Quench Your Thirst
John 4:5-26
1) For Eternal Life
2) For the Truth
3) For the Christ
It’s a hot day, and you’ve been outside for some time. You finished your bottle of water some time ago and you know it’s time for another when you get home soon. When you arrive, what will you first reach for? Is it a cool glass of filtered water? Is it a fun, electrolyte-filled flavored sports drink? Is it something that tastes good even though it doesn’t hydrate you? No matter what you reach first for, you know how satisfying it’ll be to take that sip and quench your thirst.
Could you imagine having that same satisfying, thirst-quenching effect for your soul? You can’t find it at the store or even with the best carbon water filter. It’s only found in Jesus who alone can give it. As we consider our verses from John’s Gospel, we hear how Jesus offers this living water that alone can quench our soul’s thirst for eternal life, for the truth, and for the Christ.
1) For Eternal Life
After traveling all day, Jesus and his disciples come to the town of Sychar and need to refuel. While the disciples get food from town, Jesus is resting by Jacob’s well. A Samaritan woman comes to draw some water since she doesn’t have running water at home. Jesus, tired from his journey, asks the woman for a drink of water. And with that polite request, Jesus began to direct this woman’s thoughts to her soul’s thirst for eternal life.
Jesus does this with a play on word with “living water.” This term could refer to two different kinds of water: physically to spring-fed water as found in Jacob’s well or spiritually to water that is life-giving or full of life. When Jesus offers her his living water, she’s confused. She’s thinking of spring-fed water and wondering where Jesus has this hidden away. Jesus is talking about life-giving water, the water that gives life. Yet she still doesn’t get it. But she does still want Jesus’ living water, thinking it’ll save her from ever needing to draw water from Jacob’s well ever again!
Why didn’t the Samaritan woman recognize Jesus’ living water? Didn’t she realize her soul’s thirst for eternal life? No, she didn’t because she was distracted by her life’s daily needs. Have you ever found yourself distracted from what you
Pastor Tim Patoka Our Greatest Needs: Water for the Thirsty March 12, 2023
truly need by what you need right now? We all have commitments in life we have to balance: work, school, family, friends, our physical and mental health. How well do you balance them all? How often does today’s to-do list distract you from what’s truly important like feeding our faith so we’re ready for the eternity to follow?
Though our daily needs distract us from our truly important needs, Jesus doesn’t wait for us to finally think about eternity before he quenches our soul’s thirst for eternal life. He gives us what we most need through his living water. We identify Jesus’ living water as the Word of God. For it is full of life and gives us life at the same time. In this Word, we find the forgiveness of sins that makes us right with God through faith in his Son. No matter how poorly we balance our life’s commitments or how often God is the last thing on our minds, we have life in Christ. We also hear the guarantee that heaven is ours simply because we are his children through faith. And that guarantee remains no matter what changes happen around us.
With Jesus’ living water, found in the pages of Scripture, he quenches our soul’s thirst for eternal life even when we are distracted by our daily needs. It’s also with this living water that Jesus quenches our soul’s thirst for the truth.
2) For the Truth
Jesus has gotten the Samaritan woman to desire his living water, even if she doesn’t understand it yet. So he takes the next step and has her look to him for the truth. Jesus first shows his knowledge of all things as God by correctly recounting her five previous husbands and current sinful situation of living with her boyfriend. Once the woman recognizes Jesus to be a prophet, she asks him about the right way to worship God. According to the Samaritans, it had to be done on nearby Mt. Gerizim. According to the Jews, it had to be done in the city of Jerusalem. Jesus sides with the Jews because of what the Old Testament says, but teaches her how true worship will occurs. It’s not a question of where, but how. A person can worship God wherever they are, provided they do so in spirit and in truth, that is, with hearts turned towards God and minds informed of what he has done for us.
It's a good thing that Jesus spoke with this Samaritan woman. He gave her the truth about worship in a sea of conflicting yet legitimate sounding ideas. We too live in such a confusing sea of ideas. What should worship look like? How should Christians be baptized? What is the best way for a church to conduct its business? It can so easily become a “he-said, she-said” situation, leaving us without any idea of what the truth is! So we fall back on our consciences and
friends to feel what’s right and praying it’s correct. And Jesus’ voice, which should be the truth that rings out, becomes doubted and viewed as one of many legitimate opinions.
Yet we dare not lump Jesus’ voice with a person’s personal opinion. Because when Jesus speaks, God is speaking. And when God speaks, he quenches our soul’s thirst for the truth in that confusing sea of ideas. To find that truth, we go back to Jesus’ living water: the Word of God. It’s not just in the red-lettered words in your printed Bibles at home we find Jesus’ voice. It’s in every word within these inspired Scriptures! For this is God’s Word to us where he tells us the truth and quenches our soul’s thirst for it. And in so doing, he rids us of doubts and fears in every “he-said, she-said” situation.
As Jesus gives his living water to quench our soul’s thirst for eternal life and the truth, so he also quenches our soul's thirst for the Christ.
3) For the Christ
Through Jesus’ artful use of questions, answers, and explanations, he has guided his conversation with the Samaritan woman from getting a drink from Jacob’s well to her expressed desire for the Messiah/Christ. These two terms refer to the same thing: the Anointed One who would do what God promised and save us from our sins. This Samaritan woman was one of many people who were looking for the Christ to come. In addition to explaining all things, she probably also had the right reason: to save her from her sins. It’s now that Jesus finally identifies himself as the Christ while echoing God’s Old Testament “I AM” name.
That’s quite a claim to make! To say that you are the Christ means you’re greater than the patriarch Jacob whose made this well possible for countless to draw from and drink. To put it in an American context, it would be saying you’re greater than our Founding Father, George Washington, who not only made our country possible, but whose legacy is found in countless democracies across the world.
If you were to see Jesus resting by Jacob’s well, would you see him as the Christ? So often his humility obscures it. He needed his disciples to procure nourishment after traveling all day. He has to ask a Samaritan woman to draw water for him because he didn’t even have a bucket with him. He sure doesn't look like the long-awaited Christ. If it’s true that the Christ already came, then why does it seem he hasn’t? If it wasn’t for the Christian faith talking about him, Jesus would have been one of many forgotten victims of the cross. Though technology and our
Pastor Tim Patoka Our Greatest Needs: Water for the Thirsty March 12, 2023
standard of living has greatly improved, our basic human problems remain the same. Can we be so sure that our soul’s thirst for the Christ is quenched in Jesus and not someone else?
We indeed can be so sure. And it’s because of the living water we drink from in God’s Word. For in this Word, Jesus shows us he is the Christ and includes us in his blessed promises. The New Testament consistently calls Jesus to be the Christ and no one else When we read Jesus’ biography in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, we see Jesus do what the Christ had to do: fulfill the Old Testament’s prophecies, live a perfect life as God demanded, go to the cross to pay for sins, and rise from the dead to confirm his payment. This living water also gives us life for it includes us in the Christ’s promises of forgiveness, life, and salvation. As such, there’s no need to be thirsty for the Christ. We know who it is: Jesus and none other! And whoever trusts in him will never be disappointed.
Closing Encouragements
Though the Samaritan woman didn’t know at first where to go to find Jesus’ living water, we do. It’s found in the pages of Scriptures that is full of life because of what it says and is life-giving because of who gives it. It’s with this Word of God that Jesus quenches our soul’s thirst for eternal life amidst the distractions of daily life, our thirst for the truth in a sea of confusing ideas, and our thirst for the Christ in Jesus alone.
You can drink from this living water. Jesus told the Samaritan woman, “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.” (John 4:10
EHV) You know the gift of God: it’s faith in Jesus as your Savior. You know who Jesus is: the long-awaited Christ. As such, confidently go to your Savior in the Word and drink his living water from its pages.
See for yourself how this living water works. It will forever quench your soul’s thirst with its content never changes and always inclusive blessings and promises. It will become a spring of its own that bubbles up to eternal life that you can always drink from. So drink from Jesus’ living water in worship alongside brothers and sisters in Christ who likewise worship God in spirit and in truth. Drink from Jesus’ living water in Bible study and home devotions as you examine the Scriptures that God wrote for you. Drink from Jesus’ living water so that you may always and forever quench your soul’s thirst. Amen.