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Listen ""Water for the Thirsty" (John 4:1-30)"
Episode Synopsis
Welcome to the Reformed University Fellowship at UNCW Podcast! Each week, we will post the messages from our RUF Large Group meetings at UNCW. This year, we're examining the Gospel of John to learn about the words and work of Jesus.
In John 4, we have a case study in what it looks like for someone to pass from spiritual darkness into light, from death to life. This passage isn’t intended by John to be a comprehensive theology of conversion. Instead its the story of one particular person's conversion. And we see that being won over by Jesus is less like discovering the answer to a math problem, or a philosophy question, and its more like falling in love or, having a deep thirst finally satisfied.
*Correction: in the sermon, Sam states that Samaritans were descendants of Babylonian invaders. It was actually the Assyrian invaders who in 722 BC defeated the northern Kingdom, led Israelite leadership into captivity and settled colonists in Samaria (see 2 Kings 17).
QUOTES:
“If we find ourselves with a desire that nothing in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that we were made for another world.”― C.S. Lewis
“Just as we learned from [the Old Testament] that the greatest obligation we owe to God is to love him with all of our heart, all of our soul, all of our mind, all of our strength, John is thrusting Jesus forward as the one to whom all that love is owed. "I am he," Jesus tells the Samaritan woman: the one the prophets have foretold and the one your hearts have longed for. Look no further. I've come to satisfy the yearning of every human heart. … To be human is to be thirsty, and Jesus calls his followers to come and drink.”- Jen Pollock Michel
“How do you get someone to love and accept you? You make yourself more attractive, right? You make yourself more lovable and appealing. That's what all the adverts tell us; it's the relentless drone of social media. Yet with God, it is the other way round. With God, failing, broken people “are attractive because they are loved; they are not loved because they are attractive" (as Martin Luther put it). In other words, God does not love people because they have sorted themselves out: he loves failures, and that love makes them flourish.” - Michael Reeves
In John 4, we have a case study in what it looks like for someone to pass from spiritual darkness into light, from death to life. This passage isn’t intended by John to be a comprehensive theology of conversion. Instead its the story of one particular person's conversion. And we see that being won over by Jesus is less like discovering the answer to a math problem, or a philosophy question, and its more like falling in love or, having a deep thirst finally satisfied.
*Correction: in the sermon, Sam states that Samaritans were descendants of Babylonian invaders. It was actually the Assyrian invaders who in 722 BC defeated the northern Kingdom, led Israelite leadership into captivity and settled colonists in Samaria (see 2 Kings 17).
QUOTES:
“If we find ourselves with a desire that nothing in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that we were made for another world.”― C.S. Lewis
“Just as we learned from [the Old Testament] that the greatest obligation we owe to God is to love him with all of our heart, all of our soul, all of our mind, all of our strength, John is thrusting Jesus forward as the one to whom all that love is owed. "I am he," Jesus tells the Samaritan woman: the one the prophets have foretold and the one your hearts have longed for. Look no further. I've come to satisfy the yearning of every human heart. … To be human is to be thirsty, and Jesus calls his followers to come and drink.”- Jen Pollock Michel
“How do you get someone to love and accept you? You make yourself more attractive, right? You make yourself more lovable and appealing. That's what all the adverts tell us; it's the relentless drone of social media. Yet with God, it is the other way round. With God, failing, broken people “are attractive because they are loved; they are not loved because they are attractive" (as Martin Luther put it). In other words, God does not love people because they have sorted themselves out: he loves failures, and that love makes them flourish.” - Michael Reeves
More episodes of the podcast RUF at UNCW
"Relating to Marriage" (Song of Songs 8:6-7)
13/11/2025
"Redeeming Dating" (1 Cor 13:4-7)
15/10/2025
Psalm 87- Do I Belong?
16/09/2025
In God we trust