In this sermon, we turn the corner to our desire for satisfaction and how that too so often leads us into the trap of looking to people, power, or possessions instead of the ultimate satisfaction that is ours in Jesus.
Our story is taking from John 4, where a find a pivotal conversation between Jesus and a Samaritan woman at a well. We’ll focus in on this woman’s identity trap and how it is that Jesus frees her to find true satisfaction.
1) Her Trap
We find three clues to her identity trap scattered throughout this chapter. First, she’s drawing water at the wrong time of day. Second, the conversation she has with Jesus is about satisfaction, and imagery used is related to water. And third, Jesus calls out her string of broken marriages and relationships.
The Samaritan woman is seeking satisfaction through people. She’s living like an orphan, looking for love in all the wrong places.
2) Her Thirst
Jesus tells her that He can offer an endless supply of living water. And when she asks for it, Jesus tells her to call her husband, because her soul is a broken cistern that’s thirsty.
The Samaritan woman is dissatisfied and dismissed. The string of broken relationships has no doubt left her feeling dissatisfied, with an aching heart that wonders if real love is actually out there at all.
3) Her Transformation
Jesus’ last comment was so personal, so perceptive…How could he have known her romantic history? It’s nothing short of prophetic! In this moment, Jesus gets super-personal with her.
He tells her:” I know the real you, now you shall know the real me. The One you’re longing for…I who speak to you am He!”
The Samaritan woman is learning to look to Jesus for the lasting satisfaction her soul longs for.
Jesus so loved this woman that He met her at the well, in the heat of the day, when she was shunned by others, and gently unearthed her soul’s broken cisterns in order to offer her Himself as the deeply satisfying living waters her soul was desperate for.
What she could never find in matches, men, or marriages was now hers in the Messiah.
Takeaway: God alone can truly satisfy.
The satisfaction our souls long for is found in God alone. And Jesus is calling us to turn from the broken cisterns our orphan hearts have hewn out for ourselves, and to become like little children, drinking deeply of the soul-nourishing, life-giving fountain of our Father’s presence available to us in Jesus, who, on the cross, cried out “I thirst” in order that we might never thirst again.
John 4: 5-19, 25-42
