Mine Shall Never Thirst | Sermon 12/11/2022

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Go to the Gospel according to John chapter 4. We're going to be in verses 1 -19 today.

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And the title of this sermon is Mine Shall Never Thirst.

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Starting in verse 1 of the Gospel according to John chapter 4, Hear now the inerrance and infallible words of the living and true

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God. Therefore when the Lord knew that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus was making and baptizing more disciples than John, although Jesus himself was not baptizing but his disciples were, he left

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Judea and went away again into Galilee. And he had come to pass through Samaria.

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So he came to a city of Samaria called Saqar near the parcel of ground that Jacob gave his son

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Joseph. And Jacob's well was there. So Jesus, being wearied from his journey, was sitting thus by the well.

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It was about the sixth hour. There came a woman of Samaria to draw water. Jesus said to her, give me a drink.

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For his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food. Therefore the Samaritan woman said to him, how is it that you, being a

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Jew, ask me for a drink since I am a Samaritan woman? For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.

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Jesus answered and said to her, 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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She said to him, sir, you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where then do you get that living water?

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You are not greater than our father Jacob, are you, who gave us the well and drank of it himself and his sons and his cattle?

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Jesus answered and said to her, everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again. But whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall never thirst.

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But the water that I will give him will become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life.

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The woman said to him, sir, give me this water so I will not be thirsty nor come all the way here to draw.

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He said to her, go, call your husband and come here. The woman answered and said, I have no husband.

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Jesus said to her, you have correctly said I have no husband. For you have had five husbands and the one whom you now have is not your husband.

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This you have said truly. The woman said to him, sir, I perceive that you are a prophet.

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Thus ending the reading of God's holy inspired word, let's pray quickly. Lord, please speak through me today.

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Lord, please. We need you to work with your people, with myself,

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Lord. We need you to not just simply give us information, but give us transformation.

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Lord, help us to take what we learn, be edified by it, be strengthened by it, be reminded of your goodness, and change where we need to change.

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Lord, please help me to speak in a way that is clear and helpful and let it always be true.

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I pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. Isn't it interesting, church?

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Everyone, our culture, our systems, our camps, our tribes, all of those things are telling us who to hate and who to love.

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And the ones who want us to just love, everyone will make love look like hate when measured against the word of God.

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Tolerance with everyone else can then be infidelity to our

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God. The fact is, breaking down barriers between one another using the world's way only reinforces the holding cell walls that we're already in.

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And what we find as Christians is that Christ doesn't come to just help us unite our tribes together.

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He calls us to join His heavenly tribe, to become the church.

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And so the gospel is like this lead cannonball that breaks through the walls, all the man -made walls and barriers between us as image bearers.

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And one of the things about the gospel of Christ is that you and I aren't just envious of some particular people group.

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The whole world doesn't just sit and watch the Jews in Israel and see their prosperity and hope that one day

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God will do the same to us. We're not waiting. If only God would bless us the same way

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He's blessed the Jews. It's not a thought that we have. Our text tonight will give us a foreshadow of the newness of the new covenant.

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That the gospel is for all types of people. People of every tongue, tribe, and nation.

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But it's only through Him and by Him. The people of this world will find that this salvation is in no one and nothing else.

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So we're going to start right away into our passage. Let's begin setting the stage.

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We're in verses one through three. Therefore when the Lord knew that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus was making and baptizing more disciples than John, although Jesus himself was not baptizing,

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His disciples were, He left Judea and went again into Galilee.

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You see that word therefore, the first word connects this account to the end of chapter three.

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When John the Baptist was approached by his disciples, then we talked about the supremacy of Christ over John the

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Baptist. The supremacy of Christ over everything. That was the end of chapter three.

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And now this is meant to be a connection point. The works of Jesus and the gaining numbers of His followers has reached the ears of the

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Pharisees in Jerusalem. And it was time to stop baptizing and leave the wilderness of Judea and head north into Galilee.

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Now going back into Galilee is in some ways leaving the killer beehive of Jerusalem and going at a safe distance from it.

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He's not escaping conflict because Jesus has already made a lot of conflict for a lot of people in Jerusalem.

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But it was not His time yet for crucifixion. It's not

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His time yet for any sort of escalation. And so this often happens in Jesus's ministry when things would flare up in Jerusalem and then

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He would depart and the flames would die down a bit. This may be just another one of those type of situations.

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The Pharisees and Jerusalem leaders are wary of Jesus. Remember He cleansed the temple.

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He did many signs during the Feast of Unleavened Bread. He silenced Nicodemus, the teacher of Israel, sent from the

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Pharisees. And then we saw Him two weeks ago. He was baptizing outside of Jerusalem in the

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Judean wilderness, gaining more followers than John. In their mind,

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Jesus is now a greater threat and He's growing rapidly in followers and status.

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They might have thought they had problems with John the Baptist. Remember they sent the delegation to John. Who are you?

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By what authority are you doing these things? Are you the Christ? Who are you? Are you the prophet? So he had those troubles.

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They thought they had problems with Him, but this will be unlike anything they've ever seen before. The Word made flesh is captivating the hearts and minds of the people.

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And His leaving of Jerusalem is telling in many ways. It's a slap to the face.

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No doubt He will return. His leave is temporary, but for now Jesus is going to take the gospel.

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He's going to take His signs and wonders. He's going to leave Jerusalem for a time and He's going to offer other places moving northward eternal life.

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In this case, He's going to offer the gospel and eternal life in a place that Jews despise most.

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This is such a reversal. The unworthy approached by the worthy one.

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And those in Jerusalem who consider themselves the worthiest, Jesus leaves them.

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Go to verses 4 through 6. And He had to pass through Samaria.

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So He came to a city of Samaria called Saqar near the parcel of ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph. And Jacob's well was there.

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So Jesus being wearied from His journey was sitting thus by the well. It was about the sixth hour.

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So in between Judean country, which is Jerusalem, which is in the south, and then in the north is the

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Galilean territory, which has Nazareth. So you have the north and south.

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He was heading north to Galilee, but in between those two places was

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Samaria. He had to pass through Samaria. And the only other way to get to Galilee was to actually head east from Jerusalem, cross over the

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Jordan. You would have to be on the east side of the Jordan. You would head north, then you would head west again, go back over the

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Jordan River, and then you would get into Galilee. That was the longer way. You would have to even pass through some

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Gentile cities if you were going to take the longer way. Some scholars argue that the long way was taken by many

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Jews to travel north. Why? Because of their great loathing of the Samaritans.

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Think about it. Some of these Jews would even take the more arduous and difficult way simply to go around Samaria.

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Even if it was easier, many did not want to go through their land. Samaria has been a place of constant change.

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It's been a place of scorn in the eyes of the Jews. And now I'll tell you the very first time we see anything about Samaria in the

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Bible is when the northern kingdom of Israel was facing various corrupt kings coming into office.

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Then being judged by God and killed, these kings would just die over and over again. They'd be replaced or they'd be murdered by other kings.

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And Omri, the king of the north, came into power for 12 years in Israel.

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And during that time, King Omri bought the hill of Samaria and he made a city there.

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And believe it or not, if you read through the rest of Chronicles and Kings, you'll find that if you remember, guys, during the time at the end of Solomon's reign, the northern kingdom and the southern kingdom split.

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They all used to be Israel, right? It was all Israel. And then all of a sudden, they split.

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And Jerusalem became Judah. And there was the tribe of Benjamin there and the Levites were there.

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And then the rest of the tribes became the northern kingdom and it was called Israel. So they became from one nation to two nations.

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Israel and Judah. Israel and Judah. And so the northern king is what

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I'm talking about now. The northern king in Israel, he bought Samaria. And Samaria would from then on become the capital of Israel.

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Instead of, again, Judah has Jerusalem. Baal worship and turning against God was characteristics of the happenings in Samaria.

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After the Assyrians had captured Samaria and the Israelites in the northern kingdom were exiled out of the country,

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Assyria then purposefully left a few Israelites in the northern kingdom, okay, and then

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Assyria sent in foreigners to the northern kingdom. The Samaritans then, in a sense, after intermarriage of foreigners and leftover

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Israelites became, in the eyes of the Jews, half -breeds. They were half -breeds.

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They were mixed. They weren't pure Jews. They were considered less than at that point, okay?

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In 400 BC, the Samaritans built a temple of their own on Mount Gerizim.

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They tried to replicate what God had only commanded in Jerusalem. It was destroyed by the

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Jews in the second century BC. There would be several battles and wars between Samaria and Judea.

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We're talking people that probably have relatives together. They would fight and kill each other, and that is where a lot of the strife between them has come.

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A lot of prejudice and racism, if you could say that. Now, one thing that you also have to know that's going to be important to understand with the

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Samaritan woman is that the Samaritans only believed that the

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Pentateuch, which is the first five books of the Bible, that is Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, they only believed that those five books were inspired by God.

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They did not believe that the rest of the canonical Old Testament scripture was inspired by God.

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They only believed in Samaria that the first five were inspired. So Samaritans had adapted worship of Yahweh with the gods of Babylon.

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Jews hated them for it. You got to think, these Jews had come back from exile from Babylon, and you got

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Ezra and Nehemiah, and they're just trying to do things right. We've got to be faithful to God. We've got to come back.

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We've got to observe his law, and then they even, in Nehemiah and Ezra, they get rid of the women that they intermarried with, which is a very hard passage to read, and they try to do the right thing.

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Then all of a sudden you see these Samaritans, and they're still doing wicked stuff, and so the

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Jews despise them for that reason. Okay, the text says that Jesus had to go through Samaria, and the point is he didn't have to.

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He could have gone around. He could have taken the eastern route, but something greater is at play.

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Had here then is not about convenience, but it's about divine compulsion.

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That's how we should read that. Jesus had to pass through Samaria. He had to get there.

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He intends to bring salvation there. Samaria is in the path of the mission of Jesus Christ.

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That's the point. We've got to remember that promise to Abraham.

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If you remember, it said that through Abraham's seed, all the peoples of the earth will be blessed, and that's coming to fruition in Christ's coming.

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It says he went to a city in Samaria called Saqar. The region of Saqar is where Abram, before he became

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Abraham, built an altar to the Lord. That's where God had promised that his descendants would get the land of Canaan in Genesis 12.

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Jacob then bought land near here as well. He also built an altar to God according to Genesis 33.

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And then from what we can tell, the natives and Jesus himself believed that that well was made by Jacob the patriarch.

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This connects this place to biblical history. This is the background and history of this site.

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This is really the background and relationship of the Jews and Samaritans. It's crucial that you understand that as we move into the text.

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So in verse 6, we see a glimpse of how this world affects

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Jesus's body. Hiking all this distance in his humanity,

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Jesus is wearied. This word means he is tired from his labor and toil of walking on the journey.

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It's a three days walk from Jerusalem to Galilee. So I like to think when you have been traveling a lot and you're weary,

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Christ understands that. Christ has been one who has journeyed and traveled and been weary and he can sympathize with you there.

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But this also shows that Jesus was willing to go through weariness and pain and tiredness and suffering in his physical body for the sake of his people.

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We often think it's the crucifixion that is the realization of Jesus's sacrifice.

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But no doubt, the very fact that the God -man Jesus Christ is tired is part of his sacrifice.

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It's not divorced from his mission. Heretics will argue that this shows

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Jesus is not divine. Look, oh, Jesus was tired. He must not be

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God. They don't understand what it means to be totally God and totally man.

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In his humanity, he was tired because when the Word, as we learned in the prologue, when the

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Logos, when the Word, who is Jesus, takes on flesh, he becomes everything of what it means to be human, even yet while still divine.

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He was sitting by the well. And the sixth hour, by the way, is about 12 noon. It was 12 noon.

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He was sitting by the well. One commentator states, in the middle of the day on soil upon which

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God had already worked, the Christ sat at the well of Jacob. The sun of the day was beating down on the

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Son of God, who himself is light in the world that is overtaken by darkness. As much as this piece of land was insignificant for the

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Jewish people, the impending encounter would make this property significant to the whole world.

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Now look to verse seven. There came a woman to draw water.

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The woman came alone to the well, which is actually a bit unusual. Women typically go to wells and springs in groups so they wouldn't be hassled by bandits or robbers or men of different types.

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It was a dangerous thing sometimes. They would go together as groups.

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But these women would usually go and draw water at wells in the early morning or maybe in the evening when, before it's dark, but it has gone past the heat of the day.

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And yet this woman, this Samaritan woman, has come to the well at 12 noon, the hottest part of the day, and she is alone.

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It's possible she went at this time without any other women because she had some sort of shame that she carried.

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Remember, Nicodemus came in the middle of the night to Jesus and she came alone in the day to the well, each possibly having something to hide.

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But unlike Nicodemus, this woman is not of high status. She's not greatly learned, nor is this

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Samaritan woman of a respectable family or lineage. She is despised by the

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Jews that surround her city. She is hated. She's possibly hated within her own community.

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Maybe that's why she's alone. But the fact is, both

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Nicodemus and the Samaritan woman need a savior. It doesn't matter who you are.

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It doesn't matter how learned you are, what kind of inheritance you have, how destitute you are.

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Every single person in this world needs Christ. That's what's true.

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Jesus tells her, give me a drink. Believe it or not, in that statement, Jesus does what is considered the unthinkable.

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He is a Jew and he's asking a Samaritan, one who is considered unclean and unrighteous, to draw water for him.

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And it was a long journey. So verse 8 reports that the disciples had to replenish their supplies in the city.

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Jesus was outside the main city by the well. And it's probably likely that John said that because Jesus being the rabbi or teacher would probably have his disciples draw the water for him.

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They did that. They would serve him. He would serve them, of course, in different ways, but they would serve him. No doubt exactly where he intended to be at this exact time was at this moment.

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Here he is. And the woman is probably shocked by his request. Give me a drink.

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She's thinking, what? Verse 9 says, therefore, the Samaritan woman said to him, how is it that you, being a

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Jew, ask me for a drink and I am a

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Samaritan woman? John mentions for Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.

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This is unusual. Jews avoid Samaritans. What should happen is he should have gone on the east route, or if he really had to go through Samaria, when she walked up, she would keep her head down and he would get off the well and he would walk away and he would kind of get his distance from her.

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She's unclean. That's what typically happens. Jews would stay strictly silent around Samaritans, or if they did speak, it was very much not pleasant.

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So it would not be too far -fetched to think that any Jews traveling through this area would even make certain to carry enough water so that they didn't even have to come here.

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That they wouldn't have to draw at the same well as Samaritans. Oh my goodness, let's not go there. Let's not touch their well.

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Let's not touch their water. Eating or drinking with a Samaritan could incur ritual defilement as a

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Jew. And believe it or not, okay, this is the first century with Jesus.

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That's what we're talking about. Not even a generation later from this, the

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Jews would pass a rabbinic law, not a scriptural law, a rabbinic traditional law of Mishnah in the

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Talmud, which is Nida 4 -1. This is it. This is the law they pass just after this.

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Samaritan girls are considered menstruating women from the time that they lie in their cradle to the time of death.

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Thus saying, Samaritan women are in a perpetual state of uncleanness. If you think about that, if you consider the

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Old Testament Word of God, it would say that women who are in their cycle or period are considered unclean, and they need to go through a process where there's, you know, of course, no intercourse or things like that.

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They're in a state of uncleanness, and after that was over, they'd be considered clean, and they could do other things.

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But here, the Jews would pass this fake law, this rabbinic tradition, saying,

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Samaritan women, they're never clean. They're never clean. From the moment they're in the cradle to the moment they're dead, they're considered unclean women.

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It's just not right. What's ironic, too, by the way, is later in this gospel account, the

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Jews will charge Jesus with being a Samaritan. He said, we think you're a

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Samaritan, and you are possessed by a demon. That's what they would say to him. John the

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Apostle gives us, once again, his narrative commentary. In the case that any of his readers didn't understand the woman's response, he states that Jews have no dealings with Samaritans, and that word no dealings in the

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Greek points to actually the object in the context, which it would be better translated to say,

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Jews do not share eating or drinking vessels with Samaritans. But the fact is,

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Jesus will not be made unclean by taking a drink from a

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Samaritan woman's cup. What we have to realize is that everything Jesus will touch will be made clean.

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You know, it reminds me of the Elliott family. I've talked about them before, Elizabeth and Jim Elliott and all those who went with them.

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They wanted to reach the Wodani tribe, this headhunter tribe, this killer tribe in the rainforest of Ecuador with the gospel.

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Everyone else thought the Wodani tribe were simply barbarians. They were unworthy of the gospel.

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They're beyond the reach of God. Don't go there. Don't waste your time with the

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Wodani people. And we know the story. Almost the whole tribe came to Christ.

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Incredible. They thought them less than human, and yet they're now in Christ.

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Christ calls us to take the message of the gospel to every single type of people group on the earth.

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And so my challenge even for us is, who has everyone else given up on that you could be used to bring the message of the gospel of Christ to?

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Who's that one guy that everyone says he's not worth it?

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Who can you approach? Maybe even the guy at your work. They're like, that guy is just always mean.

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No need to reach out to him. But we should. We should.

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Let's look at Jesus's response in verse 10. It says, Jesus answered and said to her, if you knew the gift of God and who it is who says to you, give me a drink, you would have asked of him and he would have given you living water.

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Isn't it funny that despite all the times that Jesus saved and healed

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Gentiles and Samaritans, it would later in the book of Acts take a sheet with a bunch of animals that are considered unclean on it coming down from heaven and a voice from heaven that says kill and eat.

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It would take all that for the apostles to recognize salvation is not just for the

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Jews, but this covenant will contain people from every nation of the world. Here Jesus is at Samaria and he's bringing the gospel to this woman.

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And there's many other opportunities and times that he does this, but it would take all that. But this is the beginning of that inclusion of non -Jews for salvation.

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If you knew the gift of God, he says. This scene is the beginning of that inclusion, the gift of God.

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If you knew I am the promised Messiah, if you knew who I was, if you knew who was speaking to you, you would ask of me and I would give you a drink.

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And the gift is the spirit, it's eternal life, it is God himself, all that the living water comes with is the gift.

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It may even be a play on words, the gift of God. Douglas Moos says that the

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Torah was often called the gift of God. You remember

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I told you that she only believed in the first five books of the Old Testament Scriptures. But if she knew the word of God, if she knew the rest, she would know the one in front of her, essentially.

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She would expect the Messiah, but she just sees a normal Jewish traveler needing water, as she does not see his glory yet.

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She was surprised that a Jewish man, one deemed to be superior than her, made a request of her.

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But later she'll be even more surprised, no doubt. The one and only

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Son of God, the very expression of God's love is right in front of her, and she doesn't even realize it.

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So Jesus doesn't even touch her remarks of him being a Jew and her being a Samaritan.

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Do you notice that? He doesn't address that. It doesn't matter. He's addressing her for something bigger than this.

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But she too, like many other Jews and Samaritans have done, she has let the strife between them confuse her, right?

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Condition her. This is of course a Jewish man, but he is also a weary and thirsty traveler.

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Her first impulse is not to practice hospitality, which it should have been, but she simply stands aloof.

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And so in his humanity, Jesus was thirsty and tired, but she was truly the one in need. He wasn't in need.

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She was. If she knew who he was and the gift of God, she would ask for a drink.

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She would ask him and he would give her living water, zoe hudor, water of life.

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Now you might say, well, doesn't the water that we drink give us life? But Jesus is contrasting already the water in the well versus the water that he offers.

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This is something different. She already has physical life. He's offering a different kind of life.

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Nicodemus, if you remember, had to be born again and born from above. And all this in everything here is the image of regeneration, cleansing, and bringing new life, and the

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Spirit being poured out on God's people. The living water then is eternal life, rooted in the

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Trinitarian God, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. That's what this living water is. It's eternal life.

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It's a renewal that only God can give. That's what every person needs.

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That's what every single one of us need. That's what every single person needs outside of this building. Everyone needs the living water that only

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Jesus can offer. That's what we need. The reality is the people of God at this point had turned from him.

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Jeremiah 2 .13 says, for my people have committed two evils.

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They have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, to hew for themselves cisterns, broken cisterns that can hold no water.

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The people had come to the point where God was offering living waters. He calls himself the fountain of living waters, and they look to the plain water that broken cisterns can hold.

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But the promise of the new covenant and the Messiah will be that he will inaugurate, is that he will give us hearts that desire this living water.

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And that time had come in the first century. Zechariah prophesied about it. It says, and in that day, living waters will flow out of Jerusalem.

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Half of those living waters, it says, will flow to the eastern sea, and the other half will flow towards the western sea.

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It'll flow in the summer, and it'll flow in the winter. That is to say, living waters will flow in every direction.

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Every direction from the Savior. Ezekiel 47 says, water will go beyond the borders of Israel and spill into all the other nations.

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And it'll flow in summer, it'll flow in winter, it'll flow all year round from then on and forever more.

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And that's a fact. The living waters started flowing at Jesus' coming, and they have never stopped flowing.

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Salvation has spread ever since. And even in the establishing of the kingdom of God and into the days of eternity,

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Revelation chapter 7 says, that one day they will no longer hunger, they will no longer thirst, nor will the sun beat down on them, nor any heat.

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For the Lamb in the center of the throne will be their shepherd and will guide them to springs of water of life.

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And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes. That's coming.

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That's happening. It's here and now, and it's coming all at the same time.

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And so this grand offer of living waters is given from the

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Christ, from the Messiah. But how does she respond? Verses 11 and 12. She said to him,

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Sir, you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where then do you get that living water?

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You are not greater than our father Jacob, are you, who gave us this well and drank of it himself and his sons and his cattle?

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So like Nicodemus, she realizes that surely he can't mean this in a literal sense. This guy has nothing to draw from.

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How is he going to get the water out? The well's too deep. It's probably a hundred feet down.

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How is he going to get this water? And why would he offer me something that he asked me for?

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She's probably thinking, he asked me for water, but now he's trying to offer me water. What is he saying?

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This must be something else. Where do you get this living water? She calls him

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Kuri now. Kuri, which is one way to say Lord. It was translated

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Sir, because she has yet to see him as the Lord God. She is now granting respect to a

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Jewish man that has been probably kinder to her than she ever thought possible. She says,

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Sir, but still she doesn't know what to make of Jesus. He's sitting on a well.

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He's tired and thirsty and having just asked for assistance. But now he speaks as though he is greater than their father

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Jacob. No one, whether Jew or Samaritan, ever proposes that they are higher or better than the patriarchs,

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Abraham, Isaac or Jacob. No one does that. You are not greater than our father

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Jacob who provided this well and water, are you? And really, she just identified one of John's points in bringing up this interaction.

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Everything has been purposeful. Remember, John could have chosen, he says, all these accounts of Jesus that could all the books in the world couldn't contain all that Jesus did,

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John says. And yet, John chose this.

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At this point now in the text, three times Jacob has been mentioned. And I'll remind you, like I have this whole series,

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Jesus is the eternal creator. We saw the veil pulled back in John chapter one.

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We saw the veil pulled back into eternity past. We took a glimpse in the prologue of who

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Jesus has always been. He's eternally been God. And we saw that the promise has been that Jesus will create again.

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He will change us and make us into the children of God. He replaces things and he is better than everything and everyone else.

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You remember in John chapter two, he is the true bridegroom of the wedding. He makes messianic kingdom wine out of old purification pots.

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He is, as he says, the temple of God. He is the true teacher of Israel and replaces men like Nicodemus.

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Jesus is better than Moses. He is the one who is to be lifted up, that we ought to look to, rather than the bronze serpent.

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And then we saw two weeks ago that Jesus is better than John the Baptist. He is a better rabbi.

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He is a better Baptist. All must follow Jesus now. John said it well.

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He said, I must decrease and Jesus must increase. So now one of the things the apostle wanted us to see with this passage, with the

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Samaritan woman at the well, is that Jesus is better. Jesus is better than Jacob, better than the patriarchs.

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He is better than Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. He is better than all the prophets. Jacob dug this well and gave the

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Samaritans water, but Jesus will give them living water. He will give them something infinitely better.

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Later on, we will see Jesus even do something similar again. He will say that before Abraham was,

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I am. He'll show the fact that he's better than Abraham, that he's always been there.

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Remember, if this woman knows any Scripture, she only knows the first five books of the

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Bible. All major and minor prophets that I already quoted, she and her people didn't observe.

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But it's possible she might be thinking back to Exodus and Numbers. There was two times.

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And she might be thinking there's only been one person in all of humanity that has been able to obtain water with, quote, nothing to draw with.

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And that was Moses. Petitioning Yahweh, water gushed out of the rock and provided water to the people.

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Moses was the only one who miraculously brought water in those moments.

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That might be her thinking. And so the only person that would replace

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Moses, according to Deuteronomy 18, was to be the prophet who is to come.

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The prophet who would be among their own kinsmen, who would rise higher than Moses and therefore would be better than Jacob, who had to dig the well himself.

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Hopefully she's going there. Hopefully that's her mindset. Could this be the one who is better than Moses?

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The prophet? So here's Jesus' responses in verses 13 and 14.

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OK, she had just asked about the water.

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Jesus answered and said to her, everyone who drinks of this water, he points to the well, everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again.

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But whoever drinks of the water that I will give shall never thirst. But that water that I will give him will become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life.

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I remember when my daughter was little, we were living in Arizona and she was playing at the park.

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And we've always had to, even to this day, remind her over and over to drink water.

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I don't know what it is about my kid. It's like, drink some water. And we've always been trying to train her to drink water.

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And we were at the park and she had drunk a little water when she first started.

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But it's an Arizona early summer day. And she comes to me and she goes,

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Dad, I don't get it. I'm thirsty again.

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I already had water today. Why do I have this feeling again? Why does this keep coming back?

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If I drink some, I still want some later. Right? As a little girl, it didn't make sense to her that we receive this thirst again.

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Drinking this type of water, this water that I even have here, will make me thirsty again even later.

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I'll need it again. You likely, all of you, have probably drank some water today.

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And that won't be enough. You'll need it again. And if you don't drink any more water, you won't say, strange,

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I've already had some. Right? Your body will tell your brain that it demands you to get more water and drink.

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Thirst will overwhelm your faculties and you'll need to find water. So now

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Jesus will show the superiority of the water that He offers compared to the water in the well next to them.

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And the thirst that Jesus speaks of is a different thirst than the thirst we get physically for water.

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This is a different thirst. It's not natural. I would say that this is a thirst for eternal life.

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It is a thirst for God. Ecclesiastes says, God has set eternity in the hearts of men.

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But we suppress that desire for God and for eternity with our sin, with other desires.

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But those who truly thirst for heaven and for God, a thirst wrought by the

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Spirit, God will not withhold living water. He will pour out His Spirit on the thirsty person.

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There are many Old Testament allusions to this. So many. But I want to highlight one in particular.

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In Isaiah 55, hear this. In Isaiah 55, it says,

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Hear now everyone who thirsts. Come to the waters. You who have no money, come and drink.

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Listen carefully to Me and eat what is good and delight yourself in abundance. Incline your ear and come to Me.

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Listen that you may live and I will make an everlasting covenant with you. According to the faithful mercies shown to David, behold,

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I have made him a witness to the people, a leader and commander for the peoples.

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Behold, you will call a nation you do not know and a nation who knows you will not run to you because of the

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Lord your God, even the Holy One of Israel, for He has glorified you. Seek the Lord while He may be found.

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Call upon Him while He is near. Let the wicked forsake His way and the unrighteous man his thoughts.

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And let him return to the Lord and He will have compassion on him and our God, for He will abundantly pardon.

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Now, I think that passage has a huge connection to ours and John, because Jesus is doing the same thing as Isaiah 55 is saying.

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Jesus is calling the thirsty to come to Him for living waters. He promises, as Isaiah said, an everlasting covenant.

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He is the witness, leader and commander of the peoples. And this is not just going to come to the nation of Israel like Isaiah 55 said.

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It will be all nations. And then it says that there's a call out from God for the wicked to forsake their way.

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Jesus is just in a little bit, in a way, going to call her to forsake her sin.

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He will give compassion and abundantly pardon. That's what Jesus does. The promise is being fulfilled right now.

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Whoever drinks of the water that Jesus gives will never thirst again. That just makes me even think of like eternal security.

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How can people say that Jesus will save someone and then you can lose your salvation by something that you do?

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I guess you will thirst again, right? Oh, but He's saying you'll never thirst again with what

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He offers. That's true. If Jesus gives you guys living water, which

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I believe He has, then you're never going to lose it. You're never going to thirst again. You're secure in Christ.

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Of course, that's not a license for sin. You will endure to the end.

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But it's all His work. In the Greek, shall never is meant to convey an indefinite time forever always into eternity.

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There is no thirst. Permanent satisfaction from thirst. But this is not a water, like I said, to be found among humanity.

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And what we should have in our minds is in the arid deserts of Israel, water was scarce.

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To come across a well or a spring was incredibly important. People would build homes and cities next to springs for that reason.

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Routes of travel were literally mapped out by way of going from one source of water to the next.

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You couldn't just go out in the desert and hope you make it to Samaria. You had to know all the spots to get water along the way or carry enough with you.

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That's the mindset we should have. This scarcity. But now, this living water will travel with us.

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The source will always be there. It says welling up, springing up. The water will continually flow.

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And the source is from God. No doubt, it makes me think of the

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Holy Spirit's habitation in us. Jacob gave the

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Samaritans a well and water, but it is temporal and they'll thirst again. And this well that Jesus is standing in front of will not always give water.

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It might run dry one day. But Christ is better. He will dig a well in you so that this living water will keep springing up in you.

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It'll never stop. You will continue to have access and drink of this living water.

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It's going to be welling up, springing up in you. And he speaks more plainly to this woman now.

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He says it's eternal life. That's what this living water gives. She says in verse 15,

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Sir, give me this water so I will not be thirsty nor come all the way here to draw.

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And it seems like Nicodemus, in a way, she's still thinking of the temporal and physical.

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She's not realizing the spiritual and eternal that Jesus is talking about.

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She doesn't realize what he offers is so much greater. So I guess some have speculated, is she skeptical or is she hopeful?

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Give me this water, but I will be thirsty and I won't have to come here anymore. We don't know exactly.

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One commentator says, as attractive as Jesus' words sound, she is unable to see that which to which he speaks.

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In her hands was an actual bucket and her throat was dry. The thirst about which

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Jesus spoke was too ethereal. She was unable to see the logos behind the flesh.

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So Jesus, perceiving her lack of understanding, is setting up her to witness something supernatural.

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And he's going to expose something that she didn't realize. He will have knowledge about this woman and about her past and about her present that many people don't know, that he could have never known.

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Verse 16, he said to her, go call your husband and come here. Some have thought this is a sudden change of subject.

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Jesus is offering her living water, then all of a sudden he says, go bring your husband.

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Call your husband, tell him to come here. And this change of subject is not artificial.

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It's intentional. The fact is this woman has not yet recognized her need for the living water that Jesus is offering.

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So he needs to show her something. And he's not going to simply showcase his divine power.

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He's going to also show her that she has a thirst. You see, there's a bunch of people out here in this world and they think that their thirst is quenched.

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It's not. They're extremely thirsty and they don't realize it. They long for the things of eternity and of God in the deepest place that they suppress in their sin.

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And so we are creatures that are made to worship something. And so these fallen people who have thirst quench their thirst with false gods and idols and things that can never fulfill us, right?

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That reflex is there. So he's got to show her that she has a thirst.

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She has a need for what he's offering. And it's possible her comment was like a closing retort.

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Maybe she even was saying something like, sure, I'd love the water that you give.

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That would make my life a whole lot easier. I wouldn't have to come to this well anymore. Hey buddy, when you get that water, let me know.

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I'll be back. Maybe she was saying it like that. She possibly thought her comment would maybe even shut things down.

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Okay, let me just get my pail. Let me get my water. I don't have any idea what this guy is talking about.

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But now, with go call your husband and come here, Jesus's inquiry makes her turn her head, brings things back to reality, and now things are personal.

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Now she knows something is up. She doesn't understand

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Jesus, but Jesus fully understands her. It says in verse 17 and 18, the woman answered and said,

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I have no husband. Jesus said to her, you have correctly said I have no husband, for you have had five husbands, and the one whom you now have is not your husband.

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This you have said truly. So seeing your sin for what it is, seeing your sin as something that you can't deal with, that only someone like Jesus can deal with, is where we need to be.

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We often wonder why God has so many people taken down to their absolute lowest place in life, and only then do they see a need for the

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Savior. A person at their lowest typically sees, at least in some part, that they themselves had led themselves to this downfall.

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They are to blame. At their lowest, they see their wrong choices have brought them there, usually, or maybe they blame others a bit.

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Their sinful inclinations have been their downfall. Because one must see that they have a sickness before they understand they need a cure.

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She likely hoped that her quick response, I have no husband, would stop the iniquity of Jesus.

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But what has been exposed is exactly what this living water was intended for.

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Jesus confirms what she is saying. She indeed has no current husband. No doubt her intention was to ward off any further investigation of this shameful area of her life.

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I have no husband. She didn't divulge anything else, but she didn't need to. Jesus can see the pain and guilt that she was masking.

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And Zechariah 13 promises, in that day a fountain will be opened to cleanse the people from their sin and impurity.

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That's what's promised with the coming of Jesus. A fountain will be opened to cleanse the people from their sin and impurity.

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This is what Jesus came to do. Her fornicative cohabitating relationship with a man is revealed.

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What's also revealed is she's had five husbands. Now what we don't know is the nature of the divorces or the nature of maybe times that her husbands have died.

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We don't really know. It is clear that the

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Jews did not approve of more than three marriages, even though it was legally allowed.

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There was also no approval in rabbinic law or even in the Bible. There is no allowance of common law or live -in partnerships.

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Common law marriages or live -in partnerships are not allowed. Marriage is the standard as it should be.

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He addresses though her sin in a gentle way. He even commends her for her initial honesty.

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And in some situations, of course, Jesus will be shorter and more direct with people.

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Various scenarios call us to be gentler or more blunt with addressing sin.

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Hardened hearts deserve hard statements. Of course, the

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Spirit of God is the only one who can convict though. We must ask the

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Spirit to help discern the right approach for each situation. You have to notice though that in all the

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Gospels, Jesus always calls out sin. He never omits it.

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Jesus always calls out sin. Sometimes He changes His approach, but He doesn't fail to call it out.

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Now, some of us have been too soft on this sort of thing, or some of us have been too harsh, but there's no way to give the

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Gospel, there's no way to give the good news without giving the bad news first. People need to see their thirst before they realize they're thirsty and need living water.

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But it's all God who has to make it happen. It's all God who's got to make them see. You can't convince anyone of anything.

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You're just called to give the message. So there's a healthy balance to this, but if Christians never called out sin, we would be in a worse place than we are now in this world.

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Some have argued that this woman is a prostitute, but there's no indication of that.

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There's absolutely no indication that she's a legitimate husband.

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He uses the word for husband. Now, what is possible, even more possible, than prostitute?

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We don't know for sure, but there was something during this time called the any -cause -divorce system.

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Any -cause -divorce, where for any reason a man could give his wife a certificate of divorce, send her away, and abandon her for leaving her helpless.

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That was allowed during this time, and Jesus in the Gospels refutes that.

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He says that is not so. That's not the way it should have been from the beginning. But these

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Jews had made these man -made traditions that if your wife just made you a little bit too mad, you write up the certificate of divorce and send her away.

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It's possible that that may be what has happened to her, but now she's living with a man who refuses to marry her.

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She lives in a syncretistic nation that worships different gods along with the one true

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God. She's obviously in sin with a man in whom she is not married to, and so she has sinned, and others have sinned against her.

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She is helpless and hopeless, but Christ has come to change that.

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And isn't that the case for many of us? No one comes to Jesus as a true victim.

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We've all sinned against others, and others have sinned against us, and that's really what's happened to this woman.

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She is an offender and a defender. Christ has come to take our offenses, though.

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I'm going to conclude the sermon in verse 19. It says, "...the

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woman said to him, Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet." Jesus's supernatural insight into the

01:00:55

Samaritan woman's life gives her finally insight on Him. This is no ordinary

01:01:02

Jewish man, she realizes it now. She says, See where it says,

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Sir? This is a form of saying, kurios, Lord. What was previously a respectful formality, possibly is more meaningful to her.

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We don't know. She's maybe taking a more reverential position towards Jesus. This is not a profession of faith, or that Jesus is

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Lord, but something more than before, no doubt. She sees

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Him as a prophet. Someone with the authority to speak on spiritual matters, and we will see that continue to unfold in the rest of chapter 4.

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He is, as I said, the prophet who was to come. From Deuteronomy 18,

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He is more than a prophet. And it's not that we are to understand that the

01:01:59

Jews are better than the Samaritans, or the Samaritans are better than the Jews. The fact is, whoever you are, and I said it before,

01:02:07

Jew or Samaritan, everyone needs Christ. Doesn't matter who you are, everyone needs

01:02:13

Christ, and Christ is better than the patriarchs. Jacob provided a well to this people that leaves them thirsty, but Jesus will provide for them a well within them that gives them living waters of eternal life.

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Jesus is better. He is better, His water is better, and in that high position of greater and better than all things and everyone,

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He will then become lower than ever thought possible on the cross of humiliation.

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That's what's amazing. Jesus is higher and better, and He'll become lower than the low.

01:02:55

That's what makes these initial chapters of the Gospel according to John so incredible. He is making the case so far that Jesus is better than everything,

01:03:05

He replaces and recreates, He fulfills, but just as you think the story should show

01:03:12

Jesus become this mighty warrior who comes storming into the gates of Jerusalem on a white horse, a warrior king, as we think that that's the trajectory of this story, we see

01:03:24

Jesus comes lowly mounted on a foal of a donkey. What disparity, what a difference, it's amazing.

01:03:38

He came to die like any other man, but therein lies the conqueror.

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Die to live, lose to win, offer life to give life, set aside glory to gain greater glory.

01:03:55

That's Jesus. According to Luke 16, you know the story, freshen up on it if you don't,

01:04:05

Luke 16 gives the story of the rich man and Lazarus, and the rich man asks

01:04:11

Father Abraham while he is burning in Hades, he asks

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Father Abraham, will you have Lazarus dip the tip of his finger in a cup of water that he might cool his tongue?

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Because where he's at, he's in agony, he's thirsty. There's a chasm fixed between them.

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Lazarus is being comforted in Abraham's bosom in paradise, and the rich man is across the way burning.

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Will you ask Lazarus to dip his finger in a cup of water and bring it to me that I may cool my tongue?

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And Abraham explains the impossibility of this, and so in hell there is no living water, in hell there is not even water like this to drink.

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Both gifts of God, temporal water and eternal water, are absent from the fires of hell.

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It's hard to imagine that, but knowing we deserve to go to such a place, and we are not because of we can rejoice.

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May we remember when Christ picked us up, and in our weariness and weakness and slavery of our sin, he gave us living waters.

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It's like he lifted our head up, and he took a cup of living waters, and he fed it to us.

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When you and I were feeling the guilt and shame of our sin, the same way the

01:05:46

Samaritan woman did, but did not know how to rid ourselves of our burden, he cleansed us, and he saved us, and he quenched our thirst.

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Now we'll live forever more. And it's a love that compels him to this.

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It's a love unfathomable. It's unreal. But he did this.

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He approached us, and so may we also go to the people whose society considers undeserving of love and life and salvation.

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May we bring everyone in this world a cup of living water that the gospel gives.

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Because at the end of the day, we are all unworthy. None of us deserve the living waters that Christ offers, but he gives it.

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So Jesus promises in the Revelation, he says, I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end.

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I will give to anyone, I will give to anyone who thirsts a drink from the springs of water of life without cost.

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That's the promise. Let's pray. Father in heaven, please bless the message that went out.

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Lord, please edify your people with it. Lord, please let this message never get old for us.

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Let us never lose our first love. Let us always see the wonder of the

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Christ who came to us. We were much like the Samaritan woman in our shame and sin, and Jesus came and gave us living water.

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He didn't tell her she had to be perfect first. He would perfect her through his blood.

01:07:39

He would perfect her through his work. That's what you've done for us. Let us have hearts of gratitude always,

01:07:48

God, toward you for this. So Lord, help us to share this water, this water that we've been given.

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Let us share it with the world, Lord. Let us not hold on to a spring or a well to put borders around it, to put a board over it.

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Let us always share the living waters without cost. We love you,