John 4:10-18
Sunday Morning – 27 May 2018 11:24:09 am – Pastor Kim Sung Hoon (Good News Masan Church, South Korea)
I came to Sydney and I brought my mobile phone with me. However, since the provider is different, there is nothing much I can do with my phone. As soon as I connected to the wifi when I arrived in the parsonage of Sydney Grace Church, I was able to communicate with Fiji, Korea and the world.
We humans are fragile containers. God gave us the heart, which is like the bowl that contains and receives.
When our heart is connected with God, we are complete. We can be full.
The Samaritan woman never thought once about connecting with God. She did things her way and this was why things were difficult for her. But when she was connected, she can receive all the grace from God.
“And of His fullness we have all received, and grace for grace.”
John 1:16 NKJV
Here it says, God is full and so we have all received. If you are connected to God, then you can be full. But disconnected means you receive nothing.
Problem is that we humans’ hearts are exalted and we do not receive the things from God. What we have and can do is only limited. One day when things run out, we can only fall down.
I saw how people around me were all powerful and authoritative but crumble and fall when they have a problem that they cannot overcome.
There is a brother Kim who is about 30 years. His spiritual life was not good. He is young but he got large colon cancer. It is a very scary cancer. These cancer usually become malignant. Young people usually do not get cancer. Once they obtain it, they die quick.
So this brother came and told me and I don’t him not to be afraid. As he explained to me about his cancer, I remembered how the pastor’s wife in Changwon church had cancer and was healed from cancer. She met a very good doctor from Seoul and from this hospital, the doctor cured her cancer. The doctor said that if her cancer was one centimetre bigger, then they would have had to clear out everything, including the full portion of the anus. The surgery was successful and she lives fine.
When I heard about his status, I referred this brother to that doctor. The doctor then said that his condition was exactly the same as that of the pastor’s wife. It was also timely that he came. So the surgery occurred. The brother lived. As I went to the hospital, he said to me, “uuhhh….pastor, thank you so much”. He also had to pass wind. As he does so, it means he is getting much better. He asked me to pray so that he could fart. I prayed and on the following day, he said to me that he was so thankful to God that he could pass wind.
We all have our difficulties. If we face a door that is locked, but we have the key for the lock, then it is not a problem at all.
People encounter difficulties that they have no keys to unlock. But as we connect with God, the problems can be unlocked.
If you look at North Korea, it is such an isolated country. A pastor who is in our mission and comes from North Korea (he escaped it a long time ago) told me that there people actually suffer and die from hunger.
Folks, likewise, if you are hiding and close your heart to the church, then you are very isolated and you will only perish.
Please open your heart and your ears.
There is a man called Alexander Fleming who is from Scotland. He is from the rural area and is not smart. All he could do was swim in the Scottish sea. Back then, Winston Churchill with his father went to the sea. He did not know how to swim in the sea. He nearly drowned but Alexander Fleming saved him. Churchill’s father was thus so thankful and went to Fleming and said to him that he was the saviour of his son. So he asked him what his wish was and Fleming said that he wanted to be a doctor. Thus, the Churchill family helped him to study and he became a doctor.
Fleming really wanted to treat the people who were sick. He studied why people got inflammation. He found that there was a virus that looks like a cluster of grapes and this was causing inflammation in people’s bodies. So he tried to culture it in the culture sample. He was not sure what to do.
One day he was on a holiday and he opened the culture and left. After a week, he saw only mould around the culture. He was about to throw it away and he wondered where the virus was. He saw how the mould was actually killing the germs. That mould was green and you can find them on loaves of old bread.
Below his room was a professor who was studying the mould and this mould someone went into the culture. Then Fleming found that the mould had this antibacterial property and he extracted and developed penicillin. After Fleming discovered Penicillin, it took another 20 years to market. Then Fleming was awarded the Nobel prize.
I am quite sure all of you have consumed Penicillin at one stage in your life. This is why people consider the Penicillin as the miracle medicine. This is responsible also for helping people double their life span. Before 1945, people’s life’s span was 40. But after the discovery, people now die in their 80s or 90s.
Alexander Fleming said this “How amazing is the creator of the world. I never knew he hid this amazing property in that green mould”.
Folks, just as the mould contains these amazing properties, then what about the Words of God? This Word has so much power and abilities inside it.
Churchill one time had pneumonia and was about to die but thanks to Penicillin by Fleming, people say Churchill was able to live twice.
Folks, the story lines in the bible are not important. But the heart of God is hidden in it. When your heart is connected to that heart of God, then your life will become amazing.
“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 have asked Him, and He would have given you living water.””
John 4:10 NKJV
Here it says that gift of God. Everyone love gifts, right? Why? Because it’s free.
In the same way, God prepared the gift of God. God prepared a gift for you and I. This gift of God is with Jesus. There is an amazing thing within Jesus now.
“in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.”
Colossians 2:3 NKJV
Inside Jesus, all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are hidden in Him.
Folks, Jesus is the living water. No matter how thirsty you are, He can quench your thirst. Some thirst for happiness; some for health; some for abilities; some for the husband’s love; some for children; and so many people are thirsty for many different aspects.
It does not matter what aspect you thirst for; Jesus is the living Water.
One thirst so that they can go to Jesus. If you thirst, you will naturally seek Jesus. Many however, verbally say that they are thirsty but they don’t really seek Jesus. So Jesus asks why not seek Him. Jesus can provide it all.
There is John Wesley, born in 1703. When young, his house caught fire and he nearly died. He expressed himself as a wood near the heater and he was almost burnt to death. He was someone who was nearly turned into ash. He sought God a lot and eventually finished Oxford university.
One day he was at sea and he was afraid he would die because of the tempest. But he saw the Puritans. They were all gathered and just praying. The waves and the wind were beating the ship and he was thinking about dying. He was yelling to God to save him. But the Puritans – about 25 in number including a 10 year old child – were so calm and were not afraid at all. When Wesley asked them if they were afraid, they said that they were not afraid because they had Jesus in them. Wesley also thought that he had Jesus but he clearly saw the difference and acknowledged that he had a problem in his spiritual life.
He was ministering in America in Georgia for two years but his ministry failed. He then met one Christian in America. He asked him – “Are you a child of God? Does the Spirit of God in you witness to you that you are son of God?”
As Wesley saw himself, he thought that he was there to save the souls of the Indians but he wondered who could save his soul. So back in England, he met pastor Peter Buler and pastor Peter asked him, “Does the spirit of God prove to you that you are a child of God?” And Wesley realised that he was not saved at all.
In his testimony, about 2/3 of it shows how God tried to teach him that he was not saved. Although Wesley was a pastor but he was not saved. He understood this clearly.
In 1738, Wesley visited a small church. There was a painter called Holland who was reading from Romans “By faith in Jesus Christ we have been sanctified.”
The faith of Jesus can inspire us.
“And His name, through faith in His name, has made this man strong, whom you see and know. Yes, the faith which comes through Him has given him this perfect soundness in the presence of you all.”
Acts 3:16 NKJV
Here it says “through faith in His name”…
This faith made the lame man walk. It was not the faith of Peter but faith in Jesus Christ made the lame man et up and walk. It was not Peter but Jesus.
In Jesus there is faith. What kind of faith? That once Jesus dies, the sins of mankind would be washed away. Jesus has washed away the sins of mankind and He himself was offered up.
“For by one offering He has perfected forever those who are being sanctified.”
Hebrews 10:14 NKJV
Peter had this clear faith that we are righteous. So he wanted to teach the lame man that he was free and righteous already because of Jesus Christ.
Folks, how the electricity flows through wires, Peter wanted to connect the heart of the lame man to Jesus Christ.
The lame man was isolated and Peter wanted to connect him to Peter – that he was already healed by Jesus Christ.
In Africa in Tanzania, there is the leader of the Assembly of God Church (AOG) and he totally wants to support us the Good News Mission because he wants to only preach the Word of the Lord.
In Fiji, the head of the Methodist church leader as well wants to work with the Good News Mission so that they can only preach the Word. They want to be with us to preach the truth only. They have over 100,000 brethren.
“Jesus answered and said to her, “Whoever drinks of this water will thirst again, but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst. But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life.””
John 4:13-14 NKJV
There are two different types of churches these days. One that can teach you precisely the forgiveness of sins and one that cannot.
The Samaritan woman asked Jesus for the living water. Many others would most likely ask “What living water? You speak nonsense!” The heart of the Samaritan woman was very pure as she had to receive something that she had never heard before.
“And many of the Samaritans of that city believed in Him because of the word of the woman who testified, “He told me all that I ever did.””
John 4:39 NKJV
Why could the woman say this? Because she met the creator who actually made her. So the creator can fix the problem of our lives.
The Samaritan woman was trying to fix the problems by herself. But as she met Jesus, she could pass on all her problems to Jesus. All her problems became nothing as she gave them all to Jesus Christ. So she could rest.
Jesus said “All you who are heavy laden, come to me and I will give you Rest”. This means my problems are not mine but Jesus Christ’s.
Remember, you are not the owner of yourself. Don’t act like as if you own your life.
The Samaritan woman was trying to sort out her problems in life. It does not make sense because she is not the master. Jesus is more than happy to fix the problem for us. He will give us true rest and I believe He will bless you.