JESUS IS LIVING WATER – Jesus provides eternal satisfaction for all who trust in Him.

JOHN 4: 11-26

MEMORY VERSE: JOHN 4:14

Think of all the things that give us enjoyment in life: our possessions, our relationships, and our hopes for the future. Having a personal relationship with the Creator of the universe, who is also our Heavenly Father, enhances these joys. No matter what the present circumstances and issues we may be dealing with, through the presence of His Holy Spirit in our lives, we have security, satisfaction, and fulfillment. We deal with each day fully assured that we will spend eternity with our creator. We can do this because of the purpose and work of God’s Son, Jesus Christ – our redeemer, savior, and best friend. Believers have the promises of an eternal salvation, through a childlike trust and faith in Jesus Christ. God’s thoughts and purposes are higher than ours, and we will never know why he allows some things and not others. We simply trust Him, and believe in His Son, Jesus Christ.

THE CONTEXT (JOHN 4:1-54)

Jesus didn’t have to travel this route. Many Jews crossed to the east side of the Jordan River instead of going through Samaria. They avoided contact with the despised Samaritans whenever possible.

But Jesus had a different agenda. He had a divine appointment with a woman who certainly didn’t expect her life to change that day. Because of her, Jesus deliberately traveled through the Samaritan town of Sychar. Sychar is identified with Shechem, the original capital of the Northern Kingdom of Israel. Many scholars accept the site as modern Nablus or Askar, close to Shechem.

Jacob traveled to Paddan-aram, where he met Rachel near a different well. On his way back to Shechem, Jacob purchased a plot of land and likely dug the well mentioned in John’s account (Gen. 33:18-20). Years later, Jacob gave this property to his son Joseph. An ancient well, identified as Jacob’s well, exists today and is located within an Orthodox monastery.

Although weary from his journey, Jesus was not too tired to fulfill His Messianic purpose to seek and save the lost (Luke 19:10). Around noon, He waited by the well while His disciples went to buy food. Into this setting came a Samaritan woman, alone and wary of the strange Jewish man.

When Jesus spoke to her, He broke several customs that surprised her. Men did not speak to unaccompanied women. Jews did not speak with Samaritans. Jewish strangers did not ask for help from a Samaritan woman. As we later discover, she was a woman with a sketchy past, making the encounter increasingly odd. Yet, tradition would not prevent Jesus from reaching out to her.

Jesus’ encounter with the woman at the well, her response to Him, and the subsequent witness to the people of the city, provides the primary focus for this lesson. We will learn how people can be led to see Jesus as the Christ and follow Him. Some of our preconceptions may need to burst along the way as the details of the story emerge. The goal of Jesus’ mission and of our study involves making one’s way past cultural barriers to see lives transformed through the gospel of Jesus.

THIRST QUENCHED? (JOHN 4:11-15)

11 "Sir," the woman said, "you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water?

12 Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his flocks and herds?"

Like patients reacting to doctor’s probes, people with painful issues often shy away from dealing with uncomfortable problems. As Jesus engaged in conversation with a Samaritan woman about physical water, she shifted the focus by responding to Jesus’ comment about “living water”. Her previous response may have contained a sense of scorn – or, at least, skepticism. In her past experiences, she had likely suffered the prejudice that Jews showed toward Samaritans. When Jesus offered her “living water’, though, her tone changed. She addressed Him as “Sir”. This term translates a word that could also be rendered as “Lord or master”, but in this context it simply demonstrates respect.

The woman focused on the practical aspects of Jesus’ statement. For example, she observed that Jesus did not have a bucket with a long rope for drawing water. Jacob’s well drops nearly 100 feet with water at the bottom fed by an underground spring. Jesus’ offer of living water was not intended to come from Jacob’s well, but the woman did not understand the spiritual allusion. She only saw what was in front of her. Like Nicodemus in John 3, her confusion was fueled by a lack of spiritual discernment.

Most Samaritans were descendants of foreign groups imported by Assyria after the native populace was taken into exile (2 Kings 17:6, 24). Some Samaritans were descended from Jacob as their ancestors were left in the land by Assyrian conquerors. Others were the product of intermarriage between the Hebrew remnant and pagan immigrants. Consequently, orthodox Jews scorned the Samaritans. Yet, this woman asserted a common heritage.

The woman’s primary point was the well’s identification with Jacob who drank from it, as well as providing water for his sons and livestock. With His offer, Jesus appeared to claim superiority to Jacob, which in fact He was. Such an idea left the woman skeptical.

13 Jesus answered, "Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again,

14 but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life."

15 The woman said to him, "Sir, give me this water so that I won't get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water."

The woman had come to the well during the heat of midday because other women would not be there. She was aware of her reputation around Sychar. But Jesus emphasized that His offer was not based on status or reputation. Anyone could receive it, including her. This water could not be acquired by human effort. It was something Jesus alone could provide. As Jesus said in verse 10, this was a gift from God. The Greek wording in verse 10 implies something given freely. So, even a social outcast could drink and never get thirsty again.

Jacob’s well was fed by a spring, but it could only sustain physical life. Jesus’ living water supplied eternal life. The woman hated the degradation and drudgery of this daily routine. If Jesus could solve this problem, she was eager to accept His offer! She said “Give me”, seeing that she needed what only He could provide. People find lasting spiritual satisfaction only in Jesus. Seeking pleasure in worldly ways only leads to temporary highs and lasting lows. Jesus offers the only truly life-giving solution.

SIN EXPOSED (JOHN 4:16-20)

16 He told her, "Go, call your husband and come back."

17 "I have no husband," she replied. Jesus said to her, "You are right when you say you have no husband.

18 The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true."

The woman only understood Jesus’ offer in terms of her physical and emotional issues, but He wanted to address her deeper spiritual needs. Jesus directed her to call her husband and then come back here. On a cultural level, it would have been more appropriate for a stranger to give a gift in the presence of the woman’s husband. However, in this case, Jesus pushed the discussion to highlight the woman’s spiritual poverty. Her marital status and history reveal a more serious problem than temporal thirst.

The woman tried to avoid revealing her shame by simply answering “I don’t have a husband”. In His divine omniscience, Jesus knew all about the woman already. He quietly commented that she answered correctly when she said she did not have a husband. Jesus was not trying to condemn her. In fact, He was letting her know that He was fully aware of her situation.

Jesus demonstrated this knowledge by pointing out that she had been married to five husbands and was currently living with a man who was not her husband. Jesus had supernatural insight into this woman’s life. He knew her better than she knew herself. She could not hide anything from Him.

19 "Sir," the woman said, "I can see that you are a prophet.

20 Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem."

People believed prophets could divine the future and knew things ordinary persons did not. Jesus must have fit into her understanding as a prophetic figure. Worship location was a major point of contention between the Jews and Samaritans. Following the Assyrian exile, resettled immigrants established pagan altars on various high places, including Mount Gerizim. Gerizim actually had a strong history of Yahweh worship prior to establishment of the temple in Jerusalem (Deut. 11:29; 12:5). Samaritans also built a temple there during the reign of Alexander the Great, but it was destroyed about 150 years before Jesus’ encounter with the woman.

TRUE WORSHIP (JOHN 4:21-24)

21 Jesus declared, "Believe me, woman, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem.

Jesus was firm and accented His statement with “Believe me”, declaring that the debate about location was irrelevant. Jesus pointed to a day in the near future and its arrival was sure and imminent. The Jews cherished site at the Temple in Jerusalem would suffer the same fate as the Samaritan temple on Gerizim. Jesus knew the Temple would be destroyed by the Romans in 70 A.D., and not one stone would remain standing on another.

22 You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews.

23 Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks.

In fact, that time was now here, because Jesus was on the scene, ushering in a new era of spirituality. People could now experience a relationship with the Father made possible by the sacrifice of the Son. Ultimately, only the blood of His Son could atone for human sin (Eph. 2:13; 1 John 1:7).

24 God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth."

Describing God as “spirit” does not limit Him but describes His nature. As spirit, God is not confined to time or space or matter like we are. Consequently, He must be worshiped in Spirit and in truth.

Many pagans worship their gods with complete sincerity, but their worship is not based on truth. God revealed Himself through His Son. Only worship that corresponds with both can be described as “in Spirit and in truth”.

TRUE FAITH (JOHN 4:25-26)

25 The woman said, "I know that Messiah" (called Christ) "is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us."

26 Then Jesus declared, "I who speak to you am he."

The woman needed to look no further. Her anticipation of the coming Messiah was realized in the presence of the person before her. All her longing, every painful need, each point of confusion – everything could be satisfied in Jesus Christ the Savior.