2023-03-12 The Water of Life

Shortly after we moved to Reinland, we helped our new friends Carl and Esther Zacharias re-shingle their roof. They owned a house-barn and the house part of it needed new shingles. It was one of those steeper roofs, so it was a new experience. I had only ever worked on 4-12 pitch roofs, not 6-12 pitch roofs. That was a new experience. But what was the most memorable about the work wasn’t the pitch or that it was a house barn. What was most memorable was the heat. It was close to 40 each day. We started on a Friday evening, then again early on Saturday and during the heat of the day we stopped and waited to finish in the evening. The shingles were hard to work with because they were so soft. And water. I don’t think I’ve ever been so thirsty in my life. We drank and drank and drank and couldn’t seem to quench our thirst.

What’s the thirstiest you’ve ever been?

The Waters of Massah and Meribah

It’s one thing to be thirsty when you can drink as much as you want, it’ another to be thirsty when there’s no water. I’ve only experienced that for short periods of time.

The people of Israel, on the other hand, experienced thirst for a much longer period of time. Shortly after the people of Israel had left Egypt, after they had crossed through the Red Sea, they came to the desert of Shur. There they came to Marah which means bitter. The water was bitter, and the people began to grumble so God told Moses to throw in a piece of wood and the water was made fit to drink. Then they went to Elim where there were 12 good springs and 70 palm trees, a wonderful oasis in the desert. After that they arrived at the desert of Sin. Not Sin as in sinning against God, but Sin is in mount Sinai. No one knows what it means. There, they grumbled about not having enough food so God began to provide manna for the Israelites. Then, right after that they left the desert of Sin they went to a place called Rephidim which means rests or stays, a resting place. There, once again they didn’t have enough water. (read Exodus 17:1-7) (blank) Massah means testing and Meribah means quarreling.

Water in a desert place is a precious resource. It’s something you long for and something you value. It’s life itself. We were made to need water. All living creatures on earth in one way or another need water to live. We all know this. Intuitively. When we’re thirsty we automatically look for something to drink. In fact, we’ve turned drinking into an art form. How many different kinds of drinks are available right now in Steinbach? How many versions of coffee or tea? How many kinds of alcoholic drinks? How many kinds of pop? How many kinds of smoothies? Never mind milks, hot chocolate, kefir, etc. We thirst and we quench our thirst. Again and again. Sometimes with a liquid that really does quench our thirst, often with one that doesn’t. The feel of a Coca Cola on the tongue on a hot day is amazing! Unfortunately, the sugar in the Cola leaves you thirsty.

I don’t know about you, but often I kind of feel for the ancient Israelites in the desert. There were a lot of them. They would have needed a lot of water. Being thirsty in a hot dry place isn’t a lot of fun. Sometimes it feels like God isn’t very understanding. But then, when you stop to think about all the signs and wonders they had already seen, you see God’s side. They had seen 10 plagues in Egypt that devastated the Egyptians and left the Israelites completely alone. They had seen the pillar of fire by night and the pillar of cloud by day, every day, every night. In fact, it was there at the Rephidim! They had seen the waters of the Red Sea parted to make a pathway for them. They had seen the Egyptian army drowned before their eyes. They had seen God turn bitter water into sweet and manna fall from the sky. In fact, the morning of the day that God brought water out of the rock, they had eaten manna.

When you read what they were saying to each other that day, “Is the Lord among us or not?”, it makes your stomach turn.

“Is the Lord among us?” Are you kidding? They ate manna in the morning and the cloud is up there in the sky, and they’re asking if he’s among them? They’re beginning to treat God like a vending machine. They’re presuming on God to provide everything they need. Not that God hasn’t said he would do it. He had. But they’re demanding it of him instead of humbly asking.

Thankfully, we’re never like that, right? (pause)

You would think that his visible presence in the shape of the cloud would assure them that they were okay, that in one way or another God would provide for them. But it didn’t. Why?

And why did God bring them to Rephidim? Why did he bring them to a place with no water? They were going through the wilderness, there were going to be places where the water supply was either little or non-existent. But God could have immediately asked Moses to strike the rock. He didn’t. It seems that God wanted to deliberately test them. Massah. Place of testing. The fact that it also was given the name Meribah, place of quarreling shows how well they did.

Does God Test You?

Does God test you? Does he ever put you into a desert space where there seems to be no water? And I’m not talking about physical water. A time when your normal supports are gone. A time when you call on God and all you get is silence. A time when nothing is easy.

The other night the Winnipeg Jets outshot the Minnesota Wild 48 to 23. They lost the game. Nothing went easy. Some nights everything you shoot towards the net goes in, the next night it’s the opposite. Life is like that some times. It’s that way spiritually as well. Some days it feels like all you can do is put one foot in front of the other and even then, they slide backwards.

There are also times where we live our lives and they seem full and then we wake up one day and realize we’re thirsty, thirsty for more and it seems that what we’ve been filling our lives up with that previously satisfied us, no longer does.

Living Water at the Well

That was the story of a woman Jesus met at a well in Samaria. Thanks, Kris, for reading it earlier. There are so many things I could say about this passage. I could talk about all the cultural barriers that Jesus blew past. I could talk about the beautiful way that Jesus engages with her and how he dealt with the potential landmine of debate between the Samaritans and Jews about where the temple should be located. I could talk about how the Spirit enabled Jesus to know what had gone on in her past life and how deeply she was hurting. I could talk about how Jesus’ interaction with one woman brought many other Samaritans to faith in Jesus.

But today I want to simply focus in on two things: the woman’s thirstiness and Jesus’ words in v10, 13, 14.

I’ll start with her thirstiness. Her life was a mess. I won’t say any more. We really don’t know where she was at that day. We don’t know if she was up or down, if she recognized her emptiness inside or if in the moment, she thought life was going great. What we do know, is that as Jesus engaged her, she became more progressively aware of how thirsty she really was. That’s often the way it is with us. Sometimes we think we’re doing terrible, sometimes we think we’re doing great. But whenever we encounter Jesus, really encounter Jesus, we begin to realize that really, we are thirsting for more. He exposes the emptiness that is there.

V10 (read) (blank) Jesus declares that he is the source of living water. In that day and age, well and cistern water was thought of as dead water, just sitting there, while water from a stream was living, moving downhill. The woman with her jar was the one with the ability to draw water from the well but Jesus says that in actuality, he was the one with the ability to provide water. Not just any water, but living water. He expands on this in vv13, 14

V13, 14 (read) (blank) Jesus contrasts his living water with physical water. Physical water will quench your thirst, but eventually, you’ll need more of it and need to drink again. But Jesus promises living water that will permanently quench your thirst. It will be water for the soul. Not only will it quench your soul thirst, but it will become a spring and well up to eternal life. What exactly does he mean here?

Living Water at the Feast

Before I answer that, I want to look at another similar passage. Turn with me to John 7. In John 7 Jesus attends the Feast of the Tabernacles in Jerusalem.

The Feast of Tabernacles was the last feast of the year, at the end of the last harvest. During it the Israelites were commanded to live in temporary shelters made of branches, tabernacles, to commemorate and remember the forty years their ancestors lived in tents during their journey from Egypt to Canaan. It was a joyful celebration both of God’s provision in the desert and his provision of food through the just completed harvest. Solomon chose this feast, the most joyous of all for the dedication of his temple.

During the time of Jesus, a water ceremony was also performed. For seven days, a priest with a gold jug filled it with water from the pool of Siloam, carried it up to the temple with great rejoicing, and then, with choirs singing and trumpets sounding he poured it out into a basin by the altar. Why was this done? It was a symbolical action asking God to send rains in the next season, the winter and rainy season. But there was more, “The rain represented the Holy Spirit, and the water drawing pointed to that day when, according to the prophet Joel, God would rain his Spirit upon the Israelites (Joel 2:28). The prayer of every worshipper was, “May God send his Spirit upon us now.” P176 The Fall Feasts of Israel

On the seventh day, everything was ramped up. “On each of the previous six days the priests (with the water jug) had circled the altar in procession, singing “Oh Lord, do save, we beseech Thee; O Lord, we beseech thee, do send prosperity! (Psalm 118:25)” On the seventh day of the feast, though, they circled the altar seven times.” P177 ibid

By the way, this verse they sang in Psalm 118 is the one immediately before the verse that says, “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord” which was sung by the crowds when Jesus rode into Jerusalem a year or two later.

Anyway, on this last day of the Feast of tabernacles, guess what Jesus does? (read John 7:37-39) (blank) We don’t know when exactly he did this, but quite possibly he did it right after they had poured the water out, calling on God to send his Spirit.

What is he saying? Obviously, he’s saying that the living water that he gives is the Spirit of God. He himself was filled with the Spirit of God. He’s saying that when we put our faith in him, we receive this same life-giving Spirit. At this festival, the pouring out of water is the imagery of Spirit’s future coming.

Water gives life to the earth. No water, no life. The same is true of us and the Spirit. The Jesus, the Spirit of God, the Father, the three-in-one are the source of all life on earth. Remember when Adam was formed from the dust of the earth? Remember how this statue made of dirt came to life? God breathed life into it, and the it became a person. In the OT the word for Spirit is ‘ruach’, wind or breath, God’s breath. When we move away from God there’s no life because life is found in him. When we believe in Jesus, rivers of living water will flow from within us. This can be understood two ways, either the living waters flow from out of Jesus to us, or the Spirit indwells us and the living waters flow from the Spirit inside of us. Either way, the source is God.

Earlier I asked what Jesus meant when he said to the Samaritan woman that the living water would become a spring welling up to eternal life. Eternal life here is talking about never ending life, but more importantly, it’s talking about God life, not earthly life. A never-ending life is by definition a God kind of life. It speaks not just to it’s longevity but to it’s quality.

What kind of life do you want? An earthly one, or a God infused one? You see, it’s the God infused one that is real living.

Challenge

Where are you at?

Have you put your faith in Jesus, the one who gives water for your soul? Through whom the Spirit comes? If you haven’t, I invite you to do so. Believe in him and living water will well up inside of you.

If you have believed in Jesus, are you dry and dusty? Jesus promised that we’d never thirst again. But he also commanded us to “remain in him” to stay connected to the vine. Have you drifted away from him? Have you stopped connecting with him and instead have looked for the things of this life to try to meet your soul’s needs? Are you thirsty again for the living water?

One thing that never stops amazing me is how Jesus always has his arms wide open, waiting for us to come back to him. Yes, in order to do so we usually need to confess once again our sin and how we’ve made other things more important than him. But if we do, he’s ready and willing to give us new life once again.

After the service I’m going to be sitting up front here. If you want to come, I’d love to pray with you for the Spirit of Jesus to once again fill you and bring Jesus’ life-giving water into your soul.

Conclusion

For my conclusion I’m going to read the first 9 verses of Psalm 95 (read). (blank)

Pray

Benediction: Numbers 6:24-26

Related Media

Related Sermons