Conversations with Jesus always produce results

John 4:27-42 27 Just then his disciples returned and were surprised to find him talking with a woman. But no one asked, “What do you want?” or “Why are you talking with her?” 28 Then, leaving her water jar, the woman went back to the town and said to the people, 29 “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Messiah?” 30 They came out of the town and made their way toward him. 31 Meanwhile his disciples urged him, “Rabbi, eat something.” 32 But he said to them, “I have food to eat that you know nothing about.” 33 Then his disciples said to each other, “Could someone have brought him food?” 34 “My food,” said Jesus, “is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work. 35 Don’t you have a saying, ‘It’s still four months until harvest’? I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest. 36 Even now the one who reaps draws a wage and harvests a crop for eternal life, so that the sower and the reaper may be glad together. 37 Thus the saying ‘One sows and another reaps’ is true. 38 I sent you to reap what you have not worked for. Others have done the hard work, and you have reaped the benefits of their labor.” 39 Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me everything I ever did.” 40 So when the Samaritans came to him, they urged him to stay with them, and he stayed two days. 41 And because of his words many more became believers. 42 They said to the woman, “We no longer believe just because of what you said; now we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this man really is the Savior of the world.”

    Jesus has responded to the woman’s questions. This is a frequent pattern throughout the gospel of John. Jesus having conversations and there are changes as a result of those conversations. Sometimes the change is one which will lead to hostility, sometimes the change is one which leads to belief. Jesus’ conversations produce a change in those around him. In John 2, we’re told about the wedding at Cana in Galilee. Jesus and his mother have a conversation. Mary brings up that the wine is all gone. Jesus has a conversation with the servants, and soon the wedding is changed for the better. Jesus brings joy to the wedding feast. Later on in John 2 we’re told of Jesus visiting Jerusalem and he sees the desecration of the temple courts. He overturns the money changing tables and drives everyone out of the temple courts. When he’s challenged “what sign can you show us to prove your authority in all this?” Jesus responds “Destroy this temple and I will raise it again in three days”. Some are confused by this and say “it took 46 years to build this temple”, yet he wasn’t referring to the building, he was referring to his body. We’re told in John 2:22 “After he was raised from the dead, his disciples recalled what he had said. Then they believed the scripture and the words that Jesus had spoken”. 

    In John 3 we’re told about a conversation Jesus has with a teacher, a spiritual leader of the people of Israel named Nicodemus. Nicodemus asks him how can someone be born again, and Jesus tells him in no uncertain terms that “No one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to Spirit”. Nicodemus comes away changed from this conversation, and we’re told that after the death of Jesus, Nicodemus helped Joseph of Arimathea in preparing Jesus’ body for burial (John 19:39-42). Conversations with Jesus lead to changed lives. And now we see in John 4, that this Samaritan woman is changed after her conversation with Jesus. She changes from a skeptic, a critic, and an unbeliever, into a follower, and a proclaimer of this Jesus, this Messiah. 

x

    Notice the detail that John gives us as this transition in John 4. The woman came out to the well to draw water (John 4:7), and yet after her conversation with Jesus, her priorities have been rearranged, she is excited, she is undone, she is overwhelmed, she is changed. She is in such a moment of change that she leaves her water jar (4:28), which was her original purpose in coming to the well, and goes back to the town and tells the people of the town of her encounter with Jesus. This woman’s testimony of her encounter with Jesus led her to tell others of this wondrous, miraculous encounter.  

    The woman leaves a changed person with changed priorities. She once thought she was religious, once thought she was spiritual, once thought she worshipped the True God. Yet after her encounter with Jesus she realizes she springs forth with new life and that life is abundant. Many have commented that the reason why she had to come to the well in the heat of the day was due to her sin, to her promiscuous lifestyle. She would have been shunned by the company of the town, shunned by the company of those who wanted to remain in public favor. The whole reason why she comes to gather water in the middle of the day is because she’s thirsty for water and can’t come at any other time of day. She comes to Jesus a shunned sinner, and leaves a new person.

    When she is finished with her conversation with Jesus she's not the same. All that she had ever done, all that she ever had to be ashamed of, all the reasons she had to keep to herself, all the reasons she had to stay quiet and avoid others were cast off. Instead of returning to town and continuing to live shunned, quietly avoiding the townsfolk, she bursts into town with news. Jesus' conversation had changed her from a woman of ill repute, destined to be destitute, to a follower of Jesus who was excited to proclaim the fame of Jesus' name to all who would listen to her.

    Have you left a conversation with Jesus, changed like the woman? God taking out your heart of stone, and giving you a heart of flesh, to prioritize the things of heaven rather than the things of earth? Is Jesus repurposing everything you’ve ever done like he did for the woman? Has Jesus begun to create such a stir in you that you simply cannot help but share this life changing, world changing, priority rearranging news that the Messiah of the World has come? I want to encourage you, pray earnestly that God would stir up in you a hunger and an appetite for the things of God and that God would use you to share the news of his Son with those whom you know.