sunday sermon snippet 14 June 2026
Jesus told her…“But an hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in Spirit and in truth. Yes, the Father wants such people to worship him.” (John 4:23)
This week’s posting of the Sunday Sermon Snippet comes from the second sermon in a new mini-series we’re doing in John called “Jesus and the Samaritan Woman,” from John 4:1-42. As we study this story together, we’re keeping our eyes on the lookout for answers to two questions:
Who is this man, Jesus?
Who are we, as we see ourselves in this woman?
In this second sermon, we study vv 15-26, and I’ve entitled it “The Messiah and the Outsider,” showing how the story answers those two questions. See below for a snippet from the sermon…
…and if you’d like to check out the whole sermon, just click here.
Our question, again: Who is this man, Jesus?
He is our prophet, our sacrifice, our living water, and our Messiah. Jesus is the one who knows absolutely everything about you, and refuses to move away from you, or be deflected by your arguments of your unworthiness, or be scared away by your secret sins. In the most massive twist of irony, it is all those things that cause him to inexorably move towards you!
Jesus is a tired, thirsty, hungry, and incredibly human in this moment. Feeling the same way we do when we’re in that state. But he’s also the truest human, which means he does not take the path that so many of us take — when we see a person that we know will take a great deal of effort to love, will require much of us and much from us, well, we often look for the “out” don’t we?
The off-ramp.
But not Jesus. Jesus “had to go to Samaria.” He has to enter in. He has to engage. Because Jesus is love incarnate. Jesus makes sure we hear truth, but feel grace.
Friends, just what does that sound and feel like?
Jesus is saying something like this:
“I don’t care who you are. I don’t care what you’ve done. I don’t care if you’ve had failed marriages, are in a conflicted relationship, are living the life of Tony Soprano. I don’t care who you are or what you’ve done, this water of life is yours, gratis. It is all of grace. I have experienced the ultimate thirst that you deserve so that you don’t have to be thirsty, so that you don’t have to be an outsider. I love you as you are, but believe me, I won’t leave you that way!”
Look again at John 4:25
The woman said to him, “I know that the Messiah is coming” (who is called Christ). “When he comes, he will explain everything to us.”
In other words, probably a little mentally and emotionally exhausted at this point, she’s saying, “Until the Messiah comes, and explains everything, and sorts this mess out, including me, I don’t trust in anyone.”
And then, John 4:26
Jesus told her, “I, the one speaking to you, am he.”
You see, Jesus keeps bringing it back to himself, and it appears something then clicks for her in that moment, and faith is born, and belief takes root. Tim Keller provides this insight:
“That’s the reason she goes running off and says to her friends, not ‘Come read a book,’ not ‘Come see a new set of moral values,’ not ‘Come to a seminar, Ten Steps to a New You.’ She says, ‘Come, see a man who told me everything I’ve ever done.’ What a fascinating way to testify. In other words, what she’s saying is, “He saw me at my worst, and he still offered me the living water. I’ve never met a man like this! There’s never been a man who treated me like this. He doesn’t care about my race or gender or morality or any of the world’s values.
He loves me.
He cares about me.
He offered this to me.He’s seen me at the bottom,
at my worst,
yet he’s loved me to the skies.”
Do you see yourself in this woman?
If you’d like to check out the whole sermon, just click here.
