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Have you ever missed out on an opportunity in life? Have you ever had that feeling of looking back and saying “I wish I could do that all over again and do things differently”? Imagine someone gives you a tip off that they’ve found a good price on fuel, but you delay too long and the price goes up another 20p a litre. “Wish I could do that one all over again”. Please look with me at John 4.10:

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.

Praise God that he is kind enough to give us second chances! You may be here as a follower of Jesus and you know how easy it is for Jesus to get obscured from our life. And when he gets obscured, our faith becomes a burden – it becomes another brick in the backpack. “I have to do x because I’m a Christian. I can’t do y because I’m a Christian.” And there’s so much that obscures Jesus from our worship. It might be work (all the things we need to get done) a never ending to-do list. It might be worries – so many things out of our control, going wrong, so many problems with no obvious solutions. It might be wants (a relationship, a job, a holiday, a family), something so big it obscures everything else.

Let’s let Jesus minister to us through this passage, let him romance us back to himself. Let him strengthen us for the coming week. Let him remind us who he is and of the gift of God he came to give. You may not be a Christian – please don’t pass up the chance to get a good look at Jesus. So here’s the aim for the next few minutes: To get a good look at Christ and receive his ministry in our lives. John 4.10 tells us that God is fundamentally a giver – and Jesus is the means by which the gift comes. Let’s follow Jesus and see God’s Gift restore lives and reunite peoples.

1. Restore lives – the Samaritan Woman

If you know the story, you know what’s coming up. What have we seen so far? A Samaritan woman, on her own, in the middle of the day, when the sun is at its fiercest, beating down on the countryside. No one else is getting water at this time – why is she on her own? Is she avoiding the crowd? Or is the crowd avoiding her? What do you think she thinks when she sees Jesus (a tired Jewish man) sitting by the well. Perhaps she thinks it doesn’t matter, he’s a man, and a Jew – he won’t want anything to do with me. I’ll just get my water and be on my way. What do you think her reaction might have been when Jesus speaks to her? She doesn’t know who he is, she doesn’t know what his intentions are – what do you think might be the tone of her response? Surprise? Suspicion? Fear?

Watch and listen how Jesus takes charge of this situation when he’s tired and thirsty and gradually leads this woman to see that he has come to give her a something she desperately needed, even though she couldn’t have told him what it was. John 4.10-12:

…“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.”…“Sir, you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? 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?

By the way, Greek has a way to ask questions that expect a negative reply, in a way you can’t literally put into English (the ESV relies on getting the tone of the question right), something like “do you really think you’re greater than our father Jacob” – implication obviously not. John 4.13-14:

Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, 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.”

You may have heard it said as a general rule of thumb, a human being can live for 3 weeks without food, 3 days without water and 3 minutes without oxygen. Jesus’ use of water as an illustration works on so many levels. On the one hand, it definitely picks up echoes of Old Testament prophecy about the coming of the Lord, but on a universal human level it reminds us that we are fundamentally dependent creatures. And he uses it to expose the things we depend on instead of God. All of us know that we can’t expect to live without water. None of us think “I’ve had a drink today, that’ll keep me going from here on”. And yet, we do kind of think that life will don’t we? “If only I got that job – I’ll be happy”. “If only I had a wife or a husband – I’ll be happy”. Then we have a mid-life crisis because either we haven’t achieved those things and we begin to worry if we ever will, or we have achieved them and we realise they don’t satisfy. We’re still thirsty! Jesus uses physical water to expose the things we depend on instead of God. Listen to Jesus with this woman, and put yourself in her shoes – what would Jesus say to you? (John 4.15-16):

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.” He told her, “Go, call your husband and come [back] here.”

What would he say to you or to me? Get your tax returns. Show me your internet history. (John 4.17-18):

…“I have no husband,” she replied. Jesus said to her, “You are right when you say you have no husband. 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.”

Now we’re not told why the woman has had five husbands or who left who. Either way, her life is a tragic mess and she feels that every day when she goes to get water on her own. This is not a life anyone would choose. And now she feels compelled to settle with a man who won’t marry her, to get what little satisfaction, security and status she can – and there seems to be no way out for her. Until Jesus came along and asked her for a glass of water – so that he could give her the real thing she has been searching for.

The thing we are thirsting for is life with God. Just as we were made to live with food, water and oxygen – we were made to live with God. We can try and substitute God for other things (husbands, careers, money, thrills, children), but they can’t sustain us like God. They leave us thirsty. The gift God gives is himself and the gift of God restores her life. God wants us to turn to him so he can free us from slavery to things that can’t satisfy us and provide for us in all the ways that they can’t.

This woman looked to men to give her status, security and satisfaction, and one by one they let her down. She felt she had to make more and more compromises (to give up more and more in order to get less and less) and in the end lived with a man who wouldn’t marry her. Jesus frees her from that by saying “come to me, let me give you the gift of God”. Give your life to me, instead of the men, and I will really look after it.

Take a moment to take an audit of who or what is running our lives. For some of us it will be obvious, we’ll feel enslaved to something painful or shameful. It might be pornography, gambling, a painful relationship. For some of us it may be more subtle – like a resentment bubbling inside us because we feel enslaved to good things that we’ve been asked to do like serving at church, or taking care of our family. We know it’s a good thing, but we feel trapped by it. The temptation is to keep it in the dark, because we don’t want what happened to this woman to happen to us (to get shunned by our community) either at church or in a friendship group. Can I ask us to take a quick audit of what’s running our lives and causing us to do what we do. And can I ask us to speak to another Christian about it this week? It might be your spouse, or your parents, someone in your home group. Maybe there’s no one obvious who comes to mind – in that case maybe contact someone on the church leadership to arrange a chat. Let’s make JPC a place where we can help each other drink from the water Jesus gives us, and help each other resist the urge to give our lives to things that can’t satisfy or save us. We do it together because the gift of God restores lives and it:

2. Reunites People

Restoration of individuals and reunion of peoples are two sides of the same coin because God saves us into his people. Let’s go back to the woman and Jesus. The woman moves the conversation from water and husbands to the division between her people and the Jews (John 4,19-20):

“Sir,” the woman said, “I can see that you are a prophet. Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.”

Worship brings people together. Jeroboam knew that as we saw in our Old Testament reading. After Solomon’s reign, the Northern tribes of Israel rebelled against the foolish and wicked king Rehoboam. The people of Samaria were the offspring of that rebellion – they were religious and political enemies to the Jews. After Jerobaom’s rebellion, God sent a prophet to condemn his religious idolatry and his people’s false worship. Now, about a thousand years later, God has sent his ultimate prophet (Jesus Christ) to reunite the people whom Jeroboam led away (John 4.21-26):

…“Woman,” Jesus replied, “believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. 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. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.” The woman said, “I know that Messiah” [called Christ] is coming… When he comes, he will explain everything to us.” Then Jesus declared, “I, the one speaking to you—I am he.”

Jesus conversation with this woman is the beginning of reconciliation between two communities that had hated each other for centuries. The basis of the reconciliation is worship of the God who sought them out. People are not saved according to geography or culture but by the Grace of the True God who calls us and lives in us by his Spirit. If we want reconciliation with the true God, we must have reconciliation with his people – otherwise it is not the true God we worship, but a God we make in our own image who only saves people like us. One implication of that for us is if we want to be part of churches that really celebrate diversity and equality and inclusion – then they must be churches that love God’s word and long to be shaped by it. If you want your children to grow up to be men and women who love people who are different to them, who will grow up to build bridges not walls – then help them read God’s word and help them see God’s rich vision for the nations and his deep deep love for people made in his image, and help them understand that he is seeking worshippers from all peoples who will worship him in Spirit and Truth. Help them understand their place in God’s world, and see that they have a place in God’s family because God has sought them out. Listen how Jesus teaches his disciples and let him teach us, and let’s be those who remind one another who we are and who God has called us to be and to do (John 4.27-38):

[Jesus’] disciples returned and were surprised to find him talking with a woman. But no one asked, “What do you want?” or “Why are you talking with her?” Then, leaving her water jar, the woman went back to the town and said to the people, “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Messiah?” They came out of the town and made their way toward him. Meanwhile his disciples urged him, “Rabbi, eat something.” But he said to them, “I have food to eat that you know nothing about.” Then his disciples said to each other, “Could someone have brought him food?” “My food,” said Jesus, “is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work. Don’t you have a saying, ‘It’s still four months until harvest’? I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest. Even now the one who reaps draws a wage and harvests a crop for eternal life, so that the sower and the reaper may be glad together. Thus the saying ‘One sows and another reaps’ is true. I sent you to reap what you have not worked for. Others have done the hard work, and you have reaped the benefits of their labour.”

One preacher summarised it like this: The disciples are concerned about sandwiches. Jesus is concerned about souls. Have you ever looked forward to a delicious meal after a long day’s work? When my brother and I came home from university, mum would celebrate our return by cooking steak and baked potato with a creamy sauce and fried mushrooms and tomatoes. Do you see what Jesus is saying here? He gets as much pleasure and satisfaction by doing his Father’s will and completing his work – that you or I do from feeding on our favourite food.

From the beginning of eternity, Jesus was waiting to come to earth to seek and to save the lost. He was eagerly anticipating meeting this woman and her people and bringing them to the Father. And he wants his disciples to know his special, unique joy of being a part of that work.
He’s saying the time of waiting is over. The harvest is here. You can know the special joy that I get from doing my Father’s work and bringing it to completion. He’s not saying open your eyes and see that some people who are now ready to become Christians – as though they turn a different colour like wheat when they’re ready to believe. He’s saying look at everyone in light of the time we’re living in.Jesus has come – the Father is gathering in his people from all over the world. As he sent Jesus, Jesus is sending us to them so that they might receive the gift of God, have their lives restored and be reunited with God’s people.

I thank God for the Christians who did that for me. One family encouraged all their children to pick one friend from school to pray for. Every time they met as a family to read the bible and pray together they would ask the children to pray for each of their friends. One of those friends they prayed for was me. The only connection I had with that family was I got the train with their son. He was encouraged to look at me in light of the Gospel as someone who could receive eternal life through Jesus. I got the train with this boy for three years, and God in his grace opened my heart to believe the summer after I left school. The post-script to that story is I met his sister a while later and said I used to go to school with her brother and that I caught the train with him.

And her face lit up “Oh you’re PA – we prayed for you every day as a family” she said. It’s the most inclusive thing you can do as a Christian – to pick people no one else would care about – they could be the Taliban, they could be the Big Issue salesman, they could be refugees, they could be next door neighbours…and pray that they would receive the gift of God. Maybe you could start or restart that tradition as a family today. Or maybe you could start it with your home group if you meet in one. Ask your homegroup to pray for you to go out amongst the people in your life with new eyes and fresh purpose share the gift of God. That you might know the joy Jesus had when he did his Father’s work. And that they might receive the gift of God, and have their lives restored and be reunited with God’s people.