Do You Know The Gift Of God?

“If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” John 4:10 “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” John 4:13-14

Sinclair Lewis tells the story of a young man who escapes from his boring life trying to live it up with his girlfriend. At one point she says to him so honestly, “We seem different, you and I, but maybe it’s mostly surface – down deep we’re alike in being desperately unhappy, because we never know what we’re unhappy about.”

In John chapter 4 Jesus meets a woman who is desperately unhappy, and she doesn’t know why. She has tried again and again to make life work, and she keeps failing. But Jesus simply changes the subject from the mess she has made to the gift he can give. Verse 10: “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” Do you know the gift of God? God has a gift for disappointed people who can’t make life work and are tired of trying.

God has a two-fold gift for every one of us. One, truth to satisfy our minds. Two, experience to satisfy our hearts. The gospel is truth. It’s a new insight into God in his glory and ourselves in our failure and the grace God has for exhausted people who’ve used up all their nifty answers.

God wants to satisfy our inner thirst at the level of our minds and at the level of our hearts. We need both, to enter into reality with God. A. W. Tozer said:

To most people, God is an inference, not a reality. He is a deduction from evidence. They have heard about God from others, and have put belief in God into the back of their minds along with the various odds and ends that make up their total creed. Over against all this cloudy vagueness . . . a loving Personality dominates the Bible. Always a living Person is present, speaking, pleading, loving, working and manifesting himself whenever and wherever his people have the receptivity necessary to receive the manifestation.

Is the living God a satisfying reality to you? There is no one-size-fits-all way that happens. But are you receptive to the Lord Jesus Christ? The testimony of the Christian church through the centuries has been how wonderfully he draws near to us. For example, John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist Church, went to a home Bible study on May 24, 1738, where God gave him a taste of living water. Someone was reading from Martin Luther’s commentary on Romans that night, and Wesley tells us what happened:

About a quarter to nine, while he was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ alone for salvation, and an assurance was given me that He had taken away my sin, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death.

God gave John Wesley this gift Jesus was talking about: “If you knew the gift of God . . . .” Fast forward a hundred years or so and here is another account from Christian history. An Anglican minister named Henry Venn – his wife had died. He was crushed. Venn wrote a letter to a friend about how God met him and how important the Lord became to him:

If I didn’t know the Lord to be mine, if I weren’t certain that his heart feels even more love for me than I am able to conceive, if this were not obvious to me, not by deduction and argumentation but by consciousness, by his own light shining in my soul as the sun shines on my bodily eyes, into what deplorable condition I would have been cast!

Henry Venn was suffering. But God was refreshing his heart with tastes of the living water of his love.

That’s what Jesus is talking about here in John 4. He’s talking about the gospel going deep into our hearts. Look at the experiential language here. Jesus speaks of thirsting and drinking and living water. It is glorious to learn the doctrine of forgiveness. But the purpose of that doctrine is for us to feel forgiven. It is glorious to learn the doctrine of God’s love. But the purpose of that doctrine is for us to feel loved. The apostle Paul described his ministry this way: “Our gospel came to you not only in word, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction” (1 Thessalonians 1:5). That is the gift of God that Jesus is talking about. He’s talking about reality with God. He’s talking about God giving us a resilient joy even in sorrow, a hopeful buoyancy that can face real life, the assurance that all our sins are forgiven forever. The gift of God is living water for our deep soul-thirst.

Do you know the gift of God? Sometimes in our world today we take God’s both/and and divide it up into our own either/or. We even form denominations that way. Some denominations say, “Come to us, and we will teach you sound doctrine.” Other denominations say, “Come to us, and we will give you amazing experiences.” But Jesus says, “Come to me, and I will gift you the gift of God.” But I must admit to you that, for me as a pastor, it’s easier to teach you sound doctrine. It’s more intuitive how to lead you to living water. But that is what our wonderful doctrine is for. Sound doctrine is a road map to follow into the heart of Christ, where his fullness of grace upon grace flows out to the undeserving. Have you ever seen a church where sinful people feel too forgiven? Have you ever seen a church where wounded people feel too restored? Or where discouraged people feel too hopeful or sad people feel too joyful? That is the gift of God. That is the living water of Jesus flowing into our hearts.

Here’s the best part. This living water is for people who don’t deserve it. It’s for this dear woman in John 4, who is desperately unhappy and doesn’t know why. We can think of this woman as, in some ways, the opposite of Nicodemus in John chapter 3. Nicodemus was a man, and here is a woman. Nicodemus was a Jew, she was a Samaritan. He was an upper crust intellectual, she was a moral outcast. He was a well put-together human being, she was a complete mess. These two very different people had only one thing in common. They both needed Jesus, and they both received him.

What was their breakthrough? Jesus said to Nicodemus, “You must be born again” (John 3:7). Why? Nicodemus needed to be humbled to the level of a child. What did Jesus say to this woman? “If you knew the gift of God . . .” (John 4:10). Why? She needed to be startled by God’s grace. Nicodemus was at the top of his game, and he needed to come down and start all over again. This woman was down in the gutter, and she needed to be lifted up. I wonder who you are today and what you need. You might be a leader, or you might be a stripper. But whatever your need is today, Jesus can satisfy you. When we as a whole church together – every single one of us bringing his or her real need to Jesus with honesty (Nicodemus and this woman both had to face themselves) – when a whole church sits before Jesus with openness to his truth and his power, the Bible calls it “times of refreshing from the presence of the Lord” (Acts 3:20).

“If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” John 4:10

“Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” John 4:13-14

Sinclair Lewis tells the story of a young man who escapes from his boring life trying to live it up with his girlfriend. At one point she says to him so honestly, “We seem different, you and I, but maybe it’s mostly surface – down deep we’re alike in being desperately unhappy, because we never know what we’re unhappy about.” In John chapter 4 Jesus meets a woman who is desperately unhappy, and she doesn’t know why. She has tried again and again to make life work, and she keeps failing. But Jesus simply changes the subject from the mess she has made to the gift he can give. Verse 10: “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” Do you know the gift of God? God has a gift for disappointed people who can’t make life work and are tired of trying.

God has a two-fold gift for every one of us. One, truth to satisfy our minds. Two, experience to satisfy our hearts. The gospel is truth. It’s a new insight into God in his glory and ourselves in our failure and the grace God has for exhausted people who’ve used up all their nifty answers.

God wants to satisfy our inner thirst at the level of our minds and at the level of our hearts. We need both, to enter into reality with God. A. W. Tozer said:

To most people, God is an inference, not a reality. He is a deduction from evidence. They have heard about God from others, and have put belief in God into the back of their minds along with the various odds and ends that make up their total creed. Over against all this cloudy vagueness . . . a loving Personality dominates the Bible. Always a living Person is present, speaking, pleading, loving, working and manifesting himself whenever and wherever his people have the receptivity necessary to receive the manifestation.

Is the living God a satisfying reality to you? There is no one-size-fits-all way that happens. But are you receptive to the Lord Jesus Christ? The testimony of the Christian church through the centuries has been how wonderfully he draws near to us. For example, John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist Church, went to a home Bible study on May 24, 1738, where God gave him a taste of living water. Someone was reading from Martin Luther’s commentary on Romans that night, and Wesley tells us what happened:

About a quarter to nine, while he was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ alone for salvation, and an assurance was given me that He had taken away my sin, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death.

God gave John Wesley this gift Jesus was talking about: “If you knew the gift of God . . . .” Fast forward a hundred years or so and here is another account from Christian history. An Anglican minister named Henry Venn – his wife had died. He was crushed. Venn wrote a letter to a friend about how God met him and how important the Lord became to him:

If I didn’t know the Lord to be mine, if I weren’t certain that his heart feels even more love for me than I am able to conceive, if this were not obvious to me, not by deduction and argumentation but by consciousness, by his own light shining in my soul as the sun shines on my bodily eyes, into what deplorable condition I would have been cast!

Henry Venn was suffering. But God was refreshing his heart with tastes of the living water of his love.

That’s what Jesus is talking about here in John 4. He’s talking about the gospel going deep into our hearts. Look at the experiential language here. Jesus speaks of thirsting and drinking and living water. It is glorious to learn the doctrine of forgiveness. But the purpose of that doctrine is for us to feel forgiven. It is glorious to learn the doctrine of God’s love. But the purpose of that doctrine is for us to feel loved. The apostle Paul described his ministry this way: “Our gospel came to you not only in word, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction” (1 Thessalonians 1:5). That is the gift of God that Jesus is talking about. He’s talking about reality with God. He’s talking about God giving us a resilient joy even in sorrow, a hopeful buoyancy that can face real life, the assurance that all our sins are forgiven forever. The gift of God is living water for our deep soul-thirst.

Do you know the gift of God? Sometimes in our world today we take God’s both/and and divide it up into our own either/or. We even form denominations that way. Some denominations say, “Come to us, and we will teach you sound doctrine.” Other denominations say, “Come to us, and we will give you amazing experiences.” But Jesus says, “Come to me, and I will gift you the gift of God.” But I must admit to you that, for me as a pastor, it’s easier to teach you sound doctrine. It’s more intuitive how to lead you to living water. But that is what our wonderful doctrine is for. Sound doctrine is a road map to follow into the heart of Christ, where his fullness of grace upon grace flows out to the undeserving. Have you ever seen a church where sinful people feel too forgiven? Have you ever seen a church where wounded people feel too restored? Or where discouraged people feel too hopeful or sad people feel too joyful? That is the gift of God. That is the living water of Jesus flowing into our hearts.

Here’s the best part. This living water is for people who don’t deserve it. It’s for this dear woman in John 4, who is desperately unhappy and doesn’t know why. We can think of this woman as, in some ways, the opposite of Nicodemus in John chapter 3. Nicodemus was a man, and here is a woman. Nicodemus was a Jew, she was a Samaritan. He was an upper crust intellectual, she was a moral outcast. He was a well put-together human being, she was a complete mess. These two very different people had only one thing in common. They both needed Jesus, and they both received him.

What was their breakthrough? Jesus said to Nicodemus, “You must be born again” (John 3:7). Why? Nicodemus needed to be humbled to the level of a child. What did Jesus say to this woman? “If you knew the gift of God . . .” (John 4:10). Why? She needed to be startled by God’s grace. Nicodemus was at the top of his game, and he needed to come down and start all over again. This woman was down in the gutter, and she needed to be lifted up. I wonder who you are today and what you need. You might be a leader, or you might be a stripper. But whatever your need is today, Jesus can satisfy you. When we as a whole church together – every single one of us bringing his or her real need to Jesus with honesty (Nicodemus and this woman both had to face themselves) – when a whole church sits before Jesus with openness to his truth and his power, the Bible calls it “times of refreshing from the presence of the Lord” (Acts 3:20).

Here is what we must understand as we come now to John chapter 4. There is a contrast here. Do you see, in verse 6, the word “well”? “Jacob’s well was there.” Then in verse 14, do you see the word “spring”? “The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” The well was natural and man-made. The spring is supernatural and God-given. The well satisfies a temporary thirst. But the spring will flow forever. The well you have to go find. The spring God gives to you, and you take it with you into hardship, into temptation.

She came to draw water from this well at noon, the hottest time of day. She came then, because the other women would come in the cool of the day. She wasn’t welcome in polite society. She was a sexually adventurous woman. When she walks into the room, other women start putting her down, because they perceive her as a threat. To men, this kind of woman is intriguing. She’s a potential hit. This woman had been ostracized by women and mistreated by men so many times, by now she knew to keep to herself. But she felt a thirst deep inside to be loved and understood and accepted and included and safe from cruel female words and selfish male advances. She had been married five times, and now she was living with a guy. She must have wondered, “When does life start working? What else do I have to do?” She had tried to satisfy her soul-thirst at the wells of this world. But Jesus tells her about a spring of living water. It satisfies, because it is of God. It is for her and for you and for me today.

I want to show you one key insight from verse 10, and another key insight from verse 14. Verse 10: “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” Here is the insight embedded in this verse. Jesus is eager to satisfy our soul-thirst.

“If you knew,” Jesus says. How small our are thoughts of him! We perceive him with categories of scarcity and reluctance. We think in terms of our wells, and we hope he might add his blessing to our limitations. But John 1:16 rebukes our meager thoughts: “And from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace.” Massive grace, more than we expect! He forgives us, and he rewards us. He justifies us, and he adopts us. He defends us, and he makes us more than conquerors. He washes our sins away, and he puts glory upon us. The Bible speaks of “the immeasurable riches of his grace” (Ephesians 2:7). He’s not about to run out.

Do you know how God gives? This woman didn’t. And that didn’t stop Jesus; it motivated him all the more. He is eager to satisfy our soul-thirst. He looks upon us right now with a huge heart to bless us. He is lively in his blessing. God said, “I was ready to be sought by those who did not ask for me. I said, ‘Here am I, here am I’” (Isaiah 65:1). That’s his standing policy. It’s hardly a dignified picture of God – trying to get the attention of people who aren’t seeking him. But God doesn’t wait for us. He comes and finds us. He is seeking us today, looking for any heart here today open to his love. He’s not looking for people with a fine spiritual pedigree.