craigmanderson

The Answer

Jesus is the only answer for your life

What are you searching for? What do you want from life? Are you sometimes wondering why life has brought you hardship and frustration? Did your life journey so far bring you to the real place of satisfaction that you longed for? Perhaps you’re feeling the pain of broken relationships. Has someone you love really let you down; and the pain of it still feels like a knife in your heart.

Families all over are hurting and broken, many have experienced marriage breakdown, love disappeared and sadness and pain took its place. So many kids grew up without a full-time dad, or seeing parents fight and argue.

For others; how you wish you had your health back, or maybe that slim figure that left you many years ago. One young woman I have talked to in the Police environment has struggled to recover from a stroke at the age of 35. It meant two years off work and now back in the job things are not the same. The memory and the emotional reactions to events is not the same. How frustrating it must be not to feel whole and healthy like she once was and with such a long life ahead potentially.

Let me share with you a story of someone who was searching for something and Jesus came along and gave her the very thing she longed for in her heart.

The story – John 4:1-42

Jesus encounters a woman at a well in Samaria.

At this encounter Jesus talks with this woman and gives her acceptance and an answer.

READ John 4:4-9

This is why I’m telling this story today, so that you can see the real Jesus reaches out to anyone and everyone. The way Jesus acceptance and love to provide a life giving answer for this woman shows just how Jesus operates.

He can make a difference in your life here today.

The thing that everyone seeks is real life, a thirst for freedom, joy, peace, strength, and to be loved and accepted.  We seek for it in money, in relationships, in positions of power, in drugs and alcohol, in the worship of many kinds. Yet for most there is a thirst that can never be quenched. For many there is never a place; to which having arrived we say; I am home, I have found what I searched for all my life, my search is over; I am saved.

Is there a thirst inside you today for something more in life than what you currently experience? Can’t put your finger on it? Does it just seem to you that life is supposed to be more than what you have, that there’s something that would all of a sudden lift you up and out into a new place of real fulfilment?

This woman was searching, she was thirsty, her life was a series of failures and sadness. When she grew up I doubt she planned to be married five times and then be with someone she wasn’t married to. Yet this thirst, created by disappointments and pain, was covered over by religious questions and resentments for how she was treated.

Deep down she longed for a kind of fulfilment that was a long way out of her reach. Enter Jesus, who offers living water, what is this living water? It takes a little while before she catches on what this really means.

Only through Jesus is this true life possible.

Joh 10:10  The thief comes only in order to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have and enjoy life, and have it in abundance (to the full, till it overflows).

Joh 14:6  Jesus said to him, I am the Way and the Truth and the Life; no one comes to the Father except by (through) Me.

Jesus gives Living Water. He is the only answer to that thirst you feel deep inside for life and for acceptance and for hope. Life deals out some troubles and pain for so many lives. What pain and disappointments have you faced? It’s not just success that drives some people, there’s that desire for life – some kind of peace and joy that seems illusive.

In this story the Jews hated the Samaritans

From many causes arose an irreconcilable difference between them, so that the Jews regarded them as the worst of the human race Joh_8:48, and had no dealings with them, Joh_4:9.

Our Saviour, however, preached the gospel to them afterward John 4:6-26, and the apostles imitated his example, Acts_8:25. The gospel was, however, first preached to the Jews.

Nearly everyone is thirsty for this living water, but many push it away because of religious prejudices and resentments against churches, Christians and even God who they feel have been part of the problem. But today I want you to know Jesus is the only answer to your thirst.

The soul by nature is like such a desert, or like a traveller wandering through such a desert. It is thirsting for happiness, and seeking it everywhere, and he finds it not. He looks in all directions and tries all objects, but in vain. Nothing meets his desires. Though people seek for joy in wealth and pleasures, yet they are not satisfied. They still thirst for more, and seek still for happiness in some new enjoyment. To such a weary and unsatisfied soul the grace of Jesus Christ is “as cold waters to a thirsty soul.”

This woman eventually perceives that Jesus is a prophet; that is He knows stuff that no one else could know.  She jumps at her chance to clear up ticklish religious questions that have long bothered her community. She asks about worship – its a heart issue, its about the inner life, the inner world where we encounter God personally, not just as an observer. Worship will soon be not limited to one place but when the veil of the temple was torn in two the presence of God became available to all men everywhere.

Jesus was tired because of His journey, yet was still able to put others first. He cares about you today.  He asked her for a drink – to find out what’s in her heart. She was puzzled , “Why are you talking to me?”

Jesus demonstrated His love and total lack of prejudice by talking to and giving the good news to this woman from Samaria. The reasons why some people would have thought Jesus should not even acknowledge the woman of Samaria are:

1. She was a woman – Jewish Rabbi’s are not allowed to converse with a woman.
2. She was a Samaritan – The nations of the Jews and the Samaritans held a long and bitter feud so that no self respecting Jew would give the time of day to any Samaritan. The Jews who hated Jesus abused Him by calling him a Samaritan in John 8:48
3. She was a sinner – This woman had previously had 5 husbands and was now living defacto – This was totally forbidden in Jewish law – punishable by death.

Jesus offers her Living Water, at first she doesn’t catch on, so Jesus says,  “Go call your husband” – just to see what’s in her heart. At this point she is amazingly open, truthful Then the bombshell – He knows everything about her. She is amazed, “OK you’re a prophet” – so now I want all my questions answered. But answering them is not what she really wanted… It’s this living water she needs.

God is seeking true worshippers. Real intimacy, real relationship, that’s where the truth lies, that’s where the living water is.

She asks, “I know the Messiah is coming and He will tell us all things. Then Jesus drops the next  Bombshell – I am He.

Just then disciples come back – it’s an inconvenient time… she’s at the point of revelation. Off she goes to tell the whole town – she’s convinced. The whole town hears – many believe just on her word. Jesus speaks of the harvest; people matter to God. The fruit of the crop is eternal life; for you God’s plan is your eternal life. Only one thing matters to God – people – you. Giving you living water. This is what you’re made for.

It doesn’t matter that she was messed up, it doesn’t matter that she was from a despised race, a marginalised minority, it didn’t matter that she was living in an unacceptable relationship according to Jewish law; Jesus accepted her and gave her living water. No matter what your life is about, no matter how messed up your past is, no matter how many times you have failed, Jesus loves you deeply, profoundly, endlessly. There is living water for you here today. Jesus is your answer. It’s not knowing some religious story, it’s meeting Jesus.

Lots of Samaritans believed through the woman’s word. They came out to see Jesus. When Jesus rolls up some people ask Him to go and some people ask Him to stay.

These ones asked Him to stay – will you? Many more believed, through Jesus word.

Jesus demonstrated complete acceptance of a race of people hated and despised by Jesus’ own race.

There’s no prejudice in Jesus. There’s only love acceptance and hope. Your search is over when you surrender your life to Jesus. It doesn’t happen when you find out who Jesus is – it happens when you realise He is the only  answer for you, and you’re willing to let go of every other counterfeit answer, every prop you’ve leaned on to fill the gap that never gave you what you truly needed and wanted  – living water.

Will you come to Jesus today, will you drink deep of His living water? Will you let Him accept you as you are right now and you accept Him as He is right now?