John: Drinking Deeply from the Well of Life

So we've been going through the book of John.

We figured, you know, starting the church, might as well just let's just look at Jesus for a while, a stretch of time, and the book of John's a great place to do that.

And so we're into John 4 at this point.

So this week at our house, our house at the beginning of this week was sick.

Sunday, I get last Sunday, a week ago, I got sick.

So there's been lots of Lysol in our house and lots of Clorox constantly, the washing machine that's been constantly going.

I'm not good at being sick.

I'm not tough.

I'm I I whine.

I'm an absolute baby.

There's lots of moaning going on when I'm sick, and I want Christy very close, just sort of like hovering over me.

So at any moment, if I ask for anything at all, she's she's there and ready.

And so Josie got sick on Monday, and we've been sick, we've been washing and Clorox and Lyson.

Maybe my dog got sick.

You know, I mean that was that was kind of like to me at the point where you're like, really?

I mean, my dog?

I mean, I mean that you know, I mean that was kind of the final straw of this week of just kind of being over it.

Um so Sunday night, I, you know, I I got sick, and um what's very clear is is it's a level playing field at the foot of the cross.

There's also a level level playing field at the foot of um the toilet.

Let's just, if we can be honest together here, um that is the moment of humanity there.

And not much matters, right?

I mean, things really get when you get sick, things that are important are clear to be important, things that are essential uh become essential.

And you understand these things.

And what's important in that process, we know this, right?

Is it's all about water.

Right?

I mean I mean that's it.

It's all hydration.

That's what that's all it is.

I mean, even this, you know, watching the news this week and you know what unfolded in the Philippines and that horrible storm that came in, and we see the devastation, we see these communities, we see these towns, and people's losing their homes, and when they get into the interviews, uh, you know, the people are mourning over their home, they're even mourning over a death of somebody.

Um, and then what subject always comes up?

Water.

This is the thing that is the most important thing.

This is the thing that will kill us if we don't have water, hydration.

And this is what John chapter 4 is about.

John 4 · chapter mention

This is the this chapter, this story is all about water.

This is the story of the woman at the well, and many of us we've heard this story, right?

I mean, we we almost don't even need another sermon on the woman at the well.

What we need is is we need we need a sermon, we need a we need a message about your story at your well and my story at my well.

Um, and so that's what this is.

This isn't just uh the Samaritan woman at the well.

This is about you, this is about me at a well.

And that's what we're gonna be looking at this morning.

So Jesus is headed to Galilee and he's he's headed through a region where he could have skipped this area called Samaria.

There's a lot of like history here.

I'd always heard you know that that you know the Jews didn't like the Samaritans.

I actually didn't know why, and so I was reading into it this week.

And what happened was years before, this is a bit of a soap opera of history, uh, years before when the Jews went into exile, some of the Jews stayed back, and when some of the Jews stayed back, some of them married into the Canaanites, and so a new race was formed.

And so with that new race formed, some new religious practice came in.

And so when the Jews came back from exile, there were the Samaritans.

And the Samaritans was a mixed race with a mixed religion, and the Jews absolutely despised them.

They were racially inferior, they were religious heretics.

Um, they they thanked God that they were not Samaritans.

I mean, they wanted nothing to do with Samaria.

They avoided their territory, they walked around it, and so Jesus decides he's gonna go through Samaria, which I love, completely love, because this is how God behaves.

It's not how we behave, right?

We we avoid people, we avoid messy people, we avoid the mess, we we hate people, we have bad feelings, we bitter, we avoid them.

I mean, and God goes into it.

And he's at this well, and he's sitting there, and it's about the six hours, so it's about midday, it's very hot.

And we pick up in the story in verse seven.

When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, and that we can just stop right there.

I mean, that this could be the most important part of this passage that Jesus is speaking to her.

I mean, and this is why when I pray that the most the greatest thing that could happen to us this morning is that you would hear, you you wouldn't hear from me, or you wouldn't hear Sam singing, but you would actually hear the truths of God and God speaking to you would be revolutionary.

And and and Jesus speaks to her, the Samaritan, this lowlife.

I mean, he should despise her.

He's a Jew, she's a Samaritan.

Will you give me a drink?

And his disciples had gone on to town to buy food.

And the Samaritan woman said to him, You're a Jew, I'm a Samaritan woman.

How can you ask me for a drink?

For Jews didn't associate with Samaritans.

I mean, she can't believe what's going on here.

I mean, this story seems kind of ordinary, but when you break it down, it's not ordinary.

I mean, the situation that the fact that it's noon, it's the middle of the day.

What this is like is this is like um, you know, middle of July.

You're in the pool, you're at the club, you're you're on your float, you're in somebody else's pool.

Pools are always better when there's somebody else's pool, you don't have to take care of it.

Go to the brashires, they have a pool, they'll take care of it, and then you can sit on the float, right?

And you're on the float at the brashier's house at their pool, and they have their gate open, and you're floating, you have your little pina colada, and it's middle of July, so it's burning hot, so every once in a while you have to splash some water up on you.

It's that hot.

You can't just sit there, you have to have water on you.

And you see, you know, Mr.

Fitness jogging down church street at 3 o'clock in the afternoon, burning hot, and and all you think is, you know, what an idiot.

I mean, he's gonna he's gonna die.

He's actually gonna ruin my afternoon because he's gonna fall down and then I'm gonna have to get up.

I'm gonna have to do something.

I'm gonna get off, I have to get off my float and like go call somebody.

I don't know if I'm gonna walk all the way out there, but I'll go call somebody and then I'll come back to my float.

Because what do you do in the summer, middle of July?

You you you you run in the morning or in the evening.

I mean, you don't go in the middle of the day.

I mean, this is what's going on here.

For this lady to be at the well in the middle of the day is like her going jogging in Atlanta in July, middle of the day.

For her to be at the well, middle of the day, what is she doing here in the middle of the day?

This makes no sense.

You draw water in the morning, you draw water in the evening.

So for her to be here is saying something that she is avoiding people.

She doesn't want to be seen.

She's some sort of outcast.

Now, a lot of us know the story, so we already kind of know why she's there, but at this point, this is all we're getting in the story.

She's some sort of outcast.

And what we also is Jesus has every reason to avoid her, but he's there also, and she can't believe that he's talking to her, and he is zoned into her.

He is into her, I mean, he is with her.

I mean, we get verse 10.

Jesus answered her because remember, she said, Well, yeah, how can you ask me for a drink?

And then he says, If you knew the gifts of God, I mean, if you knew what was going on here, if you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him, and we he would have given you living water.

I mean, Jesus is always doing this, right?

I mean, you think the conversation is about one thing, and then he starts speaking metaphorically about something else, and the person that picked up on it till later on, this is what's going on here.

She says, Sir, um, you have nothing to draw with.

She's not picking up on it.

And the well is deep.

Where can you get this living water?

Are you greater than our Father Jacob, who gave us the well and drink from it himself, as did also his sons and his flocks and herds?

And Jesus answered her, Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again.

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.

I mean, Jesus kind of just lays it out there.

And what he's talking, what he's speaking about, he's speaking about some, he's speaking about primary needs.

Right?

Primary needs like love, acceptance, validation, significance, these primary needs of life.

Not necessarily like physical survival, but the survival of the soul.

What he's saying here, he's saying, I have something for you that is as basic spiritually as water is physically, without which you have no life.

And we have these primary needs, and our primary needs can only be met in the primary source.

This is what Jesus is teaching her.

And for this lady, she's just been dropping a bucket and another well.

And we're about to discover what her well was, but remember this story isn't just about the woman at the wells, about your well, my well.

So being sick this week, watching a lot of television at random hours, and so that somewhere, maybe uh maybe Tuesday night, you know, coughing and just up and somewhere between like get shorty and a rerun of Parks and Wreck at like 2 a.m.

So there's sort of this realization, thinking about this woman at the well the whole time, and and just this realization of you know how how much I care about things that that I don't care about.

Um so I find myself caring a lot about things I don't really care about.

And then I catch myself later realizing I'm caring about things I don't care about, and then I then I realize I don't care about them, but but then I kind of go back and you know what that is, it's just it's dropping buckets into wells that don't matter.

This is the difference between beginning to discern the difference between maybe something that's good in life and something that's essential in life, the difference between what is a primary need and where do I where do I get that filled?

This is what Jesus is talking about with her.

Where are you dropping your bucket?

And so she responds in verse 15.

The woman said to him, Sir, give me this water so that I won't get thirsty and have to keep coming to sit here to draw water.

She says, I'm in, is what she says.

I mean, this sounds great.

Living water, I don't have to keep coming back.

I mean, I'm in, and then Jesus says, Um, well, go call your husband and come back.

This is a weird little conversation here, right?

Because this is the point where she says, I'm in, and then he changes the subject.

But see, the thing is, is he's he's not changing the subject.

He he actually is revealing the subject because the subject is this issue of her husband.

He's showing her the well she's been drinking of.

See, it until we see where we go to to to meet primary needs in an illegitimate way, we'll we'll never go to to to live and drink at the living well.

That that's why you think, oh, he's changing.

You know, she says she's in, just give her water.

He said, I can't give you the water until you see the fact that you you need to go call your husband.

And and this is her response.

I have no husband.

True, not the full truth, but true.

And then he Jesus says back to her, You You're right when you say you have no husband.

And this is where just the truth stings a little a little.

But the fact is you have had five husbands.

And and you know her hearing that, can you I mean, can you imagine?

I mean, I mean some some of us have had broken marriages, and maybe you've had multiple broken marriages.

I mean, to have five broken marriages, to hear somebody say that to you?

You're right, you've had five.

I mean, can you imagine what she's feeling?

She's already trying to avoid people, she's there in the middle of the day, and now somebody's somebody's put that in front of her, and he's not saying it in condemnation.

He's saying it to say, I need you to see this.

I need you to see the well you've been going to so that you'll you'll go to the living well instead.

Fact is you've had five, and the man, the man you now have is not your husband.

What you have just said is true.

I mean, this is just this is just the honesty moment of going, okay, confession, moment of confession.

Uh, you know, I I drop buckets into wells about success or approval or what my body looks like or um, you know, what people think of me or control or self-discipline, and all of these things, some of the things, these could be morally legitimate, or these could be morally illegitimate, but either way, they're not places to go and drop your bucket for the primary needs of your heart and life to be satisfied.

This week I kept thinking about that conversation with Nicodemus.

We saw it a few weeks ago, right?

Nicodemus was in John chapter 3, a chapter ago, and he was the religious guy.

John 3 · chapter mention

So he's sort of the opposite of this lady.

I mean, he was the guy who had the self-discipline.

He had the life he looked at and he said, you know, well done.

I mean, he's kind of got things under control.

He's respected in the community, he's a teacher of the law.

I mean, he's he's following all the religious things to do.

And Jesus comes to him and has a conversation with him.

That what's interesting with him is Jesus confronts him and loves him.

And then with this woman at the well, Jesus kind of comes and loves her and confronts her, going towards the same purpose.

With Nicodemus, the religious man, Jesus is trying to help him understand that well you're going to, religion, there's no life there either.

I mean, actually, you're caught in the closed circle of the law.

You're just going to keep wanting to become more self-disciplined or a better person or more moral or whatever.

And that's not going to actually bring you any significance or peace.

And it doesn't uphold your standing before God.

There's no end to it.

And then we have this immoral woman, and Jesus comes to her, and it's the same conversation.

Right?

It's the same toil, it's the same closed circle of the law.

Around and around, you go another husband, another husband, another husband, another man, another man, another man.

Over here you have Nicodemus, another rule, another law, another sacrifice.

Either way, this is the conditionality of the law.

And Jesus is saying there's relief from this.

I'm the relief.

And to Nicodemus, he comes to Nicodemus and he talks about being born again.

What's that about?

It's about life.

Right?

To be born is to come into life.

He comes to the woman at the well.

What's he talking about?

Water.

What is it to thirst and to have water?

It's to come into life.

Jesus' goal is the same with religious and irreligious, for the moral and the immoral.

His goal is for us to find life in him.

And not in these other things.

So heavy TV week for me this week, obviously, because I'm about to use another television example in a sermon.

And so we're pro-TV this morning.

And so I've gotten into Survivor for the first time.

I'm like 24 seasons behind, catching on to the wave of Survivor.

And so Christy loves Survivor Survivor.

I'm going to join in first time on the Survivor bandwagon.

I'm so into Tyson and Gervais and what's going on with them and their little team, we don't call them teams, Alliances.

Thank you.

I'm still catching on to the verbiage.

And they took out Aris and they took out Vetus.

I mean, we didn't see that come.

It was unbelievable.

Well, Tina was on the block this week and she knew she was going down.

And so they come back from their little competition or whatever, and they know some of you know I'm talking about.

Tina knew she was going down.

And there's an immunity idol.

So here's the deal: there's this little wooden thing on the island.

You find this, you can take it to the tribal council.

And it sounds so silly.

You can take it to the tribal council and present it, and you keep your life.

And so Tina comes back and she is she's frantic for the immunity idol.

It's her one shot.

Now, what she doesn't know, what we know, is Tyson already found it like a couple days ago.

Tyson just has it hidden in his wrist around a bandana.

But she's frantic for it.

She has to have it.

I mean, this is her only chance.

I mean, this is her rescue, is this immunity idol?

So she spends the better half of the day looking for this, and you're watching, going, Tina, you're wasting your time.

But this is a picture.

This is an unbelievable picture of our lives searching for an idol to rescue us, to give us life, and it won't work.

Even if you find it, it won't work.

Just a piece of wood.

That's what idols are.

They're lifeless.

It's a well without water.

About six years ago, I became friends with an older gentleman at the church I used to work at.

Brilliant guy.

Knows the Bible backward and forth, history.

He took me to Israel.

I mean, I mean, great friendship, mentor.

I mean, brilliant man.

I mean, most of you have a book of his on your shelf.

And last month he started to get more and more confused mentally.

And he was diagnosed with a disease leading to dementia, and the test results are coming back this week.

Now, a brilliant man.

If anybody has the right to drop a bucket into the well of intellect, an achievement, this is him.

And the email that went out to friends and family to say, please pray for him, said he's at peace and knows God will be glorified no matter what the outcome is.

I mean, how do you get there?

And I know him, and that's actually that's not just verbiage.

And that's that's true.

But I think you get there because when he was 19, he received Jesus as his savior and Lord, which meant that he was going to quit trying to save himself.

And he was gonna look to Jesus to do that, to make him right with God.

And then as he built his business, he had to keep reminding himself that no matter how successful this business is or what I sell it for, this is not a place to drop a bucket.

And then when he wrote his first book and Billy Graham held it up at a nationally televised crusade.

I mean, can you imagine how that would feel?

I mean, can you imagine the being able to put a bucket down into the well of Billy Graham's approval of you?

I mean, right?

I mean, this is next to God's approval of you.

I mean, you could drop a bucket in there for a while.

And and this comes from him realizing that that's no place to drop a bucket.

And when his books went on to sell millions of copies, and that's it's no place.

There's no peace that's endless.

That's how you that's how you get there, is that you keep dropping your bucket into the living well, into God himself, not God's gifts, not uh uh any any success in this world, into God Himself.

The conversation, whether it's with my friend, whether with me, with you, Nicodemus, the immoral lady, the lady of the well, it's always the same.

Life is found in God Himself.

See, you you may fail your family, fail your health, fail your finances, fail your job, fail your body.

They won't necessarily forgive you.

They won't necessarily keep loving you.

Fail Jesus?

He'll forgive you.

See, he comes to you.

I mean he he he came into Samaria and he approached this lady.

God knows you at the bottom.

At your worst.

Whether you're the moral arrogant teacher of the law, or whether you're the immoral five husbands, and I'm on a six man shacking up.

And he comes to you.

He says, I will, I will love you in this.

I will make you righteous.

I will be your living water.

Let's pray together.

God, we come before you and we just rightly confess, we drop buckets into things we have no business dropping buckets into.

We drop buckets into things that are moral, um, into religious things, into good things, into humanitarian things, and we drop buckets into them and try to try to just squeeze some life out of that for our soul, and it feels, and it works for a little bit, but we know it just we just need more and more and more.

And we know none of it can make us righteous before you.

None of it.

It is only, only by your pursuit of us, your grace toward us, your actions on the cross, your resurrection, that we find life.

And so some of us are dropping buckets into immoral things.

Things that just create destruction.

And for this we confess, and we know it's no place to find meaning or significance.

Give us faith, give us eyes to see.

To hear your voice, that says, if you knew, if you knew, if you knew the gift of God, you would ask him for a drink, and he would give it.

Amen.

Isaiah 55, verses 1 through 3 says, Come, all who are thirsty, come to the waters.

Isaiah 55:1–3

And you who have no money, come buy and eat.

Come buy wine and milk without money and without cost.

Why spend money on what is not bread, and your labor on what does not satisfy?

Listen, listen to me, eat what is good, and your soul will delight in the richest of fair.