Water

Mini talk. WBF joint celebration. 6 April 2003 pm

JN 4:4 Now Jesus had to go through Samaria. 5 So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph. 6 Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about the sixth hour.

JN 4:7 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.)

We take so much for granted

- particularly water (as we usually have so much of it!)

o fascinating flying over Sahara desert. On and on. Looks like a yellow sea with waves

o Josie Wells in Chad- where water was SO scarce

- Water is a precious commodity. Searching for it on Mars. Because- where there’s water, there’s life

o Nigeria: ‘do not urinate here’ Why? Water supply!

Would have been precious in this context, too. Israel area.

A few things clear, here:

- how people felt about her. She’s an outcast, really. 6th hour= midday

- only mad dogs, Englishmen and outcasts go out in the midday sun.

- notable that she’s on her own

- Jews would have seen her as a ‘dog’, too

-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.

- gentile/dog = same. Dreadful, really!!

- this woman really matters to Jesus.

- I reckon he’s gone there just for HER!

- water really is precious- as she’d risk the midday heat for it

She’s gonna get the ‘real thing’- and it’s not coke!

**

She’s so precious to God (Jesus) that He asks her a loaded question. “Give me a drink”

- starts her thinking

- * strange, the things that start us thinking… asking Q’s. Realising just how thirsty WE are

o you can be thirsty and not notice, actually, how dehydrated you are –until you see someone else with ‘the real thing’

JN 4:10 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."

Tonight we’ve covered

- water, and it’s affect on the world. What it causes to happen, externally

- we’re going to cover water and its cleansing affect. Externally

But what she realises she needs is something to happen INSIDE. Water inside

"Sir," the woman said, "you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? 12 Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his flocks and herds?"

JN 4:13 Jesus answered, "Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, 14 but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life."

JN 4:15 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."

“Sir, give me this water!”

- oh, I want it! Something… someone that won’t let me down… dry up on me

o that I won’t have to keep coming BACK

o something that will satisfy me INSIDE. Fill me INSIDE

 Illustr: that is the cry common to SO many, today

• It’s true to say we have SO much- but SO dissatisfied. (cf third world- have so little and some SO satisfied)

Illustr: The Bible says we’re ‘made in God’s image’

- with a spirit

- = spiritual beings

- restless, empty, dissatisfied until we HAVE Him inside us

o we’re made for Him

THAT’S the problem, root of it all.

- always thirsty without the real thing inside. God. Living water of HS

So- what’s the solution?

1) Well (ha! Ha!)- first she needs to understand the blockage in the pipe

JN 4:15 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."

JN 4:16 He told her, "Go, call your husband and come back."

JN 4:17 "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."

There’s no condemnation from Jesus, here. But there’s something that’s been a blockage in the pipe- something that has crippled her soul and stopped her being filled for YEARS-