At Eastridge Church, my home church, we’re in the middle of Missions Month. The obvious emphasis is on local and global missions that our church supports.
Representatives of some of the missions have been at both of our campuses for people to learn about serving opportunities. This morning, our campus pastor, Kurt Petersheim, preached a sermon about personal evangelism based on the account of Jesus talking to the Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well.
Now Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard that he was gaining and baptizing more disciples than John— 2 although in fact it was not Jesus who baptized, but his disciples. 3 So he left Judea and went back once more to Galilee.
4 Now he had to go through Samaria. 5 So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph. 6 Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about noon.
John 4:1-6 (NIV)
The first question Kurt asked was, “Where is your well?”
Anywhere where people are is a well. Your well can be your job, your kids’ school, the ball field, social media, or even your favorite restaurant or bar — anywhere you go where people who you interact with regularly are.
Kurt suggested that we consider who goes to our well, what’s expected of us at the well, who we talk to, and who we don’t talk to.
When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?” 8 (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.)
9 The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.)
John 4:7-9 (NIV)
Jesus engaged with the woman even though there were racial, religious, and cultural reasons that a Jewish person wouldn’t associate with a Samaritan. Jews considered Samaritans to be blasphemous, unclean, half-breed people (sorry, I know that’s a harsh term, but that’s how it was), and both groups were full of prejudice against each other. But that didn’t stop Jesus from engaging with her.
“There are no strangers in the kingdom of heaven. Only neighbors,” Kurt said.
Jesus answered her, “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.”
11 “Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? 12 Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his livestock?”
13 Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, 14 but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”
15 The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.”
John 4:10-15 (NIV)
Jesus was really clever here, tying in the need for physical water with the need to quench a spiritual thirst. Kurt urged us to consider: what do people need at the well? How are people masking those needs?
When we’re talking to people, we have to pay attention to what people need.
“What are people struggling with?” Kurt asked. “Do you care?”
We also have to ask ourselves: what do people not want to talk about at the well?
He told her, “Go, call your husband and come back.”
17 “I have no husband,” she replied.
Jesus said to her, “You are right when you say you have no husband. 18 The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true.”
John 4:16-18 (NIV)
Jesus cut to the heart of this woman’s problem. But she tried to change the subject.
“Sir,” the woman said, “I can see that you are a prophet. 20 Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.”
21 “Woman,” Jesus replied, “believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. 22 You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews.
John 4:19-22 (NIV)
“Don’t be in a hurry to force a conversation,” Kurt suggested. “Be patient.”
Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. 24 God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.”
John 4:23-24 (NIV)
“Your struggles don’t define you, and your sins don’t disqualify you,” Kurt said. “What matters is whether you will worship Jesus in spirit and in truth.”
The woman at the well understood the spirit of worship, but she was lacking in the truth.
The woman said, “I know that Messiah” (called Christ) “is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.”
26 Then Jesus declared, “I, the one speaking to you—I am he.”
John 4:25-26 (NIV)
“Do people know Jesus at the well?” Kurt asked. “Are you willing to tell them about Jesus at the well?”
Kurt’s closing thoughts were that we need to share Jesus with people at the well(s) where we go regularly, but we also can take opportunities to go to other local wells — ministries that serve people in need — to share the love of Jesus.
Our church partners with organizations that serve the homeless, help pregnant women choose life over abortion, reach out to college students, and assist people throughout our community. In your own community, there are ways you can serve, and you can go to your wells to share the living water of Jesus.
We must go to our wells! That’s my prayer for you this week.
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