Jesus, Samaria, And The Promise Of A Greater Rest

Rest isn’t a lighter calendar; it’s a settled soul. We open the book of John and follow Jesus straight through Samaria to a well in Sychar, where centuries of promise collide with a single thirsty moment. From Abraham’s altar to Joseph’s bones and Joshua’s charge, Shechem’s history frames a bold claim: the land once offered rest from enemies, but a greater rest has arrived in a person.

We unpack the striking contrast between Nicodemus under night skies and a Samaritan woman in the noonday heat. One is cautious and credentialed, the other candid and contested. Jesus meets both with precision and compassion, showing that the gospel is not a script but a living encounter. The conversation at the well shifts from social barriers and old rivalries to living water—an invitation to a life where the Spirit satisfies the thirst our routines never touch. It is not about collecting perfect beliefs to impress God; it is about trusting the One who finishes the work we cannot.

Along the way, we connect John 4 to Hebrews 4 to see why Joshua’s rest was never the end of the story. Jesus is greater than Moses, greater than Joshua, and greater than the restless striving to earn favor. Your workload may not shrink, but your heart can finally exhale. We talk through practical evangelism—different hearts need different approaches—and why walking the direct road, like Jesus did through Samaria, often means breaking stale patterns to love people well. John writes as an eyewitness so that you would know, not guess, that this rest is real and available now.

If this conversation helps you breathe a little easier, share it with a friend who’s running on empty. Subscribe for more thoughtful, scripture-rich messages, and leave a review to help others find the show. Then tell us: where are you thirsty for living water today?

Come On Up is the radio ministry of The Mountain Cross in Waynesville North Carolina. To learn more about us please visit: TheMountainCross.com. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:05

Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob. He will teach us his ways, and we shall walk in his paths.

SPEAKER_00 0:13

Welcome to Come On Up, the radio ministry of the Mountain Cross in Waynesville, North Carolina.

SPEAKER_02 0:20

Jesus is greater than the law. Jesus is greater than this first entering into rest. Jesus has a greater rest for us. And that rest is in a person. It's Jesus Christ Himself. More than doctrines or ideas or trying to do good works to please God. It's about Him.

SPEAKER_00 1:08

In today's message, Pastor Carl teaches that if you want to find rest in the busyness, look no further than Jesus Christ. Your workload won't decrease, but you'll find a spiritual peace that allows your soul to rest. And now, here's Pastor Carl.

SPEAKER_02 1:28

All right, let's get into a study of God's Word. We are in the book of John, and we'll be in John chapter 4. And so if you turn in your Bibles to John chapter 4, we'll get started right now. It was interesting as I was getting prepared for this lesson. Listen to and read a bunch of different folks and read through the passage many times and remember what I've remembered before and see new things that I hadn't seen before. One of the folks I was uh listening to was John Corson, who was a Calvary Chapel pastor up in Oregon, I believe. And he had an interesting comparison between what was happening in chapter three and chapter four. Of course, in chapter three is the verse that we all know, which is, for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whoever believes in him will not perish but have everlasting life. This was something that Jesus was talking to one of the chief rulers, Nicodemus. He was on uh he was in the he was a Pharisee and he was on the Sanhedrin, which is the superior court as such. And uh he came to Jesus one night and asked him some questions, and Jesus gave him some answers, uh, and a lot of times answers that weren't directly of what he was asking. It's about, all right, that's a good question. Consider this. Talk about this. And so um John Corson did a a comparison between uh his visit with Nicodemus and now in chapter four, his visit with the woman at the well. Uh in chapter three, we we deal with a religious man named Nicodemus. In chapter four, we deal with an immoral woman whose name is not given. Nicodemus is is a cool guy and and a contemplator, and the woman is a hot debater. Um Nicodemus and Jesus met in the cool of the night, and Jesus met the woman at the well in the heat of the day. Nicodemus begins the conversation in chapter three, and Jesus begins the conversation in chapter four. So interesting, which which makes you back up and think, okay, how does Jesus share, how does he evangelize, right? And the answer is different ways and different situations. So there's no one way to share the gospel. This the gospel is shared in many different ways. The question is, are we sharing it? Are we getting it out there? Are we are we living it? Are we trusting the Lord and allowing him to work in and through our lives? Well, that brings us to uh the story of chapter four, and uh what starts out like this Therefore, when the Lord knew that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus made and baptized more disciples than John, though Jesus himself did not baptize but his disciples, he left Judah and uh Judea and departed again to Galilee. But he needed to go through Samaria. So he came to a city of Samaria which is called Sichar, near the plot of ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph. Now Jacob's well was there, and Jesus therefore, being wearied from his journey, sat by the well, and it was about the sixth hour. Lot in these few verses right away. Well, if we remember at the end of chapter three, Jesus and his disciples came close to where John the Baptist was baptizing, and uh they started baptizing folks as well. And as we see at the beginning of this chapter, uh John the Apostle uh clarifies that Jesus himself wasn't doing the baptizing, but the people his uh disciples were. But it was no longer John the Baptist, although he was still doing the work, but his work was lessening. And even John himself said, May I decrease and may the Lord increase. Some of John the Baptist's disciples were getting upset that, wait a minute, now they're baptizing more people than we are. And John is like, Do you remember? That's why I came to direct people to him. And Jesus would take that message that John the Baptist was declaring and continue it as the beginning of his ministry, which is repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. And he would complete that work of bringing the kingdom of heaven to earth on the cross. And that was still three years ahead. So he's still just starting in in his ministry, but the ministry continues where John left off. And John is saying, okay, this is what my life was about, to point people to Jesus. And if people are following after Jesus, that's good. Even some of his disciples, John the Baptist disciples, were now following after Jesus. And so the remaining disciples had to work that out in their own minds. It's like, oh, he's not taking things away from us. It's a good thing, it's not a bad thing. And yet, in the midst of this, we see here in verse chapter 4, verse 1, that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus was making more, uh, had more people baptized, his disciples were doing it than John was. They were realizing that something was happening in Jesus' ministry, it was starting to grow. And maybe this might be trouble because we already had trouble with John the Baptist, and now Jesus is coming, the one that John the Baptist was warning about, and uh and something's happening. And Jesus knew it was not time to start astir with the Pharisees yet. It was not his time to be crucified. And so, as a result, he left with his disciples and went up to Galilee. And the story is about how he got to Galilee, because he went through Samaria instead of a traditional route that they would take. So they were down in Jerusalem. If you remember, uh, they were in Nazareth, Cana, Galilee region, um, when Jesus called some of his first disciples, and they went to the wedding feast in Cana of Galilee, and he did his first miracle there, which was kind of understated because nobody really knew except for a few people what had happened. And then they came down to Jerusalem to be part of the Passover feast, and then they went over and started uh baptizing with John the Baptist. Now, normally the Jews, when they went back up to the Galilee region, would avoid the area of Samaria because they just did not like the Samaritans. Now, what's the story behind the Samaritans? Well, if you remember back 720, something like that, 720 BC, when the Assyrians came in and took over the northern kingdom, they took most everybody, but the poorest of the poor they just left behind. And uh eventually some other Assyrians would come into the area, and then when the Babylonians took over, some some of the Babylonians came into the area, and other foreigners would come into the area. And long story short, they started to uh intermix with one another, intermarry. And so the the pure-bred Israelite Samaritans were now half-breeds, quote unquote. They were not pure Jews, they were mixed with other tribes, with other people groups, and so forth. And with that, their culture changed as well because they picked up some of the faith and some of the mystical uh teachings from some of the other groups that came in. And so they had kind of a mishmash of things that they used to worship, although they did believe in the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Bible, and they studied that as well as some other things. Well, because of that, the Jews, particularly the Jews of Judea, the southern kingdom, because that's where Jerusalem is, and that's where God meets with man, right? And that's where the Pharisees and the Sadducees were, and that's where you know we we proclaim the truth of God's word. They just they looked at the Samaritans as a corrupted people, um, and they're just there's no hope for them. So we would avoid them at all costs. And many people say that is why normally they would go around instead of straight through to get up to Galilee. And uh I was reading from Michael Card, and he brought up an interesting point that according to um, oh now I forgot his name, the Josephus, according to Josephus, um, it was the southern Jews that really had problems with the Samaritans. The Galileans didn't have as many problems with the Jews. Now I'm not sure if that is accurate, but he did bring out some interesting point, Michael Carr did. He said that Galilean Jews um were known to consume meat and milk products at the same time. Um and if you know the law, you know that you that's a no-no. And if they were Southern Jews, they would be aghast at that. But they're Galileans, they didn't, it didn't make that big a deal, so they did that. They celebrated Passover on Thursday instead of Friday night, which I never knew that before, but that's interesting because that makes a lot of sense, a lot more sense in the timeline of the last week, where the disciples are having their last supper on Thursday and Jesus is crucified on Friday. That makes a lot of sense. Um, olive oil from Galilee was considered unclean. And in later years, the Galileans were not even allowed to perform the public scripture readings in the Judean uh synagogues. If they came down for any of the festivals, they were not allowed to read the scriptures in the synagogues after a while. So, on the whole, the Galileans were considered more lax in their observance of the law. And so, and you kind of see that um when Peter denies Jesus at that uh at that campfire outside of Herod's place, when one of the ladies says, You're one of those Galileans, aren't you? And they had a stigma because they talked funny and and they just weren't as cultured as the southern Jews were. And so you have this interesting, if if if they had a problem with the Samaritans, then they need to turn around and look at themselves. But you have a problem with them, but you're not much better than they are. You do a lot of the same things they do. So that's one argument. The other argument is uh they didn't have a problem with the Samaritans because they understood and they were more easygoing in their way. So, whatever the reason they did not go this way or would normally go this way, uh I don't know. But this time they're going straight up to Sikar. And Sichar is actually a name, um, a renaming of the town of Shechem. Does Shechem sound familiar? Let me share with you a few verses of Shechem in Genesis chapter 12. Abram, this is where he landed when he was told to come to the promised land. Abraham passed through the land to the place of Shechem, as far as the Terebinth tree of Morab. And the Canaanites were in the land, and the Lord appeared to Abraham and said, Your descendants I will give this land. To your descendants I will give this land. And there he built an altar to the Lord who appeared to him. So Shechem was the place that Abraham came, and when he arrived there, uh the Lord came and and and confirmed his call and said, This is the land that I promised that I'm going to give to your descendants to you. This is also the place where Jacob, after he left to go find himself a wife, and he came back, and this is where in chapter 33 it says, Jacob came back safely to the city of Shechem, which is in the land of Canaan, where he came from Padam Aram, and he pitched his tent before the city, and he bought a parcel of land where he had pitched his tent from the children of Hamor, Shechem's father, for one hundred pieces of money, and he erected an altar on it there and called it El Elohi Israel, or God is toward Israel. God has favor with Israel. And I didn't get a chance to study too deeply in this. It may be that this city was named after Hamor's son, who who uh founded that area, or Hamor named his son after the name of the city who had been there for a while. I don't know the history there. But all that to say is it was in other people's hands. Uh Jacob bought a piece of land, and it was because God has favor on him, and God is toward Israel in this place. And of course, this is Abraham, and then you have Isaac, and then you have Jacob, the fathers of the faith, which each got the promise from the Lord. If you do what I say, or even if you don't, I'm still going to keep my promise and I'm going to make you a great nation. And as you study them, you know they have a kind of a shaky history, each of them, and yet the Lord is gracious, and the Lord accomplished his purposes. Something else that happened here, the bones of Joseph, this is from Joshua chapter 24, which the children of Israel had brought up from Egypt, they buried at Shechem, and at the plot of the ground which Jacob had brought from the sons of Hamor, that same piece of land that Jacob had bought, that's where they buried the bones of Joseph when they brought him up from Egypt. The father of Shechem for one hundred pieces of silver, which had become an inheritance to the children of Joseph. And Jacob had given them a double portion and given that Pacific uh piece of land to Jacob as Josh uh as Jacob was on his deathbed and he pronounced that uh to Joseph and his children. Something else happened there as well. This is where Joshua came in after they were, you know, Moses brought them out of Egypt and they were wandering in the in the wilderness for 40 years, and Moses, because he he misrepresented God by tapping the rock a second time, uh, he wasn't allowed to come into the promised land. But Jacob, no, Joshua would bring them into the promised land, and they ended up at at Shechem, and this is from Joshua's final sermon to the children of Israel. And this is what he was saying. Now it came to pass a long time after the Lord had given rest to Israel from all their enemies round about that Joshua was old and advanced in age. Now therefore, fear the Lord, this is what he told them. Serve him sincerely with truth, and put away the gods which your fathers served on the other side of the river and in Egypt. Serve the Lord, and if it seems evil to you to serve the Lord, choose for yourself this day who you will serve, whether the gods of your fathers that they served, uh, that were in the other side of the river, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. And he said that in Shechem. So Shechem has a rich history in the history of Israel, and the Samaritans grabbed hold of that and said, This is a really a sacred and important place. And it became their their their capital, and they changed the name to Sikar. Now, when we came to this place, we have Jesus at the well because he was weary. He was weary. And we're talking about Joshua here, who came and brought Israel in to the promised land and gave them rest from their enemies. And Jesus is looking for rest as well. But Jesus is our rest, which is another juxtaposition of how things go. Jesus got weary for us so that we could have rest. Now let me let me read from Hebrews here. Joshua brought them rest, but the Hebrews, the writer of the Hebrews, points out there was more that they needed. There was more to come than just rest from their enemies. For it is Hebrews chapter 4, beginning at verse 8. If Joshua had given them rest, then he would have not afterwards spoken of another day. There was another day that Joshua was pointing toward. There remains therefore a rest for the people of God, for he who has entered his rest has himself also ceased from the works as God has done from him, from his. That will give you peace and hope. And that rest is found in Jesus Christ. It's not just being in a place that you're safe from your enemies. It's not just a place where where you have a Sabbath day to rest, which is good, but it's so much more. It's not a physical thing, it's a spiritual thing. And author David Guzick made a very interesting comment on this. He said the mention of Joshua reminds us that the the name Joshua means the same as Jesus. Jesus is the same as Joshua. And the second Joshua, Joshua's the first, Jesus is the second Joshua, will finish what the first Joshua left unfinished. There is still a rest to come. Jesus is greater than both Moses and the first Joshua. Jesus is greater than the law, Jesus is greater than this first entering into rest. Jesus has a greater rest for us. Rest is in a person. It's Jesus Christ Himself. More than doctrines or ideas or trying to do good works to please God. It's about Him. He finished it. And when we rest in Him, when we are in Him, we find rest from our works. What kind of works? The works trying to work ourselves into heaven, trying to get right with God. So, with all this background, here we have Jesus coming to this well in the city of Shechem, which has a rich, rich history in the background of Israel. And you have a people group that live there that are rejected by most of Israel. All right? That's the background. You ready? Now the rest of it's going to go a little quicker than this. All right. Verse 7: A woman from Samaria came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, Give me a drink. Now he didn't say this in a rude way. The way it's written, it sounds kind of rude. Hey, woman, give me a drink. It was more like, would you please give me a drink? Um, since basically you have what it takes to get it. I didn't have a bucket, I don't have a scoop, you do. Could you get a drink for me? I'm kind of thirsty. Would you give me a drink? For the disciples had gone away into the city to buy food. Then the woman of Samaria, which is interesting, Jesus sent the rest of the disciples away and said, I'm going to rest for a while. This is the creator of all things, the ones who, the one who keeps all things together by the power of his word. As a man, he got tired. So he understands about getting tired. So when you get tired, you could pray, Lord, you understand about being tired. Give me strength today. For his disciples had gone away into the sea to buy food. In verse 9, the woman of Samaria said to him, How is it that you, being a Jew, ask a drink from me, a Samaritan woman? She didn't see him as a Galilean, she saw him as a Jew. And it didn't matter to him, to her, it seems like all Jews hated them. And uh she wasn't scared of him. She was kind of bold and kind of strong, and and she knew a lot, and and so she challenged him. Who are you to ask me? You're asking, you're first of all, you're talking to a woman. Second of all, you're talking to a Samaritan woman. What is that all about? For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans. Not that it's right or wrong. I'm just saying that's how it is. And Jesus answered and said to her, if you knew the gift of God and who it is who says to you, give me a drink, you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water. This is interesting. Again, comparing him, comparing what Jesus was doing in this conversation to the conversation he had with Nicodemus, both ways. They ask a direct question, and he asks there something that seems to be totally different than what he's what they were asking about. She's addressing, you know, Samaritans, you know, Jews don't like us. Why are you asking me? Because that's not you, you don't do that. And Jesus went past all those all those ideas, all those legalistic laws, and went straight to the point where do you realize who you're talking to? And and not in an insulting way, but in a caring way. I have come, I need water. I'm I'm in flesh and blood, but but I'm also the creator of the universe. I am I am the Messiah, and I have some water that you need to drink. And last week we we looked at water, the relationship between water and the word and the work of the Holy Spirit. They're all kind of together and they all point to the same thing that the work of the Lord in our lives.

SPEAKER_00 24:07

That's Pastor Carl on Come On Up. You know, the Gospel of John was written by one of Jesus' original disciples. He's referred to as the disciple whom Jesus loved. What a sweet and intimate way to refer to the closeness and friendship that was had between John and Jesus. After all, so many of the events mentioned were witnessed firsthand by John. He was there for the transfiguration, and he was the only disciple of the twelve mentioned to be at the cross as Jesus died. He was also one of the first people to see that the grave was empty. John had an opportunity and a privilege to write about all the things that he saw and witnessed with his own eyes. He saw miracles. He was the recipient of Jesus' love and care, and he was eager for others to see and experience knowing Jesus too. That's why he wrote it all down in this wonderful book of John. Like the author, we hope that you'll take note of the ways that God has intersected your life and brought about amazing stories to tell. Write them down, share them with others, and don't be afraid to tell people about the greatest love of all, so that they can also claim that they are disciples whom Jesus loves. An easy way to share Jesus with people is by letting them know about this radio program. The Mountain Cross is a group of believers in Jesus who seek to grow in faith by simply teaching through the Bible. We meet on Sundays beginning at 10 a.m. To learn more, go to themountaincross.com. That's all for today. Come on Up is sponsored by The Mountain Cross, a Calvary Chapel fellowship.