IF YOU KNEW THE GIFT OF GOD!
JOHN 4:10
INTRODUCTION
A. HUMOR
1. Did you hear about the man who had emergency surgery on his hand and lost 3 fingers? The man asked the man if he could still write.
2. The doctor answered, “Maybe, but don’t count on it.”
B. TEXT
5 So he came to a town in Samaria... 6 Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about noon. 7 When 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.) 9 The 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.) 10 Jesus 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? 13 Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, 14 but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” 15 The 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.” 16 He told her, “Go, call your husband and come back.” 17 “I have no husband,” she replied. Jesus said to her, “You are right when you say you have no husband. 18 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.... 25 I know that Messiah” (called Christ) “is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.” 26 Then Jesus declared, “I, the one speaking to you—I am He.” JOHN 4:5-11, 13-19, 25-26.
C. THESIS
1. Tonight we’re looking at a woman who encountered Jesus unexpectedly. At first she thought He was just another Jew, but before long she found herself face to face with God.
2. The title of this message is, “If You Knew the Gift of God!”
I. A LADY’S VISIT TO THE FOUNTAIN
A. THE WOMAN WAS THIRSTY
1. We find this woman making her way to Jacob’s well to get some water. No doubt she was thirsty. But she wasn’t just physically thirsty, she was spiritually thirsty! How do we know?
2. The Lord Jesus revealed in John 4:18, “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.”
3. This woman had gone through five husbands and was currently with another man. Evidently she was searching for something but wasn’t finding it. Yet she kept trying. What she was searching for was not a man, but a relationship -- with God.
4. Many people do this; they keep searching for something but they don’t know what it is. The unmet need is to connect to the Life of God on the inside.
B. SHE CAME TO JACOB’S WELL
1. She must have run out of water at her house and her thirst drove her to go to the well of her fathers, the place where her family had always gone to slake their thirst.
2. When this woman went to Jacob’s well to releave her thirst, she was going to the wrong place; a place that could never satisfy her on the inside.
3. Aptly enough, this well is named after her forefather “Jacob”, which was his name before his encounter with God at the Jabbok. The name “Jacob” means “deceiver.” This woman is a picture of the thirsty world seeking satisfaction in all the wrong places, finding only false advertising of satisfaction.
C. JESUS WAS THERE
1. This time was different, Jesus was there! Beside the deceptive well sat the well established by God since the foundation of the world.
2. Jesus pointed out to her that she had come to draw water from the Well of Sychar, which was not “living water”, but surface water, runoff, stagnant, flat, dead.
3. He offered her living water, Because He is “the fountain of living waters” (according to Jer. 17:13).
4. Jesus then made an eternal declaration; "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." (John 4:10, NKJV)
D. DO WE UNDERSTAND THIS GIFT?
1. My question tonight is – “Do we Pentecostals/ modern Christians understand a. the size of the gift, b. the value of the gift, c. the diversity of the gift Jesus is speaking about?
2. Do WE know the gift of God? Do we understand it? Do we know all about it? Are we availing ourselves of this treasure? What do we really know of this gift? I will try now to describe it.
II. THE GIFT OF GOD IS...
A. SOMETHING GOD WANTS YOU TO HAVE
1. First, the term "gift" is "dorean," and refers to a free gift or an act done undeservedly. The gift is a “grace” endowment, i.e., it’s freely given. You don’t have to work for it or be “good-enough” for it – it’s a FREE gift! (We all like free things!) So you don’t have to “deserve” it.
2. Paul said, "For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast." (Eph. 2:8-9, NKJV).
3. All you have to do is ask for it. In Isaiah 55:1 God said, “Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost.” The point is, GOD WANTS YOU TO HAVE HIS GIFT of eternal Life!
B. IT’S A GIFT WHICH SATISFIES YOUR THIRST
1. The world offers what it can never give. I tried everything the world said would make me happy, but it didn’t. I never found the inner peace, fullness, or joy until I found Jesus. As soon as I met Him, I shouted, “I’ve finally found what I’ve been longing for!” It wasn’t a mental thing, but the emptiness of my heart was filled with the love of God.
2. Jesus told the woman, “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” Jn. 4:14 NKJV.
C. IT’S A GIFT WHICH IMPARTS LIFE
1. “And this is the testimony: God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life” 1 John 5:11-12.
2. The life of God, or eternal life, is the life-giving force that flows from the Being of God, Who is self-generating. This divine Life can best be described as similar to electricity. Just as electricity animates, illuminates, and empowers machines, so does the Life of God animate, illuminate and impart life to all living creatures. Created things, whether physical, human, or angelic, do not possess divine life except as they are in contact with God. When mankind fell into sin, the Life of God ceased to flow, spiritually, into our spirits, and we became separated from God.
3. When this woman met Jesus at the well, she met the Divine dynamo, the point of issue – where God has breached the barrier between Heaven and Earth, in Christ – and allowed His life to flow out again. Jesus was offering her something far richer than water; He offered her the Life of God! Thais was the “gift” of which He spoke. He offers it to us as well. Will you drink of it?
D. A GIFT WHICH CLEANSES US
1. When you’re filthy dirty, it’s natural – for most people – to want to get cleaned off. What feels better, when you’re hot and sweaty, than a hot shower/ bath?
2. Spiritually, we’re all dirty and need to be cleansed. Even when our sins are forgiven through Christ, we still must be cleansed of our bad habits, impure thoughts, rebellious will, etc. The Gift of God Jesus was talking about, does this too.
3. Listen to God’s prophecy for His people, speaking of the Holy Spirit; Ezekiel 36:25, “I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols.”
4. Praise God! What a promise – cleansing! Made whiter than snow! Pure before God!
E. A GIFT WHICH IS FRUIT PRODUCING
1. Gal. 5:22,23, “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.”
2. Flowing from the Life of God is not only a power that eliminates evil from its presence, but also a positive, beautiful wave of God’s character that begins to be formed in us. That’s what the “fruit” (out-growth) of the Spirit is. We are being conformed into the image of Jesus Christ.
3. Paul said, “But we all, with unveiled faces, looking, as in a mirror, at the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit” 2 Cor. 3:18, NASB.
CONCLUSION
A. ILLUSTRATION: STORY OF JESUS SAVING GANG THUG
1. Jon Ponder, a 3-time convicted felon, was in solitary confinement at a prison in Las Vegas when a chaplain came by and tried talking to him through the flap in his door. “I called him every name in the book,” Jon said. The chaplain slipped a Bible through the flap and said, “Jesus loves you.” Jon left the Bible on the floor.
2. Jon grew up in New York with no father and found his identity in gangs, drug addiction and crime. “My life just spiraled out of control.” He robbed a bank and found himself surrounded by police officers. It was at that moment he said he heard God speaking to his heart, telling him everything would be OK. He was awaiting sentencing when the chaplain came by.
3. Out of boredom, Jon picked up the Bible. “Something grabbed ahold of me, and I started reading and I couldn’t put it down.” The influence of his godly grandmother in Mississippi all came back to encourage him.
4. The chaplain dropping another book through the flap in Jon’s door; Billy Graham’s autobiography, Just As I Am. “It was the first book Jon ever read cover to cover.”
5. Another inmate left his transistor radio to Jon. It would only receive one station - a Christian radio station and Jon soon heard a message on the Prodigal Son. “I stood up in that prison cell and surrendered my life to Jesus. From then on, I’ve never looked back.”
6. Shackled in a tiny, stainless steel holding cell, waiting to be called before the judge, Jon started talking to God. “God, I know that you’re real. Go before me into that courtroom.” The Judge said, “Do you have anything to say?” Jon said, “I’m going to use every chance I have to change my life and be who God made me to be. I’ve been running from God my whole life, but now I’ve surrendered to Him.”
7. The judge leaned back in his chair and removed his glasses. He said he’d never heard anything like that. Instead of 23 years behind bars, Jon got five. Jon became the founder of Hope for Prisoners, a Las Vegas nonprofit working in seven institutions across Nevada.
8. President Donald Trump granted Jon a full pardon—to Jon’s complete surprise. I’m still overwhelmed about that. “God said to me, ‘This is great,’ but He says, ‘Remember, I pardoned you in that prison cell all those years ago.”
B. THE CALL
1. Jesus declares; "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." (John 4:10, NKJV)
2. How many of you want to receive “the gift of God” that Jesus is offering tonight? Lift up your hands.
3. How many of you have something missing and you want Jesus to fill your empty spot? Let’s pray!
