Read at Beginning of Service:
John 4:7-15 (NIV)7 When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?” 8 (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.) 9 The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.) 10 Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.” 11 “Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? 12 Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his flocks and herds?” 13 Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, 14 but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I 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 won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.”
INTRODUCTION
It is said that humans as well as the vast majority of life as we understand it, are composed almost entirely of water. Some estimates range from 60 to 90%!
Without a constant and secure supply of water, life will not continue. If our bodies become dehydrated we can die. We can live without food for weeks, but only days without water.
God has designed our bodies to need water in order to sustain life. Therefore it should not surprise us the Bible uses the analogy of spiritual life needing living water to sustain life.
Revelation 21:6 (NIV)6 He said to me: “It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. To him who is thirsty I will give to drink without cost from the spring of the water of life.
A good question to ask might be, “What water are you drinking?”
The Wrong Water to Drink
Bad water can do bad things to the body. People from Walkerton understand this very well. Their experience demonstrates the consequences of drinking bad water. It also demonstrated how much we need clean, good water.
It is projected that one fourth of people on earth are without safe water and 30,000 people die everyday from diseases related to bad water.
In the book of Jeremiah God tells His people they have no business drinking water from contaminated sources.
Jeremiah 2:13 (NIV)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 cannot hold water.
Jeremiah 2:18 (NIV)
18 Now why go to Egypt to drink water from the Shihor? And why go to Assyria to drink water from the River?
These were foreign sources of water that were neither reliable or safe. Foreign sources of ungodly water are?
Bitter Sweet Waters of Discontentment
Exodus 15:23 (NIV)23 When they came to Marah, they could not drink its water because it was bitter. (That is why the place is called Marah.)
Proverbs 9:17 (NIV)
17 “Stolen water is sweet; food eaten in secret is delicious!”
Life is full of water that presents itself as sweet experiences. However life lived without God soon turns bitter.
Many people find themselves drinking water that begins with wonderful experiences yet leaves them feeling bitter in the end.
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- story of Joseph and his brothers (they had the “sweet experience” of getting rid of their brother ? but it led to bitterness in the end)
- story of David and Bathsheba.
- Story of Haman and Mordecai, Esther (From the book of Esther)
People who drink these waters are constantly looking for something to make them content ? NO MATTER WHAT THE COST ? and yet when we look for contentment apart from God we will NEVER be content.
Non-quenching waters of Dissatisfaction
John 4:13 (NIV)13 Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again,
Did you drink water yesterday? Did you have to drink water today? Again, life is full of so called thirst quenching drinks, but they do not last. We quickly become thirsty again. Gatorade advertises itself as the “Thirst Quencher”, yet it?s effect is temporary.
The water of this world has a temporary effect, enjoyment and existence.
Poison waters of Death
Revelation 8:11 (NIV)11 the name of the star is Wormwood. A third of the waters turned bitter, and many people died from the waters that had become bitter.
To continually drink from broken cisterns of this life will only produce one thing ? death. A death greater than the physical awaits those who drink from the world?s source of bad water.
Revelation 20:14-15 (NIV)14 Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. The lake of fire is the second death. 15 If anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.
Luke 16:24 (NIV)
24 So he called to him, ‘Father Abraham, have pity on me and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, because I am in agony in this fire.’
If you feel discontented, bitter, unsatisfied, or poisoned then you really need to look at what you are drinking. The water of this world is a poisonous brew that serves as fuel for our sinful nature and yet for a time seems “okay”.
God has declared that people too often forsake Him as the fountain to living water.
The Right Water to Drink
When I?ve been outside on a hot, humid day ? either working, or playing sports, or taking Zachary to the park ? when the sweat is dripping off my head and my mouth is parched and dry there is noting that satisfies me more than a tall, cold glass of water. It refreshes more than any other drink could.
The people of Walkerton learned the value of water when their water supply was infected with E-coli and became foul. The problem was that the wells that the town drew it?s water supply from had become tainted and no longer pumped out clean, pure water.
The waters that this world offers us to drink in a spiritual sense are tainted. The spiritual equivalent to E-coli is sin ? and sin causes a much greater sickness than E-coli ever can.
However, there is a spiritual artesian well that contains waters of life and refreshment, that we can, and need to drink from.
Waters of Salvation
John 4:10 (NIV)10 Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.”
John 4:14-15 (NIV)
14 but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I 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 won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.”
As you and I need physical water to sustain physical life, so we each need the spiritual living water to secure eternal life. Have you drunk from this well? You see, the moment you drink from this well you tap in to the source of living water ? Jesus himself. A source that cannot be tainted, that forever satisfies, makes content and brings life.
Waters of Forgiveness
Hebrews 10:22 (NIV)22 let us draw near to God with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water.
1 John 1:9 (NIV)
9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.
When you drink the living water that is given by Christ it is so powerful that it takes away and removes any trace of that which taints the water of the world (SIN)! We drink of this water when we draw near to God in faith and confess our sins in faith ? believing that He has forgiven us for sins and washed us clean with the living water!
Waters of Refreshment
John 4:14 (NIV)14 but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”
Proverbs 11:25 (NIV)
25 A generous man will prosper; he who refreshes others will himself be refreshed.
God?s water not only refreshes us, it causes us to be refreshment to others in Jesus? name. The nature of the spring that flows from God?s throne is that it flows through us into the lives of others around us. The waters of this world tend to pool in stagnant, stinky puddles.
CONCLUSION
As strange as this may sound you can actually lose weight by drinking large amounts of water. If your cells are getting plenty of water they tend to store less water, and so you have less water weight. If your cells are constantly low and in danger of dehydration they will stockpile additional supplies of water, increasing your weight.
Using this as an analogy for the spiritual life, the more we drink from God?s well, the more weight and thirst of the world we will lose.
Without a constant and secure supply of water, life will not continue. Which source of water are you drinking from?
The world?s wells of dead water?
2 Peter 2:17 (NIV)17 These men are springs without water and mists driven by a storm. Blackest darkness is reserved for them.
?or God?s wells of living water?
Revelation 22:17 (NIV)17 The Spirit and the bride say, “Come!” And let him who hears say, “Come!” Whoever is thirsty, let him come; and whoever wishes, let him take the free gift of the water of life.
I pray it is the secure water of life that only comes through Jesus Christ.