The Well

In John 4, Jesus meets the Samaritan woman at the well and offers her something no ordinary well could ever give: living water. This sermon reminds us that Christ meets us in our thirst, knows our whole story, and still calls us into grace, healing, and witness.

Transcript

So excited. We are in the Gospel of John, John, chapter four. What's interesting is this is a beautiful, beautiful text. I love the text so much that sometimes it can be difficult when you're listening. Okay, God, what is your word for this text?

Because I'm familiar with the text and because I love it, I want to honor it. I want to honor the woman in the story. If you would stand with me and we are going to read this text. It's a long text, so take a breath.

We will start in verse 5. John 4, verse 5. So he came to a Samaritan city called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob's well was there. And Jesus, tired out by his journey, was sitting by the well.

It was about noon. A Samaritan woman came to draw water. And Jesus said to her, give me a drink. His disciples had gone to the city to buy food. The Samaritan woman said to him, how is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?

Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans. Jesus answered her, 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. And the woman said to him, sir, you have no bucket. The well is deep. Where do you get that living water?

Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well and with his sons and his flocks drank from it? Jesus said to her, everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again. But those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life. And the woman said to him, sir, give me this water so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.

Jesus said to her, go call your husband and come back. And the woman answered him, I have no husband. And Jesus said to her, you are right in saying I have no husband. For you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband. What you have said is true.

And the woman said to him, sir, I see that you are a prophet. Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain. But you say that the place where people must worship is in Jerusalem. Jesus said to her, woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father. Neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem.

You worship what you do not know. We worship what we know. For salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming and is now here when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth. For the Father seeks such as these to worship him.

God is Spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and in truth. And the woman said to him, I know that the Messiah is coming, who is called Christ. And when he comes, he will proclaim all things to us. And Jesus said to her, I am he, the one who is speaking to you. Just then, his disciples came.

They were astonished that he was speaking with a woman. But no one said, what do you want? Or, why are you speaking with her? Then the woman left her water jar and went back to the city. And she said to the people, come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done.

He cannot be the Messiah, can he? They left the city and were on their way to him. Meanwhile, the disciples were urging him, rabbi, eat something. But he said to them, I have food to eat that you do not know about. So the disciples said to one another, surely no one has brought him something to eat.

Jesus said to them, my food is to do the will of him who sent me and to complete his work. Do not say. Do you not say? Four months more. Then comes the harvest.

But I tell you, look around you and see that the fields are ripe for harvesting. The reaper is already receiving wages and is gathering fruit for eternal life so that the sower and reaper may rejoice together. For here the saying holds true. One sows and another reaps. I sent you to reap that for which you did not labor.

Others have labored, and you have entered into their labor. Many Samaritans from that city believed in him because of the woman's testimony. He told me everything I have ever done. So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with him. And he stayed there two days.

And many more believed because of his word. They said to the woman, it is no longer because of what you said that we believe. For we have heard for ourselves. And we know that this is truly the Savior of the world. Jesus, thank you for this text.

Thank you that you chose to have this included for us to hear. Thank you, God, that you knew that we would gather together on this morning. Jesus, will you speak to us through your word today? Holy Spirit, we need you. Have your way.

Amen. And you can be seated.

Can you picture in your mind where you were when you first heard that Jesus loved you? Can you remember where you were when you first heard about Jesus? For Some of us that may be a little too difficult. Can you picture where you were when you accepted Christ as your savior? For some of us, it may have been in a church service.

Some of us it was at home. It may have been at school or at a youth camp. Do you picture in your mind where you were either the first time you got saved or when you recommitted your life to Christ? Can you think about it? I can picture praying at an altar at a youth camp.

I can picture the woman who prayed with me. I don't know her name. I don't even think I've ever seen her again. I would love to, but I can picture her face, the woman who prayed with me. If you're picturing in your mind where you were, can I tell you that he was also there?

Jesus was present there. Jesus was there and he was waiting for you. Jesus is waiting for you.

AW Tozer says that God is always previous, meaning God always goes before. God is the one that pursues us. God is before and he calls us. The very desire that we have to turn to God is because he gives us that desire. That is grace.

That is prevenient grace. The grace that goes before God always takes the initiative. God waiting for you. The purpose of John, he gives us. In the gospel John, chapter 20, verse 31, it says.

But these are written. Why? Why did I write that? You may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name. John says, I want you not only to believe that Jesus is the son of God, but also that you may have life in him.

Jesus in the text is sitting at a well. He is waiting at this place called Sychar. Now, in order for us to get the full picture of the word that God has given us today, we must first go backwards and see the significance of this place in scripture. Friends, the place Sychar in the New Testament is the place Shechem in the Old Testament. Shechem in the Old Testament is the same as Sychar in the New Testament.

Why is this significant? Well, the first thing that happened at this place, Sychar, Abraham built an altar. You remember Abraham? God told him to go to a place. I will show you.

I'm going to make your offspring as many as the stars in the sky. He says, I want you to go. Abraham obeys and he goes. And he goes to Shechem. And there at Shechem, God confirms his promise to him.

So beautiful. And God says to your offspring, I'm going to give this land here. This is Canaan land. This place I am going to give your offspring. And so Abraham builds an altar here at Shechem.

Then later, there's another altar. Jacob, you remember, Jacob flees because he's stolen the blessing. He flees. He lives with his uncle Laban. He lives there.

He marries Leah, he marries Rachel. And then he wrestles with God. You remember the story. He wrestles with God. And God says, now your name is Israel.

So then he says, okay, I'm going back home. I'm going to meet Esau. I'm going to make up with my brother. I'm going home. They are in the route, going back home.

And he gets word that Esau is coming to meet him. You remember? And Esau isn't coming alone, but he has 400 men with him. Jacob right away gets scared. Why would he send 400?

Is he coming to attack me? Is he coming to take vengeance? So what does Jacob do? He prays. It's interesting.

When Jacob prays, he says to the God of Abraham, to the God of Isaac. Interesting. He doesn't say to the God of Israel or to the God of Jacob, but he prays. Esau comes and Esau grabs him. They weep together.

They have reconciliation. And Esau says, come with me. My men will protect you. Let's travel together. And Jacob says, no, no, we've got to go slower.

We've got all these people. We've got all of our. Our animals. We need to go slower. And Esau says, okay, I'll go on ahead.

And Esau is going south. Home is south. Jacob says, I'm coming with you. I'll be there. It's just going to take me a little longer.

In actuality, he goes north. Interesting. Never says that God told him to go a different way. He goes north and he goes to Shechem. He goes to a place that we don't even know that God wanted him to be.

But there, at that place, at that land, he builds an altar. And he says, God is the God of Israel in that place. He confirms that, no, you're not just the God of Abraham, and you're not just the God of Isaac, but you're my God, the God of Israel. And he builds an altar. At this point place later, the most horrific, one of the most horrific stories of Israel's history would happen here.

You see, Jacob has his whole family gathered in this place. And his daughter. It's the seventh child. Seven. Seventh child of Jacob and Leah.

He has a daughter. Her name is Dinah. It's the only daughter that we know about. Here they are at this place in Shechem, and Dinah wants to go and meet the women of the town. And so she goes out alone to meet the women.

The Bible tells us that instead of encountering the women of the town, she meets a man by the name of Shechem. The very place it is the ruler of the city, Hamor's son, Shechem. Shechem takes her, sexually assaults her. He rapes Dinah. Dinah goes home and she tells her father Jacob.

And Jacob doesn't handle it right away. He waits. Shechem says, I want to marry her.

The word gets back to the brothers of Dinah. They are angry. They want revenge. They have a thirst for it. And they say, okay, well, if you want to intermarry and us have this relationship, you must be circumcised.

They decide to take something that God had orchestrated and use it against the men of the whole town. Every man was circumcised there at Shechem. Every single one of them. And while they are healing, on the third day, the brothers go in and they kill every single man in the city. Men that had nothing to do with Dinah's assault.

They killed every single one of them. And then they went in and took the women and took the children and ravaged the city. That happened at this place where the well is. An abuse was committed, altars were built. But fast forward, there would be Joshua.

Joshua is about to die. He brings all the tribes together, all the leaders together at this place at Shechem. And. And he says, I am going on, but you need to choose this day if you're going to choose Jesus and to serve God and fulfill the covenant or not. You make your decision and choose.

And the people said, we choose to serve the Lord. And Joshua erected a stone, a huge rock. And he said, this rock is a witness that today you have declared that you're choosing the Lord. A covenant was renewed here at this place.

This would be the very place where, guess what? Joseph was buried. Remember, Joseph is in Egypt. He says, don't bury me here. But when you get to go back to the promised land, because I know that God is going to give you the promised land.

And when you go home, take my bones with you. And guess where Joseph is buried? Here at Shechem. It's a burial ground. And then later, David becomes king, Solomon becomes king.

And then under Rehoboam division, the northern kingdom, the southern kingdom, they split. And guess what place becomes the capital? The northern kingdom, Shechem. This Place where altars were built, this place where assault occurred, violence occurred, covenants were renewed, and division happened. That very place is the place that Jesus chose to go and sit at a well, In the middle of all of that history, you have the Jews and the Samaritans.

And you know, if you've studied anything about this, they hated each other. Why? Because the Northern Kingdom, remember Assyria, took it over and only few of the poorest of the poor Israelites remained. And those very few intermarried with the Assyrians and there became the Samaritans. This was a mixed race, and racism was present even then.

And the Jews looked with disgust at the Samaritans. They thought they were inferior religiously and in physical, that they were a mix, and they looked down on them. This place where Jews would travel the long route to avoid that side of the railroad tracks. That place where Jesus would decide, no, no, I'm not going to go around, but I'm going to go and I'm going to sit down there and Jesus sits at this place.

I had the opportunity to do a Bible study a few years ago with Titus women on the women of John. We studied this text. And I'll never forget the teacher pointed out that the living water of Jesus flows forward and backwards to a place where all of that history has occurred. The living water flows forward and backwards. Some of you know what it's like to have a history.

But Jesus can redeem even our past. And amen. His living water flows forward and backwards. And you see in our text today the humanity of Jesus. It says, jesus was tired and he sits down at the well.

Now, when I was thinking about this text, I thought to myself, jesus is probably hungry. It's noon, it's hot. Have you ever been hot and hungry? He's hot, he's hungry. And he's thirsty, evidently.

And he has no bucket. Okay, so now he's hot, he's hungry. The disciples are going to get food. He's thirsty and he's tired. Have you ever been there?

This week I was looking at this text and I had had a day of all days, a doozy of a day. And I sat there and I was the word overwhelmed. Have you been there? Have you ever been overwhelmed? Where tears begin to fall and you're not really sad, but you're overwhelmed.

Overstimulated. I like that word, I'm overstimulated. And I thought to myself, Jesus in his humanity knows what it's like to be overwhelmed. And friends that did something for me. Jesus knows what it's like to be overwhelmed.

He cares. So if you're sitting there today and you're hungry and you're thirsty and you're tired and you're hot and you're overwhelmed and you're overstimulated and there's a lot going on, I tell you, friends, Jesus understands and he cares. Amen. Amen. The humanity of Jesus, but also the divinity of Jesus.

Jesus knew who would be coming. Jesus could have worked his own miracle and came up with his own water and food. He said, no, I have a divine appointment. There is someone coming to the well today, and I have come just for her. When you think back to where you were when you first heard the gospel, or when you stepped out and came to the altar and accepted Christ, God was waiting for you.

Jesus is waiting for us today. He was so excited that you were coming. He was so glad that you would be here. And you think to yourself, why this woman? He wanted her.

He loved her. His love, his forgiveness, his redemption, his healing, his transformation, his enabling. His gifting is for all. All. The text tells us it was the sixth hour.

That's important now. When you read the Gospel of John, he. He just gives us these little nuggets that are beautiful. He says, I want you to know, friends, at harvest point that this was the sixth hour, meaning this was noon, the hottest part of the day. Only two times in the Gospel does he say the sixth hour.

One time is here, the woman at the well. The other time would be in John, later in John, chapter 19. Very intentional. What happens in John, chapter 19? The crucifixion.

It was the sixth hour. There is redemption at the well, friends, and there is redemption at the cross. There was redemption for the woman, and there is redemption for the world. Jesus is at a well. Now, I would be amiss if I didn't point out that there are love stories that occur at the well.

If you have read the Old Testament, then you know that love stories tend to happen at Wells. It was a meeting place, if you will.

There was Isaac and Rebecca. Abraham told his servant to go and get a wife for Isaac. You remember the story. He goes, and the servant prays, and she comes out and she says, yes, I'll get you water and your camels, too. And he said, thank you.

Jesus answered prayer, and they fall in love. Okay. And then later, there was also another whale, Jacob. Jacob travels to Laban. He gets to a well.

He's been traveling. And here comes Rachel. She was a shepherdess. She comes with her flock to water and he said, oh, who are you? And they fall in love.

See, there was a love story. And this, this is the place where Jesus is sitting, waiting, knowing that the woman is coming. If you're a note taker number one, Jesus is waiting at the well. Jesus is waiting at the well. He knew the history of this place.

He knew a woman was coming, and he was waiting for her to arrive. I want you to imagine that the God of the universe steps into time and space to have a divine meeting with this woman, to sit down at a place that was marked by a history of pain and death and assault and violence and division and declaration and renewed commitment. He comes there, the living water that flows forth, forward and backwards. He's waiting at the well. Well, what is water necessary for?

Water is necessary for life. Our physical desire and need for life. But friends, when we drink water, we don't drink one time, do we? We have to keep drinking. We can drink and feel satisfied, and a little bit later, we're going to have to drink again.

We have to keep going back, going back, back and forth to the well. I got to have some more. I got to keep going back. What is the well in your life? What is the place that you keep going back to for temporary satisfaction?

What is the place that you go back to time and time again because of some desire or some need that is only temporary, bringing satisfaction? If you don't know, would you whisper a prayer right now in your heart? Ask the Holy Spirit, Would you reveal to me if there is a well that I'm using in my life?

Jesus is waiting at the well. Not only Jesus number two. The woman is waiting. The woman is waiting. We don't know her name.

And I love that. It's very intentional. You could see yourself here. The woman is waiting. What is she waiting for?

She's waiting to draw water. Now, at that time, the women had the chore of going to gather water. This. This was heavy. This was a heavy chore.

And so they would go early in the morning or late in the evening when the sun's starting to go down. Why? Because it was cooler. So they would go at a time where it was not so hot and the women would socialize. So if all of us were gathering at the well, we would be talking while we're getting our, hey, how's it going?

What are you cooking for dinner? And we're just socializing and having a moment and interacting there at the well. It was social hour there at Sidecar. But this woman, it says it's noon. So they wail, usually empty.

She is going at a time when no one else would be there. Likely because she doesn't want to have an interaction with the other women. Likely it's because there was some shame she chose to avoid the other women. Now, the Bible tells us that she was married how many times?

Five. And she's now living with a man. That would be number.

Now, what I want to be very careful. We don't know why she was married five times. We can have our own judgments about this woman, but our judgments could be wrong. At that time, a woman could not ask for a divorce. Who could ask for the divorce?

The man. So before you start pointing fingers at the woman she may have had nothing to do with, may have been that she couldn't bear children at that time. If a woman could not have children, oftentimes the man would discard and move on. We don't know. We don't know.

What we do know is that she has sinned and was a sinner just like us. But don't cast too many judgments about the fact that she was married five times. Because we just. We don't know. We don't know.

What we do know is if you've been married five times and five times been divorced, there is abandonment and there is wounds, Is there not anytime there is a divorce that is painful. Five times she had been divorced and now she's living with a man.

I find it interesting that in the story of Dinah, you remember, she leaves to go meet the women. She wants to go interact with women, and yet she encounters a man, Shechem, who assaults her. And in the story at the woman at the well, she is going to avoid the women. She's leaving the women and going to the well. And she encounters a man, Jesus, who is her healer.

It's interesting that Dinah is the seventh child of Jacob and Leah, seven being the perfect number. And yet in the woman at the well, she's been married five times and is living with someone six. And she meets someone, the seventh man, that is Jesus.

She meets Jesus at the well. Jesus initiates a conversation with her because he always goes first. And her response is, how can you ask me for a drink? A Samaritan, A woman. I'm alone at the well.

Why are you talking to me? I am a failure at marriage. I am divorced. I am broken. I.

Why are you speaking to me? You're not supposed to speak to me. Jesus. I have a friend by the name of Mimi. Mimi tells me she used to be addicted to drugs.

She Told me. She said, emily, I would not go to church. I said, why would you not go to church? She said, I thought that if I went to church, it would literally burn down. I could not go to church.

I felt like I did not belong there. Jesus found her in jail, freed her from all addiction, and now she ministers at a church. Jesus knows, and he came for her. It's interesting how Jesus will go out of his way for us. Jesus, you know what he says to her?

He says, if you knew the gift of God. He doesn't answer when she says, why are you talking to me? That's how I read her. She has a little attitude, apparently. Why are you talking to me?

And Jesus says, if you knew the gift of God, if you knew the gift, if you knew the gift. Do we know the gift? If you knew the gift of forgiveness, if you knew the gift of healing, if you knew the gift of eternal life, if you knew the gift and you knew the giver, if you knew the giver, if you knew that I am Jesus, I am the Messiah, I am the Son of God. If you knew the gift and you knew the giver, then get this, you would be asking me, and you would receive. You would ask and you would receive.

Receive what? He says, you would receive living water. Living water. Now, I love this woman. She thinks he's talking, you know, like real, just water.

And so she takes him very literally at first. And she says, sir, you have nothing to draw with, and the well is deep. She actually tells Jesus Christ he has no bucket. She tells him, you have no bucket. And this well, it's as if she's had all the interaction she wants to have for that day.

She has come at a time when she is trying to be alone. And here this man says, can you give me a drink? And she tells him, why are you talking to me? And then he says, if you knew the gift, if you knew the giver, you'd ask me and you'd receive living water. And she says, you don't even have a bucket.

And the well is deep. I hear her say, sir, my well is deep. My wounds are deep. What can you do for me? And before you give her too hard of a time, how often does Jesus speak to us and we say, how are you going to do that, Jesus?

How are you going to do that, Jesus? You don't even have a bucket. Oh, Jesus wanted to do way more for her. He doesn't need a bucket, friends. He doesn't even need a bucket.

He says, everyone who drinks of this Water here at the well will be thirsty again. But those who drink of the water that I give them will. Will never be thirsty. And when you look at those words, never be thirsty, it means never be thirsty again. Never be thirsty continually.

Never be thirsty forever. Why? Because eternal life within. Never be thirsty forever.

A continuous living spring bubbling up from within you. Continuous. We talked about the two love stories. Jacob, Rachel, Isaac, Rebecca. But I didn't tell you about the first one.

The first love story at the well, if you remember, was a woman named Hagar, Hagar and Yahweh. There in the middle of the desert. Sarah has mistreated Hagar. Hagar has fled. She finds herself in the.

In the wilderness. And the scripture says, the angel of the Lord found Hagar. He always goes first. He found Hagar near a spring in the desert. He tells her she's pregnant.

He instructs her to go back. And that's when she says she gave this name. This is what the scripture says to the Lord who spoke to her. You are the God who sees me. For she says, I have now seen the one who sees me.

Now, we all know that. We know that she named him Elroi, the God who sees me. But what I didn't know and what excites me is that if you look at this passage there in Genesis, it says in verse 14 of Genesis 16, that is why the well was called beer laihiro. Beer lehi roi. Do you know what that well means?

Bear lehi roi. It means well of the living one who sees me. Well of the living one who sees me. Friends, the living water at the well is not only is living, because it's Jesus himself. He says, I put my well within you, and it is living.

It is the living well that's within us. That was the first love story at the well. The well of the living one. He says, I put a living water within you. I put myself within you.

Now, this gets her attention. And you know what she says? She says, give it to me. Give it to me. She believes.

What was the purpose of John? That you would believe and that you would have life. She says, give it to me to never be thirsty again. To never. I have been thirsty for years.

To never have to come here again. Day after day, having to draw water, having to deal with those other women every single day. I don't want to do that anymore. He says, I can give you a living well, the Holy Spirit within that, get this. It bubbles up and it overflows to others.

Friends, we can't overflow. What we're not full of. We can't overflow what we're not full of. And the woman at the well was the complete opposite of overflow. She was dry.

She was dehydrated, if you will. She was the opposite of overflow. And Jesus says to her, go and call your husband and come back. Almost as if to say, this is too good not to share. Go get your husband and come back.

He identifies the very place of sin and the very place of hurt in her life. Now, it's interesting because for some of us, we think Jesus, y' all were having, like a moment there at the well. Did you really have to bring that up? Like y' all were getting there, and then all of a sudden you had to say that. And it's a little awkward.

In fact, that was the point, because Elroi, the God who sees me, sees it all. And he says, you know what? I love you so much that I am willing to identify the very place of pain and hurt in your life, because I want to bring healing there. And I want absolutely nothing to stand in the way of our intimacy. I see you.

I see the pain. I know your story. I know the history. Let's talk about it. And let the living water flow.

When God comes, sin must be dealt with. And God makes all things new. His living water can redeem our past. Amen. The living water is big enough for all of it.

All of it. Now she seems to change the subject. And then Jesus doesn't push it. She keeps the conversation going with Jesus. They begin to discuss places of worship.

He says, the hour is coming and is now here. We're true worshipers. Worship in spirit and in truth to be a living sacrifice. If you've been doing that Lent devotion every day that we've been reading together, it starts every single day with saying, jesus belong to you. I offer my body to you as a living sacrifice.

That is worship. He wanted all of her. Jesus was waiting at the well. The woman was waiting at a time when nobody else would be there. But she was also waiting for the Messiah.

She says the words. She says, I know that the Messiah is coming now. She doesn't know. She's talking to him. I know the Messiah is coming.

And when he comes, he's going to explain it all to us. She's waiting. And Jesus says those words. He says, I am he. I am he.

She knew Exodus. She knew Exodus chapter three. She knew that I am statement. And he says, I am the one who is speaking to you. Friends, the first time in the Bible That God declares his identity as the Messiah.

The Son of God is to a woman who is despised and who is hated and who is a Samaritan and who is alone and who is living with a man. That's the woman he chooses to declare himself to. If you think to yourself, I am too far done, like my friend Mimi. I can't even go. If you think to yourself, there is nothing God could do with the story that I have, friend.

That's the one that he comes for. There is a scripture that says, I come not for the well, but for the sick and the needy. Those are the ones that need a doctor. He came for her, and he comes for us. He brings his grace.

Jesus is waiting. The woman is waiting. And thirdly, the Samaritans were waiting. Could I change that? The world is waiting.

The world is waiting. The woman is so excited that she has met the Messiah. She leaves her water pot. She had come there to get water. She had her water pot.

She was ready to get the water to do her chore. She leaves it there and returns to a city. She has no more need for the water pot because she has the living well within her. She has believed. And she goes back to the city, to the ones where she has been seemingly trying to avoid.

She goes back to them and she says these words, come and see. Come and see. Could it be I've met the one who told me all about me? He knows my story. Come and see.

Come and see. That is what overflow looks like. Overflow looks like you getting out and going to others and saying, oh, I may not know everything about scripture, but I know that I was a sinner, and I know that I was broken. And I know that I was thirsty. And the living water came and met me.

I have met a man. Come and see. That is what she does. And the Samaritans believed and they turned to him.

The disciples come back and they start having food, and they tell Jesus, I want, you know, you need to eat. Jesus, he says, I have food you don't even know about. And then he says this. He uses his time to teach his disciples, to teach us here at harvest point, if you will. He says these words, look around.

Look around. The fields are ripe for harvest. Look around. There are many that are thirsty in this world. Amen.

There are many who are desperate for living water. And he says, look around. It's time. The scripture tells us that many Samaritans believe they came out and they said, would you stay here? Would you stay here?

You can imagine the disciples staying in that town for two more days, a town that they would avoided. They didn't like these people. And now they're probably sleeping in the Samaritan's house on their couch. And they're staying there for two more days. And they're thinking, wow, this Jesus is radical.

He comes for everybody. Look around. The people believed. They said, it's no longer just because of what the woman said, but now we believe because we've met you. And we know that you are truly their words, the Savior of the world.

Have you met the Savior of the world?

Do you know that the fields are white and that are ready for harvest? Do you know that there is a world out there that is dying and going to hell and is desperate for the Gospel?

He says, look around harvest point. Look around at the office, look around at the school. The fields are right. They're ready for harvest.

I believe that with our text today, Jesus wanted me to remind you that he is waiting for you. Jesus is waiting for you. He traveled to Samaria. He sat down and he waited. And he is here today.

Picture him sitting at the well, intentionally waiting for you. Can I remind you that his living water flows forward and backwards? Yes, even to that.

His living water flows forward and backwards. He can redeem the past. He holds our future. It's a picture of grace. A grace that pursues us, A grace that will wait for us.

A grace that will sit down, a grace that will speak to us. A grace that is intentional, A grace that is forgiving, A grace that is redeeming. A grace that is transforming. A grace that enables us to go and spread the good news that is his grace. Would you receive the living water?

Will you receive his living water?

Some of you today may be dry, you may be thirsty, you may be overwhelmed. Jesus is waiting for you. Jesus is waiting for you. Could it be that Jesus wants to use us to go sit down at Wales and wait on others?

How many times have you found yourself in a situation and you thought, why am I even waiting in this waiting room? Why am I here? Could it be that Jesus wants to use us to wait for others to bring his living water to overflow? But we can't overflow what we're not full of. Will you stand with me?