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All right, I need to thank a couple of people that are very, very important to my life. Right over there in that sound booth, you have X Factor and Photo Finish. Can you give them a big applause? Photo Finish is doing the sound, and we only notice the sound system when it's not working. And so you have not noticed it this week at all. And then X Factor is advancing the slides for us. And so just super grateful. They're not only working tonight, but they're in the tab every day as well. So super thankful for them. So the conversations we've been having in the first part of the week just called life and where we find it. And so those of you that have not been were not with us yesterday morning or this morning. This is the third message in a sequence on these. And I want to begin with a golf question. How many of you recognize this dude right here? Anyone? Okay. Scotty Scheffler. Scotty Scheffler. Okay, now, full disclosure. I don't golf. All right? I have enough afflictions in my life without adding golf to them. But I am a huge, huge fan of Scheffler. He lives kind of faith forward in some pretty strong ways. You don't have to listen to him for long to figure out there's some kind of a faith foundation going on there. And as far as achievement is concerned, he's been the number one rated golfer in the world for some time. But he just turned 30 last month. And as a 29 year old, he had won 20 tournaments, including four major tournaments. And so you go, well, yeah. Hasn't that been done before? Yeah, like twice. Like we're talking Tiger woods and Jack Nicklaus were the only other 2 by age 30 to win that many tournaments and that many majors. So pretty accomplished. But one year ago, he was in Northern Ireland at a major championship called the Open Championship, and he was being asked how wonderful it would be to win another major championship. And he looks back at the interviewers and his one sentence response that he then elaborated on was, yeah, what's the point? What's the point? He said it's not fulfilling. From the sense of the deepest places of your heart. He says, from a sense of achievement, it's a major achievement, but as far as that deepest place in your heart, it's just not that fulfilling. Now, listen, this is a YouTube interview worth watching, even if you have no interest in golf whatsoever. So let me just read to you a part of the interview with Scheffler. He says, what's the point? This is not A fulfilling life, meaning winning tournaments. It's fulfilling from a sense of accomplishment, but it's not fulfilling from the sense of the deepest places of your heart. And then he goes on, he says, it's like showing up at the Masters every year. It's like, why do I want to win this golf tournament so badly? And the Open Championship that he was about to play at, why do I want to win the Open Championship so badly? I don't know. If I win, it's going to be awesome for two minutes. And then he started talking about the Byron Nelson Classic that he had won that year or the year before. Byron Nelson Classic is in Dallas, which is his hometown. So he grows up dreaming someday just to play in that tournament. And then he ends up winning that tournament. And so he says about the Byron Nelson Classic, he says, you win it, you celebrate. You hug your family. My sister's there. It's such an amazing moment. Then it's like, okay, where are we gonna eat dinner? Life goes on. It feels like you work your whole life to celebrate winning a tournament for, like, a few minutes. It only lasts a few minutes. And that's what happens. He won the Open Tournament, and the media says, do you think you're gonna win the FedEx tournament? It's like there's just a total absence of a finish line. Now, in that interview, in that conversation, Scheffler didn't use the word idol, but that's what he's talking about, an idol. Tim Keller's definition that I used this morning, Tim Keller, in his book Counterfeit God, said, an idol is anything you look at, and your heart of heart said, if I get that, once I get that, then I'll have value. Then my life will have meaning. Then my life will be worth living. And here's the number one golfer in the world going, it ain't golf. It ain't golf. It's gotta be something other than this because of how fleeting that it's satisfying, but it just comes and it goes. So this conversation about life and where we find it, we've showed this graphic a couple times. Jess, when we talk about life, I was just talking about this sense of home, beauty, tranquility, peace, connection, belonging. It's something we were made for. And our longing for this sense of home, to connect meaningfully with other people is just desiring tranquility and peace. It's so strong that two of the terms Jesus used, two of the images were hunger and thirst. And so in our first conversation yesterday morning, we talked about the bread of Life. And then this morning we talked about the source of life, and now I just wanna talk about the. The water of life. Jesus says that what we're chasing, it's a longing so deep and so powerful. It's like a thirsty person longing, looking for water. And Jesus would say in John's gospel that he was the water of life. He is life water. So another conversation here about our longing, our hunger, our thirst. And I just want you to know your thirst is real, your thirst is deep, and you are going to attempt to satisfy it somewhere. You're going to chase something to satisfy, to quench that thirst. It's just a matter of where. So conversation in John, chapter four. It's a pretty, pretty famous. If you're around church for a while, you probably hear a sermon about the woman at the well, where Jesus talks to her about water and how he can give water to her. She's got the vessel to lower into the well to get water, but he ends up flipping the conversation and saying, if you knew who you're talking to, you'd be coming to me for water. So Jesus asks as the living water. Jesus as the giver of life. Water. And four part conversations. Part one is just life Water. And do we have a map there? There we go. He's in Samaria, which is kind of pivotal to the story because the Jews lived on either sides of that in Galilee up in the north. It was where he was born, in Nazareth, where he had his headquarters in Capernaum and then Jerusalem and in the south, that's in Judea. Jews lived in Judea and Galilee, Samaria in the middle. That's a different people group. These people did not like each other. They detested each other. The Samaritans detested the Jews on either side. The Jews detested the Samaritans. And so Jesus is with his disciples. He's traveling from Judea in the south up to Galilee in the north. They stop in Samaria. He's tired. He sits down by a well outside of town, just close his eyes for a few minutes, just sit down and rest. He. His disciples go into town to buy groceries and to come back out. And then a lone woman comes out to draw water. And Jesus asks her for some water. And she goes, you do understand, our people do not talk. Your people don't interact with my people. And Jesus has just asked her for a drink of water. So this is Jesus response to her. If we can go back to that verse, Jesus answered her, if you knew the gift of God, and if you Knew who it is. Who? Who asked you for a drink. If you knew who I was, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water. He says, if you only knew who you were talking to. If you only knew that the person asking you for water, you'd be asking me for water. But he calls it here living water or life water. Now, John, who writes the Gospel of John in the first century, if you came from a background of the Jewish scriptures, as if you were Jewish and were raised in the synagogue, you would know that Jesus is not using new imagery here when he talks about his capacity to give water. Because in the Old Testament of our Bible, particularly the Psalms, the Jewish scriptures, God is shown to be the water that we are seeking. So the this Psalm here, Psalm 63, you, God, are my God. Earnestly I seek you well earnestly. How much I thirst for you. My whole being longs for you in a dry and parched land where there is no water. Here the thirst for God is likened to crossing a desert and being thirsty for water. But notice it's not just, I long for the water that you give. It's like, I long for you, I thirst for you. My whole being longs for you in a dry and parched land where there is no water. About 20 chapters before, I think of Psalm 42, very similar. As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, my God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When can I go and meet with God? And so here the songwriter is saying, it's like my soul is thirsting not just for the gifts that that God can give. My soul is thirsting for God himself. God here is likened to. What I'm trying to say here is this. What if the Creator and not Gatorade, is the ultimate thirst quencher? What if he intended to be the only being that can genuinely quench the deepest thirst, the deepest hunger and the deepest thirst of our lives. And the challenge, as I see it, is that while my soul might be thirsting for God, I might chase all kinds of things in the hope that that next thing will fill that empty space that is me. So a partial list here, and this is a radically impartial list. I can become an approval addict, just seek the approval of others. Some people depend upon their looks, either natural beauty or fashion, pleasure, business, success, fame, or just getting the honor and acclamation from other people. Perfect children. Good luck with that one. Control. If I can only control freak everything, then I will have the peace and tranquility or power. I desire power over other people. And we could have gone on with lists. It was at least, you know, two, three times that long. But when we talk about life and where we find it, perhaps God came to be the water that we need in the ultimate thirst quencher. We chase all kinds of things in order to try to fill that empty space inside. By the way, can you find one of your counterfeit gods on that list? Because the question isn't do we have an idol? The question which two or three are lobbying for my attention at any given time? Does one of yours happen to be on that list? Something that you. If only I get more of that, if only I can keep that, if only I can reach that, if only I can retain that, if only I can arrive at that, then, then, then I'll have value, I'll have meaning, then I will feel full. Then I will have life. If you can identify one of those as one of the ones that you say, yeah, that is the pail that I am drinking from, why did you choose that one? I mean, in your life? Because what you're using as a substitute God will be wildly different from other people at your table and wildly different from the table next door. Why did you choose yours? Business success or athleticism or beauty or control when someone else chooses something radically different? Probably a multifaceted answer, but I think one of the good answers is because it worked. You grow up in a home with no affirmation. You couldn't get a good word from your dad and you begin to be starved for a good. Interesting language, isn't it? Starved. Starved for a good word from people. And you find yourself in an orbit at work where you start achieving and you start getting praise and I'm telling you, you turn into an affirmative affirmation junkie. And that praise that you receive after going through a famine of approval in your home, it feeds something really deep for about seven minutes and then it's gone and it's intoxicating. And now we look for our next hit. It's like we turn into affirmation junkies. But if you excel at something and got praised for something and for the first time in your life received the approval of others, I'm telling you, man, I know why I turned to that one. Because it worked. It worked for about 15 minutes. So part two of our conversation is just limited satisfaction. And what I want to acknowledge here, which is super important, I think, is that it's not that our idols don't work felling us. They do until they destroy us. But they fell us for an incredibly limited period of time as they lead us on a destructive path that we'll talk about tomorrow. The destruction that an idol can be long term. So it's not that they don't work, it's that they work for such a brief period of time. Like Scheffler saying, I win this tournament and, and it's great for like two minutes and where are we gonna have dinner and you gonna win the next one? It's just here and it's gone. It just doesn't last. So where Jesus mentions this, I believe is in the next conversation where Jesus answered. He says, listen, everyone who drinks this water. He's talking about the water in the well that they're sitting by. Well, what well? What will be thirsty again? He says, today's water will. Will not satisfy me. Tomorrow, whoever drinks this water, you're just gonna get thirsty again. But then he says, whoever drinks the water that I give will never thirst. He's talking here about some kind of God connection through him that is more enduring, longer lasting. He says, listen, indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up into eternal life. It's like, this is gonna turn you from a parched desert into a fountain. You drink the water that I'm gonna give, water is gonna rush up inside of you. So the challenge with an idol, a counterfeit God, isn't that they don't work. It's just limited success with that idol. So I mentioned this morning or yesterday, we've been together too much. What I call retail therapy. And I have to go here because when we say money can't buy happiness, it's a lie. It does buy happiness. I mean, a purchase literally sets off chemicals in my body. Dopamine, serotonin, look it up. When you go to the cash register and walk out of a store with a bag, it actually does something to you emotionally. And that it will fill you. It will fill you up for about 17 minutes until you get home. And it goes on a hanger. And so a woman looks into a walk in closet and it's like every shelf is occupied, every hanger is full. And she looks into the closet and she goes, I don't have anything to wear. By the way, my buddy Emerson Eggerich, who does the love and respect marriage conferences, he says that when a woman looks into a closet and says, I have nothing to wear, she means I don't have anything new. When a dude looks into a closet and says, I don't have anything to wear. He means I don't have anything clean, just Emerson. Right? And then she asks the question. That's the deep question. What if the empty space I'm trying to fill isn't my closet? What if I'm trying to be enough, have enough, feel enough through another purchase, another purchase and another purchase. And I'm, you know, picking on women for the moment. But dudes, I mean, I'm telling you, I'm amazed at when the Amazon box arrives on the front porch. Packaging has turned into an art form. Have you noticed this? That even opening the package of a gadget, a new watch, a belt, you know, a knife or something like that, opening the package becomes a little adventure. And there's this rush that we get this little hit of something that we get. And. And then into the drawer it goes. Repeat those words with me. Into the drawer. Ready? Into the drawer it goes. And it's gone. And so it's not that these things that we tend to clog our life with don't fill us. It's that you get this hit and then it's gone. Whether it's a hit of approval, whether it's shopping a gadget, the walk in closet. And so. And right about now, some people, right about now, there's gotta be more than one person in the room kind of going, jeff, the next purchase will never do it for you. That's what people are supposed to do. People are supposed to fill that emptiness in you. Conversation. Three people, problems. People, problems. And this is when Jesus stops the conversation and says, you know, I'd love to carry on the conversation, but if you could just go into the village and get your husband and come on out and the three of us can have this conversation. That's what he says right here. Jesus says, go and get your husband. Go call your husband and come back. And she goes, I'm single. I'm not married. That's her answer. I have no husband. She replied. And then Jesus exposes something. Jesus exposes this. He said, you're right when you say you have no husband. And in fact, you've had five husbands. And the man that you now have is not your husband. What you say is quite true. You burned through five marriages, and now the guy you're living with, he'll give you his bed, but he won't give you his name. I just wonder if the conversation just kind of hung there for a minute. Now I got like a dozen questions that go unanswered. Did she walk away from those Marriages or did she get dumped five times? Why would you even take a shot at marriage four and five when marriage one, two and three didn't make it? Were economic opportunities so limited for women in that world? That man. If you didn't have an adult son, parents that were alive, or a husband, you were destitute immediately. And the best you could do was get connected to another guy. That would bring you in as rapidly as possible. Were any of those relationships abusive? Jesus is exposing something here. When he's offering her life water, I think he's at least saying this. I'm telling you, if you're looking for something to fill your life, I'm guessing it's not going to be husband number six. It's going to quench your deepest thirst. Sychar where did this conversation take place? It wasn't a city, it was a town. In a town that size, everybody knows everybody's business. Five divorces meant five sets of ex relatives. How many sisters in laws, sisters in law, brothers in law, mother and father in law could you turn a corner without bumping into somebody whose son, brother, you know, dad used to be married to? This is why we think she is alone with Jesus at the well in the middle of the day. Because tactically, women wouldn't go to the well in the middle of the day. You'd go to the well in the cool of the morning, you'd go to the well in the cool of the evening, you would go in groups and often the sediment would settle at the bottom and it was the time you could get the best water. Is she at the well in the middle of the day because she's just tired of running into people? Better just to be out there alone and not get the looks. Jesus says, go, why don't you bring your husband back, we'll finish the conversation. She goes, yeah, not married. I'm single. Because, yeah, five failures and now the guy won't even give you a ring. And what I think he's doing here is I think he's exposing her thirst, her hunger for all of those life things. The tranquility, the home, the peace, the human connection that have certainly not been met through this series of relationships. So what I say firmly is that that empty space in me and that empty space in you cannot be met by my next purchase and cannot be met by the next person. But Jeff, a million love songs say otherwise. Can you hear the riff from Chicago? You're the meaning in my life. You're my inspiration. Yeah, maybe inspiration, but not the meaning in My life. You fill me. You complete me. You're everything to me. I mean, like, we're talking, you know, like, tens of thousands of love songs, right? So let's talk about one together. Music trivia. Now, if you're, like, really young, really young, like, under 50, you might not get this one. So any of you know who this dude is right here? Who is it? Okay, that's not the trivia question. The trivia question is to what did John Denver liken his wife Annie in Annie's song? Okay, I'll give you a clue. The song begins. You fill up my senses like. Like a night in the forest. Like a mountain in springtime Like a walk in the rain. Help me here. Like a storm in the desert. If you're really old, it's your moment. You might not know one song that's been written in the last 30 years, but this one's on the tip of your tongue. Like a sleepy blue ocean. You fill up my senses Come fill me again and I'm telling you. Song rocketed to the top of the charts, became a song sung at weddings for, like, the next 20 years, leaving women going, like, why don't you fill me up Like Annie fills him up? You fill up my senses Like a night in the forest Like a mountain in springtime Like a walk in the rain Like a storm in the desert Like a sleepy blue ocean. On the occasion of their divorce, he famously cut their bed in half with a chainsaw. Look it up. So if on some classic oldies station, that beautiful melody comes up and you hear him singing to the acoustic guitar, I need you to hear another instrument in the background. Brr, brr, brr. All I'm saying here is this. Sometimes there's a gap between the sentimentality of the song and the reality of the relationship. Sometimes there is a gap. I don't think another human being can fill you completely. Not for long. For a while, yeah, but not for long. Now just imagine. Just. Hey, babe, can you raise your hand over here? So I travel with someone here. So Chris. We. I met her in youth group when I was 17 years old. My friend Mike and his girlfriend Jane. I said, who's Jane's friend? And he said, that's Chris. I said, she looks kind of cute. So went out for the first time. I still think she's cute. And we've been dating a few years now, so. Married 40. 43. Okay, 43 years. So listen, we. Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh, no. We like each other most days, and we've been through great seasons and we've been through hard seasons in our marriage and come out, you know, the other side of those. But we really enjoy each other's company and get along really well. But if some young woman at church approached Chris and said, you must, you are so lucky to be married to Jeff. I just can't believe how lucky you are to have someone like him that completes you and who fills you. First she would have to stop laughing, but after that, I'm guessing there might be a little, you know, listen, Jeff's a good enough guy and we're in a good season, but film me, complete me. Somebody else got that job and it wasn't Jeff. Now, I joke around with this a little bit with John Denver and Chris and I and our relationship, but listen, in every single marriage marriage moment here, you will go through seasons when you are either feel lonely or bored in your marriage. It is not year after year after year of uninterrupted great communication and romance. You will hit seasons where you are lonely or bored. And if you find yourself on some site like Facebook Sunday evening looking up old flames to see how they're doing and what they're doing, I would like to say that relationship that you're now flirting with, it will not fill you. That's not true. It will fill you. You will have a feeling of being higher than a kite because someone notices you and someone's interested in you. It is not unlike the feeling you get when with an 8th grade crush when you find out that somebody likes you. And that's something that happened when you're 14 and it's something that can happen when you're 44. And it's something that can happen when YOU'RE 64. You'll fear higher than a kite and that kite will crash. I can tell you this will not fail you. Not true. It will fail you for a number of weeks and perhaps a number of months. But the math here is this. One flawed broken person plus a second flawed broken person does not equal two whole people. It never will. We will bring all of us. And what I want for you so much is to experience a new freedom. And the freedom is this. The freedom is to love a very. And I'm not talking here just about spouses. I'm here talking about friends. I'm talking here about our kids. To connect with someone meaningfully in a flawed relationship and the freedom to enjoy that person as you are able without demanding from them that they meet some hollow space in your life that they're never gonna meet. And that the next person will only meet for a while. Are you with me on this? It's the freedom to love kids that will some days connect and some days will not. A spouse some days will connect, some days will not. And a dear friend who will some days connect and some days will not. The freedom to enjoy them while realizing at the same time. They did not come to meet your hunger. They did not come to meet your deepest thirst. They did not. They are not the source of life. Somebody else got that job. Jesus is talking here to a woman with five broken marriages and saying, sister, if only you knew the person talking to you, you'd be coming to me for water. You'd be in one more relationship is not going to do it for you. He's exposing something. And what happens now is it looks like a change of subject. And it's just part four of the conversation, which is just two mountains. She asks a question. See the Jews, Galilee and Judea in the south, they worshiped in Jerusalem. That's where the temple was, in Jerusalem. The Samaritans did not go down to Jerusalem to worship. The Samaritans had their own worship center. It was Mount Gerizim. And so the Samaritans believe that God met people on Mount Gerizim. The Jews believe that God met people in Jerusalem. So her question here is this. Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, Gerizim, not far from Sychar. But you Jews claim that the place where you worship is in Jerusalem. Now, the way that I have often heard this taught, it makes a little sense, is that she's so uncomfortable with the five broken marriages conversation that she immediately changes the subject. Yeah, this is kind of personal. Let's ask a theological. Let's turn this into a theological conversation. Yeah, maybe, But I think something else is going on here. She says, here's Mount Gerizim. There's Jerusalem. Mount Jerusalem. Where do I go to make things right? Which hill? What mountain do I have to go to to get right and to be right and to atone? You seem to be a prophet. Just point me toward a mountain. And Jesus goes, it's not a mountain, it's a person. He says, the time is coming, and now is when those who worship God will worship him in spirit and in truth. And he's saying, here, you don't have to go to a mountain. You have to come to a person. You need to come to a person. And I am that person you have been longing for. And I have that person you have been hungry for. And I am that person you have been thirsting for. Your deepest thirst in life can only be met through me. You can come to him wherever you are. And she's finding Jesus at a well in Samaria, not on either one of those popular worship places. And I think that's a good word for us. We don't have to go to a mountaintop. We come to a person. And you can come to him wherever you are. He is the one I believe our hearts are longing for. He is the one that we're thirsting for. He is the one that we're craving. The empty space in us is so vast and cavernous that it has to be filled by an infinite God. The infinite chasm has to be filled by an infinite God. Man, where does this find you today? If we look at one of these lists of possible idols and man, I burned so much of my life there, and my relationships have been a train wreck. Listen, don't use this as a moment to shame out. Use this as a moment to hear the invitation of Christ. One who said, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice, man, just open the door. Just open the door. And I will come in and eat with that person, and they will eat with me. He's inviting himself over. And that verse from Revelation, chapter three to Christians in Laodicea, that was not written to unbelievers. It was written to Christians who had lost their way and needed to find their way back home. And so the most powerful impression I would want you to have is just his voice of invitation. And if there's one gesture you could have, it's just an gesture of opening the door of your life and just saying, come on in. Three powerful word prayer. Come on in. Come on in. So we pray. Dear Lord, bread of life, feed my hungry heart. Dear Jesus, source of life, fill my empty soul. Gracious Lord, water of life, please quench my every thirst. Gracious God, meet us here as we are and where we are. Teach us to fill us with yourself, day after day after day after day. We ask this in the name of the Christ who came for us. Amen.