Drink Up! (Jamie Haith)

We all need water to live but we also all thirst spiritually.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:02

Welcome to SGTM Talks. We hope you find this encouraging and inspiring the April, which is going to be a big celebration.

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But we're also pleased to tell you that Dominic and Jamie will be leading a two-hour stations of the cross meditation on Good Friday, 11am till 1 pm. Um sorry, Bibi, there's no slide for that yet. So yeah, do come to that. So that's Good Friday and then Easter Sunday. Um a few thank yous. First of all, I want to thank Kathleen, who has been doing she's given me a look, but she's been doing so much cleaning. So we've got the baby corner, it's so clean that if you wanted to lick the floor, you wouldn't catch anything. I mean, don't do it because it's much range, but it's so clean, and also Sandy would also hate me, but I also want to thank Sandy because it comes every time to YouTube and sacrifice ours on Saturday to help me. So I really appreciate it. Um, if you would like to give to the chat, you can do so by several ways. Um, you can go hold some old patch, you can use our swanking machine then do ask for help, or you can scan this handy QR code, and all the money uh goes back into doing all the work um that we do here. Um now the children are also going to be learning about the same scripture that Jamie's gonna be preaching on. Um, so hopefully you can all have a discussion afterwards. And Nathan and Amelia, can you line up by the Sunday school sign and then everybody go behind them?

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Fantastic, thank you. Lord, we do pray for the children as they go to their groups today. We pray that they would to their group today, we pray that they'll have a fantastic time learning from you, and we ask the same for us here now. Open the scriptures to us. Jesus, would you speak to us? Teach us, lead us. Amen. Our lectionary reading today is John chapter 4, reading from verse 5. John 4, reading from 5 to 42. So he came to a town in Samaria called Syka, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob's well was there. Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about noon. 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. The Samaritan woman said to him, You're a Jew. I'm 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. 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 livestock? Jesus answered, Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again. But whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water, welling up to eternal life. 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. I have no husband, she replied. Jesus said to her, You're 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've just said is quite true. Sir, the woman said, I can see you are a prophet. Our ancestors worshipped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem. Woman, Jesus replied, Believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father, neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You Samaritans worship what you do not know. We worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshippers must worship in the spirit and in truth. The woman said, I know that Messiah called Christ is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us. Then Jesus declared, I, the one speaking to you, I am he. Just then his disciples returned and were surprised, surprised to find him talking with a woman. But no one asked, What do you want? Why are you talking with her? Then, leaving her jar, water jar, the woman went back to the town and said to the people, Come see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Messiah? They came out of the town and made their way toward him. Meanwhile, his disciples urged him, Rabbi, eat something. But he said to them, I have food to eat that you know nothing about. Then his disciples said to each other, Could someone have brought him food? My food, said Jesus, is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work. Don't you have a saying it's still four months until harvest? I tell you, open your eyes, look at the fields, they are ripe for harvest. Even now the one who reaps draws a wage and harvests a crop for eternal life, so that the sower and the reaper may be glad together. Thus the saying, One sows and another reaps, is true. I sent you to reap what you have not worked for. Others have done the hard work, and you have reaped the benefits of their labor. Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman's testimony. He told me everything I ever did. So when the Samaritans came to him, they urged him to stay with them, and he stayed two days. And because of his words, many more became believers. They said to the woman, We no longer believe just because of what you said. Now we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this man really is the Savior of the world. Jesus answered, Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again. Verse 13. Jesus answered, Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again. But whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. I want to speak today under the title of Drink Up the Water of Life. I've got my water bottle over here. Just uh as a prop. I thought, you know, what can I use as a prop? I know, a water bottle. Water's an amazing thing, isn't it? Everyone has thirst. Everyone on the planet needs water to live. We need it physically. We're physical beings and we need water. I'm determined to make you really thirsty by the end of this. So is it working so far? It's fundamental to our survival that we drink physically. We go on drinking. It's a daily thing. Mmm. It's crucial to life. Did you know a newborn baby is 78% water? I guess that's why they're so smooshy. Meanwhile, the average adult is about 60% water. I think I'm about 70%. That's why I'm so smushy. And water is involved in everything our body does. It's a big part of the blood that brings nutrients to all of our cells. We use it to get rid of wastes, it helps us regulate our body temperature. It's even a shock absorber for our brain and spinal cord. We're totally dependent on water. I know you're all feeling very thirsty now. You can have some water if you want. Physical thirst is one thing, but I believe the same is true spiritually. Everyone on the planet thirsts spiritually. We're spiritual beings. We're physical beings, we need water. We're spiritual beings, and fundamental to our spiritual survival is that we drink spiritually. As Jesus points out here, there is such a thing as spiritual thirst. Spiritual thirst that can only be quenched by living water, as he put it. If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, verse 10, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water. Physical thirst satisfied by physical water, spiritual thirst satisfied by spiritual water. Another fact about water that I find fascinating is that we can misread our physical need for water as something else. We think we're hungry for this, that, or the other, but in reality we're simply thirsty for water. We thirst, but we look for other things to satiate us. I wonder if there's a really helpful spiritual parallel for us there. Could it be that many of the more troubling traits of human existence are made all the more problematic because we end up misreading what's really going on? We need this, but we reach for that. We feel this, but we turn to that. What if the Bible as a whole has the ability to recalibrate us back to thinking correctly, understanding the world and our own lives according to the original design? You feel this because you need this. So I wonder, could there be some clues for us in this extraordinary encounter of this one woman with Jesus? What is spiritual thirst? What does it look like? What does it feel like? So, in the time we have, let's take a look at life through the lens of this one woman. And firstly, ask the question of the text could unquenched spiritual thirst feel like loneliness? Jacob's well was there, verse 6, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about noon, when a Samaritan woman came to draw water. There's a few clues for us here. It's midday. Jesus is tired, hot, thirsty, hungry. He's taking time out from the crowds. And let's be honest, he's taking time out from the disciples. They've gone off to get food in the local town. I'm sure they said, Do you want to come with us? He's like, No, I'm good, you go. I'm sure they said, Well, one of one or two of us will stay with you. And go, no, I'm good, you go. Jesus is all by himself. How easily this moment then could have been missed. One life never touched, this story never told. How beautiful it is that this is in the Bible. Don't you love how Jesus, our radical teacher, our savior, he refuses to conform with the cultural norms, the accepted cultural norms and taboos, and he chooses to engage with her. Whenever anybody says, Where do I start reading in the Bible? I don't, I don't get the Bible, I don't, I can't start. I say, just open the gospels and look at Jesus. And when you see this person, whatever you make of him, when you see him doing things like this and you engage with what he's doing in this moment, it's so countercultural, it's so beautiful. He engages with this Samaritan woman. Samaritan woman, this should not be happening, let alone in a holy book, our holy book. Quick definition: Samaritan religion was parallel to but separate from Judaism. The claim of the Samaritans was that, not the Samaritans that we know, that you ring up, you're in trouble. It's different. That's the goods anyway. Their claim was that the worship was and is the true religion of the ancient Israelites prior to the Babylonian exile, preserved by those who remained in Israel whilst the exile was taking place. In asking her for a drink of water, Jesus catches her completely off guard because Jews did not share eating or drinking utensils with Samaritans, but Jesus doesn't care a bit. And that would have blown her mind. So intriguing, so compelling. Who is this man? He simply engages her in conversation. He chats with her and he listens to her. As an aside, could Jesus be showing us that effective evangelism starts with simply engaging, just caring for someone? I certainly believe so. Don't get me wrong, I believe in study and apologetics and being prepared to speak insightfully about our faith. But this is not where Jesus starts, with good reason, because at its heart, evangelism is not about the downloading of complex mystical information. First and foremost, it's about being in ourselves an expression of grace. All we have to do is to set an atmosphere of listening, of being interested, not being put off by differences of background or religion or belief or lifestyle. Anyway, that's just a thought. Where were we? Oh, yes. Not only did Jews not associate with Samaritans, rabbis did not associate with women. So there's a double whammy going on here. Especially single women coming to draw water in the hottest part of the day. You do not do this task in the hottest part of the day. She chooses to take on this task when everyone else is at home, resting in the shade. And as such, she's a picture of loneliness. Probably one of the loneliest people in the Bible. And into that loneliness steps Jesus, treating her simply as a fellow human being. Giving her a glimmer of hope that not just her physical thirst, but her spiritual thirst will be satisfied. Because this goes deep inside her, this loneliness. And I believe it's rooted in her shame. So let's ask a question, second question of the text. Could unquenched spiritual thirst feel like loneliness, but could it feel like shame? Jesus knows about her, presumably by prophetic insight in this moment. Verse 16, he told her, Go call your husband and come back. That's, I think, a beautiful, gentle way of instead of going full on with what he knows, he lets her then respond, I have no husband. Jesus said to her, Okay, you're right when you say you have no husband. The fact is you've had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true. He knows all about her, but he doesn't flinch in the face of the truth of how her life has gone so far. He's not judging. There's no judgment from Jesus. Instead, we see him reframing truth as not the cold, concrete edifice that passes itself off as religious certainty, but truth as the very gentle but very real presence of God that comes alongside and fills in the gaps of our lives, if we allow it to. The gift of God's love that comes to sit alongside us in the chaos, in the confusion of life. Amidst all of our failed attempts to make a beautiful sound with our lives. Jesus is the most perfect conduit of grace. He loves her and he accepts her and he reveals that rather than rejecting us for our failures, God, our Father, wants to sit next to us, not to take over, but also not to leave us to it. If we will let him, we can make beautiful music together. And that's all a setup for telling you this story that I read. Um I love this story. Joe, you'll know this story. In the mid-19th century, the British aristocrat Lord Radstock was staying in a hotel in Norway. One evening he heard the sound of a piano being played horribly in the hotel lobby. He went and looked and saw a little girl who was making the most terrible noise. He was normally a patient man, but eventually the continuous cacophony began to make him angry. As he watched, a man approached the little girl and sat down beside her. Rather than stop the little girl's efforts, the man began to play, constructing chords alongside her. With each keystroke, his playing complemented her notes, and suddenly a breathtakingly beautiful sound filled the whole hotel. The man took the girl's mistakes and discord and turned it into something utterly wonderful. Lord Radstock later found out that the man playing alongside the girl was her father, the famous 19th-century Russian composer Alexander Borodin. I love that story because it strikes me that the woman at the well is very much like that little girl. The girl is lonely. She's sitting there on the piano stool all by herself. The woman is lonely with her water jar. The girl is making a bit of a mess of it, and so is the woman. The girl is doing her best, and so is the woman. Then her Savior sits down, sits down next to both of them, and everything changes. I believe that Jesus is here today in exactly the same way, alongside each of us, in our loneliness, in our emptiness, in our shame, in our questioning, sitting down next to us and offering Himself, offering the water of life, offering what we need to fill up that spiritual thirst, offering us love and mercy and grace. And then when we have experienced that grace, our job here at St. George St. Martha is to meet people where they are at and unashamedly offer the gift of God to them. The gift of the water of life, living water. To collectively here be a spring, a spring of living water in this community. What a gift that is to be that in this area of London. All we do is we simply share what we've experienced. We come together. That's why it's so important for us to gather together as much as we can, as much as we do, to remind each other of the goodness of this, the goodness of God, singing together about the goodness of God, reminding ourselves, no matter what week we've had, God is faithful. Let's remind each other, like this faith arc between us all. That's why we meet. You don't have to come to church, but that's why it's so wonderful when we do. And then once we feel that filled up with that water, we can't help but overflow with it to others. All we do is share what we have experienced, share with someone else where you have found life-giving water, just as this woman does. It's the most natural evangelism you'll ever see. Verse 39. He told me everything I ever did. Come see a man who told me everything I ever did. He didn't, did he? I don't believe that for a second that they had an actually far longer conversation in which Jesus catalogued everything she ever did, how many meals she'd had that week and what she'd eaten for breakfast yesterday. He didn't tell her everything that she ever did. What she's indicating is that so great is this burden of shame upon her life that for her, this is everything I ever did. It's become the core of her identity. It's become this cloud hanging over her existence. That's the impact of shame on our hearts. And at the thought of the cloud lifting, the glimmer of hope, the idea of this spiritual thirst being satisfied, she's so excited. There's this lovely detail. She leaves her water jar behind. Her previous pressing priorities are cast aside in this longing for change. The wonder of being known, the wonder of being loved, the wonder of being set free. In one conversation, Jesus speaks worth and value back into her life. And she goes away and very naturally simply overflows with the new joy, the new life that she's found. Verse 39 Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman's testimony. He told me everything I ever did. So when the Samaritans came to him, they urged him to stay with them, and he stayed two days. And because of his words, many more became believers. Very simply, this woman whose name we're never told. Why aren't we told her name? She became lauded in for all time as one of the first Christian evangelists. But of course, she knew nothing of theology, of doctrine, of apologetics. She was very simply a witness. And then the people she told were inspired to explore for themselves. And because of his words, many more became believers. She said something that sparked something in each of their hearts, and they're like, we've got to get near this guy. And when they came, that was their opportunity to then explore their own faith. She couldn't stop herself. When you experience something strange or wonderful or both, you just have to tell other people, don't you? We all know that feeling. If you've seen a great TV show or great movie, or you've been to a wonderful restaurant or whatever it is, you like you simply overflow with that truth. That's all evangelism is. It's simply overflowing with our experience of the grace of God. You have to share what Jesus has done in your life. I love to read of how people have met Jesus like this woman did. I love it, especially when it's one of your childhood heroes. I'm going to finish with this. The late great stunt motorcyclist Evil Knievel.

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Oh yes.

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This is a transcript of what he said in an interview back in 2007. If you're too young to know, Evil Knievel was, he would dress up in really sort of glamorous costumes, jumpsuits, a bit like Elvis in Las Vegas, and he would jump over buses and canyons and things on a motorbike. Crazy. He says this: I grew up in Butte, Montana. I worked in the mines there, a mile underground. I had a tough life growing up. I was raised by grandparents, and they just loved me to death. But I don't know how I got on the wrong tracks. I always started off just being a wild person and doing things that weren't right against society. I never wanted to be told what to do. Anyway, I went on through different businesses in my life and I finally ended up in Los Angeles. I started my motorcycle show. And as time went on, I earned a lot of money, and my name got to be known. But I was empty. I was just so empty. Just like that woman at the well. I was a person who always believed in God, that there was a God power, but I always had trouble believing in Jesus Christ, the Son of God. I don't know why I fought it so hard, I just did. Anyway, I started thinking about God more and more. And I called people and I talked to them. I don't know why. He called an old friend and he also called his daughter and asked about Jesus. And he began exploring the Christian faith. And both his old friend and his daughter had their whole churches praying for him, so he didn't really stand a chance. He goes on, he said, I don't know what in the world happened. I don't know if it was the power of prayer or God himself, but it just reached out. Either while I was driving or walking down the sidewalk or sleeping, maybe God just got sick and tired of me fighting it so much. He reached out and grabbed me and said, Look, I just want you. You've got to stop this nonsense. You just come with me. The power of God in Jesus just grabbed me. It just took hold of me so strong. I can't tell you how strong it was. And I became a person who was filled, just filled with Christianity. I love it. I love it when people say things like that. All of a sudden, I just believed in Jesus Christ. I did. I believed in him. I just, I don't know what happened to me. I just got on my knees and prayed that God would put his arms around me and never, ever let me go. I just all of a sudden was overcome by the Spirit of God Almighty. I know that there's more to life than what I've had. The Rolls-Royces, I've had five of them. The Ferraris, I've had five of them. The Lamborghinis, the jet planes, two of them. I flew one alongside the other so I could read my name on the side of the other plane. The diamonds and the gold and the racehorses and the women and the booze. I want to tell you something. I've been a sinner. You're looking at a real sinner, but not anymore. You're not looking at a sinner anymore because I have met Jesus. You've got to believe in Jesus Christ. Do not let us come with any patronizing thoughts in our minds and say, oh yes, Jesus was a minister of his time or biblical person, a person who believed in God, who taught us, he was a teacher, great human being. Jesus didn't offer us that. He didn't offer us that. He was the Son of God. He is the Son of God. And if you don't believe that Jesus Christ is what he says he is, you will surely die. You'll die in your sins. Believe me, you've got to believe. I'm just beginning to really get the feeling of Jesus Christ inside of my body. And it's grown and grown and grown. It's become such a wonderful thing since then. I want to scream to the world that I am a born-again Christian. I'm just so proud of it. Just so proud. Let's pray. Oh Jesus, we love you. We thank you so much, Lord, that for just how beautiful you are and how wonderfully you related to this woman. That you that you sparked faith in her heart, that you lifted shame off her life. Lord, we thank you that you didn't do it just then. It's not glued to the pages of the Bible. We see it, Lord, we hear it in testimonies all the time. And we thank you you've done it in this room, in each of our lives. I just want to pray for you. If you've heard something that you've you've never heard in quite this way before, if you've come here today and you say, I need that, I need that water of life. It really is as simple as saying, Jesus, please give me this water of life. Satisfy this spiritual thirst that I have. Please, Jesus. Amen. Thank you for listening to SGTM Talks. We hope you found this insightful and inspiring and can tune in again soon. In the meantime, try out our website, sgtm.org.