In Jesus, There Is Freedom For All (Mike Chilcoat)

In this message from John 4:1-45, Mike Chilcoat reveals how Jesus offers the ultimate freedom through "living water" to people from all backgrounds—whether you're respected, like Nicodemus, or broken, like the Samaritan woman. Discover how God's unearned gift of salvation is available to you right now, regardless of your past or present circumstances.

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Transcript

Good morning, Orchard Hill Church. So thrilled to be here. I am Mike Chilcoat. I am on the teaching team here at Orchard Hill, but my nine-to-five is I work for Young Life here in Pennsylvania.

What a gift it is to be here with you this morning. In particular, this weekend—the Fourth of July weekend—I hope your weekend has been as amazing as it has been for our family as we celebrate our independence here in this country. It's been phenomenal.

Really quickly, before I get to that, I want to point out something that I just think is really exciting. Tonight, Kids Fast kicks off. Give it up for Kids Fast kicking off! Pretty awesome. Literally, a couple thousand students will be a part of that over the next couple of weeks. Think about this for a second: a lot of these students, this will be the first time—their first interaction, their first moment—where they're hearing about a loving, personal God in the person of Jesus Christ, who desires to have a relationship with them and desires to set them free from the bondage of sin and these other things that ensnare.

It's so exciting to think about that. In fact, after the second service ends, I will jump in my car and drive up near Lake Placid, New York, to go to one of our Young Life camps, Saranac Lake. I'll be serving there for a month where, again, another couple thousand students will be hearing the gospel—many of whom will be hearing it for the first time. So I covet your prayers for Kids Fast and for what's happening at this Young Life camp.

There is just a lot at stake over the next few weeks, and a lot of really important, life-changing, eternal-type things and conversations will be taking place. So if you would commit to us in prayer for that time and for those students, that would be huge. Thank you.

A Fourth of July Story

Back to July 4th. Boy, what a celebration. What an exciting time to celebrate what it's like to be in this country and to live here. I'm a huge fan of the author and historian David McCullough—actually, Pittsburgh's own David McCullough. David McCullough died a few years ago, but I love his entire collection of books. But one in particular that I always loved was 1776.

In reading 1776, one section that always stood out from the others was when McCullough is describing December of 1776, when the Continental Army, under the command of General George Washington, had been driven out of New York and New Jersey. In fact, they had endured three straight defeats in battle. It was a tough time. They were exhausted and beat up and injured. They had these three consecutive defeats at the hands of the British. I'm sure morale was at an all-time low at this point.

Washington's troops crossed the Delaware on Christmas night through sleet and snow and through awful conditions with a seriously depleted regiment of exhausted soldiers. In fact, General William Heath later wrote that Washington's troops' conditions were, quote, "so destitute of shoes that the blood left on the frozen ground in many places marked the route they had taken."

Why did these heroes endure such hardship and suffer so greatly? They went because of the promise of freedom and so that future generations could live in the land of the free.

The USA is an incredible country, and we are blessed to live in it. We still have a long way to go to maximize those freedoms for all people, and this country is far from perfect. Put the news on, you'll see. However, the beauty of it is that we are afforded the opportunity to improve upon this country as free citizens. People coming from all over the place—every culture, every race, every ethnicity, every background—all coming together to pursue an idea, unified as one, a melting pot. It's beautiful, and I'm thrilled to be a part of it and so exciting to celebrate the Fourth.

A Special Engagement

The Fourth was awesome. We loved it. We got to go and watch fireworks and be together as a family and have a hot dog and all the great things you do on July 4th. But this was a special moment for the Chilcoat clan. Particularly, this was a special and beautiful Fourth of July weekend because my middle daughter, Kirsten, got engaged to a home run of a guy, Nate Barnett.

Boy, it was awesome to celebrate with them. Actually, I think we have some pics here. So here's the celebration that happened—engagement, thank you very much—a couple days ago. It was so great.

Kirsten is just such a wonderful soul, and Nate, what a blessing it is to welcome him into our family. He is a fantastic guy. It's funny when, you know, I have all daughters. My oldest daughter, Kaylee, and her husband, Jacob, just celebrated their third wedding anniversary. So Kirsten is second in line and is now getting engaged here.

It's wild with daughters. I remember distinctly, years ago, back when Father of the Bride—the Steve Martin Father of the Bride—had come out in 1991, we went as a family to go see this movie. Our whole family went together, and I was 14 years old.

My dad—I've talked about him some—my dad was a rugged man's man. He was my wrestling coach. He was always fixing a car or a house, and he was just a guy who you would say, "This is a tough guy." I remember watching this movie, and I love Steve Martin—still love him to this day—but I loved wacky, crazy, off-the-wall Steve Martin. I'm watching this sort of family comedy at 14, and I was like, "Oh, this is a little too sappy and sentimental." I looked down the row, and my dad is crying.

I remember as the sensitive 14-year-old boy that I was, I remember thinking, "What a wimp. What is he doing? He's embarrassing himself and our family right now." I remember judging him, being like, "That is humiliating."

Years later, with daughters, I'm telling you right now, I can't watch thirty seconds of that movie without being like, "Look at that, it's beautiful." I'm waterworks every time that comes on. Something changes with daughters, right? You become more sappy and more sentimental.

Almost Missing the Moment

In that movie, Father of the Bride, there's a moment where Steve Martin is concerned because he's trying to do all these different errands and he's going to miss this moment when his daughter Annie is leaving the house. He's trying to see, and he kind of keeps getting blocked and he misses it.

Well, I almost had that experience at this engagement. The engagement was going to happen downtown—if you saw, it was right off Carson Street at the High Line, right by the Point. They get engaged, and then they're going to go out to dinner. Then we were going to have a big after-party at our house. There were going to be 75 folks that were going to come to the house.

So Kimmy is doing all these things to set it all up, and I'm just grunt labor, so she's just telling me, "Here's what you do at this time." So at 7:30, I was scheduled to go pick up food for all 75 folks. We had ordered it way ahead of time and had everything kind of marked out. That's a lot of food.

So I go at 7:30—7:28 to be precise—with my daughter Kaylee. She comes to help me. We go to pick up the food, and I'm tracking my daughter's location because I really want to be there when she pulls up to see her face and see her and Nate arrive.

So I go into this place to get the food—I won't mention the place—and I walk in. Have you ever had this moment where you come in and I've got everything written out, all the notes, and I'm like, "Okay, this many things and this many sides and everything, ready to go." And at 7:28, she's like, "Oh, yes, of course, that huge order." She's ruffling through papers, and you're like, "She has no idea what I'm talking about."

All of a sudden, she's like, "Hold on a second." Goes back—they're like four or five feet from me, and this is not soundproof walls. I can hear an argument that took place. I mean, this was like, honestly, like Frazier-Ali was happening five feet from us. There's expletives flying. They're yelling, "Who took this order? No one told me." This whole thing is happening.

So Kaylee and I are like, "This is not good." So we sit down. They go, "It'll just be a few minutes." So we sit there. Now a few minutes turned into forty-five minutes, and we're tracking Kirsten's location. She's supposed to be there at 8:15. It's 8:15. She's not moved yet from the restaurant, so we're good. But I'm starting to sweat. I don't want to miss this. I'm about to leave the food, right?

The manager—and she's so sweet, she's trying her best—she walks out. And again, this is a big, once-in-a-lifetime moment for me and our family. She comes out, and she realizes, "Okay, this is probably stressful." So she goes, "I know it's been a long wait. I know it's been tough. So here she is, she's going to try to make this better. She goes, "I want you to grab two two-liters from the freezer."

I thought, "Oh my goodness, you've made it all okay." So I'm like, "That's hilarious. Okay. Here's some Diet Coke. Great. If you could hurry up with the order."

So they keep going. They're about to get to the end of it, and they say, "Hey, let me help you out to the car." So they're helping with all the food out to the car. We've been pretty nice, and we've been pretty patient. She's like, "Wow, you guys are in a hurry. What is there—is there a big event happening?"

I'm like, "Yeah, my daughter got engaged. I'm trying to make it back to see the surprise party and see her face."

So the woman goes, "I had no idea it was such an important event. You know what? Let me make this right. Let me make this okay." She goes back inside, and I think, "Okay, maybe she's going to comp the food or something's going to happen in a big way."

She comes out—this is real—and she goes, "Take this side of ranch."

I thought, "Oh, wow." Can you imagine that conversation with my wife, Kimmy? "Yes, Kimmy, I understand. Yes, I did miss this once-in-a-lifetime moment. I will never get that back, I agree. But did you see the two two-liters and ranch? Side of ranch. They make this in-house, Kimmy. I don't think you're factoring that in."

So we rush over there. We beat them by two minutes. Kaylee is tracking. I'm sweating. All these people are so gracious that are waiting there for the surprise. They run out. They grab the food. Well, in my hatchback of my SUV, when they open the hatch, the two-liters fall out and they explode, right? The rocket's red glare. At least we got that side of ranch. And they make that in-house, like I mentioned.

So we got to see it. It was amazing. What a wonderful celebration. It was awesome. So beautiful July 4th for us, one we'll always remember.

The moral of the story is go to Michael Pereca. He would never have done that to me. I had a gift card, that's why I went there. Go to Michael Pereca, get your pizza there, get your food there. He's excellent. Anyway, sorry, shameless plug.

The Ultimate Freedom

Folks, today, this morning, we are going to dive in. We're going to camp out mostly in John 4, and we're going to have some fun. There's so much in this that we can take from this and learn and grow. We're going to touch on John 3 a little bit, but we're mostly going to camp out in John 4.

We talked a little bit earlier about the freedom that we experience in this country, and it's wonderful. I love being a part of this country, and that freedom is exceptional. However, I would say the freedom that we experience in this country is amazing, but it is nothing compared to the ultimate freedom we can all experience through Jesus Christ. This ultimate freedom that is offered to you, and it's offered to me in the person of Jesus. Eternal freedom to be set free from the bondage of sin and to live life to the fullest, as John 10:10 says, with Jesus forever, eternally.

Today, we're going to dive into a couple instances from Scripture where we encounter people from very different backgrounds. These people had different resumes—polar opposites, right? We're going to see these people from different backgrounds experiencing, realizing for the first time what it means to grab hold of this ultimate relationship and this ultimate freedom found in Jesus.

This passage deals with Christ's desire for each of us to know Him in spirit and in truth, in a personal and intimate way. Catch that. The God of the universe desires us regardless of our background and where we come from and how broken we feel. He wants to share with us in spirit and in truth and have a personal, intimate relationship with you and with me. Mind-blowing.

Two Very Different People

A chapter earlier here in chapter 3, we get to listen in. We kind of get this inside access to this conversation between Jesus and Nicodemus. We get the inside track here. Then early in chapter 4, we get inside access again to a conversation with a Samaritan woman with Jesus. These are two instances of Jesus interacting one-on-one. These are back-to-back chapters—two instances in back-to-back chapters, but with very big differences between the two people, between the people that are hearing it, different backgrounds.

Here are a few of the differences that I want to point out between Nicodemus and the Samaritan woman:

Number one: Nicodemus was wealthy and with high social standing. He was a respected Jewish male here in this culture. The woman at the well was poor and she was looked down upon for her poor social standing. So these two are from opposite ends of the tracks.

Two: Nicodemus came to Jesus at night, and he initiates this conversation. So Nicodemus comes and seeks out Jesus. It's under the darkness of night. He kind of wants to do it covert, and he initiates this conversation with Jesus. In the case of the woman, Jesus starts the conversation with her. Jesus initiates it, and it's right at the center of the day, in the middle of daylight time.

Three: Nicodemus had extensive education and was known to be morally upright and deeply religious. This woman would be the exact opposite of those things—a polar opposite of Nicodemus. It's certainly the way that society viewed her. She would have been overlooked at best, ridiculed and looked down upon at worst.

Yet Jesus delivers to them the very same solution. Both of them had a deep need. This God-shaped hole—Pascal talks about a God-shaped hole, this God-shaped vacuum at the core, at the center, at the heart of every person that could only be filled by something eternal, Jesus Christ, right? He identifies this deep need in them both that only Jesus can eternally satisfy.

We All Fall Short

Romans 3:23 says, "For all have sinned." Who has sinned? All have sinned. You've sinned. I've sinned. Everybody that's ever existed has sinned and turned their back on Christ and said, "Thanks, but no thanks. I'm going to do me. I've got this." Like Chilcoat, chief sinner among them, of whom I am the worst, right?

So sometimes it's easy for us in moments of insecurity or moments of great arrogance or narcissism where we can say, "You know what? I'm not as bad as that person. Look at this group over here, I'm certainly above them. Whatever the standard is to get in heaven, I'm sure I qualify, and these people over here—boy, there's no way they'll get in."

Sometimes we categorize things in this way, and we think, "Well, I'm just not as bad as that person, so maybe that'll be helpful to me in the end."

Picture this illustration. The distance from the coast of California to Hawaii is roughly 2,500 miles. The all-time record for continuous swimming is 317 miles, and it was set by a guy who was swimming in the Yukon River. The record for continuous swimming out in open ocean is roughly 155 miles in the chop of the ocean.

So 2,500 miles from the coast of California to Hawaii, 155 miles is the all-time record for continuous swimming in the ocean. So imagine, if you will, this is several years back: hack high school athlete Mike Chilcoat, and I'm standing there with my precious, beautiful grandmother, Mary Jane Arne, right? Ninety-eight-year-old Mary Jane Arne is sitting next to me, and then there's hack high school athlete Mike Chilcoat. And then, let's say, Michael Phelps, or maybe like a nationally ranked distance swimmer is also there.

I'm like, "Grandma, you're up first. Head on out." So my grandma gets in there with her orthopedic shoes and she makes it a little walk. Maybe a few feet, maybe 20 feet, right? She's 98 years old. Let's give her a little grace, right? She wouldn't make it very far.

Then I turn, I'm like, "Okay, I'm next." I go—let's say it's a banner day for me and I make it five miles. Maybe I make it ten miles before I cash out and perish.

Then the last guy, this nationally ranked swimmer goes in, and it's just incredible. 155 miles, maybe he even makes it to 160, he shatters the record.

Well, all of us are gone. All of us have perished. All of us have fallen so woefully short of the standard. What's crazy about that illustration where it breaks down is when I'm talking about us before a holy God, it's infinite—the depth between our depravity and our sin and God's perfection. So to think of it in terms of, "Well, I can just pick myself up by my bootstraps" or "I can heap up enough good deeds to get there" is crazy. It's crazy.

So to Nicodemus, Jesus says, "Nicodemus, you aren't as good as you think you are. You need to be born again."

And to this woman at the well, Jesus says, "It doesn't matter how broken you are or how badly you may view yourself. You need living water."

You see, both of them have a deep need. They might view themselves differently. Society might view them differently, but both of them have a deep-seated need in Jesus, and they fall so woefully short of that standard apart from Christ.

I remember years ago in 2012, I had an opportunity to speak to a camp—actually at the camp I'm going to, up at Saranac Lake. I remember this particular week had kids from New Canaan, Connecticut, one of the most wealthy zip codes in America, and it had kids from McDowell County, West Virginia, one of the poorest counties in America, together. I thought, "These kids over here don't even have shoes, some of them, and these kids over here have trust funds and drivers that take them to school." Yet, the need at the core of who they are is exactly the same. They fall woefully short of God's standard.

Understanding the Samaritans

Let's set the scene here for John 4. Who are the Samaritans? You can trace the Samaritans' origin back to the captivity in the Northern Kingdom under Assyrian rule. Jews of the Northern Kingdom intermarried with these Assyrians after the captivity, and they produced the half-Jewish, half-Gentile Samaritan race. So this new race is developed from this cross-section here in the Northern Kingdom.

In the New Testament times, the Jews would look down and almost despise Samaritans. They did not consider them full Jews. They wanted nothing to do with them. Now let's remember here: Jesus was a Jew, and he's passing through Samaria. A lot of folks don't know this, but how did the Samaritans and the Jews interact from what I just read? It's not good. A lot of times, if a Jew had to travel up north, they would go around Samaria, way out of their way to avoid it. It was tense, a lot of animosity, racism, and even hatred.

Jesus Meets the Woman at the Well

Pick it up here in John 4:4-9. Picture this moment with Jesus in Samaria with the tension that is around.

Verse 4: "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 noon. 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."

Let's just point out a couple of things real quickly as we get started in this interaction, this crazy interaction with Jesus and the Samaritan woman at the well.

At what time did the woman choose to go get water? Did you notice it? She chooses the middle of the day, peak time, peak sunlight. This is the Middle East. This woman would have been wearing—would have been covered up too. It was noon. It was hot. Typically, women would have gone early in the morning or after the sun had gone down to collect water because this is pre-indoor plumbing. So you're gathering water for cooking and for drinking and for cleaning. You have to get a lot of it, a lot of cisterns filled with water. This was a long, incredibly difficult process, but she comes at noon.

So maybe there's a potential here that maybe she doesn't want to be there at peak hours. Maybe she doesn't want to see a lot of people. Maybe she wants to go do it and be left alone.

So in the world's eyes too, what we read here in these few verses, in the world's eyes, this woman already had three strikes against her. Remember, this is 2,000 years ago in the Middle East. Women would have been looked down upon as second-class citizens. So the first strike in the world's eyes is that she's a woman. The second is that she's a Samaritan. Remember, there would have been some racism there. They would have looked down upon a Samaritan, right? And third, the third strike against this woman in society's eyes at this time would have been the fact that she would be viewed as a harlot or even a prostitute. This woman has a checkered past, right? This woman had been with a lot of men, and there would have been gossip and slander and those kinds of things. People would have known and considered her that.

So Jesus walks right into this hostile situation, sits down and asks for a drink. Put yourself in the woman's position. What are you thinking? Here is this Jewish man sitting here asking me for a drink, and I came at noon—maybe I was trying to avoid people—and all of a sudden, he's asking me for a drink. Maybe the woman's thinking, "Oh, here we go again. I'm going to be judged. I'm going to be ridiculed. He's going to look down upon me. I'm going to feel like I am worthless or less than because of this interaction."

Living Water

Let's pick it up here in John 4:10.

Jesus answered her, "If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asked you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water."

In verse 9, the woman asks a question, and instead of answering her directly, Jesus takes her level of amazement up a notch, right? In verse 10, what's he talking about here when he describes living water? He says, "You know, hey, I could get you a cup of water, you could get me a cup of water, but if you knew who was sitting here right now, I got something far more valuable than just a cup of water," right?

What is this living water? Well, living water is the combination of the Holy Spirit and the Word. Living water is also a synonym for salvation. Living water is a synonym for salvation that comes from Jesus and Jesus alone. Jesus is obviously using living water here as a synonym for salvation, just as he used new birth with Nicodemus just a chapter earlier.

Let's pick it up here in John 4:11-15.

"Sir," the woman said, "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 this well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his livestock?" Jesus answered, "Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life." The woman said to him, "Sir, give me this water so that I won't get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water."

Judging from verse 15, she still doesn't get what Jesus is describing. He's offering her eternal life, a personal relationship with the God of the universe. The Messiah is here. He's here, and she's still not quite grasping it in verse 15. She's still picturing magical Dasani, you know, Fiji water that lasts forever, right? She's picturing, "This is awesome," and she's not really tracking with him.

So she doesn't really understand what he's describing judging from her response in verses 11 and 12. But in verses 13 and 14, Jesus again describes the living water he's offering her. You see, when we're filled with the Holy Spirit, it makes the Word of truth clear to us. The joy and truth that we have found wells up not only in our lives, but it overflows out of our lives into the lives of others to make an impact.

In fact, just a few chapters later, John 7:38 describes it as a river of living water bubbling up inside us and overflowing out of us into the lives of others. Not only is it renovating us from the inside out, not only is it sanctifying us and changing us and molding us, but this living water then, because we're so overjoyed, it begins to bubble out of us, and people see it in our lives, and their lives begin to change, and they see Christ in that.

So this woman doesn't really get it in verse 15. We see her still maybe not track with what Jesus is saying. I love this moment. I love that this is in the passage, because this is a great example of how we need to fight the urge to give up on someone when they don't get it right away. When they don't track with it right away, when they don't understand what you mean in a personal relationship with Jesus right away. Sometimes it's easy to be like, "They'll never get it. They're not following." But Jesus doesn't bail on this woman. Instead, he aims at bringing her from death to life.

Do you know why I love that in verse 15? That's Mike Chilcoat. Bone-headed, silly, shallow Mike Chilcoat needed it to be shared with him over and over and over till I had the light bulb moment with Jesus. It's a great reminder for us to hang in there with friends and neighbors and family and loved ones that maybe haven't gotten it or tracked with it. That Jesus is patient—he hangs in there with her.

Exposed Sin

Let's pick it up here in John 4:16-18.

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 in verse 16, Jesus proceeds to touch on the most sensitive and vulnerable spot in her life. Why would he ask what he did? Why would he go there with her? It isn't in a cruel way. He's not doing this to be spiteful or mean. He does it because he knows here's a woman looking for love in all the wrong places. She's trying all these things that maybe this will satisfy, maybe this will fill that eternal void, this eternal hole in my heart. And each time, they come up empty. And Jesus sees that, and in mercy and love, he's letting her know that there's a better way.

John Piper said, "The quickest way to the heart is through a wound." Concealed sin—that's another thing that God is kind of exposing that, "Hey, you're going to these other things, and these are not the solution. This is not the antidote. This is actually poison that you're going towards, and it's killing you slowly, and I have a better way for you."

So concealed sin keeps us from seeing the light of Christ, and it severs our fellowship with the Father to kind of finally be honest and vulnerable and say, "Yes, I need to avoid and run from these things, these sins that are dragging me away, that are slowly killing me."

In verses 17 and 18, Jesus tells the woman about her life. Well, how does the woman respond in verses 19 and 20? Let's see.

"Sir," the woman said, "I can see that you are a prophet. Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem."

So here's a funny moment with this woman. Jesus says, "Go call your husband." "I have no husband." "You're right when you say you have no husband. You've had five and the guy you're with now is not your husband." Here's a moment where Jesus is literally describing her life to her. I'm sure her jaw is dropping at this moment.

And her response at 19 and 20 is, "Okay, I can see that you're a prophet. Where should we worship?" Like, she is also avoiding the subject a bit. It's like sort of me having a really tense moment with someone, and I'm listening and I get quiet, and I'm like, "Did you see the Pirates game the other day?" Like, it's just sort of trying to shift this subject.

It's a universal reflex of people confronted by someone to try to avoid conviction. I do it. She attempts to avoid this subject and change it to an issue of an academic controversy. A trapped animal will chew his own leg off to escape. A trapped sinner will double-talk and will justify sin in their own mind. It's a Piper quote as well.

Why do we do that? Why do we justify sin? Well, the answer is simple. We want to do what we want to do when we want to do it.

I remember when my oldest, Kaylee, was little, for some odd reason, she would always try to get into the little cabinets and stuff, so we put the child safety locks on those because she tried to get like Drano or liquid plumber and get her sippy cup. She always wanted—yeah, let me have some Drano. I'm a dad, I love her, I know more than her, so I'd be like, "You don't want this. Trust me." And she was so adamant. She was like, "I want this. This is what I want," right? She's so limited in what she understands. She thinks this is good for me, but I know more. And I'm like, "No, that's the last thing you want to drink."

So many times we shake our fist at God, we say, "I know this is what I want. This is where life will be found. This will be good for me." And God's like, "No, I love you enough to tell you the truth. Run from this stuff. It's causing you harm."

True Worship

We'll pick it up in verse 21.

"Woman," Jesus replied, "believe me, 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 worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth."

Jesus is basically saying, "Look, I'm here. You know what? The Jews got it right where the temple is in Jerusalem. That's fine. But that's no longer the big thing here. The Messiah is here." She raises the issue of where people ought to worship, but the real issue that Jesus is talking about here is not where people can worship, but rather how and whom to worship. That's what is paramount.

And what happens here in verses 25-26 is amazing.

The woman said, "I know that Messiah" (called Christ) "is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us." Then Jesus declared, "I, the one speaking to you—I am he."

That's me. Imagine this woman's moment where she's heard about the Messiah coming, she's like, "You know, I know the Messiah will come someday." And Jesus is like, "Yeah, right here. Messiah," right?

Have you had that moment in your life where you've avoided, and you've gone, and you chased after all these things, thinking it'll fill you with life and joy and purpose and satisfaction, only to be let down time and again, and Jesus is there in this moment where you're looking, you finally are like, "Jesus is the Messiah. He's the way, the truth, and the life. The Messiah is here."

The Disciples Return

John 4:27: 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 Messiah?" 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?"

I want to point out a couple of things just because it's fun. The disciples, his best friends, his pupils, they're there right with him. They miss this whole thing. This huge moment where this woman's life is changing forever and they're like, "Did someone get Jimmy John's for Jesus?" They have no idea. He's like, "I've got food that's more important than that right now." They're like, "Who got him lunch?" Like, they are so lost. And I love that, that even sometimes those of us who follow Jesus closely are missing it, right? But Jesus is locked in with this woman.

And do you notice it says she left her water jar? That was the very reason she went in the first place, but now something far more important has taken its place. You know, she would have gotten thirsty if she drank from those water jars. Now she's going to have something where she'll never thirst spiritually again.

She tells her friends to come and see. I mean, here's this woman with very little credibility. I mean, where did this woman go to seminary? Did this woman know the Bible inside and out? Was she extremely well versed? No. This is such an encouragement to be like, wherever we're at, we don't need to know it all. We just need to know Christ personally and say, "I authentically have experienced Christ, and I want to share him with others." Here's this woman with no credibility at all, bringing the whole town out to see Jesus.

The Impact

Verses 34-38, Jesus continues to talk with her. I'll pick it up in verse 39.

"Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman's testimony, 'He told me everything I ever did.' So when the Samaritans came to him, they urged him to stay with them, and he stayed two days. And because of his words, many more became believers. They said to the woman, 'We no longer believe just because of what you said; now we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this man really is the Savior of the world.'"

So this woman has this huge impact on this town eternally. All these people come out because of this woman's testimony, and then they're like, "We've now tasted and experienced it for ourselves, and we don't just believe because of your testimony. Now we believe because we've seen Christ, we've seen the Messiah, we know Him in spirit and in truth, in a personal, intimate way. And in turn, now we can change the trajectory of how we live our lives and how we raise our families and how we interact with our friends, and we can have an impact on them, and so forth and so on." This domino effect happens because this woman stepped out with authenticity.

Again, did she have credibility? Where did she go to seminary? She didn't. But she was changed forever by this interaction with Christ as he pursued her, and he stuck with her even when she wasn't tracking. Boy, that patience is so beautiful.

Living Water Recap

So living water, to recap here:

Number one: Spiritual life and growth is not possible without living water of the Holy Spirit. Just like our physical bodies would die without H2O, our spiritual life is dead without living water. There's no substitute for that. It's made only available through Jesus Christ.

Two: Living water is not limited in its availability. It springs up eternally from within the believer and is available at all times. It's a tidal wave of opportunity to have that.

Three: The source is Jesus. It's Jesus, and then it's only Jesus.

Number four: It's an unearned gift to anyone who asks, whether it's Nicodemus or this woman at the well, or anyone else. It is unearned. Everyone has access. You can't work for it. It's a gift. It's a gift from God.

Nicodemus has access to this eternal gift. The woman at the well has access to this eternal gift. Every person in this room and throughout the world has access to this eternal gift.

Eternal freedom through Jesus is for everyone. Are you going to grab hold of this free gift for eternity? That's the question.

Closing Prayer

I'll pray. Lord Jesus, thank you so much for this time. Thank you for this opportunity. Thanks for this room. Lord, I pray that as your Holy Spirit stirs in this room, that there will be moments where folks can take some time and pray and stop and ask, "Have I taken this free gift, this free gift offered to me of living water? Lord God, have I grabbed that, and even though I have access to it, have I taken hold of it?" And Lord, I thank you that you paid it all on a cross for us to have a personal and intimate relationship with you. In your name we pray, amen.

Thank you so much for being here. Have a great day.

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