Never Thirst Again | Sermon

Divine appointment, meeting someone that was outcast, rejected at a well. Wells are back in the day, these were gathering places, not just a place of survival. You know, cities were built around wells. But people would go, most commonly, early in the morning to go draw water.

And while they're at the well, they would meet people, gather. They would share news. We call that in Spanish,

Share like, hey, did you know what happened yesterday? Did you see what happened? Like, you know, they would share all the updates. They didn't have Facebook, Instagram, so they they had to build this community. And as people are going to the well looking for water,

in this story, we see that this woman ended up with living water. She got more than what she came for. And I think that is our goal as a church that as people are thirsty, they're they have a need, and they might come to a church because they have x, y, or z need,

they will end up with more than what they came for. They will end up with living water. So a quick snapshot of what's going on in John chapter four. Jesus we see Jesus going out of his way to have this divine appointment with a Samaritan woman.

A Samaritan woman means that there was a woman that was rejected by the Jews, a woman that was ostracized, that was overlooked. There was a lot of racial tension between Jews and Samaritans. There was religion tensions as well. And this woman had a lot of issues, just like you and me.

Our issues may be different than this woman, but we all have issues. I want you to hear this. All God's people got issues. If you don't think you have issues, that is your issue. But we all got issues. And this woman is approaching coming at noon

to the well. Why at noon? If everyone else goes early in the morning at noon, that's the hottest time during the day. Why would she go at noon? Because she was rejected. She was avoiding being social. But because Jesus went out of his way to find this woman, to have a divine appointment,

verse four says that it was necessary for him. He had to go to Samaria to have this divine appointment with this woman. And because of that, Jesus brought the church to her. This woman came to the well seeking water, but the living water came to her. And

because of that, because Jesus went out of his way and brought church to her, this woman ends up changing an entire city. She becomes the first evangelist. She takes the gospel to Samaria,

and an entire city is changed by the gospel. And that's what we wanna do as a church. That's what you guys are doing here. You guys are reaching not just Queen Creek and the East Valley. You guys are part of a move of God that you guys are also reaching the West Valley, the Wild Wild West, Randy said, in Buckeye, and around the world. It's amazing.

And I wanna pick up this story real quick. In verse four,

it says that Jesus had to go to Samaria.

So he came down to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near to the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob's well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, he sat down by the well, and it was about noon when the Samaritan woman came to draw water. Divine appointments happen in the unexpected places.

Divine appointment happens in unexpected places. Now we're gonna talk about a little bit about geographical places. Sometimes in life, we're going and and and and out of nowhere, we just have a divine appointment. It may be with someone that just shared the gospel with. Can you remember who shared the gospel with you?

I wanna challenge you actually to kinda remember who was it that shared the gospel with you. And this week, send them a thank you. You're here because of that person. Divine appointments happen in unexpected places. She was trying to avoid any contact. She didn't want to be social.

That's why her name is Social, because we want to reach those that even don't want to be social. And she's going to the well. And I can relate to this woman. She was doubly rejected. Rejected by the Jews, but she was also rejected by her fellow Samaritans.

As a kid growing up here in Phoenix, we moved from Mexico. I was in first grade. I was barely learning English. I didn't know English. It was hard for me to make friends. I got bullied because of that. I was the only Mexican kid in class that didn't know English.

In Reese's, I would stay in class with my ESL teacher because that was the only place I felt safe. Don't cry. It gets worse.

Every summer when we would go back Mexico to visit our friends and family, I was so excited. I'm finally gonna be able to hang out with my cousins, my primos. Right? Hang out with someone. And then just to find out that when we got there, they would nonstop call me the gringo. Here comes the gringo.

You all know you can't play this game because you're a gringo. You won't understand this game because you're a gringo. You don't you can't eat this food because you're a gringo. And I'm like, I'm clearly not. And at a very early age, I started to develop this question, where do I belong? Where do I belong?

I feel I don't belong here, and and when I go back home, I don't belong there either. Like, where do I belong? And that's the reality for many people here in The States. That's why we are committed to building a church where language will not be a barrier for people to hear the gospel message.

Come on. Not on our watch. Not on our watch.

But I'm so glad my parents made this this decision. Every Sunday, we're gonna go to church. That's non negotiable. Every Sunday, we're gonna go to church. I'm so glad because I was in church that I met my friends. I remember one day I woke up on Sunday and said, dad, I'm not going to church. And my dad, being Mexican,

tall, little chubby, strong, just looked at me and said in Spanish, That means I'm gonna kill you. And then he said, and if I kill you, we'll have your memorial service in the church.

So you decide if you wanna go alive or dead, but you're gonna go to church. I was like, wait. Hold up. Let me get changed. And I'm so glad of that because I look back and I said, thanks for that decision that my life was changed in the church, in that well.

We as a church, we're a spiritual well where people not only gather, but yes, they're looking for water. They're looking to satisfy a need, and they end up with more than what they expected. They end up with living And that's the big idea of this message. I got more than what I came for.

That's the big idea. Have you has that ever happened to you? You end up with more than what you expected. Has that ever happened to you?

So nice. Right? You go to Chipotle. Has that ever happened to you? You go to Chipotle and you order a burrito bowl, then you see the employee reaching out for a second scoop of carne asada? That's the Lord's favor right there. That's a double portion of his grace.

My youngest sister, she was born and raised in Mexico. So when she was a teenager, she wanted to learn English. She called me and says, hey, can I I go a summer? And and I wanna work in Phoenix. I just wanna learn English. She said, absolutely. Come on over. She stayed with us during the summer. And I said, I'm give you an assignment. I'm gonna take you to McDonald's.

I'm gonna wait for you in the parking lot. It's an easy assignment. You're gonna go in by yourself, and you're gonna order an ice cream cone. And I said, can you you got that? It's easy. She's like, yeah, ice cream cone, ice cream cone, ice cream cone. Got it. I got it. Okay, let's go. She goes in.

A few minutes later, she comes out with a huge McFlurry

and all the toppings and everything. I was like, what is going on? She's laughing. I'm laughing. And she says, I don't know what happened. I tried to order an ice cream cone, and she started asking me questions I didn't understand. And the only thing I did was smile and said, yes. Yes. She ended up with a huge McFlurry.

And I said, sister, that's preaching to me right now because in God, in our faith walk, every time we follow God and say yes to God, even when we don't understand, we end up with more than what we expected. Come on. We end up with more than what we expected.

So in scripture, the longest recorded conversation that we have of Jesus with an individual is in John chapter four.

The longest recorded conversation we have of Jesus with an individual is in chapter four. And this conversation was not with the rabbi, was not with a a powerful political influential person. It wasn't even with one of his disciples. This conversation was with a woman, with the Samaritan woman.

And the first thing that Jesus says this is verse seven. The first thing that Jesus says to her, this is his approach. Will you give me a drink? I love that. Hi. No, None of that.

Can you give me a drink? Can you give me a drink? This woman says, hey, hey, you're a Jew. I'm a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink? For Jews do not associate with Samaritans. And look at Jesus' response, if you knew. I wanna stop right there. If you knew. I want that lip to preach to you today.

Let that preach to you. If you knew. If you knew that God is trying to give something to you, not get something from you, you would become a giver. If you knew if you knew that Jesus is trying to wash away your sins, then you would jump at the opportunity to get baptized if you knew. If you knew

that God is not trying to take away your individuality by joining a group, but bringing to life your individuality by joining a group and planting your life in a church. If you knew, if you knew that you would find freedom, not by hiding sin, but by confessing sins, if you knew. If you knew.

Come on. This is so true for many of us because so many times, so often, we don't obey God's commands because we think we know better than God. And God's like, if you knew if you knew the gift of God and who is it that is asking you for a drink, You would have asked him, and he would have given you living water. Living

water. We're gonna talk about that in a minute. I want you to hold that thought, living water, because it meant something. Verse 11, sir, you have nothing to draw water with, and the well is deep. In other words, she's saying, you ain't got no bucket. How are you gonna draw water? You ain't got bucket.

Jesus is trying to have a living water conversation with her, but she's so stuck on the well that is in front of her. Verse 12. Look at what this woman says. Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us this well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his livestock?

She's bringing the past now to the conversation. How many times God is trying to bring us to a future, trying to trying to give us living water, but we're so stuck in our past? She's like, don't you know who built this well?

Don't you know who drank from this well? She she knows so much details about this well, but knows nothing about living water. If we look at it from that perspective, that the church is also a well.

Isn't that true for so many of us? The longer we follow Jesus, sometimes we're so used to it. We know what songs they're gonna sing. They're gonna sing three songs, and then Randy or the host is gonna come up, and then we're gonna hear a message, and then we're out of here, and that's it.

And we know so many details about the church, but sometimes we're still missing the living water. We're still missing the living water, and we're gonna talk about why this happens. Jesus answered, everyone who drinks from this well will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst.

Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life. And the woman said to him, sir, give me this water so that I I won't get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water. He told her, go. Call your husband and come back. I have no husband, she said.

And Jesus is like, gotcha. That's right. Because you've had five husbands, and the dude you're with right now ain't your husband. You've been with Jose, with Juan, with Julio, with Jorge, with Joaquin, and now you're with Jesus.

The seventh man in your life. Jesus is the only one that can fulfill your life. You're in presence of the only man that can fulfill your life. And what Jesus is trying to bring to her is order.

Before Jesus can give her this living water, he needs to bring some order into her life because flow requires order. If we want to live this life where where we constantly live out of the abundance of God, we wanna be a well in the desert, we want we want more than what we came for,

we need to know that God will bring order into our life. We come to church, let me tell you this, to, yes, to get built up, to our faith to grow, but we also come to be corrected because God wants to bring order into our life. And Jesus

brings this to light, not to shame this woman. She was already carrying shame. He brings it to life because he has to bring order. He wants to change her life. This is so important because when we do things out of order, our life will end up out of order. The result will always be our life being out of order. Brokenness

typically comes from doing things out of order. Out of order. If you try to find your identity and who you are and what culture says, you're always gonna find yourself broken, insecure because you're out of order. Your identity comes from Christ.

If you try to work and hustle seven days a week and and don't take a day to rest, you're gonna find yourself fatigued, burnout, broken because you're doing things out of order. If you don't take a Sabbath, Sabbath will take you. Sex. Whew. That that was that was chilly. Sex sex comes after marriage.

Marriage first. Sex second. That's the order. If you put sex before marriage, you're gonna end up broken with chaos, with mess in your life because that's that's not the order. God wants to bring order into your life.

Sex is designed for two people that belong to each other. And if you don't belong to each other, then you're doing things out of order. And the result will always be that your life will be under out of order. God deserves and gets the first 10%, not the leftovers. We don't believe in tipping God. We believe in

consecrating, bringing the 10% that is holy. This belongs to you. We obey you. We worship you.

Because when we when we don't do this, we're doing things out of order. Then our finances are not gonna be blessed. And we we wonder. We ask why. I keep working. I'm doing all these things. I pray. No matter how much you pray, God can heal what you don't bring order to.

There's no magical thing about, you know, praying, God, heal my finance finances. That that's good that you pray, but God wants to bring order into your life. Genesis chapter one, we see that God's response to chaos is not peace. It's order. Peace comes after order, not before. God wants to bring order into

our lives. I can't I can't believe the promises of God, but then deny his principles. I needed an amen right there. I can't live based off of promises, but then not live out the principles God laid in his word for us. Jesus wants to give her living water. Let's talk about living water.

Living water meant something for the Jews of the first century. It wasn't some metaphorical thing. No. Like, it meant something. They knew the difference between dead water and living water. Dead water was any water that was still stagnant that didn't have any outcome.

The Dead Sea was called Dead Sea because it had nothing coming out of it. It only had the Jordan River flowing into it, but nothing flowing out of it. It was stagnant. It was stuck. It was a dead sea. Any body any body of water that retains but never releases becomes dead. Whoo. Let that appreciate you too. God

did not create you and me to be a body that retains everything that he has given us, but to release what he has given us because he wants to use your life. He doesn't want just wanna do something in your life, but he he wants to do something through your life. So don't stay stagnant. Don't stay still.

God wants to do something through you. Living water was a body of water that moved. A river was living water.

That's why Jews would baptize in rivers, not lakes, because a river would move downstream. And when you get baptized, guess what? Your sins. They move downstream. They're far away. You can't get them back again. You have been completely

forgiven. Even if you wanted to look for your sins, you can't find them. If I drop something in the lake, I can get it. If I drop something in the river, you can't find it because you have been fully forgiven. And this is a call for someone maybe. Hey, I wanna take that decision, that next step of getting baptized. We have baptisms next week. Make that decision.

The living water wants to clean you, wants to remove the shame, the guilt, wants to make you a new person.

But that's the goal of living water. It has to keep moving. It can't end with you. Can you imagine what happened to this woman? She ended up changing a whole entire city because it didn't end with her. The word became true in that precise moment. He said, if you drink of this water, it will truly satisfy

and quench your thirst. But not only that, you will become a spring of water flowing up into eternal life, flowing into others. Eternal life. You know what this means? That eternity hangs on the line. If you don't flow, if you don't become a conduit where God can flow living water off out of you, eternity's on the line.

Who in your life you can think of right away that needs living water? That can be your challenge for this week. I need to give this living water to a friend, a family member, a neighbor.

There was one thing that Jesus didn't bring to this well.

He was tired from his journey. He sat down on a well, but he was missing something. What did the woman tell him? What was he missing? A bucket. She told him, You don't have a bucket. And what Jesus was telling her was this, and I want to end with this because this is so beautiful.

Jesus is telling her, I did not bring a bucket on purpose because you're going to be my bucket.

I'm gonna make you my bucket. I need to I need to take this living water to Samaria, and I need someone to take it, and you're gonna be my bucket. Isn't that beautiful? She came to the well at noon because she was a bucket of shame. And in a conversation, God transformed her life to now being a bucket of honor,

a vessel of honor to take this living water to Samaria. And Jesus is saying, this is this is so important for you because it's not intended to end with you. It is to keep flowing. It's intended to move, to move. Maybe you've been following Christ for a long time, but you still haven't moved. You're still not a bucket

where God can flow through you. You haven't released this living water to others, and that's why your faith hasn't grown. That's the only reason your faith hasn't grown.

But it doesn't it's kinda like an oxymoron. How how I supposed to release and then not get thirsty again? That's why it's called living water. Because the more you release, the more God continues to pour into you. And maybe you're here today and you're like, I need that living water.

I'm a bucket of shame, a bucket of chaos. There's so much going on in my life right now. I feel like the woman coming to the well.

And this message is for you. I want you to stand up to your feet.

I wanna pray us out.

Every eye closed, every head bowed, If this is you, you need the living water. You've felt dry. You've been going through life feeling dry.

And if this message is for you, I wanna tell you there's living water available for you. Jesus is here offering you living water. So if this is you, I wanna I wanna ask you to raise up your hand. If you say, I need the living water. I live living water. I I need living water. Come on.

See you. I see you. I see you. I see you. Can you pray with me? And for the benefit of those, let's all pray together. Father God, I need living water. I need your living water. Come, restore me, cleanse me, clean me up. I need living water. I'm a sinner in need of a savior. I need your living water. I wanna become

a conduit, a bucket that this living water flows out of.

And if you're here and you've been following Christ for a long time or whatever that length is, but you said, you want you know what? I I need to move. I need that living water to move not only in me but through me. And this is for you too, and I wanna pray for you too.

God, thank you for the boldness. Thank you for the courage in this room. Thank you because you are moving in us, but you're also moving through us. Thank you for your living water. Because every time we come to you, Lord, we end up with more than what we expected. Amen. Thanks for joining us online.

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