1. "In no sphere of life are masquerading half truths both so prevalent and so devastating as in the area of religion. In religion, these half truths mislead us about the most important matters. They speak to us about those things nearest to the core of our being and of our hopes and of those matters which have the longest, even unending consequences."

2. "One, Jesus is a great moral teacher. Two, everybody's basically okay. And three, religion is basically what I do. Don't you think those really are pillars of people's faith these days?"

3. "How interesting that these great promises are made in such close connection with this revelation of the woman's lack of deserving it. She doesn't deserve such a blessing. Jesus makes that very clear. And how true it is that in order to know God, we need to know the truth about ourselves."

4. "Friends, you need to put in perspective what Jesus is offering with the kind of things we so often spend our lives on. Jesus has come to offer himself to bear the wrath of God that you have deserved. God's wrath against all who will turn from their sins and trust in him alone. This is a forgiveness you need more than you know, and there is no way for you to get it ever except for what Jesus does for us."

5. "Don't try to make your sex life your identity. That's a lie that is even more sad than it is popular. You're not only what you eat and you're not only who you sleep with."

6. "So do you feel you have little to be thankful for this Thanksgiving? Consider this broken woman here in this chapter, friend. When Jesus goes on there in verses 15 and 16 and just opens up her life, had she ever been more broken, more exposed? But then at the same time, had she ever been more safe?"

7. "Sometimes our work is to sow. Sometimes our work is to scatter the gospel out, to pass it out, to let people know this good news about Jesus. Sometimes it's to reap, it's to see people converted."

8. "We sow with hope because it's God who's at work. And we have to remember when we're on the other end and when we reap, we reap with humility. Because again, it's God who's at work. So we reap with humility, sow with hope, reap with humility."

9. "It is not given to us as Christians only to believe what is obvious to all."

10. "I think I'm often like this woman here, doubting Jesus' promises when I can't see the means that I assume he'll use to fulfill his promises. Yeah, it never works out that way. He is always faithful. And he is often surprising in the way he works out that faithfulness. He teaches us to trust in him, not the means that we can see."

Observation Questions

1. In John 4:4, why does John specifically mention that Jesus "had to go through Samaria"? What cultural and historical context makes this detail significant?

2. Looking at John 4:16-18, what specific details does Jesus know about the woman's life? How does this demonstrate His supernatural knowledge?

3. In John 4:19-20, how does the woman respond to Jesus' supernatural knowledge? What does her immediate shift to discussing worship locations reveal?

4. From John 4:23-24, what does Jesus say about true worship? What two key qualities does He emphasize?

5. According to John 4:28-30, what specific actions does the woman take after her conversation with Jesus? What does she leave behind and what new priority does she embrace?

6. In John 4:39-42, how do the Samaritans' reasons for believing in Jesus change over the course of their encounter with Him?

Interpretation Questions

1. Why does Jesus choose to reveal His identity as Messiah so clearly to this Samaritan woman when He often concealed it from Jewish religious leaders?

2. How does Jesus' offer of "living water" (John 4:13-14) relate to the woman's physical and spiritual needs? What deeper meaning lies beneath this metaphor?

3. What is the significance of Jesus' statement that "salvation is from the Jews" (John 4:22) in the context of His ministry to Samaritans?

4. How does Jesus' teaching about worship in "spirit and truth" (John 4:23-24) challenge both Samaritan and Jewish understanding of worship?

5. What does Jesus' metaphor about the harvest (John 4:35-38) reveal about the urgency and nature of evangelism?

Application Questions

1. When was the last time you found yourself holding onto a "half-truth" about Jesus that diminished His full identity as Messiah and Savior? How did you discover it was only a partial truth?

2. Like the Samaritan woman, where have you tried to find satisfaction apart from Christ? How has that worked out compared to the "living water" Jesus offers?

3. Think about a time when Jesus revealed something about yourself that made you uncomfortable. How did you respond? Did you, like the woman, try to change the subject to safer religious topics?

4. What "water jar" (representing old priorities or concerns) might Jesus be asking you to leave behind to share the good news about Him with others?

5. Where in your life are you doubting Jesus' promises because you can't see how He will fulfill them? How can you grow in trusting Him rather than focusing on the means?

Additional Bible Reading

1. Isaiah 49:1-6 - This prophecy reveals God's plan for His servant to be not just the restorer of Israel but also a light to the Gentiles, providing context for Jesus' boundary-crossing ministry to Samaritans.

2. John 7:37-44 - Jesus again uses the metaphor of living water, this time in a public setting, expanding our understanding of the spiritual satisfaction He offers to all who believe.

3. Acts 1:8-11 and Acts 8:4-25 - These passages show how Jesus' words about Samaria were fulfilled as the early church carried the gospel beyond Jewish territories, specifically to the Samaritans.

4. Romans 8:1-17 - Paul expands on what it means to worship in Spirit and truth, describing the Spirit-led life of true believers who are adopted as God's children.

Sermon Main Topics

I. The Danger of Half-Truths Masquerading as Whole Truths

II. Jesus Is the Messiah, Not Just a Great Moral Teacher (John 4:26)

III. Jesus the Messiah Saves Us, Contrary to the Belief That Everybody Is Basically Okay (John 4:13-14)

IV. Trusting in Jesus, the Messiah, Challenges the Notion That Religion Is What We Do (John 4:23-24)

V. Responding to the Truth About Jesus

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Detailed Sermon Outline

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In a number of different articles and books that he has written, J.I. packer has astutely observed that a half truth masquerading as the whole truth becomes a complete untruth.

A half truth masquerading as the whole truth becomes a complete untruth.

Now that's true, isn't it? I think we know that innately. We don't have to have theology degrees to know that. Mom, away on a trip with dad, phones responsible teenage son. Mom says, you're taking care of the goldfish, aren't you, son?

L. Leaning into this very observation, Packer has made answers. I'm taking care of them. Half truth, Whole truth. I forgot to feed them or change their water for several days.

They've croaked, so I took care of them. I flushed them and I didn't want to get into it with mom, so I'll deal with it later. Half truth masquerading as the whole truth becomes a complete untruth. And that masquerade takes place all kinds of ways. Little lies.

Oh, yeah, I've got that done. I'll be there. I can get it. Yes, we do that. Well, when in each instance the speaker has some unspoken ifs or in the sense thats that undermine the very promise they've made.

It is amazing what impressive promises in the big print can crawl out through the fine print.

Many of these half truths we may not care that much about or we may be accustomed to with political candidates, promises we're accustomed to knowing that well, there's another perspective on what they're saying. With advertisers claims, we know that the product they're selling will finally break down regardless of what they're saying to us. With studies that come out, we know that the parameters were more narrow and specific and the results less clear and assured than the headlines that we see.

But in no sphere of life are masquerading half truths both so prevalent and so devastating as in the area of religion. Religion.

In religion, these half truths mislead us about the most important matters. They speak to us about those things nearest to the core of our being and of our hopes and of those matters which have the longest, even unending consequences.

The passage we turn to in John's Gospel this morning undermines three of the most common of these religious half truths in America today. Three things that most Americans are confident of, regardless of denomination or faith or educational background or ethnicity or age or job or location. And they are these. One, Jesus is a great moral teacher. Two, everybody's basically okay.

Three, religion is what I do.

One, Jesus is a great moral teacher. Two, everybody's basically okay. And three, religion is basically what I do. Don't you think those really are pillars of people's faith? These days?

If you accost most people on Capitol Hill and they decide to be open with you and tell you what they think, surely something that approximates these things will be what most people will say. Jesus is a great moral teacher. I mean, from our very founding as a nation, only the most severe critics like a Thomas Paine would write insulting things about Jesus. Personally, I mean, everybody respects Jesus most. All of the theistic rationalists.

That's what Greg Fraser has called the founders in his new book, the Religious Beliefs of America's Founders. That these theistic rationalists that founded this country would say that Jesus was best understood as a great moral teacher, an example for us to follow worlds better than even the greatest philosopher like Socrates, a sage for us to heed. They would say it obscures his genius to get into theological arguments about his person or essence and his identity, his uniqueness. Jesus is a great moral teacher, perhaps the greatest. Two, everybody's basically okay.

That is okay with God, that if God has made us, well as the saying goes, God don't make no junk. So if he made us, we must be okay, he must love us. Besides, if we start saying that this person's okay with God, he's right and this person's wrong and therefore not okay with God, well then that's only going to lead to self righteousness and oppression and even war comes from that way of thinking.

So both the idea itself and the implications of it are so terrible that we really all believe, and we really all believe that we need to believe that everybody's okay.

And then finally religion is what I do. That is regardless of what someone may say, what they believe, it's how they treat their fellow man that really matters. That's the real nub of the issue. Religion is what I do. Regardless of whether you're an atheist or a Baptist, a Buddhist or a Jewish, a Deist or an Episcopalian, it's what you do that counts.

I mean, everybody knows that hypocrites abound among religious people. The church is full of hypocrites. Surely that must be part of the American creed to know that's true. Didn't Jesus himself say, you'll know them by their fruit? So that's what matters in religion.

Not what we say we believe, but what we do, our good deeds.

So there it is, America's religion. Good thing for us to think about this Thanksgiving week. Jesus is a great moral teacher. Everybody's basically okay. Religion is what I do.

In our chapter this morning, John chapter four, Jesus reveals each of these to be basically half truths. Half truths.

And as J.I. packer has observed so well, a half truth masquerading as the whole truth becomes a complete untruth. So let's turn to John 4 now, John chapter 4, and see what we can learn about this. You'll find John 4 beginning on page 1052 in the Bibles provided. If you don't have a Bible that you can read at home, feel free and take the one here at church.

We would rather have you have it than us have it if you'll read it. So take it with you as a gift from us to you. You're not used to looking at Bibles, the large numbers or the chapter number. We're in John chapter 4. The smaller numbers after that are the verse numbers that we'll be referring to as we go through this chapter.

While you're turning there, let me just remind you what we've seen in our study through John's gospel so far. It's all about who Jesus is. So back in chapter one, Jesus is called. He calls himself the Son of Man, which is a divine title from the Old Testament. Christians are those who recognize Jesus as the Son of Man and follow him.

John the Baptist has identified him as the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. And he is the incarnate Son of God, God in the flesh. Chapter two is the account of Jesus at the wedding at Cana, changing the water to wine, followed by his going south to the temple in Jerusalem and not being received by those who should have been the most open to receiving him. And then last week in John 3, we learned that if we would enter the kingdom of God, we must be born again by the Spirit of God. And that in order to be saved from God's judgment, we should not reject Jesus as God's Son, but we should accept him and trust fully in him.

Jesus, having taught this clearly to his disciples then, was drawing more and more followers to himself. And by drawing more and more followers, that drew the attention of the Pharisees, the religious leaders in Jerusalem. And perhaps it was for this reason that Jesus decided it was time to go home. Time to go back to Galilee in the north. But even in his return trip, Jesus would begin teaching some very important truths, like what it means for him to be sent by a God who loves the world and not just the nation of Israel.

What is it the Lord said in Isaiah 49:6 it is too small a thing for you to be my servant, to restore the tribes of Jacob and bring back those of Israel I have kept. I will also make you a light for the Gentiles, the nations, that you may bring my salvation to the ends of the earth. So let's see how Jesus begins teaching his disciples about God's boundary bursting love. Look with me at John, chapter four. As we read this chapter, consider these religious assumptions that we make today and how they fit or don't fit with what Jesus said about himself and his mission and his people.

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, that's noon, when a Samaritan woman came to draw water.

Jesus said to her, will you give me a drink? His disciples had gone into the town to buy food. The Samaritan woman said to him, you're a Jew and I'm 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, 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 have now is not your husband.

What you have said Is quite true, sir. The woman said, I can see that you are a prophet. Our fathers worshiped 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 kinds of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship him in spirit and in truth. The woman said, I know that Messiah called Christ is coming. When he comes, he will 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 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 them, 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, 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, I pray that as we consider this chapter, that we will see more of who Jesus is, of what he does, and of what he's calling you and me to do.

Let's begin first with what the point of this chapter clearly is. And this is number one, that Jesus is the Messiah. Jesus is the Messiah. Now, of course, that's the point of this chapter and also the point of this entire gospel. Turn with me for a second over to the end of John's gospel.

Turn with me over to chapter 20.

Look at chapter 20, verses 30 to 31. And if you've got your own copy of your Bible, just underline that this is the key to John's whole gospel. Right here we have a writer of a book in the Bible who tells you why he's writing his book. John 20, verses 30 and 31. Jesus did many other miraculous signs in the presence of his disciples which are not recorded in this book.

But these are written that there's the purpose statement. You may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, or Christ the Son of God, and that by believing, you may have life in his name. Friend, that's a context in which we need to understand chapter four. So turn back to chapter four. But keep that in mind.

That's why he's writing the whole Gospel. That's why he's recording everything that he is in this gospel, so that we will understand that Jesus is the Messiah. In order to teach that really is why Jesus moves from Baptizing in Judea, you see in verse 2 to resting at this particular well in Samaria in verse six, that's how the chapter begins, with Jesus moving from Judea to Samaria, from where his disciples are baptizing near the Jordan to up in Samaria in this specific well. So in the first three verses of the chapter, Jesus popularity seems to remind them that he needs to take them away so that he can teach them about himself, away from the lightning rod of controversy that was Jerusalem. So we see in verse 4, Jesus chooses to go through Samaria.

John says he had to go through Samaria in the sense that's the most direct route. But actually a lot of Jews would not go through Samaria, though you've got Jerusalem, Samaria, Galilee. A lot of Jews would go across the Jordan to avoid Samaria to go up to Galilee. But Jesus took the more direct route and went directly through Samaria. We see there in verse four, the Samaritans were a group that were related to the Jews, but they had their own religious practices.

There's a history of them being distinct from the Jews and really antagonistic to Israel. They were the object of special disdain by the Jews. A little background might be helpful. Back in the 4th century BC, they had begun another unauthorized rival priesthood to the one in Jerusalem. They had even built their own temple there on Mount Gerizim.

And this little village that he stopped at is just at the foot of Mount Gerizim. And this was a place that had thrived for a couple of centuries. The Jews, when they had had their own independence again under Judas Maccabeus, actually destroyed it. But they had rebuilt the temple and this rival priesthood continued. And the Jews were not fans in any way of dealing with the Samaritans.

They saw them as particularly distasteful and unclean. Though they had some things in common. The Samaritans used the first five books of the Old Testament. They did expect a Messiah from Deuteronomy 18 in Moses prophecy that a prophet like him would come. So with that background, anyway, we see there verse 4, Jesus chooses to go through Samaria because it was the shortest way.

But he doesn't just go through Samaria. We zoom in there in verse five to this one specific village, Sychar, which is just at the foot of Mount Gerizim. And in verse six, we come in even closer to see him just outside the village itself. And there Jesus would sit at this specific. Well at this specific time, about the sixth hour, that's noon.

So it's in that context that the encounter recorded here happens. So look again at verse seven. When a Samaritan woman came to draw water. Jesus said to her, will you give me a drink? Now if you skip down to verse 27, you see how surprised the disciples were when they returned and they found him talking with this woman, having this conversation.

Three things were wrong with this picture of Jesus talking to this woman. You know what they are?

Number one, rabbis rarely spoke with women, especially alone. Temptation, reputation, gossip. I mean, it just wasn't worth.

Number two, on top of that, Jews don't associate with Samaritans. So not only is there a rabbi alone with a woman, but Jews don't associate with Samaritans. There was this long standing bad blood between them that I just mentioned. And here you have a Jewish rabbi alone, talking with a Samaritan woman. And then number three, it was noon, the heat of the day.

Now what do you understand from that? Well, most people go and take their water in the cool of the day. So in the morning or late in the evening, no one goes in the middle of the day because of the heat. So why is she going in the middle of the day? Because she's not just your average Samaritan woman in this village.

She's a Samaritan woman who is known to be immoral. She has great shame in dealing with the other women. Perhaps she'd even slept with some of the husbands of the other women in the village. I mean, how many men would there be in that village? And she had had five husbands.

And the man she had now was not her husband. So there were reasons she was there when she was. Three reasons in this picture to show us it's not what we would expect. Three reasons why, if you're not a Christian, you might want to give another look at the truthfulness of the Gospels as historical sources. If you're here today and you're a little skeptical, you don't think the Gospels are true and accurate.

You think they're kind of made up. With all due respect, I submit you really haven't read it much or thought about it much. Because if you're going to make up something, you're not going to make up these kind of details. You're not going to have a rabbi doing something questionable. You're not going to have him relating easily to the Samaritans.

You're certainly not going to start out his witness to the worldwide evangelistic mission of the church with someone who is known to be immoral in her own village. That's Going to be the last place you go, not the first. Why would John write this here? Because it's what happened. And because in the Gospels, again and again, you see this commitment to historical veracity to truth, even if it makes the disciples look bad.

The disciples who were the leaders of the church in those first few decades. Jesus tells the truth. If you're not a Christian here also do notice the absolutely unique person that Jesus Christ is fully God and fully man, truly divine and truly human at the same time. Says here in verse 6, he was tired from the journey. He was tired from the journey.

And so here in verse seven, he asks her for a drink. Let's listen again to the conversation beginning at verse 8. His disciples had gone into the town to buy food. The Samaritan woman said to him, you're 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? Living water, understand at the time could also mean running water, you know, so it's that same idea.

It's not just stagnant, it's. It's moving. It's just better water, purer or more refreshing. Are you verse. Pick it back up with verse 12.

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 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.

So to tell about the living water, Jesus puts himself in a situation where he will be thirsty.

And this wouldn't be the last time he thirsted. It's amazing, isn't it, how our weaknesses and needs are great pointers and bridges for us to tell others the good news about the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The illness of the officer's son later in the chapter becomes a platform for a sign of Jesus miraculous power, which, as John said back in chapter two, he used to reveal his glory to his disciples.

Do you ever think of your trials and weaknesses? Thirst Sickness discouragements as platforms for God to use to display his strength. Jesus did. He said to Paul, my power is made perfect in weakness.

But this woman is evidently not understanding exactly in what sense she is thirsty and how great her thirst is. And so Jesus continues, takes it up a notch there in verse 16, revealing even more of who she was in the process. 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 had five husbands and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true.

It's amazing how Jesus takes on our self righteousness and checkmates us. Notice when Jamie led us in prayer of confession, he prayed for those who'd been unfaithful to their spouses. I wonder how many of you were shocked. I wonder how many of you thought, oh, we have people that bad here. I wonder how many of you have considered your own life.

I wonder, you single people who were pitying the strains and temptations of marriage, have you ever considered how fornication is being unfaithful to your spouse?

Any of us, when we've lusted, have we considered how being unfaithful to our spouse is shown even in our lusts? Friends, Jesus takes on self righteousness head on, as he does with this woman here who seems sort of blithe in his ignorance. And so he decides to reveal the truth about her to herself, just like it had back in chapter one with Nathanael. So here, Jesus knowledge revealed something of the specialness of his identity. Supernatural knowledge like this is a mark of the true God.

We see that in the prophets of the Old Testament. Jesus was like no one she had ever spoken to before. And even as he's revealing more of his identity to her, Jesus revealed her to be in need of what he had to offer. Being forgiven and cleansed from God, dishonoring people, using life, killing, immorality. Sir, the woman said, Verse 19, I can see you are a prophet.

I'm not entirely sure how to read that two different ways we could read that. I think the natural way, at least for us in our culture today to read this is kind of like this. Verse 16. 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've had five husbands and the man you have now is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true, sir, the woman said, I can see that you are a prophet. Our fathers worshipped on this mountain. But you Jews, the kind of deflecting, the sort of almost comic, lame attempt to hide our own unrighteousness by quickly blaming up.

When do you think Christ will come back? You know, some kind of change to a safer religious topic? I think that's how people usually read it. I think there's another way. It could be that if we were less interested in comics and entertainment and more interested in religion, might come more naturally to us to read it, which would be.

He says these things to her. The fact that you've had five husbands and the man you have now is not your husband. What you've said is quite true. And then, after a moment of weighted silence as she begins to understand that she is genuinely, for the first time in her life, probably talking to a prophet of God who has this supernatural knowledge, she asks a question that's at the very core of her identity. It's been what she's been sort of oppressed because of, or her people have been treated disdainfully because of her entire life.

Our fathers worshiped on this mountain. But you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.

However, you read that verse 21 is the same. Jesus declared, believe me, a woman, 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 kinds of worshipers the Father seeks. God is Spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth. What an amazing revelation this is.

God Himself is actually seeking. God is seeking true worshipers.

Not a matter of place, but a person not of speculation, but of revelation. That's what Jesus means there in verse 24, when he says that we must worship God in spirit and in truth. That is, according to God's having revealed the truth. What has he said? How should we approach Him?

And, friends, what we find is that such true worship is to center on Jesus. He is the point. It centers on Him. Which is why he could say to her here that such a time has now come because he had come.

This all seemed to confuse her, so she owns her ignorance there. In verse 25, the woman said, I know that Messiah called Christ is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us. Now, friends, that line would have worked to end a religious conversation. Any other time that woman had ever used it in her life, but not that time.

Verse 26. Then Jesus declared, I who speak to you am He.

It's interesting that in the Gospels we see again and again that Jesus was open about his messiahship when he was not among the Jews.

With them, there were too many immediate, dangerous, distracting political expectations. But here, with this lone Samaritan woman of ill repute, Jesus openly says, I who speak to you am He. I am the Messiah. You wonder where Jesus teaches He's the Messiah. John, chapter 4, verse 26.

Very clearly, Jesus clearly taught not that he was merely a great religious teacher, but that he was the Messiah come uniquely to bring living water to those parched for satisfaction and meaning in life. This woman's relationship with Jesus would reorient all her other relationships. Friends, the satisfaction we can know in our relationship with God through Christ will help make us the husband or father, the friend or wife or mother or child we should be. You can think better about your writing job or your advertising work or your legal work if it's not the center of your identity. Knowing Christ, knowing Him for who he is, allows all the other roles in our lives to assume their proper and most fruitful places.

Worshiping him alone, we work at our jobs, confident of his care and provision, regardless of what trials we face in them, he's the source of our life.

That's why our public worship here is centered on Jesus Christ, because. Because in him God came to reveal Himself most fully to us. Some churches may try to use Jesus to get the signs and wonders is what they really seem to want. Kind of like what Jesus is criticizing down there later in verse 48. You know, people then and now, I think, are more interested in the signs than in what they lead to, what they point to.

Jesus himself. But we as a congregation, we want to recognize that John's point is the point of the whole Bible, who Jesus is, which is Capitol Hill Baptist Church's point, which is the point of all of our public services here and of all of our sermons, even this one. Who Jesus is.

So do you know who Jesus is?

He is the Christ, the Messiah, the eternal Son of God made flesh, truly human, truly divine Jesus of Nazareth. If you have more questions about that, we would love to talk to you. Jesus isn't just a great religious teacher. Jesus is the unique, divine, human Messiah.

We should also notice what Jesus said He came to do. Number two. Jesus the Messiah saves us. Jesus, the Messiah saves us. We need to hear this today because we're told from A thousand pulpits and a million websites that we are fine and don't need to be saved.

But Jesus makes it clear here that the most fundamental need possible for us to have is for our well being now and forever to be delivered from the ruin that our sins have made of our lives and the ruin that they're even now making. And even if you're not feeling that ruin right now, the ruin that they most certainly will make forever under the everlasting and right judgment of God. And that Jesus has come to deliver us exactly from sin and its consequences.

In the two stories in this chapter, I wonder, did you notice that there are these needs presented? The woman's thirst, the son's illness, needs that the people couldn't meet themselves.

The woman and the official had needs they couldn't meet themselves. And it's to needy people like them, like us, that Jesus makes these wonderful promises throughout the Gospels. Like the promise here, there in verses 10 to 14 of Living Water, water which ends thirst and wells up to eternal life. What a great promise.

How interesting that these great promises are made in such close connection with this revelation of the woman's lack of deserving it.

She doesn't deserve such a blessing. Jesus makes that very clear. And how true it is that in order to know God, we need to know the truth about ourselves. And the other way around, to know the truth about ourselves, we really need to know God.

Here in verses 13 and 14 we see that the woman's own need becomes the occasion for Jesus to promise giving this water that just won't stop. So here in this passage, Jesus is offering this living water, this eternal life to a woman, and a Samaritan woman, and a notorious sinner at that. But then that's what Jesus does, isn't it? He pursues sinners with amazing blessings. That's what he does.

Jesus is the only one to promise this water that satisfies forever. Of course we see in verse 15 that the woman keeps misunderstanding, but in his tenacious pursuit of her, he doesn't stop. He traces her down in her sins, he to help her understand the full significance of what he is offering her. He's not trying to make her feel bad, he's trying to help her see what the real situation is so that she would understand what he's giving. And by the time he's telling her in verse 26 that he's the Messiah, I think she's beginning to get it.

My non Christian friend, do you understand something of how wonderful this gift is, is that Jesus offers We get excited over things so much smaller.

Some of you are working yourself into a tizzy this time of year about what you're going to buy for family and friends at Christmas. You're making plans about shopping on Friday. It's the biggest thing in the world.

How many presents do you think you were given last Christmas?

How many of those do you remember?

Friends, you need to put in perspective what Jesus is offering with the kind of things we so often spend our lives on. Jesus has come to offer himself to bear the wrath of God that you have deserved. God's wrath against all who will turn from their sins and trust in him alone. God has even raised Jesus from the dead the thus demonstrating both his power and his acceptance of Jesus and His sacrifice for us. This is a forgiveness you need more than you know, and there is no way for you to get it ever.

Except for what Jesus does for us.

My Christian brothers and sisters, Jesus is presented here as the source of living water. Water Healing, truth. Whatever other disappointments we may have today in him, we have already been given more than we could ever lose if we have Him. What do we lack?

Friends. Intimacy. Meaningful work. Friends, Christ has assured us an eternal acceptance of by our Creator and Judge. And this very Creator and judge was our enemy because of our sins.

Jesus announces this news to a woman who had five broken relationships, even more wrong relationships like the one she was in then. How good were those relationships?

Well, the very number of them suggest that they didn't satisfy her.

Those who've had more than one sexual partner immorally know the truth of this.

Don't try to make your sex life your identity. That's a lie. That is even more sad than it is popular. You're not only what you eat and you're not only who you sleep with.

Reject the sexual reductionism of our culture. It's a lie and it will not bring satisfaction. Anyway, friend, if you're here today with a broken marriage or a family that's falling apart, Jesus can give you the bedrock confidence and purpose and wisdom to build your own life. On my single friend, if you're dissatisfied with your singleness, you could be an example to your family at Thanksgiving this week with your satisfaction in Christ, you don't have to pretend that certain dissatisfactions aren't there. You just have to make it clear that the satisfaction you do have are even more important.

Meditate this week on what you deserve and on what you've been given. Look for evidences of this new life that Jesus promises that you've already seen in your life and be quick to have them on your lips to testify to his resurrection power that is already showing itself in your life. You know, we're tempted to think that because we're not experiencing all the blessings right now that Jesus promises that we understand that we will ultimately have through Christ, that we're not experiencing any. But that's not true, is it? He's left us his word to teach us of our sin and the death we deserve.

And what Christ, crucified and risen and ascended, has already done for us, forgiveness for the penalty we're due, being certain. And he gives us His Spirit even now, as we thought about a little last week, to give us new life, a life alive to God and His purposes, a life increasingly marked by hating our sin even more than feeling embarrassed about it before other people. While we don't know the perfect pleasures in God were promised, we do already know real changes in our life which teach us of the Spirit's power and act to shore up our faith and giving us growing confidence in God and His promises. We have been saved from the penalty of sin. We are being saved from the power of sin, and our lives give testimony to it.

And we will be saved even from the very presence of sin. And that is a glorious promise that we have every reason to believe.

So do you feel you have little to be thankful for this Thanksgiving? Consider this broken woman here in this chapter, friend. When Jesus goes on there in verses 15 and 16 and just opens up her life, had she ever been more broken, more exposed?

But then at the same time, had she ever been more safe?

Now, finally, real satisfaction and joy were hers because she could trust him entirely.

As a church, we should pay attention to the words Jesus speaks to his disciples. Here in verse 35.

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've not worked for. Others have done the hard work, and you have reaped the benefits of their labor. Congregation, sometimes our work is to sow. Sometimes our work is to scatter the gospel out, to pass it out, to let people know this good news about Jesus.

Sometimes it's to reap, it's to see people converted. How much do you enjoy these baptismal testimonies? That we get to hear. We get to hear another couple in just a few minutes. What a joy it is to hear testimony of people being saved.

But we have to remember that when we sow, we sow with hope, even if we don't see the response immediately. We sow with hope because it's God who's at work. And we have to remember when we're on the other end and when we reap, we reap with humility. Because again, it's God who's at work. So we reap with humility, sow with hope, reap with humility.

God's are the promises and God's is the work. And did you notice what the Samaritans call Jesus in verse 42?

The Savior of the world, which is what you remember. Back in John 3:16, we read that God the Father was sending His Son to do, and which Jesus is showing himself to be, even as the news of his coming is reaching beyond the Jews. In this conversation with this woman at this well outside this village in Samaria, this great news is getting beyond that of the Jews, and which he continues to show himself as today, as we far away from Jerusalem and Samaria revel in this good news. Because the truth is not what we're so often told. We're not all okay.

Everything from thirst to death are physical reminders of far worse spiritual truths about our natural state before God because of our sin. But we don't despair because Jesus the Messiah came to do what we could never do for ourselves. Jesus the Messiah came to save us.

One more matter in this chapter, we should note number three. We are to trust in Jesus, the Messiah who saves us. We are to trust in Jesus, the Messiah who saves us.

Many people today tend to think that religion is simply what we do. But this chapter in John's Gospel gives us examples of of what we're exhorted to in chapter three. God so loved the world in this way he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish, but have eternal life. Now, this belief will entail doing, but the essence of it is the believing, not the doing. It's the believing.

Again here in verse 10, isn't it interesting? Like with Nicodemus last week, Jesus doesn't quite answer the question she asks. She says something. Then he tells her what she really should have asked.

And then in verse 21, we see Jesus exhorting her personally and directly to believe him. And she certainly seems to. She's a very active evangelist, isn't she? Imagine her going back into that village with all the shame that she had, she was so immoral. So she had her own conscience going and she was known as being immoral.

It was a small village, may have been this size, congregation may have been smaller. And yet there she goes, speaking loudly, initiating conversations with other people. She was convinced that this was true. And then look at verse 28. 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? And in part because of her faith, others came to believe in Jesus. Look down at verse 39. 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 him 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've heard for ourselves and we know that this man really is the Savior of the world.

And it's not just in this first story that we see faith in Christ, but in the second story as well. Because remember that official decided to approach Jesus there in verse 47. And that took some amount of faith just right there. Why would he go approach this rabbi who's back in town? Well, he had to believe something about him.

And you'll notice there in verse 50, the way he left. Jesus also speaks of faith because the man, it says, took Jesus at his word. And then in verses 51 to 53, the man's faith is confirmed. And in turn we read in verse 53 all his household believed. Now people have asked me this week, is this faith that we see examples of throughout John's gospel and here in this chapter, is this saving faith?

Well, it's at least initial faith in Christ. It's clear that some of these believers don't persevere that we see in John's gospel. And we'll see this as we keep going through John's gospel. But it's at least believing in some sense what Jesus said about himself. And time would tell in each case whether it was saving faith.

Of course no one will believe the truth about Jesus if they're not first told. And that's where Jesus disciples come in. The disciples misunderstanding of Jesus statement in verse 32 is the occasion for more teaching on this faith creating work. They had just come back from town having gotten supplies and they asked him to eat Something. But while their minds were on one kind of fruit, his mind was on another.

He just had this conversation with a Samaritan woman who was responding wonderfully to what he was saying. Verse 32. 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 and to finish his work.

Now this is what he told Satan when he had been tempted. Do you remember Satan tempted him to turn a stone into a loaf of bread. And he quotes Deuteronomy 8:3, man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord. Friend, have you thought about doing God's will as some kind of sustaining food? I think that our having great focus and excitement when we're in intensely excited about something, some task so much that we forget hunger is a small taste of this.

Friends, if we believe, we will do. Jesus continues in verse 35 pointing out to them the task they should be about because they believe. Verse 35 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.

And they were too, weren't they? Even then it was being fulfilled before their very eyes. They could literally look up and see the harvest coming toward them. Verse 30 they, the Samaritans came out of the town and made their way toward him down in verse 39. 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 him and he stayed two days.

Friends, the harvest is all around us. The harvest is all these hundreds of people sitting here saying that they believe in Christ, that they found this new life in Christ. Friends, now is the time for sowing. And because of the amazing blessing of God, also for reaping. Look around you to see the testimony to this.

Verse 35 I think is meant to be an encouragement to us when he says, do you not sow four months more and then the harvest? I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields. They are ripe for harvest. Now is the time for reaping and workers are needed sowing the seed like this woman did even as she went back to her village. But also don't be surprised when God gives the harvest and people are actually converted and become followers of Jesus.

Now that won't Be everyone we tell the news to. Verse 44 reminds us that rejection would come. Verse 44. Now Jesus himself had pointed out that a prophet has no honor in his own country. If you're feeling like a lousy evangelist at work, just write that verse out and put it up on your desk.

You can feel maybe some self justifying self pity, you know, know that even Jesus experiences lack of fruitfulness among his own country, you know, in his own place. But friends, don't despair. Continue to be faithful. And though the story immediately after this isn't a clear example of rejection, John is full of them. Even as many would come to believe in Jesus, many would come to reject him.

And this, this division, including increasing opposition, will continue throughout the book, as we'll see. Friends, it's not given to us as Christians to believe only what is obvious to all. It is not given to us as Christians only to believe what is obvious to all. If you're not a Christian, let me just exhort you to believe Christ. Trust his claims, his promises, and do it today.

If you'd like to know more about what that means, talk to any of us standing at the doors on the way out afterwards. We would love to talk to you about that. Our members here do a study through a Gospel with people who want to. We don't charge you anything for it. Study wasn't even written by a Baptist.

Just trying to go through the Gospels just to look at what the Gospels tell us about Jesus. We would love to do that with you. If you have time and interest, turn to Christ. Grasp and hold on to him with all your heart. And if you say, mark, I really am one of those who want to believe, but I simply don't know how to.

I would say keep coming, keep coming to these studies through John's Gospel. Read it on your own. So every day this week, read John chapter five, which we're going to be looking at, Lord willing, next Sunday. Pray for God to help you to understand and believe. Faith comes, the Bible tells us, by hearing the message about Christ.

The message of Christ. Christians, is your trust in Christ evident throughout your day?

I thank God for how many folks I know here whose lives reflect their faith in Christ, in the decisions that you've made about marriage or adoption or giving or which job to take or where to live or how to face this situation at work or that difficult situation in your family. Praise God for the treasury of testimonies that he has given to us as a church family and in our own lives. As we trust him and as we trust those things that our hearts are tempted to love too much as we entrust them to him. And he shows himself faithful every time. And thank God for the encouragement of believers like this woman here.

I don't know about you, but I feel like I can relate to her. I'm not an immoral Samaritan woman, but I feel like I have a lot in common. Verse 11, where she has that hard time believing Jesus even, sir, the woman said, you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? I think I'm often like this woman here, doubting Jesus promises when I can't see the means that I assume he'll use to fulfill his promises.

Well, he's promised that that must mean this. I don't see him doing this. Therefore, he must not going to be faithful. Yeah, it never works out that way. He is always faithful.

And he is often surprising in the way he works out that faithfulness. He teaches us to trust in him, not the means that we can see. Despite her questioning Him, Jesus was faithful to this woman and he will be to us. She believed him. So should we.

How can we, as Hebrews says, work to encourage each other? I know many people today tend to think that religion is what I do, but at the root of it, we see here that according to Jesus, the root of it is what we believe. We are to trust in Jesus, the Messiah who saves us. And there you have it. Jesus has revealed these masquerading half truths.

Jesus is a great moral teacher. A lot of us are going to hear that at the Thanksgiving table this week. Everybody's basically okay. Religion is what I do.

Well, religion is what I do. In some sense, everybody's basically okay. Maybe in some sense he's a great moral teacher. I mean, Jesus is a great moral teacher. True.

But that alone is to damn him with faint praise. It's to miss uniquely who he is. Everybody's basically okay. Well, okay. We're all made in the image of God.

There's value to everybody. There's good in all of us. God cares about all of us. But it is wrong and terribly misleading to leave people with the impression that we are anything other than those in desperate need of being saved. The ship has gone down, the lifeboats are lost and we can't swim.

We are in need of a Savior. Our only hope is to be saved. And that's what Jesus came to do. And that final half truth, religion is what I do. Certainly actions can speak louder than words and hypocritical believers are denounced by Jesus.

But actions alone cannot make a Christian. We can't save ourselves. We must believe in Christ, who alone can save us.

And yes, he was in fact, to answer her question up there in verse 12, greater than Jacob, he is the gracious Jesus, who seeks out the sinner, who saves the perishing, who pities the nations and brings the strangers home. Let's pray together.

Lord God, break our lack of trust in you, open our eyes to see and believe. We pray in Jesus name, Amen.