John 4. We're going to start reading in verse 1. John 4, starting in verse 1. It says, "...when therefore the Lord knew how the Pharisees had heard that Jesus made and baptized more disciples than John, though Jesus Himself baptized not, but His disciples, and he left Judea and departed again into Galilee. He must needs go through Samaria. Then cometh he to a city of Samaria, which is called Sychar, near to the parcel of ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph. Now Jacob's well was there. Jesus therefore being wearied with his journey, set thus on the well, and it was about the sixth hour. There cometh a woman of Samaria to draw water, Jesus saith unto her, Give me to drink. For his disciples were going away into the city to buy meat. Then said the woman of Samaria unto him, How is it that thou, being a Jew, askest drink of me, which am a woman of Samaria? For the Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans. Jesus answered and said unto her, If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that saith to thee, Give me to drink, thou wouldst have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water. The woman said unto him, Sir, thou hast nothing to draw with, and the well is deep. From whence then hast thou that living water? Art thou greater than our father Jacob, which gave us the well and drank thereof himself and his children and his cattle? Jesus answered and said unto her, Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again. Whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst, but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life. The woman saith unto him, Sir, give me this water, that I thirst not, neither come hither to draw. Jesus saith unto her, Go call thy husband, and come hither. The woman answered and said, I have no husband. Jesus said unto her, Thou hast well said, I have no husband. where thou hast had five husbands, and he whom thou hast now is not thy husband, and that sayest thou truly." We're going to stop there for this morning. When we come into John chapter four, you can see the connection from John chapter three with John the Baptist. It says whenever Jesus knew how the Pharisees had heard that he was making more disciples or baptizing more disciples than John, it says that Jesus left and went to Galilee. And in order to go through Galilee, he went through Samaria. So what we find here in John chapter 4 is really an encounter that Jesus has on His way from point A to point B. This is something that happens in the midst of Him leaving Judea and going to Galilee. Now, one of the things I think that the writer John, the gospel writer John, is doing here is, and once you see it, it's hard to miss, is he's given us some contrasting episodes here. And here's what I mean. You can't get any further from Nicodemus than this woman who is a Samaritan at the well. Nicodemus was a leader in the Jewish religion. He was a teacher, if not the teacher of the law. He lived a life that would have been thought of as ceremonially clean, he would have thought to have been, in his own works, pleasing to the Lord, and yet what Nicodemus needed more than anything else was Christ. Then you come to Samaria, and you find this woman who is coming to get water at, it says the sixth hour, that would be at about noon. Cultural commentaries all say nobody drew water at noon. That was the hottest part of the day. You drew water either in the morning or in the evening. This woman, perhaps, was coming because she knew no one would be at the well. She's not some sort of a religious elite. She's a social outcast. She's someone who's been married five times. And even outside of the the Jewish religion, that would have been a stain on anybody's character. And then the man that she was currently living with was not her husband. And so she was living a life that was characterized as a life of fornication. And what does she need? Well, she needs the exact same thing as old Nicodemus needed. She needs Jesus Christ. It really does remind us of Ephesians 2 when it talks about the fact that in Christ there's been made this way for both Jew and Gentile to come to God through one body, and that is Jesus Christ. And so we find here this story, this encounter that Jesus has with a Samaritan woman who is anything but a religious woman who is anything but a noble woman and. We find another angle. We find another aspect. Of what it means. For you and for me to find salvation in Jesus Christ, so that's definitely set up as a as a. As a contrast, I also think we're still in this theme of Jesus did not trust the heart of man because he knew what was in the heart of man. So later on, probably next week, we find that this Samaritan woman, who obviously is not interested in any sort of religion at all, She's had five husbands and she's now living with a man she's not married with. Now all of a sudden becomes very concerned about where the proper place of worship is. Well, Jesus didn't entrust himself to anyone. He knew what was in the heart of man. We see that going through there. But for today, we're going to look at these first 18 verses. And really, we're just going to use verses 1 through 3 as a parenthetical type statement. This is just giving us the transition piece. We could say some things about this, but for the message this morning, for our purposes, we're not going to say much. Jesus leaves Judea. He goes to Galilee, and so He goes through Samaria to get there. We're going to look at this passage in three different sections. Number one, we're going to see a divine appointment. We're going to see a divine appointment. We're going to see an honest question, and then we're going to see the gift of God. A divine appointment, an honest question, and the gift of God. So number one, a divine appointment, starting in verse four. It says, and he must needs go through Samaria, speaking of Jesus, who was leaving Judea, headed to Galilee. You may know this if you've heard much preaching on John chapter four, but most Jews would not go through Samaria. Samaria was understood to be an unclean place. The Samaritans were unclean people. They were at best viewed as sort of half breeds. whenever Assyria came and destroyed the northern tribe of Israel, they left the poorest of the poor there in the land and then as was the custom in the ancient Near East, they would send people from the conquering armies or the conquering cities. So that would just be Assyrians. They would send Assyrians to come and to populate whatever that conquered land was. And so they began to intermarry with the people from Israel who were left. And we have we have Samaritans from there. The Samaritans were the ones who were opposing the work of Nehemiah as he was trying to build the wall. It was because of the Samaritans that they had a trowel in one hand and a sword in the other. And so the Samaritans were not popular people among the Jews. They were half-breeds, they were unclean, and they were known and remembered as really enemies of Jewish efforts in the past whenever they came back from the exile. So it wouldn't have been a normal thing for a Jew to go through Samaria. They don't have much to do with Samaritans, but Jesus goes from Judea through Galilee because verse four says he must needs go through Samaria. Now we could overlook that and make nothing out of it, but we shouldn't do that. There was a divine appointment for Jesus in Samaria and he had to go through Samaria. It was necessary for him to go through Samaria. And why is that? Well, we already know the end of the story. We already know that Jesus came And part of Jesus's mission was to leave the ninety and nine to go fetch the one sheep that went off into the wilderness so that he could bring it back and rejoice that he had brought his sheep back home. We know that Jesus was sent to find those sheep who had gone astray. He was sent to gather his flock. 1 Peter 2.25 says that we had gone astray, but now we have been returned to the bishop or the shepherd of our souls. And the reason that Jesus had to go through Samaria was because this woman was about to be returned to the shepherd of her soul. This divine appointment that is initiated by Christ, not just by Him going through Samaria, but even as we see His interaction with this woman, we see that unless He would have initiated this interaction, there would have never been a conversation between Him and the Samaritan woman. And the reason that there would have never been a conversation between him and the Samaritan woman is because this woman, out of shame, wouldn't have even spoken probably to another Samaritan man. She was coming out at noon because she was hoping, at least that's implied through the cultural understanding here, that she was hoping and expecting that she was going to be by herself. And all of a sudden she finds a man sitting at the well that she's going to get water from. who she no doubt recognized to be a Jew. We know that from the passage. And he initiates conversation with her. So there was a divine appointment, a divine appointment. Brothers and sisters, we can think about this from a spiritual aspect and realize that Jesus Christ has had a divine appointment with every single one of his people. I'm not sure where he found you, but he found you somewhere. I'm not sure where he initiated the relationship with you, but he initiated it somewhere. We like the Samaritan woman would have never initiated anything with him out of shame, out of enmity, out of hostility as the enemies of God. We would have never done that. We find here just in pattern fact that Jesus must needs go through Samaria because there's a lady there who happens to be one of his sheep and he is about to return her to the fold from which she strayed. Let's read verses 4-8. It says, "...he must needs go through Samaria. Then cometh he to a city of Samaria, which is called Sychar, near to the parcel of ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph. Now Jacob's well was there. Jesus therefore, being wearied with his journey, set thus on the well, and it was about the sixth hour, There cometh a woman of Samaria to draw water, and Jesus saith unto her, Give me to drink. For his disciples were gone away into the city to buy meat." Or food. Many times in the King James it says meat. It's a general word for food. Verse 9, "'Then saith the woman of Samaria unto him, How is it that thou, being a Jew, askest drink of me, which am a woman of Samaria?' but the Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans. So we see, number one, there's a divine appointment, Jesus coming face to face with this woman. Secondly, we see an honest question. An honest question from this woman in verse 9. How is it that you being a Jew are asking me for a drink? And John goes on to tell us that Jews don't have dealings with the Samaritans here. We see in this section that Jesus has to cross over several social and religious boundaries in order to have this interaction with this woman. Number one, she was a woman. She was a woman. It was not socially acceptable for a man and a woman who weren't married to have a one-on-one conversation in public. You did not have interaction, personal interaction, with women who were not either your sister or your wife. That just didn't happen. Secondly, again, this woman was a Samaritan. We've already seen this. The Jews had no dealings with Samaritans. It would have been something that made no sense. And if the Pharisees would have known, number one, that Jesus was baptizing more people than John, and then on the other hand, that he's going from Judea to Galilee and he stops to have a personal visit with a Samaritan woman, that's a no-no. Jesus' reputation goes out the window, but that didn't stop him. And then third, not only is she A Samaritan, this would have been, again, I mean, we think about it from Old Testament terms. This woman was a social leper. She was a societal leper. You stay away from her. She's unclean. This is how she was born, by the way. We're talking about a Samaritan. We're not even talking about the way she's acting. We're not talking about anything as far as her lifestyle. But that's number three. Not only was she a woman and a Samaritan, she was living a very sinful lifestyle. A very sinful lifestyle. Now, the truth is, and people have said plenty of stuff about this, we do not know exactly what the circumstances were surrounding her five husbands. Perhaps she had five husbands that died and she married the next. We don't know that. But the fact that she was living with a man that wasn't her husband makes that very unlikely. We don't have any reason to believe that this woman had five husbands in her past just because in God's providence, she experienced five losses. She's living with a man right at this point that was not her husband. And so she has the question whenever Jesus comes and ask her for water, how is it that you're talking to me of all people? Now there's a couple of other things that you ought to think about as we think about this as far as where this question comes from. It's not just a question that comes from a woman who knows all the facts and says, well, I realize I'm a woman here. I realize I'm a Samaritan and I also realize that you're a Jew. More than likely, this is a woman that for however, I don't know how long, is a woman that's used to being ignored, invisible, treated as if she were not there. It would make sense just based on her lifestyle alone. It's kind of ironic that the way this woman leaves Jesus and goes back into the city and says, come and meet a man, Come and meet a man." And no doubt, her reputation, no doubt the people in the city thought. Number seven, right? Another one? Come and meet a man who told me everything I ever did. This woman who had been more than likely ignored, this woman who was I mean, she's not just a pitiful victim here. This is a woman who actively was involved in sin. But this is a woman that Jesus engages with. This is a woman that's getting ready to find something out about Jesus. And that is Mark chapter 2, 15 through 17, that he draws near to sinners. that He didn't come to save the righteous. He doesn't hold sinners at arm's length. He doesn't wait for people to clean themselves up before He approaches them. He doesn't wait for people to get their act together before He draws near and engages them. He draws near to sinners. He eats with publicans and sinners. He came to heal sinners, not the righteous. asking an honest question here. What are you doing speaking to me? And then we'll spend the bulk of our time on this third point. We find a divine appointment, an honest question. Number three, the gift of God. The gift of God. This is Jesus' answer to her, starting in verse 10. Jesus answered and said unto her, if thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that saith to thee, Give me to drink, thou wouldst have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water." What's the gift of God here? We could go all the way through, and perhaps we will as the message goes on. What's the gift of God? Well, it's living water. That's what Jesus says. If you would have known the gift of God who's standing before you, you would have asked, and He would have given you living water. It's not really much of an intro, but I think the first nine verses really do bring us into the substance of this passage when we get to verse 10 and then it goes into worshiping in the next section. The title of this message is drink and thirst no more. Drink and thirst no more. This woman. comes to Jesus, asks why it is that he's asking her for a drink. And he says, if you knew the gift of God, you would ask me and I would give you this living water. And if you drink of this living water, you will not thirst again. It will well up and springs of eternal life in your soul. Living water. Sometimes we can have a hard time with these metaphors, and that's what this is. This is a metaphor. we hear or we read Jesus speaking, and especially in the Gospel of John, several metaphors, and sometimes we can have a hard time figuring out what is it he's saying? How are we supposed to concretely understand what's being said here? Well, the good news is, is that whenever Jesus uses a metaphor for himself, particularly in the Gospel of John, it's a metaphor that holds some pretty weighty significance in the Old Testament. We don't have to wonder about trying to make something up. And so we can go to Jeremiah, and that's what we're going to do right now. We can go to Jeremiah 2, verse 13, and we can see that Jesus lifts this whole phrase of living water from here. And we'll go to other places and see the same. In Jeremiah 2.13, what does it mean? What does it mean that He would give living water? What does it mean that He gives His people living water? Well, in Jeremiah 2.13, God says this, "'For My people have committed two evils. They have forsaken Me, the fountain of living waters, and have hewn them out cisterns, broken cisterns that can hold no water." God says through Jeremiah, this is what I have against My people. These are the two evils that My people have committed. Number one, they have forsaken Me. They've turned from Me. And He describes Himself here as the fountain of living waters. And they've turned from me to broken cisterns that can hold no water at all. Well, we don't think in terms of wells and cisterns and those kinds of things. But a fountain of living water is a well that never runs dry. We're thinking like of a spring that has a constant supply, a constant source, and he's saying, you've forsaken this constant source of water, this constant source of thirst-quenching water, and you've traded it for a cistern of your own making that doesn't hold anything. We're still thinking metaphorically here. We're going to make some concrete statements here in a minute. Look in Jeremiah 17. Jeremiah 17. In verse 13. Again, we're thinking, where is Jesus drawing this metaphor from? Jeremiah 17.13, Oh Lord, the hope of Israel, all that forsake thee shall be ashamed. And they that depart from me shall be written in the earth because they have forsaken the Lord, the fountain of living waters. Well, no doubt this Samaritan woman had long forsaken the Lord, the fountain of living waters. Her history would show that. Jeremiah says that the people of Israel and the people of Judah, they forsaken the fountain of living waters. So what are we talking about here? Well, on a philosophical level, I'm trying to figure out what this metaphor means. Going to the waters or going to the cisterns is a representation of a quest for satisfaction. That's the picture. You're going there to be satisfied. You think of what it means to be thirsty. Now, in the world of Yetis, we don't really know what it means to be thirsty. This woman who's going to the well at noon in the hottest part of the day in the Middle East would have been going in a very dry, arid condition. Jesus had left Judea, headed to Galilee. He had been traveling for some time. He stops off at the well And the kind of thirst that he must have experienced, the kind of thirst that would have been common in that day to experience, the kind where there's just no moisture left. It's not, I'm a tad bit uncomfortable and a drink would make me feel better. It's that I need water and I need it now. I can't think of anything else but water. I have a desire for water, and unless that desire is satisfied, I can't do anything else at this point. So, going or embracing the well, going, embracing the cistern, that's the quest for satisfaction, what you're embracing, what you're going after. The fountain or the cistern here is the source The truth is, we all go after something. Jesus talks about this in Matthew 6, verse 19, when He says, lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven. Why? Because where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. We are all pursuing some kind of a treasure. We are all on a quest for something. And that treasure in all of our minds and in all of our hearts promises satisfaction. If I just had this. By the way, just thinking about people in general, you can boil us down to very simple statements or very simple categories of understanding. We've talked about this before, but I'll just say it again. Sometimes we see wild, crazy behavior and we just think, why in the world would anybody do that? Well, the truth about me and the truth about you is that we do what we do because we want what we want. And what we do doesn't always line up with what seems to be rational. And that's because what we want doesn't always line up with what tends to be rational. You pursue what you pursue because you want what you want. And sometimes we can take that and we can sterilize it or we can make it sound better than it actually is, but that's just the truth. You live out of your heart. Your heart is the seat of your desires. And your heart is actively engaged in your worship. Psalm 95, do not harden your heart. They do air in their heart. And so we go, we look for, we're on a quest for something. And we embrace something because we think this will satisfy me. We could illustrate this for very elementary types of examples. You find a student who's in junior high who says, oh, when I get in high school, it'll be so much better. It'll be so much better. And then you get to high school and realize this is just like junior high. outside of a few really nothings. I get to move around a little more. And then you have the person in high school that says, oh, if I could just graduate high school, it's going to be so much better. I'm going to have so much more freedom. When I get to college, it's going to be so much better. And then you get to college, you figure out it's the same thing as high school. You're just paying a lot more. And then you think, oh, if I could just get out of college, I'll start my career. That's when I'll be satisfied. And you realize this career is nothing like I thought it was going to be. Or if it is exactly what you thought it was going to be, my boss is horrible. My co-workers are morons. This is nothing like what I thought. And then you think, you know what, if I could just work hard enough and if I could just keep my head down and do what needs to be done and put in the time and make the investments, I can work my way up the ladder and I can make some real change. But that's not satisfying either. Or maybe in a quest for satisfaction and trying to find significance. We do this with all kinds of things. You can do it with jobs. You can do it with relationships. You can do it with social status. You can do it with all kinds of things. Isn't it ridiculous to think that we would forsake the fountain of living waters in order to find our significance in a career? in a relationship, in a social status. We do it every day. We do it every day. This woman had forsaken the fountain of living waters for five husbands and a live-in boyfriend. That's what she was doing. Jesus is going to make the connections here. We might ask ourselves as far as the Jeremiah broken cistern illustration. What broken cisterns had she be going to in hopes of being satisfied? And we see that. See, our heart's a little trickier and a lot less shallow than we would like to think. This is what I mean by that. It would be easy and pretty simplistic to think that the woman was looking to find fulfillment in the pleasure of a relationship with another man. More than likely, that was not it as far as sexual pleasure goes. It's more likely she was looking to security. She was looking for significance that was supposed to come with the care and the protection of a man who loved her. It could be either of those two. I would think it's probably more likely the second. You say, what does this have to do with anything? Well, it has to do with everything. If you think you're going to find your ultimate satisfaction in the security that you think you're going to find in a relationship, you are wrong. You're going to live a life that ends up being very disappointed. If you think you're going to find the security or the satisfaction that comes through achievement and career or attaining some kind of a status or any other broken cistern that the world has to offer, oh, you're going to be disappointed and you're going to be disappointed quick. Why? Because those cisterns just don't hold water. They don't hold water. They always point to another one that looks like it's the one that holds water. Right, so junior high was not that great, but high school will be wonderful. And then high school's not all that great, but I'm telling you, college will be wonderful. And school is for the birds, but a career, woo! And the career's not that great, but what I need is a relationship. And this relationship is not doing what I thought it was supposed to do, so what I really need is another relationship. And you see how that spirals all the way down. You see, this is not a problem necessarily in the way that we were created or the way that we're made up. You know, you were created with the capacity to long for meaning and purpose and satisfaction in something bigger than yourself. Ecclesiastes tells us that. Ecclesiastes 3.11 says that the Lord has set the world in our hearts. That means the Lord has put eternity in our hearts. I thought this comment on it was as clear as capturing the meaning here that we could give. Eternity in the heart refers to the capacity for something larger and greater than the succession of times that are so uncontrollable. Human beings have a capacity for eternal things, something that transcends the immediate situation. That's the echo in the heart of everybody who ever thought, I was born for something bigger than this. I was made for something more than this. The Samaritan woman in John chapter 4 has the same problem that we have, and that is the cistern that she is hoping to find meaning and purpose and satisfaction in isn't big enough. That's our problem. You know, the Lord has put eternity in our hearts and we think we can fill that gap. We think we can fill that longing with momentary earthly pleasures and it never works. Misery. Comes from not thinking too big. From thinking too small. from taking what the Lord has put in you, as far as this longing, again, for satisfaction. Come to the waters and drink, Isaiah 55 says. We'll go there, but this reality that this common, common, common discontentment that we have within our own selves and this longing for something more, Jesus is coming to the Samaritan woman and He's saying, you've spent a ton of time trying to be satisfied with wells that just wouldn't hold water. If you will ask Me, I'll give you living waters. Your satisfaction can be found in Me. Your satisfaction will be found in Me. This woman has spent her entire life looking for that in relationships. Sadly. Again, relationships are just one of the cisterns, but sadly. You see that repeated again and again and again and again. I'm lonely. I'm in a stage in my life where it seems like a transition needs to be made. As young people, it can be. You feel the pressure of I'm supposed to be moving on to a different stage. All my friends. or getting married. All my friends have serious relationships. It doesn't seem like having many of those opportunities. And sadly, people begin to make very foolish decisions, things that they would have never done otherwise because they're looking for satisfaction in a well that will not hold water. Listen to the irony. The irony in looking to a relationship that is like a romantic relationship for meaning, purpose, and satisfaction is that more often than not, the person that you've set up as your source of significance and satisfaction has also set you up for that same thing. How is it we could set somebody up who is not significant and is not satisfied as our source of significance and satisfaction? Because we can be fools, can't we? We go to these broken cisterns and we're hoping that they will do something for us that they can't even do for themselves. So the question is, what happens in a relationship when one or both parties discover that they've put their hopes in a broken cistern? Well, I think the divorce rate in America is over 50%. That's a worship problem. That's a worship problem. You can come up with all the government programs you want to. You can come up with all the classes on marriage and parenting and all that that you want to. But at its foundation, this is a broken cistern problem. I'm looking to you to be something for me that you can't even be for yourself. And you wonder why and how. Maybe you do. You wonder why and how we could live in a world where so many people are just oozing with cynicism. Oozing with complaints. Really, outside of Jesus Christ, that's the only natural thing to become, isn't it? A cynic? If you're putting your hopes in me, you'll be a cynic before too long. If I'm putting my hopes in you, and what I mean by hopes, I just mean hopes that you will be able to satisfy. Hopes that I will be able to be content. Hopes that I will find my significance in my relationship with you, or you with me. It's just not going to work. I'm going to disappoint, and you're going to disappoint. This worship problem is a problem that's just universal. It begins very early on with well-meaning but misguided people telling you as a child, you can be whatever you want to be. Oh, me? Me? That's where I'm going to find my significance and what I want to be. And so I will pursue and sacrifice and so forth and so on. But when you get to the end of that road, you find... come up empty. Come up empty. Now, some of you are going to be familiar with this. You may think this is a silly illustration, but I do think it illustrates the point very well. Both that it's a worship problem that the world is doesn't know what to do with And that it always leads to the same place If you have a young child it's it's Possible that this song has regained some popularity in your home through a popular children's movie that came out a couple of years ago, but the The band U2 captures this in their song, I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For. If you listen to that song, the writer of the song talks about taking these extreme measures to get to where he's trying to go. He starts out talking about a relationship. He's climbed highest mountains and he's run through the fields only to be with you. I've crawled and I've run and I've scaled city walls only to be with you." And then you expect him to say, and finally we're together and I'm satisfied, but he doesn't say that. He says, I've done all of this and I still haven't found what I'm looking for. He goes on to talk about all these other, and he hasn't really done any of this, but all these other magnificent feats to find what he's looking for and he never finds it. Well, whatever you think about the song is is up to you, but. He nailed it. You will live your life chasing whatever it is you think is going to satisfy you. And if that's not Christ, you'll get to the end and you'll say. I've spent 708090 years. Chasing after this and I still have not found what I'm looking for. I'm still dissatisfied. There's still a longing within me that was never filled. We live in a world that throws all kinds of and knows how to make attractive these broken systems. We could go through one after the other. Maybe you don't like U2 and the song U2, but really what they did was they stole what Solomon said and Ecclesiastes, you know, Solomon had everything. He did everything. I mean, he was, he built of marvelous structures and waterways, and he was not limited by resources. He wasn't limited by creativity. He had all the wisdom that a man needed. He wasn't limited by not having enough laborers. He could have what he wanted, and he did have what he wanted. Relationships. Solomon took anything and everything he wanted. He had the time to set his self to pursue wisdom. He gets to the end of it all and he just says, vanity of vanities. It's all vanity. It's all empty. Solomon really gets to the end of his life and says, I've had everything you could ever want. I've done everything that you could ever want to do. And I still haven't found what I'm looking for. It's empty. It's meaningless. Jesus comes to this woman and He's opening up this in her life. Now, go back to John. I'm giving you living waters. Why? Because you've been going after broken cisterns. So now the question is, where does this satisfaction come from? If our satisfaction cannot be primarily placed in looking at things or at least looking for these things, so relationships or achievements or status or entertainment, etc., then where is that satisfaction found? Well, we have to look again and see what is it that Jesus refers to when He says, I'm going to give you living waters. Well, part of that is satisfaction, but we even get a little closer than that. Look in John chapter 7. John 7 and verse 37 says, "...in the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink." He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. But this spake he of the Spirit, which they that believe on him should receive, for the Holy Ghost was not yet given, because that Jesus was not yet glorified." What is this living water that Jesus will give His people to drink? And the answer to that is, That's the Holy Spirit. How is it that someone comes into relationship with the living God? Well, they have to be brought from death to life. And they're brought from death to life through the Holy Spirit. So here we're getting a little bit of a different angle than what Nicodemus got. Nicodemus came to Jesus and he said, unless a man be born again, he can't see the kingdom and he can't enter the kingdom. Jesus is telling this Samaritan woman who seems like has probably spent her life chasing after satisfaction. He says, unless you be born again, you'll never be satisfied unless the Spirit brings you from death to life. Now, we know this from from our other theological understanding of John 7 and other things like that. I think she would have probably understood the cistern part of it, but we have a deeper understanding here. You will not be satisfied until you're satisfied with Christ or until you realize Christ is satisfied with you. The living water is again metaphorical for eternal satisfaction of a thirsty soul, a desire that is fulfilled in saving relationship with Jesus Christ. Now think about that. We're moving from just, where does the world lay out these different sources of satisfaction? Think about that in relation to something like Psalm 42 verse 1. As the deer pants for the water, so does my soul thirst for thee. This one who feels like he's in a dry and a parched land. Why? Because he is thirsting for something. And what is that? For satisfaction in God. For the relationship there with the Lord to be a satisfying relationship. For him to be able to have the fulfillment, the contentment that comes from drawing near to God. The truth is, Satan is crafty, isn't he? And he can convince us that the passing pleasures and just the insignificant trinkets of the earth, of the world, are worth far more than the relationship that we've been given with God through Christ. Now, I'm not just talking about unbelievers here. I'm talking about believers too. We can get so distracted We can think that there's satisfaction in everything except the main thing. We can live our whole lives chasing down broken cisterns. It was said, it was prophesied that this living water would come and would be given. Isaiah chapter 12, you can just take notes for time's sake, I'm not going to turn here. Isaiah 12, verses 1-3 says that you shall draw waters from the well of salvation. That's what this woman's doing. She's drawing living waters out of the well of salvation. Christ has come and is giving her these waters. Zechariah 14, 8 and 9. Living waters shall go out from Jerusalem. And they are. This woman finds herself in this place. In Ezekiel 36, it's the water that will be sprinkled on them to cleanse them. So number one, we're thinking about these living waters and what they do. They're cleansing waters. If this Samaritan woman would drink of these waters, she would no longer be going to the well at noon because she's ashamed of how filthy she is. She would be cleansed of her sin. she would be made whole. Titus 3-5 talks about this washing of regeneration, which simply means that the Holy Spirit comes and applies the blood of Christ to the believer and we are made clean and we can embrace and walk in the cleanliness or the cleansing that we've received through the blood of Jesus Christ. That's a fountain of living water right there. The blood of Christ never runs dry. The effect of Christ's blood on the believer's heart never changes. I'm made whole here. My guilt is quenched here. My shame is washed away here. They're cleansing waters. Isaiah 55, we mentioned it earlier, and it's one that you're going to be familiar with. Isaiah 55 speaks about the waters here. Verse 1, "'Ho, everyone that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money, come ye, buy and eat. Yea, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. Wherefore do you spend money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which satisfieth not? Hearken diligently unto Me, and eat ye that which is good, and let your soul delight itself in fatness. Incline your ear and come unto me, here and your soul shall live, or make an everlasting covenant with you, even the sure mercies of David." So they're cleansing waters, but they're also satisfying waters. Why are you working for that which doesn't satisfy? That's the question he asked. Come and let your soul delight itself in the fatness that comes from these waters, this milk, this meat that you can buy without money. So it's again, it's satisfying waters. It's. Revelation 717 would say that they're healing waters, the waters there that are living waters that are found and they heal the nations and they dry every eye. So what are we supposed to take from this John chapter four? At least the initial part of this encounter with the Samaritan woman? Well, it's really a very simple message. Very simple reality. We're brought face to face with the fact that only in a living, personal relationship with Jesus Christ will we ever find peace and satisfaction for our sin-sick souls. Now, without a daily commitment to communion with Jesus Christ, a commitment to higher moral standards and purity all by itself will do nothing for you. Will do nothing for you. We could even go so far as to say without a daily commitment to communion with Jesus Christ, church attendance and church membership will do nothing for you. You know, sadly, there are some people that think the only thing I really need to do is just join the church and the rest will take care of itself. Not true. If you're not interested in a personal daily walk with Jesus Christ, you're going to be just as dry as a church member as you were not being a church member. The church in and of itself is a tremendous blessing, but it's a tremendous blessing that flows from a living relationship with Jesus Christ. And so he says, don't go to broken cisterns. Don't use things for things that they were never intended to be used for. Why do I bring that up? Well, there are times where we can be talking about something like John 4 and this living water that Christ would give us to drink of that would well up into eternal life and this satisfaction. And you may say, well, I was converted a while back. I've known the Lord for a long time, and this has not been my experience. I still have discontentment. I've never had a season where it was this way. Now, I'm not trying to paint an unrealistic picture as if you come to the living waters and all your problems melt away. That's not it. But you can have joy in the midst of your problems. You can have satisfaction in the midst of discouragement. And that comes only through a living walk, a regular walk, a daily walk with Jesus Christ. Pursuing Him through worship is where He's going to go next. Pursuing Him by being in the Word. By living that relationship out in prayer. In dependence on Him. by believing what He said. Psalm 95, do not harden your hearts. John 4, 1-18 is driving home the point, not just for the Samaritan woman, but for us as well, that the only thing that can ever satisfy the deep longings of the soul is drinking daily from the living waters that comes from Jesus Christ. See, this is not some dry, stale formalism. That's the problem with quote-unquote the orthodox type churches. I mean like Greek Orthodox and Roman Catholics and others that would be so formulaic, okay, that there's absolutely no life in them at all. no life in Him at all. By that, I'm not saying that there can't be somebody saved who's there, but what I am saying is there's no worship happening there. It's let's do A, B, C, D. Now's the time to do this. And then we've got to hit the liturgy here. And then we've got to do this here. And then we've got to do this here. There's no living relationship there. It's just stale ordinances. Jesus says there's nothing there. That's a broken cistern. Come to the living waters. Come to the living relationship with the living God through me." And that's the only thing that will satisfy the deep longings of the soul. What is Christian maturity? Growing in your relationship with Christ. That's what it is. What does that consist of? Well, it consists of communion with Christ through time in the Word and time in prayer. You say, what else? Well, there is nothing else. Now He's given us a body where we can commune and come and do corporate worship and all those sorts of things, but a living relationship and finding satisfaction in the living waters that come through the Holy Spirit, reconciling you with the Lord Jesus Christ, consists of regularly seeking to find satisfaction with Christ through communion with Him. And there's a twofold application of that. you'll have to reverse Jeremiah 2.13. Rather than forsaking the living waters, you're going to have to learn how to forsake those broken cisterns because they're still going to be attractive. And then number two, you're going to have to learn how to embrace the fountain of living waters again and again and again and again. And so may the Lord bless us not to be fooled. And not to waste our lives pursuing that which is empty, that we would seek to be satisfied with the living waters that come in and through a relationship with Jesus Christ. Let's pray. Father, we confess that we are so prone to wandering. We sing that. We are prone to wander and we feel it. We're prone to leave the God we love. And Father, we confess that. And we pray that You would give us the insight, that You would give us the strength to forsake those broken cisterns that we tend to prop up, and that we would turn to the living God, that we would invest our lives in a growing relationship with You through Jesus Christ. Lord, we pray You would bless us in that. In Jesus' name, Amen.