Examine how you love Jesus and live for Jesus because some of us have become so comfortable with culture that there is almost no visible distinction between our lives and the world around us.
John 4:1-10 – 1 Now when Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus was making and baptizing more disciples than John 2 (although Jesus himself did not baptize, but only his disciples), 3 he left Judea and departed again for Galilee. 4 And he had to pass through Samaria. 5 So he came to a town of Samaria called Sychar, near the field that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. 6 Jacob’s well was there; so Jesus, wearied as he was from his journey, was sitting beside the well. It was about the sixth hour.
7 A woman from Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” 8 (For his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.) 9 The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?” (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.) 10 Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.”
Have you ever been frustrated by an unexpected delay or detour, say a canceled flight, a traffic jam, a medical diagnosis, a job rejection, or a closed door that completely disrupted and derailed your life plan, then months or years later, you realized what felt like a setback was actually one of God’s greatest blessings in your life?
Life is full of moments so perfectly timed, so providentially arranged, that they feel far too significant to dismiss as mere coincidence. The Bible has a word for moments like those: kairos. Unlike chronos, which refers to chronological time measured by minutes, days, and years, kairos is God’s appointed time. It is when divine sovereignty invades ordinary moments and routines that appear random for God’s glory and our good. Our new series, “Divine Appointments,” from John 4-5, is about those moments.
The Problem
Most people expect divine appointments to arrive wrapped in miracles. People need to know that they usually arrive disguised in ordinary moments like disappointments, detours, delays, hospital waiting rooms, unemployment, unexpected conversations, and broken relationships. I say that because nothing escapes the watchful eye of our sovereign God, who actively arranges circumstances for His glory and for our good.
That is exactly what happened in John 4-5 with the Samaritan woman at the well, the royal official desperate for his dying son, and the invalid lying helpless by the pool. These stories remind us that ordinary moments in comfort, crisis, and crying become divine appointments when God steps into them for His glory and our good.
The Big Idea
What appears to be a coincidence is often providence. What seems like an ordinary moment sometimes is a God moment— a kairos moment. It is in those divine appointments that God shapes our character, speaks to our hearts, and heals us spiritually and physically for His glory and our good.
How do we recognize those moments? The short answer is that we usually don’t. The reality is that we often recognize them when we look back and realize, “That delay saved me,” “That suffering shaped me,” “That conversation changed me,” or “That disappointment redirected me.”
The divine appointments in John 4-5 offer insight into three life situations where people often encounter divine appointments in personal comfort, physical crisis, or prolonged crying. Over the next several weeks, we will explore each category. Today, we begin with divine appointment personal comfort.
Divine Appointment in Personal Comfort
We see that in John 4:1-42, where Jesus encounters the Samaritan woman at the well. She probably woke up expecting nothing unusual. For her, it was an ordinary day, an ordinary walk, an ordinary well, and an ordinary routine. Yet, it turned into a kairos moment, when God in flesh, Jesus, in John 4:4, made a divine appointment.
His decision to pass through Samaria changed everything for the Samaritan woman and her people. She came expecting water but left with eternal life. She came carrying a bucket but left carrying a testimony. She came lost but left changing an entire city. In this encounter, we learn three truths about divine appointments that, before we receive our miracle, Jesus must disrupt cultural comfort to confront us, religious comfort to convince us, and personal comfort to convict us. The rest of our time together, we will see why and how:
Jesus Disrupts Cultural Comfort to Confront Us (John 4:1-9)
John 4:1-3 ESV reads, “1 Now when Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus was making and baptizing more disciples than John 2 (although Jesus himself did not baptize, but only his disciples), 3 he left Judea and departed again for Galilee.” Notice, success was happening, the ministry was growing, and disciples were multiplying. By every measurable standard, Jesus should have stayed. Yet suddenly, Jesus leaves.
Why would someone walk away from success? Jesus understood something we often don’t— success is never the ultimate goal. Obedience is. I learned this obedience a little over five years ago. We were living in midtown Manhattan, something I had wanted ever since I arrived in the US. God had blessed us with a rent-controlled apartment only a minute walk from my former church, a church with millions of dollars, job security, and unlimited ministry opportunities.
So, naturally, when the time came to decide whether to leave NYC during the pandemic to come to pastor our church, I struggled. However, one mentor said, “Do it in obedience to Jesus.” I am glad I obeyed. The proof of Jesus calling me from Manhattan to Metuchen is that in the last five years, I have seen more fruit than the combined 21 years of ministry in NY and elsewhere.
Sometimes the next divine appointment requires disruption. Sometimes, God will ask you to walk away from things that appear successful to lead you toward something more significant. Sometimes, the greatest enemy of God’s next assignment is our comfort with the current assignment. This is why first Jesus must disrupt our comfort to confront us with the truth.
Besides, the text indicates that Jesus got the attention of the Pharisees, who would conspire to crucify Him, knowing that God incarnate, Jesus, removes Himself from the situation because, as He said, in John 2:4, “my hour has not yet come,” referring to His hour to go to the cross that was coming but not yet. Though this was not the kairos moment for crucifixion, it was definitely the kairos moment for conversion for a particular woman in Samaria and, through her testimony, a whole people group.
This is why the next verse, John 4:4, reads, “4 And he [Jesus] had to pass through Samaria.” This statement is not about geography, but theology, providence, and divine necessity. We know that because
- the Greek verb translated here as “had to,” edei, in the Bible often describes divine compulsion
- the historical context of this text is that there was centuries-old enmity, hatred, and hostility among Jews and Samaritans. 1 Kings 12 and 2 Kings 17 paint a vivid picture of the events that led to the division of the 12 tribes of Israel, creating two kingdoms: one in the North with Samaria as its capital, and the other in the South with Jerusalem as its capital.
For now, it is enough to know that Jews did not go through Samaria, even though it saved them about two days of travel time. However, for Jesus, it was never about saving travel time but saving people alienated from God through a woman of a certain reputation who was alienated by her own people. The interesting thing is, she had absolutely no idea her life was about to change forever because her kairos moment had arrived.
For me, that life-changing kairos moment arrived in 1999 when I was absolutely unaware of a meeting that took place between a Pakistani lawyer and a Greek humanitarian aid worker in Bulgaria. This Pakistani lawyer held a government position in Pakistan through a political party that I was working for in the hope of running for political office in my area. This lawyer politician passed information about the Greek man to me because I was also doing some relief work for Pakistani Christians.
When I contacted the Greek man, I discovered that he was an undercover Greek American missionary. Some of you know him as my mentor, Timo. In our first meeting, he told me that I cannot serve two masters, politics and ministry. In the next couple of years, he made arrangements for me to go to Greek Bible College in Greece, and later to a Bible College here in the States. I thought I wanted to be a politician, but God wanted me to be a pastor. My point is Jesus disrupts our cultural comfort to confront us so that He can change us and our future for His glory and our good.
The next verses, John 4:5-6 reads, “5 So he [Jesus] came to a town of Samaria called Sychar, near the field that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. 6 Jacob’s well was there; so Jesus, wearied as he was from his journey, was sitting beside the well. It was about the sixth hour.” For Jews, the sixth hour would be about noon. In the Middle Eastern climate, at noon, the sun is not just hot, it’s scorching hot.
In that heat, the Creator of oceans sits thirsty beside a well. The One who created human muscles experiences fatigue. The One who never slumbers becomes exhausted. It reveals the beauty of the incarnation that God in Jesus did not save humanity from a distance. He entered human weakness.
While we miss Sunday service or a small group meeting, because we feel exhausted, Jesus pursued people. Obedience is not required when we feel up for it; it is required especially when we are exhausted.
Also, notice, Jesus is waiting for the Samaritan woman at the well. That means, unlike a doctor’s appointment, where we wait, in a divine appointment, God waits for us. What if He has been waiting for you for some time?
John 4:7a continues, “7a A woman from Samaria came to draw water.” So, she thought she came for water; Jesus knew she came for salvation. She thought she was following routine. Jesus knew God disrupted her routine. You might have come because someone invited you, or you wanted to check us out, or it is your routine, but I tell you, He has been waiting for you to get here today so that He can speak to you.
What Jesus said next shocked the woman who had become comfortable with the culture of hate and hostility between Jews and Samaritans. Then John 7b-9, “Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” 8 (For his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.) 9 The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?” (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans).” With one sentence, “Give me a drink,” Jesus shattered centuries of hostility.
Jesus crossed racial, social, religious, gender, and cultural barriers. The woman is shocked because Jesus confronted her with something that culturally she had become comfortable with. The Good News is that Jesus deliberately walked into that hostility. Because grace always moves toward broken places. Perhaps that is the confrontation for us.
Application
Examine your life and see where you have become comfortable with cultural norms that Jesus came to challenge. Where have you become so comfortable with the culture that you no longer look different from the culture? Is it your dating life? Your married life? Your single life? Your family life? or your career, job, or even spirituality?
Closing Thought
I want to share the story of a man flying during severe turbulence. Suddenly, the airplane dropped. People screamed. Some prayed. Others panicked. The man looked across the aisle and noticed a little girl calmly coloring, completely unafraid. After the flight landed, he asked, “Weren’t you scared? She smiled and answered, “No.” He asked, “Why not?” She said, “Because my dad was the pilot.”
That is the Christian life. There will be turbulence, unexpected delays, disruptions, detours, closed doors, confusion. But believers ought to live differently because our Father still directs the flight. The detour is not random. The delay is not accidental. The Pilot still knows exactly where He is taking us.
Action Step
When disruptions come, before complaining, before becoming frustrated, before asking “Why me?”—ask: “Lord, is this interruption actually a divine appointment?” Look for God-ordained encounters. Look for opportunities to love, to serve, to speak, and to trust Him because what appears ordinary may actually be providential.
Appeal
Examine how you love Jesus and live for Jesus because some of us have become so comfortable with culture that there is almost no visible distinction between our lives and the world around us. So, talking about sin, salvation, and savior feels awkward. Jesus disrupts cultural comfort because He loves us too much to leave us there. Perhaps today is your Kairos moment. Perhaps today is the moment Jesus says, “I must meet you here.”
Inductive Bible Study: Observation, Interpretation, Application
Observation: What Does the Text Say?
- According to John 4:1–3, why did Jesus leave Judea and depart for Galilee?
- What words or phrases stand out to you in John 4:4 when John says, “He had to pass through Samaria?”
- In John 4:5–6, what do we lean about Jesus’ humanity and physical condition?
- What observations can you make about the Samaritan woman and the circumstances surrounding her arrival at the well?
- According to John 4:9, why was Jesus speaking to this woman so surprising?
- What cultural, social, religious, ethnic, or gender barriers existed between Jesus and the Samaritan woman?
Interpretation: What Does the Text Mean?
- Why do you think Jesus intentionally traveled through Samaria when many Jewish people avoided it?
- What does Jesus’ decision to travel through Samaria teach us about God’s priorities and divine appointments?
- Why do you think God often uses interruptions, inconveniences, and disruptions to accomplish His purposes?
- Why are divine appointments often easier to recognize looking backward rather than in the moment?
- What does Jesus crossing cultural and social barriers reveal about God’s heart for people?
- Where do you see evidence of God’s providence already at work in John 4:1–9?
Application: How Should This Change Us?
- Are there delays, disruptions, disappointments, or detours in your life right now that you may be resisting rather than viewing as possible divine appointments?
- Where have you become most comfortable with culture rather than allowing Scripture to shape your thinking and behavior?
- Who are the “Samaritans” in your life— people you naturally avoid, overlook, or feel uncomfortable engaging?
- What practical steps could help you become more aware of God’s providence during ordinary moments this week?
- What is one interruption, disruption, or uncomfortable circumstance in your life that you will intentionally view differently this week?