God Loves the Sinner Samaritans Too

Most of us are familiar with the story that Jesus told of the "Good Samaritan" found in Luke 10:30-35. What many people don�t know is that Samaritans were a people that were hated by most Jews. 2 Kings 17:22-41 gives the history of how the Samaritans came to be a people and why the Jews hated them. Read 2 Kings 17:22-29, 32-41 The Jews hated the Samaritans because they did not worship God in the way he commanded, breaking the first of the Ten Commandments: Read Exodus 20:2-4 Knowing how much the Jews hated the Samaritans makes the parable of the Good Samaritan even more incredible. But, I want to tell you the story of another Samaritan found in John 4:5-42. We find Jesus traveling to Galilee. Read John 4:5-30, 39-42

a Samaritan, a race hated by the Jews
a sinful woman even by Samaritan standards
in a public place.

By Jewish customs, Jesus should not have been speaking to this woman for all of those reasons. God does not work his salvation by human customs or standards. Christ reached out to a woman that had already been condemned by the Jews and her own people. Her sins were unthinkable in biblical times. She had married and divorced five times and was now living with a man that she was not married to. A respectable Jewish man would never be found speaking to her in public. Because of her disgrace she did not gather with the other women every morning and evening to draw from the well. Instead she came at the sixth hour (as stated in verse 6) which would be about noon to us, to avoid ridicule due to her reputation. How many of us avoid public places, like churches, for the same reasons this woman did? Yet, God did not deny even this sinful Samaritan woman a chance at salvation. In fact, he sought her out. He came to her at the well, and he spoke to her first. "Will you give me a drink?" (Won�t you respond to me, your God?)

WOMAN
"You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?" (I am weak and broken and sinful and you are fully superior to me, you shouldn�t be speaking to me, Lord.)

JESUS
"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." (If you really knew me, as your God, and the gift of salvation that I am offering you, you would ask me to save you, and you would be saved.) Note that he doesn�t say, "You haven�t followed me perfectly, so there is nothing I can do to save you." He says, "I�m offering salvation to you right now as you are, take it, even though you have done nothing worthy of salvation, I accept you."

WOMAN (She still doesn�t get it)
"Sir, you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water?" (The well within my soul is nearly dried up and there is not much water to draw upon. I don�t have much within me to offer you, Lord. Where else but within me are you going to search for and find this living water?)

JESUS
"Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life." (Everyone who searches for salvation within himself will continue to find himself empty. But if you accept the salvation that I, your God, offer you, then not only will you be fulfilled in your life, but your empty well, will bubble up and overflow with so much water, like a spring, that other people will come to you to drink from your once empty well, and also find me, Christ, there to offer them salvation.)

WOMAN
"Sir, give me this water so that I won�t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water." (Lord, save me! I want to be filled with living water so that I don�t have to face the ridicule that coming to this well brings me.)

Once the woman accepts the salvation the Jesus offers, then he begins to gently deal with her sin. Instead of shrinking back in shame and fear the woman openly and honestly shares her sin with her new Lord. Instead of feeling condemned by Christ, she comes to realize that God has released her from the bondage of death and responds by acknowledging Christ�s authority as a prophet.

WOMAN
"Sir, I can see that you are a prophet. Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem." (Now that you have saved me, Lord, I want to worship you properly, not improperly as my ancestors have. Show me how to worship you.)

JESUS
"Believe me, woman, 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 spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth." (Where you worship is not as important as knowing the God that you worship in spirit and in truth. God wants his worshipers to, "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind." Luke 10:27a. Which, oddly enough is the scripture that Jesus refers to as he tells the parable of the Good Samaritan.)

Finally, as Jesus reveals himself as the Messiah to the Samaritan woman, she leaves her water jar, spiritually symbolizing that she no longer needed it to draw water from the deep, nearly dried out well within her. For now her well had become a spring of living water, abundantly overflowing with the love that Jesus had shown to her at the well. She would no longer thirst, and became a source of flowing water, where many other thirsty souls came to rest and drink.

Maybe today you came with your water jar to quench your thirst from a deep well. Maybe you saw Jesus resting here, but you didn�t say a word to him. Maybe you hear him ask you to respond to him, and you feel that you are not worthy to be in his presence. He wants us to know him, to love him, to worship him.

Read John 13:16-18

Reread John 13:16-18 substituting "world" and "whosoever" with your name.

Get to know your God. If you don�t have a Bible on your shelf, go get one and put in on your shelf for a couple of weeks. If you have one, then take it down and let it set on your coffee table for a couple of weeks. If you have one on your coffee table, dust it off, open it up and get to know your Lord and Savior. If you already do, that you may already know what it is like to have a well spring of living water flowing out of you. Treasure that relationship with God always.