INTRODUCTION
Have you ever taken the time to sit back and take look at your life? Have you ever taken the time to look back on your life to see where you have been and then tried to look a head to see where you want to be?
At this point in your life do you know what you want out of life or is life just a blur of busyness?
What are you looking for out of life? How many of your lives are busy?
Have you ever been thirsty for something? You were so thirsty for that item that nothing else would satisfy or refresh your thirst.
Each of us are looking for refreshment in our lives. We are all living busy lives. We start out looking forward to that 16th birthday, and then we look forward to getting out of high school. We continue our search for refreshment by thinking about getting the college degree, then the job and somewhere along the line a spouse, then children, then retirement. We keep thinking that each of the upcoming steps in life will bring satisfaction to us only to find that it does not.
Today as we continue on our Journey with Jesus, we find ourselves back at the well where Jesus comes across a Samaritan woman.
Face it. Day to day life can be boring and mundane. It can leave us feeling weary and dreary.
The woman at the well was looking for refreshment for her life. From what we see in the text, we can assume that this woman needed some refreshment in her life. This woman went to a well to get some water, but what she got was something that would satisfy her thirst for the rest of her life and for all of eternity.
Today, you too can have real refreshment in life that will satisfy your inner hunger and thirst for eternity.
Today we are going to look at three steps that will lead us down the path to real refreshment.
SERMON
I. KNOW WHERE TO LOOK 10-11
This woman that Jesus converses with is looking for refreshment from a well of water. She went looking for something to refresh her physical thirst. Little did she know what she was going to receive from Jesus?
READ VERSES 7-10-11
In verse 10 Jesus tells us a little bit about where we can find real refreshment.
He tells the woman that real refreshment is a gift from God that can be found through Jesus.
In JOHN 7:37-38 Jesus said, “Now on the last day, the great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out, saying, "If anyone is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink. "He who believes in Me, as the Scripture said, ’From his innermost being will flow rivers of living water.’"
There was a country song that I remember from when I was a kid. It was called something like “Looking For Love”. The song had a line in it that said, “looking for love in all the wrong places looking for love in too many places”.
In our lives, we tend to look for refreshment or some relief from the mundane activities of life in all the wrong places.
If we are going to find real refreshment, we need to know where to look for it.
In today’s world people are looking for relief from the rigors of life. People will look for this relief in the bars, they will look for it in the entertainment arena or they will look outside of their marriages to find relief.
This poor woman was looking for refreshment all of her life and until this point she did not know where to look.
As I have dealt with people since I became a Christian, I find that people will look everywhere else but Jesus for real refreshment in life.
I do not know why this is except that maybe at time Christians do not live their lives in such a way that it reflects any amount of refreshment from the rigors of life.
Some of this may come from the fact that in many churches, you will have a small number of people doing most of the work. When this happens, church can become a burden instead of a joy.
Jesus never intended His church to be a drain on His people. If will all pitch in and work according to our areas of giftedness, then the church will grow.
We will have a sense of refreshment in our lives and because we are serving something other than ourselves, we will be more open to share our faith with other people.
This woman had no clue as to where to find the source of real refreshment.
This woman starts asking Jesus questions about water and Jesus is trying to lead her to the source of real refreshment. Jesus did this because He knew what was in the woman’s heart; He knew what she needed in life.
Jesus knows what you need also.
One of the steps that we need to take so that we can have real refreshment is we need to know where to go to find it.
The next step we need to follow is:
II. KNOW WHAT YOU ARE LOOKING FOR 11-12
Once we know where to go, we need to know what we are looking for.
Let’s look at verses 11 and 12.
When Jesus spoke of living water, the people of His day understood that term to be talking about a body of water that was moving, like a stream or a flowing spring or river.
As Jesus is speaking to this woman, she still does not know what she is looking for.
She tells Jesus that He does not have anything with which to draw water out of this 100 foot deep well.
Jesus is standing before this woman and she does not know what He can offer her.
Today in 2001 nothing much has changed. How many people have you come across who have told you that they tried the Jesus thing before and it did not work for them? I used to have people in the factory tell me that all the time.
I think that the problem that a person who says something like that has is that they do not know what they are looking for.
When you look at the church membership book in the office you will find people who are still alive and who have quit coming to church for various reasons.
Why does this happen? It is because these people really do not know what they are looking for when they come to Jesus. They are looking for things other than what He wants to give them.
How is it that a person can come to church week after week and yet not foster a desire to grow closer to and serve Jesus?
Men know immediately how to quench their physical thirst, but their spiritual thirst is a different matter. Many times people will come to Jesus and just want Him to take care of their physical thirst. They want this but they do not want to seek the real refreshment that Jesus has to offer.
We usually misunderstand the spiritual thirst and try to quench it with the stagnant waters of the flesh and of this world. The result is poison and death.
The stagnant waters of the flesh are such things as lust, immorality, drunkenness, indulgence, and pride.
The stagnant waters of the world are such things as the love of money, cars, houses, lands, clothes, extravagant living, position, and power.
Within their hearts men sense a thirst for...
purpose
meaning
significance
satisfaction
fulfillment
something that is missing something to fill the void, the emptiness and the loneliness
deliverance from a sense of lostness
freedom from undue anxiety, stress, and pressure
Many times we will look for the wrong things to fill these needs.
Jesus can give us all these things, but He offers a greater gift.
The stagnant waters of the flesh and the world never quench a man’s thirst. They are like salt water; they only make a man crave for more and more.
James 4:1-4 says that the reason that the church was having problems is the fact that they were trying to maintain a friendship with the world instead of dedicating themselves wholly to God.
What was it that Jesus was offering her when He offered her living water?
In this passage Jesus is offering the woman a relationship with Jesus that will give her real refreshment. We find In John 7:38-39 that Jesus says that the gift of Holy Spirit given to a person when they are immersed into Christ would be a source of living water within us.
The gift of God, the living water is the personal relationship that we can have with the source of life. Jesus was offering her this.
Jesus is comparing the blessing that the world has to offer verses the blessings that one who belongs to Him will receive.
As you grow in Christ, your life will begin to have meaning and satisfaction.
What we need to look for is a relationship with Jesus. A relationship with Jesus is one that grows and matures. Whenever we stop growing, we start dying.
Jesus was offering this woman real refreshment. In her life is appears that she was seeking worldly refreshment through the relationships that she had with men. Jesus was telling her that she was drawing water out of a stagnate source and the He could give her living water that would refresh her.
III. KNOW WHY YOU NEED TO LOOK 13-18
The last step in the process of finding real refreshment is knowing why you need to look for it.
As Jesus carries on His conversation with this woman, she is starting to understand that Jesus is not talking about the water found in the well. LET’S READ VERSES 13-18
Here are some reasons why we need to seek the real refreshment that Jesus offers to us.
1. We need to be cleansed
Have ever been hot tired and sweaty? Remember how good it felt to get into the cleansing waters of the shower and how refreshed you felt when you got out of the shower?
You were dirty and you needed to be cleansed. You were not going to feel good until you hit that shower.
Notice in verse 15 that the woman asked Jesus for the water that He had offered her.
Now look at what He tells her to do in verse 16? That would seem like an odd request. Remember that Jesus knew the heart of this woman.
This woman had asked for the water of God’s grace and she needed to know just how much she needed it, she needed to be made aware of her dormant thirst.
Jesus asked her to get her husband so that in might reveal her life, and perhaps lead her to repentance.
This woman needed to be convicted of her own sin and her need to be cleansed.
Once we understand how much we need Jesus, it will help us to want to look for Him.
2. So we can be truly satisfied
Jesus tells us in verse 13 that whoever drinks from the dead water of the world will never be satisfied. Think about it, how many people are satisfied by what the world has to offer?
Can we ever have enough money, power, or possessions?
Jesus says in verse 14 that He offers real refreshment. We will not need to seek happiness and fulfillment in other things.
Verse 14 also tells us that we will have a constant supply of this living water within us. This is accomplished by the indwelling gift of the Holy Spirit that we receive when we are immersed into Christ (Acts 2:38)
JOHN 6:35 Jesus said to them, "I am the bread of life; he who comes to Me will not hunger, and he who believes in Me will never thirst.
3. The living water will spring up to eternal life
Verse 14 tells us that the water Jesus has to offer will become in us a well of water springing up to eternal life.
The blessing that the world has to offer will not lead to eternal life, but blessings that Jesus has to offer will spring up to eternal life.
JOHN 6:27-29 "Do not work for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you, for on Him the Father, God, has set His seal." Therefore they said to Him, "What shall we do, so that we may work the works of God?" Jesus answered and said to them, "This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He has sent."
CONCLUSION
What are you trying to fill the empty hole within you with?
Are you tired, weary and in need of some refreshment in life?
If you are, you need to seek the living water that is offered to you by Jesus.
Jesus offers you the gift of eternal life because He loves you and wants you to be with Him for eternity.
John records for us this encounter between Jesus and this Samaritan woman to show us that His offer is open to everyone.
Will you come to Jesus for real refreshment today as we sing all verses of hymn 64 Springs of Living Water?
