Jesus Meets the Samaritan Woman Faith Beyond Boundaries [John Chapter 4 Exposited]

Good morning, everybody. For those that were in my Facebook group, you knew that I was going to start today at 9 o'clock. Welcome to sunny Atlanta, Georgia. I'm going to be putting on my gloves every so often. Today it is 29 degrees here. As you can see, my coffee is steaming here in the cold. So today we're going to look at two people, total opposites. One religious, one rebellious, and Jesus goes after both. So let's talk about why. So today's lesson is going to be in, uh, John chapter 4. Hold on one second. Okay, John chapter 4. So today we're going to be looking at John chapter 4. Yesterday we looked at John chapter 3, and we saw in yesterday's message, we saw, uh, we were talking about Nicodemus. And so in this chapter, we're going to be introduced to another person, and that is the Samaritan woman at the well. And then we're gonna kind of draw conclusions between the two of them and just how different they are, but yet how Jesus comes to them, right? And that's why today's message, we're gonna look at these two different people who are completely opposites on the social spectrum. One is religious in Nicodemus, one is rebellious in this woman. Uh, Jesus goes after both, and we're going to see why. So if you feel too messed up or you are too put together, the Bible— this Bible study is for you. All right, so let's go ahead and start. We're just going to do chapter 4 today, and we'll just begin right where we left off. 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 to his son Joseph. 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. Verse 7, a woman from Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, 'Give me a drink.' Verse 8, for His disciples had gone away into the city to buy food. The Samaritan woman said to Him, 'How is it that You, a Jew, 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.' Verse 11, 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 the 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." Verse 15, "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.'" 17, "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 5 husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband. What you have said is true.' 19. 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 the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship Him. God is Spirit, and those who worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.' The woman said to him, 'I know that the 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 am he.' Just then His disciples came back. They marveled that He was talking with a woman. But no one said, 'What do You seek?' or 'Why are You talking with her?' So the woman left her water jar and went away into 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 town and were coming to him. Meanwhile, the disciples were urging him, saying, 'Rabbi, eat.' But he said to them, 'I have food to eat that you do not know about.' So the disciples said to one another, 'Has anyone brought him something to eat?' Jesus said to them, 'My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work.' Do you not say, 'There are yet 4 months, then comes the harvest'? Look, I tell you, lift up your eyes and see that the fields are white for harvest. Already the one who reaps is receiving wages and gathering fruit for eternal life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice together. For here the saying holds true: One sows and another reaps. I sent you to reap that for which you did not labor. Others have labored, and you have entered into their labor. All right, so that's up into verse 38. So let's go ahead and unpack some of this. All right, so going back to the beginning of John chapter 4, right? Let's see the scene. So it says here, now when Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard that the Jews were making and baptizing more disciples than John, though he himself wasn't, he left Judea and he departed again for Galilee, and he had to pass through Samaria. So why did Jesus have to depart from Galilee, and why did he have to go through Samaria? Well, he— well, number one is because his fame and recognition was, was happening, right? And so, uh, the crowds were starting to follow him, but specifically these, the Pharisees, right, were starting to follow him and challenge him. And it says he had to pass through Samaria. Now, Samaria, as you may or may not know, is, is a region of that, of that area that these were people that were half Jews, half Gentiles, kind of like a mixed breed. They said they worshiped, um, you know, in a different area. And I'll read you here my notes so that we're on point. When the nation of Israel split politically after Solomon's rule, King Omri named the capital of the Northern Kingdom of Israel Samaria. And that's referenced in 1 Kings 16:24. The name eventually referred to the entire district and sometimes to the entire Northern Kingdom, which had been taken by Assyria in 722 BC. And that's referenced in 2 Kings chapter 17, 1 through 6. While Assyria led most of the populace of the 10 northern tribes away into the region which today is northern Iraq, it left a sizable population of Jews in the northern Samaritan region and and transported many non-Jews into Samaria. These groups intermingled to form a mixed race through intermarriage. Eventually, tension developed between the Jews who returned from captivity and the Samaritans. The Samaritans withdrew from the worship of Yahweh at Jerusalem and established their worship at Mount Gerizim in Samaria, which is in John 4:20-22. Samaritans regarded only the Pentateuch as authoritative. As a result of this history, Jews repudiated Samaritans and considered them heretical. Intense ethnic and cultural tensions raged historically between the two groups so that both avoided contact as much as possible. And we see that referenced in this chapter in verse 9. Ezra chapter 4, verses 1 through 24, Nehemiah chapter 4, 1 through 6, Luke chapter 10, verses 25 through 37. Okay? So you see that there's a tension here between the Jews and the Samaritans. They're relatives, but they never go into— the Jews never go into Samaria. Into Samaria because they just have such disgust that they would never even touch the ground. But Jesus says, hey, let's— we have to go through Samaria, right? It says in verse 4, and he had to pass through Samaria. So now it goes on. Now he's traveling through Samaria. Verse 5, he comes to a city called Sychar. Now Sychar is a town located where the village of, uh, Askar is today. It's on the east side of Mount Ebal, and it's the opposite of Mount Gerizim. An ancient tradition identifies Jacob's Well to be about a half mile south of Askar. So he is in this town named Sychar, and he's near a field that Jacob had given to his son. We see that Jacob's Well was there, and we see that in verse 6, Jesus is weary. Remember, and this is, you know, it seems like a non-omer, but we see the humanity of Jesus. He's tired. He's in the flesh. He's a human being, and He's wearied. Why is He weary? Because in verse 6 it says He's weary from His journey. So He sits beside this well, and it says, um, it was about, uh, the 6th hour. Okay, so now just so you know, in, uh, the 6th hour, it says in my notes, if John used the Jewish reckoning of time, it was calculated from sunrise at about 6 AM, so the time was about noon. If John used Roman time, which started reckoning from 12 PM, the time would be about 6 PM. Okay, so we're— so it's, it's, it's a midday here when Jesus is sitting here by the well. And what is interesting about it— or it could be, sorry, 6 PM— it's at an hour that the other women are not at the well. This is a distinction. Because usually when women back then, it was the woman who went to the well to bring the water home, and they used to go together. Remember when the story of Abraham's servant, when he went to go find Isaac a wife, Rebecca, and Rebecca was at the well with other ladies and women and, and And Abraham's servant was there to try to find a wife for Isaac, and she watered his camels and so forth. But this woman is isolated. She's by herself. And we learn later why she's by herself. Why isn't she traveling with the other woman? And it's because she was ashamed. A shameful life according to their custom over there. We learn here that she has 5— she's had 5 husbands, so she was an outcast. So she comes alone. Verse 7: A woman from Samaria came to draw water, and Jesus said to her— which is interesting, he didn't ask— he says, give me a drink, right? The Bible says, verse 8, the disciples went away into town. They went to buy food. He's left one-on-one with this woman. And of course, that is— even that alone is, back then in their culture, not a, not a thing that is allowed, you know. Usually a woman and a man are not usually together like that. The Samaritan woman said to him, 'How is it?' And she knew that he was a Jew. She says, 'How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?' right? Because it says here in parentheses, for Jews had no dealings with Samaritans. And she probably knew he was a Jew because he probably was wearing the tassels, you know, um, on his, on his clothes that signified that he was Jewish. In verse 10, we see here Jesus starts saying certain— he starts talking in code. He's talking in spiritual language here. But she at first is just interpreting it as natural language. For example, verse 10, it says— he says, if you knew the gift of God, right? And then now we need to start seeing what he's trying to say to her, which is the same thing he's trying to say to us. If you knew the gift of God. So there's this thing called the gift of God according to Jesus' own words. And then he says, and who it is that is saying to you, give me a drink. So just unpack that little piece right there. We can kind of appreciate who Jesus is and what he's trying to say. He says, if you knew the gift of God. So at first glance, we're like, okay, sir. I'm sure in her mind, okay, sir, okay, what is this gift you're talking about? If you knew the gift of God and who it is that is saying to you, give me a drink, basically saying me, you would have asked him. So the reason why she didn't ask him is because she didn't know that there was a gift of God, and she didn't know who it was. And he says, and he, he's talking about himself, second person— he would have given you living water. The woman said to him— now she's at a well— she says, sir, you have nothing to draw water with, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? Then she goes on to get kind of theological with him. She knows her scripture. She knows the Bible. She knows about the Messiah. She knows about her history. Verse 12, she asked the question, 'Are You greater than our father Jacob? He gave us the 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. So he's talking about a different water. We know it as living water. Excuse me. Verse 14 says, Jesus continues, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. So what do we know so far? His, in his, his exchange with this woman is he's introducing there's this thing called the gift of God. Verse 10: If you knew the gift of God. Then he says, if you knew the person who gives the gift of God. So now we need to understand, okay, there's this thing called the gift of God. Then we need to understand the person that gives the gift of God. He's, he's speaking about himself here. She's not connecting quite yet. And he's basically saying, if you just knew that there was this gift of God and you knew the person who's given this gift, you would have just immediately come. If you knew. She doesn't know. She goes into provision like so many people that I know. She says, well, sir— when he starts talking about living water, she's looking at the person She's looking at Jesus and says, well, you're talking about water and how you're going to give me all this abundance. You're going to give me this living water, whatever this thing living water is. And, uh, you don't even gotta— you don't even got something to draw out of that living water. You're, you're here at this well asking me, a Samaritan woman, for help, and you're going to make me a promise that you're gonna give me this gift of God and this living water, but you don't even have something to draw water out of, you know? And that's why Jesus flips the script and he says, well, if you just knew what the gift of God was and you knew who was asking, you would have asked. Because he says in 13, everyone who drinks of this water, the water he gives, will never be thirsty again. And he goes on to say that, okay, lady, the water you're drawing, natural water, Everyone will be thirsty again. You'll drink that water, but you'll be thirsty again. Jesus says in verse 13 and 14, the water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life. So we see here Jesus is trying to— he's trying to get her— you know, this is the thing about Jesus, he takes the real world the manifestation of this world, the imprint. He takes real life applications and he connects it to spiritual meaning. He's at this well. The well's purpose is to have water and give people life, basically water. People got to go to the well to draw water from, but he's saying that His water actually is in a person, and it's, it's everlasting. It's a spring of water. It's— and not— and this water wells up to eternal life. Okay, then in 15, the woman, she's like, okay, I'll play along here. She says 'Sir, give me this water so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water.' Okay, Jesus says to her— and now this is where it gets real for the woman, and this is how Jesus comes into our lives sometimes. He flips the script because he's like, okay, this is how it's going to go down. Go call— verse 16— go call your husband and come here. The woman answered him, verse 17, I have no husband. Jesus said to her, You are right in saying, I have no husband. Now, he could have just guessed that, but he goes very specific. He goes, verse 18, for you have had 5 husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband. What you, what you have said is true. So Jesus was very uber specific that only he And very few people would know this piece of information about this lady. The lady responds, and the woman responds in verse 19 like anyone would in that situation, I think. The woman said to him, 'Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet. Our fault—' Now she switches it up. Now she gets religious a little bit. Our fathers worship on this mountain. And this is where we can kind of see how she kind of understands her own history. Our fathers worship on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship. And she's probably saying all this— just adjust here— she's probably saying all this because she now knows he's a prophet. They believed in prophets, and certainly prophets existed. And so Jesus says to her— and this is where the application and the lesson comes for not only her in her time but for us in our time— he says to her, 'Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father, meaning worship is not locationally speaking. You worship what you do not know. Okay, verse 22. This is what exists today. You worship what you do not know. We worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. Okay, now I'm pausing that for a minute here because I don't, I don't get it, right, why people are, uh, anti-Semitic per se about the Jews. I do get it, actually. The reason why unfortunately people are anti-Semitic is, uh, perhaps, or, you know, um, prejudice like that is, I believe, is because of what the Jews really represent, which are the people of God. And if you knew your Bible, you would realize that all true believers in Christ are also spiritual Jews. So just because God picked out this people group a long time ago, um, and said, you will be my people, doesn't give them any necessarily, um, privilege per se. They do have a privilege because they are the light on that, on the hill, but it could have been any people group. God chose them. And just like the Bible says, 'Who are we, the clay, to say to the potter, why have you formed me?' Same thing. God chose to use this people group to bring the gospel through. It could have been any people group, it doesn't matter. He chose it, it is what it is. So Jesus is— so the gospel of salvation comes from this people group, okay? It had to start somewhere. And that is the path that God chose. We as today, uh, people in general, you know, we are so caught up in politics, um, and racism. And I do not even believe in racism, to be frank with you, because there is only one race, the human race. But we get all— I call it prejudice. So we get all prejudiced here in the world and in life, you know, everything is about skin color. And that's totally irrelevant. It's irrelevant. But if we want to be historical here, we have to understand that the gospel came through the line of Seth, and it came into this people group which is called the Jews. And so Jesus is saying to this woman You worship what you do not know. We worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. Okay, why salvation from the Jews? Because the line of Judah is Jewish, right? Jesus' lineage is from Judah, right? The Messianic line. Verse 23: But the hour is coming and is now here when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. Let's pin it there. The hour's already here according to this. Are you a true worshiper of God? Because it says here that the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth. And we all need to look in the mirror and ask ourselves, are we worshiping in spirit and truth? My notes say here that the word spirit does not refer to the Holy Spirit but to the human spirit. Jesus' point here is that a person must worship not simply by external conformity to religious rituals and places outwardly, but inwardly in spirit with the proper heart attitude. The reference to truth refers to worship of God consistent with the revealed Scripture and centered on the Word made flesh who ultimately revealed his Father. Chapter 14, verse 6. So the real true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. Okay, God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship him in spirit and truth. Verse 24. God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship Him in spirit and truth. Not spirit and lies. Spirit and truth. Where do we find our truth? Truth is not relative. Truth is absolute. Truth is in Jesus. I am the way, the life, and the truth. Right? Jesus is the truth. That's why believing in the person of Jesus is important, because that's the same thing as affirming that you believe in the truth. What he says is true. If you believe in Jesus, you believe what Jesus said. And if you believe what Jesus said, you believe the truth. So to ignore Jesus from your vocabulary, to ignore Jesus from your ideology, to ignore Jesus and his sayings, his teachings, from your life is you're not working on full tank of gas there. So we want to worship God in spirit and in truth, which means meditatively, thinking deeply, pondering. That's the spirit part— in spirit and in truth. My spirit. Verse 25: 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.' So she says, 'I know there's a Messiah coming.' And here's where Jesus drops the shoe: 'I who speak to you am He.' Imagine hearing that. She says she knows all these things, she knows about the Christ, And this man says, I who speak am he. My notes here say that Jesus forthrightly declared himself to be Messiah, though his habit was to avoid such declarations to his own Jewish people who had crassly political and militaristic views regarding Messiah. But here He says this, this lady, this outcast, he says, 'I am he.' Verse 27: Just then his disciples came back. As we read before, they're marveling that he's talking to this woman. They ask him, you know, 'What do you seek?' or 'Why are you talking with her?' It says no one said that. They're confused a little bit. The woman sees the disciples coming. She drops her jar, verse 28, and she went into town and she proclaims to all the people, verse 29, come see a man who told me all that I ever did. Can this be the Christ? So she's already convinced. She's asking the question at least because she knows he's a prophet. So she's going into town and she's um, she's asking. One second, guys. Meanwhile, so it says verse 30, they went out of town and were coming to him, and they all want to see it. 31 starts with meanwhile, like, like a movie. Meanwhile The disciples were urging him, saying, 'Rabbi, eat.' And then here he gives another spiritual lesson. He says— he talks about food. He says, 'I have food to eat that you do not know about.' So disciples said to one another, 'Has anyone brought him something to eat?' Jesus says, 'My food—' here's the spiritual application— 'My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work. My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work.' Right. 'Do you not say there are yet 4 months?' Verse 35. 'Then comes the harvest. Look, I tell you, lift up your eyes and see that the fields are white for harvest. Already the one who reaps is receiving wages and gathering fruit for eternal life.' so that sower and reaper may rejoice together. So he's talking about the evangelist, right? Already the one who reaps is receiving wages and gathering fruit for eternal life, so that the sower and reaper may rejoice together. For here the saying holds true, 37, One sows and another reaps. I sent you to reap that for which you did not labor. Others have labored, and you have entered into their rest. And that is kind of the story of our life as a Christian, right? Is we don't know when our friends and family will get saved. We just hope that they will. But honestly, in a lifetime of a person, they're going to probably hear the gospel multiple times from different people, from different points of view. If if you will. That's just, you know, and the seed was thrown out, the word of God, and it continues to get thrown out to people, to the population, to your friends and family. So there is hope for your friends and family that are not saved. But the point is, is that you're, um, you know, if you witness to somebody and you see no movement in their life, don't despair about it. It's just, it's just, it's just it fell on rocky soil, right? And as we learn in the parables, it's all about soils. But we're sowing, we're sowing, and then one day there'll be a reaping. One day that friend or family member will be like— some stranger will be like, will say it, maybe in a different kind of way, because their heart is prepared better, and they repent and believe the gospel. Jesus says in verse 37, for here the saying holds true: one sows and another reaps. I sent you to reap that for which you did not labor, right? So he's talking to his disciples. So I sent you to reap that for which you did not labor. Others have labored, and you have entered into their labor. So all of the progress in Jerusalem, all of the storylines, all of the teachers' teachings, all of the prophets that have come before Jesus, They have sowed, sowed, sowed, and now Jesus says, now I'm sending you guys, my disciples, in to reap. So now we skip over the Samaritans. Now we're on the way. Many Samaritans, verse 39, come from that town. Many Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman's testimony. So just from her testimony alone, they believe that he's the Christ because she said, he told me all that I ever did. So they believe just on that testimony alone. And then in verse 40, so when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them, and he stayed there 2 days, right? And many more believed because of his word. Okay, so remember, he's in Samaria and he's— no Jew stays there, but he stays there for 2 more days teaching. Many more believe. Verse 42. They said to the woman, it is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is indeed the Savior of the world. So here we have Samaria, not even Jerusalem, the, the, the, not even the, the people group that is representative of the promise, they believe in Jesus and they confess that he's the Savior of the world. And we're going to see that all through the gospels. It's just, you're always having all of the crowds and the people, the people that shouldn't believe in Jesus, they're the ones believing in Jesus. It's always the people who are spiritually blind that don't believe in Jesus. And that is a big, big time application lesson for all of us, is because we let our higher criticism, uh, educational thought, to rationalize how can this be, how can God exist? How can the Son of God exist? How can the— the gospel doesn't make any sense. We know that the gospel is foolishness, right, to the Jew, but it's the power to save. So they confess that he is the Savior of the world. They confess that he is the Savior of the world. Now my notes say This phrase, the Savior of the world— this phrase occurs also in 1 John chapter 4, verse 14. The verse constitutes the climax to the story of the woman of Samaria. The Samaritans themselves became another in a series of witnesses in John's Gospel that demonstrated the identity of Jesus as the Messiah and Son of God. This episode represents the first instance of cross-cultural evangelism, as depicted in Acts 1:8. So we continue the story in verse 43. After the 2 days, he departed for Galilee, for Jesus himself had testified that a prophet has no honor in his own hometown. So when he came to Galilee, the Galileans welcomed him having seen all that he had done in Jerusalem at the feast, for they too had gone to the feast. And now we're going to go into another section of John chapter 4 where Jesus is going to heal an official's son. So he leaves after 2 days, he departs to go to Galilee from Samaria. They welcome him in Galilee. They welcome him joyfully because they saw everything that he'd done in Jerusalem at the feast. And so now he comes again. Verse 46: He came again to Cana in Galilee. And that is, if you remember, that's where he made water into wine. And at Capernaum, there was an official whose son was ill. Verse 47: When this man heard that Jesus had come from Judea to Galilee, he went to him and asked him to come down and heal his son, for he was at the point of death. I know some of y'all have struggled with this. I know some of you have been through this, where you are either yourself struggling with health, or you know someone personally that struggled with health, and you are desperate for them. And God will be done. And sometimes it's not to our liking because sometimes our loved one passes away. So you know the pain and frustration that exists when someone is ill. Now, if you're a father particularly, or a father because that's what we're talking about here now. We're talking about a man whose son is ill to the point of death. So imagine for a second this man's pain, and let's see who he is one more time so we have— understand his context, okay? So we're in Capernaum, verse 46. We see that there was an official whose son was ill. So he is an official, and my notes say, in regarding to the official, that this term most likely designated someone of officially attached to the service of King Herod Antipas, the tetrarch of Galilee, who was there from 4 BC to 39 AD. And just FYI, Capernaum that we talked about was approximately 16 miles northeast of Cana. Excuse me. So here we have, uh, a political person here, an official. And most likely he, he wasn't a Jew. We're not so sure yet, but his son is ill. And, uh, but the guy says in verse 30, when this man heard that Jesus had come from Judea to Galilee, he went to him and asked him to come down and heal his son, for he was at the point of death. So he knows about Jesus' reputation. He knows that Jesus can— he's a healer, he can heal people. So he too comes. He's like, well, let me try this. He did this because his son was at the point of death. Verse 48: So Jesus said to him, Unless you see signs and wonders, you will not believe. Unless you see signs and wonders, you will not believe. The official said to him, verse 49, sir, come down before my child dies. It's kind of a desperate plea. Jesus said to him, Go, your son will live.' The man believed the word that Jesus spoke to him and went on his way. That's important. So Jesus simply says— first Jesus says, 'Unless you see signs and wonders, you will not believe.' And at first glance, you're thinking, 'Oh man, Jesus, he's not going to help me.' So the man says, "Sir, come down before my child dies." He's desperate. And Jesus says to him, "Go, your son will live." The man believed the word that Jesus spoke to him and went on his way. And he was going down, verse 51, he was going down, as he was going down, his servants met him and told him that his son was recovering. So the man is happy now, but he did the right thing here. He says, like probably we would, so he asked him, verse 52, so he asked them the hour when he began to get better, and they said to him, yesterday at the seventh hour the fever left him. Verse 53, the father knew that was the hour when Jesus had said to him Your son will live. And he himself believed, and all his household. This was now the second sign that Jesus did when he had come from Judea to Galilee. Okay, the second sign. What was the first sign? You guys remember? Turning the water into wine. So when we psychoanalyze this, or just analyze the situation here, obviously the son was far off and he was very ill and he had a fever, and, uh, which is obviously a physical ailment. And Jesus says simply, go, your son will be healed. So we see here the power of Jesus. Remember, John calls him the Word of God, and we see that the Word— that's Jesus, and I'm going to, as we go on, call him that— we see the Word which is spoken has power. And we see here that Jesus, the Word of God, said a command: 'Go, your son will live.' A promise, not a suggestion, a command. Go, 'Your son will live.' And in the meantime, in that command, by the power of God, the son far away recovers. The fever left him, because that's what was hurting the kid. It was the fever. The fever left, left him. It broke. Jesus in His omnipotent way, commanded the fever to leave this son of this man from far away, and it left him. And I say that because we time and time and time again hear Jesus commanding things to leave or come, and nature obeys. Nature obeys his words. The calming of the sea, the casting of the demons into the pigs, the restoring of someone's eyes who was born blind. He's the Creator God, so he has the power to not only heal and fix, he has the power to create. He created— he fed 5,000 plus women and children from two pieces of bread and fish. He can create something out of nothing that only God can do, right? And this is what makes him unique. This is the kind of thing that we should even today sit here and be in awe of the power of Jesus. So that was the second sign that Jesus did, and that's the end of chapter 4. So we'll end here. I hope that was, um, helpful, maybe encouraging. So far we're up to 2 signs. The creator of the universe, Jesus, turns water into wine. And now we see he commands a fever to leave a person from not even touching the person. Matter of fact, in both those situations, if we're observing carefully, he didn't even actually physically touch anything. He just simply said, do these things, you know, pour the water into the— and as they were pouring, it turned into wine. Like, he didn't have to touch anything. He doesn't have to touch things to to make things happen. He just says it and it happens. Sometimes, on occasion, He'll actually touch someone, but if we're careful, if we're observant, we're going to see that, that how He works is both touching and non-touching, but ultimately because He has the power to do what He's going to do. All right, well, that's the end of chapter 4. We'll pick up next time in chapter 5. I want to have a great holiday if this is a holiday for you. Um, let's pray. Father, we thank you for, uh, this time in your word. My encouragement to the hearer of this word is that they themselves commit time to study your word, and, and if this is a good excuse or reason to do so with me, that's great. Your word never returns to you void. And so in today's lesson, we see the power of Jesus. We see that Jesus not only, um, will Speak to the most religious person in the person of Nicodemus, but also into the outcasts of society in the person of this woman who had 5 husbands and is not even married. And so we see here, Lord, that You simply just want people to repent and believe in You, and that You are the gift. That springs up eternal water inside each one of us, the free gift of God. So Lord, give us boldness to live out our faith. Let us not be ashamed of the gospel. And I pray all these things in the name of your Son Jesus. Amen. All right guys, have a great day. See you next time.