Well, last week, we saw in our Encounters with Jesus series, Jesus's encounter with Nicodemus. Nicodemus was a prominent, respected, orthodox, religious leader and lawyer. But in our text today, Jesus is interacting now with one who is really the opposite of Nicodemus. He's encountering someone in a class that was wholeheartedly despised by the Jews. From the point of view of a Jew, there were three strikes against her. She was a woman, she was a Samaritan, and she was a sexual sinner. Nicodemus was learned, he was powerful, he was orthodox theologically, But she was unschooled, without influence, despised, and unorthodox. And yet we see the incredible versatility of Jesus and his incredible love for people of all different backgrounds. And he engages all different people with all different backgrounds at a heart level. to point out and to supply their spiritual needs. And so our text is John chapter four, and I'll be reading verses one through 30, and then we'll skip a brief section, and verses 39 through 42. This is the word of God. Now when Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus was making and baptizing more disciples than John, although Jesus himself did not baptize but only his disciples, He left Judea and departed again for Galilee, and he had to pass through Samaria. So he came to a town of Samaria called Sychar, near the field that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob's well was there, so Jesus, wearied as he was from his journey, was sitting beside the well. It was about the sixth hour. A woman from 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. The Samaritan woman said to him, how is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria? For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans. Jesus answered her, if you knew the gift of God and who it is that is saying 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 water with and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob? He gave us the well and drank from it himself as did his sons and his livestock. Jesus said to her, everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again. But whoever drinks of the water that I give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life. The woman said to him, sir, give me this water so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water. Jesus said to her, go call your husband and come here. The woman answered him, I have no husband. Jesus said to her, you are right in saying I have no husband, for you have had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband. What you have said is true. The woman said to him, sir, I perceive that you are a prophet. Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship. Jesus said to her, woman, believe me, The hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. You worship what you do not know. We worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming and is now here when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth, for the Father is seeking such people 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, he who is called Christ. When he comes, he will tell us all things. Jesus said to her, I who speak to you am he. Just then his disciples came back. They marveled that he was talking with a woman, but no one said, what do you seek, or why are you talking with her? So the woman left her water jar. and went away into town and said to the people, come see a man who told me all that I ever did. Can this be the Christ? They went out of the town and were coming to him. Verse 39. Many Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman's testimony. He told me all that I ever did. So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them and he stayed there two days. and many more believed because of his word. They said to the woman, it is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves and we know that this is indeed the savior of the world. Thus far the reading of God's word. We're gonna see from this text the incredible love that Jesus has for an outcast among outcasts. and how he uses his request for water to point her to her need for living water. And he shows her that she must acknowledge her sins before God, but that he is the Messiah. And through him, she will be made acceptable to God and be able to worship. And we'll see the transformation that he causes in her and the result of her boldness toward her neighbors. Now we find Jesus and his disciples leaving Judea, and the explanation we're given here is that they have found out that, the Pharisees that is, that Jesus is becoming more popular than John the Baptist, and so Jesus departs for Galilee. And we're told by John he had to pass through Samaria, and this is very interesting because Many Jews would go out of their way to avoid Samaria. Samaria was the shortest way to get to Galilee, but there was a reason why Jews would not travel through it. And that's because of the history of the Samaritans. They were considered unclean. You see, back when the Northern Kingdom split from the Southern Kingdom, the king of the northern kingdom, King Jeroboam, established a new temple on Mount Gerizim. And later, when the Assyrians came to conquer the northern kingdom, some of the Samaritan Jews were exiled and others were left there. And those that remained intermingled and married with occupying Assyrians. and they took their false gods and they blended their religious practices with theirs. Now when the exiled Jews returned, they didn't want to have anything to do with these Samaritans because they had defiled themselves and their religion. When the Samaritans wanted to help rebuild the walls of Jerusalem under Ezra, the Jews refused their help. And so the Samaritans were bitter enemies of the Jews. And they continued to worship at Mount Gerizim. They also only accepted the first five books of the Bible, the books of Moses. They did not accept the Psalms, the wisdom literature, or any of the prophets as the word of God. And so the first point that we're going to see from our text is the scandal of Jesus's encounter. When John says he had to pass through Samaria, this means that Jesus had to go on mission to Samaria. He wanted to go there and preach the gospel to these despised people. And so they come to a town called Sychar at Jacob's well. And this well is still in existence today. It's a deep well, about 100 feet deep, and it still has water in it, running water. Well, Jesus stopped to rest at the well. And it says here that he was wearied from his journey. Now right away, we're to think of the fact that Jesus is God, but also man. He gets weary physically. He is thirsty. He is hungry. He is tired. Jesus identifies with our weaknesses, the weaknesses of our flesh. But when Jesus asked for a drink from this woman that came up to the well to draw water, she is immediately surprised. Why? Well, because of what she knows about the animosity between her people and the Jews. but also because she's a woman. And the Pharisees had rules that if you were a man, you should not talk to a woman out in public, even your own wife, for fear of what this might look like to those who don't know. Furthermore, this woman knew that Jews were forbidden to use any eating or drinking vessels of the Samaritans. And so Jesus is crossing prejudices. He's breaking all kinds of artificial barriers by engaging with this woman. Now immediately after this woman's comment of surprise, Jesus gets right to the point. And so the second point that we're to see from our text is the satisfaction Jesus offers. Jesus shocks her even more by making this statement in verse 10. If you knew the gift of God and who it is that is saying to you, give me a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water. Jesus is admitting he's thirsty and she's thirsty too. She's coming to the well to get water, but he wants her to see something far deeper. He wants her to see her thirst spiritually. He wants her to know that because of who he is, he is the only fountain who can meet that need with his living water. You can receive this as a pure gift from God, he's telling her. Well, Jacob's well, as I mentioned, is 100 feet deep, and below, There was standing water, and below the standing water, there was a stream of pure water. And so the woman doesn't quite understand what Jesus is getting at, and she thinks that he's still talking about physical water, and that he can somehow get this pure water. And so she asks, how can you get this water, since you don't have anything to draw this water up? And she wonders if he has another source of physical water. She exclaims that this well is the best water since it was dug by our patriarch, Jacob. But Jesus replies that he is greater than the patriarch. And what he bestows is infinitely more precious than this water that comes from Jacob's well. And he says in verse 13 that everyone who drinks of Jacob's well will get thirsty again. But the water that he gives will satisfy forever those who receive it. And this water will become a spring within and provide eternal life. But this woman is still thinking of physical water. They're talking past each other. And in verse 15, she asked, OK, well, give me this water so she doesn't have to come to this well every day and draw water. You see, she's still talking about physical water and plumbing. And Jesus is talking about salvation. Jesus knows that this thirst in her will not truly be awakened unless there is a sense of her guilt and a consciousness of her sin. And to get her to see her deep spiritual thirst and dissatisfaction, he now zeroes in on her heart condition. And so we see in point three, the self Jesus demands we face, the self Jesus demands we face. You're familiar with the story of Philip and Nicodemus. In both these situations, Jesus revealed he knew everything about them. And he displays the same thing to this Samaritan woman. He knows where she has been looking to quench the longing of her heart. And he puts his finger firmly on it. He says in verse 16, go call your husband and come here. And she answers, I have no husband. And Jesus reveals to her that she's right and that she has had five husbands. And the one she is living with is not your husband. And the emphasis in the Greek is your. And what he's implying is that she is in an active adulterous living situation with a man who's married to another woman. Now, her need or her thirst has driven her to multiple husbands and adultery. and has left her unsatisfied and thirsty. Jesus rips the Band-Aid off because he knows that if she's to find real satisfaction, she needs to come clean with her sin before God and the emptiness that has brought her so that she can find this unending supply of God's grace and mercy through her Messiah. Now in this next exchange, there's been disagreement on what this woman was trying to do. You probably heard that she's trying to divert attention away from her sin onto another topic. But I'm not sure that's the case. Calvin says he doesn't think she's trying to divert attention. He thinks that since she has had her sins discovered, And she admits that Jesus is a prophet, that she now wants to know the proper way to worship God, the proper way to approach God. And so, in this final section, we're going to see point four, the worship and salvation that Jesus brings. What we have here is the most important conversation in the history of humanity on the subject of worship. And it's all done with a woman who is in adultery. The woman knows that her people, the Samaritan people, worship at Mount Gerizim. Now this mountain is clearly visible from this well. But the Jews worship at the temple in Jerusalem. And Jesus gives a three-fold reply here. First he says, the hour is coming. when it will not matter where people will worship. And he's referring to what will happen soon. When he is crucified on the cross, the temple curtain will be torn in two. And that symbolizes that the Lamb of God has come and fully satisfied God's requirement for atonement for our sins. It's a symbol that the ceremonial laws of the temple have been fulfilled in Christ, who is the ultimate sacrifice for our sins. And he has brought us access to the Father. And from that time on, God can be worshipped anywhere because Jesus becomes our temple and our access to God. But secondly, Jesus corrects the great error of the Samaritans. They did not worship according to God's word. He says to her that she worships what she does not know, but the Jews worship what they do know, because salvation is from the Jews. They don't worship the true God, since they have rejected God's complete revelation of himself in the entire Old Testament. And when he says salvation is from the Jews, what he's saying here is that God has determined to reveal himself and his plan of salvation through his word to the Jewish people. The promise of God's covenant of grace was revealed through them. The coming Messiah would come through the line of David. He would be a Jew. And then in verse 23, Jesus uses the phrase, the hour is coming, a second time. But then he adds, and is now here. And he teaches the kind of worship God accepts and seeks. Look at it with me, verse 23 and 24. True worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth. For the Father is seeking such people to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and in truth. true worship is conducted according to the Spirit. It involves our spirit, our hearts. It also involves the Holy Spirit's work. It's not going through motions outwardly. It's to come from the heart. It's to come out of faith and reverence and love for God. And this is, of course, what John has been showing already in his gospel, that Jesus is the mediator. He is the Lamb of God. Our sins must be atoned for, and He came to atone for those sins through His suffering and death on the cross. But we also are required to have perfect righteousness before God, and Jesus came as our substitute to live a perfect life on our behalf, to impute to us His righteousness. And so this saving work is applied to us by the regenerating power of the Holy Spirit who causes us to be born again and gives us the gift of faith and repentance. Now this worshiping in spirit by the power of the Holy Spirit is also to be done accordance with the truth of God's Word. In other words, we cannot approach God any old way. God tells us who he is and how he commands to be worshiped in his Word. It's not to be conducted according to our own imaginations, our own methods. And he says here, the father is seeking such people to worship him. He doesn't mean that God is looking around the world and trying to find someone who will worship him this way. No, we learn from scripture. Nobody worships God this way apart from his grace. because by nature we are fallen, we are sinful, we are dead spiritually. No, God's seeking is a saving work. And he saves and then he transforms us in to the kind of worshipers that he desires. Jesus says our worship is to God who is spirit, meaning we aren't worshiping a created thing. We aren't worshiping a material thing. We're not to have an object, a material object in mind when we worship him. And then he reiterates, those who worship him must worship in spirit and in truth. So Jesus has told this woman that the temple and all of its rituals and sacrifices have become obsolete now that the truth has come, the real Lamb of God has come, the prophet, priest, and king, and he is the place true worshipers will come and worship the living God. But in verse 25, the woman still doesn't get who Jesus is. She says she knows that when the Messiah comes, he will tell us all things. In other words, she's saying to Jesus, well, you may be right, but the Messiah, when he comes, he'll give us the truth. But notice what Jesus says in verse 26. He says to her, I who speak to you am he. Jesus is using in the Greek, The same declaration of himself that God used from the burning bush to Moses. I am who I am. This is the one occasion before Jesus' trials where he declares his messiahship openly. And it's not to his own people. It's to a despised people, the Samaritans. It's to a sinful woman. It must have been, I think, at that moment when Jesus opened her eyes and caused her to be born again. And she began to understand the wonder of what was said to her and who this person was. And at that moment, the disciples returned. And when they saw Jesus talking to this woman, they were shocked because of the taboos, but they were reluctant to challenge him. And I picture this woman standing there with her mouth wide open, pondering in amazement what she has just heard, what she has just had revealed to her. And then we're told she left her water jar and she went away into town to tell the people. John loves to include little details. And this little detail of this water jar being left at the well, I think is symbolic. Symbolic of her trying to satisfy her earthly thirst. But now she leaves that behind because now she has living water inside of her, welling up to eternal life. She no longer cares for what she once cared about. The whole world looks different to her. She left sin and worldly ambition and she has now a new affection in her heart. She has what the Puritan Thomas Chalmers said, the expulsive power of a new affection. Now this woman had probably come to this well every day at a particular time because she knew she was going to avoid people because typically it was Common for especially the the women to come to the center of town and get water together and talk But she avoided them and wanted to be alone but now She's compelled to go into town and to tell everyone about Jesus She who was before ashamed to openly talk about her sin in verse 29 now she tells the townspeople come and see a man who told me all of that I ever did, and they understood what that meant. Her public confession of faith reveals her new birth in Christ. And her day of conversion also became the day when she became a missionary. She freely admits to the townspeople her sinfulness because she has come to know the Messiah who has loved her, who will take away her sin, who will provide her with his righteousness so that she can worship in spirit and in truth. And she uses a rhetorical question with them to arouse their curiosity. She says, can this be the Christ? Well, then we see the revival that took place in Sychar because they believed her testimony. It says in verse 39, many Samaritans from Sychar believed because of the woman's testimony, he told me all that I ever did. In other words, they were amazed at this woman's transparency, her humility about her sin, and the freedom she seemed to have, the joy she seemed to have. from the living water that she possessed. But this rhetorical question prompted them to go see for themselves. And when they arrived, Jesus began teaching them. And they were so thirsty to receive more, they kept on asking in the Greek for Jesus to stay. And they opened their homes to Jesus and the disciples. And he stayed two more days. And as important as the woman's testimony was, they exclaimed to her after hearing Jesus for themselves that it was no longer because of her testimony, but they believed because of Jesus' words. And they state to her at the end in verse 42, and we know that this is indeed the savior of the world. What an amazing miracle. The grace of Jesus Christ caused them to be born again and they were filled with this living water that enabled them to overcome their prejudices. Now they were calling their Savior a Jew. Their Messiah a Jew. The people they despised. This is what the gospel does. They overcame their prejudices. They admit now, not only is Jesus their savior and the savior of the Jews, but of all people he calls from all the world. What are we to do with this encounter and the truths that we've learned? How are they to impact the way that we think and live about our own circumstances? Well, let me give you three application points for you to consider. Jesus said that whoever drinks of the living water he gives will never be thirsty again. And so I ask you, have you come to enjoy the gift of the living water of salvation and union with Christ by repenting of your sins and trusting in Jesus as the Messiah and the Savior of the world? Saint Augustine wrote at the beginning of his confessions, you have made us for yourself And our heart is restless until it rests in you. As we read earlier from Isaiah 55.1, God says to us, to all of us, come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters. Buy, even if you don't have any money, buy food. Be filled. You see, Jesus can cleanse us of our sins. He can give us right standing before God. He can satisfy our souls. But to bring this woman to the realization of her need for living water, he had to expose her sins and how she was looking for satisfaction in the world. And he also had to expose her reliance on her people's false religion rather than the true worship revealed in the Word of God. and fulfilled in the coming of Christ. Jesus showed this woman he knew her heart, and he knows your heart too. He knows your sin. He knows your thirst if you haven't come to Christ yet. He knows that you're seeking for fulfillment and satisfaction in the world if you are not a believer, and he knows that of believers too if you have strayed And you're trying to look for satisfaction and someone other than Christ. But you see, if you have been born again. If you've trusted him. His living water. Flows. In you through his Holy Spirit. His living water wells up to eternal life. But secondly, we see how Jesus had to go through Samaria because he had a heart for this woman and her people. Jesus had compassion on you if you are a believer. He came after you. He wearied himself to come to you who were lost. rebellious and therefore the second application point is Jesus gives believers a heart for the lost and outcasts and believers will seek to joyfully share their testimonies with others and compel people to encounter Jesus through his word. Jesus wearied himself in bringing the gospel to this woman and to the Samaritans. He cared enough to to go through Samaria where most Jews would not. He represented the first cross-cultural evangelistic mission. He crossed religious, ethnic, and gender barriers to reach this woman and to reach these people. You see, if we have living water welling up to eternal life in us, then we will go out of our way to reach people with the gospel. We will seek to reach those that we don't necessarily find affinity with and that are out of our comfort zones. We'll seek to reach those who are looking for satisfaction in sinful ways. But we will only do this if we are drinking from the fountain of this living water and abundant life that we have in Christ. And as I mentioned before, sometimes believers move away from this fountain. We try to find another fountain, another well. We try to find satisfaction in the world. And that's when we lose our excitement, our joy, our sense of mission. And so we need to keep repenting. and returning to our first love. And as we look to the living water. that we have in our union with Christ through the means that God has given us to grow in grace, we will be refreshed in our desire to share our testimony of what Christ has done for us. And listen, you don't have to be a theologian. You don't have to be an excellent communicator. You don't have to know all about apologetics to share with others what Christ has done and who he is. Look at who we have encountered already. of those who have shared their testimony. Andrew, Philip, and now this Samaritan woman. They were spiritual infants in their knowledge of Christ. But what they did know and experience they shared with others. And they compelled them to encounter Christ for themselves. They invited them to see and hear him. And we do the same when we invite people to come to church. to hear the Word of God preached. We do the same when we give people a Bible and we challenge them to start reading maybe in the Gospel of John and tell them that we'd like to get back together with them and answer any questions they might have. You see Jesus is teaching us through the reaction of this woman how we need to respond to Jesus being the living water. Well finally in This encounter with the Samaritan woman, Jesus says he came in to usher a new access to God in worship. He came to do away with the limitations of the old covenant, with its barriers and ceremonies. He came to enable us to be the worshipers that God seeks, and in so doing, we can know the joy of true worship. And so my last point, point number three, is believers will constantly check and make sure they are worshiping God in spirit and in truth. One of Jesus' main concern is with the essential nature of worship. The way to true worship is first through faith in Him as our mediator, our only mediator between God and man. He is the truth. He is the true temple. And so when we worship, we must worship through faith in His saving work alone and through His righteousness and atoning death. He is our priest. He tore the curtain in front of the Holy of Holies to enable us to enter into God's presence. But until we get to heaven, We are always going to be tempted by our flesh and the world and the devil to resort to formalism, hypocrisy, or to resort to our own imaginations in worship. One of the greatest problems today, I think, is that we often come to church worshiping ourselves, wanting mainly to get something out of it. instead of worshiping God. We must constantly check our hearts as we worship, asking God to help us to repent of idols and help us to have faith, humility, love, and joy in our worship, to help us keep the focus on pleasing God and not our own desires. And so we must rely on the Holy Spirit's power. to do this. We must also worship in truth and that is why the word must always be central. Worship is informed by his word. We should only worship the way that he has prescribed in his word and that is called, the technical term, the regulative principle. Violating that is what Aaron did and the people of Israel when they chose a golden calf. And they put on that golden calf, Yahweh. They thought they were worshiping the true God. That's what was violated in the great sin of Nadab and Abihu when they offered strange fire before the altar. And that's what the Samaritans did when they defiled the worship of God with idols. And this is why our services must be Bible-saturated. And the pinnacle of worship is hearing from God, hearing His Word preached. And this is why we ask ourselves every Sunday, why are we here? What does God want? What does He prescribe in order to worship Him? God seeks this in us. It's His desire. And when we, by His grace, worship this way, We will experience his blessing, his power, his presence with us, living water that will well up within us, the sense of eternal life and presence we have with God. Let's pray. Oh, Lord, we thank you for this text. And we can't do it justice, all that Jesus meant in teaching this woman. But we thank you, Lord, that you opened her heart and we see the results, oh God, give us renewed hope that you offer this living water to all who hear. And I pray that if there are any here this morning that don't have this living water in their hearts, that you would open their hearts now and give them an awareness of their sin and their need for Christ and help them to repent and believe in you. Simply, I ask you to forgive them and to come into their heart and give them a desire to live for you, oh Lord. And we pray for the rest of us who, from time to time, we veer away from you as the fountain of living water. Forgive us for how we have turned away, and we seek to find satisfaction in something other than you. Draw us back to yourself. And we pray all this in Jesus' name, amen.