In John 4, Jesus has met a Samaritan woman at a well and told her of the living water that he provides. It’s also a passage where we see this woman respond to Jesus by telling others about him. She’s the first evangelist to Christ in north Israel.
The woman asked the people “can this be the Christ?” She certainly doesn’t know everything about Jesus. But she’s gone to her people and told them about this man. She draws intrigue from her people.
John 4:30 says: They went out of the town and were coming to him.
A heavenly nourishment
The Samaritan woman has left, and the story takes us back to Jesus and his disciples.
31 Meanwhile the disciples were urging him, saying, “Rabbi, eat.” 32 But he said to them, “I have food to eat that you do not know about.” 33 So the disciples said to one another, “Has anyone brought him something to eat?”
Natural metaphors
Jesus refers to food that he has and the disciples do not understand his reference.
Throughout John’s Gospel, there are many other instances where Jesus metaphorically talks of something from the natural world in a spiritual way and the audience misses the point.
When Jesus was at the temple and he said that they could destroy the temple and he would raise it up in three days. He was referring to his death and resurrection and his body as the true temple of God. The people just thought he was talking about a building.
When Jesus was talking to Nicodemus about being born again. Jesus was referring to Spiritual rebirth but Nicodemus thought Jesus was talking about physical birth.
When Jesus spoke with the Samaritan woman and talked of living water he provided and she initially thought he was simply referring to water.
And here again, Jesus refers to food and the disciples are like “did someone bring him a sandwich? Do they deliver pizza over here at the well?”
Verse 34
“My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work.
Deuteronomy connection
Jesus is making a reference to the Book of Deuteronomy, chapter 8.
The Israelites have been in the desert for 40 years and it has been the Lord who has sustained the people.
And he humbled you and let you hunger and fed you with manna, which you did not know, nor did your fathers know,
that he might make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord. (Deuteronomy 8:3)
Jesus finds his sustenance in his earthly ministry in fulfilling the will of God.
That is his food. That is his nourishment. Man does not live on bread alone but man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord. Jesus lived in accordance with the divine plan to fulfill the divine mission in the world.
What are we living for?
The mission of God is everything.
Living on purpose
I say all the time that the purpose of life is not happiness, it’s knowing and serving God. And we serve him through being part of God’s mission in the world.
But my point of that is not that we are called to drudgery and begrudging submission.
Rather, the point is that true life is found from the Lord and from serving him.
Jesus said “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work.
And that should be the food for which we all long.
Borrowing an idea from Charles Spuregon, we so often like to think that if we could do exactly what we wanted, if we could orchestrate our lives exactly as we wished, then we would be happy.
What this verse is saying is the opposite.
Happiness is not about what we want, what we desire, having our way. Happiness, meaning, purpose is found in going away from ourselves and what we want and following the Lord and his will.
We are sustained by living for God and his will to accomplish his work. There is no greater sustenance than that. There is no greater nourishment than that.
Illustration – hoarding food
Jesus says: “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work.
So often, our focus is on our physical needs. And not just the bare minimum of our needs. We have fridges and pantries. Most of us in this country have days worth of food.
I think of coronavirus. When the crisis began, there was widespread reporting of people going to grocery stores. Some were hoarding and buying massive quantities. Locally, stores were running out of food. There’s still a shortage of toilet paper and hand sanitizer. I’m not judging that. I’d be hypocritical. I want to the store too.
But I think it’s illustrative of the inherent concern we have for our physical needs. It’s a typical human behavior in a crisis to want to stock up on food.
Food is important.
But I ask: “how different would the world be if the people of God took our Spiritual needs with the same seriousness and urgency as we treated our physical needs?”
An urgency to go to God. An urgency to live out our faith. An urgency to rejoice in the goodness of God. To pray to God. To overcome sin. To study God’s Word.
Man does not live by bread alone.
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In John 4, Jesus is traveling through Samaria[] and encounters a woman at a well. He asks for a drink. At first glance, that might seem reasonable enough but by interacting with a Samaritan woman, Jesus was going against cultural norms.
As the passage continues, we discover that it’s ultimately not a story about water.
Living water
In verse 10, Jesus will totally change the subject from well water and instead point the woman to who he is and what he has to offer.
Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.”
Jesus points out that she doesn’t know who he is. He’s not so much judging her for that, but he’s directing her to what she should be asking of him.
Jesus uses the phrase gift of God. The Greek word for gift which is used here is found 11 times in the New Testament. Each time, it refers to a gift which has been graciously bestowed by the Lord.
Jesus is referring to the gift of eternal life which comes from God through Jesus and the lifelong Spiritual renewal which was to be bestowed upon people through the Holy Spirit. Jesus says that if this woman recognized who he was and knew what the gift of God was, she would want this gift, and that he would have provided living water.
Quite the statement to make to a person he’s just met.
But what does he mean? What is living water? I think there are two facets to that answer.
First, the living water of which Jesus speaks is a reference to the Holy Spirit. That’s clear based on what Jesus says in John 7.
John 7:37-39
“If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. 38 Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’ ” 39 Now this he said about the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were to receive
The Holy Spirit is undoubtedly rooted in the essence of living water. But I believe that this passage is implicitly getting at the work of all three persons in the Trinity in our salvation and sanctification.
All three persons are active in the process. If you don’t have faith, you don’t have the Holy Spirit, you don’t have living water. And if you don’t have God’s Holy Spirit, then you don’t have faith. You have not been born again, you do not have eternal life.
But the way to get living water is through the gospel and faith in Jesus.
Missing the point
The woman responds in verses 11-12:
“Sir, you have nothing to draw water with, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? 12 Are you greater than our father Jacob? He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock.”
She misses the point! She looks at what Jesus has said in merely naturalistic terms.She considers the depth of the well and that Jesus doesn’t have any vessel to collect water.
How is it that Jesus could provide fresh water without the tools. How is Jesus to get water? Let alone living water?
It seems laughable. It seems like he’s making an impossible promise. They’re at Jacob’s well. Jacob, this venerated figure from the Old Testament. To the woman, it seems like he’s saying that he’s somehow greater than Jacob.
The irony is that Jesus is better than Jacob. And the water he provides is greater.
Verses 13-14:
Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, 14 but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”
The water from the well will merely satisfy a physical need. But what Jesus is saying is that he provides the water that fulfills our Spiritual needs. It’s the water of salvation. It’s the water of grace. It’s the water of forgiveness.
And that when you believe in Jesus and trust in Jesus, the effort we put into justifying ourselves, the effort we put into trying to be good enough for God is forever quenched.
You must keep drinking regular water, returning to the well, the sink, the fridge, the water bottle. But Jesus eternally quenches our need for life and salvation with the living water that he provides because the water that he gives becomes a spring of water.
Because it’s from God and not our own efforts or merit, we cannot exhaust the supply.
The water that Jesus provides flows through the human soul.
And it wells up to eternal life.
And again, for Jesus, this language doesn’t come out of the blue.
Living water in the Old Testament
Jeremiah 17:3 refers to the Lord as a fountain of living water.
Isaiah 12:2-3 talked of a future time when the Lord would bring deliverance to his people and draw water from a well of salvation.
Behold, God is my salvation;
I will trust, and will not be afraid;
for the Lord God is my strength and my song,
and he has become my salvation.”
3 With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation.
Jesus gives us access to the living water and it is through Christ alone that we can have this living water because the only way we can have it is for him to give it to us.
Jesus has just told this woman something amazing.
The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water.”
The woman at the well and Nicodemus
In John 3, Jesus meets a Pharisee named Nicodemus. Nicodemus is a prominent Jewish leader and an expert in the law. He’s heard of Jesus and has come to find out more.
Jesus tells Nicodemus:
“Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God” (John 3:3).
Nicodemus also misses the point. He takes this rebirth literally. John 3:4:
Nicodemus said to him, “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?”
Just like Nicodemus, who when he was told that he needed to be born again, and responded by questioning how he could enter a second time into his mother’s womb, this woman is still merely looking at this as physical water.
Verse 16, Jesus changes the subject, but in doing that, he helps the woman see that he’s not merely talking about water.
16 Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come here.” 17 The woman answered him, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’; 18 for you have had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband. What you have said is true.”
This woman has had five husbands. And she has a sixth man who she lives with that’s not her husband.
Jesus knows. But she doesn’t know him. She’s never met him. Yet, he knows her background. He knows her situation. He knows her story. And in that, Jesus reveals to her that he’s not just some guy making grand claims. He reveals that he’s not just talking about water.
19 The woman said to him, “Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet.
Before this, the woman thought that Jesus was trying to offer her a way to an easier life. Never having to get water again.
But in Jesus showing that he knew her, he knew her life, and that he was pointing to something far greater.
The Samaritan woman and Nicodemus
Two stories.
Two encounters that Jesus has with two different people.
When considering these two stories side by side, it’s striking that these two people could not be more different.
Nicodemus is prestigious. The woman is part of a group who was hated.
Nicodemus is an expert in the Law. The woman has her sin exposed.
Nicodemus seeks Jesus out. The woman stumbles upon Jesus.
Nicodemus comes to Jesus at night. The woman finds Jesus in the middle of the day.
He’s a man. She’s a woman.
Nicodemus is mentioned by name. She’s simply called the Samaritan woman, or the woman.
Nicodemus never quite understands what Jesus is telling him. The woman grows in knowledge of who Jesus is throughout the passage.
But the one thing that they have in common is that they are both in need of Jesus.
The offer of salvation is there for both of them. The offer to be born again, the offer for living water. It’s for both of them. And not just for them, but the offer is for the whole world. To know Jesus, to follow Jesus, to believe in Jesus.
No matter how moral and righteous someone like Nicodemus was, Jesus told him “you must be born again” and that “unless one is born of water and Spirit, he cannot see the kingdom of God.”
No matter how sinful the Samaritan woman was, Jesus could say to her: If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.”
No matter how righteous Nicodemus was, he still needed the saving grace of Christ.
No matter how much the Samaritan woman was looked down upon by society, Jesus still deemed her worthy of his grace.
Because we are all equally in need of grace. We are all dead in sin. And Jesus died for all who believe in him and his gospel.
With the gospel, you’re never so good that you don’t need grace, and you’re never so bad that you can’t have grace.
Are you going to the well of trying to justify yourself? Are you going to the well of self-righteousness?
Or have you believed in Jesus and been given the living water of eternal life?
In John 4, Jesus is on the move. He’s left Judea and is journeying into Galilee. He’s venturing out of Jewish territory.
John 4:1-2 says:
Now when Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus was making and baptizing more disciples than John 2(although Jesus himself did not baptize, but only his disciples), 3 he left Judea and departed again for Galilee. 4 And he had to pass through Samaria.
First thing I want to focus on is where the text says that Jesus had to pass through Samaria. That’s relevant because it will be the location of our story today. There actually more than one route Jesus could have taken. But where the text says Jesus had to pass through Samaria, it’s an indication of the divine will. Jesus had to go this way because it put him in a place to have a divinely appointed meeting.
John 4:5:
5 So he came to a town of Samaria called Sychar, near the field that Jacob had given to his son Joseph.
John makes a reference to Jacob and Joseph. In the Old Testament, Jacob is the father of the twelve tribes of Israel. And the region to which Jesus has traveled is an area of land that had been owned by Jacob and given to Joseph. We see that in Genesis 48. It’s this land to which Jesus has come.
The humanity of Jesus
John 4:6:
6 Jacob’s well was there; so Jesus, wearied as he was from his journey, was sitting beside the well. It was about the sixth hour.
When the text talks of Jesus being worn from his journey, it is a reminder to us that Jesus is human. During his earthly ministry, he experienced fatigue. We see him sleep. We see times where he eats and drinks. Times where he goes off by himself to be alone. He was fully man.
This verse tells us it was the sixth hour. That’s relevant to the story. In first century Jewish time keeping, the first hour was sunrise, so in it being the sixth hour, it’s around noon.
All of this is setting the scene for what follows.
John 4:7: A woman from Samaria came to draw water.
Background on Samaritans
We need some background.
When we were looking at passages in Isaiah over Christmas, one thing we talked a lot about was how Israel split into two kingdoms. You had a northern and a southern kingdom.
In 722 B.C, the northern kingdom was conquered by the Assyrians.
Thousands of the Jewish people from the northern tribes were deported from their land. The Assyrians procreated with the Israelites, and so you had an ethnic group who was half-Jewish and half-Assyrian.
That is the ethnic group which became known as the Samaritans. There are still Samaritans today. It’s a very small community of about 800 people and they mostly live in Israel. There are some very significant distinctions between Jewish people and Samaritans.
Samaritans do not believe the entire Old Testament is scripture. They only believe in the first five books: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy.
Since they do not believe in the entire Old Testament, Jerusalem is not the sacred place to them that it is to other Jewish people. Because if all you have are the first five books, the Jewish people had not yet reached Jerusalem.
Instead, the sacred site of worship for the Samaritans then and now is Mount Gerizim. And actually, about half of present day Samaritans actually live there.
In the first century, there had been a lot of animosity between the two groups. About 160 years before Jesus had this interaction with the Samaritan woman at the well, a group of Israelite soldiers had destroyed the Samaritan temple at Mount Gerizim.
And there was later retaliatory attacks.
In John 8, when he’s being questioned, Jesus will be asked if he’s a Samaritan or has a demon (John 8:48), which essentially puts those two situations on the same plain.
The Samaritans were looked down upon. These two groups hated each other.
Within a generation of the life of Jesus, official Jewish teaching from their scholars ruled that Samaritans were inherently unclean and defiled.
In the Gospel of Luke, Jesus gives the Parable of the Good Samaritan. A lawyer is questioning Jesus about the command to love your neighbor as yourself. Jesus tells a parable about a man who had been severely beaten, left for dead. A priest and a levite both come by the man and stay on their journey, but it’s a Samaritan who sees the man, tends to him, sees that he gets taken care of. The Good Samaritan is the hero of the story.
It’s a spectacular picture of selflessness and love for your fellow man.
But when you understand that parable in the context of the hatred that existed between the Jews and the Samaritans, it makes the story all that much more striking.
I go into those details because the tensions will also color our passage this morning in John 4.
Give me a drink
So we return to the passage. The woman is coming to the well in the middle of the day. Unusual for her to be coming to the well alone and also at the hottest point of the day.
It was generally women who would come for water in the morning. The fact that she’s going at an off time alone suggests that she possibly doesn’t want to interact with others.
Jesus speaks to the woman at the end of verse 7 and says “give me a drink.”
Verse 8 adds the note that Jesus was by himself as his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.
So Jesus asks for a drink. A Jew speaking to a Samaritan. Verse 9, the woman is taken aback. The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?”
The verse ends with the parenthetical comment that Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans.
These are two groups who do not get along. As he often does in the gospels, Jesus is unconcerned with social customs or taboos.
We see Jesus touch lepers. We see him associating with sinners, with those on the margins.
Even within his band of disciples, he picks someone like Matthew who was a tax collector, a profession hated by Jews in the Roman world.
And here we see Jesus openly conversing with a woman in an ethnic group who was looked down upon.
So the woman asks how it is that he could ask her for a drink. But Jesus will flip the conversation.
Because the matter of ultimate significance in the story is not about her giving a drink to Jesus, it’s about the water he can provide.
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37 On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and cried out, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. 38 Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’ ” 39 Now this he said about the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were to receive, for as yet the Spirit had not been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.
Prayer
Our Heavenly Father,
1 As a deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, O God. 2 My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and appear before God?
Lord God, it is only through your gospel that the longings of the human soul can be quenched. We praise you for the salvation which you promise through the Lord Jesus Christ.
We thank you that we have a savior whom we can approach.
Lord, we ask that you again bless our time as we study your word. Prepare our hearts as we approach your scriptures. May we do it in a spirit of humility and reverence.
May we grow in deeper love for your goodness.
Lord, none but you is worthy of our praise.
We pray that we would be strengthened and edified as we study your sacred scriptures.
In Jesus’ name, amen.
Introduction
Water. It helps regulate our body temperature. It protects our joints and spinal cord. It helps brain function, energy levels, and circulation. It’s used in running the major systems of our bodies. It helps our bodies dispose of waste.
It’s essential to human life. Our bodies are mostly made up of water. A healthy person can only survive 3-4 days without it.
One of the great blessings of modern, industrial societies is that we have easy access to drinking water. We just turn on the tap and there it is.
It’s a blessing that I know I never seriously take time to consider and appreciate. It’s just there.
In other parts of the world, water is in short supply due to draught and insufficient storage and purification facilities.
In parts of Africa, millions of people – mostly women or children – do not have indoor plumbing and have to make daily trips to communal sources of water.
And that’s more similar to the situation in Jesus’ day.
Israel gets almost no rainfall from May to mid-October.
And so when Jesus talks about people thirsting, it might have had a little more resonance to a first century audience than it would for us.
But still, thirst is an incredibly powerful metaphor. Because even though we do have easy access to water, we’ve all been thirsty at some point. Maybe you’ve been outside all day. May it’s a really hot day. There is an instant relief that water brings us.
And in those times, it’s a thirst that only water can quench. Maybe you’re a soda drinker, a soda isn’t refreshing when you’re truly thirsty. Maybe you’re a coffee drinker. A piping hot cup of coffee isn’t refreshing when you’re thirsty. Only water.
In our section, Jesus stands up and proclaims:
If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. 38 Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’ ”
Are you thirsty?
Over the last couple of weeks in chapter 7, we’ve seen Jesus at the Feast of Booths.
In today’s section, our passage opens up by saying that it is the last day of the feast. So we’ve seen quite a bit of time dedicated to this one week Feast of Booths.
And with that, we’ll jump right into our passage before making a few concluding observations about the passage.
Verses 37-38: On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and cried out, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. 38 Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’ ”
John says that Jesus cried out when he spoke. There is urgency to his proclamation.
If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink.
The first thing that we have to understand about this passage is that Jesus does not talk about thirst and drinking out of nowhere.
What he’s saying fits in with the feast.
And it’s important to understand what Jesus is saying in light of the Old Testament.
One thing we have not talked about is that in Jesus’ day, as part of the observance of the Feast of Booths there was a water pouring ceremony where the high priest would take a golden pitcher of water. With an assembly of people following him, the high priest would go to the nearby Pool of Siloam and fill the pitcher. The priest would bring the water back to the temple courtyard as horns blasted in celebration. The people would recite Psalms of praise and chant three times “Give thanks to the Lord, give thanks to the Lord, give thanks to the Lord.” And the high priest would take the pitcher of water and pour it on the altar.
In Jesus’ day, this ceremony had developed.
Now, keep in mind that the Feast of Booths was, in part, meant to recall the time in which their Israelite forefathers were in the wilderness and awaiting the Promised Land.
For 40 years, the Israelites dwelled in their own booths or tents and brought the tabernacle with them through the desert.
In Exodus chapters 15, 16, and 17, the Israelites were still in the first few days and weeks into the desert wanderings. They’ve just seen God bring the plagues upon the Egyptians. They’ve just seen the Lord part the waters of the Red Sea and free them Egyptian rule.
The Israelites quickly fall into grumbling. In Exodus 15, they grumble about not having water. As if the Lord God who had miraculously freed them would not provide.
But before we judge the Israelites too harshly, we can often be as fickle and as quick to forget the Lord’s blessings in our own lives.
Can we not?
We can forget God’s blessings in our lives, God’s faithfulness in our lives, God’s provision in our lives. We’re not so different from the Israelites.
In Exodus, God provides water.
Exodus 16, the Israelites complain about not having enough food and go as far as accusing the Lord of having brought them into the desert for them all to die.
God is gracious. He provides manna. It was miraculous. Something which the Lord used to sustain them for every day of their 40 year journey.
Interestingly, in John 6, we see Jesus as something greater when he declares that he himself is the true bread of life after he had fed the multitudes.
Exodus 17, the people again complain about water.
Nevermind that God has already shown his ability to provide water. God has shown that he will provide food. But the Israelites again grumble and accuse the Lord of having brought them into the wilderness to kill them.
Instead of reigning down righteous judgment, God does another miracle
Exodus 17:4-6: So Moses cried to the Lord, “What shall I do with this people? They are almost ready to stone me.” 5 And the Lord said to Moses, “Pass on before the people, taking with you some of the elders of Israel, and take in your hand the staff with which you struck the Nile, and go. 6 Behold, I will stand before you there on the rock at Horeb, and you shall strike the rock, and water shall come out of it, and the people will drink.” And Moses did so, in the sight of the elders of Israel.
God provides water from a rock. When the Israelites were in the desert and thirsty, God gave them water.
And that was part of the background for the water ceremony at the Feast of Booths.
Again, the Feast of Booths was largely meant to look back at the time of the Israelite wanderings.
But there’s further significance to the water.
Water is a symbol of blessing in the Old Testament.
And once again, to appreciate that, I think we have to keep in mind desert and semiarid climates where the Israelites lived in the Old Testament and in the time of Christ.
The water ceremony specifically was related to Isaiah 12. It’s not specifically commanded in that passage, but the connection of water and life and praise for the Lord influenced the Jewish observance of the Feast of Tabernacles.
Isaiah 12:3-4: 3 With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation. 4 And you will say in that day: “Give thanks to the Lord, call upon his name, make known his deeds among the peoples, proclaim that his name is exalted.
Or again, we see the connection with water and divine blessing in Isaiah 55:1:
“Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and he who has no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk
Zechariah 14:8 prophesied of a future time of God’s blessing.
On that day living waters shall flow out from Jerusalem, half of them to the eastern sea and half of them to the western sea.
It’s interesting that even in Zechariah, he refers to living water.
The prophets are looking forward to a future time of the Lord’s provision where it’s compared to living water.
Water is important.
And in the Old Testament, you also see the connection of ideas of water with the Holy Spirit. Most famously in Ezekiel 36.
Verses 25-27 I consider this one of the three most significant passages in the Old Testament outside of Genesis:
25 I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. 26 And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. 27 And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.
In that passage, we see the specific connection between water and the Spirit and the impact that the Spirit has in the life of a believer. We’ve talked about the importance of water in the Feast of Booths in pointing back to God’s provision of water, in the importance of water for our survival. But the connection of water and the Holy Spirit is also important with their connection to the Feast of Booths because part of the celebration and hope in the Feast of Booths was that it looked forward to a future time when the Lord would pour out his Spirit on his people.
And that is important to understanding our passage in John.
Because Jesus says: If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. 38 Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’ ”
Ezekiel pointed to a time when people would be so filled with the Spirit that they would be enabled to live out the Law of God. Jesus says that whoever believes in him “out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.”
What I believe this is saying is that the one who comes to Jesus will be given the Spirit, as the scriptures have promised.
And where it says Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water, it is referring to the transformed life of a believer through the work of the Holy Spirit.
We don’t cause it to happen. We don’t cause our own Spiritual growth. It is a supernatural work of God in the heart and life of a believer as a result of regeneration.
And so that drives home the significance of Jesus standing up on the last day of the feast and calling the thirsty to come to him and drink and his promise of living water.
The fact that the living water is the Holy Spirit is not in dispute. You have the Old Testament background. But even more specifically, John tells us that’s what’s being referenced in vere 39.
7:39: Now this he said about the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were to receive, for as yet the Spirit had not been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.
And really, Jesus has talked a lot about the Holy Spirit to this point in John.
He talks of it in reference to regeneration, being born again, when Nicodemus comes seeking Jesus. John 3:5:“Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God
Jesus is referring to water and the Spirit in John 4 when he tells the woman at the well:
John 4:14:
“Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, 14 but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”
The Holy Spirit and his coming into the hearts of believers and the necessity of that happening is really a significant theme in John. It will be a major focus towards the end of his ministry in chapters 14-17.
15 “If you love me, you will keep my commandments. 16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, 17 even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you.
Back in our main passage.
You have a large assembly of Israelite all listening to Jesus preach about the living water he provides at the feast which pointed back to their ancestors’ time in the wilderness. It was in that time that God provided physical water from a rock. But it was meant to point to something greater.
You have Jesus at the feast which looked forward to a future time when God would pour out his Spirit and here Jesus proclaims to the group that he is the one who has come to provide that Spirit.
But as John ends the passage, the Spirit had not yet been given. John says that this is because Christ had not yet been glorified.
Once again, his ministry has a singular focus that is always pointing forward to his death. There are people trying to kill him but unable, we’ve talked about his hour, referring to when he would die. Here again, the Spirit would not be given until after Jesus had died and rose from the dead and been glorified.
Jesus provides the living water to the one who comes to him who thirsts.
Are you thirsty?
And this idea is carried into the Biblical depictions of heaven.
Revelation 21:6, John’s vision of the new heaven and the new earth.
And he said to me, “It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give from the spring of the water of life without payment.
Then again in Revelation 22:17, one of the last few verses of the entire Bible:
The Spirit and the Bride say, “Come.” And let the one who hears say, “Come.” And let the one who is thirsty come; let the one who desires take the water of life without price.
Jesus has come for thirsty people.
I spoke in the beginning about how much of the world struggles to get water.
But it’s interesting.
We have water, but we don’t drink it. At least not to the level that we should.
Studies show that 75% of Americans are chronically dehydrated.
That’s amazing.
And I looked at some articles that suggest that there are other industrialized countries who do even worse. One article suggested 80% of Australians and others articles said upwards of 90% of British people don’t drink enough water.
So we have people in poor countries who don’t drink enough water because they can’t get it. But many people in places who have enough water don’t drink it.
That is amazing when you think about it. And I consider the metaphor of thirst and living water from a Spiritual perspective.
So many people don’t think that they need God. Don’t think that they need the salvation which Christ offers. Feel like they can do things their own way and be fine.
The grace is offered but so many aren’t thirsty – or more accurately – so many people don’t know that they have the thirst for what Christ alone can quench.
Jesus provides the living water and he is the only source of the true water.
What well are you drinking from?
The USS Indianapolis was a battle cruiser which was sunk by a Japanese torpedo in the Pacific Ocean in July of 1945. The ship was returning from a mission which had included delivering the enriched uranium needed for the first atomic bomb.
The ship sunk in 12 minutes with 1,195 sailors aboard. Roughly 300 died in the initial sinking.
For the 900 survivors, they spent a harrowing four days in the hot sun of the Pacific Ocean with very little food or water. Some died from injuries sustained in the sinking, some died from the elements and exposure. Some were killed in shark attacks.
But a temptation the survivors faced in their state of extreme dehydration was the desire to drink the sea water.
Only 316 of the nearly 900 who survived the sinking of the ship survived the four days at sea.
The chief medical officer recounted his own harrowing experiences.
There was nothing I could do, nothing I could do but give advice, bury the dead at sea, save the lifejackets, and try to keep the men from drinking the water. When the hot sun came out, and we were in this crystal clear ocean, we were so thirsty. You couldn’t believe it wasn’t good enough to drink. I had a hard time convincing the men they shouldn’t drink. The real young ones…you take away their hope, you take away their water and food, they would drink the salt water and they would go fast. I can remember striking the ones who were drinking the salt water to try to stop them. They would get dehydrated.
There is living water that Jesus promises to those who come to him in thirst.
Anything else we drink will lead to our own death and destruction.
He invites us to know him. He invites us to drink. He invites us to life.
Have you come to him as one who is thirsty? Do you believe that he is the Lord? That he is the savior of the world? That he gives living water?
And at the last Supper, he invited us to his table.
Over the last generation, Beth Moore has been one of the most prominent female leaders and speakers in American Evangelical circles. Her Bible studies are hugely popular among women. She’s the founder of Living Proof Ministries, a ministry for women based out of Houston.
She’s not a pastor. She’s an author and speaker.
Although she’s popular in Evangelical circles, she’s not universally supported. Some of the criticisms of her theology include that it’s a prosperity gospel or that it’s intellectually light theology.
My purpose in writing today is not to argue for or against the merits of her theology. Agree or disagree with her, she’s hugely influential. And today, Moore posted an open letter on the blog for Living Proof Ministries “A letter to my brothers” where she discusses some of her experiences as a prominent speaker in circles that are generally dominated by men.
The subject of women in ministry is one that is debated within Christian circles. Can a woman be a pastor? Can a women ever preach a sermon? Can a woman teach men in the church? People have different opinions on these issues. Some would say yes to all three, some would say no to all three. Others are in the middle.
It’s complicated.
In writing, Moore talks about some of the misogynistic treatment she’s received over the years. Considering the divergent opinions within Christian circles on women in leadership, Moore’s letter talks about how she had chalked up some of her treatment as being a byproduct of deeply rooted Biblical convictions among sincere Christians with whom she simply disagreed.
From the letter:
I accepted the peculiarities accompanying female leadership in a conservative Christian world because I chose to believe that, whether or not some of the actions and attitudes seemed godly to me, they were rooted in deep convictions based on passages from 1 Timothy 2 and 1 Corinthians 14.
As Moore continues to elaborate, she talks of coming to a realization that it wasn’t simply about differences in opinion.
I came face to face with one of the most demoralizing realizations of my adult life: Scripture was not the reason for the colossal disregard and disrespect of women among many of these men. It was only the excuse. Sin was the reason. Ungodliness.
Our culture largely disrespects women. The #metoo movement showed the rampant sexual harassment and assault in Hollywood. As the movement spread, more and more areas of life came to light that were stained by the mistreatment of women. The #churchtoo movement showed further examples of assault and harassment from within the church. Obviously we knew that there were issues but these movements have created a national dialogue.
While Moore’s post dealt more with misogyny than sexual assault, both are a reflection of a culture which far too often devalues women.
The church is meant to be a light in a dark world. But we also live in society and the world is sinful. For too many Christians, misogyny and sexism are overlooked blindspots.
I hold to a complementarian theology where I believe that preaching and teaching is reserved for men. Theologically, it’s how I see God having designed his created order. I think that’s the best way to interpret the applicable Biblical passages. I think that complementarianism can (and should) be honoring to women. Women are created in the image of God and are precious. But with a theological belief that there are certain things that men can do within the church and that women can’t do; with beliefs on submissiveness (without also understanding the self-sacrifice to which men are called), it can be easy for an Evangelical Christian male to develop a misogynistic view of women. Please don’t misunderstand. I’m not saying that the Bible is misogynistic. I’m saying that sinful men can distort the Bible and become sexist within our culture that often accepts sexism and misogyny. The default is just to do what the rest of the world is doing unless proactively living out a different set of values.
Again, we can agree or disagree with what Beth Moore believes and teaches. But we shouldn’t dismiss her points. The church needs to be a leader in our society in showing honor and respect to all women.
At the end of her letter, Moore makes a simple request:
I’m asking that you would simply have no tolerance for misogyny and dismissiveness toward women in your spheres of influence. I’m asking for your deliberate and clearly conveyed influence toward the imitation of Christ in His attitude and actions toward women.
Josh Benner is the associate pastor at Cornerstone Evangelical Free Church in Fergus Falls, Minnesota and has a Master of Divinity from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. He enjoys writing about faith and culture. He lives with his wife Kari in Minnesota.
