Ordering Chaos – Pt 2

We began Last Lord’s Day by beginning
to look at this section, John chapter 4, we know it as the
woman at the well, where Christ interfaces with this Samaritan
woman. And we discovered that the history
of the Samaritans, we were reminded, is a very old and a very painful,
a very sordid story. It is a story that goes all the
way back to the division of King Solomon’s kingdom. And remember
that we were reminded that where Jeroboam and Rehoboam split the
kingdom, each taking a section, that division really lasted for
centuries. We were reminded that Israel
never had a single good king. in all their years of existence,
whereas Judah had a mixture of good and evil kings, Israel never
had a single good king. And that would come to an end,
their kingdom, because of their sin, because of their sinful
tendencies, because of their sinful kings, because of their
sinful practices. God would bring it to an end,
and he did. We saw that in 2 Kings chapter
17. where it all came crashing down.
Well, we discovered that the king of Syria, wanting to essentially
repopulate the land that he had captured, having already exiled
the Israelites, taken them into his own kingdom, now he begins
to populate this area, Samaria, with other nations, heathen nations. Those heathen nations came in
and interbred both physically and spiritually with the Jews
who were left behind. Not many in number. The weakest,
the poorest, a scattered few. And the result was this kind
of half-breed race, not only physically, but a half-breed
race spiritually. languished and struggled. And eventually, as we saw last
Lord’s Day, it came down to this very uncomfortable episode between
the nation of Israel and themselves. The nation of Israel comes back.
They are restored to their land. They begin the process of rebuilding
their temple. And the Samaritans, as good neighbors,
offer immediately to come alongside and to help them with this grand
building project. They are rejected outright, rudely
rejected by the Israelites. And now the bitter feud takes
an even worse turn. These Samaritans who didn’t think
twice of brushing aside the Jews now have great cause with enmity
towards them. And the enmity gets worse because
as the Samaritans concede this plan to build their own temple,
the Jews ultimately burn it to the ground. There is a bitter
feud. There’s a bitter hatred between
the Jews and these half-breed Samaritans. And we saw just another episode
of that as we open up into this fourth chapter of John’s Gospel.
If you would, return there for just the latest episode of the
heathen chaos that existed. verse one. 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 Judea and went
away again into Galilee. And he had to pass through Samaria.
So he came to a city of Samaria called Sychar, near the parcel
of ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph. And Jacob’s well
was there. So Jesus, being wearied from
his journey, was sitting thus by the well. It was about the
sixth hour. There came a woman of Samaria
to draw water. Jesus said to her, give me a
drink. For his disciples had gone away
into the city to buy food. Therefore, the Samaritan woman
came to him said to him, how is it that you, being a Jew,
ask me for a drink, since I am a Samaritan woman? Jews have
no dealings with Samaritans. 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. She said to him, Sir, you have
nothing to draw with, and the well is deep. Where then do you
get that living water? 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?” 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.
The water that I will give him will become in him a well of
water springing up to eternal life. The woman said to him,
Sir, give me this water so that I will not be thirsty nor come
all the way here to draw. He said to her, Go call your
husband and come here. The woman answered and said,
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. This you
have said truly. The woman said to him, sir, I
perceive that you are a prophet. Our fathers worshiped on this
mountain, and you people say that in Jerusalem is the place
where men ought to worship. Jesus said to a woman, believe
me, an hour is coming when neither in this mountain nor in Jerusalem
will you worship the Father. You worship what you do not know. We worship what we know, for
salvation is from the Jews. But an hour is coming and now
is when true worshipers will worship the father in spirit
and truth. For such people, the father seeks
to be his worshipers. God is spirit and those who worship
him must worship in spirit and truth. The woman said to him,
I know that Messiah is coming, He who is called Christ. When
that one comes, He will declare all things to us. Jesus said
to her, I who speak to you am He. Jesus had stepped down into the
world. Jesus came down from His Father’s
throne. very God taking on human flesh
and he stepped right into the middle of human chaos. And this passage is really just
a picture in microcosm of that chaos. Last Lord’s Day we read
Romans 1 and that reminder of just the out of control nature
of humanity. God gave them over. three times
in that passage where it was articulated that because of their
sin and because of their eagerness to suppress the knowledge of
God, God had given them over and the result was literal chaos. We see much of it here in this
passage. We see social chaos where a man isn’t even supposed
to converse with a woman. We see social chaos also in the
sense that a Jew and a Samaritan weren’t even supposed to converse.
They hated one another. We see economic chaos that, of
all people, a man wasn’t supposed to speak to this poor, water-bearing
woman. We see racial chaos, we see economic
chaos, we see spiritual chaos, we see moral chaos, and we even
see chaos with regards to worship. We began last Lord’s Day in considering
essentially Jesus’ mission here where He is ordering chaos, He
is reordering the world. Jesus has come to reassert divine
standards at every possible realm. Jesus is in the midst of reasserting
those divine standards, and He’s doing so by way of the Gospel.
I’ll take you back to verse 1. where as soon as the Lord knew
that there was this skirmish between the Pharisees and John
over the issue of baptism, Jesus withdrew essentially because
his time was not at hand. He wasn’t fearful. He wasn’t
afraid of them. He wasn’t a coward. He was withdrawing because his
time was not yet at hand. So he comes to this remote little
area, probably in the middle of the day, His disciples go
on to the next town to secure food, groceries, if you will.
And Jesus, as he sits there, notices a woman approach the
well. And he simply asks her for a drink. And this is all
by God’s sovereign design. Jesus is confronting the chaos. The first element of that that
we see is that Jesus rearranges those race and gender taboos. It wasn’t right, it wasn’t normal,
it wasn’t proper in the world’s eyes for a man to talk to a woman,
for a Jew to speak to a Samaritan, and Jesus isn’t going to be bound
by human standards. From a human standpoint, There
was nothing wrong with Jesus approaching and speaking to this
woman, even at length. From a racial standpoint, it
was right and proper that he speak to her. And so he begins
this process of rearranging spiritual standards by coming up against
them, bumping up against them. This woman, this commoner, this
Samaritan, this abject sinner, as we will soon find out, in
broad daylight he seeks her and confronts her even with these
social taboos. We were introduced just last
Lord’s Day, just at the very end, to the second element of
restoration that Jesus introduces here. That not only does He rearrange
these social standards, but He restores the priority of spiritual
needs. We began to see that in verse
10. He restores the priority of spiritual
needs. Look at verse 10. This is all
prompted by the woman’s question of verse 9. How is it that you,
being a Jew, ask me for a drink? And there was some umbrage there. There was some disdain there
in her voice, isn’t there? And Jesus is replying in verse
10. And he says, if you knew the
gift of God and who it is who says to you, if you only knew
who was sitting here and you only knew what I had to offer,
the very one who says, give me a drink, you would have asked
him and he would have given you living water. Jesus essentially
baits the hook. And he does so in a remarkable
way. He is responding to this woman’s
simple question, but there is depth, there is divine wisdom
in the way that he goes about it. Here’s the chaotic situation
to which Jesus is here responding. It’s the chaos of living only
in the moment. It’s the chaos of thinking only
about food, only about drink, only about our physical needs,
only about our physical desires. Everything is now and only now. There is nothing afterwards.
Eat, drink, and be merry. And that is what the heathen
world was essentially reduced to, and it’s chaos. And Jesus
Christ comes and essentially uses the desire for physical
needs, a simple desire of water. Jesus uses that to point out
the greater need, spiritual needs, that of salvation. Jesus wants
to inform this woman that there is more to life, so much more
to life, infinitely more to life than just physical needs and
physical enjoyments. Those things may indeed be necessary. Water is one of the necessities
of life, but they’re not the most important things. There
is more to life. There is a greater possibility. There is a greater priority.
it’s ironic that the first thing that Jesus does ultimately here
is to point out her sin that there is a greater need far more
than water far more than in our day and age health food far more
than all this focus on the the the external things of life food
and water and drink and enjoyment There is an element that is far
more critical that we attend to, and that is our sin. I love the way one pastor said
it several years ago. One of the most malignant byproducts
of the debacle in contemporary evangelism is a gospel that fails
to confront the individual with the reality of their sin. In
other words, what he says, if you stand back and you look at
the average presentation of the gospel, there isn’t enough sin
there to convict them. In fact, it’s become downright
uncouth to even talk about sin. How rude are we to bring up another
person’s sin? He goes on. Even the most conservative
churches are teeming with people who, claiming to be born again,
live like pagans. Contemporary Christians have
been conditioned never to question anyone’s salvation. If a person
declares he has trusted Christ as Savior, no one challenges
his testimony, regardless of how inconsistent his lifestyle
may be with God’s Word. So as long as you say that you
believe in Christ, that’s what’s important. This situation, this
chaotic situation that Jesus moves to address here in Samaria
2,000 years ago is just as prevalent today. It is downright rude in
most people’s book to address their sin. We can’t be bound
by that. We can’t stop there. We can’t
let the world dictate to us God’s standards and God’s approach. I remember years ago, reading
A.W. Pink, he said that there are
some people who say they are saved before they have any sense
that they are lost. And that’s exactly the point
that Jesus is moving to make with this woman. She doesn’t
even know her situation. She doesn’t even know the chaotic
situation in which she finds herself. She doesn’t even know
how bad it is. She just thinks she’s thirsty.
And meanwhile, inwardly, spiritually, she is absolutely dying. It’s said that with regards to
water, You can go a lot longer without food. We tend to think
of food, and we tend to not even think about water. We drink it
almost unconsciously. But the truth is, we can make
it a long time without food, weeks. We can last just a few
days without water. And the body begins to cramp.
The body begins to seize up. Muscle literally begins to eat
itself away. The brain begins to malfunction. One begins having hallucinations
and visions. And ultimately, and eventually,
if no water is provided, it leads typically to cardiac arrest.
We can’t live without physical water. But I would suggest to
you that this woman’s condition, even though her pot of water
was full, was far worse even than what I described. Jesus,
remember, is responding to her question. How is it that you,
verse 9, being a Jew, ask me for a drink? since I’m a Samaritan woman.
She brings up the whole issue. She brings up the social issue
of race relations. She brings up the issue of relations
between men and women. What are you thinking to address
me? How can you, being a Jew, ask
me for a drink? How dare you? Spiritually speaking
though, their positions really are flipped. In verse 10, Jesus
answered and said, if you knew the gift of God, if you only
knew who I was, if you knew what I had to offer, who it is who
says to you, give me a drink, you would have asked him, and
he would have given you living water. Their positions are now
flipped. Jesus was merely thirsty for
a glass of water, a cool cup of water. But this woman is infinitely
more needy. Jesus needed a drink of water.
which this woman was providentially in a position to provide him.
And I believe that she probably did. But she desperately needed
the living water, which Jesus was divinely appointed to provide.
As Jesus is answering her question as recorded in verse 9, she actually
believes there in verse 9 that she still has the upper hand.
that if this Jewish man were rude to her in the slightest,
she’d take her pot of water, take whatever vessel she had
with her, and leave, leaving him thirsty. He was, after all,
the one in need. She was the one, after all, the
only one who could help him. But Jesus’ main concern is to
get her to the point where she realizes that she has an infinitely
greater need than a cool drink of water in the hot summer day.
And he speaks of a gift. If you knew the gift of God.
The only time in all of the Gospels that that word is used, it’s
used here. And that word stresses from the very outset the freeness
of it all. this offer of salvation that
Christ is making to her. Jesus speaks of it as a gift,
a free gift. Every time it’s used in the book
of Acts, every time it’s used in the epistles, it refers to
a divine gift. This is God. This is God working
through the Lord Jesus Christ to extend this gift to her. That word It’s a rich word and
it carries with it the idea of bounty. This isn’t a gift that
you’re going to need to replenish year after year. This is a once
in a lifetime offer. This is an offer that will never
be expended. It speaks of bounty. It speaks
of honor. It speaks of a privilege. This
is a blessing that Jesus is offering to her. As such, throughout the
New Testament, it’s used oftentimes this word gift to refer to the
Holy Spirit. It’s used of the gift of redemption
in Christ, 2 Corinthians 9. What is the gift that Jesus is
talking about? He speaks of it very generally
at first, doesn’t he? If you only knew the gift of
God, what is it? There are a variety of different
opinions, all of them close to the mark. One said that it was His Word,
which when received by faith and empowered by the Spirit would
result in all the blessings of eternal life. Like I say, they’re
all close. What is the gift? Another one
said, it’s all that is freely offered by the Son. It’s good. It’s close. Not much different
from the first option. Speaking of God’s gift of grace,
third, suggestion was that it was Christ himself. Christ said,
one, is the unspeakable gift of God if she knew the full importance
of this gift, the office and work of the Messiah. And if we had nothing more than
those words, I think those are some adequate approaches to this
passage, but there’s a fourth option that really stays in concert
with the passage. It’s the living water that he
speaks of at the end of the passage. If you knew the gift of God,
this living water that I’m preparing to provide, and we’ll talk in
a moment of what the living water is. It’s the living water that’s
the gift of God. Ultimately, it’s the gift of
salvation. It’s salvation through Christ. But it’s an interesting
metaphor, isn’t it? Living water. Jesus was deliberately
using this phrase to draw her in. He wanted to cultivate interest. He wanted to pique that involvement
in the conversation. He wanted to not only perpetuate
it, but he wanted to get her thinking, what is this living
water? Because living water literally
could be interpreted at least several different ways. As we
saw last week, the woman came to draw from a well, a cistern. A well that was merely fed by
groundwater. Perhaps rain, whatever rain would
trickle in. But ultimately it was fed by
groundwater. What Jesus speaks of here, though,
is completely different water. And that’s why she’s baffled.
And Jesus wants her to be baffled. He wants to intrigue her. He
wants to engage her. And so he speaks of living water,
perhaps a babbling brook. A running stream, not just a
cistern, not just a well, tells her a riddle, essentially. If
you knew about this living water that I was prepared to give you, as one said, there’s a certain
vagueness. in our Lord’s words, which exhibits his consummate
wisdom. Jesus knew exactly what he was
doing. Jesus knew the richness of this image. He says, a systematic statement
of doctrinal truth would have been thrown away at this stage
of the woman’s feeling. Don’t we know that? Walk up to
some people and begin to rattle off your doctrinal standards.
or reading from whatever document you have with you, they’re going
to tune you out really quick. But as we talked about in our
evangelism class a year ago, just walk up and ask them, do
you have a place of worship? Now they’re intrigued. And if
not, they’re probably angry. What do you mean, worship? Do
I have a place of worship? Yes, of course I have a place
of worship. Jesus knew exactly what to ask
her. Jesus knew exactly what would
stir her heart. Jesus knew what was going to
lead her to depth in this conversation. She may not grasp the significance
of it right away, but what he wants her to do is mull it over.
and that the Holy Spirit would begin to bring her to a clear
understanding and eventually conviction and repentance based
on those two little words, living water. Because the water could
mean pure running water, it could mean something far greater, something
far different. That living water, that phrase
could transition very quickly and easily from this fixation
on a physical need to a realization of a spiritual need. And that’s Jesus’ design. If the gift of God refers to
living water, what does living water refer to? There were a
variety of different opportunities here. One said it refers to God’s
mercy, pardon, cleansing, and justification. That’s good. I
don’t doubt that. Another one said that it’s the
Holy Spirit renewing and the sanctification that comes from
the Holy Spirit. It’s the gift of the Holy Spirit,
said another. It’s not bad. The third option
said that it’s a general figurative description of everything which
is in Christ’s office to bestow upon the soul of man. And I think
that’s true. It’s everything. It’s life itself. its life as
it was meant to be lived, its spiritual life, that Jesus Christ
was going to offer her Himself as a Savior, the Holy Spirit
as a guide, the Word of God as an instruction. He was going
to offer her forgiveness, and peace, and pardon, and justification
before a holy God, and righteousness, and sanctification, and ultimately
glory. He was offering it all to her. this living water that He offers. He literally extends it out to
her as an offer. What He was ready to give was
salvation itself, the gift of God. Unfortunately, she wasn’t all
that familiar with this image. It would have been very familiar
to most Jews. As we learned last week, The
Samaritans had reduced their Bible significantly, down to
five books. The five books of the Pentateuch,
among which was Numbers, she would have at least had that
illustration of God providing water miraculously from Numbers
20. Take the rod, you and your brother Aaron, assemble the congregation,
speak to the rock before their eyes that it may yield its water.
You shall thus bring forth water for them out of the rock and
let the congregation and their beasts drink. And so you have
that image, and she would have been familiar at least with that
image of God’s miraculous ability to provide water. If nothing
else, she would have taken Jesus at face value and said, maybe,
just maybe, you’re a prophet or maybe something else. Maybe
you have what Moses had, this ability to generate water even
from a rock. Maybe. But she was unfamiliar with a
lot of other rich metaphors in Scripture. She was unfamiliar
with Psalm 23 too. He makes me lie down in green
pastures. He leads me beside quiet waters. A metaphor of God’s comforting
presence. And there was a metaphor there
to be grasped that she didn’t have. Psalm 36.9, for with you
is the fountain of life, in your light we see light, and there
God himself is the source of spiritual sustenance. And she
didn’t have that image either. That section of her Bible had
been removed and she didn’t have access to Psalm 36.9, nor did
she have access to Isaiah 55.1. Oh, everyone who thirsts, come
to the waters. You who have no money, come and
buy and eat. Come, buy wine and milk without
money and without cost. She didn’t have access to that
metaphor either. God’s free invitation to come
and partake of God’s good and rich spiritual bounty. She didn’t
have access to that. Not in her memory bank, not in
her Bible. And she didn’t have access to
Jeremiah 2.13. Jeremiah 2.13, my people have
committed two evils. They have forsaken me. The fountain
of living waters, God himself is the very image. He is the
source of all spiritual blessing. She didn’t have any of those.
So she comes up against this illustration, this metaphor,
and she stammers. She’s stuck. She says to him, Verse 11, Sir,
you have nothing to draw with, and the well is deep. Where then
do you get that living water? And perhaps she even glanced
in Jesus’ direction, hoping to see a staff with which he could
strike one of the nearby stones. The woman doesn’t get the significance. She doesn’t grasp the significance
of the other. of the offer that’s being made.
She still insists in her mind that Jesus is speaking about
real water and perhaps even in this answer there is a bit of
a sneer. Because her answer really reminds
us of that of Nicodemus. How can a man be born again? Where are you going to get this
water? She’s so literal in her thinking
that she can’t even see past the well at which they’ve met.
That’s the only water in her mind. And she fixates on its
depth and upon Jesus’ lack of equipment to draw the water.
She doesn’t even conceive that living water could refer to something
else as being spring water as opposed to well water, that perhaps
Jesus knew of a nearby brook. She can’t even go there. Look
at verse 12. You are not greater than our
father Jacob, are you? And with this now, I definitely
get a sense of disdain in her voice. Who do you think you are? Jacob dug this well. He gave
it to us, and it served us for 2,000 years. Who do you think
you are? The Samaritans claimed this descent
from Joseph or through Joseph to Jacob. And in that sense,
they had this proud, arrogant idea that their lineage was better
than the Jews. They ignored the truth of the
matter. As one said, the Samaritans claimed
to be descended from Joseph. some maintain that they were
purely of heathen origin, although they were driven by calamity
to unite the worship of Jehovah by their own idolatries. Renegade
Jews took refuge among them, others from the very first a
mongrel nation. You hear the, I mean, the ugliness
of that? That’s how they were viewed,
as a mongrel nation, not a pure and a purely derived people of
God down through the lineage of the centuries. And then she
speaks of this well as a gift. That Jacob himself bestowed this
well upon an absolutely no foundation for that in any, in any documentation,
certainly not in scripture. Jacob gave us this well. He drank
of it himself, his family drank of it, his cattle drank of it.
We’ve had it for 2,000 years. And still you think you can produce
better water than this? In essence, she takes umbrage
to Jesus’ offer. It’s as if he’s criticizing her
little well. And so she defends it. And she
essentially says, look, Jacob himself drank here, his family
drank here, his livestock drank. This well has a long and storied
history, and you think you can now provide me with better water
even than Jacob’s well? Jesus so patiently answers her. Look at verse 13. Jesus answered
and said to her, everyone who drinks of this water will thirst
again. I don’t know if you’ve ever had
bad water. I’ve had some bad water. We’ve been in some communities
that operated off of well, and as soon as you turn the tap,
you catch this whiff of sulfur. And you know that if it’s stained
the sink brown, it’s likely gonna do the same thing to your liver. I’ve had myself some bad water. We lived in LA. You could smell
the chemicals in the water in LA, and everybody uses Kulligan
Man there. I’ve had bad water. Farm communities,
you don’t see it, but you’re told that in the water there
are nitrates. I don’t know what all it does,
but it’s not good. Make you live forever, or not. But by and large, Water is water. If you get desperate, the water
may have some things swimming in it. But if you’re thirsty
enough, you will drink it. And that water will accomplish
what it was designed by God to do. It will satisfy your thirst temporarily. That’s what water
was designed to do. It’s designed to meet that need.
It’s designed to provide the body with that liquid sustenance. The temporal water, which is
what Jesus is addressing here, is just temporary. Real water,
clear, cool water, is temporary. But what Jesus wants to point
to her is that the water that he’s offering isn’t temporary
water. It isn’t this fleeting satisfaction of human thirst. So he says in verse 13, whoever
drinks of the water that I will give him will never thirst. That sounds too good to be true.
Jesus makes the strongest possible statement here. Whoever drinks
will certainly not thirst forever. No way, never thirst is essentially
what he says. And note the drinking here now
in contrast with the earlier description is a single act.
One must constantly and incessantly drink physical water. We’re probably
all thirsty right now even hearing me talk about it. We have to
go get a drink as soon as church is over. But the living spiritual
water that Christ is offering here, one drink One drink and
the soul is forever satisfied. This living water perpetuates,
Jesus says, its intended purpose by constantly satisfying any
measure or thirst of the one who drinks it. I’ve learned over
the years that with regard to hydration, by the time you even
realize the sensation of being thirsty, you’re already in a
deficit mode. Your body already needs more
water than just a sip will provide. In fact, even the action of taking
a small drink will burn more calories and exhaust more liquid
than that drink provides. At that moment, you’re already
in need of significant amounts of water just to get back to
a normal, hydrated state, and yet Jesus says, one drink of
the water that he offers. will satisfy you, satiate you,
fill you forever. Look at the end of verse 14,
the water that I will give him will become in him a well of
water springing up to eternal life. The living water is further
explained. It’s living in the sense that
it is a life-giving spring. It’s like one described a fountain
jetting upwards. And what he speaks of here is
the perpetuity of grace that is given to a child of God. When they come to faith in Christ,
it’s not just an initial taste of God’s grace. It’s an overwhelming
and unending supply. It’s a fountain in the soul.
One said the picture that he painted was water so alive, so
dynamic, so energetic and powerful that it would not only satisfy
thirst for a moment, it would begin to pour up out of the soul
of the person and continue to nurture him day after day, year
after year. See once this Grace is granted
to a believer. There is perpetuity. It begins
an unending flow. It’s ever flowing. It’s ever
increasing. It’s a stream, a steady stream
of God’s grace. And it will never end. And that
isn’t just said here. Because if we only had it here,
we would just say, we would come away saying, that’s too good
to be true. But we know it to be true. John 10, 28, I will
give eternal life to them and they will never perish. What a glorious promise is that?
No one will snatch them out of my hand. It’s perpetuity. It’s a perpetual flow of God’s
grace. Romans 8, 35, do we know it? Who will separate us from the
love of Christ? with tribulation, or distress,
or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword. Just as it is written, for your
sake we are being put to death all day long. We were considered
as sheep to be slaughtered. But in all things we overwhelmingly
conquered through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither
death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things
present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor death,
nor any other created thing will be able to separate us from the
love of God which is in Christ Jesus. It’s not just a sin. It’s
a life of God’s grace. It’s an unending supply of God’s
grace. 2 Timothy 1.12, For this reason
I also suffer these things, but I am not ashamed. For I know
whom I have believed, and I am convinced that he is able to
guard what I have entrusted to him until that day. Jesus says,
If you only knew the gift that I am prepared to give to you,
which is this living water, which will in your soul percolate and
bubble up for eternity. It will continue to nourish you
not only here on this earth, but the supply of God’s grace
is literally unending. This is an offer too good to
pass up. Even if she doesn’t quite grasp the significance
of it, it sounds really, really good And she says, in verse 15, sir,
give me this water. I’ll take some. I’ll trust you.
If the water is that good, let’s go for it. Yes, please, give
me some of this water, is essentially her reply. If it’s as good as
you say it is, I won’t ever have to do this strenuous water fetching
deal again. Come to think of it, I won’t
ever even be thirsty again if it’s really as good as you say.
It sounds too good to be true, but
let’s go ahead and try it. Give me some of this water. And
with that, Jesus will begin a new phase in addressing and reasserting
God’s standards. He has just dealt with her on
driving home the point that her spiritual needs are far greater
than any physical needs. But Jesus wants to reestablish
moral standards. Jesus wants to reestablish in
her mind the concept, the vague and forgotten concept of sin.
We’ll take it up there next Lord’s Day. Our merciful King, we humble
ourselves in your glorious presence. And we who purely by your grace
have tasted of salvation know this passage to be true. In a
sense, we thought at first we were coming for a taste, to drink
a sip. We have found that every day
that we have awakened there have been new measures of God’s grace,
an ability to persevere, the knowledge of God, the knowledge
of ourselves, which by your grace, you’ve allowed us to lay aside,
the privilege to walk with you, the discovery of new gifts and
ways to serve you, new opportunities, new friends in Christ, new truth
from your word, Lord, it is absolutely an unending supply of grace.
We humble ourselves in your glorious presence, in our gratitude that
just like this woman, you offer to us living water. Merciful
God, we humble ourselves before you and we plead for any who
have not taken a sip. And a sip is all they’ll need.
Lord, they may not realize, but their spiritual needs are far
greater than even the worst thirst. Even standing at the gates of
death itself, dehydrated and physically thirsty, it doesn’t
even come close to their spiritual need. They so desperately need
Christ Their sin is so utterly offensive to a holy God, and yet God has provided fully
and completely for our greatest need, that of a Savior who paid
for our sin on the cross. He says to us, come and drink. We humble ourselves in your presence.
We rejoice in our own salvation. We plead for that of others.
We pray these things in Jesus’ name. You take your hymnals, and as
we close, we will stand together and sing 468, My Faith Has Found
a Resting Place.