This verse concisely describes what we see in the world and in our own hearts and lives:
“My people have committed two sins:
They have forsaken me,
the spring of living water,
and have dug their own cisterns,
broken cisterns that cannot hold water.
Jeremiah 2:13
Last week we looked at Jesus’ encounter with the Samaritan women who had been in relationships with multiple men trying to quench the thirst in her soul.
Jesus saw into her life and she left her water jar at the well, symbolic of her coming to understand that Jesus alone could quench her real thirst.
She went into town and told her people about Jesus; they then made the short walk out of town to the well to find him.
31 In the meantime(back at the well) the disciples kept urging him, “Rabbi, eat something.” 32 But he said, “I have food to eat that you don’t know about.” 33 The disciples said to one another, “Could someone have brought him something to eat?”
John 4
Jesus’ guys had been sent to town to get food and they were shocked to see him talking with a Samaritan woman and now, when he speaks of some secret food, they wonder who brought it to him.
They like Nicodemus, like the Woman…missed the deeper meaning of the Lord’s words.
He enlightens them.
34 “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work,”
John 4
Jesus is referring back to Deut. 8 where Moses told the people.
3God humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna, which neither you nor your fathers had known, to teach you that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord
Deuteronomy 8
Their physical hunger was real as was the physical food God provided…but it was intended to point them to their need for God and the reality that we don’t just live on physical food but we are made to live in relationship with God.
It has been said that we are what we eat…the food we eat affects our physical and mental health…this is without dispute.
And without food we die…we all know what it is like to feel hunger and to be satisfied and sustained by food.
But Jesus perfectly lived the life of being sustained by God…his food, the engine that drove his life…was the will of his Father.
He was physically tired, hungry, thirsty…John told us so…but he was not driven by the mere physical, but by his desire to do the will of his Father.
The disciples were puzzled, seeing him talking with a Samaritan woman, and now they are puzzled to hear that he has some secret food.
They miss the fact that these things are tied together.
His “food”…was to minister to this broken woman…the will of God was to make the gospel known to her.
The will of his Father was what energized his life.
Of course, he ate and drank and slept…he had a physical body…but the mobilizing force in his life, was to glorify his Father.
Jesus then talks about the natural process of harvesting physical food…you plant, you wait, then you harvest and eat…month’s long ordeal.
Then he jumps again to the spiritual reality of the work of God…open your eyes, look at the fields, they are ready for harvest…he is talking about the gospel in the lives of people.
I’m sure it would have been hard to keep up with the Lord’s jumping between the physical and spiritual realities…but it shouldn’t be. They are all part of a single story life.
His examples were not complicated…he used everyday stuff…the universal experience of physical thirst and hunger…everyone knows what this is like.
He used this universal human experience of physical hunger and thirst to describe the universal hunger and thirst for God that every human has.
But this thirst, this hunger…because of sin, can lead us away from God rather than towards him.
That is Jer. 2 and the broken wells.
Even physical hunger can become broken in humans, how much more so our spiritual hunger and thirst for God.
Takeru(ta keer ru) Kobayashi (koe bah yahshi) is called the godfather of competitive eating.
He is a small, not a big guy…in his forties now.
His records include:
-110 hotdogs in 10 minutes (one every 5.5 seconds)
-337 buffalo wings in 30 minutes (one about every 5 seconds)
-18 pounds of cow brains in 15 minutes
He has broken lots of records…but he has also broken his appetite for food.
He never feels hungry, he never feels a desire for food, and he doesn’t feel full or any satisfaction from eating food.
He has broken his physical appetite.
Sin has broken our spiritual appetite…we are made to hunger and thirst for righteousness…instead we dig broken wells…because of our own brokenness.
Jesus experienced the satisfaction, and sustainment that God’s word and obedience to him alone can provide.
Open your eyes, he told his spiritually dull minded friends…see where God is at work and join him…this is real life, real fulfillment.
To live on every word that comes from the mouth of God…just means, to do what he wants done. To know, love and obey him.
Now a bunch of folks in town had believed in Jesus because of the woman’s testimony.
They came out and asked Jesus to come to town and stay…he did for two days.
Many more believed because of the Lord’s own words.
42 And they told the woman, “We no longer believe because of what you said, since we have heard for ourselves and know that this really is the Savior of the world.”
John 4
This is not diminishing the impact of her testimony…because her testimony plus the Lord’s words were a powerful combination.
That is still true today…our story, plus THE gospel story is a powerful combination.
Look at this map, what we have so far in John, is Jesus was baptized down South in Judea.
Headed north to Galilee about a 90-mile walk…attended a wedding.
Went back to Judea, cleared the temple in Jerusalem, had his nighttime talk with Nick…does some miracles.
Then he heads back to Galilee and passed through Samaria and that is where he is in John 4.
Now, after two days with the folks in Samaria…he continued his trip north to Galilee.
43 After two days he left there for Galilee. 44 (Jesus himself had testified that a prophet has no honor in his own country.) 45 When they entered Galilee, the Galileans welcomed him because they had seen everything he did in Jerusalem during the festival. For they also had gone to the festival.
Jesus was born in Bethlehem, Judea… his folks took him there for the census.
But his hometown was up north in Nazareth, Galilee.
At first, this passage is confusing…John writes that Jesus himself said a prophet has no honor in his own country
But then he says that the hometown crowd welcomed him…but there is a caveat.
“Because they had seen everything he did in Jerusalem.”
A bunch of them had gone to Jerusalem for the Passover…they had seen or heard of the many miracles he did during that trip.
So, keep this in the back of your mind…the Samaritans had believed because they heard Jesus’ words…these hometown folks believed because of some miracles.
There is irony here in John saying that the Galileans “welcoming”…they were all in, until they weren’t.
Let’s read on.
46 He went again to Cana of Galilee, where he had turned the water into wine. There was a certain royal official whose son was ill at Capernaum. 47 When this man heard that Jesus had come from Judea into Galilee, he went to him and pleaded with him to come down and heal his son, since he was about to die. 48 Jesus told him, “Unless you people see signs and wonders, you will not believe.” 49 “Sir,” the official said to him, “come down before my boy dies.” 50 “Go,” Jesus told him, “your son will live.” The man believed what Jesus said to him and departed.
John 4
51 While he was still going down, his servants met him saying that his boy was alive. 52 He asked them at what time he got better. “Yesterday at one in the afternoon the fever left him,” they answered. 53 The father realized this was the very hour at which Jesus had told him, “Your son will live.” So, he himself believed, along with his whole household. 54 Now this was also the second sign Jesus performed after he came from Judea to Galilee.
John 4
This second sign in Galilee…like all signs, it points to something greater than itself…to Jesus.
But John is clearly indicating that something is amiss in the faith of these people in Galilee.
Jesus healed the boy but look at what he said, ““Unless you people (yall) see signs and wonders, you will not believe.”
This was an indictment…an indication of a problem.
Sure enough, in chapter 6, we will see that a bunch of these folks who “believe” will later abandon him.
The followed him for bit, not because they believed what he said was true…but because of what they thought he could do for them.
They abandoned him when they didn’t like or understand what he said…or maybe when they found out, he was NOT here to be their genie, to make all their wishes come true.
His words were hard…true, but hard…and his miracles were to confirm his message of eternal life…he did not perform on demand.
In this overall narrative we have a woman, dumping men into the broken well that is own her heart…and Jesus doesn’t give her some miracle…other than to show her her heart’s need and the solution.
That is a real miracle.
The Samaritans…half-breeds, despised by Jews…accept Jesus because they hear truth from him.
Many of his own people, “believe” based on miracles…then they turn from him because they reject the hard truth that he brings.
Much has been said and written about people deconstructing their faith.
It is a new phrase for an old reality.
One of my professors said 45 years ago…Faith that fizzles at the finish was faulty from the first.
The story for many of these faith defectors isn’t fully written yet.
We don’t know if those who are walking away, are like the prodigal son and will eventually, stop trying to dig broken wells and return to Jesus.
Or if they will permanently stay hardened to the Lord.
I am not implying that many people have not had horrible experiences and that these experiences haven’t impacted how they view all of life, including the gospel.
What is true is that many become disillusioned with their faith because their faith was based largely or partly on illusion.
They were believing what God had not promised.
We will talk about this more when we get to chapter 6…but some follow Jesus because he is who he says he is.
They believe the gospel is true….the only reason to believe anything is because it is true.
But some follow for a time…believing that Jesus is a means to their own “greater” end
This is, he becomes, not “the truth”, but their truth…he is a means to meet their own need.
He becomes more like a genie…than the Lord.
Many in Haiti, tragically are turning to the religion of Voodoo because their life is so hard…the entire nation is run, at present, by criminal gangs.
They desperately want protection; their everyday life is full of tragedy and danger…so they want magic to fix their problems.
The gospel is thriving there as well…but voodoo and the gospel make two very different promises to suffering people.
Imagine if you follow Jesus so he will make you happy (give you what you really want) and you find out he says, “Take up your cross, die to yourself, and follow me.
What if for some their faith in Jesus, turns out to be, really, just another empty well.
Even committed Christians will say things like, “Well, God must have a better plan for you, since that door closed.”
Yes, but it is his “better plan” of the ages…it may be that includes you dying of cancer, or not getting an earthly happy ever after ending…just an eternal one.
We have to watch that our faith is in Jesus as Lord and Savior…not in a super natural being who will give us what we really want.
I want Jesus to give me…a trouble-free life, a spouse, health, healing, feelings of happiness, remove this difficulty.
“Jesus, I don’t really want you…I want what you can do for me.”
Of course, we want what he does for us…forgiveness, cleansing from sin.
And we can ask for these things…and we should.
But what some want is for Jesus to make a way for them to find satisfaction in their own broken wells
They want Jesus to help them be satisfied with something other than Jesus…why would he do that?
For the next generation and beyond…
We must communicate the truth of the gospel clearly.
-Jesus is the way, truth, and the life…he is the well of living water
-If anyone will follow him, they must take up their cross and die to self.
-Because, It has been granted to us, not just to believe but to suffer also…this is the gospel.
We must demonstrate the truth of the gospel.
-We must embrace sacrifice
-We must praise when trouble and loss comes…we hurt, cry…become perplexed…but we praise and trust.
-We must be faithful whether living in plenty or in want
We must celebrate the truth of the gospel before them…
-Whether our kids get straight “A’s” or win sports contests,…or they struggle to get a “C” and can’t make the team.
-We must celebrate the right things.
-We celebrate our kids growth in faith and faithfulness…we celebrate what matters the most in the end.
We cannot rescue them from all trouble and crisis and stress…of course we want to, but what they move need is to become men and women of faith driven faithfulness.
-We must value the right things in front of them.
-What we talk about, and how we talk about it…communicates what we most value.
-How we respond to trial and challenge and suffering…communicates what we actually believe is real.
We must communicate, demonstrate, and celebrate the gospel…which is not…Jesus will make all your dreams come true…unless, Jesus rightly orders your dreams to become “I want to be found faithful.”
He is all for making that dream come true.
Jesus is the way, truth and the life…lay down your life and follow him.
We must forsake brokenness wells and drink deep of the well of living water.