The woman at the well

Sermon notes from Sunday 11 November 2018 pm

John 4 verses 1 – 15

Here in John`s gospel chapter 4 we have some very familiar verses we are well acquainted with.  There are so many ways we can apply this message.  I want to notice this woman from the outside totally transformed by the power of God, completely changed.  This is what a man or woman saved by God is.  We are not what we once were and we are not what we shall yet become.  Something had happened in her life.  Miraculous transforming.  Look tonight at this woman, at a very special meeting in Sychar.  This was a meeting that raised many eyebrows.  Here`s a woman who had 5 husbands and was now living with a man that is not her husband.  Can you imagine the gossip among her neighbours when she became a Christian?  A day perhaps so unexpected.  She was a Samaritan and the Jews had no dealings with the Samaritans.  They ignored each other.  Jesus had come to this woman.  She never thought he would ever speak to her.  Sometimes you can come into a meeting like this and never expect to know what really happens.  Sometimes God comes and you leave that meeting saved by the grace of God.  What a wonderful picture of grace we have here, that Jesus would set aside all prejudice and bias and come and speak to this woman, a poor sinful woman.  Grace is the underlying feature in every salvation story.  You can be saved because of that grace.  It is what saves you.  Nothing of you.  That is what we want to be careful of tonight, that this meeting is all about the one who came into the world to seek and to save that which is lost.  What did Jesus give this woman?

A visit.  Jesus was on his way to Galilee from Judea.  He came this way because of one woman.  The Lord left heavens glory, left the praise and worship of angels, stepped down into the world and died on an old rugged cross just because of this one woman, living an immoral life.  He came to that village just to speak to her.  God is speaking to your heart tonight.  Look at verses 5 – 7.  The Lord was there before her.  He was waiting on her to come, the Lord had taken the first steps to see her saved.  The Lord was here tonight before any of us gathered.  He wanted to come into your life and heart, make you ready for heaven and home, to forgive you of your sins.  It was he that made the first move.  He opened up on the conversation first.  You could never be saved without Christ.  He was there before you.  Jonah in the belly of the fish cried “salvation is of the Lord”.  Isn`t it wonderful that Jesus gave this woman this visit.  He didn`t say to any of the disciples to go to Sychar but he wanted to go himself.  When he died on the cross he did it himself.  He came into the world and took on the form of a servant.  He took all that guilt from the world just to die for you.  Jesus visited this woman.  Maybe the Lord will visit you tonight.  Maybe you are saying “I have never had a visit from the Lord like this woman had”.  Perhaps you have heard the old hymns, heard the gospel message, heard the invitation to get saved but never applied it to yourself.  He visits in the quietness of the home, when you are lying in your bed and thinking what if tomorrow never comes.  That is from the Lord himself.  Maybe in times of sickness, when you are feeling so low and down and depressed.  The Lord uses that to come just to you personally.  A visitation from the Lord.  Jesus visited this woman and he can also visit you tonight.  He came to visit in the times of joy in your life and in the times of sorrow.  Perhaps through the birth of a baby or standing at an open grave.  If that was you being lowered into the earth what would you be thinking?  A visitation from the Lord.  What an important day this turned out to be for this woman at the well.  It was the only time Jesus would meet this woman.  In Luke 12 Jesus began to speak about sincerity, reality and genuineness.  Hypocrites are those who confess to be something they are not.  There are those professing to be Christians and they really are not.  Jesus was preaching about that in Luke 12.  He begins to speak about the soul and the lostness of the soul.  You have a soul tonight and Jesus has said “what shall it profit a man if he should gain the whole world and lose his own soul?”  Then Jesus spoke about hell.  In verse 13 a young man comes to the Lord.  All that is in his mind, even though he had heard about the sincerity and hypocrisy, the only thing on his mind is temporal things.  He felt he was hard done by because his brother had taken the inheritance due to him.  He was not touched by the preaching from the Lord.  He had no interest in it.  What sorrow it would be to leave this meeting not saved having heard from the Lord and yet you rejected it.

The Lord also gave her a view.  He showed to her the state of her heart but he also gave her a view of who he was.  The heart is sinful, wicked and deceitful.  No doubt the people of that town judged her.  She lived a sinful immoral life.  She had been married 5 times and was now in a relationship with a man who was not her husband.  That is how the world looked down on her.  The Lord, full of grace and mercy was showing her the state of her heart.  Before a person can get saved the Lord has to show them the state of their heart and whilst we think we are not bad – as good as any man in the street, might not go to church, do read my Bible – God has to reveal to us the state of our hearts.  Isaiah went into the temple, the king had died and Isaiah lifted up his eyes and saw the Lord as never before.  He was high and lifted up but Isaiah also saw himself as a man of unclean lips before a wonderful God.  When I sit before the cross of Calvary I see the Lord sinless and perfect, yet for me the God of heaven laid on him the iniquity of us all.  He became obedient unto death on his own body.  He took the full weight of sin on the cross.  He took the punishment from heaven.  The Lord separated himself from it all. Has the Lord ever revealed himself to you?  He gave this woman a view of himself.  Here was a woman who had 5 husbands, was living with a man who was not her husband.  The world perhaps condemned her but the Lord looked into her heart and had compassion.  This woman was in search of something.  She thought it could be found in relationships but she couldn’t find it in those.  She went from one relationship to another.  Jesus said “my peace I give unto you not as the world giveth.”  What you need is salvation.  Come to Christ himself. 

The Lord gave her a vision of what she could be.  A view of what she was but also a vision of what she could be.  She had a great argument.  She was a religious woman, had great faith in Jacob as he had given the gift of the well.  Jesus said “if you knew the gift I was giving you, you would ask me for it.”  John 3 verse 16 “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life.”  It is all about believing in Christ himself.  You will never perish but you will have everlasting life.  Jesus told her she would come away thirsty from this well time and time again but when you receive Christ as Saviour you will find your thirst satisfied in Christ and him alone.  What the Lord wants to give to you is eternal life.  This woman left the water pot at the well, she didn’t even fill it.  The very errand that brought her to the well was left.  She found the Lord herself.  She wanted a change of life.  You can have that same change of life.  If you come to Christ and his cross he can save you and change your life once and for all.  You might say “I couldn’t make up my mind right now, I need time to think about it.”  The woman made up her mind there and then.  She enjoyed God’s salvation.  She went out into the villages around her and told them to come and visit Christ for themselves.  Something happened in her life, she was totally transformed.  A sinner coming to the well, speaking to the Lord, opened her mind and took him at his word.  She knew she was a sinner saved by God himself.  She thought of the multitudes around her.  The Lord gave her a vision.  Have we that same vision today?  There was a multitude who knew not the Saviour. 

The Lord gave her victory the moment she stepped out.  You will never prove the Lord’s grace and mercy until you prove it – stepping out and accepting him.  Come to the cross and trust Christ as Saviour.  Are you ready to do that tonight?