Thirst for the Jouney

By Jeff McDowell

Horsheads First UMC

3-12-23

Exodus 17:1-7                  John 4:5-26          

Theme: God comes through even if our attitude is poor and unbelieving. The thirsty people following Moses quarreled over his intentions for them. IN the gospel of John, a Samaritan woman went to get water and Jesus offered her spiritual water to quench her spiritual thirst forever. Nothing is impossible with God, whether miracle water from a rock or water that makes you never thirst again. Will we drink it?

Water.  Everyone needs it. Yet millions of people around the world do not have adequate access to it. For most of us, water is found by the turning of a faucet. But, in developing countries, women and children walk hours each day to reach a water source that is often contaminated.

Our friend Benjamin (who some of you met on Thursday) is originally from Uganda. There, girls walk up to 12 kilometers (over 7 miles) for clean water each day.

The World Bank reports that 80 countries now have water shortages that threaten health and economies while 40 percent of the world — more than 2 billion people — have no access to clean water or sanitation.

Over a decade ago, another friend, Ron Pinkerton of Bath, went into the bush in Kenya to bring the Jesus Film to win souls to Christ.  But when there previously he saw the sickness, the diseases, the need for clean water.  He took with him hundreds of filtering straws, so that many could drink from ransid pools and not get sick. Caring for the souls, we must care for their bodies as well.

The 2 bibles stories today are about water; one is of a shortage and a need for it; the other is about an overabundance of the weakest kind of water there is; the water that does not satisfy or quench.

Have you ever been so thirsty you were in fear of dying? 

((me, in Brighton, England, walking miles everywhere, getting thirsty.  Going into a McDonald’s the clerk could not understand my simple request for water.))

Thirst, physical thirst is what the Israelites were experiencing; the hundreds of thousands of them in the desert, following Moses in circles.  At some points in their journey; they all ran out of water at once; easy to do in the desert.  So rather than form a work team to find a well or a spring; rather than think on their own how to get water; rather than go to God, the source of their wanderings and their water and all they need to sustain them; they went to Moses, their leader, to complain.

The Bible says they quarreled with Moses about it that day.  They accused him, they confronted him, and they complained to him.  And that is why Moses gives it right back to them: “Why do you quarrel with me?  Why do you test the Lord?”

You see, Moses already knew that God had delivered them from Egypt, that night the angel of death passed over them, but killed all the firstborn Egyptians, forcing Pharaoh to “Let His People Go.” 

Moses remembered God leading them through the Red Sea, destroying the Egyptian Army in the wall of water; miraculously saving them from both drowning and from war.

 Moses knew God’s power as God was leading them with a pillar of fire at night and a pillar of a cloud during the day; Moses had full trust in God to provide for their every need.  He knew God had already provided food (manna) for them in the desert when they complained of hunger.

Thirst for the Jouney

By Jeff McDowell

Horsheads First UMC

3-12-23

Exodus 17:1-7                  John 4:5-26          

Theme: God comes through even if our attitude is poor and unbelieving. The thirsty people following Moses quarreled over his intentions for them. IN the gospel of John, a Samaritan woman went to get water and Jesus offered her spiritual water to quench her spiritual thirst forever. Nothing is impossible with God, whether miracle water from a rock or water that makes you never thirst again. Will we drink it?

Water.  Everyone needs it. Yet millions of people around the world do not have adequate access to it. For most of us, water is found by the turning of a faucet. But, in developing countries, women and children walk hours each day to reach a water source that is often contaminated.

Our friend Benjamin (who some of you met on Thursday) is originally from Uganda. There, girls walk up to 12 kilometers (over 7 miles) for clean water each day.

The World Bank reports that 80 countries now have water shortages that threaten health and economies while 40 percent of the world — more than 2 billion people — have no access to clean water or sanitation.

Over a decade ago, another friend, Ron Pinkerton of Bath, went into the bush in Kenya to bring the Jesus Film to win souls to Christ.  But when there previously he saw the sickness, the diseases, the need for clean water.  He took with him hundreds of filtering straws, so that many could drink from ransid pools and not get sick. Caring for the souls, we must care for their bodies as well.

The 2 bibles stories today are about water; one is of a shortage and a need for it; the other is about an overabundance of the weakest kind of water there is; the water that does not satisfy or quench.

Have you ever been so thirsty you were in fear of dying? 

((me, in Brighton, England, walking miles everywhere, getting thirsty.  Going into a McDonald’s the clerk could not understand my simple request for water.))

Thirst, physical thirst is what the Israelites were experiencing; the hundreds of thousands of them in the desert, following Moses in circles.  At some points in their journey; they all ran out of water at once; easy to do in the desert.  So rather than form a work team to find a well or a spring; rather than think on their own how to get water; rather than go to God, the source of their wanderings and their water and all they need to sustain them; they went to Moses, their leader, to complain.

The Bible says they quarreled with Moses about it that day.  They accused him, they confronted him, and they complained to him.  And that is why Moses gives it right back to them: “Why do you quarrel with me?  Why do you test the Lord?”

You see, Moses already knew that God had delivered them from Egypt, that night the angel of death passed over them, but killed all the firstborn Egyptians, forcing Pharaoh to “Let His People Go.” 

Moses remembered God leading them through the Red Sea, destroying the Egyptian Army in the wall of water; miraculously saving them from both drowning and from war.

 Moses knew God’s power as God was leading them with a pillar of fire at night and a pillar of a cloud during the day; Moses had full trust in God to provide for their every need.  He knew God had already provided food (manna) for them in the desert when they complained of hunger.

The church today.  Peter Steinke, in A Door Set Open, writes on p. 40, comparing us to the wandering Israelites.  (read p. 40,41 top)

No longer can we expect people to come join our already established way of reaching out to God.  We must go out and bring the gospel to them.

That is what Jesus himself did.

 In the context of this story, Jesus has sowed faith in the woman, who now returns after having witnessed to her friends and neighbors. To the Johannine community reading these words – and to Christians today – the reminder is that we cannot know just how much time and labor have gone into sowing faith among others before those we recognize as “missionaries” actually arrive on the scene. Even when we think we are sowing, we may be reaping.

Hence the reason why Jesus “had to go through Samaria” (v.4).

So now we have attitude, path, and objective.

So what?

-Israelites in the desert, wandering, could have revolted and fought over water, but instead they took what God provided thru Moses, though they quarreled and complained.  And they did not reach the promised land.  They all died, and only their descendants entered the promised land.

-Sam. Woman trusted in Jacob’s old well alone, but when given the chance, reached out to God himself for her sustenance.

-How about you, Christian?  How about you, church? Sometimes our lives and our souls may seem as parched and in need of life-giving, life-saving water as the land and trees we see going up in forest fires in the western part of the United States.   Max Lucado has said, “We were not meant to live with dehydrated hearts.”  Is your heart dehydrated right now?  Do you need to be refreshed with the living water of Jesus Christ?   How do our parched souls get watered? 

John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist Movement was all about grace, and continually reminded his hearers and readers, that it is only by God’s grace that our lives can be transformed.  We cannot do it by ourselves.   God’s grace is lavish.  Amy Carmichael, poet and missionary to India who lived in the late 19^th and first half of the 20^th century said, “Thank God, He does not measure grace out in teaspoons.”  God’s supply never runs (main graphic) dry.  It is continual and overflowing.  If God’s grace were being illustrated by water in a pitcher being poured into a bowl, the pitcher would never run out of water and the bowl would be continually and forever overflowing. 

            Ways to experience this never-ending grace of God include participating in the means of God’s grace such as prayer, the study of scripture, private and corporate worship, Holy Communion, Christian fellowship, etc. These are ways that God makes His presence known to us, and we can be continually refreshed – and refreshed anew – by the grace of God, regularly participating in these and other opportunities.

            The grace of God enables us to experience an enhanced quality to our lives that we can know in no other way than through Jesus Christ – the One Who makes us new.  Come and be refreshed as God showers the gift of grace upon us.  Bask in God’s life-giving grace.  May we reminded though, that grace is not to be kept to ourselves.  John Wesley, along with the Apostle Paul, and Jesus of course, each call us to share with those around us, so that they, too, can become new creations in Christ.  Wesley is credited as saying,

“Do all the good you can.

By all the means you can.

In all the ways you can.

In all the places you can.

At all the times you can.

To all the people you can.

As long as ever you can.”

If we do this, motivated (main graphic) by the love of Christ, we will be agents of God’s grace, channels of God’s love, and beacons of the light of Christ, and in doing so, bring life-giving refreshment to those whose lives may have become seemingly hopeless and parched. 

Abundant water.  Refreshing for the soul.  Reviving of the church.   Outreaching of the congregations, for Christ!

We have a chance here in Horsheads, to become a going concern again, not a by word among society.  We have buildings, we have people, we have resources, we have vision, we have mission, we have our marching orders and we see the need. What are we waiting for?

Water.  Cool, refreshing water of the Spirit; the water Jesus gives. 

Be refreshed, and share the life-giving restorative grace of God with those around us.  May it be so!