John 4:1-26 Princeton Christian Church 04 October 2020
Summary: Just like the Samaritan woman we are given second chances through Jesus. Jesus knew the woman was going to be at Jacob's well and He waited for her so He could teach her and give her the opportunity to live a Godly life.
ILL: There was a football team who never won a game. So one day before practice the coach decided to have a talk with them. He told them, "Men our offense is bad, or defense is horrible, and our special teams are the worst I have ever seen. So today we are going back to the basics and start over." He reached over picked up a football and said, "This is a football." Before he could say anything else one of his players spoke up and said, "Coach, slow down you're going too fast."
Did you ever wish that you could go back to a certain point in your life and start over?
Maybe you made a bad investment. Maybe you took a job and soon realized that it was a mistake. Or, you didn’t take a job which could have made a positive impact on your life. Maybe you bought a house that turned out to be a major remodel project.
I’m certain we all would change a few things if we could go back in time.
Mistakes almost always have consequences that go along with them. Some of them can easily be remedied, but just as often, they may not be remedied without great effort, or not at all.
Examples:
• When GM tried to introduce the Chevy Nova into South America, they neglected to notice that in Spanish “No va” means “No go.” Needless to say, sales were poor for a car that wouldn’t go.
• Pepsi had an awful time advertising in China with their slogan, “Come alive with the Pepsi generation”’ In Chinese it meant, “Pepsi brings your ancestors back from the grave.”
We all make mistakes; it’s just that some are more costly than others. If you miss your turnoff you can simply turn around and go back. But if you miss your turn completely you might drive a lot of extra unnecessary miles...
This could almost be a flawless world if we could go back and undo our mistakes. Especially if we could do it with the knowledge we have now. But we can’t.
God knows that we are going to make mistakes. But He also wants us to learn from our mistakes so He allows us another chance to see if we have learned. In other words we can’t go back but we can start over.
In the fourth chapter of the Gospel of John he tells us of a time where Jesus did just that.
John 4:1-26 (1-8) Now, there are a couple of things to note as we read this story.
First, of all Jesus did not have to go through Samaria to get to Galilee, He could have gone around because that is what most Jews did. They did not get along with Samaritans, so they avoided them at all cost. So why does verse four state that He had to? Because He had a reason, He was on a mission.
He knew that He would run into a Samaritan that needed guidance.
Now the time of day we are told was about the sixth hour, or around noon. This normally wouldn’t be the time that the women, who carried the water, would go to the well to get it because that was during the hottest part of the day. Usually they went in the cool early morning or in the cooler evening. So, why would the woman be going at this time, in the hottest time of the day?
She was looked down upon by the other women because of her sin. She was living with a man that wasn’t her husband and she previously had been married five times.
Here was a perfect example of someone who tried to start over. I’m sure each time she married she hoped that it would be the one that last. I’ve never known anyone who gets married with the hope that it will fail and end in divorce. Each time she vowed that the next marriage would be different and life would be good but it never was.
So now she had given up on marriage, she had given up on being happy, which meant she had given up on hope.
We see more and more of that today. People get divorced and they get into another relationship and decide that marriage don’t work so they decide to just live together.
Some couples make this decision before they even get married. Maybe their parents were divorced and they don’t want that, so they live together to try it out first, but most of the time it is because our society has accepted this as perfectly all right.
Now the Samaritan woman was just existing from day to day. She was living life in the shadow of her mistakes. Maybe you know someone who is living life without hope because they live in the shadows of their mistakes.
They are afraid to associate with others because of some sin they are living in or something that is in their past.
The saddest part in living like this is they don’t think much about their future. They have let their past control every moment of their lives. And that is the situation that this woman was in. A pretty grim and hopeless way to be isn’t it?
So, to avoid embarrassment and ridicule she chooses a time to go to the well when she assumed no one would be there. But she faced several surprises that day, and the first was running into Jesus.
Now she could have turned around and gone back home when she saw Him at the well but she didn’t, Why didn’t she run away from this chance meeting? The answer is: Because she didn’t know this man. He wasn’t from Samaria. She didn’t know Him, so she assumed He didn’t know her previous life and the mistakes she had made. She could freely walk right up and draw her water from the well without any problem.
I think we all know people like that in their Christian life. When they are in their home surroundings they convey a Christian like lifestyle, but when they go somewhere they think no one knows them their Christian witness and behavior may be altered.
Let’s look at John 4, verses 9-15
Now the woman’s second surprise came when Jesus asks her for a drink. She couldn’t believe her ears. She apparently recognized him as a Jew. And Jews did not talk to Samaritans!
ILL: Did you ever know someone who you come in regular contact with that never speaks to you? Then one day out of the blue they do and you can't believe your ears.
So Jesus proceeds to tell this woman about living water and she becomes very intrigued about it because Jesus tells her she won’t be thirsty again.
Now Jesus is talking about a different type of water, and a different kind of thirst. But the woman thinks He is still referring to the well water and her physical thirst.
The reason she is so interested is she thinks that if Jesus will give her this water she won’t ever have to come to the well again. She won’t have to face the embarrassment or ridicule of the people ever again.
Now her third surprise comes when Jesus reveals to her that He is aware of her past.
Look at John 4 verses 16-26
Jesus explains to her that He is the living water and He is offering her a second chance to live a lifestyle out of the shadows. He tells her that there will be a day that she and all Samaritans will worship Him. And, they would even worship alongside the Jews.
Paul writes in his letter to the church at Philippi that everyone who ever lives will worship Christ. Philippians 2:9-11 – “Therefore God exalted Him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth, and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”
We are all going to bow down to Christ in this life as Christians, or when we stand in judgment.
The wonderful thing is that Jesus offers us that opportunity now. We have that second chance to come and worship Him now before it is too late. Jesus died for us so we can have a clean slate in our sinful lives, and live for Him in the here and now.
There is no need to go back in time and start over because “He’s Still Waiting At The Well.”