Christ Pursues Worshippers (4:1-15)

Introduction

We are the woman in the story. In this story we are the unclean, disreputable broken Samaritan woman. Last week we considered Jesus interaction and purpose in passing through Samaria. In so doing, we drew application to ourselves and how our mission to the world should be unprejudiced just like Jesus. We should reach out to, serve, and present the gospel to everyone, regardless of their creed, nationality, skin color, cultural norms, or personality; and we should be willing to push aside all cultural taboos that might be set in our way – assuming they are not moral or biblical taboos.

Today, instead, we need to shift our focus from how we should reflect Jesus’ unprejudiced mission and instead reflect on the reality that we are likened to the woman in the story. Jesus pursued a relationship with this woman. Jesus pursued this woman with the goal of transforming her into a worshipper of God. Jesus pursued this woman because he knew that lasting satisfaction only came in a relationship with God. And, Jesus pursues us. This passage first and foremost is not a passage that is intended to be a model for evangelism. It is instead intended for every recipient to personally connect to the lady and realize that we are only truly and eternally satisfied in Christ. Evangelism will naturally flow from people who are satisfied with Christ.

Purpose Statement. Christ purposefully and persistently yet graciously pursues people to worship the Father, knowing that he is satisfying.

Nicodemus and Samaritan woman like the prodigal son. Luke sets the scene for us in chapter 15. The tax collectors and sinners were all drawing near to Jesus – in essence people like the Samaritan woman were drawing close to Jesus. The Pharisees look on and grumble, “This man receive sinners and eats with them” (). Jesus responds by telling a couple of parables, the first a parable of a lost coin and the second the parable of two sons.

A father has two sons, a younger and an older. The younger son asks the father for his inheritance, and the father grants his son's request. The son squanders all the fortune and ends up broken, feeding pigs and eating their food. He is forced to return home with nothing and begs his father to accept him back as a servant. The Father, having waited longingly for his son, receives him back with a party. The older brother, envious of this attention, refuses to be part of the party. Instead he stays out in the field and complains. The Father comes out to him and the son tells his father about how he has always obeyed but has never gotten a party. The Father desires that both sons revel in the comfort and satisfaction of his wealth and companionship.

Take note of how the two sons reflect Nicodemus and the Samaritan woman. The older son, whom these Pharisees in the story would have related to, as well reflects the obedience and pious nature of Nicodemus, whereas the Samaritan woman and this prodigal son find themselves as outcaste on the fringe of society.

The Father desires that both of them come worship him and in so doing find lasting eternal satisfaction and fulfillment.

He had to go through Samaria (4:4). And it is with this statement in verse 4 that we see the purposeful nature of Jesus. We know that there was not a geographical need to go through Samaria. Many other devout Jews bypassed Samaria to get to Galilee. Jesus and his disciples could have as well. Yet, he was driven by his Father’s purpose, that purpose being to seek out people to worship him.

He placed himself in an unavoidable spot (4:6). He sat on the well. I think most of us would have offered some room to the lady as she approached. I imagine a bit of an awkward approach by the woman as Jesus just sat there waiting for her. She inevitably saw this lone male figure sitting on the well as she approached from a distance. Likely, she desired to avoid a lot of engagement with this awkward Jewish man.

He shattered social norms. He sends away all his disciples and purposefully remains alone in a public place to engage a disgraceful Samaritan woman. He could have kept a few of the disciples with him. He didn’t need to be alone with this woman.

He asks to drink from her cup. Jesus says, “give me a drink.” The lady’s response would have been normal, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?” (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.)” (). The NIV adds an alternate translation for the last phrase, “[For Jews] do not use dishes Samaritans have used.” As well, Augustine comments on this verse.

Augustine. You see that they were aliens: indeed, the Jews would not use their vessels. And as the woman brought with her a vessel with which to draw the water, it made her wonder that a Jew sought drink of her,—a thing which the Jews were not accustomed to do. But He who was asking drink was thirsting for the faith of the woman herself.[1]

I think we may at times struggle connecting to this type of interaction, yet we shouldn’t. It wasn’t that long ago when we offered two drinking fountains in public places. Signs above the two fountains read “Whites” and “Colored.” In essence, Jesus walked up to the “colored” fountain and waited in line, and a black man turned to him and said, “what are you doing? Whites don’t drink here.”

He doesn’t let the conversation die at natural points. Basically her first response is, “why are you talking to me?” And with that, we would have all responded with, “you’re right, sorry about that. I’ll step aside and wait for you to do your thing. I wouldn’t want to put you out. I wouldn’t want to bother or offend you.”

Jesus is the guy that doesn’t seem to know when to stop. We would have considered him socially unaware or socially oblivious. “Jesus do you realize that you’re being really awkward right now? Leave the poor woman alone.”

Not only is he socially awkward, his response seems really odd. He starts off by speaking of spiritual things but in a manner that would have completely been understood literally. “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” ()

It is here that we begin to see that the dialogues Jesus has with this woman and with Nicodemus are humorously similar.

Nicodemus and Jesus. (1) Jesus offers simple spiritual truth. “Nicodemus, you must be born again.” (2) Nicodemus interprets literally. “umm . . . yea that’s not going to happen. Can I enter into a mother’s womb again? I think not.” (3) Jesus expands the teaching. “Pay attention Nicodemus! Unless someone is born of water and spirit they cannot enter the kingdom of heaven. By the way, you really should understand this, being a teacher of the law and all.” (4) Nicodemus once again remains confused. “How can this be?”

Samaritan woman and Jesus. (1) Jesus awkwardly confronts the Samaritan woman. “Give me a drink.” The samaritan woman pushes back with, “why are you talking to me?” (2) Jesus tells her she should ask him for living water. (3) Woman interprets literally. She assumes he’s referring to some flowing stream that he has access to. “Man, you don’t even have a bucket. If you can pull off that trick, you’d be better than our father Jacob, which of course you are not.”[2] (4) Jesus expands the teaching. “People who drink from here will be thirsty again. But I’m offering something that will result in you never thirsting again and having eternal life.” (5) Woman remains confused. “Give me this so that I will never thirst again” At this point, she’s fine to some degree, but then she keeps it in the physical realm. “I don’t want to have to come back here and draw again. Sure, give me something that will last so that I don’t have to keep doing this anymore.” She still missed the point.

Remember, we are the Samaritan woman in this story. We are like Nicodemus. We struggle grasping the simplest of spiritual truths. And, just like the Samaritan woman, we just want the problems of the present to be changed. We rarely are thinking beyond the annoyance of the immediate moment.

He desires worshippers (4:23). Why is Jesus so socially awkward? Why is he so persistent? Simple. Two things that are connected. (1) God desires that we worship him. We’ll consider this idea of worship more later, but jump down to verse 23 for a moment. “But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him” (). (2) Connected to this worship is that we are eternally satisfied when we come and worship the Father.

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.” 11 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? 12 Are you greater than our father Jacob? He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock.” 13 Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, 14 but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” ( ESV).

The Spirit, a gift from God. Later in the Gospel of John, we are able to read of another interaction Jesus has in which the term “living water” is used. John writes in chapter seven, “’Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’ Now this he said about the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were to receive” ().

The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit Sermons, Vol. XV Life’s Ever-Springing Well (No. 864)

Life, spiritual life, is a gift, wholly a gift; it is given according to the good-will and purpose of God. If the Lord gives the new life to some and not to others, he is perfectly free to do as he wills with his own. Gifts are not regulated according to the law of debts. If God owes to any man eternal life, he shall have it, for God will be debtor to no man; but he oweth nothing to sinful man but wrath; and if he chooseth according to his good pleasure to give a new and spiritual life to his chosen, none shall dare to question him, or say unto him,

Living water. This gift of the presence and work of the Spirit is likened to living water. The woman was not thinking spiritually but instead literally and physically. Living water, in a literal sense, would have referred to the water that flows from a spring. Jacob’s well is spring water. Therefore, Jesus tells the woman to give him a drink and then explains that if she understood what was going on she should have asked him for living water – which is what she would have handed him had she shared her water. Yet, he was taking a physical reality – the nature of the physical water – and likening it to a deeper spiritual reality.

The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit Sermons, Vol. XV Life’s Ever-Springing Well (No. 864)

If this day I tremble lest I have it not, let me learn the way by which this life must come to me if it come at all. Certainly not by my own strivings and strugglings in the way of merit, for it is represented not as a reward, but as a gift; certainly not by any power of my own apart from God, for it is spoken of as coming from Jesus Christ, and not as growing out of human nature. What, then, had I better do than make a solemn appeal to the mercy of God?

Living water. This gift of the presence and work of the Spirit is likened to living water. The woman was not thinking spiritually but instead literally and physically. Living water, in a literal sense, would have referred to the water that flows from a spring. Jacob’s well is spring water. Therefore, Jesus tells the woman to give him a drink and then explains that if she understood what was going on she should have asked him for living water – which is what she would have handed him had she shared her water. Yet, he was taking a physical reality – the nature of the physical water – and likening it to a deeper spiritual reality.

The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit Sermons, Vol. XV Life’s Ever-Springing Well (No. 864)

If the Lord should refuse the living water to me, I could not complain, but his name is love, and I know that he has made a promise that whosoever believeth in Christ shall not perish, but have everlasting life. Let me come as an undeserving sinner, then, this day, and appeal to the bounty of God, and ask him for his name’s sake, and for his mercy’s sake, to have pity upon me.

Living water. This gift of the presence and work of the Spirit is likened to living water. The woman was not thinking spiritually but instead literally and physically. Living water, in a literal sense, would have referred to the water that flows from a spring. Jacob’s well is spring water. Therefore, Jesus tells the woman to give him a drink and then explains that if she understood what was going on she should have asked him for living water – which is what she would have handed him had she shared her water. Yet, he was taking a physical reality – the nature of the physical water – and likening it to a deeper spiritual reality.

Never thirst again. All of us possess internal longings. We attempt to satisfy these desires through unending avenues: entertainment, alcohol, drugs, pornography, work, success, etc. I believe it is this internal longing that Solomon refers to in when he writes, “he has put eternity into man’s heart” (). The immediate problem, acknowledged in the next phrase, is that while he has placed this internal desire in man, he has not given man the ability to find satisfaction for that desire. This is why Solomon’s conclusion to the whole matter is important. “Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man.” The only place where our thirst for satisfaction and life can be satisfied is with God.

I struggle with Jesus statement, “whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again.” Does this mean that if I come to Jesus as the source of living water, I will never have internal longings again? I don’t think that can be what it means. Does this mean once you come to Christ for salvation, you will never have thirst and potentially attempt to satisfy that thirst with something other than Christ. I don’t believe that is what the passage is saying, and I’m certain that is not what my experience would indicate. It is that question that leads to the significance of the next reality.

Turns into a spring. If we come to Jesus and ask for living water, he will give us water that will become within us a spring. Within us will be the unending source for the longings of our hearts. We will still have internal longings, but within us, through the gift of the Spirit, we will have the source to satisfy those longings. Now, we may not choose to be satisfied with this spring of water and may try to find satisfaction in the fleeting and shallow things this world offers us – in fact we all regularly do this very thing – but the lasting satisfaction for our earthly and human longings is accessible to us.

Gives eternal life. And the last statement Jesus makes concerning this water now rings redundant as we’ve outlined the others. The truth that has been implied prior is now stated clearly. The spiritual nourishment that is gifted to us by God that fulfills and satisfies the longings of our heart is not temporal in nature but instead eternal.

Every other potential source of satisfaction will ring hollow, will become less than satisfying, will be proven short lived. Only one stream will prove to be unending and eternal. God’s gift of the Spirit, through the work of Christ offers an eternally satisfying, never ending, never dissipating, always refreshing source of satisfaction, peace, and joy.

Today, I want you to connect with the Samaritan woman. You’re the Samaritan woman. Don’t too quickly let your mind jump to how you might reflect Christ’s actions in this story. Embrace the reality that you are the broken, ostracized, degenerate, and rejected Samaritan, and yet God has purposefully and persistently and graciously pursued a relationship with you. He has offered an unending source of satisfaction and joy. Take it.

[1] Augustine of Hippo, “Lectures or Tractates on the Gospel according to St. John,” in St. Augustin: Homilies on the Gospel of John, Homilies on the First Epistle of John, Soliloquies, ed. Philip Schaff, trans. John Gibb and James Innes, vol. 7, A Select Library of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, First Series (New York: Christian Literature Company, 1888), 102.

[2] Even Jacob had to dig a well. If you are offering something that has an unending stream of water that will forever satiate my need for water, you’re better than Jacob. Of course, her implication is that Jesus is not better than Jacob. Yet, he is. Jesus is better than Jacob and what he offers is better than what Jacob’s well could offer.

Christ Pursues Worshippers (4:1-15)

Introduction

Introduction

Christ purposefully and persistently yet graciously pursues relationships.

Christ is eternally satisfying.

Conclusion