Sunday Morning August 5, 2001 Bel Aire Baptist Church, Hobbs, NM
Series: Finding Freedom From Sin #1
PURE WATER
JOHN 4:7-30
Introduction:
1. Do we have anyone here this morning that has ever sinned? You are thinking, “Well yea stupid. We all have sinned. So why ask such an obvious question?” Sometimes we classify and justify our sins long enough that we become unaware of what a stronghold they have upon us.
2. Good names for these sins are “pet sins”. These are the sins in your life that you ask God to forgive and then go right back to them over and over again. Sin separates and distances our relationship with God. No, you don’t lose your salvation, but the joy that you once had in Christ is not there.
3. Don’t you want total freedom from sin? Don’t you want your relationship with God to be like never before? You say, “What’s the use, I will always sin anyways.” I would ask this morning, “Are you so unconcerned about where you stand with God that you don’t want to grow up?”
4. As we begin this series this morning, “Finding Freedom From Sin”, I want to tell you that at times I may share with you my personal testimony about some addictions I have faced and results of those. I am not sharing these with you as “bragging”, but in hopes that God could take something as ugly and terrible as some of the things I have done and use them in a way to help you find freedom.
5. I also want you to realize that although my past sins that I may bring up may sound really bad or not that bad in comparison to your “pet” sins, that regardless how bad or not bad you think your sin is, it is still sin and God hates all sin!
6. If you want to grow closer to God, as I do, then we must draw closer to God and that means you have to be clean from the sin in your life.
7. Let’s read our text: John 4:7-30.
I. Selection
A. Observation: Two Kinds Of Water
1. “This water,” which would not satisfy and would not quench thirst. The woman would have to keep coming back again and again to get more of “this water”.
2. “The water I (Jesus) give” which would quench thirst eternally.
B. Fact: The Woman’s Testimony
1. Jesus brought up the fact that the woman had 5 ex-husbands and a current live-in boyfriend. She could not find satisfaction so she kept going back to find a new love. Each time I am sure she hoped it was her last time to go searching.
2. Jesus brought up the fact that her thirst could not be quenched because she was drinking the wrong water. What she needed was the water that Jesus was offering.
C. Application: Our Testimony
1. What kind of water have you been drinking spiritually? If you have been trying to find satisfaction in life through anything or anyone besides Jesus Christ you will always come away thirsty.
2. I will tell you that many times in my own life, I tried to find satisfaction through other means. Now I want you to understand that when I did all of these things, I was already a Christian. So Christian don’t sit there thinking that this sermon is just for the lost. The sad thing about it is, as Christians, we have the pure water from Jesus Christ and yet we drink the sewer water.
II. Satisfaction
A. Observation: Living Water
1. Jesus offered this woman living water.
2. He said that if she drank it she would not be thirsty anymore.
B. Fact: The Woman’s Testimony
1. How simple right? All she had to do was drink this new, pure water and her thirst would be quenched.
2. Do you get what I am telling you? She just had to trade out the water that she was drinking.
C. Application: Our Testimony
1. The first part of putting away a particular sin in your life is simply replacing that sin (the sewer water) with things of God (pure water). That means whatever that habitual sin is that you have quit a million times and kept going back to must be dropped off at the feet of Jesus and left there. It is not that we can’t let it go as much as we don’t want to let it go. You know, “I just can’t make it without … (fill in the blank with your favorite sin).”
2. Do you really want satisfaction through Jesus Christ? Permanent satisfaction.
Ezekiel 20:7
III. Spending
A. Observation: How To Drink
1. Turn with me to Isaiah 55:1-3 and we are going to learn not only where to find this water but how to drink of it. In other words, we are going to learn how to spend our lives for the right reasons.
2. Let me ask you some questions from these verses and let’s find the answers together:
a) He says, “Come, all you who are thirsty.” “Alright, I am thirsty, I will come. But where do I come to quench my thirst?” {“Come to the waters.”}
b) “That makes sense; if I am thirsty I should come to the waters, but where are the waters?”
c) “Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good, and your soul will delight in the richest of fare. Give ear and come to me; hear me, that your soul may live.”
d) Folks, do you see the answer? The water is in the Word of God. Drinking comes by listening. The Bible is our source of true refreshment and quenching of our thirst.
B. Fact: The Woman’s Testimony
1. The woman had been spending her life on things that did not matter or satisfy.
2. We see here this morning though that she came to the pure water of Jesus Christ and she drank it.
C. Application: Our Testimony
1. We have the pure water of Jesus Christ. We are given the answers in the Bible.
2. Do you drink from this living water, or do you try to find the answers and solutions to your thirst somewhere else?
Conclusion:
1. Jeremiah 2:13 says, “My people have committed two sins: They have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water”.
2. God is the spring of living water. He is the only source of life, refreshment, and nourishment for us. He is always fresh and new, like a spring, and to “drink” of God is to receive life and be satisfied!
3. Turning back over and over to your pet sin is like trying to get water from a jar with holes in it.
4. I want you to notice just one more thing this morning. Read with me John 4:28-30 one more time.
5. After speaking with Jesus, the woman at the well went back into town. What did she do with her water jar? {“She left it with Jesus”}.
6. Have you left the sewer water of your life with Jesus or do you keep trying to take it back? Folks this sermon is good news for us because we can learn to leave the sewer water behind and drink from the living water that Jesus offers us that will always quench our thirst.
