- Meeting at the Well
- The Quest for Living Water
- Kingdom Growth
Read at beginning of service:
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Jeremiah 17:5-8, 12-14 (NIV)
5 This is what the LORD says: “Cursed is the one who trusts in man, who depends on flesh for his strength and whose heart turns away from the LORD. 6 He will be like a bush in the wastelands; he will not see prosperity when it comes. He will dwell in the parched places of the desert, in a salt land where no one lives. 7 “But blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD, whose confidence is in him. 8 He will be like a tree planted by the water that sends out its roots by the stream. It does not fear when heat comes; its leaves are always green. It has no worries in a year of drought and never fails to bear fruit.”
12 A glorious throne, exalted from the beginning, is the place of our sanctuary. 13 O LORD, the hope of Israel, all who forsake you will be put to shame. Those who turn away from you will be written in the dust because they have forsaken the LORD, the spring of living water. 14 Heal me, O LORD, and I will be healed; save me and I will be saved, for you are the one I praise.
INTRODUCTION
How many of us have ever taken the time to take a good look at our life? Maybe look back at where you?ve been and then try looking ahead to see where you want to be. Of course, this kind of exercise inevitably leads to a wide range of emotions. Some would look back with dread and look forward in hope. Some would look back with joy and look forward with uncertainty. Some would simply say what?s the point!
But let me ask you, at this point in your life do you know what you want out of life or is life just a blur that seems to happen? Or maybe do you feel you have an idea of what you?d like in life but are frustrated by the lack of substance in that dream? Where you want to be, what you want to have always seems to just beyond reach and never realized.
Have you ever been thirsty for something? You know what I mean ? so thirsty that nothing else would satisfy or quench your thirst. Do you even know what it means to thirst?
The truth is, if you would answer these questions you?ll discover that each one of us are looking for refreshment in our lives. We are all living busy lives. We start out looking forward to that 16th birthday, and then we look forward to getting out of high school. We continue our search for refreshment by thinking about getting the college degree, then the job and somewhere along the line a spouse, then children, then retirement. We keep thinking that each of the upcoming steps in life will bring satisfaction to us only to find that it does not. It is the seemingly never-ending quest for refreshment.
Today, as we continue our series on Evangelism Made Simple, we?re going to spend some time looking at the message of the evangelist. For you must understand that this message brings the fulfillment of the quest of every member of the human race. It is this message that Jesus shared with Samaritan woman at a well.
John 4:7-18 (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.” 16 He told her, “Go, call your husband and come back.” 17 “I have no husband,” she replied. Jesus said to her, “You are right when you say you have no husband. 18 The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true.”
Face it. Day to day life can be boring and mundane. It can leave us feeling weary and dreary. The woman at the well was looking for refreshment in her life. This woman went to a well to get some water, but what she ended up receiving was something that would satisfy her thirst for the rest of her life and for all of eternity. This is the message we as Christians, as evangelists need to be sharing. The message of living water that is found in Jesus Christ ? the message that brings the only refreshment that can satisfy our deepest thirsts. Today we are going to look at three steps that will lead us down the path to real refreshment.
KNOW WHERE TO LOOK (v10-11)
- This woman that Jesus converses with is looking for refreshment from a well of water. She went looking for something to refresh her physical thirst. Little did she know what she was going to receive from Jesus!
John 4:10-11 (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.” 11 “Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water?
- In verse ten Jesus tells the woman that real refreshment is a gift from God that can be found through Him.
John 7:37-38 (NIV)
37 On the last and greatest day of the Feast, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. 38 Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him.”
Revelation 7:17 (NIV)
17 For the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd; he will lead them to springs of living water. And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”
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.
- There was a country song that I remember from when I was a kid. It was called something like “Looking For Love”. The song had a line in it that said, “looking for love in all the wrong places looking for love in too many places”.
- In our lives, we tend to look for refreshment or some relief from or purpose for the mundane activities of life in all the wrong places.
- If we are going to find real refreshment, we need to know where to look for it.
- In today?s world people are looking for relief from the rigors of life. People will look for this relief in the bars, they will look for it in the entertainment arena or they will look outside of their marriages to find relief.
- This poor woman was looking for refreshment all of her life and until this point she did not know where to look.
- In observing people since I became a Christian, I find that people will look everywhere else but Jesus for real refreshment in life.
- I do not know why this is except that maybe because sometimes Christians do not live their lives in such a way that it reflects any amount of refreshment from the rigors of life.
- Some of this may come from the fact that in many churches, you will have a small number of people doing most of the work. When this happens, church can become a burden instead of a joy.
- But Jesus never intended His church to be a drain on His people. When people come together and pitch in and work according to their areas of giftedness, then the church will grow.
- We will have a sense of refreshment in our lives and because we are serving something other than ourselves, we will be more open to share our faith with other people. And people will see the living water flowing through us and want some for themselves.
- The Samaritan woman had no clue as to where to find the source of real refreshment and so she starts asking Jesus questions about water and begins to lead her to the source of real refreshment. Jesus did this because He knew what was in the woman?s heart; He knew what she needed in life.
- Jesus knows what you need also.
- One of the steps that we need to take so that we can have real refreshment is we need to know where to go to find it. And it is only found in Christ ? He is the source of living water ? find your source of refreshment in Him and help others to see the life He brings when we draw from His river.
- The next step we need to follow is:
KNOW WHAT YOU ARE LOOKING FOR (v11-12)
- Once we know where to go, we need to know what we are looking for.
John 4:11-12 (NIV)
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?”
- When Jesus spoke of living water, the people of His day understood that term to be talking about a body of water that was moving, like a stream or a flowing spring or river. So as Jesus is speaking to this woman, she still does not know what she is looking for. She tells Jesus that He does not have anything with which to draw water out of this 100 foot deep well. Jesus is standing before this woman and she does not know what He can offer her.
- Today in 2002 nothing much has changed. How many people have you come across who have told you that they tried the Jesus thing before and it did not work for them? The problem with a person who says this is that they don?t know what they are looking for. How many people are there who once were “on fire” Christians have smoldered until they are kind of hit and miss in church attendance!
- Why does this happen? It is because these people really do not know what they are looking for when they come to Jesus. They are looking for things other than what He wants to give them. Their quest for refreshment may have brought them to Christ but they?re not willing to receive the refreshment He offers. Or even worse they?ve been presented with a gospel message that is not the one Jesus gave?
- Men know immediately how to quench their physical thirst, but their spiritual thirst is a different matter. Many times people will come to Jesus and just want Him to take care of their physical thirst. They want this but they do not want to seek the real refreshment that Jesus has to offer.
- We usually misunderstand the spiritual thirst and try to quench it with the stagnant waters of the flesh and of this world. The result is poison and death.
- The stagnant waters of the flesh are such things as lust, immorality, drunkenness, indulgence, and pride.
- The stagnant waters of the world are such things as the love of money, cars, houses, lands, clothes, extravagant living, position, and power.
- Within their hearts men sense a thirst for…
purpose
meaning
significance
satisfaction
fulfillment
something that is missing
something to fill the void, the emptiness and the loneliness
deliverance from a sense of lostness
freedom from undue anxiety, stress, and pressure
- Many times we will look for the wrong things to fill these needs.
- Jesus can give us all these things, but He offers a greater gift.
- The stagnant waters of the flesh and the world never quench a man?s thirst. They are like salt water; they only make a man crave for more and more.
James 4:1-4 (NIV)
1 What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you? 2 You want something but don’t get it. You kill and covet, but you cannot have what you want. You quarrel and fight. You do not have, because you do not ask God. 3 When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures. 4 You adulterous people, don’t you know that friendship with the world is hatred toward God? Anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God.
- So we?re left with the question, “What was it that Jesus was offering her when He offered her living water?” In this passage Jesus is offering the woman a relationship with Him that will give her real refreshment.
John 7:38-39 (NIV)
38 Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him.” 39 By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive. Up to that time the Spirit had not been given, since Jesus had not yet been glorified.
- The gift of God, this living water is the personal relationship that we can have with the source of life. Jesus was offering her this.
- Jesus is comparing the blessing that the world has to offer verses the blessings that one who belongs to Him will receive.
- As you grow in Christ, your life will begin to have meaning and satisfaction.
- What we need to look for is a relationship with Jesus. A relationship with Jesus is one that grows and matures. Whenever we stop growing, we start dying.
- Jesus was offering this woman real refreshment. In her life is appears that she was seeking worldly refreshment through the relationships that she had with men. Jesus was telling her that she was drawing water out of a stagnate source and the He could give her living water that would refresh her.
KNOW WHY YOU NEED TO LOOK (v13-18)
- The last step in the process of finding real refreshment is knowing why you need to look for it.
- As Jesus carries on His conversation with this woman, she is starting to understand that Jesus is not talking about the water found in the well. LET?S READ VERSES 13-18
John 4:13-18 (NIV)
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.” 16 He told her, “Go, call your husband and come back.” 17 “I have no husband,” she replied. Jesus said to her, “You are right when you say you have no husband. 18 The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true.”
- Here are some reasons why we need to seek the real refreshment that Jesus offers to us:
We need to be cleansed
- Have ever been hot tired and sweaty? Remember how good it felt to get into the cleansing waters of the shower and how refreshed you felt when you got out of the shower? You were dirty and you needed to be cleansed. You were not going to feel good until you hit that shower.
- Notice in verse 15 that the woman asked Jesus for the water that He had offered her.
- Now look at what He tells her to do in verse 16? (go get her husband) That would seem like an odd request. Remember that Jesus knew the heart of this woman.
- This woman had asked for the water of God?s grace and she needed to know just how much she needed it, she needed to be made aware of her dormant thirst.
- Jesus asked her to get her husband so that in might reveal her life, and perhaps lead her to repentance.
- This woman needed to be convicted of her own sin and her need to be cleansed.
- Once we understand how much we need Jesus, it will help us to want to look for Him.
- Friends sin must always be revealed for what it is ? the dirtying, death causing blight that separates us from a relationship with Holy God. Coming under the conviction of the need to be opens the doors to walking into the refreshing, cleansing springs of living water.
So we can be truly satisfied
- Jesus tells us in verse 13 that whoever drinks from the dead water of the world will never be satisfied. Think about it, how many people are satisfied, I mean truly, completely, satisfied by what the world has to offer? Can we ever have enough money, power, or possessions?
- Jesus says in verse 14 that He offers real refreshment. We will not need to seek happiness and fulfillment in other things.
- Verse 14 also tells us that we will have a constant supply of this living water within us. This is accomplished by the indwelling gift of the Holy Spirit that we receive when we are immersed into Christ (Acts 2:38)
Acts 2:38 (NIV)
38 Peter replied, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.
John 6:35 (NIV)
35 Then Jesus declared, “I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty.
The living water will spring up to eternal life
- Verse 14 tells us that the water Jesus has to offer will become in us a well of water springing up to eternal life.
- The blessing that the world has to offer will not lead to eternal life, but blessings that Jesus has to offer will spring up to eternal life.
John 6:27-29 (NIV)
27 Do not work for food that spoils, but for food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. On him God the Father has placed his seal of approval.” 28 Then they asked him, “What must we do to do the works God requires?” 29 Jesus answered, “The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent.”
CONCLUSION
- What are you trying to fill the empty hole within you with?
- Are you tired, weary and in need of some refreshment in life?
- If you are, you need to seek the living water that is offered to you by Jesus.
- Jesus offers you the gift of eternal life because He loves you and wants you to be with Him for eternity.
- John records for us this encounter between Jesus and this Samaritan woman to show us that His offer is open to everyone. This is the message of life ? come and drink at the fountain of life?