The Woman at the Well (Part Two) If you’re new to Lifpoint | Worthington, take 30 seconds to fill out our Welcome Card! Have a question about today's message? Ask it here. John 4:7-18 (ESV) 7 A woman from Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” 8 (For his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.) 9 The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?” (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.) 10 Jesus answered her, “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.” 11 The woman said to him, “Sir, you have nothing to draw water with, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? 12 Are you greater than our father Jacob? He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock.” 13 Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, 14 but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” 15 The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water.” 16 Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come here.” 17 The woman answered him, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’; 18 for you have had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband. What you have said is true.” Series Recap Jesus deliberately crosses massive boundaries to pursue one isolated, marginalized woman. In the ancient world, a man meeting a woman at a foreign well is a literary trope that signals a wedding is coming. Jesus approaches the well not as a warring general, but with the posture of a Divine Bridegroom relentlessly pursuing a broken bride. Not All Is As It Seems Jesus tells the woman that He has access to “living water,” subverting her expectations of who He is. Everyone who drinks from a physical well will eventually get thirsty again. Our basic physical impulses exist to tell us that we are fundamentally dependent beings. We often attempt to meet our deeper spiritual needs by drawing straight lines between our value and things like money, careers, or the approval of others. The Deeper Thirst Jesus brings up her five husbands not to shame her, but to reveal a tragic history of being passed along and spent. Have a question or pushback on this? Ask it here. By acknowledging her past, Jesus tenderly puts His finger on her most painful unmet need. She had spent her entire life searching for security in a world that repeatedly refused to give it to her. To drink the living water means making the daily decision to stop asking everyone else to be the source of your satisfaction. The Danger of Ignored Longings If we fail to bring our unmet longings to the surface, they do not simply disappear; they fester. “What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun? Or fester like a sore— And then run? Does it stink like rotten meat? Or crust and sugar over— like a syrupy sweet? Maybe it just sags like a heavy load. Or does it explode?” — Langston Hughes, Harlem When we refuse to bring our deepest longings to Jesus, we inevitably project them onto others. We place an impossible weight on our loved ones when we secretly demand they satisfy spiritual needs they were never designed to meet. Have a question or pushback on this? Ask it here. An Overflowing Life A Different Posture True Christian mission demands satisfaction; you cannot authentically invite someone to a well if you are dying of thirst yourself. The world can tell when we are just as exhausted and anxious as they are. We share Jesus because we have found the water that actually satisfies, not out of a sense of guilt. Application Steps Name the temporary well you keep going back to for security, validation, or love. Stop asking your career or relationships to do God's job, and ask Jesus to satisfy that specific need. As always, if you'd like to talk more with me about anything we discussed, you can sign up for meeting time. If you have any questions from the message today, send them here and I'll follow up!