“Come See a Man” (Part 1 of 4)

Most of us live quiet lives. We go about our days minding our own business. But suppose an unexpected conversation changed all of that for you.

What if your ordinary routine suddenly became the talk of the town? Today on Truth for Life, Alistair Begg examines how Jesus' encounter with an outcast woman ended up transforming an entire village. Father, as we prepare to turn to the Bible, each of us coming in need of your voice and hearing from your Word, we pray that you will so meet with us in this time as we study the Bible that we might know that we're not simply listening to a man talking about something that he found out. But that divine dialogue takes place between your spirit and our hearts using your Word, the Bible, to show us who we are and what we are like, and to show us who Jesus is and how wonderfully he loves those whom he has come to save. And we ask this in his name.

Amen. There is great clarity in what John sets out. He's written his Gospel. He tells us at the end, he's written these things down in order that men and women might come to believe, and that by believing they might find life in Jesus' name. So the writing of the Gospel is not simply to provide us with information but in order to bring about a transformation—the transformation that is brought about in the life of an individual when they come to understand who Jesus is and why it is he's come and what it is he has accomplished. Now, I want to point out to you three further expressions of clarity that are essential in looking at chapter 4 together. The first is in verse 15 of chapter 3. We read, everyone who believes in him may have eternal life. Notice the comprehensive nature of that statement.

This is not some peculiar esoteric interest, but it transcends racial and gender boundaries, and indeed, it reaches out around the whole world. And then in verse 17 we're told that God did not send Jesus into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him—that the purpose of Jesus' coming was not condemnatory, but it was salvific. He came in order to save men and women. And then, at the end of chapter 3, in verse 36, we discover with equal clarity that to refuse Jesus is to reject life and to settle for darkness and death. It's a very staggering and a very solemn statement, is it not? Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, reminding us that eternal life is not something that begins after you die, but eternal life is something that begins when we come to trust in Jesus.

So it's a present-tense experience that goes on into eternity. Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life. Whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God's wrath remains on him. Now, I point out these three things by way of clarification, because we're now going to look at the encounter Jesus had with a woman who is, in every sense, at the other end of the spectrum from the religious Jew in chapter 3. It's good, actually, to keep these two chapters in view when you're thinking about the way in which Jesus deals with individuals. The man, whom you'll have to consider for your homework in chapter 3, you will discover to be learned, powerful, respected, and theologically trained. It is this man who arrives under cover of darkness to meet Jesus. He is a man, a Jew, and a ruler. You go into chapter 4, and now it is a woman. The woman arrives not under cover of darkness but in the brightness of the noonday sun.

We read that in verse 6 of chapter 4. This woman, by contrast, is unschooled, she's without influence, and she is despised. She is a female, a Samaritan, and actually a moral outcast. You really couldn't pick two people that were further apart, could you? Both in terms of gender, in terms of background, in terms of social status, in terms of religious interest, and so on. No, actually, they are at the opposite ends of the spectrum. But they are united in this one fact. They both need Jesus.

They both need Jesus. Chapter 3, if you like, in the story of the religious man, makes clear that no one can ever be so good that they do not require a Savior. Some people think that God is going to grade on the curve, and they've looked around the rest of the people in the class, and they're prepared to take their shot on the basis of that. They're staggered to discover he is not going to grade on the curve, but he has set a very final standard in the person of his Son.

And then it becomes apparent that I could never be good enough. And that's what chapter 3 makes clear. Chapter 4 conversely makes clear that you can never be so bad as to be beyond the saving bounds of Jesus.

Which is really terrific good news, isn't it? I mean, there are some mechanisms for changing your life that demand a certain standard, a certain intellect, a certain capacity. And if you fit that framework, then the possibility of signing up and going on is there.

However, if you don't meet those standards, then it's just nowhere for you at all. Whereas the comprehensive story of the gospel—verse 15, again, of chapter 3—is that everyone who believes will have eternal life. Whether you are a religious person and orthodox and devout, or whether you are an irreligious person, having made a hash of things and beginning to imagine that if there is salvation anywhere, it is a salvation that is presumably good for everybody else except you.

And chapter 3 and chapter 4 tackle that. And I'm glad, because in this congregation this morning, the whole spectrum is present. We have devout and religious people who are here. You've been devout and religious all of your life. Your religious background is such that you really regard yourself as fairly okay. And the work of the Bible is to show you that you're not okay, just as Nicodemus discovered he wasn't okay, and that you need a Savior, namely Jesus. There are other people who are here, and they wouldn't like anyone to know, but the fact is that before God, and in terms of their own conscience and their relationship to their family and so on, they really have made a dreadful mess of their lives. That is concealed by how good they look and the way they're able to conduct themselves, but deep down and inside they have the sneaking suspicion that they are beyond the pale. And the good news is, you're not.

Now, what we'll do is we'll take this in reverse. Start at verse 39 of chapter 4 and deal with a little paragraph that concludes the account. I've called this paragraph simply The Talk of the Town. If you have an NIV, you'll notice that the editors have given a heading to this paragraph, namely Many Samaritans Believe. It kind of reads like a headline in a local newspaper, doesn't it? And that's sort of what it's supposed to convey. If you were walking down the street going into the railway station and the person was there selling the evening newspapers, as they do in London at least, then it may say on the hoarding, on the piece that they have there, to try and encourage you to buy the Evening Standard, it says Many Samaritans Believe.

And you're supposed to say, Well, I would like to read that on the underground. And so you grab a copy and find out, How is it that these many Samaritans have come to believe? And what is it they've come to believe? Who have they come to believe?

What does it mean, Many Samaritans Believe? Well, if we'd arrived in Sychar—which is the town in question, as we discovered in verse 4—if we'd arrived in Sychar the day after Jesus had left—and you'll notice in verse 43 that he left after two days spent with these people—we would have found that the whole community was abuzz with the visit of Jesus. It probably would have been difficult to go anywhere at all, either in a marketplace, buying some vegetables, or sitting down to drink some coffee, Turkish coffee or some coffee, and people not say, So what did you think about the visit? And if we'd just come from an outlying region, we would have said, What visit? And they would have had to explain, Well, the visit of Jesus of Nazareth. And we would have said, Jesus of Nazareth was here. What was Jesus doing here amongst the Samaritans?

Isn't Jesus a Jew? Yes! Well, isn't that surprising? Well, it surprised us. Well, why was he here? Well, actually, we asked him to stay for two days. And did he?

Yes. Yes, but how did he get here in the first place? Well, in the first instance, he was talking with a lady—a lady from our community—and she was out getting water, and that's what happened.

The whole place would have been abuzz with it. And when you trace it back down the line, it comes to a lady. It comes to a Samaritan woman. It comes to a woman who, in the routine of her life, was just going about her business, heading for the well as she normally did.

And revival, essentially, takes place in Sychar. And when we investigate why the city is abuzz with the news of Jesus, we don't discover that there has been a significant evangelist who has come to town, but we discover that this woman, having met Jesus individually, had felt compelled to tell others about the Jesus she had met, and as a result of that, the people's interest had been piqued, and as a result of their interest being piqued, they'd gone out to find Jesus, and when they had finally located him, they asked him if he would stay, and he stayed with them for two days. Now, in the very heart of it all, when the lady goes back into town, in verse 29—and I'll just point this out to you—when she goes back into the town, she says to the people, Come see a man!

Come see a man! There doubtless were some cynics in the crowd, especially if she was shouting it out, who would have said, Here we go again! Because after all, when it came to seeing men, this lady had a pretty good track record.

She'd had five husbands, she had a live-in lover, and pretty well, when it came to relationships, she was notorious. But this was obviously different. Come see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Christ? Could this be the Messiah?

What a strange thing to say! What has happened to this lady out of the well? Who in the world was she talking to? Back into the town, making a fuss and a bother.

Come and see a man who told me everything I did. Could this be the Christ? Could this be the Messiah? I bet you've never had anybody come into your office and say that, have you?

Pity. You could try it if you have met Jesus. Oh, you may have said, you know, Come get a hamburger or come and enjoy the picnic, but really, underlying it, what you're saying is, Come and meet Jesus.

I'd like you to come and meet the man who means everything to me. Well, let's go right back to the beginning, to verse 4. And my heading here was not Talk of the Town but Talk at the Well. You can see what a genius I am at these headings, can't you?

They're just remarkable. Talk, talk, the talk at the well. There was a well, and there was some talk. Why don't we call it the talk at the well?

I spent a long time on this, and I hope you're impressed. The reason I want you to notice this in verse 4, just the setting, is because, once again, this bears all the testimony to the historic accuracy of Gospel writing, to the geographical details as well. There is nothing about this little section that has the notion of fabrication to it. It has all the indications of an eyewitness account. He is identifying the well. He's identifying the location of the well. He's identifying it within the historic framework of Judaism in terms of it being Jacob's well. And as they sit down, they look across to the northwest to Mount Gerizim, which you can still find on a map, and where you will find located the contemporary city of Nablus.

This is a real-time incident in a real place involving real people. We have to always remember that when we're reading our Bibles. We're reading here the record of that which took place. And to this well arrives Jesus. Jesus had moved on from Judea.

There was a great surge of enthusiasm for him, and as was often his case, he decided just to move on. And he's going off to Galilee. And on his way to Galilee, he had to go through Samaria. There's a sense there of geographical order.

There's a sense there, if you like, almost of divine compulsion. And in making his way through the region, 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, and it was about the sixth hour.

The sixth hour, by Jewish reckoning, is the noonday, ordering the hours of the day from 6 AM in the morning being sunrise. Notice that Jesus was tired, presumably dusty, hot, and thirsty. The creator of the universe was thirsty. The God who had been there when creation came to birth, the one who was responsible for the establishing of two parts hydrogen, one part oxygen, sat by the well and was thirsty. It's a reminder again that this man, Jesus, is none other than the man who is God. The claim of Scripture is clear. This is not a man who assumes a posture of divinity. This is divinity incarnate. This is God in the flesh. Such a staggering claim.

Who would invent such a claim? It is in many of the difficulties, the intellectual difficulties, of Christianity that some of the choicest nuggets are found. And don't be put off by these things.

Think, and trust, and believe. And as he sits there, a Samaritan woman arrives. Verse 7. When a Samaritan woman came to draw water.

The emphasis on Samaritan, of course, is crucial, because the Jews and the Samaritans didn't deal with one another. And that becomes apparent in the initial dialogue. He says to her, "'Will you give me a drink?' His disciples had gone into the town to buy food." Verse 8, I think, is the explanation as to why he breaks social taboo. Why would a man speak to a woman in this way? Verse 8 tells us, because the disciples were not there to help him as they normally would have done. But we might wonder why it is that a woman would be there in the middle of the day.

What a strange time to go and draw water, especially those pots being heavy and the sun being at its zenith. And the inference, of course, appears to be that her tainted past, and indeed her present life, had not endeared her to the female community of Sychar. She was not being invited to the ladies' gatherings. They certainly were not stopping at her house to call up and say, "'We're going to the well.

Are you coming?' No, they did that when the evening shadows began to fall. That was sensible. She had to choose to go in the middle of the day alone. So a lonely lady makes a lonely journey in the routine of her life. And she meets a man." It's a great story.

Love this story. A Samaritan woman meets Jewish man. Jewish man says, "'Could I please have a drink?'" Very natural beginning, isn't it? Wonderfully straightforward, and also just an expression of Jesus' need. This is not an opening gambit. This is not Jesus setting out a course in personal evangelism. Now, let me see. What should I say here? Let me think of a good beginning.

No! He's thirsty. In fact, I've been reading this story again this morning, and I can't find anywhere where it says that Jesus actually got a drink of water in the whole process.

Because it just goes question and answer all the way through. It makes me thirsty, even thinking about it. He appeals to her sympathy. He seeks a favor from her.

And in doing so, communication is established. The striking impact of the opening statement by Jesus is made clear in verse 9. The Samaritan woman said to him, "'You're a Jew, and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?'"

And then, parenthetically, an explanation. "'For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.'" But the very fact that Jesus addresses her in this way cuts across all those normal taboos and boundaries and causes her to ask this question. Jesus does not answer her question, you'll notice that. But instead, he supplies a second question. And then he says, 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. He raises the conversation to a different level. She assumes herself to be in the position of providing what he needs.

She's about to discover that she is actually the one in need of what this stranger is able to provide. Do you ever think when you come to an event like this that you might be doing what Jesus needs? That he sort of needs you to come here? He needs to know there are a few people left in Cleveland that actually care about God or care about the Bible or care about Jesus, and that's sufficient motivation for you to come. You perhaps saw the Passion, and you said, What a shame that people treated Jesus like that. I don't want to treat Jesus like that. I'm going to be nice to him.

If he has got any events that are going on, I'll go to them and help him. And then you've come here, and you've discovered that what you thought you came to provide for him has got nothing really to do with the subject at all. It's all about what he has come to provide for you.

Now, your reaction may be very similar to the reaction of the lady. He says, If you'd asked this individual, he would have given you living water, and she said, verse 11, You've got nothing to draw with, and the well is deep. Where do you get the living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob? He gave us the well.

He drank from it. And once again, Jesus sidesteps her question. He doesn't answer the question again. Why? Because it's not the issue. It's a red herring. I mean, it's not irrelevant.

The questions are of interest. But he doesn't get into the Jewish Samaritan debate. Nor does he get into the question of the historicity of Jacob and whether he is a greater person than Jacob. There will be time for that kind of conversation.

But for now, he wants to address the issue. We're not going to discuss which well is the best well, or whether Jacob's well has living water or anything else. Jesus answers, verse 13, probably pointing to the well, Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst.

Now, think about that for just a moment. The woman's whole focus to this point is about water. The reason she's at the well is because the well has water. The reason she has a pot is because she's going to fill the pot or the jar with water, and she's going to take it back to use the water.

She understands this. And Jesus says, Everybody who drinks this water will thirst again, but anyone who drinks the water that I give will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life. You're listening to Truth for Life, and Alistair Begg with a message titled Come See a Man.

It's part of our series called A Light in the Darkness. If you're a regular listener to Truth for Life, you know that all of Alistair's teaching can be accessed online for free, that our resources are made available to you at our cost with no markup. That's because we're passionate about men and women from all walks of life having unlimited access to what the Bible teaches about life, about death, about salvation in the Lord Jesus. This is a passion we share with a large group of enabling listeners, people we call truth partners. The generous and faithful giving from our truth partners is what makes it possible for you to download or freely access more than 2,000 messages from Alistair. So if you are one of our truth partners, we want to express our sincere thanks. And if you've benefited from these daily studies but have yet to become a truth partner, we invite you to join the team today.

When you do, we've got a wonderful devotional we'd love to send to you. It's a book titled Facing a Task Unfinished, and it's designed to help us cultivate a desire to see other people come to know Jesus. The outcast woman at the well was compelled to share with others the details of her encounter with Christ.

She shared it with her whole town. Yet so often we find ourselves intimidated talking to just a single person. Even the idea of sharing our faith stops us in our tracks. Roger Carswell recognizes that evangelism can be challenging, intimidating. He has carefully assembled 52 readings, a devotional for each week of the year, to help you focus your heart on reaching the lost. Facing a Task Unfinished lays out a selection of Bible passages, reflections, and hymn lyrics that are designed to encourage us to develop a heart for those who need Christ.

You'll benefit from reading Facing a Task Unfinished during your quiet time or by working through the book with your Bible study group. We invite you to request a copy when you give a gift of any amount or when you join the team of truth partners. Simply tap on the book image you see on the Truth for Life mobile app or visit us online at truthforlife.org slash truth partners or you can call us at 888-588-7884.

Again, that's 888-588-7884. I'm Bob Lapine. Tomorrow, Alistair explores how the woman at the well eventually came to understand her deepest need. He continues his message, Come See a Man. The Bible teaching of Alistair Begg is furnished by Truth for Life where the Learning is for Living.