Jesus Gives Living Water: Part 3

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Now, this will be part three of Jesus Gives Living Water.

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Jesus Gives Living Water. So I'd like to invite you to please turn with me in your

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Bible to the Gospel of John. John chapter 4. We are at John chapter 4 and working our way through.

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And I'd like to read our text from verse 1 to verse 26.

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Verse 1 to verse 26. We will not finish this today.

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We'll pick it up, God willing, next Lord's Day as we move down the road. But this is a wonderful story that speaks of the great love of God and the grace of our

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Lord Jesus Christ. As Scripture says, the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.

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And this is definitely one of these wonderful stories that we have that's recorded in the

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Gospel of John that demonstrates and we see the grace of our

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God. We see a Samaritan woman meets the Messiah, the

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Lord Jesus Christ in this. And we will eventually see that she is totally transformed.

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Excuse me. Let me begin to read this. Excuse me.

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Therefore, when the Lord knew that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus made and baptized more disciples than John, though Jesus himself did not baptize but his disciples, he left

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Judea and departed again to Galilee, but he needed to go through Samaria. And so he came to a city of Samaria, which is called

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Shechar, near the plot of the ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph.

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Now Jacob's well was there, and Jesus, therefore being wearied from his journey, sat thus by the well.

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And it was about the sixth hour. A woman of Samaria came to draw water, and Jesus said to her,

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Give me a drink. And for his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.

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And then the woman of Samaria said to him, How is it that you, being a

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Jew, ask a drink from me, a Samaritan woman? For the Jews have no dealings with the

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Samaritans. Jesus answered and said to her, If you knew the gift of God and who it is who says to you,

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Give me a drink, you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.

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And the woman said to him, Sir, you have nothing to draw with, and the well is deep.

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Where then do you get that living water? Are you greater than our father

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Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself and as well as his sons and his livestock?

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Jesus answered and said to her, Whoever drinks of this water will thirst again, but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst, but the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life.

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The woman said to him, Sir, give me this water, that I may not thirst, nor come here to draw.

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And Jesus said to her, Go, call your husband, and come here. And the woman answered and said,

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I have no husband. Jesus said to her, You have well said, I have no husband, for you have had five husbands, and the one whom you now have is not your husband, in that you spoke truly.

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And the woman said to him, Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet. Our father is worshiped on this mountain, and you

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Jews say that in Jerusalem is the place where one ought to worship. And Jesus said to her,

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Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem worship the father.

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You worship what you do not know. We know what we worship, for salvation is of the Jews. But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the father in spirit and in truth.

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For the father is seeking such to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship him in spirit and truth.

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The woman said to him, I know that Messiah is coming, who is called Christ.

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When he comes, he will tell us all things. And Jesus said to her, I who speak to you, am he.

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May God bless the reading of his holy word from our ears to our hearts this morning.

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Let's pray. Father in heaven, we pray, speak, speak,

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Lord, for your servant here's. We ask this for your honor and glory in Jesus' name.

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Amen. For an opening, let me give you a wonderful and amazing, awesome truth by Pastor John MacArthur as I was studying this.

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I was digging into his commentary, and he has a wonderful footnote on this in paragraph concerning the great love of God given to us through Jesus Christ.

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He says this, quote, the apostle John obviously understood the weighty evidence that confirmed

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Jesus' authenticity. In fact, the reason he wrote his gospel was to confirm the obvious, and that is that Jesus Christ is the son of God.

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In John 20 verse 31, and it is in keeping with that purpose that John relates the story of Jesus' encounter with the

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Samaritan woman. He goes on to say this, the woman's reaction to Jesus as related in John's record here strongly suggests that she embraced him as her

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Lord and Savior. But her conversion is not really the main point of this passage.

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The central truth of this section is found in Jesus' revelation of himself as the

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Messiah in verse 26. He goes on to note, he did so here for the first time, and to a most unlikely non -Jew.

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But why did he decide not to first declare his

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Messiahship to the most politically correct and influential target, the

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Jewish religious leaders? What a question, and he has a good answer.

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Listen to this. So, why choose to reveal that monumental truth to an obscure, despised, immoral

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Samaritan woman? The answer lies in the sweeping truth that it is in the matter of salvation that God is not one to show partiality.

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I love that. God is not one to show partiality.

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And Jesus' revelation of himself to this woman demonstrated that God's saving love knows no limitation.

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It transcends all barriers of race, gender, ethnicity, and religious tradition.

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And in contrast to human love, divine love is indiscriminate and all -encompassing.

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In John 3, 16, for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life.

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That Jesus chose to make himself known first, first, not only to a

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Samaritan woman, but also to a woman who was really a stinging rebuke to members of Israel's religious elite.

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And MacArthur closes it with this in this section. Who rejected him, the religious elite, rejected him even when he did reveal himself to them.

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I thought that was wonderful. A very wonderful observation and that's actually obvious, isn't it?

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Because God loves the world in a general sense and he loves his people in a special sense.

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But it is an obvious truth that is overlooked, isn't it? God shows no partiality.

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And that's the kind of God he is. He's there always willing.

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He does not delight in the death of the wicked, but he wills and desires all to come to the truth.

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Even though the scriptures are very plain in the fact that all will not, speaking of the whole world, will believe.

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If we believe that, that would be a universal salvation. We do not believe that. Jesus said it.

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He said that the way to hell is broad and wide and many there, many will go in that way.

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But few will find the narrow door and enter into heaven. He made that very clear, didn't he?

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How it must grieve God that people do not come to him. Spurgeon had it right when he said,

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Salvation is all of God, but damnation is all of man. God will not be responsible for the damnation of men, even though he does know who goes there or who is elected to not go and also to those who are elected to heaven.

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It's hard for us to put that together, isn't it, in our mind because we have a hard time with understanding the justice of God.

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But God is just, folks, and he's righteous, and he's fair, and as scripture says in Romans 9, he has mercy on whom he wills to have mercy, and he has compassion on whom he wills compassion.

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Now we also need not to forget the gospel, and I'm going to start with the gospel here because the gospel is the good news, because if you look at the book of Romans, that's the way

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Paul the apostle began it. He gave the good news first, and then later he gave the bad news.

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But in order to understand the good news, we must understand the bad news, vice versa. But I'm going to quote to you what the apostle

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Paul says in Romans chapter 5, verse 6 to 11. And listen, just let your soul just meditate and your mind meditate on this great truth.

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And this is what Paul says. For when we were still without strength, in due time

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Christ died for the ungodly. Not the godly, the ungodly.

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For scarcely for a righteous man will one die, yet perhaps for a good man someone would even dare to die.

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But God demonstrates his own love toward us, and that while we were still sinners,

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Christ died for us, much more than having now been justified by his blood.

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We shall be saved from the wrath through him. For if we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his son.

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Much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by his life. And not only that, but we also rejoice in God through our

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Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received the reconciliation. Now that word reconciliation, beloved, that's what the gospel is about.

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God has reconciled us. A holy God has reconciled us who is just, merciful, but yes, completely righteous to himself through Jesus Christ his son.

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That is the gift of God. Beloved, that is the good news. And that's what the good news is all about.

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He comes to save us from our sin, but also to come to save us from ourselves.

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And that's why he came. He comes to give us eternal life, and it does not begin necessarily in heaven, it begins here and now.

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This is the life of God. This is the life that God imparts, to give us an eternal life in heaven.

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And I was explaining this to the children this morning as we were heading this. I said, really, I said, heaven would not be heaven, and I would not want to go to heaven if Jesus was not there.

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You take Jesus out, I don't want to go to heaven. Pastor, how can you say something like that?

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Because you're talking about this wonderful city of God, the celestial city, and a place where there's no sin and streets of gold, and I was explaining to the children this morning, if you look in Revelation, there's literally a gate of pearl, and there's gates on each side of the city.

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And the city of God is, by measurement, 1 ,500 miles high.

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One pearl. MacArthur said, I'd like to see the clam that pearl came out of.

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But God can create it, can't he? Now I want you to think about it, not 1 ,500 feet, that would be high.

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We're talking about 1 ,500 miles high. Looking at the pearl.

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But you take Christ out of there, and the Scriptures in Revelation says there's no need for the sun, because the glory of God, the

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Lamb, would be the light. He will lighten up that city, and think of it, jewels and rubies and diamonds and gold in that luxurious city of God, and the glory of God would be bouncing off and reflecting off all that and lighting up the whole entire city of God.

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That's just one of the benefits. But Christ is all in all. And He's the reason, and I told the children, as we were talking about this on the way here this morning,

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I said, children, I tell you why Jesus is that important and He's the only one that's worthy, is because He's the one that died for you.

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He is the one who gave His life for you, that you may have everlasting life.

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Now, beloved, that's the great love of God. And by the way, it's the great love of the Father, given as the gift of His Son, not just to the righteous, but to the unrighteous, to the ungodly, to the enemies of God, to those who hate

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Him, to those who blaspheme Him, to reconcile them to Himself.

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And here in our text, John chapter 4, we see Jesus doing just that. He's the great

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Master Soul Winner. By divine appointment, as we have seen, Christ is motivated by the love of God.

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And we see that Jesus, being the love of God Himself, incarnate in flesh,

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He reaches out to one of His lost sheep. And here she is, a Samaritan woman, a half -breed, a reject.

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He reaches out to her in great love.

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And to do that, Jesus begins a conversation with a very simple comment, and He says,

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Give me a drink. Give me a drink. So Jesus, the Master Evangelist, uses this occasion to begin a life -changing encounter with the

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Samaritan woman. We've already covered verse 1 to verse 8.

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Let's pick up at verse 9. Listen to what the Word of God says. Then the woman of Samaria said to Him, How is it that you, being a

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Jew, ask a drink from me, a Samaritan woman? For Jews have no dealings with the

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Samaritans. Now think of this. The Samaritan woman knows the cultural norms of that day.

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She knows that men don't talk to women. Actually, especially the Samaritans, if a

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Jew would even cross the path, they would avoid them at all costs. As a matter of fact, more than likely, when the disciples went into the city of Samaria to get food for themselves and the

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Lord, they probably passed this woman as she was heading to Jacob's well, and they probably avoided her and put a good distance between themselves.

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And she knows here also that not only that men don't talk to women in that day, especially

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Jewish rabbis don't have anything to do with the half -breed Samaritan, period, let alone a

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Samaritan. Now this was absolutely shocking and surprising to her.

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That's exactly the reason why she says here in this text, how is it that you, being a

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Jew, ask a drink from me, a Samaritan woman? She knew this.

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Commentator William Barclay says this concerning this text. He says, the strict rabbis forbade a rabbi to greet a woman in public.

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A rabbi might not even speak to his own wife or daughter or even sister in public.

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There were even Pharisees who were called, quote, the bruised and bleeding

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Pharisees because they shut their eyes when they saw a woman on the street, and so they walked into walls and houses, end quote.

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Wow, could you imagine seeing that? Well, that's exactly what happened in that day.

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There was no affiliation between the Jews and the Samaritans. There was bitterness and resentment.

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Verse 10 says this, we have the revelation which is given, and Jesus knows exactly how to answer her.

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Jesus answered and said to her, notice what he says, if you knew the gift of God, if you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, give me a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.

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Now, think about this. A person at that time understood living water to be fresh, springing water bubbling up out of the ground.

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The Jews knew something of this, but can I tell you, the Samaritans really didn't know.

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Why did I say that? Because if you remember studying this, the Samaritans being

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Gentile, Assyrian, and Jew mixed, only accepted the

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Pentateuch as the revelation of God. That is as far as they went. They did not read the prophets, and the prophets have much to say about living water.

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Listen to Jeremiah, the prophet, in chapter 2, verse 13. And he speaks about living water, and what it says about what

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God says about living water through Jeremiah. He says this, for my people have committed two evils.

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They have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewn themselves cisterns, broken cisterns that can hold no water.

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Two evils, two evils, right here. First, Israel had abandoned the

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Lord, Yahweh, who is the source of spiritual salvation and sustenance.

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Second, the second evil, the first of all, that's pretty bad, to forget the Lord, to forget the

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Lord, because God is the source of living water and salvation. The second evil is,

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Israel turned to idolatrous objects of trust. They made themselves idols. And the prophet

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Jeremiah compared these with underground water devices for rain water, which were broken, and they let water seep out, thus proving completely useless.

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That's exactly what Jeremiah is speaking of. Now, a Jew would understand this, but the

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Sabaritan would really not understand what it means about living water.

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Now, as I read that, did it not cross your mind that nothing has changed in respect to the two evils?

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The depravity of man is the same. God has not changed. And in that sense, in man's depravity, that has not changed as well.

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This really, let me kind of change gears a little bit. This is really the question we all have for our unsaved family and friends.

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And I know you feel the same pain as I do as you reach out to those that do not know the

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Lord in your family. And who, and I think about what

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Jesus says to her. If you knew the gift of God.

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If you knew. What does Scripture say? My people perish because of lack of knowledge.

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No knowledge of God. Who it is that says to you, give me a drink.

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You would have asked Him, Jesus says, and He would have given you living water. Oh, we pray and long for the salvation of our family and our friends, don't we?

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We long for them to come to the Lord Jesus Christ and believe on Christ and to repent and turn from their wicked ways.

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We love and long to see them to come to Christ and be changed.

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Because eternity is at stake. Now to come to the

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Lord Jesus Christ, we see also in their lives, there is a terrible disaster.

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There is a mess like this woman at Samaria. Addictions upon addictions, don't we?

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Don't we see this? It grieves us and how much more does it grieve God who is the

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Creator? The Savior and Redeemer. They have addictions.

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They are idolatrous, adulterous, adultery. They are a slave to sin and they can't break free within their own power.

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No, they cannot do it within their own willpower. They will not do it. And if only they knew the gift of God.

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Like Jesus says here, if only you knew the gift of God.

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Think about that. Jesus Christ is that gift. He is the gift of God.

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If only they would hear Him and believe and repent. Add to that, if only they knew who it was speaking to them.

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Jesus says, my sheep hear my voice and they follow me. Now have you noticed as I was speaking that to you, that you and I cannot make anyone or force anyone come to Christ.

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And by the way, God doesn't force Himself against people's will. The way it works through the power of the

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Holy Spirit, God literally makes them willing.

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He causes that to happen because it's a supernatural work of the

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Holy Spirit. You can read that in Ezekiel. God, time and time again, speaks that He is the one that causes that.

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You can go with me very quickly. I like to just reference this. I don't have this in my notes, but this is such an important, very important text that we need to understand about conversion, about regeneration.

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Regeneration actually, then there's conversion. But if you go to Ezekiel 36, this is how

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God does this. And this is what is spoken of here. And water is always symbolic of cleansing, isn't it?

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Like external baptism, symbolic of cleansing, and the cleansing that it symbolizes is the cleansing that happens within.

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It's an external act that doesn't save us, by the way, but it represents what has happened on the inside.

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Ezekiel 36, listen to the word of the Lord, verse 22. Therefore say to the house of Israel, Thus says the

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Lord God, I do not do this for your sake, O house of Israel, but for my holy name's sake, which you have profaned among the nations wherever you went.

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I will sanctify my great name, which has been profaned among the nations, which you have profaned in their midst, and the nations shall know that I am the

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Lord, says the Lord God, when I am hallowed in you before their eyes.

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Notice how many times God says, I will, folks. Listen to this, verse 24.

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In verse 23 He already said, I will sanctify my great name. Then in verse 24, I will take you from among the nations and gather you out of the countries and bring you into your own land.

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Verse 25, Then I will, this is God, sprinkle clean water on you and you shall be clean.

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I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols.

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Verse 26, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you.

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Again, I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and will give you a heart of flesh.

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Again, verse 27, I will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes and you will keep my judgments and do them.

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Then you shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers and you shall be my people and I will be your

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God. Have you noticed how many times God says, I will? Verse 23,

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I will sanctify my great name. Verse 24, I will take you from among the nations.

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Verse 25, I will sprinkle water on you. I will cleanse you. Verse 26,

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I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you. I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh.

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I will put my spirit within you. Time and time again,

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God does the work. How can anybody deny that it's not a supernatural work of God?

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It is absolutely that. It's not of our own free will.

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Even though the offer is to those that are to whosoever will.

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I do not deny that. But it must be God and it is all of God that does the transforming work.

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I don't see how anyone would deny that. Now, a lot of times we try to figure out the details of how this all works.

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But don't try to do that because God's the one that's in charge. Just know that He does it, right?

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But the Bible says much about it. And we just read a very important passage on that text.

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Now, add to all that, if only they knew not only the gift of God, but who it was speaking to them.

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The Scripture says, No one can come to the Father unless the

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Father who sent me, Jesus speaks, draws him. You know, did you know that word draw in the

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Greek could be translated drag? Drag? Literally drag.

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The bottom line is that salvation, that we cannot save anyone, folks. And I know you know this.

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It is entirely, completely a work of the

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Holy Spirit of God. Salvation is of the Lord. It's God's doing.

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Even the preached Word, as powerful as the Word of God is, the

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Spirit of God must take the letter and give life to it. Paul said that.

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The letter kills, but the Spirit gives life. It's the

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Spirit of God that must do the regenerating work within the heart of man.

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It's God's working. In and through the Lord Jesus Christ and His work upon the cross.

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Now, see Spurgeon says this at verse 10. Let me read verse 10. Again, if you knew the gift of God and who it is that says to you, give me a drink, you would have asked

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Him and He would have given you living water. I love what Spurgeon says. If you knew the gift of God.

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He says this. See the deadly misshift of ignorance concerning spiritual things?

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If she had known, she would have asked and Christ would have given.

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But the first link was missing. And therefore the rest of the chain was not drawn on. Sometimes all people need is a little wise instruction and they will then trust the

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Lord and Savior by the work of the Spirit. God grant that we may always be ready to give it.

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Some need much more than that. But Christ could truly say to this Samaritan woman, if you had known, you would have asked and I would have given.

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And that end quote right there. But I was thinking of Matthew. Turn with me to Matthew chapter 7.

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This is a wonderful, wonderful verse. The Sermon on the Mount. The Lord Jesus Christ is teaching

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His disciples. And this is what He says concerning asking, seeking, and knocking.

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You are familiar with that, aren't you? But He keeps saying it. He says it. You keep asking. You keep seeking.

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You keep knocking. Verse 7 of chapter 7. Ask and it will be given to you.

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Seek and you will find. Knock and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives and he who seeks finds.

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To him who knocks it will be opened. Or what man, listen to this question here.

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What man is there among you? Who? If his son asks for bread, will he give him a stone?

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Or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a serpent? Well, the answer, let me stop right there.

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The answer is obvious. No, by no means. Notice what

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Jesus says in verse 11. If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more?

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Don't you love that? How much more will your

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Father, who is in heaven, give good things to those who ask

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Him? Therefore, whatever you want men to do to you, do also to them.

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For this is the law and the prophets. So, the Lord is there.

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And as James says, we have not because we ask not. And when we do ask, we ask for wrong motives.

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We must make sure our motives are right. So, that's a wonderful text as well. Now, how gracious and how giving is

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God? Now, back to John. Let's look at verse 11 and 12.

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Here we sense that she is still on the physical plane and doesn't yet get that Jesus is talking about the spiritual.

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It says this, The woman said to her, Sir, you have nothing to draw with, and the well is deep.

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Where do you get that living water? Now, he's got her attention on living water now.

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Now, remember this whole conversation started because of water. I was kind of thinking a little bit.

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Isn't so many people in this world magnetically drawn to water? They love to go by the seaside.

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My daughter, Elizabeth, and my new son -in -law just came back from close around the

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Caribbean to the Virgin Islands and they said the water is absolutely gorgeous. Ben and my other daughter, she's not here today, went there as well on their honeymoon.

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Beautiful, beautiful water. You see, it's so crystal clear. People love to see the water.

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It's such a gift that God has given. This should remind us of the life -given water that Jesus gives.

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Magnetically drawn to it. But unfortunately, because of man's depravity, they don't think of that, do they?

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Because they're dead in their sins. They don't see it for as it is. She asked, where then did you get that living water?

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Well, think of it. She's still thinking on the physical, folks. And I love how Jesus in his wisdom handles her question about Jacob, actually.

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He ignores it as it is just, he detours her from the main point.

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You might have noticed it. Very easy to talk about religion. But people get quite uncomfortable when you bring up the

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Lord Jesus Christ. You start talking about repentance and sin, people get very, very uncomfortable.

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I notice this when we're out on the streets reaching out to people. Oh, they can talk to you all day about religion.

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But mention Jesus and their personal sin. In a loving way. You need to repent and turn from it.

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You need to turn from your wicked ways. And people automatically say, I got to go. I got something else to do. They don't want to hear it.

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It's just the natural nature of man's depravity.

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Verse 13 and 14 is really the very heart of the soul of the text. Jesus answered and said to her, verse 14,

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He speaks about Jacob's water, the well there, will thirst again.

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But whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst. But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life.

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Now, notice what he's offering to her. Fountain of living water springing up into everlasting life.

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Makes me think also of Solomon who wrote in Ecclesiastes that God has put eternity in our hearts, meaning that each one of us that are born has a

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God -shaped cavity, a hole, within our heart because God has put eternity within our hearts.

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One person that I work with, he wanted to debate me about this. He said, you know, all people, it's like, don't have a soul.

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And I said, I've just proved that now because the word of God says when God made man, he made him a living soul.

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Why? Because he breathed in him the breath of life. You and I have the breath of life in us today.

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Every single person on the face of this earth is a living soul. Eternity is in their hearts.

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This one particular guy, like many others, and they're teaching this false and damnable teaching to our children that we just evolved and there's no soul.

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They're just like the animals that die. And this is the lies that has come within the teaching of public school and so forth.

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But you go back to the Bible, and once they taught this years back, the scriptures, the truth that man is a living soul.

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He will live. You and I will live forever somewhere. Whether it be eternal hell or eternal heaven.

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So when a person dies, the scripture says, it is once appointed for man to die, and after that, the judgment.

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That's scripture. Now, Ecclesiastes says, God has put eternity in his heart.

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I like what the old church father, Augustine, said, O Lord, you have made us for thyself, and our hearts are restless until we find our rest in thee.

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Man will not get any soul rest until he comes to Christ. And that's why

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Jesus says, come unto me all you labor and heavy laden, I will give you rest. Rest for your souls.

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He's not talking about physical rest. He's talking about people that were burdened with the law, the yoke of the law.

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That law keeping was so burden heavy on them, and Jesus says, I can relieve you from the yoke of the law.

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You come to me. Why? Because Jesus kept the law. He fulfilled the law.

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And we throw ourselves on Christ and know that Christ is all in all to us because he gives us soul rest.

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Praise his name. Now, there's something else I'd like to bring to your attention here, because the water that he speaks of in Jacob's well, he said, you drink that water, you will thirst.

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You will thirst. The world cannot satisfy us. The waters of this world cannot satisfy us.

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The wells of this world cannot and will never satisfy us. 1

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John chapter 2 verse 15 to 17 says this, Do not love the world.

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That's a command. This is a command. Do not love the world or the things that are in the world.

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If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. Notice he's speaking much about love here.

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He speaks about the love of God, but he speaks also about the love of the world. Then he says, for all that is in the world, the lust, or you could say the desires, the desires of the flesh, the lust, the desires of the eyes, and the pride of life is not of the

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Father, but is of the world. What does he say in verse 17? And the world is passing away.

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It's passing away, and the lust of it. But, here's the point, but he who does the will of God abides forever.

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That's the point. That's the truth. That's the truth that John wants the people of God to get.

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Now how relevant is that truth? You see it all about us. People, the lust of the flesh, the desires, the lust of the eyes, the pride of life.

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These are the three enemies of Christianity.

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The Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, the three in one, and Jesus Christ, and by the

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Father sending Christ, and through the Holy Spirit, as Christ went into the wilderness, defeated all three of these enemies, as a man full of the

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Holy Ghost. Praise his name. MacArthur comments here on this. I'm going to give you a comment where he says this about the desires of the flesh, the desires of the eyes, and the pride of life.

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He says, although John often repeats the importance of love, he says, and that God is love, he also reveals that God hates a certain type of love, the love of the world.

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In this text, John expresses a particular form of the fourth test, the test of love.

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First, positively, the Christian loves God and his fellow Christians. Negatively, an absence of love for the world must habitually characterize the love life of those to be considered genuinely born again.

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Love, he says, here signifies an affection and devotion.

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An affection and devotion. God, not the world, must have first place in the

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Christian's life. Must. End quote. Now, there's a lot of confusion.

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It's sad to say, but it shouldn't be any confusion. Who's the author of confusion? It sure isn't the Lord. It's Satan.

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And there's a lot of lies, even in churches, of what love is. Folks, it's in Scripture, right?

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It's right in the Bible. And this is just one text from 1

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John 2 that explains love, not the world. There's the love of the world, and there's the love of the

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Father, and it's very black and white. If we love the world, the love of the Father is not in us.

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It's black and white. Now, I got a reference to that.

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Listen to this. Matthew 10, 34 to verse 39. Do not think,

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Jesus says, this is Jesus. Now, I want you to think of this. Jesus says, do not think that I came to bring peace on earth.

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Wow, what a statement. He reminds us again,

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I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. A sword. Verse 35,

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For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter -in -law against her mother -in -law, and a man's enemies will be those of his own household.

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He who loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, Jesus said.

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You mean to tell me, pastor, I must love God above my family? Yes and amen.

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By the way, your family, your grandchildren, your children, and all that we love dear, and he's not saying not to love them.

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He's just saying that the love for God should surpass that. Keep in mind that the ones, our wives, our family, our husbands, children, grandchildren, and so forth, are gifts from God.

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God is the giver. That's what Jesus is saying. Love the giver, the source. He says, and he who loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.

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That's strong words. And he who does not take his cross and follow after me is not worthy of me.

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I was speaking to somebody the other day and asked them the question, Are you a

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Christian? There were two people out on the side of the street. I reached out to them and they both were wearing crosses.

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And they went like this. And I said, my dear friend, it's not wearing a cross that makes you a

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Christian. It's bearing a cross. Jesus said you must bear your cross, you take your cross, your personal cross, and follow after me is not worthy of me.

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He says, and listen to this, he who finds his life will, what? Lose it. How often do you hear people say,

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I need to find my life. Jesus says you need to lose your life. It's opposite of what the world thinks.

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Jesus turns everything upside down. And then he says, he who loses his life for my sake will, what?

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Find it. That means you give your life up. You surrender your life and your rights to the lordship of Jesus Christ and surrender at his feet and let him be the master and the lord.

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And he's lord and master anyway. And whether we submit or not, he's still going to be lord and master for all eternity because he's lord, right?

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And that's where I come in and say, what are you going to do with Jesus Christ? Well, in other words, the truth in what he's saying here at the beginning of this text, of the word of God divides, doesn't it?

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Truth divides. Truth is a sharp two -edged sword.

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A sword does what? A two -edged sword cuts. It cuts and it separates.

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But by the way, it cuts and separates then it unites. In truth. That's what he's talking about.

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He's not against having peace. He's not against about the peace of God because he doesn't mention peace of God.

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He just says, do not think that I've just come to bring peace on earth. This fluffy peace in which we hear the world so often talk about.

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He's talking about because ultimately, the gospel does bring peace on earth because it is the ultimate end of the gospel is peace with God and the peace of God.

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What he's saying is through Jesus Christ, the truth of the matter is the immediate result of the gospel is frequently will be conflict.

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And brother Ben's been talking about this. You must take heaven by force. It must be heavenly violence.

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It must be following after it with all the energy and striving and sweat and blood and tears you can as God gives you the gifts and the grace.

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The truth being said, the sharp two -edged sword will be the result of the division.

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It separates, it cuts. And beloved, I witnessed this when I first came to Christ in my life.

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My dad's dead and gone now, but he lived as a wicked Gentile. And when

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I first came to the Lord, he did everything he could. I was a 17 -year -old at the time.

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And he said, no, you're not going to go to church. I forbid you to go. And I just went into my room and cried and cried and cried.

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And I said, Lord, I want to love you more than anything. And I want to go hear your word. I want to reach out to others.

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I want to fellowship with God's people. And my dad made it very difficult for me at that time. Then later on,

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God started softening up his heart at times. And then he came. He ended up, he let me go, and then he came to the congregation to hear the gospel.

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But unfortunately, sad to say, he never came to repentance, even though he might have, he sought it.

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Kind of like, reminds me of Esau. He sought repentance with tears, but he never found that grace.

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And unfortunately, he ended up taking his own life. I had to officiate that funeral, and it was one of the hardest ones in my life because my own father died without Jesus Christ.

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But I said this. I'm not the judge. I'm not the judge.

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I'll give an eulogy. I'll give you the gospel. But then shall not the judge of all the earth do right?

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Because we can never have judgment on our side in that sense. God is the ultimate judge.

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Well, the Lord is so gracious, isn't he? John chapter 4, verse 15 -16.

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The woman said to him, Sir, give me this drink of water that I may not thirst, nor come here to draw.

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The Samaritan woman at this point is not taking the Lord completely serious. In essence, she's basically saying,

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If you really have this living water, give it to me, please. Jesus said to her in verse 16,

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Go call your husband and come here. Now, this is a change up here. This is a big game changer.

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Since the woman failed to understand the nature of living water, he offered her, and this is a very important point that we all need to get.

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Jesus now abruptly turned the dialogue focusing sharply on her spiritual need for conversion and cleansing from her sin.

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Now, even though the word repentance is not here, but this is basically what he's charging her to do.

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Lovingly. Now, what I love about this is not one time do you see the Lord Jesus Christ condemning her.

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He knows she's condemned already because she's not a believer. MacArthur says this,

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His intimate knowledge of her morally depraved life not only indicated his supernatural ability, but also focused on her spiritual condition.

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I love that. So at this point in conversation, Jesus begins to remove the facade, the mask of this

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Samaritan woman and kind of wearing as she was wearing and touching on who she really is.

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The mask was removed because Jesus knew all about her. How do we know that?

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Notice what it says. Well, he says in verse 16, Go call your husband and come here.

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And the woman answered and said, I have no husband. And Jesus said to her, Yeah, well said. He commends her.

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I have no husband for you have had five husbands. And the one whom you now have is not your husband and that you spoke truly.

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And she is absolutely just blown away by this. The woman said to him in verse 19, Sir, I perceive that you're a prophet.

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In other words, he knew all about her. And Jesus knows all about you. Everything.

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Now, I love this truth because Jesus told us in John 16 that the

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Holy Spirit, he will come and he would condemn. No, he does not condemn.

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He convicts. He convicts of the world of sin, righteousness and judgment.

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That's his work. The condemnation doesn't come.

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We already, the unbeliever, the non -believer is already condemned. Jesus, the

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Holy Spirit brings conviction. Notice the word convict. Cutting it cuts. By the way, it's a loving act.

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Wonderful act. You can read this in John 3. We looked at this and this is the condemnation in verse 19 that the light is coming to the world.

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Men love darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. For everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed.

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But he who does the truth comes to the light that his deeds may be clearly seen and that they have been made manifest in God, done in God.

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So, here it is. Jesus just reveals everything about her. And our

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Lord in His perfect wisdom and goodness, through the truth, He leads her to repentance. He's the master soul winner.

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She had just asked for water and the Lord Jesus told her to go and call her husband.

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Why? Before this woman could be saved, she must acknowledge herself as a sinner.

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She must come to Christ in true repentance. She must come to Christ confessing her guilt and shame.

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And you see this all through the Bible. Hebrews 4 .13 And there is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are naked and open to the eyes of Him to whom we must give an account.

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Does that terrify you? Well, beloved, if you're not a believer, that's a terrifying verse. But can

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I tell you this? If you are a believer today, there's no condemnation to those that are in Jesus Christ because Jesus knows all about you and He's covered you with His righteousness.

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And it becomes a very encouraging thing. It could be one extreme to the other.

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Great condemnation and terror or great joy and satisfaction in Jesus Christ.

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Beloved, only those who truly know themselves to be lost and sinful can be saved.

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As Brother Ben put out there in that little sign, we're thankful we had a few months to use that sign.

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He put Thomas Watson, Until sin be bitter, Christ will not be sweet. That's a great truth.

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And that's backed up with Scripture. Galatians 3 .24 Therefore the law was a tutor, a schoolmaster, to bring us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith.

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Verse 25 But after faith has come, we are no longer under a tutor.

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We no longer need the schoolmaster. The law serves a purpose. The law of God serves a purpose to show us our sin.

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Paul even says, It's good, it's holy, but how could I know that I'm a sinner? How can I know that I've coveted unless the word of God, the law says,

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Thou shalt not covet. We must tell people that, folks.

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And people think, well, that is mean. No, it's not. It's loving to tell people the truth of the law, to be the tutor, to show them their sin, so then they can go to Jesus Christ.

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Because once they come to the point of recognizing they're a sinner, and acknowledge that they need

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Jesus Christ, you can point them to the cross and say, Christ took your sin. The word tutor denotes, listen to this, denotes a slave whose duty it was to take care of a child with adulthood.

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The tutor escorted the children to and from school and watched over their behavior at home.

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This is what the tutor did. The tutors were often very strict disciplinaries, causing those under the care to yearn for the day when they would be free from their tutor's custody.

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And the law was our tutor, by which showing and revealing us our sins was escorting us to Jesus.

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Romans 3, 10 through 12, as it is written, there is none righteous, no, not one. There is none who understands.

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Listen to this. There is none who seeks after God. A person that does not know God does not seek

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God. He cannot because he's blind. He's dead in his sins.

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Can a dead man raise himself up? Can a dead man go to the altar and say,

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I'm coming to Christ? No. A dead man does what? He stinks. Scripture says,

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They have all turned aside. They have all together become unprofitable. There is none righteous, no, not one. Now let me give you the good news.

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That's the truth that cuts and we need to hear it. Faithful are the wounds of a friend. The bad news is for the wages of sin is death.

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What is wages? Something we earn. We have earned death. That is our wages.

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But the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. The law condemns, but God through Jesus Christ justifies and saves.

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That's the good news. But isn't it true, we must understand the bad news to get the good news.

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We must see both clearly. As John Bunyan I love says it, in a nutshell, he gives the gospel in a poem.

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It's such a simple poem that a child could get this. Run John run. Children understand that, don't they?

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Here comes two right here. Run John run, right? Run John run.

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The law commands, but gives neither feet nor hands. Better news the gospel brings.

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It bids me fly and gives me wings. Amen? That's the gospel.

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And when Jesus was speaking to the woman at the well, as the Messiah, he loved her.

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Jesus knew more about her than anyone else. He knew more about her than she knew herself.

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But yet he never condemned her. He pointed her to come to repentance, to lead her to repentance.

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He loved her more than anyone could ever love her yet. And let me point this out also.

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Notice Jesus never used his complete knowledge of all things to needlessly expose her shame as a person.

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He didn't do that. But he did use it here in order to deliver her from the bondage of sin.

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Oh, how he loves you and me. Oh, how he loves you and me. Jesus to Calvary did go.

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His love to mankind did show. Oh, how he loves you and me. While we were yet sinners,

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Christ died for the ungodly. Let me give you an application. Isaiah, and I give it in a scripture.

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Isaiah 55, 1 -3. This is wonderful news.

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Hold everyone who thirsts. Come to the waters. Notice how many times the Lord says come.

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Come to the waters. And you have no money, come. Buy and eat.

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Yes, come. Buy wine and milk without money and without price. Why?

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Because the Lord Jesus Christ has paid it all through his blood. And then the

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Lord says this. Why do you spend money for what is not bread and your wages for what does not satisfy?

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Listen carefully to me and eat what is good and let your soul delight in itself in abundance.

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Listen to that promise. And then he says this. Incline your ear.

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Remember what Jesus says. He that has ears, let them hear. Let them hear what the

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Spirit is saying. Hear, he says, hear and your soul shall live.

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And I will make an everlasting covenant with you, the sure mercies of David.

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That's thousands of years before Christ came. And the sure mercies of David, it was through Jesus Christ.

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We have much to give thanks for. And Jesus says to us as he did to the

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Samaritan woman at the well. Whoever drinks the water I give, them will never thirst.

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Please bow with me in prayer. I'd like to pray a prayer. I read this as I was studying this and just let this be your prayer as well.

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Oh Lord, my heart needs thee. My heart needs thee.

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No part of my being needs thee like my heart. All else within me can be filled by the gifts.

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My hunger can be satisfied by daily bread. My thirst can be allayed by earthly waters.

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My cold can be removed by household fires. My weariness can be relieved by outward rest.

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But no outward thing can make my heart pure. The calmest day will not calm my passions.

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The fairest scene will not beautify my soul. The richest music will not make harmony within.

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The breezes can cleanse the air. But no breeze can cleanse the spirit. This world has not provided for my heart.

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It has provided for my eye. It has provided for my ear. It has provided for my touch.

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It has provided for my taste. It has provided for my sense of beauty. But it has not provided for my soul.

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Lift up your eyes unto the hills. Make haste to Calvary's awful mountain and climb.

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And on the way, visit the slopes of Mount Olivet where grows the trees of Gethsemane.

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And contemplate there the agony of the Lord where He has already tasted the tremendous cup which

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He drank to the dredge, the noontide on the cross. There is an answer to our need.

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Provide thou for my heart, O Lord. It is the only unwinged bird in all creation.

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Give it wings, O Lord, give it wings. Earth has failed to give it its very power of loving has often drawn it to the mire.

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But be thou my vision, O Lord, of my heart and the strength of my heart.

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Be thou its fortress in temptation, its shield in remorse, its comfort in the shield and remorse of the storm, its star in the night season, its voice in the solitude.

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Guide it in the gloom. Help it be in its heat. Direct it in its doubt.

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Calm it in its conflict. Fan it in its faintness. Prompt it in its perplexity.

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And lead it through its valley and raise it from its ruins.

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In my own power, O Lord, I cannot rule this heart of mine. But Lord, You have the power by Your grace under the shadow of Thy own wings to keep me, hold me fast.

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All in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, I pray. Amen and Amen.