John 4:1-26

Now when Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus was making and baptising more disciples than John 2 (although Jesus himself did not baptise, but only His disciples), 3 He left Judea and departed again for Galilee. 4 And He had to pass through Samaria. 5 So he came to a town of Samaria called Sychar, near the field that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. 6 Jacob’s well was there; so Jesus, wearied as he was from his journey, was sitting beside the well. It was about the sixth hour.

7 A woman from Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give Me a drink." 8 (For His disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.) 9 The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?" (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.) 10 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." 11 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? 12 Are you greater than our father Jacob? He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock." 13 Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, 14 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." 15 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."

16 Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come here." 17 The woman answered him, “I have no husband." Jesus said to her, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’; 18 for you have had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband. What you have said is true." 19 The woman said to him, “Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet. 20 Our fathers worshipped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship." 21 Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. 22 You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23 But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshippers will worship the Father in Spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship Him. 24 God is Spirit, and those who worship him must worship in Spirit and truth." 25 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." 26 Jesus said to her, “I who speak to you am He."

JESUS was the supreme disciple-maker. Not just the Twelve; the group was bigger than that – it included men and women, and the Gentile physician, Luke. Jesus is still the supreme disciple-maker today; the difference is that He looks to us to do His coaching and mentoring and showing how to live out the manual of life that is the Bible. When we get this objective of making disciples, church becomes attractive and influential. When we dumb it down into something less we, as church become somewhat marginalised.

Jesus was tired, footsore – and thirsty. It was HOT – middle of the day. No one was out except a woman, on her own for some reason, and hauling water in the heat of the day.

What Jesus is about is making disciples who can live differently as a result of experiencing God through Him. This woman looks like unlikely material, even more so as she reveals her situation of shame – several husbands and now a partner outside marriage. She is dismissive of Jesus at first – the tone sounds like rejection speaking – but He goes to the heart of her shame and low sense of her own worth with a prophetic word.

By almost any measure of life's success, she would come out rock-bottom.

Jesus' words, however, are lifegiving. They always are.

John 4:25-26

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."

The potter’s clay Jeremiah 18:1-6 went all wrong on the wheel.

This woman’s life had evidently gone all wrong.

The potter had creative mastery over the clay, and rescued what had been found to be marred, to recreate a new article – a picture of God’s sovereignty over all circumstances.

The Master, Jesus, encountered the woman, and the woman encountered the Master. God’s sovereignty and the circumstances of her life – she would say today “It’s complicated" – came together at that moment.

God didn’t break the clay on the wheel, but He allowed it. He didn’t cause the misery in this woman’s story, but He allowed it so that in His time He could save, renew and recreate – what He does best.

TO THINK ABOUT

  • What has God allowed to go all wrong in your life or experience?

  • What did He reveal to you through that difficulty?

  • What opportunity did that open up for Him to renew or recreate?