The Most Valuable Person Ever.
John 4:5-26NKJV
Matthew Kelly stated in his book Rediscover Jesus—Every person is as important and valuable as the person you consider most important and valuable.
Jesus took people whom you and I would mindlessly pass on the streets, people we would never choose to be in the same room with, people from the very margins of society, and he placed them at the center of the narrative we call the Gospel.
They came to Jesus in a hundred guises—the sick, the poor, the despised, women, children, and sinners of every type—but in each of them Jesus saw a child of God.
Jesus sees acres of diamonds, He sees a diamond in the rough, He see the potential buried in the back yard, He sees a righteous people, a holy nation.
For sure—Jesus doesn’t see the way we do. P.H
I want to read to you the longest recorded conversation between Jesus and any other human being.
I want to look at verse by verse of this conversation.
John 4:1-4NKJV Therefore, when the Lord knew that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus made and baptized more disciples than John 2 (though Jesus Himself did not baptize, but His disciples), 3 He left Judea and departed again to Galilee. 4 But He needed to go through Samaria.
The Pharisees in this day and time were God’s spiritual elite. News of Jesus baptizing, became more ammunition for these elite.
What did the Pharisees detest about Jesus? They were angered by Jesus’ actions and words, they were outraged by Jesus’ approach to ministry, stating, “I say nothing without my Father.”
Again verse 4, states, Jesus needed to go through Samaria.
Enduring Word Commentary—Although the road through Samaria was the shortest route from Jerusalem to Galilee, pious Jews often avoided it. They did so because there was a deep distrust and dislike between many of the Jewish people and the Samaritans.
Hear these powerful verses from—Psalm 82:3-4NKJV Defend the poor and fatherless; Do justice to the afflicted and needy. 4 Deliver the poor and needy; Free them from the hand of the wicked.
Jesus came to produce freedom. He came to defend the helpless, the poor and needy.
He came to free them from the hand of the wicked! Jesus could careless about your past and you should careless and let go too.
John 4:5-6NKJV So He came to a city of Samaria which is called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph. 6 Now Jacob’s well was there. Jesus therefore, being wearied from His journey, sat thus by the well. It was about the sixth hour.
Why Samaria? There was a broken woman that needed Jesus.
Samaria—This is where Abram first came when he arrived into Canaan from Babylonia, Genesis 12:6.
This is where God first appeared to Abram in Canaan, and renewed the promise of giving the land to him and his descendants, Genesis 12:7.
This is where Abram built an altar and called upon the name of the Lord, Genesis 12:8.
This is where Joshua made a covenant with Israel, renewing their commitment to the God of Israel and proclaiming, as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord Joshua 24.
John 4:6, Jesus therefore, being wearied from His journey, sat thus by the well. It was about the sixth hour.
Around 12 noon, Jesus was tried and weary.
John 4:7-9TM A woman, a Samaritan, came to draw water. Jesus said, “Would you give me a drink of water?” (His disciples had gone to the village to buy food for lunch.) 9 The Samaritan woman, taken aback, asked, “How come you, a Jew, are asking me, a Samaritan woman, for a drink?” (Jews in those days wouldn’t be caught dead talking to Samaritans.)
Maclaren writes, This woman seems to be quick to talk, easily turning a serious sentence to jests, but hidden beneath masses of unclean vanities a conscience and a yearning for something better than she has.
Again, Psalm 82:3-4TM You’re here to defend the defenseless, to make sure that underdogs get a fair break; Your job is to stand up for the powerless, and prosecute all those who exploit them.”
Here’s a key to life—The most important person in any room has to be yourself, but the second most important person in the room is the person you might detest, maybe the person right next to you! P.H
Everyone—the Jews, the gentiles, the Romans—despised the Samaritans. So what did Jesus do? He gave them a central place in the Gospel.
Remember for a moment—First, there is the Good Samaritan parable, which has made the name Samaritan synonymous with good works and mercy. Lk. 10:25-37.
Secondly, in this encounter, Jesus not only came to a Samaritan, but a Samaritan woman. She’d been divorced several times, Jesus was truly on the fringes of the social structure when he decided to strike up a conversation with this woman. The stigma attached to this woman was monumental. Her own people looked down upon her.
Did Jesus just politely say hello to her; Did He offer a shallow conversation with her? No, Jesus offered her life, and then some.
John 4:10NKJV Jesus answered and said to her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, ‘Give Me a drink,’ you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water.”
Listen to me—Jesus’ attitude toward people was radically different, because He saw in every man, woman and child a child of God—A Son or Daughter of God.
John 4:11-15TM The woman said, “Sir, you don’t even have a bucket to draw with, and this well is deep. So how are you going to get this ‘living water’? Are you a better man than our ancestor Jacob, who dug this well and drank from it, he and his sons and livestock, and passed it down to us?”
13-14 Jesus said, “Everyone who drinks this water will get thirsty again and again. Anyone who drinks the water I give will never thirst—not ever. The water I give will be an artesian spring within, gushing fountains of endless life.”
15 The woman said, “Sir, give me this water so I won’t ever get thirsty, won’t ever have to come back to this well again!”
The question I asked myself is—Am I tired of my well? Do I desire Jesus’ life springs!
John 4:16-18NKJV Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come here.” 17 The woman answered and said, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You have well said, ‘I have no husband,’ 18 for you have had five husbands, and the one whom you now have is not your husband; in that you spoke truly.”
Jesus doesn’t condemn her, but He offers her the truth, mixed with tremendous compassion. Have you ever heard the expression, I feel your love. This Samaritan woman felt Jesus’ love.
John 4:19-24TLB “Sir,” the woman said, “you must be a prophet. 20 But say, tell me, why is it that you Jews insist that Jerusalem is the only place of worship, while we Samaritans claim it is here at Mount Gerizim, where our ancestors worshiped?” 21-24 Jesus replied, “The time is coming, ma’am, when we will no longer be concerned about whether to worship the Father here or in Jerusalem. For it’s not where we worship that counts, but how we worship—is our worship spiritual and real? Do we have the Holy Spirit’s help? For God is Spirit, and we must have his help to worship as we should. The Father wants this kind of worship from us. But you Samaritans know so little about him, worshiping blindly, while we Jews know all about him, for salvation comes to the world through the Jews.”
Here’s a word from the Lord—I have positioned My Church to become My heartthrob, I have strategically placed My church—My body—the body of Christ, to become My mouth piece, My hands, heart and feet. I’ve called My Church to represent Me well. I want to make full the Church, full of My glory!
John 4:25-26TM The woman said, “Well, at least I know that the Messiah will come—the one they call Christ—and when he does, he will explain everything to us.” 26 Then Jesus told her, “I am the Messiah!”
Jesus came to be the fulfillment of Micah 6:8NKJV He has shown you, O man, what is good; And what does the Lord require of you But to do justly, To love mercy, And to walk humbly with your God?
God’s all about the weak, the lowly, and the faint of heart. He takes pleasure in our nothing, making us something! P.H
John 4:27-42TM Just then his disciples arrived. They were surprised to find him talking to a woman, but none of them asked him why, or what they had been discussing.
28-29 Then the woman left her waterpot beside the well and went back to the village and told everyone, “Come and meet a man who told me everything I ever did! Can this be the Messiah?” 30 So the people came streaming from the village to see him.
31 Meanwhile, the disciples were urging Jesus to eat. 32 “No,” he said, “I have some food you don’t know about.” 33 “Who brought it to him?” the disciples asked each other.
34 Then Jesus explained: “My nourishment comes from doing the will of God who sent me, and from finishing his work. 35 Do you think the work of harvesting will not begin until the summer ends four months from now? Look around you! Vast fields of human souls are ripening all around us, and are ready now for reaping. 36 The reapers will be paid good wages and will be gathering eternal souls into the granaries of heaven! What joys await the sower and the reaper, both together! 37 For it is true that one sows and someone else reaps. 38 I sent you to reap where you didn’t sow; others did the work, and you received the harvest.” 39 Many from the Samaritan village believed he was the Messiah because of the woman’s report: “He told me everything I ever did!” 40-41 When they came out to see him at the well, they begged him to stay at their village; and he did, for two days, long enough for many of them to believe in him after hearing him. 42 Then they said to the woman, “Now we believe because we have heard him ourselves, not just because of what you told us. He is indeed the Savior of the world.”
“Because of this encounter, with this one Samaritan woman, all of Samaria had the opportunity to walk with Jesus, Savior of the world!” P.H
The opportunity for everyone awaits. Come to Jesus, Savior of the World. Healer of all nations. One day, Every knee will bow and every tongue will confess.
The Most Valuable Person Ever—was this Samaritan woman, she and her country would be forever changed. P.H
Benediction.
