(1/15/2012)  Warning: Most Sundays we  put up a post with a spiritual emphasis.  Today’s is from a markedly Christian perspective.

Today’s “Sunday Sermon” is built around a brief note on John 4:13 in Pastor Chuck Smith’s The Word for Today Bible.

First, the context.  Jesus and his followers were on a long trek from Jerusalem back to their base in Galilee.  As he rested by a deep well in the noontime heat, Jesus asked a Samaritan woman  for a drink of water.

Surprised, she candidly asked Jesus why  a Jewish man would even speak to a Samaritan woman.  John explains that “Jews refuse to have anything to do with Samaritans,” reminding us that racism has been a blight on humanity from ancient times.

Jesus reply surprised her even more: “If you only knew the gift God has for you and who you are speaking to, you would ask me, and I would give you living water.”

Her response reflected her confusion: “But sir, you don’t have a rope or a bucket, and this well is very deep. Where would you get this living water? And besides, do you think you’re greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us this well? How can you offer better water than he and his sons and his animals enjoyed?”

In Jesus response, the basis for Pastor Chuck’s brief note, he sought to turn the woman’s eyes from satisfying physical thirsts to satisfying the spiritual thirst of humanity:

“Anyone who drinks this water will soon become thirsty again. But those who drink the water I give will never be thirsty again. It becomes a fresh, bubbling spring within them, giving them eternal life.”

Pastor Chuck points out the profound truth underlying the first part of Jesus’ statement:

An extremely profound statement: “Whoever drinks of this water will thirst again.” This statement should be written over every ambition you have.

What is it that you are hoping to attain in life? What is it that you think will bring satisfaction and fulfillment? What goals are you pressing toward? What possessions are you striving to acquire?

Whatever it is, write over the topn of it, “Drink of this water, but you will thirst again”. There is nothing in the material realm that will satisfy our spiritual thirst.

2,000 years later, even rock stars still “Can’t get no. . . satisfaction.”

At the start of a new week in a new year, it’s well worth taking time to make sure our we are striving for the things that matter most.

You really don’t want to spend years sacrificing to get to the top of the ladder, only to realize it was leaning against the wrong wall.

As Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said,  ”If what you’re living for isn’t worth dying for, you’re not fit to live.”

Jesus again spoke of  living water about year later, in Jerusalem, on the climactic last day of the Feast of Tabernacles (Sukkot):

On the last and greatest day of the festival, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink.

Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them.”  By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive.      (John 7:37-39, NIV)

John wrote his Gospel so his readers,  by  believing in Jesus, would have that living water Jesus spoke of.   If you haven’t prayerfully read through it lately, that might be a good way to start off this week and this year.

Click here for the first chapter of John’s Gospel in the New Living Translation, or dozens of other translations.

Click here for the first chapter of John’s Gospel in the English Standard Version Study Edition.