A Woman at a Well

One of the many names given to Jesus, maybe one of the more interesting ones, is friend of sinners.

He pursued lost people no matter what their social or cultural background. Today on Truth for Life, Alistair Begg examines an extraordinary encounter between Jesus and a person who was an immoral outcast. We're studying in the fourth chapter of John's Gospel, verses 1-45. Here we find the friend of sinners crossing the established boundaries of race and of gender. But we should not be at all surprised, because as we discover in verse 42, what we are dealing with here is he who is the savior of the world. Now, some in teaching this passage would immediately get bogged down on the history and geography of it. I find that personally rather tedious.

I'm trying to understand that my congregation can very quickly find out all those things for themselves, with a good study Bible or with just a fairly routine commentary. So I'm not going to spend a lot of time about Siker and Samaria and Jacob and everything else—not because it's unimportant, but because it's not the thrust of what we're considering in this encounter. Nor am I going to stumble over the fact that it says that he had to pass through Samaria. Is that an expression of geography, or is that a divine must?

That's the kind of thing you can talk about when you're falling asleep this afternoon. All we want to keep in mind is what John has already told us in verse 17 of chapter 3, that God has not sent his Son into the world to condemn the world. Jesus has not come with a ministry of admonition.

He has come with mission. And as we ended yesterday morning, we at least confronted ourselves by the possibility that those of us who are seeking to follow Christ are in danger of adopting a posture in relationship to our culture which is not the posture of Jesus, which is one of mission, but rather is the posture of ourselves, which is one of admonition. So that in encountering an individual such as this lady, we need desperately to learn at the approach of Jesus. Now, there are various talks taking place in chapter 4, and I want to start at the end with the talk of the town. And then we'll come back to the talk at the well, and then we will end with the talk between Jesus and the disciples. So first of all, then, the talk of the town. If you have an NIV, you will notice that there is a little paragraph heading towards the end, which simply reads, Many Samaritans Believe.

It's almost like a newspaper heading. And of course, that's what we discover as we have read the passage together. If we had been able to arrive in Sychar the day after Jesus had departed once again for Galilee, and you see that in verse 43, if we had arrived in Sychar, we would have found that the place was absolutely buzzing. We would have discovered that some of our friends and our relatives were recounting the events of the previous 48 hours, some of them actually professing a newfound belief in Jesus of Nazareth. We would have then had to say to them, What in the world has happened here?

How did this come about? Somebody would have said, Well, Jesus of Nazareth has actually been here for the past couple of days. Yes, we might have said we had heard that, but how did he ever come to be here in the first place? Why did he arrive in Sychar of all places? Well, they would have told us.

That's very interesting. One of our more notorious residents, a lady, just a couple of days ago, had come back into the town, calling out in the bazaars and in the thoroughfares, Come and see a man. Come and see a man. Some of the menfolk in the town said somewhat cynically, Who of all people should be walking through the town shouting like this? And some of them said, I wonder if this is man number seven, because she'd already had five husbands and she had a live-in lover, and she's walking through the town shouting about coming to see a man. Well, of course, we were all ears, but we never realized at that point just the man about whom she was speaking. Apparently, this man had engaged her in conversation out of the well. The conversation had had a dramatic impact on her. When we encountered him, we urged him to stay for a couple of days, and it is, as you can see, that he has turned many of our lives upside down.

And although they say love is only true in fairy tales, I'm a believer. And that was the story that was then told. Well, that was the buzz of the town, and you can read it again for yourself. We need then to back up from the talk of the town to the talk that took place at the well. Verse 27, if you notice it, helps us to understand just how dramatic this encounter was.

We'll come to that in a moment, but I want you to notice it in passing. Just then, his disciples came back and they marveled that he was talking with a woman. They were surprised. They were shocked.

No one actually said what they were thinking, but their faces showed it. Jesus speaks to a woman, speaks to a Samaritan woman. Strike one, gender.

Strike two, race. And strike three, her way of life. Because the inference from her solo appearance at the well, and in light of what we discover in the conversation that ensues, is that she was ostracized.

That she was not only a Samaritan woman, but she was an immoral Samaritan woman. The time for her to show up at the well was a strange time. Usually, we're told, people came early in the morning, or they came when the evening shadows were beginning to fall.

Why? Because it's incredibly hot in the noonday sun. And we all know that only mad dogs and Englishmen are intrigued by the noonday sun. It was also unusual that she would be there by herself, because it would have been part and parcel of the activities of the women, the town's women, to make that social encounter, to go together to the well, something that was part and parcel of their daily routine. And as a result of that, it would be the opportunity to catch up with one another on life. And so for this lady to have arrived on her own was striking in itself.

And furthermore, Jesus was alone. You just, as it were, take your Google Earth and click on it, and you narrow down now, and you're going down and down and down, and eventually things are getting larger. And here you are down at Jacob's well, and you just see the heads of two individuals. What has happened in the entire universe to bring these people to this particular point on the compass at this exact moment in time? Do you believe you live in a random universe? Do you believe that you are bobbing along on the sea of chance? Do you believe that you're held in the grip of blind, deterministic forces? Or do you believe in the providence of God?

Do you believe that nothing happens except by him and through him and according to his will? Do you believe that Jesus, as he announces here, is seeking to fulfill the will of his Father, and he is here at this exact moment in time in the providence of God in order that this encounter might take place? Jesus is all alone. The disciples have gone off to Subway.

They've gone off to get the sandwiches. We're told by John that Jesus sits down by the well. He sits down at the well because he was weary, and apparently he was thirsty. Well, of course he was.

He was human. If liberalism has introduced us to a less than divine Christ, evangelicalism is in danger of introducing us to a less than human Christ. Jesus sits down, truly God and truly man, truly tired and truly thirsty and truly interested in a drink of water from a well that is deep, and he has nothing with which to draw water. There's no legendary mythology stupidity in our Bibles about Jesus, the miracle worker, saying an equivalence of abracadabra and then sucking water up out of the well in some miraculous way and turning it into a fountain and then drinking from it.

No, there's no foolishness like that in the Bible. No, here he sits, and the conversation ensues. It's wonderful, isn't it? It begins so naturally. Give me a drink.

Wow, that's immediate impact, isn't it? Verse 9, the Samaritan woman said to him, How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria? He begins naturally. He arouses her curiosity. Jesus says to her, If you knew the gift of God and who it is that's saying to you, give me a drink, you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water. See, Jesus is going to show her that while she assumes herself to be in the position to meet his needs, she is actually in need of the water, and he himself is the fountain.

Now, again, when you go back into the Old Testament, you realize that this picture appears again and again. The psalmist and the prophets, O God, I seek you, my soul thirsts for you in a dry and weary land where there is no water. Psalm 63, 1, With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation. Isaiah 12 and verse 3. That's the kind of background context that would have filled the mind of Jesus as he realizes what an amazing opportunity is presented here in this encounter at the well. Well, the lady says, Well, I don't see how that's going to work, because you've got nothing to draw water with, and the well is deep.

Where would you get living water? Are you greater than our father, Jacob? Jesus just lets that one go. The living water is not down a well, and yes, Jesus is greater than Jacob, but these aren't the important issues. Once again, he sets them besides.

Why? Because he knows. He knows what? He knows what we noticed yesterday in chapter 2 and in verse 24, that he knows he knew all people, and he knows what is in a man, and he knows what is in a woman. He knows what's going on inside of this lady. And so, instead, he addresses her longing for reality, her desire for satisfaction. So notice carefully how he handles this. She's still thinking in very physical terms, as verse 15 makes perfectly clear. The woman said to him, Sir, I'd like to have that water so that I won't be thirsty or have to come here to draw water.

Now, there's always a point in a conversation where you're going to have to decide whether you're prepared to press through the pain barrier, the pain barrier, or are you going to back off at that point? Because eventually, a conversation will reach the point where you're going to have to say something that begins now to impact, begins to confront them with the reality of their circumstances. And that is, of course, what Jesus does here. Because if there's going to be a transformation in this lady's life, it's not enough that she has a longing for satisfaction.

She is going to have to be brought face to face with her sin. See, many of our friends are longing for satisfaction, but they are unprepared to face up to the fact that they are alienated from God. Surely, we are blind to our blindness until God shows us our blindness. We're so blind, we don't know we're blind. So first He has to show us we're blind.

That's why we say the things we say. Because sin has infected and affected every part of our humanity, including our minds. So although we may have brilliant minds, although we may have scientific minds, our minds are skewed against God. Our minds are at enmity with God, Paul says in Romans 8, that we inevitably think wrongly whether we're coming as a religious man in the night or an irreligious woman in the noonday sun. So how does Jesus push through the pain barrier? Well, with a simple request.

Go and get your husband and come back. Now, what a wealth of expression there is in her reply verse 17. The woman answered him, I have no husband.

Now this is where you wish you could have the audio track, isn't it? How did she say it? With a rising inflection, a lowering inflection? Did she say it defiantly? I don't think so. I think she said, I have no husband. If Jesus had been a Pharisee, he would have then said, well, tell me about that.

I believe you've had a number of husbands, and you've got a live-in lover. Let's talk about that. Jesus doesn't do that. Jesus completes the story for her, saving her from having to articulate her sorry, sordid, messed-up past.

Why? Because he's so kind, he's so nice, he is gentle, he is lowly in heart. He is epitomized in the story of the boy coming back on the road with his prepared speech of repentance and acknowledgement of his sin. I've sinned against heaven and in your sight. And you read in the story as Jesus tells it, but the Father interrupted him.

But the Father interrupted him. This is so good. This is grace.

This is wonderful. This is Christ with the lady at the well, with the five husbands and the live-in lover, not wringing the sordid details out of her life, but now saying to her, and here, you will discover the answer to your problems. The lady says immediately, you are a Jew and I'm a Samaritan, and when you read all the books, they say, you see, this is an interruption, and the lady is just trying to get him off because he has now put his finger on the point. That may be true.

The more I read it, the more I read it, the less inclined I am to that. She then asks a question about worship, doesn't she? She says, are you supposed to go to Gerizim or are you supposed to go to Jerusalem? What's she asking about that for all of a sudden? Well, presumably because she's been uncovered.

Suddenly she realizes I am a mess. I am a sinner. So where do sinners go? They go to make a sacrifice. Where would I make a sacrifice if I wanted to make a sacrifice?

Not that I'm saying that I do, but if I did, where would I go? Gerizim or go to Jerusalem? Jesus says, hey, listen, I got great news for you. It's not about where you're going to go to find God. It's about God coming to find you.

You don't really realize the wonder of what is taking place here. So Jesus' knowledge of her identity, her morally murky past, has opened up the door of confession, and Jesus' disclosure of his identity paves the way for her confession of faith. It is possible for us to miss this, but we mustn't. To this obscure, nameless woman, Jesus reveals point blank what he has chosen up to this point to conceal from others. You say the Messiah will announce all this. You're right.

I am he. For the love of God is broader than the measure of man's mind, and the heart of the eternal is most wonderfully kind. A moment on the final talk, which is the talk with the disciples. What you have with the return of the disciples is a comic, tragic picture. Is it wrong to suggest that the background music—and I always read my Bible with music in the background, at least in the background of my head—is it wrong to suggest that the background music at this point, with the return of the disciples, should be the send in the clowns? Send in the clowns.

So I was just playing in the background. Here they come. Now here come the boys. They're all coming back.

The core team is back. Yes, here we go. Is it too harsh to suggest that these fellows are more interested in sandwiches than they are in salvation?

Apparently so. Verse 31, Jesus, eat your lunch. Verse 32, I have food to eat that you don't know about. At least one of them ought to have said, maybe this is kind of like manna in the wilderness stuff.

But no, no one's prepared to go there. They looked at each other, and they wondered about who might have gone and taken a shortcut to Subway and taken care of the problem for him. And so once again the drama unfolds by way of misunderstanding, and he issues a wake-up call to them. Listen, fellows, if you just lift up your eyes, you will see that the fields are white for harvest. Already the seed sown in the woman is bearing fruit in the harvest of advancing Samaritans, because the picture is now of the Samaritans coming out of the town in order to meet these individuals.

And maybe that's the picture that gives rise to the notion of the grain bobbing in the distance, a great opportunity for the gospel. For your homework and for those of you who are doing the honors course, just read John chapter 12, verse 24, where Jesus is talking about the seed, he being the seed going down into the ground. It is only as Jesus is sown as the seed in his death on the cross that eternal life may be reaped by anyone.

Well, our time is gone, so let's just finish in this way. Jesus is not simply the Messiah of narrow Jewish expectations. He is the world's redeemer. Jesus is seeking out not only the devoted religionist in chapter three, but the disenfranchised woman of chapter four. What unites them is their need of a Savior. In chapter three, we learn that no one is so good that they have no need of a Savior. In chapter four, we realize that no one is so bad that they are without hope of a Savior.

The woman in this story is very contemporary. She's looking for love in all the wrong places, and she needed to hear this wonderful story of God's love. She needed to hear the cry of God, turn to me and be saved, all you ends of the earth, for I am God and there is no other. He did not come to judge the world.

He did not come to blame. He did not only come to seek. It was to save He came.

And when we call Him Savior, and when we call Him Savior, and when we call Him Savior, then we call Him by His name. Do you ever wonder things like this? Do you ever wonder, as I wonder, whether this woman made her way to Jerusalem on the day the sun turned dark? Do you ever wonder if she stood with other brave women and heard Christ say, It is finished? And did she say to herself, When we talked at that well and I told them all the things I'd ever done, and He said, I've got you covered, this is why He hangs there covered in shame, in order that one day I may stand with Him in glory.

I wonder. Every one of us needs a Savior. You're listening to Truth for Life. That is Alistair Begg encouraging us to be bold and yet compassionate as we share the Gospel with others. As we've just learned, Jesus didn't come primarily to admonish our bad behavior. He came to save sinners.

And that's a significant distinction. That's why understanding God's Word is so important and why our mission at Truth for Life is to teach the Bible with clarity and relevance. We do this knowing God's Spirit works through the teaching of God's Word to convert unbelievers, to bring believers into a closer relationship with Jesus, and to strengthen members and leaders within the local church.

We also pay particular attention to specific books we can recommend to you, books we believe will be a great benefit to you. And today we want to invite you to request Nancy Guthrie's book Saints and Scoundrels. In the book Nancy draws from the Gospels to help us better understand the desires, motives, flaws, and human limitations of a number of individuals or groups, people who met Jesus. Her intention is to help us see ourselves in their attributes and to appreciate the depth of Jesus' mercy toward them and toward us. You can obtain a copy of the book Saints and Scoundrels when you give to support the teaching you hear on this program. Just click on the book image in the app or visit truthforlife.org slash donate. I'm Bob Lapine. Hope you have a great weekend and are able to worship with your local church this weekend. Be sure to listen Monday when we'll hear about a frightening and dramatic encounter between Jesus and a demon-possessed man. The Bible teaching of Alistair Begg is furnished by Truth for Life. And the Learning is for Living.