THE LIVING WATER (JOHN 4:7–14)

John 4:7–14 (NIV)

7When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?”

8(His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.)

9The 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.)

10Jesus 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.”

11“Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water?

12Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his livestock?”

13Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again,

14but 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.”

Introduction.

It is estimated that between 5–10 million tons of polluting petroleum products are released every year to float on the world’s seas.

Up to 1.8 million tons come from automobile exhaust emissions which rise into the atmosphere and eventually onto the ocean surface. Tankers spill another million.

More people die each year from unsafe drinking water than from all forms of violence, including war.

More than a billion people—one in every five on earth—do not have access to safe drinking water.

some Percentages of the population with access to safe water:

Ethiopia: 18% of it’s water is safe to drink

Sudan: 45% of it’s water is safe to drink

Pakistan: 56% of it’s water is safe to drink

Mexico: 72% of it’s water is safe to drink

USA: 99% of it’s water is safe to drink

This makes me think of the Dead Sea. Which was located at the Southern end of the Jordan River.

It’s called dead because nothing can live in it. Nothing can live in it because it’s contains more than 25% salt.

Biblically it’s called the “Salt Sea” in Genesis 14:3 and Numbers 34:12.

pits also Mentioned in Joel 2:20 as the eastern sea.

These words of Jesus about the “living water” spoken as they were to a sinful Samaritan are deeper and more lasting than

the dead sea,

the well of Jacob

and

even the water we drink today.

The water Jesus spoke of was everlasting.

I. THE NATURE OF THE LIVING WATER

1. It is life-giving and life-sustaining …

2. It is water which saves, sanctifies and satisfies …

3. 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.

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.

II. THE SOURCE OF THE LIVING WATER

1. In Genesis 2:7 it tells us of the creation of man, Then the Lord God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being. John 1:4 states that “In Him was life…” This means that He is the source of life.  He is that place from which life comes.  Jesus is the way, the truth and the life. You, me, and all the countless billions of people who have ever breathed the breath of life on this earth received life from God.

2. Jesus is the disposer of this “living water” and the source of spiritual life and salvation.

He is the beginning and the end

The alpha and the omega

3. This water of “grace and truth” came by the Son of God.

(a) Their is a need of the Samaritan woman …

She was rejected, alone, and felt shame and guilt.

There is no doubt that she choose the time to go to the well at a time where she would run into a few people so she can avoid the judgmental glances and slander.

(b) Their is Truth as the Lord exposed her sin …

Jesus answers her and says you don’t have a husband but you have 5 husbands.

He doesn’t stop there though. He doesn’t just reveal her sin but He offers a remedy for it.

(c) The Grace of God offered life …

III. THE EFFECTIVENESS OF THE LIVING WATER

1. The life of Christ quenches thirst …Never thirst for the muddy waters of sin

2. The life Christ is active “The water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up”.

Christ is never stale but is active. The Holy Spirit is always teaching us new things, directing our steps and speaking to us.

3. The problem is that many churches are drinking the water of yesterday’s church. They are drinking in the glory of the past rather than drinking from the streams of water that God is providing in the present.

They might try to bring back a children’s minister or senior pastor who they had during their glory days

They might try to bring back a program that did really well twenty years ago.

It’s not that churches die but the voice of God in them is silenced.

IV. THE CONDITIONS OF THE LIVING WATER

1. The life of Christ is a gift to use “The water that I shall give him”

a. Salvation isn’t something we deserve or something we can earn. We aren’t saved by guilt either. We are saved by Grace.

2. The life of Christ is personal “The water that I shall give him shall be in him

V. THE FREEDOM OF THE LIVING WATER—verse 14

1. Revelation 22:17 (NIV)

17 The Spirit and the bride say, “Come!” And let the one who hears say, “Come!” Let the one who is thirsty come; and let the one who wishes take the free gift of the water of life.

2. Jesus said, “If any man thirst, let him come to me and drink.”—

3. We are not free to sin but we are free from sin as we are given the power and enabled to resist it.

VII. APPLICATION

What type of water are we drinking?

Are we drinking the impure, diluted, contaminated water of the world?

Are we drinking a counterfeit, stale, ritualistic and religious water

Or are we drinking of the living water that Christ offers us. A water that satisfies us and gives us eternal life?