Hungry and Satisfied

IntroductionWell we are now four chapters into the gospel of John and we have arrived at the story of the woman at the well. And one of the things we’ve tried to mention now a few times is that this book is written for a very specific reason. And because he’s got a purpose, he’s being very selective.We have to keep in mind that there are many things that could have been included in the book of John that are not there. Let me illustrate this way.Have you ever noticed that Mt, Mk, Lk, John and Acts are all about the same length? Why is that? Because it’s what fits on standard length scroll. You have to cut it off somewhere. It’s got to fit in a book.You get little hints of this cutting all over the gospels. In fact, it seems that there are entire volumes of Jesus life that are purposely not mentioned.You remember in Matthew chapter 12 we read of Jesus healing a man with a whithered hand. That act begins to attract huge crowds and attention from the religious elite. So he withdraws into a more desolate place. And there’s this passing comment.That about makes you gasp in amazement as you read along! John, why not write about that! That sounds like really INTERESTING stuff and really important HISTORICAL data. True. But, John’s point isn’t primarily to record history or keep you interested.None of these HISTORICAL, REALLY INTERESTING miracles are recorded. Why? Because his primary purpose pushes out these secondary purposes.When the editor comes to John and says, “We have too much material. John, you are going to have to choose between the healing crusade of Jesus where he heals hundreds and that conversation Jesus had with that woman at the water-cooler.” John says, “Let’s go with the water cooler-convo.”By all accounts, this is a curious inclusion. There’s no great miracle displayed in the story. Jesus does demonstrates his ability to know the secret details of this woman’s personal life but there’s not healing, no altering of physics in any impressive way.John had thousands of stories to choose from and he chose this. Why? Because, this story illustrates his POINT - HERE IT IS: Jesus is the Christ. Jesus is the Messiah. Jesus is God. Jesus is that long awaited Savior of the world. And this story about a thirsty woman next to a well of water profoundly demonstrates not only THAT he is the SAVIOR but it demonstrates HOW he SAVES.Last week Ryan so helpfully began this narrative and today we get to finish it.ReviewThis entire narrative is about thirst.It starts with physical thirst. Jesus needs water and so does this woman he meets at the well. They both are thirsty. How much more human can you get than that?But very quickly it moves from physical thirst to soul thirst when Jesus asks this woman for a cup of water. You see,He was a man. She was a woman.He was educated. She was not.He was a Jew. She was a Samaritan.He was socially respected. She was socially disrespected.He was morally impeccable. She was morally reprehensible.What this simple request revealed is that as far as the culture was concerned there was a barrier between them.There was racial barrier.There was gender barrier.There was political barrier.There was educational barrier.There was moral barrier.Every culture has these barriers - walls that prevent unity. These walls don’t exist without reason. These barriers are erected to protect values.You see, there’s always this nagging concern - If too many of these type of people flood our social circles, the things we care about are going to be diluted. And it’s a real concern. The things we’ve worked so hard to build are going to be torn down by people who don’t care about them. The minority will become the majority and the tides will turn a new direction. And over time what happens is that the people you fear are seen as a disease. They are unclean. And what do we do with diseased people? We should know. We quarantine them.Here was a woman that for all practical purposes, needed to be socially quarantined because her immorality was contagious. She was a MORAL-19 leper. She was a threat to the health of the community. And she knew that she was perceived that way. That’s why she came to the well alone at high noon in the heat of the day. She had a social disease.So by asking for a drink this reality was exposed. Jesus says, "I see by the way you respond to me, there is a need here larger than thirst. Listen, I can fix the disease in you. I’ve got something that your soul needs as intensely as your body needs water. I have something that is as satisfying to your soul as water is to your parched mouth.You have a longing for love. I can see it in you.You have a longing for value and being accepted. You’re wearing it on your sleeve.You have a longing for real life,You have a longing for eternal life. I see that in your eyes.All the deepest longings of your soul and your heart can be satisfied with the water I give you.She says, really? Yes. Well, then give it to me. Okay, I will. But first, go call your husband. Why does he say that?Jesus wants to get personal. She has a sickness. In order to solve the disease the physician has to get close.He has to touch you.He has to invade your space.You have to expose to him the wounded part of you that you are embarrassed to show any other person.If you want him to heal you, your going to have to trust him.Do you see what Jesus is trying to do. He’s trying to get close to the sickness. But it confuses her because she’s learned how people respond to her when they find out she’s sick. Her whole life she’s been conditioned to believe that when people discover who she really is they will recoil in fear of being contaminated. She’s learned to hide, to disguise who she is, to project an image of herself because she doesn’t want her repulsiveness to be discovered.But this is what makes Jesus a Savior. He wants to touch our sickness.That’s so counterintuitive to us. We can only go from health to sickness.If we touch a leper, we get leprosy.If we touch a dead body, we become unclean.If we touch a sinner, we pick up their sin.If you think about the things that are unclean in the Bible, many of them are unclean because proximity to this thing leads to death. We can’t beat death. So if you can’t fight it, then RUN!That’s what we do. But that’s not what the Savior of the world does. Jesus reverses that.If Jesus touches a leper, he is made clean. If Jesus touches a dead body it rises. If Jesus touches a sinner he is forgiven. He fixes the problem. He spreads health.But - AND THIS IS THE KICKER - in order to heal, he has to touch. He has to get close. He has to look at what you’ve been hiding. That’s what’s behind this whole business of asking about the husband and then revealing the five husbands.There’s a soul injury there that is sensitive. Let me see that area. He’s asking her to let him do his healing work but she’s nervous. I don’t usually let people get that close to me. I’ve had bad experiences with that.And she backs away. Ah, I see you are a prophet. She deflects. Maybe you can solve this debate that we’ve had here about worship. The Samaritans say we should worship here. The Jews say we should worship here. She’s deflecting. She doesn’t want to get personal. Jesus isn’t interested in this kind of chit-chat. He wants to get personal, "You want to talk about temples? Fine, I’ll tell you about temples. I’ve come to make all temples obsolete." Let’s get back to the point. What you really need is me.Jesus constantly able to drive to an individuals biggest need, greatest sin, lack of hope, despair, guilt, need. He’s offering himself. He’s offering living water. He says, "I am Messiah and I can meet the deepest needs of your soul."You want to be forgiven. I will forgive you.You want acceptance. I will accept you.You want love. I will love you.You want to live. I can make you live forever.That’s what he means by living water. These deep soul needs of the heart and the real life needs of the body totally and completely fulfilled by Jesus Christ, the author of love and giver of life. What you need is the gift of God. You need water that springs up to eternal life.Jesus reaches across all those barriers to this woman. And she receives it. It’s an amazing story.The ContinuationSo our text today is a continuation of this. So this woman receives Jesus as Messiah. She receives the living water. And she goes ballistic. In a moment she is changed. She runs into town a changed woman gushing emotion and praise.Why? Because she’s tasted of the living waters! Imagine you are in the brink of death because you are so thirsty. Your tongue is a chunk of dry leather in your mouth. Someone hands you a gallon of water. Can you imagine just having one sip and handing it back?This woman has waited her entire life for these needs of our soul to be met. She’s worked hard to find satisfaction and she ends up parched. Every other promise of satisfaction, she’s had to earn. She’s had to work for it. And she worked hard and it failed her. But here’s a gift. She did nothing. She’s just gushing. The Spirit of God is in her. This well inside her is overflowing. And she’s drinking and drinking and the water is sweet and plentiful.Now the narrative is very careful to give us very specific time markers. We have already been told that the disciples were sent into the town by Jesus to get some food. The text is very clear that Jesus has this entire interchange in the absence of the disciples. And they return from getting food right as Jesus is finishing up. In fact, we are told the exact moment.So from the perspective of the disciples, they left and Jesus was alone. They return and they saw Jesus finishing up this conversation, this women so excited, run back into town. They were thinking to themselves, well that is strange? They didn’t really know what happened. They marveled at the fact he was talking to a woman. But they were accustomed to marveling at Jesus so they just kept their mouths shut. They have become accustomed to the flexibility of Jesus to deal with different types of people.Now look what happens next. They are standing around with their subway sandwich bags. Okay Thomas had the flatbread combo. Here’s some for Jesus. And Jesus just seemed pre-occupied. He wasn’t eating. Maybe he was praying. Maybe he was reading.Now they had just traveled some distance and they know how they are feeling. You know that feeling when the blood sugar drops. Man, the body needs fuel. He’s going to get tired. He’s going to collapse in exhaustion. They get concerned for Jesus.The disciples of course are doing what anyone would have done here. They are just interacting and thinking on the plane of physical hunger. They are thinking in terms of body. But Jesus is thinking in terms of body and soul.This is not the first time he’s heard someone say to him, “You look hungry. Eat.” Those words must have sounded awfully familiar. Remember the 40 day fast just weeks earlier. This is not his first rodeo. When he was deep into that 40 day fast, starving to the brink of human physical limits, the tempter came to him and said, Matthew 4:3-4, "If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread."Satan said to Jesus, “Jesus eat. Jesus feed yourself. What’s the harm in doing that?”But he answered, “It is written,”‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’"Why did Jesus respond this way to Satan? His point here is not that we can live without bread. Of course we need to eat. His point is that there is something more important than bread. Think about this temptation at its core. It’s a daily temptation for all of us: making the concerns of earth more important than the concerns of heaven.Jesus responds to Satan by saying, there is a higher priority than food. That’s saying something since food is a pretty high priority.I mean it’s one of the 3 basic ingredients of survival: Food, water, shelter. Jesus says, “Nope. That’s wrong.” Word of God, Food, Water, Shelter. That’s the order.In the same way that water meets a need completely different than food. So the Word of God meets a totally different need than both food and water.Food can never feed the soul. Ingesting God’s words feeds the soul which is the highest priority. Of course I’m hungry. But there’s something more important at stake here. I’ve got other food to eat. What is that food in specific?There’s a very specific type of food that Jesus is referencing here. Let’s find out. We have three points here.What is the food?How do I get the food?What happens when I eat the food?Here’s the answer Jesus gives.So the food he’s referencing is doing God’s will.Doing God’s will satisfies a hunger we have in our soul. Most of us ascent to that reality but we have no clue how true it really is. That’s why God gave the disciples this analogy. *Jesus says, “Do you feel how hungry you are disciples.* Do you feel that drop in blood sugar?” Do you have the craving for food? You know that the second you eat that food, you will feel better right? Food is the cure for physical hunger. Doing God’s will is the cure for soul hunger.The difference between the cure for physical hunger and the cure for soul hunger is that with physical hunger we are experts at identifying the cure.A pizza hut pizza, a rack of ribs, a turkey dinner. Any one of those will do the trick. We know how to cure physical hunger.But with soul hunger we get confused. We think that money, or changed situations or changed relationships will satisfy the hunger - but it doesn’t. It’s like biting into a bagel and tasting air. That was a strange experience. So God gave us hunger as a gift to understand the relationship between our soul’s hunger and the cure for our soul’s hunger.The cure for hungry souls, the food for hungry souls, is obedience to the father.Are you starving for purpose? Then open up your Bible and start obeying what it says. His Word is bread. His commands obeyed are like meals for your soul. You can’t find purpose any other way. Do you realize that? Your food is to do the will of God.Are you starving to have your life mean something? Then open up your Bible and eat. Eat God’s Words. Let it fill you. It’s the key!Are you starving? Then open up your Bible and eat. Not just read it, but obey it.Why am I lonely? Why am I struggling with depression? Why do I lack purpose? Do you see the metaphor. The Words of God are food for your soul. You silence the hunger by doing the will of God.If every word that comes out of the mouth of God is the total food option, then that gets broken down into meals. There’s a meal that’s before Jesus and his disciples right now. There’s a specific word of God that needs to be obeyed right now. What is it?So the meal here is to do the work of bringing people to Christ. God has a job for them to do. There is a harvest of souls right in front of them. It’s ripe for harvest. God’s will, and hence our spiritual food, is to do that work of harvesting souls for the kingdom. That’s PRIORITY #1.When a farmer looks at a field yet to be harvested, he’s got to ignore his physical hunger. He has to work all day; he skips two full meals, pulling in those tractor trailers spilling over the side rails with grain - that satisfies the soul even though the stomach is barking at him.If you know anything about farming communities when harvest comes, everybody stops everything. Schools shut down. The harvest is on and it’s work around the clock to take advantage of this narrow window of opportunity. They work before the sun rises till after the sun sets. They skip meals. Why? Because if they don’t work really hard RIGHT NOW, they will loose the harvest. The grain will fall over and rot into the ground. The sugar beats will spoil and mold. The rains will come and the tractors won’t be able to get into the fields to harvest the potatoes.I’ll eat soon enough. I need to work now.This is what Jesus is saying. Do you see all that grain out there? All we have to do is harvest it. It’s ripe. Let’s get to work. “Yes, I’m hungry, but this is no time for a feast. That time is coming soon enough. We’ve got work to do.”Now, just pause for a moment here. He says, "Lift up your eyes." You can imagine Jesus sweeping his hand across the landscape. What are there eyes resting on? Samaria filled with Samaritans. The crop is Samaritans. Jesus is turning their eyes to see that those whom they despise are in fact the target of God’s redeeming love.My food Jesus says, my work as Savior is satisfy the thirst of the people here in Samaria.Our food is to do the will of the father. Okay, that’s what it is. How do I get it?How do we get the food? There’s one work to focus in on here. LABOR. We get the food by working, toiling, laboring. We don’t get the food by just sitting around. This kind of obedience to the will of the father takes work.And it’s important to make a distinction between the WORK required to drink the living waters and the WORK required reap the harvest.Jesus has just finished teaching this woman about living waters springing up to eternal life. To be clear. That takes no work.Now, most people CERTAINLY TRY to work and earn and labor for this kind of life. Most people work to try to earn a reputation, earn money, earn a standing, earn success. They WORK really really HARD. They WORK their fingers down to the bone trying to quench the thirst of the soul.Jesus tells this woman. Stop working. Just receive the gift of life. You don’t have to earn these waters. You don’t have to work for these waters. These waters are a GIFT of God. They satisfy deeply. They will never disappoint. Don’t work. Come thirsty. Drink deeply. It’s free. Receive the gift. Jesus is the fountain of living waters and its free and never ending. That’s the spiritual drink. NO WORK REQUIRED to drink.But that doesn’t mean there is no work. What is the work? We work to get people to the well. The real food, the real work, the real toil, the real sweat is saving people from spiritual dehydration by leading them to the fountain of living water.Our work is not to get these living waters. Our work is to give the living water.Most people toil their entire lives to find living water thinking that when they find it they will finally be able to rest.Christians receive the living waters and rest and out of that rest they toil so that others can find rest.That’s what Jesus is saying. My food is to do the will of him who sent me. My food (my work) is to quench thirsty souls.Food and water are two totally different needs. You need both of them to be satisfied don’t you. You can be right next to an artisian well and die of starvation and vice versa. We need both.We can be satisfied with the living waters of Jesus Christ. But that does not satisfy the hunger to accomplish the mission of God.If your entire infantry is dying of thirst and you have the key to a well, sure you personally want a drink, and you could open that well up and drink but you can’t rest until they’ve all had a drink. You can’t just lock the well back up and say, “I’m satisfied” and watch everyone else die of thirst.This is what Jesus is talking about. He has a compassion for those who are thirsty. He has a hunger to see that thirst quenched.So feed your hunger by eating, by doing the will of God. By reaping. By doing the work of harvesting. By laboring. You have a hunger in you to see people saved don’t you?I know you do because you are a Christian. You’ve tasted the living waters. I know you want others to taste what you have found. You want others to taste and see that the Lord is good.You are satisfied because you have tasted and others you love have tasted. IT is when we all eat and drink that we are finally satisfied in community. It’s the difference between enjoying a vacation by yourself and enjoying a vacation with family or friends. 3/4 of the enjoyment of a vacation is reveling in a wonderful experience together, in community. That’s what worship is!What does soul satisfaction look like? It looks like the woman we see in verse 39. Someone who has both DRANK the living waters and has EATEN of the bread of doing the will of God. This woman is fully satisfied.Now we get to finish the story. So this woman runs back into town. And we are given no details here, but we can easily imagine it. This is a small town. Small towns are all the same. Everybody is into everybody’s business because, after all, that’s the only thing to do in small towns.So she goes back into the town and look at what happens.Do you see what happened? This woman had drank of the living waters. And she was so thrilled. You see what this woman realized and what the whole town realized was that Jesus was Messiah because he came to SAVE by SATISFYING.There are two levels of belief described in this section here. The first is they believed because of the woman’s testimony. Now let me point out something rather amazing about this.This paragraph references this woman’s testimony. This is a legal term. In the court system, describe for me the end goal of having a witness provide a testimony? The goal is for that testimony to be believed. Okay, so if that’s the goal, what are the characteristics of a good witness and a good testimony? You need a witness who is reliable, respected, educated, truthful. This woman had a reputation for none of these things. in a court of law, this is like the worst possible witness you could chose. And yet it’s this woman’s testimony that resulted in the belief of many? People chose to believe her. Why should anyone believe this woman’s testimony?There is an answer here. There’s one very narrow example where being unreliable, disrespcted, uneducated, being a liar, being a moral failure helps your case not hurts it. You know when that is?It’s when you change. If you are trying to sell a weight loss product. Who do you commission - the formerly fat or the formerly skinny? When a person completely changes, you know something happened. It grabs your attention. You know how hard it is to change, how rare it is, and when someone dramatically changes, you believe some power was at work. The more messed up, the more powerful the testimony becomes. These people looked at this woman and said, "I believe that some power is at work here." I don’t know what living waters are but whatever they are she tasted em. She’s got what I want. I believe living waters exist based on what I see in her.Now you want to know why this is good news for us. The way you provide testimony to the power of Jesus is not by showing how good you are, how moral you can be, how exemplary your family is, it’s by showing how bad you were. It’s by showing the ways in which Jesus changed you.I used to be insecure and that manifested itself in jealousy, lashing out in anger, bullying people, hiding, whatever…. but now Christ has saved me from all that! I’m free, free, forever amen. Come join the song of all the redeemed.I used to love money and now I couldn’t care less about money. I just love God and his people. Do you see how Christ rescued me!I used to love power and influence and all I cared about was people respecting me. Now all I care about is God getting glory and respect. I’ve been saved from that pathetic condition!Do you see how powerful it is to testify. Now it says that they believed. We can call this level one belief. What is it? It’s the type of belief where you can’t argue with the evidence. You say, “I’m not sure what happened, but I TOTALLY believe that some power changed her. I believe that. I can’t deny it.” They believe enough to pursue it themselves.And then level two belief happens. Level two belief happens at the end of the paragraph.It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is indeed the Savior of the world. We believe because we have EXPERIENCED it ourselves. Do you know this is the goal of evangelism?We don’t change people. We just want to get them close enough to Jesus that they experience him themselves. It’s our mission statement. We glorify God by pointing the AFFECTIONS of all peoples to the ALL-SATISFYING person of Jesus Christ.This passage concludes by identifying Jesus as the Savior of the World. Interestingly, this was a common title in the first century.Greek deities were ascribed the same title: not only Zeus, but Asclepius the god of healing, various gods of the mystery cults, and others.Even the Roman emperors were called savior; Hadrian (AD 117–138) was called the ‘savior of the world.’It didn’t have a universal meaning. So here’s what these Samaritans are confessing. Zeus claims to be savior of the world. Serapis claims to be savior of the world. Even the emperor claims the title.But, INDEED, Jesus is the Savior of the world. They PERSONALLY experienced his saving power. Listen we are all in a quest for satisfaction. God has made you with spiritual hunger and thirst that cannot be satisfied. And we look all over the place for this kind of thing.This is the problem. And this is the solution.Ultimately for everyone who experiences Jesus as Savior experiences him as saving them not from Rome, not political salvation, financial salvation, social salvation.Jesus Christ saves your soul. He satisfies. Our theme for the year is Life in His Love.Jesus saves us because as we are loved, we experience life!