Satisfied by Christ

Introduction:

There’s a popular commercial on TV where people are angry for whatever reason. Then they eat a Snickers and all is better. They are satisfied. And the ads end with the tagline: Snicker satisfies. Everything is better in life when we are satisfied. So a question that I want to ask over you this morning is this: “Where are you finding your satisfaction?” And when I talk about satisfaction, I’m not talking about some temporary happiness brought on by a candy bar. In fact, I’m not talking about any kind of satisfaction you can find from anything or anyone on earth. When I ask you where you are finding your satisfaction, I’m asking this: “Have you ever experienced an all-satisfying salvation from an all-satisfying Savior?”

Our passage this morning is John 4:1-42. Follow along as I read the passage.

When Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard he was making and baptizing more disciples than John (though Jesus himself was not baptizing, but his disciples were), he left Judea and went again to Galilee. He had to travel through Samaria; so he came to a town of Samaria called Sychar near the property that Jacob had given his son Joseph. Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, worn out from his journey, sat down at the well. It was about noon.

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.”

“Sir,” the woman replied, “I see that you are a prophet. Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews say that the place to worship is in Jerusalem.”

Jesus told her, “Believe me, woman, an hour 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, because salvation is from the Jews. But an hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in Spirit and in truth. Yes, the Father wants such people to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in Spirit and in truth.”

The woman said to him, “I know that the Messiah is coming” (who is called Christ). “When he comes, he will explain everything to us.”

Jesus told her, “I, the one speaking to you, am he.”

Just then his disciples arrived, and they were amazed that he was talking with a woman. Yet no one said, “What do you want?” or “Why are you talking with her?”

Then the woman left her water jar, went into town, and told the people, “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Messiah?” They left the town and made their way to him.

In the meantime the disciples kept urging him, “Rabbi, eat something.”

But he said, “I have food to eat that you don’t know about.”

The disciples said to one another, “Could someone have brought him something to eat?”

“My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work,” Jesus told them. “Don’t you say, ‘There are still four more months, and then comes the harvest’? Listen to what I’m telling you: Open your eyes and look at the fields, because they are ready for harvest. The reaper is already receiving pay and gathering fruit for eternal life, so that the sower and reaper can rejoice together. For in this case the saying is true: ‘One sows and another reaps.’ I sent you to reap what you didn’t labor for; others have labored, and you have benefited from their labor.”

Now many Samaritans from that town believed in him because of what the woman said when she testified, “He told me everything I ever did.” So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them, and he stayed there two days. Many more believed because of what he said. And they told the woman, “We no longer believe because of what you said, since we have heard for ourselves and know that this really is the Savior of the world.”

Let’s pray.

Father, thank you for this beautiful conversation that we have the privilege of looking into this morning. Thank you for a Savior that made time to speak with the Samaritan woman, sharing with her the way to eternal life and revealing to her that you are the Messiah. Help us today to see Jesus as all-satisfying Savior. Challenge us, convict us, and lead us into your truth today. Now, may the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer.

Today, we are diving into the second long conversation Jesus has in John’s gospel. The first — which we covered 2 weeks ago — was his conversation with Nicodemus. Here a chapter later, we see Jesus interacting and conversing with a Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well. In the context of this passage, Jesus approaches a woman at the well, and strikes up a conversation. We’ll see how Jesus offers this woman satisfaction through himself, and then how that truth compels her to share with others.

And here’s the main point: Because Jesus satisfies every desire, we must worship him in Spirit and in truth and share the gospel with others.

So that will kind of shape the sermon this morning: We will look at what it means to be satisfied in Jesus, which leads to us worshiping him rightly, and compels us to share that saving message with others.

I. Satisfied in Jesus

First, let’s take a look at what it looks like to be satisfied in Jesus. But before, let’s look at how Jesus crosses two cultural barriers here. Jesus encounters this Samaritan woman, and this was a scandalous event. She came alone to the well (we find out why later on). But Jesus immediately strikes up a conversation with her. In the first century, it was extremely taboo for a Jew to associate with a Samaritan. It was also taboo for a man to associate in this way with a woman. But here’s what we know: Jesus was perfectly comfortable with crossing social taboos of the day. Not because he wanted to appear scandalous or seem nefarious. No, Jesus was willing to cross those boundaries because he had the all-satisfying message of his gospel of hope with him. And not only did Jesus talk with the Samaritan woman, but he had appointed this very message because he is God himself. But we can see that the woman is shocked: Look at verse 9: “How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a Samaritan woman?” In other words, she was asking, “Why in the world are you willing to cross two significant cultural barriers in order to converse with me?”

And she was right to ask it. Jesus’s actions in this passage beg the question: What is so important about Jesus as a person and his message that he was willing to cross significant cultural barriers to engage with people?

The answer: Jesus has the gift of God. That’s what he reveals in the very next verse: He had the gift of God, but she did not know this. And that brings us to the first way that Jesus satisfies: Jesus satisfies us spiritually.

a) Jesus Satisfies Spiritually

The Samaritan woman in this passage was having a strange day. She had come to the well alone (we’ll talk about why she came alone more later), and had encountered this Jewish man who had engaged in a conversation with her. Then he started talking about living water. And in this earthly moment, all that this earthly woman could think about was earthliness. Jesus offers her living water and all that she can understand or think about is the fact that he doesn’t have a bucket to draw out physical water. She was physically thirsty and knew that the water from the well could satisfy her physical needs. She assumed that Jesus would only come out to the well for a physical need as well. Water is a life saving thing, right? We need to take in water or we will die. It satisfies the needs that our bodies have. And if this woman didn’t come to draw water from Jacob’s well regularly, she and those under her care would die.

But Jesus identified an even greater need than her physical thirst. He wasn’t coming to find relief from the hot sun or to draw physical water. He was coming to the well primarily to engage with the Samaritan woman. Why? Because she was dying of thirst and she didn’t even know it. Yes she was going to fill up a big jug of water and drink it, but she would still be dying of thirst. Her physical needs were met; but her spiritual need was unfulfilled until this encounter.

It’s the same with us as we were before salvation. Maybe you were like me, and didn’t have a traumatic upbringing and were just pretty happy. Or maybe you experienced all sorts of pain and addiction and brokenness. It doesn’t really matter how you were living – you were still dying of thirst. Whether you were successful in the world’s eyes or begging on the street corner. Whether you were strung out on drugs or a teetotaler. Before you met Jesus, you were like the Samaritan woman: You were dying of thirst and you didn’t even know it. And until that point, you were digging wells and building cisterns filled with stuff that can never satisfy. In our sin, we draw from the wells of sex, political idolatry, substances, idolizing relationships, activism, money, whatever it might be. We think that if we could just get one more thing right, then we will be satisfied.

But Jesus shows us a different, better way. He comes to us and offers us living water. The gift of God offered by Jesus is living water. And living water is found in Christ himself. He himself is the living water that satisfies every spiritual need. We are aimless, lost, and unsatisfied without Christ. And his satisfaction will never run out. That brings us to the point that Jesus satisfies us eternally.

b) Jesus Satisfies Eternally

Jesus satisfies us spiritually and eternally. Look at verses 13-14: “Jesus said, “Everyone who drinks from this water will get thirsty again. But whoever drinks from the water that I will give (meaning: himself) 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.” So not only does Jesus give himself as a gift from God to satisfy our spiritual needs, but we know that this gift will never run out. The well of Jesus’s grace and salvation does not run dry.

Every other option for satisfaction that we run to will eventually leave us high and dry. John Calvin says that the human heart is a perpetual forge of idols. What he means is that humans have the natural sinful tendency to continually create idols like an assembly line. When we realize that one idol doesn’t cut it anymore, we will quickly replace it with another. When a job doesn’t cut it anymore, we will idolize the money from the job. When the money doesn’t cut it anymore, we will replace it with entertainment. And on and on and on it goes. None of these idols can satisfy us. They may make us temporarily happy, but when it comes down to it, they leave us empty inside. When we taste the living water – when we experience salvation through Christ – we understand fully that nothing else will ever do. Jesus will never run out of grace. He will never run out of mercy. He will never run out of living water.

So the living water satisfies spiritually and eternally. Christ himself satisfies spiritually and eternally. Today, are you tired? Are you beaten down from trying to find satisfaction in the things of the world? How’s that pursuit of money and fame going? You can have everything in the world, but if you lack the living water, you will never find satisfaction.

In the early 60s, the Rolling Stones released one of their most popular songs. Now the Rolling Stones are one of the top-5 most successful musical acts of all time. They had money, fame, drugs, success, and anything they wanted. But one of their most popular songs was called “I Can’t Get No Satisfaction.” The song was like an anthem for the Stones, who could not find satisfaction in anything the world could offer them. We are the same way. And praise God that Christ comes to us offering a free offer: Living water to anyone who repents of their sins and trusts Christ as Savior. He has a gift for you, and if you take it you will never thirst again. Jesus satisfies us spiritually and eternally.

After Jesus explains that he can give her living water that will spiritually and eternally satisfy her, the Samaritan woman still does not get it. She was still thinking in terms of her physical needs and what Jesus could do for her. See, if she had only taken Jesus up on his offer because of what she could gain in this life, she would still have gone forward in her sin. Jesus did not promise that she would never have physical thirst again. He did not promise her health, wealth, and fame in this life. If we go to Jesus looking for what we might get out of him for our lives, we will fall short. Why? Because when we do that we are looking for our own glory. She wanted the gift that Christ offered so that she could have a more convenient life. We hear this in a lot of pulpits today in what is commonly called the ‘prosperity gospel.’ This is the belief that having a relationship with Christ will make your life easier, wealthier, healthier, and even more convenient. And it’s not true. It’s inherently false. Jesus does not promise that the living water will give the woman unlimited health or wealth. Jesus promises eternal life. Jesus promised spiritual satisfaction.

II. Worshiping Jesus

What then does our life look like once we are satisfied in Christ? Well, first we see ourselves how Jesus sees us. Look at verse 16 and following. Jesus goes into a line of questioning with the woman. He tells her to go and get her husband, and then we find out why she is at the well by herself. She has been married several times and is currently living with a man who is not her husband. She has been sinful. She has been caught in adultery.

Of course, this leads to the woman making a correct assumption about Jesus: ‘Sir, I see that you are a prophet.” He was, and he knew everything about her. Knowing this information did not take Jesus by surprise. He was not shocked when she revealed her sin to him. He didn’t gasp in amazement or horror. He knew the depth of her sin when he entered the conversation. But he also knew the depth of mercy that he would offer her. And his mercy is immeasurably deeper than her sin.

And here is where there is comfort for us: In the midst of our sinfulness - no matter the depth – when Jesus approaches us with an offer of grace and salvation, he does so despite our sinfulness. He does so with full knowledge of everything we’ve done, and still offers grace. So friend, Jesus is offering grace. Trust him as Savior today. You don’t have to clean yourself up. You don’t have to fix your sin problem before you come to Jesus. That wouldn’t be grace. Christ didn’t run away from the woman and tell her she needed to clean up her act before salvation. And he doesn’t do that with us.

Upon Jesus revealing this woman’s own sinfulness to her, she perceives correctly that Jesus is a prophet. (Though he is much greater than a prophet). She again turns the conversation to a different point: the traditions of Samaritan worship. It seems curious to us. We’ve just learned that this woman is a serial adulterer and has had a wreck of a personal life. Why would she then want to talk about worship location, right? Why would she feel the need to bring up the fact that the Jewish people worship in Jerusalem and the Samaritans worship on Mt. Gerizim?

She was referencing the divide between the Jews and the Samaritans: In Deuteronomy, Moses pronounced the blessings of the Law from Mt Gerizim and the curses of the Law from Mt Ebal. For the Samaritans, then, Mt Gerizim became the central place of worship – they even built a temple there. The Jews of course had Jerusalem as their place of worship. So she changed the subject to a hotly debated item: Where should God’s people worship. I don’t know why she did this. Was she trying to avoid any further discussion about her private life? Was she trying to catch Jesus in a ‘gotcha’ moment? I am not sure. But her main concern was the location of her worship. Her main concern was the tradition of her people.

But salvation was coming. And the salvation that is found in Christ reshapes what we think about worship. Look at what Jesus says: “The hour is coming, and is now here (he’s talking about himself coming to earth as the Messiah), when the true worshipers will worship the Father in Spirit and in truth. Yes, the Father wants such people to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in Spirit and in truth.”

Jesus saves us from our sin and he saves us so that we will become true worshipers. Because our passage tells us that God is desiring people to worship him — to glorify him. And, just as John Piper says, God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him. We can be satisfied eternally in Christ through salvation. We’ve already seen that. But how does that lead us to glorify him? We glorify him through our worship. Jesus is concerned with how we glorify God after we come to know him through saving faith. When we find satisfaction in Christ through salvation, we begin to glorify him through our worship. So this woman was chiefly concerned about the location of her worship; but Jesus was concerned about the salvation behind her worship.

We get so tied up in the externalities of our worship. What does the music sound like? What does the building look like? And on and on and on it goes. But what Jesus shows us in this conversation is that God’s main concern is (1) That we are right with him through salvation and (2) that we worship in Spirit and truth.

So this begs the question: What does it look like to worship in Spirit and in truth?

To worship in Spirit means that you have the Spirit. To truly worship God, you must have received His Holy Spirit – meaning you must be born again and born of the Spirit.

To worship in truth means that you worship God on his truth-claims in Scripture. He has laid out how he is to be worshiped by his people in His Word. Christ reveals that he is the way, the truth, and the Life. Therefore, worshiping Christ means worshiping in truth.

To worship in Spirit and Truth is to worship God for who he is, informed by his word, according to his Spirit.

God wants people to worship him. God has created us for his glory, but in our sin we become glory-thieves. Rather than worship God, we create idol after idol, filling our wells with other things we think might satisfy us. But Christ is the only all-satisfying Savior. He satisfies us spiritually and eternally. And to experience that deep, eternal, spiritual satisfaction, we must repent of our sin and trust Christ, who has come to meet us where we are. He not only came to us on earth, but he died on the cross so that we might have eternal life. That’s the gospel message, and the gospel message is for all. Jesus displayed that in talking with a Samaritan woman. He crossed boundaries for her, and he’s done the same for us. He left heaven to seek out his own people. He made himself a servant. The lowest of low. He knew the cost but did it anyway. Trust him today. And when you trust him, you will find a savior who saves you in spite of the mistakes, in spite of the lostness, the carelessness, and purposelessness of your life. And he will give you purpose: To become a worshiper of God in Spirit and in truth.

III. Sharing Jesus

Finally, this morning, we need to take a look at how the this long passage ends. We could probably do an entire month in these 42 verses, but we’ve chosen to move quickly through this book so that we grasp the entire story. In verse 25-26, Jesus finally lets the woman know completely who he is. She has been missing the point over and over, and he finally tells her flat out: “I am the Messiah.” He was her hope. He was her long-awaited Savior, the anointed one, the Lamb of God. What a glorious moment. Everything made sense. When we encounter Jesus in faith, everything in our lives makes complete sense. And for her, this was an ‘aha’ moment. She believes in him, and look at her first reaction: She understands that he is the all-satisfying Savior, and she immediately leaves and runs to town. She even left her water jar. This was the same woman who was concerned with finding a reason that she wouldn’t have to go back to the well, and now she has lost all practicality when faced with Jesus. She drops everything and runs to town to tell everyone about the Messiah. And they all head on down to meet this man.

While this is going on, the disciples return from town with food. And just like the woman at the well, they are having a hard time keeping their eyes on spiritual nature of what Christ’s kingdom actually looks like. They really want him to eat. This makes sense. They’d been on a long journey and he was physically tired. However, Jesus, the Master Teacher, uses this opportunity to teach them about his work and their work. Look in verse 34: “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work.” Jesus’s work was to come on a divine mission. His ‘food’ — his sustenance — was to work for his Father in expanding the kingdom of God by sharing the gospel of his own death, burial, and resurrection — this Messianic hope — to everyone. His will was to glorify God by bringing the kingdom to people like Nicodemus, the woman at the well, and you and me. And he calls his disciples to join his work here.

He then compares their work to agriculture. He calls them to begin sowing a field of harvest. The field is the kingdom of God, and the plants within that field are people. And throughout time, different people have planted and sowed and reaped. And we all get to rejoice together when this happens, because the kingdom is expanding. He says that the fields are ready for harvest. In the last scene, we see many Samaritans heading to the well to meet with Jesus, and they believe the gospel. This was the immediate harvest that Jesus was calling the disciple to be prepared to work.

There is a harvest around us. Jesus is always in the business of saving people. We only need to look up and see the harvest. Maybe we won’t be the ones to baptize that coworker of yours. Maybe we will get to share the gospel with that cousin of yours, but someone else planted a seed long ago. We aren’t called to do the task alone, but to join in with the saints of all time in the work of the harvest in the kingdom. The field is ready for a harvest. Walnut Ridge is ready for a harvest. Williams Baptist University students are ready for a harvest. Workers need to be present and ready. Will we answer this call?

When you have truly experienced the all-satisfying salvation that is offered by our all-satisfying Savior, your response is to worship in spirit and in truth. The best way that we can worship God is by sharing his gospel with others. Satisfaction in Christ overflows in worship. An overflow of worship looks like sharing the gospel with others.

Conclusion:

Because Jesus satisfies every desire, we must worship him in spirit and in truth and share the gospel with everyone. A few questions as we close out:

What are you seeing as satisfying? Are you finding your satisfaction in your job? In your marriage? In the comforts of your life? These will all let you down. Look to Christ alone for satisfaction.

Does your heart burn for evangelism? Our natural response to the work of Christ within us should be to tell others about him. So often we make excuse after excuse for not sharing the gospel. Mine is usually time. But the work that God has called us to do is to share in the divine mission of reaching this world with the gospel. Not alone, but alongside this body of believers. Let’s get to work, church! The harvest is ready for us.

Let’s pray.