Jesus ought to be the most refreshing relationship, the most refreshing reality, the most refreshing thing, we know in life. When Jesus met the woman at the well in John 4, she had been living a very hard life. We can only speculate how worn down (how unrefreshed) she must have felt in life. She was walking to the edge of town to draw water from the town well, alone. As she sauntered along, how she must have wondered whether there was any love, any hope, to be found in the world. Her sense of defeat and isolation, her race, her gender, her past life, her poverty, her lack of privilege, her lost credibility, her damaged character… who could possibly imagine the depth of her pain. All these things intensified her sense of lostness.
She was being shunned by her community because people didn’t believe she was redeemable. She lived in a community with zero tolerance about sexual immorality. She was trying to pick up the pieces of her life after not just one, or two, but many failed relationships. Retrieving a bucket of fresh water from the town well was about the most refreshing thing she could imagine in life.
When Jesus meets her, he tells her something she already knows: “Whoever drinks this water will be thirsty again.” And thirst is such a poignant metaphor not just for the woman at the well, but for all of us. Everyone is seeking a little refreshment in life. The trouble is that everything leaves us just as thirsty as before. That job, that relationship, that next bite of food, that drink, that marijuana, popping that pill, punching the vending machine, pulling that lever at the casino, checking and rechecking your facebook status, clicking ‘buy now’, that championship victory... We have this addictive impulse that attaches to anything promising even a hint of refreshment. Yet nothing soothes the soul.
“Whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” (John 4:14). What an amazing offer. A spring of water, welling up from within, to eternal life! Have you ever known, have you ever enjoyed, have you ever discovered what it means to be refreshed by the God of Living Water?
Have you ever considered that maybe you’ve been looking in the wrong places, and to the wrong things, to the wrong relationships for refreshment? Jesus was telling the woman, “Life doesn’t end with God, it begins with God. And the life of God isn’t an ever-diminishing equation, it’s an ever-lasting equation! This life was standing in front of her inviting her, “Believe!”
In Romans 1:16, with great conviction, the apostle Paul announces, “I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it’s the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes…” Salvation is not too strong a word. Everyone is looking for salvation. The woman at the well was looking for salvation. The religious person, the smoker, the gambler, the idolater, the greedy, the immoral, the workaholic, the hard-core gamer, the partisan…
Everyone is looking for salvation, but not everyone has the same idea of what salvation might be. For some salvation is winning the lotto. Salvation is that next drink, that next hit, that next smoke, crossing that line. Salvation is that next paycheck, that new relationship, getting a new phone, reaching a goal, finishing a project, getting a promotion... “If only I could have _________... then I’d feel refreshed.”
Paul is saying salvation is found in Jesus. In the gospel something new, something refreshing, a whole new way of life, a whole new approach to God, is being opened up in Jesus. In verse 17 Paul says, “For in the gospel the righteousness of God is revealed—a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written, “The righteous will live by faith.” This is the prescription, the new way.
Think of all the people, places, and things you’ve been looking to for life. Well, let’s look in a new direction! What does it mean “The righteous will live by faith?”
In Romans 1:18 Paul talks about the “godless.” Essentially there are two types of people in the world. There are the “godly” and the “ungodly.” Think of it this way, there are those whose mind is full of God (Godful), and there are those who empty their mind of God. There are those whose mind is set on things above, and those whose minds are set on earthly things. There are those whose minds gravitate to the things of the Spirit, and those whose minds gravitate to the things of the flesh.
You see everyone is looking for life, for refreshment, for salvation. It’s just that some people are looking to God while others are looking earthward. From where are you seeking life? From above or from below? Are you even open to the idea of God?
Look at Romans 1:19-20. Paul is telling us there is at least one great and inescapable conclusions we can make in life. The first inescapable conclusion, and matter of faith, is that God exists! In these verses Paul describes how God has “made himself known” and “plain” to all people. “Since the creation of the world, God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.”
The godly person embraces the reality of God, evident everywhere in creation. Instead of resisting what is obvious, the godly person says, “Okay God. I see your power. I see your goodness. I see the rain falling on the righteous and unrighteous. I see your fingerprints allover creation... I feel you tapping on my shoulder…”
The “godless” deny God’s existence. The godless suppress truth about God. They consider it a great offense when believers confess their faith. Consider Hebrews 11:6, “And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.” Openness to God is the start of a refreshing new life.
In Romans 1:18 Paul talks about the “godless”, but he also talks about the “wicked.” The ungodly/wicked aren’t two different groups of people, they are one in the same. In the world there are two types of people—there are the “godly/righteous” and the “ungodly/wicked.” The first pair of words “Godly/Ungodly” describes a person’s orientation. The second pair of words “Righteous/Wicked” describes a person’s love.
This is so important. The godly believe God exists—but they also love who God is. They love who God is in his perfect righteousness. Notice what Paul says back in verse 17. “In the gospel the righteousness of God is revealed…” In the gospel, the very character and nature of the living God is fully revealed. In the life, in the person and work of Jesus, the beauty of God’s righteousness is put on display in its full glory.
What does the Apostle John tell us about Jesus in John 1:14? “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.” What does Hebrews 1:3 say? “The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of God’s being, sustaining all things by his powerful word.” What does Colossians 1:15 teach? “The Son is the image of the invisible God…” What did Jesus say about declare? John 14:9, “Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father.”
Faith isn’t just believing in God’s existence. Faith is looking at God in the face of Jesus, and loving everything there is to be known about God’s character, his nature, his righteousness, his faithfulness, his utter goodness, his mercy, love and grace, his purity, his holiness, his integrity, his truth, his selflessness, his generosity.
I noticed as a young person I had two compulsions. My first compulsion was to believe God. The existence of God seemed to be an obvious and inescapable conclusion. I’ve always felt the burden was on those who would deny God’s existence.
But my second compulsion was to love God. From the moment I saw the kind of life Jesus lived, I longed to become like him. Seeing Jesus awakened my conscience. It stoked my admiration. Seeing Jesus life… I longed to be righteous as Christ is righteous. To love God with all my heart, mind, body, and soul and strength. To love my neighbor as myself. Immediately when I read the gospels, Jesus became the measure of my life, my moral and spiritual plumb line. I came under conviction. Through Christ’s example God was exposing all that was wrong within me, all that needed to be transformed.
The wicked have a peculiar reaction to the righteousness of God. Paul says they “suppress the truth of God by their wickedness.” In John 3:19-21 Jesus explains further: “This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. 20 Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed. 21 But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what they have done has been done in the sight of God.”
The wicked do not “love” righteousness. They do not desire to be like God in true holiness and righteousness. And more than this, whenever the plumb line of Christ’s righteousness is held up, they attack it, they turn off the lights, they do everything to conceal the truth of God. Their fear is that their unrighteousness will be exposed.
Jesus wasn’t crucified because he was righteous. He was crucified because his righteousness exposed the unrighteousness of the Pharisees, Sadducees, the Chief Priests, the Teachers of the Laws, the Scribes, the Herodians, the Zealots, Pontius Pilate, the crowds, indeed the whole world!
Faith is believing God exists (Godly). But faith is loving how God is. Faith is loving God’s righteousness. It’s wanting to become like God in true righteousness and holiness (Righteous).
In Romans 1:18, Paul mentions how the gospel is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes. He is distinguishing between people who are “saved” and “unsaved.” This is the most surprising news of all. The saved believe God exists. The saved love who God is, in his perfect righteousness and glory. But take careful notice… the saved realize that righteousness only comes by faith.
Though I believe God exists, though I desire to become like God, I continually fall short of God’s glory. No matter how hard I try, no matter how religious I become, I cannot measure up to the standard God has for my life. I must not only believe God exists, and love who God is, but I must accept the gift God offers. Romans 3:21-22 says, “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.”
God’s offer to us is that by faith, Christ becomes our righteousness. That we renounce pride. That we renounce any confidence in the flesh. That we trust Christ’s work on the cross alone as the basis of our justification before God. That we rely upon his mercy and grace. God makes us right not through our might, but through Christ’s righteousness alone. His blood covers our sin. We’re clothed by his righteousness. His life becomes our life and our life hidden with God in Christ Jesus. It’s not our life that becomes the measure of our salvation… but Christ’s perfect righteousness gets credited to us by faith. God accepts us by virtue of his Son, not by virtue of our deficits and sins.
The unsaved do not possess Christ’s righteousness… and so where do they turn? Well sometimes the ungodly try to justify themselves before God. They say, “I’m a good person because…” They also try to justify themselves by men. They say, “I’m not perfect, but at least I’m better than so -n- so.” The saved make no such justifications. They freely confess, “God have mercy on me, a sinner.”
The woman at the well chose godliness. She believed. She loved righteousness. She accepted God’s gift. She wasn’t ashamed of the gospel. She was refreshed.