Gateway Church

Helping people explore God and become a unified community of growing, multiplying Christ-followers.

Impact Sunday

May 25, 2025
Download Digging Deeper

 MAY 25

IMPACT SUNDAY

Work through the following questions and scriptures on your own or get together with your group, spiritual running partners, or family to talk through what you are learning.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS  

   1.  Share a time you felt God prompt you to talk with someone or do something? How did you feel? What did you do?

   2.  Read John 4:1-42.

Make some observations about this passage (What does the text say?):

  • What do you notice and what are you curious about?

Make some interpretations (What does the passage mean?)

  • What do you learn about God in this passage?

Now make some applications (what’s my response?)

  • How are you encouraged, challenged, or convicted by this passage?
  • How *specifically* do you see the Samaritan woman share her story and the story of Jesus?

    3.  When you reflect on your life, what are the things that have helped you “come to know” Jesus? What are the things that tend to distract you from this, or get in your way?

    4.  How has coming to know Jesus more and more led to freedom in your life? If you’ve not experienced this, why do you think that is? (Consider how you answered the second part of the question above—are there things you might need to surrender in order to “come to know” Jesus better than you currently do?)   

KEY SCRIPTURE

John 4:1-42 Now Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard that he was gaining and baptizing more disciples than John—although in fact it was not Jesus who baptized, but his disciples.So he left Judea and went back once more to Galilee.Now he had to go through Samaria.So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph.Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about noon.When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?” (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.)The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.)Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.”“Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water?Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his livestock?”Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again,but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.” He told her, “Go, call your husband and come back.”“I have no husband,” she replied. Jesus said to her, “You are right when you say you have no husband. The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true.”“Sir,” the woman said, “I can see that you are a prophet. Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.”“Woman,” Jesus replied, “believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.” The woman said, “I know that Messiah” (called Christ) “is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.” Then Jesus declared, “I, the one speaking to you—I am he.” Just then his disciples returned and were surprised to find him talking with a woman. But no one asked, “What do you want?” or “Why are you talking with her?” Then, leaving her water jar, the woman went back to the town and said to the people, “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Messiah?” They came out of the town and made their way toward him. Meanwhile his disciples urged him, “Rabbi, eat something.” But he said to them, “I have food to eat that you know nothing about.” Then his disciples said to each other, “Could someone have brought him food?” “My food,” said Jesus, “is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work. Don’t you have a saying, ‘It’s still four months until harvest’? I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest. Even now the one who reaps draws a wage and harvests a crop for eternal life, so that the sower and the reaper may be glad together. Thus the saying ‘One sows and another reaps’ is true. I sent you to reap what you have not worked for. Others have done the hard work, and you have reaped the benefits of their labor.” Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me everything I ever did.” So when the Samaritans came to him, they urged him to stay with them, and he stayed two days.And because of his words many more became believers. They said to the woman, “We no longer believe just because of what you said; now we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this man really is the Savior of the world.” 

PRAYER

 Father! We are so grateful that “While we were sinners, Christ died for us.” You offer to meet each of us where we are to have an encounter with you. You desire us to “walk in the good works, prepared in the advance of time” for us. God, thank you for being faithful in moving in the hearts and minds of people. Would you send me to those very people to share my story and share the story of salvation through Jesus? We love you and  worship you, and are so humbled that you would choose us to partner with you. 

PRACTICE

 Immediate Obedience to Jesus

  • As soon as the Samaritan woman recognized Jesus as the Messiah, she left everything and obeyed his instruction. She went to the town and called the people.

Share Your Story

  1. In verse 29, the woman said two things to the people; the first was her personal testimony: “Come see the man who told me everything I ever did.” Verse 39 confirms this by stating, “Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, ‘He told me everything I ever did.’” There is no record of the woman preaching; John did not record her bringing out the people’s shortcomings or pointing any fingers. Rather, she expressed the encounter she had with Jesus. It was her personal story, involving her very personal past.  

Share the Story of Jesus

  1. In verse 29, she says, “Could this be the Christ?”. Sharing the story of Jesus means: presenting Jesus as the Savior and calling people to a decision. This is what the Samaritan woman did. She did not demand faith; rather, she simply laid the matter before the people. This left the decision to them. Do you believe He is the Savior, or not? Can Jesus save you or not? The choice was theirs. 1 Peter 3:15 concludes this by saying, “Do this with gentleness and respect.” Presenting Jesus as the savior and calling for a decision is all we are asked to do. The rest belongs to the Holy Spirit.
    1. Romans 3:23 – All sin: our efforts are not enough because only God is holy.
    2. Romans 6:23 – Sin brings death, but there is hope in the gift of God.
    3. Romans 5:8 – God’s plan for us is this: Jesus died for us while we were in sin.
    4. Romans 10:9 – To receive His salvation, we must confess Jesus as our one Lord, believe His resurrection in our heart as our hope of salvation.

Introduction to Jesus

  1. If you were to introduce two strangers, you would bring them together and allow them to converse. Relationship depends on communication. When we speak to God, we call it “prayer.” Modeling simple prayer opens a pathway for communication. Verse 42 states, “They said to the woman, ‘We no longer believe just because of what you said; now we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this man really is the Savior of the world.”