Never Thirsty Again

[0:00] Let's turn to read God's words now. Once again, Edward will be with us, continuing his series in the Gospel of John.

[0:14] So let's turn together there now. We're going to read from chapter 4 today. We're going to read verses 1 to 26 of John chapter 4.

[0:30] That's John chapter 4, verses 1 to 26. Now, when Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus was making and baptizing more disciples than John, although Jesus himself did not baptize, but only his disciples, he left Judea and departed again for Galilee.

[0:53] And he had to pass through Samaria. So he came to a town of Samaria called Sychar. Near the field that Jacob had given to his son, Joseph. Jacob's well was there.

[1:05] So Jesus, wearied as he was from his journey, was sitting beside the well. It was about the sixth hour. A woman from Samaria came to draw water.

[1:17] Jesus said to her, give me a drink. For his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food. The Samaritan woman said to him, how is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?

[1:32] For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans. Jesus answered her, if you knew the gift of God and who it is that is saying to you, give me a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.

[1:46] The woman said to him, sir, you have nothing to draw water with and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob?

[1:57] He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock. Jesus said to her, everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again.

[2:09] But whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water, welling up to eternal life.

[2:23] The woman said to him, sir, give me this water so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water. Jesus said to her, go, call your husband and come here.

[2:37] The woman answered him, I have no husband. Jesus said to her, you are right in saying I have no husband. For you have had five husbands, what you have said, and the one you now have is not your husband.

[2:52] What you have said is true. The woman said to him, sir, I perceive that you are a prophet. Our fathers worshipped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is a place where people ought to worship.

[3:04] Jesus said to her, woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the father. You worship what you do not know.

[3:16] We worship what we know for salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming and is now here when the true worshippers will worship the father in spirit and truth.

[3:27] For the father is seeking such people to worship him. God is spirit. And those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.

[3:38] The woman said to him, I know that Messiah is coming. He who is called Christ. When he comes, he will tell us all things. Jesus said to her, I who speak to you am he.

[3:53] Amen. This is God's word. Well, good morning, friends. Very good to see you all here.

[4:04] Let's turn to John chapter four. And this story of Jesus meeting the Samaritan woman at Jacob's well. John chapter four.

[4:15] I want God willing to spend two weeks on this. We shan't cover every aspect of the story today, but we'll come back to various things next week.

[4:27] But my title for this morning is Never Thirsty Again. Though I did actually toy with the idea of taking for a title, she had no idea what the day would bring.

[4:39] Well, she didn't, did she? Think of her waking up that morning early, leaving the snoring figure of the man who was not her husband in the bed, and then bleary-eyed, going into the kitchen, putting on the kettle, and thinking about the chores that she had on her to-do list for that particular day.

[4:58] 12 p.m., take the two-gallon jar to Jacob's well, fill it, and return. Little did she know how her life was about to be subjected to an almighty revolution.

[5:14] Neither Matthew, nor Mark, nor Luke tells this story in their Gospels. So we're bound to ask, why did John decide to include it in his account of the story of Jesus?

[5:27] Well, perhaps John chapter three, verse 16, gives us a very good clue. Just look back to that famous verse. John 3, 16 does not read, For God so loved the Jews that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

[5:48] God, of course, did love the Jews. Jesus said of himself that he had come for the lost sheep of the house of Israel. God loved and loves the Jews greatly.

[5:58] But John 3, 16 says that God so loved the world that he gave his only Son. And if you look on in chapter four, to the end of the story, to verse 42, you'll see that the Samaritan woman, the townspeople, her friends, said of Jesus, We know that this is indeed the Savior of the world.

[6:19] So John has included this story because he wants his readers to know that Jesus came to rescue Samaritans as well as Jews. Then think of Jesus' very last words in the Acts of the Apostles, chapter one, just before he was taken up to heaven.

[6:38] He said to the apostles, His very last words, and then he was taken up into heaven.

[6:52] So his visit to Samaria here in John chapter four is a kind of foretaste of the missionary activity that the apostles and the whole church were soon to be engaged in.

[7:03] Now this story recorded here in John chapter four is primarily about Jesus. Everything in John's gospel is primarily about Jesus, about who he is and what he came to do.

[7:17] In other words, it's about his identity and his mission. And therefore, the highlights of the story, and I say this so that we can get our bearings, the highlights of the story come in verse 14, where Jesus says, The water that I give will become a spring of water welling up to eternal life.

[7:37] And also in verse 26, where Jesus, answering the woman's remarks made in verse 25, reveals himself to be the Christ. He says to her very simply, I who am speaking to you, I am.

[7:52] That's what the Greek literally says, I who speak to you, I am. It's another I am saying, really. Now what I'd like us to do this morning is to walk together through the story.

[8:03] And I want to bring out various details as we go along and try to draw threads together so that we can be clear about what John the evangelist is teaching us. So let's put on our seatbelts and engage first gear at verse one.

[8:17] Now when Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus was making and baptizing more disciples than John, although Jesus himself did not baptize but only his disciples, he left Judea and departed again for Galilee.

[8:36] Now we saw last week in chapter three that resentment, possibly jealousy, was growing in John the Baptist's disciples over the fact that Jesus's disciples were baptizing more people than John the Baptist was baptizing.

[8:53] Shakespeare called jealousy green-eyed. So maybe John the Baptist's disciples were looking a bit green around the eyes at this stage. But our verse one tells us that the Pharisees, the leaders of the Jewish establishment, they heard that there was tension between Jesus and John's disciples.

[9:12] And Jesus had no intention of allowing some sort of a split to open up between himself and John the Baptist. So he said to his disciples, let's quietly head north for Galilee, some 60 miles away.

[9:26] That will defuse any bad feeling which the Pharisees might want to turn to their advantage against us. So he says, let's go to Galilee.

[9:37] Now just think geography for a moment, looking at verse four. Verse four, it's a very apparently insignificant looking little verse, isn't it? He had to pass through Samaria, just that.

[9:48] But I want you to imagine the map for a moment. Okay, here's the map. Down here, we have Judea, a large area known as Judea, the southern part of Israel. And up here in the north, we have Galilee.

[10:01] And in between those two areas, you have the region known as Samaria. So if you're journeying northwards from Judea up to Galilee, you have to pass through Samaria.

[10:14] You have to. It's the only way. Just to draw a simple Scottish parallel. If you want to travel from Glasgow to the Isle of Skye, you have to cross a certain great fissure that runs from Inverness through Loch Ness down to the Firth of Lorne.

[10:31] And that fissure is called the Great Glen. Great. Thank you. Glen. The Great Glen. If you're going to travel to Skye from here, you've got to cross the Great Glen. And in the same way as Jesus was journeying from Judea up to Galilee, he had to pass through Samaria.

[10:48] So certainly there was a geographical necessity there. Perhaps also a divine necessity. In the sense that his mission impelled him to pass through Samaria.

[11:00] Because the world had to come to know that he had come for Samaritans to save them as well as Jews. So verse 5. Jesus and his disciples, that would be the apostles, maybe a few others as well.

[11:12] But they arrive at a small town in Samaria called Sychar. Near the field that Jacob had given to Joseph. In Old Testament terms, it's near Shechem. And significantly, John reminds us, Jacob's well was there.

[11:28] Verse 6. And presumably there would be a small stone wall surrounding the opening of Jacob's well. And Jesus sat down on it or just beside it. Now we learn from verse 11 that Jesus had no bucket to let down to the water.

[11:45] Now I've discovered that Jacob's well is still there. You can probably see it if you go on Google Earth. You'll probably see what it looks like today. Probably got buildings all over it these days. But you can see it. And apparently this well still has today a reliable water course that runs below it, feeding it.

[12:03] But the water is more than 100 feet down. Now Sychar would have been at least 30 miles from where Jesus had been in Judea.

[12:14] So he and his disciples would have walked for something like a day and a half in the Palestinian heat to get there. Perhaps 20 miles the previous day. Stopped overnight and maybe 10 miles that morning.

[12:26] And here we are at noontime at Sychar. It's not surprising then that he was wearied from his journey, as verse 6 tells us.

[12:37] Weary from the heat. It's been pretty hot here, hasn't it, the last few days? As I was preparing this sermon, in fact as I was writing this very sentence, I got up from my desk. I had all the windows open to try and get a bit of air in my study.

[12:50] And I walked to my thermometer and it read nearly 80 degrees. Ayrshire, the west of Scotland. And I was feeling distinctly warmish, even a touch dampish, at the back of my collar.

[13:02] Now what did Jesus feel like in the Palestinian heat? I guess a great deal warmer. John is gently reminding us here that Jesus is a flesh and blood man.

[13:13] A real man. As well as the divine son of God. He was really tired. And he was really warm. And you can be certain he was really thirsty. And if you'd given him a two liter flagon of ice cold water, I guess he could have downed it in one go without pausing for breath.

[13:30] So it's not surprising that when this woman arrived out of the blue, his first words to her were, give me a drink. He was gagging. Longing to drink from that stream more than 100 feet down.

[13:42] But having no bucket. Now he was on his own at this point. Verse 8 tells us that his disciples had gone off into the town to buy some food. You can imagine that.

[13:53] There are Greggs here in this high street. So he says to the woman, give me a drink. Give me a drink. And with those four words, a thousand years of cultural history and cultural hostility burst to the surface.

[14:09] The woman looks at him with astonishment. Are you a Jew asking a drink from a Samaritan and a woman at that? John explains the force of that question by adding the most condensed, understated little sentence in brackets at the end of verse 9.

[14:29] For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans. A thousand years of cultural hostility. Remember Jesus' famous parable of the Good Samaritan in Luke chapter 10.

[14:42] That's not just a story about a nice guy looking after a person who's been beaten up. The whole point of the Good Samaritan parable is that it's a Samaritan who had compassion on a badly injured Jew.

[14:53] And you would not expect that to happen because Jews and Samaritans have no dealings with each other. You can think of all sorts of modern parallels to try to bring the point home.

[15:05] Think of the tribal loyalties in Rwanda that led to that terrible genocide some 20 or 30 years ago. Or the ethnic hatreds in Bosnia and Serbia that produced such horror in the 1990s.

[15:17] Think of Belfast in recent history. If I see you looking at that girl again like that Seamus, I'll turn you hide. We are not friends with that family. Do you understand it? Yes, mother.

[15:32] Sorry, that was a bit fierce, wasn't it? But you know what? I'm just trying to get the points home. These are real fierce antagonisms. Now, in much of Old Testament history, there are two kingdoms.

[15:42] The kingdom of Israel and the kingdom of Judah. They were united as one kingdom during the reigns of David and Solomon in the 10th century BC. But after Solomon's death in about 921 BC, the two kingdoms split apart.

[15:59] This is the cultural history. And in 721 BC, Israel, the northern of the two kingdoms, was invaded and conquered by the Assyrians.

[16:09] Many of the Israelites, most of them, were transported, exiled far away into the Assyrian Empire. And many Assyrian Gentiles were moved into Israel.

[16:20] So there was a major coercive movement of populations. And inevitably, there was intermarriage. And foreign religions of one kind or another were imported and got mixed up with the remnants of the faith of Israel.

[16:34] And the Samaritans of Jesus' day were the descendants of this mighty ethnic and religious mix-up. So the Jews from Jerusalem regarded the Samaritans as ethnic half-breeds whose religion had been corrupted.

[16:50] And they despised them. John's little parenthesis there in verse 9 is so understated, Jews have no dealings with Samaritans. Well, John's first century readers would have understood that remark only too well.

[17:07] Now back to the story. The woman asks Jesus this very direct question in verse 9. How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?

[17:22] Now that's a question that arises straight out of that cultural and ethnic astonishment. But look at Jesus' words in verse 10. Does he answer her question?

[17:33] Not at all. He pays zero attention to her cultural embarrassment. He immediately begins to speak to her about living water and about himself.

[17:46] He says, if you knew who it is that is saying to you, give me a drink, etc., etc. So he's immediately letting her know that this conversation is going to be about him.

[17:59] Now we'll return to the living water in a moment. But before we do, let's learn a great lesson from this incident about ethnicity and culture. Jews normally had no dealings with Samaritans.

[18:13] But it took Jesus two seconds to overturn that cultural taboo and barrier. He understood ethnic taboos only too well.

[18:24] He wouldn't have told that story of the Good Samaritan otherwise. But he came for the world, not just for Israel. God so loved the world and gave his only son so that whoever, whoever believes in him, should not perish but have eternal life.

[18:40] Jew, Samaritan, Syrian, Greek, German, Russian, Chinese, Indian, Scots, Irish, Welsh, even the benighted English. Jesus came for all of us.

[18:53] This is why a church congregation that is serious about the gospel learns to delight in the mixture of ethnic backgrounds which are found in a church like ours, increasingly so.

[19:05] I say ethnic background rather than racial background because the Bible teaches that there is only one race. That is the human race. We are one race with a variety of ethnic backgrounds.

[19:18] So let's follow Jesus' example of totally disregarding old and deep-seated cultural hostilities or suspicions or taboos. The church is for people of every tribe, every nation, every language.

[19:33] One of the glories of the gospel is that it beautifully unites people who come from very different parts of the world and from very different cultural backgrounds. Let's make every effort to get to know well those who come from backgrounds very different from our own.

[19:51] The rewards are great. Now I suspect this is a bit easier for younger adults than it is for older ones. If you're younger, under the age of 40-ish I guess, almost certainly you will have been to school with many others from different ethnic backgrounds and you're used to all that.

[20:08] And even outside the church, you will have made real friends that way. Older people may feel that developing such friendships requires greater effort and you haven't got quite as much get-up-and-go in you.

[20:20] You perhaps feel shy. Older people often feel shy. You don't want to make cultural mistakes or tread on people's toes or be insensitive. Now all that is very understandable, but let's follow Jesus' example.

[20:36] Look back again to the first half of chapter 3. Jesus there meets Nicodemus, a very different sort of person. Nicodemus is Jewish, senior, highly educated, morally upright, respectable, and male.

[20:55] The Samaritan woman could hardly be more different. Gentile, lacking formal education, her life in something of a moral mess, living with her sixth man and probably coming for water at midday because of the women of the town.

[21:11] They would normally come together as a group in the evening, but she comes in the hottest, worst part of the day on her own, which suggests that she was a social misfit. And as well as that, she was a woman.

[21:23] The Jewish rabbis strongly discouraged Jewish men from speaking to women in a public place like this. They just didn't do it. Now it's surely no accident that John has put his chapter 3 and his chapter 4 alongside each other.

[21:40] The first century reader would simply have been amazed. Jesus breaks all the boundaries of social convention. He deeply respects everybody.

[21:52] Everybody. He respects the professor of theology in chapter 3 and he respects and cares deeply about this rough diamond of a woman that he meets here in chapter 4.

[22:02] He treats this woman with real respect, loving respect. Ancient society did not regard women as having equal social status with men. But Jesus treats women as having exactly the same dignity as men.

[22:17] This was revolutionary in the first century. Jesus speaks to Nicodemus about the new birth and he speaks to this woman about the water of life.

[22:29] But both the new birth and the living water, they're both pictures of eternal life. The gospel of eternal life is for rich and poor, for educated and uneducated, for the morally squeaky clean, and for those with a messed up moral past.

[22:46] Whoever believes in Jesus will have eternal life. Now let's think about this living water. Verse 10. If you knew the gift of God and who it is that is saying to you, give me a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.

[23:08] Just notice the play on the idea of giving in this verse. If you knew the gift, the gift of God, we can't earn what God has to give. Salvation is unearnable but wonderfully receivable.

[23:21] It's a gift. Jesus goes on, if you knew who it is that is saying to you, give me a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.

[23:34] You see, she had the power to give him something, to give him physical water, to quench his physical thirst. And she needs to realize that he has the power to give her something much better.

[23:45] Not physical water from Jacob's well, but living water. And it's at this point that she gets confused. She can't understand this idea of living water.

[23:56] Verse 11. Volvic, I know that, and Highland Spring, Buxton water, Elmhurst source, both still and carbonated, I know all these.

[24:06] But living water, how can you produce it? Especially as you have no rope and no bucket. This here, Jacob's well, this is the best water. Our famous patriarch and ancestor, Jacob, he drank it, she says, his sons drank it, even his blessed speckled and spotted sheep drank it.

[24:25] Is there better water than this? Are you greater than Jacob? She doesn't quite bring herself to ask the question, who are you?

[24:35] But she's working up to it, isn't she? Are you greater than Jacob? He's going to answer that question full on in verse 26, but she's not quite ready for verse 26 at this stage.

[24:48] So in verse 13, Jesus begins to describe this gift that he has to give to her. He said to her, verse 13, everyone who drinks of this water, the water from the well, will be thirsty again.

[25:03] But whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.

[25:15] But she is still thinking in physical terms at this point. So she says to him in verse 15, Sir, give me this water so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water.

[25:28] She's dreaming of a kind of magical 10-gallon jar sitting there in her kitchen, a jar that never runs out, which is always filled with lovely, ice-cool, refreshing water.

[25:40] But that's not what Jesus is talking about. Now just think of this. In John's Gospel and in Matthew, Mark, and Luke, Jesus often uses simple, everyday, common objects and things to describe things that are real and spiritual and profoundly important, to draw a parallel between the two.

[26:00] Physical things paralleled with invisible things. It's his way of teaching truth. He takes what is known and common and he draws a parallel between it and some aspect of the invisible gospel.

[26:13] And that clearly is what he's doing here. He's taking the delicious idea, especially delicious in a hot country like Israel, of clear, running, thirst-quenching water and he's saying that to know him and to trust him is to have the deep inner thirst of our souls constantly refreshed, not taken away, not removed, but refreshed again and again by an inner river like the ever-flowing spring deep down below Jacob's well, never drying.

[26:49] Now just think of it in terms of your life or my life. Think of your life. It can be pretty dry and arid and parched and hard-pressed and cracked on the surface, can't it?

[27:01] You may feel that your life is like that at the moment. But deep down there is a well of gushing water that can never be stopped up. and that well of water keeps on flowing all the way to eternal life.

[27:16] It's that inner flow of God's blessing which enables us to persevere right to the end and to persevere with joy even if the outer aspects of our lives are difficult.

[27:29] Now there are many other moments in the Bible when God's blessing is pictured in terms of water given to the thirsty. Think of Isaiah chapter 12 verse 3 where the prophet says to the people with joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation.

[27:47] In a sense that's what all of us are doing at this very moment as we absorb the teaching of Jesus. Well think of Isaiah chapter 49 verse 10 where the Lord says of his people they shall not hunger or thirst neither scorching wind nor sun shall strike them.

[28:05] For he who has pity on them will lead them and by springs of water he will guide them. Think of David King David in Psalm 23 the Lord is my shepherd I shall not want he makes me lie down in green pastures he leads me beside still waters.

[28:26] And perhaps you turn on with me a page or so to chapter 7 John chapter 7 and verse 37 a little bit later on in the story now but at this point Jesus has gone to the feast of booths in Jerusalem and chapter 7 verse 37 he's speaking publicly and he's speaking in a very loud voice it's not just a private interview with one person so verse 37 on the last day of the feast the great day Jesus stood up and cried out if anyone thirsts let him come to me and drink whoever believes in me as the scripture has said out of his heart will flow rivers of living water now this he said about the spirit whom those who believed in him were to receive so this spring of water welling up to eternal life is a picture of the Holy Spirit as the Holy Spirit dwells within us he brings again and again a satisfaction for our thirst not our thirst for natural water but our thirst for God isn't it he that we're thirsty for thirsty to be with him to enjoy eternal life in his presence here are David's words in Psalm 63 oh God you are my God earnestly I seek you my soul thirsts for you my flesh faints for you as in a dry and weary land where there is no water do those words strike a chord in our hearts let's think of your heart for a moment think of the deep frustrated aching longing that you sometimes feel perhaps quite often feel deep in your heart do you know that longing how can you express it what kind of a longing is it surely at heart it's a longing for God himself ultimately it's he who puts that longing into us and he satisfies that longing by giving us the Holy Spirit who will sustain us through life until we wake up in his very presence when all our longings will be satisfied and ended now just think of it like this what did Nicodemus need he needed the new birth by the power of the Holy Spirit what did the Samaritan woman need she needed the longings of her heart to be satisfied not by a string of broken marital or quasi-marital relationships but by the Holy Spirit so both the pucker upright Pharisee and the broken down Samaritan needed what only Jesus could give them the Holy Spirit new life regeneration eternal life what a savior we have what a gift he gives us whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again but although Jesus has just spoken to her like that in verse 14 the woman still doesn't get it she's still thinking in physical material terms so she says to him in verse 15 sir give me this water so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water she's still thinking of Jacob's well and of how she's going to supply her own household with physical water but Jesus doesn't say to her at this point look I can see my dear that you're not really understanding what I'm saying he changes the subject abruptly because he wants her to understand the real dimensions of her personal need emotionally and morally her life has been in a sorry mess for many years and Jesus knows this we don't know how he knows it but he has the ability to go right to the heart of a person's problems and sins in fact

[32:28] in the very last verse of chapter 2 chapter 2 verse 25 John says that Jesus needed no one to bear witness about man for he himself knew what was in man he knew what was in man what an understatement that is Jesus himself knows what is in the heart of every man and every woman and knowing this about the woman of Samaria he begins to address the central point of her need in verse 16 he says to her go call your husband and come here naturally she's embarrassed at this point and she feels very vulnerable I have no husband she says hoping that that denial is going to put an end to this trail of inquiry after all she's telling him no lie at one level when she says she has no husband it is the truth isn't it but Jesus is concerned to get deep down into her heart and to help her to come to terms with the reality of her sinful confused past and present he's not going to let her off the hook so he says you're right in saying

[33:38] I have no husband for you've had five husbands and the one you now have is not your husband what you've said is true but what he says in verses 17 and 18 unearths a much deeper level of truth that is that she's a serial adulteress and over time she's been living with six different men now there are aspects of this situation questions that arise that we don't really know the answer to for example was she actually married to each of these five men if so did some of them die did some of the marriages end in divorce or were these simply relationships that were casual and short lived we don't need to know that if we needed to know those things John I'm sure would have told us but what we can be clear about is that this woman's life had been sinful and ill disciplined what does it do to a woman what does it do to a man to have one broken and temporary relationship after another over the years like this well it's wrong in God's sight because God has given us marriage till death do us part marriage and that's a lovely provision for a healthy human society but it's also deeply upsetting to a human being to go from one relationship to another when God says to us don't commit adultery he's giving us a recipe his own recipe for happiness to think of that command against adultery as a killjoy is to misunderstand it deeply that commandment is given to us to make us happy we can be certain that this woman was not happy think of what the mothers of young men in that town would have said to their sons they would have said don't you go near her son she's had six of our young men already don't let her get her talons into you and here she was alone coming to the well in the hottest part of the day without the comfort and the support of the other women she was morally in a mess her life was a history of mess how might a certain type of religious leader have spoken to her well we all know who you are and we all know your history how you've been carrying on with all these men for the last 20 years you've brought shame on the good name of this town we ought to drive you out like Abraham and Sarah driving out Hagar into the wilderness make sure you never darken the doors of our meeting house again you have no place amongst the faithful but how did

[36:22] Jesus speak to her in Ephesians chapter 4 Paul the apostle uses the phrase speaking the truth in love isn't that what Jesus does to this woman he speaks the truth to her about her moral history her marital history in verse 18 because he knows that she has to face it but he does it so gently and what effect does it have upon her look at verse 19 she says sir I perceive that you're a prophet but that's not all she says just a few minutes later she hurries back into the town and look on to verse 29 she says to the people of the town come see a man who told me all that I ever did all that I ever did what a remarkable thing for her to say he'd said about 25 words to her in verses 17 and 18 and she feels that he's told her her whole life story isn't that telling she realizes that he has put his finger on the very center of her personal sinfulness and sadness but is she cross with him for doing that not at all quite the opposite she's thrilled she's delighted she realizes that there is hope for her she's beginning to see the wood for the trees look at the whole of verse 29 she says to her the townspeople come see a man who told me all that I ever did can this be the

[37:54] Christ and she's so enthusiastic and so persuasive that in verse 30 all the town leave their chores and they start out across the fields to meet Jesus and see him for themselves friends this is what our savior is like he loves those who are defeated and downtrodden and sinful and sad the prophet Isaiah says of him surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows and he's laid down his life for us so as to take upon himself the penalty the consequences of all our sins this Samaritan woman's sinful past was erased by Jesus when he went to the cross and this is how he will deal with each one of us if we will let him he came to rescue sinners that's you and me he came to open up our past to help us to face the truth about ourselves not just about sex and marriage but regarding everything in our lives he knows what is in a man he knows what is in a woman he calls us to repent of our sin of course he does because he wants us to forsake everything that makes our life unhappy everything that displeases

[39:17] God he wants to set our feet upon a new pathway upon a rock if you like to become steady and strong as we walk along the road with him he spoke the truth in love to this Samaritan woman but that's what he's like she was an outcast she was in a moral mess and he rescued her that's what he does it's what he still does well God willing we'll go further into the story next week let's bow our heads and we'll pray Lord Jesus we lift up our hearts and our voices to you now because you are the friend of sinners and therefore you are our friend you spoke lovingly to the woman of Samaria and you speak lovingly to each of us as you unearth our sin and our sadness therefore look upon each of us we pray with tender mercy sustain us with the living water that never failing spring that wells up in us to eternal life and help us to love you to rejoice in your company to thank you and to rejoice in your great salvation

[40:46] Amen