The Great Lengths of God's Grace - John 4:1-15

Today we’re beginning a four part series looking at Jesus’ interaction with the Samaritan woman or what is often referred to as the woman at the well. When you read this passage, there’s really no good way to break it up because it hangs together so beautifully as a cohesive unit.

But if this passage is preached as a cohesive unit, no one would make it to work on time tomorrow.

Have you ever gone to a function like a party or a dinner and quickly realize - I don’t belong here. When I was in seminary Lauren and I got invited to a donor function at Quail Hollow Country Club in Charlotte. For those of you that don’t know the PGA plays at Quail Hollow. It’s this super fancy really nice country club.

Within like five minutes of our arrival we both realized… we don’t belong here. They wanted students to interact with donors but we still felt like we didn’t belong.

I share that with you because in our passage, the Samaritan woman doesn’t deserve to speak with Jesus. As we’ll see in a minute, she checks all the wrong boxes.

But it’s because of this fact, we see something beautiful.

No one is beyond the grace of God. And we see this in three ways: There’s no length too great for the Lord (vv. 1-6), second, there’s no one too far from the Lord (vv. 7-9), because there’s no love greater than the Lord’s (vv. 10-15)

There’s no length too great for the Lord (vv. 1-6)

Our passage begins with Jesus traveling to Galilee and in order to get to Galilee he had to pass through Samaria. And wearied from his journey, he stopped at a well in Samaria called Sychar. According to tradition, Jacob had dug a well.

Samaria wasn’t a separate political state within the Roman Empire, but politics, race, and religion was and remains the source of the conflict between the Jews and the Samaritans.

Shortly after the death of King Solomon, the kingdom of Israel divided. Civil war broke out in Israel. You had Israel to the north and Judah in the south. King Jeroboam was the first king of Israel. He led the northern kingdom, what the Bible refers to as Israel to secede from the southern kingdom or Judah. Rehoboam who was the king of the southern kingdom.

One of the kings after Jeroboam, Omri, made Samaria the capital of the northern kingdom. Then the Assyrians captured the northern kingdom intermarried with the Jewish people and led them deeper into false idolatrous worship.

Both Jeroboam and Rehoboam weren’t kings that honored God, but Judah had something over the northern kingdom. They had Jerusalem. They had the temple.

So in order to prevent the people from traveling to the southern kingdom to worship the Lord, King Jeroboam set up two places of worship within the northern kingdom. And this was a grievous sin.

That’s a lot of background info. So to summarize, the Samaritans were syncretistic idolaters who were racially impure and on the “wrong side of history.” That’s the trinity of hostility and war isn’t it? Because pretty much every war ever fought was political, racial, or religious.

And it was because of all this background and history that the Jews didn’t like the Samaritans and the Samaritans didn’t like the Jews.

This background also explains John’s word choice in verse 4. “[Jesus] had to pass through Samaria.” Jews traveling from Judea to Galilee had to pass through Samaria because it was the fastest route but they certainly didn’t like it.

Samaria was just all around bad.

Even today there are places you don’t like. There are neighborhoods we avoid. There are states we simply want to pass through. Some people don’t like the country. While other people don’t like cities. There’s an eternal struggle between the two.

People even refer to parts of the United States as “fly-over country.” We call it “fly-over country” because it’s part of the country that’s forgettable. You certainly wouldn’t want to land a plane there. Would you care if Conception Junction, Missouri ceased to exist? And yes, that’s a real place that I randomly found on a map.

On the other hand, some of us feel the same way about cities. Some of you are like, “let’s keep Conception Junction and get rid of New York City.”

Animosity towards particular places certainly happens here in America, but it’s not exclusive to us. I’m sure everyone around the world has a version of this.

But we stereotype areas, locations, parts of countries and whole countries because we’ve jumped to conclusions about the people that live in them.

We don’t like places because they represent a certain type of person.

Right now, everything is political. States and cities now represent a political persuasion. And so, we write off places because “Trump country” or as full of crazy liberals.

But the Christian should resist the temptation to dismiss large swaths of people. Because people are made in the image of God and lost people are lost people regardless of whether living in “Trump country” or a big liberal city.

Our hearts should break for the lost because they are sheep without a shepherd. Christians should be compassionate people. Don’t get me wrong, I think there’s an appropriate time and place for Christians to resist the culture.

Just think about all that Jesus had to overcome to have this conversation with the woman at the well. He walked countless miles, endured extreme heat, was parched, in order to speak words of grace to a woman he should hate.

But consider our passage, particularly verse 4.

Jesus had to pass through Samaria because it was part of God’s sovereign will to have him interact with the woman at the well and to speak words of grace to the woman at the well.

You see there’s more to Jesus passing through Samaria than simply taking the fastest route. It was about fulfilling the will of God. This is the great length that God is willing to go to save sinners.

This passage illustrates the breadth and length and height and depth of the love of Christ.

There’s no one too far from the Lord (vv. 7-9)

If anyone was far from the Lord it was the Samaritan woman. She isn’t fully Jewish, she’s an unbeliever, and she’s a woman. She checked all the wrong boxes.

So, when Jesus asked the Samaritan woman for a drink at the well, she was undoubtedly surprised.

Not only were Jesus and the Samaritan woman on paper diametrically opposed to one another, but the Samaritan woman was… a woman. And particularly, Samaritan women were by and large considered ceremonially unclean.

That explains the Samaritan woman’s surprise in verse 9. “How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?”

And John even adds a helpful parenthetical note: “(For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.)” Some translate “no dealings” as “no dishes.” So John’s parenthetical statement could read, “For Jews do not use dishes Samaritans have used.”

In other words, there was more at stake for Jesus than simply breaking cultural codes of conduct. For many Jews, just touching the drink or cup of water offered to him by the Samaritan woman would make him unclean. Jesus had every reason to avoid this woman.

It’s also fascinating to pull back and look at what John highlights for us. Between two chapters of God’s word, Jesus has two striking interactions: Nicodemus in chapter 3 and the Samaritan woman in chapter 4. This interaction is very different from what we read previously in chapter 3 of Jesus’ interaction with Nicodemus.

Nicodemus was a powerful Jewish man and had the potential to validate Jesus. Nicodemus is educated, wealthy, respectable. And then compare that to the Samaritan woman. Jesus stood to gain nothing from their interaction. Jesus’ reputation could have been bolstered by Nicodemus while his interaction with the Samaritan could hurt it.

Nicodemus had the right ethnicity, politics and religion. The Samaritan woman had none of those things.

But despite the clear differences there are also some similarities. Both situations are inconvenient. Nicodemus visited Jesus in the middle of the night. If Jesus would have told him it wasn’t a good time, would any of us blame him? Likewise, here in chapter 4, Jesus strikes up a conversation despite being dehydrated and exhausted. Again, would any of us blame him if he’d just gotten some water and didn’t speak to the woman?

It’s clear from both of these passages Jesus wasn’t concerned about his personal comfort of reputation. Because regardless of Nicodemus and the Samaritan woman’s stark differences they needed the same thing: they both needed Jesus Christ!

And our Lord was always willing to give himself away. He’d meet with someone in the middle of the night. He’d meet with someone in the dead of heat at a well.

Ultimately, you see the grace of God in both circumstances.

A really unfortunate truth is that we often base someone’s “need” for Christ upon their life’s circumstances.

Does your mind go to the Nicodemus types as desperately needing to submit their lives to Christ? By Nicodemus type, I’m referring to someone that seems to have their lives put together. Do successful, driven, healthy, kind, need to submit their lives to Christ too? Of course!

But what happens more often than not, we look at the person whose life is an unmitigated disaster and say, “that person really needs the Lord.” And you know, it’s true! They do!

But it’s universally true! Regardless of your circumstances, regardless of whether your life circumstances are going well or poorly - you need to surrender your life to Jesus Christ!

But another angle to this conversation is the excitement that surrounds a profession of faith from successful people and the indifference towards or lack of enthusiasm toward regular people. There’s dancing in the streets when Justin Bieber makes a profession of faith and I pray that it’s sincere, but we don’t care or maybe it’s just not as well publicized when a Samaritan woman makes a profession of faith.

And isn't it interesting that Jesus goes out of his way for the Samaritan woman? Is she the person you would go out of your way for?

Or would you save the whole “living water” discussion for someone more important?

At times it really feels like Christians thirst for validation from people that are successful, famous, or influential. To be able to point at them and say, “look, they believe what I believe!” Because if Christianity is mainstream then we’re mainstream. If Christianity is culturally relevant then we’re culturally relevant.

The opposite is also true: if Christianity isn’t culturally relevant, then we’re not culturally relevant. But Jesus never sought validation. He spoke the truth and came to seek and save the lost.

I don’t want to paint with a broad brush, because I know it’s not universally true, but at times it really feels like the Christian world that we live in is desperate for relevance and is constantly seeking validation from the world and in pursuit of that validation we overlook and neglect the Samaritan woman.

We may forget about these people, but the Lord hasn’t.

The downtrodden and forgotten aren’t too far from the Lord, because no one is beyond the grace of God.

Because there’s no love greater than the Lord’s (vv. 10-15)

In verse 9 the Samaritan woman is clearly shocked that Jesus is speaking to her.

But notice how Jesus responds to the Samaritan woman’s surprise in verse 10. “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.”

The “gift of God” is Jesus himself. So, Jesus is telling her that if she knew who he was she would have been asking him for a drink of living water.

Sometimes Biblical expressions are so overused we never stop to actually think about what we’re really saying. What exactly does Jesus mean by, “living water?”

Because understanding what Jesus means by “living water” is the key to understanding this entire passage.

In typical fashion, the expression works on two levels: a literal and metaphorical one. Jesus did the exact same thing when he told Nicodemus that needed to be “born again.”

And just as Nicodemus understood Jesus’ words in a literal sense, so does the Samaritan woman. Because “living water” could be used to refer to an active stream or flowing water. And obviously, flowing water is better for a number of reasons. First, stagnant water can get gross. And second, flowing water is more accessible.

So needless to say, she’s thinking literally in verses 11-12. “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.”

In her estimation, Jesus would be greater than Jacob simply because he knew of a better water source. And obviously, Jesus is greater than Jacob, and it had nothing to do with literal water.

Because he was speaking metaphorically about spiritual realities, not actual water. Throughout the Scriptures water is used as a metaphor to describe God’s faithfulness and being washed clean by the transformative power of the Holy Spirit.

Keep that in mind and look at what Jesus says to her in verses 13-15.

“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.”

At this point in their conversation the Samaritan woman is still thinking literally. But as many of you probably know, she eventually catches on.

Jesus tells the Samaritan woman that if you drink from the living water, you’ll never thirst again. Think about what he’s saying here. Earthly things that you look to for satisfaction will never truly satisfy you. It’ll always leave you thirsty. You’ll have to keep going back for more over and over again.

I’m sure you all know this: I’ve read that be stranded out at sea is one of the most paradoxical experiences. You’re dying of dehydration and surrounded by all of this water that you can’t drink!

And ironically, if you drink the ocean water it’ll only make you more thirsty until it eventually kills you.

This is why Jesus’ use of water as a metaphor is brilliant. Just think about all the things that the world tells us will make us happy: sex, money, career, success, influence, fill in the blank - none of those things will satisfy your eternal soul. They’ll only leave you wanting more and more and more. It’s just like drinking ocean water. It might briefly satisfy you but ultimately it’ll kill you.

In the exact same manner, blatant, unabashed, pursuit of worldly pleasure will eventually destroy your eternal soul.

But if you find your satisfaction in Jesus Christ your spiritual thirst will be quenched. Your soul will find rest, peace, contentment, and satisfaction.

But you must go to the Lord to get your thirst quenched because Jesus dispenses the living water.

Look at verse 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.

Twice Jesus says, “I will give.” The second time he explicitly says, “The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”

If you want to be washed over by the transformative power of the Holy Spirit, if you want your sins forgiven and be washed clean - you have to believe in Jesus Christ.

This is the gospel. This is the good news of Jesus Christ. The good news is that you can be washed clean. There is great hope for you and me in the person and work of Jesus Christ.

This conversation is an incredible display of Christ’s mercy, grace, and love!

We know how the story ends. The woman believes that Jesus is indeed the Messiah, the one sent from God.

And what else do we know from this passage? She’s on the wrong side of everything: wrong race, wrong politics, wrong beliefs.

But Jesus sought her out! He transformed her life. It’s a glorious reminder that no one is beyond the grace of God.

This is such an encouraging portion of Scripture because I know some of you have wayward children, lost family members, and friends who have walked away from the Lord.

Don’t give up on them! Keep praying! Pray for other believers to share the hope of the gospel with them! Ask the Lord to bring the truth of the gospel before them. Keep bringing them before the Lord in prayer!

Just because someone is an unbeliever right now, doesn’t mean God cannot save them. The Samaritan woman wasn’t looking for Jesus - but he found her.

No one is irredeemable. No one is unforgivable. No one is so great a sinner that the grace of God cannot reach them!

Keep praying. Don’t lose hope. He may just be starting his journey to Samaria.

Let’s pray.