John 4:1-30 “We all have a story and Jesus knows our story.”

Therefore, when the Lord knew that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus made and baptized more disciples than John ² (though Jesus Himself did not baptize, but His disciples), ³ He left Judea and departed again to Galilee. ⁴ But He needed to go through Samaria.

⁵ So He came to a city of Samaria which is called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph. ⁶ Now Jacob’s well was there. Jesus therefore, being wearied from His journey, sat thus by the well. It was about the sixth hour.

⁷ A woman of Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give Me a drink.” ⁸ For His disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.

⁹ Then the woman of Samaria said to Him, “How is it that You, being a Jew, ask a drink from me, a Samaritan woman?” For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.

¹⁰ Jesus answered and said to her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, ‘Give Me a drink,’ you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water.”

¹¹ The woman said to Him, “Sir, You have nothing to draw with, and the well is deep. Where then do You get that living water? ¹² Are You greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well, and drank from it himself, as well as his sons and his livestock?”

¹³ Jesus answered and said to her, “Whoever drinks of this water will thirst again, ¹⁴ but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst. But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life.” ¹⁵ The woman said to Him, “Sir, give me this water, that I may not thirst, nor come here to draw.”

¹⁶ Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come here.”

¹⁷ The woman answered and said, “I have no husband.”

Jesus said to her, “You have well said, ‘I have no husband,’ ¹⁸ for you have had five husbands, and the one whom you now have is not your husband; in that you spoke truly.”

¹⁹ The woman said to Him, “Sir, I perceive that You are a prophet. ²⁰ Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, and you Jews say that in Jerusalem is the place where one ought to worship.”

²¹ Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe Me, the hour is coming when you will neither on this mountain, nor in Jerusalem, worship the Father. ²² You worship what you do not know; we know what we worship, for salvation is of the Jews. ²³ But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for the Father is seeking such to worship Him. ²⁴ God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.” ²⁵ The woman said to Him, “I know that Messiah is coming” (who is called Christ). “When He comes, He will tell us all things.”

²⁶ Jesus said to her, “I who speak to you am He.”

²⁷ And at this point His disciples came, and they marveled that He talked with a woman; yet no one said, “What do You seek?” or, “Why are You talking with her?”

²⁸ The woman then left her waterpot, went her way into the city, and said to the men, ²⁹ “Come, see a Man who told me all things that I ever did. Could this be the Christ?” ³⁰ Then they went out of the city and came to Him.

“HE KNOWS YOUR STORY”

If you have ever wondered about the love of God;

If you have ever wondered how Jesus feels about your story;

If you have ever doubted whether God’s grace is greater than your past;

If you have ever felt too ashamed or inferior to get plugged-in to the body of Christ;

THEN JOHN CHAPTER 4 HAS A WORD FOR YOU.

We really must understand the background of this whole chapter in order to learn from it.

The 12 Tribes of Israel were named after the sons and grandsons of Jacob. Jacob, named “Israel” by God (Genesis 32:28; 35:10), had 12 children with his two wives, Leah and Rachel, and his concubines, Zilpah and Bilhah. The names of Jacob’s sons were Reuben, Simeon, Judah, Dan, Naphtali, Gad, Asher, Issachar, Zebulun, Joseph, Benjamin, and Levi. The tribes are named after ten of Jacob’s sons, all except for Joseph and Levi. Joseph’s two sons, Ephraim and Manasseh, are named as the final two tribes. Levi is not named as one of the 12 Tribes of Israel; however, Levi is the Tribe of the Chosen Priests, set apart from the others as God’s Tribe.

Today, 10 of those 12 tribes are considered to be “the Lost Tribes of Israel.” How is it possible to lose entire groups of people? To answer that question, we need to have a brief history lesson. Following the death of King Solomon, the nation of Israel split into two kingdoms—the northern kingdom, called Israel; and the southern kingdom, known as Judah. The tribes of Reuben, Simon, Dan, Naphtali, Gad, Asher, Issachar, Zebulun, Ephraim, and half the tribe of Manasseh made up the northern kingdom. Benjamin and Judah made up the southern kingdom.

In 722 B.C., the kingdom of Israel fell to the Assyrians, and according to Scripture, many of the Israelites were deported and scattered in foreign lands: 

2 Kings 17:22-23: ²² For the children of Israel walked in all the sins of Jeroboam which he did; they did not depart from them, ²³ until the Lord removed Israel out of His sight, as He had said by all His servants the prophets. So Israel was carried away from their own land to Assyria, as it is to this day.

2 Kings 17:18: Therefore the Lord was very angry with Israel, and removed them from His sight; there was none left but the tribe of Judah alone.

Unfortunately, the northern tribes have not been heard from since.

What happened to the land when the Israelites were carried away?

2 Kings 17:24-25: ²⁴ Then the king of Assyria brought people from Babylon, Cuthah, Ava, Hamath, and from Sepharvaim, and placed them in the cities of Samaria instead of the children of Israel; and they took possession of Samaria and dwelt in its cities. ²⁵ And it was so, at the beginning of their dwelling there, that they did not fear the Lord; therefore the Lord sent lions among them, which killed some of them.

Why such hatred for this middle territory called Samaria?

The Gentile people who were brought into the land became known as Samaritans.

Years later when the Jews who had remained faithful in marriage to only the Jewish race were allowed to return to their homeland. They wanted to rebuild the temple. The foreigners who had been living in Samaria while the Jews had been away in captivity offered their help to the Jews. The Jews refused the Samaritan’s offer to help rebuild the temple. That made the Samaritans hate the Jews.

The hatred was further embittered when the renegade Jew, Manasseh, married a daughter of the Samaritan Sanballat (Nehemiah 13:28) and proceeded to found a rival temple on Mount Gerizim which was in the center of the Samaritan territory.

Though 400 years had passed, the hatred between Jews and Samaritans smoldered as resentfully and as bitterly as ever. It was no small wonder that the Samaritan woman was astonished that Jesus, a Jew, should speak to her, a Samaritan woman.

Palestine is only 120 miles long from north to south. (like from Grenada to Jackson)

But within that 120 miles there were in Jesus’ day, not the two original kingdoms, but instead three definite divisions of territory had formed. Galilee to the extreme north; Judea to the extreme south; and Samaria in between. The quickest way from Judea to Galilee was through Samaria. (a 3-day walk). The alternative was a 6 day walk.

There stands to this day a well, known as Jacob’s Well. Today is more than 100 feet deep. It was not that deep then. It is not a springing well of water; it is a well into which the water percolates and gathers. But clearly in Jesus’ day, it was still a well so deep that no one could gain water from it unless he had something with which to draw it.

When Jesus and the disciples came to the fork in the road, Jesus sat down to rest at Jacob’s Well, for He was tired from the journey. It was midday. The Jewish day runs from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. and the sixth hour is twelve o’clock midday. So the heat was at its greatest, and Jesus was weary and thirsty from travelling. His disciples went on ahead to buy some food in the Samaritan town. Before they had met Jesus it is entirely unlikely that they would have even thought of buying food in any Samaritan town.

As Jesus sat there, there came a Samaritan woman. Why she should come to that well tells us something for it was more than half-a-mile from Sychar where she must have stayed and there was water in that city.

Maybe she was so much of a moral outcast that the other women drove her away

from the village well and she had to come here to draw water.

The usual time for women to come for water is at 6:00 pm, not noon time.

Why at 12 noon?

Because she prefers to come for water when she knows that no one else will be there to bother her!

She knows what is going on in her life.

She knows the sins of her past and present.

She knows how other people feel about her.

She knows how ashamed she should be.

Maybe she was so filled with shame that this was a way of punishing herself.

Jesus asked her to give Him a drink. She turned in astonishment. “I am a Samaritan,” she said. “You are a Jew. How is it that you ask a drink from me?” Here John pauses to explain to the Greeks for whom he is writing “For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans. (v.9)

What did Jesus mean in verse 13, “Whoever drinks of this water will thirst again”?

Nothing of this world can give satisfaction to the spiritual needs of our soul.

What did Jesus mean in verse 14 “But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life?”

Those who trust in Christ never need to look outside themselves for satisfaction because of the fact that Christ now dwells within them.

As you study how this story, you will see a repeated cycle:

6 times Jesus engaged in conversation.

6 times the woman used the common reaction of “deflecting” from the subject.

Jesus appealed to her kindness. (4:7) She responded defensively. (4:9)

Jesus appealed to her curiosity. (4:10) She responded sarcastically. (4:11-12)

Jesus appealed to her spiritual need. (4:13-14) She focused on physical needs. (4:15)

Jesus appealed to her personal interest. (4:16) She responded with a half-truth. (4:17)

Jesus appealed to her conscience. (4:17-18) She focused on controversial issues. (4:19-20)

Jesus appealed to her will. (4:21-24) She tried to delay a decision. (4:25)

She was suddenly compelled to face herself and the looseness and immorality and total inadequacy of her life. There are two revelations in Christianity: the revelation of God and the revelation of ourselves. No man ever really sees himself until he sees himself in the presence of Christ; and then he is appalled at the sight. There is another way of putting it–Christianity begins with a sense of sin. It begins with the sudden realization that life as we are living it will not do. We awake to ourselves and we awake to our need of God.

-Have you slipped in here with something down deep, unknown to those around you?

-Are you ashamed of something inside, covered over by a smile?

-Are you willing to come to the well and let Jesus be Jesus one more time?

-Will you be transparent so that Jesus can reverse the course you’re on?

-Why is it useless to pretend? Because Jesus knows your story!!

Jesus comes to meet us, though most of the time we do not know He is coming.

We all have a story to tell.

Jesus listens to us even though He already knows our story.

Jesus has a story to tell us.