The following sermon was delivered at the 2009 Pastors Conference held at Trinity Baptist Church in Montville, New Jersey. The preacher is Pastor Gordon Cook from Grace Baptist Church in Canton, Michigan. Now we're going to read a portion of the Word of God this evening, so please take your Bibles, if you have your Bible with you, and turn to John chapter 4. The Gospel according to John, chapter 4. And I'll read the first 42 verses of this chapter of the Word of God. Therefore, when the Lord knew that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus made and baptized more disciples than John, though Jesus himself did not baptize but his disciples, he left Judea and departed again to Galilee. But he needed to go through Samaria. So he came to a city of Samaria, which is called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob gave to his son, Joseph. Now Joseph's well was there. Jesus, therefore, being wearied from his journey, sat thus by the well. It was about the sixth hour. A woman of Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, give me a drink, for his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food. 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 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 The woman said to him, Sir, you have nothing to draw with, and the well is deep. Where then do you get that living water? 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? Jesus answered and said to her, whoever drinks of this water will thirst again, 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. The woman said to him, sir, give me this water that I may not thirst nor come here to draw. Jesus said to her, go, call your husband and come here. The woman answered and said, I have no husband. Jesus said to her, you have well said, I have no husband. For you have had five husbands and the one you now have is not your husband. In that you spoke truly. The woman said to him, sir, I perceive that you are a prophet. Our fathers worshiped on this mountain. And you Jews say that in Jerusalem is the place where one ought to worship. Jesus said to her, woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem worship the father. You worship what you do not know. We know what we worship, for salvation is of the Jews. But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth. For the Father is seeking such to worship Him. God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth. The woman said to him, I know that Messiah is coming, who is called Christ. When he comes, he will tell us all things. Jesus said to her, I who speak to you am he. And at this point, his disciples came, and they marveled that he talked with a woman. Yet no one said, what do you seek? Or why are you talking with her? The woman then left her water pot, went her way into the city, and said to the men, Come, see a man who told me all things that I ever did. Could this be the Christ? Then they went out of the city and came to him. In the meantime, his disciples urged him, saying, Rabbi, eat. But he said to them, I have food to eat of which you do not know. Therefore, the disciples said to one another, has anyone brought him anything to eat? Jesus said to them, my food is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work. Do you not say there are still four months and then comes the harvest? Behold, I say to you, lift up your eyes and look at the fields, for they are already white for harvest. And he who reaps receives wages and gathers fruit for eternal life, that both he who sows and he who reaps may rejoice together. For in this the saying is true, one sows and another reaps. I sent you to reap that for which you have not labored. Others have labored and you have entered into their labors. And many of the Samaritans of that city believed in him because of the word of the woman who testified, he told me all that I ever did. So when the Samaritans had come to him, they urged him to stay with them. And he stayed there two days, and many more believed because of his own word. Then they said to the woman, now we believe, not because of what you said, for we have heard for ourselves and know that this is indeed the Christ, the Savior of the world. I'd ask you to turn again to John's Gospel, John 4. John 4. Let me read one verse. Verse 25. The woman said to him, I know that Messiah is coming, who is called Christ. When he comes, he will tell us all things. Jesus said to her, I who speak to you am he. Well, let's again look to God in faith and prayer. Father, we again come before you, the great God the one who sent his dear son into this dark world, the one who is the light of the world. And we are thankful that we can come even tonight in the name of Christ, come to that throne of grace and make this our plea that you would give us what we need. And we need your Holy Spirit. We need supernatural help. And we need you to help us to see the things in our Bibles. We pray you would open eyes tonight, open ears, open hearts. Show us that you indeed are the God who hears and answers prayer. May sinners who have never seen Jesus Christ, may they see Him tonight. And we pray this in Christ's name, amen. They say on average that we meet or have contact with approximately 1,000 new people every year. But probably no more than five you will remember or five of those will have any significant impression on your mind or impact in your life. Most of them you won't remember five minutes after the fact. What's even more disconcerting, they won't remember you either. It's rather humbling, isn't it? But here's one thing that made Jesus so different. It was impossible to meet Jesus and forget him. And that comes through clearly in our Bibles. The people who meet Jesus never forgot him. It didn't matter who the person was, it didn't matter whether they were a man or a woman, what kind of temperament, personality, what was their nationality, how religious or irreligious, young or old, rich or poor. And I believe we see that wonderfully dramatized here in John's Gospel, both John 3 and John 4. Jesus, we see here, meets two different people. You couldn't find two more different people, Nicodemus and a Samaritan woman. Differences in terms of gender, one is a man, one is a woman. Differences in terms of intellect and education. Nicodemus is a representative of the intellectual elite, but you can't say that about this woman. In those days, women were treated like slaves. Education wasn't even an option. You also have a difference of personality, obviously, but nationality. Nicodemus was a Jew. This woman was a Samaritan. There's a difference in social position. He is coming from the high end of the most respected social class, a Pharisee. She's on the low end. Skid Row. In short, her life is a mess. Yes, two very different people. Again, it's hard to imagine finding two more opposite looking individuals, but both of them have this in common. They meet Jesus and they experience a life transformation. Neither one of them would ever forget him. But how? What did Jesus say or do that made him unforgettable? Well, let's look more closely at the woman here he met at the well in John 4. This woman will forget her water pot, but she won't forget him. And there are five things that Jesus says or does here to get close to this poor lost sinner. Five self-denying acts of love that are caught on camera. And let me try and set them before you in a picturesque way so that we can remember them more easily. Number one, Jesus breaks down a wall. Number two, Jesus builds a bridge. Number three, Jesus fires an arrow. Number four, Jesus throws out a net. And number five, Jesus pulls back the veil. Let's consider then these five self-denying acts by Jesus. Number one, Jesus breaks down a wall. John's gospel is different from the other three gospels from several standpoints. Its uniqueness has always been recognized. We shouldn't forget that it was written by a man who could be called the best friend of Jesus. And Jesus probably told John things that he didn't tell anyone else, as best friends do. John and only John tells us about Jesus' early ministry in Judea. And John lets us know that there were incidents that took place in around the city of Jerusalem. But like the other three gospel writers, John lets us know that Jesus entered into conflict and controversy with the religious hierarchy almost from the get-go. And for instance, here in John chapter 2, if you turn back to that chapter, we see Jesus going into Jerusalem on the Passover and causing quite an uproar by chasing out those money changers, overturning those tables. We get another sense here in chapter 2. There's a problem with the general populace in Judea. John 2 verse 24 tells us Jesus did not commit himself to them. When we move into John chapter 3, Jesus meets Nicodemus, a man of the Pharisees. And what becomes clear is that this man is confused and really doesn't understand the ABCs of salvation. In John chapter 4, we get introduced to a religious group called the Pharisees, verses 1 and 2. And the Pharisees here are already looking at Jesus with something of a Johnist eye. In verse 1, we read the Pharisees had heard that Jesus made and baptized more disciples than John. The Pharisees know that Jesus' popularity is increasing. And lots of people are beginning to follow this man Jesus, and you know the Pharisees love human praise, and it certainly didn't like the fact that Jesus is now getting the spotlight. But now it's against this backdrop of unbelief and rejection and a growing hostility that Jesus packs his bags and makes a hurried departure. Notice verse 3 of John 4. He left Judea and departed again to Galilee. Now you should know this about Palestine, this country called Palestine. It's a long, skinny country. 120 miles long and 50 miles wide. It was made up of three basic sections. You had Galilee to the north, you had Samaria in the middle, and you had Judea in the south. And so to go from Judea, John chapter 3, to Galilee, John chapter 4, or to Samaria, or get to Galilee, he had to go through Samaria. And apparently there were two different ways one could go. There was the straight route, the easy route, straight north, right to the heart of Samaria. Now apparently, a number of Jews would avoid Samaria like the plague. They would go the long route, the roundabout route. Why was that? Well, it's because the people who lived in Samaria were Samaritans. A lot of bad blood between Jews and Samaritans and intense hostility had gone on for hundreds of years. And like most racial strife and deep-rooted prejudice, there was a long history of offense. There were at least five different things that had created this long-standing tension between Jews and Samaritans. Let me tell you what they were. Number one, the Samaritans had intermingled with foreigners, so they had a mixed bloodline, polluted bloodline. Offense number two, the Samaritans' religion had been tainted with various pagan elements. Offense number three, the Samaritans had a truncated Bible. They only recognized the first five books of Moses. Everything else was rejected. Number four, The Samaritans had refused to worship at Jerusalem and preferred to build a rival temple which only served to fan the flames and fuel the hatred and the scorn. Now you say, why am I telling you all this? Well, when you open up John chapter 4, you see two people. You see Jesus, who is a Jew, and you see a Samaritan woman. And you don't put a Jew or a Samaritan together in the same room and not expect sparks to fly. The Samaritan woman has been on the other side of the fence. She has felt the sting and the rejection and the scorn by Jews. You can be sure that she has built up walls of pride and prejudice and hate. It's hard to be mistreated and not become bitter and angry and suspicious of just about everybody on the other side. And you can see something of that here, can't you? In her conversation with Jesus. as she resembles something of a porcupine. And notice, as soon as Jesus asks for a drink, she bristles, perhaps with a touch of sarcasm. I don't think the woman was approachable, not an easy person to talk to. And later on, we will see that she's very ready and eager to get into the thick of controversy, race relations, and the worship wars of that day. This woman's been influenced by the prevailing culture of hate and pride. She's grown up in something of a war zone. But now, how in the world do you break through walls which have been built by who knows how many offenses and crimes and injustices on both sides? This is certainly not the kind of situation you would walk into. Only the peacemaker of peacemakers could and he will. Jesus will walk into a downtown of Samaria and rub shoulders with Samaritan. And John here in chapter four is careful to lock us into the place and time of this personal encounter. Look at verse five and six of John four. So he came to a city of Samaria, which is called Sychar, near the plot of ground with Jacob gave to his son, Joseph. Now Jacob's swell was there, here on the outskirts of a Samaritan village. Jesus, we could say, catches his breath. We see something of his real humanity here, don't we? Jesus, verse 6, tells us, It is told here that he being weary, Jesus had a body like you, like me. It was finite. His muscles got tired. He felt fatigued. After a long walk, about 20 miles, on a hot Palestinian day, his body needs rest. And here's a great place to find rest. A well. And this well has a history. It's called Jacob's well. And we could turn back, we don't really have time, but we could turn back to Genesis chapter 33 and see Jacob buying this plot of land to get a better sense of the well. John here in John 4 uses two different Greek words to describe the water supply. Verse 6, the first well word suggests it was a spring-fed well. The second well word tells us it was a dug out well. It was both dug out, but fed from below by an underground spring. We know in verse 11 that the well was deep. Apparently there still exists over there in Palestine a well, they call it Jacob's well, and it has a hundred foot shaft. On ground level, you probably had masonry or wood to provide a place to sit. And here is where we find Jesus, the weary traveler, resting. Now notice that John uses the clock on the wall to let us know when this whole incident took place. It was about the 6th hour, midday. Now, this is when things begin to happen. If you were there, you would have seen this small dot on the horizon get bigger and bigger and bigger. and a distinct form of a woman getting closer and closer. She's coming to get water. Verse 7, a woman of Samaria came to draw water. And she would have seen Jesus there at the well, perhaps from a distance. And as she gets closer, she can tell by the way the man's dressed, perhaps by his skin color or his facial features, that this is not a local. He's a Jew. Oh no, not a Jew. How awkward. How uncomfortable. Jews made her skin crawl. Maybe she wrestled with the whole idea, should I even go to the well. Maybe he'll come back in an hour or two and that Jew will be gone. But then she said, why should I back away? He's on my turf. I'm not going to be intimidated by a Jew. In any ways, it's quite simple. He won't talk to me and I won't talk to him. I'll be in there and out of there ten minutes flat, record time. But not so fast, Miss Samaritan. It won't be as easy as you think. She will learn. As the proverb teaches, man plans his way, but God directs his step. And what really must have floored her and unnerved her was no sooner had she started to draw the water when these ears, these words came into her ears. Give me a drink." Now to our ears, to our Western ears, that sounds rather ordinary. But this is the Middle East. And again, remember, there's been a bitter rivalry going on between Jews and Samaritans. And it's obvious that this woman is caught off guard. She's startled. She's shocked. Maybe there were a few moments of dead silence. She doesn't quite know how to respond to this Jew. But when she does speak, it's obvious that the Samaritan woman has again been molded and shaped by the culture wars of that day. Because look, she ignores his request, and she zeroes in on the race relation. Verse 9. Now how is it that you being a Jew ask a drink from me, a Samaritan woman? Maybe she said it with a frown, a curl of a lip, a little dash of sarcasm. And we shouldn't forget this. She's a woman. And women in those days were treated, as I said, almost like slaves. She is a Samaritan woman. She's got two strikes against her. Here's a quote from the Jewish handbook of law of that day. Quote, all the daughters of the Samaritans are defiled from the cradle. As a Jew, you don't go near them. You certainly don't talk to them or drink from the same water pot. Is it any wonder that she responds the way she does? She cannot believe her ears. A Jew initiating conversation with a Samaritan, but even more, a Jewish man initiating conversation with a Samaritan woman. You see what Jesus has done here? By a simple request, give me a drink, Jesus has radically shown himself against the culture of that day. He's done something that's very, very unfashionable. You might even put it this way. Jesus here is like a huge bulldozer. He has smashed down two huge walls. Two huge prejudicial walls. The gender wall. Here's a man talking to a woman. But also the ethnic or religious wall. A Jew talking to a Samaritan. One simple request. And Jesus has leaped over and broken through two great walls of pride and prejudice. Jesus is talking to her as if she is a real person. His words are not harsh. His words are not tint with biting sarcasm. But they are gentle words. They are tender words. No wonder this woman would never forget Jesus. For the simple reason He spoke to her. But second thing our Lord Jesus does here that was not lost on this woman's memory is he builds a bridge. He builds a bridge. You know, I'm sure it's not easy to get close to people. Most people prefer the casual. They like their space. Especially when they got things to hide. And this woman has things to hide. She has a lot of secrets. And she will try to keep Jesus at a distance. I doubt if she had any intentions of giving him any water. If this Jew gets water or gets a drink, it's not going to be because of her, that's for sure. And here she begins to vent. She's gonna let him know, this Jew, she's gonna let him know why he won't get a drop of water from her. And she'll give him a piece of her mind. She starts off by asking a tough question, verse nine. How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink from me, a Samaritan? Hey, Mr. Jew, we've been snubbed by you. We've been mistreated and rejected by you Jews for years. Maybe she's hoping for a debate. It's a loaded question. But notice that Jesus doesn't reply to her question. And while race relations is a big issue, and he will go to the cross to reconcile Jew and Gentile, the main issue of concern is not race relations, but this woman's soul. That's what Jesus is pursuing. This never-dying soul of this Samaritan woman. So what does Jesus do? How does he get her to look at herself? How does he get her to face the ultimate issues in life? What is most important? The woman's lost. She needs to be saved. And to get her to think on a level of the most important things, the spiritual things, Jesus builds a bridge using water. He appeals to her felt needs. A legitimate felt need. She needs water. And so Jesus will enter her world so he can bring her into his world. He will build a bridge, a water bridge. Jesus talks about water, but a special kind of water, living water. Verse 10, Jesus answered and said to her, if you knew the gift of God and who it says to you, give me a drink, you would ask him and he would have given you living water. Notice how personal Jesus makes it. The singular pronoun, you, is employed in verse 10. Jesus is speaking directly to her. This is very personal. This is eyeball-to-eyeball dialogue. It's the kind of conversation that most people try to avoid. They really don't want anyone to talk to them directly when it comes to their soul. Talk about race relations, and talk about global warming, and talk about the financial crisis, but don't talk to me about my soul. But that's what Jesus is going to do here. He's going to talk to her about her soul. And notice how positively he starts things off. He presents the truth of the gospel or the wonderful gift of salvation under that beautiful metaphor of living water. But it's by this simple bridge illustration of water that he seeks to raise her mind from the mundane to the spiritual. By this water analogy, he's seeking to raise her level of thinking. And she's trapped in the world of five senses like most people. That's where most people live. That's always what seems to be front and center of their thoughts. My career, my house, my car, what college am I going to go to? Will I get married? How many children will I have? The clothes I wear, the TV programs I'm going to watch tonight. What's on this woman's mind? Wells and water pots. What's on your mind? iPods? MP3 players? That's her world. But Jesus wants her to know about another world. A spiritual world. An eternal world. He's trying to steer her thoughts to the deep issues of life, the ultimate. Why am I here? Who is God? How do you know Him? Or how can you worship Him? What happens when I die? And why is my life so empty? Why is there so much pain and so much suffering? But will she listen? Will she think past the end of her nose? It's obvious from her answer in verse 11 and 12 that her thoughts are still confined to the world of the physical and the material. This woman has been living 24-7 in the here and now. She hasn't been thinking about God. She hasn't been thinking about her soul. She spent most of her life staring at her own navel. She's been feeding her lusts. living for the here and now. No spiritual interest, no spiritual capacity, no spiritual mindset. She's like a dead battery. Jesus has hooked her up to the spiritual world by talking about living water, but you don't see a spark of spiritual light. She's just that dead. But Jesus continues to pursue her. He loves her. He loves her. And He will reconstruct the bridge and employ the water analogy again. Verse 13 and verse 14, Jesus answered and said to her, whoever drinks of this water will thirst again, 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. Again, what a beautiful picture of the abundant and eternal life. How attractive, how appealing. And you would think, you would think that this woman finally, finally will begin to talk about spiritual things. No. She doesn't get it. She can't rise above her five senses. The woman is clueless. She misses the whole point. Verse 15, the woman said to him, sir, give me this water that I may not thirst nor come here to draw. She's still thinking in terms of the crafts and the material. Give me some of this living water or magical water so I can stop coming to this well. I can stay home and watch some TV and relax. Make life a lot easier. What a hopeless case. You've met people like that, haven't you? The best they can talk about is sports. Maybe the weather. The latest newspaper headline. But trying to get them to think about the spiritual is next to impossible. I flew on a plane coming here on Saturday. I sat beside a woman who works for the Army. She's a captain of a ship on the West Coast. I tried, I tried, I tried. I couldn't get to the spiritual level. What blindness. What deadness. And what a waste of time, right? Wrong. This woman has a never-dying soul. She needs life eternal. She needs Jesus Christ. So what does Jesus do next? What would you do? Quit? Write her off? Write her off as a sinner who's doomed to die? Not Jesus. He will employ another strategy. He's the great soul hunter, and he can pursue and subdue any lost sinner. It doesn't matter how far they run or how blind they are. Jesus doesn't give up on her. Look what he does next. He breaks down a wall. He builds a bridge. But thirdly, he fires an arrow. He's tried the soft and gentle approach, but she's still trapped in her self-centered world. So Jesus will apply more pressure to her conscience. He'll get more direct. And it's gonna hurt. Verse 16. Jesus said to her, go call your husband and come here. Jesus moves into her personal life. Jesus intrudes into her intimate life. He touches the raw nerve on her soul. And it ain't pretty. The woman has problems. Big problems. Problems with commitment. Problems with marriage. Problems with men. Look how she responds. Verse 17. The woman answered and said, I have no husband. She's plain insane. She's not lied, but she's not telling the whole story. I have no husband. Does that mean she's single? Does that mean she's a widow? No, it's the worst case situation, isn't it? It doesn't get much worse than this. Verse 17 and 18, Jesus said to her, You have said, Well, I have no husband, for you have had five husbands, and the one whom you now have is not your husband, and that you spoke truly. Jesus knows. He knows everything. And He touches the most vulnerable, the most painful, the most shameful, secret part of her life. This is not where she wanted the conversation to go. I can assure you. Now I can imagine people seeing Jesus in action here and hearing what he says and saying to themselves, how cruel. What right does he have to ask those kinds of questions or to intrude into people's personal intimate life? Well, he's the savior of the world. He's the great physician of the soul. He's going after the cancer of her soul. She needs to know she can't hide. She needs to know that she is on a pathway of destruction. It's much easier, is it not, to indulge sin and to think it's okay when no one else knows, or no one speaks against it, or no one seems to care. But not only does Jesus know, you see, but he cares. Spurgeon said, no one loves like Jesus loves. And sometimes the most caring, the most loving thing we can do for people is to tell them the truth about sin and its terrible hold on their lives. That's what Jesus does here. He lets this woman know she can't run from God and run from Him sooner or later. You will have to face Him better now than later. That's why he fires this sharp arrow at her. He wounds her. And for the first time, a light seems to come on in this woman's dark mind and heart. Jesus, probing words in his critical analysis of her life, has her now thinking. She realizes that the man who's speaking to her is more than just an ordinary man. Verse 19, the woman said to him, Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet. Isn't that great? It finally appears she's gonna deal with spiritual matters. She's gonna face her sin and get right with God. But that doesn't happen. No, like a wild horse, she breaks. runs. Verse 20. She uses one of the oldest tricks in the book. Topic avoidance. Wounded by the arrow, she runs for a hiding place. Let's talk religion. Let's talk about worship. Let's talk theology. That's a lot safer than talking about my past. Verse 20, our fathers worshiped on this mountain and you Jews say in Jerusalem is the place where one ought to worship. Notice she plays the race card again, you Jews. She's attempting to talk about everything except her own soul. But this time, Jesus allows her to run. But he runs with her. He runs with her. And he throws out a net. A net. This is the fourth self-denying action of our Lord in seeking to catch this one sinner. He breaks down a wall. He builds a bridge. He fires an arrow. But now, he throws out a net. You see, this woman might have thought that she somehow has eluded the hunter. She's changed the topic. She's quickly changed the subject about her personal sin to the subject of corporate worship. She wants to talk about worship. And Jesus is more than willing and eager to talk about worship. He mentions the word worship seven times. Seven times in verses 21 through 24. But you say, why is Jesus willing to talk about worship? She's got him on a tangent. She's got him on a rabbit trail. Oh no, she hasn't. Don't think that for a moment. She still hasn't faced her problem. What's your problem? Well, it's everybody's problem in a nutshell. It's a problem of worship. Did you know that sin has us worshiping the wrong things or the wrong people? Did you know that the drug addict has a problem of worship? He's worshiping drugs. And did you know the alcoholic has a problem of worship? And did you know the porn addict has a problem of worship? He's worshiping sex. The glutton has a problem of worship. He's worshiping food. This woman has a worship problem. She's trying to get satisfaction and find happiness in earthly things or horizontal relationships. Remember, she had five husbands. And the one she's living with now, which she's not quite sure what to do with, number six, will he dump her or will she dump him? Should I keep him or should I throw him out the door? Should I marry him? Will he make me happy or will it be another severe disappointment and end up in divorce? The woman is lonely. The woman is empty. And she's trying to fill the empty void in her life. And she's been running from one relationship to another, from one water pot to another. And she will continue to run until she gets this worship issue straightened out. And Jesus knows how to fill it, doesn't he? Not with a new car. not with a Mediterranean cruise, not with another husband, but with the true and living God. She needs to worship God. Verse 22, you worship what you do not know. She is blind. She's in darkness. She can't see. She's confused. She's mixed up when it comes to the whom of worship. The Samaritan woman is a false worshipper. She's an ignorant worshipper. She's a self-worshipper. The whole orientation of her life has to change or she will die in the misery and the folly of her sin. And Jesus will capture her in the net of worship. Yes, my friend, we all worship. There's no one sitting here tonight who doesn't worship. The question is, whom do you worship? Or what do you worship? Do you worship the true and living God? Or do you worship idols? Do you worship yourself? Lovers of self? Do you worship money? Lovers of money? Do you worship pleasure, lovers of pleasure? Or do you worship God, the true and living God? Anything can be an idol. Anything in this world that pulls our heartstrings and leads us into bonding. And you can generally spot an idolater Just like this woman, you generally observe destructive patterns or cycles in their lives. You see the person doing it over and over again. One gutter experience after another. Drugs, alcohol, or a cycle of boyfriends or girlfriends or marriages or divorces. It's idolatry. It's a worship problem. But idols can't satisfy. People who chase idols look like the proverbial dog chasing its tail. Round and round you go, but you never catch the tail. And you can try and fill your life with all kinds of other things and people, but they will not satisfy. They will not fill the void. They will not stop the pains of loneliness and emptiness. Only God can fill that void, that Christ-shaped void. That's really what people are starving for. They are starving for God, for Christ, even though they don't know it. Jesus wants this woman to end her life of pain and misery, futility, vanity, and become a true worshiper. That's why he pursues her with these self-denying acts of love. Jesus breaks down the wall. Jesus builds the bridge. Jesus fires the arrow. Jesus throws out the net. And then finally, finally, in the fifth place, notice this. Jesus pulls back the veil. There are basically three things that Jesus does here in his attempt to get hold of this woman's heart, mind, and soul. He seeks to have her face herself. She's a lost sinner. She's an ignorant worshiper. He seeks to get her to face God, the true and living God, the God who generously and freely gives the gift of eternal life, the God who must be put first in our lives, the God who is spirit, the God who is truth. But this woman needs another reality check, or she'll go on living this empty, lonely, self-centered, self-indulgent life. She needs to see something bigger, more glorious, something more wonderful than anything this world can offer. She needs to know Jesus. Now it appears that lights are starting to come on for this woman. Remember how the story began? We saw her in the deepest kind of darkness. But as the story unfolds, there is a growing sense of her coming to the light. And finally, here in verse 25, we see her thinking and talking about spiritual matters in a way we haven't seen before. The woman said to him, I know that the Messiah is coming, who's called the Christ. And when he comes, he will tell us all things. Now how much this woman understood, we can't be sure, but she's obviously heard something about the Messiah. Maybe she picked up some of those messianic prophecies found in the first five books of Moses. But whatever she's heard and whatever she's read, the information is rather meager. But it must have brought tremendous joy, don't you think, to the heart of Jesus. To hear her talk of the Messiah. But here we now come to what could be called the highest point of the whole narrative. This is where it's all been leading. This is the climax. One has said, the supreme moment of messianic self-disclosure. Verse 26, Jesus said to her, I speak to you, am he? Jesus pulls back the veil and He shows Himself to be the very One who is the Messiah. She must come to know Him. She must come to know Jesus Christ. That's the essence of true worship, isn't it? Knowing, loving, serving, obeying, cherishing Jesus Christ. This is where it all leads. If we've really seen our sin, And God wants us to see our sin, doesn't he? A sin is an offense against the Holy God. But if you and I have really seen our sin and we really want to deal with our sin, we need to have it washed. We need to have it cleansed away. And where do you go? Well, there's only one place you can go. And that's to Jesus and His blood. You have to run to Him. This woman's been running away, but now she has to run to Christ and run to Christ by faith. That's why they called him Jesus. If you really want to worship the true God, then you have to come to Jesus. The reconciling cross of Jesus, the justifying grace found in Jesus. That's why he died. That's why he hung on the cross. That's why he spilled his blood. That's why he offers himself to sinners freely. So you and I could worship the true and living God. You see what sin did? It ruptured, it destroyed our relationship with God. Sin turned all of our faculties inward and downward and southward. We were made to worship God. We were made with faculties that naturally and instinctively turn to God upward and heavenward. But sin destroyed all that. And the good news is that Jesus came into this world to restore rebel sinners and make them true worshipers again. Look at this woman. That's what she ends up becoming. A worshiper of the true and living God. And it happened because she met a man, unlike any man she'd ever met before. Most men had abused her and used her and dumped her and never really talked to her. But this man talked to her. But more than that, he pursued her. Not romantically, but tenderly, passionately, evangelistically, perseveringly. He's more than a man. He's the God-man. And look here, He won her soul. He captivated her with His great love. You say, how do you know that? Well, two things from our text seem to point in that direction. Verse 28, the woman left her water pot. What was so important to her was no longer important to her. Suddenly, the earthly and the mundane fade in the background. Jesus Christ becomes all important to her. But there's another evidence, is there not, that she was a changed woman. She went back to her hometown. and began to tell others about Jesus. Verse 29, come see a man who told me all things I ever did. Could this be the Christ? You see, when God saves a person, two things always happen. Number one, a value system, their value system, is radically changed. Water pots are no longer important. And one's verbal conversation changes. You talk about Jesus, and you tell others about Jesus. Spurgeon said, every Christian is a missionary. She becomes a missionary. My friend, did you come here tonight with your water pot? Did you come here with a pretty messed up life? How many relationships have you gone through? How many marriages? You feel terribly empty and lonely and you have to admit that none of the people in your life or none of the things that you have in your life has satisfied. Maybe you've been dabbling with sin that nobody knows about. The guilt's been killing you. You wake up at nights in a cold sweat. Maybe you look just like her. Talk about a loser. You've failed so many times. Maybe, like her, you're confused about religion, what's right and what's wrong. But you've come with your water pots. Earthly cares have consumed you all week long. The mundane things of life have hold on you 100% of the time. You're not sure even why you came here, but you've heard about Jesus. It feels like he's been talking to you. You say, how did, how does he know my life's so messed up? Because he knows everything. And he continues to speak to sinners through his word. He's breaking down walls. He's building bridges. He's firing arrows. He's throwing out nets. Because He loves you. He loves you. And He wants to take you to heaven. He's pulled back the veil. You say, is that Jesus Christ? Is He the Savior of the world? Yes. He's the only person who can save you from your sin. Every sinner needs Him. Doesn't matter if you're a Nicodemus-like sinner or a Samaritan woman-like sinner. You need Jesus Christ. You need Him, my friend. Come drink from that deep well of salvation. Drink the pure water of the gospel. drink from the living water, and you will never thirst again. Let us pray. Father in heaven, we again thank you for Jesus Christ, the Messiah, We are thankful that many who sit here tonight can testify of his great love, that love that found them when they were not seeking him. We thank you, Lord, for that great salvation found in Jesus Christ. And we would even pray that some who sit here tonight who have never drank from that great well of salvation would even now by faith drink and find Jesus Christ to satisfy their thirsty soul. Oh Lord, show mercy, show grace to poor needy sinners. And we pray this in Christ's name. Amen.