If you don't know, I've just come back from some time away in Sri Lanka and Pakistan. And during this time, I picked up a bit of a bug that most westerners do when they travel to these sort of countries. Now for me, it was a bit of an ego buster because I thought that I have the stomach of steel since I survived Thailand for a month, but I don't, it seems. And I was hit pretty hard by a bout of gastro. Now this is a really bad opening illustration to start with, but there's a point to it.
Hear me out. The bug that I had was a pretty bad one. I had it for a week. The reason I didn't go to the doctor before was travelling around a lot, and I couldn't actually get to a doctor, at that time. God thankfully gave me the strength, however, to endure and to see all these places, and I didn't really feel, you know, that sort of weakness or sickness that you get from this bug.
But one thing during this whole ordeal that I learnt, was the importance of water, funnily enough. The importance of water. Water for our bodies. Because of the bug, my body wasn't able to absorb enough water to keep me hydrated. I was drinking litres and litres of water, but, I was losing more water than I was able to take in.
And so during this week, I had incredible headaches that lasted for hours and, you know, I'd have to take Panadols and that sort of thing to just keep myself sane. Water is so important for our bodies. Water is so important for our bodies. When our bodies fail to retain the right amount of water, dehydration sets in. It's the water in our bodies that determines our vitality and our strength and our energy that we have with our daily living.
If you don't have enough, you really feel bad. 70% of our bodies are made up of water. I'm sure you guys know that bit of stat. The body starts absorbing water into the bloodstream within five minutes after consumption. By the time you're 70 years old, you will have consumed five and a half million litres of water.
If you lose 2% of your body's water supply, your energy level decreases by 20%. 2% of your body's water supply leads to a decrease in energy of 20%. A 10% decrease in water in your body will leave you unable to walk. And 20% decrease means you're dead. This morning, we're going to be hearing a conversation that Jesus had with the Samaritan woman about water.
It was regarding water, however, that was of a different kind. A kind that could cure your thirst forever. Many of you, I'm sure, will know this story. But let's have a quick read of it. But what I want us to look at and focus on this morning is not so much that part of the story, but what happened afterwards.
But we'll read the whole thing just to understand the context a little bit. So we're going to turn to John 4:1, and we're going to read through to verse 38. John 4:1-38. John 4:1. The Pharisees heard that Jesus was gaining and baptising more disciples than John.
Although, in fact, it was not Jesus who baptised but His disciples. When the Lord learned of this, He left Judea and went back once more to Galilee. Now He had to go through Samaria, so He came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, 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 the sixth hour, around about 12:00.
When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, will you give Me a drink? His disciples had gone into town to buy food. 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, if you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep, where can you get this living water? 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? Jesus answered, everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again. 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. The woman said to him, sir, give me this water that I won't get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water. He 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. So the woman said, I can see that you are a prophet. Our fathers worshipped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where you we must worship is in Jerusalem. Jesus declared, believe Me woman, a time is coming when you will worship the father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem.
You Samaritans worship what you do not know. We worship what we do know for salvation is from the Jews. Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshippers will worship the father in spirit and in truth. For they are the kind of worshippers the father seeks. God is spirit and His worshippers must worship in spirit and in truth.
The woman said, I know that Messiah called Christ is coming. When He comes, He will explain everything to us. Then Jesus declared, I who speak to you am He. Just then His disciples returned and were surprised to find Him talking with a woman. But no one asked, what do you want?
Or why are you talking with her? 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 Christ? They came out of the town and made their way toward Him. Meanwhile, His disciples urged Him, Rabbi, eat something.
But He said to them, I have food to eat that you know nothing about. Then His disciples said to each other, could someone have brought Him food? My food, said Jesus, is to do the will of Him who sent Me and to finish His work. Do you not say four months more and then the harvest? I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields.
They are ripe for the harvest. Even now, the reaper draws his wages. Even now, he harvests the crop for eternal life so that the sower and the reaper may be glad together. Thus the saying, one sows and another reaps is true. I sent you to reap what you have not worked for.
Others have done the hard work, and you have reaped the benefits of their labour. So far our reading this morning. What I want us to focus on is not so much this morning the conversation that Jesus had with the Samaritan woman, but what the conversation Jesus had with the disciples when they returned from going out looking for food. Because Jesus really explains what sort of was happening in that conversation that He had with this woman. So while Jesus was having this life changing conversation with the woman at the well, the disciples had gone on a Macca's run.
They had gone to pick up a few cheeseburgers, a few frozen cokes, and a 30¢ cone for dessert. And when they came back, they found that Jesus was talking with this woman. And they don't really know what was going on. John says they didn't ask, you know, what do you want to the woman or, why are you talking with her, Jesus? They just sort of went about their normal job or whatever perhaps.
But they say in, in verse 31 to Jesus after she leaves, Rabbi or teacher, eat. Have something. The Lord seems less concerned, however, with His stomach and more concerned with the souls of those around Him. And He says to them in verse 32, I have food that you know nothing about. I have food that you know nothing about.
Now while the disciples are scratching their heads thinking maybe Jesus had a packed lunch with Him that they didn't know about, Jesus explains in verse 34 that, no, My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me and to finish His work. Now this is really important for us to think about. Because the whole time, the conversations have been about things that sustain us. The first conversation Jesus had with the Samaritan woman was about water. Water that sustains us.
Water that quenches our thirst. The second one is about food that sustains us, gives us energy. The first conversation with the Samaritan woman, the water is water that can satisfy the soul and quench the thirst of spiritual longing. But the second is spiritual food that will satisfy purpose in life. First one is to quench spiritual longing.
The second one is to satisfy purpose in life. And notice a couple of things that we learn from our Lord about desiring the will of God. First of all, having an appetite for the Lord's will means that we will be satisfied. We will be satisfied to do God's will. Have a look again at what Jesus said in verse 34.
My will is to do the will of Him who has sent Me. And Jesus said that which nourished and satisfied Him was doing the will of God. He was satisfied by doing God's will in this world. In 1965, Keith Richards from the band, The Rolling Stones, couldn't sleep. And while he was wrestling to get to sleep, he had this epiphany of an awesome guitar riff and the words, I can't get no satisfaction.
And, he got out of bed, wrote down or recorded actually the riff and wrote down the words. Then he went back to sleep. Now, I don't know if you know Keith Richards, but he's a man that, is a great example of how not to do drugs. If you know of, Jack Sparrow played by Johnny Depp, he imitated Keith Richards. He's got the permanent slur because of drug abuse and all that sort of stuff, but brilliant musician.
And, he and Mick Jagger later went and sat together. I think the next day, sat together and wrote out the song, I Can't Get No Satisfaction. And within a month, this was May 1965, June 1965, the song was released as a single and they shot to fame. First international hit for the Rolling Stones. Whether you care anything for the Rolling Stones or their songs, you can surely understand how so many people related to this passage, especially in the sixties.
Many many people live dissatisfied lives today. Many many people live dissatisfied lives today. They have no peace. It's hopping from one weekend to another. Just grinding, biting down for the week, and then longing for that weekend.
Hopping from one weekend to another. Hopping from one woman's bed to another. One bad relationship to another, one job to another, one religion or one spirituality or one philosophy to another. There is no satisfaction. There is no satisfaction.
People are searching, constantly searching whether they realise it or not. In John 4, Jesus teaches us that there is true satisfaction to be found. Firstly, it comes from drinking from the living water that is Jesus Christ. Firstly, it is finding satisfaction for that thirsty soul. But then Jesus says, the second one comes from obeying the will of God.
That is the food of the soul. Can you see how they're talking about the same thing here almost? It's about satisfaction. When our appetites and our desires are indulged in these two things, we will be satisfied by doing the will of God and finishing His work. The second thing that I want us to notice this morning is that when we have an appetite for the Lord's will, we will continually want to accomplish the job.
Look again at verse 34. He said, My food is to do the will of Him that sent Me and to finish His work. The problem with most Christians is not that they lack the desire to begin doing the will of God, they just don't have the discipline or the commitment to finish the will of God. Pastor and author Chuck Swindoll says, give me a 100 people with a passion and a drive or one person with perseverance and commitment and I will take the one person over the 100 any day. The problem sometimes is not in the desire, but in the commitment.
I've seen Christians who initially seemed interested in obeying God and doing it, you know, have so much energy and so much passion and then walk away. You don't see them, you don't hear from them. They get sidetracked, they get distracted. And they fail to live out the lives of God or what God was calling them to do. They do not finish the work that they were given.
Jesus had a hunger and a passion not only to do the will of God the father, but to finish it. To finish it. It's interesting that he had to say that. Not just I'm here to do the will of God, I'm here to finish it. Now, of course, the amazing thing is he did finish it.
And it's only the apostle John that writes in his gospel where Jesus was on the cross and said, it is finished. It is finished. The work that I was called to do, I have completed. He didn't just want to start the race, he wanted to finish it. At the end of the gospel of John, when Jesus says, it is finished, you know that that job was completed, it was dealt with.
The work that God has sent him to do, salvation that he was to bring was done. He was obedient right until the end. Now before some of us say, k j, that's fine. That was Jesus' calling. That was Jesus' mission.
He's talking here about His own mission. The reason I know that this is more about our discipleship and our obedience is what comes next. It is dangerous for us to claim that this is intended, it's not intended as an example. It's to talk about Jesus because He was unique and He was special and this was His mission. We're never gonna be the John the Baptist, which was a forerunner of Christ.
We're not gonna be King David as an ancestor of Jesus. We're not gonna be Mary, the one who gave Jesus birth because they were unique. And so we have to be careful about claiming nice pithy statements that they made and saying that's our mission statement. But Jesus was talking about discipleship and evangelism here. Jesus continues in verse 35 saying, do you not say, four months more and then the harvest?
I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields. They are ripe for the harvest. Again, Jesus' illustration, is remarkably earthy. He goes from the natural everyday concept of a farm to the spiritual eternal concept of bringing souls into a lasting relationship with God. The disciples were thinking of physical food.
Jesus is talking about spiritual nourishment. The disciples spoke about earthly harvest. Jesus spoke about a metaphorical one. At the end of the dialogue between Jesus and the Samaritan woman, notice what happened in verse 28. So this is going back a few verses in verse 28.
This Samaritan woman, after hearing about the living water, in verse 28 it says, she left her water jar and went back to town. Now this is significant. We can read over that very quickly. Why is it significant that she left her water jar behind? Not because it meant that she was coming back.
Hear me out. On the one hand, we see that the literal recording from the gospel writer John that she left the jar and went back home. But let me tell you something, John didn't write this bit of detail to be pedantic. He wasn't that sort of personality necessarily. He wrote it down because there's more to the statement than meets the eye.
You see, no one in that day and age would have left a big jug of water behind when their purpose was to go and get water because there were no taps in homes. You needed that water to do everything, to wash your dishes, to wash your face, your hands. You needed that water in your house. You were not gonna leave it behind. That woman left that jug behind not because she was forgetful, but because she found living water.
She found living water. That water that Jesus spoke of, which is a spring of water welling up to eternal life. She left that jug behind because she found water that ensured she would never thirst again. Isn't that amazing? John had to put that in.
And as the disciples were talking to Jesus and as the crowd from the woman's town came out towards Jesus, Jesus looked at His disciples, looked at the crowd and said to them, boys, open your eyes and see the harvest. It's ripe. The crops need watering. They need the living water. They need Jesus Christ.
They need the living water, the bread of life. Here's everything you need to live. And once you have that life, you will never thirst and you will never be hungry again. I can't get no satisfaction becomes I am supremely satisfied. I'm content.
I am fulfilled. I'm at peace because I have found the only one who can really satisfy. I leave my jug behind. This woman met Jesus almost satisfied, so she left her well water behind because she found real water. When it comes to evangelism, and this is what this passage is about, when it comes to us sharing the gospel, evangelism.
Evangelism is just one beggar telling another beggar where to get bread. That is all that evangelism is. It's just one thirsty soul telling another thirsty soul where they can dunk their head in the spring of life. Or to put it another way, as a pastor has famously said, I'm just a nobody telling everybody about somebody who can save anybody. As the seed of the word of God is sowed, it takes root in the hearts of men and women.
As they come to faith in Christ, we reap them, we adopt them into our family, discipling them and caring for them. The gospel is not simply something we come to church to hear, it is something we go from church to tell. And it is easy as telling a person where to get bread. You know what the great thing about this is? The great thing is that it is happening.
The great thing that is that we have these people in our lives. We don't need to feel guilty about this. It's not one of those sermons. It's just a reminder that we must persevere. It's just gotta be part of our lives.
It's just gotta be part of our lives. God will give us opportunity to tell people where we got our water. We just need to be obedient. Our Lord Jesus will be drawing many people to Him. That's a promise.
Because the harvest is dependent upon God, but let's not miss out. Like Jesus said, open your eyes to see what is around you. Open your eyes. Open your eyes to see what is around you. That one person in your life that moves your heart just a little bit, that you feel just a little bit sad for or sympathetic for, it's a person that God can be putting on your heart.
Those who struggle, even though they may not know it, the ones who need to know about Christ's sacrifice for them, you know who I'm talking about. They are the ones who own a special place in our hearts. They are your little veggie patch. They are your little veggie patch that needs to be harvested. They are your ones.
They are your projects. They are your prayer targets. Pray for them. Just pray for them, please. Don't miss the opportunity to sow or to reap into the lives of others.
When this woman heard what Jesus had to say, when she was confronted with her sin, when she heard about a gracious God who looked at her heart rather than her ethnicity as a Samaritan, rather than her gender as a woman, her eyes were opened to receive Jesus. The Jesus who saw her, who approached and reached out to her, and at first, didn't understand, didn't know what He was talking about. But after that one encounter with the Lord, she was never the same again, and she evangelised that whole town. That morning she left to fill up her water jug. That afternoon she returned to her home without it.
Her thirst was quenched. Her hunger had been filled and her soul was satisfied. This morning, if you do not know Jesus in this way, if you are not satisfied, the invitation is to come and drink of the living water. The invitation is again to come and taste and see that the Lord is good. That is a promise and I can guarantee you it works.
Come and see and taste that the Lord is good and that He satisfies. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, this is a story that we know. This is one of those famous ones that moves our hearts, Lord. But Lord, we are challenged again this morning that there are people in our lives who are ripe for the harvest.
And You speak to us again and You challenge us again this morning to open our eyes to see the harvest, to not be deceived by the lies that it is too difficult in Australia, that the Lord is working in Africa and in China and Asia, but not in Australia. Lord, give us the opportunities. Let us see the opportunities in our lives. Thank You, Lord, that You have already been using us. Thank You, Lord, that we've been able to share.
And Lord, that there's so many, lives that we can testify about that are being changed, that are in the process of drawing nearer to You. Thank You, Lord, for that. Lord, I wanna pray for our brothers, for our sisters, for our mums and our dads who don't know You, who have wandered away from You, who have deserted You for things that they think are more worthy. Lord, I wanna pray for our friends that stumble around hurting themselves, hurting others because they don't know better. Lord, we see in all these lives, they are not satisfied, that there is a hunger, that there is a thirst for them that cannot be quenched, that no sin can quench.
Father, we ask that You move in their hearts. Give them a sense of Your drawing and Your peace that awaits them, Lord. Give us the words and the insight to share that with them. And Lord, ultimately, make our joy complete like John would later write when we get to talk about the word of life that has appeared to us. Make our joy complete, Lord, by seeing them come to You.
Father, we lay these things before You. We ask, Lord, that this year, in 2014, You may move us to share this love in us. And Lord, grow that love in us as well. Draw us closer to You as well so that there's nothing in us that does not want to express to the whole world, to every ear that wants to hear what You've done in our lives. Draw us closer to You.
Draw us deeper into You, we ask. In Jesus' name. Amen.