Sermon Transcript

Good morning! How are you guys doing today? Oh, man! The eleven o’clock is full of energy! Awesome! My name is Tyler Holder, and I’m the new director of Adult Ministries. I’m so grateful to have the opportunity to speak to you this morning. I’m also grateful for the hospitality that we’ve been shown. My family and I have been quasi-homeless for about a month, so it’s been amazing to see your hearts poured out to us time and time again. Thank you so much, from the bottom of our hearts!

My wife’s not here right now—she came to the five o’clock service—but if you were to meet her, you would think, “Man, he lucked out!” Right? Praise the Lord! I have two children—a four-year-old son and a one-and-a-half-year-old daughter, and I’m sure you’ll see them tearing through. If you’re in nursery or Children’s Ministry. I’m sorry ahead of time.

We’ll be camping out in John chapter 4 today. As you turn there, I just want to share a quick story—a little bit of history of who I am. There was a season in my life, not too long ago, where I would have considered myself a runner. Now, clearly, that season has come and gone and I am no longer a runner. But when I was, and I was running races, there were always the moments in a race when you would hit what’s called “the wall.”

I don’t know if anybody’s a runner in here, but that wall is a miserable thing! You’re running and you’re striving and you’re pushing and you’re going—as fast as you can as hard as you can—and there was only one thing that helped me get through “the wall,” and that was the water table.

Has anybody ever run a race and seen that beautiful water table, right? Now, there’s a trick when you’re running. When you’re running and you’re going to grab a cup of water, you have to hit every cup before you get the last one.  I would just swipe through that aisle to get that last cup. There’s also a trick in, how in the world do you get a cup of water into your mouth when you’re running? So, you try and throw it; half of it would land on my forehead and the other half would land on my neck, and I’d get a few drops in my mouth.

There was something amazing that happened when those drops hit my mouth and refreshed me! Not thinking I could go any further, not thinking I could to any harder, not thinking I could go any longer, and a drop of water hits my tongue, and all of a sudden, I feel refreshed! I feel energized again. Now, I never won any races (maybe it’s because I didn’t get enough water), but I always tried my best!

As we look at John 4, my hope is that we’ll see we have refreshment in the gospel! That’s my hope this morning. We have refreshment to our parched soul. We have refreshment because the gospel offers relief to our brokenness. For me, that relief came a little bit later in life. I was seventeen years old (a mere thirteen years ago), when the gospel invaded my darkness and offered me relief. I can remember, as if it was yesterday, the feeling of the Holy Spirit convicting me. I can remember, as if it was yesterday, where I was sitting, what the pastor was saying, and really how I felt he was just zeroing in on me.

If I’m honest, I thought he was picking on me. It was the Holy Spirit convicting my heart. Because, up until that point, I thought I was okay. I tried to satisfy my soul with things that were temporary, only to find that the lasting satisfaction is the gospel, and not anything else. So, at seventeen-years-old, the gospel invaded my darkness—invaded my soul and redeemed my life. And for the last thirteen years, I’ve navigated the journey of the Christian life. Have I fallen? Sure. Has the Lord given me grace to get back up, and has refreshed me again? Yes. . .every single time!

So my hope today is, if you’re a believer in the Lord—if you are a kingdom citizen, that you will take hope and joy in the fact that the gospel still offers you refreshment from your brokenness. Because, if you’re honest with me and if I’m honest with you, I still have baggage from my sin, I still have baggage from my past—that I don’t want to carry with me, but I can’t seem to get it off! And sometimes that hinders my trajectory with the Lord.

If you’re not a kingdom citizen this morning, my hope is this: that the gospel would invade your darkness. That the gospel would offer you relief to your brokenness, to your sin. Because there’s nothing that satisfies the soul like a refreshing taste of the gospel!

John 4; it’s a common passage with an amazing, amazing story. In John 4, the Apostle John’s writing, and he’s going to set the stage for what’s about to happen with the woman at the well. Let’s start to read John 4, starting with verse 1: “Now when Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus was making and baptizing more disciples than John  (although Jesus himself did not baptize, but only his disciples), he left Judea and departed again for Galilee. And he had to pass through Samaria.” [ESV]

Now, what we don’t see—we don’t see the tone in which John is writing. The picture, when Scripture says, “He had to pass through Samaria,” is a picture of urgency. There is no other course that Jesus could take. Now, back in Jesus’ times, for a Jew to walk through Samaria was just really against the rules. You didn’t do it! If you were a good practicing Jew, if you were a rabbi like Jesus was, there was no way you would walk through Samaria. In fact, they would go entirely out of their way to avoid Samaria. Why? Because they hated the Samaritans! They thought they were half-breeds; they treated them sub-humanly. The Jews would pray that the Samaritans would die. But not Jesus.

Jesus has an urgency to go to Samaria. He has an urgency to bring living water to a people who don’t deserve it. He has an urgency to engage a woman at a well that He knows will be there when she shouldn’t be. Because He knows the gospel is the only thing that will satisfy her brokenness. So, there’s an urgency to the message.

And I would venture to say that, when we engage Christ, and when we enter into a relationship with Jesus through the gospel, our hearts are set aflame—and afire—with an urgency. When you experience redemption for the very first time, you’re so excited because it’s so drastically different than what you were. But oftentimes, what happens is the trials of life hit us over and over and over again, and as believers we’re tempted to step back into those broken cisterns that we filled—only to have them show up empty again—and not trust in the living water of the gospel. Jesus had to pass through Samaria.

“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.” So, the stage is set: middle of the day, no-name village in Samaria. Jesus shouldn’t be there, but He is. He’s tired. That gives me hope that I can takes naps throughout the day! He’s wearied from His journey, sitting beside a well. The stage is set for a miraculous story to take place!.

            “A woman from Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, ‘Give me a drink.’” Is that an uncommon request? It’s hot. I’ve never been to Israel, but I feel like it’s a hot place. He’s worn out, He’s wearied—it’s not an uncommon request. But look at the response she gives. “For his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food. The Samaritan woman said to him, ‘How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?’” Now, to us, we read that and we think, “It’s just two strangers talking.” Right? “I’m not going to give you a drink if you’re a stranger. I wouldn’t expect you to give me a drink.”

That’s not the case. The woman of Samaria’s response is actually saturated in sarcasm and anger and bitterness and frustration, because to her, Jesus represented everything that had oppressed her. Remember, the Jews hated the Samaritans. There’s no reason why a Jewish rabbi should be sitting at a well in Samaria in the middle of the day—much like there’s very little reason why a woman from Samaria should be going to a well in the middle of the day. So, her response is full of anger and indignation and bitterness and frustration. She’s carrying, with her, her baggage, and she sets it down at the well and she says, “Why would you even consider asking me? Why would you even engage me in conversation? Don’t you know? You don’t have any dealings with me!” “For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.”

And Jesus, in the beautiful way that Jesus does, answers her. Look at verse 10: “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.’” Jesus is more interested in winning the woman than the argument. He’s more interested in engaging her below the surface level and getting to what’s at the heart of the issue. So, He doesn’t respond as culture would dictate, does He? He doesn’t respond in frustration or anger or bitterness or resentment. He doesn’t pull the “I’m a rabbi” card, “and you gotta do it!” No! He responds, “If you only knew who you were talking to, then you would have asked me, and I would have given you living water.”

Now, the picture of living water is water that satisfies. It’s water that never runs dry. It’s water that is eternally and always there. The woman at Samaria doesn’t understand what’s going on at this point, does she? One of the reasons why I love the gospel so much is that it gives me hope for my stupidity. I don’t know if that’s you—maybe that’s just me—but, at this point, the woman at Samaria is totally lost. She has no idea what’s happening. But she’s been offered something greater than that well could satisfy. She’s been offered something greater than anything that’s ever been given to her in her life. How does she respond?

Look at verse 11. “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?’” She just doesn’t get it. “’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 in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.’”

If we’re honest with each other, it’s difficult for us to accept living water, because that means we no longer have control. If there’s an eternal well, welling up in my soul, that isn’t caused by me—isn’t impacted by who I am, doesn’t depend on how much time I spend with it or not—it’s hard for me to relinquish myself of that. Because, if I’m honest, I like doing it myself. If I’m honest, I enjoy the feeling of need that I can satisfy. But, what’s so beautiful about the gospel is that, when it engages my brokenness, it turns that and resolves that and then creates a dependency upon Christ.

The woman at the well doesn’t understand. She still hasn’t grasped what’s going on. Jesus is speaking to her, and—if you’ll notice the conversation—is going deeper and deeper and deeper. At first it’s at a surface level: “Can you give me a drink?” And then He goes a step further: “You don’t understand. You think I’m asking you for a drink, but you should really be asking me, because I can give you living water that’s eternally satisfying.”

Look at the woman’s response. “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.’” Jeremiah 2:13 gives us this warning; it’s a beautiful picture of the woman at the well. The verse makes this statement: “…for my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water.” The woman at Samaria had spent her life hewing out cisterns that were broken. She’d spent her life trying to satisfy a need, a desire, an emptiness – only to come up short every time!

If I’m honest, my first seventeen years of life were spent trying to fill broken cisterns—fill it with whatever I wanted (drugs, sex, alcohol—it didn’t matter), because it was my life and I was living it for me. Whatever I wanted, that’s what I pursued. It wasn’t until I recognized that my cisterns were broken did I have a desire to fix them. And, if I’m honest, I couldn’t fix them.

This woman at Samaria at a well in the middle of the day engages the Savior, by no accident. It was no mistake that she was there. It was no mistake that Jesus was waiting. It was no mistake that Jesus offered her something she could never find on her own. And it was no mistake that her response is a need and a desire. Because what happens, when the gospel awakens in you a spiritual need, you thirst and you hunger for it.

Psalm 63:1 is a beautiful picture of a thirsting and hungering soul! In Psalm 63:1, David is writing, and he says: “O God, you are my God; earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.” Our souls are created to long for something deeper and greater than anything we could ever have! But our souls are born with broken cisterns that we fill and fill and fill—always to come up short. So the woman at Samaria responds, “Give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water.”

Notice what, I would call, the awkwardness that ensues. Did you know the gospel can be awkward? I don’t know if you knew that. I’m a big fan of the awkward stage of life. I have a four-year-old and a one-and-a-half-year-old, so there’s this awkward competition that goes on between them. It’s a beautiful thing to watch. So, just know. We’re about to take a look at a really awkward moment in Scripture.

“Jesus said to her, ‘Go, call your husband, and come here.’ The woman answered him [and said], ‘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.’” Have you ever wonder what Jesus would have said if she would have lied? If you want to know my thoughts – let’s get to know me a little bit – these are my thoughts when I read Scripture, “I wonder what would have happened is she would have lied.” What’s happening at this moment is, Jesus is revealing His deity to her, and she’s getting uncomfortable.

Up until this point, it wasn’t personal. Up until this point, it was cultural, it was societal. It was, “I have my baggage. I don’t like you, so we’re already at odds.” It wasn’t personal yet. And Jesus takes it to an even deeper level. “Go call your husband.” “I don’t have a husband.” “That’s right. You’ve had five. And, the one you’re living with now—he’s not your husband.” Watch how she responds. “The woman said to him, ‘Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet.’ “Yes,” is the short answer to that. “I perceive that You are a prophet.” And then, out of nowhere, she changes the subject.

Do you want to know one of the things I’m looking most forward to, in engaging college students here in South Bend? I’m looking most forward to awkward conversations. Do you know why? Because I’ve found that there are so many walls and so many barriers that we put up. And there are so many roadblocks in our lives, because we’ve learned to protect ourselves. And in college, a lot of that gets dismantled. So, when we have a conversation – it might be awkward for you – I’m loving it, okay? And I’ve learned that once we’re past that awkward moment, I’m going to find out what’s really in your soul.

If we can break through that barrier, and if you can let your guard down enough to allow the gospel to shine, then what I believe we’ll find is, it will offer relief for your brokenness. It will give you newness of life, and streams of living water can well up in you. Look at her response, “Sir, I perceive You are a prophet!” Out of left field, here comes a whopper. “Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship.” Again, what she’s done here—she’s tried to sidetrack Jesus. Every time in the gospels this happens, it doesn’t work. You’d think they’d learn by now!

So, what she’s saying here…she’s bringing a cultural argument. Because to the Samaritans, the place of worship that was most holy was in Samaria. To the Jews, the place of worship that was most holy was Jerusalem. And again, Jesus, in a beautiful way, is more interested in winning the woman than the argument. And I would say to you that Jesus is more interested in winning you than the argument. I can make up excuse after excuse after excuse, argument after argument after argument, as to why I shouldn’t follow Jesus. But His grace pursues me all the more, and He still offers relief for my brokenness.

Watch Jesus’ response. “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.’”

Praise the Lord that I don’t have to have a certain socio-economic class to worship Him. Praise the Lord that, when it comes down to it, it’s not Democrat or Republican that matters, it’s Jesus, and seeking people who worship Him in spirit and truth. Praise that Lord that when it comes down to it—when we boil it down to this beautiful reduction sauce of the gospel—it’s nothing more than worshipping in spirit and in truth. It’s exciting to me to see the freedom that gives you; it’s exciting to me to experience the freedom that gives me.

Jesus says, “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.’” There’s hope for me because, even at this point, she still doesn’t get it. I’m not that smart of a guy, and I mess up a lot. When we give our testimonies, my wife…she’s so gracious and beautiful…she’ll say, “You know, he messes up sometimes.” I’ll tell you, I mess up sometimes—and that’s okay.

The woman at Samaria experienced Jesus revealing Himself to her in a way that nobody else had, and she still doesn’t understand who she’s talking to. Look at Jesus’ response, in verse 26: “Jesus said to her, ‘I who speak to you am he.’” The woman at Samaria experienced Jesus in a radical way—and she would never be the same. If you read the rest of John chapter 4, what you’re going to see is her proclaiming Christ to her village in such a passionate way that they actually all follow her back to the well to see who she’s talking about.

Again, we don’t maybe grasp the importance of that. Nobody, in ancient Israel, would listen to an adulteress who had been married five times, and was living with somebody who wasn’t her husband. She was second-class to even her culture. But she had experienced Jesus in such a radically transformative way that, as she goes back to her village, she says, “Guys, let’s get on this boat! We gotta go, we gotta go, we gotta go! Come with me to the well and experience what I’ve just seen!” Because, what happens is, as our souls are ransomed, we respond in worship.

It’s interesting, Paul makes a beautiful statement about our souls being ransomed. He says, “For you have been ransomed from the kingdom of darkness and brought into the kingdom of His marvelous light.” When you experience that, you’re never the same. You’re never the same!

Do you still have brokenness? Yes. Do you still have baggage? Yes. In fact, I’ll bet you I have enough baggage to fill this stage right now. But it’s not about who I was—it’s about what I’m becoming, and who I am in Christ. It’s not about what I’ve done, it’s not about the sins of my past. . .it’s about me fixing my eyes upon Christ and striving toward that end. . .because out of my soul flow rivers of living water.

Later on, in John 7:38, Jesus is actually going to make this statement, “[If you believe] in me, as the Scripture [have] said, ‘Out of your heart will flow rivers of living water.’” So the question this morning is, “What in the world are we doing with the rivers of living water?” Are you allowing the gospel to restore you and offer relief to your brokenness?

Because, even if you’re not a believer, you need to hear that you’re not on your own, and that your brokenness is very real. My brokenness is very real. And apart from the saving grace of the gospel, and reminding myself every day, every moment, of my weakness and my disdain and my sin—I’d be trying to fill up broken cisterns still.

If you’ve never experienced the redemption of the gospel, look at the woman at the well. Look at the lengths to which Jesus went: He had to go through Samaria. Why? He had to talk to that woman! So, my hope this morning is that you would see that the gospel offers relief to your brokenness. The gospel offers relief to the brokenness in your family; the gospel offers relief to the brokenness in your marriage; the gospel offers relief to the brokenness in your children; the gospel offers relief to brokenness! But, if we don’t grasp that and allow rivers of living water to flow through our heart, then we will live in brokenness.

So, I would ask us four questions this morning. The first question I would ask us is, as we look and consider the woman at the well and what Jesus did: Has the gospel invaded your brokenness, to offer relief from sin? Again, it’s easy for me—thirteen years into this Christian life—to be tempted to go back to my broken cistern. I need to be reminded that the gospel still offers me relief; that the sweet satisfying taste of Jesus is better than any sin I could partake in. Has the gospel invaded your brokenness to offer you relief from sin?

The second question I would ask is, looking at the woman at the well and seeing her baggage, what past or present situations or sins push you to distrust God’s care for you? There have been seasons in our life where I’ve honestly wanted to shake my fist at God. Last year was a season for our family. My wife was terribly sick (again, I have a four-year-old who’s crazy! My daughter was like four months old, so she was still very much a newborn). My wife had contracted Lyme’s disease, so she was out—she was gone. She couldn’t walk, couldn’t move. There were moments in that season where I really wanted to shake my fist at God.

I wanted to say, “Don’t you see what’s going on? I don’t deserve this! My wife doesn’t deserve this!” But, in those darkest moments, I was reminded of the grace of the gospel—and instead of shaking my fist at the Lord, I responded to Him, asking Him to use this for His glory and His reknown. Even though it was miserable, even though I didn’t understand it. And now, watching my wife as she ministers to others, and to have the ability to engage them at a level that I never have – it’s been beautiful!

So, what past or present situations or sins push you to distrust God’s care for you? Because at a base, rudimentary level, understand that God cares for you in a greater way than anything you will ever know or ever experience! Even if you don’t understand it.

The third would be this: the gospel is attractive to a parched soul (Psalm 63:1 again). Think about running a race—that glimpse of water is attractive to your parched mouth. The gospel is attractive eternally to a parched soul. How am I proclaiming the living water of Jesus to myself and those around me? Because we’ve been given rivers of living water, but at times we try and stifle it and dam it up, don’t we? But the beautiful thing about living water is that it’s always welling up, it’s always coming to the surface.

The last question that I would ask would be this: If you’re a believer in Jesus, if you are a kingdom citizen—if the gospel message has invaded your brokenness, invaded your darkness—and if you are Jesus’ child, and understand that redeemed people worship, because their souls have been ransomed…what is your worship like to the Lord?

The Samaritan woman responded in worship by gathering those around and bringing them back Jesus. The disciples didn’t even get it at that point. If you read the rest of John 4, they’re actually pretty frustrated. But Jesus goes out of His way to engage a woman – where He shouldn’t have been, He shouldn’t have engaged her. Because He cared more about the woman than anything else. And I’ll say this: He cares more about you than anything else! Would you pray with me, this morning?

Father, we are grateful for the opportunity that You have given us to experience newness of life! We’re grateful for the grace that we’ve been extended. Father, I pray this morning that, as we reflect on and see that the gospel offers relief to the broken, You would restore broken hearts, souls and minds this morning. For the believers, those that are your children, Father, may You remind them of the satisfying taste of living water that you offer. May You remind them that they can still bring their hurts, their pains, their brokenness to the foot of the cross—and only there experience reconciliation and relief. Father, I pray that this morning hearts would be awakened to their need of Jesus. Lord, may we take this message as the woman at the well took it. . .and respond by unleashing rivers of living waters in our families and our homes and our communities—and wherever we may go. In Your precious Name we pray, amen.