How to Quench Your Thirsty Soul
John 4:1-26
Introduction:
People have two kinds of thirst.
A physical thirst.
A Spiritual thirst.
Matthew 5:6 (KJV)
6 Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.
People know how to Quench a physical thirst.
They dig wells to draw water from in a bucket.
John 4:12 (KJV)
12 Art thou greater than our father Jacob, which gave us the well, and drank thereof himself, and his children, and his cattle?
They drill wells and pump the water into their houses.
They pipe these mountain springs into there houses.
People have a problem in quenching the spiritual thirst.
They fail to see and recognize that thirsty soul in themselves.
They know the emptiness is there but don’t know why.
They fail to realize that only God can quench that thirst.
They are like the 4 men that shipwrecked at the mouth of the Amazon River.
Lower The Buckets!
"An advertisement of the Tennessee Gas Transmission Company pictures four men, the lone survivors of a sea tragedy, afloat in an open lifeboat. They are attempting to catch a few rain drops in a piece of canvas. Tortured by thirst....Yet, where they drifted, the Amazon carries its fresh water many miles to sea. To drink, they had only to lower their buckets."
Transition
How to recognize and quench your thirsty soul.
I- Recognize that emptiness in your soul.
The Samaritan woman is like many people today.
Going through life trying to find peace for that thirsty soul.
She tried to find it in five husbands.
She tried to find it in just living together.
She tried to find it in some religion.
Greatness of forefathers.
Prophets
Holly Mountain
Promised Messiah
She tried to find it in accepting her plot in life.
I am hated by the Jews
I am and outcast of the Temple.
I will never see the Messiah.
People today are like the Samaritan woman.
Going through life trying to find peace for their thirsty soul.
In the next husband or wife.
In wealth
In drugs or alcohol
Living together outside of marriage
List goes on.
Thought:
Do you recognize this emptiness in your soul?
Trying to quench that thirst in the wrong way can kill you.
Wolf Licks Bloodied Knife To Death
Radio personality Paul Harvey tells the story of how an Eskimo kills a wolf. The account is grisly, yet it offers fresh insight into the consuming, self-destructive nature of sin.
"First, the Eskimo coats his knife blade with animal blood and allows it to freeze. Then he adds another layer of blood, and another, until the blade is completely concealed by frozen blood.
"Next, the hunter fixes his knife in the ground with the blade up. When a wolf follows his sensitive nose to the source of the scent and discovers the bait, he licks it, tasting the fresh frozen blood.
"He begins to lick faster, more and more vigorously, lapping the blade until the keen edge is bare. Feverishly now, harder and harder the wolf licks the blade in the Arctic night.
"So great becomes his craving for blood that the wolf does not notice the razor-sharp sting of the naked blade on his own tongue. Nor does he recognize the instant at which his insatiable thirst is being satisfied by his own warm blood.
"His carnivorous appetite just craves more—until the dawn finds him dead in the snow!"
II- Open the doorway to your empty soul.
The Samaritan woman was willing to open her doorway.
By submitting herself to Jesus and the Gospel.
She could have run away when she saw a Jew at the well.
Holy Spirit Seeks Submission
During the past century few biographies have influenced young Christians more than that of Hudson Taylor. What was his secret?
Taylor wrote: "The Lord was looking for a man weak enough to use, and He found me."
"D.L. Moody aptly observed, "We may easily be too big for God to use, but never too small."
Job 28 tells about the way of the wind and the water and the lightning. The way of the wind is that of easiest motion. The way of the water is that of easiest coursing. The way of the lightning is that of easiest yielding. In other words the wind and the water and the lightning take the line of least resistance.
Even so, in human lives the Spirit of God always seeks the line of least resistance to the will of God. It is the absence of such resistance which gives the Holy Spirit His opportunity, and transforms weakness into strength.
By submitting her understanding to Jesus.
She was confused about spiritual things.
She didn’t understand about the living water.
She didn’t understand how Jesus could give the living water.
John 4:11 (KJV)
11 The woman saith unto him, Sir, thou hast nothing to draw with, and the well is deep: from whence then hast thou that living water?
Application
If you don’t open your doorway, your thirsty soul will remain.
Conclusion
To have your empty soul filled, will you submit to Jesus.
Just Inches From Bottom (1)
In the hill country of Missouri, close to where I grew up, there are areas that bear the scars of past mining operations. One timbered section has many old holes long ago abandoned. Some of these holes are shallow—no more than six to ten feet deep. Others are much deeper, some as much as seventy-five to one hundred feet deep.
One night a neighbor was possum hunting in this area and stumbled into one of these holes. As he went over the edge, he grabbed a sprout and held on for dear life. Fearing he had fallen into one of the deeper holes, the poor fellow yelled and screamed at the top of his voice until he was so hoarse he could yell no more. Then he started praying.
Finally his strength played out, and he could hold on to the sprout no longer. So he said his last prayer and let go, expecting to drop to his death. Imagine his surprise and joy when he dropped only six inches and his feet rested on solid ground at the bottom of the hole!
Invitation
You are just inches away, if you will let go.
You are floating in the living water, if you will let down your bucket.
