The Living Water
What Jesus Said • Sermon • Submitted
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Introduction - The Living Water
Introduction - The Living Water
Today is Mother’s Day. We need to understand the importance of women to God. Often Christians are seen as misogynistic. The truth is that many christians are.
Part of the problem is that we emphasize the wrong things. The truth is that we need to understand the context of those things that are in the Bible before we can start talking about it. What we need to emphasize is the roles that women had in the life of Jesus and in the ministry of the gospel.
We need to talk about Priscilla and Aquila. In the accounts of scripture, Priscilla is mentioned first. Why is that?
What about the women that were the first to see and tell others about Jesus.
What about Jesus’ mother? She was there for the crucifixion. She then went to take care of his body.
That’s the love of a mother.
We need to celebrate those things. We need to recognize that kind of love.
I go once a month to get an infusion treatment. There were 2 older ladies there. One was there and the other one came in a little later. I don’t know why, but I knew that this little African-American lady was a believer before I even heard her speak. When the other lady came in, the talked and they both said they were having a blessed day. As I left, I smiled at the other lady and even though we both had masks on, I knew she smiled back.
Many days I just don’t feel blessed. Anyone will chronic pain will understand. But that day with these 2 ladies, who I know are going through something similar to me, I felt blessed.
Both of those ladies blessed me, and we didn’t even talk.
There was a love that propagated from these women.
Well, today I’m going to emphasize the importance and wonder of this woman who happened to be at a well. I don’t know if she was a mother, but in all likelihood, she was.
She didn’t happen to be in the right place at the right time.
She was there by design. God had a purpose for her. Just as he does for all women who are willing to share the gospel.
1 Therefore, when the Lord knew that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus made and baptized more disciples than John
2 (though Jesus Himself did not baptize, but His disciples),
3 He left Judea and departed again to Galilee.
4 But He needed to go through Samaria.
5 So He came to a city of Samaria which is called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph.
6 Now Jacob’s well was there. Jesus therefore, being wearied from His journey, sat thus by the well. It was about the sixth hour.
7 A woman of Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give Me a drink.”
8 For His disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.
9 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.
10 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.”
11 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?
12 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?”
13 Jesus answered and said to her, “Whoever drinks of this water will thirst again,
14 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.”
15 The woman said to Him, “Sir, give me this water, that I may not thirst, nor come here to draw.”
16 Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come here.”
17 The woman answered and said, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You have well said, ‘I have no husband,’
18 for you have had five husbands, and the one whom you now have is not your husband; in that you spoke truly.”
19 The woman said to Him, “Sir, I perceive that You are a prophet.
20 Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, and you Jews say that in Jerusalem is the place where one ought to worship.”
21 Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe Me, the hour is coming when you will neither on this mountain, nor in Jerusalem, worship the Father.
22 You worship what you do not know; we know what we worship, for salvation is of the Jews.
23 But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for the Father is seeking such to worship Him.
24 God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.”
25 The woman said to Him, “I know that Messiah is coming” (who is called Christ). “When He comes, He will tell us all things.”
26 Jesus said to her, “I who speak to you am He.”
The Living Water
Before we get to our points, I want to show you something. It says in our text that the religious people are pushing Jesus away. Jesus had to leave. He didn’t have to go through Samaria. In our text though it says he needed to go.
Another thing to notice here is that Jesus is at a place in common for both of them.
Jesus uses these commonalities to talk to the woman.
Who Is The Woman?
Who Is The Woman?
She is Samaritan. When Israel split into 2 kingdoms, the Jews and Samaritans came to be.
Also, in most cases, Jews didn’t talk to Samaritans. They didn’t talk to women outside of there families.
She has had 5 husbands and the one she is with now, she is not married to him.
What this means is that she was a woman of loose morals.
Notice that she doesn’t argue with him about her character.
She is convicted. She takes off and spreads the word. She is not hiding her sin. She tells all of those around of what Jesus did.
Before we continue, we need to review their conversation.
Jesus used the well to show some spiritual ideas.
He uses the water of the well.
What Is The Water?
What Is The Water?
Jesus starts by bringing up his identity.
Before we dig into that we need to understand the importance of water to that society.
In their world, in a semiarid area, water was much more important to them than we can probably understand.
We live in an area that has abundant water. We can dig about anywhere and get water from the ground. We even have pipes that bring it right into our house.
In 2007, we had an ice storm that took out power to our area.
Water became important to us.
But imagine having to walk a long way to get water.
According to most scholars, this well was about a half-mile from town. It’s a long way to walk to get water.
Also, the well was deep. It may have been 100 feet deep.
So to have someone say that they have living water, is something that would impact them deeply.
It impacts this woman. She says, the well is deep and you have nothing to draw with.
She says, “Are you greater than our father Jacob?”
Jesus dodges the question and tells her the important part.
She will never thirst again.
We can’t even imagine that.
Even during that ice storm, we bought bottled water and had plenty to eat and drink.
We don’t understand the kind of thirst that they had.
But the water that Jesus gives us is everlasting life.
She didn’t understand it here, and neither did the disciples, but Jesus was talking about the Holy Spirit.
So what is the water? It’s the spirit.
Where Do We Worship?
Where Do We Worship?
After this, the conversation turns to the woman and her sin. After being confronted with the truth, she says:
“Sir, I perceive that You are a prophet”
I don’t think we understand how life changing this was.
She jumps into the big question that the Samaritans had.
30 Then they went out of the city, and came unto him.
Where Do We Worship?
When the kingdoms split, the northern tribes started worshiping there where Jesus and this woman was. The Jews continued to worship at Jerusalem.
Jesus then says that the time is coming when true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth.
We often say that, but what does that mean?
The text tells us. In fact, the woman does.
I don’t want to minimize what happens next.
The woman shows us that she is trusting that the Messiah will tell them all things.
She understands what Jesus is saying. The truth is about to come.
Jesus, here for the first time as far as we can tell, states that he is the Messiah.
Before this, he often veiled his messages, but here, he states it outright.
So what does it mean to worship in spirit and truth?
It means the location is not important. Jesus and the spirit is.
I think we put too much importance in the place we worship, the format, the traditions, but what we need is the truth about Jesus and the Spirit.
If we are a true Christian, then we know the truth of the gospel. Also, if we have the Spirit, which we do as a Christian (we talked about this a couple of weeks ago), then we have all the components we need to worship anywhere.
We don’t need the church building to worship. We need to be doing everywhere.
Even when we feel bad. Even when we are eating. Even when we are crying.
The woman went everywhere telling the truth about Jesus. She told the whole town and people started coming.
She didn’t have the Spirit, she just had the truth. What’s our excuse?
Why aren’t we Witnessing?
Why aren’t we Witnessing?
I need you to understand what I’m about to say.
I’m guilty of this. It’s probably because of the pain that I deal with.
But I accept full responsibility. See, I have the Spirit and the Truth.
What’s stopping me from worshipping in the midst of my pain?
I’m thankful that God is as gracious as he is to allow me to walk around. I may not be able to run, I may not even walk well, but I thank God for everything I have. Even the bad stuff.
2 Continue in prayer, and watch in the same with thanksgiving;
3 Withal praying also for us, that God would open unto us a door of utterance, to speak the mystery of Christ, for which I am also in bonds:
4 That I may make it manifest, as I ought to speak.
5 Walk in wisdom toward them that are without, redeeming the time.
6 Let your speech be alway with grace, seasoned with salt, that ye may know how ye ought to answer every man.
Why aren’t we Witnessing?
What is this saying?
I heard a preacher lay out 3 things that these verses tell us:
Pray
Prepare
Proclaim the gospel
What does this mean? We need to Pray to God for an opportunity.
We need to Prepare our hearts and Prepare our lives so others will see the truth through us
We need to Proclaim the truth of the gospel.
Why aren’t we Witnessing?
This woman that we have been talking about was only able to do the last.
What does is say of her success? Well, it says that many believed in the city.
This woman had all kinds of excuses.
She was not a Jew.
Her life was not an example.
She didn’t have the Spirit, at least in the sense that we do.
But that didn’t stop her.
There are many in the Kingdom because of her testimony.
We don’t have an excuse to preach to the lost,
We need to proclaim it no matter the cost.
Here’s the last thing I want to say:
If you are here and you don’t have Jesus, just remember that he is the truth.
The world will try to explain it away, but you end up back at the truth.
The truth that Jesus died for our sins and he rose again on the 3rd day.
Jesus is real. He is the truth. He is alive.
All you need to do is accept this fact and trust in him.