Good morning. I don't remember that conversation,
but it reminds me of what Scott Richardson said about what preachers
are. And it's a worthy quote. He said, a preacher is a nobody
who tells everybody about somebody who can save anybody. A lot of truth to that. The word
pastor means shepherd, and God's called us to shepherd His people,
but most importantly, He's called us to preach the gospel, because
we need to be saved. We need to be saved. And those
who have, by God's grace, met Christ and know something of
salvation, are still more, as a matter of fact, they're more
keenly aware of their need to be saved now than before. So I stand before you as a nobody
to preach to everybody about somebody who can save anybody. We're going to be looking at
a verse in John chapter four, if you'd like to open your Bibles
there with me. John chapter four. I've been preaching at home through
the gospel of John, and one of the things that struck me so
profoundly was the contrast that the Holy Spirit gave to the apostle
John when writing his gospel between the main figure of chapter
three and the main figure of chapter four. And speaking of
Nicodemus in chapter 3 and the woman at the well in John chapter
4, we could not find two individuals that were more clearly in contrast
to one another. Nicodemus, the Bible tells us,
was a leader of the Jews. He was very religious. He was
outwardly, obviously, very moral, highly respected among the people,
whereas the woman at the well, married five times. The man that she was living with
now was not her husband. She, living in fornication, happened
to go to the well in the middle of the day to avoid the condescending
looks and the scorn of the women of that town where she lived,
no telling how many homes she had broken up and how hated she
was and despised she was. And yet these two individuals,
as different as they were, had one thing in common. They didn't
know God. And though their lives may have
made a big difference in their relationships with other men,
the way in which they lived their lives had absolutely no difference
whatsoever in their relationship with God. And I believe the Lord is telling
you and me that All have sinned, and all have fallen short of
the glory of God, and all are in need of grace and salvation. And I pray the Lord will bless these
words of His to our hearts to that end. Our Lord initiates this conversation with
the woman at the well in John chapter 4 as he always does with
his children. He always takes the first step. He always initiates the conversation. And if he didn't, we would have
no interest in him whatsoever. But even before initiating this
conversation, He said to the disciples who wanted naturally
as all good Jews would do in traveling from Galilee up to,
or from Judah or Jerusalem up to Galilee, they would have naturally
gone around Samaria because of their hatred for the Samaritans.
He said to the disciples, I must needs go through Samaria. And
the only thing that would cause the Lord Jesus Christ to say
there's something I must do is if he was commanded to do it
by his heavenly father. He is not obligated or required
to do anything that we would demand of him. But he said, I came into this
world to do the will of my father. The first words that we have
recorded of the Lord Jesus when he was 12 years old, when lost
by Mary and Joseph in Jerusalem was, did you not know that I
must be about my father's business? And the last words that we hear
of our Lord speaking before he drew his final breath was it
is finished. Father into thy hands, I commend
my spirit. I have come to do the works of
him that sent me and I finished the work. That was my whole purpose. And the father sent him to save
God's elect people. And so when he said to his disciples,
I must needs go through Jerusalem, he is saying to them that the
father has some chosen children in Samaria, and one in particular
that's going to be at the well in the middle of the day, and
I must needs meet her there and reveal myself to her. And as
a result of our Lord revealing himself to this woman, she ran
back into town and the people that she had spent her whole
adult life at least trying to avoid, she calls out unashamedly,
come, meet a man who told me everything whatsoever I did.
Is not this the Christ? And they came. And they heard
and they met our Lord and they confessed. We now believe, not
because of your confession, the Lord used your confession to
cause us to come hear him. And you know the same thing's
true now, isn't it? As the children of God, we invite
our unbelieving friends to come, meet a man who told me everything
whatsoever I ever did. But faith cannot come, saving
faith cannot become because of our testimony. Saving faith can
only come if the Lord is pleased to speak to them. And so these
men in Samaria said, we believe, we believe not because of your
testimony, but because we've heard from him. We've heard from
him. And so our Lord, he knew, he
knew that that these elect lost sheep were
waiting on him. And he had to go and reveal himself
to them. He says to this woman in verse 10, after having asked
her for a drink, He said to her, she responded
by saying, what are you, a Jew, asking of me, a Samaritan? And he said to her, if you knew,
if you knew the gift of God and who it is that saith unto thee,
give to me to drink, you would ask of him and he would give
you living water. That's always the order of salvation. If you knew who He is, you would
ask. And in asking, He would give.
And in giving, we would have life. We would have life. So this whole order of salvation
begins in knowing who He is. And we have no way of knowing
Him unless he reveals himself to us. And he uses the preaching
of the gospel. He uses what we're doing right
now to make himself known. How can they call upon him in
whom they've not believed? Notice the order that the Lord
uses in Romans chapter 10. You won't call until you believe. You see, you don't believe because
you've called. We don't call on Him, He calls
us. It is not of Him that willeth, nor of Him that runneth. It is
of God who gives mercy. And so He says, how can they
call upon Him in whom they've not believed? And how can they
believe on Him in whom they've not heard? And how can they hear
without a preacher? You see, the order is in reverse.
Calling is the last thing we do. Calling is what happens as
a result of believing. Believing is what happens as
a result of knowing. Knowing is a result of what happens
as a result of hearing. Faith comes by hearing, and hearing
comes by the word of God. This is not a work of man. This is a work of God. It's a
work of God. Nicodemus, you must be born again. What is it to be born again?
Not of blood, nor the will of flesh, nor the will of man, but
born of God, born from above. This is a miracle of grace. And
the Lord uses the means, he uses the means of nobody's preaching
the gospel to everybody of somebody who is able to save anybody.
If you knew the gift of God and who it is that saith unto thee,
give me to drink, you would ask of him and he would give you
living water. The gift of God, that's the title
of this message. The gift of God. 2 Corinthians chapter 9, verse
15. Paul says, thanks be unto God for his unspeakable gift. When a man like me gets up to
try to preach the gospel, and that's all I'm trying, I'm just
trying to preach the gospel. I know when I step up here that
I'm doomed for failure. I've been trying to do this for
27 years and I still wish that one time I could preach the gospel
as it ought to be preached. I've never been able to do it. And it's because this message
is unspeakable. There are no words in our language
capable for properly expressing these glorious truths. It's an unspeakable gift. This
word unspeakable means indescribable. It means incomprehensible. When
Paul in 1 Corinthians was caught up into the third heaven, He
said that he heard words that were unspeakable. We have a lot
of people in our church that speak Spanish, some that only
speak Spanish. And I told them, I've told them
several times, we get to heaven, we have a language barrier now.
Some of us speak one language, some of us speak the other language.
But in every human language, which all came as a result of
Tower of Babel when God confused the language of man. In every
human earthly language, there is a vocabulary that's not adequate
to express the glory of God as it is. And when we get to heaven,
we're not gonna be speaking English, and we're not gonna be speaking
Spanish. God's gonna give us a language.
Paul said it's unspeakable language. He heard things that were unspeakable.
He's gonna give us a language, and we're gonna know it, and
the vocabulary's gonna be perfect, and there's not gonna be any
words like we have that are so, some of them very bad words.
No, it'll be a perfect language. And for the first time in our
lives, we'll be able to worship Him as we ought. We'll be able
to express to Him. In the meantime, in the meantime,
what we have is God's Word. And so we make an effort to express
this unspeakable gift with the Word of God. And if the Lord's going to speak,
He's going to speak not by my words, not by your pastor's words,
not by illustration. He's going to speak by His Word.
His Word is alive. His Word is effectual. His Word
is a double-edged sword. His Word divides the son to the
soul and the spirit and reveals the thoughts and the intents
of our hearts. God's Word is what does that. Might we look
and, by God's grace, believe what He says. And all of God's Word, written
Word, is a revelation of the living Word. John begins his
gospel by saying, in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was
with God, and the Word was God, and the Word became flesh, and
the Word dwelt among us. And we beheld his glory as the
glory of the only begotten of the Father, the one who himself
is full of grace and full of truth. He rebuked the Pharisees. He said, you search the scriptures
because you think in them you have eternal life. And we know
from our past experiences in religion that we were proud of
the things that we thought we knew because we had studied the
Bible. And the Lord rebuked those Pharisees
and said, you've missed the whole message of the Bible. For these
are they which testify of me. And our comfort and our encouragement
is that God's word will not return unto him void. As a man who is
making a feeble effort to preach the Gospel, my hope is that His
Word will not return void. He will accomplish the purpose
for which He sent it. And that applies not just to
the preaching of the Gospel and the written Word of God, but
it applies to the Lord Jesus Himself, the Living Word. For
when He returned to glory, and took his rightful place at the
right hand of the majesty on high. He went back to heaven,
bringing with him the names of everyone for whom he lived and
died. He did not return to his father
void. He took his rightful place And
the scripture says that God's people, all of God's people are
seated right now in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. It's
not as if we were there, it's as if we're here. We are there. If anything's the figment of
our imagination, it's what we're seeing and experiencing right
now here in this physical world. For the foundation of all truth
is established in heaven, and it cannot be moved. And our Lord Jesus is our advocate
with the Father. He pleads our case and presents
himself for all of our righteousness before God. And he says to you
and me, if you knew, if you knew who And I love what the Lord does
in this chapter as the conversation goes on with this woman at the
well. She finally says, well, we know
that when Messiah comes, he's gonna straighten everything out. And he says unto her, and in
our King James, it's translated in verse 26, I that speak unto
thee am he, But if you look at that verse in its original language,
the literal translation is, I am speaketh unto thee. She says, we know that when the
I am comes and he says, I am, I am the one that speaketh unto
thee. And that was the last thing he
said to her. What's he doing? He's revealing
himself to her. as the glorious Son of God, the
successful Savior of sinners, the one Son of His Father, the
Christ, the Messiah, who sets all things straight before God. Is not this the Christ? How did
she know it was the Christ? How did she know He was the Christ?
Because He revealed Himself to her. That's how she knew. I have four simple points I want
to try to make quickly. And I didn't press start on this
thing, so I don't have any clue. This gift of God is freer than
we can possibly imagine. This gift of God is more valuable
than we can possibly know. This gift of God is more costly
than we can possibly comprehend. And this gift of God is given by
one who is more blessed to give it than we are to receive it. The wages of sin is death. We come into this world in our Father Adam, Sinful, under
the curse, under the law, but the gift of God is eternal life
through Jesus Christ our Lord. The gift of God. It's called grace. And we've all heard the definition
given of grace that it's an unmerited favor. And it is, we can't merit
it, it has to be given to us. But in our city, we have people
on the street corners that wait at stoplights and they beg for
money whenever cars are stopped waiting for the red light to
change. And if I was to roll down my window, which I rarely
do, and hand one of those beggars a dollar bill, that would be
unmerited favor. I don't know him. He's never
done anything for me. I'm just giving him a gift that
he didn't deserve. If on the other hand, I looked
out my window and I saw that that beggar had murdered my only
son, And I opened the passenger door
of my car and I invited him to come into my car and I took him
home and I cleaned him up. And I gave him new clothes and
I fed him. And I gave him unfettered access
to all of my assets, whatever they might be. Put him on my
bank account, go down to the courthouse and sign all the documents
to make that beggar my child. That's a whole lot more than
unmerited favor, isn't it? That's demerited favor. You see,
grace is much more. This gift is so much more than
just unmerited favor. Yeah, we don't merit it. But
we merit just the opposite. For we slew with our own hands
and by our own sin the Son of God. And he looks upon us with mercy,
takes us into his family, washes us with the water of his word,
adopts us into his family, gives us all the riches of grace in
the person of our substitute. Oh, oh, how free is that? How free is that? You know, I've
used the example of if any one of us had to stand before God,
and be accepted in the presence of a holy God based on the best
thing that we've ever done. The best prayer that we've ever
prayed, the most unselfish act that we've ever performed, the
kindest word that we've ever spoken. Just one little snippet
of moment in time from your life, if you could just take that out
and say, Lord, judge me on that, you'd go to hell for it. This gift, this gift is so precious
and it's so free that if you took that snippet of time from
every person that ever lived, it would not be sufficient. And
added it all together, it would not be sufficient to save one
sinner. How valuable, how valuable this
gift is. There's only one thing that's sufficient as a price for the soul of a
sinner, and that's the blood of Christ. It's shed blood. Nothing that we do. We're blind
beggars like Bartimaeus, naked, stripped, unable to see. We're
like that woman at the well. I mean, the woman with the issue
of blood who had spent all that she had on positions and worse
off now than she was before. And that's what we do. We go
about trying to establish our own righteousness and trying
to earn favor with God and try to be religious. And all the
things that we do and all the advice that we get from men,
we end up more worse off. Why? Because now we not only
have the things that we're shamed of, now we have all the self-righteousness
of our efforts piled up together. causing us to be guilty before
God. Oh, if you knew how free it was. You know, we're hesitant to ask
because we might think it's too expensive. Well, I can't afford that. It's free. Turn with me to Isaiah chapter
55, Isaiah 55. You ever look at something and
you think, well, I'd really like to have that, but no way I can
afford that. And so you don't even entertain the thought of
it. You don't even entertain owning something like that, because
it's way outside of your price range. Oh, this is the most priceless,
precious gift that a man could ever have, and it is free. It's free. Don't let the cost
of it keep you from asking. For if you knew who it is that
saith unto thee, Give me to drink, you would ask of him. He would give you living water.
Isaiah chapter 55, oh, and I love that word. God is just, the prophet
is crying out, give this your undivided attention. Put everything
else out of the way. Oh, everyone, everyone that thirsteth,
come ye to the waters Now let's just stop right there for a moment.
Thirst is an involuntary reaction of the physical body. It's the
first indicator of dehydration. You don't make a decision that
you're going to be thirsty. You don't make that decision,
you never have. Now you may take a drink when you're not thirsty,
but to be thirsty is not a decision that you make. It's the body
telling you, I've got a need. And if this need's not met, it'll
be life-threatening. Because just a few days from
now, if I don't meet this need of thirst, I'm gonna die. If you're thirsty, it wasn't a decision that you
made to be thirsty. It's that would God the Holy
Spirit cause you to believe that you've got a life-threatening
disease and it's sin. And if the water of life doesn't
come, you're gonna die. And that wasn't something you
came up with. Oh, everyone that thirsteth. And the Bible ends with this
same call, doesn't it? The spirit and the bride say,
come. You thirsty? Drink from the river of life
freely. Freely. You can't afford it. It's free. You have no money. Come ye buy
and eat, yea, come buy wine and milk without money and without
price. Wherefore do you spend money
for that which is not bread? And you labor for that which
satisfies not. Hearken diligently unto me. You see, we're back to the word,
aren't we? Here's the means by which God, we drink and we eat
through our ears. And though this physical ear
might only be able to hear an audible voice, the seeing eye
of the Spirit and the hearing ear of the Spirit are both of
God. And God gives us ears to hear
from Him. And we hear His voice, we'll
follow Him. We'll follow Him. Thirsty? Come. It's free. Why? You're spending money for that
which satisfies God. It's not bread. Oh, you feeding
on swine husk. Come, buy and eat without money, without
price. I'm thankful. for my wife, very
thankful for her. She's what I call a low-maintenance
woman. She doesn't have high expectations
or high requirements. And I want to tell you about
a little habit she has. When she goes shopping, she loves
to shop, as I'm sure a lot of women do. She'll pick stuff up
in the store and carry it around with her. And I know before she
gets to the cash register, she's going to put most of that stuff
back. But she's carrying around with her, and she's thinking
about it. And she's thinking, well, can we really afford this?
How much? And by the time she gets to the cash register, she
realizes, you know what? It's not worth it. And she puts
it back. And she realized the price was
too high. And what if that person at the
cash register had said, no, no, no, don't put it back. It's free.
You can have it. She'd walk out of that store with everything
she's got in her hand. It's free! You can't afford it. It's free. It costs nothing. And yet, it
costs everything, doesn't it? Because when you receive this
gift, this free gift, everything you are and everything
you own now willingly belongs to Him. It costs you everything. Let me tell you a little secret.
If you've never received the gift of God in the person of
the Lord Jesus Christ, everything you are and everything you own
already belongs to him. It's his now, whether you like
it or not, it's all his. He'd take your breath from you
just like that. The very next breath you draw,
that's his breath, it's his air. Whatever health you have, God
gave it to you. Whatever comfort you enjoy in
this life, they belong to him, and he can take them away anytime
he wants. The man who says, I will not
have that man reign over me is a fool. The fool is setting his
heart, because he does reign over you. He does reign over
you. Every part of your life, he reigns
over. Here's what happens when we receive
this free gift. We rejoice in the one who has
already been reigning over us to reign over us. Oh, we're so,
Lydia, the Lord opened Lydia's heart, Lydia opened her home. The Lord said to Zacchaeus, Zacchaeus
come down, I must go to your home today. And what Zacchaeus
do, he opened his wallet. He said, oh, if I've taken anything
from anybody, take it back fourfold. God opened the windows of heaven
on the road to Damascus and invaded the life of one who was saying
in his heart, I'll not have that man reign over us. And he spoke
to his heart, Saul of Tarsus, and said, Saul, Saul, why persecutest
thou me? Who art thou? Lord, I am Jesus,
whom thou persecutest. Oh, Lord, what would you have
me to do? What would you have me to do? I'm gonna show you
what great things you must suffer for my name's sake. Oh, that's
great, Lord. Whatever. You see, it costs nothing
and it costs everything. It costs nothing to buy it, and
when you receive it, everything belongs to Him. Your heart, your
home, your family, everything, it's already His. Now you can
rejoice in it being his. And you turn loose of it. You
turn loose of it. So next time you have a financial
reversal, lose your job, well, you know, God took it away. That
was God's all the time anyway. You know, car breaks down. You
call your wife, say, honey, God's car broke down. We got to do
something about it. You know, it's all his. You're
free. You don't have to hold on to
something as if it's your life. It's not your life. He's your
life. And everything you have belongs to him. Oh, if you knew, if you knew how
valuable it was, This is life eternal, that they
might know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom Thou
hast sent. This is a person. The Lord Jesus
Himself is life. I am the way, I am the truth,
I am the life. Life. I'm not gonna show you
the way to life, I am your life. He's the pearl of great price.
We sell all that we have to possess him. He is the wisdom of God. He is the righteousness of God.
Proverbs 8, verse 18 says, riches and honor are with me. Yay, durable riches. These are riches that, this is
gold that cannot be tarnished. This is where, this is the gift
of God that's eternal. Oh, if you knew how valuable,
if you know how free it was, if you know how valuable it was,
how valuable it was to your soul. Turn with me to Colossians chapter
one, Colossians one. Look at verse 27. To whom God would make known
what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles. This gift is a mystery. It doesn't
mean that it's mysterious. It means that it's hidden and
it has to be revealed. It has to be revealed. And the
Lord Jesus Paul's talking about preaching the gospel. And he's
saying, I preach the gospel that God would make known what is
the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles. What
is the riches of this glory? That is Christ in you, the hope
of glory. The person of the Lord Jesus
Christ. Oh, how valuable is he? He's everything. He's everything. You can't put a price on Him. And if you knew how valuable
He was, if you knew how free He was, you would ask. You would ask. If you knew what it meant to
have peace with God, to have your sins put away, If you knew
what it was to have the peace of God, to have hope and joy,
comfort and peace, if you knew, you would ask. If you knew how free it was,
if you knew how valuable it was, and if you knew how costly it
was. Yes, it's free to us, but oh, how costly it was to
him The price that was paid for this
gift was paid by God himself. The Lord Jesus Christ did not
die on Calvary's cross to make us an offer of salvation, to
say, well, you know, won't you receive me or reject me? And
your salvation will bow. I've done all my part. Now it's
up to you. No, no. The Lord Jesus Christ was making
himself an offering to his father for the sins of his people. And
the father saw the travail of his soul, and the father said,
I'm satisfied. When I see the blood, God speaking,
when I see the blood, I'll pass by you. The price that had to
be paid is not our righteousness. It's not our good intentions.
It's not our decision. It's one and one thing only,
and that was the blood that the Lord Jesus placed himself on
the mercy seat. Scripture says that he took his
blood into heaven and put it on that heavenly mercy seat.
Not a mercy seat that was made with the hands of men, but one
that was made by God. The covering for our sins. God would only be satisfied with
a perfect sacrifice provided by one who was himself perfect. If you knew what it meant about
how costly this gift was to you and what I had to do to attain
it for you, that I left the glories of heaven, that I was made in
the likeness of sinful flesh, that I was born under the law,
I was inspected by the law in thought, in word, in deed, every
moment of my life, And the law could find no condemnation, no
judgment in me whatsoever. That I lived a sinless life.
And at the end of that life, I bore in my body the full weight,
the full weight of all the shame and all the sorrow and all the
separation that sin deserved for my people. And I satisfied
the demands of God's justice once and for all. If you knew,
if you knew how free it was, if you knew how precious it was,
how priceless it is, how costly it was, you would ask. God had to be forsaken of God. This past week, we have, I'm
so thankful for our young, we've got a bunch of kids in our church.
Babies are being born, and I'm so thankful for the young couples
in our church. They're doing so much better
a job than I ever did with my kids. And there's a young couple in
our church that's got three small children, and Gabriel's the oldest
one. And they were at our daughter's
house the other day. And my daughter opened her pantry
where she has some snacks for kids, and most of them are healthy
snacks. And she said to Gabriel, I think
Gabriel may be seven. Now, Gabriel's mom, Savannah,
she keeps a tight ship, and she keeps her three kids on a short
leash. And they are very well-behaved,
disciplined kids. And my daughter said to Gabriel,
she said, He said, Gabriel, you can have anything in here you
want, except for that. She pointed to a jar of candy. And for that,
you gotta go ask your mom. Gabriel hung his head. He said,
I'll take one of those. That's what I really want, but
I know what my mom's gonna say. She's gonna tell me I can't have
it. So he didn't even go ask. Because he knew that she was
gonna say no. If you knew, How willing and
how blessed. Here's what, when Paul was dealing with the
elders at Ephesus in Acts chapter 20, he said to them something
very interesting because you would think that what he said
would be recorded in Matthew, Mark, and Luke and John, but
it's not. It's the only place in the word
of God where it's recorded. when he says to them something
that he knew that they knew. Remember the words of the Lord
Jesus Christ, how he said, it is more blessed to give than
to receive. Now our children are blessed
when they get gifts. They're happy. but a loving parent
feels a joy so much deeper in giving that gift than that child
could ever experience. If what Paul said to those Ephesian
elders is true among us, is it not true with him? He's more blessed. to give the
gift of eternal life than we are to receive it. He delights
in showing mercy. Oh, but we're like Gabriel, aren't
we? Oh, well, he'd never give me
that. Look at the way, I've been a bad boy today. He's not gonna
give me candy. That only comes as a reward for
good behavior. He's not gonna give me that. If you knew. How blessed He was
to give it, you wouldn't hesitate. If you knew how free it was,
if you knew how valuable it was, if you knew how costly it was,
you'd ask. And He would give. You know, those things not only cause
the unbeliever to not ask, the child of God My brothers and
sisters in Christ, is that not the same thing that causes us
to be hesitant in asking? We forget how free it is. We
forget how valuable it is. We forget how costly it was.
And we forget how blessed He is to give it. And we're so prone
to have a works mentality, even as believers, so that we don't
come and ask as we ought. Ask, ask, and you shall receive. You have not because you ask
not. Pastor.