Grace and peace to you, my beloved brothers and sisters. It is a joy to gather with you today, to share in the warmth of our fellowship, to feel the bonds of our shared faith, and to find solace and strength in the Word of God. We are indeed a family, united by the blood of Christ, bound by His love, and driven by His mission to save those who are lost. Today, we turn our hearts and minds to a topic of great importance, a topic that we don’t always state clearly, but is alluded to in sermons, that is having a solid foundation in Christ Jesus.
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If you ever had the chance of watching a skyscraper under construction, you would notice that for the first six months or so of the project, all the workmen do is make a huge hole in the ground. To build a tall building by starting below the surface level seems almost crazy. But, as you would suspect, there is a good reason for the big hole. To build a large building, it is first necessary to dig down until a strong foundation can be built, one that can support the skyscraper.
A doghouse normally does not need a foundation, and an ordinary house can be built on little more than a concrete slab. But a skyscraper, that is different. It requires a deep and solid foundation.
So, it is in our Christian life. Our upward spiritual potential is totally dependent on the foundation underneath it.
A woman of Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give Me a drink.” For His disciples had gone away into the city to buy food. Then the woman of Samaria said to Him, “How is it that You, being a Jew, ask a drink from me, a Samaritan woman?” For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.
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.” 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?
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?” Jesus answered and said to her, “Whoever drinks of this water will thirst again, 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.” The woman said to Him, “Sir, give me this water, that I may not thirst, nor come here to draw.”
John 4:7-15
I believe we all have been preached to about the women at the well in one way or another. And that is the good thing about the Bible, that one set of Scriptures can be used to provide for many different life applications. Today is no different as we apply it to the life application of us building the kingdom of God upon the foundation that was laid by Jesus Christ, and that is thru evangelism.
In building a living foundation let us look closely at how it is done by the master. To do this let us look at a contrast between this chapter and chapter 3, where Jesus is speaking with Nicodemus about being born again. In both chapters we see Jesus going about the business of winning souls. In chapter 3 Christ deals with a man, in this chapter, a woman. In chapter 3 He deals with a Jew, in this chapter, a Samaritan. In Chapter 3 He deals with a moral person, while in this chapter He deals with an immoral person. Yet He renews their way of thinking, causing them to trust in Him and be saved.
So, we read that Jesus opens the conversation with the woman by asking her for a drink. It is with this opening that Christ Jesus transcends the many barriers that would keep you and I from approaching another person to speak the Gospel of Christ. Jesus first transcends the racial barrier; as He is a Jew, and she is a Samaritan; two groups that normally would have nothing to do with the other. Secondly, He transcends the gender barrier as in those days it would be unseemly for a man to just speak with a strange woman. So, we can see that as far as Jesus is concerned soul winning should have no boundaries; and this is something that we should keep in mind as we are commanded by Christ to go out and build a living foundation.
Again, let us look at the Master as He tackles these supposed boundaries; the woman makes the statement: “How is it that You, being a Jew, ask a drink from me, a Samaritan woman?” She posed this question because Jews have no dealings with Samaritans or Gentiles in general. Notice that Jesus does not entertain her question by explaining why He is doing what He is doing but gets right to the point of her spiritual needs. Again, looking at chapter 3 Jesus dealt with Nicodemus in much the same way, by ignoring his questions of amazement and gets right to the heart of the matter of Nicodemus’ spiritual deadness.
Like I mentioned at the beginning, a skyscraper needs a deep hole to start its construction, and here we see Jesus digging deep into the person, bypassing the superficial and getting to the heart. That is what He wants to do to you and I, to dig into our heart and use it as the solid foundation for our spiritual life to rest steadily upon.
Here we find another application for our building of a living foundation: do not get bogged down in theological debates with those whose souls hang in the balance. Many things we speak to people about Jesus, or for any other subject…when they don’t like what you’re saying they will bring up pointless arguments to avoid accepting Christ Jesus.
In verse 10 we read where Jesus tries to point the woman to her need for Christ Jesus, as He tells her about the gift from God, where eternal life through Jesus is. But the woman is still thinking on this physical plain and believes that the living water lies at the deepest part of the well. And in this we can see that we, as we go about our daily walk that we must keep the focus upon Christ Jesus so that we can build a living foundation, that which is built on solid ground. And is something Paul tells us about in Ephesians 2:19-22.
Now, therefore, you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone, in whom the whole building,
being fitted together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also are being built together for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit.
And in the lifting of the name Jesus, we are not only building a living foundation, but becoming a part of the foundation. A foundation solid and steady because it is built upon the sacrificial work of Christ Jesus; a work that is sure and true, a foundation as solid as a rock, and one so mighty that not even the gates of hell can prevail against it. When we build our work and deeds upon the rock that is Jesus we cannot fail, and no one can tear it apart. When we put our hope and trust upon Jesus, we stand mighty against any storm and our spiritual house remains anchored when the winds blow and the storm rages on.
Back to our text of the day we see in verses 13 and 14 where Jesus tells the woman of a fact: that the physical water will satisfy us for a while, and we will again come back for more. But the spiritual water that He brings will satisfy us throughout eternity. And because we have taken the spiritual water that is Jesus, we will live that eternal life in heaven. And it is incumbent upon us as Disciples of Christ to inform the lost souls of the world that the things of the world are temporary and they will be crawling back for more, but that the love of Christ Jesus and the blessing He brings are eternal.
And if you know that the Holy Spirit dwells within you, then you can go about building a living foundation. For John 7:37-39 tells us.
On the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out, saying, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.”
But this He spoke concerning the Spirit, whom those believing in Him would receive; for the Holy Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.
And it is because of the saving work that Christ Jesus did for us, that we can now be that well-spring that imparts living water to a sin-sick soul, a sin sick world. The Spirit that lives in you will be that torrent of spiritual water that someone of the world needs to be freed from the bondage of sin.
The well of water that springs up in the believer manifests itself as the unspeakable joy of knowing that we have a savior who loves us enough to give His life for our iniquity; knowing that we have a savior who looks beyond our faults and sees our needs. And we know this by reading the next few verses of our text here in chapter 4; where Jesus brings up the subject of the woman living in a sinful condition with a man who is not her husband. This He does not do to bring judgment upon her, and not to shame her, but to cause a conviction in her heart which will bring her around to repentance.
Here is an illustration that shows our need for a solid foundation:
A noticeably short man wanted to drive a nail in his wall to hang a picture. He stood on a chair, but he was still short of his goal. His wife placed a box on the chair, but that was still not high enough. So, a stool was placed on top of the box. Balancing himself precariously, the do-it-yourself picture hanger began to tap lightly on the nail with his hammer. “Why don’t you hit it harder?” asked his wife. “You’ll never drive the nail in that way!” Our hero looked down from his perch to reply, “How can a man hit anything hard while on a shaky foundation like this?”
And so, it is this predicament that we find ourselves when we do not keep our feet firmly planted in that of the foundation that is Jesus. We find ourselves on shaky and wobbly ground when we stray from the Word and talk about things we have not studied or trusted in the Lord with. Jesus told His disciples to take no thought on what they needed to say, as they would get what to say at the time it is needed.
So, know that you and I have been tasked with building a living foundation, and in so doing we need to start it on solid ground, something sure and unmovable. That solid ground is Jesus, and we need to build it upon that of His finished work on the cross.
