Come and Experience His Welcome!
John 4:5-42
Introduction
This month we have been working with the theme COME AND SEE JESUS. We have talked about his power, his passion, love. Today: Come and Experience His Welcome! If Jesus is powerful, passionate, and loving but not welcoming, then we are left helpless! Maybe no story in the NT expresses His welcome more than the one for today: The Samaritan Woman at the Well.
John 4:5-8 So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about noon. When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?” (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.)
Jesus’ conversation with the Samaritan woman is kind of like ‘what’s wrong with this picture’? (N. T. Wright) Jesus is a devout Jewish teacher. Jewish men would not have spent time alone with a woman, certainly not talking to her. The woman is Samaritan and Jews would have nothing to do with Samaritans - especially to share eating or drinking vessels with them. This woman has had some troubles: drawing water in the hottest part of the day, possibly avoid the other women who would have come in the cool morning time. Jesus already knows this, but chooses to engage in conversation anyway.
John 4:9-10 The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.) Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.”
1. He Welcomes us to the Well (11-15)
We all feel a spiritual thirst, it’s built-in to the human heart. Our trouble is that we try to satisfy that thirst in so many ineffective ways. What we buy, accumulate, chase after. Whether it is sex, relationships, food, possessions, money, substance abuse, an endless list: all unsatisfying in the end. What well are you drawing from that is leaving you thirsty?
All the while, Jesus is nearby watching, waiting, welcoming.
John 7:37a-38 NLT …Jesus stood and shouted to the crowds, “Anyone who is thirsty may come to me! Anyone who believes in me may come and drink! For the Scriptures declare, ‘Rivers of living water will flow from his heart.’”
Revelation 7:17 For the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd; ‘he will lead them to springs of living water.’ ‘And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.’”
How many tears have we cried, trying to find springs of living water? God wipes them all away. When Jesus welcomes the thirsty, He offers a well that… Satisfies the soul, Never runs dry, Wells up into eternal life, Open to everyone, Jesus welcomes the thirsty.
2. He Welcomes The Weary
(4:16-18 He told her, “Go, call your husband and come back.” “I have no husband,” she replied. Jesus said to her, “You are right when you say you have no husband. 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.”)
Some have painted the woman as an immoral woman or even a prostitute, but the text doesn’t tell us her situation. Jesus doesn’t ask her to repent. What we can know, is that hers has been a life of brokenness and carrying heavy burdens.
Wright: “The woman has had a life composed of one emotional upheaval after another, with enough husbands coming and going to keep all the gossips in the village chattering . …But she knew her life was in a mess, and
she knew that Jesus knew.”
We can identify with weariness. Weary of living in a pandemic. Weary of division and rhetoric that inflames. Weary of our own failure to live up to our calling. Weary of the weight of our mistakes and trying to correct.
Matthew 11:28-29 “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.”
3. He Welcomes the Wondering
(4:19-24 “Sir,” the woman said, “I can see that you are a prophet. Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.” “Woman,” Jesus replied, “believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.”)
For whatever reason she asks about this, it is a question that kept Jews and Gentiles divided and dismissive. Jesus doesn’t reject her because she had a question- even one that was so much a part of the fabric of faith in their day. He points her to the truth that they were divided over things that didn’t matter to God - he was looking for worshipers who were focused on worshiping Him from the heart.
Have you ever had a question … ?About why God answered prayer in a certain way…or didn’t? About your own salvation … are we even saved? About our eternal life, what it will be like About a thousand things that have happened to us in our lives?
Jesus didn’t dismiss her because of her weariness nor her wondering … He tells her that HE is the answer.
John 4:25-27. The woman said, “I know that Messiah” (called Christ) “is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.” Then Jesus declared, “I, the one speaking to you—I am he.” Just then his disciples returned and were surprised to find him talking with a woman. But no one asked, “What do you want?” or “Why are you talking with her?”
This is the first I AM statement in John, and it is the first time he admits his mission and Messiahship - and to a Samaritan no less! For those who are waiting to encounter Jesus, He welcomes you to come near to Him.
4. He Welcomes The Weighed Down (28-30)
Lucado "Did you notice what she forgot? She forgot her water jar. She left behind the jug that had caused the sag in her shoulders. She left behind the burden she brought. Suddenly the shame of the tattered romances disappeared. Suddenly the insignificance of her life was swallowed by the significance of the moment. “God is here! God has come! God cares... for me!” That is why she forgot her water jar. That is why she ran to the city. That is why she grabbed the first person she saw and announced her discovery, “I just talked to a man who knows everything I ever did . . . and he loves me anyway!”
Whatever weighs heavily upon you, you can leave behind when you look up and see that Jesus is right here.
1 Peter 5:7 NLT Give all your worries and cares to God, for he cares about you.
Conclusion: Come and Experience His Welcome
The woman tells the village and they come to meet the Messiah and they believe Him.
“The Messiah is the one in whose presence you know who you really are—the good and bad of it, the all of it, the hope in it. The Messiah is the one who shows you who you are by showing you who he is—who crosses all boundaries, breaks all rules, drops all disguises—speaking to you like someone you have known all your life, bubbling up in your life like a well that needs no dipper, so that you go back to face people you thought you could never face again, speaking to them as boldly as he spoke to you. “Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done.” - Barbara Brown Taylor
Come and see His power, His passion, His love. Come and experience His welcome. All who are thirsty. Come be born of water and spirit and experience what Jesus came to bring.
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Video of this message can be found on the YouTube channel for Forsythe Church of Christ.
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Discussion Questions For John 4:1-42
1. What evidences do you see in our world that human beings have a spiritual thirst that they cannot fill without Christ?
2. Jesus breaks down some social barriers in his conversation with the woman at the well. These barriers included religion, gender, and social stigma. How did Jesus overcome each of these, and how are they important to overcome today?
3. The Samaritan woman is never called a sinner in this text, nor is she asked to repent. What are some circumstances that might have led to five marriages and living with someone currently? When we assume we know about people’s lives, what mistakes can we easily make?
4. Who are the outcasts (“Samaritans”) in your world - the people with whom ‘decent’ people have nothing to do? How can you treat them as Jesus treated the woman of Sychar? What would help such a person to recognize and believe in Jesus?
5. Jesus affirms, in verse 24, that “God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.” How can we do this more fully, with God’s help? What kinds of things can block a person or group from worshiping in spirit and truth?
6. In our text, but not covered in the sermon, Jesus tells his disciples to lift up their eyes and see the harvest (Read 4:34-39). What does that mean in the immediate context of the passage? In what ways would that be a message for us today?
7. Jesus stayed two days among the Samaritans, with the result being that many believed (4:39-42 So when the Samaritans came to him, they urged him to stay with them, and he stayed two days. 41 And because of his words many more became believers. 42 They said to the woman, “We no longer believe just because of what you said; now we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this man really is the Savior of the world.”). They said about Jesus that he was “indeed the Christ, the Savior of the world” (NKJV). What does this descriptive term mean to you? How does it affect how we treat others?
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Resources
Euston, Tom. https://www.rockpres.org/single-post/2017/03/19/the-woman-at-the-well
Lucado, Max. Two Tombstones: The Story of the Samaritan Woman and Jesus Christ. https://www.crosswalk.com/faith/spiritual-life/two-tombstones-the-story-of-the-samaritan-woman-and-jesus-christ-11582592.html
O’Day, Gail R. The New Interpreter’s Bible Commentary, The Gospel of John. Abingdon Press, 2015.
Rush, Kip. Encounter, volume 89, number 2. Ministry Council of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church, 2021.
Taylor, Barbara Brown. Identity Confirmation: John 4:5-42.
https://www.christiancentury.org/article/2008-02/identity-confirmation
Wright, Tom. John for Everyone, Part . Westminster John Knox Press, 2004.
