MISSION GROUP QUESTIONS FROM SPIRITUAL GROWTH - John 4: The women at the well

This week we started a new 9 weeks series looking at "spiritual growth." What does it mean to grow and change and experience internal transformation in our lives? And we looked at the story from John 4 of Jesus transforming a women's life to give us A Vision for Change

We live in a society that is obsessed with change, but it is usually external change. In this story we saw how none of the women’s circumstances changed but because of an internal change in her she had the power and perspective to face her situations. What brought about this change

(1) The Acceptance of Jesus.

Jesus broken down every barrier that should have separated them.

(1) She was a moral and social outcast (alone by a well at midday), society had rejected her and she was hiding from the community - but Jesus puts himself in her eed (vs7)
(2) She was a Samaritan - but Jesus puts aside the years of anger and bitterness and hatred that existed between Jews and Samaritans (cf 2 kings 17.24ff)
(3) She was a women - but Jesus breaks all the cultural norms and gives her dignity and worth.

Why is this important? Because for most people two of the biggest obstacles to change are

(a) Shame - what will people think of me? But Jesus accepts her in her mess and accepts her and loves her. He accepts her before she cleans up her act (he doesn’t even mention the husbands at this stage). Jesus’ acceptance of us will give us the power to open up other people to work through our issues.

(b) Dispair - “I have tried and failed.” This women must have given up hope for change. Yet Jesus pursues her. He initiates. She isn’t searching for him but he comes after her. This is gives us hope for change. He hasn’t given up on us. He doesn’t think change is impossible. He is coming after us (the bible is one big story of God coming after us to transform us).

(2) The living water of Jesus

Jesus does not want to condemn the women but convict her so in verse 17 he brings up the issue of her previous husbands (don’t forget, he had already accepted her - it is a gospel of grace). He wants to show her that she is thirsty but finding satisfaction in the wrong place and it is leaving her in a desert…a relational desert….and she is becoming more and more thirsty. It has become a destructive pattern in her life but that pattern is only the symptom of a deeper issue - the real issue is that she is drinking from another well - the well of approval/status/sex/affection that men give her. For Jesus to give her living water he must expose the well she is drinking from, he has to convict her, so that she can find true satisfaction in the living water he gives. For us to experience spiritual change we must not try and change the symptoms, we must change the well from which we drink, our desires need to change. If our heart doesn’t change then no amount of discipline will help us see growth. If Jesus had said “don’t hang out with men” he would not have solved the issue, he needed to expose her well and then offer her something far more satisfying so that she wouldn’t want men! So to see change we must (1) tackle the underlying issue that reveals itself in destructive patterns and (2) go to Jesus from greater satisfaction (like a kid letting go of a forbidden object for something far more satisfying. Our change is as much about the positives (finding joy in Christ) than the negatives (saying “no” to sin) - see Matthew 13.44. C.S Lewis famously said

    “Our Lord finds our desires, not too strong, but too weak.
    We are half hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition
    when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on
    making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant
    by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.”

(3) A bigger picture of Jesus

If we are not careful we can say to Jesus “I want the change….I want the satisfaction, contentment, joy, peace, freedom etc…..but I don’t want you” - “I want your living water but I don’t want you.” But Jesus is the living water (vs10, John 7.37-39). We must come to him to drink. He is the one that satisfies our thirst. What changes this women? What does Jesus give her? An encounter with himself! He becomes bigger and bigger in the story - he starts off as a tired and thirsty man sat at a well, he then becomes a rabbi and a prophet…ad at the end he is the saviour of the world (vs42). In fact, in verse 26 in the original greek, we have the first “I AM” saying referring back to Exodus 3.14. We don’t offer people a set of rules or “7 steps to growth”, we offer them a person (who we now know and experience through the Holy Spirit).How does Paul tell us transformation happens in the Christian faith? 2 Corinthians 3.18 says…

    And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect/behold/gaze upon the Lord’s glory,
    are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory,
    which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.

It is a wonderful story and gives us a fantastic vision for spiritual change. She starts hiding, ashamed, ostracised and afraid and she ends up becoming a spring of water that brings other people to know Jesus. She is not hiding, she is telling people to come and see a man who told her all her sin! WOW!

Reflection and Application

(1) What do you think are the biggest obstacles to wanting change in your life? How does this story help you?

(2) In what areas are you wanting to hide? Why?

(3) Have you given up hope on being able to change? If so where and why? How does it make you feel that Jesus is coming after you?

(4) What are the destructive patterns of behaviour or thought in your life that reveal that you are drinking from another well? What is the deeper issue? Where are you looking to drink from and why? How is the living water Jesus gives more satisfying? What does it mean for you to drink from him?

(5) Do you feel you have plateaued in your faith? Why is this? What well could you be turning to? Would you like to grow?

(6) How do we help each other “gaze upon/behold” Jesus so that he becomes bigger and bigger?

(7) What did it take Jesus to give you the living water? On the cross he cries out “I thirst” (John 19.28). Meditate on Psalm 22 and the cosmic thirst Jesus experienced to give you living water.

(8) Pray for each other and us as a church that we might grow as we gaze Jesus - that he would become bigger and bigger and that would bring spiritual transformation in our lives.

ACTION POINT - listen to Andrew Wilson’s talk from Saturday morning of love nations called “a joyful people” - 12 ways to find joy in God (i.e how to drink from him). Write down any ideas that the talk gives you about how to find joy in God and discuss them as a group at your next Mission Group meeting.