The Necessity of Water
Thirsty People and Ripe Fields
John 4:1-42
I. Introduction
A. The Necessity of Water
1. Review of Marathon of the Sands (Morocco). Then drink water.
2. Can you remember a time in your life when you would have given just about anything for a drink of water?
a. Hiking trip down the Grand Canyon in July!
b. Football two-a-days in August!
c. Marching in a parade in 90 degree heat in your band uniform!
3. For me it was being the college mascot - Wally the Wildcat - during a Saturday afternoon game in Abilene, TX!
a. Uniform was just like KC Wolf at Chiefs games - huge and hot!
b. Complete with big furry head covering!
c. The only air that came in was through the two eye holes!
4. I looked like a drowned rat when I took the uniform off! And I think I lost 10 pounds…that I definitely didn't have to spare!!
5. I never wanted a drink of cold water so bad in all my life!
B. Water as a Metaphor for our Needs
1. God made things in this universe such that water is the key ingredient to almost everything.
2. Our bodies can't survive without it and are better off by drinking eight eight-ounce glasses of it a day.
a. How many of you do that?
b. How many of you take a sip out of drinking fountain once a week?
3. After being delivered from Egypt and beginning their journey through the desert, the first thing the Israelites complained about was a lack of water!
a. Ex.15:22-27
b. Ex.17:1-7
c. Eventually, it would be the people's hostility toward Moses again for having no water that would bring about his prohibition from entering the promised land. Num.20:1-13 when Moses hit the rock with his staff instead of speaking to it as God commanded.
4. It seems that one thing God was trying to convey to his children was that even the most essential element of life should be seen as a his gift to us.
5. God knew they needed water, but He wanted their thirst to be as intense for him as it was for the water itself.
6. Centuries later, in another remote village, Jesus encounters a woman whose thirst was as intense as the Jews in the desert.
7. Only her thirst was for living water and that's what she got.
II. John 4 - Knowing Jesus (2 Peter 1:2)
A. He was Totally Human while being Totally Divine
1. Jesus could see that people, specifically the Pharisees, were trying to create problems between the followers of Jesus and the followers of John the Baptist.
2. If they couldn't convince people not to follow either one, they would create antagonism between them. So Jesus leaves the area to go back to Galilee.
3. On the way, he "had to go through Samaria."
a. Throughout the book of John an emphasis is placed on how obedient Jesus was to the Father and how he looked to God as his source of life and ministry.
b. Later in this chapter, 4:34, "My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work."
c. 5:30, "By myself I can do nothing…for I seek not to please myself but him who sent me."
d. 6:38, "For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me."
e. 8:29, "The one who sent me is with me; he has not left me alone, for I always do what pleases him."
4. So, when John writes that Jesus "had to go through Samaria" he doesn't mean there weren't other routes.
5. There were other means, albeit longer, but many Jews chose the longer route traveling north to avoid Samaria/Samaritans (we'll notice later).
6. He means that Jesus, led by the sovereign hand of God, had a divine appointment awaiting him. And I love how that appointment came about.
7. He and his disciples get to village of Sychar in Samaria "vs.5-6" (read).
8. We've mentioned before that the opening prologue of the gospel is a kind of summation of what John learned through the events of the rest of the book.
a. One earth-shattering truth is 1:14. That's no small thing!
b. It was the core of the church's first major controversy and heresy since some couldn't accept that any flesh could also be divine!
c. Later in his life, John would write, "That which…1 John 1:1-3"
9. John could testify that Jesus got tired from walking! He got pooped!
a. By the way, this proves the disciples were in their early 20's because vs.8 tells us they went on into town to get food.
b. Guys that age are always hungry and they had the energy to go to town!
10. Don't rush off too fast from the picture. Jesus was tired, but Jesus was ready for any opportunity. Jesus needed rest, but he was energized by ministering to people. He needed a break, but he didn't take a break from filling a need.
11. And he really was thirsty. Not just looking for a "hook" for conversation!
B. He was Totally Accepting while being Totally Uncompromising
1. You won't find a more striking contrast of people than the key figure in chapter 3, Nicodemus, and the key figure of chapter 4, an unnamed, Samaritan woman!
2. Yet, Jesus was equally accepting of both. Equally comfortable with both. Equally loving of both! Vs.7 (read)
3. You have to picture Jesus sitting in his tent at night delighted in his time and conversation with Nicodemus; Pharisee, member of Sanhedrin, morally upright and religiously devout.
4. Now here's Jesus sitting in the hot sun by a well in a portion of Palestine where a guy like Nicodemus wouldn't be caught dead, and he addresses a woman with the same love for humanity he had for Nicodemus; she's a she, she's a Samaritan (long standing feud going back to Assyrian captivity), and we'll soon see her morals aren't anywhere close to those of Nicodemus.
5. We can't leave here without thinking through this and asking ourselves the question, "How comfortable or accepting am I of people different from myself?"
a. And I don't just mean racially (although that may apply), but what about our neighbors and soccer parents and work associates who are different in their outlook and lifestyle from you?
b. Are you more proud of how your "light" drives them away or that it attracts them to you?
c. If we asked them, would they say they walk away from being around you feeling accepted or judged?
6. I understand that we all have natural affinities for certain people and I don't think that's necessarily wrong.
a. That's why the computer geeks hang around and make jokes nobody else can understand! ("He thought he had problems on the H drive of the …")
7. But having an affinity for some can't become the exclusion of others!
8. Philip Yancey, in book Church, Why Bother uses a few metaphors of his own to describe church. One is "God's Driver's License Bureau" p. 52-54
III. Knowing Jesus' Teaching
A. There is a Thirst in Every Soul that only Jesus can Satisfy
1. Immediately the woman is startled that a Jewish man would ask a Samaritan woman for a drink, or anything else for that matter. Vs.9 (use dishes…)
2. She isn't immediately drawn to Jesus. She had learned to be weary of men who were too friendly, too fast.
3. Just as with Nicodemus, Jesus knew what was in her heart; same desires, hopes and questions! So he responds with what she really needed. Vs.10
4. Jacob's well was over 100' deep and most believe that the better, cleaner water was at the bottom where a spring fed the well.
5. At this point the woman is as clueless as Nicodemus was when he wondered how a grown man could be born again! Her response indicates - vs.11-12
6. Now Jesus explains what he meant earlier about "the gift of God" in vs.13-14.
7. The words of Jesus conjure up memories of Jeremiah 2:13, "My people have committed two sins; They have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that can hold no water."
8. Woman, you are like everyone else who tries to satisfy their own thirst for fulfillment. The best you can come up with is a temporary solution that leaves you off worse than in the beginning!
9. Look at how this woman tried to quench her thirst - vs.15-18.
10. The scriptures consistently expose people as both thirsty and foolish! We long for the satisfaction we were created to enjoy, but we all, without exception, move away from God to find it!
a. Relationships - career - material things - pleasure, etc.
11. Compulsive sin could be said to be our self-imposed strategy to protect us from the pain of unfulfilled longings.
12. Which is why compulsive sin has such a grip on people - it takes away the pain, albeit temporarily because it is an empty well, a broken cistern!
13. Jesus offers the gift of living water! No more digging! No more searching!
14. By exposing this woman's sin Jesus is preparing her heart for the knowledge and reception of the gift and the giver!
15. The unique quality of the water is that it becomes a spring that never runs out and is inside us!
16. And, make no mistake about it, there is only one source of this water, Jesus Christ!
17. We don't say that smugly, but humbly.
18. As offensive as that may sound, if everything else about Jesus is true; death, burial and resurrection (and the evidence is overwhelming), then his words must be true as well.
B. There is Freedom in Worship that only God Provides
1. Well, Jesus has climbed the ladder quite a bit in this woman's eyes; he's gone from unwelcome stranger to prophet.
2. Some have suggested that her response in vs.20 is an attempt to change the subject as quickly as possible. Avoid the pain of dealing with her past.
3. While there may be some truth to that, I don't think that's the whole picture.
4. I wonder if this woman, now believing that Jesus is a prophet and talking about something deeply spiritual that sounds appealing…I wonder if she doesn't take the opportunity to address something that she feels is an obstacle. Namely, worship and how it should look.
5. I take it as her way of asking for help.
6. As she realizes that she has been thirsty for meaning and renewal she asks, "Where do I get this life? You Jews say that the only place to offer the sacrifice that can cleanse my sin is in Jerusalem. Our people say it is here on Mt. Gerazim! Where do I go to be cleansed? How do I find God?"
7. I think Jesus couldn't wait to tell her…vs.21-24. (with commentary)
8. The time has come when geography isn't the issue! Temples and building aren't the issue!
a. A word to the church folks - music styles aren't the issue!
9. A few years back Rex and I went to a conference on ministry to GenXers.
a. During first session this worship band begins playing and it was, shall we say, not a style familiar to our senior pastor!
b. It sounded like this (play CD)
c. I'll never forget his long, thoughtful glance at me as if to say, "You call this worship?" Kind of like how you're looking at me now!
d. I told him it was because everyone's heads were moving up and down!
e. By the end of the conference, Rex was actually singing some of the songs!
10. Jesus was excited to tell this woman that there is freedom in worship that only God can provide!
11. His good news to her was that God actually seeks those who would worship him in spirit and in truth.
12. Because God is spirit, his worship will be spiritual in nature.
13. He is not a stone deity or a tree deity or a mountain deity. He is spirit.
a. We worship in such a way that the entire heart is engaged and in full harmony of the truth of God as revealed in his word.
14. That provided the woman hope that she can indeed connect with God anytime at any place.
15. It kindled a hope for the Messiah - vs.25
16. "I who speak to you am he." You've got to believe her heart just stopped!
17. She never got a chance to respond, for "just then his disciples returned" from the grocery store. They can't believe he was talking with a woman and she can't believe she was talking with the Messiah! Two scenes emerge:
a. She goes back to town to tell people about Jesus.
b. Disciples try to get Jesus to eat a sandwich! Kind of pales in comparison doesn't it?
c. Thus, the third lesson.
C. There is a Harvest to be Reaped if only we will be Obedient
1. I love vs.32-33 (read). "Did he order take out?"
2. I wish I knew exactly what it was like around Jacob's well.
3. We can only imagine Jesus drawing the disciples attention to the fields surrounding the well and pointing them out.
4. But, as Jesus refers to, harvest time for those fields was a few months away.
5. Yet he says…vs.35b38.
6. The disciples had to believe Jesus wasn't talking agriculture anymore!
7. He was exhorting them to be obedient to the task where God had placed them - at reaping. Others had sown and cultivated, theirs was the privilege to reap!
8. Jesus knew what was coming - vs.39-41.
9. There's a field in your little suburban neighborhood! May just look like a lot with a house, but it's a field!
10. There are fields for harvesting in the largest cities of the world, most of which are in China. They may have building and hoards of people, but they're fields!
11. I pray that next week at our Sunday for the World, God will open your eyes so you will look at the fields!
12. There is a field right here in this room. If we'll obey God, he promises a harvest!