Passage 📖: John 4:1–29

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👋 Introduction to Today’s Lesson

Most of us are careful about where we go, careful about who we talk to, careful about the reputations we protect. There are places we’d rather avoid, conversations we’d rather not have, people we quietly go around. Sometimes it’s because it’s easier. Sometimes it’s because it’s safer. Sometimes it’s because we don’t want to be associated with something complicated.

But what if love doesn’t take the safer route? What if real love moves straight toward the tension instead of around it? In today’s story, Jesus makes a travel decision that seems small — but it isn’t. He chooses to walk into a place most people avoided. And what happens there doesn’t just change one woman’s afternoon — it reveals what God’s love actually looks like in motion.

Because this isn’t just a story about water. Or about worship. Or about one person’s past. It’s about what happens when someone is fully seen… and not rejected. And what that kind of encounter does to a life.

Last week’s story centered around something we all understand: comparison. There were two public figures operating at the same time — John the Baptist and Jesus. At first, John had the spotlight. People were listening to him. Following him. Paying attention. Then slowly, the attention started shifting to Jesus. John’s followers noticed. And they were unsettled. “Everyone is going to Him,” they said. In other words: We’re losing ground. It’s a very human moment. Because most of us don’t struggle when good things happen. We struggle when they happen for someone else. When someone else gets the opportunity. The promotion. The recognition. The momentum. But John responded in a way that’s deeply countercultural. He said, essentially, You can’t take credit for what was given to you in the first place. Influence isn’t something you manufacture. Seasons aren’t something you secure. What you have — your platform, your role, your visibility — has been entrusted to you by God. And when it shifts, that doesn’t mean you’ve failed. It may simply mean your role is changing. Then John said something that reframes everything: “He must increase, and I must decrease.” Not because he thought he was worthless. Not because he lacked confidence. But because he understood the story wasn’t about him. He found peace in alignment — not attention.
The takeaway was simple but powerful: your value isn’t tied to how visible you are. Your worth doesn’t rise and fall with how many people notice you. Life isn’t about staying central. It’s about being faithful to the role God has given you.

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Now when Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus was making and baptizing more disciples than John (although Jesus himself did not baptize, but only his disciples), he left Judea and departed again for Galilee. And he had to pass through Samaria. So he came to a town of Samaria called Sychar, near the field that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob's well was there; so Jesus, wearied as he was from his journey, was sitting beside the well. It was about the sixth hour.[a]
A woman from Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” (For his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.) The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?” (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.) Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” The woman said to him, “Sir, you have nothing to draw water with, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob? He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock.” Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again.[b] The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water.”
Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come here.” The woman answered him, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’; for you have had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband. What you have said is true.” The woman said to him, “Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet. Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship.” Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” The woman said to him, “I know that Messiah is coming (he who is called Christ). When he comes, he will tell us all things.” Jesus said to her, “I who speak to you am he.”
Just then his disciples came back. They marveled that he was talking with a woman, but no one said, “What do you seek?” or, “Why are you talking with her?” So the woman left her water jar and went away into town and said to the people, “Come, see a man who told me all that I ever did. Can this be the Christ?”

Jesus has started gaining attention in the southern region of Judea. More people are coming to Him. Religious leaders are beginning to notice. Influence is shifting. Tension is rising. So Jesus heads north toward Galilee. Between those two regions is Samaria, and John tells us something deliberate: “He had to pass through Samaria.”

On a map, that wasn’t entirely true. Many Jewish travelers took a longer route to avoid Samaria altogether. It was the safer choice — less complicated, less controversial. But Jesus goes straight through. This moment comes right after two major ideas in John’s story so far: John the Baptist said, “He must increase,” and Jesus declared that God loves “the world.” Now we see what that actually looks like in real life. Jesus moves toward someone most people in His culture would have avoided.

The conflict between Jews and Samaritans wasn’t a mild disagreement — it went back hundreds of years. After foreign conquest and political collapse, some Israelites intermarried and developed slightly different religious practices. Over time, this created two distinct communities. The Samaritans had their own version of Scripture, accepting only the first five books of the Bible. They worshiped on a different mountain, Mount Gerizim, and rejected the authority of Jerusalem’s temple.

From the Jewish perspective, Samaritans were theologically wrong, culturally mixed, and spiritually compromised. There was deep mistrust on both sides. So when Jesus walks into Samaria, this isn’t casual travel — it’s cultural trespassing.

Jesus arrives at a well around noon. In that culture, women usually gathered water in the cooler parts of the day — early morning or evening. It was social and communal. But she comes alone, at the hottest hour. That detail is intentional. It suggests social distance. Maybe shame. Maybe exclusion.

In the previous chapter, a respected religious leader named Nicodemus came to Jesus at night — likely to protect his reputation. Here, a socially marginalized woman stands in broad daylight — possibly because her reputation is already damaged. John is drawing a contrast: an insider who comes in darkness, and an outsider who stands in the open.

They’re standing at Jacob’s well — a site connected to Israel’s ancient history. For the woman, that well represents heritage, tradition, identity. “This is our story.” So she asks Jesus, essentially, “Are you greater than Jacob?”

Jesus answers by shifting the entire conversation. In everyday language, “living water” meant fresh, flowing water — better than stagnant well water. But in Israel’s Scriptures, “living water” was also a metaphor for God Himself, the true source of life. So when Jesus says, “The water I give will become a spring… welling up to eternal life,” He isn’t offering a better routine. He’s claiming to be the source — greater than the well, greater than the inherited system, greater than religious tradition. This is not an upgrade. It’s a replacement.

In Jesus’ day, most Jews avoided Samaria. It was easier, safer, and less controversial to take the long way around. But Jesus went straight through. He intentionally moved toward the place — and the person — others avoided. A Samaritan. A woman. Someone socially isolated and morally complicated. This is what He meant when He said God loves “the world.” Not just the impressive. Not just the consistent. The world. Real love doesn’t go around tension — it moves toward it. And if God moved toward us in our mess, the question becomes: are we willing to move toward others in theirs?

Before Jesus ever addresses theology, He addresses thirst. Beneath this woman’s labels — outsider, divorced, complicated — was something deeper: a restlessness nothing had satisfied. And that’s where real change begins. Not when we clean ourselves up, but when we admit we’re thirsty. Jesus doesn’t shame her story — He names it, and she stays in the conversation. That’s the turning point. Transformation begins when we stop hiding and allow ourselves to be known. The real dividing line isn’t between good and bad people — it’s between those who admit their need and those who pretend they don’t have one.

When the conversation gets personal, the woman pivots to a safer debate: which mountain is correct? Which system is right? Jesus reframes it. Worship isn’t about geography or religious performance. It’s about “spirit and truth” — real connection with the real God. Sincerity alone isn’t enough; truth matters. But truth without honesty misses the point. God isn’t looking for polished religion — He’s looking for honesty. He can’t transform the version of us that performs. He transforms the version that is real. And when that kind of relationship becomes real, it overflows. Encounter turns into an invitation.

“She left her water jar.” She came focused on routine, survival, and managing her day. She left focused on telling others what she found. When something deeper satisfies you, the old things lose their grip. Real encounter doesn’t just adjust beliefs — it rearranges priorities. You stop clinging to what once defined you. You move from isolation to invitation, from survival to overflow. When Jesus becomes enough, you don’t have to force change — you simply stop gripping what you once thought you couldn’t live without.

Jesus didn’t have to go through Samaria, but love made it necessary. He didn’t avoid tension. He didn’t protect His image. He didn’t choose the safer route. He moved toward the outsider. He named the thirst beneath the labels. He exposed without condemning. He invited without shaming. And when she stopped hiding — when she admitted her thirst — when she allowed herself to be fully seen — everything changed. She came carrying a jar. She left carrying a story.

That’s the pattern of this passage. God is not looking for the perfect place. He’s looking for honest people. Not polished. Not impressive. Not religiously correct. Honest. Because healing begins where pretending ends. And when you encounter a love that sees your whole story and doesn’t walk away, you don’t just feel lighter — you transform. You stop living in survival mode, and you start living in overflow.

This story asks us two simple questions: Are we willing to admit we’re thirsty? And are we willing to stop going around the people Jesus would move toward? Because when God so loved the world, He meant even those the world considered outsiders. That meant her. And that means us. When living water fills you, it won’t stay contained. It will move outward — toward others — just like He did.

Blessings,

Michael

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