Thirsty?

I don’t know about you but I enjoyed yesterday’s lesson so much! I love to extol the greatness and grace of our God! It brings me such joy to know that God has intervened for you and for me in the person of Jesus Christ, His work on the cross and the magnificent hope of His resurrection! We don’t have to go to God because He has come to us. What a God!

Today, we are going to focus our attention on the woman at the well. I want you to see a few things that are important here, especially for us as women. First, this woman was coming to the well in the middle of the day likely because she was a social outcast. Most women came to the well in groups early in the morning or late in the evening to avoid the heat of the day. This would have been their time at the well. The fact that this woman was coming at Noon, in the heat of the day, coupled with what we find out later of her serial marriages could lead us to assume she was an outcast.

Second, she was a Samaritan. Samaritan’s were hated by the Jews and they were considered half-breeds. Heritage and being “pure-blooded” was important to maintaining purity in Jewish culture. The woman is so keenly aware of who she is that she states it, “I am a Samaritan woman...in case you haven’t noticed.”

Jesus never addresses her statement. He never focuses in on her “labels”, her gender, her nationality, he goes straight to the point. “My child, if you knew the depth of your thirst and who it is that says to you, “give me a drink”, you would have asked Him for water, living water.

We can see by the interaction that she is looking outside of herself for the answer. She doesn’t see a pitcher. She didn’t understand His words.

Again, Jesus bypasses her question. He says, Look, the water from this well is not the water I have to give. This water is temporal. It is outside of you. I have water that will be a well INSIDE of you, springing up to ETERNAL life. Again, the woman misses the point..”Sir, give me this water so that I can fill my temporal thirst and save me the trip here everyday...”

Many of us would be satisfied with temporal water, plain water, well-water. There have been so many times in my life where the Lord is teaching me, offering me fullness in Himself and I am focused on well-water. I WANT the well water. I don’t want the fullness of Christ. I am thirsty and content to have a temporary fix for my thirst. Eventually, it always leads me back to the well, thirsty again. Why is it we will look for the answer everywhere else except for Jesus first? Why is it that we are willing to try anything temporal before we look to the eternal?

In a word, rebellion. Our hearts are not naturally tuned to desire the things of God. Even as believers we still fight the sin nature that plagues our flesh. I have a tendency to give this woman a hard time but I am just like her! I want to look for every excuse in the world other than just doing what it is that I know I’m supposed to do. The answer is obvious but that’s not the answer I want. I don’t want Living Water, I want well-water because well-water will make me happy and satisfied for a time; because well-water will make my life easier for a time; because well-water is convenient.

Thankfully, as a believer, God gives us a new spirit and a new Spirit! We don’t have to be enslaved to the flesh and sin no longer has dominion over us! The process of growing in the Lord, also known as sanctification, gives us new tastes. Over time, the well-water doesn’t taste as good, it doesn’t satisfy as long and it becomes a burden to keep coming back to the well. Our palette becomes parched and we begin to see that Living Water is the only thing that completely satisfies!

Praise God for His patient pursuit of us! Let’s turn back to the woman. This time Jesus goes straight to the heart of this woman. He knows this will be the thing that grabs her attention. He is not only going to reveal His omniscience but He is about to confront her idol. Read v. 16-18.

Now, what does the woman do? She totally changes the subject! She is confronted with her sin and it hurts. She thinks talking “religion” with Him will get Him deterred but it doesn’t. Again, she begins to talk about things on the outside and Jesus abruptly and pointedly states, “True worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth.” In other words, true worshipers will worship within themselves not by outward conformity to religious rituals. It’s not about a place..it is about your heart..what is on the inside!

And then I love how this ends: She is starting to get it and Jesus plainly states it for her, “I Who speak to you Am He! This brings tears to my eyes! A woman, of ill-repute, a social outcast is the one reason that Jesus had to go through Samaria (v.4) and the one to whom He plainly reveals Himself. In all of scripture it seems that Jesus is talking in parables and riddles and in phraseology that is at times over our heads but to this woman He comes out with it plain and clear, “I Who speak to you Am He.”

Ladies, the One Who speaks to us is He! The Living Water. This is the same fountain of living water that Jeremiah spoke of in Jeremiah 2! We must come to the fountain of living waters and find rest for our weary souls and complete satisfaction for our soul thirst!

What is this that satisfies? Living water. Water that comes from within, not from without. The Holy Spirit is a wellspring of life that bubbles up with effervescent, soul-satisfying water that quenches all of the hollow, thirsty longing of a dry, deadness resulting from sin. Tim Keller says, “you don’t need water splashed on your face; you need water that comes from even deeper down inside you than the thirst itself. “ Indeed! And Jesus supplies that...for those who will worship Him in spirit (from within) and truth (by the revealed word of God).

Replacing idols is about redirecting our worship. True worship fills us to the point that there is no room for worship of anything else. When we worship the one true God, His fullness is so complete that we don’t have room for anything else. Living water keeps us so full and satisfied that we never have a thirst for anything else.

When we worship in spirit, we worship from within, from our hearts. When we worship in truth, we worship through the truth of the revealed word of God. We must expose ourselves consistently to the worship of Him through the Word! God has provided us with living water and invited us to drink freely from what satisfies completely in the person of Jesus Christ. Drink up!