If you have your bibles turn to John 4. In the gospels, we read of a number of face to face encounters that people had with Jesus.
All of them are unique to the individual who had the encounter with Jesus. Here in John 4 is one of those encounters.
For many this is a familiar story. When I say story, I don’t mean it is fictional, it is a real-life face to face encounter.
The problem with these familiar stories is we know them so well that we don’t ponder them like we should. Such might be the case with the story we are looking at today.
Let’s read a few verses of this story so that we understand the context.
Follow along as I read, John 4:1-7 (ESV)
“1.Now when Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus was making and baptizing more disciples than John
2.(although Jesus himself did not baptize, but only his disciples),
3.he left Judea and departed again for Galilee.
4.And he had to pass through Samaria.
5.So he came to a town of Samaria called Sychar, near the field that Jacob had given to his son Joseph.
6.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.
7.A woman from Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.”
Title Slide
That is the context. I’m sure you are familiar with this story. Here’s the perspective that we are going to be pursuing this story. Jesus is demonstrating how we should guide someone into an encounter with Himself.
It’s like He is saying, “Instead of me telling you how, let me show you.” I have heard several times people say they don’t know how to bring someone from where they are without Jesus to a point in time where they will encounter Jesus.
They will say things like, “I don’t know the Bible well enough, I didn’t go to Bible school, that’s the pastor's job.”
As followers of Jesus none of those are good excuses because the Bible does say in 1 Peter 3:15 (ESV) “…always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect,”