What Do We Need to Know to Inherit Eternal Life?

December 12, 2018 Pastor Clay

Forgiveness of our sins, the desire for a close relationship with God, and the assurance of eternal life are important to all of us, whether we are currently paying attention to that or not. The Bible, of course, has a lot to say about these things. We can spend a lifetime in the enjoyment of learning, and God intends that for us. If we were to boil it down to a couple of things that God wants us to know, what would they be?

Today I go to the story of the woman at the well at Sychar in Samaria. Jesus and the disciples were traveling and they stopped at Jacob’s well. A woman from the area came to get water. Jesus did not have anything to draw water with, and He asked her to give Him a drink. The woman was shocked and told Him so. Jews had a national bigotry toward Samaritans so they simply had no dealings with them. Here was a Jewish man who was actually friendly!

“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). She was thinking about the water in the well. She pointed out that He could not give her water since he had no pot with which to draw water. But it was not the water of Jacob’s well of which He spoke. “Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again; but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall never thirst; but the water that I will give him will become in him, a well of water springing up to eternal life” (John 4:13,14). So the living water He spoke of, was eternal life through the Spirit.

So what would she need to know? What do we need to know?

The answer is found in John 4:10. We need to know the gift of God, that is, what He has done, and what He offers us. And we need to know who Jesus Christ is. Lets consider these two truths one at a time.

The gift of God is eternal life, offered through Jesus Christ.

“For while we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will hardly die for a righteous man, though perhaps for the good man, someone would dare even to die. But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:6-8). God, who deeply loves us, saw that we could not come on our own. We could not achieve the righteousness it would take to live in His presence forever. So while we were still helpless, Jesus Christ, lived that sinless life,and died on the cross. He took our place, took the punishment our sins deserved. As we respond to Him by believing that, “As many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name” (John 1:12). This is the gift of God.

And Jesus Christ is God, who has come in the flesh to become a man.

So He told her that if she knew the gift of God, and Who it was speaking to her, she would have asked and He would have given her living water. “He is the Christ, the Son of the living God” (Matthew 16:16). “And there is salvation in no one else; for there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12).