Saviour of the World | John 4:3-42

 INTRODUCTION

In this passage, Jesus draws this woman, loving her with the love that she wanted. This woman was looking for love until then in all the wrong places until the saviour of the world met her.

John 4:3-26

⁴Now he had to go through Samaria. ⁵So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph. ⁶Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about noon.

⁷When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?” ⁸(His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.)

⁹The 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.)

¹⁰Jesus 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.”

¹¹ “Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? ¹²Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his livestock?”

¹³Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, ¹⁴but 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.”

¹⁵The 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.”

¹⁶He told her, “Go, call your husband and come back.”

¹⁷“I have no husband,” she replied.

Jesus said to her, “You are right when you say you have no husband. ¹⁸The 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.”

¹⁹“Sir,” the woman said, “I can see that you are a prophet. ²⁰Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.”

²¹“Woman,” Jesus replied, “believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. ²²You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. ²³Yet 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. ²⁴God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.”

²⁵The woman said, “I know that Messiah” (called Christ) “is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.”

²⁶Then Jesus declared, “I, the one speaking to you—I am he.”

²⁷Just 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?”

²⁸Then, leaving her water jar, the woman went back to the town and said to the people, ²⁹“Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Messiah?” ³⁰They came out of the town and made their way toward him.

³¹Meanwhile his disciples urged him, “Rabbi, eat something.”

³But he said to them, “I have food to eat that you know nothing about.”

³³Then his disciples said to each other, “Could someone have brought him food?”

³⁴“My food,” said Jesus, “is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work. ³⁵Don’t you have a saying, ‘It’s still four months until harvest’? I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest. ³⁶Even now the one who reaps draws a wage and harvests a crop for eternal life, so that the sower and the reaper may be glad together. ³⁷Thus the saying ‘One sows and another reaps’ is true. ³⁸I 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.”

³⁹Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me everything I ever did.” ⁴⁰So when the Samaritans came to him, they urged him to stay with them, and he stayed two days. ⁴¹And because of his words many more became believers.

⁴²They 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 Saviour of the world.”

John 2-4 is a section:

Geographical Link: From Cana to Cana

Ch. 2 – Jesus inaugurates his ministry at Cana of Galilee.

Ch. 4:44 – Jesus again visits Cana in Galilee.

This gives us a framework for pulling this section together.

Verbal Links: Water

Ch. 2 – Jesus turns water into wine.

Ch. 3 – Water is of central importance. Jesus said to Nicodemus that he must be born of water and of the Spirit.

Ch. 4 – A woman and Jesus meet at the well. The women seeking her daily need of literal water. Jesus responds with a promise that he would provide living water, she will never thirst again.

Thematic Linkage: Marriage

Ch.2 – The wedding feast at Cana of Galilee.

Ch. 3 – Marriage is a focal point when Joh`n the Baptist is asked who he is if he is not the Christ. John the Baptist responds:

John 3:28-29

²⁸You yourselves can testify that I said, ‘I am not the Messiah but am sent ahead of him.’ ²⁹The bride belongs to the bridegroom. The friend who attends the bridegroom waits and listens for him, and is full of joy when he hears the bridegroom’s voice. That joy is mine, and it is now complete.

We see in Chapter 3 the theme of marriage with the ultimate marriage in view, Jesus as the groom, God’s people as the bride, John as the best man.

We now know who the groom is and who the best man is, we need to have a bride. Here in chapter 4, Jesus meets the bride, the object of his redemptive love. It is an ultimate love scene. We will look at that today.

Jesus’s Ministry To Nicodemus & Jesus’s Ministry To The Women At The Well

There is a relationship between chapter 3 to chapter 4: Jesus’ ministry to Nicodemus on the one hand his ministry to the women at the well. The parallels drive home a wonderful lesson.

Parallels between Ch. 3 & 4.

Parallels between Nicodemus & the Samaritan woman 

Ch. 3 is about Jesus’s conversation with a man.

Ch. 4 is about Jesus’s conversation with a woman.

What is the point of that? There is a general assumption that Christianity has been denigrating women and this is just undermining the woman. If you go to the word of God, you find a very different approach. Starting with Genesis 1 and all the way through.

In Genesis 1 when God creates humankind, both men and woman are made in the image of God, and being in the image of God means they are called to be priests and kings. In the ancient world, a person who was in the image of God, like Pharoah was the only Egyptian to be called in the image of God because he was the priest king for all Egypt. To be in the image of God means to be the priest and king. God’s original calling was for both men and women to rule over all creation as his vassal kings.

To guard the garden in his sanctity as his priests use the very vocabulary that later on is used for the priests in the Bible. That calling is of course lost at human fallenness, but in part restored at Mount Sinai when the Lord met with his people and called them to be a kingdom of priests, that is men and women, all of them. Unfortunately, they forfeited again at the Golden Calf incident and so the priesthood was taken away from both men and women, except just those who were in the line of Levi. But this priesthood was at last restored to God’s people in the NT.

Peter tells us that in 1 Peter we are a kingdom of priests. We are in Christ what God has always wanted humankind to be.

The Bible looks equally at both men and women. However, the Jews were influenced by the culture around them and they started looking at their women inferiorly and by the time of Jesus even a husband and wife could not be speaking to one another in the open or in public. So when the disciples come and see Jesus talking to the Samaritan woman, no wonder they are surprised.

John 4:27

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?”

We know that this is the whole point. But with Jesus, we have the eradication of all social evil like racism or class or language barrier. Jesus loves all people, all casts, all languages and both men and women.

Galatians 3:28-29

There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.

 In John 3, Nicodemus was a Jew.

In John 4, this woman was a Samaritan.

Who are the Samaritans?

Samaria was both a region and capital city built by King Omri; 1 Kg. 16:24

It is bad enough to be the wrong gender or still the wrong race and religion. The Samaritans were a despised people in the NT period. They were believed as untouchable by the Jews and their religion heretical. They had their temple at Mount Gerizim while the Jewish temple was in Jerusalem. Their temple at Mount Gerizim were viewed by the Jews as desecrating the land. A little over 100 years before Christ, the Jews destroyed the temple. Later Samaritans came and defile the Jewish temple around the time Jesus was a little child.

This is the background of the hatred and rage that existed between Jews and Samaritans. When the Jews wanted to go north from Jerusalem to Galilee, they would take the long route to avoid the Samaria who are in the route. The Jews could not even eat with the Samaritans.

Not surprisingly the Samaritan women when approached by Jesus is taken aback by the approach of Jesus.

John 4:9

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 did not have any utensil to draw water from the well, as his disciples would have taken them. Now Jesus probably has to drink from the Samaritan woman’s vessel or a common cup by the well for all the Samaritans. Example: Like children not wanting to eat from the same spoon their sibling ate with.

In Chapter 3, Nicodemus came to Jesus at night, so no one could be there and notice him coming under the cloak of darkness. In this case, she is here at noon. It says the 6^th hour, that is not when women go to draw water. If you are coming to fill up that jar, the point is you will be carrying that heavy load back home, about 2.5 km from the city.

Why does she come at high noon? Why would she come at the heat of the scorching sun to get water for her daily need? It is not in the early morning or as the book of Genesis where women come late evening to fetch water from the well when it is cool.

We can guess that it is because of all that past that she mentions to her fellow Samaritans, the past that Jesus reminds her about.

Nicodemus had a long resume: Nicodemus was a righteous man. He was an accomplished man, the leader of the Jews. He was a teacher. Pharisee. Member of the Sanhedrin.

The Samaritan woman also had a long resume, unfortunately she would not wish to publish that. She is a woman with a history it turns out.

The subject is the same: Eternal life.

In John 3, Jesus speaking with Nicodemus we see that “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

Eternal life is mentioned in 4:14

John 4:14

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.

Both subjects talk about eternal life. We want a different life, a new life, a new birth that leads to eternal life, a whole new quality of life, a life without any misery. So we need to be born of the Spirit, not just the flesh.

What is eternal life?

Jesus in his prayer in John 17 says:

John 17:3

Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.

It is a whole new quality of life that starts with this relationship with the living God, walking with him, living with him.

Both Nicodemus and the women at the well respond to Jesus by misunderstanding them. They took things just in the literal way. Jesus tells Nicodemus, he needs to be born again. Nicodemus responds, “How can a man be born when he is old. He cannot literally enter a second time into his mother’s womb.” The women at the well does not get it either. Jesus talks about how she can have some water that she can have that will never again leave her in thirst.

She says:

John 4:11

“Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water?

John 4:15

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.”

She misunderstands. Interestingly, that is all Jesus needs. With just even a small openness to Jesus, he can transform our lives bring us to Himself and give us more than we are asking for.

Both these texts show that both a person in the calibre of Nicodemus and a person like this woman need Jesus. Jesus is for all:

Rich & the poor.

High class & the low class.

Men & women.

Educated & the uneducated.

Why: Because Jesus is the Saviour of the world.

Both text conclude as Jesus as the saviour of the world.

John 3:16

For God so loved the world…..

God loves the Jews in John 3. John 4 The Lord loves even Samaritans.

It is not just the Pharisees like Nicodemus. It is not just the Jews. Even the outcasts like Samaritans, the rejected race is loved by God.

John 4:42

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.”

Transition: God loves every kind of person.

Nicodemus is a reminder to us that you can never rise so high that you rise above a desperate need for the saviour of sinners.

The woman at the well reminds us, that you can never sink so deep that you go beyond the gracious, merciful reach of the lover of your soul.

So the twin lessons of these chapters catch up, no matter what our condition.

What Was This Woman’s Need?

Jesus asks her for a drink of water. They then have this conversation. At last, the woman says:

John 4:15

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.”

Jesus does not give her a direct answer to her. Instead, Jesus says:

John 4:16

He told her, “Go, call your husband and come back.”

What question could Jesus ask you this morning?

• A question that would force you to recognize your desperate need for him?
• A question on some part of your life where the word has not gotten out on it.
• What question would Jesus ask you?

This was the disarming question that he asked to this woman to help her to see how erred her soul was, how parched her throat for spiritual quenching and ministry, how bad her natural birth was so that she needed a new birth.

She responds:

John 4:17-18

¹⁷“I have no husband,” she replied.

Jesus said to her, “You are right when you say you have no husband.

¹⁸The 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.”

• Is it possible that she was widowed 5 times over?
• Is it that her husbands died one after the other in a plague or war or sickness of some kind?
• I think it is something much deeper than that.
• The way she refers to her life with Jesus tells us something much deeper and more shameful.

John 4:39

Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me everything I ever did.”

The NT recognize what we call us casual sex among consenting individuals as marital commitment.

1 Corinthians 6:15-17

¹⁵Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ himself? Shall I then take the members of Christ and unite them with a prostitute? Never! ¹⁶Do you not know that he who unites himself with a prostitute is one with her in body? (This is the language for marriage) For it is said, “The two will become one flesh.” ¹⁷But whoever is united with the Lord is one with him in spirit.

Paul is quoting the marriage words from Genesis 2. So Jesus is saying, “You have had 5 husbands, you have had 5 relationships with 5 men. The neighbours all know about this and you feel heart-broken over. In this downward spiral you have now come to the point where things are even worse, now the man you are with is not even your husband.

Promiscuity was the problem before, now it is adultery. You are sleeping with a married man this time.

Jesus is putting into practice the old way that the quickest way in someone’s heart is through a wound. Jesus in love like a surgeon is in fact dealing with those deep wounds of this woman who was so vulnerable, who never met the man who would love her with the kind of love she was so hungry for.

Her response is to concede it:

John 4:19

“Sir,” the woman said, “I can see that you are a prophet.

You are a prophet like Nathan the prophet, who came up to David and had the courage in love to say to David after his adultery, “You are the man.” Jesus is the prophet here, disclosing the inner need of her heart.

John 4:20-24

²⁰Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.”

²¹“Woman,” Jesus replied, “believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. ²²You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. ²³Yet 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. ²⁴God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.”

Where Was God To Be Worshipped?

She asks about a religious dispute between the Jews and the Samaritans. Is God worshipped in the temple in Judea or on Mount Gerizim in Samaria?

Jesus says, “Very soon the whole question of the venue where worship should take place would become irrelevant. However, as a faithful Jew he does accept that salvation is from the Jews, referring to the reference of Israel in the salvation history. In Jesus and the Holy Spirit true worshippers will make all past sacred places irrelevant. God is Spirit and his worshippers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.

With the arrival of the Son of God, Jesus, God is preparing a new temple. Jesus would be the new location of God’s presence and revelation. Since Spirit gives birth to believers, it is the Spirit who indwells and enables believers to offer acceptable worship.

The Jerusalem temple was destroyed in 6:19, our bodies are the temples of the Holy Spirit.

Why Come To The Well?

This is a love story. Where is the bride? Jesus is finding a bride in our text. This is a love story. If you read it through the lens of the first century. This is evangelism in love. When a man and a woman are talking at a well in the Biblical world, this is a romantic scene. It has all the makings for a romantic relationship. In the ancient world, they did not have WhatsApp, Instagram, FB or any other social media platforms. They did not have church meetings. Meetings can become wells as well. Matchmaking was done at the wells in the Biblical text.

Abraham’s servant was a matchmaker and he found Rebecca at the well, Gen. 24.

Genesis 22:14

May it be that when I say to a young woman, ‘Please let down your jar that I may have a drink,’

Jesus asked this woman for a drink. This is a standard language of having a relationship, a deep friendship.

Jacob met Rachel and fell in love at a well according to Genesis 29. The love lasted for 14 years as he married her after that.

Moses met his wife Zipporah at a well in Exodus 2.

So the moment you see a well, a man and a woman talking, that is a love scene. This is candlelight dinner with a soft music.

Jesus asked her, “Will you give me a drink?”

She has heard this many times before. 5 men have said this to her. She is not buying it this time. So she says, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan.” This is going nowhere, no possibility.

Jesus loves her. Here is the one who came to love us and for whom alone we are made. No one else can fill those desperate needs of our heart. He is the lover of our soul. Nothing else will satisfy.

So she responds and eventually says, “I have no husband.” If it is a man and a woman talking, it means, “I am available.” This way, she is not fully available to Jesus. To be available to Jesus, you really have to come clean. You have to acknowledge the sin that is separating you from the lord of the world, who is holy and righteous. We have to deal with the sin issue, confessing it.

We are amazing that Jesus is bothered about this woman and he asks her for water. The woman is amazed as well, he is a Jew and she is a Samaritan. But the most amazing thing is that Jesus is the giver of living water and she has not asked him for a drink.

John 4:10

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.”

She has not asked him for a drink. So it is for us this morning. Or maybe you are just looking to spend some time here. Maybe you are looking for some need met or a little water like this woman. But Jesus had in mind so much more that when the opportunity presents itself he is prepared to give her living water that she has not even asked for as yet.

Psalm 42:1-2

¹As the deer pants for streams of water,

so my soul pants for you, my God.

²My soul thirsts for God, for the living God

When can I go and meet with God?

He is prepared to give her the ultimate forgiveness that allows a holy God to share a cup with a defiled sinner. He has cleansed us from our sins. JEsus is not like the Jews who do not want to be contaminated by the Samaritans. He is a saviour who touches lepers and now talks to this woman and wins this woman.

Jesus meets the needs of our hearts in terms of the literal water too. Remember how Jesus reminded the disciples that you need to seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and he will add all these other things to us as well. He who did not spare his own Son, how will he not give us everything in Christ? But His priority is for us to meet the needs that we have that can only be filled by Him.

Both Nicodemus and the woman illustrate the heart and plan of God.

John 10:16

I have other sheep that are not of this sheep pen. I must bring them also. They too will listen to my voice, and there shall be one flock and one shepherd.

Revelation 4 & 5 – People from every place around the throne of God.

CONCLUSION

In John 4, we witness Jesus’ divine love transcending cultural barriers, offering redemption to the Samaritan woman. Through this encounter, Jesus reveals Himself as the Saviour of the world, demonstrating His unconditional love for all. As believers, let’s emulate His love, reaching out to those marginalized by society, and sharing the life-transforming message of Christ.

LIFE APPLICATION POINTS

The Harvest Is Ripe: Embrace Cultural Differences & Reach Out Without Discrimination

Just as Jesus crossed cultural barriers, let’s embrace diversity and extend love to all. Our faith has to wisely cross social barriers to witness to needy people without discrimination. God the Father is seeking true worshippers from every community. May we have the heart to follow Jesus in this mission.

The harvest is ripe:

John 4:35-38

³⁵Don’t you have a saying, ‘It’s still four months until harvest’? I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest. ³⁶Even now the one who reaps draws a wage and harvests a crop for eternal life, so that the sower and the reaper may be glad together. ³⁷Thus the saying ‘One sows and another reaps’ is true. ³⁸I 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.”

Jesus took a risk here by speaking to the Samaritan woman.

Is God leading us to take a risk who are other than us?

Where is our Samaria?

The Gospel is for all. In Christ, the Gospel is for all society and all social ladders.

Prioritize Spiritual Needs

The woman came with a jar to take water for her daily needs. But when she got the ‘living water’ for our soul, she left the jar and went back to her town to share this living water.

John 4:28

Then, leaving her water jar, the woman went back to the town and said to the people,

Recognize that true satisfaction comes from Jesus, and prioritize seeking Him above all else. Prioritize spiritual needs.

Jesus Is The Saviour Of The World

In John 4, Jesus reveals Himself as the true Saviour of the world, offering living water to quench our soul’s thirst and eternal life. If you haven’t received Jesus, I urge you to do so now. He alone can save us from sin and grant us everlasting life.