You Can`t Be Too Bad!

The Disciple Jesus Loved Tells All!

Studies in the Gospel of John #5

John Chapter 4:1-41

The Bad Samaritan (You Can’t Be Too Bad For God)

Last week in our study of John’s biography of Jesus, we examined a late night visit by a man named Nicodemus. If you were here, you might remember that Nicodemus was a religious leader, a Pharisee, and a member of the ruling council of Israel. He came to do an interview of Jesus, to attempt to find out who Jesus was, and what His intentions were. He wanted to talk “religion.”

Jesus, on the other hand, knew that before Nicodemus could find out more about Jesus, he needed to understand more about himself. Before Jesus would talk religion with Nicodemus, He was going to talk about relationship. And he called Nicodemus to a radical conclusion – You Can’t Be Good Enough for God. No matter how religious Nicodemus was, he could not get to heaven unless he had been born again. None of us can hope to be part of God’s family unless we have experienced the birth of a new life in Christ – an intimate, personal relationship with Jesus Christ that far supersedes any religious knowledge, tradition or ceremony we may have gone through. Nicodemus had done it all – studied the Bible, followed the rules - he was a good man, but Jesus told him flat out that he was not going to make it to heaven unless he was born again.

More than a dozen people realized last week that they were in much the same situation. They realized that they were “good people”- they had lots of religious knowledge, but they had never asked Jesus to give them an entirely new life. They asked God to rescue them from a frustrating life of trying real hard to be good enough – and He did!

Today, John introduces us to another individual that Jesus met. Her story could hardly be more different from Nicodemus’. They are as different as night and day. Nicodemus’ greatest danger was that he was blinded by his own goodness – and was in danger of losing his soul because he thought he was good enough. The woman we will look at today was in danger of losing her soul, too, but she made no illusions about being good, in fact everybody in her town knew that she was very bad. But as we read her story, we will see that You Can’t Be Too Bad for God.

Follow along as I read her story to you from John chapter 4, beginning with verse 1. (Page 716).

To understand this story, we have to understand some background information. Jews treated Samaritans with ugly prejudice. 700 years before Jesus was born, the land of Israel was invaded and many of the Jews were taken into captivity by Assyria. Those Jews who were left behind intermarried with their captors, and when the “pure” Jews returned, they rejected the Samaritans because they could no longer prove a pure blood-line. Samaritans were barred from the Temple in Jerusalem, they were treated as scum. The prejudice was so bad by Jesus time that Jews would not even talk to a Samaritan person, and actually prayed that no Samaritans would make it to heaven! A Jewish person would not even walk on Samaritan soil – when they went from southern Israel to the northern part, they would cross the Jordan river, go up the eastern shore, and then cross back into Galilee, instead of taking the direct route through Samaria.

In verse 4, however, we see that Jesus “needed to go through Samaria.” Why? Because there was a divine appointment waiting for Him at Jacob’s well near the city of Sychar. This encounter was no chance accident – it was a divine appointment. Jesus sat down by the well. He was thirsty and tired. The disciples went off to buy some food, and there, in the heat of the day, came a woman to draw water.

The timing of her arrival is interesting. In that culture, women would come together as a group, early in the morning, to get water for the day’s cooking and washing. They would do it before it got too hot. But not this woman. She came alone, at the hottest time of the day – probably because she knew she would be alone. She had long before grown tired of the harsh stares, cruel whispers, and cold shoulders of the other women in the village. The heat of the day was nothing compared to the heat of their scorn of her. “Who are you married to this week?” They would ask. “Stay far away from my man, or else!”

She had a history! She was a tramp! This was not the woman any of these moms wanted their boys to bring home!

So she came to the well alone, not wanting to face their judgment, and there was this Jewish man sitting there! “GREAT! This was all she needed! Some self-righteous Jew with his precious pedigree, there to look down on her half-breed, immoral life! It was going to be a WONDERFUL afternoon! Well, at least she didn’t have to worry about bitter words – no Jewish man would ever talk to a Samaritan woman.”

But this Jewish man was different. When she got to the well, Jesus said, “Will you give me a drink?” She was stunned that He had spoken to her at all, so she said, “You are a Jewish man, and I am a Samaritan woman! You can’t ask me for a drink!”

To which Jesus said, “Ah, but if you knew who I am, you would ask me for a drink, and I would give you living water.”

You see, Jesus knew that there was a thirst in this woman that went far deeper than the physical thirst that either He or she felt. It was a thirst for acceptance. Her life was a parched desert of rejection and broken promises. Her five broken marriages had left her with the sense that she was not good enough for anyone. Five times she had been told that love would last forever, and five times it had failed. The pain of rejection in the community was nothing compared to the rejection she had felt from those former husbands, and it had left deep scars. She has come to the point where she doesn’t feel she can risk giving her heart away again – so she shared a bed and a roof with a man, but would never share her heart again. She will never love again!

But Jesus loves her! He knows the pain she feels, He sees the deep thirst of her soul, and He offers her refreshing from within – a quenching for her thirst that will never leaver her dry again.

She is not thinking in the Spiritual realm at this time, all she hears is that she may never have to come back to this well and lug water back to the house, so she says, “please give me some of this water, so that I can never be thirsty again!” Then Jesus says, “Go and get your husband.”

If you look closely at this story you might notice that her next sentence is the shortest she says in the entire conversation. “I have no husband.” She doesn’t want to talk about it. When Jesus points out that He knows all about her situation, she tries to change the subject – she suddenly wants to talk religion!

Have you ever noticed that, or done that? The issue of morality comes up, and everyone wants to talk about religion – no one wants to talk about their own personal issues! She is no different that most of us. But Jesus keep on track – she wants to talk about the religious differences between Jews and Samaritans, Jesus talks to her about real worship – a matter of the heart, not the church. A relationship with God does not happen in Jerusalem, on a mountain, in a temple or in a church – a relationship with God, real worship of Him, is something that is done in the heart – in spirit and truth – genuine worship is the natural response of a person who knows the love of God.

She is really flustered. She blurts out, “Well, one day the Messiah will come, and He’ll set this all straight!” To which Jesus says, in one of His most direct statements of His identity, “I who speak to you, am He.”

About this time, the disciples show up. You know, I just love the disciples, because they are so much like us. They walk up and see Jesus talking to this woman. They are clue-less! They are even more surprised that Jesus would be talking to this woman than she was. And the woman is doubtless standing there with mouth hanging open, because Jesus has just said, “I am the Messiah.” She turns in stunned silence, leaves her water pot on the ground, and runs back to the village. At which the disciples say, “Umm, we got you a cheeseburger with onions, Lord.”

When she reached the village, she was no longer concerned about what others thought about her. She had left hoping to avoid the notice and stares of the people, now she returns to get the attention of everyone she can! “Come out to the well!” She shouts, “come and meet a man who knew everything about me – He is the Messiah!”

In a single moment of meeting Jesus, and allowing Him to reveal Himself to her, she was transformed from a person who felt unworthy of love into a person who proclaimed the truth of God to her entire village. The people were so amazed at her transformation that they all immediately left and followed her to Jesus. Verse 39 says, Many of the people of that city believed because of the words of the woman…”

Talk about a change of reputation! Instead of being the scandalous, sin-filled, “tramp,” she is now the one who has the reputation of bringing her village to Jesus.

Isn’t that just amazing? Surely there were other people in that village who would have been better candidates for evangelist than this woman! Wasn’t there a pastor, or priest? Wasn’t there some political leader, or Bible Study teacher or someone who could have been a better spokesperson for the Son of God than this immoral, dysfunctional woman?

NOPE.

You see, God just loves lost causes. He loves to take the unexpected, the least, the sinner, the runt of the litter, and make them into His champions. He did it with a dishonest, swindling conniver named Jacob. Ex-con accused rapist named Joseph. He did it with a stuttering hot-headed murderer named Moses. He did it with a kid who was such an after-thought that his own father forgot about him named David. And after David became King of Israel, God chose Solomon to be the next king, even though Solomon was born to a wife that David had taken in his moment of greatest moral failure!

Jesus chose fishermen, and tax-collectors and “sinners” to be his disciples. He himself came as a lowly carpenter.

All through Scripture, God has sought out the unexpected to do His greatest work. Paul puts it this way in I Corinthians chapter 1, “God has chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise, and the weak things of this world to shame the things that are mighty.”

Why do you suppose that might be? Because if God used the strongest, and the most lovely and the most able, then we might be confused about who was at work – but when God chooses the unlikely, the most sinful, there is no doubt that He is responsible for the results!

So here’s the point of this morning – No matter who you are, no matter what you’ve done, no matter the sin you’ve committed, the life you’ve lived, or the weakness you feel, God loves you. You may be the most unlikely candidate on earth for God’s love…that makes you His favorite target!

He loves YOU! He wants to reveal Himself to you in life-altering power! He already knows how you feel and what you’ve done – and He still loves you. In fact, He has gone out of His way to meet you here today. He has brought you here, to this place at this time, by divine appointment. And He has come to address the thirst of your soul. Would you respond like this woman, and simply say, “Lord give me of this living water, that I may never thirst again?”

We’re going to close with a song that will have a familiar tune to many of you, but we have redeemed the lyrics to fit with our story this morning. Sit back, listen, read the lyrics, and ask God to give you His living water this morning.

No Matter Who You Are

(John chapter 4)

Verse 1

No matter who you are, Jesus always cares for you;

A Samaritan- or Jew- girl, Ooh, girl, for you.

No matter what you’ve done, You were lost but now your found,

Tell your village who you’ve found girl, ooh girl, won’t you?

Chorus 1

Knocked down the racial wall, He had seen it all -

What you had done, who you’d been with, all of your strife,

If you would give Him all, He would give to you,

A living spring, welling up to, eternal life.

Verse 2

No matter where you’ve been, there will always be a place

You can find Amazing Grace, child, ooh child, for you.

[Guitar Solo]

Chorus 2

Knock down you heart’s cold wall, He has seen it all,

What you have done, where you have been, all of your strife.

If you will give Him all, He will bring to you

A living spring, welling up to, eternal life.

Verse 3

No matter where you’ve been, there will always be a place

You can find Amazing Grace, child, ooh child, for you.

No matter what you’ve done, He went to the cross for you.

Paid the price because He loves you, Ooh child, He loves you.

You child, you child, He loves you.

Originally recorded as No Matter What by Badfinger from the album No Dice