Know Your Needs

[00:00:01] In the name of Jesus. [00:00:02] Amen. [00:00:05] When you sing Rock of Ages clef for me, do you think about the passage from the Old Testament there, where God tells Moses to strike the rock and out comes water? [00:00:20] It's so familiar that I grew up just singing Rock of Ages. [00:00:24] Jesus is the rock. [00:00:27] But this hymn beautifully brings together all these passages and of course, connects the rock struck in the wilderness and providing water for all the people of Israel. A fountain flowing from it sets that alongside or underneath Jesus on the cross with the spear in his side and the water pouring forth. [00:00:56] Water coming from the place you'd least expect it, in both cases, water, which we need so much for life. [00:01:09] The Israelites, they know they need something, but they don't really know what, do they? [00:01:18] They're thirsty, they're angry because they need. And they don't have the answer. They're in the wilderness, they're thirsty. They need water. Of course they need water. [00:01:31] And so they're angry with Moses. Why did you take us out of Egypt? To kill us. [00:01:38] And Moses says, you're not complaining with me, you're complaining to the Lord. [00:01:43] The Lord who took you up out of Egypt. They know they need something. They know they need water and sustenance. But God wants them to know that they need more than what just regular water can offer. [00:02:01] They need to know God. That's what life really is, fundamentally. [00:02:07] Not just to be walking around and making choices, not just to be amusing ourselves to death. [00:02:18] Life is to know the One who made us, and therefore to know why we were made and what we're for and what life is all about. [00:02:28] True life is to know God and the One that He sent Jesus Christ. [00:02:36] They're out there thirsting in the wilderness, and they complain. They ask for water. [00:02:40] And God provides for their needs. [00:02:43] And at the very same time that he provides them with physical water to sustain this body and life, he offers them a picture of Christ, Christ, who was struck for us. [00:03:06] He shows them, gives them a picture of true life. [00:03:11] The woman at the well is coming out for water, and she doesn't know what she's going to receive. She has no idea. [00:03:21] She knows she has a need. [00:03:24] She's going out there for water. And it's been pointed out she's going out there in the middle of the day, which seems kind of odd. [00:03:31] And then maybe her life situation makes sense of that. [00:03:36] Maybe she's ashamed, or maybe she would be well criticized by the other women going to the well. And so she goes at the hottest part of the day, she's uncomfortable. [00:03:50] She knows she has needs, but she doesn't know what answer to those needs she's going to receive that day. She arrives, she sees Jesus, and she doesn't see Jesus. [00:04:05] There's the answer to her need to her prayer, you could say, but she doesn't recognize him. [00:04:16] She's about to receive much more than she realizes because she knows her need and she doesn't know her need. Her need is deeper than she realizes, and the answer is coming to confront her, coming to draw her into the solution. [00:04:37] The answer is pursuing her, the answer to her need. [00:04:43] Jesus Christ, who offers water in the wilderness. [00:04:49] And he comes to us today. [00:04:51] We're here. [00:04:54] We know our need and we don't know our need. [00:04:59] Do you know your need? [00:05:02] Do I know my need? [00:05:06] Well, generally when we say the confession, when we confess our sins together and I meditate on those words, I come to know my need more. [00:05:16] Is that true for you? [00:05:18] Take stopping and considering my need. [00:05:26] And then as I come to feel it more, then the refreshing words that I speak to myself and to all of you, like for Christ, become even more refreshing and I forgive you all your sins. [00:05:45] We know our need and we don't know our need. We know the solution in part. [00:05:53] And then when all of God's promises are fulfilled and Christ comes back, we'll know in full. You could say we know Christ in part, then we'll know him in full. [00:06:05] See the overlapping pattern here? [00:06:08] So let's go back to the gospel reading though. [00:06:16] Jesus first asks her for a drink, right? [00:06:20] Give me a drink. [00:06:23] And that starts off this conversation that goes various ways. [00:06:31] Like, where is the conversation heading anyway? [00:06:35] What does she think she's going to get out of this? Like, why are you talking to me? [00:06:42] He's like, well, if you knew who you were talking to, then you would have asked me for a drink. [00:06:47] How would you give me a drink? You don't even have a bucket to get water with. [00:06:53] What a funny way to get to the point. [00:06:55] Jesus could have just said, hey, psst, by the way, come here. You might be interested in this. [00:07:01] Like, you know who they've been talking about for a long time. [00:07:04] That's me. [00:07:06] And then she would have said, no way and left, right? She would have dropped her bucket and left for a different reason. [00:07:14] Maybe that's not how Jesus did it. [00:07:18] He did it through this funny human conversation, just engaging her where she's at, like, oh, you asked me that. [00:07:30] We'll have a conversation here. A back and forth. [00:07:34] Jesus knows his goal. [00:07:37] Jesus is not going to be satisfied until she has life. [00:07:46] I use that word, satisfied because, well, that's what the water's for. In a sense. You feel your need, you're thirsty, and then you drink water and you're satisfied. Jesus says, give me a drink. And we could read that like, I'm thirsting for something. [00:08:07] Satisfy me. And you know what he's thirsting for. [00:08:11] He says right after this passage that we read to his disciples. [00:08:16] My food is to do my Father's will. [00:08:20] What satisfies me is to do my Father's will and to complete his work. [00:08:28] And that's what he's just been doing with this Samaritan woman at the well. [00:08:34] She doesn't know what she needs. [00:08:37] And his food, his satisfaction, what fills him up is to do his Father's will and to complete his work. [00:08:46] To seek and to save those who are lost. [00:08:52] That's what he's there for, and that's what is fulfilling to him. That's what satisfies him. [00:08:58] So he says, give me a drink. And then by the end, she has, because she believes in him and she knows the source of life and in Jesus has life. She's set on the path to God, Jesus, the way, the truth and the life. He's the path and she's on the path. [00:09:24] By the end of this conversation, the intro it this morning says, blessed is. [00:09:34] Make sure I get it right. Blessed are those whose strength is in you, in whose heart are the highways to Zion. [00:09:43] Well, by the end of the conversation, in her heart are the highways to Zion. We could clarify this a little bit more. [00:09:53] Jesus says toward the end there with her, that the hour is coming and is now here when the true worshipers will worship the Father Spirit. [00:10:06] And in truth, God is Spirit to be worshipped in spirit and in truth. [00:10:12] There's a little something more going on there. Jesus is offering the well, living water, water that satisfies forever. Like, you never have to come back to the well. You never have to reach that bucket down into the earth and pull up over and over and over again what you need to sustain your life. Instead, that water comes pouring down from above by the Holy Spirit. [00:10:42] The Holy Spirit is pictured in a lot of places in scripture with water. [00:10:50] Jesus comes to give the Holy Spirit and with the Holy Spirit comes all of his gifts. [00:10:59] The Holy Spirit comes and gives faith to believe in Jesus and sustains that faith. The Holy Spirit brings refreshing gifts like love, joy, peace, patience, goodness. As I say these things, I'm thinking like, oh, Lord, give me these things. You know, goodness Kindness, faithfulness, gentleness, self control. [00:11:30] Don't those things sound refreshing in this wilderness? [00:11:37] Boy, the wilderness is there. [00:11:39] We read about it in the news. [00:11:42] We feel it in various ways. Maybe deteriorating health or tragic circumstances, strained relationships, confusion or doubt, depression, anxiety, bitterness. [00:12:03] These things squeeze the moisture out of us if we let them. [00:12:13] If we just hang out in the wilderness, or if we go to that well in the wilderness and just try and draw up whatever kind of water we can to satisfy us. [00:12:26] Well, it might satisfy for a moment, but it's not going to satisfy forever. [00:12:35] Jesus Christ has come to offer us living water, his spirit. [00:12:44] And not just that, but to come and dwell in us by his spirit, to live in us and to give us Himself, everything that he is and has, and to offer us those gifts and not just one time, but forever. Not just for a moment, but in an ongoing way that we would know him and the One who sent him, that our life would be in him and in the Father. [00:13:09] And he sustains us forever. [00:13:14] And then the wilderness might still be a wilderness, but heaven is our home. [00:13:22] Then the wilderness is still there. [00:13:27] But God makes us springs in the wilderness so that out of our hearts, not because of anything that we've produced, out of our hearts flow rivers of living water to refresh the wilderness around us. [00:13:45] Not because we're so smart or have all the answers, but simply because Jesus Christ has come with that living water to dwell in us and give us his gifts, like we heard about Abraham last week, to bless us and to make us a blessing. [00:14:05] And that's all a gift, both the satisfaction of our needs and that we would end up supplying the needs of others. [00:14:16] Mysteriously, by God's grace, We come to God not knowing what we need exactly. [00:14:28] But he shows us we come not knowing the full extent of our sin. [00:14:34] He helps us see and we come maybe having an idea of what we need. [00:14:42] Jesus. [00:14:44] But in his coming, we receive it more fully than we thought we would. [00:14:54] Jesus is full of surprises because he's so far beyond our understanding and imagination. [00:15:04] He always has more gifts to give, and he comes to us to give them. [00:15:13] So here we are. We've heard God's word. We're still going to receive Jesus body and blood. [00:15:21] And there's a mystery. [00:15:23] Looking at it, you can't see with your eyes the benefits that lie there. [00:15:34] But we know by faith that Jesus gives us Himself, that He unites us to Himself, that He remakes us from the inside out, whatever that means. [00:15:47] The gifts he gives us are a mystery to us. We know in part that there's always more to be revealed. He's remaking us to be as we were meant to be. He's remaking our humanity in himself. [00:16:05] And like there in Jesus, as we hear about him and hear from him and get to know him through the scriptures, we get an idea of what human beings were meant to be in the first place. Made in God's image. [00:16:22] That's a mystery because that's. Well, that's not me. Maybe in part, as Christ comes and conforms me to himself, there's still a big gap between where I'm at and where I'm headed. [00:16:38] What's around the bend. [00:16:41] Well, you can bet that it's good in Jesus Christ. [00:16:48] Through faith in him, he's got you, thank God. In Jesus name, amen.