While psychologists inform us of three greatest needs of any individual is for security, significance, and self-worth, we realize that man was created primarily for communion with God. Without this we will remain unfulfilled. Sin stands as a barrier. However, Jesus Christ came to remove sin, and bring us into a deep place of communion with God, where our deepest longings are fully met.
May this sermon minister to you and enrich your walk of faith in Jesus Christ. We welcome you to make use of the free sermons, Christian books, and daily devotionals available on this website.
May this sermon minister to you and enrich your walk of faith in Jesus Christ. We welcome you to make use of the free sermons, Christian books, and daily devotionals available on this website.
Let's begin reading from John 4:5 onwards,
John 4:5 So He came to a city of Samaria which is called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph.
John 4:6 Now Jacob's well was there. Jesus therefore, being wearied from His journey, sat thus by the well. It was about the sixth hour.
John 4:7 A woman of Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, "Give Me a drink."
John 4:8 For His disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.
Physical needs
The woman came to the well to address her physical need for water. All of us have physical needs. There is nothing wrong in addressing our physical needs.
The Lord Jesus who was God incarnate, in His humanity, stopped to address His physical needs. He was tired, thirsty and possibly hungry.
Psychologist Abraham Maslow in his 1943 paper "A Theory of Human Motivation" proposed what is commonly known as Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Although Maslow did not come up with this diagram, Maslow's hierarchy of needs is often portrayed in the shape of a pyramid with the largest, most fundamental levels of needs at the bottom and the need for self-actualization at the top
1. Biological and Physiological needs - air, food, drink, shelter, warmth, sex, sleep.
2. Safety needs - protection from elements, security, order, law, stability, freedom from fear.
3. Love and belongingness needs - friendship, intimacy, affection and love, - from work group, family, friends, romantic relationships.
4. Esteem needs - achievement, mastery, independence, status, dominance, prestige, self-respect, respect from others.
5. Self-Actualization needs - realizing personal potential, self-fulfillment, seeking personal growth and peak experiences.
Most of us spend most of our time addressing the first three areas (level) of need. Our entire life is consumed living to satisfy these needs.
John 4:9 Then the woman of Samaria said to Him, "How is it that You, being a Jew, ask a drink from me, a Samaritan woman?" For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.
John 4:10 Jesus answered and said to her, "If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, 'Give Me a drink,' you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water."
The woman is probably operating at level 2, being concerned about the norms and customs of that day, a Jew does not normally interact with a Samaritan.
vs 10
If you knew the gift of God, if you knew who it is that is speaking with you, you would have asked Him....
Why is it that people don't look past the first three levels and reach out for what is eternal, what is "living water"...because they do not know. They do not know the gift of God and they do not know Jesus Christ.
How important it is for us as believers to make known the gift of God and the person of Jesus Christ so that the deepest needs in peoples lives can be met.
There could be people here do not know the gift of God and who Jesus Christ really is.
We're so glad that you are here today, so that you can get to know and experience personally God's gift and Jesus Christ.
John 4:11 The woman said to Him, "Sir, You have nothing to draw with, and the well is deep. Where then do You get that living water?
John 4:12 Are You greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well, and drank from it himself, as well as his sons and his livestock?"
Vs 11
Sometime we are unable to recognize and know the gift of God because of practical considerations, or because of the one who is telling us about it. The person speaking is only human, and he has obvious limitations (nothing to draw with, the well is deep), how can he and after all who is he to provide me with something that is eternal, living water?
vs 12
Our natural heritage, our ancestry, our cultural history are all good things to be aware of. But sometimes our pride in these things can hold us back from recognizing and knowing the gift of God and the person of Jesus Christ.
John 4:13 Jesus answered and said to her, "Whoever drinks of this water will thirst again,
John 4:14 but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst. But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life."
vs13
our physical needs will always be there as long as we live in this body.
We can satisfy our cravings today, as much as we want, and these will be there tomorrow.
vs14
Jesus offers us something that truly satisfies our deepest longing.
When we drink of that, He said we will never thirst.
What He gives to us remains with us like a continuous never ending spring giving us eternal life.
John 4:15 The woman said to Him, "Sir, give me this water, that I may not thirst, nor come here to draw."
Deep within all of us is a desire for something eternal - something that really satisfies, something that goes beyond the temporal, beyond the satisfying of our physiological, security, emotional, esteem and self-actualization needs.
There is a sixth area, the realm of the spirit, the realm of the spiritual, which is at the core of every person.
Ecclesiastes 3:11 He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also He has put eternity in their hearts, except that (without which) no one can find out the work that God does from beginning to end.
There is something of the eternal placed in every heart, which only God can fill.
'Eternal' - something that is beyond our three dimensional world of time, space and matter, hence there is nothing in our realm that can fill this need.
“Also that eternity hath he placed in their heart, without which man could not find out the work which God hath made from the commencement to the end.” (Literal rendition, Clarke's Commentary)
John 4:16 Jesus said to her, "Go, call your husband, and come here."
John 4:17 The woman answered and said, "I have no husband." Jesus said to her, "You have well said, 'I have no husband,'
John 4:18 for you have had five husbands, and the one whom you now have is not your husband; in that you spoke truly."
The Lord Jesus now addresses that fact that this woman has tried very hard to fulfill her emotional need of "love and belongingness". She has had five husbands. Imagine, each time, she must have thought that this man, this time would give me the love and sense of belongingness I am desperate for.
Our "Love and belongingness needs" represent our common emotional needs for affection, appreciation, admiration, conversation, companionship, and trust.
Five times she tried and failed. There was pain, shame, agony. And finally she abandoned marriage and decided to just live with a man, perhaps to at least to satisfy her physical need.
John 4:19 The woman said to Him, "Sir, I perceive that You are a prophet.
Once the Lord Jesus supernaturally discloses her past she suddenly realizes that she is encountering something beyond this realm. She is encountering someone who is connected to the unseen spiritual eternal realm, a prophet.
John 4:20 Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, and you Jews say that in Jerusalem is the place where one ought to worship."
John 4:21 Jesus said to her, "Woman, believe Me, the hour is coming when you will neither on this mountain, nor in Jerusalem, worship the Father.
How often we mistakenly think that a certain "place of worship", a pilgrimage, a shrine, a supposedly holy place, sometimes a place where the remains of a mortal man are preserved, some rituals, religious practices, etc. can give us an encounter with the Eternal.
Religion itself cannot satisfy the deepest longing at the core of our being.
No mountain, no pilgrimage, no ritual can do this for us.
John 4:22 You worship what you do not know; we know what we worship, for salvation is of the Jews.
You worship what (who) you do not know....
What a sad state to be in? We seek to fill the void within us through religion, some form or practice of spirituality, and yet we do not know what or who we are trying to worship. There is no personal connection, there is no personal experience.
This reminds us of what was happening in Athens, when Paul the apostle visited in Acts 17. He saw the people worshipping all kinds of idols and involved in all kinds of religious discussions. He then spoke to them:
Acts 17:23 for as I was passing through and considering the objects of your worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: TO THE UNKNOWN GOD. Therefore, the One whom you worship without knowing, Him I proclaim to you:
John 4:23 But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for the Father is seeking such to worship Him.
John 4:24 God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth."
The Lord Jesus now gives this woman the key to satisfy our deepest longing.
What is it that satisfied the deepest longing of the human heart - worship of God in spirit and truth.
Worship must happen in spirit, empowered by His Spirit. God Himself must give us the knowledge, experience and life in our inner beings to worship Him.
Worship must happen in truth - out of the knowledge of who He is and aligned to who He is.
God is seeking for such people.
God is looking not for worship, but for worshippers.
God does not long for the songs we sing, but for us, the people who sing the songs.
He wants us to do it in Spirit and Truth.
While psychologists inform of us that the three greatest needs of any individual is for security, significance, and self-worth, we realize that man was created primarily for communion with God. Without this we will remain unfulfilled.
Sin stands as a barrier. However, Jesus Christ came to remove sin, and bring us into a deep place of communion with God, where are deepest longings are fully met.
All of this can happen, only when we meet Jesus the Christ, the Messiah. This is what happened to the woman.
John 4:25 The woman said to Him, "I know that Messiah is coming" (who is called Christ). "When He comes, He will tell us all things."
John 4:26 Jesus said to her, "I who speak to you am He."
The woman now comes face to face, with the One who can meet her deepest longing, Jesus Christ the Messiah. He is the gift of God. He is the One who gives us eternal life.
He is the never ending fountain.
He is the Desire of all Nations - the very One every body is searching for!
Haggai 2:7 and I will shake all nations, and they shall come to the Desire of All Nations, and I will fill this temple with glory,' says the LORD of hosts.
Isaiah 5:26 He will lift up a banner to the nations from afar, And will whistle (call out) to them from the end of the earth; Surely they shall come with speed, swiftly.
The story ends like this:
John 4:27 And at this point His disciples came, and they marveled that He talked with a woman; yet no one said, "What do You seek?" or, "Why are You talking with her?"
John 4:28 The woman then left her waterpot, went her way into the city, and said to the men,
John 4:29 "Come, see a Man who told me all things that I ever did. Could this be the Christ?"
John 4:39 And many of the Samaritans of that city believed in Him because of the word of the woman who testified, "He told me all that I ever did."
John 4:40 So when the Samaritans had come to Him, they urged Him to stay with them; and He stayed there two days.
John 4:41 And many more believed because of His own word.
John 4:42 Then they said to the woman, "Now we believe, not because of what you said, for we ourselves have heard Him and we know that this is indeed the Christ, the Savior of the world."
What this woman experienced that day, she passed on to many others in her village.
Salvation Call
John 4:5 So He came to a city of Samaria which is called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph.
John 4:6 Now Jacob's well was there. Jesus therefore, being wearied from His journey, sat thus by the well. It was about the sixth hour.
John 4:7 A woman of Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, "Give Me a drink."
John 4:8 For His disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.
Physical needs
The woman came to the well to address her physical need for water. All of us have physical needs. There is nothing wrong in addressing our physical needs.
The Lord Jesus who was God incarnate, in His humanity, stopped to address His physical needs. He was tired, thirsty and possibly hungry.
Psychologist Abraham Maslow in his 1943 paper "A Theory of Human Motivation" proposed what is commonly known as Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Although Maslow did not come up with this diagram, Maslow's hierarchy of needs is often portrayed in the shape of a pyramid with the largest, most fundamental levels of needs at the bottom and the need for self-actualization at the top
1. Biological and Physiological needs - air, food, drink, shelter, warmth, sex, sleep.
2. Safety needs - protection from elements, security, order, law, stability, freedom from fear.
3. Love and belongingness needs - friendship, intimacy, affection and love, - from work group, family, friends, romantic relationships.
4. Esteem needs - achievement, mastery, independence, status, dominance, prestige, self-respect, respect from others.
5. Self-Actualization needs - realizing personal potential, self-fulfillment, seeking personal growth and peak experiences.
Most of us spend most of our time addressing the first three areas (level) of need. Our entire life is consumed living to satisfy these needs.
John 4:9 Then the woman of Samaria said to Him, "How is it that You, being a Jew, ask a drink from me, a Samaritan woman?" For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.
John 4:10 Jesus answered and said to her, "If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, 'Give Me a drink,' you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water."
The woman is probably operating at level 2, being concerned about the norms and customs of that day, a Jew does not normally interact with a Samaritan.
vs 10
If you knew the gift of God, if you knew who it is that is speaking with you, you would have asked Him....
Why is it that people don't look past the first three levels and reach out for what is eternal, what is "living water"...because they do not know. They do not know the gift of God and they do not know Jesus Christ.
How important it is for us as believers to make known the gift of God and the person of Jesus Christ so that the deepest needs in peoples lives can be met.
There could be people here do not know the gift of God and who Jesus Christ really is.
We're so glad that you are here today, so that you can get to know and experience personally God's gift and Jesus Christ.
John 4:11 The woman said to Him, "Sir, You have nothing to draw with, and the well is deep. Where then do You get that living water?
John 4:12 Are You greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well, and drank from it himself, as well as his sons and his livestock?"
Vs 11
Sometime we are unable to recognize and know the gift of God because of practical considerations, or because of the one who is telling us about it. The person speaking is only human, and he has obvious limitations (nothing to draw with, the well is deep), how can he and after all who is he to provide me with something that is eternal, living water?
vs 12
Our natural heritage, our ancestry, our cultural history are all good things to be aware of. But sometimes our pride in these things can hold us back from recognizing and knowing the gift of God and the person of Jesus Christ.
John 4:13 Jesus answered and said to her, "Whoever drinks of this water will thirst again,
John 4:14 but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst. But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life."
vs13
our physical needs will always be there as long as we live in this body.
We can satisfy our cravings today, as much as we want, and these will be there tomorrow.
vs14
Jesus offers us something that truly satisfies our deepest longing.
When we drink of that, He said we will never thirst.
What He gives to us remains with us like a continuous never ending spring giving us eternal life.
John 4:15 The woman said to Him, "Sir, give me this water, that I may not thirst, nor come here to draw."
Deep within all of us is a desire for something eternal - something that really satisfies, something that goes beyond the temporal, beyond the satisfying of our physiological, security, emotional, esteem and self-actualization needs.
There is a sixth area, the realm of the spirit, the realm of the spiritual, which is at the core of every person.
Ecclesiastes 3:11 He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also He has put eternity in their hearts, except that (without which) no one can find out the work that God does from beginning to end.
There is something of the eternal placed in every heart, which only God can fill.
'Eternal' - something that is beyond our three dimensional world of time, space and matter, hence there is nothing in our realm that can fill this need.
“Also that eternity hath he placed in their heart, without which man could not find out the work which God hath made from the commencement to the end.” (Literal rendition, Clarke's Commentary)
John 4:16 Jesus said to her, "Go, call your husband, and come here."
John 4:17 The woman answered and said, "I have no husband." Jesus said to her, "You have well said, 'I have no husband,'
John 4:18 for you have had five husbands, and the one whom you now have is not your husband; in that you spoke truly."
The Lord Jesus now addresses that fact that this woman has tried very hard to fulfill her emotional need of "love and belongingness". She has had five husbands. Imagine, each time, she must have thought that this man, this time would give me the love and sense of belongingness I am desperate for.
Our "Love and belongingness needs" represent our common emotional needs for affection, appreciation, admiration, conversation, companionship, and trust.
Five times she tried and failed. There was pain, shame, agony. And finally she abandoned marriage and decided to just live with a man, perhaps to at least to satisfy her physical need.
John 4:19 The woman said to Him, "Sir, I perceive that You are a prophet.
Once the Lord Jesus supernaturally discloses her past she suddenly realizes that she is encountering something beyond this realm. She is encountering someone who is connected to the unseen spiritual eternal realm, a prophet.
John 4:20 Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, and you Jews say that in Jerusalem is the place where one ought to worship."
John 4:21 Jesus said to her, "Woman, believe Me, the hour is coming when you will neither on this mountain, nor in Jerusalem, worship the Father.
How often we mistakenly think that a certain "place of worship", a pilgrimage, a shrine, a supposedly holy place, sometimes a place where the remains of a mortal man are preserved, some rituals, religious practices, etc. can give us an encounter with the Eternal.
Religion itself cannot satisfy the deepest longing at the core of our being.
No mountain, no pilgrimage, no ritual can do this for us.
John 4:22 You worship what you do not know; we know what we worship, for salvation is of the Jews.
You worship what (who) you do not know....
What a sad state to be in? We seek to fill the void within us through religion, some form or practice of spirituality, and yet we do not know what or who we are trying to worship. There is no personal connection, there is no personal experience.
This reminds us of what was happening in Athens, when Paul the apostle visited in Acts 17. He saw the people worshipping all kinds of idols and involved in all kinds of religious discussions. He then spoke to them:
Acts 17:23 for as I was passing through and considering the objects of your worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: TO THE UNKNOWN GOD. Therefore, the One whom you worship without knowing, Him I proclaim to you:
John 4:23 But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for the Father is seeking such to worship Him.
John 4:24 God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth."
The Lord Jesus now gives this woman the key to satisfy our deepest longing.
What is it that satisfied the deepest longing of the human heart - worship of God in spirit and truth.
Worship must happen in spirit, empowered by His Spirit. God Himself must give us the knowledge, experience and life in our inner beings to worship Him.
Worship must happen in truth - out of the knowledge of who He is and aligned to who He is.
God is seeking for such people.
God is looking not for worship, but for worshippers.
God does not long for the songs we sing, but for us, the people who sing the songs.
He wants us to do it in Spirit and Truth.
While psychologists inform of us that the three greatest needs of any individual is for security, significance, and self-worth, we realize that man was created primarily for communion with God. Without this we will remain unfulfilled.
Sin stands as a barrier. However, Jesus Christ came to remove sin, and bring us into a deep place of communion with God, where are deepest longings are fully met.
All of this can happen, only when we meet Jesus the Christ, the Messiah. This is what happened to the woman.
John 4:25 The woman said to Him, "I know that Messiah is coming" (who is called Christ). "When He comes, He will tell us all things."
John 4:26 Jesus said to her, "I who speak to you am He."
The woman now comes face to face, with the One who can meet her deepest longing, Jesus Christ the Messiah. He is the gift of God. He is the One who gives us eternal life.
He is the never ending fountain.
He is the Desire of all Nations - the very One every body is searching for!
Haggai 2:7 and I will shake all nations, and they shall come to the Desire of All Nations, and I will fill this temple with glory,' says the LORD of hosts.
Isaiah 5:26 He will lift up a banner to the nations from afar, And will whistle (call out) to them from the end of the earth; Surely they shall come with speed, swiftly.
The story ends like this:
John 4:27 And at this point His disciples came, and they marveled that He talked with a woman; yet no one said, "What do You seek?" or, "Why are You talking with her?"
John 4:28 The woman then left her waterpot, went her way into the city, and said to the men,
John 4:29 "Come, see a Man who told me all things that I ever did. Could this be the Christ?"
John 4:39 And many of the Samaritans of that city believed in Him because of the word of the woman who testified, "He told me all that I ever did."
John 4:40 So when the Samaritans had come to Him, they urged Him to stay with them; and He stayed there two days.
John 4:41 And many more believed because of His own word.
John 4:42 Then they said to the woman, "Now we believe, not because of what you said, for we ourselves have heard Him and we know that this is indeed the Christ, the Savior of the world."
What this woman experienced that day, she passed on to many others in her village.
Salvation Call
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