Come and Drink
John 7:37-39, “37 On the last day, the climax of the festival, Jesus stood and shouted to the crowds, "If you are thirsty, come to me! 38 If you believe in me, come and drink! For the Scriptures declare that rivers of living water will flow out from within." F33 39 (When he said "living water," he was speaking of the Spirit, who would be given to everyone believing in him. But the Spirit had not yet been given, because Jesus had not yet entered into his glory.)”
Now, right off the bat, in case anybody was thinking that Jesus was talking about some physical water that would quench a physical thirst, John helps us out by pointing out what is the Living Water that Jesus was talking about. He reveals to us that the water that Jesus was talking about was none other than the Holy Spirit.
I remember the old Gatorade commercials that say, “Gatorade is thirst aid for that deep down body thirst.” This “deep down body thirst” isn’t just being a little thirsty, or saying, “Oh, it sure would be nice to have a refreshing drink right now.” No, instead in the commercials they would show an athlete who had just finished competing. He is completely exhausted; having sweating so much that his body craves water. He has just expended all his water resources by “beating up on his body.” Now he needs something to replenish his store. He doesn’t just need the surface satisfaction of a Coca-cola, but he needs something that’s going to penetrate right down to the cells and replenish them with water. The premise of the commercial is that Gatorade is just the thing for the job. Well, I’m not trying to sell you Gatorade this afternoon. I brought this up so I could talk about a similar thirst.
You see, just like every athlete has a “deep down body thirst.” Every person has a “deep down spirit thirst.” As I’m sure you know, who we are isn’t limited to our bodies. We all have a soul and a spirit as well. And just as our bodies have a fundamental need for water, so do our spirits have a fundamental need and desire. When life beats up on our spirits, just as physical activity beats up on our bodies, we need our spirits to be replenished. And people have tried many things to satisfy these deep cravings of their spirit, but there is only one thing that can really satisfy this deep thirst. That is the Living Water which Jesus offers—the Holy Spirit.
To get a closer look at how this Living Water can meet the deep spiritual needs, lets examine a specific time when Jesus offered this water to someone—the Samaritan woman at the well.
John 4:4-30
While it is not immediately clear at the beginning of the passage, this Samaritan woman is quite torn and hurting. Her life is miserable. It certainly would be easy to determine that she was not satisfied. She needed something to satisfy her. She needed something to heal her wounds. Her life was like a barren wilderness and she was desperately in need of a change that would allow her life to flourish again.
The first problem we see that she has is with her relationships. She had five husbands and was living with a sixth man who was not her husband. Questions of guilt aside, she must have had a lot of pain and turmoil, not to mention probably bitterness, in her heart over five failed marriages. As if that pain were not enough for her to bear, it was worsened by the social stigma of her lifestyle. She was obviously an outcast. We know this by the fact that she was at the well at noon. Noon was the hottest part of the day. It was a good time for finding a place in the shade for a nap. It was not time to be doing hard work like hauling water. It was certainly no time to be venturing into the open sun outside of the city, which is where the well was. Nobody would choose to draw water from the well at noon. And this is precisely why she chose that time to go to the well. I guess some things never change. Even today when we talk of workplace gossip, we think of the “water cooler.” It’s a place where a few people gather and talk for a few minutes about nothing in particular. It must have been the same then, and this woman was ashamed to show herself in such a public place. I’m sure she had seen her share of people staring and pointing, trying to hide their snickers or grins, quickly hushing their whispers when she came within earshot. So, she decided, better to endure the hot noonday sun that the pain and shame of public scorn.
Furthermore, she was obviously torn by racism and religious differences. Her first reaction to Jesus was disbelief that Jesus, a Jew, would even talk to a Samaritan woman. Being surrounded by the Jews, who generally hated the Samaritans, was I’m sure quite a sources of turmoil, not only for her, but also for the people of Samaria in general. Further, because of her many references to the religious worship of the Samaritans, we see that this was another hotspot for her. Even when Jesus was offering to help her, she would bring up some of her religious traditions. It was almost, thankfully not quite, but almost as if she was saying that she would accept a solution only if it fit within her limited religious tradition. She would accept a fix, as long as she could keep her tradition, and be told it was okay. You could say that one of her big problems was that she was bound by religious tradition.
Now with all this hurt and pain and turmoil, she needed a solution. Her spirit was in definite need of healing and restoration. And then Jesus came onto the scene and simply said to her:
Vs. 10 "If you only knew the gift God has for you and who I am, you would ask me, and I would give you living water."
There was the simple solution to her problems, the Living Water that God offered her. No matter her brokenness; the Holy Spirit could mend her wounds. No matter her emptiness; the Holy Spirit could fill and satisfy her. No matter her shame; the Holy Spirit could restore her dignity. No matter her rejection; the Holy Spirit would accept her and heal the hurt. No matter her empty religious traditions; the very fulfillment of those traditions stood before her in the flesh offering her the Water of Life. He offered the only thing that could truly replenish, revive, and satisfy her dry, weary, torn, empty spirit. He was offering to turn her barren wasteland into an oasis flourishing with life. Such is what the presence of the Holy Spirit can do for a spirit in such need.
While she did receive the Living Water and there is a “happy ending,” in her response to Jesus we can see some objections that often hinder people from accepting the Living Water that God offers.
I. The futility of looking for a physical solution to a spiritual problem.
At first, it seems, the woman was confused. She thought that Jesus was talking about natural physical water. Here Jesus was, trying to meet her deep spiritual needs and her focus was only on the physical. Her mind saw all of the physical symptoms of her problem and thought that there must be a physical answer.
A. Now, water that would make you never become thirsty again would have helped this woman quite a bit. She nailed this on the head when she said, “I won’t have to come her to haul water.” If only she didn’t have to come tot eh well at all, she would no longer have to choose between shame and the intolerable heat of the noonday sun. She would still have her pain. She would still have her shame. She would still be broken up inside, but at least there would have been some relief. She wasn’t expecting a deep, penetrating cure for her spiritual problem. She was only hoping to ease some of the burden of that problem.
And this is a problem that we too may face. We have some deep pain or hurt, and we think, only if this would change, or only if that would chance, we would be okay. But really we don’t need a change of circumstances, we need a change of heart. We need the Living Water of the Holy Spirit to penetrate deep into our hearts and bring a cleansing and a healing that nothing else can give. Only then will we experience true satisfaction, because the Living Water has quenched that “deep down spirit thirst. I’m here to tell you that even with all the surface physical solutions the world has to offer, there’s still a real solution. This real solution is the Living Water of God penetrating deep into your heart and healing and satisfying your spirit.
I remember when I was in high school there was a time when I was so depressed. I hated by life and everyone in it. I thought nothing would ever satisfy me. I was full of bitterness and hatred. Then I went to the altar one night and took a long drink at the Spring of Living Water. I allowed the Holy Spirit to penetrate and fill my heart. Suddenly, everything was different. I had no more hatred in my heart. And everything changed. I was like the guy in the depression commercial—I went from “down in the dumps” to “high as a kite.” But I didn’t do it by hiding my hurt and pain beneath a band-aid. I didn’t do it by changing my circumstances. The change was because the Holy Spirit had healed my spirit. A deep, spiritual need doesn’t allow for a shallow physical fix, but requires nothing less than the deep, spiritual solution of the Living Water of God.
B. We can get further insight when we read the Samaritan woman’s response, "But sir, you don’t have a rope or a bucket." Now, here Jesus was offering her the solution to her problem, and because she was focused on the physical, she could only think of what was missing. She pointed out to him that he lacked the means to provide this Living Water, because everyone knows that you have to have a rope and a bucket to pull water out of a well. And when we try to find a physical solution to a spiritual problem, there will always be something missing. We may say, everything would be okay if just I had this… or if just I had that. But the fact is that if you had this or that, you would think of another thing you were lacking. Let’s look at another example when the physical solution was lacking, but the spiritual solution was sufficient.
Acts 3:1-8, “1 Peter and John went to the Temple one afternoon to take part in the three o’clock prayer service. 2 As they approached the Temple, a man lame from birth was being carried in. Each day he was put beside the Temple gate, the one called the Beautiful Gate, so he could beg from the people going into the Temple. 3 When he saw Peter and John about to enter, he asked them for some money. 4 Peter and John looked at him intently, and Peter said, "Look at us!" 5 The lame man looked at them eagerly, expecting a gift. 6 But Peter said, "I don’t have any money for you. But I’ll give you what I have. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, get up and walk!" 7 Then Peter took the lame man by the right hand and helped him up. And as he did, the man’s feet and anklebones were healed and strengthened. 8 He jumped up, stood on his feet, and began to walk! Then, walking, leaping, and praising God, he went into the Temple with them.”
This man had a problem. He was lame. And everyday he was brought to the Temple gate to beg. Why was he brought everyday? Because begging alms was only a temporary solution. The money he got yesterday was enough to keep him alive yesterday, but it didn’t do anything to solve his problem today. It was just a perpetual, temporary solution. But one day, Peter and John came by. They possessed through the Holy Spirit, the power to permanently solve his problem. But he didn’t know it. He was so used to putting off his problem until tomorrow, that it probably never even crossed his mind to ask for a real solution. Here he sat, everyday at the gate of the Temple of the Most High God—the very one who had created the whole world, and indeed had created him. And yet, it seems, he was only concerned with taking care of today. But Peter and John walked by and he asked for money. And listen to what Peter said, “I don’t have any many for you.” Peter was lacking the physical resources to help the man. As long as the man was looking for a physical solution, Peter could do absolutely nothing to help him. Because of his focus on the physical, something was lacking. But, Peter continued, “But I’ll give you what I have. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, get up and walk!" Even though Peter lacked the physical solution, he possessed something far greater. He possessed the spiritual solution to the man’s problem. He could do more than just put off his problem for one more day. He permanently solved the man’s problem. Every day he sat at the gate, begging for enough just to survive. Why? Because he needed to survive until this day when his problem his problem would be permanently solved. Now that he has the spiritual solution, he no longer needs the physical solution. He doesn’t need to sit and beg any longer. Now he can go get a job and live a normal life. Even when we’re lacking the means to a physical solution, it doesn’t matter, because we have access to the spiritual solution that makes the physical one unnecessary. When you’ve got the Living Water, it doesn’t matter if you’ve got a rope and bucket or not. You don’t need it anymore. It doesn’t matter what you’re lacking. It doesn’t matter what you don’t have. What matters is what you do have. Do you have the Living Water?
C. A third thing we can see about looking to the physical, is that the problem always seems bigger when we do. The woman continued to say to Jesus, "But sir, you don’t have a rope or a bucket," she said, "and this is a very deep well.” Not only did she point out what Jesus was lacking, but also the difficulty of obtaining the solution. She might as well have said, “My hurts and scars run very deep.” She was accusing Jesus of offering something that was out of his reach. She thought he was offering something that he couldn’t deliver. But we know that our God is all-powerful. There is no such thing as a problem to big for him. There is no pain to deep for him to heal. There is no problem too big for him to solve. He offers the same solution, come and drink of this Living Water.
D. The final thing we see about looking to the physical is that it leads to a lack of faith. The woman said to Jesus, “Where would you get this water.” Because she was looking at the supposed physical limitations of Jesus and the severity of her problem, the woman came to one conclusion: he cannot really give me what he is promising. She didn’t believe that Jesus could really deliver the Living Water. And we sometimes may think the same way. We may think that because there is no physical way and because our problem is too big, that Jesus’ invitation to come and drink of the Living Water isn’t really for us. Oh, because you know about Jesus, you may have more faith than the woman did. But in the end, you may come to the same conclusion. You may think that whatever you’re dealing with is just going to go to the grave with you. It’s just your burden to bear in life. Oh, God will help us with some things, but this thing is just beyond his reach. This kind of lack of faith is dangerous, because it will keep us from going to the Springs of Living Water to drink. If we think it won’t do any good, why would we bother taking Jesus up on his invitation. Satan cannot change reality; he cannot change the facts. But if he can just get you to disbelieve the reality so that you don’t take advantage of it, then it’s just as good for him as if he had changed the reality. If you don’t take advantage of the offer that Jesus extends to you, then Satan has been victorious. He has kept you trapped in your misery and hurt and pain.
But when we recognize that our problems are chiefly spiritual problems, then we can see also that the solution must be a spiritual solution. Oh, often that problem may show itself in the physical realm, after all that’s where it’s easier for us to discover it, but the real problem lies deep below the surface in the spirit. And it is only deep down in the spirit that the problem can be solved.
II. The folly of looking to tradition/religious traditions.
The woman said to Jesus, “And besides, are you greater than our ancestor Jacob who gave us this well?” Religiously speaking, the Samaritans were looked down upon. She brings this up a little later when she talks about the Jews worshipping in Jerusalem, while the Samaritans worshipped right there on Mt. Gerizim. Because the Samaritans didn’t have Jerusalem, they made something up about Mt. Gerizim being the place of worship. And since they couldn’t be proud of Jerusalem, they had to find something else to be proud of. And there they were, at the Samaritans’ source of religious pride: the well that Jacob dug. Sure, the Jews had their Jerusalem, but they didn’t have the very water that Jacob and his sons and his cattle drank. They weren’t the place chosen, by Jacob himself to settle down and dig his well.
Once the Jews asked Jesus in John 8:53, “Are you greater than our father Abraham, who died? Are you greater than the prophets, who died? Who do you think you are?” Right before this, Jesus had just offered eternal life to anyone who obeys his teachings. He offered them a great gift, and they were so caught up in their religious pride and tradition, that their foolish response to this offer was to ask, “Are you greater than Abraham?” They were proud of their descent from Abraham, and they wouldn’t have anyone around who thought they were better than he. They didn’t want anything, even eternal life, if it would interfere with the system that they were used to.
And just as the Jews were proud of Abraham, the Samaritans were proud of Jacob. So the woman at the well had the same response when she said, “Are you greater than Jacob?” She didn’t want to give up her religious tradition, because it was her only source of pride. She didn’t want to hear from someone who claimed to be greater than what she already had. She was, as we’ve already discussed bound by her traditions.
A. They say that the seven words that signal defeat are “I’ve never done it this way before.” I’ve also heard it said that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over but expecting different results. This woman had had her religious tradition all her life, but it had never actually done anything for her. How could she pretend that this was genuine for her? She still had all of her hurt and pain and sorrow. She still had all of her problems. She went through all of the motions of her worship, but it never accomplished anything for her. Yet she didn’t want to give up those traditions. Yet, she still wanted any solution to fit neatly within the framework of those traditions. Even though it never did anything tangible for her, she didn’t want to change, because she was comfortable with the way things were. She knew her tradition. And people really hate change. And sometimes they would rather stick with the same thing they’ve been doing all along, even though they know it won’t work, rather than risk trying something new. But if you want to see different results, you have to try something new. If you’ve been trying to solve your problems, and have faithfully followed the rites of religion, but haven’t had success, you have to try another way. Jesus offered this way. He simply said, “Come and drink.” Judaism, and the religious worship of the Samaritans was full of ritual, but that ritual couldn’t offer them any hope. Jesus offered them hope when he said to simply come and drink the Living Water of the Holy Spirit. What they thought they had to work for, what they thought they had to go through endless ritual to achieve, Jesus now said was being offered as a free gift from the Father. The satisfaction, and joy, and peace and healing that mankind sought for was being offered simply as a gift. But some were so unwilling to change their ways that they rejected the gift. They kept following their ritual in vain, while those who were willing to accept Jesus offer found everything they needed in this free and simple gift.
There are many people in our world today who have not tasted the fullness of the Holy Spirit. They don’t know just how much the Holy Spirit can do for them. But they are afraid, because this experience is different. So even though it may have great benefit for them, they stay away, because they don’t want to do anything different. And even though they haven’t fully tasted the Living Water, they tell others that they shouldn’t trust it. They try, for whatever reason, to tell others that they don’t need it. That this is not something that God wants to do for them. But Jesus voice still rings loud 2000 years later, “If you are thirsty, come to me! If you believe in me, come and drink!” He still offers a free gift as a solution for tired, weary, thirsty souls. Come and drink from the Fountain of Living Water. We cannot be afraid of something just because we’ve never tried it before. For certainly if what we had tried before could satisfy, we would have been satisfied already. But if your heart still cries out for something more, there must be something more to fill it.
B. The woman and so many of the religious leaders of Jesus day were so caught up in the ritual and tradition of religion that they forgot the whole point. They were so busy making sure that they worshipped in the right place, at the right time, by doing the right thing, that they forgot to truly worship God in “spirit and in truth.” They were so busy making sure that they didn’t deviate from the letter of the Law that when the fulfillment of the Law himself, Jesus Christ, stood before them and offered them everything that they were seeking, as a free gift, they didn’t accept it. They were so concerned with following the tradition, for the sake of following the tradition, that they forgot that there really was a point to it all. There really was a reason they were doing everything they were doing. And what was the point of it all?
Galatians 3:24, 25 “24 Let me put it another way. The law was our guardian and teacher to lead us until Christ came. So now, through faith in Christ, we are made right with God. 25 But now that faith in Christ has come, we no longer need the law as our guardian.”
The Law, or the religious ritual of the Jews, was set in place for the purpose of keeping us until Christ came. The purpose of the Law was to prepare us for the coming of Christ, when the Father’s promise would be given and the deep work on the heart would commence. And as vs. 25 says, after Christ comes, we no longer need the Law as our guardian. They were so busy being prepared by the Law for the coming of Christ, that they missed him when he came. The law was unable to change the heart. It was only a temporary, surface solution until the real solution came. Jesus Christ was the real solution. The Living Water of the Holy Spirit that he offered was able to penetrate deep into the heart and satisfy as the Law never could. But they were so busy keeping their religion that they forgot the whole point of it.
We must be careful not to do the same. We must remember that although there are things that we as believers do, such as going to church, praying, and reading the Bible, these things are not rituals that we must follow for the sake of following them. It’s not that there’s a big command “Thou shalt go to church every Sunday, and every Tuesday evening, and shalt attend the prayer meeting on Friday night.” “Thou shalt read thy Bible two hours every day.” “Thou shalt pray earnestly two hours every day, and thou shalt fast three times every week.” So we just do these things because they’re a requirement. If we focus so much on what we have to accomplish, then we may miss the whole point. The whole point of these things is to grow into a closer, more intimate, more personal relationship with God. And if you do all of these things, but never grow in your faith, they have all been useless. While we are busy living out the day-to-day Christian walk, we must be careful not to forget the purpose for that faith. We must not focus so much on the ritual, that we forget the whole point of that ritual.
III. The danger of complacency.
The last question of the woman that I want to look at is, “How can you offer better water than he and his sons and his cattle enjoyed?” Referring back to Jacob, she wanted to know how Jesus could offer better water. Now, she was revisiting her religious issues a little bit here, but there is something else. She had gotten so comfortable with what she already had—Jacob’s well water, that she could not imagine that there could be something better. This water was all that she had ever known. And even though it had never really satisfied her, she had become comfortable with that water. She imagined that she already had all that there was to have. She ignored the cries down deep in her spirit that cried out for something more. She ignored the thirst way down deep inside her, thinking that there was nothing more to quench it. So when Jesus came and offered something better, she couldn’t believe that there could actually be something better than her well water. All her life, her heart had cried out for something to satisfy it, but she had grown comfortable ignoring that cry, so that when satisfaction finally was offered, she couldn’t believe it. She wasn’t expecting anything to satisfy her.
And we are very resilient and strong people. No matter how bad we are inside, we can grow used to the pain. We can become comfortable with our miserable lives, thinking that we just have to “grin and bear it” because there’s no way it can ever get better. And if we have gotten to this complacency where we ignore the natural thirst for God that our spirits have, then when God offers to fill that thirst and satisfy us, we may be unwilling to accept his offer. If we’re not constantly expecting something more from God, then that something more may be staring us right in the face but we don’t recognize it. But if we’re always on the alert, always waiting and yearning for the next thing that God has for us, then we will quickly see it when the opportunity comes. We must never allow ourselves to grow comfortable with our thirsty spirits. Instead we must learn to come to the Springs of Living Water and drink of the Water of the Holy Spirit.
Conclusion:
I told you that the story had a happy ending, and we can see it vs. 28-30.
“28 The woman left her water jar beside the well and went back to the village and told everyone, 29 "Come and meet a man who told me everything I ever did! Can this be the Messiah?" 30 So the people came streaming from the village to see him.””
The same woman who had once been so filled with pain and shame that she couldn’t face her villagers to draw water, suddenly forgot all about that and went back to the village and told everybody. There was no more shame and hurt. It had been washed away. This indicates that her spirit was healed. The outcast had become the salvation of the whole village, because she had drunk at the Spring of Living Water.
Your spirit may be similar in some of the ways to the Samaritan woman’s today. Maybe you hold some deep hurt or pain in your heart. Maybe you have deep wounds that you thought you would carry your whole life. Maybe you have guilt and shame about something you did long ago. Maybe you have been left unsatisfied by empty religious ritual. Maybe everything is going okay, but you have a thirst deep down in your spirit just to experience more of God today. If that’s the case, Jesus offers you today: “Come and drink!” He offers you a solution. Don’t look so hard at your physical problem that you can only see how big it is, or what is lacking. Don’t allow doubt to tell you that God cannot fix it. Don’t allow religious traditions to hold you back. Don’t allow the fact that you’ve never done it this way before stop you. Don’t allow yourself to be satisfied with your problems, thinking that you’ve carried them this far, and you can continue to carry them. Just simply accept Jesus’ invitation. Come and drink of the Water of the Holy Spirit today.
c. 2002
