The Woman at the Well

Use these materials to go deeper into this message on your own, or with your small group. 
Passage Breakdowns, SOAPS Format & Instructions (Weeks 1-12)
Passage Breakdowns, SOAPS Format & Instructions (Weeks 13-26)

If you’d like to follow along with us using the Gospel of John Scripture Journal, you’re welcome to purchase a copy here

8:40 Service | 10:00 Service | 11:20 Service | Sermon Audio

Good morning Chapel family. We’re continuing our verse-by-verse study of the Gospel of John. And today we come to a passage that reminds us that human beings haven’t changed in 2,000 years. We might look different on the surface, but the basic things we struggle with and the basic things we need are the same today as they were back then.
John chapter 4, and we’re going to read the first 42 verses. This is God’s Word for us today…
1 Now Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard that he was gaining and baptizing more disciples than John— 2 although in fact it was not Jesus who baptized, but his disciples. 3 So he left Judea and went back once more to Galilee.
4 Now he had to go through Samaria. 5 So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph. 6 Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about noon.
7 When 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.)
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.)
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.”
11 “Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? 12 Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his livestock?”
13 Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, 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.”
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.”
16 He 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. 18 The 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. 20 Our 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. 22 You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23 Yet 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. 24 God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.”
25 The woman said, “I know that Messiah” (called Christ) “is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.”
26 Then Jesus declared, “I, the one speaking to you—I am he.”
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?”
28 Then, 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?” 30 They came out of the town and made their way toward him.
31 Meanwhile his disciples urged him, “Rabbi, eat something.”
32 But he said to them, “I have food to eat that you know nothing about.”
33 Then 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. 35 Don’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. 36 Even 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. 37 Thus the saying ‘One sows and another reaps’ is true. 38 I 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.”
39 Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me everything I ever did.” 40 So when the Samaritans came to him, they urged him to stay with them, and he stayed two days. 41 And because of his words many more became believers.
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.” This is the Word of the Lord.
Let’s talk first about The Search for Love. Jesus and his disciples are traveling through Samaria, which is something most Jewish people tried to avoid, because there was a lot of bad blood between Jews and Samaritans. They come to a public well; the disciples go into the town to buy food, so Jesus is there by himself, resting from the journey. And a woman comes to draw water from the well, and Jesus strikes up a conversation with her. And somehow, he knows all about her. He knows that she’s had a colorful background: five different husbands. He also knows the man she’s living with now, she’s not married to. In other words, she’s had a very unsuccessful love life…but she keeps trying. She keeps looking for something that she can’t seem to find.
The reason this is such a timeless story is that we humans are hard-wired for relationship. Some people are more extroverted and like to be around others all the time; some people are more introverted and they need more alone time; but every one of us needs relationships. We want to give love and receive love. So this Middle Eastern woman who lived 2,000 years ago was just like us—she needed love. And just like we have a tendency to do, she was looking for that love in romantic relationships.
When I was a little kid, my mom used to play WABC on the car radio. You remember WABC—770AM? They played all the hit pop songs. So I would sit in the back seat and listen. And one day it hit me, “Wait a minute. Why are all these songs about love?” To my 10-year-old brain, that made no sense. Because there are so many great topics in life: fishing and basketball and dogs, etc. So why does everybody incessantly sing about love? And I asked my mom, “What’s with all the love songs.” And she said, “You’ll understand when you’re older.”
So I got older, and I noticed that sometimes, when our culture talks about love, we describe it in religious terms. Back in the 1970s, Ernest Becker wrote a famous book called The Denial of Death. And he asks the question, “How does a secular person—somebody who doesn’t believe in God—find a sense of significance or meaning?” And Becker says for many people, the answer is: they find it in sex and romance. So instead of finding transcendence and spiritual purpose in God, you find it in your lover.
When I was 17 I took Norma Jean to the Kinnelon High School prom. The prom song that year was Heaven, by Bryan Adams. Baby you’re all that I need; and when I’m lying here in your arms; it isn’t too hard to see; we’re in heaven. That’s religious. Justin Bieber sings the way you hold me…feels so holy. And there are countless songs like that—where your romantic partner becomes your Savior.
Back in the 1990s, Tom Cruise starred in the movie Jerry Maguire. The most famous line in the movie comes at the very end, when he looks at his girlfriend, played by Renee Zellweger, and he says those three magic words…anyone remember? “You complete me.” Because all their life, it was like this puzzle piece was missing, and now they’ve finally found that missing piece, and life will be complete. Spiritual wholeness.
After you’ve heard that enough times, it starts to affect you. And you just assume that your deep longing for love can only be satisfied if you have a good, romantic relationship in your life.
That seems to be the thinking of the woman Jesus met by the well. Years earlier, she had walked the aisle for the first time. And she thought, “This is the love of my life; he’s going to fill my soul; I’ll never be lonely again.” Then something went wrong and the marriage ended, and she wondered if she would ever love again. But then she met someone else. And then it happened again. And again. And she kept trying to fill the hole in her heart with another man. And now, it seems like she’s become jaded, because the guy she’s with now, she hasn’t even bothered to marry.
We have this stubborn tendency to make romantic love the ultimate thing, but it was never meant to deliver all that. Norma Jean and I have been married for 36 years, and I am so grateful for her, and I love her so much. But honestly, we disappoint each other all the time. Isn’t that a great message for Valentine’s weekend? We do. As strong as our marriage is, I’m just a man. She’s just a woman. We are not the cosmically perfect completion to one another. In fact, if I think a woman can complete me—if I look to my wife to meet all my needs, and to give me significance and purpose—she’ll be suffocated by those expectations. She was never meant to be all that.
Earnest Becker said: “How can a human being be a god-like ‘everything’ to another? No human relationship can bear the burden of godhood, and the attempt has to take its toll in some way on both parties.”  
So listen: if you’re in a relationship, and you’ve adopted the cultural view that romantic love is the answer to everything, but your partner is disappointing you, you are so normal. Don’t start to resent your partner; don’t assume you’re with the wrong person and start looking for someone better. That’s what the woman at the well had been doing, and she was on her fifth do-over.
So as Jesus engages her in conversation, he does what Jesus did so well. He used something concrete and familiar to make a deeper point. Verse 13: “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again.” One the surface, he’s talking about H20. Day after day, she would come to this well, and draw water, and it quenched her thirst that day. But the next day, she was thirsty again, and she had to come back. It never satisfied her for long. That’s just how physical thirst works.
But he’s obviously saying something deeper. I don’t know how much she picked up on it at first, but she eventually gets it. She realizes there’s another well she’s been going to over and over again: the well of romantic love. And every new man she meets, she thinks, “This one will satisfy me.” But every time, the love has dried up and the thirst returned. Just like Jesus said, “Everyone who drinks that water will be thirsty again.”
Can you relate to her? Do you find yourself going back to the well of romantic love over and over? Maybe you’re a lot like her—you’ve had a lot of relationships with a lot of different people, but you’re still thirsty. Or maybe you’ve been with the same person, and it’s been disappointing, but you’re not giving up. You still feel like you can rekindle the fire if you take the right vacation or increase the romance level. Or maybe for you, there’s no one in your life, but you’re convinced that person is out there. So you’re waiting to find the right well, because you know that when you drink from it, you’ll finally be complete.
See, here’s the thing we all have in common: we’re born with a deep hunger for love. And because romantic love can be powerful and thrilling (and because our culture is obsessed with it), we convince ourselves that’s what we need. But it’s not. It’s a beautiful thing and it can be a very good thing, but it’s not the ultimate thing. And I think it’s those moments in our lives when we feel dissatisfied and restless, when we can hear God’s voice. And that’s where this woman was. Six men, and she was still lonely! So Jesus met her at exactly the right time in her life, and he invited her to something deeper.
Let’s talk about The Deepest Love. Right after Jesus says, “You’ve had five husbands, and the guy you have right now isn’t your husband,” the woman is getting nervous. Verse 19—19 “Sir,” the woman said, “I can see that you are a prophet. 20 Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.” Do you see what she’s doing? She’s changing the subject, to take the focus off herself. “So, mister prophet: where do you stand on the Jew versus Samaritan worship debate?” And Jesus humors her: he says it’s actually not about where you worship; it’s about how you worship—it’s about worshiping God “in Spirit and in truth.” Then verse 25: 25 The woman said, “I know that Messiah” (called Christ) “is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.” Like, “Yeah—you sound pretty smart, but when the Messiah comes he’ll settle this debate once and for all.”
And then the bombshell—verse 26: 26 Then Jesus declared, “I, the one speaking to you—I am he. And the hair on the back of her neck must have stood up. Because here was a man who knew the details of her past; he seemed to know what he was talking about regarding how to worship God; he didn’t seem to want anything from her romantically or sexually. And he risked his reputation to talk, personally, with her—a Samaritan, who was supposed to be ignored and hated by Jews. He was talking with her. All through the conversation she could tell there was something different about this man, and now he just comes right out and says it: he’s the Messiah.
And she re-wound the conversation, and she thought about what Jesus had said a few moments before: 14 but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. See, Jesus knew about her deep thirst, that she’d been trying to satisfy with men. And he knew that, ultimately, it was a thirst for unconditional acceptance—she desperately wanted to be known and loved and accepted. That’s what we’re all looking for, aren’t we? We look for it in boyfriends and girlfriends and dating and marriage: unconditional acceptance. And Jesus was saying, “Find it in Me.”
And that’s what he offers to us. 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. When you’re walking in the love of Christ—when that’s the core relationship in your life—you will look at human love relationships differently. You’ll stop basing your sense of worth on the success of your love life. Because you know there is someone who has loved you, and will continue to love you…regardless of what people do.
Some of you are honest enough to see yourself in this woman. Maybe you feel you have no more worth because you’ve given yourself away too many times. Or you feel like a second-class Christian because of a failed marriage, or marriages, or because you’ve never been married. Or you’re ashamed because you keep getting drawn back into using porn. If you can relate to any of that, you need to see that Jesus is talking to you, personally. You need to see how he spilled his blood on the cross to make you his treasured possession. You need to see that he delights in you, as a groom delights in his bride. He delights in you! Because when you see that love, and walk in that love, you can stop trying to fill your soul with something that will never fill it.
And as you experience that love, you will not be able to hold yourself back from doing this last thing: let’s talk about Sharing the Love. At the beginning of this passage, it says Jesus “had to go through Samaria.” But geographically speaking, that’s not true. He was going from Jerusalem, where he’d been for the Passover, and he was headed to Galilee—his home base. And most Jewish people would make that journey without going through Samaria. So if it was not a navigational necessity for Jesus to pass through Samaria, what does it mean that Jesus “had to” go there? Well, it means there was a spiritual necessity. He had to pass through Samaria because there were people there whom God loved—because God so loved the world—not just Jewish people—so there were people in Samaria that God loved, and they needed to hear about that love. That’s why Jesus had to go through Samaria.
If you live in the Lincoln Park/Pequannock/Wayne/Montville/Kinnelon area, and you’re driving somewhere, there’s probably never a time when, in order to get where you want to go, you have to go through Paterson. Even if you’re driving east, you can easily zip right past Paterson on Route 80, but there’s probably never a time when you have to go there. But as a church, we’ve realized that we have to go there—just like Jesus had to go to Samaria. Because there are people in Paterson whom God loves, and they need to hear about that love, through our presence and our service and our words. We have to go there.
But in a more specific way, Jesus had to go through Samaria because he had a divinely ordained appointment with that woman by that well. I don’t know if Jesus knew he would meet that woman that day, because when Jesus became human, he gave up some of the privileges of deity, like omniscience. So I’m not saying Jesus knew he would meet here there that day. But God knew. This encounter was not a coincidence. God made that appointment. And very often we don’t realize God has made an appointment for us, until that appointment is upon us. Somebody in my group last week said, “How many times does God make appointments for us—to share the love of Christ with someone—and we completely miss it. We keep our mouth shut.”
Jesus didn’t miss it. In fact, look what he did: he crossed a cultural boundary by speaking to a Samaritan. He crossed a social boundary by talking to a woman, which respectable Jewish men weren’t supposed to to—especially rabbis. And not only a woman, but a woman with a morally loose reputation, right?—five husbands and now living with a man. Jesus so cared about this person—more than he cared about his reputation or what others would think—that he was willing to cross all those boundaries.
Would you decide right now that the next time God puts a divinely scheduled appointment in front of you, you will be so secure in the love that God has for you, that you will somehow—in your own natural way—share that love with that person?
So Jesus models for us what it looks like to share the love of God. But then this is surprising: the woman does the same thing! Did you see that? It says she left her water jar—which was the whole reason she came to the well in the first place—and she went back into town. And she says those words that should be very familiar to us—did you see it in verse 29? Come and see. “Come and see this man who told me everything I ever did!” In other words—this man somehow understands my past, and my search for love, and he spoke to me about a deeper kind of love…and you just have to meet him. Don’t take my word; come and see.
Meanwhile, back at the well, Jesus’ disciples have come back with lunch. And Jesus says, “No thanks—I’ve got some food.” They say, “Where’d you get food?” Jesus says, My food is to do the will of him who sent me, and to finish his work. And some of you know this: when you’re not spending all your time in a Christian bubble; when you are not just keeping your head down and your mouth shut; when you are stepping into divine appointments and taking risks and telling people what Jesus has done for you and inviting people to church…it is as satisfying as food.
And then Jesus says to them—and he says this to us: I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest. So the disciples lift up their eyes, and what do they see? The woman, with this big group of people from the town, walking toward them. Jesus says, “Open your eyes and look.” Because these people you see—just like the woman I just met—are thirsty for a love that won’t disappoint them or desert them. They’re ripe for harvest! Will you step into the harvest with me and help me bring them home?”
Will you? The fields really are ripe for harvest—like they’ve never been in my lifetime. Do you know there was a significant study done two years ago, and one of the questions was: Would you attend church if you were invited by a friend? 82% of the people said, “Yes—if a friend invited me, I would try it out.” People are so ready.
Last week I was speaking to a man whose 94-year-old father just passed away. And he was like the patriarch of this family that now has several generations of strong Christians. And so his son was explaining how it all started for the family. When this man—the son—was a little boy, the family moved into a new home in Wayne. They were a non-religious family. The mom was brought up nominal Catholic; the dad nominal Presbyterian. And the woman next store came over, and she said to the mom and dad, “Your son needs to come to Sunday school. Why don’t you let him come with me and my kids.” The parents said, “Okay—why not?” So this next door neighbor brough this little boy to church, and he loved it. And he told his parents to come and see. And the whole family came to faith in Christ—including the dad, who died last week at 94, surrounded by three generations of believers. And as this man’s son told me this story, with tears coming down his face, he said, “The whole trajectory of my family was changed, because that woman invited a little boy to church.”
Guys, the fields are ripe for harvest. Lift up your eyes and see the divine appointments. People are dying of thirst…and Jesus is the living water.