The Bad Samaritan

The Bad Samaritan

John 4:3-14

http://gbcdecatur.org/sermons/badsamaritan.html

You’ve heard of the Good Samaritan, who stopped to help a man in need. In our text, Jesus confronts a bad Samaritan, a sinful woman, and God’s grace worked in her life wonderfully.

Last time we looked in chapter 3 at Jesus’ confrontation of Nicodemus. Let’s contrast him with the Samaritan woman in chapter 4:

Nic was a man, she was a woman.

Nic was a Jew, she was a Samaritan.

Nic was a respected ruler, she was a social outcast.

Nic was a ’moral person,’ she was immoral.

Nic came at night, this happened in daylight.

Nic was an up and comer, she was down and out, and as far from Beverly Hills as you can get.

These two are so different, and yet so similar. For they were both encouraged to put their faith and trust in the same Savior. Rich people get saved the same way poor people get saved. Men get saved the same way women get saved. And ’good’ people get saved the same way ’bad’ people do.

If a rich man dies without Christ and a poor man dies without Christ, they both go to the same hell. There are no class systems in hell. These two stories are quite different, and yet they are the same.

1. A momentous confrontation.

a. A willing servant.

vv. 3-4 ’must needs’ = ’had to’. There was a divine plan He was following. He was on His Father’s timetable. He said, "My will is to do the will of Him that sent me." We should want to say, "My will is to do the will of Him that saved me."

And just as Jesus reached this woman for heaven because He was a willing servant, there is someone God wants for you to reach if you will live each day following His divine plan. He has made some appointments for each of us if we would consult His calendar and follow His leading.

ill.--recently my wife was shopping in the makeup aisle, and felt led to invite another woman to church. She obeyed God’s prompting and that woman is here today for the third straight week!

b. A weary Savior.

v. 6 Jacob’s well still exists in the holy land, and is one of the few Biblical sites about which there is no dispute of its authenticity.

Jesus arrives at the well hot, tired, dusty, and thirsty. He is God, but in human form, and He is weary. "Sometimes we grow weary IN the work of God, but we must never grow weary OF the work of God."

Galatians 6:9

And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not.

He is God, so He could just teleport all those many miles, but I’m glad Jesus was willing to become weary in order to win souls. Are you willing to work at it, even ’til worn out? We all want souls to be saved...but what if it meant we had to be inconvenienced? We feel noble for clicking ’Like’ on a spiritual online post, but that’s kind of akin to holding up a John 3:16 sign between the goal posts. God’s way requires work...God rewards work, and there’s no easy way around it.

"Lord, I want to be used, even if it costs me a lot."

ill.--David Livingstone was the first missionary to penetrate the heart of deep Africa. He suffered pneumonia, cholera, tropical ulcers, starvation, and attacks by lions and savages. One day he received a message that there were some men who wanted to come assist him in the work...but they would need to find a good road to get to his location. He replied, "If you have men who will come only if there is a good road, I don’t want them. I want men who will come even if there is no road at all."

Opportunities to share the living water are found at the well of willingness...the well of weariness.

willing servant, weary Savior...

c. A wayward sinner.

v. 7a Her face shows traces of her fading beauty. More obvious is her disillusionment, disappointment, pain, and emptiness. She is the town outcast. In a culture which rarely saw divorce, she had been divorced four times, and now is living with a man. What a momentous confrontation this is, because what she needs is to meet Jesus Christ! Only Jesus can forgive her sins, erase her guilt, and give her a brand new life worth living, and at the very moment she comes to draw water, there sits Jesus.

HE CAME TO ME Squire Parsons

The gulf that separated me from Christ my Lord

It was so vast, the crossing I could never ford

From where I was to His demands it seemed so far