The Divine Encounter With Jesus
By Woodrow Kroll
John 4:1-30
No matter what you know about a person, you need to meet them face-to-face before you understand who they really are. Today our study takes us to another encounter with Jesus, a one-on-one conversation with a woman whose knowledge was limited, but who definitely needed what Jesus had to offer her.
It was the 19th century English Bishop JC Ryle who said, "Half our doubts arise from a dim perception of the real nature of Christ's Gospel." Now listen to this, "The root of a happy religion is clear. It is a distinct, well-defined knowledge of Jesus Christ."
You see folks, we appreciate, we understand, and we enjoy our faith because we appreciate, we understand, and we enjoy the Lord Jesus. And the more we understand about the Lord Jesus, the more we can appreciate our faith. The less we understand about Jesus, the happier we are that we're getting into heaven and not going to hell--but we're not enjoying the faith much right here and right now. And I want you to enjoy your faith to the fullest today. So we're going to look into John's Gospel, chapter 4, to learn more about what it means to know Jesus in a very intimate and personal way.
Now, we have already looked at John chapter 1. John the Baptist was preaching out by the Jordan River. There were people that came to him and he introduced Jesus to them with these words, He says, "there stands One among you whom you do not know." And then in John chapter 3, Nicodemus came to Jesus. And while in John chapter 1, the crowd had no knowledge of Jesus, Nicodemus had some. He said, "we, Rabbi, we know that You are a teacher sent from God." But understanding Jesus as a teacher is insufficient to bring you to salvation. You need a Savior, not a Rabbi.
Today we're going to learn about the joy of personal knowledge of the Lord Jesus and I think this is a great passage to learn something about the joy of personal knowledge. Look at John chapter 4 beginning in verse one. John chapter 4:1:
"Therefore, when the Lord knew that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus made and baptized more disciples than John (though Jesus Himself did not baptize, but his disciples), he left Judea and departed again to Galilee. But He needed [He must needs] go through Samaria. So He came to a city of Samaria which is called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph. Now Jacob's well was there. Jesus therefore, being wearied from His journey, sat thus by the well. It was about the sixth hour."
Now let's stop there because that gives us kind of the divine setting for a woman who came to understand what personal joy is all about. I love the settings of the Bible. If you look at the Bible carefully, you'll notice that every passage of Scripture has a context to it, has a setting to it. And by studying the setting, we can understand the truth that's being taught there so much better.
Look at the setting. The setting here is John the Baptist is now removed from the scene. John the Baptist was apparently imprisoned about December of A.D. 27. We know that from Mark chapter 6. The Pharisees were delighted, "John the Baptist, we got rid of him." The only problem was, they were delighted for a short period of time because many of disciples of John the Baptist then began to follow the Lord Jesus. And for the Pharisees, that was much worse than John the Baptist. So here Jesus is now gaining in popularity; and a lot of his supporters, John's supporters, have now come over to follow the Lord Jesus. They see Jesus as the Messiah, as the Savior, as the Lord King.
Now Jesus says, "I have to go to Galilee and I must needs go through Samaria." That's not to say that Jesus could not go to Galilee some other way. In fact, the most popular way to go to Galilee was not through Samaria.
From Jerusalem Jesus could go north to Galilee by going down to the coastal plain, and up the coast of the Mediterranean, through the mountain passes--and he could get to Galilee that way. Or an alternative to that is He could go down through the Jordan Valley, cross the Jordan River over to Perea (what is today the country of Jordan), go north up along the River Jordan, cross back across--and then He would get to Galilee. That was the preferred way to go to Galilee. Lots of people would stay on the mountains, and they would pass through Samaria.
So when Jesus said, "I have to go through Samaria," He's not saying, "That's my only option." I think what Jesus is telling us, friends, is that Jesus had a divine appointment in Samaria and He had to keep that appointment. And the divine appointment is to meet this woman at the well of Sychar.
Now Sychar is on the slopes of Mount Gerizim. You may remember from Deuteronomy chapter 27, that when the children of Israel were to enter the land, one thing they were to do, half of the group would get on Mount Ebal and half of the group would get on Mount Gerizim and they would pronounce these blessings and these cursings back and forth. They actually did that in Joshua chapter 8, but in Deuteronomy 27 they were instructed to do that and Mount Gerizim was the mountain of blessing. And on the side of Mount Gerizim was this little town called Sychar.
And that's where Jesus meets the woman at the well. This is the divine setting for this woman coming to know Jesus in a very personal way. Now the Samaritans who lived in that part of the world had their own temple on the side of Mount Gerizim. They worshiped God there, they did not go to Jerusalem to worship God. They worshiped Him on the side of this great mountain. Today the city of Nebulous is nearby there.
Nebulous used to be visited on a regular basis, not so much anymore. In fact, the last time I was in Nebulous I was negotiating, bartering, with a shopkeeper there and apparently I was a bit too aggressive. He threw me out of his shop and then as I ran down the street, he picked up stones and threw stones at me. I knew I'd done a good job in negotiating! I didn't get what I wanted however, but Nebulous is the sight of Sychar. It's the sight of Jacob's well. That's what the text tells us here John chapter 4.
Jacob's well was a very important location. You may remember that when Jacob returned from Padan Aram--when he was away from his family, that 20 year period when he was estranged from his family, when he came back from Padan Aram--it says that he bought a field from the children of Hamor. And he spent a hundred pieces of silver in order to get that field.
Now that field is the exact spot that we're talking about here, the plot of ground that we're talking about here (Genesis 33). And then Jacob gave this plot of ground to his favorite son Joseph (Genesis 48). And Joseph's only request when he was dying in the land of Egypt was that the children of Israel would one day carry his bones out of Egypt and bury them in this plot of ground (Genesis 50).
So here we are at a very sacred sight for the Jews. And it's in the land of Samaria. Jacob's well is there. Now I have drunk from Jacob's well I don't know how many times. Jacob's well is a very, very deep well. In fact I took a pebble one time and I dropped it into the well and I went, "One thousand one, one thousand two, one thousand three," waiting for that pebble to hit the water. I don't know how deep it is, but it's pretty deep. And then I drew a bucket of water out, I took a little tin cup, drank from that tin cup, a thousand other people that day drank from that tin cup! Very tasty water. And I remember how cold and how refreshing that water was.
Now Jesus was wearied on His journey, He came to Jacob's well, this very well, and He sat down at the edge of the well and there He encountered a woman. That was the divine appointment that Jesus had, it was because of that woman that He needed to go through Samaria.
Well there you have the divine setting for this whole story. Let's move on now to verse eight and nine. Verse eight says His disciples had gone into the city to buy food. Verse seven he encounters the woman of Samaria. He says to the woman, "Give Me a drink." And now at verse nine the woman of Samaria said to him, strange thing, "'How is that You, being a Jew, ask a drink of me, a Samaritan woman?' For Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans."
Now this woman is absolutely right. This woman was surprised that Jesus even talked with her, let alone ask a drink of her, because when Samaria fell in 722 B.C. the inhabitants of Samaria were carried off by the Assyrian armies. And only those who were very poor and those were sickly were left behind. Now Assyria did what was a very brilliant thing for them. They took other nations that they had captured, like Babylon and elsewhere, and they brought people into the land of Judah and mixed them with the Jews that were left behind, so that the people of Samaria were an admixture of both races and religions. These who were brought in brought their cults with them.
So that by the time of Nehemiah, when he came back to rebuild the wall around the city of Jerusalem, he could not permit any of the Samaritans to participate because they were an impure people. They were not purely Jewish and they did not have purely Jewish understanding about who God is. So now the Jews and the Samaritans have no dealings with one another.
And yet Jesus shocked this woman to death, saying to her, "Give Me a drink." Jews never talk to Samaritans, and when they would pass through this part of the country, and never say a word to these people. So you can imagine this woman's surprise. She's surprised that Jesus has something to say to her. And then look what she says, verse ten. After the woman says to Jesus, Jews have no dealings with Samaritans, Jesus answered and said to her verse ten, "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."
Now I've pointed this out twice before, I want to do it again. Isn't it interesting how Jesus so frequently gets right to the heart of the matter, regardless of what question is asked of Him. I'm amazed at that when I look closely at the life of the Lord Jesus. This woman says, "Why are you asking a drink from me, because you are a Jew and I am a Samaritan?" Jesus' immediate response to that is, "If you knew who you were talking to, you would have asked Me for a drink and I could have given you living water, which you would never thirst again." Now he got right to the need of the woman.
This woman needs a Savior. This woman does not need a drink of water; this woman does not need a Rabbi. This woman needs to know Jesus in a personal way, and there's the word--"if you knew the gift of God." Now that's the word I want us to key on all this week, knowing who Jesus is. There was a crowd who did not know Jesus was in their midst; there was a ruler of the synagogue of the Jews who did not know fully who Jesus was, he knew Him as a Rabbi. And now we come to a woman who doesn't know anything about Jesus again.
And Jesus is about to teach her that if she had only known who He is, she would have asked Him for eternal water, living water that lasts forever, rather than He asking her for a temporal drink of water from Jacob's well. The problem, friends, she doesn't know who she has there. She doesn't know who is sitting at the edge of the well with her. And there are lots of people who have Jesus in their presence, but just don't know what they have. They just don't know who they have.
So this woman's lack of understanding is displayed here in verse nine and again in verse ten. But I want you to notice the disbelief she has when Jesus responds to her. In verse ten Jesus says to her, "If you had known who you're talking to, you would have asked Me for eternal water." Now look at her response in verse eleven, "The woman said to Him, 'Sir.'"
See, she doesn't know Him as a Rabbi. She doesn't know Him as the Son of God. She doesn't even know Him as a prophet. She doesn't know Him as the Savior of the world. She knows Him as a Jew who is passing through her country. So she says to Him, "Sir, You have nothing to draw with, and the well is deep. Where then do You get the living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us this well, and drank from it himself, as well as his sons and his livestock?"
I mean she's just nonplused at Jesus' response. Jesus says, "If you knew who you're dealing with, you would have asked Me to give you a drink of water and you would never thirst again." And she looked at Jesus and she said, "Look, you don't even have anything to draw water from the well with. Are you great than our father Jacob? Can you make that water come up out of the well just by a snap of your fingers?" See, her disbelief is a common response to the Gospel. "It can't possibly be true. You can't be the Savior of the world. How are You going to give me living water? You, Sir, have nothing to draw with out of this well."
And then Jesus really shocks her with what He says in verses 13 and 14. "Jesus answered and said unto her, 'Whoever drinks of this water will thirst again, 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.'"
Look at her response, verse 15 "The woman said to Him, 'Sir, give me this water, that I may not thirst, nor come here to draw.'" Now does that sound to you like this woman has trusted Jesus Christ as Savior? I don't think so. Notice first of all she calls Him "Sir" again. Jesus presented to her living water in which she would never thirst again and she said, "That's a good deal, I'll take that deal." But she still doesn't understand who she's talking to.
And you know there are people who hear about eternal life and they say, "That's a good deal. I'll take that." But they don't have a clue what Jesus means with regard to eternal life. They don't know anything about Jesus' sacrifice on Calvary's cross. They don't even know who they're talking to.
And this woman says, "That's what I want. Give me this water that I may not thirst again." But the problem is, this woman has never been absolutely confronted with her sin. This woman doesn't understand her need. She doesn't even understand what living water is all about. She just likes the idea that she doesn't have to come back to that well day after day after day to draw water from the well.
You know what, there are lots of people in the world today, 21st century people, there are lots of people in the world today who want what Jesus has to offer--they just don't want Jesus in the bargain. They want the water; they just don't want the problem of coming back to church week after week. They want the water; they just don't want the need to read the Word day after day. They want the good stuff; they just don't want what Jesus says you must do in order to get the good stuff. What they want is eternal life, but they want it on their terms. So they say to the Lord Jesus, "I will take what You have to offer, I just won't take You."
And at this point in the story, while personal joy is within the grasp of this woman, all this woman sees at this point is living water and she doesn't understand that the person who can give her that living water is the Person sitting there at the well with her.
My friends, getting into heaven is not the joy of salvation. Getting into heaven because you fall in love with the Person of the Lord Jesus, that's the joy of salvation. And this woman doesn't have that joy yet. This woman doesn't have a personal encounter with her own sin, and she doesn't have a personal encounter with the Lord Jesus. All she has is the news that she could have water in which she'd never have to come back to this well again. And that's what she wants.
But again, like Nicodemus, it's not enough. Because she has to be confronted with who Jesus is. She has to really understand who Jesus is and she has to trust Him and Him alone to present that water to her and she has not done that yet. And you know what? The world is filled today with people who want the water--they just don't want the living water that comes with the Savior.
And until this woman comes to Jesus on Jesus' terms, until she understands who He is, until she understand what He is talking about with living water, she is going to think that she's found some magician. She's going to think she has found some miracle worker who can draw water out of a physical well and she will never thirst again. And she's satisfied with that because she's never come to grips with her own sin. My friends, until we come to grips with our sin we cannot come to grips with the Savior.
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