Alrighty, well we’re going to continue our series we’re calling “Amazed.” Amazed at the words of Jesus. One of the encounters that I had where I was amazed at Jesus and His words was when we were in Amsterdam in the early 1990s and we were there doing outreaches in Central Station. If you guys know anything about Amsterdam, it’s kind of like the Las Vegas of Europe- the “Sin City” of Europe. And Central Station is where all of the trains come and go and people come from all over the world, let alone Europe and there in Central Station, we were doing dramas and we were talking to people about Jesus and we were doing music and we would draw a crowd, and share with people about Jesus and then we would break up and just talk individually with people. So after we did one of these dramas and music times, a guy walked up and I introduced myself and say, “Hey, I’m Jimmy and I said what’s your name?” an he said, “My name’s Johannes from Sweden.” And I said Johannes, did you get a chance to see the little drama we did on the life of Jesus or sharing about Jesus? And he said, “Jesus? I want nothing to do with Jesus, I want nothing to do with God, I hate God!” And so, obviously, there’s pain in this guy’s life and I said, “Hey, tell me more about it.” Instead of being defensive, I said “hey man, what’s your pain, just tell me what’s going on?” He said, “two months ago I was in a boating accident and my brother and sister died, I was the only one to survive. What kind of a God was that? How could God do that to us? How could God do that to me?” He began to share more of his life and the pain in his life and I just listened and I’m asking the Lord while I’m talking to this guy, “Lord, what do I say to this guy?” And it seems to me that the Holy Spirit is speaking to me, tell him to repent and come to me. And I said, “God, you got anything else? That sounds a little harsh. Anything else?” As we’re continuing to talk, same thing, tell him to repent and come to me. So, with as much compassion as I can muster, I said, “hey, Johannes, I just really feel like God’s speaking to my heart while listening to you, He’s saying repent. That just means, “Quit doing things your own way.” You’re not going to get there from your own viewpoint by doing things your own way, even by expressing your own anger the wrong way. You’re not going to get there, you’re made for Jesus so come to Him. And in some supernatural way, he all but falls in my arms crying uncontrollably and said, “I need Jesus. I need Jesus. ” You know?
In that moment we prayed together and man, it was like Heaven on Earth, all of a sudden the peace of God and the love of God and the burden of his heart just broke away…one of those divine encounters with God. It was one conversation and one encounter with Jesus, and when that happened we were sitting there just kind of basking in it and he looks down at his watch and says, “Oh no, I’ve got to go!” He said, “I’m going to miss my train!” and I said, “Wait, Johannes!” and there was a gal there who was doing outreach with us from Sweden and I said “Ava, come over here, we’ve got to get his information so you can follow up with Johannes and about two minutes later, she’s says “We’re from the same city! I know exactly where he lives!” So they write down the information. Two months later, I call Ava and say hey, what’s happened with Johannes, did you get a chance to connect with him? Is he walking with the Lord? And she said, “Oh yeah, he’s involved with this young adults thing we’re doing and he’s all in, man.” Four months later, Johannes writes me a long letter telling me everything God’s doing in his life and said, “I went to this little event where they, kind of like our World Mandate where they talked about God’s heart for the world and he said “I feel like God’s telling me to go to South Africa.” And I said, “That’s awesome Johannes!” I wrote a letter back, those were the days where we actually did letters and it took a few days to get back and forth. So he keeps up with me about every six months he writes me a letter. Eventually he meets a godly young lady, they marry and after three years of that moment of interaction, he writes me a letter and says I’m headed to South Africa. God’s called us and we’re on the way to the great adventure that He has for us. And I thought, “Yes, way to go Jesus!” One conversation, one encounter with Jesus changed not only this guy’s personal life, but it changed the trajectory of his future and Lord willing, the future of thousands around him.
Jesus would have these kinds of conversations, when He was on earth, He would have interactions with people that would be life-changers, that would be those dynamic encounters that would change the way they see themselves and the way they see everything around them. One of those stories is called the story of the woman at the well. In John chapter 4, we’re going to go through that story today and I want to set it up for you a little bit.
Jesus and His disciples had been in a place called Judea, they were praying for people and helping people and seeing great things happen and they were heading back to Galilee to do some more ministry and on the way from Judea to Galilee, they go through a place called Samaria. And you got to realize, in those days Samaria would be kind of like, the outcast or the lower caste and the Jews saw themselves as the higher caste, literally, they wanted nothing to do with Samaritans. Many Jews wouldn’t even go through Samaria at the chance of even being defiled by one of these people…these unholy people. But Jesus said no we’re going straight through Samaria, that’s the straight line there, so they go through Samaria and they stop at a city named Sicchar. And He stops by a well and Jesus says to His disciples, hey we don’t have any food guys, you go into town and get some food, I’ll sit here at this well and wait because I don’t have anything to draw water with either, so get something to draw water with and go get some food for us. So Jesus is sitting there at the well. Now this well, of course, had great significance. Because Jesus didn’t just sort of wander through life, there was purpose in everything and this particular well was called Jacob’s well. And Jacob was one of the patriarchs, one of the fathers of the people of Israel. Actually, Jacob was the son who encountered God in such way that God said your new name is no longer Jacob, but your new name is Israel. “Jacob” meant deceiver and after Jacob met God, he became “One who prevails with God.” One who walks with God. He went from a deceiver to one who walks with God. And literally, that’s where they are, they’re at this well where Jacob had dug and where his family lived in that area and so Jesus is there because He’s about to take somebody else and take them from a place of brokenness and about to change their name to a place of greatness. So a woman comes up to him and this woman, we’re going to call her Sarah for the sake of the story, and this woman, a Samaritan, comes up to Him, comes up to the well, that’s what her habit was, she would come to draw water and take it back to her home. She comes up to the well and Jesus says to her, “Give me a drink.” He engages her in conversation and He says, “Give me a drink.” And then she begins to dialogue back and in John chapter 4 verse 9, “then the Samaritan woman,” {Sarah,} ”said to Him, how is it that you, being a Jew, are asking me for a drink since I am a Samaritan woman? For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans. Basically, she’s saying this, Jesus, you’re breaking the rules! That’s not how it works. First of all, you’re a Jew and I’m a Samaritan, and Jews don’t talk to Samaritans. And you know, I thought you were going to be defiled if you talked to somebody like me.” I’m sure she was thinking… The second thing is, I’m a woman and I do not have my husband with me. In that culture and that day, a woman was not allowed to speak to a man unless her husband was present to make sure that nothing romantic happened or anything bad would happen and so here it is this holy man is talking to her 1. Without her husband present, she didn’t know that he was a single guy, but she was basically, where is your wife and my husband’s not here, we shouldn’t be talking. And then third thing that was going on in her mind, I’m sure, was and you know what holy man, you don’t know me, but I’ve got some bad stuff going on in my life and you wouldn’t be talking to me. I’m not only a Samaritan, but I’m a sinner.
We’ll find out a little bit more about that later. So Jesus was breaking the rules and He’s engaging her in conversation and I just want to say, what she didn’t realize and what she’s about to realize is that the mission of Jesus was to do exactly what He was doing. To break across cultures, to break across race, to break across religion and to reach into people’s lives and to proclaim goodness and freedom, male and female, rich and poor, He was in the business of breaking down walls. Isaiah, excuse me, Luke 4, quoting Isaiah 61, Jesus proclaiming His ministry, Luke 4:18-19 He said, this is my mission, “the Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because He anointed me to preach the Gospel to the poor, He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives, recovery of sight to the blind, to set free those who are oppressed to proclaim the favorable year of the Lord.” This lady didn’t know that this was the mission of Jesus, this engagement with her was the very thing that He had come to do. To set people like her free from her bondage and her brokenness.
Often I hear people talk about things like this that if somebody great actually came to know the Lord, then thousands would be saved. Then America would be changed because this person has turned to the Lord and though, that would be wonderful, I’m not sure we got it right, so let me say it something like this. Tom Brady is a well-known NFL quarterback. Tom Brady doesn’t know the Lord, but if say, let’s pray for Tom Brady. If he came to the Lord, it would be awesome, then all these football players would come to know the Lord and America would hear the Gospel. Maybe we would think of it another way, if this great actor came to know the Lord, if Brad Pitt came to know the Lord, then he would proclaim the Gospel and people would begin to believe that God’s alive it may begin to change America. If a news anchorman, let’s say like a CNN Anderson Cooper, if he came to know the Lord, how would that change all of our lives. Man that’s what needs to happen, these big influential people, need to know the Lord and that will be the game changer for society and Jesus did exactly the opposite. He took the smallest, most insignificant person and that’s who He had a conversation with because His thought was this. If she comes to know me and my greatness is seen through her brokenness, that is a greater display than somebody great becoming greater. He came to make the small great not just the great greater. We want all those other guys to be saved. But that’s not how Jesus works when it comes to Him wanting to start a movement of His goodness and His grace. It is best displayed when it is poured out on broken sinners that have felt like nothing and then they become something because they have encountered the living God and the face of Jesus Christ.
Jesus…taking the small and making them great. Well, let’s go on with the story, it goes on after she says why are you talking to me and Jesus randomly starts saying this. In verse 10-14 (it wasn’t random by the way it just felt that way) Jesus answered and said to her, “if you knew the gift of God and who it is that says to you give me a drink, you would have asked Him and He would have given you living water. She says to Him, ‘Sir, you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep, where then do you get the living water? You’re not greater than our father, Jacob, are you who gave us this well and drank of it himself and his sons and his cattle?’ Jesus answered and said to her, everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again. But whoever drinks of the water that I will give him, will never thirst. But the water that I give him will become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life.” Now this one interaction, all of a sudden, Jesus is talking about water and not just the natural water, but spiritual water, and you know, what’s going on here? Well first of all, let’s just say a little bit about water. Water has so many things, so many meanings, so many wonderful things about it, but first and foremost water is refreshing. Water is refreshing, it’s renewing and especially if it’s saturation. You know in Texas, if you work outside much, it is an absolute delight to dive into a pool or a lake after it’s been 100 degrees and you’re sweating like crazy. Many times after I jump into a pool on a day like that, I just want to sit as long as I can hold my breath, I want to sit at the bottom of the pool. I don’t want just a little bit, I want to be refreshed, I want to be saturated, there’s something about water that does that like nothing else does. Water in the Bible, but also just in life speaks of purifying of cleansing, it cleanses us of germs, that kind of thing. But in the Bible, it talks about how water cleanses our hearts, so Jesus is talking double meanings here talking about the natural water, talking about the spiritual water, “hey girl, the water I’m about to give you, it’s refreshing for the soul!” “hey girl,” y’all like that when he says that? Alright. It’s refreshing to the soul. It’s purifying for the heart. And here’s the deal, water is sustaining.
It sustains our life. After three days, medically, you can, things can begin to shut down in your body, you can’t live without water. Water is sustaining, so when Jesus is talking about, yeah we have some natural water here, but listen Sarah, there’s water of life that I’m offering that not only will purify you and refresh you, but it will sustain you forever. You’re not having to worry about the future, Sarah, because this water can be everything that you need speaking of the Holy Spirit. Well, here’s her response, verse 15, the woman, Sarah, said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so I will not be thirsty or come all the way here to draw.” Sir, give me this water. Now, that is so interesting. Because He’s talking about things and she’s not exactly sure what He’s saying so she says well, ok, yes, just give it to me! Yeah, I’ll take it! She had a yes in her heart. And what happens in the Kingdom of God, it kind of goes like this, Jesus gives an invitation. And we say yes and when we say yes to whatever invitation Jesus is giving, whether we understand it all or not, it unlocks a door in our lives to the great adventure He has us on. Whenever we say yes to whatever little bit of understanding we have of God or of His ways, when we say yes it launches something that nothing else does. Jesus doesn’t force His way into your life, He invites you into His life. And when He invites you, even if you don’t understand it all, say yes with what you do know.
When Laura and I were in college, we were dating and getting serious and I was thinking about marriage a little more than she was. And so I went and talked to her dad and her dad said this, he said listen, you can get married as long as she’s finished college. So she was in her junior year, I was at the end of my senior year and I thought. Ok, great, I got this figured out. If I ask her early enough, if I ask her in March, then she can change her schedule and do 12 hours of summer school and then she can do 18 hours in the fall and we can get married on the day she graduates! So, to do that though, Y’all are saying, how could I do that? Hey I was in love, c’mon now. So, how could she do that? Yeah, well, never mind. So here we go. So, that’s the game plan, so now I gotta ask her earlier than she is expecting. And so, it’s March and I get the ring and I do the deal and I am pretty sure she is going to say yes, but there is still a little bit of question because we haven’t totally lined this whole deal out and so, but you know I went for it and we had a great time and I got down on my knee the whole deal and she said, “Yes!” And then we went and we went to our friend’s houses and I ran in and said, “She said yes! She said yes! She said yes!” I was so thrilled because now I knew that all these things could go in order and actually what happened is we actually got married the day she graduated, she didn’t even walk the stage, all he said was she had to get through the coursework, so we got it done and we got married. Now, she didn’t know everything she was saying yes, to by the way. She was in love, of course, I was too, and we said yes to the great adventure that God had for us. We didn’t have it all mapped out, we didn’t have the plans, we didn’t know what the future held, but we knew who held us. And we were going to say yes to him, all along the way.
And so it is for you and I today, the invitation of God is always given, in a multitude of ways, sometimes we understand the future, sometimes we don’t, but the answer always needs to be yes. Lord, whatever you are doing, I’m in! Lord, just guide me and direct me, I’m in! Where have I said no, Lord? And when we say yes, it unlocks again the river of the grace of God in our lives. Unlock the door again today, even if you don’t understand what’s happened in the past, say yes to the present and God will make sure that you have a future. Say yes.
So she says yes. So God, so Jesus sees Sarah’s heart, a willingness to kind of go with the conversation, a willingness to accept what’s happening here, and then what does He do? He goes for the heart, let’s read the rest of the story John 4, “Then He says to her, go call your husband and come here. And the woman answered and said I have no husband. And Jesus said to her, you have correctly said I have no husband, for you have had five husbands and the one whom you now have is not your husband, this you have said truly. And the woman said to him, sir, I perceive you are a prophet.” She’s getting it, slowly but surely, here she goes it’s all making sense now. You see Jesus not only invited her to this living water, but then out of His great mercy revealed her sin, so that she could get rid of the guilt and the shame and the pain that went with it. This is not harsh Jesus pointing out her sin. He’s doing it to set her free! Whenever Jesus exposes sin in our life or brokenness in our life, there’s only one goal and that’s to set us free from it! That’s why he is exposing her heart! He said, I know you feel guilty, I know you feel the shame, I know you don’t know which ways up, but listen, this is not going to work, so let me just tell you I know. I know and I still love you, I know and I’m still inviting you. I know and I’m still wanting to cleanse you. He knows everything and He’s inviting us to the freedom that He literally came to give us.
I shared the beginning story about Johannes, and that awkward statement that I sensed the Lord telling me to tell him. “Repent and come to Jesus.” Lord, that seems so non-compassionate! But you know what? It’s the most compassionate thing that God offers us. Because if there is no repentance then there is no freedom. So by pointing out and exposing the brokenness in our lives, it gives Him the opportunity to heal it. It brings us back to who we are made for and that is Him.
Phillip Yancy tells the story, a true story, of a teenager in Traverse City, Michigan. Just outside of that, she grew up on a farm. And her family, they lived in a very kind of rural community, God-fearing family, they went to church every Sunday, her parents were what she would call old-fashioned and they believed in playing by the rules. Well when she got to be a teenager, she wanted to experiment a little bit, push out in some music they didn’t approve of and then a little bit of alcohol and then some friends they didn’t approve of and they began to confront her with the choices she was making. And when they would confront her, she would respond aggressively, “I hate you guys, I hate you guys, why won’t you let me have any fun? You’re so old fashioned, I can’t believe you’re saying these things. Just leave me alone, and she would go in her room and slam the door.” Well, this went on for a couple of years and in her early teenage years and then finally one night after another one of these incidents, she screamed out I hate you, slams her door and then she began to take action in the thing that had run through her mind several times, how can I run away? How can I get away from these people? How can I get to the fun of life instead of this situation that I’m in? And she remembered, she had planned out because she had been to a mission trip with her church in the inner city of Detroit. And she had seen the bright lights and the clubs and the bars and everything else and she said, I’m going to go there! I’m going to go to Detroit and so she slips out her window that night and makes her way eventually to Detroit. When she gets there, she finds a guy that’s interested in her and wants to be her boyfriend. Eventually that turns into partying with him and that turns into partying with his friends and she finds herself being prostituted and it’s ok at first because now she’s got a lot of money and goes to parties and has attention and everything is going great. One month, two months, then she gets to a year, at the year’s situation she starts not feeling well, she goes to the doctor, they find a disease, a sickness related to now her lifestyle, her activities and that boyfriend, that guy she called Boss now wants nothing to do with her. So here she is after a year of all of this, she’s found to be sick and now she’s thrown out on the street. She described it, she would sit like many homeless people on the vents, on the heat vents and night and wait for the heat to come up to stay warm, she literally couldn’t sleep because she was fighting for her life, many times concerned and worried about what would happen if she would make it through the next day. Well, obviously when you are in that kind of situation, you start thinking where is safety, where is home? And her thoughts began to drift back towards her parents. And she eventually after a few days, she said you know I just got, I gotta take a shot at it, I’ve got to see if they’ll have me back. I’ve got to get out of here, I don’t know where else to go. So she calls Day 1 on the phone and the answering machine goes off and she hangs up. Day 2 the answering machine goes off, she hangs up. Day 3 she says ok, I’m going to leave a message and she leaves a message, “mom, dad, it’s me, I’m coming, I’m coming through town. On Tuesday night, I’ll be on the bus, on Tuesday night. I understand if you guys don’t want anything to do with me, but I’m going to come I’m going to stop and I’m going to get off the bus. If you’re there and you’ll have me, I’ll stay. If you’re not, I’ll keep going. “ She didn’t know if they ever got the message. But she had no choice, she had to get out of the city. She gets on the bus and she said there were seven stops from Detroit, seven city stops to Traverse City. Eventually she gets into Traverse City at midnight. She’s rehearsed over in her mind, if someone’s there, if mom’s there at least or if dad’s there or a cousin or if somebody’s there, here’s my apology, here’s how I’ll ask for forgiveness and she’s running it through over and over again. And the bus driver comes on the PA and says “alright you’ve got 15 minutes.” And she describes it herself this way and she realized 15 minutes. I have 15 minutes to decide the rest of my life. What will happen? She’d run over so many scenes in her mind, but she wasn’t prepared for what did happen. She saw plastic seats and hard floors, she looked up and she saw over 40 of her cousins and nieces and nephews and aunts and uncles, her great grandmother even was there. And they’re all there with a huge banner that says “Welcome Home.” And she’s just undone, as she’s kind of overwhelmed with emotion, she looks up and her dad is breaking through the crowd to get to her. She begins the apology before he even gets to embrace her and “Dad, I’m so sorry, I can’t believe that I even did this…please forgive me.” She’s just pouring her heart out and he walks up and says, “Ssshhhh, …we have a party waiting, honey. All that is gone. Let’s go.” Her life was transformed in a moment of grace. She didn’t deserve it. She knew her sin, she knew her shame, she knew her guilt, nobody needed to point it out anymore, it was clear. But she was received gladly by her father, she was created, she was received gladly by her mom and dad, they wanted nothing more than to have their daughter as their own again.
And so it is with Jesus, He has no greater desire than for you to be His own! He has no greater desire than for you to be close and not far away. He knows everything that has gone on, everything that you are doing right now and He still invites you close. He still wants to cleanse you. He still wants to forgive you. He still wants you as His own.
Jesus, speaking to the Samaritan woman, her life is being changed by the moment as this dialogue continues. Now we could stop there and that would be enough! A conversation, an encounter, the unburdening of our hearts, we could stop there in the story and you’d think, yes, alright, God loves me! But what I find too often is we have those moments with God, but it doesn’t sustain itself throughout our lives. We don’t then kind of walk through life with Jesus, we have a moment, but not a lifestyle. And isn’t it amazing? This lady, this Samaritan, we’re calling Sarah, she got it! Her immediate response is not only being overwhelmed, but “wow, He knows and He loves me!” and she kicks into gear and says now listen, Jesus, they say that Jews should worship here or there, now what are we supposed to do? And Jesus tells her this phrase (Because she wants to know how are we going to go from here, where are we going to go from here, this is awesome, but I want to go further). And here’s what He says in John 4:23-24, “But an hour is coming and now is where true worshippers will worship the Father in Spirit and Truth for such people the Father seeks to be His worshippers.” God is Spirit and those who want to worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth. Sarah, great question! Way to go Girl! Not only do you accept my love for you, but now you want to know how to worship me for the long haul, here’s how it’s going to happen. We’re going to worship in spirit and in truth. He was prophesying that when He would go to the cross, and ascend to the Father, that He would send His spirit and she would be able to worship God wherever she was at any time and any place because she would worship in the spirit and she would worship in truth.
So let’s take just a moment on those two things. Worshipping in the spirit, the Holy Spirit, if you know Jesus comes to live inside you. Ephesians says we are sealed with the Holy Spirit until the day of redemption. Jesus said that He is sending the spirit in John 16:7, He says it’s to your advantage that I go away for if I do not go away the Helper will not come to you, but if I go I will send Him to you. The Holy Spirit has been sent to help us. To be a standby, counselor, walk beside, to be the one who fills and restores us when we’re out of this energy, this broken world, the Holy Spirit is the present tense reality of God. When we were just worshipping earlier, man that song you know it’s your breath, great are you Lord, just kind of woah, Lord I’m in with you and what you were experiencing there was the presence of God. God being exalted and the Spirit of the Lord touching the emotions of the heart, that’s a right thing, worshipping in the Spirit and so we pray, I want to hunger for you Holy Spirit, I want more of you, Holy Spirit, I want your love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness and self control. Lord, I want every gift of your Spirit, I want to walk in your Spirit, I want to be saturated in your Spirit, I want to dive in the pool of your purity and the abundance of your grace. Spirit of the Living God, I want to worship you with my whole heart. We’re to be people of the Spirit who walk with Him. Now if the Spirit speaks about the breath of God, or the wind of God, what does the truth, what does it mean to worship in truth? That’s like the anchor of God. If you have a sailboat, you have this deal at the bottom of the sailboat called the ballast and what happens is when they’re building sailboats, they dump in all this heavy iron and this heavy weight because the bottom under the water has to be grounded so that when it bobs on the top, it doesn’t flip over. It has to be grounded in the bottom, or anchored, if you will, so that it has the ability to move with the wind at the top of the water. And that’s what truth is, truth is that ballast, truth is the anchor underneath, it means that no matter what wind or wave comes, I will not simply allow the wind to drive me, I’m going to allow the truth to guide me, I’m going to allow the truth to be solid under the water, no matter what emotion or feeling that I have.
Because there’s many days when I don’t hear that still small voice, there’s many days when I am challenged emotionally and there’s many days when I don’t feel God but the truth is always present so that no matter what comes, I will be grounded. Several years ago, there’s one of these entrepreneurs who had made a lot of money and wanted an adventure, so he built a sailboat and he kind of made a big deal about it being the most technologically advanced sailboat of the time and he was going to go from New York, across the Atlantic, if things went well, he was going to sail around the world. He made it halfway through the Atlantic and you know he had regular call-in signals and all of a sudden he said there was a huge storm and it’s out of control and I don’t know what to do and the signal’s cut off. They eventually because he had a homing radar device on his boat, eventually they find the boat capsized upside down and he was never found. And they drug it in and they pulled the boat in and did an analysis of the boat, how could this boat, state-of-the-art, high technology, and this guy who knew everything about sailing, what did he miss? How could he have been lost at sea? And as they deconstructed the boat, they found out he had not taken the time to put the weight in the ballast. There was nothing under the water and so it was subject to whatever came along the way.
My friends, the Word of God is that ballast, is that weight. Every day we spend time in the Word, not because we have to, but because we need to. My soul is not made simply for the wind, it is made to be grounded. There has to be an anchoring of the soul, even as I’m learning to surf with God, if you will, or go with the wind of the Spirit, even as I’m my emotions are being enraptured for God and hungering for the Holy Spirit. God’s truth has to be solidified inside of me so that I can rightly discern and rightly live before God and rightly be fruitful in all the things that God would have. Jesus said it this way, “You will know the truth and the truth will set you free.” So here’s Sarah, our gal, she’s had an incredible experience. She wants to go for it in the long haul, so Jesus says well, alright, let’s do spirit and truth, I’m giving you the keys to the kingdom. And she’s not only excited, she wants to go out and tell somebody. John 4:28-30, it says this, “the woman left her water pot, went into the city and said to the men, “Come see a man who has told me all the things that I have ever done, this is not the Christ is it?” And these men, they went out of the city and they were coming to Jesus, coming to Him. And here was the result in verse 42, and they were saying, these men were saying to Sarah, “it is no longer because of what you said that we believe, but we have heard for ourselves and know that this one indeed is the Savior of the world.”
Wow. What a day for this girl. Right? What a day! She has one conversation, encounters Jesus, gets what she needs for the long haul and then goes out and proclaims to a whole city who is transformed. Then a small person on the earth, became great that day and 2000 years later, we’re still talking about her.
One conversation, one encounter. That’s my prayer, that this morning, you sense the invitation of God. This is a conversation for you that God not only is reaching out to you, but that your answer will be yes. Let’s stand together.
