SPEAKER_01: Please turn your Bibles to John chapter 4.
SPEAKER_01: This morning we're going to be referring to verses that are not included in your printed bulletin due to space limitations, but you're welcome to follow along in your bulletin as well.
SPEAKER_01: This morning, also I would like to recognize an important team member, leader in our shepherding ministry over the past few years.
SPEAKER_01: Christina Reiniger is going to be stepping down as co-leader.
SPEAKER_01: And Christina, she's not here.
SPEAKER_01: Aaron, you can tell her.
SPEAKER_01: We just want to recognize Christina's leadership and investment of her time and her energy.
SPEAKER_01: She's been co-leading along with Casey Poole, and we're thankful for that Susan Colbreth is going to step in and fill that co-leader role in the Shepherding Ministry.
SPEAKER_01: Thank you, Susan.
SPEAKER_01: And we're grateful for our shepherding ministry, the shepherding teams that pray for each member of this congregation.
SPEAKER_01: This morning I'd like to start a series on the subject of the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: We're going to be leading up to Pentecost Sunday coming up in a few weeks.
SPEAKER_01: And to look at the work of the Spirit, the person of the Spirit, as we see it illustrated so well in this chapter, fourth chapter of John.
SPEAKER_01: This is a conversation, in case you're not familiar with the Bible, this is a conversation that Jesus had with a woman from Samaria, an enemy nation to the Jews, an enemy people, and yet we find this striking conversation, and there's so much that we have to learn.
SPEAKER_01: And so we read God's holy word.
SPEAKER_01: 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.
SPEAKER_01: And he had to pass through Samaria.
SPEAKER_01: So he came to a town of Samaria called Sichar, near the field that Jacob had given to his son Joseph.
SPEAKER_01: Jacob's well was there.
SPEAKER_01: So Jesus, wearied as he was from his journey, was sitting beside the well.
SPEAKER_01: It was about the sixth hour.
SPEAKER_01: A woman from Samaria came to draw water.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus said to her, Give me a drink.
SPEAKER_01: For his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.
SPEAKER_01: The Samaritan woman said to him, How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?
SPEAKER_01: For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.
SPEAKER_01: 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.
SPEAKER_01: The woman said to him, Sir, you have nothing to draw water with, and the well is deep.
SPEAKER_01: Where do you get that living water?
SPEAKER_01: Are you greater than our father Jacob?
SPEAKER_01: He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus said to her, Every one 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.
SPEAKER_01: The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water, welling up to eternal life.
SPEAKER_01: The woman said to him, Sir, give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty or have to come back here to draw water.
SPEAKER_01: Just then his disciples came back.
SPEAKER_01: They marveled that he was talking with a woman, but no one said, What do you seek?
SPEAKER_01: Or why are you talking with her?
SPEAKER_01: 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.
SPEAKER_01: Can this be the Christ?
SPEAKER_01: They went out of the town and were coming to him.
SPEAKER_01: Meanwhile the disciples were urging him, saying, Rabbi, eat.
SPEAKER_01: But he said to them, I have food to eat that you do not know about.
SPEAKER_01: So the disciples said to one another, Has anyone brought him something to eat?
SPEAKER_01: Jesus said to them, My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work.
SPEAKER_01: Do you not say there are yet four months, then comes the harvest?
SPEAKER_01: Look, I tell you, lift up your eyes and see that the fields are white for harvest.
SPEAKER_01: Already the one who reaps is receiving wages and gathering fruit for eternal life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice together.
SPEAKER_01: For here the saying holds true one sows and another reaps.
SPEAKER_01: I sent you to reap that for which you did not labor.
SPEAKER_01: Others have labored, and you have entered into their labor.
SPEAKER_01: Many Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman's testimony.
SPEAKER_01: 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.
SPEAKER_01: They said to the woman, It is no longer because of what you have said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is indeed the Savior of the world.
SPEAKER_01: And this is the living word of God.
SPEAKER_01: And so we pray that his living spirit will give us living water this morning.
SPEAKER_01: Let's pray.
SPEAKER_01: Father, how many times have you witnessed your people drinking living water?
SPEAKER_01: You've seen it from the beginning.
SPEAKER_01: May you see it again this morning in this place at this time.
SPEAKER_01: So you've given us your spirit to give us that living water.
SPEAKER_01: May we drink deeply this morning by the work of your spirit.
SPEAKER_01: We pray.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus was the ultimate storyteller.
SPEAKER_01: The Gospel of John is known for having one story, just piling one story after another.
SPEAKER_01: Just the chapter before, in chapter three, Jesus is talking to a man named Nicodemus, a ruler, a teacher of the Jews, who came to Jesus at night.
SPEAKER_01: Perhaps he was embarrassed to come during the day.
SPEAKER_01: Most likely he was.
SPEAKER_01: Didn't want to be outed as a Jesus seeker.
SPEAKER_01: And what a striking contrast between the conversation Jesus had with Nicodemus in chapter 3 and the Samaritan unnamed woman in chapter 4.
SPEAKER_01: She meets Jesus in broad daylight.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus' disciples who had been traveling with him have gone on a mission into the town, nearby town, to get some lunch.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus is there alone.
SPEAKER_01: The text says that he had to pass through Samaria.
SPEAKER_01: And that raises the question, well, why did he have to?
SPEAKER_01: Was that the only way to go?
SPEAKER_01: Was that the only route?
SPEAKER_01: And the answer is no.
SPEAKER_01: I suspect he had to travel through Samaria.
SPEAKER_01: It had more to do with the leading of the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: The Spirit had a mission for him to meet this particular woman and to lead a village of Samaritans to himself.
SPEAKER_01: And Jesus was tired.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus got just as tired as you get.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus got just as thirsty as you get.
SPEAKER_01: You know that, right?
SPEAKER_01: He wasn't above this because he was fully man.
SPEAKER_01: And the text makes it clear that it was like he was looking for a place to sit down.
SPEAKER_01: He was that tired.
SPEAKER_01: He was searching for a seat.
SPEAKER_01: And he found one.
SPEAKER_01: At a well that had been the patriarch Jacob's well centuries before.
SPEAKER_01: Well-known place in Sikar.
SPEAKER_01: Today it would be in Palestine, Palestinian ground.
SPEAKER_01: He sees this woman approaching with her bucket to draw the water.
SPEAKER_01: Why was she there in the noonday?
SPEAKER_01: Typically, that's not when the women went to the well.
SPEAKER_01: When the heat was the hottest and it was hard to lug that water back, most of the women at the time we're told went after the sun was going down.
SPEAKER_01: We can speculate a bit, but it's probably not a far-fetched idea to think that given her history in her town, she might have been shunned by the women.
SPEAKER_01: Might have been.
SPEAKER_01: Would you give me a drink?
SPEAKER_01: You've got the bucket.
SPEAKER_01: This is your well.
SPEAKER_01: I'm thirsty.
SPEAKER_01: Would you give me a drink?
SPEAKER_01: As we see, she is just startled for two good reasons.
SPEAKER_01: First of all, again, the Jews and the Samaritans were enemies.
SPEAKER_01: The division went way back 800 years.
SPEAKER_01: Think about the history of our country.
SPEAKER_01: You know, everybody talks, makes a big deal about Alexandria, Virginia.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, you know, we've been here a couple hundred years.
SPEAKER_01: Think 800 years.
SPEAKER_01: That's how far back this rivalry, this division, this enmity went.
SPEAKER_01: It started when the Assyrians conquered the northern tribes of Israel and deported the Jews from there and settled them in other countries like Assyria at that time.
SPEAKER_01: And what they did is they repopulated the land.
SPEAKER_01: They brought in the pagans from other lands.
SPEAKER_01: And so they left some of the Israelites there, but they were now settling and mingling with these pagans.
SPEAKER_01: And there was this syncretistic religion that was developing.
SPEAKER_01: They were not true blue Jews, they were half-breeds in the eyes of the Jews in the South.
SPEAKER_01: And they didn't want anything to do with them.
SPEAKER_01: And they really did shun each other.
SPEAKER_01: And so the Samaritans end up building their own temple, Mount Gerizim, until it's destroyed in 128 B.C.
SPEAKER_01: by the Jews.
SPEAKER_01: Alright, it's that kind of clash.
SPEAKER_01: And this is the woman who comes to Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: So there's the racial divide, which was so strong, but then there's the gender divide.
SPEAKER_01: You just didn't do that.
SPEAKER_01: Men did not speak with women in public.
SPEAKER_01: Especially a rabbi with a Samaritan woman.
SPEAKER_01: You just didn't do that.
SPEAKER_01: You can just almost feel the words leap off the page from the Samaritan woman.
SPEAKER_01: You don't know the rules, do you?
SPEAKER_01: You're not supposed to be talking to me.
SPEAKER_01: And it would certainly defile a Jew who touched a utensil from a Samaritan.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus is breaking a lot of social taboos right before our eyes.
SPEAKER_01: But he turns the tables on her.
SPEAKER_01: The woman came to a well, and Jesus invites her into a gushing spring.
SPEAKER_01: He says in verse 10, which is one of the great verses in the New Testament, one of the great verses in all the Bible.
SPEAKER_01: You would ask me.
SPEAKER_01: It's the only time in the gospel where this word gift appears.
SPEAKER_01: The original language makes it clear.
SPEAKER_01: Well, aren't all gifts free?
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, by definition.
SPEAKER_01: It's to really just emphasize.
SPEAKER_01: No, this is really free.
SPEAKER_01: And you can't buy it.
SPEAKER_01: You have no currency for this.
SPEAKER_01: So let's look at the points from the text.
SPEAKER_01: First of all, if you only knew who was offering you this gift.
SPEAKER_01: And that's true for the Samaritan woman, and that's true for you and for me.
SPEAKER_01: If you only knew who was offering you this gift, she had no clue.
SPEAKER_01: She had no idea who he was.
SPEAKER_01: Except that he was a Jew from the South, a Jewish man.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 11 says, She was looking for something to make her life easier when he really piqued her curiosity.
SPEAKER_01: She looks at him and says, Well, wait a minute.
SPEAKER_01: You're asking me for a drink from this well.
SPEAKER_01: I have a bucket.
SPEAKER_01: And now you say, if you knew who I really was, you'd be asking me for water, but you don't even have a bucket.
SPEAKER_01: How are you going to give me water?
SPEAKER_01: He says, Look, I can give you water that'll satisfy you like nothing else before in your life.
SPEAKER_01: I can give you water that'll keep you keep your thirst satisfied.
SPEAKER_01: And her ears and her heart just pick up.
SPEAKER_01: She's really interested in this, but she doesn't get it.
SPEAKER_01: Wait a minute.
SPEAKER_01: You can give me water that I don't have to come back to this well every day.
SPEAKER_01: She's searching for the meaning.
SPEAKER_01: She's looking for something that'll make her life easier, that'll make her life more convenient.
SPEAKER_01: That's the most that she could hope for.
SPEAKER_01: Like many people today, when they think about Jesus, they're looking for a little help, they're looking for a little inspiration.
SPEAKER_01: That's what most people today in this country are looking for when they go to church.
SPEAKER_01: Do you know that?
SPEAKER_01: And maybe that's you.
SPEAKER_01: It's not even in their categories.
SPEAKER_01: Most people in this country are going to church today expecting far less than what Jesus is offering.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus, can you just make me feel a little bit better about myself?
SPEAKER_01: Can you give me some tools to navigate life?
SPEAKER_01: Maybe you've been there.
SPEAKER_01: Maybe you are there.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus says, if you only knew who was offering you this gift.
SPEAKER_01: Who he really is and what he's really offering.
SPEAKER_01: This free gift of God.
SPEAKER_01: Let's look at that a little bit closer.
SPEAKER_01: This free gift, this living water, this gushing spring is the gift of the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: It's most interesting and instructive that Jesus never calls himself the living water.
SPEAKER_01: He calls himself the living bread in John chapter 6.
SPEAKER_01: He calls himself the way, the truth, and the life.
SPEAKER_01: He never calls himself the living water.
SPEAKER_01: The living water is the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: The free gift of God's Holy Spirit through the free gift of God's Holy Son.
SPEAKER_01: We're going to see this in the next couple of weeks when we get to verses 23 and 24, when he talks about my Father seeks true worshipers who worship him in spirit and in truth.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus wants to know as the Holy Spirit taking control of your life.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus wants to know as the Holy Spirit opened up the dark corners of your mind and your heart to open up to what he wants to give you, which is a whole lot more than a little inspiration.
SPEAKER_01: The woman came to a well, and Jesus is inviting her to a gushing spring, river.
SPEAKER_01: If you knew the gift of God and who it is that is asking you for a drink, you would drop your bucket in a moment and you would fall on your knees and you would bow before me and you would come to me and I will give you that living water.
SPEAKER_01: If you only knew.
SPEAKER_01: Would the people that know you well describe you as a person who is gushing with love and joy and peace and patience and kindness and goodness and gentleness and self-control?
SPEAKER_01: I don't know about you, but I want more of it.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus takes her, and this is one commentator who put it like this Jesus takes her from a death valley thirst to a Mount Everett fountain in about six seconds.
SPEAKER_01: When the light goes on.
SPEAKER_01: Wait a minute.
SPEAKER_01: This is no ordinary man.
SPEAKER_01: This is no ordinary rabbi.
SPEAKER_01: Well, we're going to see how she got there in her understanding.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus Himself will pay the high price to be the giver of this living water.
SPEAKER_01: When he died on the cross, not too long after that conversation, when he died on the cross and he said, It is finished.
SPEAKER_01: When he cried out to the Father and He said, It is finished, I have fulfilled the mission for which I came, to give my people living water.
SPEAKER_01: The gift was secured so that the gift could be offered this morning.
SPEAKER_01: We won't take the time to look at all the texts.
SPEAKER_01: There's so many in the Bible, in the New Testament.
SPEAKER_01: We looked at one on Easter morning as I preached from Acts chapter 2, verse 38.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus said, Repent and be baptized, and you will receive what?
SPEAKER_01: The gift of the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: Acts chapter 10, verse 45, where the gift of the Holy Spirit was offered to the Gentiles.
SPEAKER_01: The gift of the Holy Spirit was poured out even on the Gentiles.
SPEAKER_01: That includes us, most of us.
SPEAKER_01: What Jesus is saying is this if you just ask me, I will give it to you.
SPEAKER_01: Living water.
SPEAKER_01: The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.
SPEAKER_01: Welling up suggests a vigorous action, activity.
SPEAKER_01: Nothing stagnant.
SPEAKER_01: This is no stagnant pond.
SPEAKER_01: This is rushing, bubbling water.
SPEAKER_01: Refreshing.
SPEAKER_01: Welling up.
SPEAKER_01: That's a good translation.
SPEAKER_01: I kind of like leaping up.
SPEAKER_01: That's what the spirit can do in your life.
SPEAKER_01: The spirit can leap up and make the things of God, the promises of God, and the truth of God become fresh and real like they've never been.
SPEAKER_01: That's the work of the Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: Ask Him.
SPEAKER_01: It's the gift of the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: He is the one who enables us to believe.
SPEAKER_01: He is the one that says, Come and you come.
SPEAKER_01: He is the one who's working in us, saying, Open up.
SPEAKER_01: Like now, as you hear the word of God being preached, open up.
SPEAKER_01: There's more he wants to give you.
SPEAKER_01: Ask him.
SPEAKER_01: If you only knew who, but secondly, if you only knew where you've been drinking.
SPEAKER_01: If you only knew where you've been drinking.
SPEAKER_01: Now that's part of the text that we didn't print.
SPEAKER_01: But they get into this conversation, and Jesus is inviting her into this new life.
SPEAKER_01: And he says, Oh, by the way, if you wanted to learn more, go get your husband.
SPEAKER_01: And she says, Well, I don't have a husband.
SPEAKER_01: He says, Yeah, I know.
SPEAKER_01: You've had five husbands.
SPEAKER_01: And the man you're living with today is not your husband.
SPEAKER_01: And she must have just looked at him so incredulously.
SPEAKER_01: What?
SPEAKER_01: How do you know?
SPEAKER_01: How do you know the intimate details of my life?
SPEAKER_01: Who is this man who knows me through and through?
SPEAKER_01: Go call your husband and come back.
SPEAKER_01: James Boy says, when he says to her, Go call your husband, that was a word for her conscience.
SPEAKER_01: Come back again was a word for her heart.
SPEAKER_01: I like that.
SPEAKER_01: Before she could drink of the living water, she had to recognize where she'd been drinking from up until now.
SPEAKER_01: She needed to take a look within.
SPEAKER_01: What have I really been looking to?
SPEAKER_01: What have I really been trusting in to make life work?
SPEAKER_01: Suddenly she knows that he knows far more about her than anybody could ever know.
SPEAKER_01: And so, what does she do?
SPEAKER_01: What many of us have done many times?
SPEAKER_01: When Jesus starts that kind of a conversation with us, we change the topic.
SPEAKER_01: I remember reading in one of Lewis's works.
SPEAKER_01: You're sitting there in your study, and you're starting to read the things of Jesus, and Jesus is starting to come close to you, and he's starting to reveal himself to you and open up to you, and all of a sudden the enemy wants you to say, Oh, I'm getting hungry.
SPEAKER_01: It's time for lunch.
SPEAKER_01: It's time to get up and do something different.
SPEAKER_01: He's getting too close.
SPEAKER_01: Suddenly she knows that he knows everything about her.
SPEAKER_01: And she gets into this sidebar conversation we'll look at in the coming weeks.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus, you're getting too close.
SPEAKER_01: Before she could taste the living water, she must first understand where she'd been drinking all her life.
SPEAKER_01: Where was she looking for her identity, her meaning?
SPEAKER_01: Well, it's pretty clear from this story.
SPEAKER_01: Men.
SPEAKER_01: Five husbands?
SPEAKER_01: The rabbis would not permit more than three.
SPEAKER_01: And that was in the worst case scenario.
SPEAKER_01: Five failed marriages.
SPEAKER_01: And the man you're living with now is not your husband.
SPEAKER_01: She must have been a woman who thought, like many women and men today, this one will be different.
SPEAKER_01: This one will be different.
SPEAKER_01: I've learned from the last relationship.
SPEAKER_01: This one will be different.
SPEAKER_01: And here she is, realizing that no, it doesn't seem like it's that much different.
SPEAKER_01: The problem is still there.
SPEAKER_01: She's just exposed because it's Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus sees right through Tom Holliday.
SPEAKER_01: And Jesus sees right through you.
SPEAKER_01: And he knows where you're thirsty, and he knows why you're thirsty.
SPEAKER_01: She goes back to the town.
SPEAKER_01: And by the way, she left her jar.
SPEAKER_01: She left her bucket.
SPEAKER_01: We'll talk about that in another minute.
SPEAKER_01: She goes back to her people in her town.
SPEAKER_01: She says, Come see a man who told me everything I've ever done.
SPEAKER_01: Well, probably not exactly.
SPEAKER_01: She wasn't there that long with Jesus to know everything that she had ever done.
SPEAKER_01: It wasn't everything that she had done, it's why she did the things that she did.
SPEAKER_01: That was it.
SPEAKER_01: This man just put his finger, he put his finger on my heart, and all of a sudden I see what I've been searching for all my life.
SPEAKER_01: All of a sudden, I see my identity.
SPEAKER_01: My identity has been exposed.
SPEAKER_01: My reason for living, my purpose, what I'm looking for by water.
SPEAKER_01: Go get your husband.
SPEAKER_01: But hear me.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus could have just as easily have said to her or to you, go get your kids.
SPEAKER_01: Go get your children.
SPEAKER_01: Go get your career.
SPEAKER_01: Go get your financial investments.
SPEAKER_01: Because until you're ready to receive the living water, you have to see where you've been drinking.
SPEAKER_01: You have to see where you've been searching to make life meaningful.
SPEAKER_01: Go get your kids.
SPEAKER_01: Go get your husband.
SPEAKER_01: Go get your partner.
SPEAKER_01: You have to see what you're living for.
SPEAKER_01: You have to see if you're living for your kids, if you're living through your kids, whatever it is, you've got to see that before you're really ready to drink the living water.
SPEAKER_01: You're asking these people to give you things in your life.
SPEAKER_01: You're asking these people to give you meaning.
SPEAKER_01: You're asking these people to give you purpose.
SPEAKER_01: You're asking something in your life to satisfy the thirst in your soul, and they cannot give you that.
SPEAKER_01: They can't give you what I can give you.
SPEAKER_01: Repent.
SPEAKER_01: Repent and put down your shovel.
SPEAKER_01: Jeremiah chapter 2, verse 13 says, These two things my people have sinned against me.
SPEAKER_01: They have forsaken the fountain of living water, and they have dug cisterns.
SPEAKER_01: And what that means is every one of us is born into this world with a shovel in our hand.
SPEAKER_01: And we go through life digging.
SPEAKER_01: We go through life looking for where we can find meaning and purpose and find our identity.
SPEAKER_01: And Jesus says, put your shovel down.
SPEAKER_01: This morning may well be for you the voice of the Holy Spirit speaking to you, saying, put your shovel down and come to Jesus for living water.
SPEAKER_01: That's happened to me many times in this sanctuary.
SPEAKER_01: How is it a gift if we insist on paying for it by our own works?
SPEAKER_01: How is it a gift if we insist on paying for it by trying harder?
SPEAKER_01: Trying to work up belief.
SPEAKER_01: Do you struggle with that?
SPEAKER_01: Trying to work up belief.
SPEAKER_01: Trying to work up.
SPEAKER_01: You know, I really just need to be more committed.
SPEAKER_01: You know, I really just need to try harder.
SPEAKER_01: I just really need to read more of my Bible.
SPEAKER_01: Well, you probably do need to read more of your Bible, but that's not how you find the gift.
SPEAKER_01: You find the gift by surrendering.
SPEAKER_01: You find the gift, you receive the gift by repenting.
SPEAKER_01: You receive the gift of living water by saying, Jesus, I see in a new way.
SPEAKER_01: Where I've been trying to make life work without just yielding to you and surrendering my life to the work and to the control of your Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: Give me this living water.
SPEAKER_01: It means simply yielding to him wherever he is dealing with you as you hear my voice.
SPEAKER_01: You don't drag that up, you don't work that up.
SPEAKER_01: He says, come to him and he will give it to you.
SPEAKER_01: Is this amazing?
SPEAKER_01: The offer?
SPEAKER_01: If you only knew who was offering you this water, if you only knew where you've been looking for water, and thirdly, if you only knew the possibilities that are awaiting you.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 14, a gushing spring.
SPEAKER_01: We're going to see in a few weeks, John chapter 7.
SPEAKER_01: To anyone who is thirsty, let them come to me and drink of living water.
SPEAKER_01: If anyone is thirsty, come to me and drink.
SPEAKER_01: Living water that gets covered up by a lot of dirt produces muddy water.
SPEAKER_01: Some of you know that I've been going my entire life to Lake George, New York, upstate Adirondacks.
SPEAKER_01: This spring-fed, beautiful lake.
SPEAKER_01: Spring-fed, beautiful lake.
SPEAKER_01: Even today, I can there's places in that lake I can go and I can look down 40 feet and I can see the rocks.
SPEAKER_01: It's clear.
SPEAKER_01: It's refreshing.
SPEAKER_01: Not muddy.
SPEAKER_01: Not stagnant.
SPEAKER_01: Oh, there's so much more we're gonna see in the next few weeks.
SPEAKER_01: You're gonna be here, right?
SPEAKER_01: You're gonna be here.
SPEAKER_01: We're gonna study this together.
SPEAKER_01: Let me just give you one application.
SPEAKER_01: Wet your appetite.
SPEAKER_01: Evangelism.
SPEAKER_01: How many times do we guilt ourselves into evangelism?
SPEAKER_01: How many times do we say, you know what, I really need to do more in sharing the good news that I've received from Jesus?
SPEAKER_01: This is a big problem for Christians.
SPEAKER_01: You know, we just finally feel guilty enough that we feel like we need to do something.
SPEAKER_01: That's not the way it's supposed to work.
SPEAKER_01: When there's a problem in the church, when there's a ministry need, the better way is to be filled with the Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: Always.
SPEAKER_01: If you gossip too much, don't tape your mouth shut.
SPEAKER_01: Don't take a vow that you're never going to gossip again.
SPEAKER_01: What you need is more of the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: If you worry too much, or evangelism, we're going to see that what the Holy Spirit is inviting us to is similar to what he did with the Samaritan woman.
SPEAKER_01: What you just need is more of this living water.
SPEAKER_01: And then you will gush the work of the Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: And you will find yourself in new ways telling people about this living water.
SPEAKER_01: And you will find yourself in new ways telling people about the gift that you received.
SPEAKER_01: Because it's the Spirit who's working in you in a new way.
SPEAKER_01: Isn't that good?
SPEAKER_01: How do we miss this stuff?
SPEAKER_01: As much as we do.
SPEAKER_01: Because far too often, when the Holy Spirit comes close and starts to put his finger on the things that he wants to address in our lives, we put up our arms and say, whoa, stop right there.
SPEAKER_01: I can handle this.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, right.
SPEAKER_00: No, you can't.
SPEAKER_00: No, I can't.
SPEAKER_01: The way you get more of this living water is you yield to the work of the Spirit and you put your arms down.
SPEAKER_01: And you say, Come, come.
SPEAKER_01: Deal with me about my gossiping tongue.
SPEAKER_01: Deal with me about my anxious heart.
SPEAKER_01: Deal with me about my lack of concern for the loss.
SPEAKER_01: Whatever it is.
SPEAKER_01: The only way that you get more controlled by the Holy Spirit is you've got to give up control.
SPEAKER_01: And that's our problem, isn't it?
SPEAKER_01: Our pride, our unbelief.
SPEAKER_01: And that's why we're here this morning to invite the Holy Spirit to come and to give us living water and to point us to Christ and to see that Christ is all we need.
SPEAKER_01: The Holy Spirit's work is to shine the light on the person of Jesus Christ and the work of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01: And to see that in Christ we are enough.
SPEAKER_01: To see in Christ we are whole and we are forgiven and we are loved and we are delighted in.
SPEAKER_01: And we drink.
SPEAKER_01: We come this morning to drink.
SPEAKER_01: Join me as we ask Him.
SPEAKER_01: Oh Lord God Almighty.
SPEAKER_01: Great is our God.
SPEAKER_01: You are robed in majesty, and yet your Son came down to give us life.
SPEAKER_01: And when your Son ascended to heaven, he sent his Spirit so that we could come.
SPEAKER_01: And Father, perhaps for some of us, this is the first day that we could say that we're coming to you for forgiveness.
SPEAKER_01: Father, let that man or that woman come to you right now for forgiveness, for salvation, for eternal life.
SPEAKER_01: Father, for many of us, let us come back again because we're thirsty.
SPEAKER_01: And because our joy is gone.
SPEAKER_01: We don't realize that we're powerless because the joy of the Lord is our strength.
SPEAKER_01: If we don't have the joy of the Lord, we're weak.
SPEAKER_01: We're powerless.
SPEAKER_01: Oh God, whatever it is that we're lacking, wherever we've been drinking other than you, forgive us.
SPEAKER_01: We ask you to forgive us and to fill us.
SPEAKER_01: Fill us, Lord Jesus, with your spirit that we might see, that we might worship, that we might trust you.
SPEAKER_01: This day.
SPEAKER_01: In Christ's name, amen.