Do you take water for granted or is every sip flavored with gratitude?
- What are you thankful for?
- How have you been able to share the Word of God with others lately?
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- Jesus is the Source of Living Water. He created water in the beginning, and He is working out a New Creation.
The Father, His Word, and The Spirit/Breath/Wind of God were present at Creation: Genesis 1:1-3 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2 Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness covered the surface of the watery depths, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the surface of the waters. 3 Then God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.
Jesus at the Feast of Tabernacles: John 7:37On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and cried out, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. 38 Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’” 39 Now this he said about the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were to receive, for as yet the Spirit had not been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.
Several OT passages hinting at a New Creation: Isaiah 58:11 The Lord will always lead you, satisfy you in a parched land, and strengthen your bones. Ezekiel 47:1-12 Then he brought me back to the entrance of the temple and there was water flowing from under the altar… Zechariah 14:8 On that day living water will flow out from Jerusalem, half of it toward the eastern sea[Dead Sea] and the other half toward the western sea,[Mediterranean Sea] in summer and winter alike.
- Our daily water is a metaphor for the continual supply of life that the Father gives us through the Holy Spirit because Jesus opened the well of life.
- Sharing water can be an occasion for sharing living water: John 4:4-16
4 Now [Jesus] 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 noon.
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.[a])
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 livestock?”
13 Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, 14 but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them 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.”
(Notice: Jacob had to have dug the well generations earlier for Jesus to share the gospel at this well.)
God can cause water to spring up miraculously for His glory! Exodus 17 All the congregation of the people of Israel moved on from the wilderness of Sin by stages, according to the commandment of the Lord, and camped at Rephidim, but there was no water for the people to drink. 2 Therefore the people quarreled with Moses and said, “Give us water to drink.” And Moses said to them, “Why do you quarrel with me? Why do you test the Lord?” 3 But the people thirsted there for water, and the people grumbled against Moses and said, “Why did you bring us up out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and our livestock with thirst?” 4 So Moses cried to the Lord, “What shall I do with this people? They are almost ready to stone me.” 5 And the Lord said to Moses, “Pass on before the people, taking with you some of the elders of Israel, and take in your hand the staff with which you struck the Nile, and go. 6 Behold, I will stand before you there on the rock at Horeb, and you shall strike the rock, and water shall come out of it, and the people will drink.” And Moses did so, in the sight of the elders of Israel. 7 And he called the name of the place Massah[a] and Meribah,[b] because of the quarreling of the people of Israel, and because they tested the Lord by saying, “Is the Lord among us or not?”
Again the Lord answered the cry of Moses and the plea of Moses and brought forth water. Numbers 20:2-13
The Waters of Meribah part 2 … This time Moses Strikes the Rock
Jesus linked the sharing of water with rewards from God. Matthew 10:40“Whoever receives you receives me, and whoever receives me receives him who sent me. 41 The one who receives a prophet because he is a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward, and the one who receives a righteous person because he is a righteous person will receive a righteous person’s reward. 42 And whoever gives one of these little ones even a cup of cold water because he is a disciple, truly, I say to you, he will by no means lose his reward.”
- Digging wells & sharing water can prepare the way for the gospel to spread to the glory of God.
- The Lord can also change bitter, poisonous waters into sweet waters, which illustrates the way He changes the attitudes of our hearts and the words of our lips: from bitter to kind.
Bitter Water Made Sweet Exodus 15:22Then Moses made Israel set out from the Red Sea, and they went into the wilderness of Shur. They went three days in the wilderness and found no water. 23 When they came to Marah, they could not drink the water of Marah because it was bitter; therefore it was named Marah.[b] 24 And the people grumbled against Moses, saying, “What shall we drink?” 25 And he cried to the Lord, and the Lord showed him a log,[c] and he threw it into the water, and the water became sweet.
There the Lord made for them a statute and a rule, and there he tested them, 26 saying, “If you will diligently listen to the voice of the Lord your God, and do that which is right in his eyes, and give ear to his commandments and keep all his statutes, I will put none of the diseases on you that I put on the Egyptians, for I am the Lord, your healer.”
27 Then they came to Elim, where there were twelve springs of water and seventy palm trees, and they encamped there by the water.
The First Miracle after crossing the Jordan that Elisha (The leading true prophet of his day) performed in the eyes of the sons of the prophets was that He purified water, with salt. 2 Kings 2:19
Then the men of the city said to Elisha, “Even though our lord can see that the city’s location is good, the water is bad and the land unfruitful.”
20 He replied, “Bring me a new bowl and put salt in it.”
After they had brought him one, 21 Elisha went out to the spring of water, threw salt in it, and said, “This is what the Lord says: ‘I have healed this water. No longer will death or unfruitfulness result from it.’” 22 Therefore, the water remains healthy to this very day according to the word that Elisha spoke.
Jeremiah spoke of how false teaching and judgement in the land were like poisoned water:
Jeremiah 8:14 Jeremiah 9:15 Jeremiah 23:15 Therefore thus says the Lord of hosts concerning the prophets: “Behold, I will feed them with bitter food and give them poisoned water to drink, for from the prophets of Jerusalem ungodliness has gone out into all the land.”
Again, let us listen to the words of Jesus at the fall Feast of Tabernacles (which is what our Thanksgiving is modeled after): John 7:37On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and cried out, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. 38 Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’” 39 Now this he said about the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were to receive, for as yet the Spirit had not been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.
- True teaching leads to clean water which leads to healthy bodies. Trusting human ideas leads to a sick society. Trusting God’s Word leads to good health in mind, body, soul, spirit, and society.
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Applications:
- Be thankful as the people were to be thankful at the feast of Tabernacles.
- Turn to Jesus for your supply of life. Believe the Gospel.
- Share your life and water with others with clean water and pure teaching.
- Drink water with someone as you share the gospel. (Recent chats over cups of cold water with students.)
- Help get clean water to others as a way of sharing the gospel. (Kenya water purification project, Sharing bottled water at a festival.)
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