So, our text this evening comes from John chapter 4, John chapter 4, Jesus and the women of Samaria. We'll read the whole story, the whole narrative of Jesus and the Samaritan woman. John chapter 4, verse 1, now when Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus was making and baptizing more disciples than John, although Jesus himself did not baptize, but only his disciples, he left Judea and departed again for Galilee. And he had to pass through Samaria. So he came to a town of Samaria called Sychar, near the field that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob's well was there, so Jesus, worried as he was from his journey, was sitting beside the well. It was about the sixth hour. A woman from Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, give me a drink. For his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food. The Samaritan woman said to him, how is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria? For Jews have no dealing with Samaritans. Jesus answered her, if you knew the gift of God and who it is that is saying to you, give me a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water. The woman said to him, Sir, you have nothing to draw water with and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob? He gave us this well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock. Jesus said to her, Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life. The woman said to him, Sir, give me this water so that I may not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water. Jesus said to her, Go, call your husband and come here. The woman answered him, I have no husband. Jesus said to her, you are right in saying I have no husband, for you have had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband. What you have said is true. The woman said to him, sir, I perceive that you are a prophet. Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship. Jesus said to her, Woman, believe me that the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. You worship what you do not know. We worship what we know. For salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming and is now here when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth. For the Father is seeking such people to worship him. God is spirit and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth. The woman said to him, I know that the Messiah is coming, he who is called Christ. When he comes, he will tell us all things. Jesus said to her, I who speak to you am he. Just then his disciples came back. They marveled that he was talking with a woman, but no one said, what do you seek? Or why are you talking to her? So the woman left her water jar and went away into the town and said to the people, come see a man who told me all that i ever did can this be the christ they went out of the town and were coming to him meanwhile the disciples were urging him saying rabbi eat but he said to them i have food to eat that you do not know about so the disciples said to one another has anyone brought him something to eat jesus said to them my food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work do you not say there are yet four months then comes the harvest look i tell you lift up your eyes and see that the fills are white for harvest already the one who reaps is receiving wages and gathering fruit for eternal life so that sower and reaper may rejoice together for here they say for here the saying holds true one sows and another reaps i sent you to reap for that for which you did not labor Others have labored, and you have entered into their labor. Many Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman's testimony. He told me all that I ever did. So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them, and he stayed there two days. And many more believed because of his word. They said to the woman, It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, And we know that this is indeed the Savior of the world. There ends the reading of God's word this evening. So last time I exhorted here, about a month ago, we learned about how the gospel writer John masterfully weaves stories in and out of his gospel about how Jesus is the reader of hearts and that he would not entrust himself to those who put their faith in him just because they saw signs. We saw how John introduced us to the man Nicodemus, the teacher in Israel, and how he still had to be taught that it was not who he was, an ethnic Jew from Abraham, or what so-called good deeds that he did, that it would never earn his way to heaven, that he had to be born from above, that he had to be born again. He needed to hear the gospel. And John in his gospel doesn't just leave us with only the religious elite needing to hear the gospel. He brings it all the way down to the very low. Think of this. John wrote his gospel. He tells us at the end why he wrote it. These things are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing in his name you may have life. You. It's written to individuals. the gospel writer john wants to show us jesus's conversations with individuals he started with nicodemus in chapter three and think about how high that is the teacher in israel a pharisee of pharisees you have nicodemus but now in chapter four he wants to go the complete other direction and wants to show us the lowest of the low in jesus's time so low in fact that john doesn't even put her name in Scripture. He wants us to know that. How big of a gap between Nicodemus and just a Samaritan woman. But as we'll see in our text, Jesus will find one of his lost sheep. And with that one lost sheep, he will bring a whole town to him to hear the gospel and to bring salvation. There are three points that I would like to bring to our attention this evening. There are three things that Jesus came to do in our text. Jesus came to break down barriers. Jesus came to bind up the brokenhearted. And Jesus came to bring salvation to the world. Why? Because no matter who you are, where you've been, or what you've done, will never take you too far from Jesus and His Gospel. I want to repeat that. That's so important. Because no matter who you are, where you've been, or what you've done, will never take you too far from Jesus or His Gospel. So we see in the beginning of chapter 4, John's bringing chapter 3 to a close, starting us in chapter 4, and the narration is just telling us where He's been, what's going on, how are we going to get to the Samaritan woman? So Jesus has learned that the Pharisees have heard that Jesus is making more disciples than John the Baptist. He doesn't want a confrontation with the Pharisees yet, so he decides he needs to go back to Galilee. The text says in verse 4, he had to pass through Samaria. He had to. What are we to make of this? He had to pass through. You may have heard that most Jews went around Samaria, east of the Jordan, to get to Galilee. But mostly only the super-pious Pharisees did that. Josephus tells us that most Jews literally went through Samaria to get to Galilee. So we see this and we know, well, then why did he have to go if most Jews went through Samaria? What's the point? I believe what John is trying to show us in this is that the Spirit was leading Jesus to Samaria for a reason. This isn't the first time that the Spirit has led Jesus somewhere. If we remember when Jesus was baptized, right after his baptism, the Gospel of Mark tells us that the Spirit drove him into the wilderness to be tempted by Satan. That word drove him is literally threw out. So the Spirit threw out Jesus to go be tempted by the devil. And I believe this is the same thing that's happening with Jesus. Jesus had to go to Samaria because the Holy Spirit is telling him that he needs to go. I don't believe in Jesus' humanity. He knew what he was going to do there. He didn't just know, well, there's going to be a woman there. I've got to tell her the gospel. No. The Spirit said, you have a task to do, and that's to do the will of God. And Jesus obeyed. Jesus obeyed the will of God, and he went to Samaria. So we see we're almost halfway back to Galilee. and jesus gets tired says he gets weary and he stops by a well in a town called sychar and when you read that that jesus got weary that's to make you perk up a little bit shouldn't it that jesus got tired showing us that jesus is like you and me right he's not this superhuman that came just to do everything no he gets tired he's like us in every way yet without sin the scripture says he says his disciples to go give food he's hungry but we read in verse 7 a woman from samaria came to draw water and we remember that john said it's about the sixth hour so it's about noon usually women didn't come to the well at noon they came early in the morning and with other women to draw water for chores and to make food throughout the day. But she's not included with those women. And most likely she chose that time because she knew nobody would be at that well. Who wants to be standing at a well in the middle of the day? She was probably totally bummed when she started walking out to that well and saw a man sitting there. She's walking and she's thought, oh no, I wanted to be alone and draw water. And as she got closer, she noticed that it was a Jew. And she probably thought, oh no, not only is it a man, but it's a Jew. Now what am I going to do? But then you realize that Jews wanted nothing to do with Samaritans, especially Samaritan women. Rabbis would teach people that Samaritan women were continually unclean. Don't go near them. And so she probably thought she was going to be left alone. But Jesus, on the other hand, probably saw her coming, and he probably smiled. He probably saw this woman and just smiled. We read in verse 7, Jesus said to her, give me a drink. For this disciples had gone away into the city to buy food. The Samaritan woman said to him, how is it that you, a Jew, ask me for a drink, a Samaritan woman? For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans. Not only must it have shocked her that he looked at her, but it probably left her just bewildered that he actually spoke to her. And not only did he speak to her, he asked her a question. Rabbis would never have done this, ever. Jesus is breaking down barriers here. Everything that just happened would have never happened to any other rabbi. They wouldn't even have let it happen. They would have ran the other way. But you know what? Jesus doesn't care. Jesus didn't come to follow the rules and the barriers of the other rabbis. No, He came to tear those down. Jesus knew that the true Israel of God, that there is neither Jew nor Greek, or we could put there Gentile, or we could put there Samaritan. There is neither no Jew or Samaritan. There is no slave or free. There is no male or female. for you are all one in Christ. And if you are Christ, then you are Abraham's offspring, heir according to the promise. That's what Jesus thought when he saw this woman. Jesus came to seek and save the lost, not to put up barriers to block them out. And this woman was one of his. Think of the parable he told when he said about the sheep. 99 sheep that he has is fine, but he has one lost one. He went and found it. He didn't just leave it out there. Much like Jesus did with Nicodemus, he will do the same thing with the Samaritan woman. Remember with Nicodemus, Nicodemus started the conversation and Jesus just turned around and hit him with the gospel really hard and he said, you must be born again. Now the Samaritan woman, with the Samaritan woman, he does the same thing. Verse 10, Jesus answers her, if you knew the gift of God and who it was that is saying to you, give me a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water. The woman said to him, Sir, you have nothing to draw water with, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob? He gave us this well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock. She takes it completely literal, living water, just as Nicodemus took being born again, completely literal. John's showing us how they're the same. Nicodemus and this Samaritan woman. They both need the gospel. The same thing. Takes it completely literal. The phrase living water to her, it's just spring water. It's just bubbling water coming out of the rock. Not stagnant water in the well. But Jesus is slowly opening her eyes to the gospel. Really, he's given her an Old Testament lesson. She might not have picked that up, but John's readers would have picked that up. And we should pick that up as well. When we hear these phrases like living water, our ears should perk up and we should think of the Old Testament and all the things that God told us about living water. Jesus continues in verse 13. Jesus said to her, Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water, welling up to eternal life. You could just hear the Old Testament coming out in this, all over the place. I want you to listen to Jeremiah 2. Jeremiah 2.13, for an idea about how living water is just all over the Old Testament, and people would pick it up. Jeremiah 2 says, For my people have committed two evils. They have forsaken me, the fountain of living water, and hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can't hold any water. Meaning they had rejected God, His faithfulness, His grace. They thought they could do it on their own. They failed. We know that. They failed. But there would be a day coming, and the Old Testament tells us this, a day of God's salvation where God's people will draw water from the wells of salvation. A day when God's people will eat neither hunger nor thirst. Did you hear this? This is what Jesus is talking about. Isaiah also tells us, for I will pour water on the thirsty land and streams on the dry ground. I will pour my spirit upon your offspring and blessing on your descendants. That's what Jesus is talking about. This Samaritan woman may not be a Jew, but she's Jesus. She's a lost sheep. And this living water is going to be poured out on her. The blessings will be poured out on her. Jesus is letting her know that He's the gift. And the water is eternal life, mediated by the Holy Spirit, which only Jesus can send. The Savior of the world will provide this living water for her, for the lost, for us, for us. Can you even imagine how thirsty this woman was? I'm not talking about physical thirst. I'm talking about how bankrupt spiritually this woman was. Living with so much guilt and not knowing what to do with it. We know people like that in our everyday lives that don't know Christ, that don't know that they put their sins on Jesus and he took them and buried them on the cross. And then there's this man sitting by the well that's offering her eternal life. I don't believe she fully understands yet what's happening here. But slowly things are starting to change in her mind. The fog is slowly lifting. The Holy Spirit is working in her heart. The Gospel is having its effect on her. And we read in verse 15, the woman says to him, Sir, give me this water so that I may not be thirsty or have to come here and drink or to draw water. She shows us her brokenheartedness in one verse. Did you catch it? Did you catch it? She says, Give me this water so that I may not be thirsty or have to come here again and draw this water. She doesn't want to go back. Every time she walked to that well, she showed her sin to everybody in the community. Everybody knew it. Why wasn't she with the women? They probably didn't like her. She wasn't a very nice woman. Every time she'd go out there, they knew, there she goes, the Samaritan woman. There she goes, the one who's slept around, the one who's had five husbands, and yet the one she's with is not her husband. She probably hated going to that well. She tells Jesus, please give me this water so I don't have to come back here and be ashamed ever again. You know, with us Christians, we know when we have private sins, when we have private sins, we all do. We're all sinners. The Holy Spirit tugs on our hearts. Nobody has to know it. We confess it. He brings us back to the path of righteousness. But what happens when you're not a Christian and you do not know about Christ? And you have to carry that guilt around with you every day. And what you do, think of this woman. Everybody knew her sin. It wasn't secret anymore, was it? She was the woman at the well. Sinner. She might as well have had a red A sewn into her clothes. But you know what? Jesus is the reader of hearts. Jesus is the reader of hearts. He knows what's in man. He knows his own, and his own hear his voice, and they come to him, right? Jesus is now going to bind up this brokenhearted woman and bring her in. But first, listen to this. Jesus says, go, call your husband and come here. And scholars, as I was studying this, scholars have a problem with this sentence. Jesus is asking her to go get her husband. They think it's abrupt and out of place. They don't understand what's going on. But remember, Jesus is the master of finding the problem in people's hearts, finding their sin. He's the potter where the clay. He could go into the pot and he could feel the cracks of her sin, of her heart, and know exactly where she needs to have this new heart placed. He knows she needs a new one. He wants to bring her straight to that point to where she hurts the most and have her repent, confess of her sin. One pastor said about this, about this verse, he says, Jesus commonly drives to the individual's greatest sin, hopelessness, guilt, despair, and need. This should not be surprising. If He is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world, inevitably He will deal with the sin in those who express some interest in Him. Jesus isn't one of these people that will give a glass of water and say, okay, go on your way. No. Jesus will give them the Gospel. And bring him into the fold. Give him this new heart. We read in verse 17. The woman answered him, I have no husband. Jesus said to her, you are right in saying, I have no husband. For you've had five husbands. And the one you have is not your husband. What you said is true. And right at that moment, Jesus opened the book. I know you. I know your heart. I know you hurt. It shocked this woman so much that she tried to change the subject. It hit her right where it needed to. Verse 19, the woman said, Sir, I perceive you're a prophet. She just totally tries to change the subject right away. She tries to get out of this current conversation by talking theology. Who wants to talk theology, right? She just wants to change the subject. She says, Our fathers worshipped on this mountain. Do you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship? Jesus said to her, Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. You worship what you do not know. We worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming and is now here when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship Him. He's talking to her. He's bringing her in. He's still giving her the gospel, even though she tried to change the subject. Jesus doesn't change the subject. He knows exactly what he's telling her. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth. Jesus turns it right back. He doesn't want to lose this one. Whatever is given to him, it says he will not lose. He shows her that it doesn't matter where you worship, because the hour is now here when true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth. If you're the chief teacher of Israel, or you're this fornicating Samaritan woman, or anybody in between. These are the poles that John's showing us. Now it doesn't matter where you worship, but it does matter who you worship. Salvation is from the Jews, Jesus said, meaning that out of the Jewish nation, a Savior would come, a Savior of the world, not just of the Jews. He may be a Jew, but he came to save the world. And the Father will call his own to himself through his Son. Why? Why? Jesus came to reconcile us to the Father, right? Paul tells us that. We can see the Samaritan woman knew a little bit about the Old Testament. There's a huge problem. Samaritans only held to the first five books of the Bible. They didn't hold to the Old Testament. They only held to Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. Right? So she has this idea, but she doesn't have the whole picture. Yet they still had this picture of a Messiah. That was still something they held on to. But they missed out on so much more. The woman even tells him this. The woman said to him, I know that the Messiah is coming. He was called to Christ. When he comes, he will tell us all things. And you're like, wait a second. He just told you your whole life. Right? Hello, this is the Messiah. And Jesus tells her something that he was so reluctant to tell everybody else in his ministry until the end. Right? Jesus would always heal somebody, and he'd say, don't tell anybody what I did. Just go do what Moses said. But this is so early, and he says this. He says to her, in the most awesome way, Jesus says to her, I who speak to you am he. And you're like, that sounded pretty normal. Right? Where's the awesomeness, you said? You want to know what it says in the original? Something that she would have picked up on because she has the five books of Moses? This is what it says. The one who speaks to you, I am. Ego and me. Right? Her mind just went, mind blown. So much so that she leaves her water jug. The only reason she's there at the well is she runs back to town and tells the people that she thinks she found the Messiah. Back in verse 27, just then his disciples came back. They marveled that he was talking with a woman, but no one said, what do you seek or why are you talking to her? So the woman left her jar and went away into the town and said to the people, come see a man who told me all that I ever did. Can this be the Christ? They went out of the town and were coming to him. So the disciples are coming back with food. They see this woman. She runs back to town. the next five verses or six verses, John is telling us two stories that are happening at the same time. Watch, it says in 31, meanwhile, the disciples were urging him. So the woman's already back in town, telling everybody, come see Jesus. Meanwhile, the disciples are urging him, saying, Rabbi, eat. But he said to them, I have food to eat that you do not know about. So the disciples said to one another, has anyone brought him something to eat? And you're thinking like, oh, disciples, why? Jesus probably just wants to smack him around. How many times you're just like, oh, Jesus, disciples, ah, they don't get it. Jesus said to them, my food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work. Do you not say there is yet four months, then the harvest comes? Look, I tell you, lift up your eyes and see that the fields are wide of harvest. At that moment, he probably did point and look, and there's all these townspeople coming out to hear what Jesus has to tell them. Verse 36, Already the one who reaps is receiving wages and gathering fruit for eternal life, so that the sower and the reaper may rejoice together. For here the saying holds true, one sows and another reaps. Remember, Jesus is talking to the disciples here. I sent you to reap that for which you did not labor. Others have labored, and you have entered into their labor. He's telling them, I did the hard work. Here they come. Let's bring them in. Let's make them one of us. And finally, point three, Jesus says, Jesus brings salvation to the world. That's so awesome. This woman, who was so ashamed that she would get up and not go with the women, she'd wait till noon when she was by herself to go get water. She was so ashamed to the town, yet she ran back to the town to tell them that she found Jesus. She ran back. I love how R.C. Sproul says about this moment. He says, she didn't go to them and pronounce that she had suddenly became a righteous woman or a paragon of virtue and issued a command to the community saying to follow her. No, she simply told them that she met the Messiah. And this is my favorite part of the text of the whole chapter we read, verses 39 through 42. Many Samaritans from that town believed in him because of this woman's testimony. He told me all that I ever did. So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them, and he stayed there two days. And many more believed because of his word. They said to the woman, it is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have hurt ourselves, and we know that this is indeed the Savior of the world. How beautiful is those words? How beautiful is that? We know that this indeed is the Savior of the world. Those people are saved. Those people are the Israel of God. Jesus brought them in. The townspeople came to see Jesus just because of the woman's testimony. He told me all that I ever did. Think about us here in Escondido. Think about what we could tell people. How much more can we tell a dying world about Jesus? About his love? About his sacrifice? About his resurrection? about him ascending into glory. How many more townspeople can we bring in to have them say to us, it's no longer what you told us, but we've heard him and we believe. God used a Samaritan woman. God used the lowest of the low. God could use some of us in the middle. God could use some of us in between. Jesus broke down barriers, beloved. He broke down, He binded up the brokenhearted. He brought salvation to the world. And just like a Samaritan woman, just like the Samaritan woman, no matter who you are or where you've been or what you've done, could ever make it too far for Jesus and His gospel to cleanse you and to give you His grace. Remember that. And once you know that truth, and once Jesus has brought you into the fold, go tell people about it. Go tell those who sat with you at Thanksgiving that didn't know Jesus. Go tell your co-worker. Go tell your neighbor. And let them come to you and say, indeed, He is the Savior of the world. Let's pray. Father God, there's so many out there that need to hear your gospel. The harvest is plenty, but the workers are few. Lord, give us boldness to go out and just tell them about you and what you've done. Lord, we pray, Lord, that we're not ashamed of who you are and what you've done for us. And many of your people are still out there waiting to hear. Lord, help us to be those ones that go out there and be the reapers. The seeds have already been sown, most likely. We just need your Spirit to help us reap and bring them into eternal life and have your spirit give them living water. And we pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.