Are you drawing water from the right well?
Bible Passage:
John 4:5-19, 25-26
Pastor:
Pastor Glen
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Sermon Date:
2011-03-19
How do you know when something or someone is in need of water? How do you know when something or someone is thirsty? If you take care of plants you want to take care of that thirst before the leaves dry up. If you have animals you want to satisfy the thirst before the tongue is hanging out and the animal is panting severely. Water is a great thirst quencher for plants, animals and human beings. But for a moment imagine a young man was thirsty and started dipping a cup into the sand and tried drinking it. We would question his sanity. Because we know that the sand will not satisfy his thirst. If a woman were floating on a raff in the ocean we know that the salt water is not going to satisfy the thirst of of this young woman. The thirst will only get worse. It is not only important to identify when there is thirst but to identify the thirst quencher.
In our gospel lesson John reminds us that there was a day when Jesus was thirsty. Jesus was at a Jacob’s well in Samaria. Ninety feet down was a spring that provided water. Jesus was thirsty for water and asked a Samaritan woman for water. Jesus had no bucket to draw water and she did. He was a male Jew and she was a Samaritan woman. There was no way Jesus a Jew should be talking to her. This fact confused the Samaritan woman but she became more confused when Jesus questioned her by asking her:
Are you drawing water from the right well?
Let us take a look at God’s Word from the fourth chapter of John written in your service folder. “So Jesus came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob's well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about the sixth hour. 7 When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, ‘Will you give me a drink?’ 8 (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.) 9 The Samaritan woman said to him, ‘You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?’ (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.) 10 Jesus answered her, ‘If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.’ 11 ‘Sir,’ the woman said, ‘you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? 12 Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his flocks and herds?’ 13 Jesus answered, ‘Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, 14 but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.’ 15 The woman said to him, ‘Sir, give me this water so that I won't get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.’” The woman came to the well for water. Jesus being tired and thirsty asked her for a drink of water. She is confused because Samaritans and Jews did not associate with one another. Jesus tells her that if she knew the gift of God and who he was she would ask for living water. She is thinking of a continuous flowing spring of water. She agreed with Jesus. She doesn’t want to come to the well constantly for her water needs. Her needs for water will be met. She asked for this living water.
What Jesus was really pointing out is that she was drawing water from the wrong well. She had a greater thirst than a physical thirst. This well of Jacob would not and could not meet her greatest need. Jesus points out her real need and the cause of her greatest thirst. “He told her, ‘Go, call your husband and come back.’ ‘I have no husband,’ she replied. Jesus said to her, ‘You are right when you say you have no husband. 18 The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true.’ 19 “Sir,” the woman said, “I can see that you are a prophet.” The spiritual thirst she had was real. As a Samaritan she knew the commands of God from the first five books of Moses. She knew God as her creator. Yet she lived her life without a desire to put God number one by how she lived in her marital relationships. The woman did not deny the statements of Jesus in fact she mentions that he must be a prophet. Later she tells the people in her city that he knew everything she had ever done.
For a moment can you see how the devil or the evil one, or Satan can use one of his weapons? The weapon is not a sword or even a natural disaster. When he uses this weapon he gets us to look away from God and toward ourselves. Jesus let the Samaritan woman know that he knew who she was and what she had done. That knowledge surprises her but Jesus does not use that knowledge to drive her away from God. The evil one does use despair and hopelessness to turn us from God and to ourselves where we find we have fallen short of what God demands.
Can you remember a time in your life when the despair of your situation overwhelmed you? You realized that you had done what was wrong against the will of God. Perhaps despair slithered into your heart and mind when you lived with the consequences of your sins. Your life was changed. Despair got you thirsty? Our Lord Jesus knows our real needs whether our walk in this life is working outside in the elements of the weather or a cubicle in a heated office. Our Lord Jesus knows our real needs whether our walk in this life is working in a drafty factory or at a computer or as an employer. Our Lord Jesus knows our real needs if you are a child wanting to be an adult.
We often get spiritually thirsty as we work and live in a world of stress and confusion especially when we turn away from God’s answer to despair and hurt. He reminds us not to use unsatisfactory means to satisfy our real thirst. We might as well eat sand if we think we can satisfy God with our outward actions. We fall short of God’s perfection in our thoughts, words and actions. The Lord knows us completely. We cannot hide from him he is everywhere.
The real thirst quencher he offers to us for are great spiritual thirst is the living water or the gift of life that never ends and begins now with the constant overflowing assurance that we have an answer to our real thirst. Jesus wasn’t just dealing with the Samaritan woman’s sexual attitude or her attitude toward divorce or living together with a person when not married. Jesus was concerned about her spiritual thirst. The attitude and actions toward marriage were symptoms of the root problem in her life. He wanted her to drink of the living water. The woman said, “I know that Messiah” (called Christ) “is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.” 26 Then Jesus declared, “I who speak to you am he.” Jesus says I am the Christ.
This same Jesus wants you to drink water from the right well. He is the living water who quenches our spiritual thirst. He removes our overwhelming sense of despair and hopelessness to point us to him the promised one. He says to you and me: “I am the one who covers your sins. I am the one who blots out every stain and blemish that would keep you out of the presence of God. “Jesus tells us that he alone satisfies our real need as we walk the hot roads of life. Our life with God and for God is in Jesus. We don’t have to get our act together to be a child of God. He has brought us into his family. Drink of the living water. Satisfy your real need as you work and live in this real world.
The weapons of the evil one are powerful. He is powerful. But he is not all powerful. His weapon called despair is deadly when we turn away from the living God who would live as his children confident of his love. We drink the satisfying water from the right well when we come to Jesus to drink of his life giving Word. Take drink. See Jesus who satisfies your thirst. Do not despair. Do not turn away from God. Do not turn to your inner self only to find despair and hurt. Look to Jesus. Jesus reached out to the Samaritan woman who did not know and believe and trust in Jesus the Messiah. Jesus offers to you and me the living water as he offers himself for us to enjoy the water of life that gives life in Jesus. Quench your thirst with the living water, Jesus the Christ.
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