You and Your Water Pot — E.A. Johnston

In John's Gospel, in chapter 4, we see the story of Jesus and the Samaritan woman. She had an encounter with Christ, with the Christ of the Gospel, and she's forever changed. Have you ever been changed, friend?

It is God who takes the heart of stone and makes it a heart of flesh. Yes, He does. Here in our story this evening, friends, Christ Jesus takes a shortcut through Jew-hating territory. He is tired and weary from his labors.

So we see in verse 6,. Now, Jacob's well was there. Jesus, therefore, being wearied with his journey, sat thus on the well, and it was about the sixth hour. And here comes a woman who was secure in her sins, but not satisfied in them.

Sin doesn't satisfy, friend. You can satisfy your lust with a sinful act, but when you're done, you're more empty than when you ever started. Sin is a thief that robs God of His glory, and it steals your life away.

It steals you, friend. It steals from you. This woman had been trying for years to find happiness in a relationship, but it hadn't worked out too good for her. She suffered through five broken marriages, and now she was living an open sin with a man, and it was not her husband.

She and her water pot come to Jacob's well, because her pot was empty, as was her heart. She was weary of the heat of the day and ashamed of herself to come and draw water at that time of day. And like the refrain from the song, Old Man River, she had gotten to a point in her life where she was sick of living, but scared of dying.

Have you ever been there, friend, worn out like that woman? Sin will just wear a person down, for the devil is nothing but a thief and a liar. That woman came to Jacob's well, and she found a man resting there who was dog-tired in his humanity, because every time Jesus healed somebody, virtue went out of him.

The woman, with the issue of blood, who touched his cloak in a crowd, Jesus turned and asked, Who touched me? For I feel virtue has gone out of me. I was sitting with Dr. Stephen Offord in his study one day, friends, and he was running a little late for a meeting, and when he finally got there, he plopped down in his chair, and he said to me, Excuse me, brother.

Let me gather myself. Let me gather myself. I just got through preaching, and virtue has left me. Here was a holy man of God, anointed by the Spirit of God, and he felt weakened by preaching, because Stephen Offord was so full of Christ that virtue left him.

If there's a preacher out there, let me ask you, when you preach, does virtue go out of you, friend? Well, here is Jesus in his humanity, and he is so tired, he has to sit down to rest, and he watches a woman walk over toward him with her empty water pot and her hungry heart, and he knows she is ready for change, but he doesn't offer himself to her as a remedy for sin until he first puts his finger on her sin.

He says, Go call thy husband. She replies, I have no husband. He looks her in the eye and tells her, Thou hast well said I have no husband, for thou hast had five husbands, and he whom thou now hast is not thy husband.

You see, friends, we forget how to witness to folks with the gospel. We hand poor sinners to Jesus they know nothing about before they feel any need of him. Jesus knew how to deal with sinners to bring them to himself.

The gospel's not for secure people, but it is for thirsty, hungry, uneasy, weary folk who are burdened with sin. This woman was like that. She was burdened with sin as she came with her empty water pot to the well that day.

How about you, friend? How is it with you and your water pot? Have you ever come to the place of desperation? Have you ever been awakened to your lost and ruined condition and the utter helplessness of it and the hopelessness of it without God working a miracle in your aching heart?

God is the one who gives saving faith. If you're saved, friend, it's because God gave you saving faith. That woman, that sinner of a woman got saved, and she went to testify saying, Come see a man which told me all things that I ever did.

Is this not the Christ? Listen to me, friend. Jesus can save even you. But let me ask you, what's in your water pot? What is the thing keeping you from coming to Christ Jesus and turning from your water pot of sin to him who saves from sin?

Will you come to this well of living water who is Christ? Jesus says in verse 14, But whoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst, but the water that I shall give him shall be in him.

A well of water springing up into everlasting life. Dear weary sinner friend, are you sick of living like you are, but are you scared of dying? Do you fear that when you die your lot will be in hell? Won't you come to that Savior from sin whose name is Jesus Christ?

This Jesus, out of obedience to God the Father, stepped out of heaven to come down here and be born of a woman. To walk as a man to preach the gospel of the kingdom of God and be rejected by his people.

To be nailed up on a cruel cross on a hill called Calvary. There he suffered the death of crucifixion as a substitute for sin to appease the wrath of the Father. Becoming a curse and dying so I can live.

He was buried in another man's tomb, rose again, and appeared to his disciples before sending back to where he came from. Where he now sits in authority at the right hand of God. And he earned that right, friend, by way of a bloody costly cross.

Won't you come to him, friend, for forgiveness of sin? He is the friend of sinners. He is the pearl of great price who is worth selling off for and losing off for. Won't you come to him and lay your sin burden down and drink of that well of everlasting life?

Listen to him in the call of the gospel. If any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink. He that believeth on me, as the scripture has said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. Don't you think it's about time, friend, that you and your water pot come to that well, that savior from sin?

Come now to him as I sing, friend. Turn your eyes upon Jesus. Look full in his wonderful face. And the things of earth will grow strangely dim in the light of his glory and grace. Turn your eyes upon Jesus.

Look full in his wonderful face. And the things of earth will grow strangely dim in the light of his glory and grace. Oh, look on Jesus, friend. Salvation is in Christ.