Free Ice Water
The depression took the fun out of 1932. It was no time to go into business. But Ted and Dorothy Husted bought the little drug store in their town. The little village of Wall, South Dakota was barely surviving. Grasshoppers had eaten all the crops in the region. It was a dust bowl because of a long drought and temperatures (often for ten days at a time) of over 100 degrees. Their little drugstore was not making it. They were about to quit.
One hot afternoon with no customers in sight Dorothy went home to rest but she couldn’t sleep because of the constant noise of traffic going by on the highway near their house. In that moment she realized that most of these travelers were hot and tired. She went back to the store and worked out a fantastic marketing strategy.
Ted went 25 miles in each direction and put up signs that read, FREE ICE WATER AT THE WALL DRUG STORE, Wall, S.D. They put up signs at 10 miles; and at 5 miles the sign read: HOLD ON! IT’S ONLY 5 MILES TO THE WALL DRUG STORE AND FREE ICE WATER.
Before he even got back to the store people were stopping for free water. Some bought ice cream and other things. They struggled to keep up with the constant flow of people.
Today, decade’s later, signs all over the world telling you just how far it is to free ice water at the Wall, S.D. drugstore. On a hot summer day more than 20,000 people crowd the drugstore that covers most of a city block. This happened in a town of that has never had more than 800 residents. It remains the most spectacularly, successful drugstore in the entire industry. Druggists had been handing out free water for generations. But Ted & Dorothy were the first people who ever thought of advertising it.
Jesus offers water that quenches the deep inner thirst every person has felt. He offered it to a woman in Samaria and it changed not only her life but also the life of everyone she knew in her village.
The Woman at the Well
The well was the most public place in the community.
Today we don’t have a well we go to for our water. We pipe it into our homes instead. We may not have wells anymore but we have shopping malls, supermarkets, community centers, classrooms, and office buildings.
And they are chock full of people like this woman that Jesus met at the well.
Jesus went to a woman lost in darkness
Here was a person who was lost and unaware of it.
Is that possible? Can you be lost and not know it? Of course you can. It happens all of the time.
I once visited with a couple in Xenia, Ohio who had been guests at the church where I ministered. After a time the husband said, “Last week in church you said that we could be saved. We don’t understand. Saved from what?”
They didn’t know that they were lost. They didn’t understand the condition that they were in. They thought the emptiness and hunger in them for something spiritually satisfying was normal. That you just lived with it. In fact they got so used to it that they didn’t even consider it a problem. They were living in darkness – unaware of the light.
My Grandma Grubbs used to say that they were like the fly in the vinegar jar that thought it was the sweetest place in the world because he had never been anywhere else.
People get used to the dark
Have you ever been in a theatre in the middle of the afternoon and then walked out into the light?
We get used to the dark; and even familiar with the darkness that surrounds us. When we live in the dark it eventually becomes our companion and friend. The darkness becomes our every day life.
Isn’t it interesting that bars and nightclubs are never well lighted? The dirt, grease, grime, the broken fixtures, worn furniture, and scratched woodwork is all hidden in the dimness of the place. In the same way that the murky light hides the physical flaws of the room the human blemishes are covered. Somehow, the wrinkles of aging, the puffiness of too much drink and not enough sleep, and the sallow skin that hasn’t seen much sunlight is smoothed over in the shadows. The problem with spiritual darkness is it dulls you to truth.
The 1st job of every Christian is to go to those who are lost in the darkness
What makes that very challenging and incredibly simple at the same time is that most people are in the dark and don’t know it. Here is a woman that was spiritually thirsty and didn’t realize it. She thought that the water of the well would satisfy her needs but Jesus saw the real thirst deep inside her. He saw into the darkness of her soul and addressed it directly…
10 Jesus said, “If you only knew the free gift of God and who it is that is asking you for water, you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.”
When Jesus met the woman at the well, she was in darkness.
That darkness separated, or alienated her from God. That is what it means to be lost.
And, knowing that, Jesus did the loving thing -- He confronted the woman with her darkness...
Jesus gently showed her the light
His message was simple and had powerful
Part I: You are looking for purpose and peace but what you are doing isn’t working.
He began with the thirst that nothing quenches
13 Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, 14 but whoever drinks the water I give will never be thirsty. The water I give will become a spring of water gushing up inside that person, giving eternal life.”
Part II: I have the answer
Jesus didn’t just tell her about the light – he showed her the light. He didn’t just say, “I have the answer.” – He was the answer.
John Maxwell, “People don’t care what you know until they know that you care.”
Jesus cared about this woman. He spoke with her. He connected with her and let her know that he cared about her. He was light in her darkness. Here was a man – unlike the other 5 men in her life. He didn’t come to her in the darkness and privacy of a bedroom and say sweet nothings about how wonderful she was. Here was a man who looked into her eyes and saw the sorrow of her soul in a public place and said I have the answer for your life. This was a comforting and warm light to her cold and dim existence. This was clear, cool water to her dry, cracked, and dusty heart.
The woman was attracted to the light
15 The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water so I will never be thirsty again and will not have to come back here to get more water.”
Light is attractive by it’s very nature
The woman at the well became curious about this living water, and asked for more. Contrary to some bleak views that teach that nobody wants to know about Jesus, I believe people are generally ready to hear. You have just got to find a way to speak their language and to expose them to the light.
People genuinely want to be right with God.
Sparky Anderson, was the manager of the Big Red Machine (the Cincinnati Reds) back in the mid 70’s, and the manager of the Detroit Tigers the year that the Tigers won the World Series. He made this open admission in a major Detroit newspaper back in 1984, “...I’m not lying when I say that this (religion) is so important to me. If I had one great wish, it would be that I could honestly say that I was one of His (God’s) people. That’s the one emptiness I have. I’d give up all the pennants and all the honors just to know that I was doing right by Him. (3)”
The 2nd job of every Christian is to be the light in a dark world
He shows us how to show our friends, neighbors and family the light of truth
He was gentle and patient. Jesus called us to be fishers of men – not hunters of big game.
People today are skeptical because they see so many inconsistencies in the lives of professing Christians. But they are not closed to a genuine presentation of the Gospel from a person who is genuinely possessed by the Lord of that Gospel.
There are a lot of seekers.
People want the Lord -- they just want to make certain they are getting the real God, and not some fruitcake’s religion!
With so much light why is it so dark for so many?
Can you imagine a drugstore in a little town which has plenty of ice water and where there are so many that drive by so fast and are so thirsty – yet no one stops simply because they don’t know about it?
Could it be that we are unaware of their need?
Could it be that we are uncaring about their thirst?
Could it be that we are comfortable and unwilling to risk failure and rejection?
Can you imagine a community of people with God’s Word of Life who sit quietly in their place while streets are filled with people rushing to and fro in the world around them?
Why would we call a man and his family to help us build a ministry to children when we can baby-sit the kids easier?
Why would we have home groups and youth programs?
Why would we begin a ministry to those in prison and in jail?
Why would we begin a ministry for those who are chronically ill and deal with great physical pain?
Why would we gather clothes and send them to another country.
Why would send 8 people to the Ukraine?
Why would we start sports ministries where 1/3 of the participants are in the dark – but don’t know it.
Why would we call a young man and woman to be our Outreach Ministers so they can serve200 missionaries in 40 countries.
Why would we partner with 88.1 to host a Single Parents Day in May?
Why would we plan a Church Service in the new Band shell at Lake Lansing?
Why would we have an Open House the first Sunday in November?
Why would we plan a Christmas Dinner at the Frandor Flapjack for anyone with no place to go for the Holiday?
Why? Because someone cared enough to bring me the light of Jesus.
Let us be light to our world – here and the Ukraine
