The Woman of Samaria: Part II (John 4:1-42)

Reminds me a little bit of where I grew up as a boy in Mississippi. In every filling station there were two fountains of water. One was clearly marked and a white person didn’t dare drink at that one. You might be contaminated. You know it took the Church of God even a long time to get enough religion to purge out some of this same kind of racial prejudice. I don’t know if some people have ever been really run through the sanctifying washing machine enough to get it all out even yet.

Jesus just beautifully and wonderfully sidestepped the whole racial debate. He didn’t get bogged down in an argument there. Instead He offered her something – the water of life. Oh, that’s one hang-up that Pentecostals have who try to witness – to turn off on tangents. That’s what the devil wants. He’d love to get you to argue instead of offering somebody what you have in the name of Jesus. It’s a trick to get you side tracked.
When we have so much to offer, we have to get side tracked on some kind of question that will just simply do damage to both people involved. So He sidestepped that question by offering her water. He said, “If you knew who it was you wouldn’t be worried about a racial question now. You wouldn’t be worried about whether I’m a Jew and you’re Samaritan. You would ask of me and I would give you water of life so that you would never have to draw again.”
Well, she starts to needle Him in a different direction. She says, “Where in the world are you going get water like that and how can you get it? The well is deep.” She’s talking about that shaft of that dug well that reaches finally down to a spring where a spring feeds the well.

But Jesus is saying, “If you drink this water that Jacob dug, this well, you will thirst again. But if you drink the water I give you will never thirst because this water will be in you a spring.” In the Greek text the words are different. The one for well means a dug shaft well. The one that Jesus used when He said it will be a well of water springing up – that’s the word for spring.
Some of the most beautiful places I know of in the United States are places that are fed with beautiful live springs. I love to go there and just sit. I remember one place where we used to live way out in the country. You went way out on a dirt road. After you got to our house, you knew if a car came toward that house he wasn’t going any further because we were about the end of the line. You could still walk on though and turn off that road into a lane. You would go out through a pine grove and out there was old man H. Y. Walker’s place. That’s one of the most beautiful spots I’ve ever seen, because of an overflowing well that’s just springing up all the time. Water just comes gushing out of the ground, and you hear it before you get there.
Oh, listen friends I want to tell you now that Jesus is saying when you drink of living water you have a spring. It is a spring that starts springing into everlasting life. It’s not just up one day and then it stops tomorrow. Oh, it creates something within you that’s in touch with divine life. It’s in touch with divine power. It’s in touch with the world to come. It never stops. It never runs dry. It is a spring.
Any person can drink from that that spring. It doesn’t matter about race or color. Jesus “goes through Samaria” in order to give to the Samaritans. Jesus goes through China in order to give to the Chinese. Jesus goes through Russia in order to give to the Russians. Jesus goes through Africa in order to give to the Africans. Jesus goes through Latin America in order to give to the Latin Americans. Jesus goes through your house in order to give to you.

She wanted to just get Him in a good fuss about where you are suppose to worship. Jesus shifted it again. Oh, look at Him working through this hang-up she had. He said, “Now listen! That mountain or this mountain – this place or that place – is not what really counts. But the hour comes and it now is that people who worship God worship Him in Spirit and in Truth.” Hallelujah!
That just simply means you worship Him according to the Word and you worship in the power of the Spirit. If we don’t have anything else in worship, let’s have the Truth and let’s have the Spirit. God, give us the Word and give us the Holy Spirit or our worship is dead, formal and meaningless.
She wanted to hold on to traditions instead of turning loose and embracing the future with Jesus Christ. And some people are still hung up there and can’t have faith and can’t have power because they’re hanging on to traditions instead of turning loose and embracing Jesus Christ and all that He offers through the power of the Holy Spirit.
I have to be careful right there or I’ll start to meddle and sort of get into a briar patch and get all tore up. Because some how I feel like these days that every thing that would side track us or hold us back that some way we need to shake our selves free from it and get into the full stream of the flowing Pentecostal power and grace and let the Lord move upon us in these days just like He wants to.

The woman got so excited then. Every time she had tried to start an argument she was brought to enlightenment. I’m saying to you now that you may have struggled, you may have needed help, you may have doubted, you may have gone through all kinds of places.
Jesus understands doubts. He understands struggles. He understands your hangups. He understands your arguments. He can put them aside. I can’t reason with you, but the Word of God can search you out. I can’t reason and convince you, but the Holy Spirit can minister to your life and free you from doubts and worries and hang-ups that keep you from God. Hallelujah!

She forgot all about why she had come to the well. She left her precious water pot and somehow I think she left with it all her arguments and all her traditions and all of the barriers that she’d built up in her own heart and mind against Jesus. I think for the first time in her life she was breathing fresh air and saying in her own heart, “Here’s a man who doesn’t seem to care what I’ve been but he points to me and he tells me about a future that looks good and bright. Here’s a man that has come to me where I was and showed me there is something rich and beautiful. It’s on the threshold of my life.”

She forgot about her water pot and went running into town Thrilled, excited, she may not be on the top level of faith yet, but she’s on the way and she’s thrilled and excited. She starts saying, “Come, see this man. Come see this man that told me about my life. Couldn’t this be the Christ? Isn’t this the Messiah? Isn’t this the one that even we look for. Come see Him.”
Any other time that town wouldn’t have paid any attention to that woman. But there was something about her today, her look, the sound of her voice, excitement, there’s something about her today that sparks enough interest that the whole town turns out. They see Him. They hear Him. Two days He stays in Samaria. And they say, “Oh, not only is this the Christ.” They’re convinced about that. “But also He is the Savior of the world. And that means us too. Universal Savior.”