Sychar

She has a testimony.

John 4, 39, the Samaritan woman knew what the Lord has done for her, and she went to Sychar.

She shared her testimony.

Many of the Samaritans from that town believed a woman on a mission.

So it says, "But He needed to go through Samaria," verse five.

"So He came to a city of Samaria, which is called Sychar, 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.

And he had to pass through Samaria.

So he came to a town of Samaria called Sychar, near the field that Jacob had given to his son Joseph.

Jacob's well was there.

So Jesus, wearied as he was from his journey, was sitting beside the well.

To them, Samaria was a flyover region that had to be passed through to get from Judea to Galilee.

It was populated by half-breeds and heretics, not the gospel target group the disciples saw as their calling.

They were not looking for a harvest of the kingdom of God in Sychar.

It was just a rest stop for them.

And I want to look at the positive side of the coin on how we are to be engaged in worship that is pleasing to God.

And to do that, I want to turn your attention to the Gospel according to St. John to chapter 4, where in this chapter we have the record of Jesus meeting with the Samaritan woman, sometimes called the woman of Sychar, and also sometimes simply referred to as the woman at the well.

And in the midst of this discussion that Jesus has with the woman at the well, she says to Jesus after he's exposed her history of having had so many husbands and so on, in verse 19, "The woman said to him, 'Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet.

Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, and you Jews say that in Jerusalem is the place where one ought to worship.'" Now again, this woman is a Samaritan, and the Samaritans were estranged from the Jews, and the Jews had their central sanctuary established in Jerusalem.

And that's why on festival occasions and so on, the people would come from all over the nation into Jerusalem for the purposes of worship.

But the Samaritans who had no dealings with the Jews had their own central sanctuary, which was on Mount Gerizim, which overlooked Jacob's Well.

If you've ever been to Palestine and visit the ancient site here in Sychar, you can stand by the well and just lift up your eyes and you see Gerizim there right in front of you.

And so this woman takes advantage of her new understanding that she's talking with a prophet to settle an ancient controversy between the Samaritans and the Jews.

There's no change in Zacchaeus." Nobody came forward to say that.

No one came forward to say, uh, that, uh, what, uh, happened in a kind of transformative way in the town of Sychar in Samaria did not happen, that there was a lady who had met Jesus at the well, and as a result of her testimony and her changed life, many in that community actually became the followers of Jesus.

Nobody steps forward to say, "No, no, no, no, it didn't happen." And the absence of that is significant.

Now, your friends will say to you, "Doesn't the fact that the writers," Mark in this case, "Doesn't the fact that Mark had a vested interest, if you like, in presenting Christ cause him inevitably to fabricate the evidence?" That's what is often ch- leveled, isn't it? People say, "Well, you know, he wanted to do this, and therefore, it was in his best interest in order to do these things." But you don't find that's the case.