We're continuing through the Gospel of John. If you'd please open your Bibles to John chapter 4. In this text, we see Jesus leaving Judea, walking north toward Galilee. He pauses at a Samaritan village, surprisingly, and he teaches a Samaritan woman a lesson that really all of the church today, I believe, needs to hear. He teaches her about worship. The Christian church today needs to learn this lesson, that Jesus teaches this Samaritan woman today. Our worship of the Holy God seems to be slipping into man centered idolatry and this cannot stand. David Wells, a noted theologian of the Bible and observer of culture. He said this about the church today. The fundamental problem in the evangelical world today is not inadequate technique. Insufficient organization or antiquated music. And those who want to squander the church's resources bandaging these scratches will do nothing to staunch the flow of blood spilling from its true wound. The fundamental problem in the evangelical world today is that God rests too inconsequentially upon the church. His truth is too distant. His grace is too ordinary. His judgment is too benign. His gospel is too easy, and His Christ is too common. As we think of worship, we will address these very issues as we look at John 4. I'm going to read 30 verses. Please remain seated rather than standing as we typically do. Please remain seated. It's a long passage, but this is the inspired Word of God for you. 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 his son, Joseph. Jacob's well was there. So Jesus, wearied as he was from the journeys, was sitting by the well. It was about the sixth hour. A woman from Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, give me a drink. First, disciples had gone away into the city to buy food. The Samaritan woman said to him, how is it that you would you 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 this 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. 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 true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth. For the Father is seeking such a 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 and he. Just then His disciples came back and they marveled that He was talking with a woman, but no one asked Him, what do you seek? Or why are you talking with her? So the woman left her water jar and went away into the town and said to the people, come, see a man who told me all that I ever did. Can this be the Christ? They went out of the town and were coming to Him. Amen. May God add His blessing to the reading of His Word. Please pray with me once again. Our father. Our creator. Almighty God. We know that spiritual truth is spiritually discerned. In other words, we need your Holy Spirit. Please help us. Help us to understand this text. Help us not only to see the truth for what it is, but may it also encourage our souls. We thank You for this Word, in Jesus' name, Amen. So I believe John wants us to see a contrast here. If you remember in John 3, Jesus met with another person. Who was it? Nicodemus. Nicodemus, righteous, put together, wealthy, knowledgeable, well-educated, had great status. He was among the chosen people of God. And now this Samaritan woman, unrighteous, not among God's chosen people. She was a nobody. She was poor, a notable sinner, no status at all. And I hated Samaritan. But they both had one thing in common. They both needed Jesus. They both were lost. And neither one knew how to come to God, how to worship God. So we're going to talk about true worship. That's the title of the message, true worship. There's two primary things that we'll see here, and that is that the gospel is in Jesus Christ and it's directly related to worship. Look at Jesus' journey, this providential journey into Samaria. We'll look at the gospel conversation He has with this woman calling this sinner to Himself. And then this conversation continues to morph into a conversation about worship and what worship is. Of course, we in our local body take worship very seriously. People who come to our congregation often tell me, there's such reverence as you worship the holy God in this place. It's because we feel like worshiping God is a serious business. Yes, it's full of joy and yes, it's Thanksgiving, but there's also certainly. The worship of the living God, the Holy God. And this is always on our hearts. If you remember the first four of the Ten Commandments deal directly with worship. As God tells us people who to worship and the Second Commandment, the outward means by which we worship. Thirdly, the reverence required in worship, and then fourthly, the day set apart for worship. As Joel Beakey said, theologian. We are to worship the Holy God by the holy means he ordains with the holy reverence he deserves on the holy day he chooses. Remember, God spoke these commands with his own voice, so Jesus is really correcting this woman to the commandments. Yes, He's telling her about worship. And yes, He's telling her about the gospel. But it's in the context of the worship that is due the Holy God. And worship, false worship, has always been at the center of every religious dispute from the very beginning. Even in the garden, worship was at the center of what happened. Who will we worship? Even atheism. Atheism denies God. It's a squabble. It's a fight about worship. Atheism, the belief in God. They're against the belief in God. They're against the worship of God, ultimately. And Satan has always confused and deceived those who strive to worship. This Samaritan woman certainly was deceived. Participating in false worship, which we'll talk about more later. It's also interesting to note, as we discussed during this last week of Reformation Sunday, that when Calvin wrote to Charles V explaining why the Reformation was necessary, and you remember the big thing of the Reformation was the recovery of the gospel. They recovered the gospel that were saved by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, according to Scripture alone, to the glory of God alone. All that was recovered, and it was deeply important for the church. But he said he did not tell Charles V that that was the primary reason that the Reformation was necessary. That was part of it. But he said the primary reason the Reformation was necessary was for the recovery of true worship. You see, the gospel is a subset of worship. We come into worship after we receive the true gospel of Jesus Christ. We can worship God in spirit and in truth for the first time. So it's no surprise that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit care deeply to instruct us in worship even today in this text. And this conversation between Jesus and a sinful Samaritan woman. I believe we have one of the most significant teachings on worship in the scriptures. Dr. Ligon Duncan calls it the most important teaching on worship in the history of the world. He may be right. Let's look through the text. As Jesus journeys after leaving Jerusalem and Judea, He's journeying through Samaria. In verse 1, when Jesus learned that the Pharisees had learned that Jesus was making and baptizing more disciples, He left Judea and departed again for Galilee. And John notes that Jesus Himself wasn't baptizing. but only His disciples. I believe this is just to show the priority of preaching. Preaching the good news. It was Christ's priority. It's our priority today as well. But He had to pass through Samaria in verse 4. As John tells us, Jews and Samaritans have nothing to do with each other. Where do the Samaritans come from? Who are these people? Well, when Assyria conquered the northern kingdom of Israel, he took all of the people of Israel and he moved them out of Israel and he replaced them with people from Babylon, from Persia. So these people who were replaced by the Assyrian king. In the northern kingdoms territory, they began mixing with those who were left behind, and by the time of Christ, They were no longer Jewish at all. These foreigners had mixed with the Israelites so completely. They combined the worship of God with their own pagan practices. By Jesus time, they only used the first five books of the Bible. They didn't use any of the rest of the Old Covenant texts. They rejected Samuel and Kings and all the prophets and the Psalms. They corrupted worship completely. They used the name of God in vain. They broke the first four commandments in their attempts to worship. And Jews saw them as worse than Gentiles. So Jews did not have anything to do with these Samaritans. And yet we learn according to Josephus, the historian after Christ, that it was not uncommon for Jews to travel through Samaria. So Jesus had to pass through Samaria, the text says. Why? Why must he? Why was it necessary? But we know there were other routes to get north to Galilee. You could go east or west to get north without going straight up through Samaria. You could. So technically, he didn't have to. He could have gone another route. but it would have been much, much more difficult. It would have taken a lot longer time, longer than a week. It's a week's walk to get to Galilee from Jerusalem. It would have taken longer than that if they hadn't gone through Samaria. So I believe it would be akin to saying, I went to Texas last year, so I had to drive on the interstate system. Well, I didn't have to drive on the interstate, but any other way just wouldn't make any sense. So this may be the sense in which we see that Jesus has to go through Samaria. There are other options, which I'll talk about later as well. But it seems like this was the most convenient way to go. And this is halfway home, so it's about day three of his walk, and he stops in Sychar. In God's providence, the trip took him to this place. And he sat down at a well, and he was tired. It was about the sixth hour. That's noon. by Jewish reckoning. It's about noon, it's hot, he's tired, he's wearied from his journey, and he sits down at Jacob's well. Where Sychar was, we don't exactly know, but Jacob's well, since the past 2,000 years, that location is fairly certain. You can go visit it today. There's a church built over it. And if that is the tomb, it's very close to the place where the old city of Shechem was. It's a very significant place. And the mention of Jacob and Joseph in this text, the field that Jacob had given his son Joseph, this is meant to cause us to remember the promises of God to the patriarchs, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Because Christ is the one fulfilling the promises and here He is. You remember also that Jacob wrestled with the angel of the Lord. Whose name was glorious. This was the pre incarnate Christ. Who changed his name to Israel? So God had given Abraham, Isaac and Jacob promises and that was they were on that place. These Samaritans were on that property. And it was hot. Jesus was thirsty and tired. We should pause just for a moment to remember that Jesus was, yes, fully God, but He was also fully man. He got tired. He slept. He needed warmth. He needed food. He was fully man. He lived the human life the way we all should have lived it. The way Adam should have lived it, but nonetheless, he was a man. He's tired. We also should remember, I believe, that God's providence is such that all things happen according to his plan. Actually, there is nothing happening in our lives that's random at all. Even the route you take on a journey has eternal implications. Who you talk to, who you don't talk to, where you go, where you don't go. your hunger, your thirst, your pain, every detail in your life is ordained by God for His own glory and your best good, whether you understand what's going on or not. God's providence is His almighty, powerful and preserving and governing all His creatures and all their actions. That's pretty complete. That's our God. So in God's providence, Jesus is tired and He sits down by His old friend Jacob's well. But what happens? He meets this woman. This is the second point. Jesus has a gospel conversation with this woman. This woman had come to draw water, it says in verse 7, at noon, which is an unusual time. It's probably because she was not welcome with the other ladies who would typically go in the evening. So she comes at a time when no one else will be there. And Jesus says to her, give me a drink. Jesus is always doing the work of His Father. He engages this woman in conversation. We should also note how ready Jesus is to do ministry. Even on the cross, He's doing ministry. He's our example in this. You should always have your mind set on things above so that when you have conversations with strangers, when you have conversations with friends and family, you're always thinking, Lord, may this conversation be used for your glory in some way. And then you need to talk. Patty Cook, who's not here this morning, so I'll talk about him. He's been all over the world doing the work of an evangelist. And he goes to people, to strangers, and he talks to them about Jesus. If you start talking to Patty, he's got years and years and years of stories that he'll tell you about how God has been faithful to communicate truth to people. But he says the first step in sharing Jesus with anyone is simple. You open your mouth. You gotta start talking. And look at Jesus. He doesn't go right into gospel. He just has a conversation. He's thirsty. And He asked her for a drink. You don't have to be fancy when you talk to people about Jesus. You just have to have your heart set on Jesus, want to honor Him. You don't have to close the deal on every conversation. But you need to be faithful to the truth, to the hope that you have. And pray for wisdom and open your mouth. But she's shocked that he, being a Jew, would talk to her at all. She's shocked because Jews don't touch Samaritans. It was thought that a Samaritan touch would make you, a Jew, unclean. But little did she know that Jesus could never be unclean. In fact, it's just the opposite. Whoever he touches becomes clean. But Jesus says to her, after she responds, how is it that you're talking to me? You're Jewish. Jesus says, if you knew who it was that was talking to you, you would have asked Him to give you a drink. He takes this conversation and immediately flips it to the gospel. He turns the conversation to spiritual truth. If you knew the gift of God, And who it is who is talking to you. I agree with Calvin that Jesus is just using two phrases to communicate the same thing. The gift of God, that's me, Jesus. Who it is that's talking to you? That's me, the Messiah. If you knew who it was, you would ask Him for living water. Referring to the eternal life that's found in Christ alone. Remember too that apart from Christ, all men are dead. Dry bones. Complete desert. A wasteland. and only with the Spirit, the God-given life of Christ. Is there any life at all? So this woman sees this weary Jewish traveler who speaks to him, shockingly, and then he immediately goes into gospel. Claiming, in so many words, to be someone important Jesus says, don't you know who it is who's talking to you? If you did, you would ask for living water. Living water. This water metaphor is, of course, used by Jesus and John, and it's all over the Scriptures, because water brings life. But the world has rejected true life. The prophet Jeremiah said this in chapter 2, verse 12, Be appalled, oh heavens, at this and be shocked and utterly desolate, declares the Lord, for my people have committed two evils. They have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewn out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water. This is what this woman has done, but it's also what all of us do apart from Christ. We want to create God in our image. We want our own cisterns. Last week I said Mark Twain, he nailed it when he said, in the beginning, God created man in his own image. And man has been returning the favor ever since. We want our own cisterns. We don't want the living water that God provides. And this woman is the same way, and her responses reflect a rudeness even, and a disdain for what Jesus is saying. He says, you don't have anything to draw water with, and the well is deep. Where are you going to get that? Living water. Are you greater than our father Jacob? As I said, most commentators view this as being a very rude response. She knows enough to understand that Jesus is saying something spiritual. Living water. Referring to himself as being able to give her this spiritual gift, and she makes us a mock response almost. Similar to Nicodemus' response when Jesus tells him, you must be born again. Remember Nicodemus? Oh, am I going back in my mother's womb, Jesus? Is that what's happening? She scoffs his claim then by referencing his obvious inferiority to Jacob. This is a Samaritan's patriarch, if you will. They view Jacob as being the one. He gave us this well, you can't give me anything. As if to say. And Jesus says he doesn't give up on her. He keeps talking to her. Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again. But whoever drinks of the water I will give him will never be thirsty again and the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life. Jesus will not be put off. He continues to lovingly pursue this woman. And he tells her clearly this is spiritual water. This is new life in Christ affected by the Holy Spirit. And it will grow and grow in a person until he reaches heaven. In John 7, he says much the same. If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. For whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water. Speaking of the Holy Spirit. Basically, Jesus was telling her her greatest thirst wasn't physical. Her greatest thirst, like all of us, was spiritual. That's what we all need. I often reference it. Remember the paralytic lowered down from the ceiling before Jesus. And he looks at this paralyzed man who obviously needs to be healed. And he says, son, your sins are forgiven. And it appears like he's finished. And it's almost as if an afterthought where he says, oh, and pick up your bed and rise. You see, the most important thing that man needed was spiritual life. He needed his sins forgiven. The same is for all of us. The same is for this woman. She needs more than water for her stomach. She needs her sins forgiven. She needs spiritual life. And her response in verse 15 continues, I believe, in the same vein of unbelief. Will Sir give me this water so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water again? It seems like she's refusing to believe this offer of life of this verse. John Calvin says this woman undoubtedly is sufficiently aware that Christ is speaking of spiritual water. But because she despises him, she sets at not all his promises as if to say, show me if you can. I think this is helpful for us to remember the principle that when you talk to people about Christ, about Jesus, most often there's going to be pushback. Most often there's going to be rejection, mockery, disdain of some kind, unbelief. People don't want to hear truth. Arguing, sarcasm, And if they rejected Christ, don't be surprised if they reject you as well. Don't be surprised or shocked when this happens. You're called to be faithful and continue lovingly pursuing folks with truth. And just like Jesus didn't give up on this woman, we should not easily give up on anyone as well. But He transitions from showing her the life-giving water that He can provide to her soul to her need for that life-giving water. He reminds her that she's a sinner before God. This is the third point. That she's a sinner. He says, go call your husband and come here. The woman said, I have no husband. And he said, you're right. You have had five husbands. And the one you now have is not your husband. What you said is true. You see, now the Lord begins to reveal His glory. He knows everything about this woman. He knows everything about her life. And He knows that she is a sinner. And a wicked sinner. She claims to have no husband. Technically, this is true. And Jesus said, you've been married five times before this. The one you live with now is not your husband. Yes, technically you're right. So you see, He showed her the need or he's told her who can give her life-giving water, but now he's showing her the need for life-giving water. Just like Nicodemus didn't know that he needed to be born again, this woman didn't know that she was even thirsty. That she was a sinner in need of forgiveness. That she could never rightly worship a holy God. She could never come to God. Because of her own wickedness and sin. Of course, this is not a popular message today either, is it? Many people just want to come to church and hear that they're OK and you're OK and we're all OK. Sing a really exciting hymn and leave and just great joy and happiness. And of course. The gospel is what will give you true joy and happiness when you leave a service, not being told that we're all good with God. despite your minimal efforts to look at God or to get that ticket out of hell, to get that ticket to heaven, that your just fickle attitude toward worship in general is good. You're good. No internal change. No real life change or outward change at all. It's all just going through religious motions. And thinking that you've prayed the sinner's prayer or walked up an aisle or you're faithful in coming to a building. This lackadaisical fickle me worshiped focus again. Is nothing. Compared to the regenerating power of the Holy Spirit, you must be born again. You must come to Christ. And once you are born again, everything changes. You don't even have to try. You can't fake it. You're born again. You're a new creation. This woman needs to see her sin. Like you, she was more wicked than she could ever know. And her God was more holy than she could ever comprehend. So Jesus shows her the gift that he offers and then he convinces her that she needs it. She had to come to Jesus and to come to Jesus was to come to worship. They're linked. To have the living water is to worship the Holy God. So he transitions to speaking about worship as well. I should say, before we begin to discuss verse 19 and following, there is a form of worship in churches today, I've been in these churches myself, that is almost completely purely human-based and me-centered. Worship is thought to be all about me. In this consumeristic culture we live in, we look at churches like, what's the one that I can get the most from with the least amount of effort? How does it make me feel? What does that pastor speak to me? Is it a nice place? Is it clean? Is the band really good? Is the electric guitarist awesome? is the children's ministry really exciting? It's all about self. It's all about what am I sensing? What am I feeling? It's as if you're walking through the mall looking for the most attractive place to worship. And if Jesus had taken this approach, of course, He never would have talked to her or mentioned sin at all. We believe that our culture, I'm saying, believes that our self really does have a way to reach up to God. that they're still in access to the sacred. It's not been ruptured by our sin. As David Wells would say, the reality is that worship on our own terms is devoid of everything important about worship. When we worship in our own way, doing what we want as opposed to what God's Word teaches when the worship is about us, it's certainly not about God. We come to lift up the name of Jesus Christ every week here. We worship the holy God in the way that he has shown us in his holy word. And it's all word based. It's word centric. The word of God is powerful and effective. So we pray the word. We preach the word. We read the word. We confess the word. We see the word in the sacraments. The gospel is proclaimed. We sing the word of God and it's all to the glory of God. That's the most important thing you need is to worship God in the way that he has told us to worship. So when you come here, we don't try to tickle your itching ears. We don't try to make sure that everything is is is perfectly pleasing to your eyes. Our whole goal is to hold up Christ before your eyes so that you might see him clearly and then worship him well. He meets every other need that you might need, but your greatest need is to worship the living God. So he talks to her about true worship in verse 19 and 20 and 21. She says, I think you're a prophet, and our fathers told us that this is the place we should worship. And Jesus tells her, it's not on this mountain or in Jerusalem you'll worship the Father, but you will worship in spirit and in truth. See the location, although the Old Covenant, the Old Testament said that Jerusalem was the place that the Jews would come to worship. All people who wanted to worship would come to Jerusalem. And Jesus says the time is coming and has now come. Jesus is the transition point. When you come to me to worship. No longer will you go to a temple in Jerusalem. No longer will you try to worship here in Samaria. These things were shadows. All of the tabernacle and temple worship are shadows that point to Christ. The curtain was torn from top to bottom. To access the Holy of Holies, we go through Christ. And he reminds her secondly that the Jews, salvation comes from the Jews. The Messiah comes from the Jews. In Hebrew, it's Yeshua, salvation, comes from the Jews. And the you is plural in verse 22, you worship, you plural, you Samaritans, you don't even know what you're worshiping. But the Jews, they do. Not that the Jews were faithful, certainly most rejected Christ, but the Jews, as Carson says, the Jews stand within the stream of God's saving revelation. They know the one they worship for salvation is of the Jews. In Romans 12, we see in this, sorry, Revelation 12, we see in this great end times prophecy, if you will, a picture of a woman wearing a crown with 12 stars, and she gives birth to a boy who will save the world. The woman represents the Jewish nation, and she gives birth, she, in a sense, births Christ. Christ came from the Jews. In a sense, the Samaritan woman would need to become Jewish. Impossible. And yet, Paul explains in Romans 11 that all believers are offspring of Abraham, grafted in to partake of the promises given to Abraham. Kids, have any of you ever sung the song, Father Abraham? Father Abraham had many sons. Many sons had Father Abraham. Do you know that, Solly? Y'all know that song? No? Yeah, they do. So this is true doctrine, brothers and sisters. This is real. Your children know it. If you're in Christ, you are a son of Abraham. You're a daughter of Abraham. As Paul said in Galatians 29, and if you are Christ, you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to the promise. Salvation is from the Jews, and we all are grafted into those promises in Abraham through Christ. But thirdly, he says that worship is spiritual. We have all been created to worship. It's our reason for existence. And her greatest need is to come to the Father through the Son by the Spirit. To worship in spirit and in truth. This means by means of Jesus Christ, you come to worship through me. And in truth means as according to the revelation of God's Word. So we worship in spirit through Christ by His Word. For God is a spirit. He's not like a human bound by a location. He's everywhere. He's above all infinite, eternal and unchangeable. So no wonder we can't even come to Him and worship unless we're born again. Unless we're given living water. We must worship in spirit and in truth. true worshipers, he says, as opposed to false worshipers, those who would would come to worship God for some other reason than his own glory. We worship him in spirit and in truth by the book. We worship the holy God in his holy way, by his holy word on his holy day. Certainly all of life is worship. Yes, but there's one day, one day in seven that is set aside, completely set aside for the worship of God. So to worship in spirit and truth is to worship God the way that He's revealed to us. Before I conclude, I want to just mention, too, something we've alluded to already. And again, I think the prevailing view of worship, of what we're doing here, is that, well, you know, God doesn't really care about the details. As long as your heart is sincere, it's not really that important. And we reject that completely. God cares about every aspect of worship. You see, our worship joins earth and heaven. We worship in this building, but it's actually worship that is taking place in heaven. Our prayers are lifted up to heaven. Our songs and praises are lifted up to heaven. Because of the Holy Spirit and our mediator is in heaven. Our worship is lifted up to the throne of God. And then He responds through His Spirit by giving you His Word from heaven. So we take worship very seriously. And the Bible is full of examples of those who did not. Ananias and Sapphira, Nadab and Abihu. We see Paul correcting the Corinthian church, telling them who can talk, when they can talk, what they can say. He's regulating worship. So our holy God will be worshipped by the book or not worshipped at all. That's really the message of all the prophets. You've stopped worshipping the way I've told you. You're worshipping on these high places and you're doing these other things that I never commanded you to do. That's why in our church we don't get everything right. This is true. But from the call to worship, the beginning of our service, to the benediction, the end of our service, we strive to do everything to the glory of God according to His word. Well, after Jesus presents the gospel to this woman, I'll close with this. She is converted. She goes and she tells. She tells her whole town about the goodness of Jesus Christ. and Jesus reveals to her more clearly than anyone else in Scripture. His identity. No one else to no one else does he say I am the Messiah. But he tells her. He tells her clearly that he is the one. You might be like this woman. You might have some notions about what it looks like to come to God on your own terms, avoiding your sin, avoiding any real repentance. digging your own cisterns that ultimately cannot hold water. But you need the living water. Your sin keeps you from true worship. You need the gospel. You need Jesus. And this is, I think, the other reason why Jesus must go through Samaria. Because God had given this woman to His Son to be saved. And He must go and save this woman. This was a divine appointment. He must go and bring this woman to life. This was a sovereign decree from all eternity to go and save that woman and he did. Yes, God used his providence to do it. But his gift to this dear woman was living water. Turn to Christ today, let us pray. Almighty God, we thank you for the living water that you give each one of us. We pray in Jesus name. That we would understand the great gift that is yours. to all those who would serve you, life-giving water, the Holy Spirit, regenerating our own hearts so that we might have faith in Christ. We pray that as we turn to the Lord's Supper, Lord, that you would be glorified and we would see the gospel. We would remember the good news and we would rejoice as we anticipate being with you forever.