A Woman Finally Obeys Her Thirst

Well, let me invite you to turn in your Bibles this morning to John 4. John chapter 4 for a time of study in God's word, this, this morning. And if you want to give a title to the message this morning, it would be a woman finally obeys her thirst. A woman finally obeys her thirst and we'll be focusing on verses 10 through 19 of John 4, this morning.

I, last week in the mail received a flyer. Advertising and informing me about the supposedly next hottest drink to hit the beverage market, and this is supposed to be really amazing and it was a several page flyer giving me all the information about it, but this flyer was intended to not get me necessarily to buy the product but to invest. In this company. And as I was reading through this flyer over the last week or two, I've just been amazed at how big the beverage industry is.

Just alcoholic beverages alone and all of its variety is $113 billion market per year in our country. And then all the non-alcoholic beverages is an $80 billion. market. We have every variety of taste, and things are only getting more complicated as more offerings are out there to satisfy your thirst.

You want regular, you want diet, you want caffeine, you want caffeine free. There are drinks to suit your taste, right? I remember back in the day when there used to be a thing called Gatorade. There was just Gatorade.

Now there's over 30 different flavors of Gatorade, including lime cucumber. Like, who thought of that? And why are they still selling that? Like, I remember when it first came out, I got a bottle and I drank it.

It's like, this is not going to last long, but they're still selling the stuff people like. That flavor. there are smoothies of every variety, milkshakes, there's tap water. There's bottled water, and I just learned last week in Caroup about alkaline water.

I was told that man, once you start drinking alkaline water, you'll never go back to drinking normal water again. And then on top of that, there are coffees and all things Starbucks. It's, it's just crazy. Gone are the days when you walk into a coffee shop and say, with this being a coffee shop and all, I'd like to order a coffee.

I'm exaggerating a little bit. people still order a coffee, but that's really not the norm. Things are so complicated now. In fact, back in 2008, the CEO of Starbucks was speaking to 6000 of their shareholders, and he was sharing with them the five points, the five point plan for serving Starbucks.

Customers, and one of those 5 points is this Starbucks will not charge for syrups, milk, alternatives, and other extras added to drinks, no matter how numerous or complex. And customers take them fully up on that. So, if someone walks into Starbucks and orders a venti, half skinny, half 1% extra hot split quad shot, 2 shots decaf, 2 shots regular latte with whip. They will oblige the customer and give them whatever it is that they've asked for.

I marvel at those who work at Starbucks, that they're not utterly beside themselves crazy, just an hour into their workday dealing with all of these specificities. of taste and orders. Sprite, the beverage company, once had an advertising campaign slogan that said, obey your thirst. And everyone seems to be doing that nowadays.

We become very introspective, as it were, and asking when we walk into a restaurant or into a store, and we, we just look within ourselves and we're asking, what am I thirsty for? Precisely. What am I thirsty for? And we have restaurants and stores that are happy to cater to our every whim and give us exactly what we want.

And in many cases, and they're happy to charge us $6 for the drink that we ordered. I'm not knocking any of this. I think it's great, have at it. I have at it myself.

But it's just amazing to me that we give so much detailed. Attention to obeying our physical thirst. And yet, in our culture today, and even in the church, we give so little attention to obeying our spiritual thirst. And yet there is no more important issue than this, the matter of how we satisfy our spiritual thirst.

We saw last Sunday that inside of every person is a huge gaping cavernous thirst that only Christ can satisfy. And it's an important thing what we do with that thirst. We need to be students of that thirst, and also make right choices when it comes to satisfying that thirst. Let me give you three quick facts before we actually get into John 4 about this matter of quenching.

Our thirst. Fact number one, your thirst quenching choices are a big deal. They're a big deal. You're responsible for the choices that you make with regards to how you quench your thirst.

And you and I are going to be judged by God. We're going to give an account one day for what we did with our thirst and how we chose to satisfy our thirst, the most epic choices you make. The most important choices you make in life are how you quench your thirst. Such choices literally captivate the attention of heaven.

Heaven is your audience, and you and I are on the stage, as it were, and heaven rejoices, weeps, is excited or appalled. at the choices that we make regarding how to satisfy our thirst. In fact, in Jeremiah 2, listen to Jehovah God, as he's observing his people, his own people. And the choices that they made with regard to how to satisfy their thirst.

Jehovah God says, be appalled, oh heavens, at this, and shudder, be very desolate, declares the Lord, for my people have committed two evils. They have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, to heal for themselves cisterns, broken cisterns that can hold no water. Jehovah God is saying this is appalling. And he calls upon heaven to look and be appalled with him.

You are responsible for the choices that you make, regarding how to satisfy your thirst, your choices in this matter make for incredibly gripping and compelling theater. And heaven, as all of heaven watches those choices that you make from day to day. There's probably nothing that says more about you and where you're at. than the choices you make in quenching your spiritual thirst.

If you want to know what person you are, ask yourself, how do I satisfy this gaping thirst that I have inside of me? The true measure of a person is what he or she drinks. From day to day. Your thirst quenching choices are a big deal.

Secondly, the Bible is a book that's all about this topic of hunger and thirst. I'm cheating a little bit by showing you this on the screen. But let me just ask you a question. What is the first command that God speaks to any human being in human history?

The first command. The first command was a command delivered to Adam before Eve was even. created from Adam's side. And it says in Genesis chapter 2, verse 16, the Lord God commanded the man, here comes the command.

Here's the first command from any tree of the garden, freely eat. That's the first command. It's not don't eat of this tree, the first command is of every tree of the garden. Eat, freely eat, gorge yourself.

God is saying to Adam, feast yourself on what I have provided for you in this garden. That's the first command that God delivers to Adam in the garden. Let me ask you another question. What is the last command that or invitation that God delivers on the pages of scripture?

What's the last thing he says? You go to the end of the book of Revelation, and it ends with a benediction. And then before that benediction is a warning that says, don't you dare add to this or take away from it or judgments and plagues be upon you. Prior to that epilogue with the warnings and the benediction, what's the last thing God says to us?

Revelation 22:7. Here it is. Let the one who is thirsty come. Let the one who wishes take the water of life without cost.

The beginning of the Bible, feast. End of the Bible, you're thirsty, come, take the water of life without cost. And in between both of those is all you need to know about your hunger and thirst, the nature of it, and how that can be fully satisfied. That leads to a third quick fact, and that is that Jesus cares about your thirst.

He would say, actually, this is what, this is why I came from heaven to earth. This is why I'm here. I am here to address your thirst problem. And we see this theme in the Gospel of John and John 6:35, Jesus said to them, I am the bread of life.

He who comes to me shall not hunger, and he who believes in me shall never thirst. And John 7:37 and 38, Jesus says, if any man is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. He who believes in me as the scripture said from his innermost being shall flow rivers of living water. That's in John chapter 6 and John chapter 7.

And then in our passage in John 4, Jesus is very preoccupied with this woman of Samaria's thirst problem. And he's basically saying, I'm here to address your thirst problem. Let me begin reading the passage in John 4:10. And we'll read through verse 19.

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. She said to him, Sir, you have nothing to draw with, and the well is deep. Where then do you get that living water? You are not greater than our father Jacob, are you, who gave us the well and drank of it himself and his sons and his cattle.

And Jesus answered and said to her, Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again. But whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall never thirst. But the water that I will give him will become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life. And the woman said to him, Sir, give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty, nor come all the way here to draw.

And he said to her, Go call your husband and come here. And the woman answered and said, I have no husband. And Jesus said to her, You have correctly said, I have no husband, for you have had 5 husbands, and the one whom you now have is not your husband. This you have said truly.

And the woman said to him, Sir, I perceive that you Are a prophet. This is the word of God, and may God help us to understand. His word this morning. Last week, we began in verse 1 and made it all the way to verse 15.

And we looked at those verse from the vantage point of things that Christ did to bring this woman to a place of getting her thirst quenched. What we're going to do today, here's how we'll Structure things will focus our orientation will be more from the woman's vantage point. And we're going to observe seven steps, essentially that this Samaritan woman takes toward finally getting her thirst. Truly quenched.

Every one of you in this room have a massive gaping, cavernous thirst inside of you that only Christ can fill. And the journey that this woman takes, is a journey that you and I need to take as well. We can learn much from this, this woman. Let's observe the seven steps.

And the first few of these will be by way of review, but we'll throw a few extra things in. As we go and then we'll pick up where we left off last week in verse 16. And try to get through verse 19 today. the first step that this woman takes toward getting her thirst quenched is she learns of the gift of God, and the identity and the eagerness of Jesus.

Jesus answered and said to her, If you knew the gift of God, and if you knew who it is, who says to you, give me a drink, you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water. Jesus is saying, woman, if, if you just knew the gift of God, there is a living water that God gives. You have a thirst, and God has a gift for you. And that gift is the very thing that you most need to quench your thirst.

It just so happens, Jesus is saying that there is a perfect match between your thirst, and the gift of God that can quench your thirst. He also says if you knew who it is who speaks to you, basically. understand that Jesus isn't saying, hey, if you knew the gift of God over here, and if you knew who it is who speaks to you, as if it's two separate things, really, it's one and the same, the gift of God, and the one seated before her speaking to her. are one and the same.

What is the gift of God? It's Jesus. He is the one that God has given to us to satisfy our thirst. Jesus is the beverage of life.

That is the perfect match for our thirst. And Jesus says, if you knew the gift of God, ie, if you knew the identity of the one who is talking to you right now, you would have already asked him. this is amazing. Jesus, they're not 20 seconds into their conversation.

And Jesus is saying, if you knew who I was, if you knew the gift of God, you would have already requested this living water from me. And I would have just as swiftly granted your request and given you this living water. This is the eagerness of Jesus. And he, he can't hold it in if you just knew the gift of God, if you just knew me, You would have already asked and I would have already given to you this living water.

So this woman is learning, she's listening to Jesus, she's learning about the gift of God and the identity and the eagerness of Jesus. And then secondly, the second step towards her getting her thirst quenched, is she listens to Jesus' promises of eternal thirst quenching satisfaction. She listens to Jesus' promises of eternal thirst quenching satisfaction. Jesus answered and said to her, Everyone who drinks of this water shall thirst again.

Just notice, first of all, that he gets negative on her. He doesn't just point to him and say, hey, I can satisfy you. No, he first points to the well where this woman was going. And he's saying, let me tell you something about this water.

You drink of this water, and it won't touch your soul thirst. You drink of this water, and you will thirst. Again, this water will not satisfy, it definitely won't satisfy the soul. There's not enough water in this well.

There's not enough water on the planet to satisfy the cavernous need. That is in your soul. Jesus does the same for us. He comes to us to help us with our thirst problem.

And he doesn't merely point to himself first. What he does first is he points to everything else that we run to for satisfaction. And he says, this won't satisfy you. Trust me, when I tell you that these things you run to, That you drink deeply of, they won't satisfy you.

This relationship that you are running to and clinging to for satisfaction. It won't satisfy you. Money, popularity, physical fitness, skinniness, beauty, career advancement, sex, marriage. Pornography, a new house, a new car, a different spouse, a transformed spouse.

Jesus would point to all of those things, good and bad, and he would say, if you are depending upon these things to quench your thirst, they will fail you. You will be left thirsty. Positively, he says in verse 14, but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him, he shall never thirst, he'll never go thirsty. In fact, not only will you never go thirsty, but that water that you drink from me will enter into you and it will form a pool, and then from a pool, it will form a spring, and it will begin to bubble forth up within you onto eternal life.

What Jesus is saying is, I will give you a satisfaction that will come to you from the inside out. And it will have nothing to do with your external circumstances. Guys, I want you to feel the massiveness of the promise here. Jesus is not just making stuff up, like, this sounds like a pious messianic thing to say.

So hey, let's say it. No, he's, I came from heaven to tell. You this. I know what I'm talking about.

I am here to deal with your thirst problem, your soul thirst. And I'm telling you that if you receive of this water that I give, you'll never go thirsty, and this water will enter into you. And from the deepest parts of your being, it will bubble forth. up from within you, onto eternal life.

I know what I'm talking about. I know what I want to give you, this will happen to you, Jesus says. And it'll come, the satisfaction will come from the inside out, and it will have nothing to do with your circumstances. think about it.

If I, if I were to do a survey this morning, And just tell you all, pull out a piece of paper and answer this question. What would it take to make you satisfied? What, what would your answer be? Oh, I, I know, I know what it'd be.

Lord, change my spouse. Change my husband, change my wife, give me a spouse. I want to be married. Give me this particular boyfriend or girlfriend.

Give me money. Give me a job, and I will be satisfied. Give me a new boss, and I will be satisfied. Give me a new care group.

Or just let me go shopping. And I will be Satisfied. That's part of what drives. Our economics today, it's thirsty people.

On shopping sprees. Trying to satisfy a thirst that nothing you ever can buy will ever quench, so you just buy more and you buy more. Last night, someone in our church gave me some lyrics of a song by John Mayer. Entitled Something's missing.

And in one part of the song he's not a Christian by any stretch of the imagination. But he says, I'm dizzy from the shopping mall. I searched for joy, but I bought it all. It doesn't help the hunger pains.

And a thirst I'd have to drown first to ever satiate. I go shopping. I've bought everything money can buy. And it doesn't help the hunger?

In the thirst, honest admission, and it's exactly what Jesus is saying here. But Jesus is saying, I, I can give you satisfaction that will well up from within you, that's not dependent on your circumstances. Timothy Keller says it this way, Jesus says here, there's nothing outside of you that can truly satisfy the thirst that is deep down inside of you. To continue the metaphor a bit further, you don't need water splashed on your face, you need water that comes from even deeper down inside you than the thirst itself.

And Jesus is saying, I can give it, I can give you absolute unfathomable satisfaction in the core of your being, regardless of what happens outside, regardless of your circumstances. Jesus, I came from heaven. To tell you this, I know what I'm talking about, and I know who I am, I know what I want to do for you. Receive this living water from me, and this will happen to you.

This woman hears this. And learns of these promises, and that moves her to the 3rd step, and that is she asked Jesus to be her thirst quencher. She believes in Jesus as her thirst quencher, and the woman said to him, Sir, give me this water. So that I will not Be thirsty.

Give me this water. Give me this water so that I will not be thirsty. She's admitting her thirst to Jesus. She's expressing her faith that he can give her the water that she's asking for that her soul needs.

And she believes that if he gives this to me, I will not be thirsty any longer. And she's humbly asking Jesus, she's coming to Jesus and asking for this. Water She's believing in Jesus as her thirst quencher. Let me ask you, This morning, have you asked Jesus to be your thirst quencher?

Do you believe in Jesus as your thirst quencher? You say, well, Pastor, I, I believe in Jesus as my Lord and Savior, my blessed redeemer. Great. That's all biblical.

But let's try to just use different language to shock us out of our normal way of thinking that sometimes as true as everything is, we can lose the meaning. Let me just ask you, have you believed in Jesus as your thirst quencher? Does the way you lived your life over this past week give evidence that you believe in Jesus as your thirst quencher? What are the things that you over this past week have asked to be your thirst?

Quencher. Think about it. Think about it. We are always drinking.

We're always drinking all the time. Anytime you go to a book to read, you're drinking. Anytime you plug yourself in music to listen to, no matter what it is, you're drinking that music in, when you choose to think over things, to think about people to relate to your drinking, and I'm asking you, what have you been drinking this week? You've been drinking Facebook?

Some relationships, some man, some woman, you've been drinking, pornography, sports, career achievement, internet surfing, lustful fantasies. Have you been nursing grievances that have been done against you? Yeah, you're drinking. You're drinking that in.

But it doesn't satisfy, does it? You've been wallowing? And self-pity, you're drinking self-pity. You've been feeling good about yourself, reviewing your moral superiority to other people.

You've been drinking. Your own righteousness, the list is endless. See, we don't word it this way. We don't go to those things and say, oh, self pity quench my thirst.

Oh, Facebook, quench my thirst. But that's what we're asking. We're always drinking. And as you look back over this past week, my question is, is there sufficient evidence?

That Jesus is your thirst quencher. Is there just clear demonstrable evidence that person has believed in Jesus as their thirst quencher. As you look to the days of this coming week, how will you live? And will you believe in Jesus as your thirst quencher?

Will you ask him, how many times this coming week will you ask Him, Lord, give me this water, quench my thirst. I want you to quench it. I don't want anyone else to quench it. This woman believed in Jesus.

As her thirst quencher, there's a 4th step that she took that brought her to a place of Getting her thirst finally quenched, her soul thirst, and that is she becomes fed up with her life as she knew it. The woman said to him, Sir, give me this water so that I will not be thirsty nor come all the way here to draw. You remember what we talked about last week? some say this woman is so dense that she's just not understanding what Jesus is saying.

She still thinks he's talking about physical water, and she's like, oh, well, give me this physical water, so I don't have to make this trip out here to get water from this well. But when we unpacked this last week, we chose to understand it differently and to give this woman a little bit more credit here. This is a bright-minded woman, who I believe knows what she's after, and, and understanding what Jesus is talking about, and whatever it is, she wants it. Remember, this woman is coming to this well, a half mile outside of the city limits.

She's passing up other sources of water that scholars say were more available and closer to where she would have lived in the city. She's walking past all of that to come a half mile outside of the city at 12 noon in the heat of the day to get water from this particular well. We also know that women, tended to go to a well together. But this woman's all alone.

And commentators look at this woman in the heat of the day, going to a well, well outside of the city by herself. What's going on here? And, and looking at that last week, we were able to see that this woman, when you understand her moral history, this woman is a moral outcast who is used to being judged. By other people.

And this is a woman who is coming to this well at this time of the day, so as not to run into anybody, so as not to have to talk to anybody, so as not to endure any scornful stares or jittering gossip amongst others who are at the other wells closer, and maybe In the morning or in the evening when the women tended to draw water from the wells. This woman, in effect, is saying, Jesus, give me this water, so that I won't be thirsty, so that I won't be making the lifestyle choices that I've been making that render me a moral outcast who has to slink around in the heat of the day, and to come way out here to get my water.

Alone This woman, maybe prior to today, she thought the trade-off was worth it. We know this woman, we're going to see.

She had 5 husbands and that was all in her past, and now she's with someone, almost certainly sexually, when you look at the language, who's not her husband. And so she's, she's in this relationship with this man. And obviously, she deemed that to be something that she wanted. And maybe prior to this day in this moment, what, if they have this 6th man, means that I got to go get water in the heat of the day, a half mile outside of the city, that's a trade-off that's worth it for me.

But now here she is on this day. Standing before Jesus, who is the epitome of purity, open faced honesty, earnestness, and love. And suddenly this woman doesn't want to do this anymore. She's fed up, she's ready for it to end.

She's tired of living the way that she is living. I believe even in this moment, she's becoming born again, and beginning to see as she ought to see. She's tired of her life. As she has known it.

I just want to ask you today, are you tired of your life? If you're living a life where you're not getting your thirst quenched, By Jesus, are you tired of the hiding? Are you tired of the secret sin? Are you tired of the guilt?

Are you tired of the secrecy and the lies? Are you tired of the loneliness that comes from holding on to your precious? Are you tired of being trapped and all alone inside of your concealments and your deceptions? Yeah, You succeeded And hiding the truth about something from other people, congratulations.

But in the process, you've just Trapped yourself. Behind walls of your own making, that stand between you and other people. And now other people look at you and they may love you, but now, you're asking, would they love me? If they really knew the truth about me.

It's a lonely life. A life of sin, a life of deception. And this woman, at this moment is saying, I don't want to do this anymore. In fact, look at verse 15.

I want to encourage you to mark the word here. This is a pretty rare word in the New Testament. It, this word here is not the normal word for here in the New Testament. in fact, this particular word here only shows up twice in John's Gospel.

And that is here in verse 15 and in verse 16. So she's saying, give me this water so that I won't be thirsty, and I won't have to come all the way here to draw. just mark that word and hold that for just a second, as we move to the 5th step that this woman takes. And her journey to getting her thirst quenched, and that is she lets Jesus go to her sin issues.

She lets Jesus go to her sin issues. And what, she sticks around. She sticks around Jesus said to her, go. Call your husband And come here.

There's that word here. Again, what he's saying? He's saying, ma'am, you don't want to come here anymore. Actually, my goal right now is not to prevent you from coming here anymore.

In fact, let's go here, shall we? I think you need to come here at least one more time. And so he says, go. Call your husband.

And let's go here. Come here. Now why does Jesus bring this up? why does he bring up this matter of going and getting her husband?

Is this a brand new topic that has nothing to do with the topic of thirst? No, it's got everything to do with it. What Jesus is essentially saying is this, ma'am, if, if I'm going to deal with your thirst problem, we're going to have to do a little bit of surgery, and I'm going to have to go after, Where you have been running to. To satisfy your thirst.

You've been drinking from the well of marriages and men. And how's that working out for you? So go get your man. Go get your man.

And come here. I'll tell you, like I, I'm just falling in love more and more with Jesus, like looking at John 3 and 4, what he does here. I staggering in its ingenuity. He thinks about everything.

He, he, he words this in a way that gives this woman an opportunity to really reveal where she's at. He's being a perfect gentleman here. If this woman wants to walk away right now and pretend, she absolutely can. Jesus literally says, go, go.

You're, you're free to leave. In fact, I'm instructing you, go call your man. And come here. I love what one writer, Lensky says, and saying, go call Jesus gives her the opportunity to pretend that she has a husband, and that she now goes to call him, thus avoiding confession, and thus also getting away from Jesus altogether.

Oh, as a pastor, I've seen this. He he's saying, go call your husband. And she could have said, I'm getting uncomfortable here. yeah, what, yeah, I'll go, I'll, I'll get, I'll get my husband, he's in the city, or maybe he's not.

He may be actually out of town right now, but I'm going to go check and I'll find him. And if I can, if it all works out, I'll be back here, maybe later this afternoon. Yeah, I'll be back. I'll see you then.

And then just Get away from Jesus altogether. She's got a perfect tailor-made opportunity to just pretend, go along with it, and get out of Jesus' presence as quickly as she can. And yet amazingly, this woman stands her ground and in her heart she's like, I'm not going anywhere. I'm not going anywhere.

Lensky goes on to say this, the woman makes no move to go. She's not trying to get away. She does not lie by pretending that she has a husband. She stands there before this strange Jew and confesses her shame.

I have no husband. And those few words cost the woman something. what it cost her? Everything.

It cost her her freedom. She lobs it out there. It's not the full story. Jesus is not asking for her full story.

But she lobs it out there. And she stands there ready for whatever. Jesus chooses to do with it. When she says I have no husband.

Which you could translate that, I have no man, or I have no husband. What she's saying is I possess no man right now. I'm not in a marriage relationship with a man who is officially mine. So what she's saying It is true.

She's absolutely right in the statement, I have no husband. There are some writers, read the commentaries on this, there are writers that just lay into this woman for her dishonesty. and I, I just don't, I don't know that they give this woman enough credit and give the work of God in her heart enough credit. This is a bright minded woman who's giving every indication of responding in a positive way to Jesus.

Whatever you think about what she says and saying, I have no husband, whatever your opinion of that is, it needs to be colored and shaped by what Jesus says about what she says. And if you look at what Jesus says in verse 7, he pays her two compliments. You have well said, he says, and then look at the end of verse 18, this you have said truly, he pays her two compliments. You've spoken well, and you've spoken truly and saying, I have no husband.

This you have said truly. Look at what Jesus says, verse 17. He said to her, you've well said, I have no husband. For you have had 5 husbands, and the one whom you now have is not your husband.

This you have said truly. Even in, in Jewish culture, she's a Samaritan. In Jewish culture, two marriages for a woman. It was already somewhat, it was enough to get some stars.

3 marriages was, pretty scandalous. This woman has had 5 marriages, and she's either dumped these men because they didn't satisfy her, or she's been dumped by these men. John Piper said that there's no woman who goes through this many relationships who does not either start out insatiably thirsty. or who does not end up Incredibly thirsty.

5 marriages, 5 failed marriages. And Jesus says, let me tell you about your history. You have had 5 husbands, 5 husbands. And let me tell you what you're doing right now.

The one whom you now have, the man that you are right now having, that you're living with, that you're in a relationship with, that you're being intimate with, The one, the man you are right now having is not your husband. And in saying that, he could be saying one of two things. He could be saying the man you're with now, inappropriately, he's not your husband yet. Or he could be saying, the man you're with now, he's not your husband.

Which means what? She's messing around with someone else's husband. This woman very possibly is living in an adulterous relationship. With a man who belongs to another woman.

This woman is in sin. And Jesus is saying, let's go here. Shall we? Hear me well, men and women.

Christ is not interested in a relationship with you and me that does not go to our sin issues. He loves you too much for that. If you want a relationship with Jesus, and you find him going to your sin issues, don't be surprised at that. I love what DA Carson says in his commentary on John.

Listen to this. If Jesus is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, inevitably, he will deal with sin and those who express some interest in knowing and following Him. You come to Jesus, say, I want to know you, I want to follow you. I want to have a relationship with you.

And then he goes to your sin issues, you need to let him do that and not be surprised by that because after all, he is the Lamb of God who takes away sin, where he sees it. Jesus, just imagine how these words. must have sounded to this woman. the things that you have done that maybe no one in this room knows about.

Just imagine the person you respect more than any other actually speaking out loud what you have done. In your presence. How would that sound to you? And Jesus is speaking her history, and he's speaking her present.

He speaks about her sin history with unflinching honesty. He does not hold back. He does not sugarcoat her past. He does not sugarcoat.

Her presence sin, and she is observing here, if I want a relationship with this man, It will entail allowing him to speak to me with relentless and uncompromising truthfulness about my sin. This is where most people bail. They don't want a relationship with a savior who does this. Just affirm me, Jesus.

Tell me what's good about me. Don't speak to me about my sin. But what, this woman's different. Not only is she OK with that, but in a few verses, verse 29, we're going to see her running around town, saying to everybody, come and see a man who told me everything I ever did.

She's not going around saying, guys, get out of town. There's a man here who knows everything that I've done and you've done. Run away from him if you see him approaching. No, she's like, come and see.

Let's move towards this man who has told me everything I've ever done. He's safe. He's safe. And I'm not afraid to go back to him.

In fact, I'm going back to him. I just want to bring you with me to this man who knows everything and has told me everything I've ever done. This is what we need. That's the way someone who's truly been born again responds to the relentless truthfulness of Jesus as he addresses our sin problem.

But what? When a person does what this woman has done, there's a huge payoff. And it's really sweet. And here's the payoff.

Step 6, this woman comes to see that Jesus knows her utterly and loves her still. In reading some of the commentaries on this, the word devastating got used a few times by different writers who they, they, they imagine that as Jesus spoke, what he spoke about you've had 5 husbands and the one you're with now is not your husband. They imagined that that was devastating. To this woman, crushing to this, this woman.

They may be right. My opinion is that this is the most freeing thing this woman has ever heard. why? Because what it shows is this man who has been being really nice to her, and courteous to her, and loving towards her.

He already knew everything about her. Everything. this woman, is used to being scorned. And an outcast and rejected.

She's used to the dirty looks, the jittering gossip from people who are judging her, and in many cases, rightly judging her. She knew what it was like to be treated that way by people who knew her. She no doubt Of experienced someone coming through town who didn't know her, who saw her and smiled at her and said hello and chatted with her, and they're being friendly and in her mind, she's like, yeah, they, they don't know me. That's why they're being this way towards me.

And then maybe that person stayed in town for a little while, and they're nice to her for a few days, but then one day, she notices their countenance has totally changed. And she's, she would know. OK. Yeah.

Somebody told them. They know me now, and I know that because they've changed in the way that they're relating to me. And so Jesus is engaging this woman with incredible courtesy, love, and respect. He's opening his heart to her, just saying, I want to give you something so bad, this living water.

I want to give this to you. If you just knew me and the gift of God, and I would imagine this woman is hearing this, saying, Yeah, but my concern is if you only knew me. You would not be offering me this. And you would not be speaking to me.

You would not be asking me to give you water. You would not want to drink from my utensil. You, you would not want to give me this water that you're talking about, if you knew me. So, I don't know who you are, but I can pretty much be safe in assuming that whoever you are, you don't know me, and that's why you're being kind and courteous to me.

And so when Jesus says, go get your husband, she probably thought, there you go, he obviously doesn't know me because I don't have a husband right now. She's like, I don't have a husband. And then for Jesus to look at her and say, you are so right. You are so right when you say you don't have a husband, you've had 5.

And the one you're with now is not yours. As, as this woman hears Jesus say this, she realizes, this man, who has been nice, loving, courteous and kind to me, He knows me. He knows me. This is not devastating at all.

This is the most comforting thing she's ever heard in her life. Guys, it's one thing to be loved. To be loved. But not known is shallow.

To be known and not loved, that's our worst nightmare. To be loved and fully known by the same friend. That's a slice of heaven. That is what quenches our thirst.

That's what we're hungry for, is it not to be fully known and fully loved by the same person? See Jesus and saying what he says to this woman, he's not just merely exposing her sin. He's revealing himself as the omniscient lover of her soul, the all knowing lover of her soul. You see, this is our greatest need.

We don't just need a lover of our soul. We need an all knowing lover of our soul. And that's Jesus. And that's what quenches our thirst.

So this woman is in a great place right now. And, and she's so humble. Look at the last step that she takes, and we'll end here. She embraces, she accepts Jesus' assessment.

Of her, says, and the woman said to him, Sir, I perceive that you're a prophet. This is so packed with meaning. She could have said, Sir, this is none of your business. Sir, you're wrong.

You got me wrong. You're mistaking me for somebody else. How do me? No, her response is a humble response of saying, Sir, I perceive that you're a prophet.

Do you realize, guys, this is her way of saying, sir, you are exactly right. About me. You're perfectly right in your assessment of me. I don't deny a word of what you said, but rather, I announced that what you just said about me is perfectly right.

See, back in this day, prophets were viewed as having special insight into people, and they did. In fact, in Luke 7, we studied this passage a number of months ago, where a woman comes into a place where Jesus was dining. And she begins to wipe his feet with her tears and hair. Remember that?

And the people sitting at the table are watching Jesus receiving love from this sinful woman. And their thought is, if this man were a prophet, he would know who is touching him, and what woman she is. Prophets were supposed to know this. That's why after Jesus was condemned by the Sanhedrin, they blindfolded him and started punching him and they're saying, prophesy, and tell us who hit you.

Prophets are supposed to know that even if they're blindfolded. And so prophets had insight into people. That's why Nathan can go to David and tell him a little story and David pronounce his judgment on a man and Nathan can say, you are the man. You are the man.

Prophets have insight into the people. God gives them that insight. And for Jesus to say you've had 5 husbands, and the one you're with now is not your husband, for this woman to say, Sir, I'm perceiving that you are a prophet. That's just her way of saying you're right.

And only a prophet could know what it is that you have just said to me about me. And real quick, Keep in mind this is a Samaritan woman. The Samaritans only embraced the 1st 5 books of the Old Testament. They rejected everything else.

So if you ask this woman who was the last prophet in Israel's history, What would her answer have been? Moses She didn't believe Isaiah, Jeremiah, Hosea, Habakkuk. She didn't believe that they were true prophets of God. In her theology, Moses was the last prophet of God.

And in Deuteronomy 18:18, look at this promise. God says, I will raise up a prophet from among their countrymen like you, Moses, and I will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I command him. There's another prophet that I'm going to raise up and in Samaritan theology, that prophet had not come yet. That prophet spoken about in Deuteronomy 18:18 was the Messiah.

So here's a woman who believes that there's not been a prophet at all in the land of Israel, since Moses. And so for her a Samaritan to look at Jesus and say, Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet. That's, she's saying you are in the same order of Moses. In fact, what she's really saying is, sir, I am perceiving that you are the prophet.

You are the Messianic prophet. This is the first blush at her beginning to give foggy expression to the idea that this is the Messiah. Although that reality will come dawning on her beautifully in just a few verses from here. Guys, this is the gospel.

This is our savior. Don't you love Jesus? What a beautiful savior. Jesus is God's gift to you.

If you're here today, and you've never believed in Jesus, Jesus came from heaven to take care of your thirst problem. And he's saying, listen, I'm the heaven sent one. I left heaven to come to you to make this offer of myself to you. I am the gift of God that is a perfect match for your massive thirst that is inside of your soul.

And I give myself to you. I died on the cross so that I could be your Savior. I hung on the cross and thirsted. So that I could satisfy your thirst, and I'm eager to give myself to you.

And I love you and this love is not a shallow love. I know all of your sin. I know everything you've ever done. I know what you're doing now.

I know what you did last night at 2 in the morning. I know everything about you. And I'm still here talking to you saying, I want to give you living water. I want to be the omniscient, all-knowing lover of your soul.

I want to be your thirst quencher. And he would say to you, obey your thirst and come to me. And drink. Let's pray together Encourage you to fill out your connection card and, any ways that this message has spoken to you or, Anything we can pray with you about or rejoice with you about, put that on the back of the connection card and we will, as a staff, be happy to lift those things up to God for you.

You're visiting, feel free, if you're comfortable doing so, putting that card in the offering bag as it goes by, letting us know that. If there's any way we can minister to you, please let us know. God, I just pray if there's any here today that have never run to you, Jesus, and, and drank of you, that, that you would just touch their hearts and bring them to that same place that you brought this Samaritan woman. There's no more important topic for them than what we're talking about right now.

May they believe in you as their Lord, as their Savior, and as their thirst quencher. And for us who are believers, Lord, we so often stray and we go to muddied streams to drink cisterns, broken cisterns that hold no water, teach us daily. To come to you and ask you. To give us this water, may we drink daily.

May we believe in you daily as our thirst quencher. Lord, we thank you for this opportunity also to give of our offerings to you. We just put before you the need that we have in our general fund. And we just ask you, Lord, to provide for us as a church, meet the needs, supply the ministries of this church, through the giving of your people, and give us as elders wisdom and just looking at how you're leading in all of this and adjustments that need to be made in order to make sure that we're living within our expenses as a church.

We just want to follow you, whatever that is, Lord. Give us, give us your wisdom. And meet our needs. You're a good God, Lord, thank you for the privilege of giving to you.

We just give ourselves to you. The omniscient lover of our soul in the name of Jesus, and all God's people said, Amen.