly commends her for the partial truth she told:
Vs. 17-18 Jesus said to her, “You are right when you say you have no husband. 18 The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true.”
5. But Jesus has come for a distinct purpose: salvation
6. Salvation from what? You may ask…
Matthew 1:21 you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.”
7. Without repentance from specific and personal sin, there can be no salvation
B. A Supernatural Touch
1. He utterly amazes her with a knowledge no stranger could have had… the deepest secrets of her past
2. We don’t really know what amazed her so much; perhaps it was the number FIVE: “You have had five husbands” Perhaps it was the fact that she was with a man “Now”… maybe the water she’d come to draw was for yet another man in her house that no one else knew about
3. In any case, she was convinced that He was supernatural
John 4:19 “Sir,” the woman said, “I can see that you are a prophet.
Later, she will go beyond this, with not much more to go on:
John 4:29 “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Christ?”
C. Some Lessons for Us
1. We must be willing to address sin… even personally
2. Obviously Christ did it in a way that was winsome and appealing, for the woman did not shut Him off
3. Christ could do that because she was amazed at His supernatural knowledge of her particular sin, which power we do not have
4. BUT we have something Christ did not… the ability to say “I am just as much in need of a Savior as you are… there’s no difference between us”
5. People these days seem very satisfied with themselves, very confident in their own standing, very unaware of their need for a Savior
6. Too many “Seeker Sensitive” churches gloss over sin; they present Jesus as someone who can make their lives here on earth far more enjoyable and then give them heaven when they die
7. The real issue is the person we’re speaking with needs to be ready for judgment day, when he/she will give an account for every careless word they’ve spoken
8. If they have even a single unforgiven sin, they will be condemned to hell
V. Seeking a True Spiritual Worshiper (vs. 19-24)
John 4:23 Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks.
John 4:24 God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth.”
1. HOW is “in spirit and in truth”
a. “in spirit” = with all your heart, with deep passion and emotion and desire
b. “in truth” = based on the revealed word of God, written in ALL the Scripture
B. What the Father Seeks and What We Should as Well
1. We were created to worship God
St. Augustine: You have made us for yourself, O God, and the heart of man is restless until it finds its rest in you.
2. Worship in spirit… and in truth
3. Only possible from a regenerate heart by the power of the Spirit
VI. Team Effort (vs. 31-38)
John 4:31-38 Meanwhile his disciples urged him, “Rabbi, eat something.” 32 But he said to them, “I have food to eat that you know nothing about.” 33 Then his disciples said to each other, “Could someone have brought him food?” 34 “My food,” said Jesus, “is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work. 35 Do you not say, ‘Four months more and then the harvest’? I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest. 36 Even now the reaper draws his wages, even now he harvests the crop for eternal life, so that the sower and the reaper may be glad together. 37 Thus the saying ‘One sows and another reaps’ is true. 38 I sent you to reap what you have not worked for. Others have done the hard work, and you have reaped the benefits of their labor.”
A. The Disciples’ Failure
B. Jesus’ Zeal for the Father and for the Flock
C. Urgency and Awareness of the Spiritual Harvest… “Lift up your eyes and look”
D. Team Effort… “One sows, another reaps”
E. Hard Labor: Plowing the soil… anything short of conversion!
VII. Application
A. Learn from the Master
B. Specifically, Learn to Make the Gospel Attractive
1. The art of gospel conversation: Be interested and interesting!!
2. Listen AND talk!
3. Speak of the beauty and refreshment of Christ to you
4. Speak as one who has a spring of water welling up to eternal life within you
5. Be joyful and speak as if compelled by joy
6. Learn some attractive statements like a lure to draw people into conversation
C. Be Willing Courageously to Face Sin
D. Aim for Making a True Spiritual Worshiper of God
E. Clearly Reveal the Savior: Jesus Christ
F. Be Willing to Do Hard Labor… and be a Part of the Journey
