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COME TO THE LIVING WATER!
1. Thirst is Created Here
From how the woman at Jacob’s well spoke, she knew something about the teaching of Scriptures, but in reality, it was just a smattering. She was a Samaritan, and Samaritans were a blend of nationalities, a kind of composite creature. Back when Assyria was the powerhouse of the ancient world, the Assyrians steamrolled over the Ten Northern Tribes in Israel. Their policy in dealing with captured countries consisted of deportation. So the Northern Kingdom was virtually drained of Jews and deposited there instead was an assortment of other deported peoples from other conquered countries. Naturally, this effectively eliminated a feeling of nationalism and considerably reduced the chances for a revolt. Inevitably, the religion of the new nation became a watered-down version of the real thing, a mixture of Judaism and heathen idolatry. Samaritans did accept the first five books of the Bible, the Pentateuch, and they did know about a Messiah, but they only had tidbits of the true religion.
There are lots of people today who are just like that Samaritan woman, who have only a smattering of religion. They are spiritually thirsty and don’t even know it. Sadly, these are the ones who fall prey to the Bible-toting, Scripture-quoting servants of Satan. The problem is that these people don’t have a full view of God, and that fractured knowledge of God causes them to look at God through a distorted lens.
Some see God as their personal VALET. They want to use Him for their convenience like the woman at the well initially did: “Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here for water.” People sometimes embrace Christianity for that very reason – personal gain. They see Christianity as a cure-all. Certainly, God will bless His own, so they figure they are assuring themselves of success in business or love or life. They think that they’re insulating themselves against the troubled waters of life. Such people are thirsty, and they’ll find out just how parched they truly are at the first hint of trouble, at their first setback.
Some see God as an INSURANCE POLICY. They figure they better check off all the boxes, just in case. So they keep God handy in case of emergency. In the meantime, He’s tucked neatly away high on a shelf somewhere, where He won’t get in the way. These people are thirsty because when they really need God, He may not be where they last put Him. Or they may forget where they have hidden Him.
Some see God as an ARBITRATOR. They sit down at the negotiating table with God and try to make deals with Him. ‘God, I’ll be in church every Sunday if You’ll only patch together my marriage. God, if You’ll just make this business deal go through, there’ll be a little extra something for You in the offering plate next Sunday. God, if You’ll heal my child, I’ll take him to Sunday School every week so that he can serve You with his life.’ These people are thirsty, too. God is no wheeler-dealer.
Some see God as REMOTE. They see Him far removed from the hurt of a bereaved parent and distant from the disillusionment of a man in a confused and confusing world. He seemingly sits idly by as millions starve, as nations rise and fall, as man lives and dies. He got the ball rolling and is now letting it roll out of control. These people are suffering from intense thirst.
Some see God as a PUSHOVER, a puppy dog personality. They treat Him like a senile, old grandpa who doesn’t really see what is going on, and if He does, He can’t and won’t do anything about it. They figure if God is love, there’s no room for a place like hell, and so dismiss the thought. They go about life falsely secure. They, too, are dying of thirst.
Some see God as a TEACHER who grades on a curve. They figure that sin can’t be all that bad because everybody does it. They just need to ensure they don’t do it more than most. They also settle into a false security as they attempt to climb the ladder to heaven themselves. With all that climbing they are doing, you know that they are thirsty too.
Were you ever in a situation where you were so busy or so taken up with what you were doing that you didn’t realize how hungry you were until you smelled supper on the stove? Did a TV commercial ever give you a Big Mac Attack? That’s precisely the same situation that these fractured and distorted views of God bring about – the people who hold these views don’t know just how thirsty they are. The earthly water that they are drinking can never satiate their spiritual thirst. Solomon saw the futility of drinking from the stagnant well of human achievement and temporal pleasures. “Meaningless! Meaningless! Utterly Meaningless! Everything is meaningless. What does man gain from all his labor at which he toils under the sun. The eye never has enough of seeing or the ear of hearing.” He speaks of an insatiable thirst. He suggests that drinking this world’s stale and stagnant waters can only make us sick unto eternal death. He warns that the world’s water is filled with the typhoid of hell. It leaves us thirsting even more with a fever that finally consumes and destroys our souls: “The wages of sin is death.” David vividly describes the soul dying of spiritual thirst: “My bones wasted away through my groaning all day long. For day and night, Your hand was heavy upon me; my strength was sapped as in the heat of summer.”
Jesus skillfully guided the Samaritan woman to recognize the futility of her sinful life. He showed her how insatiable her thirst was, that she was ever-seeking and never-finding, and that she had used up five husbands in the process. He had to show her sin to her. He had to lead her to recognize her thirst and awaken in her heart a desire for the “living water” that He dispenses freely.
That’s why Crean Lutheran teaches and preaches God’s Law in all its severity, exposing human nature for what it is: a desert-dry, parched wasteland with the hot breath of hell blowing over it. The Law creates a thirst for the “living water” dispensed here. Saints, we can’t see our Savior until we see our sins. The devastating sin-seeking missiles of God’s Law must expose our weaknesses, expel our false securities, and explode our human pride. Then and only then can we see our Savior and receive the blessings of His salvation. John writes: “If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness."
Friends, you’ll find no pie-in-the-sky God here. You’ll find no wimpy, weak-kneed God. You’ll find no reduced, half-priced God. You’ll find no shrunken-down shell of a God that we can fit into our heads. You’ll find the God of Scripture here, and you’ll hear the whole story here. You’ll see the severity of His justice, a hatred of sin so devastating that He hung His own and only Son on a cross and then turned His back on Him. Here at Crean Lutheran, a thirst for the “living water” is created by the Holy Spirit working in the Word, a thirst for the water that gives eternal life. Not only is Thirst Created here, but by the grace of God…
2. Thirst Is Quenched Here
Once that thirst has been created, God doesn’t leave us high and dry. He quenches that thirst once and for all: “Whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst.” This “living water” that Jesus dispenses quenches the fires that the Law has stoked. It soothes the parched souls of those who had drunk deeply and futilely of this world’s brackish and bitter waters.
Jesus says that those who drink the water He gives will find it will “become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” Its refreshing streams cool off the hot and dry seasons of life, the periods of trial and temptations, until those who drink deeply of that living water reach that place where, as Revelation says: “Never again will they hunger, never again will they thirst. The sun will not beat on them, nor any scorching heat. For the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their Shepherd; He will lead them to springs of living water. And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”
What is that “living water”? It’s the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Good News that we have a Substitute for and Savior from our sins. We know Him well through His Word, the well that dispenses the “living water.” Jesus said to the Samaritan woman: “You Samaritans worship what you do not know, we worship what we do know…” We at CLHS worship what we know, too. We know the loving and merciful God of Scripture. We worship a God whose grace was so amazing that He sent His own Son to be our Savior, that He sent His one and only Son to live and die for us because we had botched the job so badly.
CLHS stands foursquare on the truth of God’s Word. By God's grace, we are privileged to dispense the pure, unadulterated “living water” of the Word, unspoiled by humanism or rationalism or any other -ism. Saints, drink deeply of that Word. Come to Him with empty cups and fill them with the water of eternal life. Come to Him. Come as you are. Come to the Living Waters. Amen.
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