Those of you who are Christians, do you remember when you first were saved? Do you remember how exciting it was. Do you remember when you were first filled with the Holy Spirit, how exciting it was? Do you remember how much in love with Jesus you were? It seemed like there was a fountain of living water just bubbling out of you. Remember?
What happened?
What happened to all your joy and exuberance?
I’ll tell you what happened, you stopped drinking from the fountain of life!
You need to take another drink!
You stopped eating the Bread of Life, you need to eat!
Isa 55:1-2
"Come, all you who are thirsty,
come to the waters;
and you who have no money,
come, buy and eat!
Come, buy wine and milk
without money and without cost.
2 Why spend money on what is not bread,
and your labor on what does not satisfy?
Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good,
and your soul will delight in the richest of fare.
Isa 12:2-6
2 Surely God is my salvation;
I will trust and not be afraid.
The LORD, the LORD, is my strength and my song;
he has become my salvation."
3 With joy you will draw water
from the wells of salvation.
4 In that day you will say:
"Give thanks to the LORD, call on his name;
make known among the nations what he has done,
and proclaim that his name is exalted.
5 Sing to the LORD, for he has done glorious things;
let this be known to all the world.
6 Shout aloud and sing for joy, people of Zion,
for great is the Holy One of Israel among you."
Matt 5:6
6 Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,
for they will be filled.
Ruth 1:1-7 (Friday’s reading)
As I read this passage I will insert the literal English meaning of the names as they occure.
1:1 In the days when the judges ruled, there was a famine in the land, and a man from Bethlehem (which means “house of bread”) in Judah, together with his wife and two sons, went to live for a while in the country of Moab. 2 The man’s name was Elimelech (literally “god of the king”), his wife’s name Naomi (which means “pleasant”), and the names of his two sons were Mahlon (sick) and Kilion (failing). They were Ephrathites from Bethlehem (“house of bread)”, in Judah. And they went to Moab and lived there.
3 Now Elimelech, Naomi’s husband, died, and she was left with her two sons. 4 They married Moabite women, one named Orpah (literally “the back side”) and the other Ruth (which means “friend and associate”). After they had lived there about ten years, 5 both Mahlon and Kilion also died, and Naomi was left without her two sons and her husband.
6 When she heard in Moab that the LORD had come to the aid of his people by providing food for them, Naomi and her daughters-in-law prepared to return home from there. 7 With her two daughters-in-law she left the place where she had been living and set out on the road that would take them back to the land of Judah.
(It was on the road that Orpah (literally “the back side”) lived up to her name and chose to turn back and Ruth (literally “friend and associate”) lived up to her name and chose to stick with Naomi.)
Ruth 1:19-21
19 So the two women went on until they came to Bethlehem (the “house of bread”). When they arrived in Bethlehem, the whole town was stirred because of them, and the women exclaimed, "Can this be Naomi?"
20 "Don’t call me Naomi (which means “pleasant”)," she told them. "Call me Mara (which means “bitter”), because the Almighty has made my life very bitter. I went away full, but the LORD has brought me back empty. Why call me Naomi? The LORD has afflicted me; the Almighty has brought misfortune upon me."
The book of Ruth starts out, “In the days when the judges ruled, there was a famine in the land.” Why was there a famine in the land?
Over and over we read in the Book of Judges, “Again the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the Lord.” We know from our reading of the Book of Judges, that the Jews repeatedly fell into a cycle of SIN – A CRY FOR HELP – OUTWARD REPENTANCE – DELIVERANCE THROUGH A JUDGE – A TIME OF PEACE – BACK TO SIN AGAIN.
The reason there was famine in the land was because there was sin in the land!
Let me bring this home to us today church!
Bethlehem means what? (House of Bread)
The reason Elimelich took his wife and kids and moved out of town was because there was no bread in the house!
The reason people are not going to church in America anymore is because there’s no bread in the house!
And the reason there’s no bread in the house is because there is sin in the house!
The same reason God sent a famine in the time of the judges.
People, we’ve got to get right with God!
God want’s to put bread back in His house but we’ve got to pay the price!
The price is repentance and turning whole heartedly back to God!
Listen to the cry of Naomi when she says, "Don’t call me Naomi (which means “pleasant”)," she told them. "Call me Mara (which means “bitter”), because the Almighty has made my life very bitter. I went away full, but the LORD has brought me back empty. Why call me Naomi? The LORD has afflicted me; the Almighty has brought misfortune upon me."
Unfortunately for Naomi, her husband stepped out of God’s will and deliberately took his wife and kids out from under God’s umbrella of protection when he moved them out of Bethlehem “the House of Bread” and into Moab a pagan land.
Men when you remove yourself and your family away from church, away from the fellowship of believers, you move out from under God’s umbrella of protection, and you bring disaster upon yourself and your family!
You’ll be like Naomi crying, “I went away full, but the LORD has brought me back empty.”
When you’re empty, when you’re hungry, when you get desperate before God, when your kids have gone astray, when your best laid plans ended in failure, when your down on your knees with no where else to turn, that’s when it’s time to come back, Back to Jesus, Back to the House of Bread.
It is no coincidence that Jesus was Born in Bethlehem, the House of Bread, because Jesus is the Bread. He’s the Bread of Life and you can’t live without Him!
Come back to Jesus and satisfy your spiritual hunger!
This week we also read the account of the Samaritan Woman at the Well.
John 4:4-12
4 Now he had to go through Samaria. 5 So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph. 6 Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about the sixth hour.
7 When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, "Will you give me a drink?" 8(His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.)
9 The Samaritan woman said to him, "You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?" (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.)
10 Jesus answered her, "If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water."
11 "Sir," the woman said, "you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? 12 Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his flocks and herds?"
13 Jesus answered, "Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, 14 but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life."
15 The woman said to him, "Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water."
16 He told her, "Go, call your husband and come back."
17 "I have no husband," she replied.
Jesus said to her, "You are right when you say you have no husband. 18 The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true."
I want us to stop and consider what Jesus said in verse 10:
“Jesus answered her, "If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water."
Listen, if you want to quench your thirst, you must ask for it, you must be earnest in prayer to God for it. Those who have a right knowledge of Christ will continually seek him out, and if we fail to seek him it is a sign that we do not know him, Ps 9:10.
Then Jesus said, (verse 13) "Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, 14 but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life."
A popular soft drink commercial says, “Obey your thirst!”
All of us who know Christ as our personal savior have access to this spring of living water. But church, we’ve got to continually drink from this fountain!
It’s not enough to live on our past experiences with Jesus, It’s not enough to know the spring of water is there,
It’s not enough to drink just once from the fountain of life! Church, it’s time for us to get another drink!
It’s time for me to get another drink,
it’s time for you to get another drink,
It’s time for us to get another drink of the Holy Spirit of Jesus, Church!
John 7:37-39
37 On the last and greatest day of the Feast, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, (What kind of voice?) "If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. 38 Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him."
Then John the Apostle explains what Jesus meant in the next verse:
39 By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive. Up to that time the Spirit had not been given, since Jesus had not yet been glorified.
Church we desperately need another drink of the Holy Spirit of God!
Back to the Woman at the Well:
John 4:19-26
19 "Sir," the woman said, "I can see that you are a prophet. 20 Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem."
21 Jesus declared, "Believe me, woman, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. 22 You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23 Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. 24 God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth."
25 The woman said, "I know that Messiah" (called Christ) "is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us."
26 Then Jesus declared, "I who speak to you am he."
The lights are beginning to go on for the Samaritan woman. She recognizes Jesus as a prophet because He had supernatural insight into her life and exposed her sin.
The next thing she does is bring up the issue of multiple religions and who is right.
When we witness to people they frequently bring up this topic. They say something like, “There are so many religions in the world, what makes you think your religious beliefs are superior to theirs? – Who’s to say you are right ant they are wrong?” Then they will usually say something like, “I believe there are good things to be gained from all religions and that no one religion has exclusive rights to eternity.”
So how should we handle this question? The same way Jesus did.
There was a bitter division between Jews and Samaritans over the rival claims of Jerusalem and Mt. Gerizim as places of worship. The Samaritans were half Jewish and half Assirian and were looked down upon by the Jews. The Samaritans only recognized the first 5 books of the Bible as true and therefore rejected any notion that Jerusalem was most holy place to worship God. The Samaritan woman points to this controversy by saying, “Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem." This comment highlights the fact that altars were built at Mt. Gerizim by Abraham (Gen 12:7) and by Jacob (Gen 33:20). Mt. Gerizim was the scene of the blessing of the people in (Deut 11:29) The Samaritans also read in their Bibles that an altar was commanded to be set up in this mountain (Deut 27:4). They had a tradition that Abraham’s offering of Isaac took place on this mountain. They held that it was here that Abraham met Melchizedek. In fact, most of the blessed events in the time of the patriarchs seem to have been linked with Mt. Gerizim! It’s no wonder this was an issue of heated controversy.
How does Jesus handle it? He simply refuses to be drawn into the argument. Instead, He solemnly predicts that a time is coming when worship will be possible in neither place. The Samaritan woman appealed to the example of “our fathers” but Jesus points her to the one Father.
The temple on Mt. Gerizim had already been destroyed at the time Jesus spoke to the woman at the well, and Jesus had already predicted the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem.
What Jesus is calling this woman at the well to do – and therefore also calling us to do, is to learn to worship the true God our heavenly Father not at a particular place, but in spirit and in truth.
We must be careful not to consider it worship just because we showed up at church. Just because we went into a building designated for worship doesn’t mean we worshiped. No, we need to learn to worship in “spirit and in truth.” That means we need to come into the presence of God in complete sincerity and complete honesty.
What is the opposite of “truth” ?
You can not lie your way into the presence of God and expect to get away with it.
You want God to touch you?
You want God to feed you?
You want God to quench your thirst?
You want God to move supernaturally in your life?
You want God to bring spiritual excitement back into your life?
You want more of God?
Then you need to get right with God!
You need to confess your sins, and change your life style.
We are done playing church around here! if you want to play church, then go someplace else, but don’t stay here.
God wants us to worship him in SPIRIT and in TRUTH!
So, if your life is a lie – then run down here and get right with him!
If you do worship in SPIRIT and in TRUTH and you want more of God, then run down here and seek his face!
Come on church, we need another drink!
The fountain is flowing, get down here, or get on your knees where you are and get another drink!
(Worship Team)
Benediction:
Rev 7:14-17
And he said, "These are they who have come out of the great tribulation; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. 15 Therefore,
"they are before the throne of God
and serve him day and night in his temple;
and he who sits on the throne will spread his tent over them.
16 Never again will they hunger;
never again will they thirst.
The sun will not beat upon them,
nor any scorching heat.
17 For the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd;
he will lead them to springs of living water.
And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes."
