4. he Is The Giver Of Living Water Series

Who Is This Jesus?

4. He is the giver of living water

John 4:1-26, John 7:37-39

October 2/3, 2004

Don Jaques

MAIN IDEA: All people can come to Jesus and have him give them the living water of the Holy Spirit to nourish their souls.

INTRO:

I remember that growing up I was a very competitive young boy. When it came time to play at recess – I played HARD. Basketball, soccer, keep away, football – you name it. I held nothing back. And when I came back in from recess there was usually two things I wanted to do – one was get a paper towel and try to wipe the sweat off my face and forehead and neck. The other was to go to the drinking fountain and DRINK and DRINK and DRINK. I couldn’t get enough water before someone would say something really bright like, “Hey Donald save some for the fish!”

Have you ever been thirsty? Sure we all have our own story and can connect with that feeling of FINALLY getting some cool liquid down our throat.

Imagine for a second that whenever you felt thirsty all you had to do was to push a certain part on your arm, and water started flowing out of your index finger. You had a drinking fountain flowing from within you.

Sound strange? Sound impossible? Well – it’s similar to what Jesus tells a thirsty woman in John chapter 4. At first she didn’t quite know what he meant – but in time she came to understand. And today, some of you might be a bit confused by what Jesus has to say about something called “living water” – but by the end of this message you should have a much better grasp on not only what it is, but how to get it, and what difference it can make in your life.

Let’s turn to John 4.

Background: In John 3 Jesus meets with the Pharisee Nicodemus and tells him that he must be born again. In the last half of the chapter, we learn that the crowds who had been following John the Baptist are starting to leave him and follow after Jesus.

John 4:1-42

1The Pharisees heard that Jesus was gaining and baptizing more disciples than John, 2although in fact it was not Jesus who baptized, but his disciples. 3When the Lord learned of this, he left Judea and went back once more to Galilee.

4Now he had to go through Samaria. 5So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph. 6Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about the sixth hour.

7When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, "Will you give me a drink?" 8(His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.)

9The Samaritan woman said to him, "You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?" (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.)

10Jesus answered her, "If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water."

11"Sir," the woman said, "you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? 12Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his flocks and herds?"

13Jesus answered, "Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, 14but 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."

15The woman said to him, "Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water."

16He told her, "Go, call your husband and come back."

17"I have no husband," she replied.

18Jesus said to her, "You are right when you say you have no husband. The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true."

19"Sir," the woman said, "I can see that you are a prophet. 20Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem."

21Jesus declared, "Believe me, woman, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. 22You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. 24God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth."