Living Water

Welcome! I encourage you to continue to pray the secret prayer. Today I will give a shorter message followed by a time of remembering the Lord with the bread and cup, and following this we will have a sharing time, where all here are encouraged to share what the Lord is teaching them.

Today we are going to talk about thirst. Did you know that the human body is about 60% water by weight? We are constantly losing water in our bodies, through internal processes, breathing, evaporation on our skin, and expelling wastes. As a result, we need to regularly, frequently replenish the water in our bodies. God has designed our bodies such that when we become low in water, we experience a unique sensation of thirst. If we do not pay attention to this signal, it becomes stronger until such point that we do real harm to our bodies. Ultimately, the result of refusing or being incapable of responding to thirst is absolutely certain death.


Now, the ratio of salt and water in your body is very important, and so drinking salt water, such as water in the ocean, will not satisfy your thirst. In particular, your kidneys will kick into overdrive to remove the excess salt, and doing so will use up more water than you drink. The more salt water you drink, the worse off you will become. In a similar way, drinking heavily caffeinated beverages also does not ultimately satisfy your thirst, because your body responds to the caffeine by removing extra liquid from your body. My point is that when you are thirsty, there is right way and multiple wrong ways to try to satisfy your thirst.

There is a spiritual application of this. Turn to John 4 and consider this passage with Jesus and the Samaritan woman at the well.

Now He had to go through Samaria. So He came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near 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, sat down by the well. It was about the sixth hour. When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?” (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.) – John 4:4-8

And so Jesus, fully God but also fully man, was thirsty, just as any man becomes thirsty after a long hot journey. He sat by the well, and when the woman arrived (a woman He had planned to meet from before she was born, because that is how God works), He used His own thirst as an opportunity to speak to the woman’s thirst of a different kind, one even more important than the need for water.

The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.) Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked Him and He would have given you living water.” – John 4:9-10

The woman was focused on the centuries-old conflict between Jews and Samaritans. We have looked at this in several teachings in the past. Because the Samaritan religion was loosely based on Judaism but also badly mangled, and because they didn’t keep many of the laws and even incorporated beliefs and practices based on worshipping other gods, the Jews didn’t like the Samaritans. Over time this had led to them even viewing them as unclean, no longer treating them as people but more like unclean animals like pigs. Understandably, the Samaritans, in response, didn’t have much love for Jews either. The fact that Jesus, clearly a Jew and not a Samaritan (based on clothing and manner of speech) would ask for a drink from a Samaritan woman, even drinking from her very ladle, was shocking.

But Jesus turns the situation around. He says that if she knew who He was, she would be asking Him for a drink, for something cryptic called living water. What was this living water? Did the woman know? Let’s read on.

“Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his flocks and herds?” Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” – John 4:11-14

Wow – there is so much here! The woman, understandably, just doesn’t get it. First, she thinks Jesus’ water comes from this very well. Then she thinks He is saying He can get water from some other well nearby. And in her answer she is defensive about her heritage, saying our father Jacob, implying that she considers herself to be a true Jew, in spite of what other Jews say.

Jesus replies even more cryptically, comparing living water to regular water but still not saying what it is. I love his picture of a well inside us. I mean, think about this! We in our modern culture are spoiled by the ease in which we obtain water. Someone else has gone through a lot of work for you, but the result is that pipes and pumps carry water from miles away and store it under pressure in those very pipes so that by simply turning a handle, drinkable water pours out. We have lived our whole lives this way, so we take it for granted. But life was quite different at the time of John 4. Each little village had a well, and many had to get all of their water from that well. This was hard work. You had to bring the water up from the well, transfer it to your containers, and bring your containers back to your home.

Water, in case you haven’t noticed, is heavy. How much does one gallon of water weigh? About 8 1/3 pounds. How much water does an average person use in our culture per day? At several websites I saw an answer of about 123 gallons. (I assume this includes manufacturing needs.) That weighs more than 1000 pounds. How would you like to have to carry half a ton of water from a central location to your home every day?

Obviously, you would change how you use water so that you could use much less of it. I don’t want to go into the details, but your personal hygiene would undoubtedly change significantly. But even with this reduction, you would still need water for drinking and cooking, and water, as I said, is heavy. For all who had this task, it was a major daily chore.

And Jesus tells this woman, what I offer you is like your own personal fountain, not a well, that you have to pull water up from, but a fountain that spurts water right into your mouth; what I offer you, Jesus says, is your own personal fountain right inside of you so that you don’t even have to put a cup to your lips. Incredible! The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.” He told her, “Go, call your husband and come back.” – John 4:15-16

The woman doesn’t understand how this can be true, I am sure, but if there is even a chance it is true, she is impressed. This is an awesome offer. So she tells Jesus, that yes, she wants it. Give it to me, she says. He replies, seemingly innocently, go get your husband and I’ll give it to both of you. Of course, Jesus knows how she will be forced to respond:

“I have no husband,” she replied. Jesus said to her, “You are right when you say you have no husband. The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true.” – John 4:17-18

So what is all this really about? I think most of you know, but I share these things not to teach you something new, but to remind you of what is true. We are forgetful creatures, and without continually reminding ourselves of the truths in God’s Word, we become much like the person who has not been keeping himself hydrated.

Dehydration, if left to become more serious, leads to “brain fog” and confusion, among many other bad things, and a lack of reminding ourselves of the truths of God’s Word leads to a spiritual kind of brain fog as well.

I believe Jesus’ comments about all her husbands, a conversation He forced into the open through His leading questions, was closely related to the concept of living water. Spiritually, God has made all of us with God-sized holes in our hearts; to put it another way, He has made us spiritually thirsty for Him. And what unbelievers do, and what even believers often do, is to try to satisfy that thirst with something other than living water. Much like the thirsty person who tries to satisfy their thirst with sea water or caffeinated beverages, the result is that they only become even more thirsty than they were before.

This woman with “five husbands and now a man who is not her husband” was looking to satisfy her thirst – for love, for provision, for what exactly, the passage doesn’t say, but likely some combination of needs including these – she was looking to satisfy her thirst in something other than a living relationship with the living God, and all it was doing was making her more and more thirsty.

We all do this! This is what idolatry is all about. Anything can become this false solution to our thirst. Some things we use are things that are simply sin, any way you cut it. Other things are things that could be allowed or even good, but if they are used as an attempt to satisfy our spiritual thirst apart from God, then they become sin. Anything at all can do this! Entertainment, TV, the Internet, pornography, alcohol, drugs, food, work, school, even friends and family; all of these, if used to try to fill our spiritual thirst, will come short and our thirst will only grow.

We are just like the people mentioned in Jeremiah 2:

Has a nation ever changed its gods? (Yet they are not gods at all.) But My people have exchanged their Glory for worthless idols. Be appalled at this, O heavens, and shudder with great horror,” declares the Lord. “My people have committed two sins: They have forsaken Me, the Spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water. – Jer. 2:11-13

This is exactly what we do when we try to satisfy our thirst in something other than God Himself. This imagery is also found in Jeremiah 17:

O Lord, the Hope of Israel, all who forsake You will be put to shame. Those who turn away from You will be written in the dust because they have forsaken the Lord, the Spring of living water. – Jer. 17:12-13

Both these passages clearly connect the Spring, the source of the water, to God Himself. Jesus takes this further in John 7. The context here is that Jesus is teaching in the Temple courts during the Feast of Tabernacles. During this seven-day feast, the Jews lived in simple booths they made of tree branches. The holiday has multiple levels of meaning, but one is that it was to remind the Jews what it had been like for their forefathers to be led by God through the wilderness after leaving Egypt. Perhaps first and foremost, the feast was a reminder that God provides, Jehovah Jireh, and the timing of the feast made it a time to thank God for the harvest.

Normally the land of Israel is very dry from May until about the time of the Feast. At some point in time, a Water Libation Ceremony was added to the activities of the Feast. This ceremony was well-established at the time of Jesus. What happened? The following description is from http://www.refugetemplehop.com/waterlibation_ceremony.htm:

Each morning of Tabernacles, a water libation (sacrificial pouring out of a liquid) was offered to the Lord as a visual prayer for rain. Shortly after dawn each morning, while the many sacrifices were being prepared, the high priest was accompanied by a joyous procession of music and worshipers down to the Pool of Siloam. The high priest carried a golden pitcher capable of holding a little more than a quart of water. He carefully dipped the pitcher into the pool and brought it back to the Temple Mount.

At the same time, another procession went down to a nearby location south of Jerusalem known as Motza where willows of the brook grew in great abundance. They they gathered the long, thin willows and brought them back to the temple. At the Temple, the willows were placed on the sides of the altar so that their tops formed a canopy of drooping branches over the altar. Meanwhile the high priest with the water from the Pool of Siloam had reached the southern gate of the Temple [The Water Gate]. As he entered, three blasts of the silver trumpets sounded outside the Temple, and the priests with one voice repeated the words of Isaiah: Therefore with joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation. – Isaiah 12:3

The high priest slowly proceeded then to the stone altar in the Inner Court of the Temple and ascended the right side of the ramp. At the peak, he turned to the left where there were two silver basins which drained to the base of the altar. One was reserved for the regular drink offerings (libations of wine) and one for the water libations during this feast. As the high priest raised the golden pitcher to pour out the water offering, the people shouted, "Raise your hand!" In response, the high priest lifted his hand higher and poured, allowing the people to verify his action. [There is a fascinating history behind this tradition, but I don’t have time to go into it.]

As the high priest poured out the water libation before the Lord, a drink offering of wine was simultaneously poured into the other basin. Three blasts of the silver trumpets immediately followed the pouring and signaled the start of the Temple music. The people listened as a choir of Levites sang the Hallel (i.e. the praise Psalms 113-118). At the proper time, the congregation waved their palm branches toward the altar and joined in singing: "Save now, I pray, Oh Lord; O Lord, I pray, send now prosperity" (Psalm 118:25). At the same time the priests, with palm branches in hand, marched once toward the altar.

Keep in mind the central importance of the water libation ceremony as you consider this passage from John 7. Also understand that on the last day of the Feast, the water libation ceremony involved the greatest number of priests and drew the greatest crowds.

On the last and greatest day of the Feast, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink. Whoever believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him.” By this He meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in Him were later to receive. – John 7:37-39

The water libation ceremony wasn’t just about a thirsty person, but a thirsty nation. And in this context Jesus told the thirsty to come to Him and drink, and He promised, again, streams of living water – a source of water inside oneself – to those who would believe in Him.

If you are a believer in Jesus, if you have given your life to Him, you have been given a source of living water within you. How tragic it is then, when we, as believers, still try to satisfy our thirst apart from Him!

And do the willow branches in the description of the Feast remind you of anything? Yes, of Jesus’ triumphal entry. This ceremony was a foreshadowing of Christ. It was because of Him that we have available to us this living water. Listen carefully: I believe this is no coincidence. Just as you have to break open the ground, to tear open the earth, so as to have a well or an underground spring open up and bring forth water, Jesus had to suffer and die on the cross to open up our access to the Holy Spirit, our well of living water. (And remember how blood and water gushed from His side when He was pierced with the spear! Wine and water libations!)

I encourage you to spend time remembering the Lord, confessing where you have looked for other water to satisfy your thirst, water that only increased your thirst. And thank Him for His body and His blood, given to redeem you and reconnect you to God, to make it so that you would never again need to go thirsty. I encourage you now to close your eyes and consider this scene from Rev. 7, a scene in some ways similar to the Tabernacles scene but infinitely greater and grander in scale:

After this I looked and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and in front of the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands. And they cried out in a loud voice: “Salvation belongs to our God, who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb.” – Rev. 7:9-10

All the angels were standing around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures. They fell down on their faces before the throne and worshiped God, saying: “Amen! Praise and glory and wisdom and thanks and honor and power and strength be to our God for ever and ever. Amen!” – Rev. 7:11-12

Then one of the elders asked me, “These in white robes—who are they, and where did they come from?” I answered, “Sir, you know.” And he said, “These are they who have come out of the great tribulation; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. – Rev. 7:13-14

Therefore, “they are before the throne of God and serve Him day and night in His temple; and He who sits on the throne will spread His tent over them. Never again will they hunger; never again will they thirst. The sun will not beat upon them, nor any scorching heat. For the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd; He will lead them to springs of living water.” – Rev. 7:15-17

And from Rev. 22:
The Spirit and the bride say, “Come!” And let him who hears say, “Come!” Whoever is thirsty, let him come; and whoever wishes, let him take the free gift of the water of life. – Rev. 22:17