Question
True Worshipers
John 4:1-26
Key Verse: John 4:23
Yet a time is coming and has now come
when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth,
for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks.
1. Read verses 1-6a. Why did Jesus leave Judea and go back to Galilee? (1-3) Where did Jesus have to go through? (4) Where did Jesus arrive and what was his physical condition? (5-6)
2. Read verses 6b-10. Who came to the well? (7a) What did Jesus do? (7b) What was the woman’s response? (9) What did Jesus want her to know? (10) What does the gift of God refer to? (10, Rom 6:23) What is the living water? (10, Jn 7:38-39)
3. Read verses 11-14. What did she think was the living water? (11) How is the living water different from the water of Jacob’s well? (13-14) What will ‘the water’ that wells up become in us? (14b) Where can we get this ‘living water’? (14)
4. Read verses 15-18. What was her response? (15) Before answering her request, what did Jesus first ask her to do? (16) Why? How did she reply? (17) Even though she told the partial truth, why did Jesus gently expose her shameful private life fully? (Jn 3:19-21)
5. Read verses 19-26. Why did she ask about the place of worship? (19-20) What did Jesus teach her about true worship? (21-23) What does it mean to worship the Father in spirit and truth? (23-24; Jn 1:14, 3:5-6) Whom was she waiting for to come? (25) Who did Jesus reveal himself as? (26)
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Message
I WHO SPEAK TO YOU AM HE
John 4:1-26
Key verse 4:26
Then Jesus declared, "I who speak to you am he."
In today’s passage Jesus revealed himself to the woman as the Messiah. The word “Messiah” is used only twice in the entire bible. The first one appears in John chapter one when Andrew told his brother Simon, “We have found the Messiah.” The second one appears in today’s passage when the woman said, “I know Messiah is coming.” When we look at the two times when the word “Messiah” was used we can see the difference in context. The first one when Andrew said, “We have found the Messiah” he was talking about how he and his friend have found the Messiah. He was not talking about how Jesus revealed himself as the Messiah to him. But in today’s passage Jesus revealed himself to the woman as the Messiah. Jesus declared to her, “I who speak to you am he.”
So we want to know through the message how Jesus revealed himself as the Messiah to her. We also want to know if Jesus can reveal himself as our Messiah to us. When Jesus appeared to the woman he had body. But now Jesus does not have body. Can Jesus reveal himself as our Messiah to us as well? These are two questions that we want to think about. ”How Jesus revealed himself as the Messiah to the woman?” “Can Jesus reveal himself as our Messiah?”
Today’s passage starts with the Pharisees. The Pharisees heard that Jesus was gaining and baptizing more disciples than John although it was not Jesus who baptized but his disciples. At that time two baptism ministry was going on, one run by John the Baptist and another by Jesus. And Jesus was gaining and baptizing more disciples than John. Then the Pharisees became uneasy. When John was popular they were unhappy. So the sent investigating team and they asked John, “Why do you baptize people if you are not Christ nor Elijah nor the Prophet?” They could do the same thing to Jesus. So when the Lord learn of this he left Judea and went back once more to Galilee.
“Now he had to go through Samaria”. (v.4) This is very interesting expression. Can Jesus have any other alternative way to go to Galilee instead of going through Samaria. Yes, there are. But the bible says ‘He had to go through Samaria.” Probably it says so because Jesus’ meeting with the Samaritan woman did not happen by chance but it was done by God’s will and providence. Now Judea was in the south like Los Angeles, and Galilee was in the north like San Francisco.
Jesus came to a town in Samaria called Sychar near the plot of ground Jacob had given his son to Joseph. About 1800 years before Jesus came Jacob bought the plot of the ground from a man named Hamor, And Hamor was the father of Shechem. So the name of the land was called Schechem or Samaria. Sychar was a town in Samaria. Jesus, tired as he was from the journey sat down by the well. He wore the same body like us. And it was at the sixth hour which is probably like noon time.
Now when a Samaritan woman came to draw water Jesus asked her, “Will you give me a drink?” There is nothing wrong with a tired and thirsty traveler to ask a cup of water from a woman who was going to draw water. But she said, “"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. Jews did not like Samaritans because they had mixed blood and mixed religion. What happened was once the land of Samaria was conquered by Assyrian empire. Then the Assyrians exported people in Samaria to their land and implanted Assyrian people to Samaria. When Assyrian people came to Samaria they came with their own pagan gods and worship. So the Samaritans had mixed blood and mixed religion. So the Jews in Judea did not like them. So when the Jews wanted to go to Galilee they went around Samaria spending twice of time.
So when the woman said, “You are Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me a drink?” Jesus did not argue with her about who is right between Jews and Samaritans. But he simply told 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."
It is very interesting that Jesus did not use the word ‘I’ but ‘he’. “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that ask you for a drink you would have asked him and he would given you the living water.’ The woman sensed that Jesus was trying to give her something called ‘living water’. So she changed her tone from ‘you’ to ‘sir’, and said, “"Sir, 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 flocks and herds?"
Jesus also did not argue with her who is greater between Jacob and him. He also did not tell her whether he had a bucket or not. Rather he told her, "Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, [14] but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life."
She did not understand all of spiritual meaning of the living water. But she caught one very practical benefit from the living water. It was ‘she wouldn’t be thirsty and she did not need to keep coming to draw water.’ So she told him, “"Sir, give me this water so that I won't get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water." She was ready to take the living water.
Then Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband and come back.” It sounded like Jesus was saying to her, “The living water that I am giving you is very heavy. So go, call your husband and come back.” Then she said, “I have no husband.” She had a boy friend but she did not say that she had a boyfriend.
Then Jesus said, “"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."
She felt very good because the first word she heard from Jesus is “You are right” and the last word she heard was, “What you just said is quite true.” “right” and “true”. In between Jesus said, “The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband.” Jesus did not accuse her or condemn her. He just displayed the fact. So she felt very good. And she was amazed at him because Jesus was talking about five husbands which she did not share. So she said, “19] "Sir," I can see that you are a prophet. [20] Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem."
What’s going on and what is right. Then Jesus declared to her, “Believe me, woman, 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. [23] Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. [24] God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth."
When the woman heard Jesus’ explanation she could not ask any more questions at all. It was a complete explanation. So she said to him, “I know that Messiah" (called Christ) "is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us."
Then Jesus said to her, “I who speak to you am he.”
Now how did Jesus reveal himself as the Messiah to her in today’s passage? Jesus revealed himself as the Messiah to her in three ways.
First, Jesus revealed himself as the Messiah by offering the living water to her. She was thirsty and she did not know that she had a gift of God which is living water. We like gift. We like gift because we do not need to pay anything and still we receive it. But there is no free gift in the world. They say ‘free gift’ but everything called as ‘free gift’ in the world is not free. Everything has strings attached. But the gift of God is completely free and it is the living water. Jesus said, “"Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, [14] but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life." How did Jesus give the living water? First he gave the living water by becoming a thirsty man. In the land of Samaria he was thirsty and tired. He asked, “Will you give me a drink?” On the cross he was thirsty. So he said, “I am thirsty.” Jesus understands our thirst because he went through our own thirst. That is the reason why Jesus offered the living water. The living water Jesus offered. Do you know how Jesus offered the living water? “The water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” The living was probably refers to the Holy Spirit. How could Jesus gives us the living water? He was crucified and rose again on the third day and he offered the living water for us. The good thing about the living water is ‘it never dries out’ because it becomes a spring of water. Also the good thing about the living water is ‘it is inside of a man who drinks.’ You do not need to go anywhere to drink the living water because it is inside of you.
There is a woman called Madam “Guyon” in French. She was seeking God very intensively at her young age. But she could not find him. One day she met a monk. And she confessed her trouble saying, “I am really seeking God but I am not able to find him.” The monk told her, “You have what you are seeking for inside of you.” At that very moment she was born again. She could pray unceasingly. Indeed the living was inside of us and it wells up to eternal life. From that moment she was enjoying the living water and share it with others.
Secondly, Jesus revealed himself as the Messiah by revealing her ‘husband’ problem. When the woman was ready to drink the water she said, “Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water”. She was ready to drink. But Jesus said, “Go, call your husband and come back.” We know that Jesus did not ask her to call her husband because the living water was heavy. Why did he talk about her ‘husband’? It was because her husband was her old well. Her husband is the place where she would go and drink from. But unless she changes the well she cannot drink the water from Jesus. If she wants to drink the living water from Jesus and from her husband at the same time it would be like her drinking pure milk and contaminated milk at the same time. She will be sick. So Jesus talked about ‘husband’. Who is ‘husband’? I don’t have a husband. I am a husband. And many of us even do not have our first husband or wife because we did not marry yet. But who is ‘husband’? Now when we had a group bible study about a couple of weeks ago. When missionary Isaac Kim explained about ‘husband’ God spoke to me, ‘Your husband is ‘eating late at night.’ “Eating late at night?” I developed bad habit of eating late at night like 10 pm or 11 pm for the last twenty years. Now when I eat I am comforted and satisfied and I can even sleep better. When your stomach is full you are sleepy. So you can sleep better. But why did Jesus say, “Your husband is eating late at night?” when I have far more serious weaknesses and sin problems? It’s not a big problem. Looks like. Later it dawned on me that everything and everyone from which and from whom I receive comfort and satisfaction can be my ‘husband.’ So if you want to know what is your husband think about what you do when are under distress or in trouble. Going to moive. Surfing internet, going to someone and talk? Drinking? One person told me that he played a computer game with a bag of chips and he does not know when he ate all the chips. So we have all developed our own way of quenching our thirst, the way of comforting and satisfying our thirst. And it was not a new thing. In the old testament God had already knew. So he said in Jeremiah 2:13 "My people have committed two sins: They have forsaken me, the spring of living water and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water.”
The broken cistern should be mentioned before the woman should drink the living water. “Husband” and “wives” and ‘man’ and ‘woman’, this is eternal topic for all human being. When I was at night grader I was craving for girls. But Korean society does not allow any man to date girls until you go to college. I honored it. So at the age of 9th grader I had such a craving for girls. So I wrote a letter to my school principle. “Dear Sir, bla blab la.” He wrote me back. I don’t remember anything but I remember a couple of sentences because it was so painful to me. He said, “Half of whole human race is women. And we live our whole lives with women.” And I cried out in my heart, “Why are you talking about living our whole lives with women. You are fifties and sixties. So you can talk about living the whole life with women. But I am only night grader! I cannot imagine that I can grow and marry. It looks like a fairy tale. So I cried out in my heart. Now forty years have passed. I married and I went trough adolescent age and I got a daughter and she became even the age of marriage. Do I agree with what my principle said? Yes. What about the fantasy about girls? Did it go away? No, it is still left at the back of my mind. The fantasy about romantic relationship between men and women is so strong. If you look at movies, songs, literatures and Youtube and stories it is very hard to find any songs or stories or movies that does not talk about romantic relationship between man and woman. Even in the stories and movies for children there is romantic relationship many times. I see so many young men and women suffer from all kinds of wounds and scars because they are seeking for romantic relationship. They say they are seeking for ‘soul mates’ for their marriage partners. But what they are seeking is more like, ‘physical mate’ or ‘emotional mate’ or ‘financial mate’ or ‘psychological mate’ because the only soul mate is Jesus. So Jesus had to mention her husband which is like broken cistern in order to give her living water practically. In order to give the living water practically Jesus had to talk about ‘husband’ practically. Just thinking about ‘living water’ doesn’t help you. You all know the living water Jesus offers. But why are you still thirsty? It is because you did not drink the living water practically. Why can’t you drink the living water practically? Because you did not touch your husband problem practically. Do you want to drink the living water practically? Then you have to take care of your husband problem practically.
Now Jesus does not have physical body as he had with the woman. How can Jesus reveal himself as a Messiah for us? Whenever I studied about today’s passage especially Jesus’ remark, ‘The fact is you have had five husbands and the man you now have is not your husband.’ I feel that I am a little bit unhappy because I don’t have such a supernatural power like Jesus. Why do I study Jesus’ supernatural power? Is it just because I need to know Jesus is the Son of God? But I don’t have it. So I cannot apply it to anyone. But then it dawned on me that the way Jesus reveals himself as the Messiah is to us the same way using his supernatural power. It happens when he answers our prayers. You know I have sought a smart phone from last December for a couple of months, and I needed a smart phone. Then I ended up having craving for I phone. So I told my daughter Mary, “Wow! I did not have any thing craving for the last 55 years but now I am craving for the I phone.” I talked to missionary Jacob Chang too. Then Mary told me “I will give you as father’s day gift’ which is like September. Jacob Jang said, “why don’t you have it?” But there are so many things that I need to consider for my phone. The first things is low radiation rate because I hurt my left ear. It is because I used my left ear listening and talking through cell phones. I talk about 1900 minutes a month on an average. So I was looking for low raditation rate. But most of popular smart phones have radiation rater of 1.10 or 1.20. I phone is 1.17. Then among popular phones I found one smart phone which has 0.57. Wow it was a miracle and I know it was a miracle. It was God’s answer. Then I wanted to have phone that is better than I phone because I could get the I phone. I was a T mobil customer and T mobil does not have I phone. So I prayed to God “I want to find a phone better than I phone.” Then one day I went to T mobil store and I found one phone that has a larger number on dial pad and it is easier for me to call because my main function that I am using is dialing and calling rather than taking pictures or using internet. Then battery life comes. This phone had a very short lived battery life. But I found that I can change battery to new battery even two times a day if I want to. When I think about it Jesus performed four or five times of miracles in order to help me to choose one smart phone.
I heard from one person that he wanted to spend more time to God. But his working hours are too many. So he prayed to God. “Lord, I want to spend more time for you but my working hours are too long.” Then the very next day his company called him and offered a part time job. Jesus answered within 24 hours. It was a miracle. One of my bible students told me. He did not believe the bible. He did not believe in Jesus. But one day he made a decision to try and believe. Then he was talking a bicycle from North Hollywood to USC during the night. And he told me that he never had to stop even once because of traffic light. It never happened to him. And he knew it was a miracle. And we met next day. He told me because it was a miracle. And Jesus is revealing himself as the Messiah through many miracles answering our prayers.
You know that the woman was so amazed when Jesus said, “The fact is you have had five husbands and the man you now have is not your husband.” You know why? She went to her towns people later and said, “come, see a man who told me everything I ever did.” She said, ‘come see a man who told me everything I ever did.” Jesus did not tell her everything she ever did. He only talked about husbands. But she said, “come, see a man who told me everything I ever did.” She said it because that was how she felt. And that was the miracle that opened her heart and she was convinced that he was the Christ. So she told her people, “Could be the Christ”. Indeed Jesus can reveal himself through miracles.
Thirdly, Jesus revealed himself as the Messiah to her by explaining about ‘true worship’. The woman asked about the place of worship. Then Jesus declared to him, “Believe me woman a time is when you will worship the Father neither in this mountain nor in Jerusalem.” The place does not matter. “Yet, a time is coming and has come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth.” God is spirit. What does it mean that God is spirit. “God is spirit” means God is not limited by time and space. You can worship God any time and any place especially because Jesus has come. Through Jesus we can worship the Father in spirit and truth anytime and any place. There was a man named brother Lawrence. He was a cook in monastery. His job was a cook. He confessed that “I can worship God better when I am cooking than the set up time for worship and prayer”. Did you hear it? “I have set up time in the morning for worship and prayer. But I confess that I can worship God better while I am cooking.” What does it mean? It means I can worship God better while I am studying at school, and I can worship God better while I am working in my company, and I can worship God better while I am driving. I can worship God better while I am taking shower. All because a time is coming and has come. It is all because Jesus has come. Jesus opens a door for everyone and any place to worship the Father in spirit and truth without any limitation at all.
In conclusion, Jesus revealed himself as the Messiah to the woman. Jesus revealed himself as the Messiah by offering the living water. The living water will be inside of us and it becomes a spring of water welling up to eternal life. Jesus revealed himself as the Messiah by touching her husband problem. In order to drink the living water practically she has to repent practically. Thirdly Jesus revealed himself as the Messiah by explaining how to worship the Father in spirit and truth. The same Jesus can be our Messiah by doing the same thing. He can give us the living water through his death and resurrection. He can reveal himself as the Messiah by performing many miracles and answering our prayers. And he can explain to us how we can worship the Father in spirit and truth anytime and any place.
One word: I who speak to you am he.