Truth For Life

Alistair Begg: Ever feel like you’ve made a dreadful mess of your life? You look back at sinful choices or thoughtless impulses, bad habits you’ve cultivated through the years, even good intentions that have gone wrong.

Today on Truth for Life Weekend, Alistair Begg assures us that none of these things can cast you beyond the Savior’s reach.

Alistair Begg: Father, as we prepare to turn to the Bible, some of us coming under that sense of trial and disappointment, others of us coming in a sense of relief and joy. But each of us coming in need of your voice and hearing from your Word.

We pray that you will so meet with us in this time as we study the Bible, that we might know that we’re not simply listening to a man talking about something that he found out. But that divine dialogue takes place between your Spirit and our hearts, using your Word, the Bible, to show us who we are and what we are like, and to show us who Jesus is and how wonderfully he loves those whom he has come to save. And we ask this in his name. Amen.

There is great clarity in what John sets out. He’s written his Gospel, he tells us at the end. He’s written these things down in order that men and women might come to believe and that by believing they might find life in Jesus’ name. So the writing of the Gospel is not simply to provide us with information, nor is the reading of the Gospel to provide us solely with information, but in order to bring about a transformation. The transformation that is brought about in the life of an individual when they come to understand who Jesus is and why it is he’s come and what it is he has accomplished.

Now, I want to point out to you three further expressions of clarity that are essential in looking at chapter 4 together. The first is in verse 15, these are all in chapter 3. In verse 15 of chapter 3, we read, “Everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.” Notice the comprehensive nature of that statement. This is not some peculiar esoteric interest, but it transcends racial and gender boundaries, and indeed it reaches out around the whole world.

And then in verse 17 we’re told that “God did not send Jesus into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.” The purpose of Jesus coming was not condemnatory, but it was salvific. He came in order to save men and women.

And then at the end of chapter 3 in verse 36, we discover with equal clarity that to refuse Jesus is to reject life and to settle for darkness and death. To refuse Jesus is to reject life and to settle for darkness and death. It’s a very staggering and a very solemn statement, is it not?

“Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life,” reminding us that eternal life is not something that begins after you die, but eternal life is something that begins when we come to trust in Jesus. So it’s a present tense experience that goes on into eternity. “Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God’s wrath remains on him.”

Now, I point out these three things by way of clarification, because we’re now going to look at the encounter Jesus had with a woman who is in every sense at the other end of the spectrum from the religious Jew in chapter 3. She is on the social, moral, and religious line of things at the very opposite end from Nicodemus.

It’s good actually to keep these two chapters in view when you’re thinking about the way in which Jesus deals with individuals. The man, whom you’ll have to consider for your homework in chapter 3, you will discover to be learned, powerful, respected, and theologically trained. It is this man who arrives under cover of darkness to meet Jesus. He is a man, a Jew, and a ruler.

You go into chapter 4, and now it is a woman. The woman arrives not under cover of darkness but in the brightness of the noonday sun. We read that in verse 6 of chapter 4. This woman by contrast is unschooled, she’s without influence, and she is despised. She is a female, a Samaritan, and actually a moral outcast.

You say to yourself, what possible unifying principle could there be in these two lives? You really couldn’t pick two people that were further apart, could you? Both in terms of gender, in terms of background, in terms of social status, in terms of religious interest and so on. No, actually, they are at the opposite ends of the spectrum.

But they are united in this one fact. They both need Jesus. They both need Jesus.

Chapter 3, if you like, in the story of the religious man, makes clear that no one can ever be so good that they do not require a savior. Some people think that God is going to grade on the curve, and they’ve looked around the rest of the people in the class, and they’re prepared to take their shot on the basis of that. They’re staggered to discover he is not going to grade on the curve, but he has set a very final standard in the person of his Son.

And then it becomes apparent that I could never be good enough. And that’s what chapter 3 makes clear. Chapter 4, conversely, makes clear that you can never be so bad as to be beyond the saving bounds of Jesus. Which is really terrific good news, isn’t it?

I mean, there are some mechanisms for changing your life that demand a certain standard, a certain intellect, a certain capacity. And if you fit that framework, then the possibility of signing up and going on is there. However, if you don’t meet those standards, then it’s just nowhere for you at all. Whereas the comprehensive story of the Gospel, verse 15 again of chapter 3, is that “everyone who believes will have eternal life.”

Whether you are a religious person, an orthodox and devout, or whether you are an irreligious person, having made a hash of things, and beginning to imagine that if there is salvation anywhere, it is a salvation that is presumably good for everybody else except you. And chapter 3 and chapter 4 tackle that.

And I’m glad, because in this congregation this morning, the whole spectrum is present. We have devout and religious people who are here. You’ve been devout and religious all of your life. Your religious background is such that you really regard yourself as fairly okay. And the work of the Bible is to show you that you’re not okay, just as Nicodemus discovered he wasn’t okay, and that you need a Savior, namely Jesus.

There are other people who are here, and they wouldn’t like anyone to know, but the fact is that before God and in terms of their own conscience and their relationship to their family and so on, they’ve really have made a dreadful mess of their lives. That is concealed by how good they look and the way they’re able to conduct themselves, but deep down and inside, they have the sneaking suspicion that they are beyond the pale. And the good news is, you’re not.

Now, what we’ll do is we’ll take this in reverse. Start at verse 39 of chapter 4 and deal with a little paragraph that concludes the account. I’ve called this paragraph simply "The Talk of the Town." If you have an NIV, you’ll notice that the editors have given a heading to this paragraph, namely, “Many Samaritans Believe.”

It kind of reads like a headline in a local newspaper, doesn’t it? And that’s sort of what it’s supposed to convey. If you were walking down the street, going into the railway station, and the person was there selling the evening newspapers, as they do in London at least, then it may say on the hoarding, on the on the piece that they have there to try and encourage you to buy the Evening Standard. It says, “Many Samaritans Believe.” And you’re supposed to say, “Well, I’d like to read that on the underground,” and so you grab a copy and find out, “How is it that these many Samaritans have come to believe? And what is it they’ve come to believe? Who have they come to believe? What does it mean, ‘Many Samaritans believe’?”

Well, if we’d arrived in Sychar, which is the town in question, as we discovered in verse 4, if we’d arrived in Sychar the day after Jesus had left, and you’ll notice in verse 43 that he left after two days spent with these people, we would have found that the whole community was abuzz with the visit of Jesus. It probably would have been difficult to go anywhere at all, either in a marketplace buying some vegetables, or sitting down to drink some coffee, Turkish coffee or some coffee, and and people not say, “So, what did you what did you think about the the visit?”

And if we’d just come from an outlying region, we would have said, “What visit?” And they would have had to explain, “Well, the visit of Jesus of Nazareth.” And we would have said, “Jesus of Nazareth was here? What was Jesus doing here amongst the Samaritans? Isn’t Jesus a Jew?” “Yes.” “Well, isn’t that surprising?” “Well, it surprised us.”

“Well, why was he here?” “Well, actually, we asked him to stay for two days.” “And did he?” “Yes.” “Yes, but how did he get here in the first place?” “Well, in the first instance, he was talking with a lady. A lady from our community, and she was out getting water.” And and that’s that’s what happened. The whole place would have been abuzz with it.

And when you trace it back down the line, it comes to a lady. Comes to a Samaritan woman. Comes to a woman who, in the routine of her life, was just going about her business, heading for the well as she normally did. And revival essentially takes place in Sychar, and when we investigate why the city is abuzz with the news of Jesus, we don’t discover that there has been a significant evangelist who has come to town.

But we discover that this woman, having met Jesus individually, had felt compelled to tell others about the Jesus she had met, and as a result of that, the people’s interest had been piqued, and as a result of their interest being piqued, they’d gone out to find Jesus, and when they had finally located him, they asked him if he would stay, and he stayed with them for two days.

Now, at the very heart of it all, when the lady goes back into town, in verse 29, and I’ll just point this out to you, when she goes back into the town, she says to the people, “Come, see a man.” Come, see a man. There doubtless were some cynics in the crowd, especially if she was shouting it out, who would have said, “Here we go again.” Because after all, when it came to seeing men, this lady had a pretty good track record. She’d had five husbands, she had a live-in lover, and pretty well when it came to relationships, she was notorious.

But this was obviously different. “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Christ? Could this be the Messiah?” What a strange thing to say. What has happened to this lady out at the well? Who in the world was she talking to? Back into the town, making a fuss and a bother. “Come and see a man who told me everything I did. Could this be the Christ? Could this be the Messiah?”

I bet you’ve never had anybody come into your office and say that, have you? Pity. You could try it if you have met Jesus. Oh, you may have said, you know, “Come come get a hamburger,” or “Come and and and enjoy the picnic.” But really, underlying it, what you’re saying is, “Come and meet Jesus. I’d like you to come and meet the man who has who has who means everything to me.”

Well, let’s go right back to the beginning, to verse 4. And my heading here was not "Talk of the Town" but "Talk at the Well." You can see what a genius I am at these headings, can’t you? They’re just they’re just remarkable. Talk, talk, the talk at the well. There was a well, and there was some talk. Why don’t we call it the talk at the well? I spent a long time on this, and I hope you’re impressed.

The reason I want you to notice this in verse 4, just the setting, is because once again this bears all the testimony to the historic accuracy of Gospel writing, to the geographical details as well. There is nothing about this little section that has the notion of fabrication to it. It has all the indications of an eyewitness account.

He is identifying the well. He’s identifying the location of the well. He’s identifying it within the historic framework of Judaism in terms of it being Jacob’s well. And as they sit down, they look across to the northwest to Mount Gerizim, which you can still find on a map, and where you will find located the contemporary city of Nablus. This is a real-time incident in a real place, involving real people. We have to always remember that when we’re reading our Bibles. We’re reading here the record of that which took place.

And to this well arrives Jesus. Jesus had moved on from Judea. There was a great surge of enthusiasm for him, and as was often his case, he decided just to move on, and he’s going off to Galilee. And on his way to Galilee he had to go through Samaria. There’s a sense there of geographical order. There’s a sense there, if you like, almost of divine compulsion.

And in making his way through the region, he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well, and it was about the sixth hour. The sixth hour, by Jewish reckoning, is the noonday, ordering the the hours of the day from 6:00 a.m. in the morning being sunrise.

Notice that Jesus was tired, presumably dusty, hot, and thirsty. The creator of the universe was thirsty. The God who had been there when creation came to birth, the one who was responsible for the establishing of two parts hydrogen, one part oxygen, sat by the well and was thirsty. It’s a reminder again that this man, Jesus, is none other than the man who is God. The claim of Scripture is clear.

This is not a man who assumes a posture of divinity. This is divinity incarnate. This is God in the flesh. Such a staggering claim. Who would invent such a claim? It is in many of the difficulties, the intellectual difficulties of Christianity that some of the choicest nuggets are found. Don’t be put off by these things. Think and trust and believe.

And as he sits there, a Samaritan woman arrives. Verse 7. “When a Samaritan woman came to draw water.” The emphasis on Samaritan, of course, is crucial because the Jews and the Samaritans didn’t deal with one another. And that becomes apparent in the initial dialogue. He says to her, “Will you give me a drink?” His disciples had gone into the town to buy food. Verse 8, I think, is the explanation as to why he breaks social taboo. Why would a man speak to a woman in this way? Verse 8 tells us because the disciples were not there to help him as they normally would have done.

But we might wonder why it is that a woman would be there in the middle of the day. What a strange time to go and draw water, especially those pots being heavy and the sun being at its zenith. And the inference, of course, appears to be that her tainted past and indeed her present life had not endeared her to the female community of Sychar. She was not being invited to the to the ladies’ gatherings. They certainly were not stopping at her house to call up and say, “We’re going to the well, are you coming?”

No, they did that when the evening shadows began to fall; that was sensible. She had to choose to go in the middle of the day, alone. So a lonely lady makes a lonely journey in the routine of her life. And she meets a man. It’s a great story. Love this story. Samaritan woman meets Jewish man. Jewish man says, “Could I please have a drink?” Very natural beginning, isn’t it? Wonderfully straightforward. And also just an expression of Jesus’ need. This is not an opening gambit. This is not Jesus setting out a course in personal evangelism. “Now, let me see, what should I say here? Well, let me think of a good beginning.” No, he’s thirsty.

In fact, I’ve been reading this story again this morning, and I can’t find anywhere where it says that Jesus actually got a drink of water in the whole in the whole process. Because it just goes question and answer all the way through, it makes me thirsty even thinking about it. He appeals to her sympathy, he seeks a favor from her. And in doing so, communication is established.

The striking impact of the opening statement by Jesus is made clear in verse 9. The Samaritan woman, again, the emphasis, you see, Samaritan woman, not just the woman. Samaritan is important. The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew, and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” And then parenthetically, an explanation: “For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.” Or if you’re using an NIV and your eyesight is very good, you can look at the bottom of the page, and the alternative rendering of that translation is, “For Jews do not use dishes Samaritans have used.”

Because of the complexities of the Pharisaical accretions to the Jewish law, there were all kinds of purity factors in the washing of hands and the washing of utensils and so on. And Jesus and his disciples were to fall foul of this on a number of occasions. But the very fact that Jesus addresses her in this way cuts across all those normal taboos and boundaries and causes her to ask this question.

Jesus does not answer her question. You’ll notice that. But instead, he supplies a second question. And in verse 10 he says, essentially, “If you find that surprising, that I would ask you for a drink of water, being a Jew and a man and so on. If you find that surprising, then wait till you consider this thought.” And then he says, “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.”

He he he raises the conversation to a different level. She assumes herself to be in the position of providing what he needs. She’s about to discover that she is actually the one in need of what this stranger is able to provide. She thinks she’s in the position to provide what Jesus needs, only to discover that she’s actually the one who needs what Jesus provides.

Do you ever think when you come to an event like this that you might be doing what Jesus needs? That he he sort of needs you to come here? He needs to know that he’s liked. He needs to know that there are a few people left in Cleveland that actually care about God, or care about the Bible, or care about Jesus. And that’s sufficient motivation for you to come. And then you’ve come here and you’ve discovered that what you thought you came to provide for him is got nothing really to do with the subject at all. It’s all about what he has come to provide for you.

Now your reaction may be very similar to the reaction of the lady. He says, “If you’d asked me, if you’d asked this individual, he would have given you living water.” And she said, verse 11, “You’ve got nothing to draw with, and the well is deep. Where do you get the living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob? He gave us the well, he drank from it.” And once again Jesus sidesteps her question. He doesn’t answer the question again. Why? Because it’s not the issue.

It’s a red herring. I mean, it’s not irrelevant. The questions are are are of interest. But he doesn’t get into the Jewish Samaritan debate, nor does he get into the question of the historicity of Jacob and whether he is a greater person than Jacob. There will be time for that kind of conversation. But for now, he wants to address the issue. We’re not going to discuss which which well is the best well, or whether Jacob’s well has living water, or anything else.

Jesus answers, verse 13, probably pointing to the well, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again. But whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give will become in him a spring of water, welling up to eternal life.”

Bob Lapine: You’re listening to Truth for Life Weekend with Alistair Begg. We’ll hear more about this living water next weekend. Here at Truth for Life, we often feature books we have carefully selected to help you grow closer to Jesus, and today we’re featuring a book called *Come You Weary: Enjoy Christ’s Comfort*.

This book is a warm invitation to draw near to Jesus, to accept his offer to let go of your worries and burdens, and to come to him to find rest for your soul. *Come You Weary* is a brief, 60-page booklet. It draws from Scripture to affirm that no matter what your circumstances may be, Jesus is waiting to relieve your burdens. His arms are wide open as he beckons you to come. All you have to do to find peace is turn to him.

Jesus isn’t waiting for you to clean yourself up. You don’t have to have your life or the Bible figured out. You don’t have to prepare, you just come. For more information about the book *Come You Weary*, visit our website, truthforlife.org.

I’m Bob Lapine. Thanks for studying God’s Word with us. As we’re learning, genuine Christian transformation requires more than just a desire for the relief of unsatisfied longings. Join us next weekend to find out what is truly necessary. The Bible teaching of Alistair Begg is furnished by Truth for Life, where the learning is for living.