First Baptist Church of Tampa Sermons

S1 E11: Jesus Loves the Little Children

• First Baptist Church of Tampa • Season 1 • Episode 11

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Sermon Overview

Speaker: Dr. Stephen Rummage is the Executive Director-Treasurer of the Florida Baptist Convention.

Title: When Jesus Meets You at the Well

Text: John 4:1–42

Date: April 19, 2026

WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO THRIVE?

We want to help every person make a genuine commitment to follow Jesus and then follow through with that commitment in Connecting People to a Thriving Life in Christ. These Thriving disciples should Dig In to the Bible, Grow Up in Christ, and Branch Outinto the community.

Our Mission: To Connect People to a Thriving Life in Christ. What is a thriving life in Christ? Scripture says that Jesus Christ came “that they may have life, and have it abundantly.” Our mission in the city of Tampa is to make disciples who follow the pattern of the believer in Psalm 1 and desire God’s glory above all things.

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Our Student & Young Adult Ministries:

SPEAKER_00

Amen and amen. You may be seated. I'm so honored to be here with you today at First Baptist Church of Tampa, and uh just counted a great, great joy. Uh I I loved Michelle and I both just loved our time so much here in the Tampa Bay area, and we're always excited for the opportunity to come back. So thank you for having me here today. It's my great joy to serve our churches all across the Florida Baptist Convention. And as you know, God is bringing people from all over the country and really all over the world to Florida, and so many of them do not have a relationship with Jesus Christ. That's why I'm so thankful that in every part of this incredible state, God has put Florida Baptist churches, well, all kinds of churches, I mean all types of ethnicities, all kinds of settings, all types of approaches, but Florida Baptist churches all across this state who are taking the good news of Jesus to those who have never heard the gospel. And we're seeing many, many people come to know Jesus as Savior. In fact, last year, I'm really always really excited to be able to report this. Last year, our Florida Baptist churches saw 33,123 new believers follow Jesus Christ in believers' baptism in our churches. And we just praise God for that, and I praise God for the difference you're making. Praise the Lord for that. I praise God for that. And I praise God for the difference that you are making. And uh, I'm thankful to see how God is working in your church to reach this great city with the gospel of Jesus Christ. In the years to come, I really believe God wants us to reach more and more and more and more people. And I believe by his grace and through his favor and by the power of his spirit, we're gonna see God do that. So, Pastor, thank you for having me here today. Your pastor and I have known one another a long time. He's a dear friend. He is loved and respected across the Tampa Bay area, loved and respected throughout Florida. I know nobody loves him more than the people in this room right now. Will you express your appreciation to your pastor right now? Thank you, Brother Bob. And uh I just I just thank God for you. If you got a copy of God's word, I want you to take your Bibles, turn with me to the Gospel of John, chapter four. John's Gospel, chapter four. This morning I've given my message the title, When Jesus Meets You at the Well. Not too long ago, I was traveling outside of the country to do some preaching and ministry, and um, and as I was going, Michelle was not gonna go with me on this trip. She goes with me on a lot of trips, but she didn't go with me on this one. And she just said, Now, Stephen, you need to be really careful while you're there. She said, You probably shouldn't drink the water. And so I thought, well, you know, that's that's right, that's true. So I got there and I was careful when I was out and doing things and you know, during the day, I didn't drink the water. But when I'd come back to my hotel at night, I was not as careful because I poured the water out of the out of the faucet there in the in the in the bathroom, and and and it was clear and pure looking. And so I used it to brush my teeth. I used it maybe to, you know, to take my multivitamin, just different things. And I've been doing that for a couple of days and wasn't having any problems or anything, but I just began to think about what Michelle said. You might be careful about drinking the water. And so I was talking to one of the guys who was hosting me there, and I said, Hey, is it okay for me to drink the water? He said, Oh no, sir. And I said, I'm not talking about like out in the city, I mean back at the hotel. He said, Oh, oh no, sir. And I said, Well, I mean, I'm just talking about like, you know, when I'm brushing my teeth, he said, Oh no, sir. He said, You do not need to drink that water. He said, the hotels here, all of their water systems are fed by uh these cisterns underneath the hotels, and those cisterns can have all kinds of things going on that you can't see with your naked eye, but at a molecular level, there's something going on there. He said, We don't drink that water, and you shouldn't drink that water either. That was a good reminder to me always to listen to my wife's advice when she gives it to me. It also just reminded me that water is a big deal, right? Having good drinking water is a big deal. If water goes out, I mean, if there was a break in the water main coming into church this morning, it'd been it would have been hard for this church to have church. We just depend on water so much just on a day-to-day basis. And in the Word of God, the Bible uses water as a picture for a number of different spiritual things. Sometimes it talks about water as our sustenance and our nourishment that brings us God's blessing in our lives, as in Psalm 1.1, where the Bible describes a tree planted by the streams of water and compares that to a righteous person. Sometimes the Bible talks about water in terms of cleansing and making us pure and holy. But Jesus, in the passage that we're going to look at today, uses water as a symbol for the eternal life, the everlasting life, the abundant life he gives to everyone who trusts in him. I want you to stand with me as we read God's word together from John chapter 4. We're beginning in verse 1 of the text. And the Bible says 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 Judea and departed again to Galilee. But he needed to go through Samaria. So he came to a city of Samaria, which is called Sikar, near the plot of ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph. Now Jacob's well was there. Jesus, therefore, being wearied from his journey, sat thus by the well. It was the sixth hour. Verse 7. A woman of Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, Give me a drink. This is the word of God. Will you join with me as we pray? Father in heaven, I pray in these moments that you would move me out of the way. And God, that you would speak. Lord, I pray that you would speak to those who need to be saved today. Lord, show them how much you love them and how much they need you. That today they might turn to Jesus and be saved. Then, Father, I pray that you would speak to believers today. Show us what it means to live our lives fed by, nourished by your living water. We'll give you glory and honor for all that you do. For we pray these things in Jesus' precious name. And church, if you agree with that prayer, we say, Amen. Amen. You may be seated. We don't know her name. We know a little bit about her background. We'll learn more about her as we go along. But we'll never forget her story. This woman at the well. And she's not the only woman at the well in the Bible. In the Old Testament, there were other women who came to wells, and the Bible describes it. But we always call her the woman at the well. She met Jesus there. And through her encounter with Jesus, Jesus transformed her life. I want to talk to you today about what happens in your life and my life when Jesus meets you at the well. The first thing I want you to see in this text is this when Jesus meets you at the well, Jesus comes to where you are. I love that about the Lord Jesus. The Lord Jesus goes out of his way to come to where we are. He did that for the woman at the well. The Bible says in verse 3 of our text, he left Judea and departed again to Galilee. He was making that journey northward from Judea into Galilee. But then the Bible says this in verse 4. But he needed to go through Samaria. That's a simple statement, but it's something we really need to see. Because in those days, most Jewish rabbis would not go through Samaria. The people of Samaria were sort of half-breeds racially. They were half Jewish and half Gentile. And for that reason, the Jewish people held them at arm's length. They didn't want to have anything to do with them. And not only that, they they didn't quite follow all of the Bible, and they had some weird understandings of how they worshiped and where they worshipped. And so the typical Jewish rabbi would not go through Samaria. Praise God, Jesus was not the typical Jewish rabbi. He was willing to go where others would not go. The Bible said he needed to go through Samaria. And so he did. And as he got there around the noon hour, the Bible says he came to a city of Samaria, which is called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph. And there was a well there. It was an ancient well. It's still there even to this day. And the well was probably surrounded by some type of stone curb. And Jesus was tired, the Bible says, and so he sat there at the well. And as he did, at the noon hour, a woman came. And most of the time, women would come to the well in the early morning hours when it was cool or in the late afternoon as the sun was beginning to set. Most of the time they came in groups together, but this woman came by herself, the hottest time of the day, when there was really no one else there, but Jesus was there. The Bible says, a woman of Samaria came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, Give me a drink. Then look in verse 9 of the text. Then the woman of Samaria said to him, How is it that you, being a Jew, ask a drink from me, a Samaritan woman? For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans. He knew it, she knew it, everybody knew it. Jewish people didn't have anything to do with Samaritans. Jewish men didn't talk to women ordinarily out in public at any time. And yet he came to this woman and asked her a question. How is it that you're asking me to do that? That was the question on her heart. And the answer was this: Jesus meets hurting people where they are. He was willing to cross barrier after barrier after barrier to reach her in her need. Something happened several years ago down in one of the beaches in Broward County, Florida. There was a lifeguard, his name was Tomas Lopez, and he was up on his lifeguard stand. He was looking out at the ocean, and he saw a man about 1,500 feet out who was obviously struggling. And he saw them, and he could tell that the man was not going to make it if someone didn't come out to him. And so Tomas came down off of his lifeguard chair. He ran across the beach. He got into the water. He began to swim out to the man. By the time he came to the man, the man was going down, maybe for the last time. Tomas cradled him in his arms, swam all the way to shore, and saved this man's life. About three days later, he was fired by the lifeguard company. And here's why. The lifeguard company told Tomas, the man that you went and rescued was beyond the zone that we allow our lifeguards to go and rescue. Because of insurance and liability issues and everything else, they said, You can't continue to work from us if you're going to go swim out beyond that zone. Tomas said he was glad to lose his job for the sake of going to save somebody's life. If you're a lifeguard who really wants to guard lives, then you'll go past whatever zone you have to go past to rescue someone. Jesus went past zone after zone after zone to reach this woman. He crossed the racial zone, he crossed the geographical zone, he crossed the social zone, he crossed the spiritual zone because long before Jesus left Judea and came into Samaria, Jesus left heaven and came to earth to meet sinful, lost, perishing people where we are. Aren't you glad that he did? Man, he's willing to cross every zone to come to you. And you may be here today, and I don't know all of your story, but you know, and and God knows, and you just may feel like there's all kinds of distances between where you are and and what you understand about who God is. I promise you, He is already coming after you. Jesus said, the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost. He'll come past every zone, he'll go past every barrier you can imagine to reach you. When you turn to him, you discover he has already turned himself to you. And church, I want to remind us of something today. That as God's people who have been tasked with the same mission for which Jesus came, and that is to reach people with the good news of Jesus Christ. God wants us to cross every zone, whatever zone it might be, whatever barrier we might see, He wants us to cross every zone to reach people with the good news of Jesus Christ. Whether it's a racial zone or a social zone or whatever you want to name, he wants us to reach any everyone we can with the good news of Jesus. The Bible says when Jesus meets you at the well, Jesus comes to where you are. The second thing I want you to see in this text is this when Jesus meets you at the well, Jesus understands the thirst of your heart. Jesus understands the thirst of your heart. Now look in verse 10 of the text. The Bible says, 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. He said, if you rather knew who you were talking to right now, you would have asked me, and I would have given you living water. And there was a misunderstanding right now that that arises between the woman and Jesus over this issue of living water. Jesus was talking about living water as a as a picture of his eternal abundant life. But living water was also used in those days to talk about just running water. They called running water living water. And so he's talking about living water spiritually. She's thinking about running water, living water from a physical sense. Jesus says, if you knew he was talking to you, 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 with, and this well is deep. Even now, Jacob's well is over a hundred feet deep. It was probably deeper in those days. And she was saying, you don't have a bucket, you don't have a rope. If there's some type of spring at the bottom of this well where there's running water, you don't have the ability to get down to the bottom of it and find this living water. Where then, she said, look at the end of verse 11, where then do you get that living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us this well and drank from it himself as well as his sons and his livestock? Then Jesus said this in verse 13. Jesus answered and said to her, Whoever drinks of this water will thirst again. But whoever drinks of the water that I give him will never thirst. But the water that I give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life. That well had been there for centuries. And person after person, for year after year, had come to that well. But no matter how much water they drew up out of that water that well, no matter how deeply they drank, no matter how long they stayed there, eventually when they left that well, they thirsted again. That's true of any source of satisfaction or significance or sustenance that we turn to instead of Jesus. No matter how deeply you drink, no matter how much you think you've satisfied yourself, this world will ultimately leave you thirsty. But when you come to Jesus, he said, when you come to him, the water that he gives you will become in you a fountain of water. Look in verse 14. Springing up into everlasting life. He said, if you just come to me, I'm gonna give you a source that will spring up into everlasting life forever. Here's something I've noticed. See if you agree with me on this. When you become a Christian, when you get saved, when you start following Jesus, I've noticed this. All of your problems do not go away. Have you noticed that? When you get saved, when you receive God's gift of eternal life, do you still experience sorrow? The answer is yes. Or anxiety, or pain, or disappointment, or hurt, or temptation. Do you experience those things? And the answer is yes. Every one of us experiences those things even after we've received God's gift of eternal life. But here's the good news of the gospel. When you receive Jesus as your Savior, and when you receive his gift of living water, his gift of eternal life, there is a source inside of you. It's like a spring that's bubbling up inside of you. There's a source inside of you that is greater than any of the struggles you experience in this life. So it's not that the pain goes away or the grief goes away or the loneliness goes away or the temptation goes away. Those things are still there. There is just something greater inside of you. And his name is Jesus. And by his power, he satisfies the thirsts that nothing else can satisfy. He understands the thirst of your heart. There's a third thing that Jesus does, though, when he meets you at well. Number three, Jesus exposes your broken wells. In order for Jesus to fully give us his gift of living water, that gift of abundant eternal life, something he has to do is to expose the broken wells that we've been relying on. And he did that for this woman. Look in verse 15. The Bible says, The woman said to him, Sir, give me this water, that I may not thirst, nor come here to draw. Jesus said to her, Go call your husband and come here. The woman answered and said, I have no husband. Jesus said to her, You have well said, I have no husband. For you have had five husbands, and the one whom you now have is not your husband. In that you spoke truly. What was Jesus doing? Was he trying to shame her? No. He was just revealing to her what she tried to keep hidden. And that is she had all these broken wells in her life. Husband after husband after husband, and now with a man who was not her husband. I read one ancient interpreter who interpreted this passage allegorically. And allegorically, he he offered the interpretation that each of the five husbands represented the five senses. Now I want to say very carefully that I don't think Jesus was being allegorical here. I think he was literal. I think she literally had five husbands, and literally the man she was living with now was not her husband. She had literally had five husbands, and she was in a literal mess. And I think he was talking literally. But I think about those five senses, and I think about the broken wells that we draw on, a lot of times they do appeal to each of our five senses. She may have had one husband who appealed to her sense of sight. He was handsome and offered her something that she really wanted, but it wound up being a broken well. Maybe she had a husband who appealed to her hearing. He said the right things. He made promises to her. Maybe she had a husband who appealed to her sense of taste. He was able to offer her all kinds of things and to provide for her, but then that wound up being a broken well. Maybe she had a husband who appealed to her sense. Of smell, maybe he smelled good and gave her perfume so that she'd smell good. It was another broken well. Maybe she had a husband who appealed to her sense of touch. He put his arm around her and make her feel secure and wanted and safe. But every one of them wound up being a broken well. I just want to remind us of something today. That any source we turn to other than Jesus Christ winds up disappointing. It is a broken well. And there's some of you in this room today who are trying to sustain your life with something that will never sustain it because God didn't make you for that. He didn't make you to live your life chasing from one broken well to the next. That's what this woman had done. Jesus exposed those broken wells. Michelle and I have have a little miniature schnauzer. Her name is Bella. She travels with us everywhere we go. Bella in Italian means beautiful. Bella in Latin means war. She's somewhere in between those two things most of the time. She's a teacup miniature schnauzer. She weighs about five pounds. She's great, she's great to play with. She's awesome. She's a fun dog. She has one major character flaw. Every now and then she'll get really quiet. I mean, it gets really quiet in the house. And when Bella gets quiet, it's never good. Because she always does the same thing. She runs to one of the bathrooms and she grabs hold of that toilet tissue that's hanging down. Do y'all know what I'm talking about? She grabs hold of the toilet tissue and she just runs off with it and goes and hides under the bed. And eventually I come to see, and I know exactly where she is because there's a ticker tape trail of toilet paper going from the bathroom to where she is. She can't hide it from me. We can't hide our sin from God. We may do all kinds of things to cover it up. This woman was trying to do that. But Jesus cannot fully do what he wants to do in our lives until he first exposes the broken wells we've been going to and calls us to turn from those wells. So Jesus exposed her broken wells. You've had five husbands. The one who you have now is not your husband. There's something else that Jesus does when he meets you at your well. Number four, Jesus provides the only way to God. Verse 19. The woman said to him, Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet. I'm sure John did not put that verse in there to be funny, but it's sort of funny to me. Because Jesus has just told her about her past five husbands and her current living situation. He's never met her before. And after he's revealed this to her, she says, I perceive that you are a prophet. Well, that's very perceptive. He just told you everything about yourself. Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet. And then she begins to do something that some interpreters have said was changing the subject. I don't think she was changing the subject. I think she was beginning to ask Jesus, How do I come to God? Verse 20. She said, Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, the mountain called Mount Gerizim, there in the area of Samaria. And you Jews say that in Jerusalem, in the temple, is the place where one ought to worship. So some people have said she was trying to change the subject. No, she's just asking Jesus, How do I come to God? The Jews say that you have to come to the temple. Our ancestors say we can worship on this mountain. How do we come to God? Look in verse 23. Jesus answers the question. He says, The hour is coming, and now is when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth. For the Father is seeking such to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship him in spirit and truth. Let me summarize what Jesus was saying here. He was telling her it's not about this mountain or that city or this place or that temple. He said, the way you come to the living God who is spirit is to come to him in spirit and truth. There has to be a spiritual relationship. God is looking for those who will come to him and worship him in spirit and truth. She didn't understand. She said in verse 25, the woman said to him, I know that Messiah is coming. The Jews were looking for a Messiah to come and deliver them. The Samaritans were looking for a Messiah to come and explain things to them. She said, I know that Messiah is coming who is called Christ. When he comes, he will tell her us all things. Look in verse 26. Jesus said to her, I who speak to you am He. Wow. You're looking for someone to deliver you. You're looking for someone to explain things to you. You're looking for someone to bring you to God. Jesus said, I who speak to you am He. And I want you to notice how strong that statement is. According to Jesus, Jesus is not just a good way to God. According to Jesus, Jesus is not even just the best way to God. According to Jesus, Jesus is the, what's the next word? The only way to God. Jesus said, I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. There are people who live out in a desert in South Africa. And they know that there are underground springs of water that are available. But for most villages, there's only one path that will lead to that spring. You can travel a lot of different springs that might look like great great ways to go, but there's only one path that will lead to the water. That's absolutely true of Jesus, the living water. There's only one path that leads to God, and that is Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who loves you, who died on the cross to pay the price for your sin, who rose from the grave on the third day to give eternal life to everyone who believes, who promises to save forever everyone who comes to him. And so when Jesus meets you at the well, Jesus provides the only way to God. I'll show you one fifth thing and then I'll be done. Number five, the Bible says, when Jesus meets you at the well, Jesus transforms your past into a testimony. Look in verse 27 of the text. The Bible says at this point, his disciples came, and they marveled that he talked with a woman, yet no one said, What do you seek? Or why are you talking with her? Look in verse 28. The woman then left her water pot, went her way into the city, and said to the men, Come see a man who told me all things that I ever did. Could this be the Christ? I'll stop right there. I want you to see two signs, the Word of God, two clues the Word of God gives us that this woman's past had been transformed by Jesus. One thing is she left her water pot at the well. She had only come to that well for one purpose. She had come to fill that water pot. But now that she met Jesus, she goes back and leaves her water pot at the well. Why? Because she had found a source of living water greater than that well could provide. Another clue the Word of God gives us. The Bible says when she got back to the city, she told the men, come see a man who told me everything I ever did. Man, she had spent her life trying to hide everything she ever did. And now she was willing to open up and say, This man told me everything I ever did. I think he might be the Christ. Jesus took her past and changed it to a testimony. He'll do the same thing in your life. In fact, the word of God over and over again shows how God can take things from our past and change them into a testimony of his grace when we give them to him. I think about Noah long after the flood. And he's walking around one day and the sun is out, but the clouds are out as well. And as the sun comes through the clouds, there's a rainbow. And he just stops and he looks at it, mesmerized. And one of his sons says to him, Dad, why do you always stop and look at those rainbows? Anytime there's a rainbow, you just stop what you're doing. You just look at it for so long, and he says, Son, you know why? That's not just a rainbow. That's my testimony. That's where God showed me that his mercy is greater than his judgment. God will take your past and turn it into a testimony. I think about Jacob walking through the camps of Israel and he's walking with a limp. And somebody asked him, Jacob, why do you always limp like that? What's wrong with you? You have Arthur, right? She said, No, this isn't a limp. This is my testimony. I walk this way because God revealed to me that he had a greater plan for me. It's not a limp, it's my testimony. I think about David, the king, sitting on his thrones and all of his royal robes, but in one of his belts, there's tuck this old leather strap. And it just doesn't match anything else there in the palace. And someone says, King David, why do you keep that old leather strap there in that belt? He said, You know, this isn't an old strap. This isn't an old piece of leather. This is my testimony. This sling is what God used to show me that the battle belongs to him. I think about Zacchaeus walking through Jericho with his little granddaughter. And he comes to that old sycamore tree and he just stops and looks at it. And she says, Granddaddy, why do you always stop at that tree? And he said, That's not just an old tree. That's my testimony. That's where Jesus called me by name and changed my life. And then in my imagination, I can go to that little city there in Jericho in Samaria. And there in a little house on a kitchen table is a water pot. And she never puts water in it. In fact, she left it at the well, and one of her friends brought it back to her, and there it sits. And it sat there for years. She never puts flowers in it, she never puts water in it, just an empty water pot. And somebody asked this woman whose name we do not know, why do you keep that old water pot on your kitchen table? She says, That's not just a water pot. That's my testimony. That's where I met a man who told me everything I ever did and changed my life and gave me living water. I don't know what your past is, I don't know what your present is. I know this. Jesus will meet you today at your well. He'll give you his living water. And he'll take everything in your past, even the things that you tried to hide, and he'll turn it into a testimony of his grace when you give it to him. Do you believe that today? Do you believe that today? Man, I believe it with all of my heart. I want you to bow your heads and close your eyes all across this room as we pray.