COME AND SEE

John 4: Living Water

January 18th, 2026

 

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No one is to not need new life.
And no one is to receive it.

 

John 4:1–4 (NIV) Now Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard that he was gaining and baptizing more disciples than John—although in fact it was not Jesus who baptized, but his disciples. So he left Judea and went back once more to Galilee. Now he had to go through Samaria.

 

John 8:48 (NIV) The Jews answered him, “Aren’t we right in saying that you are a Samaritan and demon-possessed?”

 

 

John 4:5-15 (NIV) 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 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 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, as did also his sons and his livestock?” Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them 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.”

 

Jeremiah 2:13 (NIV) “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.

 

Jeremiah 17:13 (NIV) Lord, you are the hope of Israel; all who forsake you will be put to shame. Those who turn away from you will be written in the dust because they have forsaken the Lord, the spring of living water.

 

Still Thirsty

• We keep returning to .

 

Isaiah 55:1-2 (NIV) “Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost. Why spend money on what is not bread, and your labor on what does not satisfy?

• We mistake with .

 

Jeremiah 12:2 (NIV) You have planted them, and they have taken root; they grow and bear fruit. You are always on their lips but far from their hearts.

•   is not the same as .

 

Jeremiah 6:14 (NIV) They dress the wound of my people as though it were not serious. ‘Peace, peace,’ they say, when there is no peace.

 

What Keeps Us From Living Water?

 

John 4:16–24 (NIV) 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.” “Sir,” the woman said, “I can see that you are a prophet. Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.” “Woman,” Jesus replied, “believe me, 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 the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.”

 

1.  .

 

John 4:6-7 (NIV) It was about noon. When a Samaritan woman came to draw water…

 

Jerusalem Talmud, Sotah 3:4 (19a) “Let the words of the Torah be burned rather than entrusted to a woman.”

 

Psalm 27:10 (NIV) Though my father and mother forsake me, the Lord will receive me.

 

Psalm 34:18 (NIV) The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.

2. .

 

Matthew 15:8-9 (NIV) These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. They worship me in vain; their teachings are merely human rules.

3. .

 

2 Corinthians 7:8–10 (NIV) Even if I caused you sorrow by my letter, I do not regret it. Though I did regret it—I see that my letter hurt you, but only for a little while—yet now I am happy, not because you were made sorry, but because your sorrow led you to repentance. For you became sorrowful as God intended and so were not harmed in any way by us. Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret, but worldly sorrow brings death.

Conviction draws you .

Condemnation pushes you .

4. .

 

“You are a Jew” (John 4:9)

“Sir” (4:15)

“Prophet” (4:19)

“Messiah” (4:29)

 

John 4:25–29 (NIV) The woman said, “I know that Messiah” (called Christ) “is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.” Then Jesus declared, “I, the one speaking to you—I am he.”…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 Messiah?”

 

Psalm 42:1–2 (NIV) As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, my God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.