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Just Jesus
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If the devil cannot make you bad, he will then attempt to make you busy. Some of us are too busy to get better, and we've allowed the cultural understanding of being busy to keep us away from our breakthrough.
In the kingdom of God, it says, "Seek first the kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be added unto you." In other words, in the kingdom, you don't have to strive—you just need to stride. When you put God first, you don't have to chase stuff; stuff will start chasing you.
Don't lose sleep trying to get what God has for you. You don't have to manipulate your way into a blessing. In 2025, do what God wants you to do—nothing more, nothing less. If people don't give you attention, live for the audience of one anyway. God will put your name on the mind of the right people. Everybody doesn't have to like you; just the right person has to.
When you do too much, you forfeit overflow and settle for overcompensating. You go to work and leave exhausted because you're overworked. You get in a relationship and become frustrated because you overcommitted. You get in conflict and leave disappointed because you overreacted.
This has led us to live in an age of chronic burnout. People are tired in their bodies, and they're tired in their souls. Whether you're doing too much to be noticed or doing too much to be needed, it still leaves you empty. It's a sad thing to be saved with a dry soul.
Jesus said that when a demon is cast out and a house is cleaned and swept, the demon walks around dry places looking for another house to occupy. It doesn't walk around any type of place—it walks around dry places. When it comes back to that house and finds it empty, it occupies it not because the house is unclean, but because the house is empty. It comes back with seven times more demons.
The devil walks around looking for somebody who's saved but has a dry attitude, dry dreams, a dry prayer life, dry praise and worship. But if you've been drinking from the well that never runs dry, you can say, "Devil, you can roam around all you want, but you cannot occupy my life."
You are a generational cycle breaker. What the enemy had authority over in the generation before you is under your feet—not just in this generation, but in your kids' kids' generation. Don't just praise God for your life; praise God for your bloodline.
According to Galatians 4, as long as an heir is underage, he is no different from a slave, even though he owns the whole estate. The moment you get saved, you become a joint heir with Christ. But the enemy is not intimidated by you being an heir if you're underage—if you're immature in the spiritual realm.
You might be 40 in the natural but immature in the spiritual. You can be saved and have everything God wants you to have, but you can't access it until you grow up. Some blessings don't come when you want them; they come when you grow up.
It's not just about church attendance—it's about maturity. You've been saved long, but have you been saved strong? You're praying for favor that you already own, but you might be too immature to handle it. So you're saved but no different from a slave.
When you're doing too much, you begin to fill your heart with substitutes instead of the source. You begin to do the right things for the wrong reasons. You may have deficits in your heart, so you show up at work to get a promotion, but you're doing it to get the approval of people who will never appreciate you in the first place.
It's not that you're doing the wrong thing—sometimes it's that you have the wrong motive. Pain doesn't always show up looking like pain; sometimes pain shows up in the form of your perspective. You have an unhealthy ambition for what God wants to give you, but you don't want it for the same reason he wants to give it to you.
Just because you said "I do" does not mean it will undo what's wrong with you. Sometimes we're jumping in and out of relationships to fill a void that only God can fill. But only God can fill your heart.
Jesus had to go through Samaria. He had to go through this city filled with Samaritans just to encounter one person. God has an appointment with you this week without your permission. He's about to show up in a place you didn't expect him to show up.
When Jesus gets there, he looks at the woman and says, "Give me a drink." She looks back in shock because Jesus is a Jew, and in that time, Jewish men did not speak to Samaritan women. There were racial undertones—Samaritans were seen as second-class citizens, and she was a woman, also seen as a second-class citizen. Jesus wasn't just speaking to a Samaritan; he was speaking to a Samaritan woman.
I'm so glad that I serve a God that'll break the rules for your breakthrough. What everybody else is telling people to stay away from, he'll start drawing closer to. You may have been rejected by people and overlooked by others, but Jesus broke a rule.
She was rejected by the crowd, but she didn't know what felt like rejection was actually protection. If she had not been rejected by the crowd, she would have never had an encounter with Jesus. For some of you, if you were never rejected by the people that you love, you would have never had that encounter with Jesus that changed your life. If you had never lost that job, you would have never experienced God in the way you're experiencing him right now.
God does not always show up looking like God. Sometimes God shows up looking like a breakup. Sometimes God shows up looking like frustration. Sometimes God shows up in the middle of a mess. He may not come how you want him, but he'll always show up on time. And when Jesus shows up, he'll also show out.
You may be calling it frustration in one season, but if you live long enough, you'll look back and say, "That wasn't frustration. That was favor." You may call it a burden in one season, but when you look back, you say, "No, that was a blessing." You may have cried yourself to sleep at night, calling it a breakup, but you look back and say, "No, that was a breakthrough."
Jesus is at Jacob's well, tired from the journey, and he sits down by the well. The text says it was about 12 noon. Culturally, women went to the well early in the morning—for community, to share gossip and recipes, and to avoid the heat. But she's so filled with shame after having divorce after divorce, failure after failure, that she's avoiding the crowd. She shows up at the well at the hottest time of the day.
I love that I serve a God that doesn't mind showing up in your heat. He didn't wait until perfect conditions to show up. He showed up when it was the hottest it could be. In the middle of the most heated time of your relationship, that's when he'll show up. In the most heated moments of your emotions, that's when he'll show up. In the middle of your worst moments, he'll show up to give you his best.
She shows up with her water bucket, doing too much because we don't even know her name—we just know what she does. Jesus appears in the midst of her situation and says, "May I have a drink." She catches an attitude, saying, "What do you mean give you something to drink? You need to get your own water." Jesus looks back and says something incredible: "If you only knew."
"If you only knew how close you were to your breakthrough. If you only knew that your healing was standing right in front of you. If you only knew that everything you need is right here in front of you. All you have to do is ask."
Her problem is not her past; her problem is her perspective. You cannot break a cycle with new people. You can only break a cycle with a new perspective. She had the same results with different people over and over again. So apparently, at some point, you have to stop blaming your ex and realize that the common denominator is you. Look in the mirror and say, "I'm the problem." But if I'm the problem, I'm glad that Jesus is my solution. He didn't come to tear you down or beat you down; he came to lift you up.
You can't break cycles with new people. Just because you broke up and got your heart broken, jumping into a new relationship is not going to fix it. It's like going from one relationship to another, from one opportunity to another, from one season to another without taking time to assess the damage. It's like being in a car wreck and not pulling over; you keep going in spite of your injury. At some point, you'll either hurt yourself or wreck someone else along the way.
Often we limit this text to only be about thirsty women. But there's nothing worse than an immature, thirsty man. An immature, thirsty man will chase any opportunity for validation. When you're immature, you begin to do the wrong things for the wrong reasons. A thirsty man will spend money he doesn't have to impress people he doesn't know to feel like somebody he doesn't even believe he is.
When you don't bring Jesus your thirst, you trust him with your salvation, but you don't trust him with your satisfaction. You believe he can save you, but you don't believe he will satisfy you. When you do that, you settle for only knowing him as God the creator or God the savior, but not God the father.
What certain scholars call an "orphan spirit" is being saved but dealing with spiritual abandonment, which leads to insecurity. This causes you to live life like you don't have a loving father. You live like everything is on you. You say the devil is a liar, but you treat God like he's one. You don't trust him with your satisfaction, even though you trust him with your salvation.
When you don't bring Jesus your thirst, you trust him with your salvation, but you don't trust him with your satisfaction. You believe he can save you, but you don't believe he will satisfy you. When you settle for only knowing him as God the creator or God the savior but not God the father, you open yourself to what certain scholars call an orphan spirit.
An orphan spirit is being saved while dealing with spiritual abandonment, which leads to insecurity. This causes you to live life like you don't have a loving father. You live like everything is on you. You say the devil is a liar, but you treat God like he's one.
I am not trying to push you into a lazy life. Rest is important but work is too. Scripture tells us that a man who doesn't work is called lazy, and Jesus gives a parable of men with three talents. Two of them double what he gave them. One was lazy and just buried it, and Jesus called him wicked—not because he was immoral but because he was unproductive. Productivity matters to God.
I'm not trying to introduce you to a lazy life. I'm trying to introduce you to a balanced life. Some of us have been doing all that we can with our own power, but now we need to tap into God's power because there's only so much we can get done by ourselves.
When Jesus says, "Give me a drink," the woman questions why he would ask her. Jesus responds: "If you only knew who you was talking to, you would ask me for a drink. The drink you get from Jacob's well, once you drink it, you're going to be thirsty again. But if you drink from my well, you will never run dry."
Jesus is saying: I can give you what a paycheck won't give you. I'll give you what a vacation won't give you. I'll give you what more money won't give you. I'll give you what a relationship can't give you.
I feel like there's some people in this room today—you've tried winning, and that didn't fix it. Marriage didn't fix it. Success didn't fix it. Opportunities didn't fix it. You ever got something that you had been wanting for a long time, and you finally got it and didn't feel how you thought it would feel? You finally get it only to realize it's not what you thought it was.
God is saying: That's because you put God-sized expectations on material things. There are some things that you have an appetite and a hunger and a thirst for that only I can fill.
How do I know if I'm truly trusting God to fill me? I learn how to put him first. Because first is faith. When I wake up in the morning and the first thing I check is my phone, I'm expecting my phone to give me something that God can't.
Why are we here on Sunday? It's the first day of the week. We give God the first of our week because I know if I give him the first, he'll bless the rest.
Pastor Mike doesn't really push an offering time or tithing and giving like other preachers try to abuse and push down their members' minds and brainwash them. Why? Because worship can be taught, but there's another level where it can only be caught. Trying to teach someone how to worship is like trying to teach someone how to fall in love.
At some point, you have to come to a place and say: nothing else will never be enough. I need Jesus.
Jesus looks at the woman and says, "Go get your husband." She says, "I have no husband." She's not lying, but she's not telling the truth either. Half truths will get you half healed.
Jesus responds: "The fact is you had five husbands and the one you're with now is not even your husband. Since you're not going to tell me, I'mma tell you because I can't heal what you keep choosing to hide."
Some of you right now are in church, but you've been hiding from God. You're not being honest about your life. You're giving him half truths because you don't want to feel the shame. But Jesus says: I love you at your worst. I need you to tell me what's going on with you—not for me, but for you. Because confession is healing for the soul.
As long as you hold on to it, it will keep hardening your heart. Jesus said, "Out of the abundance of the heart, a man speaks." Your mouth is telling on your heart. I can tell how hurt you are by what you're saying in your conversations.
He gives her a prophetic encounter. He doesn't touch it because he delivers and heals everyone uniquely. All healing is not the same.
After Jesus speaks to her, the text says the woman left her water jar beside the well. She was used to carrying this water jar. She was known for carrying and having this water jar. But when she has this encounter with Jesus, she leaves what she had been carrying at the well.
What do you need to leave that you shouldn't be carrying at the well today? Do I have anybody in the room making up in their mind that you're no longer carrying what you should not be carrying? You're no longer carrying shame. You're no longer carrying fear. You're no longer carrying people pleasing.
When she leaves the water jar at the well, she's saying: I'm done doing too much. Y'all can have this. If I have to carry this water jar to be accepted by you, keep your acceptance. I choose God's favor.
When we first met her, she was hiding from the crowd. But one encounter with Jesus, she's running to the crowd. Do I have anybody that's glad that you serve a God that won't just save you, but he'll also change you? That what you used to run from, you'll start running to. You're no longer afraid of confrontation.
She runs back to the village and tells everybody: Come see a man. Stop focusing on who I used to be. Come see a man. Jesus touched one person and that one person saved a whole city.
What if you're the one that what you've been avoiding, like her in the text—God is saying, "No, I'm touching you so that you can go back and tell them about me." I'm declaring that your family won't be the same because of what he's doing in your life right now.
If you're going to get free from doing too much and heal from the orphan spirit, I'm going to give you three things:
You have to confess where you are empty. We have to stop pretending that certain wells are still working.
You will never conquer what you're not willing to confront. So God is saying: Bring those cycles. Bring those secrets. Bring those patterns. Bring that shame. Bring it to me. Because you will always be as sick as your secrets. Stop hiding. I know you come to church. Stop hiding in the puke. Get in the purpose. I know you saved, but you running from your calling. Stop hiding.
Walk away from everything you thought you had to carry. For some of you, that may mean breaking up with the life you thought you wanted.
Doing too much is the symptom. An orphan spirit is the source. In other words, stop living like you don't have a loving father. Stop living by force. Jump in this river of favor.
Harvest is tied to our activity. Inheritance is tied to our identity. We are no longer orphans. We're no longer slaves, but we're children of the most high King. God wants us to stop settling for harvest only when there's inheritance with our name on it.
