In the sermon titled 'If you Knew the Gift,' Scott Brown explores the passage from John 4:1-15, emphasizing Jesus' interaction with the Samaritan woman at Jacob's well. The sermon highlights the concept of 'living water,' which symbolizes the spiritual life and salvation offered by Jesus. Despite cultural and religious barriers, Jesus engages with the Samaritan woman, illustrating His mission to reach all people. The sermon delves into the humanity and divinity of Jesus, noting His weariness and compassionate approach. Through the imagery of water, the sermon underscores the necessity of spiritual sustenance, contrasting physical thirst with spiritual fulfillment. The speaker emphasizes the transformative power of Jesus' gift, urging listeners to recognize and embrace this living water for everlasting life. The sermon concludes with the call to experience and share the refreshing and renewing presence of God in one's life.

Good morning. Our sermon text today comes from John chapter 4, verses 1 through 15, if you'd follow along as I read. Therefore, when the Lord knew that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus made and baptized more disciples than John, though Jesus himself did not baptize but his disciples. He left Judea and departed again to Galilee. But he needed to go through Samaria.

So he came to a city of Samaria, which is called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph. Now Jacob's well was there. Jesus, therefore, being weary from his journey, sat thus by the well. It was about the sixth hour. A woman of Samaria came to draw water.

Jesus said to her, Give me a drink. For his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food. Then the woman of Samaria said to him, How is it that you, being a Jew, ask a drink from me, a Samaritan woman, for 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. The woman said to him, sir, you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep.

Where then do you get that living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as well as his sons and his livestock? Jesus answered and said to her, Whoever drinks of this water will thirst again, but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst, but the water that I shall give him will become an fountain of water springing up into everlasting life. The woman said to him, Sir, give me this water that I may not thirst nor come here to draw." Let's pray. Father, we thank you for this representation of the living water that we have.

Father we thank you for this time that we have to gather together and hear the word. Lord help us to open our ears and our hearts. Father we ask your Holy Spirit to come and just guide us and aid us and help us today in hearing this. Father, we pray for those that have not drunk of this water, Father, that they would see and hear and drink of that water this very day. We just pray a blessing upon the service.

Father, we pray that you would just got physical strength as he preaches and brings the word today. In your mighty name we pray, amen. It's always a joy to open up the Word of God. My heart's desire every time we're together like this and in the preaching of the Word of God is that somehow the goodness, the wisdom, the matchless grace of God, all of His loving kindness would somehow be such that we would really taste that the Lord is good. He's better than everything.

And this passage of Scripture that we're in today helps a lot, even though Every passage of Scripture ever handled does bear witness to the glory of the beauty of God and salvation and His loving kindness towards sinners. But we have this here, and there's this image that's used to describe it that is unforgettable, and it's the image of living water, those two words describing really the sum total of the effect of the life of God and the soul of man. And it's so wonderful to consider, and it really explains not only the greatest thing in a life, in the heart and soul of a sinner, but it also speaks of our greatest need in life, and that is to find ourselves filled and saturated, you know, with this flowing river of living water. And Jesus says to this woman, if you knew the gift of God, that's the most important question. Do you know that gift of God?

And so he explains this gift of God in this imagery of living water. That's really the heart of what I want us to focus in on this morning. Now everybody knows this, you can't live without water. You can't think straight without water. You can't be energetic without water.

You can't feel good. You can't even be happy without water and the Lord uses these images to help us to understand The depth and the beauty of his life in our souls and how much we need him, you know My wife this morning Deborah was explaining was reminding me how much of our bodies are full of water. The brain is 73% water, the lungs 83%, the skin 64% of water, Your muscles and your kidneys are 73% water. Even your bones are 31% water. So you cannot live without water.

These images are very carefully crafted by God to relate to us in the most fundamental matters. Remember how we were talking about the fact that God sent his son, God sacrificed his son? He uses the most universal consciousness of men and women, of the tragedy and the difficulty it would be to sacrifice your son. Everyone in the world can resonate with that. Now he uses another image that the whole world can resonate with.

Do you see the love of God in that? Do you see how kind God is? He gives you, He gives you stars and He gives you bread, He gives you water, He gives you doors, He gives you light, He gives you the most fundamentally absolutely wonderful things to help you understand how good He is. So I pray somehow we can grasp that today because water is vital for every soul in your body. It regulates your body temperature.

It's a shock absorber. And so we come to this image of water I read I read this week it was interesting that there are over a million miles of pipelines that carry water in the United States alone we need water And so this image here is for us to say this, Jesus Christ is the only true fountain of life. And this is the pivotal point that Jesus Christ is making. There are so many elements to this passage. We're going to spend three Sundays in this passage.

We're just going to deal with the first 15 verses. But what I want to focus in today has its center in two sections, and I'd like you to find them, look at verse 10. Because I, just right at the beginning, I want you to understand what I pray is the heart and the focus of everything here. Jesus answered her and said, 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 to you living Water and then the second section it begins in verse 13 and goes to 14 Jesus answered and said to her whoever drinks of this water will thirst again, but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst.

But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up to everlasting life." And so all of this to say my great hope for my own heart and for all of us is that we would taste and see that the Lord is good. He wants us to taste it, and so He uses this imagery. Now, in the Gospels, Jesus meets many different kinds of people from all walks of life. And now he meets a woman who'd tried everything. She'd already tried five men and was trying another one out right now, and it left her dry.

And the water that she'd been drinking had sucked the life out of her. And so Jesus meets her on that level. And she had a thirst that was unquenchable with using the means that she was employing. And so Jesus meets her in that state. Now, you know, Jesus has an extended conversation with this woman.

This is the longest recorded conversation of Jesus in the Gospels. I know you've thought about this. What would it be like to spend 30 minutes with Jesus all by yourself anywhere in a car, walking in a well? Well, that's what this woman experienced. And this conversation, of course, we know the end of the story, it leads to a revival in an entire city.

And so I want to submit this. The woman at the well is a representative woman. She's a certain kind of person that Jesus loves and desires to rescue. Now in the coming weeks we're going to walk through various elements of his interaction with her. Today we're going to speak about what he offers her, and that's living water.

Next week we're going to talk about how he treats her, and We're going to speak also about what God is looking for, true worshipers. And then finally, just the importance of the harvest. The harvest is the most important thing. Jesus says the fields are wide unto harvest. So that's where we're going in the coming weeks.

But so today we're in verses one through 15, high focus on living water. Next Sunday, verses 16 through 26, the Lord willing, we're speaking of true worshipers because we learn what Jesus is doing. He's looking for true worshipers. And then finally, the harvest. Just the critical nature of the harvest.

You know, We also see things that we see all through Scripture. Here's one of them. A well isn't just a well. A well has meaning. Water has meaning.

There's always something greater than what is represented. And we see this here. The one who made the world is the one who made water and wells. And we also just see so clearly that there's no one that's out of the reach of Jesus. Nobody culturally, nobody morally, nobody in any way is out of the reach of Jesus.

And how easy it is to lose our compassion for people that somehow we think are out of the reach of something, and they're not. So let's dive into the text. Now you see this strange outline that you have before you. I don't think you've ever seen an outline quite like this before. But in this outline there's just an attempt to walk through the story.

So I hope you have your Bibles open as we zero in on these particular verses and make various comments about them. The first thing that we encounter is in the first four verses where Jesus is on the move from Judea to Galilee, and he has to go through Samaria. It's a geographical note. He's making a beeline. Most Jews would skirt around it because they don't want to mess with these filthy Samaritans, but Jesus isn't that way at all.

He goes the straight course through Samaria. There's some very interesting things in these first four verses. First of all, that we learn that when the Lord knew that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus had made and baptized more disciples than John. This is a striking thing and it bears witness to something that John will never let us forget about. He will never let us forget about the humanity of Jesus Christ.

Jesus heard that the Pharisees had heard something. He learned something when the Lord knew. There was a time when the Lord didn't know and then he knew. It's this incomprehensible explanation of the humanity of Jesus Christ. He did not know something and then he knew it.

And who can grasp the humanity of Jesus Christ and the divinity of Jesus Christ? How does God become man? How is the Word made flesh? You know, in Matthew 24, Jesus confessed that there are some things He did not know. In Mark chapter 13, he says, but of the day and that hour, no one knows, not even the Son of Man, only the Father.

This is just a striking, very difficult thing. We know that Jesus was hungry, He was thirsty, he was tired, he experienced fear, he felt the abandonment of man. He is also a man. He is the son of man. And we could develop that doctrine, but we know that all of this has taken place in order that we might understand his loving kindness toward us.

Like, for example, he was tempted to help the tempted. That's what Hebrews chapter 2, 18 says. For since he himself was tempted in that which he has suffered, he is able to come to the aid of those who are tempted. He was tempted so that we could turn to him when tempted. He suffered to help the suffering.

That's what Hebrews 2.10 says. It was fitting for him to perfect the author of their salvation through sufferings. And he was weak to help us in our weaknesses. That's Hebrews 4 15. We do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin.

Therefore, we draw near with confidence to the throne of grace so that we might receive mercy and help in time of need." So Jesus Christ is a man. John will not let us forget this fact, and we encounter it again deeper in the passage when he is weary. So he's passing through Samaria. He, in some ways, somebody in Bible studies said he leaves in 99. He had this exploding ministry, he was baptizing more disciples than John, which was astonishing.

And he left that, he left to go talk to a woman, to one woman, to one of the lost sheep of the house of Israel. You know, who were the Samaritans? This is important. The Samaritans were the defiled. There are two really critical historical events that explain to us why people did not, why the Jews did not want to talk to the Samaritans.

The first is in the division of the northern and the southern kingdom in 930 BC. You can read about this in 2 Kings 14 through 20 and in 1 Kings 12. But, you know, you read the storyline of these kings of the divided kingdom, the northern kingdom and the southern kingdom. And Jeroboam, the king of Israel, the northern kingdom, set up a rival system of worship. He set up a rival collection of priests that were not qualified by the way that the law would qualify them and have them operate.

They were doing the church their own way. They really wanted to be more like the nations. They wanted to allow their creativity to just flow in the church and create any kind of church they wanted. And that's what they did. And they set up golden calves to worship.

But they still read the Pentateuch. They still used all the God words. But they inserted and added. This is what they were doing. And then in 722 BC, God sent a fierce and brutal and well-armed nation, the Assyrians, to destroy them.

And Sennacherib, the king of the Assyrians at that time, deported them and scattered them all throughout the region. And he scattered the ten tribes. You've heard of the ten lost tribes of Israel. That's where that term comes from. They were lost.

They were just scattered. And then Sennacherib populated the northern kingdom with more pagans. So, there was a paganization that took place. That's who the Samaritans were. And so the Samaritans were despised.

They were a suspect, syncretistic, corrupt, defiled, seeking an alternative God. They had rejected the regulator principle of worship, essentially. And Jesus here finds himself in enemy territory, and he's reaching out to the enemy. He's not welcome there. The woman at the well understands that he's not welcome there, and he wouldn't welcome somebody like her.

And here, in the next scene here, you have a weary man comes to Jacob's well in verses five and six. So he came to a city of Samaria, which is called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph. Now Jacob's well was there. Therefore, Jesus being wearied from his journey, sat thus by the well. It was about the sixth hour, which is 12 noon.

So he shows up right at noon. Jacob's well was there. What's Jacob's well? Well, Jacob's well was dug right around 2000 BC. This well is 2000 years old, and he hewed, he had hewn this well out of the rock.

I mean, think about that. You know, this well still is flowing with water today. Four thousand years later you can go and see it. And it's hewn out of rock. It was probably over a hundred feet deep.

They say it's about seventy-five feet deep now. But we can read about this digging of the well in Genesis 33 verse 18. And so Jesus is weary there. He's been traveling. And he being wearied from his journey, sat thus by the well.

And again we find this thing that John won't let us forget, that Jesus is a man. He took on human flesh. And you know, as the Baptist Confession says, he was a man with all the essential properties and common infirmities of man, so that the two whole, perfect, and distinct natures were inseparably joined in him. So Jesus is weary here. And here, you know, we come to sort of the, this disclosure of the emotions of Jesus and the physical limitations of Jesus.

And he was weary and he never sinned. Have you ever sinned because you were weary? Have you ever just gotten sick and tired, maybe physically, or you just lost it? You said, I can't take it anymore, and you got weary. Well Jesus got weary, but he never sinned in his weariness so that he could come alongside sinners who do sin in their weariness and he would become the substitute of perfect purity in weariness.

And so if you've ever sinned because you were weary and you wanted to rest when you should have done something, remember that Jesus was tired and yet he never sinned in his weariness. We need his sacrifice for that sin. I do very, very much. And that's why Jesus said, come to me all you who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me and you will find rest for your souls." He's speaking about his salvation that he offers to give you rest for your soul.

You know David said, I am weary with my groaning every night I flood my bed with tears, I drench my my couch with weeping. So all of this to say is that the weary, this weary man, our Lord Jesus Christ, experienced enough weariness without sin for all of us who sin in the midst of our weariness. So he was weary. He was the man of sorrows. He was a compassionate high priest who sympathizes with our weaknesses.

So then the scene changes. The woman now comes to draw water. That's in verses 7 and 8. Do you see it? A woman of Samaria came to draw water and he said to her, give me a drink, for his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.

So Jesus speaks to her first, he takes initiative. We're going to talk more about how he treats this woman, but we're not going to focus on that this morning. We'll deal with that later. But he takes the initiative, he breaks the silence. And you know, the one who created the oceans, the one who calms the storm and stills the sea, He is asking for a drink.

Believe me, He could have gotten that water out of that well all by Himself, but He speaks to her. And we notice, you know, from verse 7 that Jesus does different things with different people. He talks to people differently. He cares for them, and He speaks to them in a way that they can understand. He speaks one way to the Pharisees.

He speaks a totally different way to Nicodemus. He speaks differently to Zacchaeus. He speaks differently to the rich young ruler. This is...Jesus isn't just spouting an evangelistic formula. He's caring for souls.

He loves sinners And so he treats them that. He's not just getting through the outline of the gospel. He's not just jamming through it. He's caring for her soul. He's dealing with her as a woman made in the image of God.

So he respects her in that sense. And then the woman is shocked, you know, in verse 9. And it's almost like she says, Why are you talking to me? I'm a woman, you're a Jew, you're a man. You know, she hasn't told him the story of her life yet, but she knows that she's been an immoral woman.

She's a Samaritan, and Jews don't have any dealings with Samaritans. She has no desire to talk to him. She did not need this man. She already knew men, and she just wanted to deal on the level, really, of her offenses, you know, her old divisions, the old separations, and superiorities that separate people. I mean, you know, the Samaritans thought the Jews were heretics, and the Jews actually knew that the Samaritans were heretics.

And so these divisions are something that she wants to bring up and she says in some ways it's like she's saying you Jews want nothing to do with us unless you want something. Now you want to drink a water. You would never talk to me. That well is so deep. There's no way you're going to be able to get any water out of that well without help.

And now you're asking help from me? I think it's kind of a snippy response that he brings to her. But she wasn't seeking him. Her heart didn't move her to come and meet Jesus. It reminds of Isaiah 65 verse 1, I was sought by those who did not ask for me, I was found by those who did not seek me.

You know, in Isaiah 65, Isaiah's painting this remarkable image of God saying, here I am, here I am, here I am. And he comes to people that aren't seeking Him at all. In the Bible, people aren't seekers. God is the seeker, and He seeks those. He's seeking worshipers who will worship Him in spirit and in truth.

And so, Jesus, though, he doesn't have any desire to be distracted by all these cultural and these religious barriers, and he's not shunning her at all. You think of all the different reasons that we shun people for their philosophical views, their cultural orientation, their geographical, maybe it's their sexual orientation, maybe it's their fashion barriers. You know, there are all kinds of things that cause us to be repelled and Jesus doesn't do that. That's not if you're doing that if I'm doing that Jesus doesn't do that You know, it means it just means that we we need to become like him. So his relationships aren't bound by these cultural restraints.

He speaks to all kinds of people and he's not put off by them. And I think there's another thing here that is so clear, and that is that even the Samaritans aren't stuck. No one is stuck. There's hope. If you look at what the gospels say about the Samaritans, it's really interesting.

You remember the ten lepers? Only one came back. Guess which one came back? The Samaritan came back and bowed down and worshiped God. You remember, you remember the man who was beaten, robbed, left for dead?

Who was it? Who was it that came and helped him? Oh, it was the Samaritan. Jesus is telling us, he's overturning the social structure. He seeks and saves the lost wherever they might be.

I think one question, you know, we should ask ourselves, maybe it's as a church or maybe it's each one of us individually. You know, Jesus didn't walk around Samaria. He walked right through it. Here's the question. Is there anybody we've been walking around and we need to stop walking around them because of some prejudice, because of some whatever?

Well then Jesus tells her of the gift of God. Verse 10. This is where we run into what is really the central image of this entire section. Jesus answered and said to her, if you knew the gift of God and who it is who speaks to you, give me a drink. You would have asked him and he would have given you living water.

And so he speaks of the gift of God. If you knew the gift, if you knew the gift, what an amazing thing to say. Do you know the gift? Do you, have you experienced living water? And you know, remember, you can't live without water.

You can't even think straight. You can't even move straight or be energetic. You can't feel good without water. And Jesus is using this image in order to pierce our own hearts to help us to understand how powerful and beautiful salvation really is, that you have water of life Flowing springing up into your soul You know you can read about this all over the Bible. You can, you know, you can go back and read about water all the way back from Genesis.

There are waters flowing in the Garden of Eden. You have all these encounters at wells of Abraham and Jacob, and you have David speaking about the water of the Word of God, where he says, He shall be like a tree planted by rivers of water that brings forth its fruit in season. In Revelation chapter 22, at the very... In the second to the last... In the last chapter in the Bible, you have this beautiful pure water and it makes trees grow And the leaves in those trees are for the healing of the nations.

And so John writes this. Again, remember, John wrote, He recorded the story of the woman at the well, and in Revelation 22 he records this, and he showed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding from the throne of God and of the Lamb. In the middle of its street and on either side of the river was the tree of life, which bore twelve fruits, each tree yielding its fruit every month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations." You know, the Lord speaks of water all over the place. In Isaiah chapter 27, the Lord says that He waters His people every moment.

That's Isaiah 27, 1 through 3. He says He waters His people, lest anyone hurt them. He says that he keeps them night and day by his watering and by the way in that same passage he says not only does he watering his people, he is singing over his people. You know, he sings over them, he causes water to flow within them, he gives them bread, he gives them light. This is the love of God.

In Psalm 87 we learn that this is the thing that energizes the musicians and the singers in the worship of God. He says in verse 7 of Psalm 87, both the singers and the players on instruments say, all my springs are in you. In other words, everything I get in this life comes from you. And then the woman asks a sarcastic question in verses 11 and 12, And she's trying to change the subject. She wants to get back to the old religious discussion.

Let's just talk about religion for a while and divisions in religion. Let's talk about all the all the hurts and difficulties, you know, that have taken place. Verse 11, the woman said to him, Sir, you have nothing to draw with, and the well is deep. Where then do you get this living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us this well and drank from it himself, as well as his sons and his livestock.

Now, we could camp on four words in this entire sermon. I think there's a spiritual double meaning in it. And it's these words, the well is deep. The well is deep. There's a lot of water there.

There's all the water you ever need. The well is deep. But she answers with kind of an impudent brash response. He doesn't correct her. He continues to speak to her.

And then Jesus tells her of the fountain of water. Verses 13 and 14, this is the heart of the matter. Jesus answered her and said, whoever drinks of this water will thirst again. And he's talking about drinking from all the wrong wells to get your life. But whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst, but the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water, springing up to everlasting life." Now, I want to draw out several conclusions.

I'm going to try to list seven of them briefly. The first is this. The heart of Christianity is revealed in these verses. The sum of the effect of the life of God and the soul of man is communicated in this imagery of living water. And Jesus said, come to the waters and drink.

Here's a second lesson. This is obvious. Physical things always point to spiritual things. Physical water doesn't satisfy nearly as much as spiritual water. Now we know that you can't live without physical water, so it's incredibly important, but it's not so important as spiritual water.

And in the Bible these physical things point to greater things. Now there are some who have said that this water speaks exclusively of the work of the Holy Spirit. Because it is true, water is an image of the Holy Spirit in the Bible. There's no question about that. And my perspective is, yes, it does point to the work of the Holy Spirit, but it's probably even broader than that.

It has to do with the sum total of the effect of the life of God and the soul of man. Everything that God brings into people's lives as a result of His presence is what this water is. It's every gift of salvation, and there are many, many of them. And that obviously does include the work of the Holy Spirit. But the fact is that to know Jesus Christ savingly, to love Him, to have given your life to Him, to desire to obey Him, It's like a spring of water in your life.

And not knowing Jesus Christ savingly is like not having that resource of life flowing in your soul. And the result is You can't think straight, you can't feel right, and you can't really do right. And you don't have this guidance system from heaven to help you navigate the difficulties that you face in this life. There's nothing truly refreshing to refresh you. You know, the prophets, prophet Jeremiah talked about, you know, hewing out cisterns that just don't hold water.

And she'd hewn out broken cisterns. Here's another conclusion. The third conclusion, the waters of life come from God. Spiritual life is a gift from God. God stirs up the heart And then your heart desires it.

That's why we read these words the water that I shall give him Only God stirs up the heart in order to receive him You cannot know him unless he moves your heart the water that I shall give him." Man is dead in sin, dead, deader than a doornail. What dead men mean is a resurrection of their hearts, and God gives that. If you don't have that cry out to God that he would give it to you. And then the fourth conclusion is this, the waters of life are very personal, very personal, will become in him. This is something that is a reality of every day of your life.

You have the waters in you They're flowing within you the wisdom the love the truth of God the revelation of God is Flowing within you have something you have something real Jesus said I am the vine and you're the branches. Like you're connected to something real. You're connected to a life source. It's very personal. And the next conclusion is that the waters of life are always springing up.

They're moving, they're surging, they're an active force. The water pushes upward in perpetual motion. You know, in this place you have waters moving upward, springing up. That means there's power, they're constantly moving. You know, there's another place in Isaiah where the water's running uphill to the temple of God.

It's supernatural. It runs against everything you can imagine. And so water doesn't run up, does it? Everybody, everybody knows that water doesn't run up except Except with a power This is the incorruptible seed This is you know this is the tree that bears fruit every month in Ezekiel 47 and Revelation chapter 22 The leaves are for the healing of the nation. They're constantly healing the waters Continually cleansing and flowing it's it's springing up.

You know, you're in a moment of life, you're discouraged or you're angry or you're sinning in some way, and you have waters of life available to you. I love that song that we sing, come all you pining, hungry, poor, behold a never failing store for every willing guest. He has a full and a free supply. It never runs dry. He says that you will never thirst.

In other words, it never, never dries up. And then the sixth conclusion is this. We are like water pots. We are like containers that hold water. And the Apostle Paul talked about this when he said we we have this treasure in earthen vessels that the excellence of the power may be of God and not of ourselves.

So we are water, we carry water within us. It's flowing within us, but we're also like vessels of water. And Paul says this, this is so critical because we are hard-pressed on every side, but we're not crushed. Why? Because of the living water.

He says we are perplexed, but we're not in despair. Why? Because we have something outside of us, we're drawing from a pure source. That's why. That's why you don't need to be crushed in time of collapse and difficulty.

Then Paul says, therefore we do not lose heart. Even though our outward man is perishing, yet the inward man is being renewed day by day. And then the seventh, seventh thing that we learn here is that the waters of life are continuing and everlasting. It's a fountain springing up to everlasting life. It's forever.

It's forever available. You know, in the Gospel of John, we understand how clear John is when he says that when you believe in Jesus, you have everlasting life at that moment. You've stepped from life to death. You don't step from life to death when you die, when your physical body dies. You step into life when you believe before your body dies, but it's everlasting life.

And then finally we see this woman, she asks for the water, verse 15. The woman said to him, Sir, give me this water that I might not thirst nor come here to draw." So she asked for it. Her tune changed during this conversation. You know, how did Jesus quench her thirst? Well, the next time we read about thirsting in the Gospels is at noon, and Jesus is on the cross at noon at this very same time.

And he said, I thirst. That's the very next time. This is how Jesus Christ satisfied her thirst, is by becoming the sacrifice for her sins. And He, the thirsty one, made a sacrifice for all those who are thirsty. You know, this really is the essence of Christianity.

It's filling, it's refreshing, it's the power of God living inside of you. It means that God is with you. It means that He never leaves you or forsakes you. It means that He is divine and you are the branches. It means He is an ever-flowing stream.

This is Christianity that the Apostle John is speaking to, and he gives it in many ways through his Word, through his Spirit. And the question is, have you received his fullness? Are you being refreshed? Now here's a reality. When a church is full of the water of life, she spreads the gospel.

That's what she does. She's so... She can't get over the beauty of Jesus, and that's what she wants to talk about with people. And this whole matter of Christianity is that there's a change, there's a dramatic change, and it really is a change of control. There's living water, there's something within, there's something different in your soul that guides you, and that is that living water.

It's a hard experience and it's a power working within. It's rebirth from heaven, it's transformation, it's regeneration as a result of the death and the resurrection of Jesus Christ and the receiving of a new heart. It's a new way. It's a new government. It's living water flowing through your soul.

It's strengthening you. It's replacing the brackish water that once defined and governed your life and cared for you and straightened you out. It's different. It's something completely different. You know, but everything's not different.

Here's an example. I think it was 20 years ago. I used to own an electronics company as a manufacturing plant and I sold it. Now when I sold it, I was the authority in that plant. But when I sold it, the authority structure shifted and it was no longer my exclusive authority.

I did have a delegated authority but there was a new force. There were new procedures that were added, new instructions, new customers, new design. You know, everything was in the process of changing during that time and this is a picture of what happens. We did a lot, we did the same things, but we did them differently. We did them under a new government, a new authority, and that's what it means to become a Christian.

You might still work in the same job. Hopefully you still have the same wife and maybe the same children, but you're a different person. You handle everything differently. You have a different set of instructions. You have water of life moving through your soul.

That's what it means to be saved and to continually draw upon it. I love the line in the song that we read, lead your children to the shoreline. It's the shoreline of the authority of God where He refreshes. You remember the rich man in Luke 16 who lived luxuriously on the earth, and Lazarus was watching him, and that man, he couldn't get any water, and he thirsted for all eternity. Lazarus got water because when a Christian thirsts there is there is water there.

Now does this mean that a Does this mean that a person is never thirsty again? And the answer is a qualified answer. The person who has living water is a person who thirsts for it and gets it. The person who doesn't have living water is the person who thirsts for it and doesn't get it. He doesn't get anything.

And I think there are two kinds of thirsting. There's thirst that is satisfied over and over again. It's the thirst that's satisfied of the loving heart that wants the authority of Jesus Christ In his life and you find both you find both of these in the old and the New Testament Isaiah Isaiah 26 Isaiah says the desire of our soul is for your name. He says, with my soul I have desired you in the night. Yes, by my spirit within me I seek you early, for when your judgments are in the earth, The inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness.

This is Isaiah saying, I thirst, but also your righteousness is there to meet me when I'm crying out to you on my bed at night. That's why Isaiah said, ho, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters. He who has no money, come, buy, eat." Isaiah 58, we learn that fasting and observing the Sabbath day is a blessing and what happens is you satisfy your soul in drought and strengthen your bones. You shall be like a watered garden and like a spring of water whose waters do not fail. Over and over again in the Bible, you find people thirsting, but you have God satisfying their thirst.

So it's not the kind of thirst that just goes away and you have no more longings. It's that you have longings for water that's there, and you can drink of it, and you will be like a water garden." You know, the whole Bible ends with Jesus making the very same invitation that he made to the woman at the well. Come drink the living water. In Revelation 22 17 we read, and the spirit and the bride say come and let him who hears say come and let him who thirsts come. Whoever desires, let him take the water of life freely." And he also said, I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end.

I will give of the fountain of the water of life freely to Him who thirsts. And that's really the heart of this first part of the message that Jesus brings to the woman at the well, that there is a river whose streams shall make glad the city of God. It's the message that in His presence is pleasure forevermore. It's the message that calls all of us to taste and see that the Lord is good. And when we go from here in the day, in the week ahead, let's draw upon that river of water, the waters that truly satisfy and that are truly true.

Would you pray with me? Lord, we thank you for the simplicity of your explanations of who you are and what you have and what you desire. Lord, we are so grateful for this transforming, cleansing flood that was unleashed when your Son sacrificed His life for sinners, and the blood in the water flowed, and in His anguished soul He absorbed all the wrath that we deserve so that we might have rivers of living water. Oh Lord, we rejoice in it. We pray that today would be such a day of delight all day long to consider these great delights that you've given to us.

Thank you for bringing us here. Thank you, Lord, for bringing us before the most beautiful things that we could consider today. In Jesus' name, Amen.