water. Where is water? Now, let me turn a corner and draw an analogy to all of that. And this is my proposition today. Just like our bodies get thirst

Transcription

1 Hey everybody. Welcome to Christ Fellowship. Thank you so much. I m so glad you are all here, and if you are a guest with us for the first time, I especially want to welcome you. My name is Rick, and I serve as lead pastor here. I want to kind of catch you up to where we are on the weekends. We started all the way back at Easter a journey, as it were, walking in the steps of Jesus through the gospel of John. We started back in chapter one at Easter and we made our way through chapter one, chapter two, chapter three, and now we have come the past few weeks to chapter four. In John chapter four we have entitled this series Parched. So I want to encourage you, if you have a Bible with you today to go ahead and find your way to John, chapter four. If you don t, don t worry about it. You can follow along because all of the text will come up on the screen, and you can track along with us that way. I also want to take a moment to welcome all of our campuses across Dade County that are with us. We love us so much, and we are also glad for those of you who are tapped in with us online. So, with that in mind: John, chapter four. I want to begin today by reading a portion of our text, a section of John 4, and then I will come back and set all of this up. Listen to verse 13: Jesus answered, Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again. Now, listen to Psalm 42. It says this: My soul thirsts for God. Stop right there, because as I read those words this week, my mind went back to a trip that I took a few years back. So slip into the scene, because back in 2002 I got a request to speak to a large group of missionaries, pastors, and people down in Haiti. So I took the flight from Miami down to Haiti, and folks, I ve got to tell you: I loved Haiti. I loved it, number one, because the island itself is so amazingly beautiful, and I loved it number two, because the people down there were just so amazingly kind and gracious and loving to me, and so I immediately fell in love with those people. But folks, as I traveled across that island, across Haiti, across that country for about two weeks, the poverty that I witnessed there was disturbing, to say the least, and the further out into these villages I went, the more disturbing the poverty was. Check this out: One factor that made life there so sickening, and I really mean physically sickening was the lack of clean water wells; because the further out you go into the villages, the technology out there is not sufficient enough to drill down deep enough to strike clean water. So, what I saw was desperation. I mean, I saw little children so desperate for clean water that they were drinking water that was wholesale polluted. Now mind you, they were drinking out of wells, but they were at the wrong wells, because they were getting water from wells that were polluted. Folks, I don t have to tell you that drinking polluted water spreads disease. Drinking polluted water can disease your whole water, and can even kill you. But these precious people, these dear people were drinking the polluted waters down into their bodies. Let me tell you why: It is because thirsty people will drink something to try to quench their thirst. Thirsty people get desperate, because our bodies were not designed to go very long without water. Water is the life giving source to our cells, to our tissues, to our blood, to our organs, to our mind, to our skin, and to every part of our body. If you deprive your body of water, your body will dehydrate; it will dry up, and it will inexorably die. But folks, don t miss this, because if you let your body get low on water, it will let you know it, because you have a built in low water indicator. It is called thirst. You know what I m talking about: dry mouth, thick tongue, confusing thoughts, severe headache. Have you ever felt that before? Let me tell you, I have, and it is a miserable feeling, but it is our body s way of telling us: I need water. I have to have

2 water. Where is water? Now, let me turn a corner and draw an analogy to all of that. And this is my proposition today. Just like our bodies get thirsty for water and lets us know it, just like that our soul gets thirsty for God, and it lets us know it. Let me repeat that: Just like our body gets thirsty for water and lets us know it, just like that, our soul, your soul, my soul, gets thirsty for our Creator, and it lets us know it. In fact, listen to Psalm 42 again: It says, My soul thirsts for God. Now, you might be saying: Rick, what do you mean by my soul? I ve heard that talk, soul. What does that mean, and how does my soul get thirsty? Well, we are going to find out as we go back to John, chapter four, today. I want to give you three thoughts about thirst, about soul thirst. Number one: Our soul does thirst. Your soul does thirst. Now, with that in mind, let s pick up the narrative, beginning with John 4:1. You follow with your eyes as I read it. The Pharisees heard that Jesus was gaining and baptizing more disciples than John,- that was John the Baptist - although in fact it was not Jesus who baptized, but his disciples. When the Lord learned of this, he left Judea and went back once more to Galilee. Now he had to go through Samaria. So he 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. Stop there and let me give you a little bit of history before we move on. To begin with, this well called Jacob s well had been well known for centuries, because it had been dug all the way back in the days of Joseph; all the way back in the days of Jacob, and it was notorious for being a well where there was clean water. It was a clean water supply. By the way, that well is still there today. In fact, a few years ago we took a trip to Israel and we visited this very well. It s still about seventy-five feet deep and to this day it is known as a clean water supply well where you can get water that will quench your thirst. Now, with that in mind, let s pick it up in verse six. Jacob s well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about noon when a Samaritan woman came to draw water. Stop there again. This woman comes to this well with a container, maybe something like a bucket. What I love about this scene is that she had come to the right well. Everybody say right well. Yeah, she had come to the right well because this was the well that had clean water, water that could nourish her body, and water that could quench the thirst of her body. However, when it came to the thirst of her soul, this woman had been going to all the wrong wells..there are wells that cannot satisfy. Example in point: Listen to verse seven. When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her: Will you give me a drink? So Jesus begins this conversation with this woman, this dialogue with this woman. But let s fast forward in the conversation to verse 16. Watch this: 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 I have no husband. The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. You say, Meaning what? Meaning this: Check this out ladies. Five husbands had divorced this poor girl. Five husbands had walked down the aisle with her. Five husbands had come to the altar with her. Five husbands had pledged to love her, and all five husbands had let her down. Yet, in spite of that, this girl had not given up on men, because she had the notion, she believed in her head that there had to be a man out there somewhere who could satisfy this pervasive dissatisfaction, that could quench this desperate unhappiness that was somewhere in her, but she didn t know where it was coming from.

3 Often we don t know where we are thirsty. Back up to verse 13. Listen to this: Jesus answered. He is talking to her. Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will be in them. Folks, stop right there, because Jesus is trying to get this woman in touch with her soul. I m talking about that dimension of the human factor that is somewhere inside every one of us. Now I often remind you that you are a three part person. I do that because you will never understand yourself until you know this. You are three parts: body, soul, and spirit. You are made in the image of God, and just as God is a trinity, Father, Son, Holy Spirit, yet He is one. Just like that, you have a body, you have a soul, and you have a spirit. Now I want you to lean in to what I am saying here, because on the outside you have a body, a physical body, and your physical body is that dimension of you that needs physical water in order to thrive, and in order to survive. But you are not just a physical being, because somewhere inside of you you have what is called a soul. By the way, the word soul, every time you see that in the Bible is translated from the Greek word your Bible was originally written in koina Greek. The word soul is translated from the Greek word psyche, which is the word from which we get psychology. Your soul is your psychological person. Your soul is that part of you that can feel; it is that part of you that can feel happy, or feel sad. That is your soul. Your soul is that part of you that can feel content or feel discontent. That is your soul. Your soul is that part of you that can be satisfied with your life or that can be dissatisfied with your life. That is your soul. Let me tell you something: When your soul is dissatisfied within; when your soul is thirsty, it is going to let you know it. And how does it let you know that it is thirsty? Listen to Psalm 42. This is so important. Listen to this. The psalmist says: My soul thirsts for God. What happens when your soul gets thirsty for God; when you are low on God; when you don t have a relationship with God; what happens to your soul? Listen to verse 5. The psalmist is talking to his soul, and He says: Why are you downcast, o my soul? Do you ever talk to your soul? Do you ever talk to yourself? You are talking to your soul. He says, Why are you so down, o my soul? But you see folks, that is what happens when your soul is not being nourished with a relationship with God.When you deprive your soul of a relationship with your Creator, your soul gets down. By the way, the word downcast there, shekah in the Hebrew, literally means to be downcast with sadness. It means to be downcast with despair. It means to be downcast with dissatisfaction with your life. I m telling you: If you deprive your soul of a relationship with God, your soul is going to get down. Why? Because your soul was not made to do life without God any more than your body was made to do life without water. Let me say that to you again. Your soul was not made, was not designed to do life without God any more than your body is designed to do life without water. He continues: Why are you downcast, o my soul? Why are you so disturbed within me? By the way, that word disturbed is a very graphic word. It s from the Hebrew word hamach, and hamach literally means to growl. You know, when you deprive your stomach of food, what does your stomach do? It growls. It is your stomach s way of saying I m hungry for food. Listen when you deprive your soul of God, of a relationship with your Creator, your soul growls, and it growls with dissatisfaction. It growls if it is sad. It growls with unhappiness. That is your soul s way of trying to tell you I am thirsty for God. Often we don t know what we are thirsty for. So consequently we often go to the wrong well. With this girl it was men. She kept thinking there has got to be a man; I ve got to find a husband; there has got to

4 be a man that can be my husband who can satisfy this desperate unhappiness within me. Watch what Jesus says to her in verse 18. He says to her: The fact is, you have had five husbands. His point is, none of them have made you happy. She is thinking, if I can just find the right guy. He could satisfy this thirst in my soul. If I can get this guy she was now shacked up with a guy number six wasn t really her husband. She is thinking, If I could just get him to marry me. Maybe he could be my husband, and maybe number six is the magic number. Maybe husband number six can satisfy this desperate unhappiness, this thirsting of my soul. Folks, let me tell you something: No husband, no wife, no person can satisfy that longing in your heart. Folks, I should be preaching this on Valentine s Day! No husband can satisfy it, and let me tell you why. Don t miss this: There is something in every one of us in here today that at the level of our soul that longs to experience what the Bible calls unfailing love. Unfailing love. Listen to Psalm 90:14. The Bible says, God, satisfy us in the morning. In other words, before we even begin the day. Satisfy us in the morning with your unfailing love. Why? That we may sing with joy and be glad all our days. Don t you love that? Listen, when God fills you with His unfailing love, He also fills you with peace. He fills you with joy. He fills you with happiness, and He alone can fill you with a love that can make you glad all the days of your life. All the days of your life! It is called unfailing love. Now, put your thinking caps on. I hate to keep using Hebrew and Greek, but sometimes it is helpful. The phrase unfailing love is a translation of the Hebrew word kessed. It is so neat. It is kind of an easy Hebrew word to say. So let s all say kissed. Here is what kessed love is. Kessed love is a love that knows everything about somebody and still loves them and accepts them. Kessed love is a love that knows everything there is to know about me. It knows my good side and my bad side. It knows the bright side and the dark side of me, and yet it loves me and accepts me. Folks, I m telling you, there is something in every one of us in here today that longs for that. I m also telling you that you will never be happy. You will never know true satisfaction until your soul is wrapped up and secured in this unfailing love. You just can t be happy without it. So, what we do is we all go through life and we say to somebody: Could you love me with a love when you know everything there is to know about me? I want somebody to know what is going on in here. Could I tell you everything about me and you would know everything about me and still love me? Could you love me with a love like that? As we go through life, would you fill this void in my heart, when I need this kind of love; when you know everything about me could you still love me? Folks, here is the problem with that. Nobody can know everything about you. They can t do it because they did not make you. They can t know everything about you because they did not design you. They cannot know everything about you because they are not omniscience like God is. They can t do it. So that is problem number one. Problem number two is you don t want anybody to know everything about you, do you? You don t want them to know the thoughts that go across your mind. You don t want them to know the habit and the hang ups that you deal with. You don t want somebody to know the things that you do when nobody is watching; that you would be mortified if they knew it. You don t want them to know everything because you fear if they knew everything they might reject you, and they might reject you.

5 Yet folks, I see couples come to the altar. They walk down the aisle and they come to the altar. She is standing over here and he is over there. She is not saying it verbally, but she is basically saying, I m looking to you to be the one who can know everything about me and yet love me as I am and accept me for who I am. I need you ti fill this. He is standing over there saying the same thing. He is saying, Look girl, I m looking to you to be able to know everything about me; my good side and my bad side, the bright side and the dark side, and I m counting on you to know that, to love me and accept me for who I am. But folks, here is the problem. Neither one of them are going to be able to pull that off for the other. Pretty soon they end up disappointed with each other, and they may end up even divorced with each other. Why? Because they are asking a human being to do for them what only God can do for them. That is to quench the thirst of their soul. Who knows: Maybe that is why this girl has been divorced five times. Maybe she had just been clutching these guys and saying, Please, can you fill me with unfailing love? Can you know everything about me and still love me for who I am? She was looking for a man to do what only God can do. My soul thirsts for God. Folks, here is what you need to know. Your soul can get desperate, and you start trying to put anything into it you can to try to take away the dissatisfaction. Just like those children drinking polluted waters to try to quench their thirst, you start putting stuff into your soul, thinking that it will quench the thirst of your soul. We all do this. You know, for some of us we think, If I could just get the right lover. Some of you girls, some of you guys, you think, If I could just find the right husband, the right wife, and put them in my soul, they could make me happy. Other people think, If I just had the right stuff. Man, if I could just get the right car and drive the right car and put that in my soul, it would take away the dissatisfaction in my soul. Some people think, If I can just get enough money. If I can just get enough money in my stock portfolio. If we could just get enough cash flow coming in: If I could just get the right amount of money and get it in my soul, that would make me content. Some people think, some guys think, If I could just look at enough porn; if I could just see the right images, and they put that in their soul, and they think maybe that would make me happy. Some people think, If I could just get the right house, you know, that house that is in the magazine, that house like my neighbor has down the street. If we could just get that house, that would satisfy my soul. Some people think, If I could just be pretty enough. If I could just be handsome and slick enough, that would make me happy. Some people think, If I could get religion. If I could just get religion. Maybe I need to be religious. Maybe religion could pacify my soul; quench the thirst of my heart. By the way, this girl had tried religion. She had tried religion, but you know what religion does? Religion is a dead formality that connects you to a tradition; that connects you to a ritual; that connects you to a routine, but does not connect you to the person of God. It does not connect you to a relationship, one on one, you and God. Religion can never do that, which is why a lot of people try religion, and after they try religion they walk away from religion still thirsty for God; because religion didn t deliver God. This girl was still thirsty, and so are some of you. By the way, I found out as I was putting this message together. We have a very young staff here, and I found out from them that among younger people, they may say of a girl; She is thirsty! Do you know what that means? That is code for She is so desperate to be loved and accepted that she will give her body away to meet a guy. She is thirsty. They will say of a guy: He is thirsty. Do you know what that means? That means he is obsessed with sex. They are putting these into

6 their soul trying to satisfy their soul, but I m telling you folks, it s like drinking polluted water, because it does not satisfy the soul. You keep trying to satisfy, and satisfy it, and satisfy it with these things and you end up like Nick Jagger said. Do you remember what Nick Jagger said? I can t get no satisfaction, though I tried and I tried, and I tried, and I tried. I can t. You get the idea. Here is why. Only God can satisfy our thirst. Here is why: Only God knows you fully. Only God knows everything about you. In fact, listen to verse 16: He told her, Go call your husband and come back. She has never met Him before, but He is about to tell her everything about her. Watch what He says: Go call your husband. I have no husband, she replied. Jesus said to her: You are right when you say you have no husband. 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. She said, I can see that you are a prophet. But He was more than a prophet. He was God Almighty, and He knew everything about her. He knew her life. Let me tell you something. He knows everything about you. He knows your good side, and your bad side. He knows the bright side, and He knows the dark side. He knows the habits; He knows your hang-ups; He knows the things that you do when nobody is watching. He knows everything, but He has unfailing love. He still loves you fully. God knows everything about you and God loves you completely. Verse 18: The fact is, you ve had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true. Stop right there, because folks, something in this girl wanted to be truthful. There was something in this girl that wanted to stop the pretending, and maybe so do you. You have longed in your soul to take off the mask. You have longed to stop pretending. You have longed for somebody to be able to look into your soul and know it all, but you have feared that if somebody knew everything about you, which is what you want, but you fear that if somebody knew everything they might reject you. Folks, you ve got to know this girl was wondering: Now that Jesus had revealed everything, what is He going to do? Is the kindness going to stop now that He has put it all out there? Was He going to be angry with her? Was He going to walk away from her? He didn t, because Jesus was not looking for perfection from her. He was looking for honesty. Then this girl finally asked the question that revealed the gaping hole in her heart. She finally said the question that revealed the thirst of her heart, her soul, her spirit and her mind, and here was the question, and it may be your question. Her question was to Jesus, Jesus, where is God? Where is God? Look at what she said. Verse 19: Sir, the woman said. I can see that you are a prophet. Our ancestors worshipped God on this mountain. You Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem. She is talking about worship, but what she is really asking Jesus is Jesus, where is God? The Samaritans tell me that God is on that mountain up there somewhere. You Jews say that God is down in Jerusalem. She is saying, I don t know where God is. Where is God, Jesus. Wouldn t you love to have seen the look on His face? He is God Almighty standing right in front of her. Did He smile? Did a tear run down His cheek? Did He look up to heaven and say, Finally, somebody is asking the right question. Watch what she continues to say. She is saying Jesus where is God. The woman said, I know that messiah called Christ is coming and when He comes He will explain everything to us. Verse 26: Then Jesus declared: I, the one speaking to you, I am He. Where was God? He was right there with her. Where is God? He was right there, just like He is right here today with you. And just like God was longing

7 to fill this woman s thirsty soul with unfailing love, I m telling you my friend, if you came in here today separated from God, doing life without God, thirsty for God, and you realize you are thirsty for God, I m telling you, He longs to fill your soul with His unfailing love so that you can be satisfied. I m telling you, you were not made to go through this life without God anymore than you were made to go through this life without water. You were not made to do life without God. Listen to what He says: Jesus answered. Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water that I give them will be in them, a spring of water welling up to eternal life. Jesus compares Himself to water. Do you know why? Water is fluid. Water can flow into every part of your body, into your cells, into your tissues, into your blood, into your bones. It can flow all through your mind; all through your heart. It can flow into the tiny crevices of your body and fill your body. Just like that, Jesus is saying I am the water of your soul, and I can flow into your heart, your soul, your mind, your spirit, and fill you with love and mercy and kindness and compassion and goodness and forgiveness. This is what He wants to fill you with, and what He wants to fill you with. I m telling you, just like your body when it gets thirsty for water, lets you know it, your soul is thirsty for God. It is going to let you know it, with sadness, with discontent, and with dissatisfaction for life. Many of you today, walked through those doors; you came in here with a soul that is thirsty, and it has been letting you know it for a long time. You have tried everything to quench it that you can. You tried people, you tried lovers; you tried stuff, you maybe even have tried bad stuff. You tried to pretty yourself up; you tried religion, and it still left you thirsty, because what your soul is thirst for is God. Your soul is thirsty for your Creator. You were created to do life with Him. I want you to listen to the promise He makes. The Bible closes out, Revelation 22:17. Here is how the Bible closes out: The spirit and the bride say, Come. God is always saying come to Him. Let the one who hears you are hearing today come. It is an invitation. Come to Him, and let the one who is thirsty come, and let the one who wishes take the free gift of the water of life. the water of eternal life. That is what He wants to give you today. For some of you, you have tried everything but your soul is telling you that it wants God. It is thirsty for Him.