Come and See: Living Water and Living Witness
Today's post consists of my notes for a sermon I preached August 25, 2013 at Kitty Hawk UMC.
She lives in a small town, the kind where everyone knows everyone else’s business—and often adds their own opinions to it. We can picture her walking through the dusty streets, feeling the weight of the whispers. Years of broken relationships, painful choices, and sideways glances have taught her how small towns can turn gossip into a prison.
So, she learns to schedule her life around other people’s routines. When the women of Sychar go to draw water early in the morning, she waits until the noon sun burns hot, when no one else is there. It’s not just about water—it’s about avoiding shame. It’s about living an invisible life, excluded and exhausted.
Many of us know something about that. We may not draw water from a well, but we know what it’s like to feel outside the circle—to carry things we hope no one else notices. Lent is a season when those quiet, hidden wounds come to the surface. It’s a time when we acknowledge both our need for grace and the ways we try to hide from others—and sometimes from God.
She sees Jesus. Jesus initiates a conversation with her.
Finally, Jesus said to her, “If you recognized God’s gift and who is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water” (John 4:10).
1. Recognizing the Gift
The heart of this story begins with a question: How do we recognize God’s gift to us?
The woman comes to the well at noon, perhaps burdened by her history, isolated by her reputation, separated by centuries of hostility between Jews and Samaritans. And yet it is there—at an ordinary well, at an ordinary hour—that she encounters the extraordinary grace of God.
Jesus speaks first. That is prevenient grace.
Before she understands.
Before she confesses.
Before she believes.
He initiates.
In our Wesleyan understanding, the Holy Spirit goes before us, stirring, inviting, awakening. Jesus says, “If you recognized God’s gift…” The gift is standing in front of her. The gift is speaking to her. The gift is asking her for water.
How often does God come to us disguised as a simple request? A nudge. A conversation. A need. A neighbor. Prevenient grace means that no one is beyond the reach of God’s first move. Not this woman. Not her town. Not us. The question is not whether God is offering living water. The question is whether we recognize it.
2. Worship in Spirit and Truth
Jesus says, “The hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth… God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth” (4:23–24).
There are many “spiritual” people in our world. But Jesus is not speaking of vague spirituality. He speaks of worship that is:
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In spirit – awakened by the Holy Spirit’s prevenient grace.
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In truth – rooted in abiding in Christ.
Jesus later says in John 15, “Abide in me.” To worship in truth is to remain in him, to dwell in his life, to let his words dwell in us. And we remember: Jesus said, “I am the truth.”
True worship is not about geography—Gerizim or Jerusalem. It is about relationship. It is not about ritual correctness alone. It is about communion with the living Christ.
Worship in spirit is God’s work in us.
Worship in truth is our abiding response in him.
Grace initiates. Faith responds. Faithfulness continues.
3. Crossing Boundaries
Verse 27 tells us the disciples were “astonished that he was speaking with a woman.”
Jesus crosses at least three boundaries:
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Ethnic boundary (Jew/Samaritan)
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Gender boundary (rabbi/woman)
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Moral boundary (her history)
In Scripture, boundaries are often described as walls. Some walls are necessary. The Ten Commandments are good boundaries. In our own churches, Safe Sanctuaries policies are necessary boundaries.
Boundaries protect life.
But sometimes the boundary laws meant to protect holiness become barriers that hinder grace. In Second Temple Judaism, certain boundary markers were understood in a manner that separated people in ways that obscured mercy.
Jesus does not abolish holiness. He redefines it. Holiness is not separation from sinners. Holiness is redeeming love moving toward them. If Jesus had kept “professional distance,” this woman would never have known living water. But he meets her at the well. Our culture often confuses intimacy with impropriety. But the gospel shows us something deeper: redemptive presence. Jesus’ familiarity does not breed contempt. It breeds transformation.
If we are to make disciples, we cannot remain safely distant. We must risk proximity. We must meet people at wells.
4. The Risk of Testimony
After her encounter, “The woman left her water jar and went back to the city” (4:28). She leaves the jar—the reason she came. When you meet Christ, your priorities shift. And then she does something astonishing:
“Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done! He cannot be the Messiah, can he?” (4:29).
Imagine the personal risk. She goes back to the very people who likely whispered about her. She opens herself to ridicule. Her testimony is not polished. It is not systematic theology. It is simply:
“Look at what Jesus has done for me.”
That is witness.
She does not argue. She invites.
“Come and see.”
And many Samaritans believed because of her word.
We often think we must have all the answers before we speak. But evangelism begins with honesty. It begins with humility. It begins with sharing how Christ has met us. We believe because someone else first said, “Come and see.”
5. Fed by Doing God’s Will
When the disciples urge Jesus to eat, he says, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to complete his work” (4:34).
We are fed by doing God’s will.
Notice: active, not passive.
Discipleship is not merely receiving grace; it is participating in God’s mission. There is nourishment in obedience. There is strength in service. There is joy in completing the work he gives us. Many churches are spiritually malnourished not because we lack Bible studies, but because we lack participation in mission. Doing God’s will feeds the soul.
6. Harvest Before Sowing
35 Do you not say, ‘Four months more, then comes the harvest’? But I tell you, look around you, and see how the fields are ripe for harvesting. 36 The reaper is already receiving wages and is gathering fruit for eternal life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice together. 37 For here the saying holds true, ‘One sows and another reaps.’ 38 I sent you to reap that for which you did not labor. Others have labored, and you have entered into their labor.”
Jesus says, “The reaper is already receiving wages and is gathering fruit for eternal life” (4:36). Then he adds something surprising: “I sent you to reap that for which you did not labor. Others have labored, and you have entered into their labor” (4:38).
We harvest before we sow.
We often imagine mission as starting from scratch. But the Holy Spirit has already been at work. Someone prayed. Someone suffered. Someone planted seeds decades ago. When we lead someone to Christ, we are harvesting what others—and the Spirit—have sown. That should humble us. And encourage us. Because when we sow faithfully today, someone else may reap tomorrow. And both sower and reaper will rejoice together.
7. From Testimony to Personal Faith
“Many Samaritans… believed in him because of the woman’s testimony” (4:39).
But then they say something beautiful:
“It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves” (4:42).
Testimony introduces.
Encounter confirms.
We come to belief through the witness of others.
We grow into faith through hearing Christ ourselves.
We live in faithfulness by making him known.
That is the Wesleyan movement of grace:
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Prevenient grace awakens.
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Justifying grace brings us to faith.
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Sanctifying grace forms us in faithful living.
The woman becomes what some call a “person of peace”—someone through whom an entire community encounters Christ.
And it all began at a well.
Conclusion: Who Is at Your Well?
Where is your well?
Who is the person Jesus is already meeting there?
Perhaps you are the woman—thirsty, burdened, surprised by grace.
Perhaps you are the disciple—astonished that Jesus is crossing boundaries you thought were fixed.
Perhaps you are called to be the witness—risking vulnerability to say, “Come and see.”
The living water is still flowing.
The Spirit still goes before us.
The harvest is still ready.
May we recognize the gift when he speaks.
May we worship in spirit and truth.
May we cross boundaries in holy love.
May we be fed by doing his will.
And may we say with courage and joy:
“Come and see.”
Amen.
Let us pray...
Gracious God, thank you for the living water of your Word. We have been met at the well today. Now, like the woman of Samaria, may we leave behind what we no longer need and run to share what we have found. Strengthen us by your Spirit to live what we have heard. May the seeds planted in this hour take deep root and bear fruit that remains. Through Jesus Christ, who is the same yesterday, today, and forever. Amen.
All scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version, Updated Edition. Copyright © 2021 National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
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