"Where do you find fulfilment?"

So our reading is from John's Gospel chapter 4, verses 1 to 26, and can be found on page 10 66. If you want to follow it in the church Bibles. Now Jesus learned that the services had heard that he was gaining and baptizing more disciples than John. Although, in fact, it was not Jesus who baptized, but his disciples. So he left Judea and went back once more to Galile.

Now he had to go through Samaria. So he came to a town in Samaria called Saichar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob's well was there. And Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about noon.

When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, will you give a drink. His disciples had gone into the town to buy food. The Samaritan woman said to him, you are a Jew, and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink for due do not associate with Samaritans. Jesus answered her if you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him, and he would have given you live water.

Sir, the woman said, you have nothing to draw with, and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? Are you greater than our father, Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself? As did also his sons and his livestock livestock. Jesus answered.

Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life. The woman said to him, sir, give me this water so that I don't I won't get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw quarter. He told her, go call your husband and come back. I have no husband.

She replied. Jesus said to her, you are right when you say you have no husband. The fact is you have had 5 husbands and the man now have is not your husband. What you have said what you have just said is quite true. Sir, a woman said, I can see that you are a prophet.

Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you choose claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem. Women, Jesus replied, believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. Use Samaritan's worship what you do not know. We worship what we do know for salvation is from the Jews. Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the father in the spirit and in truth.

For they the kind of worshipers the father seeks, godly spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the spirit and in truth. The woman said, I know that Messiah called Christ is coming. When he come, he will explain everything to us. Then Jesus declared, I, the 1 speaking to you. I am he.

Great. Thank you, Robin, for reading that for us. Just a technical thing. I don't have anything on here. So I'm gonna have to rely on you to move on the screen.

Thank you. Good. Please leave that passage open in front of you John for, starting at verse 1. So page 1066 67, if you've got a Bible near you, do open it up to that. And I'm gonna pray for us that the lord would help us as we come to his word.

Heavenly father, we thank you for this passage and pray, please, that you would teach us, help us to be ready to listen to you and to be changed by by your word, amen. So the question that we're asking this morning is where do you find fulfillment? Where do you find fulfillment? And it was great having Laura give her estimate if it did so well, isn't it? It's possible that we get into that race that the world has, where the world tells us different ways that we can find fulfillment, and we feel we've gotta go for them.

I wonder why gives you fulfillment. Maybe for some here, it's the things that you do. Maybe it's your job, your career. You you're really good at what you do, and you find it really fulfilling, having the job you do. Many don't have that kind of job.

Maybe it's your hobby fees, maybe it's crafts, maybe it's gardening, they give you a sense of achievements, things you can do. Maybe it's your experiences. You love going to watch your team play sport, or you love going to the cinema, or you love the holidays. Maybe you live for your holidays. Some do, don't they?

Maybe there are holidays in this country. Maybe there are holidays abroad. Maybe you love going on cruises or you love going to Africa, seeing the sunset over the serengeti or, going to Disneyland or what, whatever it is walking on the Great Wall of China. All kinds of things where you say, yeah, that gave me fulfillment. I loved it.

But for most, probably, the answer is relationships. And maybe that's romantic relationships, finding the person who you really fit with, someone who loves you and you love them. Maybe for you, it's family relationships, times with parents or children or grandchildren, and you just love those times or friendships, someone who looks at the world the way you do, who you can have a laugh with. It's interesting that we all need so something to make life feel fulfilling. We say with sadness, don't we?

If someone has nothing to live for. We have, you see, a thirst for something. A thirst for something that will satisfy our souls that will give fulfillment. But there is, of course, a problem with all those things that we might look to. They just can't give us the fulfillment we really want.

They can't actually quench that first, and they were never meant to. In the passage that we're looking at today, we're meeting a woman who, in many ways, is very different from us, but I wonder whether you can relate to her because she had an unquenchable thirst for fulfillment. And that's first point are unquenchable thirst. Let's get into the passage, into the story of this woman who met Jesus. Jesus is going through an area called samaria.

It's not in Israel. It's it's just outside. And he's going through this area called Samaria, and he stops at a well, and his closest followers, his disciples go off to go and find food. He has left this well in the middle of the day, and a woman comes along to draw water. Now the fact she's coming in the middle of the day, the hot is part of the day, suggests that maybe she's a bit of an outcast.

You see, the the women in those days who went to collect water, they would tend to do it in the coolest part of the day. You didn't go in the middle of the day. You go, when it's cool. In other words, at the beginning of the day, but she isn't going at the beginning of the day. She's going in the middle of the day, which suggests she doesn't really wanna be with people.

And we'll see find out why in a little bit. She's a bit of an outcast, though. And yet, Jesus asks her for a drink. He he's quite naturally He's the middle of the day. It's hot.

Like, it's been over the last week, middle of the day, and he's thirsty. So he asks her for a drink, and she's surprised. Have a look. First 9. The Samaritan woman said to him, you're a Jew, and I'm a Ariton woman, how can you ask me for a drink?

For Jews do not associate with Samaritans? You see, there's lots of reasons why Jesus shouldn't talk to her. Yeah. She's a bit of an outcast, but So, she's racially different from him, religiously different. And we see in the bidding brackets where it says Jews don't associate with samaritan.

I I I I won't go into the details of of the history there, but there is history street. Jews and Samaritans just don't get along. They don't talk to 1 another. And so he shouldn't really have been talked to her and there's the fact that she's a woman. He's a man, and they're in their culture at that time.

It wouldn't have been appropriate, maybe, for him to talk to her. And yet he does. He speaks to her. Now before we go any further, and before we get to the unquenchable first bit, just notice that, will you? Maybe you don't feel you fit the image of what a Christian is.

Maybe you think to come along to church or to, to be a Christian, you've gotta be respectable, you've gotta be a certain class, you've gotta be a certain race, or maybe, you know, there's just stereotype in your mind, and you think that's not you. It wasn't her either. And yet, Jesus was interested in her. Wanted to speak to her. And Jesus is interested in you to, and wants to speak to you this morning.

After her surprise, that he even talked to her. Jesus says to her verse 10. He says, if you knew the gift of god and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water. Once he told talking about? She should ask him for water and living water.

Now to begin to understand this, we need to realize Jesus is referring back to an old testament passage by using the word living water. He's referring to a passage in Jeremiah chapter 2, which is on the screen here. So this is hundreds of years before Jesus meets this woman at the well. God said this to his people. He said.

My people have committed 2 sins. They have forsaken me the spring of living water and have dug's cisterns that cannot hold water. So god's speaking to the Israelites, say, gives them an image, gives them a picture. He says, it it's like there's this fountain, you know, a bit like, the I've got a picture of a fountain of water. I think it comes up next.

That's it. It's like He's saying there's this big fountain of cool, clear, clean water. And he said, god's saying, I'm like that, that you Israelites, you've gone off to dig your own wells. You've gone off to dig for water elsewhere. You've completely ignored me and gone off to try to find water elsewhere.

And you've dug, and you've dug systems. In other words, sort of holster put the water in, but they're cray act. So they can't hold water. So every time you go to them, you've just got this muddy sludge that you end up drinking, rather than coming to me. And by Jesus saying, I can give living water her, he's referring back to that.

But she doesn't get it. And maybe you're still thinking, I don't get it. Well, we'll come back to that in a moment. You see, what follows then is a complete miscommunication or mis conversation. 1 person talking about 1 thing, another person talking about something completely different.

So back in our passage, she says, sir, you have nothing to draw with verse 11, and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? Is that, you know, you're you're mad. You haven't even got a bucket. How are you gonna give me water?

And Jesus then says, first 13, everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water while up to eternal life. Jesus is saying, I can give you something that will totally quench your thirst. A still doesn't get it. So she says, sir, give me this water, so I won't have to keep coming here to draw water.

Great. I never have to come back here again. Of course, there's this miscommunication. Jesus isn't talking about the water in the well. He's talking about something else.

But then the conversation changes. Don't worry. We'll come back to this. But the conversation changes. Jesus says verse 16, go call your husband and come back.

And she says, I haven't got a husband. And Jesus replies, you're right, verse 17 when you say you have no husband. The fact is you've had 5 husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you've just said is quite true. How did Jesus know this about?

Well, it points to his divine knowledge, doesn't it? But we need to say, well, let's see, that what he's doing here, what Jesus is doing is not changing the subject. Rather, he is showing her the thirst in her soul. Do you remember that Jeremiah image of the fountain of water and yet people going to dig for water elsewhere? Jesus is saying that's you.

And he's pointing out to her where she's looking for water. Where is she looking for water in May? Friend. She's had 5 husbands, and the man she's now with is not her husband. Don't worry.

No. You know, go back, please. That's not what that wasn't 1 of her husband. Boris Becker was not 1 of them. Just clarify that.

I'll tell you when to move on. Okay. She's had 5 husband. In other words, what she's doing is she's saying, I think fulfillment for me is gonna come in the arms of a man. She goes to the first husband, but doesn't satisfy.

She goes to the second. So maybe this is why she wants to come in the middle of the day because this woman has a bit of a reputation. She's gone from man to man to man, and she has never felt fulfilled. That longing, that yearning, for intimacy, for love has ever been quenched. Jesus is pointing out to her, her thirst, and we need to realize this is true for all the things we use to try to quench our souls' thirsts as well.

The things we say give meaning to life, they may be good things in and of themselves The Bible is very positive about lots of them, but how good are they actually at quenching the deep thirst of the soul? Have you noticed how often? Like for this woman, fulfillment always seems just out of reach. Contentment is permanently just around the next corner. Surely, we think if we get into the next relationship, that will be the fulfilling 1, or we think the next house or the next job or the next pay rise, then I'll be really fulfilled.

It's tantalizingly elusive because when we get that next thing, we enjoy it for a bit, but then we think, well, maybe it's the next 1. And have you noticed how often even when someone makes it. You know, when they get the prize, it never is enough. That that's where we come to Boris Beckley. You could go on to that, that slide, man.

He was great. I mean, those who know of him, he he was a great tennis player at the pinnacle of tennis career. And yet, since then, he's had many broken marriages being to prison for bankruptcy offenses. And yet he was someone you would say, he made it. What about Matthew Perry?

Who played, Chandler in Friends? You can go on. I think there's a slide of him next. There you go. In an interview, he said that the height of his fame playing Chandler, he said from an out side as perspective, it would seem like I had it all.

It was actually a very lonely time for me because I was suffering from alcoholism. Now this is to look down on those people. Of course, it's not. But then we're saying, didn't they have it all? Didn't they have the dream?

And yet, it proved to be not the sole quenching experience they'd hoped for. You can move on to the next line. Thank you. And the biggest problem that we face, the biggest shadow that hangs over us. Thank you.

The biggest shadow that hangs over us is death. I don't wanna bring the tone down too much, you know, spoil it. Spoil the picnic, you know, but it does hang over us, doesn't it? That all those things that we look to for fulfillment, none of them survive in the face of death. Jesus meets this woman, a woman who wasn't searching for him, and yet he uncovers for her the deep thirst in her soul.

And maybe some here are similar to her. Maybe you can relate to her. You're not so searching for Jesus. The idea of it sounds frankly a bit ridiculous. You aren't religious, but you can see the thirst in your soul.

So that need to come back and see what Jesus offers. Our second point. Jesus' offer of living water. Let me go back. Let's get back again to verse 13.

Just see again what he's offering. Jesus answered everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life. Now, that is an incredible claim, isn't it? Notice Jesus is saying what he can give.

Living water, totally, and complete deeply thirst quenching. He says, drink the water I give, and you will never thirst again. And he's claiming this first quenching will well up to eternal life, as Laura said earlier. She has now got the promise of eternal life. So Jesus is saying, I can be your fulfillment now and give you life forever.

That is what I can give you. Can you see why you're saying you should be asking me for things? Oh, yes, she should. So we want to know, okay, What is it that Jesus gives that can totally quench our souls? How can he do this?

Well, not by giving you the thing you're trying to quench your soul on. I think sometimes people think that. What he doesn't do is say to this woman, you've been looking for it in the arms of a man, let me introduce you to the man of your dreams. He doesn't bring someone out from behind the well, and and say, this is the 1. No.

And he doesn't promise to us that he's gonna give us the amazing career, or health, or the amazing experiences. He he he does promise those things? What is it that Jesus can give? In the passage in Jeremiah, god says, he is the spring of living water. In this passage, Jesus is saying he can give living water.

And in a couple of chapters time in John's gospel, in John chapter 7, Jesus says the water is the Holy Spirit. Now you piece those together, you say well, clearly, the thing that can fulfill you and me that Jesus is holding out to us is god himself, a relay relationship with god. And that is the relationship we were made for. And we won't find fulfillment, real fulfillment, eternal fulfillment until we come to god. Mike Kain, who's, pastor of a church in Bristol, who I'm gonna quote from more later.

He talks in his book real life Jesus about, beached whales. It says, we're like beached whales. Beached whales, should yeah. There you go. There's 1.

On the beach, on the beach, they they just saw and die. They they beach themselves sometimes, and they just have a slow death on the beach because they were made to live in the ocean, to swim in the ocean. That's where they're free. That's where what they were made for. We were made to live in relationship with god.

And yet we live our lives ignoring god. And so it's like we've chosen to beach ourselves. We live our lives thinking, I'll find fulfillment in something else, in this or that or the other, in sex, or relationships, or career, or all kinds of other things that we say, yeah, I'll find it there. But actually, we've beached ourselves. That's not what we were made for.

We were made for relationship with God. And we won't sign for someone until we come back to him. Jesus is saying the water he offers, the lie life that he gives is life in relationship with him. But how do we gain access to that life? How do we get it?

If that's what he's offering, how do we get into that relationship with God? Well, this is where we need to look very briefly at the end of the conversation. So, we could go on to the third point. Thank you, ma'am. What do we need to do to get this living water.

How do we get it? Where have we gotta go? What do we gotta do? So we need to have a brief look at the end of the conversation. We won't spend a huge amount of time there, but we need to have a brief look at the end, which again looks like the conversation goes in a the odd direction.

So verse 19, having been confronted about her husband's, the woman says, sir, I can see that you're a prophet. Our ancestors were chips on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem. Okay. Now that looks like a bit of a red herring, doesn't it? That looks like a let's change the subject kind of, kind of moments.

And she raised is the kind of classic controversy that they would have had in their day. Samararitans said, place to worship God is on 1 mountain, Jerusalem, but the Jews said Jerusalem was the place to go. But this isn't this isn't them saying we think god is located on those mountains. This is about, but after all their scriptures told them that god was bigger than that, they knew that god was bigger than that. This is about how you gain access to god.

It was how to approach god. The Samaritan said you approached god by going to some area to their mountain, but that Jesus says the Jews did have it right. He does say we worship what we do know. In other words, the Jews did have it right. You were to go to Jerusalem.

And the reason why you were to go to Jerusalem was because that was the place where the temple was. And the temple was the place of sacrifice. God had told his people to come to him, you had to sacrifice animals to deal with your wrongdoing. You can't just come into the presence of god. You can't just stroll into the presence of god.

No. No. You need your wrong dealt with. This woman did. We do.

Can't just stroll into the presence of god. You need the sacrifice to get to god. Now, this is very important. If fulfillment in life is through a relationship with god, how do we access god? Do we need to go to some area?

Do we need to go to Jerusalem? Where Jesus says? First 21. Woman. Jesus replied, believe me.

A time is coming when you will worship the far the neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. Jesus is saying, you won't need to go to either place. Oh, yeah. The Jews were right, but soon, you won't need some area. You won't need Jerusalem.

Why not? When Jesus says a time is coming. It is more literally an hour is coming. The hour is coming. And in John's gospel, the hour is always the same thing.

The hour is Jesus's death and resurrection and ascension. That is the hour that is built up to through John's gospel. And so when Jesus says the hour is coming, when you will work of the father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem, he's saying, when I die, that is gonna change everything. Because when Jesus died, he was the ultimate sacrifice. The sack sacrifice to end all sacrifices.

He died so that we could be completely forgiven. And so you won't need to offer any more sacrifices in Jerusalem. You'll be able to come to god wherever you are. You won't need to go on pilgrimage. You don't need to go on pilgrimage.

You don't need to go to a holy place. You could come to god in Nomi primary school or wherever you are because of what Jesus did because the hour came. So what have you got to do to access this living water? Come to Jesus. Let his sacrifice be for you, that when he died on the cross, he died for you, for you're wrong.

Let him take it because you can't. You will never be able to take it yourself. And you can come to god right here and now because of what Jesus did. Jesus is the only way, but he is a way that we can come to god. Now there's more to understand the Christian faith, and what it means to follow Jesus.

But I want you to see what Jesus is holding out to us in this passage. He's saying you're thirsty, and the things you look to for fulfillment won't satisfy. In the end, they end in death. But Jesus is offering living water to you. Total fulfillment in a relationship with god and life forever.

What have you got to do to get it? Jesus has done everything. Everything needed for you to receive it when he died on the cross. You can come through Jesus to god into the relationship you were made for. And as we've seen, this life Jesus offers is for anyone.

For the respectable, for the outcast, for road sweepers, and profess It's for English people, Sriankans, Koreans, Muslims, Jews, Jews, if any will come to Jesus through him, they can come into a relationship with the living gods. And we need to see having this life, Jesus offers doesn't make us immune to difficulties. Some struggle to understand this. When Jesus says he can give life, people sometimes think that means we won't have pains. We won't have struggles.

We won't have difficulties. That's not true. But the real life Jesus gives is far greater. I'm gonna quote from that pastor. I mentioned Mike Kain.

A few years ago, he was her having treatment for cancer. His condition was very serious, and he was close to dying. At 1 point, he managed to get back to his church, and was interviewed. He told the painful recovery after an operation and that he was facing aggressive chemotherapy, not knowing what the outcome would be. He was clearly in pain when he was being interviewed.

And this is what he said. And I think this summarizes what would be said. There is nothing I want more than to say to the people I love and the people I know. Do you know the lie that Jesus gives, because I have life in all its fullness. I have that today.

And you might say, what are you talking about, Mike? You don't have life in all its fullness, you have pretty serious cancer. And that's because we're so muddled about what life is. And we take our cue from the culture around us, and we think life is when you've got a bit of money in the bank, when you have a happy family and a nice home and get to travel and eat out and those kinds of things. And those are all good things, but those are just the gifts.

And what Jesus does is he introduces us to the giver. And the gifts are good, but if the gift So good. Then can you imagine what the giver is like? The giver is so much better than the gifts, and the life Jesus gives is life in relationship with the giver. With god.

It's how he describes it. Internal life is knowing god through Christ, and that is more satisfying than nice homes and holidays and even happy families. And the point about it is that all those things are so brittle. They don't last. They get ruined by things going wrong and by illness and by death.

Death totally trashes them, and the life Jesus gives is life in all its fullness because it's the relationship with the god we were made for. That's what Jesus holds out to us. That's what Jesus is holding out to you. And there are many in this room who can testify. Lie with Jesus really is life to the fullness.

It's not easy, but it is life in all its fullness. And I want to invite you to find out more. If you're new to Christian things, find out more. I want to encourage you to keep coming back to Hope. Sunday by Sunday, we open up god's word, and we want to discover more about Jesus in it.

Please keep coming back. This autumn, after the summer holidays, we're going to run Christianity explored as well. Come along to that and find out more. It goes through Gospel. We meet Jesus in Mark's gospel.

How about coming along to that? It's a free course, and we'd love you to come along. And if you want to, you could pick up 1 of these booklets as you leave, as you go out of the doors to the picnic. It's called good question. Is It's got answers to some big questions that people tend to ask.

How can we know god exists? Can we trust what the Bible says? Things like that. Do pick up 1 of those. They're free as you leave and love you to have 1.

But just in a moment of quiet, I wanna give you a moment to talk to God. And maybe for you, this is an alien thing to do. You've never talked to God. You don't know what you're doing. Never done it before, or maybe you're coming back to God.

I'm gonna give you a moment for you just to pray in your heart, you don't have to pray out loud, you'll pray silently god hears it when you talk to him in your heart. And maybe it's just a very simple prayer. Maybe it's even Lord I I don't know fully what I'm asking for here, but Lord I I want that living water. Please would you give it to me? I'm gonna give you a moment of quiet, and then I'll lead us in a prep.

I'm gonna pray for us. Father god. Jesus holds out to us the offer of living water that would totally satisfy. Please help us to come to you and ask for it. Thank you that Jesus did everything necessary for us to have it when he died on the cross.

Please help. Those here who don't know you to come to you today and start a relationship with you that will last for eternity.