TD Jakes - The Curious Convergence of Thirst
"The Curious Convergence of Thirst". And Jesus says to her, "Give me to drink". He introduced the thirst quencher, the thirst quencher says, "I thirst". "Give me to drink," that's what he says. He doesn't say, "I thirst," 'til he gets to the cross, but those terms are related. The thirst quencher says, "I thirst," then he goes on to tell her that he has water, "If you drink of the water that I have you shall never thirst again". And then in a conversation ensues because she is looking at the superficial and she's saying, you know, "What is it that you ask me for water, when I being a samaritan and you being a Jew? And you know the Jews and Samaritans have no dealings with each other". And she goes down with this carnal diatribe about all of this stuff about who they are ethnically and religiously, and she starts talking about all sorts of things.
And Jesus has to unmask all of this camouflage that she's wearing little by little and piece by piece, until finally he asks her, "Where is your husband? Where's your husband"? And she had... "I, uh, I, uh... What had happened was, I have none, Lord". "Thou hast well spoken. For you've had five husbands; and the one you have now is not yours". What is he doing? He's making her admit her thirst is bigger than H2O, that her behavior comes from a deep chasm on the inside that no man has been able to fill. Can you relate to that? That there is a chasm in the human soul for something that we have tried to fill with all kinds of relationships that have not worked out because they had no more water than we did. And she'd had five husbands and she had somebody living with her, a situation, a sixth man. She comes to the well, meets the seventh man and encounters Jesus and he settles it for her, and a powerful moment erupts in that moment, a powerful moment that is so strong that this woman ends up dropping her water pots.
I want you to see this, this is good, this is gonna be good. In John chapter 4, a little further down, about verse number 28, "The woman then left her waterpot, and went her way into the city, and saith to the men, 'Come, see a Man, which told me all things that ever I did: is not this the Christ?' Then they went out of the city, and came unto him. In the mean while his disciples prayed him, saying, 'Master, eat.' But he said unto them, 'I have meat to eat that ye know not of.'" Not if he had meat to eat that they knew not of; he had water to drink that they knew not of. "Therefore said the disciples or to another, 'Hath any man brought him out to eat?'" There's two different planes of conversations going on here. "Jesus saith unto them, 'My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his work.'"
That's what he was trying to do, he was trying to finish his work, that's what he was thirsty for, the purpose of God in his life. You have to thirst for the purpose of God in your life or it will not happen. Do you not know the Bible said, "He that hungers and thirst after righteousness shall be filled"? You trying to be filled with something, but are you hungry for it? You can't be filled with the Spirit if you're not hungry for it, you can't be filled with righteousness if you're not hungry for it. "He that hungers and thirsts after righteousness shall be filled".
Some of you on here are on here because you're hungry and some of you are on here for other reasons. And if your on here for some other reason or some nefarious reason, you're never gonna get anything out of it, because God has so designed it that until you're hungry for it, you won't think it's relevant. It has to be something in your heart that is hungry and thirsting after righteousness and then God fills. He fills empty places, he fills empty voids, he fills empty water pots, he fills empty disciples, he fills empty tabernacles, he fills empty temples. Anything that he finds that will admit that, "There's something empty in me," God will fill it. Somebody ought to just throw your hands up and say, "Fill me, there's a chasm in me". It's not that I'm a bad person, it's not that I'm an evil, wicked, wretched person, that's not the real problem. The real problem is there is an emptiness in me that needs to be filled, and the moment you get down to what it really is, God can fill it, but he cannot fill it until you admit, "I'm empty, I thirst".
The woman at the well had to come to the place and she says, "Give me this water, that I thirst not, neither come here to drink". She said, "I want to get something that fills up the emptiness that I have inside and I've filled it with all kinds of things, but I have to keep going back again and again and again because it really doesn't satisfy. And I've been married again and again and again and it really doesn't satisfy, and I'm living with somebody now and it really doesn't satisfy, and I've been going to church, my people worship in the mountains, but it really doesn't satisfy. 'Give me this water, that I thirst not.'" She's talking about the misery of thirst, she's talking about, "I can't keep on living like this, I need to have this thirst quenched". "Give me this water, that I thirst not, neither come hither to drink".
And whatever Jesus releases in her spirit is so strong that she drops her water pots. When she dropped her water pots, she is letting us know the cycle is broken. I will not have to repeat this cycle again and again and again and again and again, I have found him whom my soul loveth, I have found the living water, I have found the thirst quencher, I have found the object of my affection, I have found the one that I have been looking for all of my life. And I didn't even know that today was gonna be the day that I found him because he doesn't always announce himself. He just arises and shows up in your life, and all of a sudden what was empty is overflowing with water. "Out of your belly shall flow rivers of living water". He says, "I will make an artesian well out of you; I'll cause water to shoot up out of your belly and out of your mouth and out of your spirit and out of your soul and out of your life".
And then he says to his disciples, "Say not, 'There are yet four months, and then cometh the harvest?' Behold, I say unto you, 'Lift up your eyes, and look on the fields; for they are white and already to harvest.' And he that reapeth receiveth wages, and gathereth fruit unto life eternal: that both he that soweth and he that reapeth may rejoice together". He says, "Stop delaying the time of your harvest". Someday, one day, four months from now, later, by and by, is going to be my harvest. He said, "No, now is the time of the harvest". Now when you say that today, people think, "Oh, I'm gonna get some money". When you say that today, "Oh, I'm going to get a promotion," "Oh, I'm gonna get a job". You know why? We're so carnal, like the woman, we don't really thirst for souls to be saved, for people to be won, for people to come into the kingdom, for us to step into the purpose of God, for us to be used of the master. No, that's not the harvest, we're not even thinking about that harvest anymore; we used to, but we're not thinking about that kind of harvest today.
Today, we're thinking about harvest, "Oh, it's harvest time, I'm coming into my harvest," we think about money, capitalism. Harvest is bigger than money. Jesus says, "Say not, 'There are yet four months, and then cometh the harvest'. Behold... the harvest is white". Behold, the time is now, somebody shout, "Now," the time is right now, it's ripe right now. And it is ripe for us right now in the 21st century, as we come toward, hopefully, the end of a pandemic, and we've been in the middle of violence and crisis. Those are terrible things, but they are also signs that the harvest of the earth is ripe. Sometime when you get a chance start studying, "The harvest of the earth is ripe".
When you start to understand that the harvest of the earth is ripe and God is getting ready to harvest earth, you'll understand the signs of the times that we're living in, that time is winding up, that time is winding up, it's winding, it's winding up, it's winding up. I know it's winding up because "there are wars and rumors of wars," because there's trouble in the Middle-East. Time is winding up because "Men have become lovers of themselves". Time is winding up because "Mothers are turning against daughters, and fathers are turning against sons". Time is winding up because "Ethnicities are rising up against ethnicities". In your King James Bible it says, "Generations arising against generations," the real word is ethnic, ethnos, ethnicities are rising against each other.
And so all of this racial conflict is a sign that time is winding up, the harvest is ripe. Nobody trying to gather that kind of harvest anymore. Everybody's trying to get a harvest at the stock market, bitcoins, trying to get crypto currency. We're trying to get all kinda other... nobody's even looking at the harvest of souls anymore. In fact, when you get down to the altar call, people start clicking off, they start walking out, they've lost all interest in the harvest. Don't you see that that is Satan trying to get us to ignore what God cares the most about? Why God sent his Son as a seed, that we might be the harvest that comes in in the last day? And now, "The harvest is white, but the laborers are few".
Now I see why Jesus sat by the well. He sat by the well because he knew that this woman was the key to the city. What a strange key. Now we don't use too many keys like that anymore but the old-fashioned keys were all twisted and broken and jagged-edged and like that, but they fit into the lock and they unlocked the door and the door opened. Some of the most broken, jagged-edged people don't know that they were broken in all the right places that you would be a key that God would use to unlock a whole city, a whole company, a whole dimension, a whole school board, a whole city council. God gave you the job because you're the key. In spite of your jagged, broken edges, your broken past, your five husbands and your situation, God sees you as a key, broken woman, broken man, broken boy, broken girl, God's gonna use you.
Stop looking for straight keys with no broken edges. The best keys are all jagged because they're designed to fit someplace. And when you turn your life around, something is going to open for you that's been closed. And you think you so broken that God can't use you, that's why God can use you, because every key I've ever seen that fit a lock was broken, it was jagged. It wasn't smooth, it wasn't polished, it was jagged, and God's gonna use your jagged edges and your broken past to unlock the door. This woman went down to the city and confronted the men. You know why she wasn't afraid of men? She had been with a men, she was the kind of woman that felt comfortable with men, she knew how to persuade men, she'd been using it in a wrong way, but once she was converted God took what was wrong with her and made it right with her, and she unlocked the hearts.
And many of them believed because of what the woman said, not because of what Jesus did. You're a kingpin. You, who have been through the worst places and the darkest places and the deepest sins and had the most debaucherous life, you're a kingpin, you don't even know it. In fact, the reason the enemy attacked you in the first place is because he knew you were so significant and he wanted to hold on to you as long as he could. And it is to you that Jesus comes and he says, "I thirst," not to the maid of honor and not to the matronly, not to the prayer warriors, not to the intercessor. He comes to the woman with the most sordid past, to the brother with the most sordid past, and says, "I thirst. You have the power to quench my thirst, you don't even know it".
You're all messed up and confused, you're confused in your religious ideas, you're worshiping in the mountain you know not what, you don't know what you're doing, you don't know what you believe in, you don't know where you stand. He said, "But when I finish with you, I'm going to turn you around and straighten you up and fix you and put you in a position where I can use you". And you're frustrated, you're hurt, you're angry with the church and you're angry with people and you're angry with everything and you've gone into vain religions and empty ideas, and still God wants to use you. And once you come to yourself and realize what time it is. He said, "Your people worship in the mountain, they know not what," he said, "Your religion is bad, you don't even know what you're doing". He said, "My people know who they worship, for salvation is of the Jews. But the hour cometh, and now is". "The hour cometh, and now is".
That it doesn't matter that you don't know what you're doing, and that we worship in Jerusalem and we know who we worship, neither one of them matter anymore. "The hour cometh, and now is, that they that worship God must worship him in spirit and in truth," in spirit and in truth, in spirit and in truth. And you're arguing and you're on this chat line and you're fighting everyone and you're fighting everything and all of that stuff you're talking about. You don't know what you're doing, you're repeating something you said, you repeating something you heard, something you read somewhere, you don't know what you're worshiping. "We know what we worship, for salvation is of the Jews," he said, but that doesn't matter either. Even if you have a right tradition, "The hour cometh, and now is, that they that worship the Father must worship him in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him".
And when this woman realized that there had been a paradigm shift, she's having an old argument in a present tense situation, she dropped her water pots and said, "Come, see a man". I'm eligible, I'm broken but I'm eligible, I've got bad religion but I'm eligible, I've got bad relationships but I'm eligible, I made some bad mistakes but I'm eligible, God wants to use me to unlock something for you, and she goes and runs and tells the men. Notice who she tells; she doesn't tell the women because she's one of those women that other woman don't like, I believe. She goes and tells the men, "Come, see a man, that told me everything I ever did; I think I found the Christ, I think this dude is the Messiah," and they believed on him because of her.
How many people were you created to win that will only be won when you speak up? And if I were the enemy, I'd have you speaking about everything else, what's wrong in your life, what's wrong with your job, what's wrong with your relationship, what's wrong with this, what's wrong with the car, what's wrong with that, anything to get you not to speak up, because the enemy knows that the harvest is white, the laborers are few, and he wants to distract you from the harvest and show you the horrors of your life rather than the harvest of your life, because that is what Christ is thirsting for, and he waited at the well. He did not wait at the well just to quench your thirst. He waited at the well so that he can quench your thirst, so that reciprocity... write that word down, reciprocity. He says, "If I quench your thirst, I want you to quench mine. If I straighten out your thinking and point you in the right direction, then I want you to quench my thirst". "Woman, give me to drink".
That's how the conversation started, and almost nobody preaches about that part. They preach about her thirst and what she needs and what's going on, because we are so narcissistic that everything we do is about us. But in reality, Jesus fixed her so that he could use her to finish his purpose. He says, "My meat is to do the will of him that sent me". By the time the disciples got there with food, Jesus didn't even want to eat, because he was feeding off of the conversion of this woman who had given her life to Christ. In verse 41, "And many more believed because of his own word," many more believed. Now some believe because of her, but in verse 41, "And many more believed because of his own word; And said unto the woman, 'Now we believe, not because of thy saying: for we have heard him ourselves, and know that this is indeed the Christ, the Savior of the world.'"
Now, whether they believed on him because of her word, which was some of them, or because of his word, which were the skeptics, neither would have come to see him if it had not been for her. "Now after two days he departed thence, and went into Galilee". He spent two days in an area where most Jews don't even come, he spent two days gathering up the harvests, starting a revolution, planting a remnant of salvation. Then later, in about the 7th or 8th chapter, I think it's the 8th chapter of Acts, Philip will come in and reap what Jesus sowed, and then Philip went down to Samaria. This is after the crucifixion and everything has happened, and the church has been meeting in Jerusalem and great persecution arose in Jerusalem, then Phillip goes down to Samaria. Samaria, the very place, where Jesus had sat by the well to plant a seed. Philip is gonna harvest that which he did not sow. Great God from Zion.
Let's go deeper with this. He so thirsts for you, he so thirsts for you, and you're tossing and turning at night because he so thirsts for you, and you're craving and longing and doing all kinds of things because he so thirsts for you. It is for you he weeps, it is for you he weeps, it is for you he waits, it is for you that he walked all this way and sat down by the well and waited and weeped, and said, "I thirst". "And your sins are red like crimson," but he says, "I will wash them until they're white as snow, if you will become more interested in my will than you are your own".
He says, "I want you to worship me like you lost your mind, to worship me like you you're getting a drink of water, like he quenched your thirst, like you are made of worship, that you are made of worship, not just made to worship, that you were made to worship. I want you to worship me with the same intensity that a starving man looks for food and a thirsty woman is begging for water". He said, "I want he that hungers and thirsts after righteousness shall be filled". "I want you to go after me like I know you can, like you went after them men, like you went after them women, I want you to go after me like that". The cure is convergence of thirst, of thirst.