Jesus Breaks Prejudice: Living Water for All

John never let the old man in. Even if John was in his mid eighties when he wrote, John stayed engaged, rewired instead of retired, and the church is still getting blessed by it today. John opens with the biggest truth first: Jesus has eternally existed, Jesus is God, Jesus became human, and Jesus gives the right to become children of God to all who believe and accept him.

The signs in John point to who Jesus is anyway. The water turned into wine was not just a neat miracle at a wedding. The sign showed that Jesus is the promised Messiah. Nicodemus saw those signs and came at night because his curiosity could not stay quiet. Jesus cut right to the core with him: “Unless you are born again, you cannot see the kingdom of God.”

John then shows Jesus blowing the minds of his own guys. Prejudice had been around forever, and the Jews and Samaritans had plenty of it toward each other. Religious Jews would walk miles and miles out of the way just to avoid Samaria, but John says Jesus “had to go through Samaria.” Jesus had to because his purpose was to seek and save the lost. Jesus was 100% locked down to that purpose.

Jesus sat tired and thirsty at Jacob’s well, showing that he was truly human, and then asked a Samaritan woman for a drink. The woman was shocked because Jews had nothing to do with Samaritans. Jesus offered her living water, not just water for a dry throat, but water for the deep spiritual and emotional thirst inside a person. Jesus knew the thirst behind the question, “Why am I here, and what is it all about?”

Living water becomes like the peace of God that exceeds anything a person can understand. Faith cannot always be explained like an engine with all the parts laid out, but it can be described. The man born blind could not explain everything about Jesus, but he could say, “I was blind, and now I can see.” God’s peace is like that when a world blows up and a follower of Jesus can still describe something real at the core.

Jesus did not dodge the woman’s life. Jesus got her, but he did not condone everything in her present living circumstances. Jesus named the truth about her husbands and then revealed the deeper truth: true worshipers worship the Father in spirit and truth, and Jesus himself is the Messiah. The woman left her water jar, ran back, and described what had happened. Many Samaritans came, heard Jesus for themselves, and believed that he is indeed the Savior of the world.

John 1:12 still stands simple and clear. To believe and accept Jesus is to receive the right to become a child of God. Jesus cares without prejudice, and Jesus calls his followers to do the same, while finding ways to describe what following him means in the best of times and the worst of times.

##

---

Key Takeaways

• 1. Jesus had to go through Samaria. Jesus was not trapped by geography or convenience. Jesus was compelled by his purpose to seek and save the lost, even when that meant walking straight into the place religious people avoided. The road through Samaria shows that divine necessity often runs straight through human prejudice. [48:45]
• 2. Living water answers deeper thirst. Living water was not mainly about a dry mouth at a hot well. Jesus was speaking to the deep thirst for meaning, purpose, peace, and life with God. The soul can keep lowering buckets into the same old wells, but Jesus offers a spring that starts bubbling from within. [50:18]
• 3. Peace can be described honestly. God’s peace does not always come with an explanation that ties every loose end together. A follower of Jesus may not know how God is holding everything, but that follower can still describe the real steadiness God gives at the core. Honest description can carry more weight than a forced explanation. [55:45]
• 4. Jesus gets but does not condone. Jesus knew the Samaritan woman fully before she ever explained herself. His knowledge did not turn into rejection, but it also did not turn into pretending that her life was fine as it was. Grace cuts to the core because Jesus loves too deeply to leave a person thirsty and hiding. [58:11]
• 5. Description can send people running. The Samaritan woman did not return with a polished argument. She simply described the man who told her everything she had done, and the village came streaming out to see him. A real encounter with Jesus can become an invitation strong enough for others to come and hear him for themselves.
  
  ## [61:22]

Youtube Chapters

• [00:00] - Welcome
• [34:24] - School Is Coming Fast
• [35:29] - Retired Or Rewired
• [38:01] - John Shows Who Jesus Is
• [39:39] - Signs Point To The Messiah
• [40:18] - Nicodemus And Born Again
• [43:21] - Prejudice Has Always Been Around
• [46:00] - Jesus Goes Through Samaria
• [49:25] - Living Water At The Well
• [51:54] - Explaining Versus Describing Faith
• [53:39] - The Blind Man’s Simple Witness
• [56:32] - Peace When The World Blows Up
• [58:11] - Jesus Cuts To The Core
• [60:34] - Jesus Reveals He Is Messiah
• [61:22] - The Woman Brings The Village
• [64:07] - Believe, Accept, Become God’s Child

Bible Reading

John 4:1-42 [46:00]
“Now Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard that he was gaining and baptizing more disciples than John— although in fact it was not Jesus who baptized, but his disciples. So he left Judea and went back once more to Galilee. Now he had to go through Samaria. So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about noon. When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, ‘Will you give me a drink?’ (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.) The Samaritan woman said to him, ‘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.) Jesus answered 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.’ ‘Sir,’ the woman said, ‘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?’ 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.’ 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.’ ‘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.’ ‘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.’ ‘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.’ Just then his 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. Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, ‘He told me everything I ever did.’ So when the Samaritans came to him, they urged him to stay with them, and he stayed two days. And because of his words many more became believers. They said to the woman, ‘We no longer believe just because of what you said; now we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this man really is the Savior of the world.’”

Observation questions

1. What details in John 4 show both the tension between Jews and Samaritans and the surprise that Jesus would speak to this woman at all? [47:21]
2. In this passage, what does Jesus say about the difference between ordinary well water and the living water he gives? [50:18]
3. What specific truths does Jesus bring up about the woman’s personal life, and how does the conversation change after that? [58:11]
4. What does the woman do after speaking with Jesus, and what response comes from the people in her town? [01:01:22]

Interpretation questions

1. John says Jesus “had to go through Samaria.” If many religious Jews normally avoided that region, what does that “had to” reveal about Jesus’ purpose and priorities? [48:45]
2. Jesus offers living water to a woman who seems to be carrying both social shame and spiritual confusion. What does that suggest about the kind of thirst Jesus came to address in people? [51:25]
3. Jesus knows the woman fully, including the painful and broken parts of her life, yet he keeps speaking with her and reveals himself to her. How does this help explain the difference between Jesus truly knowing a person and Jesus approving everything in that person’s life? [58:25]
4. The woman does not come back to her town with a polished argument. She simply describes what Jesus did and who he might be. Why might simple, honest description be powerful in leading other people toward Jesus? [01:01:57]

Application questions

1. Jesus moved toward people others avoided. Who might be the “Samaritans” in a person’s world right now—the people most easily written off, avoided, or quietly looked down on? What would it look like to move toward them with the heart of Jesus? [01:05:23]
2. Every person keeps going back to some well for meaning, peace, comfort, or identity. What wells does a person most tend to lower the bucket into when life gets hard, and how has that thirst shown up lately? [50:52]
3. God’s peace cannot always be fully explained, but it can often be described. When has a person experienced peace, steadiness, or help from God in a way that would be hard to explain but honest to describe? [55:45]
4. Jesus cuts to the core instead of staying on the surface. Is there an area of life where a person would rather change the subject than let Jesus speak the truth? What makes that area hard to bring into the light? [59:15]
5. The Samaritan woman left her water jar and ran back to tell people, “Come, see.” What is one simple way a person could describe what Jesus has done in his or her life without trying to have every answer? [01:02:36]
6. John 1:12 says that those who believe and accept Jesus receive the right to become children of God. If someone in the group is still curious but not yet committed, what questions or hesitations seem to stand in the way of believing and accepting him? [01:04:07]
7. John stayed engaged and useful late in life, and spiritual usefulness is not limited to one season. Where might a person need to stop thinking “I’m done” and start thinking more like “I can still be rewired for what God wants”? [37:49]