LIVING WATER

Introduction

Introduction

-A Methodist pastor named William Stidger was on a mission trip in the Philippines and he asked a local man what was the most useful thing America had done for his people. Immediately he replied, “Artesian wells. They have saved our babies. Many times have I thanked God for water, for deep, clear water.… The miracle of water is the miracle of life.”

-We know that physical water is a physical necessity, because the body cannot go many days without it. As that story said: water is life. And that is why it makes such a great metaphor or picture in the Bible.

-As much as we need what is necessary for physical life, even more so we need what is necessary for spiritual life. This physical life is temporary, but the spiritual life is forever.

-And so we would do well for ourselves to spend as much time concerned about the spiritual as we do the physical. Yet many ignore the need to take care of their spiritual condition.

-It’s funny—there is a mechanism within us that is a sign that we need water for our physical well-being, and we obey its call as quickly as we can. We call it thirst.

~After a hot day working in the yard or playing in the ballfields, this thirst is kicked into high gear, and we quickly search out a source of water to quench our need.

-And yet God has placed within us a form of spiritual conviction, a spiritual thirst, that ought to so drive us to the things of God and drive us to take care of our soul, and yet in so many ways we try to ignore its call. We suppress it, and we remain spiritually thirsty.

-But in the passage that we read today, Jesus teaches that all humans have a spiritual need that only spiritual water can satisfy—what He calls living water because it gives birth to true life, spiritual life, eternal life.

-Jesus is the source of this living water, and the Holy Spirit is the content of this water. And so within this metaphor we come to Jesus to find living water, which is spiritual life, and we receive the Holy Spirit which is that spiritual life that resides and flows through us.

-And so my prayer is that today you will come to the living water and drink freely from it, that you may have life and have it abundantly.

John 4:1–15 ESV

1 Now when Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus was making and baptizing more disciples than John 2 (although Jesus himself did not baptize, but only his disciples), 3 he left Judea and departed again for Galilee. 4 And he had to pass through Samaria. 5 So he came to a town of Samaria called Sychar, near the field that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. 6 Jacob’s well was there; so Jesus, wearied as he was from his journey, was sitting beside the well. It was about the sixth hour. 7 A woman from Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” 8 (For his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.) 9 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.) 10 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.” 11 The woman said to him, “Sir, you have nothing to draw water with, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? 12 Are you greater than our father Jacob? He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock.” 13 Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, 14 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.” 15 The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water.”

-There are just three lessons I want us to notice in this passage today. First:

I) Jesus pursues us to offer the living water

-Normally, when we are thirsty, we are the ones in pursuit of water to quench the thirst. But spiritually, we may know that something is not completely right with us, but we either ignore it or are not sure to where it is pointing, and so instead Jesus is the one who has to pursue after us to point out our spiritual thirst and then to offer the living water to satisfy it.

-We see that here with His interaction with the Samaritan woman. First, we notice that it says in v. 4 that He had to pass through Samaria.

-This necessity to go through Samaria was not borne out of geographic need. Although it was the most direct route between Judea and Galilee, it was often avoided because (as it is pointed out in the passage) Jews and Samaritans don’t have anything to do with one another.

-The preferred route is to go toward Jericho, cross over the Jordan River, head north on the other side, and then cross back over again. This took more time, but then Jews could avoid the Samaritans.

-Instead, Jesus HAD to go through Samaria because of a divine compulsion. Whenever it is said in the gospel of John that Jesus had to do something or that it was necessary for Jesus to do something, it is because the Father had a divine appointment for Jesus. So, in obedience, Jesus took that route to pursue this divine appointment.

-Then Jesus sits and takes a rest by the well. The Samaritan woman approaches and it is Jesus who initiates the conversation. This is strange in two ways. First, Jewish men did not speak with women who were not their wives out in public (and often didn’t even speak to their wives). And, second, as even she points out, Jews don’t speak with Samaritans.

-So here are two strikes against her, so to speak. She’s a Samaritan woman, and yet Jesus pursues her to offer living water—spiritual satisfaction that leads to eternal life.

-And what is so amazing about this is that even in her own society, this Samaritan woman was an outcast. She came to draw water at noontime. People came to the well in early morning or late evening when it was cool, not at noontime. The only reason she came at that time was to avoid the sneers and jeers of other people. She was a woman with a reputation, so to avoid the embarrassment she tried to avoid people as much as possible.

-And yet, here is Jesus, looking for a divine appointment with a Samaritan woman with a reputation, pursuing her so she could partake of the living water that He offers—eternal life with the indwelling and in-filling of the Holy Spirit.

-Jesus is so gracious such that He pursues those people who the rest of humanity casts to the side. He wants everyone to know the satisfaction of eternal spiritual life.

-And so that means that Jesus is pursuing you. He wants you to know the satisfaction of the living water—a life found in Him and sustained and upheld by the Holy Spirit. You will remain spiritually thirsty forever until you come and drink of the water that He is offering you. Outside of Him, there is no life.

-You may even be a Christian, but Jesus is pursuing you too because you might not be living an abundant spiritual life. Sure, you go through the motions, but somewhere deep inside you know there is more to it than what you are living. So He is pursuing you to come and drink of His living water instead of trying to satisfy yourself elsewhere.

-And this leads to:

II) Earthly activities cannot satisfy like living water

-As Jesus is carrying on this conversation with the Samaritan woman, she cannot seem to get beyond the physical connotations of what He is saying to understand the spiritual undertones of His message.

-Not that we haven’t seen this in the gospel of John before, because when Jesus told Nicodemus about the necessity of being born again, Nicodemus couldn’t figure out how someone could get back into the womb to be born again.

-So the Samaritan woman keeps going back to the physical water in the well that needs to be drawn up with a bucket or something like that. She keeps going back to the worldly ways, the earthly ways, the fleshly ways.

-And Jesus tells her in v. 13 & 14 in essence:

LOOK! WHOEVER DRINKS OF THE WORLDLY, THE EARTHLY, THE FLESHLY, WILL BE LEFT THIRSTY! BUT IF YOU TAKE OF THE LIVING WATER, YOU WILL BE SATISFIED FOR ALL OF ETERNITY.

-In short, if you think that the pleasures of the earth are going to give you what you really want and desire, it will always come up short.

-This woman, all her life, had been looking for the things of the earth to give her peace of mind and heart, to satisfy the craving within her to feel like she belonged, to give her meaning and purpose, and none of it worked.

-We see this later in the chapter when Jesus just points out to her what she has been doing in life and still found no satisfaction. This woman thought that it was in the arms of a man that she would finally feel complete. When the first man didn’t do it, she dumped him and moved on to the second. When the second didn’t do it, she moved on to the third. And so on and so forth.

-She went through five husbands and now had a live-in boyfriend thinking that in these relationships she would find peace and satisfaction and purpose, and she still didn’t have it, and never would, because the things of this earth were never meant to quench a spiritual thirst. Only living water can quench that thirst.

-You think that your job, your family, your cars, your house, your fame, your fortune, your prestige will give you satisfaction, peace, meaning, and purpose—so you look for more and look for more; and it is still not enough.

-Guess what? IT NEVER WILL BE ENOUGH. You think that finding a boyfriend or finding a girlfriend, or finding the right job, or finding a better church, will then make you happy: IT NEVER WILL.

-The things of earth will not satisfy you—so stop pursuing those things with all your heart, and pursue the only ONE who can satisfy your soul.

-The prophet Isaiah called on people in chapter 55:1-3, saying:

1 "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.

2 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.

3 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.

(Isa. 55:1-3 ESV)

-God through Isaiah is asking: WHY IN THE WORLD DO YOU WASTE SO MUCH TIME, ENERGY, MONEY, AND RESOURCES ON WORLDLY THINGS THAT WILL NEVER QUENCH YOUR SPIRITUAL THIRST?

-If the world could offer you what your heart needs and desires, it would have already done so. But it can’t, and it never will.

-There is story after story of some famous athlete or entertainer who reached the pinnacle of their profession—winning the highest prize and honors, only to find there still was no satisfaction even when on top. Even the greatest earthly honor will never satisfy your soul like the living water can.

III) Staying close to Jesus makes us channels of living water

-The living water that we receive through Jesus is not only for our own benefit, such that we would merely be a container for the living water.

-We are not a pool or a lake or a cistern where the water just sits there inside of us. Instead, the living water that we receive then flows from us so that others are touched and blessed by it as well.

-Jesus says in v. 14:

The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life."

-Eternal life and the filling of the Holy Spirit are not only so that we are able to get to heaven, but it is so we can become channels of God’s great kingdom work in this world.

-Later in the gospel of John, Jesus describes it this way:

37 On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and cried out, "If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink.

38 Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, 'Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.'"

(Jn. 7:37-38 ESV)

-During a sermon to a large audience, D.L. Moody held up a glass and asked, "How can I get the air out of this glass?" One man shouted, "Suck it out with a pump!" Moody replied, "That would create a vacuum and shatter the glass." After numerous other suggestions Moody smiled, picked up a pitcher of water, and filled the glass. "There," he said, "all the air is now removed." He then went on to explain that victory in the Christian life is not accomplished by "sucking out a sin here and there," but by being filled with the living water.

-And then it is after we ourselves are filled, that the water can than overflow to touch the lives of others. But we have to make sure that we are filled ourselves.

-The problem is that our sins and our pride and our arrogance and our selfishness poke holes in the glass such that we can never be filled. And if we are not filled, then we cannot overflow. If we cannot overflow, we can never influence others and bring them to the living water.

-Only by a close walk with Jesus are we able to be filled to overflowing so that living water flows through us.----The living water is not just for our benefit, but we are to be channels through which it flows on to others.

Conclusion

-Living water. We cannot live without it. Yet so many people miss it.

-There is a place in the Sarah desert where two large stones are erected to mark a tragedy. There was a wealthy Egyptian merchant, named Ab Ishay, who made a trek through the desert. However, he did not have enough supplies. It got to the point where he promised his camel driver Arik that he would pay him 10,000 ducats ($22,500) if he could find him merely a mouthful of water. Within an hour both died of thirst in the desert. Ironically, only a thousand steps away from where they died was a well which would have saved them! The two stones mark where they died and where the well was—literally they were so close and yet so far.

-Your being here today brings you close to the living water, but you have to choose to drink from the fountain. Jesus, the source of living water, and the Holy Spirit, the content of the living water, are here for your spiritual life, but you must believe by faith and repentance in order to drink. If you are thirsty, receive the water today.

-Christian, if you are like the average American Christian, you look at so many different worldly things to give you comfort, peace, and satisfaction, and you are still restless. Your soul will never find rest until it stops trying to drink the salty water of the world, instead of partaking of the living water of Christ. Come to the altar and drink freely, for as the end of the book of Revelation gives the invitation:

17 The Spirit and the Bride say, "Come." And let the one who hears say, "Come." And let the one who is thirsty come; let the one who desires take the water of life without price. (Rev. 22:17 ESV)