Jesus Meets the Woman at the Well Part 2

All right. Amen, and praise the Lord.
Last week we started on our text. Jesus meets the woman at the well. And so we're going to jump right back into where we left off here in just a moment. But to briefly recap, we see that in John chapter four. Jesus was traveling with his disciples.
And the scripture said, he must needs go through Samaria. Well, in that day, the Jews had a custom. Where they usually would go out of their way a little bit, cross the Jordan river and go around Samaria. The reason for that is we explained last week. That there was a lot of tension.
Between the Jews and the Samaritans. Racial tension and tension also over religious beliefs. The Samaritans were half Jews and half gentiles. They adopted some of the jewish religion. By claiming the first five Books of the Bible.
But even changing a little bit those first five books of the Old Testament. So not only were they half jewish, Racially and Religiously. But they had the audacity in the mind of the Jews. To say, we are the true Jews. So they hated each other.
So it was interesting that Jesus would even travel through this way. And when the scripture says, he must needs go through Samaria. We believe the scripture is saying he needed to go to Samaria to meet this unnamed woman at the well. And the gospel breaks down social barriers of class warfare and of racism and of religious prejudice or prejudice because of gender. Jesus had no prejudice.
Jesus looked at every single person alive as a soul who needed to hear the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. And as his followers, we should have that same attitude. And we talked about this woman who came, and Jesus asks her for a drink of water. And her response is, how is it that you even speak to me, seeing that I'm a Samaritan and that I am a woman? In that day and age, the Jews and the Samaritans had no dealings with each other.
And we talked about last week also, how men would not usually address a woman in public as their equal. And then Jesus said to her, if you will ask of me, I will give you living water. And if you drink of it, you will never thirst again. She said to him, sir, where did you get this water from? Go ahead and give me the water.
She said in verse 15. Perhaps this a bit skeptical. She's definitely sharp witted and sharp tongued. She's going back and forth with Jesus in a manner that would be considered a bit brash or sassy for the women in that day to address a jewish man with the boldness and the confidence that she did well. Jesus loved Samaritans, and Jesus loves everyone.
When he rebuked the Pharisees for being unwilling to help the sinners, that, in their eyes were not as good a people as they were, he told the parable of the good Samaritan. How the jewish leaders and religious leaders passed by a man who had been beaten and left for dead in a ditch. But the good Samaritan came bye and rescued him and took him to an inn. And before jesus ascended back up to heaven in acts one eight, one more rendition of the great commission, jesus said, wait for the Holy Spirit to come and empower you. And after he does, you shall be witnesses unto me in Judea and in Samaria and unto the uttermost parts of the earth.
The gospel is for all. So John was not present for this exchange. And John, we believe, is writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. But he's also writing through his own human personality. And these stories would have been repeated and repeated and very well known.
So it's also good to remember that very likely there was some more exchange between Jesus and the woman. Than just what is recorded here. We're probably getting the main points, the highlights, and a summary, what happened. But it was definitely enough for Jesus to get her attention and to point her to the things of God and to get her to consider the state of her soul. So we're going to jump right in to where we left off last week, where at the end of verse 15, she said, okay, go ahead and show me the living water if you've really got it.
But there was a couple more things Jesus had to do first before he could really get her attention and get her to believe that she was the messiah. So, as I said before, this is part two of the message. That's a brief recap, but to get the whole picture, you can go back and listen to the beginning. And we're just going to jump right back into where we stopped reading last week in verse number 16. So the next point in our outline is that Jesus calls out sin.
So the woman says, sir, give me the living water. And Jesus says unto her, go call thy husband and come hither. As we'll see briefly, this got her attention really fast. This was a sore spot for a woman who had had a very rough past, had very likely been mistreated by a whole lot of people, and was currently involved in a situation that God calls sinful. So again, as people go back and forth with Jesus, he's always diverting their attention and he's always overturning their expectations.
And all of a sudden when she says, okay, if you've got living water that I'll never get thirsty again. Go ahead and show me where it is. Jesus said, okay, I'll show you, but first go call your husband. And this for her would have come out of left field, but it definitely would have hit upon a sore spot and got her attention. And Jesus, when giving her the gospel, is not going to dance around her sin or the cultural shame that she has endured.
The woman answered and said, I have no husband. Let's just change the subject here real quick. Jesus said unto her, thou hast well said, I have no husband, for thou hast had five husbands. And he whom thou now hast is not thy husband. And that thou saidest truly.
Now we'll talk for just a minute about what most likely it means that she had been divorced four, five different times to five different mendenna, and what all that entailed and likely looked like in that day and age. But Jesus very clearly says to her, you've had five husbands in your past and you have one now, but he is not your husband. In that thou saidst truly, no doubt, her mind begins to race where she says, how could he have known this many details about my past and known what's going on now? Something tells me that maybe even all the people that lived in her village might not have known for sure that she had five different husbands. And her mind is beginning to pivot and race and probably think, how does Jesus know this about me?
But let's go ahead and talk about for just one moment that here is a very clear place in the scripture where Jesus himself differentiated the idea of living with someone in a relationship where you're married, but then made and made clear that that's different than living with someone in that relationship whom you're not married to. The wording is very clear. Sondervan illustrated Bible says, the meaning of this verse here is living with as if married but not married. And we saw in John chapter two that Jesus went to the wedding at Canaan, and how in Jesus day and all throughout history, religiously and societally, we have a thing called marriage, where when you get to that point and voluntarily and legally enter into that marriage in the eyes of God, you are now married. And note from the text here that Jesus recognized as valid marriages her remarriages.
That's not God's plan. He wants us to enter into marriage and avoid divorce and stay married. But after we have entered into marriage, even if it's a remarriage, God says that is a husband and wife. That is a valid relationship in the eyes of God, and it's his desire for us to stay in that marriage and stay faithful to it for the rest of our life. And some people have said, well, if you've been divorced and remarried, you need to leave that person and go back to your original husband, and all sorts of things where they'll say, there's no scenario where a remarriage is valid.
But Jesus said, even her remarriages, they were her husband's. He said, but the one you're living with now is not your husband because they had not been married. So, as we said when we talked about the wedding in Canaan, in John chapter two, marriage is not something we can do on our own. We're not married in the eyes of God simply because we live together or think we've made a commitment to one another. God says there's two categories.
It's either married or unmarried. And marriage happens when we make those vows before God and enter into the marriage. So God's plan for human beings, as I've said 100 times, and we'll say 100 more as it comes up in the text over and over again. His plan for human sexuality is a one man, one woman marriage intended to last for life and sexual activity outside of that official union is called fornication by God. And even in our society today, where marriage is not valued as much as it once was, there's still a legal commitment and legal protections that accompany the idea of marriage.
If you're married to someone and then you divorce them, the courts will step in and look out for your interest. If you were done wrong and there's assets to be divided and all of these things that unfortunately have to take place from divorce. But my point is, when you marry someone, you're legally making a commitment. My life is their life. Their life is mine.
We're joining everything we have. But when you're together as if married, but not actually married, even in today's society, you don't have that legal protection. One phone call cuts you completely free from that person. So I do believe this is God's plan, and it's really not debatable. And the truth of the matter is, to live together, but to decline the actual commitment of marriage is saying to the other person, I don't actually want any commitment to you at all.
I want to be free to get out of this at any time without complications, if that's what I choose. So the hookup culture of today has hurt families. It's hurt our culture. And in a way, it's almost comical to see how the world thinks they are so enlightened and how we're so beyond the ways of God and how mature we are and how wise we are, but we can't even get right the simple basic structure of marriage, children, family commitment. And that one choice by mankind to disobey God in that one area has brought so much hurt and chaos to society.
And people say, well, we need to go to war with poverty and get rid of poverty. Did you know you have a 92% to 97% probability of avoiding poverty if you do a couple of simple things, graduate high school, get married, and don't have kids till after you're married? Those three simple things, if we would obey God, we could stop wasting trillions and trillions of dollars in federal spending that's making it all worse anyway.
So the hookup culture and the devaluing of biblical morals and the commitment of marriage hurts everyone. But I am afraid it scams women above all. And to christian sisters in Christ, I would say, you are worth more, even if no one is offering it the right way, the way that God has approved of. You're still worth more, and you're still worth living according to biblical principles and values. And men will say, marriage is a waste of time.
And as I said, they'll say, well, why commit all of my assets to where she can take half of it in a divorce if she'll give it to me without the commitment? And the bottom line for us as christians is to say it should be very apparent that if we just do it God's way, God will bless that. And the world is trying to put God's systems into place without God's help and without God's truth. And that's why it doesn't work.
So she chose to do this of her own volition. She found a situation where, as an outcast of society, as we'll talk about in just a minute, how she most likely had been mistreated and the divorce was really not her fault. Probably in these instances, she found a situation where there was a man who was content to let her live in his house, to go carry out all of the wifely duties, getting the water, and everything else, but without giving her the actual commitment of marriage. He said, I'll go ahead and give you that arrangement. And she said, okay, I'll take it.
And she chose to do this, and it was a sin. And we have to be willing in our soul winning and evangelism efforts to tell people they are sinners, number one, all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. People who don't know they're sinners won't seek to be saved. They can't know that they need to be pardoned until they know that they're guilty. And any presentation of the gospel that doesn't mention sin and how our sin has separated us from God and condemned us is not a good gospel presentation, and it's not what Jesus did.
He was willing to tell the truth, and we all are sinners. And my sin is just as bad as anyone else's sin, but we still have to be willing to tell the truth. So, moving on, what led her to this place in her life? The truth of the matter is, it's very likely that these divorces may not have been her fault at all. Remember that the Samaritans had the Pentateuch.
They took the first five books of the Old Testament and claimed that it was the word of God and that they believed it. Notice the one passage in the law of Moses that addresses divorce. When a man hath taken a wife and married her. And it come to pass that she find no favor in his eyes, because he hath found some uncleanness in her. Then let him write her a bill of divorcement, and give it in her hand and send her out of his house.
And when she is departed out of his house, she may go and be another man's wife. Wife. And if the latter husband hate her, and write her a bill of divorcement, and give it in her hand and sendeth her out of his house. Or if the latter husband die, which took her to be his wife, her former husband, which sent her away, may not take her again to be his wife. After that she is defiled.
For that is an abomination before the Lord. And thou shalt not cause the land to sin, which the Lord thy God giveth thee for an inheritance. Now, a couple of different things. They came to Jesus and said, jesus, is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any cause? And that was a hot button issue.
That was a raging debate between different schools of the Pharisees. You see, there were some who took the verse that said, if you find any uncleanness in her, you can divorce your wife. And they said, uncleanness has to mean something significant, like immoral behavior. And then there was another school of teachers that said, uncleanness can mean whatever you want it to mean. One teacher, one rabbi said, if she burns dinner three times, that's valid reason to divorce her and send her away.
Another said, if she yells at you, that's one thing, but if she yells loud enough, the neighbors hear, that's grounds for divorce. You can send her away. So when they came to Jesus and asked him that question, it was controversial. It would be like in our climate, stepping forward on a national stage and saying, what do you think about abortion? What do you think about whatever the most hotly debated political issue of the day is?
And Jesus said, didn't you read the book of Genesis? In the beginning? God said, I've created them male and female. Let them be joined together as one flesh and let not man separate them. That's God's plan.
And they were shocked. And they said, but what about Moses? And Jesus said, that was not God's plan from the beginning, but because of the hardness of your heart, God made a way that divorce could at least have some definition to it. And you know what Jesus disciples said after Jesus said, that was not God's original plan. That was because of the hardness of your heart.
Jesus said, God's plan is, unless it's for fornication. No divorce is to take place. The disciples said, Jesus, if that be the case, it is better for a man not to marry. They said, well, that's so strict in binding, it'd be better for all of us to be single. And Jesus corrected them for that, too, saying, unless God gives you the gift of victory over temptation in a lifetime of contentment and singleness, then you should consider marriage.
He rebuked his disciples for that. So notice what is absent in deuteronomy 24 one four, which the Samaritans would have had as their guidelines for divorce, something that came not because of God's plan, but because of the hardness of their heart. It's nothing about the woman being involved in it at all. It says the husband can write her a bill of divorcement and send her away. So if your husband claimed he had a valid reason of uncleanness, he found in you and sent you away, you didn't even have an appeal process.
And some people think that Moses gave them the bill of divorcement as some small form of protection for the woman, because people with wicked hearts could say to their wife, I'll divorce you. And they could even set it up as a perverse arrangement in a business deal to tell somebody, I'll divorce my wife, you marry her and take her, and then when you're done with her, divorce her and I'll take her back, or your wife being cast out into the street. And God said through Moses, at least give her a legal record that she has been divorced and she can't go back to her original husband. And you say, that doesn't sound just or fair. Where was the voice of the woman?
I don't think it was just or fair, and I don't think it was God's original plan. But we can draw a conclusion from this, that if this is what they were going by, this woman very likely had very little recourse to let this happen to her. It's potential. It's possible she got divorced because she had sinned or was immoral and her husband sent her away. But it's also very possible that legalistic hearts that were free from God were looking at this loophole in the law and were getting rid of her, and she didn't have a choice in the matter.
So this woman, most likely from her past, had been used, discarded, perhaps traded.
Yet even though it may not have been her fault, she still would have been ostracized in her community, criticized, laughed at, looked at as if there's something wrong with you. And something tells me that behind her tough exterior that's ready to put up the boxing gloves and go round for round and go back and forth with this jewish man verbally and a chip on her shoulder and ready to defend herself. Something tells me that behind that tough exterior, she doubtless had some hurt in her soul, some lost dreams, some devastation, some pain, some diverted expectations from when she was young, what she imagined marriage would be like, what she imagined her life would be like, and had not been unconditionally loved as she would have hoped for. And one thing that nearly all commentators agree about at this passage is that whether this is at noon or it's at 06:00 she's coming to the well at a somewhat inconvenient time. They say the traditions of that day would be that the women would go in a large group to the well, probably in the morning when it wasn't too hot.
So if it's at noon, it's the hottest part of the day. If it's at. At 06:00 like I think it probably was then, it's during the evening meal. So she's going to avoid being in the group of women who rejected her and who looked at her as if she was less than human because of her past.
And this strict samaritan community would have known somewhat about her past and about her present scandal and would have been the talk of the town at tea time, how she's living with someone she's not married to, probably judged for her sharp tongue. But again, her sharp tongue may be a result of what she'd been through in life and of how she had been treated. So she had done life wrong, and life had done her wrong, and both of those things were true. And notice, if you will, that Jesus exposed her sword. Jesus exposed the thing that she was ashamed of.
Jesus exposed the sin and the cultural shame, but he didn't sit there and poke at it and make it worse and condemn her. I think there's three very simple things he wanted to tell to her by bringing this up. Number one, you are a sinner. Number two, I already know you're a sinner. I know everything about you.
Number three, I still want to save you and give you the living water. I love you and I have plans for you that are better than where you've been and better than where you're at. This is the pure love of God. I want to give you living water no matter who you are. This is so good.
This is love. So lavish and extravagant that any other love in history pales in comparison to the purity of the love that Jesus gave to those people and that he gives to us. It's untainted by motive. He has nothing to gain from us. But Jesus, as John said in John, chapter one, he's full of grace and he's full of truth.
He loves you enough to tell you the truth about your sin, and he loves you enough that he died for your sin so that you don't have to. And his grace can be shed upon you abundantly for any fault or failure that you may have had in your life. Jesus doesn't call us to feel shameful about our past. He calls us to repent of our present sin and put the rest of it under the blood and rejoice that we are a loved child of God. Next in our outline, Jesus calls us to salvation and genuine worship.
So notice what she does in the next two verses. She's probably shocked and astonished and reeling a bit that he could sit there and tell her every detail of her past, but she still is wanting to divert the conversation. It's a very popular debate tactic. You're going back and forth and somebody starts to get you off your game or nail you down on a point. You can't really argue and they've got you.
What do you try to do? You try to change the subject. You try to artfully redirect or attack the person or bring something up. It's also something that's so common whenever you're in evangelism, trying to soul win and give somebody the gospel and they start getting under conviction, they'll say, well, where did Cain get his wife? Well, who is the Antichrist?
Well, I like to have a drink of beer every now and then. And some Christians say, that's okay. What do you think the wise soul winner will always say? Well, there's a lot of things that we could talk about and argue about. We can do that later when we're done.
But how about we stay on topic and talk about the fact that if you don't believe in Jesus, you're not going to have salvation halfway through. Well, what about the people in Africa? Well, a lot of people have a lot of different opinions about tribes in Africa who haven't yet heard the gospel, but you're hearing it right now. How about we talk about what you're going to do? So Jesus knocks her back on her heels with this revelation that he knows about her past.
And then she says, the woman said unto him, sir, I perceive that thou art a prophet. No kidding. But then she says, well, since I can tell you're a religious leader, you're a prophet, you're knowledgeable. Let me ask you a hotly debated question. Our fathers worshiped in this mountain, and ye say that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship.
This was another sharp dividing line between the Samaritans and the Jews religiously. In deuteronomy, chapter eleven, God was talking about how he was leading his people into the promised land. And on their journey he said, there's two mountains. One will be the mount of cursing and one the Mount of Blessing. The Mount of Blessing was called Mount Gerizim.
And they went there and made a sacrifice. So the Samaritan said, we have the true place of worship. The temple shouldn't be in Jerusalem. The Jews have it wrong. This Mount Gerizim is the mount of blessing.
This is the true place of worship. But if you read the scripture in context through the rest of that chapter, in the next, God clearly said in deuteronomy, and I shall bring you unto a place where my name shall live forever. And that was Jerusalem. Some even say that the Samaritans were guilty of taking a textual variant and saying, this is the true record of scripture. And they combined worshiping in Mount Gerizim into the ten commandments.
And they said, the Jews have the scripture wrong. Our variant is correct. Theirs has been corrupted, which shows us the importance of the textual background of scripture and being able to prove that God inspired his word. God preserved his word. And if we have accurately translated what God has inspired and preserved, we have the word of God, though Jehovah's Witness have done that with John chapter one itself.
Their scripture says, in the beginning was the word. The word was with God, and the word was a goddess, one of the gods. They had no textual authority whatsoever from any evidence of the greek manuscripts that exist to make that change. They changed it because it matches their motives and their religion. They'll be judged by God for doing that.
And apparently the Samaritans had done that, too. And if you took a traditional jewish rabbi, here's what I'm trying to say, and you told him, yeah, we think this is the right mountain, which you could look and see Mount Gerizim in the background from where they were at the well. She said, our fathers say this mountain is the right place to worship. But what do you say that jewish rabbi would have loved to jump in and say, here's all that I know about why you're wrong and why I'm right. And jump in.
But Jesus refuses to take the bait. He does answer the question a little bit, but mostly he tells her, you're asking the wrong question. And in 128 BC, the samaritan temple was destroyed by a jewish high priest who was operating as a prince named John Hyrcanus. He had destroyed the Samaritan's temple, and they hated him for that. And the Samaritans were not even allowed to come into the jewish temple because they were counted as gentiles.
And someone accused the Samaritans of trying to break into the jewish temple in the middle of the night and burn it to the ground. So Jesus now answers her question. Jesus saying unto her, woman, believe me, the hour cometh when ye shall neither in this mountain nor yet at Jerusalem. Worship the father. Jesus is going to try to explain to her, I am the temple.
And the day is gone where you have to go to a holy site to get access to God. You can worship God not being in a temple in Jerusalem or on Mount Gerizim or in Mecca or anywhere else. You can go directly to God. Jesus was trying to tell her, I am God. I'm right in front of you.
You can worship me here. You can worship me anywhere. Verse 22. Ye worship ye know not what for. We know what we worship, for salvation is of the Jews.
So who was correct? The Jews were correct. The Jews had the Old Testament scripture. The Jews were God's chosen people. The Messiah was born into a jewish household.
God chose to bring salvation into the world through means of the Jews. And if you hate Jews this morning, I hate to break it to you, but Jesus was a jew. And God doesn't hate Jews. God doesn't hate anybody. But God specifically said, I made a certain set of promises to the nation of Israel and ethnic Jews, corporately, that I will keep.
Verse 23. But the hour cometh, and now is when the true worshipers shall worship the father in spirit and in truth. For the Father seeketh such to worship him. What Jesus is trying to tell her, that it is that it's about our heart, not about a building. Jesus already knows what people need.
He knew that Nicodemus needed to be humbled from his pride. He knew that this woman needed to stop trying to bring up diversions and distractions, but get to the heart of the matter, which was that she needed to believe in him for salvation. And he could make her feel loved and valued and called to a life of purpose. And Jesus knows what we need, and Jesus seeks us. Jesus seeks sinners.
He seeks everyone, even this woman that his disciples ignored and what Jesus is trying to teach her here. God is a spirit. And they that worship him must worship him in spirit. And in truth is that God is more than just a physical being who's in one physical location. It's not about what holy site we have to travel to to worship God, but it's about are we worshiping him in spirit, which means our human spirit, genuinely within us, worshiping God.
And we worship him in truth, which means we worship what is true about God. We don't get to make a God after our own image and worship a God. That sounds good to us. We worship him in spirit. We worship him in truth.
And he says, your question, your diversion, is irrelevant. So what about your soul? What about your sin? What about the living water? That's what Christ is doing here next.
Jesus is the messiah. Verse 25. The woman saith unto him, I know that Messiah cometh, which is called Christ. When he has come, he will tell us all things. And in the book of deuteronomy, God prophesied that one day he would raise up a prophet that would be like unto Moses, but he would be greater than Moses.
And whoever would reject that prophet, his soul would be required of him. God would condemn him as guilty. So in their understanding, they knew the Messiah was coming. That would be a prophet, but more than a prophet, it's also entirely possible that people had come back to Samaria from Jerusalem and had been talking about the miracle man who was overturning the tables in the temple and chasing the money exchangers out with a whip and healing people on the feast day. It's possible that there was some buzz in the region that the messiah was here, and her wheels were beginning to turn in her head.
And I believe she's now beginning to take Jesus very seriously. And she says, proddingly, questioningly, perhaps baiting, to see whether or not he would confirm or deny if he was the messiah. I know that messiah is coming, which is called Christ. The term for messiah, for Christ means anointed one. It means the sent one.
It means it is the son of God who has come. And she says, well, I know that messiah will come and will tell us all things. Jesus saith unto her, I that speak unto thee am he. And again, we can dispense with any foolishness that Jesus was a good teacher, but he was not God. If Jesus was not God, then Jesus would be a liar, a charlatan, a trickster, or a crazy Mandev.
No one can walk around claiming to be God almighty creator of the universe, telling people everywhere he went, I made you. I made all things. I punched a hole in the roof of the universe, broke through time and space. I'm your only way of salvation. If you reject me, you're condemned for eternity.
If Jesus could make all those claims, and he wasn't really who he claimed to be, he's someone we should not even follow or think about what he had to say. But all the evidence externally and internally in our souls, when we hear jesus say, I am he. I am the I am. I am Messiah, I am God, we know that he is telling the truth. And I believe that when Jesus looked her in the eyes and was essentially saying, if you're ready to stop playing games and dodging the issue, I want you to know, I am the messiah.
And I believe. In that moment, it clicked for her. And however long it took her to decide to believe and receive, I believe at this very moment, she knew. She knew this was the truth. This man is God.
Let's see if we can cover this next little portion here quickly before we get to the end of the story. Everybody still with me here this morning? Next in our outline, Jesus disciples often do not understand his actions. And upon this came his disciples and marveled that he talked with the woman. Yet no man said, what seekest thou?
Or why talkest thou with her? Again, they were shocked that Jesus would be sitting there alone, talking to this woman at the well. They wouldn't have spoken to her if they were there and Jesus was not. It's possible they passed her on the way into town while she was heading up to the well. And they didn't take time to say, the messiah is up there.
He can save your soul. One of the rabbis of the day said, a man should not be alone with a woman or talk with her on the street, even if she is his daughter or his wife, because others may get the wrong picture or idea if they see you talking to a woman. Another one said, he that talks much with womankind brings evil upon himself and neglects the study of the law and at last will inherit Gehenna. Jesus looked at these stuffy social norms and the prejudicial hearts from which they were formed, and he rejected it all because he had a lot more important concerns. It was the soul who would live forever somewhere, even though it was the soul of a woman, he loved her, and he didn't hesitate to talk to her and to call her to the gospel.
Next, Jesus followers are compelled to be soul winners. The woman then left her water pot and went her way into the city. She all of a sudden is consumed with something a lot more important than physical thirst or making sure that her household has enough water to drink. She takes the water potential and leaves it sitting behind. She has no time for it now.
She rushes away as Jesus disciples come back and give her the sight eye. She drops the water pot. She runs back to town and saith to the men that word there simply for men, simply meaning human being. So she's talking to the mankind people of the city. It could be men or women.
She says, come see a man. Which told me all things that ever I did. Is not this the christ? In John, chapter one, Philip was trying to tell Nathaniel, we found the messiah. And Nathaniel said, nothing good comes out of Nazareth.
Philip could have sat there and argued with him, but he said, come and see. Come listen to him. I may not be able to convince you, but he will. And she says the same thing. My word may not be good enough.
I'm a woman. You might not believe me, but just come and see. And he will prove it to you like he proved it to me. And there's something so precious in the heart of a new Christian that sometimes is missing from the heart of a Christian who's known the Lord for decades. And it's a natural desire to say if at this point in my life, when I hadn't known the truth, I hadn't known the gospel, no one told me, I never caught it.
But now, all of a sudden, at this point in my life, I know the truth. I know the only way to heaven. There's something from within us that compels us logically to say, I want to go tell the people I know, the people I care about, my family, that they can get living water too. There's something from within us that compels us to go and tell other people about Jesus. She says, is not this the Christ?
She says, essentially, couldn't this be him? Isn't it possible he's here? We've known he's coming. This could be him, couldn't it? Come and see what he has to say.
Then they went out of the city and came to him. Next. In our outline, Jesus disciples often do not understand his words. In the meanwhile, his disciples prayed him, saying, master, eat. So again, they had gone away into town to get food.
They had been journeying. It wasn't wrong to get food. Jesus said, go ahead and get lunch. Go ahead and take time for that. So they go.
And while they're gone, Jesus is dealing with this woman. Jesus thoughts are consumed with calling her and this whole town to the gospel. His disciples pass the woman as she leaves. On the way back, they're wondering what Jesus was doing, but they trust him enough, at least to not start arguing with them. And then they sit down and they open up their food.
Whatever the fast food of the day was that they would have gotten in the market. And they put some down and they look at Jesus, and Jesus is sitting, I believe, with an intense face, with a face of contemplation, of prayer, of intenseness. And they prayed him, which means they asked him, saying, master, eat. Aren't you going to eat lunch? We went all the way to town to get it.
No, I have something about my personality where I just really like to feed people. It makes me happy to provide food to others. I think it's because I love food way too much. So I know what it means to me to eat something good. So if there's a time when we're all busy or out of town, guests are coming in, I'll say, I can go pick up the food.
Look how much I got. Go ahead and eat. And I like to try and cook. There's not that many things I do. But when I cook chicken and Sarissa eats it, it sits there and devours the chicken, my four year old daughter, and says, that's the best chicken ever.
It makes me feel really good. So if you ever bought food for somebody or cooked food for somebody, and then you saw them distracted and you said, hey, aren't you going to eat the food that I made, that I worked for, that I bought? And they said, jesus, aren't you going to eat?
And then he said unto them, jesus said, I have meat to eat that ye know not of. Therefore, said the disciples, one to another, hath any man brought him ought to eat. Did someone bring him some food while we were gone and we didn't know about it, Jesus said unto them, my meat is to do the will of him that sent me and to finish his work. And I believe what's true about this text is that Jesus was not eating because Jesus was consumed with something that was more important than his physical needs and hunger. Jesus says, my sustenance, my food, is to do the will of God and to finish his work.
And Jesus, I believe, was so engrossed with her spiritual well being that he cared very little about anything else. Have you ever been so focused and intense that you literally just forget to eat? And then you think about later, I haven't eaten. That's a problem I've had very little of in my life because I like to eat so much. Okay, y'all pray for me.
It's a problem sometimes, but I have had times where I've been recently at my desk, and I've been writing and working on some things and studying, and I'm thirsty, and it's kind of hot in that corner room, the office. And I go get a big old drink of ice water, and I set it there, and my mind goes a couple times, you need to drink that water. You need to drink that water. And then I sit there. I'm like, it's been an hour and ten minutes, and I didn't even sip the water that I brought in because I was focused on something that was important to me at the time.
And Sarissa, at the pool for 4 hours yesterday with her mom, had to be forced to get pulled out of the pool. And I eat something and take a drink because she likes swimming so much. Imagine being so young. It's your punishment to be told. Take a break, take a nap, eat something.
But what is it that consumes you? That everything else begins to matter? Very little in comparison. For these disciples, it might have been fishing, as that was their trade. They might have had times in their life where they were so focused on getting that fish caught and using the right strategy that they forgot to eat that they blocked out everything else.
But Jesus had told them, follow me, and I will make you fishers of men. And I don't want to be too hard on the disciples, because every time I start to judge them too harshly, I remember I'm that disciple, and I'm distracted, and I don't care about the things Jesus does as much as Jesus wishes I did. But their thoughts were on lunche. Jesus thoughts, his energy, his prayer, his focus was on this woman, the people who were coming with her to hear the gospel, the words he would say to them, praying to his father for all of this to be accomplished. And Jesus says, I'm not hungry right now.
I'm too caught up in calling these people to be saved. And I do believe he's trying to direct their attention to higher matters than what their mind is on at the time. And in verse 32, he says, I have meat to eat that you know not of. In other words, I have something you do not have.
Jesus is saying, I wish you had the same desires I have. I am consumed with God's will. I am consumed with a desire for souls to be saved. One writer said, no matter how you slice it, this is yet another embarrassing chapter for the disciples. They were in town.
Perhaps they wrote those people off as Samaritans. Perhaps they were just too distracted, like we are. Perhaps they weren't really sinning, but they didn't go to town from anything we can see and say to the people they bought food from. Hey, you know, there's a guy sitting on the well a mile that way? That's the son of God.
He can tell you everything you ever did before. Come hear what he has to say. They might have gotten written off and rejected because they were Jews speaking to Samaritan, but we see from the text there was many people in this city who were willing to hear from Jesus and willing to get saved. And the disciples gave no thought to directing those people to come hear the words of Jesus. Perhaps Jesus looks at us quite often and says, I have meat to eat, you know not of.
I have something you do not have. My ways are higher than your ways, and I want you to get your mind off of your physical needs and desires and entertainment and look around you and see the harvest of souls that I died for. I want you to care about the things of God as much as I do. Verse 34. Here Jesus said, my meat is to do God's will and to finish the work that God has given me in a messianic psalm.
Psalm 40, verse eight. I delight to do thy will, o my God. Yea, thy law is within my heart, and God has made us to serve. He's created us to work. And we want to know what the will of God is.
But we have to start with doing his revealed will that he's already told us we're supposed to do. And quite often that involves being focused on others and loving them. John R. Rice said, these disciples were, like the rest of us here, very careless and unaccountable. Oh, if we are open hearted, eager, and in touch with God, surely sometime we will find out when there is a samaritan woman with a hungry heart, a centurion Cornelius, crying, fasting, and begging to be saved, as Peter did.
Perhaps we will find out that there is an ethiopian eunuch on the way back to Africa, unsatisfied, unsaved, and reading without comprehension. The book of Isaiah, as Philip found him and won him. May God help us to be aware of potential divine appointments that he puts in front of us. Help us not to be distracted with our own cares, wants, and needs to the degree that we miss it. Next, as we move towards concluding, Jesus personally compels us all to be soul winners say not ye.
Jesus said to them, don't you have a saying, there are yet four months and then cometh harvest. Behold, I say unto you, lift up your eyes, look on the fields, for they are white already to harvest. He said, you're able to look with agricultural discernment and say, four months from now the crops will be ready for us to harvest them and pull them out of the field. He said, but you lack spiritual discernment to look around and see that spiritually the souls of men, the fields are already white, meaning they're already completely prepared for a harvest time if you will do the work of reaping. It's possible that the crowd was beginning to come back at this point and that Jesus pointed way down the hillside and said, look at the harvest.
Look at the people that are coming. One preacher said he visited the historical site of Jacob's well, and a group of priests or someone were walking up from the town in white robes, and they glistened in the sun the same way that the harvest would when it was white and ready at harvest time. Whether or not he looked at the people as they came, he was speaking of the people and how they needed Jesus Christ. And as the church, we're always supposed to remember the harvest is now. And the problem is never a lack of harvest.
The problem is always a lack of workers. Jesus said at three different times in the gospels, the harvest is ready, the harvest is ready. Pray then, that God would send forth laborers into his harvest. So don't ever look around and say, there's no harvest here. Might as well not try.
No fruit will be gotten of trying to give the gospel in this town, this day, this hour, this workplace, our job is to get in the plow, put our shoulder to it, and get busy working the ground. And if we do that long enough and trust God, I believe there will be fruit whether we see it or not, whether we perceive it or nothing. Just plow the ground, do the work you're supposed to do, and trust God with the results and the harvest that will come. Verse 36. And he that reapeth receiveth wages and gathereth fruit unto life eternal, that both he that soweth and he that reapeth may rejoice together.
This verse here and verse 36 is speaking of the joy of harvest. He says here, when you reap, you receive that as your wage, and the fruit you gather is fruit unto eternal life. And what a great rejoicing there is when there is a harvest, when we pray, when we cry, when we fast, when we give the gospel, and we try and we try and we try. And then somebody comes who says, I want Jesus. That's our wage.
That's our eternal fruit. And it may be we get to heaven before we know what fruit God gave us. But there will be fruit if we, by faith will labor to claim it. And herein. Is that saying true?
Jesus said, one soweth and another reapeth. I sent you to reap that, whereupon ye bestowed no labor. Other men labored, and ye are entered into their labors. Paul said the same thing. He said, there's one who comes to try and get somebody saved, and what they're doing is they're sowing, they're planting in the ground, they're watering it, and they never see the fruit.
But then along comes another one. And because of the work that the first person did, they come, and the fruit springs up. And Paul said, it doesn't matter if it's me or Apollos or Peter. One sows, one waters, but God gives the increase. So we all rejoice together when someone gets saved, when there's a harvest, no matter whether we're sowing, reaping, watering, it doesn't matter.
God blesses those efforts, and it leads to rejoicing. If faithful in the long run, the disciples would indeed reap the benefits of others labor. And no doubt after they died, others would reap the benefit of their labor. God had given the Old Testament. He'd given prophets and preachers.
In this story, Jesus was sowing. The woman was sowing the seed, the Holy Spirit were all sowing, and the disciples would be there to be a part of the reaping. It's an agricultural farming analogy. We plant, we water, we harvest. At whatever stage it is, we give all glory to God.
And when we get to heaven, we'll all rejoice together for any part that we had in seeing others saved.
George Mueller, early in his life, had three friends he tried to give the gospel to, and none of them wanted Jesus. So his diary records that for his entire life, he prayed for them to be saved every day. He said their names, and when he died, none of them had yet professed Christ yet glory to God. After the day of his death, all three of them eventually did, two of them in their seventies, one of them in their eighties. So what I'm trying to say to you is never give up your loved one that's far from God, that wants nothing to do with God.
If you've given them the gospel enough that they're mad every time you try and you have to stop and pray and turn them over to God. Don't discount the fact that you may die and then they may get saved. Or on their deathbed, they may get saved. Trust God. Keep plowing.
Keep praying. God will bless our efforts. We're on the very end here. Three more verses. Jesus saves all who come to him, even Samaritans, even the sinners, like we all are.
And many of the Samaritans of that city believed on him for the saying of the woman which testified, he told me all that ever. I did imagine her urgency, her sincerity. This woman who had a reputation for not really probably caring about spiritual things, but living in sin in a rough past. And she goes around telling the people, this guy, I'm telling you, he told me everything I ever did, and he's right out there. If you don't believe me, go listen to him.
And whether or not they believed her, I picture her with a sense of urgency and passion. And I think they believed she believed it. It at least. And that was enough for them to go investigate and come. And many believed because of her testimony.
And if Jesus disciples had gone into the middle of town and started preaching, or if Jesus himself did, it's possible because of the prejudicial barriers of that society, they would not have listened. So Jesus, in reaching the city, said, I'll reach her, and she'll go reach the city. So there are people in your life that might not ever listen to me, even though I'm a preacher. Maybe they wouldn't listen to me because I'm a preacher and because of their experiences with preachers. But they just might listen to you, if you will have the boldness to direct them to Christ.
Come and see what Jesus has done for me. Evangelism is never a wasted effort. It's always blessed by God whether people receive it or reject it. And we can just give the gospel and trust God for the results. So when the Samaritans were come unto him, they besought him that he would tarry with them, and he abode there two days.
So at whatever part this day ended, as they received him and began to believe him. And some were still just investigating, they offered hospitality. Come stay with us. And Jesus, gladly received, walked into the town, ate their food, slept in their beds, taught them the word of God, put no barrier there because of the fact they were Samaritans. But he loved them equally and called them to the gospel.
And many more believed because of his own word, because of Jesus, and said unto the woman. Now, we believe not because of thy saying, for we have heard him ourselves and know that this is indeed the Christ, the savior of the world. And when Nathaniel said to Philip, no good thing can come out of Nazareth. Philip, instead of arguing, said, just come and see. Just investigate Jesus honestly.
Just come and see for yourself if Jesus is good. Come and see for yourself if he's God. When Philip interacted with Jesus for about 60 seconds, he was humbled. He took it all back. He said, I believe Jesus now.
And these people said, we didn't believe simply from your word. But now that we've seen it from the source, we believe. And a whole lot of people will say, I don't believe this because I read this about the Bible. Well, have you read the bible for yourself? Have you studied as whether or not to see if the claim you're making about the Bible is true?
Well, in my mind, Jesus is like this. Have you gone to Jesus for yourself to see what he's really like? Because I promise you, with a 100% record of success, he will prove you wrong and he will prove himself right. So sometimes all we can do is tell people, well, just read it for yourself. Just seek the truth honestly.
And if you do, there's a holy spirit that will call you into all truth and you will know that you are wrong and that Jesus is right. Jesus said, I am the living water. He said to the woman, the work you do, trekking up and down the hill to get this water, you can do that till the day you die and you'll still be thirsty. But if you drink the fresh living water that I give you, the Holy Spirit will indwell you and you will never be thirsty again. And what the world offers may look good sometimes, but it doesn't take long to find out.
It will never satisfy, but the living water does. CS Lewis said about this idea that we can reject God even though God is the creator and be happy is a foolish idea. And he said the reason why that can never succeed is this. God made us, invented us as a man invents an engine. A car is made to run on petrol and it would not run properly on anything else.
Now, God designed the human machine to run on himself, to run on goddess. He himself is the fuel our spirits were designed to burn or the food our spirits were designed to feed on. There is no other. That is why it is just no good asking God to make us happy in our own way without bothering about religion. God cannot give us happiness and peace apart from himself because it is not there.
There is no such thing. And of his own life, after years of rejecting the idea of there being a God and of higher academia and knowledge, when he broke down and received the Lord Jesus Christ, he described his decision to believe in God as this way. He said, if nothing in this world satisfies the genuine real longing of my soul, then the most logical conclusion, I was made for another world and not for this one. Let's bow for prayer. If you've never been saved this morning, if you will understand the gospel and sincerely pray to God in your heart, something like this.
Lord, I know I'm a sinner. I don't want to die in my sin. I don't want to die condemned. I believe that you're the son of God. I believe you died for my sin and I trust you and your payment for my sin, not my righteousness or my good works.
I believe in you as the son of God. Would you please save me and take me to heaven? If you will genuinely, with understanding, repent and cry out to God in your heart right this moment. He has promised he will give you living water. The Holy Spirit will indwell you.
He will give you a home in heaven. He knows our sins and he calls us to make our sins right. And he also wants us to know that our sins do not separate us from the love of God. It makes us a candidate for receiving the greatest grace the world has ever known. Be saved today if you've not been saved.
Let's take a moment to lift up our prayers to the Lord. You can pray in your seat. You can come to the front. You can pray at the altar. If you need a prayer from me, if you need to hear about the gospel, please see me.
And we would love to pray with you today. Let's lift up our prayers to the Lord.