Jesus Journey Through Samaria - Living Water part 5

We'll take your Bible this morning and turn with me to the Gospel of John, John chapter 4. Now you know that we took a break from the Gospel of John and we looked at Christmas in the Garden last Sunday morning. I hope that that spoke to you. We looked at the great provision of God for Adam and for Eve. And that's been on my heart for several weeks prior to Christmas. And this morning we will get back in our series in the Gospel of John and we will be in chapter 4 and we'll be in verses 39 through 42. And again this is part of that series Christ the Son of God, Believe and Live.

Now if you're keeping up with our chapter, chapter 4, our study through this chapter, you will see and understand that we're really finishing up what I have called an evangelistic campaign through Samaria. Now if you remember at the beginning of the chapter we saw specifically that Jesus was in that Samaritan city of Sakhar. And I have said through the series, through this title, Jesus Journey Through Samaria, that this is nothing more than an evangelistic campaign and he is finishing up this campaign in these verses. Now back in our first message starting in verse 1, I gave you a breakdown of chapter 4.

If you remember verses 1 through 26, Jesus evangelizes the Samaritan woman. We divided that up into part 1 and part 2. Part 1 was verses 1 through 14 and part 2 was verses 15 and following. And then we saw in verses 27 through 38, Jesus teaching the disciples. Again that was a part 1 and that was a part 2 as well. And then now this morning we're going to see the third portion of this portion of Scripture. And that's verses 39 through 42, Jesus evangelizing the Samaritan people. Now our verses this morning are what I call a powerful conclusion to this evangelistic crusade, this journey through Samaria.

I like the phrase evangelistic campaign because it is very accurate to what we see in the text. Remember what verse 4 says? Verse 4 says that he, that's Jesus, he had to pass through Samaria. Remember what Jesus said in verse 34 to the disciples? Jesus said to them that he, his heart was to do the will of the Father and his heart was to finish the Father's work. Now what does that speak to? Jesus was compelled by the Father to go through Samaria and that is part of this evangelistic campaign. God's work in Jesus' task was to evangelize, and we've already learned, where no one wanted to go. With the Samaritans there in Samaria.

Now I want us to see that our verses this morning are truly connected to our previous verses from our last message in John chapter 4, which were verses 35 through 38. That would have been part 4 of Jesus' journey through Samaria, looking at living water. Now the last message, if I could give it a subtitle, it would have been the harvest. Because remember what we saw there. Jesus is teaching the disciples about the harvest. Jesus had vision for the harvest. He understood the Samaritan people and God's desire to harvest among those people. But the disciples were blind to that harvest. Jesus saw things that the disciples did not see.

Now this morning we will see what I call the results or the fruition of his evangelistic work. If you want to summarize it, verses 35 through 38, we see the vision. Jesus sees the harvest. The disciples were blind, and therefore he was teaching and correcting them. But in verses 39 through 42, we see the results. We see the fruition of this work in this harvest field. Now I'm going to give you the title of the message. And again, it's Jesus' Journey Through Samaria, Living Water, part 5. And this is really a continuation, like I said, of this harvest. We're going to see the results, the fruition of this work there with the Samaritans.

Now out of these verses, we will look at three main truths. We will see the evangelism by this woman, verse 39. We will study the continued ministry of Jesus in verse 40. And then we will look at the evangelism of Jesus in verse 41 through 42. Let's go to the scripture together. And let's read the passage that's before us. "And from that city, many of the Samaritans believed in his name." Remember, we already know the name of the city because we saw that in verse 5. That was the city of Sakhar there in Samaria. So this is kind of a summary, a summation. And what does it say?

It says that many of the Samaritans believed in his name because of the word of the woman who testified. "He told me all the things that I have done." So when the Samaritans came to him, they were asking him to stay with him, and he stayed there two days. And many more believed because of his word, and they were saying to the woman, "It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves and know that this one is indeed the Savior of the world." Now you see how we're going to break these verses down. It's very simple. And we're going to really finish up Jesus' journey through Samaria with part 5.

And like I said earlier, we're going to see the results of Jesus working in this harvest field. So if you're taking notes, I want you to write down truth number one, the evangelism by this woman. The evangelism by this woman. This comes right out of verse 39. Let's go back and look at the verse together. "And from that city many of the Samaritans believed in him because of the word of the woman who testified," and here is a quotation, "He told me all the things that I have done." Now all of the translations that we use say basically the same thing. But I want you to notice something.

In looking back, we see that this woman leaves the situation in verse 28. You remember that? Verse 28 says, "So the woman left her water pot, and she went into the city." The disciples had really barged into this meeting that Jesus had between this woman and Jesus. They barged in. And this woman leaves the story, and now she is brought back into this story. But we must take notice of her role. Notice her role in this situation changes. In verse 28, she leaves, and now she comes back. And we see that she enters the story as a witness, one who is proclaiming her testimony. In our language, we would understand this.

She comes back as a soul winner. We see that her role changes. Now all of the translations that we study have the word testimony. But the literal reading of this portion of verse 39 in the original is the word of the woman's witnessing. And we use that word witness and testimony interchangeably many times in our translations and in our language. This speaks of her evangelizing among the people. Now as we can see, we have a limited amount of information here in verse 39 concerning her witness. But if we take verse 39, and if we consider what Jesus had given her earlier, we can put together some details about this woman's evangelism.

And I want you to jot these things down. First, I want you to see that she confessed her past sin to the people. She confessed her past sin to the people. What does verse 39 say? He told me all the things that I have done. But if we go back to verse 16, what do we see? He had already talked to her about living water, and then he abruptly says to this woman, "Go call your husband in verse 16 and come here." And the woman answered and said, "I have no husband." And Jesus proceeds to call out her sin, to call her on the carpet, and expose her sin and her sinful lifestyle to her.

And we must see that Jesus' tactic, I want to use that word tactic, was to deal with her sin and her sinful condition. And then she related her experience with Jesus to them. She relates her past sin and her past sinful lifestyle to them. Jesus started with her sin, and in her witness, she started with her sin. So really, she's just modeling what was brought before her. Jesus started with her sin, and she starts with her sin. So what do we see? She confessed her past sin and her lifestyle to them. Second, I want you to see that she professed Jesus as the Messiah to them. She professed Jesus as the Messiah.

Now this is not specifically spelled out in verse 39, that she confessed him as the Messiah. But we do see two indications which make us believe that she confessed him as the Messiah. Let me show you these indications. First, this was the second issue brought up by Jesus to her as he witnessed to her. What do we see in verse 26? Jesus openly and for the first time directly admitted that he was the Messiah. But before verse 26, Jesus was dealing with her erroneous religion. She explained to Jesus, when the Messiah comes, he will explain all these things to me.

And Jesus goes on to say, that Messiah that you're talking about and hungering for, I am he. So Jesus openly and directly confessed that he was the Messiah to her. And that was the second thing on his list when he dealt with her. Then second, I want you to see the Samaritans did confess him as the one who is indeed the Savior of the world. Now, of course, this was after Jesus administered to them as well, if we fast forward in this account. But what do we see? That was a major portion of what was dealt with here.

And we can logically deduce that she had to have professed that he was the Messiah, because it seems like she is basically witnessing according to what was given to her. The third thing I want you to see is that many believe and were converted. Many believed and were converted. And from that city, many of the Samaritans believed in him. This is evangelism. This is evangelistic success. She, by her witness, by her testimony, was a sole winner. Now, I do not want to say that she went out and she asked people to pray prayers like many people do in our culture.

She went out and she testified to what she knew and what she had heard and what she had experienced. And God gave the increase because what we see is that many believed, many were converted. Now, this is a simple and a short verse, but we see that this woman of terrible sin and reputation immediately became a woman of evangelism. She witnessed, she testified about Christ to her people. And I like how MacArthur kind of wraps this verse up. MacArthur says, "We can assume that she gave the details of his supernatural knowledge and not just a summary of what she heard." So what do we see?

She shared so much, it wasn't just what she heard verbatim. It was part of that supernatural revelation of who Christ was to her. And we see her doing, I believe, the very same thing. Now, I want you and I to notice some things here. Notice that she did not need to go through a witness training class. Notice that she did not wait until she knew more of the Bible. Notice that she did not wait until she had a witnessing partner. And notice she did not even wait till she was sent out. Now, aren't we familiar with that type of language? No doubt there are people in here, you've gone through witness training.

No doubt you have been tagged with a witnessing partner. No doubt you have said, "I cannot go witness because I don't know my Bible like I should." No doubt some of you said, "I'm not going out to witness because I'm not the one that sent out to do it." But notice that she transcended all of that fault. Because what did she do? She immediately went out and she testified. She witnessed.

And see, I think a lot of us, although witness training can be good, and although knowing the Bible is good, and although going out with a partner can be good, and although being sent out can be good, I think many of us have allowed excuses like this to prevent us from going and witnessing and testifying. And I want you to notice what she did. She simply testified and witnessed too what she had experienced and heard and learned and knew. She had experienced something. It was the saving power of the living Lord Jesus. The gospel had worked in her life, and so she went out and she testified and she witnessed.

In February of 1910, there was one man named Watkin Roberts who went as a missionary to the Homar people of Northeast India. I've mentioned this missionary before at different times, but I want you to listen to some of the details. The Homar people of Northeast India, they were one of the worst tribes of the Indian peoples and the British government struggled to subjugate them. They are in what's called the modern-day state of Manipur, if you go there today. In 1871, the Homar warriors beheaded some 500 tea plantation workers and British soldiers.

But Watkin Roberts went to these people because he heard of their great need of the gospel, and Roberts was greatly impacted by a move of God in his native land of Wales. There was the great Welsh revival of 1904 and 1905. Watkin Roberts went there simply armed with a copy of the New Testament. Through his short missionary work, one tribal leader, Chawunga, was converted, as well as some of the other tribal leaders. Chawunga believed that God had called his own son to translate the Bible into their native language.

After studying in India and Scotland and later America, his own son, Rachunga Padati, completed the New Testament translation into his own native language in 1958, and the New Testament was finally published in their language in 1960. What am I trying to show you? One man, one witness, and entire people impacted. Modern church history. Difficulties? Yes. Was he ill-trained? Yes. But he was armed with the New Testament, and the history tells us that he used primarily the gospel of John. And what we see, the evangelism of this woman.

And we can look around us in church history, and we can see great examples of singular individuals who by our standards would have been considered ill-trained and ill-equipped, but what did they do? They went and they testified and they witnessed about what they knew and they had experienced, and God did great things. The evangelism of this woman. Truth number two, I want us to see the continued ministry of Jesus. Now we have just this one verse, verse 40. Look at the verse with me. So when the Samaritans came to him, they were asking him to stay with him, and he stayed there two days.

Now here, again, we have a short verse, and in this verse we see what I call the continued ministry of Jesus. Now what do I mean by continued? Jesus administered to the woman. Jesus here in Samaria administered to his disciples, and through this the Samaritan people were touched, but now Jesus is being asked to stay an extended period of time with them. Now notice that the word or the phrase "stay" is used two times in this verse. The King James uses the word "tarry" and "abode," and it means the same thing that our modern translations say, the word "stay." Now this places an emphasis on Jesus purposefully staying two days.

Now two things out of this verse that I want you to notice. First, they ask him to stay. Go back to the verse. So when the Samaritans came to him, remember they had experienced this woman's witness, they come to Jesus, they were asking him to stay with them. Now this is, and I want you to catch it, a progression in their spiritual hunger and their spiritual desires. They had a hunger start up in them from the woman's witness, and now they have a hunger from their personal encounter with Christ. So what do we see? They ask him to stay. The second thing I want you to see is that Jesus stayed two days.

Now the text does not say that they ask him to stay a specific amount of time. The text simply states that Jesus elected to stay there two days. Now this is a simple verse, but in this verse we see that Jesus continued his ministry among the Samaritan people. So you see the picture? She evangelizes, they come to Jesus. They ask him to stay, and he stays two more days. They ask, and Jesus, knowing their hearts, gladly gave of them himself to them and to their spiritual need. Now what do I want us to see out of this verse? I think what we need to see here is a need for continued ministry.

In whatever ministry endeavor we are part of, we see the need, now listen, to continue. We live in such a fast-paced world, we want results now, and we live in such a fast-paced world that it has really ruined a lot of ministry. We need to continue in our ministry, no matter how great and no matter how small. We need to continue with those children that we minister to. We need to continue with that witness at work, with that witness in our family. We need to continue in discipling that individual that God has put in our life. We need to continue in pouring into the lives of our family and into our children. Look, it just takes time.

We live in a fast-paced world, we want results now. If we can't pop it in the microwave, if we can't get it fast food style, we move on. But what do we see? Jesus, he just continued with them, and he gave them what they needed. Again, church history gives us lots of individuals who continued in ministry. I give you an example of one. I would encourage you to read about George Mueller. George Mueller biographies are everywhere, long versions and short versions. I would encourage you to read about this great man of God, he was German in descent, that God used in a mighty way. But I want you to see that he continued in ministry to orphans.

George Mueller started caring for orphans in 1836 in his own home with his first wife. His first wife died, and he later remarried. But if we study his life and we see the progression of his life, he started ministering to orphans in 1836, and by 1870, he was operating five orphan homes with over 1700 children involved. Mueller left that orphanage ministry after 39 years, just after the death of his first wife. And after he remarried, he began a second career of evangelism and missions that lasted for over 17 years. Now what am I showing you? He continued in that ministry.

And although we have books, and although we have biographies, those glamorize that work, but in his day, it was simply continuing in that work. And Jesus continued with the Samaritans. Let's move on. I want us to see truth number three, and that is the evangelism by Jesus. This evangelism by Jesus. We will pick up with this in verse 41, in verse 42. What do we see here? And many more believe because of his word. Now let me pause there. What do we see? Verse 39, the woman, she goes to the Samaritans. They believe. They come to Jesus. They ask Jesus to stay. He agrees to stay and does stay for two more days.

Verse 41, and many more believe because of his word. Verse 42, and they were saying to the woman, "It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves and know that this one, capital one, deity, is indeed the savior of the world." Now these last two verses are really a summation of the results of Jesus' two-day stay with these people, these Samaritans. This is a continuation, really, of the woman's ministry with the Samaritan people. Really, we can say it like this. Jesus is building upon her ministry. And I want us to break down these verses and notice some truth.

First, we see that many more were converted out of verse 41. I want you to go back and look at that text. And many more believe because of his word. Now notice the text reads, "Many more believed." All of the translations that we study say virtually the same thing. Now the original text says something that I want you to catch. The original text can read, "More by much or far more." This is a step above what we have seen in verse 39. What do we see in verse 39? And from that sine, many of the Samaritans believed. But what we see in verse 41 is a step above in the language. Because what he is saying is, "Many more believed." Much more believed.

Far more believed. What do we see? When the woman witnessed, many believed. And when Jesus witnessed, far more, many more believed. And this indicates that much more than two or three more people were converted. It's not like the woman evangelized and Jesus came along and evangelized a couple more. No, when Jesus came, there was a great harvest because far more did believe. Second, I want you to see, they were converted because of Jesus' witness. They were converted because of Jesus' witness. Verse 42, "And they were saying to the woman, 'It is no longer because of what you said that we believe.'" What do we see with this?

They had already heard the witness of the woman. But what we see is, now they're hearing the witness and the word of Jesus. Jesus did simply what the woman did, but Jesus being the Messiah was witnessing and testifying as to who He was and what they needed. And what do we see? Many more were converted because not just of what the woman did, because of Jesus' witness. And the third thing, we see that they were testifying to their conversion.

Look at verse 42, "And they were saying to the woman, 'It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know this one is indeed the Savior of the world.'" See, they were testifying openly and loudly to their own conversion. Notice they were testifying to this woman who had brought them the first witness of Christ. Now, they are testifying that Jesus has brought them a witness. Now, they are not nullifying her witness, but they are affirming her witness. They are confirming her witness by accepting the witness of Christ to them. This isn't a competition. This is confirmation. You see?

They were testifying to their conversion. The fourth thing I want you to see is they confess Jesus as the Savior of the world. Go back and look at this verse. "And they were saying to the woman," now this is a quotation, "It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves and know that this one is indeed the Savior of the world." Now, the King James, it reads that this is indeed the Christ, the Savior of the world. The English Standard is a little different.

It reads, "We know that this indeed is the Savior of the world." Now, this is a very important confession, and I want you to notice some details about this confession. These were non-Jews. These were not Israelites. These were non-Jews confessing that Jesus, a Jew, was the Messiah and the Christ. Now, this is a major and a significant confession. This speaks to the depth of Jesus' role here. He was not only the Savior to the Jews or the Israelites, but he was the Savior of the world. And see, this contradicts the Jewish belief that the Savior was for only the Jews.

Remember the disciples, they could not understand why he would go to the Samaritans, because they were holding on to that erroneous view that God did not love the Gentiles. But what do we see? This contradicts that erroneous Jewish belief. But notice something as well. This confession as Jesus' Savior of the world is used only once here in this Gospel, and John also uses it in 1 John chapter 4 verse 14. But what do we see? This is similar language in other places in the New Testament. Luke chapter 1 verse 47, 1 Timothy chapter 1 verse 1, chapter 2 verse 3, chapter 4 verse 10, as well as places in Titus and in Jude.

Now why am I giving you this? There are other places besides the Gospel of John where this language is used, Jesus being the Savior of the world. Now what is the significance of this? This transcends the idea that Jesus died for a specific particular group. Jesus died for others than the Jews. And see, this is their testimony. This is their testimony of what the woman and Jesus had done among them. This is their profession of Jesus Christ. Through this evangelistic campaign, Jesus had gained many followers who readily professed him as the Messiah, as the Christ.

And listen, these were non-Jews, the outcasts, the ones that good orthodox Jews would have gone around the long way to avoid them. And so what do we see? This is the evangelism by Jesus. And now at the end of his evangelism, they are saying we know that he is the Savior, the Messiah, the Christ of the world. Now, what do we need to see here? We must see and we must learn that many times the Lord has a harvest in people and places where we least expect it. If we are not careful, we can be like the disciples. We can be blind to the harvest. We can have faulty vision.

And if we have vision and a willingness to work among any people and place, listen, we can see a harvest like we've never seen before. What must we see? Many times the Lord will have a harvest in places where we least expect it. Again, I've mentioned this example before. It would benefit each of us if we would study a little bit about the life of D.L. Moody. D.L. Moody was considered by some to be one of the greatest evangelists that's ever come out of our country. And many people debate that, but he was used in evangelism in a mighty way. Now, before his evangelistic work, we see that he had a very, now listen, ordinary work. D.L.

Moody was born in 1837 and he ministered before and during the American Civil War. It's very interesting to study how he ministered during that great conflict. And like I said, he's remembered mostly because of his evangelism, but before his evangelistic career, he had a career of ministering to children in what was called the South Side of Chicago. He ministered to what they called the street urchins, children who roamed and lived on the streets, the poor, the dirty, the outcast. And when he just got started, he even started meeting in an abandoned saloon.

And within one year of securing his first meeting place, which was that old saloon, he had over 600 children attending his meetings. And what was he doing? He was loving children. He was educating children according to the word of God. He was teaching them the word of God and he was evangelizing children. And that later birth, now listen, a church, because it went beyond evangelizing children. It went into evangelizing their parents and others. And what do we see? D.L. Moody evangelized where many fail to even see a harvest. As a matter of fact, his church is still there today, although he's been dead and gone. And what do we see?

This evangelism by Jesus. And we must see that Jesus evangelized with great success, mind you, at a place where no Jew ever wanted to go. Now, as we conclude this message, what have we been looking at? This is the fifth week. Jesus journey through Samaria, living water. Now, why have I held on to the title of that message that long? Because that is exactly what we see from verse one of chapter four, all the way to verse 42. Jesus is about taking living water, taking living water to those Samaritans, where no Jew wanted to go. Jesus had a journey. He had a plan from the Father to do what?

To take the gospel to these unreached and untouched people, to take them living water. And in the process, he taught and he corrected and he equipped his own disciples. And what do we see in this message? Listen, the fruition of that work, the results of that work, because when Jesus leaves, what does he leave? A town, a village, reached by the gospel, many were impacted by his witness and her witness. So what do we see? The conversion of one woman did so much. You see that? In summary, this conversion of one woman and the presence of the gospel did so much in that untouched, unreachable place. Now, again, she was the wrong breed.

She was a Samaritan. She was the wrong religion. Remember, she had an erroneous view of Judaism. And she was in the wrong location because Samaria and Saqqar, it was on the wrong side of the tracks. But what do we see? The conversion of one woman brought about so much kingdom work, a people that no one wanted to go to, but yet so many were converted. And if you continue in this journey through the New Testament and then into the book of Acts, you will see that it was the apostles, the church fathers, who came back into this area to work where Jesus and this woman had evangelized.

Now, as I conclude in application, I want to ask you a question. Could we be like that woman? Insignificant, overlooked, maybe avoided. Could we as a church be like that woman? The ones that someone would overlook and never expect. Could we be in his hand to be used to do something? Now, listen, greater than we are, because that's exactly what happened in this woman. God did something greater than she was. She impacted and he impacted a whole village. And just as Jesus did something bigger in that day, I believe God can use us as individuals and families and as a church to do something that's bigger than we are. Amen.

God give us the vision to see it and the heart and the ability to be a part of it. Lord Jesus, thank you for this message this morning.