The Thirst Beneath the Thirst

Spencer opens this episode with a vivid memory from a 2010 field visit: trekking through elephant grass ten feet high, following two children to the muddy stream they relied on for water every day. That image becomes the lens for a central conviction: there is always a thirst beneath the thirst.

Drawing from John 4 and the story of the woman at the well, Spencer walks through seven core desires that God places in every human heart, and why only Christ can fully satisfy them. He also explores why Neverthirst's water access work matters beyond the water itself, and how a community gaining clean water becomes an entry point for gospel conversations that simply weren't possible before.

The episode closes with a prayer for the Cham people, an unreached people group of nearly half a million with no known believers.

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Connect with Spencer and the neverthirst team: neverthirstwater.org

Host: Spencer Sutton

To Learn More About neverthirst: neverthirstwater.org

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Production House: Flint Stone Media

Copyright of neverthirst 2025.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:03

Alright, everybody, welcome back to another episode of For the Kingdom, a Never Thirst podcast. I am your host, Mr. Sutton, and it's good to be here with you today. So I want to take you back to a scene. This is probably one of the most memorable walks that I've ever done, and it was all the way back in 2010. So as of this date, about 16 years ago, 15, 16 years ago, and I was with several folks. One of them was Brandon Gossett, which a number of you know. And this was actually Brandon's first trip. And our dear friend uh who's no longer with us, Jeffries Keyanga, he drove us as far as we could drive, and then we had to stop. And he said, Hey, we're just gonna go for a walk, you know, we're just gonna walk a little bit. We didn't realize how long we were going to walk, or else we all would have taken uh drinks, we would have taken all kinds of stuff, but instead we're lugging like um we're lugging photo equipment around. We had Jason Wallace with us, who's a photographer here in Birmingham, photographer and videographer, and so we'd asked him to come with us, and so we were just trekking. But the thing that made this most probably memorable to me was the fact that for a good part of this walk, we were we were making our way through dense elephant grass. So elephant grass is just really tall grass. Uh, you know, maybe I'm exaggerating it, but I don't think I am because we do have pictures from this walk. But I'm saying that the grass was anywhere from five, six feet high on either side of us to ten feet high. I mean, it was so tall. And I had pictures of us following this little boy and this little girl as they were going to get water. And this again, the elephant grass was so thick. However, however, there was this well-worn path, like going down this trail. Just and and that there's no mistaking this thing, and you were you just followed the trail in the middle of all this elephant grass. And of course you were wondering, or we were wondering, what's what's on the other side of this elephant grass? I mean, what kind of snakes? I mean, there's all kinds of things that could have happened. However, this is something that they had to do day after day after day after day. And so we followed them all the way down to this brown, muddy uh stream or river where they were getting their water. And it just was seared in my mind. Now, since then, since 2010, really since 2008, when we first walked with somebody to get dirty water, I have been on many of those journeys. And it always reminds me, this is what it reminds me of. Not only do people around the world, especially in these uh areas in uh parts of uh South Asia, Southeast Asia, and Sub-Saharan Africa, not only are they desperate for water to drink, but it's also a picture for me, I'm reminded there's also a bigger spiritual reality going on in people's lives. So there is a thirst, what I like to think of, there's a thirst beneath the thirst. There is a longing and a desire in every single person's life for something more. And they're God-given desires. And so, as we uh for this podcast, we're gonna open up to just the book of uh John, chapter four, we're gonna talk about the woman at the well. And we're not gonna read the entire story, but it's it's one that probably most of you know. But uh it's just this encounter that Jesus had with this woman at the well. And there's several things to note, and we're we're just gonna, but what we're gonna do is we're gonna focus on some of these core desires that God puts in every single human and how we have those met in Christ. And we're gonna look at it from the viewpoint of this woman at the well. And so we know that um it says here in verse one, now when Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus was making and baptizing more disciples than John, he left Judea and apart and departed again for Galilee, and he had to pass through Samaria. Now we know he didn't have to pass through Samaria, but he was compelled, more than likely led by the Spirit to pass through Samaria. And this is where he encountered this woman at Jacob's well. And she was coming at noon. And so uh something that I love what John Piper says here. He observes, he says, Jesus is the hound of heaven. The father is seeking, pursuing her worship. He's seeking her through Jesus. This is John's version of the prodigal son. Only here it's a prodigal daughter. Jesus went through Samaria, Samaria on purpose. He sent the disciples away on purpose. He sat on the well so he could not be avoided. He asked an unclean, impure, heretical, disreputable Samaritan woman for a drink. Not for permission to get a drink, but for a drink from her bucket. This is grace. This is intentional. This is design. Isn't that the truth? I mean, Jesus is the hound of heaven. He was seeking her. He's seeking all of us. And this is something that we try to remember as we're thinking about and planning clean water initiatives in these different parts of the world. We know, we know, we believe in our hearts that God is already drawing people to himself. I have met too many people in the field who have come to faith just through a simple preaching of the gospel, simple showing of the Jesus film, a simple relationship over a simple meal. I've met too many of them to not believe that God has started pursuing them long before that, just like he was pursuing this woman. And so, you know, when we think about this, when we think about this woman and we think about these needs that we all have, these desires God puts in us, I'm gonna walk us through these and just as a reminder that there's always thirst beneath the thirst. And so here are the seven desires. So we all have a desire. Now, this is the desire to truly be known. And so she came to the well alone. Probably nobody understood her. So, how many of us have people in our lives who actually know what's going on deep beneath the surface? And I I like to think about like drilling down deep beneath the surface to get clean water. So we all are very deep people. Cultures are complicated, people are complicated, and get to get to the truest person, we have to drill way down. And so most of us spend our lives on the surface, just surface level. But we all have a desire to be heard and understood. Second, desire is the desire to be affirmed. So this is the desire to be noticed and appreciated. And we when we don't get this, we tend to perform or pretend. We perform, we like try to do a bunch of good works and say, hey, this makes me uh, you know, somebody will affirm me if I do these things, or if I pretend to be this person. And so we can chase affirmation through work accomplishments, through money, through uh through things like at the gym, through any kind of results, but what we truly understand is that nothing is enough. To be affirmed by God is the is the greatest affirmation we could ever receive. And so the next affirmation is or the the next desire that we have is to be blessed. Now, this is different than affirmation. Affirmation is about what you do, blessing is about who you are. So to be blessed is to know that you are unconditionally loved. And so when we confuse blessing with affirmation, we we believe that we have to become someone in order to be loved. And so think about this woman at the well. She went from husband to husband looking for someone who would say, You are enough. And and this is what we all need. We we all need this. So this relationship that Jesus is building with this woman is not not just about salvation, it's about meeting her deepest desires and to know that she is blessed. Next is this desire to be safe. We long for security. And so, what do we look for? In in America, a lot of times we look for security and money and a job and health and home or something like that. But in her culture, a woman without a husband was very, very vulnerable. And so every marriage was also a bid for safety. And so maybe if you grew up in a chaotic home, you may carry more anxiety or feel the need to control your environment or relationships than maybe somebody who grew up in a more calm environment, a safe environment. So next is the next desire that we all have is desire to be touched. Right? So we desire healthy, nurturing touch. And I thought about this as I had my firstborn son, Grant. I just remember like always wanting to cuddle with him and throw baseball with him and give him a pat on the back and give him a hug. And even now when he comes home, and this is true, I've got two children. They're two both adults, and it's true for both of them. I still like want to give them a big hug and put my arm around them and tell them how much I love them. I never want them to like when I go away, I don't ever want them to think, you know what? My dad never hugged me. He never put his arm around me, he never embraced me, he never gave me a big kiss. Like I I wanted my kids to grow up with healthy, healthy touch. And so when this desire gets distorted, it's it's not good. And so now this woman at the well, she's living with a man who isn't her husband, possibly, because touch without covenant marriage was easier than risking another failed marriage. Next desire is the desire to be chosen. So this is really truly the desire to be desired, to know that someone wants to be with you and only you. So think about it from this woman's viewpoint. She's had five husbands. Each one of them chose her, and then they didn't. So think about this the desire to be desired. Do you think she had that? Yes, she had this desire. And then lastly, is the desire to be included. So this is just the desire to belong. And so she drew water at noon to avoid other women. She was excluded, she was an outcast. And so if you've ever thought about, like um, I think about growing up and thinking about playing kickball or something like that. The last thing you wanted to be in kickball was to be the last person chosen. And and think about that. This this is this is a deep desire that all of us have. And so this is what C.S. Lewis says about our desires, which probably a lot of you have heard this quote before. He says, Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered to us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by an offer of a holiday at the sea, we are far too easily pleased. So I think this is the point. The point is we are all thirsty. And so what happens is Satan offers counterfeit ways to meet these desires, but guess what? They never ever satisfy us. Only Christ satisfies us. Only he comes to us and he affirms us and he blesses us and he gives us an identity, he adopts us into his family. He says, You're a chosen people, a royal priesthood. I mean, this this should absolutely amaze us. Amaze us that God, like he chooses us. So when I think about these desires that God has given us, and I think about clean access to clean and living water, these all relate to each other. Right. And so the thing that uh through your generosity, if you're a supporter of Never Thirst, you're listening to this through your generosity, what you are doing is you are opening up the avenue for a local pastor, a local evangelist to come in and through the through access to clean water, open up conversations about deeper, deeper desires that are within all of us that only Christ can meet. Right? So the the clean water these communities need, it's always deep beneath the surface, flowing in untapped aquifers, or it could be up top in a mountain that needs to be capped off in a trench dug, but it's it's so far away, it's deeper or higher than we ever imagined. So we drill down, our partners drill down 200, 300 feet, thousand feet through rock, clay, whatever, whatever it takes to reach the clean water deep beneath. And so living water is also deep. It is deep and it's hidden within people. People are complex, cultures are complex. So by God's grace, he raises up pastors who preach the gospel, and the gospel does what? The gospel penetrates, it drills down deep beneath the surface and taps something in someone and opens their eyes. This is what the Spirit of God does. So this is why we are so passionate, not just about clean water. Yes, clean water is great. It is great, it's step one. It is step one, but it's not sufficient. Think about what if this woman, this woman at the well, what if she had access to clean water in her home? What if she had a tap to turn on, like all of us do? Who's listening to this? What if she had a tap to turn on? It still wouldn't suffice. It still wouldn't meet her greatest need. And this is why, this is why she had to meet Jesus at that well. This is why he had to reveal her deepest need to let her see and remind her how thirsty she really was. She truly was. And so what I love about this story is that she left, she left her her water jug, and she ran and told everybody that this is the Messiah. This is the one, this this Jesus, he is the one. And what did she do? She brought all these people back to listen and to hear, and what do they do? They convinced him, they convinced Jesus to stick around for I think three days and just to abide. So when we have our deepest desires met, what do we want to do? We want to spend time with Christ, we want to abide in Christ. We just want to abide. We just want to we just want to know that we're safe and that we're chosen, that we're blessed. Like each of us, we want to be, we want our identity in Christ to be um to be reaffirmed in us in our relationship with Him. And so it's a beautiful picture when she comes back and brings people. And then who else came back? Well, the disciples came back. They came back and they were like, Jesus, do you want anything to eat? And he said, No, I have food that you don't know anything about. And they're like, Well, who who gave him this food to eat? And it wasn't anybody. And so it he he had been fed, right? And so this is what Jesus said to them. He said, My food, this is verse 34 of John chapter 4, my food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work. And then he says this, this is really, really important for us. Do you not say that there are yet four months, then comes the harvest? Look, I tell you, lift up your eyes and see that the fields are white for harvest. And so he's telling his disciples, listen, I sent you into town to buy food, and you brought nobody back with you to meet me. This woman, I sent her back into town, she brought all of these people. And so he's telling the disciples, lift up your eyes, see what's really right in front of you. Bring people to me, introduce people to me. And we know by God's grace, he does this in these in his disciples. He turns them into soul winners, not only there in Jerusalem, but in Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth. Praise God for that. So just a just a reminder. This this woman at the well is is to me is a great reminder that we all have deep desires. Um it's not this story is not just about a lost woman who gets saved, even though it is that. It is about a Christ who meets our deepest, deepest desires in him and eternally satisfies us. And the water that he gave her to drink would mean that she would never thirst again. All right, so now what we want to do, we kind of want to turn a corner here, and I want us to pray specifically for a people who I don't I don't hadn't been able to find that there's any believers that live among them, and they're a uh people group, almost half a million people across all countries. They they do have a big concentration in uh Cambodia, and the name of the people group is the Cham people group at C-H-A-M. And so I just want us to pray for them. Pray that God would meet them and that the Spirit of God, through the Word of God, would penetrate through the hard, hard soil of our hearts, of their hearts, and save them. So, Lord, I just want to pray right now for the Cham people, not only in Cambodia, but all over the world, almost half a million who don't know you as the Savior. Lord, would you meet them at their own well? Would you speak truth to them? Lord, would your Holy Spirit penetrate their hearts and convict them of sin and cause them to turn from their sin and trust you, call out to you. I pray, God, that you would do an incredible work among the cham. All right, everybody, that is it for this episode of For the Kingdom, a never thirst podcast. Thankful that you're here, thankful that you're listening. And if you would go and leave a review wherever you listen to your podcast, I know that Apple and Spotify are probably the two most popular. If you would leave us a review, that would be fantastic. It would help more people to find the podcast. And we will be back in a couple of weeks with a new episode of For the Kingdom.