Thirsty? -- So We Can Have Authentic Life

John 4:7–18 (CSB)

A woman of Samaria came to draw water.

“Give me a drink,” Jesus said to her, because his disciples had gone into town to buy food.

“How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a Samaritan woman?” she asked him. For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.

Jesus answered, “If you knew the gift of God, and who is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would ask him, and he would give you living water.”

“Sir,” said the woman, “you don’t even have a bucket, and the well is deep. So where do you get this ‘living water’? You aren’t greater than our father Jacob, are you? He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and livestock.”

Jesus said, “Everyone who drinks from this water will get thirsty again. But whoever drinks from the water that I will give him will never get thirsty again. In fact, the water I will give him will become a well of water springing up in him for eternal life.”

“Sir,” the woman said to him, “give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and come here to draw water.”

“Go call your husband,” he told her, “and come back here.”

“I don’t have a husband,” she answered.

“You have correctly said, ‘I don’t have a husband,’ ” Jesus said. “For you’ve had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have said is true.”

We have all experienced the feeling of being thirsty. Maybe a hot day at the beach, or a long hike, or a fast run? And the feeling of quenching that thirst is awesome.

My question for you this morning is are you living thirsty? I am not asking you if you want to live longer- we all want that. I am asking if you feel like something is missing from you life that would satisfy your longings.

Do you know what is missing? Do you think you know? Has what you think your missing changed over the years? New Years always brings a bunch of talk about making resolutions that will change our life. A lot of gym memberships are sold- and most of them never get used. Advertisers have promise miraculous cures and fancy machines that will change our lives forever. But somehow I don’t quite believe they have what we need.

One thing we can be sure of- and that feeling thirsty- feeling that there is something more we need- is part of the basic human condition.

The Text In Its Context

Everybody Needs A Drink

John 4:7–10 (CSB)

A woman of Samaria came to draw water.

“Give me a drink,” Jesus said to her, because his disciples had gone into town to buy food.

“How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a Samaritan woman?” she asked him. For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.

Jesus answered, “If you knew the gift of God, and who is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would ask him, and he would give you living water.”

At face value this situation seems pretty normal. AMEN? A women from the Samaritan village came to get a drink. Jesus asked for a drink. We all need water to live- right? Like I said- everybody needs a drink!

When we studied this passage before Christmas, we looked at the fact Jews avoided traveling through Samaria, and that the two peoples hated each other. In that time and place it was also scandalous for any man to speak in public to a women he didn’t know. So we can understand why the woman was surprised when Jesus asked for a drink of water.

Of course, Jesus wanted much more than a simple drink of water. He wanted to open a conversation with her about living water. You see,

Not All Drinks Are Equal

John 4:10–13 (CSB)

Jesus answered, “If you knew the gift of God, and who is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would ask him, and he would give you living water.”

“Sir,” said the woman, “you don’t even have a bucket, and the well is deep. So where do you get this ‘living water’? You aren’t greater than our father Jacob, are you? He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and livestock.”

Jesus said, “Everyone who drinks from this water will get thirsty again.

Obviously, we are not talking about Coke vs Pepsi, or Coffee versus Tea. Our choice in that matter is simply a preference. Some of us may say that we need coffee to get going in the morning, Tim is faithful in getting MA’s every morning, and my wife posts a lot of coffee memes, but we can live without those morning rituals. AMEN?

Water is critical to life. Studies have shown that people live between 8 and 21 days without food. You will die in a matter of days without water. Water is integral to bodily functions, including the kidney. “In addition to regulating fluid balance, the kidneys require water for the filtration of waste from the bloodstream and excretion via urine,” the study goes on to say. If we don’t have enough water kidney failure Without an adequate amount of hydration, kidney failure can start to occur.

Makes you want to drink some water- eh?

But not even all sources of water are equal. Anybody who has ever swallowed salt water accidentally knows that it isn’t good for drinking. The salt water overwhelms our kidneys even faster than not drinking water at all. Over 300 million Africans lack access to clean and safe water for drinking. They have to drink water, but the water they have available can make them sick.

Makes me feel bad for complaining when our tap water smells of too many chemicals- I am still going to drink the filtered water whenever possible, because it simply tastes better. But even that isn’t what Jesus is talking about. AMEN? Because even if we have perfectly clean water we will still need to keep on returning for more water later.

Jesus is talking about more than our need for drinking water. He is saying that God has designed us to need spiritual living water to make us feel right with God, with each other, and even to feel right with ourselves.

Designed for Living Water

John 4:14–18 (CSB)

But whoever drinks from the water that I will give him will never get thirsty again. In fact, the water I will give him will become a well of water springing up in him for eternal life.”

“Sir,” the woman said to him, “give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and come here to draw water.”

“Go call your husband,” he told her, “and come back here.”

“I don’t have a husband,” she answered.

“You have correctly said, ‘I don’t have a husband,’ ” Jesus said. “For you’ve had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have said is true.”

Why did Jesus tell the woman to go get her husband? He is cutting to the heart of this woman’s search for happiness. In today’s language Jesus might have said you have been married five times and now you are living with a boyfriend. She was attempting to quench her thirst through relationships. She was moving from one bad relationship to another and from one bed to another. She never found the guy who completed her, she was never satisfied, her thirst was never quenched.

I have felt that way before, haven’t you? We all have these desires for some experience, person, job, or possession that will make us satisfied. Yet everything we turn to leaves us empty and longing for more. It doesn’t make a difference who we are.

Don’t dismiss this Samaritan women by saying her life was a train wreck, derailed by her bad decisions. Nicodemus came earlier to see Jesus. He looked like he had everything figured out from the outside.Why do you think Nicodemus came to Jesus? Was it because he had everything figured out? No. He came because he was thirsty. For years he had attempted to satisfy his thirst by keeping rules and studying theology and helping people, but it wasn’t enough. It could never be enough Nothing he did could ever ultimately satisfy.

The only answer to that desire is the living water Jesus offers.

Quenching That Thirst — Our Contemporary Application

Money cannot buy happiness. In Ecclesiastes King Solomon writes about his attempt to quench his thirst. You remember who Solomon was right? The wisest, richest, powerful king in the OT? In chapter 2 he lists all of the things he did to silence the internal craving for something that would satisfy. He tried laughing, consuming good food and drink, and by drink I mean the kind Baptists don’t talk about. Solomon tried building great houses and gardens, accumulating gold and silver, acquiring slaves, building a harem of concubines to fulfill all of his sexual fantasies, and becoming famous for his knowledge and wisdom—he tried it all, and here is what he found:

Ecclesiastes 2:10–11 (NLT)

Anything I wanted, I would take. I denied myself no pleasure. I even found great pleasure in hard work, a reward for all my labors. But as I looked at everything I had worked so hard to accomplish, it was all so meaningless—like chasing the wind. There was nothing really worthwhile anywhere.

Ecclesiastes 2:10–11 (CSB)

All that my eyes desired, I did not deny them. I did not refuse myself any pleasure, for I took pleasure in all my struggles. This was my reward for all my struggles. When I considered all that I had accomplished and what I had labored to achieve, I found everything to be futile and a pursuit of the wind. There was nothing to be gained under the sun.

Nothing will ever satisfy our longings and desires except for a long and continuous drink of God the Holy Spirit. A new job with a big raise or a fancy car might fool you into thinking that you are all set for a minute or two, and then you realize that you are thirsty again. Just like that old joke about always being hungry right after eating chinese.

Do you suffer from “When Syndrome?” 10 year old kids suffer from it when they think once they are a teenager life will be awesome. Teenagers think when they get that first job everything will get better. Freedom! Maybe a car! Could college be the answer? Or that special person who will love us and make us happy. Life will be an endless party When -

Adults suffer from “When Syndrome” too. When we are adults we start to think that maybe we had it better as a kid. But we cannot turn back time so we stay on the When train. When I get a better job, a better house, a better bank account, maybe even a better kid or better spouse. Then I will be happy. The last stop on the when train is often retirement. We will have all the time and money we need and life will be so perfect.

But when doesn’t ever happen.

All of our failures to find satisfaction come from wanting the wrong thing or trying to get something good the wrong way. Listen to God speaking through Jeremiah.

Jeremiah 2:13 (CSB)

For my people have committed a double evil:

They have abandoned me,

the fountain of living water,

and dug cisterns for themselves—

cracked cisterns that cannot hold water.

Jesus offers living water for the taking. But we cannot feel the effects of that water if we also try to store up our own water as well. You know, for backup. We must abandon our attempts to find satisfaction on our own and turn to Jesus for lasting satisfaction. We need to realize that satisfaction apart from God is impossible. We need to stop thinking that we know what is best. That we can make our own happiness our own way.

God made us, and only in God can we find contentment. Seeking satisfaction in something other than God is truly the essence of sin. Sin is not fundamentally a failure to check certain moral boxes. We think sin is primarily about the actions we do and don’t do: “Sin is when I lie, curse, steal, or get angry.” But I sin any time I pursue satisfaction in something other than God. That’s certainly revealed in lying, cursing, and stealing, but it’s also seen in pride, self-reliance, and apathy. Any time we pursue satisfaction in something other than God, we commit idolatry. We’re placing that thing on the altar of our hearts, and giving ourselves to it, hoping it will do for us what only God can do.

God is not opposed to your pursuit of happiness and satisfaction. He made you to pursue genuine happiness, joy, and satisfaction in the one person who can truly offer it. He designed you to find true delight in him.

Every man and woman is in a desperate, life-and-death situation. Spiritually we’re like travelers lost in the desert of sin and death. We need help. Our only hope for life is water. We try, over and over, again and again, to find water. We turn to this person, that activity, this good work, or that religious system, hoping to find the solution. Sometimes it seems like we’ve found it. For a while it seems we’ve stumbled on water to quench our thirst and meet our need, but before long we realize what we thought was the solution was not. So we start looking again. We search desperately for something, anything, that will dull the thirst, even if it’s only for a moment. Yet all we can find apart from Christ is saltwater. It seems to help, but we end up more parched than we were before. If we keep trying to live on it we will inevitably die.

John Piper holds that “God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him.” We demonstrate the surpassing worth of Christ when we reject earthly, empty pleasures and embrace him as our all-consuming desire. A Christian who doesn’t seek satisfaction in money, vacation, leisure, healthy children, or a good job but seeks Jesus instead makes a statement about the value of Jesus. When we find our greatest satisfaction in him, we bring him the most glory. But a Christian who constantly drinks from the pleasures of this world calls Jesus a liar because he comes to that woman standing by the well and contradicts the offer of Jesus. He says, “Don’t listen to him. His water doesn’t really satisfy.”Only Jesus can quench your thirst. Whatever you crave, whatever you long for, whatever you need, only Jesus can provide. Stop drinking from the wells of sin and come to Jesus. He offers living water. He offers what can truly satisfy.

Philippians 4:4–7 (CSB)

Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! Let your graciousness be known to everyone. The Lord is near. Don’t worry about anything, but in everything, through prayer and petition with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.

So drink deeply of the living water offered by Jesus. We go through life trying to satisfy our cravings. The only thing that will quench those cravings is to receive living water straight from Jesus.