John 4 | Don't Settle

Zach Cunningham preaches on John Chapter 4. 

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Welcome to King's Church. You guys doing well? Welcome. Guys, uh, if we haven't met, my name is Zach, and uh I'll be honest, I am so excited that you're here. Uh, but I wish I wasn't here this morning. Um, and I'll explain, I mean that truly. My wife, my wife is pregnant with our third baby, and the due date was two days ago, okay? And I did not think I would be standing here this morning. She's still cooking, that child, okay. So, guys, this this could be an exciting day for all of us if things if things progress in the next 30 minutes. Oh goodness. That is all I'll say about that. Okay, welcome back, college students. Guys, can we again welcome the college students back? I am yet glooming green, baby. Hey, women's soccer team won nine to zero this weekend. Oh, oh, shit of the beginning. SMU. Um, uh, where are the pioneers at? Any any pioneers here? Okay, happy moving week, have a great time. School starts next week. But before we jump in, there is one more group of people. I'd like to just say a special welcome to you guys. Can we welcome the class of 2030 in the room this morning? Okay. Freshmen. Yes, freshmen. We're so happy that you're here. We have been praying for you guys often. Uh, we're praying that in college, especially, you have some life-changing experiences, you make some life-changing friends, you learn some life-changing truths along the way. Because if you ask anybody who's gone through college, they'll tell you college is full of life-changing moments. You never know the people that you meet, the conversations you have, the decisions you make, what you do on the weekend. You never know when a life-changing moment is right in front of you. And I actually learned this the hard way and really quickly my freshman year at UNT. Okay, I'll share it just a couple years ago. Uh, it was the day before my first day of class, which my understanding is a class starts tomorrow, right? And so it's like today, my freshman year, and uh that day on that Sunday afternoon, I'm walking in front of Maple with this new guy I had just met. He's my new best friend, his name's Ryan, and we're walking on Maple Street in front of Maple, and there's this blood donation van like in front, like the American Red Cross or something. And Ryan, this guy I just met, stares into my soul, my eyeballs, and he says, I say, Zach, you want to go get in that van with strangers and put needles in our arms? And I'm thinking, you know, like that, that is a life-changing question. It doesn't matter the context of what that would be. And so generally, I'm like, no, no, I'm I'm afraid of needles, never done this before, but I'm in college, okay? I'm trying to reinvent myself, so of course, I'm like, let's do it. So we get in the van. Super easy process, you know, like, you know, we're donating blood. We're like racing to beat each other. And and so I feel like a hero, okay? My first time ever donating blood. That is until I get out of the chair, okay? Because I'm a lightweight, obviously. Like, I get out, guys. I had never felt so dizzy in my life. I'm exhausted, and I'm like thirsty. Like, this is the thirstiest I've ever been in my life. And so I'm freaking out. They hand me a little Gatorade and Cheez-Its and basically pushed me out of the van. And I'm like, oh my gosh, I make it back to my dorm and I'm like wiped. I'm like, bro, what do they do to me? It's like roofies. Like, what happened in this van? Well, anyways, guys, no joke. I crashed that night, wake up the next morning. I slept over 12 hours, and I woke up 30 minutes before my first day of class, but I'm covered in sweat. And so I have a decision to make. Do I go sweaty? No, I'm gonna go shower. So, no joke. I run, I sprint, I shower, but I left my keys, my phone, and all my clothes in my room, and I'm locked out. And so I'm like, oh my gosh, see, my mom dropped me off one week ago. I'm already making life-altering mistakes. Like, what's going on here? And so, anyways, to make a long story short, I don't make the decision to go downstairs in a towel because it'd be embarrassing, but I go upstairs, one floor, my twin brother's living upstairs. I convince him to be me, go to the front desk, get my key, and I sprint to the GAB where I'm 20 minutes late to class, and the only chair is the front row. I've never felt so embarrassed in my life. And I share all that to say this freshman, I hope your first day of class is better than mine. But two, but two, like I said, you never know when a life-changing moment is right in front of you. And that's what I want to talk about this morning. Because this morning, like Owen has said, this is a special service for us. It's welcome back Sunday. We got a lot of people back in the room, but we also have a lot of new people in the room. And so here's what I want to do this morning. I want to pause our study through the book of Acts, and I want to try to answer just one question over the next 28 minutes or so, and it's this What is King's Church all about? Like, why we got all these people in this wedding venue singing songs? Like, who are all these people? What are we doing? And what do we believe here at this church? And I think the best way to answer that question is actually to show you a woman in the Bible who also has a life-changing moment with someone that I believe is at the heart of what this church is about. A life-changing moment in the Bible that's changed my life and has changed the lives of a lot of people in this room. And my prayer is that it changed some lives this morning. Sound good? So if you have a Bible, let's go to John chapter 4. Okay, if you have a Bible or a phone, we're in the book of John. And if you're new to the Bible, as we all once were, John is a book in the New Testament. It's about 75% of the way through the Bible. It goes Matthew, Mark, Luke, and then John. And we're gonna read through this conversation that Jesus has with this woman, and we're gonna read it, and I'll provide like some color along the way. And then at the end of the story, we'll step out and I'll try to make sense of why it's relevant to you 2,000 years later. Okay, sound good? Okay, John chapter 4. We're gonna jump in. A little bit of background before we do. Jesus is walking with his disciples. This is the very beginning of his ministry. He's teaching people, he's healing people, and and in John chapter 4, we're gonna get a conversation, which is the longest recorded conversation that Jesus has with anybody in all the Bible. And so I think that's relevant. Okay, let's pick up in verse 3. John 4, verse 3. If you got it, say got it. Okay, this is what it says. He, being Jesus, left Judea and went again to Galilee. He had to travel through Samaria. So he came to a town of Samaria called Sikar near the property that Jacob from the Old Testament had given his son Joseph. Jacob's well was there. And Jesus, worn out from his journey, sat down at the well. It was about noon. Verse 7. A woman of Samaria came to draw water. Give me a drink, Jesus said to her, because his disciple his disciples had gone into town to buy food. How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a Samaritan woman? She asked him. For Jews do not associate with Samaritans. Okay, let's stop right there. Let me try to paint the picture here. Because we got a lot of seemingly random things happening here. Okay, Jesus is at some random place and he meets some random woman and they have some random conversation. But what's really going on here in this story? Because there's something going on underneath. And so, first, Jesus is tired and thirsty, right? He's fully God, but he's also fully man. He's been walking around, he's tired, like some of you on campus all week, and he ain't got no bike to ride on, and so he's tired, and he finds this well. And it says he sits on the well, slouched over. But verse 4 says something interesting. Go back to verse 4. It says, He had to travel through Samaria. Now that may not mean much to you this morning. Samaria, cool, some Bible place. Who cares? But listen, here's what you understand. It says it here. Jews and Samaritans do not deal with one another. In fact, they hated each other. But you got to think like deeper hatred than we can imagine, like deeper than the cowboys and the eagles, Drake and Kendrick, or the Pogues and the Kooks, like way deeper than you could have imagined. This is not just some rivalry. No, guys, there are centuries of ethnic and religious hatred here. The Jews saw the Samaritans as compromised half-breeds. You go back, these are the Jews who went to exile and they married the pagan women and they mixed the worship of pagans with the worship of Yahweh. So the Jews are like, no, no, we don't mess with these people. They separated from the Samaritans, so much so that if they tried to travel to a place and Samaritan was in the way, they would rather take the loop. Like Denton avoiding 380, like we're taking the loop, they would avoid it, they take the loop. But you have to look at the story here. Jesus doesn't take the loop. You see, verse 4, it says he had to go through Samaria. John's doing something there. Because geographically, no, bro didn't, he didn't have to. But if you know Jesus, no, no, no, he had to. Like he chose to go to the place people avoided. And you start realizing this isn't a random place. Like Jesus is not walking to a well randomly. He's on a mission to the well. This is a divine appointment. And so the place isn't random, but neither is the person. Jump back in. Jesus, he's at the well, he's sitting there, and look who rolls up. Verse 7. It says a woman of Samaria came to draw water. Now, at this point in the story, we don't know much about this woman. We know she's a Samaritan, and we know she's coming to draw water. You see, in that culture and in that time, they didn't have running water. Aren't you thankful this morning? So the woman had to carry massive water pots to this place, draw water for cleaning and for drinking and bathing all the things. And so at first glance, you read the story, it's just this random unnamed woman coming to draw water. But there's more here. See, John gives us two clues that show us a little bit more about who this woman is. The first is what time of day it is, and the second is who she's with. Because you read back in verse 6, it says it was noon. Or maybe your Bible says the sixth hour. So you think about that, enter the story. That means it's high noon in the Middle East, with that sun beating down on her. Now, why is that significant? Because women didn't typically come to draw water at the hottest point in the day. They'd come, oh this is physical labor. Man, you gotta carry this water pot half a mile out of town, you gotta get water in it, you gotta carry it back up and carry it back. No, no, no. Women didn't do this at noon. They did this at sunrise or sunset. So the question is this why is she coming at noon? And the second question is this why is she alone? You see, women also didn't go alone to the well. Now, this was a place of fellowship, okay, it's like the modern day coffee shop. Okay, they would go together, they would talk, and they would bond, and yet this woman's coming alone, and she's coming at noon, which makes us wonder if she didn't want to be seen or she wasn't wanted to be seen. See, John, he doesn't give us the whole story, but there's something about this scene that feels lonely. You got a woman from Samaria coming alone at noon. You know, as the conversation unfolds, it becomes obvious to us that she's not just carrying a water pot to the well, she's also carrying some sort of baggage. Like there's shame here. Can you feel it? Like there's some brokenness here. And we learn later in the story that this is a woman with a past. She's got relational dysfunction, she's got pain, and sexual brokenness. So she's alone, she's unwanted, and she's thirsty. And she's out here just trying to survive. And before we keep going on the story, I just wonder sitting in a room like this this morning, if anybody can relate to that. Are you coming to church this morning? Haven't been to a church building in a while or a wedding venue in a while. Like surrounded by people in the seats, but feeling alone. Like I'd imagine a room this size, there are some people who can relate to this woman. And if that's you, you ought to keep paying attention. Because the question is this how does Jesus treat someone like that? Well, keep going. Jesus, he's sitting on the well, and this woman approaches. The scene is set. Look at verse 7. Jesus, he's gonna initiate a fun conversation. He says this give me a drink, Jesus said to her. His disciples had gone into town to buy food. And she says this How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a Samaritan woman? And so Jesus, he like butts into this woman's life randomly and asks for a drink. Uh and it throws this woman for a loop. Why? Because Jesus here has just crossed, I don't know, like a dozen cultural barriers, like a man talking to a woman, a Jew talking to a Samaritan, a respected Jewish teacher talking to somebody with a complicated past. But Jesus doesn't give a rip about any of that. So he says, Hey, let's share a drink together. And she's like, Do you not know who you're talking to? But look at what Jesus says next. Verse 10. Jesus answered, if you knew the gift of God and who is saying to you, Give me a drink, you'd ask him. And he'd give you living water. And so Jesus turns and he makes this pretty wild claim, like, hey, if you knew who I was, wouldn't be me asking you for water. You'd be asking me. And I'd give you water, literally, that says water that's alive. And so the woman's naturally confused here. She's like, What are you talking about? I don't see no bucket. Like, where are you gonna draw water from? And then if you read the next verse, she's gonna engage in some sort of like religious smack talk, like, you think you're better than Jacob who gave us this well. Or in other words, who do you think you are? She's obviously at this point not picking up what Jesus put down. But Jesus, he doesn't back off. Skip down to verse 13. Look what he does. He just doubles down. Verse 13. Jesus says, Everyone who drinks from this water is gonna get thirsty again. But whoever drinks from the water that I will give him will never get thirsty again. In fact, the water I will give him will become a well of water springing up in him for eternal life. So Jesus says, Hey, this water here, you're gonna drink it, you're gonna get thirsty again, you're gonna come back for it. But if you drink the water I give you, you'll never be thirsty again. Which again, guys, if you don't understand what Jesus is doing here, that's a pretty wild and weird statement. Like, imagine walking into Kroger later to buy some bread, and some dude, like, no shoes on, beard, comes up to you and says, Hey, you're gonna go buy some food, you're gonna get hungry, but I got some food in the car, you could eat, and never hunger again. Like that would be run, run, you know, like, but that's what's happening here. It seems wild, but guys, Jesus, he's doing something deeper here. And it's in verse 13, again, where he makes the point clear. He says, I ain't talking about this water. He says, I'm not talking about water for the body. I'm not I'm not talking about the thirst of the body. No, I'm talking about water for the soul here. He's talking about soul-level thirst. Like he's using a physical picture to describe a spiritual reality. And the woman, she still doesn't get it. She's like, uh, like, okay, no more thirst. Like, I don't gotta come back here every day at noon and hide. Like, sure, give me the water. She still thinks he's talking about physical water. And so Jesus is gonna do something out of left field. He's gonna say something so strange. Look at what it says in verse 16. Jesus says to her, Go call your husband and come back here. Now, what does that have to do with water? You know, it's interesting, keep reading. She says this, I don't have a husband. She answered, You've correctly said, I don't have a husband, Jesus said. For you've had five husbands. And the man you now have, he's not your husband. What you said is true. Okay, what just happened there? Like, did Jesus absolutely roast this woman? Like Netflix special? Like, what are you talking about? He says to her, like, yeah, you ain't got a husband. You got five dudes behind you and one dude in your bed, and he's not your husband. Like, that feels strange here, does it not? I thought we were talking about water here. Like it seems random. But it's actually right here in the story that we begin to see the true condition of this woman's heart. You see, Jesus, he's not being a jerk when he changes the conversation here. In fact, he doesn't change the conversation at all. Jesus knew something about this woman. She wasn't just thirsty for water. No, she's thirsty for something else. And we don't know the whole story behind these five dudes, right? Maybe they left her. Maybe she left them, maybe they all died. That'd be unfortunate. Like, we don't know what's happening here. But there's probably some sinful choices here. There's probably a lot of pain wrapped up in this conversation, a lot of brokenness here. And we don't know where she is now, but we know she has another man who's not her husband. And what does Jesus do? He puts his finger right there. Why? Because he's talking about thirst. And he's saying to her, Hey, you've been you've been drinking water from this well and you're thirsty, and it's not gonna satisfy you. And what he does is he points to another well that's not gonna satisfy her, these men. And we don't know why she's going to these men perpetually. Maybe it's for security, uh, financial provision, intimacy, love. Like we don't know. But whatever the whole story is, the thirst of her heart has led her again into another unfortunate spot. And guys, here's something we learn about Jesus from the story, and I'll keep going. Notice Jesus is not repulsed by or intimidated by her sin. No, he knew it before coming forward. It's actually the thing that drew him close to her. And so Jesus, he's not humiliating her here, but in love, he's pointing to the other well, and he's confronting her sin and her brokenness. Why? Because it's actually through confronting sin that he can offer true life and true freedom. And so take a step out of the story here, because this is the life-changing moment that Jesus has with this woman. And I want to highlight something for you this morning. Because there's a reason this story makes the Bible. Like the reason why this story is so important and so popular is because, in a very real way, her story that we just read is also our story. Like what we just watched happen in the heart of that woman is the same thing that happens in every human heart, both yours and mine. What do I mean by that? I want to show you just three simple truths about this woman and her heart that I believe are also true about you and about me. And I don't even have to know you. Welcome. I'm so happy that you're here. But this is true of the human heart. The first thing we learn is this just like the woman, we're all born thirsty. That all of us in this room are thirsty. You may not be a Samaritan woman with a complicated past, but all of us in here are born searching for something. See, here at King's Church, we believe that all of us were born and created with a hunger, a desire or a thirst, a thirst for something more, a desire for life and meaning and happiness, or even better, a desire for joy. That we are created with this deep desire and thirst for some water that's gonna bring us life. And guys, listen, that thirst for happiness and joy, it's not a design flaw, it's a design feature. The Bible says that God has placed eternity in our hearts. We have a capacity for joy that drives us. And that's what this well begins to show us. You see, this woman comes to the well thirsty. She's got to get water, drink it, and get thirsty again and come back again. And spiritually speaking, that's true of us as well. You see, if you read the Bible, you understand the question is this it's not, are you drinking from a well? It's what well are you drinking from? Because that's what the Bible's gonna put before us, that all of us are trying to find life in things. You gotta ask the question, what's the well you're drinking from? Well, if you look at the culture or your own heart, you know there's a few different things that we can try to draw life from. Maybe for you it's relationships. Like you're like, if I can just get married by age 30, I will be happy for life. Some of you like, Zach, if I could just go on a date by the time I'm 30, I'd be happy for life, okay? For some of us, maybe it's sexual pleasure. You think one more person, one more experience, one more click, and that will make me happy. Maybe it's friendship, like if I just maneuver myself in the right social circle, and then I'll be enough. Maybe it's success, guys. Maybe that's what drives you. You're like, if I can just graduate, get the dream job, and show all those people from high school who the loser is now, Bob. Like, you're like, man, I can do this. It drives you. Maybe it's athleticism, maybe it's good looks, maybe it's good grades, probably it's the approval of your parents, or maybe for some of you, it's this. It's morality, it's religion. And you think if I can just be good enough, do the right things, show up to church my first Sunday in town, if I can just be good enough, then I'll be enough. And you start looking at the human heart, and you realize, yeah, we go to different wells, but we got the same thirst. Which leads us to the next obvious truth that we learn here. Number one, just like the woman, we're all thirsty. And number two, just like the woman, that we've all settled. That all of us settle. Like made for more, but settled for less. That's what it means to settle to lower your standards, like my wife did when she married me. Like there's this idea. Like, in the same way, ladies, we're praying your standards say hi. Not the boys, the boys are not. But but the point is this just like my wife settled, we also settle for the world. Like when you go to these wells, like it's this idea. Like, we've settled for Vacation at Lake Louisville instead of the Pacific Ocean. That'd be lame. Like we've settled for ramen noodles instead of steak. Or we've settled for playing in the mud because we can't imagine what it's like to be on a beach vacation. Made for more, settled for less. That's a good phrase to describe the world we're living in. And here's the thing you gotta understand about all these things we're going to. They're not bad things, right? Sex, pleasure, friendship, marriage, all these things. Those are not bad things. But the problem of the human heart is when we take good things and we elevate them into God things. When you take something that's good and you elevate it to a place it cannot stand, and you give all of your life for these things. And the culture in that college and this college is going to tell you students that to do that, to give all of your life towards any of those things is living it up. But it's not living it up, it's settling for less. This is the human heart. All of us have done this. And here's what's worse. You guys know this is true if you spent your life chasing these wells. The more you settle, the deeper you have to go. Like you know this, the picture of the well is perfect. Why? Because the thing about a well is what? In order to get more water, you gotta go deeper. You gotta go a little bit deeper and deeper. Oh, maybe it's one more drink, maybe it's one more purchase, friendship, promotion, raise, body count. Like whatever it is. You think, oh, this is gonna do it for me. But what you understand is if you've lived life long enough, you know those wells, they don't carry water. They're broken. You know, there's a verse in Jeremiah that captures this idea perfectly about the human heart. Here's Jeremiah 2. Look at it on the screen. God's talking about his people. He says, My people have committed a double evil. Number one, they have abandoned me, the fountain of living water. And number two, they have dug cisterns or wells for themselves. Cracked cisterns that cannot hold water. Isn't that a perfect picture of our life? Like all of us digging wells, like Shia LaBeouf. And it always leaves us feeling two things. If you've done this, you know you leave feeling two things: empty and ashamed. You feel empty inside because the thing didn't satisfy you, and you feel ashamed because you thought it would. Empty and ashamed. All of us in here are born in life with a shovel, a bucket, and a thirsty heart. And every well on this planet is either dirty or dry. And if that's true, what do we do now? Like, what do we do with emptiness and shame? Well, it's in that moment that Jesus meets us at our well, right? Just like he does with the woman. And he makes the same offer to us as he makes his woman in verse 13. Look at it again. He says, Everyone who drinks from the water of the world is gonna get thirsty again. But whoever drinks from the water I give him, never get thirsty again. Or in other words, the third simple truth we learn here is just like the woman, we can find true life in Jesus. That true happiness, this is the message we preach, that true happiness, true joy, and capital L life is found only in Jesus. He is the one you're looking for. That's what Jesus is saying here. Come to me, I'm the one you're looking for. And this is what King's Church is all about. We're a bunch of people who were thirsty, who settled for the world only to realize that Jesus is the only one to satisfy us. And we're done settling for what the world has to offer because we know what Jesus has is infinitely better. And you see this woman, she comes to the well, and guys, she's just trying to survive. But Jesus came to the well because he wanted her to live. And I just imagine some of us in this room, you've been you've been trying to survive for 20 years, 30 years. Like, survive to the next experience, get me to the next weekend, I'll survive to the next vacation or the next game day. Just one high to the next, just surviving. Guys, but I want what I want you to hear this morning is you were made for so much more. You were made not just to exist and not just to survive, you were made to live. And that's what Jesus offers us. He is what you're looking for. You see, this woman came to the well looking for water. But Jesus came to the well looking for her. He pursued her. You know her response, we're not gonna read it, it's too long. But back, if you skip ahead to verse 28, this woman, what happens next is she's so captivated by Jesus that literally it says she drops her water jar and she runs into town. Like she leaves the water jar behind. And if you just think about it metaphorically, like that water jar symbolized her life up to that point. Wrapped up in that little jar was all the shame, all the pain, all the brokenness, all the mistakes, but she's so captivated by the beauty of Jesus, it says she leaves it behind. She experiences true life and she drops the water jar. And some of you in here, whether you're 18 years old or your kids are 18, some of you need to do the same thing. You need to leave the water jar behind, and you need to come to Jesus. He is the only one that will satisfy you. Now, question before we close here. You might be sitting here thinking, okay, Zach, great. But what's the big deal about Jesus? Like you say, he's better than the world, he can satisfy your heart, but what makes Jesus so special? What did he do? Why should I bet my life on Jesus? And it's a good question. And the answer to that question is the fact that this story doesn't end at the well in John 4. See, later, Jesus is going to tell this woman, hey, I'm the one you're looking for. I'm the Messiah. But you start reading this story and you realize that Jesus knows everything about this woman, her sin, her shame, her brokenness, and still he comes for her. And guys, if you read the Bible, you're gonna know that the story of the Bible is that Jesus also comes for us in that spot. You see, the story of the Bible is that all of us in this room have done what Jeremiah 2 said. All of us have walked away from God and dug our own wells, looking for life and created things instead of the Creator. That's what the Bible calls sin. And guys, sin, it doesn't just leave you thirsty, it leaves you separated from God. And it leaves us with a debt that we cannot pay. You don't have a Venmo balance or a card enough to pay God back for the debt that you and I have. You can't stack up enough service hours, you can't come to church enough to pay back this debt. But the scandalous story of the Bible is that God did not abandon us, no, he came for us. Guys, the God who walked, like the God that we walked away from comes running after us, and that is good news. Like God steps into the story, the creator takes on flesh. And you start thinking about this moment, this scene with Jesus next to the well. Didn't He make the oceans? Didn't He make the rivers and the streams and every ounce of water on the earth, and yet He sits next to a well and says, I'm thirsty? You think about that. You see, the fountain of living water becomes thirsty. Why? You know that's not the only time Jesus says he's thirsty, is it? You read the you read the books, the gospels, and Jesus is not sitting on a well, he's hanging on a cross. And what's one of the last things he says? I thirst. I'm thirsty. And it's not because he just donated blood, it's because he's about to spill his blood for us. That's the good news of the Bible. And you start to realize that Jesus didn't come just to give you living water, he came to be living water. This is the good news of the Bible. He comes and he lives a life that you and I could never live. Jesus, when he walked on this earth, he never dug wells in the world. He always found life in the Father. And yet he hung on a Roman cross and he thirsted for us. And the Bible says it's this amazing picture that on the cross he drank the cup of God's wrath. Why? So that we could drink the cup of living water. This is the good news of the Bible. He's come for us. And then you read, three days later, he gets up from the grave so he can offer all of us true freedom, true life. And now the offer to all of us is the same. Come to Jesus. And guys, he's not going to offer some like vague spirituality. He's not going to offer like another well that you can dig from, like a better version of yourself. No, he offers us himself. He says, Come to me and find life. Come to me and I'll get your shame taken away. Come to me, be reconciled to God, and have your sins forgiven. This is the good news of the Bible. And you start realizing this woman at the well, she did nothing to earn this offer. And that's the gospel message. You're not earning this. It doesn't matter how good or bad you think you are. One of my favorite truths is this you're never beyond the need of God's grace, and you're never beyond the reach of God's grace. And that's good news for us. That's the gospel. The gospel is this the world can't satisfy your heart, and good works can't save your soul, but Jesus can do both. He does both for us. And so I'll end this morning with just two quick encouragements. If you've already been following Jesus, whether you're part of our church or if you're new coming to college, can I just encourage you? This should be refreshing to us, right? That Jesus can satisfy us. And even though maybe in the past week your heart flinches at the beauty of the world, be reminded that only Christ can satisfy your heart. But if you're new this morning, like if you're like here randomly, some random dude passed you some random flyer, and now you're sitting by a bunch of random people. Can I tell you that based on the scriptures, ain't nothing random? Like I don't think you're here by accident. And the offer to you is the same offer to the woman at the well. The world will not satisfy you. I don't care what college says, what the culture says, what social media says, only Christ can satisfy your heart. Come to Him, find satisfaction in Him. And so let me pray for us and then we'll sing. God, I'm so grateful for John chapter 4. God, I'm thankful that you don't come and just talk to religious people who have all their stuff together. But in this story, you show your heart for people who don't. Because in reality, all of us can find ourselves in the woman at the well. Lord, I'm thankful for the conversation you had with her and the truth that is exposed. That you're not intimidated by our sin, you're not repulsed by it, but it draws you close. Lord, I'm thankful for the cross that you didn't just come to talk to the woman at the well, you came to die for her, to die for us. So, Lord, I do pray as August is here, as students who are back, and as freshmen have found their way into this room and onto this campus. Lord, would college be the best time of their life? But maybe not for the reasons they thought, but because they met Jesus Christ as their Lord, Savior, and King. Help them bow the knee. God, we're thankful that you reign. It's in Jesus' name I pray. Amen. You guys can stand. Let's respond by singing.