are you satisfied?

I would like to take a moment to thank all the people that made yesterday work out so well. We came together and really supported a family in a time of need. They were very pleased with everything, thank you for helping. It takes a team!

Thank you also for reading such a long passage this morning. it is the longest dialogue with one person in scripture for Jesus.... such an incredible story, we won’t be able to cover it in full detail this morning, but we will look and see some of the major points we can learn from this encounter.

Let’s start with verse 1 and what was happening with Jesus. From the first verse we see Jesus involved in baptizing and making disciples, which He didn’t perform the baptisms, but His disciples did. But because of how many people they were baptizing and teaching to follow, and that the Pharisees were paying close attention to this, they decided to move on, and to go to Galilee.

Sometimes we are to move along, with our purpose to do what God wants. And that is ok.

We also find that Jesus, living as a human, got tired. He needed rest just like us. but interesting enough, even in His rest, He ministers.

He is resting at Jacob’s well around noontime and a woman comes to the well.

You know, imagine living in the time of Jesus, when you could actually walk to a place that He was! Would you go to meet up with Him?

this woman is coming to get water, she isn’t coming to see Jesus, but this day will change her life forever.

Jesus speaks to her first, when He asks her to give Him a drink.

Now, this doesn’t sound like much at the beginning but we must remember a few things here. because this is a big deal, in more than one way......and we can see it in her answer.

John 4:9 ESV

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.)

John 4:

We have social customs in our world today, they are unwritten rules that everyone is supposed to know and live by. It was no different in Jesus day. A few of the rules, Jews don’t speak to Samaritans. they were lesser of people, a mixed race of Jew and Assyrians and it wasn’t right for a Jew to associate with a Samaritan. Another was a man was not to speak to a woman without the woman’s husband around. So, Jesus is breaking social rules here just asking her for a drink.

this asking, though not seeming like much, culturally was a lot. It was also a lead in. Jesus knew what He was doing. that is why He answered her in the way He did.

John 4:10 ESV

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.”

see the transition here. Jesus takes this small conversation to a spiritual place, just like that. He is in the process of revealing who He is to her. She will see, but for now, she is not getting it. She still thinks it is about the water in the well, so Jesus clears it up even more.

John 4:13 ESV

Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again,

John 4:14 ESV

but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”

and now she wants this water. she is thirsty and she wants to be satisfied.

What a great illustration. Water, how much do you drink a day? we are in need of water to hydrate our bodies. they are made up of 70% water so we need to replenish daily. We are thirsty people, and we need to be satisfied.

Jesus here is pointing to the spiritual water, or spiritual satisfaction from what He will give.

I love how He says, it will become a spring of water welling up to eternal life.

later in John He says it like this.

John 7:38 ESV

Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’ ”

Picture this. a spring, or a river to receive from, and it is within. It is inside the heart! Spiritually speaking, we do not need to go to get, it is right here.....if we believe in Christ, and the work He did for us, He gives the Holy Spirit to live within us, and it is this Holy Spirit that is the river, that is the living water.

Satisfaction. that is the picture. a continual quenching of thirst. and this is not physical thirst, but spiritual.

Does spiritual thirst play out in the physical? you bet. And this is what Jesus is about to point out to our Samaritan lady.

He says, go, call your husband and come here.

this points right to the heart of the woman and her unsatisfied life. Her spiritually unfulfilled life became a life of looking for the right husband. And she couldn’t find satisfaction, so she would go look for another one.

this causes the woman to realize Jesus isn’t just anybody, but she perceives He is a prophet. Well, she is getting closer, but she is not there yet.

How many people do you know today that are willing to give Jesus the high honor of calling Him a great teacher....maybe even one of the greatest teachers of all time! right up there with Gandhi, and Muhammad.

first, it is an insult to call the Son of God “just a great teacher and to group Him with other human teachers..... but many do this today. they have gotten to where this woman is but they have not gotten any further. they need to know, they need to know who Jesus truly is.

This woman shares with Jesus that she is expecting the Messiah( the Anointed One) Ok, now she is ready....she is ready to hear who He is.

John 4:26 ESV

Jesus said to her, “I who speak to you am he.”

John 4

From the beginning of this conversation, Jesus led her to this point, for Jesus to reveal to her, exactly who He was.

What an experience for this woman. What a graceful leading by Jesus.

Remember, this woman was coming to the well on this day at noon. We didn’t talk about that yet, but we did see into her life some with what Jesus called out about the number of husbands she had.

So now it means even more as we see where Jesus led this conversation with this woman.

The woman came to the well at noon so she didn’t have to be around the others that came in the morning and evening. not because she overslept, but because she was an outcast. She was looked down upon. The people in her world didn’t approve of her....she lived with guilt and shame, daily.

But who spoke to her. Jesus.

This brings me back to that tree, and how we can judge so easily, and put people in a place where we don’t give them our time, or our love because of how we look at them.

Jesus didn’t look down on this woman. If we want to live with Jesus inside of us, we will see the way Jesus sees, not from our own judgments, yes?

What happened after that? After this woman finds out who Jesus is and that He cared for her.

she becomes a missionary! an evangelist. she even left her water jar and heads back to the town that looked down on her. Didn’t matter, Jesus changed her.

She was satisfied in a whole new way.

While she is out witnessing to her town, Jesus gets an opportunity to teach His disciples a spiritual lesson. Remember how they were off to the store at this time getting lunch, and when they return, they see Jesus speaking to a woman.

So they want to have some lunch, and Jesus answers them with.

John 4:32 ESV

But he said to them, “I have food to eat that you do not know about.”

Jesus declares something to them that the woman had already got, she left her water jar sitting at the well because there was something more important than water to deal with at that time.

Jesus says to the disciples,

John 4:34 ESV

Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work.

this is it! when we meet Jesus, see Him for who He truly is, God the Son, and we receive living water within us, this living water needs to spill out. We have something to give to others. to witness to others. to share with others. and it fills us in a satisfying way that nothing else can do. nothing else can satisfy like doing the will of God.

, David says a line in that song, He says my cup overflows.

Church, one question for you,

are you satisfied?

If you know Him, if you are doing His will, I know you are satisfied.