A Life That Looks Like Jesus Part 1 Quenching the Deepest Thirst Within John 4:1-26 Rev. Jeff Chapman ~ January 4, 2009 ~ Faith Presbyterian Church Now when Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard, Jesus is making and baptizing more disciples than John although it was not Jesus himself but his disciples who baptized he left Judea and started back to Galilee. But he had to go through Samaria. So he came to a Samaritan city called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob s well was there, and Jesus, tired out by his journey, was sitting by the well. It was about noon. A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, Give me a drink. (His disciples had gone to the city to buy food.) The Samaritan woman said to him, How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria? (Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans.) Jesus answered her, If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying 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 no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well, and with his sons and his flocks drank from it? Jesus said to her, Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life. The woman said to him, Sir, give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water. Jesus said to her, Go, call your husband, and come back. The woman answered him, I have no husband. Jesus said to her, You are right in saying, I have no husband ; for you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband. What you have said is true! The woman said to him, Sir, I see that you are a prophet. Our ancestors worshipped on this mountain, but you say that the place where people must worship is in Jerusalem. Jesus said to her, Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such as these to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth. The woman said to him, I know that Messiah is coming (who is called Christ). When he comes, he will proclaim all things to us. Jesus said to her, I am he, the one who is speaking to you. (John 4:1-26, New Revised Standard Version) Have you been drinking enough water lately? The experts tell us that to remain properly hydrated, we are each supposed to drink 2 quarts of water every day. That s eight, eight-ounce cups before you go to bed tonight (And maybe not right before you go to bed tonight!). And no, having
a couple of venti caramel macchiatos from Starbucks does not count. The two Diet Cokes you drink every day to kick start your afternoon, they also do not count. We re supposed to drink water. Good old-fashioned H2O. 2 This should not be a problem. Right? Your house has a sink. Probably three or four sinks. We all have crystal clear water right at our fingertips. We buy it in bottles. We filter it till it s pure. Drinking fountains are everywhere. We talk about being in a drought, but nobody I know is thirsty. If you don t get your two quarts today, it s your own fault. In fact, we have so much water that most of us take it for granted. But that s not true for the majority of people in our world today, and most people down through history. For them, water is precious. And often scarce. Thirst is not uncommon. And forget about eight full cups of purified water, in much of the world people go to great lengths every day just to get enough water to survive. 1 So when we read about a woman in a poor Samaritan village going out one afternoon to draw water from the local well, there s nothing unusual about that. She s thirsty. And quenching that thirst is a constant chore. Nothing unusual about that. 2 What is unusual is what happens when this woman shows up at the well. When she does, she finds a stranger, a Jewish man, resting there in the shade. 3 She s never seen him before in her life. He s not from the neighborhood. Of course, we who this is. It s Jesus. And we re not surprised to find him there. Or at least, we shouldn t be. Because wherever you find thirsty people, you re likely going to find Jesus hanging around nearby. That s just how he is. Well, as this woman is going about her business, Jesus interrupts her with a question. Will you give me a drink? he asks. He s thirsty too. He s been walking all morning in the hot sun. But he has no bucket. And no rope. And the well is deep, likely 100 feet down, or more. Seems like a natural request. But it stunned this woman. For a Jew never spoke like this to a Samaritan. The Samaritans were their bitter enemies. Furthermore, in this culture a man never spoke like this to a woman, other than his own wife. So when this woman walks up to that well and sees this Jew sitting there, she would have expected him to get up immediately and walk away. There was going not going to be any polite water cooler chit-chat, that s for sure. He probably wouldn t even make eye contact. So understand, it was a shock when Jesus not only addresses her face to face, but asks if he can drink right from her bucket. Think about it, how many of you are comfortable sharing a cup with somebody you don t know? Even among friends, it s hard for many of us. I mean, what if I told you we were all going to drink right from the same cup today at communion. Who s up for that? Not many of us. And for the most part, we sort of like each other. 1 I will not soon forget the first time my two Ethiopian children were introduced to a drinking fountain in the Addis Ababa airport. Next to the escalator they had just encountered, they acted like this magic water box was the most wonderful thing they had ever seen. You see, it s not uncommon in places like Ethiopia for people to spend hours walking each day back and forth just to get enough drinkable water to stay alive. Many, many poor regions of our world don t even have clean wells, let along drinking fountains. In these places, thirst is rampant. And quenching thirst is a constant struggle. 2 Many people who have read this passage over the years point out that it was unusual that she came at the noon hour, in the heat of the day. Most people back then would have come in the early morning, or in the evening, when the day was cooler. And they would have come in groups. She comes alone, in the heat. And it s been speculated that she does this because she is an outcast in that village. Because of the way she has lived her life which we learn about in this story either she was not welcome at the well at other times, or felt too ashamed herself to show up. In the end, however, we can only speculate as to why she came when she did. All we can really say for sure is why she came. She came, again, because she was thirsty. 3 It s marvelous how John tells us that Jesus sat down by the well because he was tired from the journey. This is the Son of God, God himself. But he is also fully human. And in walking all day on the dusty roads of Palestine, God has experienced the weariness of the daily grind of humanity. Wonderful!
3 Don t miss this. When you consider the context, what Jesus does here is an amazing show of graciousness and goodwill. And understandably, it shocked this woman. It always does. Whenever people meet Jesus, they are always shocked by the level of grace they encounter in him. You are a Jew, she says to him in amazement, and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for water? And Jesus says to her, Woman, 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. Now, back then, the term living water commonly referred to water that was constantly bubbling up or being refreshed. Think about water from a spring or river, rather then from a cistern or a well. And so, naturally, living water was always better water. As a rule, it s always safer to drink from a running stream than from a stagnant pond. Jesus is saying, then, that he has access to some water which is better than the water in that well. And that must have struck this woman as odd. Why would he want her old well water if he s got better stuff on tap? The problem is, of course, that this woman hasn t a clue who she s talking to. She has no idea that the man in front of her is the creator of all that exists (including water), the source of life, the king of the universe, the savior of the world. And because she doesn t know who this is, she also has no idea what it is that he can do for her. The truth is, so many of us are just like this woman. Jesus is right in front of us. And he has a gift to give us of unspeakable value. And we have no idea. We have no clue what Christ can do for us. No clue what Christ can do in us. And so we don t even ask. Or, if we do ask Jesus for something, we ask for trinkets, when what he has to give is treasure. In my assessment, most of our world today, including much of the church, is missing out on the gift of God because, tragically, we don t even ask. And Jesus is right in front of us saying, I can give you living water. The woman then says to Jesus, what a lot of people say to Jesus, Who do you think you are? You have no bucket. You have no rope. Where exactly is this fancy living water you speak of? I love what Jesus says next. Do not miss this. He says to her plainly, If you only drink the water from this well today, you will be back here again tomorrow, and every day after tomorrow, just as thirsty as you are now. This water, from this well, can only temporarily quench your thirst. But, Jesus continues, if you drink the water I have to give you, you will never thirst again. Indeed, the water I can give you will become a spring in you which will bubble up to eternal life. 4 Now, understand, Jesus is done talking about H2O. He hasn t come to show us the way to some magical spring in the Amazon forest where one drink will last a person a lifetime. No, Jesus is speaking now about another type of water that is meant to quench another type of thirst, a deeper thirst. He is speaking here about the basic desires that exist within each of us, powerful desires buried in the core of our beings. Sure, living as we do in this time and place, chances are you and I will never really experience deep physical thirst. There s always a glass of water close at hand. But don t be mistaken. That does not mean we aren t thirsty people. And whether you are aware of them or not, there are some thirsts deep in you that two quarts a day can ever satisfy. There is within you, for instance, a profound thirst to belong, a deep desire to find yourself connected in relationship to other people and to God, to know that you are loved and accepted by others. There is within you a profound thirst for security. Deep within each of us there is a desire to know, with confidence, that when everything is said and done, things will turn out well. We thirst for that. 4 The literal translation to welling up is leaping up. Jesus isn t describing some leak of water trickling out from a crack in the earth. He s talking about a geyser that explodes into the sky.
4 There is deep within each of us a profound thirst for purpose and meaning. In your soul, there is a desire to make a good and lasting difference in this world, to do something with your life that really matters? You must understand this. We all, including the woman at the well that day, have these and other deep thirsts within us. And the problem is that most of us run around dipping our buckets into all the wrong wells trying, in vain, to quench those thirsts. A young woman, for instance, is thirsty to belong, to connect in relationship, to be loved and accepted. But to quench that thirst she gives herself away sexually to a man who doesn t really love her in the way God intended a man to love her. And though the water she gets from that well temporarily satisfies, eventually she finds herself thirsty again. And so back to the well she goes, again and again and again. A man tries to quench his thirst for purpose and meaning by pouring himself into his career, his company. A couple tries to satisfy their thirst for security by amassing as much material wealth as possible. Others turn to knowledge, or to good works, or to substances that take away the pain, or to pleasure, or to recreation, or to athletic accomplishment, even to service in the name of God. And yet, each of these wells produces water that only satisfies for a time. All of them eventually leave us thirsty. Some of them even make us more thirsty than before. The most important question I have to ask you today is this: How are you trying to quench your deep thirsts in life? How are you trying to satisfy the deepest desires of your soul? I ll admit, it takes guts to answer that question honestly. And some of us may not have the guts. Because for many of us, if we answer it honestly, we may find that we have spent our entire lives drawing water from a well that, in the end, can never truly satisfy. I pray that your heart is open this morning to hear, and to believe, what Jesus says here. For this is an incredible claim he makes. Essentially, Jesus promises that if we come to him not to church, not to religion, not to right-living, not to good works, but come to him - he will not only quench those deepest thirsts within us, but he will quench them forever. He will, he promises, put a spring deep within our souls that will always be bubbling up, always satisfying the deepest desires we have as human beings. Later in John, in chapter 7, John clarifies what Jesus means here. In verse 37 Jesus again makes the claim, If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him. John then adds this note, saying, By this Jesus meant the Holy Spirit whom those who believed in him were later to receive. Listen carefully, and let me put this as plainly as I know how. Jesus wants to put his Spirit, the Holy Spirit, within you. And once you are full of the Spirit, you will, in time, find within yourself a constant stream which quenches your deepest desires. Belonging will be yours. Purpose will be yours. Security will be yours. In abundant fashion, your life will overflow with peace, and joy, and power, and compassion. In Ephesians 3:20, Paul says that when we are full of God s Spirit, Christ is then able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us. All this Jesus wants to give to you now. Not some day in the future. Not when you get to heaven. He wants to give it to you now, in this life, today! Jesus is saying to us, If you knew the gift of God, you would ask me, and I would put within you today a spring of living water. So many of us miss this. The Samaritan woman misses it. Amazingly, she says to Jesus, Give me this water, then, so that I won t have to get thirsty again and keep hauling my butt back to this well every day. She thinks Jesus has magic water. That s what she thinks will satisfy.
We re no different. Just think of the things we ask for when we come before Jesus, things we imagine will bring ultimate satisfaction. Lord, if I could just get the perfect job, then I would be satisfied. Lord, if I can just find the right person to marry, or if you could just help fix the marriage I m in, then I ll be satisfied. Lord, if you would just give me a family Lord, if you would just help my kids to turn out well Lord, if you would just let me live to this certain age Lord, if I can just be healed of this disease, or released of this pain then I will be satisfied. None of these things are bad things in and of themselves. And it s not necessarily wrong to ask Jesus for any of them. But none of these things will, in the end, satisfy our deepest thirsts. If you get the perfect job, find the perfect family, live to a ripe old age, enjoy a relatively pain-free life, have all your material needs met, drive the right car, get into the right school, help the right people get elected, find great work to do in a great church, if you drink the water from all these wells, but you never drink the living water Jesus is trying to give you, you will die a thirsty, thirsty person. Nothing satisfies like Jesus. Not even close. It is critical that we understand this. It was critical that this woman by the well in Samaria that day understood this. So critical, Jesus doesn t mince words. He cuts to the heart of the matter. Go call your husband and come back, he tells her. And with those words, Jesus pulls the covers off and exposes exactly how this woman has been vainly trying to quench her thirst. I have no husband, she tells him. You re right, Jesus responds. And speaking here, I imagine, with a great deal of compassion in his voice, he says, You tell the truth. You ve actually had five husbands. And the man you re shacking up with now is not your husband. Jesus isn t messing around. You see, Jesus is good. He is always good. But he isn t safe. He s never safe. And he doesn t do what we usually do. Because we usually don t tell it like it is. We usually don t have the guts to tell people that the well they are dropping their bucket in day after day is going to ultimately leave them dying of thirst. Here s a woman hopping from man to man to man, from bed to bed to bed, trying desperately to satisfy a deep, deep thirst. And it isn t working. Or maybe it works for a time, but then the thirst always comes back. And then it s off to the next bed, and the next man. And if we met her at the water cooler one day, would we have the guts to tell it like it is? Probably not. Most of us would say, Well, hang in there. Don t give up. Maybe the next guy will be Mr. Right. He s got to be out there somewhere. Keep looking. What a lie! Even if she meets Prince Charming, if she s trying to satisfy her deepest thirst with the romance of a man, it will never, ever work. And Jesus loves her too much to pretend with her. He tells it like it is. He will do the same with us. Christ will not play games with us. He loves us too much to do that. Instead, he will tell it like it is. Whatever they are, he will expose our vain efforts to quench our thirst, just like he did with her. The question, of course, is whether or not we will heed, or even listen to, what Jesus says. Lots of people, you know, don t have the stomach for that sort of raw truth. After all, it s not easy to hear that you ve been spending all your time dipping your bucket in a well that is never going to quench your thirst. Notice that this woman, at least at first, doesn t have the stomach for what Jesus is telling her. This guy is reading her life like an open book and she doesn t want him to get to the next chapter. So immediately, she changes the subject. She 5
brings up some age-old theological controversy, some fight between the Jews and the Samaritans about the proper place to worship God. 5 A much safer topic by far. Or so she thinks. 6 But then Jesus takes her tangent, and brings things back to center. Essentially, he says, Woman, a time is coming when it won t matter where you worship God. That will be irrelevant. Soon, all that will matter is how we worship God. And the true worshippers, the kind of worshippers the Father is looking for, will worship in spirit and in truth. In other words, God is after people who, in the depths of their hearts and souls, will love him, and trust him, and give themselves to him, and worship him, and drink from him the living water he has to offer. Pretty heavy stuff. And all she came for that day was a drink of water. Perhaps somewhat confused and overwhelmed at this point, we re told that the woman then says to Jesus, I know that the Messiah, the Christ, is coming. When he comes, then he will explain everything to us. Sounds to me like she s done with this conversation. I can see her packing up her water jugs as she says it. But then Jesus says to her, I suspect with a great deal of compassion in his voice, I who speak to you am he. What I have told you about is available today, right here, right now. And I am the one to give it to you. Many years ago, C.S. Lewis wrote these words. Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of what is promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires, not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us. Like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea, we are far too easily pleased. 6 Let me be straight with you. I suspect that a lot of us in this room, in spite of how it may appear, are very thirsty people. Truth be told, I m thirsty a lot of the time myself. And the problem is that we keep throwing our buckets down the wrong wells. And the water we find there, though it may satisfy for a time, always leaves us thirsty, sometimes thirstier, in the end. We re settling for mud pies in the slums when a holiday at the sea has been offered to us! I have become convinced it s not supposed to be this way. The staggering promises of Jesus Christ in the Gospels, promises of eternally satisfying streams of waters, are meant for us, every one of us. And they are meant for us today. Jesus, in John 10:10, said, I have come to bring life, and life in abundance! I think he meant it! And I fear many of us are missing it. Today this message is to serve as an instruction to what is to come in this series. These next weeks we are going to dig more deeply here. And I invite you to dig with me. Because I believe Jesus has provided for us a way to see this living water become a reality within each of us. Perhaps first step today for some of you might simply be to acknowledge that where you re dipping your bucket now isn t working. Because you re still thirsty. If you can be honest about that, then make the decision in your heart that you will do whatever it takes to make sure you drink, instead, from this living water about which Jesus speaks. After all, don t you get awfully tired of being so thirsty all the time. 5 There is a great deal behind her question here having to do with an ancient disagreement between the Jews and the Samaritans about where the temple of God should be built. The Samaritans said Shechem, a site within eyesight of that very well. The Jews said Jerusalem. 6 Taken from his well-known essay, The Weight of Glory.
Amen. 7 The Next Step A resource for Life Groups and/or personal application ~ Re-read the story from John 4:1-26. If you were an eyewitness to this event, what part would be most memorable? What startles you about what happens that day at that well? ~ What are your deepest thirsts? Can you name them? In the deepest parts of your soul, what do you most long for? ~ How are you currently trying to quench those deep thirsts? And is it working? Are you able to find total satisfaction? ~ Consider this quote from C.S. Lewis about how we foolishly go around trying to quench our deepest thirsts: Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires, not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased. What s your reaction to what he says here? ~ Jesus makes the claim here that he can give us living water, a stream which will well up inside of us to eternal life. And he says that if we drink this living water we will never thirst again. What do you think he means? Do you take Jesus at his word? Is this sort of total thirst quenching really available in this life? Have you experienced it? ~ Transformation Question: God s Word is not simply for information. It must lead to transformation or it is useless to us. So...after hearing this message, what is God calling you to do? How are you specifically being called to obey? How are you going to be transformed? ~Bonus Life Group Scripture: Read the rest of this story in John 4:27-42. Compare the different reactions of the disciples, the woman, and the townspeople. Have you ever been so overcome by the grace of Christ that you, like this woman, couldn t help but share it with anybody who would listen? Further Scripture Readings for the Week: Monday: John 4:27-42 - The rest of the story. Tuesday: Psalm 42 - A psalm of thirst. Wednesday: Psalm 139:23-24 - Pray this Thursday: John 7:25-44 - Living water! Friday: Ephesians 3:19-20 - What a promise! Saturday: In preparation for tomorrow s worship, you might read Luke 6:43-45. Resources for Further Growth Renovation of the Heart: Putting on the Character of Christ, by Dallas Willard (Colorado Springs: NavPress, c. 2002) - A marvelous book which gets to the heart of the issue when it comes to having a life that looks like Jesus. Perhaps no contemporary church leader addresses these issues more faithfully than Willard. Best read in small doses and digested. Renovation of the Heart in Daily Practice, by Dallas Willard and Jan Johnson, (Colorado Springs: NavPress, c. 2006). - This is a book of 61 short experiments which help put into practice the principles from Renovation of the Heart. This is a wonderfully practical resource for those who really want to apply these things. The Life You ve Always Wanted, by John Ortberg (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, c. 1997). - Ortberg is a local pastor (actually Presbyterian) and student of Dallas Willard. His book, by his own claim, is Dallas for Dummies. It s a great companion to what Willard has to teach.