A Study of the Book of John
“That You May Believe”
Sermon # 10
“Love That Knows No Barriers!”
John 4:1-30
Our story today begins with Jesus on a journey. He has been traveling and has paused for a rest and some much needed water. Here he meets a woman at the local well. The person who met Jesus at the well in Sychar stands in stark contrast to Nicodemus whom we met in chapter three. This was a Samaritan and a woman and Nicodemus was a Jewish man. He was religious, she was immoral. She came by day, not intending to speak to Jesus and he came by night, and initiated the conversation. Jesus unmasked the spiritual emptiness of one who thought himself right with God and revealed the maze of tangled relation-ships that left the other with no hope. She was a social outcast and he was among the socially elite. Nicodemus hung on every word, she was seemly indifferent. Yet both of them need what Jesus offered.
First, A Life That Created Lots Of Barriers
(4:5-7a)
In verse five we read, “So He came to a city of Samaria which is called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph. (6) Now Jacob’s well was there. Jesus therefore, being wearied from His journey, sat thus by the well. It was about the sixth hour.(7) A woman of Samaria came to draw water.”
Jesus was tired from the journey in the heat of the day and so he decides to rest by the well while his disciples go on into the village to get something for them to eat. It is at this point that a woman from the nearby village appears.
•Racial Barriers
The bitter hatred between the Jews and Samaritans was long standing – going back hundreds of years. Perhaps a little history will help us at this point. The Jews and the Samaritans hated each other. It all went back to 722 B.C. when the Assyrians conquered Israel and took the northern ten tribes into captivity. They brought in Gentiles from other areas to settle in that same region. Eventually those Gentiles with their pagan ways intermarried with the Jews who had been left behind. Over the generations those people were called the Samaritans, and they developed their own religion that was partly based on pagan ideas and partly based on Judaism.
The Jews looked down on the Samaritans as racial half-breeds and religious heretics. The Jews refused to accept the Samaritans as their kinsmen and both sides developed an implacable, murderous hatred for one another. It’s hard for us to understand the animosity that existed between these two groups, but if you think of the present-day relationship between the Palestinians and the Israelis, you’ve got the right idea.
Now that brings us back to verse three which says that Jesus “needed to go through Samaria.” Technically, it was not a necessity at all, and culturally, it was not even customary to do so. Although passing through Samaria is the most direct route between Galilee on the north and Judea to the south, but because of the animosity which existed between these two peoples, conscientious Jews chose to take a longer route to keep from passing through Samaria. The answer why Jesus “needed to go through Samaria” is simple and yet profound: Jesus went because he intended to meet this woman. He knew she would be coming to the well at precisely the moment he was sitting there weary from his journey. This woman was despised because of her race and she was also a person who may have been shunned by her community because of her lifestyle.
•Social Barriers
The fact that this woman comes to the well at sixth hour (v. 6) (or noon by Jewish reckoning) to draw water is very revealing. She was coming during the hottest part of the day, other women didn’t do this. She was going to the well by herself other women did not do this. She obvious was coming to the well at a time when she would not expect to meet any of the other women of the village. Because this woman is alone and coming during the hottest part of the day it is an indication that she was a social outcast. As J. Vernon McGee says, “one of the reasons that this woman is so unpopular with the women in this town is that she is so popular with the men.”
Let me ask you, “Have you ever meet someone who was off-limits socially?” I know the teenagers know what I am talking about. I am talking about the kid who if you hang out with them your friends will make fun of you! In fact they may not have anything do to with “you” any more. There are just some people that society tells us to stay away from. This Samaritan woman is that kind of person.
This woman had a lot of barriers in her life but now this Samaritan woman met a man different from other men, and she was somewhat of an expert on men! The racial and cultural (not to mention the theological) barriers present at this encounter seemed insurmountable.
Secondly, A Love That Overcomes Barriers (4: 7b-30)
When this woman comes to the well verse seven tells us that “…Jesus said to her, “Give Me a drink.” In this simple request by Jesus for a drink of water he had conveyed a powerful message. He had said, “You are not worthless. You are worth talking to.”
The story now establishes several things about what contact with Jesus involves.
•Contact With Jesus Is Personal. (v. 8)
“For His disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.” Verse eight reminds the reader that it is now just Jesus and the woman. Ultimately, it always comes down to just you and Him. As you look back over the days of your life, how many times have you been brought face to face with the Lord? Today may be another such occasion in your life. In the final analysis it will not matter how much money you made or how many awards you received or how many degrees you have, what will be of the up most importance is what you did with Jesus!
•Contact With Jesus Demands We Recognize Him For Who He Is. (vv. 9-15)
“Then the woman of Samaria said to Him, “How is it that You, being a Jew, ask a drink from me, a Samaritan woman?” For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.(10) Jesus answered and said to her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, ‘Give Me a drink,’ you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water.”
Verse ten begins with a little word that has a lot of significance, the word is “if.” Regardless of what else she thought she knew there is something important that she does not know. She does not know who Jesus is! People often say, “What you don’t know will not hurt you!” The truth is what you don’t know could sent you to an eternity in Hell.
Jesus is speaking about spiritual water but the woman interpreted his words to be about literal water so she replies in verse eleven, “…Sir, You have nothing to draw with, and the well is deep. Where then do you get that living water? (12) Are You greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well, and drank from it himself, as well as his sons and his livestock?” (13) Jesus answered and said to her, “Whoever drinks of this water will thirst again, (14) but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst. But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life.”(15) The woman said to Him, “Sir, give me this water, that I may not thirst, nor come here to draw.”
Whatever Jesus meant, she thought, He could not be speaking of water from this well, for it was at least 75 feet deep and He had nothing with which to drawn from it (v. 11). This led her to pursue another line of questioning? “Just Who are You anyway? Do You think You are better than Jacob? Do You think Your well better than his?” (v.12). Her question was far more profound than she could have imagined.
The words drinks in verses thirteen and fourteen are worth noting. In verse thirteen, the word “drinks” is in the Present tense and means “Even if you keep drinking from this well, you will get thirsty again.” However the word translated in verse fourteen as “drinks” is in the Aorist tense (one time event with ongoing results in the future) meaning, “But whoever takes one drink of the water I give him will never thirst again.”
•Contact With Jesus Always Involves Facing The Truth About Ourselves.
(vv. 16-18)
Jesus knew the truth about this woman and he forced her to see and admit the truth about herself when He said in verse sixteen, “Go, call your husband, and come here.”
By asking about her husband Jesus cuts through to the core of her sinful lifestyle. This woman has been engaged in lifelong pursuit of happiness. She has gone from one failed relation-ship to the next, no doubt with the expectation that the next marriage is going to get it all right. “This time I will be happy.” Jesus goes to the core of her problem and one that is prevalent today! We have been raised with the expectation that if we only find the right man or woman, we’ll be happy. In a way this woman is the symbol of our own age – lonely and desperate people going from one manipulative arrangement to the next, always hoping that this “roommate” will work out better than the last one. The way of our world is the way of permanent dissatisfaction. Surely never in the course of the human race has there been so many ways of attaining pleasure or such an abundance of devices which are suppose to make life easy and more enjoyable. Yet never have people been so unfulfilled and unhappy.
She doesn’t want to go into detail so she
responds to Jesus in verse seventeen by saying, “I have no husband.” Now that was true but it was certainly not the whole story. She knew that she was hiding the truth, what she was unaware of was that Jesus knows it. What Jesus says in the remainder of verse seventeen and eighteen although not unkind, are a verbal slap in the face, “… Jesus said to her, “You have well said, ‘I have no husband,’ (18) for you have had five husbands, and the one whom you now have is not your husband; in that you spoke truly.” The Lord cut through the cover-up by informing her that she was technically correct. She did not have a husband, but she had a lover, and he was not number one, but number 6.
But encountering Jesus means confronting what we really are, not just want we pretend to be. It demands complete honesty. Until we come to grips with our sin and own willful disobedience to God, we cannot be saved. And as this woman finds out whether we realize it or not Jesus knows us completely whether we decide to confess all we are to him or not!
No doubt she hung her head as she faced the ugly reality of her life. She has lived with a passing parade of men, five of which were technically her husbands and the latest was just a live-in boyfriend.
She was broken, sinful and lost. If she is unwilling to face herself and admit her tangled, sick relation-ships are sin, she can not drink of the living water. The gift is free, but it cannot be received without repentance.
I do not know whether or not this woman was deliberately changing the subject (though we surely would have been inclined to do so), because discussing religion is always more comfortable than facing our sins! In verse nineteen she states, “Sir I perceive that you are a prophet (20) Our fathers worshipped on this mountain and you Jews say that in Jerusalem is the place where one ought to worship.” But whatever her reasons she brought the conversation around to the theological issue which divided Jews and Samaritans. Where was the central place of worship? Was it Mount Gerizim, where the Samaritans worshipped or was it at Jerusalem, as the Jews insisted?
In our day what Jesus said to this woman about her religion would be considered “intolerant and politically incorrect!” In verse twenty-one Jesus says, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will neither on this mountain, nor in Jerusalem, worship the Father. (22) You worship what you do not know; for we worship what we know; salvation is of the Jews.” We live in a world that advances the idea that no one is really right and no one is really wrong. We say, "Everyone has their own truth, and we should respect that by not trying to change the way they think or believe."
Joel Osteen is one of America’s most well-known preachers; he is the pastor of the nondenominational Lakewood Church in Houston and the author of the bestselling book "Your Best Life Now." In June 2005, during an appearance on CNN’s "Larry King Live," Osteen was asked about his positions on "gay marriage" and abortion. "You know what, Larry? I don’t go there. I just ...," he said, according to a transcript. "... I just, you know, I don’t think that a same-sex marriage is the way God intended it to be. I don’t think abortion is the best. I think there are other, you know, a better way to live your life. But I’m not going to condemn those people. I tell them all the time our church is open for everybody." "You don’t call them sinners?" King asked. "I don’t," Osteen said. "Is that a word you don’t use?" King asked. "I don’t use it," Osteen responded. "I never thought about it. But I probably don’t. But most people already know what they’re doing wrong. When I get them to church I want to tell them that you can change. There can be a difference in your life. So I don’t go down the road of condemning."
Our culture asserts that truth is whatever you sincerely believe in. But Jesus did not buy into this woman’s error, he pointed her to the truth. He bluntly told her that the Samaritans were worshiping what they did not know. He told her that everything she had believed all her life had been wrong. He said, "Salvation is from the Jews" (v. 22). She was uncomfortable and thought she would change the subject again.
In verse twenty-five the woman responds to Jesus by saying, “I know that Messiah is coming… – when He comes, He will tell us all things. (26) Jesus said to her, “I who speak to you AM He.” Jesus for now identifies himself as The Messiah.
He plainly claims to be the Messiah and He does so in a unique way. In Greek it reads something like this, “The one who speaks to you, I AM.” But term translated “I AM” (ego eimi) was the name given by which God revealed Himself to Moses in Exodus 3:15 when he said, “I AM Who I AM!”
Well was He or wasn’t He the Messiah? This is the decision that is placed before this woman. As soon as Jesus revealed Himself to her, she apparently responded in faith, and her salvation is instantaneous. She simply trusted and immediately had a new mission in life.
•Contact with Jesus Demands That We Act On What We Have Learned. (vv. 28-30)
“The woman then left her waterpot, went her way into the city, and said to the men,(29) “Come, see a Man who told me all things that I ever did. Could this be the Christ?”(30) Then they went out of the city and came to Him.”
Notice how this woman’s perception of Jesus has changed in verse nine she refers to Jesus as a “Jew” in verse eleven she uses the term of respect calling him “sir” in verse nineteen she sees Jesus as a “prophet” and finally in verse twenty-nine she reaches the place that she calls him “the Christ”
Conclusion
The question remains, “Have you come into Contact with Jesus?” That contact will always be personal, one on one. That contact will always demand that we recognize who He is? That contact will force us to see ourselves as we really are? And most importantly if we have come into contact with Jesus that contact will demand that we act upon our new knowledge.
“Love That Knows No Barriers!”
John 4:1-30
First, A _______That Creates Lots Of Barriers
(4: 5-7a)
•_______ Barriers - She was a Samaritan
•_______ Barriers – She lived an Immoral Lifestyle.
Secondly, A ______ That Overcomes Barriers
(4: 7b- 30)
Four things about contact with Jesus.
•Contact With Jesus Is ___________. (v.8)
•Contact With Jesus Demands We _________ Him For Who He Is. (vv. 9-15)
•Contact With Jesus Always Involves Facing The Truth About _________ (vv. 16-18)
•Contact with Jesus Demands That We _____ On What We Have Learned. (vv. 28-30)
