Kaleo San Diego Church > Sermons > Jesus, God’s Well of Grace

Jesus, God’s Well of Grace

David Fairchild
Mar 2, 2008
Series: Encountering Jesus

TEXT

John 4:4-39: "And he had to pass through Samaria. 5 So he came to a town of Samaria called Sychar, near the field that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. 6 Jacob's well was there; so Jesus, wearied as he was from his journey, was sitting beside the well. It was about the sixth hour. 7 There came a woman of Samaria to draw water. Jesus said to her, ‘Give me a drink.' 8 (For his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.) 9 The Samaritan woman said to him, ‘How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?' (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.) 10 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.' 11 The woman said to him, ‘Sir, you have nothing to draw water with, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? 12 Are you greater than our father Jacob? He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock.' 13 Jesus said to her, ‘Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, 14 but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty forever. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.' 15 The woman said to him, ‘Sir, give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water.' 16 Jesus said to her, ‘Go, call your husband, and come here.' 17 The woman answered him, ‘I have no husband.' Jesus said to her, ‘You are right in saying, "I have no husband"; 18 for you have had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband. What you have said is true.' 19 The woman said to him, ‘Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet. 20 Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship.' 21 Jesus said to her, ‘Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. 22 You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23 But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. 24 God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.' 25 The woman said to him, ‘I know that Messiah is coming (he who is called Christ). When he comes, he will tell us all things.' 26 Jesus said to her, ‘I who speak to you am he.' 27 Just then his disciples came back. They marveled that he was talking with a woman, but no one said, ‘What do you seek?' or, ‘Why are you talking with her?' 28 So the woman left her water jar and went away into town and said to the people, 29 ‘Come, see a man who told me all that I ever did. Can this be the Christ?' 30 They went out of the town and were coming to him. 31 Meanwhile the disciples were urging him, saying, ‘Rabbi, eat.' 32 But he said to them, ‘I have food to eat that you do not know about.' 33 So the disciples said to one another, ‘Has anyone brought him something to eat?' 34 Jesus said to them, ‘My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work. 35 Do you not say, "There are yet four months, then comes the harvest"? Look, I tell you, lift up your eyes, and see that the fields are white for harvest. 36 Already the one who reaps is receiving wages and gathering fruit for eternal life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice together. 37 For here the saying holds true, "One sows and another reaps." 38 I sent you to reap that for which you did not labor. Others have labored, and you have entered into their labor.' 39 Many Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman's testimony, ‘He told me all that I ever did.'"

INTRODUCTION

We live in a time and culture that is very interesting. Many philosophers and cultural experts are telling us how spiritually thirsty we are, perhaps more thirsty than what we've seen in the lasts several decades. There is a spiritual longing, a need that is beyond the material.

More are more books are being written about our spiritual thirst, each trying to teach us how to find it or at least guide our thirst so that it's helpful for us and not harmful. Yet most of these books are fearful of saying anything that sounds as if it might be exclusive or insensitive to other views, other religions or even other philosophies.

Basically, these works become suggestions to try out to see if they work for you. If not, it's okay, just move on to the next book; there are about 20 that come out each week from which to choose. Yet in a time with so many resources, psychologists are telling us that we're becoming more and more thirsty, more and more unhappy. It's as if we're starving for a meal and we've been given a box of Jolly Ranchers candy.

As we've come to look at Jesus these last few weeks, to see Him rather than just discussing ideas about Him, we've noticed some things about Him that are quite shocking. Today, we come face-to-face with Jesus again and are stunned at how on the one hand He is the most welcoming, embracing, and compassionate figure and yet on the other hand he is the most challenging and frustrating person to look at when we compare Him to ourselves.

John's Gospel

We've looked at the Gospel of John the last couple of weeks and in doing so we've been asking what it is that John is showing us about Jesus. I think this week makes it clear what John is up to.

In chapter 1 of the Gospel of John we hear: John 1:1-3: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made."

John is making an astounding claim that Jesus is the Logos, the very Word of God that was with God, and that in the beginning of all things created, Jesus was not only there but everything was made through Him. This of course is stunning.

Then John goes on to say in verse 14: "And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth."

This Word became flesh, became a man, and we have seen the glory of the Son sent by the father, and he is full of grace and truth. Grace and truth! These are two things that typically do not go together.

The Law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus (v. 17).

The rest of John's Gospel is an unpacking and telling of Jesus being full of grace and truth. It is the theme that continuously comes up in the various narratives and encounters with Jesus.

He is on the one hand the most gracious figure we've ever seen, welcoming in outsiders and the marginalized. Yet on the other hand He is the most shockingly truthful figure that we've ever seen as He tells those who think they can see that they're really blind, those who think they can hear that they're really deaf, those who think they're well that they're really sick, those who think they are full that they're really hungry, those who think they've been found that they're really lost, and those who think they are satisfied that they're really dying of thirst.

He flips everyone's worldview upside down like a snow globe and shakes it. His truth pierces the hearts of those who dare to listen and see Him for who He is. The reactions are varied. Some show immediate respect and faith while others show indifference and apathy towards Him. Some fall on their faces and worship while others pick up stones to kill Him. Yet He remains the same, never wondering who He is, and fully aware of why He was sent by His Father to us.

This morning we're going to look at His conversation with the woman at the well. She is a famous figure, more famous that most humans who have ever existed. When we're dead and gone, a thousand years from now, no one will remember us, but her name and story will continue through the ages.

Jesus addresses our spiritual thirst in this story and calls us to be satisfied in the Living Water that He offers to anyone who will dare drink deeply.

In verse 10 Jesus says to the woman, "If you knew the gift of God...." Jesus wants us know, which is far more than learning facts, it's really about understanding, believing, and experiencing this truth. This story helps us to understand not only the gift of God, but who it is that's giving it.

Let's retell the story and see if we can pick up some clues as to what Jesus is saying to us here.

RETELLING THE STORY

It was a sunny morning in springtime, a time when everyone was waking earlier and earlier as they began to prepare for the barley harvest. The sun was bright and hot even by 9:00 am, and in a small and slightly run down home a woman watched outside her doorway as the men went off to work and the women in her neighborhood gathered just a couple hundred feet east of her house.

Springtime always seemed to brighten everyone's mood. There was an air of optimism and hope in the faces of the villagers. But this woman had seen spring come and go and when life was budding and the sun seemed to lovingly pour its rays upon the eager flowers, she had grown to despise this time, the sun, and the people who seemed so hopeful.

She waited until she could see the women return from their morning trip to the well some two miles away. She waited in the shadows of her home until the sun no longer seemed enjoyable but rather cruel. This was the time of day she could come out. She had grown accustomed to this ritual and found the searing heat to be a comfort since it chased away all those happy faces. She picked up her 15-pound ceramic jug and placed it upon her head, peeked outside her door and began walking quickly east towards Jacob's well.

She thought to herself, "I hope the kids aren't playing outside today." They could be so cruel and at times would throw smell pebbles at her as she passed by trying, to hit her pot. Their parents had obviously told them of her and they enjoyed ridiculing her as a sport. It wasn't the pebbles that hurt as much as it was their words. To see young faces on children distort into the same looks that she received from their mothers was almost too much to bear. She thought to herself, "If I would have been able to have a child, I would never let him play with such little brats."

But this woman had grown sharp with her tongue. Years of being a social outcast, despised by her town and ridiculed by everyone caused her to develop a tough exterior. She could fight back, not with her fists but with her words. She knew how to cut people with her words who gave her that look. Insults and sarcasm flowed effortlessly from her lips and she found enjoyment from this ability, it was her only defense.

She came to hate most everyone. Her failed relationships and multiple divorces caused her heart to grow hard and untouchable. She had come to accept that this was life, nothing more, and was resigned to being used by the man who was living with her since at least he would keep other men from assuming they could have their way with her. Her first marriage started off so well with such promise. But year after year the man grew impatient that she couldn't bear children and one day in a heated argument she heard the words which would kill their future, "I divorce you, I divorce you, I divorce you!" and then he left. All a man had to do was repeat this phrase three times and he was free from his wife and she had no say. She would hear four more men say those same words to her and after the fifth husband rejected her, leaving her with the feeling of uselessness, she determined she would never marry again. It was better take the cold stares and cruel words from strangers than it was to love someone in hope only to be rejected. She had replayed those words in her mind again and again and each time she did, she grew more and more embittered towards men. Her anger became her motivation to keep living.

The women didn't trust her. They called her a whore and some of them were the new wives of her old husbands. They rejected her after her third husband and wanted nothing to do with her, let alone to gather around the well in the morning or evening to talk. They were always a little jealous of her beauty. Getting men wasn't a problem for her. She knew how to turn on the charm and bat her eyes just the right way. But truth be told, she wanted nothing to do with them either. She often wondered if she hated them even more than they hated her. A small town was supposed to feel like a family but instead it felt like a prison. She wondered to herself if she would outlive them all and finally have peace, but she knew peace would be only a nice fiction but never reality for her.

As she walked closer to the well, she could see a man sitting on the cover beside it. She thought to herself, "He must be a stranger, or lost, or another man trying to get something from me. I wonder if someone told him I was a prostitute again to hurt me." But as she came closer she could see that he was a Jew by the blue fringe the lined his clothing. That was how to tell, since the Samaritans had a yellow fringe. Clearly this man was lost, Jews weren't supposed to travel through Samaria, let alone sit by their well. Their water wasn't good enough for a Jew and was thought to be contaminated. This man looked weary. Maybe thirst drove him to insanity and that was why he was there, his thirst.

She eyed him suspiciously and began to lift the bucket to put into the well when he started to speak to her. "Give me a drink" he said with a voice that sounded tender yet with great authority. The woman paused for a moment, a little shocked, and gave a sharp reply "How is it that you, a Jew, would ask me, a Samaritan woman, for a drink?" "He must be mad," she thought. "Jews aren't supposed to receive anything the hands of a Samaritan have touched, yet this man is asking me to give him water?" She was both curious and agitated. "Let alone a woman! What is he thinking? He obviously isn't a very holy man who is serious about his religion." Normally a woman would have quietly drawn the water without making eye contact and given it to him and then scurried away to tell her friends about the strange Jew who asked her for water. Not this woman. She had no friends to tell, plus, she wasn't about to be treated like some servant woman to a stranger. She looked him straight in the eye when she spoke. She was direct, bold, and a little curt with him.

Then this man came back just as strong, matching her directness. "If you knew the gift of God, and who it was that was asking you, ‘Give me a drink,' you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water."

"What an odd thing to say. Living water? What is he talking about?" she thought. "Sir, you have nothing to draw water with, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water?" She responded with a hint of sarcasm. "Who do you think you are? Are you greater than our father Jacob who gave us this well?"

The man said to her, "Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty forever. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life."

What strange talk from a strange man, she thought. This man speaks as if he has the authority to give me something I'm not sure I understand or need. Does he mean that he'll give me water that won't ever run out so I don't have to be put to shame every day? That would be great, but how? How could he give me this water? Even more direct, she called his bluff. "Okay, give me this water. Let's see it! Then I won't have to be thirsty and come back here again." She stood straight up, with her hands on her hips and looked him in the eye, expecting him to explain himself or stop playing such games.

Looking back at her, as if he could see right through her he said, "Go call your husband and come back." This man was deadly serious and she could feel it.

Instead of being playful and sarcastic she slammed the door of the conversation with a terse reply: "I have no husband." She went from bold and direct to completely hidden. Basically she was saying, "I'm no longer enjoying this, the conversation is over." But this man kept on invading her life with honesty. He said, "You are right in saying, 'I have no husband'; for you have had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband. What you have said is true."

He exposed the dark side of her life and confronted her half-truth. "How could he know that?" she thought. "What kind of man is this? He must be a prophet." The woman said to him, "Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet. Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship."

Instead of a short response like her last, she realized this man was no ordinary man, but she still wanted out of the conversation. This woman knew the male ego well. She buttered him up with a compliment, it had worked six times before. She learned to be both irresistible and distant, both charming and deceitful. The compliment was meant as a hook to begin a religious argument to further distance herself from this man. She turned, with the most sacred site right behind her, she took a swipe at Jerusalem and Jewish religion. She sent him a message: "You have your religion, I have mine. Don't try to change me!" She was back to being bold. In one swift move she complimented this man, changed the subject and tried to start an argument.

She thought she had deflected his questions for now. But instead of this man being insulted and giving her a quip response, this man continued to treat her with dignity and respect, something she hadn't experienced in many seasons. He answered her question. He called God Father, and told her that the Father was going to change all religion and that people would no longer need a specific building to worship God because everyone would have complete access to Him. And yes, somehow, that access to the Father would come through the Jews. God was seeking people to worship Him in Spirit and truth.

Still trying to divert his attention she said, "I know that Messiah (called Christ) is coming. When he comes he'll explain everything to us." In other words, "You can stop explaining." The fight was draining her. Her familiar way of dealing with men was in shambles. In the space of a few minutes, this master surgeon had exposed her cancer and was offering heal her completely. She was trying to say, "Let's leave this to the religious experts and not talk anymore."

But he wasn't finished. Jesus declared to her, "I who speak to you am He." He told this blunt, manipulative, and dishonest Samaritan woman who he was. Just as she was taking all this in, some of this man's followers came back and asked Him what he was doing talking to her. They saw he was moving toward her in love. The woman left her water jar, went back to the town, and invited the men with a statement: "Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Christ?" They came out of town and made their way back toward him.

She didn't come out and say, "This is the Christ," but instead raised the question, and expected that he'd show them who he really was. "Come and meet a man who moved into my world!" "Come and meet a man who saw right through me and yet accepted me!" "Come and meet a man who loved me just as I am!" "Come meet a man who showed me how empty I was! Could this be the person promised from God, who would save us from ourselves?" The men came pouring out of the town towards Jesus.

The disciples wanted him to eat something; they knew he was hungry and weary. But Jesus wasn't hungry anymore. He was full because he had done His Father's will in loving this woman and pointing her to a deeper source of life and joy. When Jesus saw the woman returning with the man streaming after her, he told the disciples, "Open your eyes and look." Look at all these people. They are the real harvest field. Here are more people to love, more worshippers for His heavenly Father.

Questions

What do you notice about this woman?

What is admirable and enjoyable about this woman?

What is so shocking about Jesus' response to this woman?

How do you think Jesus feels about this conversation? Enjoyment, indifference, displeasure?

I. The Gift is Shocking

Q- What do you find so surprising about this story?

Jesus was willing to break down the barriers that separated them. Jesus reaches out across every social, cultural, moral and religious barrier.

She was a Samaritan. She was considered to be racially and religiously inferior to the Jews. They were not just racial half-breeds, they were spiritual half-breeds and worse than Pagans because they married paganism with Judaism

Q- What are the disciples most shocked by-the fact the Jesus was speaking to a Samaritan or that Jesus was speaking to a woman?

She was a woman. Every culture, Roman, Jewish, Greek, or Samaritan had an incredibly low view of women. This story reminds us of how terribly women were treated. They were considered to be beneath the man and certainly a Jewish Rabbi of any respect and reputation wouldn't dare be caught speaking to a woman in public.

Q- What other reason should have kept Jesus from her?

She was a moral and social outcast. She came alone because she had been ostracized by the other women. We know this because she came at high noon when all the women would have been gone from their morning drawing of water and before their evening drawing of water. The women probably didn't trust her. They didn't want to draw water with her, and she probably didn't want to draw water with them because of their judgments against her.

She was on the outside of every inner ring. She was a racial, gender, religious and moral outsider and as distant from Jesus as could be.

This certainly isn't the first time that Jesus has broken through barriers, specifically with women. Remember on the morning of His resurrection, the day we're going to celebrate in a couple of weeks called Easter, Jesus waits for everyone to leave and picks someone to be the first to reveal Himself to. Who was it? Mary Magdalene. A woman with a terrible reputation, a total outsider, not someone who was known for her virtue or intelligence; instead she was a reformed mental patient and a prostitute. At a time when the testimony of women wasn't even permitted in court, Jesus chooses her to be the first witness of His resurrection.

Q- Why does He do this?

If you knew the gift of God, you would know this. His living water is a gift. His living water is grace, and this means that no matter what your history, background, or how outside of society and God you are, by grace you're welcomed in.

God's favor is not given on the basis of status, race, history, gender, accomplishments, or your goodness. This is why it's so shocking!

Every religion and philosophy isn't a surprise. In each of these you know who's supposed to be favored by God or others. It's the moral ones, the religious ones, the devoted ones, the intelligent ones. It's the one's who purify themselves that find God. There's no surprise because they deserve to be favored.

But with Christianity it's a surprise. Look at this woman. She is living a totally irreligious life. There's no crying out. There's no spiritual seeking. She isn't looking for God or the Messiah. Jesus keeps telling her about living water and she isn't getting it because she doesn't think she's thirsty.

On that day she wasn't going to pray, to read the Scripture, or to find God. This day she went with no more reason that just to get water, no higher purpose. But when she left, she went away a changed person because Jesus' grace is a surprise.

How could such a woman become one of the most famous people in the world? Because it's a surprise. Anyone, anywhere, can meet Jesus and have Jesus. It doesn't matter how far you've slipped. That's why it's so shocking.

If grace isn't a surprise to you, if you've come to expect it and it no longer is shocking, then you're going to find yourself dry and thirsting and in many ways no different than the world. The world says it's what you do, or how well you're educated, or how attractive you are, and it puts pressure on you to live up. Beauty is killing us. Women are being put under the knife and the largest group of steroid users today are no longer athletes, but young and middle aged men who are taking it to build an attractive physique.

When we come into the family of God, we have to leave the values of the world at the door. Merit, power, attractiveness, and pedigree shouldn't be what matters in how we treat one another. If those things are still most important to you, than you don't really understand the gift of God and the One who's giving it.

The fact that it does means that grace is no longer a surprise to you; it's become something predictable and expected. You end up with a push-button God who is like a cosmic vending machine. You put in the right kind of work and discipline, and you expect God's favor. But that's not this story is it?

The living water comes by grace and is a surprise, but what is it?

II. The Gift is True Satisfaction

When Jesus says He's there to give her living water, it is more than just caring for her physical thirst. So what is He saying? Why does He use this metaphor?

Most of us have never lived in a climate like this without running water in our homes. Most of us have never seen someone die of thirst or experienced what it is like to almost whither away under the sun.

Our bodies are made of water. We have more of an immediate need of water than we do for food. We die faster from dehydration before we die from starvation. We can live weeks without food but only days without water.

Your tongue swells up so you can't swallow. You get a pounding headache. Your muscles begin to twitch, and it feels like the sun that's beating down on your body on the outside is burning your inside. Your throat feels like it's on fire and you feel incredibly painful inside and you lay down to die in torment.

Jesus says to us that what our soul needs is every bit more important than that our body needs water. And if we go to any other source, our thirst will only get worse.

Have you ever seen movies where people survive on a life raft after their boat sinks? What happens to the people in these stories when they become overwhelmingly thirsty and are surrounded by water? They try to drink the water. And what happens when they do? It drives them mad, they go insane, and they die quickly. Saltwater kills you more quickly, but it looks like the real thing and initially satisfies.

What Jesus is saying is that if you put the bucket of your soul into to any other cause, relationship, hope, security, rest or beauty, you'll die even faster. Then He says that if we drink of the water He gives, it will become a spring in you that flows continuously.

Every other water we drink from is a well that we keep plunging our buckets into, and wells can be blocked and can dry up. But you can't clog a spring; it keeps bubbling up and will always flow through whatever tries to block it. These other things we try to draw from only leave us with greater thirst. What happens when our idols (wells) are blocked or kept from us? We fall apart. Is it your family, looks, control in your relationships, comfort, pleasure, power, respect? What happens when these wells dry up? You die of thirst, you try to dig another well.

Jesus can give us a purpose, a love, a peace, a hope, a security and beauty that will never dry up if you believe in Him. No matter what happens, no matter how quickly all other wells dry up in your life, His will never dry up but will bubble up forever.

It's a surprise; it's ultimate satisfaction, and it comes in surprising ways.

III. The Gift comes in surprising ways

This woman didn't believe she was thirsty, yet Jesus begins to expose how thirsty she really was. There were stages in this conversation.

1- How did Jesus go about reaching this woman? He got her alone. He would have never had this conversation around the other women.

How did he get her alone? She screwed her life up. Jesus uses her screw ups to get her alone. Some of you know what I'm talking about don't you? You see, when we're successful and have a bunch of friends around us, everything feels fine. When your health is good, when you have enough vacation and you feel rested, when your bills are paid and your relationship with your significant other is going really well, you don't think you need anything else in your life; you feel satisfied. But when you blow it, when things fall apart, and when you make a mess of things, all of a sudden you're willing to listen. No one asks deep and profound questions when they're drinking Mai Tai's on the beach in Maui. It's when everything we've been clinging to comes apart that we begin examine our lives through the lens of reality. Only then can some of us make sober assessments of where we are. Why would we bother with the existence of God, with the reality of Jesus, and with the meaning of life unless we're forced to ask the question?

This is why it is so difficult for younger people because they have their health, their future, and a ton of distractions that are still very attractive to them to keep them from thinking. But as you get older, those things no longer keep you entertained as well as they once did and they begin to lose their attractiveness to you, so you find more mature idols to worship and deeper wells from which to draw.

2- He gets you thinking. He speaks to her to get her thinking. Christianity is more than just thinking, but it never is less. This is what Jesus does to us. When he gets us alone, we begin to be interested and we start thinking through what all this means.

Maybe this is happening to you right now. This is good. He's cornering you and not letting you go.

3- He gets personal with you. In v. 15 she has come as far as she can. She's not getting what He's saying. She's thinking of the physical and trying to avoid going any deeper.

Jesus then says, "Go get your husband." But why would He change the subject? He didn't. He isn't trying to condemn her, but to convict her. He's not switching the subject to something else.

She is basically saying, "I'm not spiritually thirsty. That's not my problem." Jesus is saying, "Really? Go get your husband." "But I don't have a husband," she says. "Yeah, men have been running your life for years. It's not just one man, its men. You don't think you're thirsty, but you're deeply thirsting for intimacy, for acceptance, for security, for approval, for love. You just haven't seen what it is you're really seeking. You're deeply thirsting but you're drinking at the fountain of male approval, acceptance, and sex."

Some of you might be saying, "That's interesting, I just wish I had enough faith to believe it." Jesus is showing us that you don't have to manufacture faith, or wait for more to come; you simply have to transfer it from where you've already got it. You don't have to get adoration for Jesus, you just have to transfer it from where it is. We're all plunging our buckets in to give us meaning and purpose some place. We're putting our faith and adoration some place. It just needs to be moved from what will never satisfy to what will never end.

It's not just sex or relationships. It can be career, money, political causes, status, control, or any other thing.

Until you go and bring it to Jesus you're never going to really understand what He's saying here. Until you find your idols, you're not really going to find Him. You have to find what well you've been drawing from and bring it to Him.

Maybe this is what Jesus is saying to you. Go get your ______! What is it?

You have to find where you've been drinking from before you'll see that you're really spiritually thirsty.

Get your false masters, your pseudo saviors, your false lovers and bring them here.

C.S. Lewis captures the idea of what faith initially feels like in a children's story. A schoolgirl named Jill Pole goes to a stream to drink, but at the side of the stream lies a large lion. She stops. The lion tells her, "If you're thirsty, you may drink." Jill hesitates.

"Are you not thirsty?" said the Lion.

"I'm dying of thirst," said Jill.

"Then drink," said the Lion.

"May I-could I-would you mind going away while I do?" said Jill.

The Lion answered this only by a look and a very low growl...

"Will you promise not to-do anything to me if I come?" said Jill.

"I make no promise," said the Lion...

"Do you eat girls?" she said.

"I have swallowed up girls and boys, women and men, kings and emperors, cities and realms," said the Lion. It didn't say this as if it were boasting, nor as if it were sorry, nor as if it were angry. It just said it.

"I dare not come and drink," said Jill.

"Then you will die of thirst," said the Lion.

"Oh dear!" said Jill, coming another step nearer. "I must go and look for another stream, then."

"There is no other stream," said the Lion.

4- He reveals Himself to you. When He gets you alone, and gets you thinking and gets personal with you and shows you what well you've been drinking from, then you can really see Him for who He is!

Why is God letting these things happen to you? Maybe He's getting you alone. Maybe He's saying to you, "Go get your husband." Put them along side Him and He's saying nothing can compare.

IV. The Gift is available for Anyone

Why is this great living water available for anybody? The woman says to Him in one great last effort to change the subject. She says, "Where should we be worshipping?" She wants a religious debate. But Jesus doesn't say she doesn't need a temple.

Jesus is saying to her that hour is coming and now is! What does His hour mean? His death. This is what John means by it, the hour of His death. Jesus is saying you need a Temple and I'm the Temple. You need a place of sacrifice and worship or your sins can't be forgiven.

This story begins with Jesus saying, "Give me a drink," because He's thirsty. But this isn't the last time Jesus says this. On the cross, Jesus, at His hour, thirsts in a way that you and I can't even imagine. He is utterly cut off from His Father and experiences the rejection that every one of us deserves.

How is Jesus the Temple? Because Jesus cried out "I thirst." On the cross, at His hour, Jesus experienced what 10,000 suns would do to us physically, except He experienced it spiritually and emotionally. God's eternal justice, His blazing sun of judgment came down on Him.

Psalms 22:14-15: "I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint; my heart is like wax; it is melted within my breast; 15 my strength is dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue sticks to my jaws; you lay me in the dust of death."

He died of thirst so we could have the living water. He died of torment so that we could have the cool water of God in our soul forever.

The favor of God's face is what we need; it's what we're built for. Jesus experiences the ultimate thirst so we can experience God's ultimate favor and the Living Water that nourishes our soul.

How do you know if you've received the living water?

1-He means everything to her. Did she run away and say, "Come see a moral code that's changed me"? No, she said, "Come look at Him!"

2-She took joy in her repentance. She went away and declared, "Come see a man that told me everything I ever did!" Why would she say such a thing? Was she happy about this? Did she want to be told about all her men? This is how you can know you're a Christian. But true Christians know that repentance is the way to break the chains of false saviors, of our idols. She is free to admit her failure.

3-She turns and goes to those who once ridiculed her. Jesus didn't have to tell her, "Go now and reach all those people who hurt you so that you can have my favor." She knew the gift of God and the one who gave it to her. It was grace and she knew it. This meant she was free to love people she previously hated and who hated her. Jesus doesn't have to tell her to do this. She loves the people who abused her because He's first now and it doesn't matter what they think of her anymore. She's truly free.

How many of you are still having to go outside to find wells to draw from? Are you lacking the spring of living water so that you no longer have to find other things to quench your thirst? Follow this woman. She's changed, she loves repentance, she turns to love those who've hated her. Something has happened.

Don't believe the lie that you're too messed up for the living water to satisfy you. If you believe that, you don't know the gift of God and the One who gives it!