Can You Quench Your Thirst?

Please note: This transcript is provided as close to verbatim record of the sermon.

Can You Quench Your Thirst?

Text: John 4:1–42

Introduction

Very good evening to all of you.

Thank you, Amos, for that lovely introduction. I now have my stress increased by 150%.

But thank you for taking time to be here tonight. Your presence means a lot. On a Sunday evening, you could be anywhere in Singapore. Christmas is coming, so you could be doing some early Christmas shopping, but instead you are here. You have made time to be with us, and for that we are truly grateful.

Today we will be considering a passage from John chapter 4. For those of us who have a Bible, you can turn to John chapter 4. If not, you can follow along as I read from the screen. I will be jumping certain verses, but you can just follow along.

Scripture Reading: John 4

Reading from verse 1:

Now Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard that he was gaining and baptizing more disciples than John.

Then verse 3:

So he left Judea and went back once more to Galilee.

Verse 4:

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

When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?”

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.

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.”

“Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with, and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water?”

Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again. But whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”

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.”

Jesus told her, “Go, call your husband and come back.”

“I have no husband,” she replied.

Jesus said to her, “You are right when you say you have no husband. 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.”

Verse 19:

“Sir,” the woman said, “I can see that you are a prophet.”

Verse 25:

The woman said, “I know that Messiah” (called Christ) “is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.”

Then Jesus declared, “I, the one speaking to you—I am he.”

Verse 28:

Then, leaving her water jar, the woman went back to the town and said to the people, “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Messiah?”

They came out of the town and made their way toward him.

Verse 39:

Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman’s testimony: “He told me everything I ever did.”

So when the Samaritans came to him, they urged him to stay with them, and he stayed two days. And because of his words many more became believers.

They said to the woman, “We no longer believe just because of what you said; now we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this man really is the Savior of the world.”

Opening Prayer

Before we go further, maybe we can bow our heads and pray so that we can seek God’s help to understand His Word.

Heavenly Father, Lord, we thank You once again for another opportunity for Your good news, the gospel, to be preached. We thank You for each and every person who is here tonight. And Lord, we trust that You have brought them here for a purpose, that You have something prepared for them.

So Lord, as we look into this passage, may Your Spirit help us to understand. And for those of us who have yet to know the Lord, we pray that they will consider who the Lord Jesus Christ is and what He has done for them, and that they will accept Him as their Lord and Savior.

So we commit the rest of the evening into Your hands. May Your name be glorified. We pray all of this in the name of Thy Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

The Theme: Can You Quench Your Thirst?

Today, as Amos has mentioned, the theme is: Can you quench your thirst?

I would like to start by sharing an experience I had recently. About a month ago, I went on a family holiday in Italy, where we visited the Dolomites. For those of you who do not know, the Dolomites are a mountain range in Italy that is famous for its rock formations and beautiful scenery.

However, to see some of the more wonderful and famous sights, you actually have to hike quite a bit. I remember one of those hikes being particularly difficult. We walked for a few hours. It was a hot day. The route was uneven and steep, and it was covered with many small rocks.

Eventually, we reached a rest point—a hut up in the mountains. As I was resting by the hut and enjoying the surrounding scenery, which was really wonderful, one of my family members—I cannot remember who, I think it was my sister—did something quite remarkable. She passed me a can of ice-cold Coke.

You can imagine how good that Coke tasted. Even though Coke should taste the same everywhere, that one somehow tasted better.

That said, my enjoyment was cut short when I found out that the Coke cost 5 euro 10. If you convert that, it is about fifteen Singapore dollars for a can of Coke. It kind of makes sense if you know why, because the hut is so high up in the mountains, and therefore you are paying for the transportation fee for that Coke.

But I would definitely never pay fifteen dollars for a can of Coke if I were in Singapore.

Still, looking back, I asked myself: was that can of Coke really worth that much?

Yes, it definitely was, because it was not just able to quench my thirst—it also brought me a kind of satisfaction that I could never forget.

Now, going back to the theme: Can you quench your thirst?

On the surface, it seems like a very easy question to answer. But as you might soon discover tonight, it is not as straightforward as you think. It is also my hope that you will find the answer you need to this question.

1. Jesus Came Intentionally

Earlier we read from the Bible an account of a man named Jesus meeting a Samaritan woman by a well. We were told that the woman was coming out of the city to draw water, and it was at the well where she met Jesus, who then asked her for a drink.

The weather was hot. It was noon. In order to get to the well, Jesus had to walk for quite a bit. He had been walking since morning, so it was natural that He was thirsty.

However, the woman’s reply was interesting. She said, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?”

It turns out that it was not the cultural norm at the time for Jews and Samaritans to interact with each other. In fact, it was considered a taboo for a man to be speaking to a woman in public in those days.

So what Jesus was doing was effectively going against the cultural norms and the social norms of the day.

So why would He do that? Why would Jesus go through the trouble of speaking with this stranger, this woman? Or was it really because He was thirsty?

I do not think so. It seems that Jesus intended to meet with this woman.

You notice that at the start of the account we were told that Jesus was making a trip from Judea to Galilee. The fastest way to go from Judea, which is at the bottom, to Galilee, which is at the top, is to cut through Samaria. But as we mentioned earlier, the Jews and the Samaritans did not interact with each other. So what they usually did was take a long detour just to avoid Samaria.

Jesus, on the other hand, chose to deliberately go through Samaria. It was said that He had to, or needed to, go through Samaria. And the reason is because He wanted to meet this woman.

Of course, to the woman, their meeting was perhaps just a coincidence. Jesus just happened to be there at the well. She just happened to be there to draw water. But to Jesus, it was no mere coincidence.

Jesus had every intention of meeting with this woman because He had something for her—something that would change her life.

And you see, my friends, it is also my belief that tonight you are here not by mere coincidence. There could have been many things that stopped you from coming tonight. But in one way or another, you are here, and I believe that God also has something for you.

2. Two Kinds of Water, Two Kinds of Thirst

So what was Jesus’ reply to the woman?

He said:

“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.”

In other words, Jesus is saying, “If you knew who I was—not just some random Jewish man, but My real identity—you would instead be asking Me for living water, and I would have given it to you.”

Jesus went on to say:

“Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again. But whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”

There is quite a bit to digest there, so let us unpack it.

First, Jesus’ priority was not His own thirst

It seems that it was not a high priority for Jesus to quench His thirst. If Jesus were really focused on His own thirst, He would be asking for water, not offering it. I think He was thirsty, but that was not the most important thing.

Second, Jesus spoke of two different kinds of water

There seem to be two kinds of water that Jesus is talking about.

The first is the water from the well. Jesus said that whoever drinks the water from the well will be thirsty again. That makes sense, since it is just plain old H2O. Human beings have to regularly drink water to stay hydrated.

But the second is this peculiar water called living water. What is this living water?

We are told that if anyone drinks of this living water, not only will he never thirst again, but the living water will become a spring or fountain in that person, welling up to eternal life. That sounds like something we have never heard of before—something out of this world.

So there can be two explanations for this living water.

The first possible explanation is that this living water is some special water that you literally drink into your body, and by some magical formula you will never need to drink water ever again. While that sounds wonderful, I do not think that is what living water is. After all, Jesus Himself, the giver of this so-called living water, did feel thirsty after a long day’s walk. Could He not just drink that living water that He had?

The second explanation, then, is this: Jesus is referring to a different kind of water to quench a different kind of thirst. Not the physical thirst that you and I are familiar with, but a thirst that you and I probably did not know about, though we may have felt its effects—a thirst deep within us, deep within our very soul, that, when not fulfilled, leaves us feeling empty and dissatisfied.

A thirst. A spiritual thirst. A thirst that nobody really talks about, but everyone experiences.

It is no wonder that the woman could not notice the difference between the two types of water. She asked, in effect, “How are you going to get this water when You do not even have a bucket with You?” Clearly, she thought that this living water was some physical water that perhaps existed in the well. And if she could get her hands on this living water, she would never again have to carry out the laborious task of coming to the well to draw water every single day.

Now you see, my friends, in many ways you and I are like this woman.

Our main occupation in life is to survive. We go to work every day to earn a living. For those who are younger, those who are studying, we study hard so that we can get a good job and then go to work every day to earn a living. The purpose, really, is just to feed ourselves so that we can live.

We will all die eventually, but we still feed ourselves with the purpose of delaying death as long as possible. And that is really all that we currently know.

The same goes for the Samaritan woman. She repeats the cycle of coming out to draw water every day so that she can have water to drink, to quench her physical thirst, so that she can live for another day.

But is that really all there is to life?

3. The Woman’s Real Need

Jesus is about to change that for this woman.

When the woman asked Jesus to give her that living water, He replied by asking her to call her husband over.

Call her husband over.

That is a very strange request, is it not? Why go and call her husband? Is this living water perhaps quite heavy, so she needs some strong manpower to get it? Is that why the husband must come along?

Either way, this woman does not have a husband—at least not technically. But Jesus was quick to call her out on that. It turns out that this woman had not just one husband, but five husbands, and the man she is currently living with is not her husband. It is really messy, and quite shocking too.

What the Lord is saying is that this woman had gone through five marriages—or, to put it another way, perhaps five divorces. Even in our current day and age, that is pretty extreme, let alone for that woman in the era she was living in. Five marriages is just crazy. This woman was really having some serious problems.

And so it makes sense why she was the only woman at the well drawing water in the middle of the day. Usually, the women of the city would come out early in the morning as a group to draw water when the sun was still low and the weather was cool. This Samaritan woman, however, chose the middle of the day, perhaps so that she would be the only one there and not be the object of gossip among the other women. After all, I do not think she was proud that she had gone through five marriages.

But the question is this: why? Why did Jesus have to point that out? Why did He have to mention that in the first place? And what does it have to do with the conversation about living water?

We earlier talked about two different kinds of thirst: physical thirst and spiritual thirst.

So could it be that this woman’s action of getting into one relationship after another was actually her trying to quench that inner spiritual thirst of hers—that emptiness she was feeling in her soul? And because she was using physical relationships to satisfy a spiritual thirst, it did not work at all.

It might have initially given her some sense of satisfaction, but soon afterward she would start to feel empty again and begin looking for the next relationship to get into. That would explain why she went from one husband to another, and another, and another, because that emptiness in her soul was never truly filled.

The sad thing is this: this woman would never find out what was wrong unless someone came along and told her.

4. We Are More Like Her Than We Think

I would like us now to pause and consider whether we have any similarities with this woman.

Granted, we may not be doing something so extreme as going through five marriages. But do we also get into other things in order to find satisfaction in our lives?

Perhaps for some of us, it could be chasing the latest trends—the latest gadgets to have, or the latest fashion to buy. For a short while, I was somewhat into watches. So I bought three watches in total. But they all tell the same time. Even then, I found myself constantly looking out for the next watch to buy, even though I did not really need another one.

For some of us, it could be something else. Since we talked about going to Italy, perhaps it could be traveling or going on holiday. We are constantly looking out for our next travel destination. Even though we have just come back from one trip, or are on the way back from one, we are already thinking of where to go next. It is almost a bit like an addiction.

But maybe for some of us, it is something a lot more sinister—something we do in secret. Certain vices, like pornography, taking drugs. And it becomes a never-ending cycle, or for some of us a downward spiral, because it did not actually satisfy you at all. It did not quench that thirst.

You cannot quench the thirst in your soul with physical things. It just does not work.

5. Why Do We Have This Thirst?

But why do we have this inner spiritual thirst in the first place? Where did this thirst come from?

This thirst is the result of us being separated from God, who is the source of life, the giver of living water.

When God made the first man and woman, Adam and Eve, they did not have this issue of spiritual thirst because they were in constant fellowship with God. But when they sinned and disobeyed God, when they rejected Him and His Word, when they turned away from Him, the relationship they had with God was broken, and they were separated from Him.

The Bible calls this being spiritually dead, because they were separated from God, the source of life.

And ever since then, the whole of mankind—including you and me—has turned our backs on God. We have rejected Him. Instead, we have been using our own ways to find satisfaction for our souls, but never truly finding it.

But that is not all, my friends. You need to know that there are consequences for sinning against God, for rejecting Him.

God is holy, and so He cannot tolerate sin. That is His character. And so He will have to judge every single one of us for the sins we have committed in our lives, whether great or small.

And what is the penalty of our sins?

The Bible tells us in Romans 6:23 that the wages, or the penalty, of sin is death.

And if there is no provision of salvation, our final destiny will be to be eternally condemned in a place called hell—a place of immense suffering and sorrow, a place where those who are there will experience a dreadful thirst that lasts forever, with nothing available to quench it.

Hell is a scary place because it is also where the presence of God and the blessings of God are absent.

But it is also frightening to know that the Samaritan woman was going about her life completely unaware of where she was ultimately heading—just like many in the world who have yet to hear the gospel.

Thankfully, she happened to meet this man by the well—a man called Jesus—who is able to save her from this eternal condemnation.

6. Jesus Christ Is the Messiah and Savior

You see, my friends, I said that God is holy and cannot tolerate sin. But God is also loving. He wants to restore the relationship He once had with mankind—a relationship where both sides enjoy the presence of one another.

So God took the initiative to provide a way of salvation for man—a way by which sinful men can be reconciled back to a holy God. He did this by sending a Messiah, a Savior, into this world to save mankind from the penalty of their sins.

Now who is this Messiah?

It is none other than the Lord Jesus Christ, as the woman soon found out.

The woman said:

“I know that Messiah” (called Christ) “is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.”

Then Jesus declared:

“I, the one speaking to you—I am he.”

“I am the Messiah.”

Jesus Christ came into this world some two thousand years ago to save mankind from the penalty of their sins. He did this by ultimately offering up His life in exchange for ours when He was crucified on a wooden cross.

He died an excruciating death, bearing God’s judgment—the judgment that was supposed to be yours and mine. He bore it on Himself.

Jesus Christ died so that we, in turn, might obtain life.

And not only that: not only did He lay down His life, but on the third day He rose again from the dead, triumphing over sin and death, so that He can now provide salvation to the whole of mankind.

And why was He able to accomplish that?

Because Jesus Christ was none other than the Son of God. The man whom the woman was speaking to at the well—that man Jesus—was no ordinary Jewish man. He is the Son of God.

John 3:16 reads:

“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”

Now, does this mean that a Christian will never die? Obviously not. But after a Christian leaves this world, he or she will spend eternity not in hell but in heaven with God, together with the Lord Jesus Christ, in perfect fellowship with Him forever.

And that is what eternal life is truly about.

In fact, eternal life starts when a person believes in Jesus. Because the moment he believes in Jesus Christ and accepts Him as his Lord and Savior, his sins are taken away, and his relationship with God—which was broken by sin—is immediately restored. He once again has fellowship with God, the source of all life.

7. What Is the Living Water?

So, going back to the conversation between the Lord Jesus Christ and the woman: what is this living water?

It is actually hidden in plain sight.

Living water is eternal life—a life in a restored relationship with God.

My friends, what you need is not the next gadget, or the next holiday, or anything else that this world has to offer, because they are all temporal. They cannot truly satisfy you.

What you need is an eternal relationship with God, for only He can truly satisfy your deepest need. Only He can truly quench your thirst.

After all, He was the One who made you, and He was the One who provided a way back to Himself through His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. And now He is openly inviting you to come back to Him to receive this living water for your soul.

8. You Must Respond Personally

Friends, tonight I can only say so much. In the end, the decision still lies with you.

You will have to experience it for yourself to find out whether this living water is real.

After the conversation with the Lord, the woman went back to the city to spread the word. It says:

“Then leaving her water jar, the woman went back to the town and said to the people, ‘Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Messiah?’ They came out of the town and made their way toward him.”

First of all, notice one thing: the woman is no longer hiding from her past.

“All the things I ever did,” she says—did not this man tell me about them?

And the things that she had done were quite some things, were they not? But she is no longer ashamed of that. Why? Because she has just found new life in the Lord Jesus Christ. She can now leave that old life behind.

But also, the crowd heard her words and came out to see the man whom she called the Messiah. And what was their response?

It says:

“We no longer believe just because of what you said. Now we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this man really is the Savior of the world.”

And many came to believe in Him.

So, my friends, tonight will you take that step of faith to receive Jesus Christ into your life? Will you respond to God’s love for you—the love that caused Him to send His one and only Son to pay the penalty of your sins?

Will you accept His invitation to be in a relationship with Him as your God, to experience true satisfaction in your life?

Remember, you have to experience it for yourself to truly find out.

So if you would like to accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, or if you would like to know more about Him, please do stay back after the meeting. Myself and Amos would very much like to speak with you. Or you can speak with the person who brought you here tonight.

Either way, we are really thankful that you took the time to be here with us.

Closing Prayer

Maybe we can close this time with a word of prayer. Let us bow our heads and thank God for the time.

Heavenly Father, Lord, we thank You so much for the good news that You have provided a way back for us to return to You. Lord, we have wandered away. We have ventured out. And for those of us who have realized it, Lord, there really is nothing out there that can truly satisfy us. True satisfaction can only be found in You and in the Lord Jesus Christ.

So Lord, we pray tonight that if there are some among us who have yet to know the Lord, but who recognize this deep need within them, this deep need for true satisfaction, that they will find the answer in the Lord Jesus Christ.

And Father, we would also like to thank You for the rest of us who are here. Lord, we pray that as Christians, we would continue to find this satisfaction in You alone.

We pray for the rest of the meeting and commit it into Your hands. We pray all of this in the name of Your Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.