Let Jesus Meet Your Needs
John 4:1-29 (Reading vs. 1-14)
Sermon by Rick Crandall
Grayson Baptist Church - Oct. 19, 2014
*One day years ago, I was driving up Hwy 165 with Becky and Eric. She was about 15, and he was about 12. As we drove by, we noticed that they were tearing down the old Ramada Inn in Monroe. I said something about it, because that was our honeymoon hotel.
*Eric started thinking about the fact that we had our honeymoon in our hometown of Monroe, and he asked, "Were y'all poor back then?" Becky replied, "Yeah. They were dirt poor!"
*Well, maybe we were, but it didn't seem like it. And you can have all the money in the world, and still lack the most important things: Faith, hope, love, comfort, rest and peace.
*So whether we have ten dollars or ten million dollars, we will still have needs. And Christians: God has promised to meet our needs. In Philippians 4:19, the Apostle Paul gives us this sure promise: "My God shall supply all your need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus."
*God has promised to meet our needs. -- Will you let Him do it?
1. First: Let Jesus meet your need for a friend.
*This Samaritan woman at the well needed a friend. She needed someone to love her, someone to care about her. One clue to her loneliness was the time of day she went to draw water.
*In vs. 6-7:
6. . . Jacob's well was there. Jesus therefore, being wearied from His journey, sat thus by the well. It was about the sixth hour.
7. A woman of Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, "Give Me a drink.''
*This Samaritan woman came to draw water at the sixth hour, and that was straight-up noon in the heat of the day. Nobody came to draw water then. But she came when she would be alone, probably because she had been rejected by her neighbors. She came to the well in the heat of the day to avoid their gossip and stares.
*That woman needed a good friend! We can also see this truth in her troubled past. Jesus brought her past out into the open in vs. 15-18:
15. The woman said to Him, "Sir, give me this water, that I may not thirst, nor come here to draw.''
16. Jesus said to her, "Go, call your husband, and come here.''
17. The woman answered and said, "I have no husband.'' Jesus said to her, "You have well said, 'I have no husband,'
18. for you have had five husbands, and the one whom you now have is not your husband; in that you spoke truly.''
*This troubled woman had a long history of broken relationships: Five failed marriages and a current relationship too weak for commitment. Think of the angry, hateful words she must have heard. Think of the rejection and abandonment she probably went through. Each failure pulled her farther down, until maybe she gave up on the possibility of real, unselfish love.
*But Jesus loved her. He wanted to be her Friend.
[1] And we can see the Lord's love in His walk.
*Verse 4 tells us that Jesus "needed to go through Samaria," and the reason why He needed to go there was to save this woman at the well. Samaria was the last place most Jews would go. To get from Judea to Galilee, most Jews went the long way around on the other side of the Jordon River. They took a more difficult road and almost doubled the 70-mile walk just to avoid the Samaritans.
*Jesus could have done that, but He went through Samaria, because He cared about this woman. He loved her. The fact that Jesus came down from Heaven, and walked on the earth at all was because of love.
*Verse 6 also tells us that Jesus walked until He was weary. He was willing to go the distance for this woman, because He loved her, and wanted to be her Friend.
[2] We see the Lord's love in His walk. -- And we can hear it in His talk.
*This woman was shocked when Jesus asked her for a drink of water. Listen to her answer in vs. 9: "How is it that You, being a Jew, ask a drink from me, a Samaritan woman?"
*Most Jews wouldn't even talk to Samaritans, and that hatred was mutual. It was a racial and religious divide that started hundreds of years earlier, when the northern kingdom of Israel was conquered by the Assyrians. The Jews who were left in Samaria inter-married with those outsiders. So to the Jews of Jesus' day the Samaritans were "half-breeds."
*On top of that, this was a woman. And it's hard for us to relate to this today, but to the Jews of that day, talking to a woman in public was a big "no-no." And no devout Jew would be caught dead talking to a notorious sinner like this.
*The Lord crossed all kinds of barriers when He talked to this woman, and it surprised her. It often surprises people when they realize that God has a personal interest in their life: "God, You care about me? You are willing to talk to me?"
*Notice how Jesus talked to her. He knew all about her, but He didn't condemn or criticize her. In vs. 10, the Lord started telling this woman how to have a better life. And Jesus said: "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."
*Jesus spoke with kindness, patience, understanding and concern. He genuinely wanted to be her Friend. And why did He love her? Was it because she was pretty or smart? Was it because she was a good wife or employee of the month? No. -- Jesus loved her, because as 1 John 4:16 says: "God is love." Love is the Lord's nature.
*And we can see a picture of God's love in parents' love for their new baby. Why do good parents love their tiny, new babies so much? Is it because they wake up every two hours? Cry so much? Fill their diapers fifteen times a day?
*Why do good parents love their new babies so much? Is it because they look so good? You know, some new babies don't look so good. One time I asked my Mom how I looked when I was born. At first, she said, "You looked pretty good."
*Well, she didn't sound too convincing, so, I pressed her a little bit, she laughed and said I looked pretty pitiful. You see, I was born a month early and weighed 6 pounds. Mom still seemed to be holding back, so I pressed some more. And she said: "You looked terrible, squiggly, not the prettiest baby in the world."
*Then she came out with the truth: "You looked so bad, that when people came to see you, your daddy would hold up the name card and point to another baby!" Even so, my parents loved me. Why? -- Because God put that love in them, and it's a taste of the love that He has for us.
*Do you need love? Do you need a true Friend? Jesus will meet that need.
2. Let Jesus Christ meet your need for a friend. And let Him meet your need for forgiveness.
*Jesus truly wanted to give this woman the spiritual water that gives everlasting life. But like all of us, first she had to face up to the sin in her life. Please listen again to this part of the story in vs. 10-18:
10. 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.''
11. The woman said to Him, "Sir, You have nothing to draw with, and the well is deep. Where then do You get that living water?
12. Are You greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well, and drank from it himself, as well as his sons and his livestock?''
13. Jesus answered and said to her, "Whoever drinks of this water will thirst again,
14. but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst. But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life.''
15. The woman said to Him, "Sir, give me this water, that I may not thirst, nor come here to draw.''
16. Jesus said to her, "Go, call your husband, and come here.''
17. The woman answered and said, "I have no husband.'' Jesus said to her, "You have well said, 'I have no husband,'
18. for you have had five husbands, and the one whom you now have is not your husband; in that you spoke truly.''
*We know that the woman at the well needed forgiveness, not just because she had been married five times, and not just because she was living out of wedlock. We know she needed forgiveness, because everybody needs God's forgiveness. All of us have sinned, so no matter how good we think we are, we need forgiveness from God. And God wants to forgive us! That's why Jesus Christ came into the world. That's why He died on the cross! Jesus took our punishment, so that we could be forgiven. And your sins will be forgiven, if you receive the Risen Christ as your Lord and Savior.
*God's forgiveness: We can't earn it. We could never deserve it. But God wants to give it to us, because He loves us. God wants to forgive our sins! That's why in Isaiah 1:18, He pleads with us: "Come now, and let us reason together,'' says the Lord, "Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall be as wool."
*God wants to forgive our sins! And He will forgive our sins, if we will turn to Him and trust in Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior. That's why in Ephesians 4:32, Paul could say this to all Christians: "Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, just as God in Christ also forgave you."
*Jesus Christ reached out to the woman at the well with His love and mercy. And that is the way He reaches out to us today.
3. Let Jesus meet your need for forgiveness. And let Him meet your need for fulfillment.
*Many people today run around as fast as they can, trying to find fulfillment in money, prestige, sports, entertainment or even the way they look. But they are living two-dimensional lives in a three-dimensional world. That's because living without God is not really living at all. Real life is only found in a relationship with God the Father. And this relationship can only come by God's grace through faith in His Son Jesus Christ.
*A huge part of this fulfilling relationship is worship. And here in vs. 19-26, Jesus and the woman almost seemed to stumble into the topic of worship:
19. The woman said to Him, "Sir, I perceive that You are a prophet.
20. Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, and you Jews say that in Jerusalem is the place where one ought to worship.''
21. Jesus said to her, "Woman, believe Me, the hour is coming when you will neither on this mountain, nor in Jerusalem, worship the Father.
22. You worship what you do not know; we know what we worship, for salvation is of the Jews.
23. But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for the Father is seeking such to worship Him.
24 God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth."
25. The woman said to Him, "I know that Messiah is coming, 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.''
*Jesus was trying to lead this lost and lonely woman to living water, to salvation, to faith in Him. And since Jesus showed her that He knew all about her life, she knew that He was somebody special. So, maybe out of curiosity, or maybe trying to change the subject away from her sin, she asked the Lord about the place of worship. And Jesus basically told her: "Here's the place of worship: It's not in Samaria, and it's not in Jerusalem. The real place of worship is in your spirit; it's in your heart."
*Yes, God wants us to come to church whenever we can. But just because your body is here, doesn't mean your heart's here too. Real fulfillment comes from real worship in your heart. As Jesus said in vs. 24, "God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth."
*Well, we can know the truth because we have the truth! The Bible is the only, true, written Word of God. And the written truth leads us to the living truth Jesus Christ! In John 14:6, Jesus said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me."
*Knowing Jesus is the only true way to worship God, and worshiping God is the only true way to have an abundant, fulfilled life. So don't leave worship out of your life. Worship the Lord, and you will find the greatest fulfillment.
4. Let Jesus meet your need for fulfillment. And let Him meet your need for a fresh start.
*Do you ever feel like you need a fresh start? Oh yes, we do. And in vs. 25-29, this troubled woman got a brand new start:
25. The woman said to Him, "I know that Messiah is coming, 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. And at this point His disciples came, and they marveled that He talked with a woman; yet no one said, "What do You seek?'' or, "Why are You talking with her?''
28. The woman then left her waterpot, went her way into the city, and said to the men,
29. "Come, see a Man who told me all things that I ever did. Could this be the Christ?''
*What a change! That lost and lonely woman went to the well for a drink of regular water. But she found the Living Water, and her life was never the same. The burden of her sin was gone. She was forgiven and full of life. She got a fresh start in life.
*And we can see a picture of what happened to her in the amazing story of Lewis Galdy. The story started on June 7th of 1692 in Port Royal, Jamaica. Late that morning, a terrible earthquake struck that city of 6,500 people. The sandy soil under Port Royal turned into a giant bed of quicksand, and swallowed up two thirds of the city.
*One witness said he "saw the earth open and swallow up a multitude of people, and the sea mounting in upon us over the fortifications." Lewis Galdy was among the thousands of people who were "swallowed up by the Great Earthquake." But in a bizarre turn of events, he lived!
*In fact, Lewis lived another 47 years, and he came to be known as "the man who was buried twice." You can still see his tombstone in Jamaica today, and it gives this remarkable testimony of Lewis's life:
*"Here lies the body of Lewis Galdy who departed this life at Port Royal on December 22, 1739, aged 80. He was born at Montpelier in France. But left that country for his religion and came to settle in this island, where he was swallowed up in the Great Earthquake in the year 1692. And by the providence of God was by another shock thrown into the sea and miraculously saved by swimming until a boat took him up. He lived many years after in great reputation, beloved by all and much lamented at his death." (1)
*Lewis was completely helpless, trapped beneath the quicksand. There was nothing he could do to save himself. How alone he must have felt in the dark. But he was not alone! And he was rescued by God.
*That's what happened to the Samaritan woman in a much bigger way. She was as hopeless and helpless as she could be. But then Jesus came into her life, and everything changed!
*At the beginning of the story, she hid from the people in her town, but now she hurries to tell them about Jesus! She wants everyone to know about the Man who gave her a fresh start in life! Jesus Christ gave that woman a brand-new start in life. And that's what He does for everyone who will receive him as Lord and Savior. As 2 Corinthians 5:17 says, "If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new."
*Now you may have been a Christian for 40 years, and still feel like you need a fresh start. You are not alone! Moses needed a fresh start, so did Jonah after he ran away from God, and so did Peter after he denied the Lord.
*God will give you the fresh start you need today! In Lamentations 3:22-23, the Word of God tells us:
22. Through the Lord's mercies we are not consumed, because His compassions fail not.
23. They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness.
*Our faithful God will give you a fresh start today, something that will take your life in a whole new direction, and something worth sharing.
CONCLUSION:
*Jesus Christ wants to meet all of our needs! So let Jesus meet your need for a Friend. He wants to be your Best Friend. And let Jesus Christ meet your need for forgiveness, for fulfillment, and for a fresh start in life.
*You can get started right now, as we go to God in prayer.
(1) "The Appendix" - In motion October 2014 - Vol. 2 No. 4 - "The Man Who Was Buried Twice" by Mary Draper - Published October 7, 2014 - http://theappendix.net/issues/2014/10/the-man-who-was-buried-twice
