He Will Give Living Water

John 4:1-30

This past week I was struggling to connect this text to myself. I saw the truth here but I was struggling to take it from knowing it to applying it and living in it. Then, by the grace of God, 2 Timothy 3:16-17 gripped my mind and helped me tremendously. I pray that this morning you will have the Spirit work in you this same way in order that we wouldn’t just gain some knowledge, but we would also have it applied to our hearts and lives.

I want to look at the text and then simply ask some reflective questions for you to answer for yourselves.

(vv. 1-9) Intentional counter-cultural love

Jesus intentionally comes to this well to meet this woman

This is no accident

John 4:31-35- Bible

This encounter is counter-cultural in every way

Jewish and Samaritan divide

Jews considered Samaritans half-breeds

They hated the Samaritans and even considered food bought from Samaritans as unclean

Samaritans hated the Jews

Man and Woman divide

Men did not initiate a conversation with woman in public

Social rejection for sin

She was a serial adulterer living in sexual immorality

Jesus gives loving grace toward this unlikely woman

She begins in deep unbelief

Do you only show love and grace toward those who are like you?

We naturally love those who are easy to love and who we deem worthy of it

Do you extend love and grace toward those:

who are difficult to get along with

who disagree with you

who are living in sinful rebellion

(vv. 10-12) Living Water

Allusion to Jeremiah 2

Jeremiah 2:12-13- Be appalled at this, you heavens, and shudder with great horror,” declares the Lord. My people have committed two sins: They have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water.

Are you greater than our father Jacob?

She expresses her skepticism that he is a charlatan

What she does know is that the answer to her sarcastic question is a resounding YES!

The Living Water has no price

Isaiah 55:1-3- “Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and he who has no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy? Listen diligently to me, and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food. Incline your ear, and come to me; hear, that your soul may live; and I will make with you an everlasting covenant, my steadfast, sure love for David.

The Living Water is the Holy Spirit

He is drawing from the rich OT imagery of living water

Isaiah 44:3- For I will pour water on the thirsty land, and streams on the dry ground; I will pour my Spirit upon your offspring, and my blessing on your descendants.

It is by the Holy Spirit that He gives life and New Birth

Have you received this Living Water?

Have you responded in faith to Christ?

Has He changed Your life?

Do you see the fruit of the Spirit in your life?

(vv. 13-19) Caring for the eternal more than the physical

She thinks Jesus is offering her physical water

She thinks that the offer of Jesus is to give physical water that will remove her need to ever do the work of getting water from the well again

She doesn’t know her true need

What she doesn’t know is that Jesus is offering her something far better

He is offering her eternal life and satisfaction

Jesus redirects the conversation to reveal her greatest need

She is a sinner in rebellion against God and needs redeeming grace

The satisfaction that she was looking for in all the wrong places is found in Him alone

Do your relationships reflect a deeper concern for the eternal than the physical?

I am He

He is the promised Messiah

Thousands of years of hope-filled expectation led up to this moment

He is the Spring of Living Water

Through Him comes life and He gives His Spirit

He is all you need

Are you satisfied in Him?

Is He enough for you even when things get unspeakably hard?

Is He satisfying enough to run from the fleeting satisfaction of sin to Him?

Is He the One in whom you rest, trust, and place your hope?

Come and See

She is utterly changed

She has seen the glory of the Son of God

She believes Him and goes to tell everyone

She is filled with joy and passion and desire to share the News of the Living Water to everyone

Beckon others to come and see Him who promises to give Living Water to all who come to Him in faith

If we have received Living Water that has changed us, then how could we ever keep quiet about Him?