Theme: The Living Water
Text: Ex. 17:3-7; Jn. 4:5-15
We are just about to enter the rainy season and many of us especially at the Covenant Presbyterian Church are worried because of the many flooding that we have experienced here. It’s simply not possible for it to rain and there be no effects from it. In a similar way it is not possible to have a personal encounter with the Lord Jesus Christ and remain the same. How can you encounter God and remain the same? Moses encountered God and stayed in His presence without food and water for forty day and forty nights. During that encounter God revealed His name to Moses as “I Am who I Am”. The revelation of God’s name was only fully revealed when Jesus referred to Himself with the words “I am the bread of life; I am the true vine; I am the door; I am the way, the truth, and the life; I am the resurrection and the life; I am the Good Shepherd; I am the Living Water”. The Living Water must be something very valuable indeed. We all know that normal water is essential for life. A human being can survive almost two months without food, but he cannot survive a week without water. Water withheld from a plant in rich soil will make the plant whither and die. It takes the water to make the nutrients of the soil available to the plant. Without water, fish die. Without water all living things will eventually die. Water is essential for human life. We know this because there are many people in our country without access to good drinking water and we know what they go through just to obtain a little water. Water was also a problem in Palestine around the time of Jesus. Because of the extremely dry conditions of the land of Palestine, water was a precious commodity, available in plentiful supply only during the rainy season of the year. During that time, the Hebrews would collect water in cisterns, large vats carved into the rocks, so that when the rainy season ended, they would still have water. Just as the physical body needs physical food and water to survive, so the spiritual body needs spiritual food and living water, a personal communion with the Lord. Failing to spend time with the Lord and doing things in our own strength will not only weaken us but eventually also result in our death. Without the living Water, without personal fellowship with the Lord, our soul can get no nourishment. It is only as we fellowship with the Lord that we can be changed into His likeness by the Holy Spirit. Jesus Christ offers us what we need - we need the Living Water.
The Living Water is a reference to the gift of Christ – the gift of the Holy Spirit. Receiving Jesus Christ into your life begins a new life – a saved life. Salvation is not something we do but something Jesus does when we receive Him. There is no way we can save ourselves. It is much the same as a drowning man trying to save himself. We need the help of someone else. This is what Jesus has done for us. He has rescued us from a life of sin and eternal damnation and brought us into God’s Kingdom of eternal life.
Real life begins when living under Christ’s control. To explain this Jesus Christ uses birth as an illustration to picture the experience of coming alive to God in the realm of the Spirit. A baby has no knowledge or contact with the outside world before it is born. In the same way every individual who has not been born of the Spirit of God has no knowledge or contact with God, and with the things of heaven and eternity. For nine months before a baby is born, it is alive and has all the potential of life without the ability to use it. It has eyes but it cannot see. There is another eyesight lying dormant in each one of us, waiting to be turned on by the Spirit of God. It is the ability to understand the things of God. Imagine if two unborn babies could communicate with each other, and one said to the other, ‘I don’t believe in what I have heard about this life after birth’. To us that may seem ridiculous when we realize all the tremendous possibilities that lie before a young life as it is born into the world. But the same thing is true of spiritual life. The unborn baby has ears but it cannot hear and a mouth but it cannot speak. It has the potential of hearing and speech before it is born but has no ability to communicate. In the same way there is the ability to hear God through spiritual ears and communicate with Him. God has always desired to communicate with us so He makes us alive in the Spirit so that we can hear Him and talk to Him. The first thing a baby does when it is born is cry. It breathes air for the first time. In the same way when we receive Christ God breathes His Spirit into us. And just as a baby is washed after birth, so also after spiritual birth a cleansing takes place in our souls. All the dirt is washed away and we are clothed with new garments – garments of righteousness. An eternal transaction took place as Jesus died on the cross. God’s righteous judgement had pronounced us guilty of sin but His great love had sent His Son to take the punishment we deserved instead. When we receive Jesus Christ into our life this is the wonderful exchange that takes place. “God took the sinless Christ and poured into Him our sins. Then in exchange He poured God’s goodness into us.”
A child that is not nourished will suffer from malnutrition and will not grow to mature manhood. Likewise those born of the Spirit of God need the right nourishment and we are told to be “like new born babies and long for the pure milk of the Word that by it we may grow in respect of salvation.” When we are born of the Spirit, we become part of the family of God. God is our Father who loves and cares for us. We bear His name and everywhere we go we are His representatives.
When Jesus talks with the Samaritan woman about living water, He is not talking about physical water. He is talking about His gift of the Holy Spirit that springs up as a fountain from within. Most people survive on external supplies. They are rich, happy and strong only when outward circumstances make them strong, happy and rich. If they are physically weak, they are not strong. If things are not going their way, they are not happy. If their money leaves them, then they are poor. Earthly fountains satisfy temporarily. We may drink of the fountain of wealth as deeply as we may, but it will not satisfy us for very long - we will thirst again. We may drink deeply of the fountain of fame, but the satisfaction is only for a period. We may drink of the fountain of worldly pleasure, of human science and philosophy and of earthly learning, but the effects are only temporary. We may even drink of the fountain of human love, but it will not satisfy us for very long. We will certainly thirst again. Actually, many times earthly fountains only make things worse. It is like drinking sea water. The thirst is quenched for a few seconds but comes back with a bigger thirst than before. Many times earthly fountains only stir up our thirst instead of quenching it. It is never enough. Our appetite grows by what it feeds on, and a little drink from the earthly fountain today leads to a bigger appetite tomorrow, much like an alcoholic. Paul testified about the secret of being content in every situation. He was content whether he was well fed or hungry. He was content whether he was in need or had plenty. He was content because he had drunk from the spring of living water and would never thirst again. We need the living water if we are not to be tied to external circumstances.
Our new relationship with God through our faith in Jesus brings us into a new kind of joy. As we begin to realize that our salvation did not come by anything we did, but was a gift from God, we also learn that it is impossible to live the Christian life without God’s help. Just as we depended on Him for the forgiveness of our sins, so we should be dependent on Him to live a life of victory and joy. When Christ is in our hearts, He fills us with a joy that makes it a delight to live and to work for Him and in His power. Because His Spirit now dwells in our bodies, the only way we can express His life and love is when we are totally committed to Him.
There were three yearly feasts that every male Jew was required to attend in Jerusalem. Jesus kept the Law, so He had to go to Jerusalem during the Feast of Passover, the Feast of Tabernacles, and the Feast of Pentecost. The Feast of Tabernacles was a feast of great joy to celebrate Israel’s wonderful deliverance out of the land of Egypt. This feast was also sometimes called the Feast of Tents because the Israelites lived in tents during the 40-year wilderness wanderings. This Feast involved the pouring of water in the temple at Jerusalem, with a double portion poured on the last day of the Feast of Tabernacles, to remind the people that God gave them water to drink from the rock in the wilderness when they were dying of thirst. The priest brought the water from the pool of Siloam, and poured out literally barrels and barrels of water. On the last day of the great feast, at the moment when the priests were pouring out this double portion of water from the barrels, Jesus stood up in their presence and said in a loud voice, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink. Whoever believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him”. Jesus, in saying this, took something that was precious in a spiritual sense to the Jews, and He used it in an allegorical way to point to the deeper spiritual truth that He is that Rock out of which spiritual water comes. In saying this, Jesus was saying to the world that He is God “…for they drank from the spiritual rock that accompanied them, and that rock was Christ” 1 Corinthians 10:4. The living water is eternal. It is a gift that springs into everlasting life. We are not to seek for water that runs and never goes anywhere. We are to seek for the Living Water that Christ gives us.
Are you thirsty this morning? Are you drinking the muddy contaminated waters of the world and destroying yourself? The waters the world offers cannot quench your thirst. Jesus says we should come to Him, and out of our bellies shall flow rivers of living water. Jesus Christ is able to meet our needs. He is the One who makes life possible, who makes peace possible, and who makes joy possible. He makes it possible under all circumstances and in all places to possess everything the soul desires. If Christ lives within us, then we will be like a fortress that has in its courtyard a fountain, fed from some source high up in the mountains, and finds its way into the fortress by underground rivers that no one can ever touch. It does not matter who surrounds such a fortress, those who are inside can survive for years with abundant water. When people are deprived of a thing they “want,” they generally get along pretty well without it; however, when it’s something they “need,” or require, they suffer horribly in its absence. Just as a man thirsts for physical water, so also he thirsts for spiritual water. Only Jesus Christ can satisfy that thirst. He is The Living Water. He is the one who supplies the water. He paid for it with his life. Today take a drink by taking hold of Jesus and letting the fountain of God’s provision overflow in your life to the praise and glory of God. Amen!
