In his sermon 'The Well Of Living Water,' Pastor Jerry Zepnick delves into John 4:9-14, focusing on the profound encounter between Jesus and the Samaritan woman. He emphasizes the 'living water' as a metaphor for eternal life, offered to all who believe in Jesus. Pastor Jerry highlights the significance of breaking down cultural and social barriers, as demonstrated by Jesus' willingness to converse with a Samaritan woman, an act considered taboo at the time. This emphasizes the universal nature of Jesus' message. The sermon also underscores Jesus' humanity and relatability, which makes him approachable for everyone, especially during times of hardship. Pastor Jerry calls attention to divine appointments in our lives, encouraging believers to recognize these moments as opportunities for evangelism. He stresses the importance of genuine repentance and faith in Jesus as the sole pathway to salvation, urging believers to live with the awareness of the eternal consequences of their faith.

We will continue on in the book of John today. And so we are in chapter 4. We tried to get through verses 9 last week and it didn't really work. And so we're going to continue up in chapter 9 right now. I'm sorry chapter four verses 9 through 14 today so first of all, I want to welcome back our long lost family, Pastor Rick and Bev.

Good to have you guys back. We always miss you when you're gone. And also the Moke family. What a blessing to have a new baby in the house and a big blessing to have you back as well. We're praying for you guys and love you guys.

And so, I can't recap anything in this book without going back to this one key verse. And this key verse is like a key. You stick the key in, and it opens up the whole verse for you. It helps us to understand in a much better way. And that is chapter 20, verses 31.

And we've talked about this almost every message that I've given on this, but that says that these are written, these books, this book of the Bible, all these things, all these chapters, all these verses are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God. And that believing you may have life in his name. And so that lays down on top of everything that we talk about in here. And so while the text today, it talks about, again, it talks about evangelism, it talks about how to do it, it talks about breaking down barriers. This is all extremely important.

But this is all to the end that you recognize Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior. So that Jesus holds the place of preeminence in your life. That there's nothing higher in your life than Jesus Christ. That is the point of this book. That's what it all boils down to.

And so, let's read our text in open in prayer. Verses 9 through 14. 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 in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life." That's powerful text. I don't know that we'll get through all that today.

But in looking back where we came from on this, I find it better to get a correct trajectory by going back just a little bit and then moving ahead. Nicodemus and this woman, we looked at how he evangelized, how he talked with and worked with Nicodemus, who was a religious elite. And then we have this woman. And in all reality, the two, while they appear in the eyes of the culture and of the world of civilization, they appear to be so vastly different. They were the same.

They were the same. We can't forget that in our own lives when we think because we dress better we have better jobs or we work harder or because of A multitude of reasons that were better or at a different level than someone else This is This is not okay. We are not. We're equal. And so, this is what Jesus talks about and He displays as He goes through.

And I want us to pay attention how He uses that when He evangelizes them, when Jesus talks with them, and the fact that He just gets right to the point. There's not time to pussyfoot around. Their soul's going to hell, and we don't have time to play around. And so we also looked at how Jesus going to Samaria and stopping at the well in the first place was a divine appointment. And how in our lives there are divine appointments.

People will be put in our paths for us to witness to. There was, because we can't forget that at one time there was a divine appointment for us, that we were put in someone's path for God to witness to us. And so this is where we can't lose our perspective anyhow. Let's open in prayer. Father God, we thank you for this word that you've given us, this ancient text that you spoke to this woman at a well 2, 000 years ago, and here we are today, Digging through it, Lord God, for your glory and for our benefit, because you love us, Lord.

I pray that this text would speak to us in a bold way that would change our hearts and change the way that we walk, Lord God, to be sold out for you in Jesus' name, Amen. And so, we talked also how he purposely went out of his way for one soul, because the value of one soul, and I talked to somebody this week about that, the value of one soul is greater than every material possession on this planet. And we kind of lose track of that. And I think if we saw that more clearly, that we would take more time to evangelize, talk with other people about the Christ of our salvation. And so, another thing is that he was human.

He came down. When he came down, he didn't just come down. He came all the way down. He came down to the poorest region. He came down to what was poverty, the son of a carpenter.

And he came down and he lived among people. No wages, he didn't have a pillow to lay his head on at night. When he came down they nailed him to a cross. That is our Savior, but relatable. It's important to remember that he went through life, he took on flesh and he can relate.

And so he felt like we do, he was tired, he was sweaty, he was hungry, he was thirsty, he was exhausted. And that's what we have in the text today. He's sitting at the well and he's exhausted. He is not refreshed. He is not all up and at him.

He's tired. He's tired. Just walked a long distance in a hot sun and he is exhausted. And so he was relatable and that's important to remember, especially when we go through hard times. He was betrayed.

We've got to remember that too when we get betrayed. And he also had compassion, very much merciful. This keeps him approachable. When we go to him in prayer, we gotta remember these incidents like this woman at the well, because we're going to Him in humility because He loves us. We've got to remember this woman at the well when we approach Him and ask Him and talk with Him.

And so we talked about as well how The woman at the well was a broken woman. She was a social outcast that had adapted to the life she made for herself. And yet, we keep saying that Jesus was willing to talk with her. She was willing to talk with Jesus as well. Okay, there are people that are in our lives that maybe don't want to talk to us because of the way that we are.

And we need to be careful about that. We need to have an approachable Spirit. She was willing to speak with Jesus. So this worked two ways and and the first thing she talks about is their difference that separates them. And so that's verse nine.

So today we're going to look at what the Lord Jesus had to say to her about this separation. Verse 9 reads, And the woman of Samaria said to him, How is it that you, being a Jew, ask a drink from me, a Samaritan woman, for the Jews have no dealings with Samaritans? So the first point is tearing down walls, tearing down walls, taking these barriers that keep us from witnessing, from talking, from loving and having compassion on other people and getting rid of them. So we see this truth of this wall smashing. And what He did is above and beyond that.

I imagine like you drill holes underneath these walls and you stick pockets full of dynamite, and the walls just vaporizes. This is what's going on. And so Jesus was willing to spend time with the unpopular, with the unknown. The disk, and it's not just that they weren't popular, they were hated. The tax collectors were hated.

The prostitutes, the beggars, they were not well taken. And Jesus crossed that line. He went over to that side and he spent time with them. And so He saw the value of the one soul. But the first wall that was broke down by Jesus was the wall between the Jews and Samaritans.

And we see that going on right here. The Jews and the Samaritans is the first wall that came down. And this was extremely important because I can't explain deeply enough what the hatred was between the Jews and the Samaritans. It was, there's this huge historical animosity between these two people groups. And so Christ came to destroy that.

He came to knock that down. Ephesians 2, 14 tells us that for he himself is our peace. Who made both one and has broken down the middle wall of separation? This is no small task. And in the culture we live in, we think, well, what walls do we really have going on today?

What do we have? We have racism to some degree. We see this thing going on in Minnesota with the Somalians. And so we see the thing going on with the Muslims. There's just so many things happening, but in this day, that was above and beyond.

There was this big black line drawn right down the middle between them. And the Jews avoided smiritons at all costs. The smiritons were considered a much lesser sect of Jews who had compromised through, excuse me, it was mixed marriages. And this was after the Assyrian assault, the Assyrian invasion, and it forced intermarriage. It wasn't really, but it was, and they were intermingled in life with the Assyrians after that invasion, but this was by design.

And so they wanted to destroy the purity of the Jews and they took over and they occupied the land. And so there were mixed marriages that went on and it was intentionally done to destroy the Jewish culture, which made them mongrels basically a month of the Jews. And so that was something that just was not it was not acceptable for Jews to spend time with Samaritans. But Jesus is knocking down these walls now. And so it's why he came to bring together what sin separated.

And people, he's still in that business today. He's still doing this today. He came to bring together, he came to speak to us today through this text, that which sin separated. And so Galatians 3.28, it tells us, the apostle Paul wrote, there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus." And so, this is something that is groundbreaking in that culture in that time. And so, when you come forward in our culture today and we see the relative equality that we have, and I say relative, it's greater in some places than others.

But in this culture, women did not have a place. They were walked around, they weren't talked to, they didn't, you didn't want to see them in public. And so, recognize that this is the work of Christianity. This is the work of Jesus. He was the first one to take that wall and knock that wall down too.

Okay, and it tells us in this text right here. There's another one in Luke 4, 16 through 21. I don't have a slide, but I'm going to read it about Jesus and his work with a man here. It says, so he came to Nazareth, where he'd been brought up. And as his custom was, he went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day, stood up to read.

And he was handed the book of the prophet Isaiah. When he had opened the book, he found the place where it was written. Now, this is a prophecy from the book of Isaiah that is written in the book of Luke. And so, this is, Jesus walks into the synagogue and being a man of not formal education, they still, because he is such a wise man and consider him a rabbi, they give him the scroll to read. And he got up and he read this because this is what he has done.

This is what his purpose was. The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me to preach the Gospel to the poor. He has sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord." Then he closed the book and gave it back to the attendant and sat down. And the eyes of all who were in the synagogue were fixed on Him, and He began to say to them, today the Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing. Isn't that amazing text?

This is why He came. Okay, Jesus came for all people. In Romans 3.23 it says, For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. Not some. If you think you're here today and you think you're a really good person, and that you don't need Jesus.

You need to read that text. For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God. We all deserve hell. There's another taboo that was taken down, and that was male and female separation. The rabbis didn't speak to women in public.

And there were a sect of Pharisees that were called the bruised and bloody Pharisees. And this is because when they would be walking down the street, they'd see a woman, they'd close their eyes. They'd walk right into the wall, walk right into a pole, walk into a chariot coming at him, I don't know what. They got messed up. They bruised and bloodied Pharisees.

It's true. And so they wouldn't even look at a woman in public. But here Jesus speaks to her. He goes out of His way. Well, it was in His way.

But he took a break in this divine appointment and he speaks to her. And this is flagship to bring equality to women in our culture until today. This was the beginning of it. And so in this text, we see Jesus, now I wanna say surprising this woman when he asked her for a drink, but he wasn't, he was shocking her. This was a shock.

And the woman with a simple request, will you give me a drink? So he humbles himself to bridge this gap between him and this woman to start a conversation because God knows that she's not going to talk with him. He says to her, can you give me a drink? And at this request she was bewildered. And This woman recognized this massive cultural, religious, and social distance between them.

Yet Jesus reached beyond that toward her. He saw her. The people, we need to do this too. But this wasn't the only time Jesus gave attention to an outcast. In Luke 18, 35-38, then it happened as he was coming near Jericho that a certain blind man sat by the road begging and hearing a multitude passing by, he asked what it meant.

So they told him that Jesus of Nazareth was passing by, and he cried out saying, Jesus, son of David, have mercy on me. Doesn't this need to be our cry today? Doesn't it really? We were blind. And there are still things that we do that we don't see that we are blinded to.

And we think that We go to church every Sunday, right? We read the Bible. What do I need? No, I'm not this woman by the well. I'm not this person.

I'm not that person. I'm here. I'm not there. Get off your high horse. Plead, Jesus, son of David, have mercy on me.

This is where we all have to be. I was laying in bed last night doing that very thing. I don't know if I'm ready to give this message. I do it every Sunday that I preach. God, this is your work, it's not mine.

You know I'm not qualified. It's Your job. This is what we all have to do, because none of us is capable of doing what He calls us to do. This is His work. It's for His glory.

Further on in the text, it says, what do you want Me to do for you? Jesus said to her. He said, Lord, that I may receive my sight. Then Jesus said to him, receive your sight. Your faith has been you well.

And immediately he received his sight and followed him glorifying God. And all the people, when they saw it, gave praise to God. That's the work of God. That's the work of God and a wretch that deserves to be blind, that deserves to go to hell. I think one of the greatest testimonies that I can recall is the thief on a cross next to Jesus.

He lived a horrible life, his whole life, and he got caught and he got hung on a cross. Then he said to Jesus, Lord, remember me when you come into your kingdom. Jesus said to him, assuredly I say to you today, you'll be with me in paradise. And so what happened, what happened in this small time that he's hanging on the cross, He acknowledged his guilt. He knew he was guilty.

He admitted that he deserved punishment. He said to the other thief, we deserve to be here, but this man has done nothing wrong. He showed genuine repentance. He recognized that Jesus, as having done nothing wrong and acknowledging Christ divinity, he obviously believed in an afterlife and believed Jesus had the authority to open that door to allow him in. So remember me when you come into your kingdom is what he said.

And he rebuked the other thief as well. He rebuked him and showing a clear turn of heart toward God. And that's a response or the response of all the sinners. It's a turning from sin. A relationship with Jesus exposes sin.

And that's one thing that we see in all of these encounters that Christ has with these sinners is that that experience with Christ exposes sin. That life in Christ exposes sin. And Paul, even himself, near the end he said he's the chief of all sinners. The second point today is, if you knew. I just dug through this and I couldn't miss that statement right there.

Jesus answered and in verse 10, answered and said to her, if you knew, if you knew the gift of God, the gift of God is the next point, if you knew, if you knew is this point. And in verse 10, Jesus answered and said to her, I just read that, but this is a picture for us, because we're not that smart. I keep saying that, maybe I'm just talking about me, but I think I'm talking about all of us. It's so ancient. This is talking, it keeps on coming back to water.

Give me a drink. You would have asked him and he would have given you living water. All ancient civilizations centered around water, where water flowed. There was nothing, there's nothing in the middle of the desert because there's no water there. You couldn't live there, couldn't grow anything.

And so we're used to it in our culture today. I mean, you just go in the fridge and you get a bottle of water. Just dumbest thing in the world yet. As far as I'm concerned, you pay for water in a bottle. It comes in faucets free, and yet you pay for it in a bottle.

Oh well, we got water everywhere we want it, don't we? You get thirsty, you just turn the tap on and you fill the glass up. You wanna take a shower, you just flipped it on and you take a shower. It wasn't like that in these days. People didn't shower or bathe nearly as much.

And so it was quite a different scenario. So everything centered around water and the importance of water is referred to many times in Scripture. Jeremiah 2.13, for my people have committed two evils, the first they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters. See, And this is why Jesus uses water as an example for us to see. For them to see us, I think it's a little harder because we're a lot more spoiled.

But at the same time, we see this picture of water and what it means to the people then and how it was relatable to God and his gift. Ezekiel 47, nine. And it shall be that every living thing that moves wherever the rivers go will live. There'll be a very great multitude of fish because these waters go there, for they will be healed, and everything will live wherever the river goes, and hewn themselves cisterns, broken cisterns that can hold no water. This is another way that they had to collect water, and cisterns, And so they would carve this big place out of the rocks and this would hold rainwater.

And so to have a small opening hopefully so dirt couldn't get in that they could put a cover over. But altogether, it was a cistern. And so this is near the town of Sychar, of the Samaritan, Samarian region. And the Jews never went this way because the Samaritans were there. They didn't want to go there at all.

They avoided it at all costs. So there were roads that went across the river, through the woods, up over the mountains, and then past it so they wouldn't have to go into this region They avoided it at all costs and and at this point of the text 12 disciples Went into town already for this They went in the town for some food. And so, they leave Jesus there. They probably don't want to start a big hubbub in Samaria. They leave Him there, He wants to stay there.

And they go in to get some food, which is knocking down huge barriers already. They shouldn't be near Samaria, or this town side-chart. And so, at the onset of this, he asks for a drink. And so, the question is, do we have this kind of love and compassion toward other people, to those that are lost? Do we see lost souls for being lost souls?

Enough to cross over barriers, enough to step over our conveniences. And so you see a guy broke down next to the road and this has happened multiple times. And so you stop and you ask him for, if he, if he needs help, right? Or is it just like, you know, like I like to do, I've got my, my focus on my mind. And I'm like, I am running like two hours late for my nap time already and I'm getting to that.

And now this guy's got the nerve to be broken down. So we all have those kind of things. And so do We have the kind of love and compassion that goes beyond what is our own convenience, that steps into inconvenience. Because convenient love is not worth a lot, to be honest with you. Jesus never condones, As you see this pattern of Jesus dealing with these down and out people, He never condones their sin.

He never says, oh, that's okay, that's okay that you're doing that, Just try to be a better person. No, He never does. Jesus never condones this woman's godless lifestyle. He condemns it, yet while giving the truth of the gospel to her instead. It's like trying to give a person that is sick arsenic.

Well, that's just gonna kill him. Okay, well, let's see. You're not feeling too good. Let me give you a box of ding-dongs, okay? That'll make you feel better, right?

Six pack of Mountain Dew, right? No, that's not gonna do it. That's just gonna tear you up. So Jesus never did condone them, but they already knew their sin. Instead, he said, if you knew, and in Matthew 7, 21 through 23, it says, not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my Father in heaven.

And so this is something that is not an option for us to compromise the truth of the Gospel. And so, and as far as us, It says in the text, if you knew, well, we profess to know, right? We profess to know. While we see this pattern of witnessing in the text, we need to remember that there are those that just don't know. There are those that just don't know.

That can be your co-workers, that can be family members. And don't forget that people are leaky and forgetful like myself. You can be told and forget. And so you don't know. You need to be told again and again and again.

So those that just don't know, This is the platform that we start from. This is, faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. And this is our responsibility to spread and to give the gospel to the lost, that they can have salvation in Christ. So this nameless woman was a social outcast. She had four strikes against her.

This is worse than baseball, three strikes and she'd be out. It's four strikes against her. And the first one was that she was the wrong gender. She was a woman. She was a woman.

She was the wrong race. She was a Samaritan. She was the wrong religion. She just had this, this hybrid version of, of what was the faith that Israel had, Judaism. And, and the fourth one was that she she lived a wretchedly wrong lifestyle and And yet here she is Here she is talking to Jesus She's talking to the Son of God, God incarnate.

She is talking to him. 1 Corinthians 1.27. And I'm thankful to God for this text because I fit right in here. God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world put to shame the things which are mighty. See, are you are you weak?

Are you foolish? It's not until we get there that we've realized that God is using us in spite of that. This is orchestrated by God from the beginning of time. He starts knocking down barriers. So Jesus asked this woman for a drink.

It's not because he's thirsty. He might be thirsty. But why did he ask her for a drink? Because she's thirsty. Real thirst.

She has a real need. To him, her thirst was more important than his thirst. If she knew, he went over cultural lines like this so that we can go over cultural lines too, by the way. If she knew, if she only knew, and that's what the text says, if you knew, it says, if you knew, if you only knew the gift of God, if you knew, and that's with us too, and when we witness to other people, if you only knew, And when we give the gospel to other people, if they only knew the love of God in giving His Son the gift of God to mankind, if they only knew, They would plead and beg. They would be asking for mercy.

You would start giving them and they would grab you by the ankles and say, don't leave. I wanna hear the rest. Do not leave. I cannot live without this. If you only knew, Do you know?

Do we live like we really know? That's the question. Do we live like we know that there's two places when we leave this planet beyond here? There's heaven And there's hell. Do we live like we know that?

Do we live like we know that Jesus is the only way? This is extremely important for us to get right. We can't walk past this. You can't walk past this text and say, yeah, well, the sick preacher coughed out a half-hearted message and I just, I remember this and that, but I don't remember it much. You know what, You can't get past that.

We cannot lose that. If she only knew, do you know someone like this? Is this someone you? The third point is the gift of God. And you can't talk about the gift of God without bringing up Romans 6.23, because it tells us plainly, and I've used this verse multiple times witnessing the people, Romans 6, 23, is for the wages of sin is death.

And see, this is a kickoff of Romans 3, 23. They're both 23s. Okay, 3, 23, three and three is six, 6, 23. 3, 23 tells us that all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. Romans 623, it reinforces that in the beginning.

It says, for all have sinned, let's remember what I wrote in 323, for all have sinned, and come sure of the glory of God. But the, And the wages of sin is death. He tells us that those wages, that's what you get paid, okay? You work hard all day and you go to the boss and he's like, here you go. There it is.

Okay, what we're being told is that we're all born unto sin. And then we're being told by God, not by me, okay, that the wages that you earned for that, What you earned for that is death. You've earned death. Okay, now we're talking about the gift of God. Now we're talking about what is the gift.

And this is what it talks about in verse 10. If you knew the gift of God, if you knew the gift of God, if you knew the gift of God, the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. That is the gift of God. And John 1, 14, the Word became flesh because this is what we just went through in chapter 1, the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. We beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.

So as Jesus explains this as living water, it's very relatable to the woman. As water was scarce, everything centered around it. And so this living water springs up into eternal life. This eternal life, it wasn't just like, well, there you go. It's a spring of water.

I related it to that. You hit a rock or you find a spring and you've got living water. No. This living water cost God His Son, Jesus Christ, His Son. He crushed Him, sacrificed on a cross so that we can have eternal life.

This is not a gift. Let me explain what a gift is. A gift is something that you take freely, but it costs the giver full price. Okay, you can't have good enough behavior to earn salvation. See, the gift of God, as soon as you throw your nickel on a table to put in toward it, it's not a gift anymore.

It doesn't matter. And you're not going to take your awesome abilities and your skill and your mindset and pony up alongside of God to do His work for Him. No, it's all His work. It's all his work. And so this is essentially you either trust in Jesus alone or you don't trust him at all.

You cannot trust in your own good works. So good behavior is never going to pay the penalty of sin. Good deeds aren't going to pay the penalty of sins either. Romans 3.23, for all have sinned, fall short of the glory of God. You know why?

Because 2, 000 years ago, that price was paid. That price was paid. 2, 000 years ago, Jesus died for you on the cross. And that's the good news. It's not because I'm a really good person.

It's not because I'm a pastor. It's not because I do good things because I'm an amazing husband. We know it's not that. And so it's not because of any good works that I've done. If you talked with my grade school teachers, they clear that right up.

They knew me pretty well. By God's grace, years ago I was going door to door witnessing and I ran into one of my grade school, it was actually my grade school principal, and her name was Sister Geraldine. And she said, I recognize, I said, I'm Jerry and she said, yeah, I recognize you and She said, I never thought that you'd be doing something like this. And I explained how excited I was to be born again. And I gave her the gospel tract that we had.

And I gave her the gospel. And she's just shaking her head. She said, I always thought that you would end up being an attorney or something because you always knew just what to say to get out of trouble, she said. And you know what? That was me.

That definitely was me. But Jesus died. And the last thing He said was, it is finished. It is finished. We don't add any works to what he has done.

We cannot. It's done. And so, 2, 000 years ago, that price was paid and that was it. Even though we mess up and we sin, Jesus lived a perfect life. There's nothing required of you except the trust in Him.

Drink. To drink the living water, take salvation from the living water. This is an illustration of believing, okay? You're not actually gonna go and join a religion that has some kind of magical, special living water and then you can drink it and then you'll be saved. That's not the case.

And so this is an illustration of believing. Like in Isaiah, it says to look. And this is one of my favorites, to be honest with you. It says, look unto me and be ye saved, all ye ends of the earth, for I am God and there is no other." Just look. That's all you need to do is look and be ye saved.

This woman doesn't yet know Jesus or His gift, but she did. If she did, But if you knew. If she did know, she would drink. In verse 26, it says, Jesus said to her, I who speak to you am he. Here's a sneak preview of what's coming up.

Jesus, let her know here at this point, but that's for a future sermon. I'll hit on that in verse 26. Let's see, that'll be in about six months, right? But in today's text, if she knew Him and the gift, this woman would be begging for it. And see, that's our job.

It's our job to go out and to tell people, to give it to them. Because if I look at where I am now, and I know that Christ did a work, if I would have known then what I know now, as soon as somebody would have came and told me, I would have grabbed them by the ankles. Don't go. I'm not saved yet. I gotta know this.

My destiny is in eternal hell. I don't know yet. Tell me. Share this with me. I need this.

And so, you simply come and partake, drink of this living water. This woman was just something different. And when you look at, she doesn't yet know Jesus or His gift, but if she did, in verse 26, I went ahead a little bit there, but verse 26, and then John 3.14, it talks about, in another illustration, as Moses lifted up a serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up. Another illustration, John 6.35, and Jesus said to them, I am the bread of life, and the bread of life, he who comes to me shall never hunger, and he who believes in me shall never thirst. And so this is an illustration, a spiritual illustration.

So if you've been truly saved, you understand this. If you've been born again, you get this because it happened to you. Because you were hungry and everything that you sought, everything that you went after in life. It didn't quench that. You were thirsty, and everything you did, it didn't quench that thirst.

And then somebody shared the Gospel with you. You repented of your sin, and you came to know Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior. And all of that stuff didn't matter anymore. What you had in Jesus was all your heart desire. You had no longer a hunger and a thirst for the world world.

It's been quenched in Christ. John 3, 14. And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up. And John 6.35, he said, I am the bread of life. He who comes to me shall never hunger.

Any who believes in Me shall never thirst." And so the fourth point that I have today is his ID, his identification. If you knew who it is, said, give me a drink, she calls him Sir. Sir, That's pretty informal, isn't it? It sounds like it's out of a peanuts cartoon, right? Tastes terrible, sir.

Remember when Lucy, I think, or Marcia, she bit the egg that had the shell on it yet. Tastes terrible, sir. Well, she doesn't get it. So Jesus is patient with her. Jesus loves her.

He's patient with her. He lovingly, he keeps going forward in this conversation. At no point does he say, you know what, you're like a bucket of rocks. I'm just not going to talk to you anymore. He just patiently keeps going forward with her in this conversation.

Very, very similar to what he did with Nick Ademus. And yet, yet she doesn't understand. He has, he has no tools, he has no rope, he doesn't have a bucket. How are you going to get this water out? What are you even doing here?

This well, according to history, is about 130 feet deep. Anywhere between 100 and 150 feet, I heard that it was measured at 130 feet deep, Jacob's well. And as she continues to think this horizontal thought, like Nicodemus did, she then says, "'Are you greater than our father Jacob?' She can't possibly imagine water better than what this well offers. Are you greater than our father Jacob? How can you improve on this water?

Where I'm at is as good as it gets. Don't we think this sometimes? Isn't that us sometimes? Jesus speaks figuratively and the woman took it literally. Carnal minds, remember that carnal minds lack the ability to think spiritual thoughts.

And the fact is too that I think all too often we expect saved behavior from unsaved people. We see a person, even if they're professing Christian, and they're doing this and they're doing that and they're doing that and it's like why are they doing that? Well, you can't expect saved behavior from unsaved people. And so carnal minds cannot, We can't expect that. So Acts 26, 18 says, to open their eyes in order to turn them from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and an inheritance among those who are sanctified by faith in me." See, this takes a miracle from God.

Colossians 1.13 says, He has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of love, of His love. This is a miracle. Praise God that this happens. We look lastly at verses 13 and 14, and Jesus lovingly, He patiently continues explaining to this woman, like, like when an adult kneels down to talk to a child, it's just his love and compassion for lots souls. We could learn so much.

We really could. But he, he kneels down and, and he, and he's talking with this woman so carefully and so patiently. And he explains the result of drinking from this water. You will thirst again by drinking from this physical water right here. You're going to thirst again.

I'm a perfect example of that this morning. It offers just temporary satisfaction. It's no better than any other water. But in verse 14, and I love verse 14, it starts with a but. Verse 14, 13 and 14, Jesus answered and said to her, whoever drinks this water will thirst again.

You drink this water, you're gonna thirst again. There's some people here perhaps that are still drinking this water. Okay. But, But, I love it. But whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst.

But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life." Hallelujah. He lovingly, impatiently, he explains the results of drinking from this water that you're going to thirst again. It just offers temporary satisfaction. And then the next thing is, and I love this word as well, whoever. But, whoever.

Whoever. Who's a whoever? I'm a whoever. Everybody here is a whoever. Whoever Drinks.

Who is this water available to? Whoever. It's not me because I go to church. It's not me because I'm this or I'm that. It's whoever.

It's anybody. There are no barriers. It is whoever. This opens it up to all whoevers. When Jesus is introduced, impossibilities become possible.

And I know that because I lived that. Because I've seen that. Even for this woman, even for this wretched woman, and even for you, even for you. John 7, 37-39 draws this out a little better. On the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out saying, If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink.

He who believes in me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water. But this he spoke concerning the Spirit, whom those believing in him would receive, for the Holy Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified. This is talking about the Holy Spirit coming into us. And in chapter three, when Jesus spoke of the bronze serpent, did the Israelites need to keep looking on that bronze serpent? No, they didn't.

No. They didn't need to keep looking at it all day. It's the same thing with the water. It's once. This speaks of the indwelling work of the Holy Spirit that Jesus gives us.

It's not anything that we do. When you're born again, you get the gift of the Holy Spirit, the gift of God. And so this means that you are to look to Jesus. It's a one-time drink, and into the ages, that fountain flowing in you will come up and up and up. It's like an artesian spring.

It just keeps on coming up and up and up. So this means that it's just one time for all. Into eternity. So you drink here, You could drink if you don't know today. And it will last you forever into eternity.

See, Christ's gifts can be seen for what they are when they're compared to things of the world best. And so, you will thirst. You will still thirst, but this is a different kind of thirst. This is a better kind of thirst. It's a new affections.

And it's Matthew 5, 6. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness. Right? This is the kind of thirst and the kind of hunger that we want. For they shall be filled.

Psalm 63, 1 says, Oh God, you are my God, early will I seek you. My soul thirsts for you, my flesh longs for you in a dry and thirsty land where there is no water. This is the new thirst, the new hunger that we have. It's all for the Lord as a deer pants for the water so my soul longs after you, O Lord God. And so as Jesus tells her, if you partake of His living water, you will not only not thirst again, but it will also become a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life.

This living water of Jesus can quench your thirst for lesser things in life. For these poultry, stupid, cultural, menial things that we desire for lesser things Forever. Replace them. It replaces the temporary, the carnal life with an eternal life. So in verse 14, we see that Jesus is the giver of life eternal.

Why did Jacob's well not run dry? It's because it was fed by a spring. It was fed by an underground spring and it just kept on coming. And so today, the one believing in the Lord Jesus Christ can have that too. That you've got that spring that never ever stops.

John 14, 6 says, Jesus said to him, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. You don't need to look any further. You found Him, that's where you stop. Right there.

You don't need to go beyond. You don't need to expand your search. The Holy Spirit of God will indwell the one who believes. And for those who do, one day when we have run that race, and we've conquered death, Why have we conquered death? Because our Redeemer has conquered death.

We have conquered death just like Jesus has. Our faith, our faith will become sight. We will see Jesus. He will hold us. We'll hold Him.

He will praise the Lord and All because He loved us and He called us. And He said, take a drink of living water. This is where it all started. This is where it starts. This gift is still available today.

And we can sing like the song this morning. It was so encouraging. I love that song. Horatio Spafford, he lost his whole family going over the ocean. The ship went down and he didn't know what to do.

He gave his heart to the Lord and he wrote the song, it is well with my soul. And in that song, he writes, my sin not in part, but the whole is nailed to the cross and I bear it no more. Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, oh my soul. That can be you today. We can know that our hearts belong to Jesus.

So what will your answer be today? Lord, I thank you. Thank you for this day, giving me the heart, the ability to give a message. Lord, I pray for your glory to be had. I thank you for this building, for these men and women.

Lord God, for your work here as mighty as it is. I pray for our hearts to be moved to serve you in a way that we've never seen before. I pray in Jesus name. Amen.