1. "When I was learning to scuba dive on a resort course, my diving instructor warned me that there might come a point when I was disoriented underwater, when my eyes, my inner ear, my sense of buoyancy, when everything would be telling me that up was down and down was up. In that situation, I was told that there was one thing that you can know for sure, one thing that you can absolutely be certain of, even if everything else is telling you otherwise. Air bubbles float up."

2. "Christianity claims that there are really only two things that you need to know, two things that you need to be certain of in order to lead a purposeful and meaningful life. First, you need to know who you are and what you need. Second, you need to know who God is, what he is like, how you can relate to Him. Knowledge of yourself and knowledge of God."

3. "Our lives are so consumed with the concerns of this life and of this earth, we can barely be moved to consider anything beyond who or what is going to meet our next physical need or desire. She understands her thirst for water, but she has not even considered her thirst for God."

4. "Whatever it is that you think you are thirsting for, like the water of Jacob's well, when you get it will assuage your thirst for a little while, but you will thirst again. No exercise of power, no achievement of wealth, no intimate friendship, no advanced degree will ever ultimately satisfy the thirst that you feel. That thirst has been placed in you by God himself, and that thirst will be satisfied only by God himself."

5. "The kind of worship that God seeks is worship that springs from a heart that has been forgiven of its sin. A worshiper who comes before God with praise for a salvation that's accomplished, not just foreshadowed."

6. "Christian, how did you come to church this morning? I don't mean in a car or by Metro, I mean inside of you. Did you come this morning expecting to participate in the kind of worship I just described? Did you come with a heart that was just overflowing with joy and thanksgiving?"

7. "My food, said Jesus, is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work. His will, we've already been told, is to be worshiped in spirit and truth. And what is the work of the Father that Jesus finishes? The work of the Father is to redeem for Himself, to create for Himself a people that will in fact worship Him."

8. "Really, the entire Old Testament is the story of God creating for himself a people that will glorify him by worshipping him. And now, says Christ, I have come to finish that work, to finally accomplish the will of God."

9. "How ironic, and yet how fitting that the first great outpouring of the Spirit in Jesus' ministry isn't on a Jewish village, but upon this obscure Samaritan village which sat in the shadow of that mountain where false worship had taken place for centuries."

10. "Brothers and sisters, do you see the harvest field? Do you see the men and women around you at work, in your neighborhood, in your own family as Jesus sees them? Are you engaged in the work that he has sent us out on? Or are you, like the disciples, shocked that Jesus is talking to a Samaritan woman?"

Observation Questions

1. In John 4:7-9, what social and religious barriers did Jesus cross by speaking with the Samaritan woman? What details does John provide to help us understand the significance of this interaction?

2. Looking at John 4:10-15, how does Jesus transition from physical water to spiritual truth? What metaphor does He use, and how does the woman initially misunderstand it?

3. In John 4:16-18, how does Jesus demonstrate His divine knowledge of the woman's life? What specific details does He reveal about her past and present?

4. Examining John 4:19-24, what theological dispute does the woman raise? How does Jesus redirect this debate to a more fundamental truth about worship?

5. In John 4:31-38, how do the disciples misunderstand Jesus' statement about food? What does Jesus reveal about His mission through this teaching moment?

6. Looking at John 4:46-54, what progression do you observe in the royal official's faith? What specific details does John provide about the timing of events?

Interpretation Questions

1. Why is Jesus' metaphor of "living water" particularly meaningful in the context of Jacob's well? How does this connect to Old Testament prophecies in Ezekiel 47 and Jeremiah 2?

2. What does Jesus mean when He says true worshipers must worship "in spirit and truth" (John 4:23-24)? How does this relate to His statement about worship locations becoming irrelevant?

3. How does Jesus' interaction with the Samaritan woman demonstrate both His divine nature and His human nature? What evidence do you see of each in this passage?

4. What is the significance of Jesus' teaching about the harvest in John 4:35-38? How does this relate to the broader themes of His ministry?

5. How does the healing of the royal official's son serve as a confirmation of Jesus' earlier teachings about living water and true worship? What connections do you see?

Application Questions

1. When was the last time you found yourself, like the Samaritan woman, focusing on religious externals while avoiding deeper spiritual issues? What happened?

2. Think about your worship last Sunday. What motivated you to come to church? How did your attitude compare to the true worship Jesus describes in John 4:23-24?

3. Jesus revealed the Samaritan woman's complicated relationship history to help her see her need for living water. What area of your life might Jesus point to today to show you your need for Him?

4. The Samaritan woman left her water jar to tell others about Jesus. What "water jars" (daily concerns) might you need to set aside to share Christ with others?

5. Jesus told His disciples to open their eyes to see the harvest field around them. Look at your daily routine - what specific opportunities for spiritual harvest do you regularly encounter but might be overlooking?

Additional Bible Reading

1. Isaiah 55:1-13 (14 verses)
   This passage expands on the theme of spiritual thirst and God's invitation to come to the waters, connecting with Jesus' offer of living water to the Samaritan woman.

2. Exodus 17:1-7 and Numbers 20:1-13 (7 verses each)
   These parallel accounts of water from the rock provide important background for understanding Paul's later identification of Christ as the spiritual rock that provided water for Israel (1 Corinthians 10:4).

3. Revelation 21:1-8, 22-27 (14 verses)
   This passage describes the ultimate fulfillment of true worship, where God dwells directly with His people and the water of life flows freely, completing the themes Jesus introduced to the Samaritan woman.

4. Acts 1:8 through Acts 2:1-21 (22 verses)
   This text shows the fulfillment of Jesus' teaching about true worship through the Spirit's outpouring, demonstrating how the early church began to reap the harvest Jesus spoke about.

Sermon Main Topics

I. The Certainty of Air Bubbles as a Metaphor for Spiritual Orientation

II. Jesus Shows Us What We Should Have Known but Do Not Know (John 4:1–18)

III. Jesus Corrects Us on What We Think We Know but Have Wrong (John 4:19–24)

IV. Jesus Reveals What We Cannot Know Unless He Makes It Known (John 4:25–54)

V. The Call to Know Jesus as the Messiah and Savior of the World

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Detailed Sermon Outline

  - ###### i. Ezekiel 47:1–12 (river from the temple).  
  - ###### ii. Jeremiah 2:13 (broken cisterns vs. the Spring of Living Water).

Remember, air bubbles always float up. When I was learning to scuba dive on a resort course, my diving instructor warned me that there might come a point when I was disoriented underwater, when my eyes, when my inner ear, when my sense of buoyancy, when everything would be telling me that up was down and down was up. And of course, it goes without saying that a diver is in trouble when he can't tell where the surface is. In that situation, I was told that there was one thing that you can know for sure, one thing that you can absolutely be certain of, even if everything else is telling you otherwise. Air bubbles float up.

If you're confused underwater, you can always orient yourself by looking at the air bubbles. Well, this morning I want to ask you, what do you know for sure and for certain that you can use to orient yourself in this life? How do you make sense of it all? What do you know?

What are you certain of? Christianity claims that there are really only two things that you need to know, two things that you need to be certain of in order to lead a purposeful and a meaningful life. First, you need to know who you are and what you need. Second, you need to know who God is, what he is like, how you can relate to Him. Knowledge of yourself and knowledge of God.

But where can we find such knowledge? And how can we be sure that it's correct once we've found it? These days, there are many who would say that the kind of knowledge that I'm talking about doesn't exist. It's impossible to find. It's just not there.

But the fact is that whether we acknowledge it or not, we all answer those two questions in one way or another. None of us are able to go through life without settling in our own minds at some point and in some way, who we are and what we need and who God is and how we can relate to Him. So the problem remains. Where do we find the answers to the two questions that I've raised this morning? This summer, I'm inviting you to explore with me the question, who is Jesus?

Using the eyewitness accounts of the Gospel of John? That's because those of us who have committed ourselves to this church believe that Jesus holds the answer. Jesus holds the key to those questions. This morning I want us to look at his words using this eyewitness account and find out if, in fact, he does. Turn with me, if you would, to John, chapter four.

If you're here in the main hall. That's found on page 1112, 1112 of your Pew Bible if you're in the west hall to my left, that's found on page 1052. 1052. If you're using the Pew Bible, John, chapter four.

Now, in our text this morning, Jesus confronts you, and he confronts me with three things.

First, he shows us what we should have known but don't know.

Second, he corrects us on what we think we know, but have got all wrong. And third, he reveals to us what we cannot know unless he makes it known to us.

Jesus shows us what we should have known, he corrects us on what we think we know, and he reveals to us what we otherwise cannot know. And through it all, this whole passage this morning, he demonstrates that the answer to the questions that I raised, the question of what I need most and how I can relate to God, the answer is Himself. So first, Jesus shows us what we should have known about ourselves. The unlikely context for this knowledge is Jesus conversation with a Samaritan woman. And I'll begin reading in verse, beginning with verse 1.

The Pharisees heard that Jesus was gaining and baptizing more disciples than John, although in fact, it was not Jesus who baptized, but his disciples. When the Lord learned of this, he left Judea and went back once more to Galilee. Now he had to go through Samaria. 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 the sixth hour when a Samaritan woman came to draw water. Jesus said to her, will you give me a drink? His disciples had gone into town to buy food. 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. Sir. The woman said, you have nothing to draw with, and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water?

Are you greater than our Father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself? And as did also his sons and his flocks and herds. Jesus answered, everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again. But whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I 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 won't get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water. 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.

The conversation begins with Jesus asking for a drink of water. In itself a breach of social and religious customs. Men don't talk to women they don't know in this culture. And as the woman points out, Jews don't normally associate with or even talk to if they can help it, Samaritans. But very quickly and in loving disregard of the woman's shock over Jesus breach of social conventions, Jesus suggests that in fact, she should be asking him for water.

And not just any water, but living water. You see that in verse 10, 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. Now, because she's a local girl, she knows that the only living water, a phrase that says, simply means running water or fresh water. She knows that the only living water in the whole area is 100ft straight down at the bottom of that well that Jesus is sitting next to, bubbling up from the spring that fed Jacob's well. So she says to him, are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his flocks and his herds?

I don't think so. Okay, the I don't think so isn't translated there in the niv, but it is actually there in the Greek. She says to him, where are you going to get this water, Jesus? Are you greater than Jacob? No.

That's what she says to him.

But of course, Jesus isn't talking about water running still or sparkling. Jesus had not come to Sychar that day to solve the village's water supply problems. No, Jesus had come to Sychar that day to bring the living water, which Ezekiel talked about in chapter 47 of his book. Ezekiel said that the day would come when water would flow from the temple in a river so deep that no one could cross it, and with water so pure that when it emptied into the Dead Sea, that sea would begin to swarm with life because the water would become fresh. What was this living water that Ezekiel prophesied and that Jesus is talking about and that he's offering to this woman?

Well, it's none other than what Jeremiah talked about in chapter two of his book when he said, this is what the Lord my people have committed two sins. They have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water.

This is what Jesus says the Samaritan woman needs. And this, Jesus says, is what you and I need. We need God to quench not the thirst of our bodies, but the thirst of our souls, that ache that is inside of us for meaning and for significance, and that is satisfied only by knowing and loving God and being known and being loved by him.

That's what Jesus is offering this woman. But she didn't get it. And neither, I'm afraid, do many of us. And for the same reason that this woman didn't get it. Our lives are so consumed with the concerns of this life and of this earth, we can barely be moved to consider anything beyond who or what is going to meet our next physical need or desire.

Now, the Samaritan woman was obviously intrigued by the offer. So she says in Jesus offers this water in verse 13, in which he says, if you drink it, no, no one will thirst again. And so she says to him, sir, in verse 15, sir, give me this water so that I won't get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water. She likes the idea of not being thirsty anymore, but not because she understands that Jesus is offering her a relationship with God. She thinks this means that she won't have to trudge out to the well.

She understands her thirst for water, but she has not even considered her thirst for God.

What are you thirsty for this morning? Are you thirsty for God?

Or are you merely thirsty for things that will never, ever satisfy? Things like success and wealth and privilege and influence?

Perhaps you thirst for more physical sorts of things like sex or pleasure.

Perhaps your thirst is more noble and spiritual. You thirst for things like intimacy and relationship or knowledge and learning. Perhaps you thirst for the achievement of some great altruistic cause. Whatever it is, whatever it is that you think you are thirsting for, like the water of Jacob's well, when you get, will assuage your thirst for a little while, but you will thirst again.

No exercise of power, no achievement of wealth, no intimate friendship, no advanced degree will ever ultimately satisfy the thirst that you feel. That thirst has been placed in you by God himself, and that thirst, friend, will be satisfied only by God himself. This is what we need, Jesus says. This is what the Samaritan woman needed, and she should have known it. Why well, first, even if there was no way that she could have recognized Jesus being a total stranger to her, she should at least have known the gift of God.

That's what Jesus says to her in verse 10. If you had known 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. Now, the gift of God was a common term among Jews and Samaritans at the time that referred to the Old Testament. In other words, Jesus is saying to this woman, if you knew your Bible, if you had taken your Bible seriously, if you had read it with yourself in mind, you would have known what you needed and you would have been looking, you would have been searching for that which would quench this thirst. But apparently she had not taken that gift of God seriously.

And so Jesus turns to the other reason that she should have known her need. And that's the evidence of her own life. In response to her request for this amazing water that she completely misunderstands, Jesus says, go call your husband and come back.

As only the divine Son of God could do, he has touched her. At that moment, at the most vulnerable point of her life, the point that most clearly reveals her need for God, she tries to deflect it. I have no husband. But Jesus will not be deflected. And he proceeds gently but firmly to lay bare her soul.

Jesus said to her, you're 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.

What Jesus reveals is that this woman is a sinner and friend. You and I are no different. You and I are sinners. Too many of us have grown up in a culture where the Gospel has been preached often and clearly for generations. We've had the opportunity to have the message of the gospel explained to us time and again.

But have you been listening?

Have you taken the words of the Bible seriously? Have you taken the message that has been explained to you again and again seriously?

Have you heard it as an indictment of your life? Have you listened to it as an exposition of, not of ancient history, but of your need for God and his offer of salvation?

And then, of course, we're also like this woman in that whether or not we've ever heard the Gospel message preached clearly from the Bible, we are all sinners. Have you ever taken an honest look at your life?

What is Jesus confronting you with as he seeks to make apparent to you your greatest need?

Is it Your sexual and marital relations, like this Samaritan woman.

Or would Jesus talk to you about the way your selfishness ruins and destroys friendship after friendship after friendship. Or perhaps he would point to your greed, which causes you to be less than a good parent. Or perhaps no parent at all because you're so committed to your job.

Or maybe he would talk to you about the lust in your heart that causes you to treat other human beings as merely the objects which satisfy your desires.

Or, I don't know, maybe he would talk to you about your anger and your bitterness that causes you to go through life without being able to forgive or to love.

I don't know what Jesus would confront you with, but I know he would confront you with something.

I know what he confronts me with.

Like that Samaritan woman. You and I are sinners. And if we're honest with ourselves, we should already have known that. We should already have seen that. We should know that, like that Samaritan woman.

We need. We need the living water that Jesus offers to cleanse us from the guilt and the stain of our sin.

Where do we go for that water? Who will give it to us? Well, Jesus says whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Jesus Christ gives living water to sinners like you and like me, Jesus Christ. And Jesus Christ alone takes away the guilt and the stain of sin.

Jesus Christ gives that water. No one else will give it to you. You're not going to find it in your job, in your spouse, in your achievements, in your sincerity. No, you're only going to find it Jesus. And he gives it to anyone who asks, but only to those who ask.

Now, if you're here this morning and you're a Christian, you need to know that you have this spring of water in you. You have already the Holy Spirit welling up in you to eternal life. What difference does that make to your life today, Christian? It should make a world of difference. For one thing, if your thirst for God has been quenched by God himself, then your life shouldn't look like you're still thirsty.

For all the God substitutes that the world offers, our lives should look different. But even more than that, you have the resources within you to make that new life happen. The language here in verse 14 is the same that's used in the Old Testament when he talks about. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up. This idea of welling up, this is the same language that the Old Testament uses to talk about the spirit of God falling on people like David or Samson or Samuel, to accomplish the purposes of God and the will of God.

The Spirit of God isn't in you Christian, so that you can continue to frit away your life in worldliness and trivialities. No, God has placed his spirit in you so that today you can begin to live a life that is the life of the age to come. Think of it. The life of heaven is in you today. What will you do with that life today?

What can't you do with that life today?

So what should we have already known about ourselves? You and I should already have known that we are sinners whose aching thirst can only be quenched by the living water that Jesus gives. But not only does Jesus show us what we should already know about ourselves, he corrects us about what we think we know about God. And we see this in the second half of his conversation with the Samaritan woman. Begin reading in verse 19.

Sir, the woman said, I can see that you are a prophet. Our fathers worshipped on this mountain. But you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem. Jesus declared, believe me, woman, 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 spirit and truth. For they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth.

Having been confronted with her sin, the woman naturally tries to change the subject. So she raises the major point of theological difference between Jews and Samaritans. Now, you need to remember that both Jews and Samaritans worshipped Yahweh because the Samaritans were essentially the descendants of the northern kingdom of Israel, which had been deported. But then some had remained and had intermarried with the tribes and the peoples around them. The Jews considered them half breeds, but nevertheless they had retained a vestige of that old religion of worshiping Yahweh.

But in part because of their history, Samaritans had rejected Jerusalem as the place where you worship God. It's not surprising, because Jerusalem was the capital of the southern kingdom, which they had split off from. So instead of going to Jerusalem, Samaritans had set up an alternate temple on a mountain, actually, that Jesus and this woman could see from where they were standing. And this is the dispute that she now raises with Jesus to try to change the subject and deflect attention from the sin and the vulnerability that Jesus has just raised.

But the main point that Jesus makes in reply is that the whole debate that she has just raised is about to become moot. The time is coming, he says, when true worship will not be defined by where it happens. Rather, true worship offered by true worshipers will be a matter of spirit and truth. Look in verse 23, a time is coming and has now come, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. So what does Jesus mean by that phrase, spirit and truth?

Well, to begin with, he's not referring to two aspects of worship, but to one. Spirit and truth are, in effect, two ways of saying the same thing. But secondly, this spiritual or true worship that Christ said was coming was in contrast to the merely external and symbolic worship that characterized the ritual of the temple in Jerusalem. Ultimately, the sacrifices of that temple, the blood of bulls and of goats, could never secure the forgiveness of human sin. Ultimately, those sacrifices could never satisfy the wrath of a holy God against human sin.

So now Jesus says, now true worship is about to begin. And that worship will have to be spiritual, not physical, because God is spiritual. And true worshipers will have to be not just ceremonially or ritually clean as they had to be when they entered the temple, but they will have to be truly clean on the inside, where it counts. Jesus said that such worship was imminent, that the time literally that the hour was coming, that hour would come all too soon. On a cross outside of Jerusalem.

Jesus and his death on the cross would be the means by which true worshipers were created. His death and his resurrection and his exaltation would be the means through which true worship was offered. Indeed, Jesus himself would become the focus of that worship. Listen to how the writer to the Hebrews explain this transition from the former worship of the earthly temple to the true worship made possible in and through Jesus Christ. When Christ came as high priest of the good things that are already here, he went through the greater and more perfect tabernacle that is not man made, that is to say, not a part of this creation.

He did not enter by means of the blood of goats and calves, but he entered the most holy place once for all time by his own blood, having obtained eternal redemption. The blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer sprinkled on those who are ceremonially unclean, sanctify them so that they are outwardly clean. How much more then will the blood of Christ, who, through the Eternal Spirit offered himself unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death so that we may serve the living God. That is the kind of worship and that is the kind of worshipers that the Father is seeking. A worship that springs from a heart that has been forgiven of its sin.

A worshiper who comes before God with praise for a salvation that's accomplished, not just foreshadowed. The kind of worship that God seeks is worship that is in and through Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God who was sacrificed on a cross to take away the sins of the world. The worshiper that God seeks is the one that has experienced this new birth, this new birth of the Spirit that we talked about last week in John chapter three. The worshiper who has in him welling up a spiritual life that comes not from himself but from the Holy Spirit, the living water which Jesus offers to those who ask Christian, how did you come to church this morning? I don't mean in a car or by Metro, I mean inside of you.

How did you come? Did you come this morning expecting to participate in the kind of worship I just described? Did you come with a heart that was just overflowing with joy and thanksgiving? Did you come with a desire to rejoice in the fellowship of the Holy Spirit with your brothers and sisters, who also know the redeeming power of Jesus Christ? Did you come with thankfulness and a desire to use every means possible, every prayer that was said, every hymn that was sung, every word that the preacher says, to use all of that, all to catch a glimpse of your Savior, Jesus?

Or did you come, rather tired from being out too late last night? Did you come annoyed that you couldn't find a spot in the parking lot? Did you come expecting the ensemble to perk you up and the service leader to entertain and engage you?

Did you come prepared to be critical if the hymns didn't suit your taste or the prayers were too long or the sermon Christian, how did you come to worship this morning?

Remember to you, to you has been given the privilege to worship in spirit and in truth. The Old Testament saints longed to experience what you and I too often just take for granted.

In a few minutes, we'll be celebrating the Lord's Supper. If you're not a Christian this morning, I want to encourage you to watch as we eat that meal. But I also want to tell you not to participate.

For at the heart of Christian worship is the proclamation of Jesus Christ's death for those who believe without his blood shed, symbolized by the Wine and without his body broken, symbolized by the bread. There is no such thing as true Christian worship. Christian worship is unashamedly centered on Christ's death and his resurrection. Oh, we'll sing songs about our experience of being a Christian, and we'll pray about current events and we'll talk about how we should live now that we are Christians. And we'll give God great thanks for the new life that he's created in us.

But at the end of the day, none of that, not a bit of it, makes our worship Christian. What makes our worship spiritual and true is that it is centered on Jesus Christ, on who he is and on what he has done. True worship is Christ centered worship that springs out of the new life that his death and his resurrection has accomplished. In those of us who believe there is an intimacy with Christ in His death and in his resurrection in Christian worship. And we perhaps see that intimacy nowhere better than in the Lord's Supper.

If you're here this morning and you're not a Christian, I hope you see that intimacy. I hope you recognize that you don't have that intimacy.

And I hope it makes you long, long for intimacy with Jesus, your Creator and the Savior of the world.

What is it that that we think we know? That Jesus corrects Jesus shows us that God is spirit and that the only way to worship God is through Him. So Jesus has reminded us of what we should already know about ourselves and he's corrected us on what we thought we knew about God. Finally, Jesus makes known to us what we cannot know unless he reveals it. Jesus is the Messiah, the Savior of the world, who has come to complete the work of the Father.

And we see this throughout the remainder of the chapter. I'll start reading. In verse 25, the woman said, I know that Messiah called Christ is coming. When he comes, he'll explain everything to us. Then Jesus declared, I who speak to you 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? Then, leaving her water jar, the woman went back to the town and said to the people, come see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Christ?

They came out of the town and made their way toward Him. Meanwhile, his disciples urged him, rabbi, eat something. But he said to them, I have food to eat that you know nothing about. Then his disciples said to each other, could someone have brought him food? My food, said, Jesus, is to do the will of him who sent me.

And to finish his work. Do you not say four months more? And then the harvest. I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields. They are ripe for harvest.

Even now the reaper draws his wages. Even now he harvests the crop for eternal life. So that the sower and the reaper may be glad together. Thus the saying, one sows and another reaps is true. I sent you to reap what you have not worked for.

Others have done the hard work, and you have reaped the benefits of their labor. Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman's testimony. He told me everything I ever did. So when the Samaritans came to him, they urged him to stay with them. And he stayed two days.

And because of his words, many more became believers. 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. After the two days, he left for Galilee.

Now, Jesus himself had pointed out that a prophet has no honor in his own country. When he arrived in Galilee, the Galileans welcomed him. They had seen all that he had done in Jerusalem at the Passover feast, for they also had been there once more. He visited Cana in Galilee, where he had turned the water into wine. And there was a certain royal official whose son lay sick at Capernaum.

When this man heard that Jesus had arrived in Galilee from Judea, he went to him and begged him to come and heal his son, who was close to death. Unless you people see miraculous signs and wonders, Jesus told him, you will never believe. The royal official said, sir, come down before my child dies. Jesus replied, you may go. Your son will live.

The man took Jesus at his word and departed. While he was still on the way, his servants met him with the news that his boy was living. When he inquired as to the time when his son got better, they said to him, the fever left him yesterday at the seventh hour. Then the father realized that this was the exact time at which Jesus had said to him, your son will live. So he and all his household believed.

This was the second miraculous sign that Jesus performed. Having come from Judea to Galilee.

By the end of his conversation with the woman at the well, you get the sense of that she has gone about as far as she can go. She recognizes that Jesus is a prophet. And she is intrigued by his offer of living water and his conversation about true worship. But at the end of it all, she can only really hold her hands up and say, I don't know. When the Messiah comes, he'll explain all this to me.

She's just not going to figure it out.

Maybe this stranger is the Messiah. Maybe he's not. She's not sure.

So Jesus tells her in verse 26, I who speak to you am He. Literally, he says to her, I am the one who is speaking to you now. Just at that moment, the the disciples return. She can feel their evident disapproval. She doesn't care.

All she can think about is what she just heard. Jesus say. I am the Messiah. She leaves her water jar and she hurries back to town. And she says something that we've heard before, back in chapter one.

Come and see. She's not sure. She's still somewhat tentative. That question she asks is, again, this couldn't be the Messiah, could it?

But things are beginning to fall into place. Jesus has revealed himself to her. The woman is not the only one to whom Jesus needs to reveal himself. The disciples can't figure him out either. They know he's a great rabbi.

They understand he's a miracle worker. But they really don't get it. They don't understand what it's all about. They urge him to eat there in verse 31, Rabbi, eat something. But his reply is unexpected.

I have food to eat that you know nothing about. And they're all concerned that someone else has brought him food while they were away. But they miss the fact that Jesus, in fact, is alluding to Deuteronomy 8:3. Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord. So Jesus has to spell it out for them, much the same way that he has to spell it out for the Samaritan woman.

Jesus is not a prophet, not just one, nor is he simply a national savior. No, Jesus is the one who has been sent by the Father to do the Father's will and to finish the father's work. Verse 34. My food, said Jesus, is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work. What is the will of the Father?

His will, we've already been told, is to be worshiped in spirit and truth. And what is the work of the Father that Jesus finishes? The work of the Father is to redeem for Himself, to create for Himself a people that will in fact worship Him. The will of the Father and the work of the Father is to glorify Himself through the worship of his people. This is what God's been up to since the beginning.

Really, the entire Old Testament is The story of God creating for himself a people that will glorify him by worshipping him. And now, says Christ, I have come to finish that work, to finally accomplish the will of God. And how will he do that? He'll do it by reaping a harvest of people for eternal life through his work on the cross. That is who Jesus is, the Messiah, who is no mere man, but God incarnate, come to finish the very work of God.

For who could finish God's work but God himself? Now, that's a huge claim that Jesus is making there in that verse. Why should the disciples believe him? Why should we? Well, quite simply, because he backs up his words with proof.

John, in fact, has written this entire chapter so that each of the claims that Christ makes in the first half of the chapter are verified in the second half in reverse order. So Jesus says at the beginning of the chapter that he has living water to give to those who ask. And at the end of the chapter, we see him give life to the dying son of a royal official merely by saying, your son will live. At first glance, Jesus words to the man really appear harsh. Unless you people see miraculous signs and wonders, you will never believe.

I mean, what's the man expected to do? His son's dying.

But Jesus knows that the man has come to him merely as a prophet and a wonder worker. And what the man needs to do is come to him as the one who gives living water. And so he appears to deny the man's request, simply stating that his son will live, but refusing to go and heal him. The man leaves, apparently thinking only that Jesus, the prophet who knows the future, has said that his son will live.

He doesn't leave thinking that Jesus has healed his son by saying those words. So he goes home. Halfway there, he's met by his servants with the good news that his son is alive. And he begins to investigate. He starts to compare notes with the servants.

Well, when exactly did my son get better? And he discovers that it was one o' clock on the day before. He thinks back and he realizes that is the very moment that the man who I thought was merely a prophet said, your son will live. That wasn't just a prophecy. He healed my son.

The result was that he and his family believed. Jesus said that he came to give living water that springs up into eternal life. And he demonstrated it by giving life to a sick boy and then by giving eternal life to a whole family. Jesus also told the Samaritan woman that the hour was coming when the father would be worshiped. By true worshipers in spirit and in truth.

And so, as if to verify that claim by the end of the chapter, not just the woman, but what seems like the entire town of Sychar is saying, we know that this man really is the savior of the world. How ironic, and yet how fitting that the first great outpouring of the Spirit in Jesus ministry isn't on a Jewish village, but upon this obscure Samaritan village which sat in the shadow of that mountain where false worship had taken place for centuries.

Finally, Jesus said that he had come to finish the Father's work by reaping a harvest of eternal life. How did he back those words up? Well, not only did he die on the cross and rise again three days later, but he sent his disciples out into the world to reap what they had not sown, to benefit from his labor. This church this morning is a testimony to the truth of Jesus words. We are a part of that harvest.

And that testimony, that proof, continues as Jesus continues to send us out into the harvest field of this world to reap a crop of men and women to eternal life. Brothers and sisters, do you see the harvest field?

Do you see the men and women around you at work, in your neighborhood, in your own family as Jesus sees them? Are you engaged in the work that he has sent us out on?

Or are you, like the disciples, shocked that Jesus is talking to a Samaritan woman? Are you preoccupied with lesser things? One can only imagine the surprise that the disciples must have felt when Jesus accepted the invitation to stay two more days in Sychar. But Jesus wasn't surprised at what was going on in Sychar. He wasn't surprised at what was going on in that woman's life.

He wasn't surprised at what happened in that royal official's family. This was the work that he had come to do. He had come to bring life. He had come to make true worship of God possible. He is the Son of God, the Messiah, the Savior of the world.

What do you know? What do you know for sure and for certain?

Do you know this morning that you're a sinner and that you are in need of the forgiveness that only God can offer you through Jesus?

Do you know that God is spirit? And that only through Christ's death on the cross and his resurrection is it possible for you to worship him?

Do you know that Jesus is the Messiah, the Savior of the world, the Son who has come to finish the work of his Father? Do you know these things?

Do you want to know these things?

If not. What do you know?

Let's pray.

Father, we thank you that you sent your son to finish your work, to give life to we who are dead in our sins. To make it possible for us to know you and to worship you. Lord, we pray that you would impress upon our minds and our hearts the truth of who Jesus is. And that that truth would transform us that we might live lives of service to you. We pray these things in Christ's name, Amen.