Water of Life - Chapel message

[00:00:01] All right, so Jesus, in the gospel reading today, Jesus meets a woman at a well. Does anybody remember whose well it was? [00:00:13] Liam, Are you thinking of like Masah and Meribah? Like those names? [00:00:27] Those were from the Old Testament reading. So I'm thinking. Now I'm thinking from John, from that New Testament reading. [00:00:35] Okay, Han. [00:00:39] Jacob's well. [00:00:40] Right, Jacob's well. So Jacob, remember the story of Joseph where Joseph was sold into slavery in Egypt? You remember that? [00:00:52] Alright, well, Jacob was Joseph's dad. [00:00:57] Do you remember Abraham? [00:00:59] Who remembers Abraham? Raise your hand. [00:01:01] Abraham. God said, go to a land that I'll show you. Right? God said, sacrifice your son Isaac, and then don't actually do it. Right. [00:01:11] All right, so Abraham's son was. [00:01:14] Buddy. [00:01:16] Abraham's son was Kinsley. Isaac. Isaac's son, Eli. [00:01:23] Jacob. Right, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. [00:01:28] So Jacob was a pretty well known story to all of these people, all right? To the Samaritans and to the Israelites. They knew about Jacob. And here they are at Jacob's well. Well, that's pretty cool. They know the stories of Jacob and Joseph and Abraham and Isaac. They know all these stories. And here they are at the well that Jacob dug. [00:01:52] Well, that's pretty cool. [00:01:56] All right, let's think a little bit more about a well. You know how a well works? [00:02:02] Like, what do you get in a well? What's a well? For Isla? [00:02:06] For water. [00:02:08] Right. Okay, so. [00:02:10] And what does it look like? What does a well look like, Michael? [00:02:15] Looks like a pot made out of bricks. [00:02:19] It does look like a pot made out of bricks. So, okay, so maybe you have a brick ring. I think that's what you're thinking of, right? A brick ring. Okay, and then what's in the ring, Riley? [00:02:35] There's water in the ring. [00:02:38] So you can just like scoop it up. [00:02:46] Anybody you want to hand it on? We'll do Caroline next to you. [00:02:52] Okay, you need a bucket. [00:02:54] Okay, but are you just scooping water out of the. [00:02:58] It's not a pool. [00:03:00] Okay, Jonathan, you have to lower it down because there's a hole there. [00:03:09] Now notice the woman at the well that Jesus was talking with said the well is deep. [00:03:14] Okay, now this well could be. Could be a hundred feet deep, could be deeper. [00:03:21] It's a long way down. So imagine now you're with me at this. We'll call it a ring of bricks. Okay? And we're looking down into the hole a long way. And maybe at the bottom you can see the glint of water. Maybe the lights just bare. Maybe it's. It's Midday. Right. So the sun's shining down and it's illuminating the water at the bottom. And you can see it shiny. A little bit shiny, but it's way down there. [00:03:48] All right. [00:03:50] And then there's a bucket. [00:03:52] Okay. And the bucket is on a rope and she brings a bucket. So I don't know, maybe anybody know, like back then, would there have been a rod and a crank? [00:04:07] You don't think so? [00:04:09] No. So you just lower it down with a rope. [00:04:12] Okay. So you grab the rope and you tie it to your bucket and you lower it down. And just imagine it's got to go a long way. [00:04:27] And then it hits the water and maybe it sinks into the water. [00:04:32] Okay. So now it's. Now it's in the water and when you pull it up, it's going to have water in it. [00:04:38] Okay. Now water is heavy. [00:04:41] Water is very heavy, right? [00:04:44] Oh, this is just a little bit of water haze. Do you want to come see how heavy this is? [00:04:54] Want to lift it up? [00:05:00] Uh huh. Is it kind of heavy? Yeah. [00:05:03] Yep. Okay. [00:05:06] Yeah. Elijah, you want to come see how heavy it is? [00:05:19] Kind of no problem, right? You got it. But is it kind of heavy? [00:05:24] A little bit. Alright. Now this is just a little bit of water, right? What can you do with this water? Well, you could, you could bring it back home. But is this going to give you a shower or a bath? [00:05:36] No. How much are you going to be able to wash with this? [00:05:40] Some. [00:05:42] Right? Some. But imagine this is the water. If you took this home today and this was all the water your family could use, would it be enough? [00:05:52] No. Okay. So you probably want a bigger container. [00:05:57] There are lots of people in the world today who travel by foot to get water and then they bring it back to their house. [00:06:07] And not on wheels either. [00:06:12] They carry it. Now you could carry it like this. [00:06:16] Raise your hand if in seed to sale. [00:06:19] Okay. You've tried to carry the bucket of water on Fridays? [00:06:24] Yeah. We've got a five gallon bucket that we fill with water and bring it to where we're working. And students have the challenge of carrying it without splashing it out. Right. Usually get a little bit wet, but just four and a half gallons or four gallons of water. Whatever you're carrying in that blue bucket is very heavy, isn't it? [00:06:47] Okay. I got to go to Africa. Once I went to Togo with a group of students and a professor and a pastor. We went there and we got to see life there. And that's what they would do. [00:07:02] They would walk to get water in certain Parts. [00:07:08] And so the women, because they were the ones typically who were going and bringing the water back, although sometimes older kids were doing it. [00:07:18] But the women were talking with the girls in our group and they were kind of like they were joking in a fun way, just saying, like, we are strong and you guys are weak because they. Every day, imagine how strong you'd get if you took a huge bucket of water and you lifted it up like this and you carried it around, you know? And I was thinking, well, it's not just the girls in the group, you know, you're stronger than I am, you know? Right. Okay. They were, they were strong and they worked hard. It was really cool. [00:07:52] But they were carrying a lot of water. A lot of water. Okay, so just think about it. This woman who's coming to the well, she's coming with her bucket and she knows she's carrying a big bucket of water all the way back to town. [00:08:06] That's amazing to me. [00:08:08] It makes me sore and tired just thinking about it. [00:08:12] So water is heavy and it was a lot of work to pull that, even just pulling it up like this. Can you imagine the strength, how sore your muscles would be after pulling a heavy bucket of water all the way up from the well and then carrying it back. [00:08:28] That's hard work. [00:08:32] But let's back up a little bit. How'd the hole get there in the ground? [00:08:37] Did Jacob come up to it and say, like, whoa, I almost fell in a hole and there's water at the bottom? [00:08:44] No, Jackson, he dug it. Right. And maybe with help. Alright, but have you ever tried to dig a hole? [00:08:54] I say tried because, well, you can dig a little bit, right? I mean, you can move some dirt. [00:09:00] Okay, but you dig down a few feet and it gets harder and harder, doesn't it? [00:09:05] Alright. It's really hard work to dig with a shovel. [00:09:11] So to dig all the way down there to get water, whew, that'd be a lot of hard work. [00:09:19] It's a lot of hard work to get water, I guess. [00:09:22] But Jesus, Jesus says to her, you know, if you knew who I was, you would ask me for water and I'd give it to you. She says, you don't even have a bucket. [00:09:38] Jesus is saying, just ask and I'll give you living water. [00:09:44] Living water and you'll never be thirsty again. And she says, well, that sounds nice. [00:09:50] I'd like to never be thirsty again and not have to come here and get water. [00:09:56] Because think about all that hard work every single day to go out to lower that bucket to pull it up, to carry it all the way back, knowing that you're just going to have to do the same thing the next day. And Jesus says, I'll give you water and it'll become in you like springs of water, and you won't have to do that ever again. Now, he's not talking about water for the body or for washing the body or for washing the table or whatever you'd use water for back in town at your house, but he's talking about a different kind of water here. He's talking about the kind of water that washes away your sins. [00:10:45] The kind of water that takes a dry, sad, aching heart and refreshes it makes it feel like, oh, oh, right. [00:10:58] He's talking about the kind of water that cleans our hearts. Forgiveness of sins. Okay? Life. [00:11:06] Life in Jesus. Jesus has come to give us life and to refresh us and to forgive our sins, to make us clean. [00:11:14] And that water is not water that you have to, like, work every day for, okay? It's not water that only the strong can get. See, if it were up to me now, like, okay, Josh Pastor, you have to gather your own water. If I had to go to the ditch or to the river every day and get water starting today, I'd be a mess, right? My family wouldn't have much water today, that's for sure. Or tomorrow, the next day, they might not have any because I'm recovering, right? [00:11:55] I'd be a mess. Well, you know, what? If we had to work, if we had to, by our own effort, get God to forgive us or feel good about us, if we had to fix our. [00:12:10] Our sin problem ourself, we couldn't. [00:12:15] We are not strong enough. [00:12:20] We cannot work hard enough or get enough goodness, okay? Just by our effort to be right with God. [00:12:28] Have you ever tried to do better? Like, you do wrong? And you're like, I'm never going to do this again, right? Like, I am. [00:12:37] My parents are unhappy with me, and I'm never gonna. I'm never gonna have my parents be unhappy with me again. Like, I'm never gonna. Have you ever resolved to do better? [00:12:48] And sometimes there are things where, like, you know, I really am never gonna do this exactly. Again. But there's something else, okay? All your life, there are gonna be struggles, and some maybe you'll figure out, but then others will pop up and you'll find that we are weak and sinful. We say in our confession of sins that we're sinful and unclean, right? And we've sinned in our thoughts and in what we've said and what we've done. [00:13:18] And we need your forgiveness, God. [00:13:20] And the beautiful thing is he doesn't say, all right, pick up your bucket and get going. The river's that way. [00:13:29] He says, I forgive you. [00:13:32] Jesus comes and he says, I'll give you living water. [00:13:36] If you knew what I had to give, you'd be like, yes, please. [00:13:40] And I'd give it to you and you'd have it forever. [00:13:45] That's what we have in Jesus. By faith, you're forgiven, you're clean, and you have life in Jesus without working for it, just receiving it. It's not something you dig way down for. It's something that you receive from above, from God, as a gift. Let's pray. [00:14:04] Dear God, thank you for, well, for doing the hard work for us. [00:14:10] Thank you for sending Jesus, your son, to give us, as a gift, forgiveness and life. To wash us clean and make us your children. [00:14:21] Help us to remember and give thanks for your gifts. In Jesus name, amen.