Are You Ready to Offer the World the Water of Life?

John chapter 4, verse 5: It is a long passage, but we are going to shorten it and then simply share it by recounting it. In any case, you know it quite well: the story of the Samaritan woman, Jesus and the Samaritan woman. The Lord is walking along and stops at a place in Samaria, in a city called Sychar, in the province, the region of Samaria.

It says: “So He came to a city of Samaria,” verse 5, “called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph. And Jacob’s well was there. Then Jesus, being weary from His journey, sat down there by the well, and it was the sixth hour.” It was around 12 noon; it was practically midday. “A woman of Samaria came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, ‘Give Me a drink,’ for His disciples had gone into the city to buy food. The Samaritan woman said to Him, ‘How is it that You, being a Jew, ask me for a drink, since I am a Samaritan woman?’ For Jews and Samaritans have no dealings with one another.”

“Jesus answered and said to her, ‘If you knew the gift of God and who it is who says to you, “Give Me a drink,” you would ask Him, and He would give you living water.’ The woman said to Him, ‘Sir, You have nothing with which to draw it, and the well is deep. Where, then, do You get that living water? Are You greater than our father Jacob, who gave us this well, from which he, his sons and his livestock drank?’”

“Jesus answered and said to her, ‘Whoever drinks of this water will thirst again, but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give will never thirst. Rather, the water that I shall give will become in him, in her, a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life.’ The woman said to Him, ‘Sir, give me that water so that I will not thirst and have to come here to draw it.’ Jesus said to her, ‘Go, call your husband and come here.’ The woman answered and said, ‘I have no husband.’ Jesus said to her, ‘You have spoken well in saying, “I have no husband,” because you have had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband. In this you have spoken truthfully.’”

“The woman said to Him, ‘Sir, it seems to me that You are a prophet,’” and then she enters into a dialogue; let us move ahead. All right, there are only a few verses left; I want to put together the most important part. It says: “Sir, it seems to me that You are a prophet. Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, and you say that Jerusalem is the place where one ought to worship. Jesus said to her, ‘Woman, believe Me, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know,’” because salvation comes from the Jews, from the Messiah, “‘but the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth, because the Father also seeks such worshipers to worship Him. God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and in truth.’”

“The woman said to Him, ‘I know that the Messiah, called the Christ, is coming. When He comes, He will tell us all things.’ Jesus said to her, ‘I am He, the One speaking with you.’” May the Lord bless His holy Word. Thank You, Father, amen. Thank You, Lord. Let this Word enter our hearts, Father, and allow it to do its work and have its effect, Lord, in our lives and in this congregation. We ask it in Jesus’ name, amen, amen.

The reason I have chosen this message is very simple. A few days ago, on New Year’s Eve, God gave me a Word to share with you, declaring my sense that God is calling us this year to consecrate ourselves and focus more than ever on an effort to evangelize. Juan, do you have somewhere to sit? There is a seat up here in front, so come over and sit here. Forgive me for putting you in the spotlight, but wherever you like—up here in front is fine. We will not charge you more up here than back there.

So we are talking about the importance of being an evangelistic congregation. God has called us; this is the time. God has placed so many beautiful things in this community. When one looks at you, one sees all of Latin America reflected here, and even other countries of the world: so many different cultural temperaments, cultures, colors, cultural sensibilities, different socioeconomic and intellectual levels, different abilities. The people we have here are a treasure, for the glory of the Lord. And God wants to use such rich and diverse humanity for His glory. We represent and embody the entire community around us, and God has placed within us the ability to reach it.

White people, Black people, Asians, intellectuals, professionals, humble people, people who cannot read or write, undocumented people—we are all here, ready and waiting. God has been investing so many beautiful things in this congregation: faith, intensity, passion for the Kingdom, gifts of the Spirit, a fierce vision of the Kingdom of God. And I believe we are prepared. I feel in my heart that we are like a pregnant woman; the womb cannot take any more and wants to give birth to what is within it. And I believe this is a year that we must dedicate to the Lord: putting into practice the things we have received, giving more to the Lord, evangelizing, and dedicating ourselves to intentional evangelism.

What I mean by that is that God has given us the blessing of growing over the years and of being a healthy congregation, but God does not want us merely to grow in the organic and spontaneous way we have grown through different programs, radio, the internet, social outreach, people inviting others to come to church, relatives coming, and friends hearing about the congregation. God wants us to set ourselves to the task, as though programmatically declaring an evangelistic work in the city. And that frankly frightens me. Declaring these things publicly commits me, and if I do not do it this year, then I am going to look bad. So I am also committed to you, and you are committed to me, amen? All of us are committed to the Lord.

We are going to do a work because this is the time. I believe God has placed an anointing, a calling, an endowment, a passion and gifts in our hands, and now we have to begin launching out into what God has made us for. It is like the people of God standing before the Promised Land, with a mighty river there in front of them, while beyond it a land flowing with milk and honey awaits us. We have been in the wilderness for forty years—in fact, we have been here in Boston and Cambridge for almost forty years—and this is the time to put into practice all that experience God has allotted to us in Egypt and in the wilderness.

God has been shaping us; He has been working on us, and I feel that we are ready to enter that additional dimension. It is time to face the tribes over there, ready and waiting with their spears and swords, because the devil does not surrender his territory easily either, you know? But the victory is ours. And we are like Joshua, to whom God says, “I have given you all the land on which the sole of your foot treads. As I was with Moses, so I will also be with you.” As God was with His Church in the first century, as He has been with the Church throughout the centuries, and as He has been with other Christians during the great revivals of history, God is also with us.

And God is with you, not only with the pastor. The Lord says, “As I was with the pastor and with the evangelists, so I am also with you.” Joshua was a young man, relatively speaking. Now, he had fought his battles too, mind you. But now he was assuming the command held by Moses, that great servant of God whom God had supported with great signs and wonders. He also felt inadequate and unprepared because the mantle of command had fallen upon him, and now he had to lead this great people, bring them in and lead the war to conquer the land.

But the Lord says to him, “Do not fear; I am with you. I have issued an order that everything on which you set your foot, everything you undertake, shall be yours. Legally, you now hold the title in your hands; all that remains is simply for you to execute it and make it a reality.” I believe that in the Kingdom of Heaven, God has declared victory over us. God has declared growth, prosperity, abundance and blessing. And now He says, “You have it. The title is in your hands even though you cannot see it. It is an authority that I give; it is a decree that I have issued. Now simply execute it, materialize it, make it real; make it visible, practical and applicable.” So that is the part that falls to us.

And that is the story of the people of God. God gives orders and declarations, and we here on Earth say, “Amen,” take them and turn them into reality. And if we move according to the Word that God gives, we cannot be defeated. So I believe that is how it is. I feel unsure, to be honest, because I know how difficult it is to evangelize in these times. The devil has seen to it that Jericho is enclosed by very large, impassable and high walls. Did you know that the first city the Jews had to confront when they entered Canaan was Jericho?

And I believe Jericho symbolizes the strongholds, principalities, powers and things in which the empire of evil is rooted, established, fortified and entrenched. And it says, “Well, if you want to pass through here, you will have to get past me.” The enemy—God has allowed Satan to enclose our cities with impassable walls. The Bible says that Jericho was shut up, that its walls were tightly closed. Historians say that the walls of Jericho were so thick, so solid and so wide that several horse-drawn chariots could race side by side along those walls. They were high and very large, very wide.

And that was the wall. I believe the enemy has erected over our cities walls of isolation, suspicion, privacy that no one wants violated, and pluralism, so that when we proclaim that Jesus Christ has the answer and is the way, the truth and the life, people say, “Ah, how can you disrespect me? I believe in Muhammad or Buddha, or Shiva or Vishnu, or whoever it may be.” And we feel afraid to speak about Jesus Christ. There are walls—psychological walls, cultural walls, legal walls—that the enemy has established over this culture to close it off from the Gospel.

The Jews felt inadequate. The walls were definitely not something they could get past—this small people who had no weapons. They did not have a cannon there to fire a cannonball at the walls; they did not have a tank. They had stones and spears. They did not have metals with which to make any kind of weaponry. And that small group had to tear down that wall in order to pass through and enter the Promised Land. In other words, the first opponent the Lord gives them is a hundred times more powerful in its capacity to resist than anything they could overcome.

And through all of this I am referring to evangelism; I am still in the text, brothers and sisters. We will have an opportunity later—we are going to be talking a little and reflecting a great deal on evangelism over the coming Sundays. I want to instruct all of us and declare the Word of the Lord prophetically. So, but remember: Jesus the evangelist is speaking with a woman there, and He is evangelizing. Later we are going to enter into the text, but God is placing something in my heart that I did not share in the morning service, right?

So God places that wall there; it is shut tight. It is an impassable city, far beyond the resources available to those weak Hebrews who had just come out of slavery and had spent forty years wandering around in a wilderness. Imagine, how are they going to win a war? But the Lord places them there. I say again, when I look, I say, “Lord, how will this be?” Whenever God wants to do something great, the mind asks, “How will this be?” When the Lord announces to Mary, “You are going to be the mother of the Messiah,” Mary says to Him, “Lord, how will this be? I do not know a man.” “Do not worry. The Holy Spirit will come upon you, He will descend upon your life, and the being you are going to conceive from that cosmic energy will be called the Son of God.”

God always has a solution, right? And I wonder, “How will this be? How are we going to conquer? How are we going to double, how are we going to triple? How are we going to fill that sanctuary, which is going to become too small for us? How are we going to bless this city? How are we going to seize it and snatch away from the devil our young girls who are getting pregnant prematurely, and our young men who are being turned into predators of women because of our girls’ insecurities and because of the sensuality the enemy has infused into their hearts through the media, commercialism and all these things?”

“How are we going to snatch people away from the devil—from drugs, alcohol, sensuality and vice, which the devil makes a point of using to pervert this nation and these societies? How are we going to break through and tear down the walls of Jericho?”

And the solution God gives them is simple: “Shout, proclaim, declare, worship.” The Lord’s technology is much wiser than human technology. It is very economical technology. No great technology or mechanical devices or anything else are required; simply proclaim what is in your mouth, declare the Word of the Lord. We are a prophetic people. Now, we work, we exert ourselves, we invest, but ultimately it is the power of God that will do the work, not us.

God tells me, “Don’t worry; there is a way to do it. Trust.” I believe you simply have to launch out, put one foot in front of the other, and believe that God will open the sea before us. All those images are there in that paradigm of conquering the land. And I want us to be filled with that missionary vision, that evangelistic vision. Today, I want you to become a man or woman who says, “I am going to bring lives to the knowledge of Jesus.” And we want our church to prepare itself to be a place where people can come and receive that Word, and where we carry out different activities and use different means.

Let us ask the Lord for wisdom to do the work of evangelism that God wants us to do, because the harvest is plentiful and the workers are few, and the obstacles are many, but the Lord’s grace is just as great. These are times of harvest, not times of loss, you know? People say the world is in a difficult state; I do not know what God has in store for humanity. I believe that God will go before us, opening a way, and calamities will come, and economic crises will come, and difficult things will come, but by the grace and mercy of God, all of that will serve to soften people’s hearts so that they may be saved.

Because, you know, many times He first has to come like the homemaker who takes tough meat and first tenderizes it with a mallet, right? She pounds the fibers to break them down so that it becomes tender. In the same way, sometimes God first has to come with judgment; He first has to humble man’s arrogance, his pride, his hubris, his great sense that he can do without God. And God first has to show self-satisfied humanity that they are nothing but dust, so that He can then raise them up and restore them.

No one can be saved until they humble their intellect, you know? No one can be saved until they humble themselves before God. This culture is too prosperous, too self-sufficient. Its technology has brought it so many interesting things that people think they can do without God, but they do not know that they are merely wretches, frail creatures who need God, because there is an eternity they will have to come face-to-face with one day. And there are cancers, and there are rebellious children, and there are marriages that fall apart, and there is the fear of death, and there is old age that comes. No matter how rich you may be, sooner or later you have to contend with all those things—with loneliness, sadness, fear, neurosis, anxiety, depression, old age, all those things—and in those moments there are opportunities for us to speak to people about Christ.

God will go before us like those defensive football players who go ahead, mowing down the opposition so that the one carrying the ball can get through. We have the ball; its name is Christ, its name is the Gospel, its name is the Word of hope (applause). God will go before us, preparing the world. Things will come, but I believe that the calamities, problems, and financial crises that come will be for life, not for death; they will serve to prepare people and soften their hearts, because God is merciful.

So I do not become too troubled, brothers and sisters. Whatever may come, God has good things in store—I know it—and God’s grace will be there amid all the tribulations and struggles. So once again, we see here—and this is why I liked this passage—we see Jesus in His evangelistic role. He is walking along and sits down beside the road. How beautiful! This passage is so rich that it would take us hours to unpack it. It says that the Lord was tired from the journey. (sings) Tired from the journey (laughter). Maybe we have to sing it afterward. He was tired from the journey, tired, very tired.

The Lord was human; this is meant to show us the humanity of Jesus. Do you know why the Lord can be good news for humanity? Because He went through what we have gone through. It says that we have a priest who knows our condition. He has been where we have been. He felt lonely; He felt sad; He was tempted by the devil himself. We have been tempted, but we do not have the privilege of being tempted directly by Satan himself; he always has some little second-rate demon there, but Jesus had to deal with the top dog himself.

He was tempted in every way, it says, yet without sin. He went up to the cross and experienced an agony that no human being will ever be able to experience, and that is why He is there to come to our aid and identify with us. He does not have to make an objective effort to imagine what you feel. No, He felt it. When He sees your pain, He feels it within Himself, and a neuron within Him remembers what He went through when He was human—and He is human. Did you know that He is still God and man there in heaven? Christ did not shed His humanity when He ascended to heaven. That is interesting, and it is a little theological bonus I am giving you.

When He rises, He has the marks; He eats, right? In other words, I believe that up there He is an unusual being; He is still a combination of humanity and divinity. That was irrevocable; God made it so. I do not know whether I am blowing anyone’s mind, but that is interesting, isn’t it? So He knows your condition; He knows what this world needs; He resonates with us and with our needs.

So the Lord sits there, tired, but He was never too tired to evangelize a soul. We should never say, “You know what? I am too tired. I have too many problems. I have financial situations to resolve, and I do not know how to do it.” No matter what your situation may be, always set aside a little time to do the Lord’s work. At your workplace, in your home, at your school, at your job, in your neighborhood, you are stationed by the Lord twenty-four hours a day to be an agent of life.

But that human-divine Christ sits there, waiting for an opportunity that He knows will come, and a woman approaches—a woman whom I believe symbolizes all lost humanity—a Samaritan woman coming to draw water from a well. It is a very symbolic well because that well was dug by Jacob, the patriarchal father of the Jews and of the Jewish religion. The Samaritans were half Jewish and half members of other pagan tribes; they were a mixed race. They had Jewish blood, but they also had other mixtures, and their religion was likewise a mixture of Judaism and other religions. You can read their history in the Old Testament. And that mixed race was despised by the supposedly authentic Jews who, according to themselves, were pure. The Jews despised the Samaritans, and the Samaritans returned the favor by despising them as well.

This woman did not seem to have anything to recommend her, but the Lord had compassion on her, and the Lord valued her. She had every strike against her: she was a woman in a society that despised women and did not regard them as spiritual beings. Women in the Middle East are still an asterisk that God placed there, merely a footnote, that is all. She was not valued. One would have thought that, with the little time He had, the Lord would have gone to the head of the town or to an influential person, but no.

This woman—a contemptible woman—was, secondly, a Samaritan, as we have said; she was a woman from an impure people who had gone astray. They had abandoned the ways of truth and still practiced a strange mixture of religions. In the third place, there was another strike against her: she was a woman with a questionable past. Five “husbands,” in quotation marks, and the sixth was not her husband either. This woman was diligent, let me tell you. She would lose one husband and, in no time at all, immediately find herself another. Some sisters say, “Father, give me that anointing. Just one; I am not asking You for any more” (laughter).

She had six behind her, and I do not know whether it was because she was sensual or because she needed to have a man beside her. Some women are like that; it is not because they are sensual, but simply because they feel fulfilled with a male body beside them. And this woman had had all these husbands, and some commentators on the passage say that perhaps this was why she was there alone in that public square, drawing water, when drawing water from the well was a social activity. Perhaps the other women in the village would say, “Hmm! We had better watch out for this one,” and when they saw her coming, they would grab their husbands, pull them inside the house, and close the doors and windows (laughter).

She is there alone, and the Lord sees her. Why does the Gospel record these events? Because I believe the Lord evangelized hundreds and hundreds of people, but we have only a few examples of what the Lord did. I believe the Holy Spirit wanted us to fix our eyes on that event and understand something, just as He did with Zacchaeus, with the story of the prodigal son, with Bartimaeus, with the story of the Roman centurion, and with so many other figures in Scripture. The Lord wanted, as it were, to choose an exemplary character in the sense that she was a representative character. That woman represents humanity.

She represents people in your neighborhood; she represents a homosexual you want nothing to do with; she represents the person who sometimes sits beside you in church reeking of liquor; she represents the person who smells bad; she represents the homeless person out there; she represents the drunkard, the sexually corrupt person. She represents the people whom God came to seek. The people whom we believe to be hardened.

She represents the secular intellectual who despises the Gospel and holds a grudge against evangelicals because he thinks they are hypocrites. She represents the university professor who, with his intellect, thinks that God does not exist and that it is all a pack of lies, and that the Gospel is for the poor, the weak, those who do not have the courage to face life in their own strength and who invent a God to serve as a little pillow that is there to give them peace of mind.

People whom, at times, we would rather not have enter our church—but those are the people Christ came to save, you know? And they are in your neighborhood. It is the people who shout drunkenly on Saturday nights, and we tell them, “Be quiet! I want to sleep!” They get drunk every Saturday and have fights, and they spoil our fun and cause problems for us, but those are the people the Lord wants to work with, right? And we have to have compassion on them. We have to keep our eyes open.

The Lord saw that woman, understood her, knew what her weakness was, and let her approach. Then He said to her, “Give Me a drink.” Why does the Lord say that to her? I believe it was because He wanted to use a hook to draw her in. This woman was accustomed to people avoiding her, despising her, and turning their faces away from her. Perhaps she was wearing lipstick and a provocative dress and walking flirtatiously, but the Lord did not allow that to intimidate Him. He said, “Give Me a drink.”

And you know something else? It says that the disciples returned after a while, found Him speaking with a woman, and said, “Oof! The Lord speaking with a woman?” The Jewish rabbis did not want anyone to see them doing that, lest people think something else. We have to rid ourselves of such foolishness, brothers and sisters; we have to get rid of such things. I believe the Gospel is plain; the Gospel is down-to-earth. It needs people who smell like sheep, you know? We evangelicals are sometimes too fearful. What we do is project the demons we have inside us through a false piety.

People want down-to-earth people, you know? People who speak to them in their own language, people who take risks, who want to be the salt of the earth. People who make friends in the world, who know how to laugh, so that others do not always have to say, “Watch out, the evangelical is here! Do not say this or that,” right? That is foolishness. Surely, sometimes you say worse things in your own home than they do.

The Lord did not care about those things. So He engages this woman and says to her, “Give Me a drink,” because He knew that when He, being obviously Jewish—as she recognizes—and a godly man, asked her for a drink, she would not be accustomed to such treatment. Instead, the Lord places Himself at her mercy. We have to learn how to win people over before preaching the Gospel to them, you know?

Notice that when the Lord sees Zacchaeus, this other hardened sinner—a corrupt political figure who oppressed the people—the Lord does not reject him either. Zacchaeus had a wound inside. We have to remember that. Sometimes you see people out there railing against Christ, but I believe that deep within themselves they long to know Christ. Ultimately, we have to look beyond all the rhetoric they offer us; there is a person there who, in his loneliness, needs the Lord.

And Zacchaeus, a corrupt political figure, had a wound in his heart. He climbs a tree to see Jesus as He passes by because he thinks that is all he deserves: simply to see the shadow of that being, that man who preaches a Gospel of grace and hope for sinners. He did not expect the Lord to call him. And when the Lord sees him up there in the tree, He knows who he is, knows what is in his heart, and says to him, “Zacchaeus, come down from there. Tonight I am going to eat some sancocho at your house, so prepare it for Me. Let’s go over there.” He does not even wait to be invited; He invites Himself.

Do you know that many people like that? There are people you can say to, “Prepare me some mangú, because I am going to eat it over at your house—a pupusa, some tortillas, whatever,” right? People like to serve, because what they expect from the evangelical is, “No, I do not eat that pork; it is far too unclean for me.” We have to be down-to-earth people. I like ordinary, simple people who do not go around expecting you to pay them great homage or show off, as some people say. A false piety.

You do not have to prove anything to anyone. If you have God’s holiness, you do not have to go around dressing like a holier-than-thou saint; holiness is something organic, something all-encompassing. It comes out through your pores whether you want it to or not. If you have it, you can laugh. Jesus Christ went to parties, ate whatever was put in front of Him, and I am not going to say anything else so as not to stir up any bad thoughts among you—well, now I do have to say it: He also drank His little glass of wine; please, I do not want to spoil anyone’s fun. If, by the way, you have suffered from alcoholism, do not touch it or even smell it, but apart from that, the Lord... And the Pharisees grumbled against Him and criticized Him. They said, “This man is a glutton and a wine drinker.”

The Lord was down-to-earth; He was simple. And when He says to Zacchaeus, “Look, tonight I am going to eat with you,” when He arrives at the house it is full of other sinners like Zacchaeus—what a tremendous evangelistic opportunity. And there were the Pharisees gnawing their knuckles and criticizing the Lord, looking at Him with critical eyes: “Ah, if this man were a prophet, He would not eat with this rabble.” Right? But the Lord’s love conquered Zacchaeus, and Zacchaeus stood up without the Lord preaching anything to him and said, “Oh, I repent. If I have cheated anyone, I will repay it fourfold, and I give half of all my possessions.” Zacchaeus was converted, shoes and all, and the Lord did not even fire a single shot, because His love conquered him.

We have to be people like that, brothers and sisters, people who win others over. Let us be fiercely holy, but also down-to-earth, natural, and simple. In other words, let us win people over with our humanity plainly visible. And that is the combination I see: the Lord says to her, “Give Me a drink,” and the woman is surprised because what she expects is rejection, a critical look, and she says to Him, “How is it that You, being a Jew, ask me, a Samaritan woman, for a drink?”

The Lord says—because look at how He uses a symbol connected with her situation at that moment: she is drawing water; the Lord prepares water, life, hope. The well is a well that points to the failed religion of Judaism. You have found the genuine, living religion and spirituality that He desires. A series of poetic images occurs to the Lord, and He brings them together in that request: “Give Me a drink.” “Lord, how can You?” she wonders. What He did was a redemptive act. He affirmed her, blessed her through His request, and acknowledged her as a person who could give, who had agency, as they say nowadays—a good word. She had inherent worth; she could bless Him and serve Him.

Then the Lord takes advantage of the opening, right? He draws her in as a good fisherman reels in a salmon or a swordfish, little by little, tiring it out. He pulls her in gradually and says to her, “If you knew who it is who asks you to give Him a drink, not only would you give it to Him, but you would ask Him, and He would give you living water.” Again, right? He wins her heart and charms her, as we say, with that declaration, because what Christ wants to give is living water.

The Lord establishes a dichotomy involving the water from the well: this woman had to work to draw her water. It was a symbol; that entire act she was carrying out was a spiritual symbol. She had to come from her home carrying a heavy, empty jar, arrive there, lower a can or whatever it was—I do not think there could have been metal at that time, but something, a very deep container—fill it with water, pull it up, take it out, pour it into her jar, take the jar, put it here, place it on her head, and return once more to where she lived, perhaps going down a hill that she had climbed before. She had to reach her home, put it somewhere, begin dispensing it, and before long she had to return again the next day, with other women or alone, to repeat the same act. Tomorrow and the day after tomorrow, until she died, she had to do the same thing: work, effort.

That was the Jewish religion, and that is religion anywhere in the world. Whether you are religious or simply secular, you have to be like the Samaritan woman. People take a drug; it gives them courage and makes them feel like giants. When the drug wears off, what remains is the drug’s burning aftermath, and they have to take a larger dose because their nervous system has already grown accustomed to the first dose. The sensual person has to become accustomed to increasingly forbidden things in order to feel the same stimulation.

The person who has money needs more money. The person who reached the top of the corporation as chief executive now needs a larger corporation to run. The person who wrote his first book now needs one that will be a bestseller, a publishing success, in order to feel better; and when he has that, he now wants to be a poet and is not content to criticize poets, but wants to become a producer of poetry himself. There is no end; there is no end to making books, no end to building barns. What is always left for you is to act like that foolish rich man who, as soon as he has a barn, says, “What will I do with my money? Well, I will tear this down and build bigger ones.”

Have you seen that? That is the labor man has received: fallen man builds barns, then tears them down and makes bigger ones. That is what people do in this city; they are always tearing down buildings that are among the most beautiful, and they have to destroy them to build another one that is bigger and has greater capacity. Terrible, isn’t it? Like this woman. That is what man is without Christ, without God: he has to obtain his own water. And that water, like the Samaritan woman’s water, satisfies only for a moment, and then more water has to be sought. And it is toxic water, because it fills you for a moment but always takes something away from you as well.

The pleasures of the world and the successes of the world always rob you of something even as they give you something, and they gradually weaken you. Christ says, “You know what? Look. If you knew who it is who asks you, I have water that is different from the water in the well and different from the water of your religion.” Religion is like that too. People come to church on Sunday, perform their rituals, watch the priest or the pastor doing his antics and strange things up there, cross themselves or stand up, raise their hands because they are told to raise them, go home to the same old misery, and return the next Sunday to have their tire inflated again until it goes flat, and then they come back again on Sunday.

That is religion; that is what it does. How wonderful it is when a person knows that he has the water inside. God has called us to be spiritual camels. I compare people to chickens or camels—forgive me, because sometimes I do that (laughs). They are not very elegant animals, but they are real, aren’t they? God wants you to carry the water within yourself. What is the water? Its name is Christ Jesus; its name is the Gospel, the Word of God, the principles of the Gospel.

The Lord says, “I have water that is very different from what you carry. It is not the water of justification through your own works, your own efforts; it is water that comes to you free of charge. The product I sell is priceless, and yet it is free. I give it to you and install it within you when you open yourself to it, and that water flows within you unto eternal life. It is living water; it is not stagnant water from a well. It is water that flows and makes a sound, that promises life and joy and hope, just as a little stream delights us with its sound. It is fresh water; it is water aerated and oxygenated by its flowing. It is the water of the Gospel.”

And the Lord says, “I can give you that water; it springs up unto eternal life.” That water is free; you carry it within you, you do not have to—wow! Who would not want that product? And it not only satisfies your physical thirst; it satisfies your emotional, spiritual, and intellectual thirst. It gives sense, meaning, and purpose. It teaches you where you come from and where you are going; it teaches you to lose your fear of death; it teaches you how to manage your life, how to overcome your demons and your bondages; it sets you free. That is the water we have to offer the world: the water of life.

But, brothers and sisters, I tell you: before offering that water to the world, we ourselves first have to drink it. You know, the world wants a Gospel that promises something. Many times people look through the display window, through the windows of our church, and what they see are the same people who are outside: defeated and morally bankrupt. Our church has to be different; our community has to be different. You and I have to drink from the water of the Gospel first, brothers and sisters. We have to let Christ change us, transform us, and change our families.

We have to be authentic bearers of the Truth of the Gospel. When people look into our homes, let them see men devoted to their wives; women filled with the Holy Spirit and empowered with the authority the Word of God gives them; children who honor their parents, who are studying and devoted to a future life, who are postponing pleasure to dedicate themselves to the calling of preparing for the future so that they can study and graduate and become upright men and women of influence in the world.

It needs men and women who have taken their appetites and subjected them to the principles of the Gospel. It needs workers who give their employers eight hours of work for eight hours of pay. It needs productive people; it needs transformed people, liberated people—people who have exchanged their falsehood for the truth of the Gospel. If we do not live differently from the world, do not bother getting dressed, because we are not going anywhere; the Gospel will make no impact on the Earth. Unless we first exemplify the life and the water of God that sets people free, we will not be able to speak to the world. We have to submit ourselves to the Truth of the Gospel.

Brothers and sisters, I am tired—and God is even more so—of people who come to church, confess the Gospel, and then we leap, jump, kick up dust, our hair buns fall apart, and we return to life exactly as we came in, with the same problems, the same bondages, the same sins. Brothers and sisters, we have to change. You and I have to submit ourselves to the Gospel; we have to live the Word of God. We have to ask the Lord to crucify us and make us anew. We have to ask Him to break down the failed structures within us so that we may express God’s love, compassion, grace, mercy, patience, kindness, and the Lord’s gentleness.

A gracious people, a likable people, an attractive people. Do you know what defeats the devil in our homes and in our neighborhoods? People crucified by the Gospel. People who have taken up their cross and follow it. People who reflect the love of Christ, the personality of Christ. Against such things there is no law; against such things the devil has no power. It is not the Pentecostal who speaks in tongues here and there and is always shaking his head. That does not affect the devil. What affects the devil is a life submitted to the principles of the Gospel. People who love, sanctified people—we have to fight for the ability to reflect Christ’s love and grace.

We need liberated marriages, liberated families. And I tell you, brothers and sisters, when you take on that burden of Christ, when you take on the yoke the Lord places upon you, you find freedom; you find healing. It is not only with a sword in hand that healing is won; Satan is overcome with hands held here, confessing grace, mercy, and love. The devil can do nothing against that.

That is why the Lord defeated the principalities and powers: it was on the cross, not with a sword in His hand. It was there, crucified and bound, unable to move, with His heart beating out of love for humanity—that was what defeated the devil. Blood flowing from His side, you know? Suffering, wounds on His back. That is what defeats the devil: love, compassion, the man who submits to the Word of God and commits himself to living a simple life. The person who forgives, the person who is patient and humble—not the person who goes around with a whip in his hand and judgment in his mouth, always ready to criticize or attack someone. That is not the Gospel.

We have to offer man and humanity the water of life—fresh, simple water at a cool temperature that refreshes the heart. This world is full of hypocrites and Pharisees, and the world no longer wants anything to do with that. The world wants people who leave drops of blood in their wake because they are carrying the cross, are dying little by little to their sins, and are experiencing the joy of the Lord. Each day they become lighter, simpler, less burdened, more joyful, because they are losing the weight of the flesh and are learning the walk of a person freed from the grievous burden of their humanity. That is what the world wants: that water of life.

The Lord says, “I can give you that water.” Brothers and sisters, we have to offer the world the water of life—water that we ourselves have drunk so that we can speak of it authentically. We are going to leave it there, but again, this woman is touched by that message of Jesus Christ, and that woman becomes a great evangelist. But the Lord tells her—first she says to Him, “Well, Lord, wow, I want that product. Where do I have to sign? I want twenty cases of that water; install the component inside me right now.”

The Lord says, “Just a moment. Go get your husband and bring him here.” “A husband, me? I do not have a husband.” “You are right, because you have had five husbands, and even the sixth is not yours.” Accounts have to be settled; people have to be preached the Truth of the Gospel. A Gospel has to be preached, because people will not find the peace they need unless they also submit themselves to the principles of the Gospel. Just as we take up the cross, people must also be told, “If anyone wants to be My disciple, let him take up his cross daily and follow Me, for My yoke is easy and My burden is light.”

There are many people who want religion, who want deliverance, but do not want the process of submitting their past to the Lord. Interestingly, we do not know what the woman ultimately did, whether she brought her husband or not, because the story does not tell us. I assume that at some point the Lord spoke with her and talked to her about her past. The Lord gently said to the woman, “You know what? I am going to give you that water; you can receive it, but you also have to deal with your behavior; you have to deal with your past.”

But look at how He tells her this gently, not in a self-righteous way, not in a self-sufficient and contemptuous way, right? He tells her gently; He reminds her, “There are things you have to deal with.” I say that, as a Church, we have to combine a Gospel of grace, mercy, and love with a Gospel of Truth, and tell people that in order to be set free, they are going to have to let go of their things.

But what the Lord tells us is that we have to invite people to enter into the Gospel, and once they say yes, then we gently and gradually teach them to free themselves from and cast off their way of life. The Lord does not first tell you, “Leave your demons behind and then come.” No, He says, “Come, and I will help you overcome your demons.” And you are going to have to confront your past.

Do not be afraid if you are in bondage, if your past has not been completely put in order, and you have bondage, obstacles, and debts; do not worry. Come to Christ, and the Lord will help you. And we have to be the kind of Church that allows people to go through a process. Brothers and sisters, a saint is not made overnight. It takes time to form a man of God, and God is not going to send people here so that we can make them twice the children of the devil. There are people who come to Church, and we deform them with legalism and a lack of pastoral understanding of complexity.

Those churches will never grow, and I hope they die—please forgive me for putting it so bluntly—because many times what those churches create is people who rebel against the Gospel. This Church is open to every sinner who wants to come and surrender to Jesus; we open the doors.

I tell you with all love: anyone who does not feel comfortable with our approach, I am very sorry, but if you come to this Church, you need to know that this is a Church where we want to preach a Gospel of grace and truth, the two things united, just as they were in Jesus Christ. It says that He was full of grace and truth. Many people only want the truth but do not want grace; others want grace but do not want the truth. We are a Church of grace and truth.

We want an understanding Church, a Church with a pastoral heart. When people enter into the Gospel, they come with all kinds of obstacles and problems. They come divorced; they come with a woman who is not their original wife, whom they left behind somewhere in the Dominican Republic, Guatemala, or wherever; they have other issues. They come with a swarm of problems; they come living together without being married; they come with the bondage of homosexuality, alcoholism, violence—a whole host of things. The Lord says, “Come. I am going to work on you; I am going to heal you. My water will flow through you.” A Church of processes.

If God is going to bring people here, He is going to bring complicated people—listen to me. Any Church that is doing the work of Evangelism is going to have to deal with many people who will come in bondage, because this century and the previous century have produced many people with problems that, quite honestly, are not in the manual. And we need biblically and spiritually wise people who will ask the Lord for wisdom about how to deal with whatever comes my way, whatever appears here before me.

And we have to be wise and understanding people. Look, I say that our Church is made of Teflon: nothing sticks to us here. Let whatever may come, come; we clean the walls, and the next day they look exactly the same. Do not be so squeamish; let us be plain and down-to-earth. God wants down-to-earth people, simple-hearted people, people who will speak to others with a real Gospel. Leave behind all that Pharisaical, pseudo-spiritual vocabulary, and speak to people in language they can understand, suited to their situation, and give them time. I will take care of proclaiming our Gospel; our leaders and pastors will preach the true Gospel. You can rest easy; your job is to bring the fish here, and we will catch them with the Word of God.

You bring people to the Gospel, and the Lord takes care of them, not you. You do not make a saint; God does—the Holy Spirit and the Word of God. We will proclaim the Word with love and mercy, and God will gradually work on and form that person. I want our Church to be like a complex and subtle machine: when people enter the machinery of this living community, they begin to move through it like a small part passing through a factory, with each section shaping them in different ways until they come out the other side—and they will never come out the other side; they will come out when they die, because it is a long-term process. But may our Church be one conversation that helps a little, and then another, and then a discipleship class, and a sermon, and an encounter, and a friendship, and an act of service, and an act of giving. All these things gradually form and shape a man or woman of God.

And that is what a living, evangelistic, pastoral community is: it gradually forms people through the gifts of the people of God. Love, grace, mercy, understanding, wisdom, justice, truth, example, giving, serving, allowing oneself to be served. All these interventions of ours, directed by the Holy Spirit, gradually create transformed men and women. Our function is to bring them to the machine, put them into the first gear, and the Holy Spirit will lead them onward.

We have to be people of love and mercy. I do not know what happened to this woman. It does not tell me whether she divorced her husband, whether she left him and went back to the first one—who knows? I believe we are not told precisely so that we will wonder, “What happened to her?” I believe that, as with everything, there are processes. Perhaps she stayed with the sixth husband, and the Lord said, “All right, do not worry; start over. Let bygones be bygones; just behave properly from now on.”

The Lord is more merciful than most of us, who have been forgiven of greater things. I do not understand the Lord; I never will. But I know that my desire is to bring the world to Christ and proclaim the Truth of the Gospel in an integral, authentic, transforming way. May the Lord help us not to veer to one side or the other, but always to remain in the tension, on the razor’s edge between grace and truth, mercy and justice, love and integrity. We have to walk at that point. May God help us to be balanced evangelists.

Let us bow our heads. I want the Lord to touch us, transform us; may the Lord deal with these things. Lord, help us this year and in the years to come. Father, we have declared something; we have wanted to do something for You. Help us, help us, anoint us, equip us, endow us, forgive us. We are not worthy instruments to be used by You, but in Your mercy You use us. The Samaritan woman was not worthy to become an evangelist, and yet, it says, You used her to evangelize her entire village. None of us is worthy, but You make us worthy.

Look upon this Church. Anoint us so that each one of us may be an instrument in the marketplace, in the town square, at the university, in the classroom, in the kitchen, on the street, on the train—wherever we may be. Father, use us; use us just as Jesus was used on a dusty road in Samaria. Use us too, Lord, and make us bearers of Your Truth. I do not know how You are going to do it; I cannot explain it, nor do I have the slightest idea, but I believe that You are a God of miracles.

We are here. I say, “Here I am—Lion of Judah Congregation. Send us; send us.” I declare a year of miraculous fishing, Lord, of an abundant harvest, of the multiplication of loaves and fish to feed the entire multitude. That is what we long for, Lord. Help us, have mercy on us, cover us, keep us, protect us, seal us, Lord. Do not let the devil laugh at us; instead, may You laugh with joy as You see Your people doing the things You have commanded them to do and carrying out Your Will.

We want to bring delight to Your Father’s heart. Lord, we want to be an instrument worthy of everything You have caused to dwell among us. We praise You, Lord; we glorify You.

Brothers and sisters, I want you to bow your head for a moment and keep it bowed. I also want to make an appeal. If anyone here this afternoon wishes to surrender their life to Jesus, we have spoken about Evangelism; we have spoken about water that is unlike any other water, and that is the water the Lord offers you this afternoon. If anyone has come to Church this afternoon and has not yet drunk the water that is Jesus Christ, I want to offer it to you freely and tell you that the only thing you have to do is what that Samaritan woman did: “Lord, give me that water.”

If anyone wants to surrender their life to the Lord Jesus, I invite you to surrender your life this afternoon before you leave this place. God bless you, God bless you; brothers and sisters are standing up. Drink that water; drink the water of life that Christ gives you. Let the Lord transform your life. Do not put the problems first; do not put the bondage first; do not put the obstacles first; do not put the difficulties before you. Put Christ first, and the bondage can be dealt with afterward, and He will resolve all these things.