Christine Caine - Living Water, Part 1
Christianity is not about comfort. It's not about ease. It's not about preference. It is not convenience. It is about going into a lost and broken world and being the salt and the light and the life and the hope of Jesus into a lost and a broken world. One of the things that has always amazed me about Jesus is how he took notice of what so many people wouldn't even look at. Now, he was inclusive. He loved wholeheartedly. He was compassionate. And he's created you and me to follow his example so let's not wait another moment to dig deep into his word and discover our calling on this earth. I'm Christine Caine, and I am so thankful that you've joined me today.
I am so grateful that you've joined us today. I believe that God has a word for you, and I know in this season so many of us have been feeling dry and parched and weary right now, and there is no doubt that we need to be refreshed and reminded that each and every one of us has access to living water, to fresh water. Our thirst can be quenched, that times of refreshing do come from the Lord, and I want to remind you today on the other side of that screen that even in the midst of chaos, division, grief and suffering, every single one of us can be refreshed and we can be watered by God himself.
Now, I love the breadth of Jesus' life and ministry. And you know, he talked to and he talked with everyone from every single sphere of society, every strata of society, race, ethnicity, gender, socio economic background. I love this about Jesus Christ and I love this about the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The good news of the Gospel is for all people. I mean, every Christmas I get pumped up because the angels of the Lord came and said this is good news full of great joy for all people. I want to remind you today just watching this that the Gospel is good news. I don't know, maybe you've been hearing a whole lot of bad news recently, but I want you to know that there's a God in heaven that loves you who sent his only begotten son Jesus Christ from heaven to earth to die on a cross and rise again from the dead so that every single one of us without exception can know what it is to have forgiveness for our past, a fresh life today, and a hope for the future.
I want you to know that is good news. There is no better news on the earth, and so this is good news and it's full of great joy, and it's for all people. And we're going to see in this series how Jesus Christ was inclusive. He included everyone. The scripture says whosoever will. You know what? If you're watching this today, you're a whosoever so I don't know what you're background is, I don't know what your past is, I don't know where you've been or what you've done, but I'm here to tell you that Jesus Christ loves you. There's a place at the table for you, and I want to remind you that Jesus Christ has always used highly unlikely people to do the most unimaginable things. You might feel like a failure. You might feel like you've been some kind of loser. You might feel like you've made too many mistakes. You might feel like you're not smart enough, you're not gifted enough, you're not talented enough, you're not eloquent enough.
Some parent might have said I wish you were never born. Maybe some teacher said, you know what? You're never going to amount to anything. Maybe some ex lover or some ex spouse said nobody could ever love you. Maybe your boss fired you and said, you know what? You're good for nothing. But I'm here to tell you that you are created in the image of God. You are filled with God given purpose. You are filled with God given destiny. God has a plan and a purpose, and your history does not need to define your destiny. You are not what anyone else has said about you. You are not what anyone else has done to you. You are who God says you are, and you are filled with God given purpose and God given potential, and I know somebody needed to hear that today.
One of the things I love most about Jesus is the fact that he includes anyone and everyone. And you know, we're going to look at a text and we're going to look at a fairly lengthy text. I want to you stick with me. Some of you, perhaps you haven't read a lot of the Bible. I'm about to read a lot to you. Those of you that perhaps have fallen behind in your Bible reading plan, you are about to catch up because I'm going to read a lot of scripture, but this is a fascinating story. It is literally one of my favorite stories in the entire Bible because I find myself and I see myself in this woman, and I have a feeling that you might find yourself in her too, so track with me. We're going to go to the Gospel of John chapter 4. And the Bible says, "Now when Jesus knew that the pharisees had heard that he was winning and baptizing more disciples than John (although Jesus himself was not baptizing, but his disciples were), he left Judea and set out once more for Galilee. But he had to pass through Samaria", I don't want you to miss those words, "He had to pass".
"So he came to a town of Samaria called Sychar, near the field that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob's well was there: so Jesus, wearied as he was from his journey, was sitting beside the well. It was about the sixth hour". This is going to be very significant. "A woman from Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, "Give me a drink". (for his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food)". How many men does it take it to buy food? Obviously at least 11. There you go. You could have sent one chick you would have got the same thing, but anyway, 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.)
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." 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? Are you greater than our father Jacob? He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock." Jesus said to her, "Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, 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 min him a spring of water welling up to eternal life". 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".
Because of course women had to walk far in order to get water, every ounce of water that they needed for everything, for cooking, cleaning, for washing came from the well, and a woman had to walk and still in many regions of the world this is a reality today. So no wonder she's thinking I don't want to come back here to draw water. Jesus said to her, "Go, call your husband, and come here." the woman answered him, "I have no husband." Jesus said to her, "You are right in saying, 'I have no husband': for you have had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband. What you have said is true." the woman said to him, "Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet. How would you feel if you're stopping by a well and some guy is now reading your mail? He's telling you exactly what's happened in your intimate life, and you have never met him before. The story just gets better. It says: our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you say that tin Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship."
Jesus said to her, "Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the father. You worship what you do not know: we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the father in spirit and truth, for the father is seeking such people to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth." the woman said to him, "I know that Messiah is coming (he who is called Christ). When he comes, he will tell us all things." Jesus said to her, "I who speak to you am he." just then his disciples came back. They marveled that he was talking with a woman, but no one said, "What do you seek?" or, "Why are you talking with her?" So the woman left her water jar and went away into town and said to the people, "Come, see a man who told me all that I ever did. Can this be the Christ?"
They went out of the town and were coming to him. Meanwhile the disciples were urging him, saying, "Rabbi, eat." but he said to them, "I have food to eat that you do not know about." so the disciples said to one another, "Has anyone brought him something to eat?" Jesus said to them, "My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work. Do you not say, 'there are yet four months, then comes the harvest'? Look, I tell you, lift up your eyes, and see that the fields are white for harvest. Already the one who reaps is receiving wages and gathering fruit for eternal life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice together. 37 for here the saying holds true, 'One sows and another reaps'. I sent you to reap that for which you did not labor. Others have labored, and you have entered into their labor". Many Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman's testimony, "He told me all that I ever did." So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them, and he stayed there two days. And many more believed because of his word. They said to the woman, "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."
Now there you go. That is a legitimate portion of scripture but it is so exciting. Jesus is on a journey, and the Bible says in verse 4 of John's Gospel right there, he says, you know what? Jesus had to pass through Samaria. Jesus had to pass. I love that. It really gets our attention. Jesus had traveled from Judea which is in the south to Galilee which is up in the north. If you love maps, you need to look this up on a map. And so basically it was actually not geographically necessary for Jesus to go through Samaria. He didn't have to in that way. In fact, Jewish travelers normally traveled around Samaria to avoid contact with the Samaritans. They actually didn't want to run into them.
I need you to understand racism is not a new thing. Racism was alive and well in Jesus' day. In fact, the Jews despised the Samaritans and they considered them racially impure. They considered them to be half breeds and unworthy of fellowship and certainly unworthy of God's favor. So Jesus took the direct route through Samaria. He love this. He had to go through Samaria. He decided to take the direct route and since the pharisees were angry that Jesus' disciples were baptizing more than John the Baptist was, I wonder whether he perhaps was trying to avoid all of the chaos. I need you to know competition and comparison was rampant in biblical times as well.
We are people on a mission. Christianity is not about comfort. It's not about ease, it's not about preference or convenience. It is about going into a lot of and a broken world and being the salt and the light and the life and the hope of Jesus into a lot of and broken world. It's bringing love into a loveless world. It's bringing joy into a joyless world. It's bringing hope into a hopeless world. It is bringing peace into a world full of chaos. It's bring self-control in a world that is full of out of control. It is bringing goodness into a world that is anything but good. That's our job. We're on assignment, so the Bible says that Jesus had to go. I wonder, you know, during the Covid 19 season in 2020, do you all remember that time? I obviously couldn't get on plains to the degree I was getting on them prior to when Covid 19 hit. I mean March 2020 I went down into shutdown like everyone else.
Look, I had never been in one country, in over 3 decades, I had never been in one country as long as I was in the United States during that whole season, and so I made a decision that I wasn't just going to waste that season. I wasn't just going to kind of like, you know, do nothing. And somehow I knew that the work of God still had to continue. Just because I couldn't get on the plane didn't mean the mission of God had changed so I decided to do some things I had not done, and one of the great great things out of that season was that we would do like socially distanced happy hours with our neighbors. So of course we'd be all sitting at different parts, like across the pavement, on the grass, all appropriate socially distant as were the requirements of the time. But I ended up being in places and with people that I otherwise never would have if I chose to have wasted that season.
I think in most of our life we have to be willing to go and do things we wouldn't normally go and do and be with people we would normally not choose to be with so that we can actually fulfill the mission that God has for us. I cannot tell you how many conversations during that season I had about Jesus, I had about his church with people that were either so far away from God they'd never even walked into a church or that perhaps had once walked with God but were now away from him or hadn't gone to church in a really long time because sometimes you've got to go through some places that you wouldn't normally go to meet some people that you normally wouldn't meet. And sometimes God orchestrates that, like during the Covid 19 season it wouldn't have been my preference. If that didn't happen, I'd still would have been on a plane going all over the world and meeting people and sharing about the love of God, but I probably would not have had the impact in my own local neighborhood that I did during that season because I thought I am not just going to waste this. I'm not just going to spend this whole season lamenting and murmuring and grumbling and complaining. I am going to make a way to build relationships with people that I normally wouldn't be building relationships with so that we can talk about the Lord.
I wonder who is right there in your world. Sometimes you're just used to going out with the normal people that you go out with, having lunch with the people you normally have. You got your clique. You got your crew at work or crew at school and you've just got your crowd and your group. Dare I suggest that perhaps there's a lot of merit in making a decision to say I'm going to be a little bit uncomfortable? Maybe I'm going to meet some new people, go to some places I've never gone, be out of my comfort zone. Jesus had to. There was a divine assignment. There was a divine appointment. He had to go through Samaria. He went where nobody, no Jewish man that's for sure, he went where no Jewish man would have gone and ended up meeting someone that he would have had wise never met and we're going to see and as we've seen from this portion of scripture that he ended up literally ushering in a revival.
You don't know what revival is on the other side of your obedience. You don't know who God wants you to use to make his name famous on the earth. God may be wanting to use you to lead someone else to him. God may be wanting to use you to see someone saved or delivered or healed or restored. A word of encouragement, a word of knowledge, a word of prophecy, just a word of exhortation to somebody else. But we're going to have to go where we wouldn't normally go to be with people we wouldn't normally be with. And perhaps even the kinds of people where many in our own spheres of influence, our own culture, our own tradition, our own nation would say they are other. We shouldn't be talking to those kinds of people.
See, in these times a Jewish man should not have ever been speaking to a Samaritan woman, so the deal is are you willing to talk to those that others is not willing to talk to? Are you willing to be with those that others are unwilling to be with? And if you and I are going to fulfill the mission of God in our generation, we've got to be willing to go where no one else will go. We've got to be willing to talk to people that others are not willing to talk to. We've got to be willing to put aside our biases, our prejudices, our presuppositions so that we can love everybody in the way that Jesus loved them. We are called to go into all the world. This is not an option for if you feel like it. We've got to make Jesus' last commandment our first priority, so Jesus came to a place called Sychar the scripture says.
You know, there had once been a great city there. We see that in verse 6 it said Jesus was weary and had stopped at the well. Now, I don't know about you but there's something encouraging for me to know that Jesus had felt weary. I wonder if there's anybody on the other side of the screen today whether you're feeling weary? You're kind of feeling heavy laden. You feel like you're carrying the weight of the world on your shoulders. For so many it's been a rough season, and Jesus in his humanity he experienced exhaustion just like you and just like me. And there's something comforting to know that Jesus was fully man, of course fully God. That's what makes him God. That's what makes him God, that he was fully man and fully God and he understands every feeling that we have. He understands our weariness. He understands hunger. He understands thirst.
So much of what you and I go through, you got to understand that we have a God, he's not so distant from us that he doesn't understand what we feel, what we think, how we feel. That's the kind of God he is. He is intricately involved in every aspect of our life, our heart, our emotion, our thoughts, and it matters to him, so Jesus was weary. He needed refreshing. He felt dry just like we would. He needed a drink just like we would. He needed rest just like we would. I don't know about you, but there is something comforting about having a God that understands my limitations, that understands my weaknesses and my humanity. Jesus, Son of God, son of man, he understands it.
The scripture tells us that it was the 6th hour, and you know, the 6th hour is midday. It's basically the hottest part of the day. Look, I don't know if you've been in the desert but I've gone several times to Dubai and to Qatar, and let me just say it takes hot to another level. When we're in the middle of the day, I mean I literally thought I was going to melt. In the middle of the day to be in the desert, it is almost unbearable it is so hot. So we know that Jesus was also hot and hungry because he sent the other 12 guys to the grocery store. You know, the fact is that I have to laugh, like you know, if you want to get supplies, you gotta send all 12 of them to the grocery store. But obviously he sent them to the grocery store because they all needed food and drink because that's a reality.
So basically, you know, maybe he came by this well and he wanted to have a break. He'd been working hard. He'd just been up at the temple flipping tables so Jesus had like a pretty hard week, and he ends up encountering this woman. Here's what I want to say. I've discovered that divine appointments so often man, they turn up when we feel tired and we need a break, and we think I've just come here to rest, and then all the sudden a divine appointment turns up. So for you and I to do what God has called us to do, then we must have a willingness to be interrupted and to be inconvenienced because the fact is that Jesus was weary, Jesus wanted to rest.
The 12 disciples had gone in to get refreshments. He came to this well, and he was ready to have a break, but there was a divine interruption waiting to happen. I don't know what divine interruptions God has for you, but let me say there is a direct correlation between the amount of divine interruptions we have and our willingness to be interrupted, our willingness to be inconvenienced, our willingness to have our plans interrupted with God's purpose. I believe that God has so much ahead for you in the next week, but you've got to be willing to allow your plans to be interrupted with God's purpose, and you will see you will then have a number of divine assignments that could ultimately lead to revival.