An ordinary man, weary and hungry and thirsty after a 40-mile journey on foot, asked a woman for a drink at a well. Yet ironically, despite asking this, the man went on to offer her a gift of water – water that would quench spiritual thirst, water that would be ‘an artesian spring within, gushing fountains of endless life.’ (John 4:12, The Message)

Water symbolises life to us – and Jesus is the Way, the Truth and the Life. (Jn 14:6) God, the spring of living water (Jer 17:13), is the only One who can satisfy the deep spiritual longings within us, but so often, we do prefer our own strategies and plans to God’s. If we have access to the Life, to Jesus,however, then we can receive this spring of water welling up to eternal life. It’s not something we earn; it’s not something we deserve. It is the gift of God. In John 7, Jesus talks again about water and John tells us that He is talking about the Holy Spirit who was to come on the church after Jesus had been glorified. (John 7:37-38) If we believe, we receive the Holy Spirit as ‘a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession—to the praise of his glory.’ (Eph 1:14)

The gift of eternal life and the gift of the Holy Spirit are not just something to guarantee us a place in heaven when we die, however. The Holy Spirit in us is the source of life right now as well as for the future. But if we want to be satisfied and quenched, if we want to live life with purpose and joy and hope, we have to let go of our own sources of water. We have to leave our own water jars behind, just like the woman did, so that we can receive God’s gift of living water, so that we can continually be filled with the Spirit. (Eph 5:18)

The only way to have our spiritual thirst quenched is to come to God to be filled. We have to put down our own water jar and come to Jesus. The woman said, ‘Give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.’ (John 4:15) We too have to admit our need and come to God so that we do not have to keep relying on the world’s ways to get by. The legends talk about the fountain of youth as the elixir of life; Jesus tells us simply that this living water is found in Him. We don’t have to look any further.

Tonight’s sermon looked at John 4:1-26 and the theme of living water. This encounter between Jesus and an unnamed woman at Jacob’s well in Sychar gives us a fascinating insight into His ability to draw people into conversation and move from the physical to the spiritual. Jesus came to the place tired and thirsty after a long journey, yet His priority was not HIs own needs but those of the woman. As He told His disciples, ‘My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work.’ (John 4:34) 

In the previous chapter, Jesus encountered Nicodemus, a Pharisee who was eminently respectable and religious and yet still needed to be born again. (John 3:7) Here, his conversation is with a Samaritan woman living with a man after having been married five times – definitely not the kind of person you would expect a rabbi to be talking to! The enmity between Jews and Samaritans went back hundreds of years; the conventions of the day meant a man speaking with a woman in public like this was unheard of. Yet Jesus defied conventions and prejudice to speak with this woman and reminds us that no one is outside God’s reach. We need to understand God’s heart for people and be willing to engage in conversations as we are led by the Spirit because the living water of which Jesus spoke is not for us alone. It’s meant to flow through us to others so that they too may have their spiritual thirst quenched.

Jesus’s conversation with this woman shows us that evangelism can be leisurely and conversational; it can be oblique and cryptic at times. (As Emily Dickinson put it, ‘tell all the truth, but tell it slant.‘)

Jesus engaged the woman’s attention and was not content to let things remain on a argumentative or impersonal level. By revealing her lifestyle to her – something that was revealed by God’s Spirit to Him – Jesus demanded a personal response. She wanted to prevaricate, talking about places of worship, keeping the conversation at a ‘safe’ level. Jesus always takes us beyond this safe level. How we respond is immensely important. This woman was so intrigued she left her water jar behind and went to the villagers to ask them if this man could be the Messiah. Her witness led to many others believing in Christ.

Jesus offers us living water and gives us insights into how to talk with those who don’t believe in Him, showing us how this living water makes a difference to our lives. It is the pathway to eternal life. It has the power to satisfy us and flow through us to reach others. How we all need this thirst-quenching, soul-satisfying water!

Stephen spoke this morning at Cherry Tree Court on the subject of numbers – not the book in the BIble of that name, but how our lives can so easily be controlled by numbers. We count the pennies and pounds in our bank account, hoping there is enough to pay all our bills. We count the days to events like birthdays and Christmas (only 107 sleeps to Christmas 2018, apparently!) as well as to pay day and retirement! Some numbers can be enjoyable (most people enjoy counting off the days on an Advent calendar, especially if there are chocolates involved!), but for many of us, numbers add stress, strain and distraction to our lives and leave us wondering if we are counting the right things.

The old hymn advises us to ‘count your blessings; name them one by one’ and this is sound advice to us. So often, we forget God’s many blessings and the ways He has helped us in the past. Matt 11:28-30 reminds us that Jesus promises us rest. He promises to exchange our heavy yoke for HIs light one, to give us that rest and renewed perspective which are so lacking in our lives so often. As we learn to count our blessings and come to Jesus, we will find rest because we truly can count on God to help us in every situation and to walk with us along life’s road.

The world is full of sorrow: painful situatins which break our hearts and leave us bewildered, confused and in so much emotional pain that we feel we cannot carry on. At times we wrestle with God’s ways: why He allows such pain, why He does not intervene to prevent such tragedies and why, if He loves us so much, we have to ensure such suffering.

Distress and sorrow, trouble and persecution, are inevitable companions to a life ravaged by sin. We cannot avoid them; we cannot understand them. But ‘godly sorrow’ (see 2 Cor 7:9-11) has positive outcomes.

Godly sorrow is when we allow the distress and pain to drive us towards God, rather than away from HIm. We come with our questions, our tears, our rage and our confusion, and we sit in the silence until God’s presence is enough to sustain us. When we allow distresss and sorrow to drive us to God rather than away from him, we find we become ‘more alive, more concerned, more human, more sensitive, more reverent, more passionate, more responsible.’ (2 Cor 7:11, The Message)

If we allow distress to drive us away from God, the questions are still unanswered and we are left only with regret. We become corroded and bitter, restless and discontented. Wordly sorrow ultimately leads to death. (2 Cor 7:10)

Our response to life is the only thing we can control. We can’t control the troubles and sorrows, but we can control and choose our response. Choose to let the sorrow drive you to God. Though we may have to wait for the answer (Hab 2:3), though we may never understand His ways, His presence means we are not left comfortless (2 Cor 1:3-4, Jn 14:16-18)

Our first birthday in September was also celebrated tonight.

Flowers usually play an important part in weddings and tonight we made artificial flowers for the wedding we’ll soon be celebrating! (I doubt these will be used on the day, but the thought was there!)

There are many traditions regarding flowers and weddings (such as the bride tossing her bouquet and the woman who catches it will supposedly be the next bride) and therefore perhaps it’s no surprise that God sees us too as beautiful flowers: ‘I am a rose of Sharon, a lily of the valleys.’ (Song of Songs 2:1) So often, we don’t see ourselves as beautiful, but God loves us and cherishes us. Just as there is great variety in flowers, so too we are all different and yet are all loved by God and given different gifts to use in the body of Christ (see Rom 12:3-8, 1 Cor 12:12-31). We need each other and we can be secure in our individuality and our purpose, for God clothes the flowers of the field and cares for us even more.