What is the theme of our study today,
you remember?
The gift of living water.
So many nice statements or titles of teachings
we hear, but it doesn't necessarily help
us to understand what it means.
God, I think, keeps on always
trying to speak to us about our need
of him by using things that we can
understand.
Like, think about somebody says something terrible about
you, they gossip about you.
Think about times you said something to someone,
but all of a sudden they are angry
with you, for they didn't understand what you
were trying to say.
Or, think about someone that lost 100 rupees
or 500 rupees, and somehow, some mysterious reason,
people began to talk about you, that you
have taken that money.
And sometimes you've been fasting and praying, and
you didn't want to tell anyone, and you
didn't realize that your face, your body language,
and it reflected a sense of weakness.
And the person who sees you thinks something
is wrong with you.
Either you are sick or you are not
happy with them.
Think about times that you didn't have the
resources, the money that you desperately need.
I mean, that's a very simple thing, I
can borrow 100 rupees to give offering, but
what about other serious needs?
I'm sure you will know someone in your
family, or someone who is in trouble, they
borrowed money, and they don't know how to
pay it back, and they have a lot
of problems.
Now, these are all physical realities we deal
with.
But how does these things God uses?
This is His silent, loud voices.
That's the reason Paul said in Philippians 3,
he said, you know, there's a lot of
things I can boast about, they're all true.
He talked about, you know, having the privilege
to be born in a super upper-caste
family, and to have the best of credentials
as an individual.
In every way, you can read that.
But then he makes this drastic statement, but
all these things I consider as done.
It's good enough only to be thrown into
the dustbin.
But then he continues, that physical achievement, experiences,
somehow connects with something far more transcending, something
more very special, uncreated, untouched by man's hands.
He says, so that I may know Christ,
and somehow I may enter into the suffering
of Christ, and through all this I may
experience resurrection from the dead.
It is not talking about the last trumpet
sound and people getting resurrected, that is part
of the story.
But he's talking about living in this world
of turmoil, and pain, and agony, and suspense,
and imprisonment, and being stoned, and all the
agonies, how to live a life, truly a
triumphant life.
It is like when I was a small
boy, just 14 kilometers from here, our mode
of transportation was always canoes.
Now, of course, there are roads, and cars,
and motorbikes, and all those things.
But during the monsoon season, there's nowhere we
get anywhere except we have canoes.
There are little boats or canoes, you can
sometimes carry one person, we had one.
And some years ago, I tried to get
in one of them, and it capsized immediately
because I lost my balance.
Then there are canoes that carry three people,
four people, ten people, you know, different kinds.
But while you are going along in this
river, or the monsoon season, you have the
storm, the lightning, the waves, and we fellows
are quite content with whatever is going on
because we are safe within the canoe.
How do we go through this life, no
matter how lengthy or short it may be?
The Bible says, even the best of life
is full of sorrows.
I mean, especially if you read the Bible,
you'll find it.
And sometimes people ask, why does somebody want
to be the prime minister of the country,
or the chief minister of the country, or
to have any position?
What an amount of crisis and pain.
You think it is easy.
Well, go to the Bible.
You read about someone like Solomon, born to
the most famous king, David.
And he was born with all the luxuries.
And then you'll find out, not only that,
he was miraculously given an incredible amount of
wisdom and knowledge.
And he was extremely rich.
And he was filthy rich.
And he lacked nothing.
I mean, you cannot imagine any human being
climbing the ladder of success.
But you'll find the diary that he wrote,
his personal diary, Ecclesiastics.
He says, oh my goodness, life, life.
He says, it's vanity.
Vanity, oh vanity.
Emptiness.
It is like chasing the wind.
You never catch it.
It's full of sorrows.
Then you find him trying to find what
is life all about.
And he turns to all the luxuries of
the world and life you can imagine.
He said, I said, I said no to
nothing.
And then all he has is emptiness.
Thirst.
I mean, here's a bottle of water that
I'm sure it's not salt water.
Is it?
No, I believe you.
Otherwise you wouldn't be living there, sitting there.
I remember the months I traveled in a
ship.
There were five, six hundred people.
And we arrived in the middle of the
ocean.
There's plenty of water.
Billions, trillions of gallons.
But we don't drink it.
You can.
The more you drink salt water, the more
thirsty you become and more desperate and sick
you become.
I ask you a simple question for you
to think.
We are always concerned about poor people.
The people with leprosy, the beggars, the blind,
the widows and orphans.
We all are.
But when it comes to movie actors, brilliant
lawyers, medical doctors, rich business people, we
don't think those thoughts.
But the question is this.
How come in many societies some of the
highest, the people who achieved the very dreams
many have, the ratio, the percentage of suicide
among those people.
We think the poor farmers, no.
So when Jesus talks about offering living water
and the Old Testament, of course the entire
Old Testament is actually talking about Christ.
And Paul says in Corinthians, the rock that
followed them was Christ.
So here's a bunch of people who are
desperately thirsty.
And God said to Moses, strike the rock
and water will come out of it.
That's what happened.
And so it's a picture of Christ, his
body broken, pouring out his blood.
And that brokenness and giving up his life
became the answer to the desperate thirst of
the whole humanity.
Whoever is thirsty, let him come and freely,
you have no charge, receive this.
Some years ago when the first time that
particular verse struck me with a different meaning.
And I said to myself, in my tiny
village with thousands of people there born by
this river and so many other people, I
got five other brothers and my parents and
neighbors and all that.
And I was terribly shy and timid and
the only thing I knew to do well
was to climb coconut trees to escape from
my father wanting to punish me.
See, I think there is something about monkeys.
But then to realize with all the billions
of galaxies and angels and all the stuff
going on, this God is thinking about me.
And as a matter of fact, here if
you read the Greek text, Jesus, he says,
abandoned where he was and going north.
And he had to go.
It is like there was an external compulsion.
The reason was the father knew out of
all the people living in Samaria there was
one little woman that he was thinking about.
And she was not the movie star.
As a matter of fact, all the women
go to draw water either early morning or
in the evening.
But the morning sun rises, needs some water
in the house and she wants to go.
But she can't.
Because that's when all the women will gather
by the well and the gossip and the
talk and everything else.
And usually the one story they all talk
about this nameless woman.
Because her life was not secret.
It was very public.
And she was rejected, ostracized, alienated.
Then deep sense of guilt and condemnation, rejection.
I, reading this thing, I'm surprised that she
didn't commit suicide by now.
That also tells me the more she gave
herself to horrible sins, her heart became hardened.
And then there's a saying, there's a line
you cross and then you're abandoned and God
gave you up.
So I look at this woman and her
story of the pain and sin and failures
and rejection and all that.
And you know, it is not written there
but I can tell you having several husbands
or they died and then remarried and all
you can imagine is the abuse and all
the stuff she's living with.
She didn't want to appear in public.
But God was thinking about her.
And I tell you this, we all have
this problem, I do.
We all have this problem.
We somehow think if I do enough good
things somehow it balance out and God will
bless us.
If you pray hard enough, if you fast
enough and give money or help the poor,
it is built into our nature.
And I'm not saying we should do those
things.
But it's hard to believe you can be
so wretched but then God turns attention from
all those people and think about one person
who nobody wants.
Nobody cares about.
I don't know about you, we all have
secrets.
Other day I was going to pray for
someone and husband and wife they came and
I said to the husband, would you be
willing to go out of the room just
for a minute?
So she was alone in my room and
I asked her a question.
You came here that I would pray for
you for healing.
But is there something in your life something
happened to you as a young girl, as
a school girl, as a professional person that
you are so hurt, so angry and upset,
some bitterness, unforgiveness, some incident that you do
not want to tell anyone in the world.
Or I promise you, no one will hear
that from me either.
But this was one of the good experiences
I had.
She said, there's nothing I can think of.
And then she described her journey.
But why would I ask a question like
that?
Especially our culture that is what you call
shame culture.
Psychiatrists usually don't make good living in our
culture because nobody tells anything really.
They will go in circles but never really
tell the real story.
I do not know where you are in
your personal journey.
But all I can tell you the scripture
is given to us, Bible is given to
us, not for us to study and get
degrees.
But it's given to us there are stories
of people God is saying, this exactly I
deal with you.
I do care about you.
And I will take off from thousands of
people wanting to hear me and I will
walk 40 miles and be tired and worn
out and wait until you come.
I can talk to you.
That's what happened.
And of course in the early days of
the church the first three, four hundred years
of the church one of the big controversy
of Christology or about Christ was did Christ
have two wills or one?
He lived as a man so he never
sinned which means his will was pure and
only one that's God's will.
So there's no variations.
But so happened to be a cultist teaching.
That is not true.
He was man the same time he was
God.
And he had to choose just like Adam.
So he didn't come and sin not because
he was having this one will determination in
his mind as God.
No.
He had to choose between the will of
man and the will of God.
And this is an incredible reality that help
us to understand that whoever come and freely
receive this so some people are waiting for
some supernatural, some thunder, lightning, something to happen
for them to become spiritual.
They stumble on to some spiritual rock and
all the sudden things changes.
No.
As a matter of fact I'm telling you
the whole reality of life is this that
you and I are given the choices and
the choices I wish is between bad and
good.
No.
But often it is between two good things.
But being sensitive to Christ and who he
is and what is life about help us
to make the right choice.
Well, so gift of living water for
whom?
A woman like the Samaritan woman?
Yes.
What about saints?
What about the people of God who were
traveling through the desert?
They were set free from Egypt.
So the reality is this.
You know that I don't sing, I don't
attempt to sing and nor do I know
how to do it.
But you know there is a stanza or
some song goes like, you can have the
whole wide world but give me Jesus.
A lot of people are dreaming about oh,
I'm going to get married and it's going
to be a wonderful life and children and
house and motorbike and cars and this and
that.
I'm talking about young people here.
And if you think Mother Teresa, a young
bright girl who wants to give up her
entire future to join her sister's order from
the Catholic Church and leave her country to
be alone the rest of her life to
serve.
You think everybody said, oh great, wonderful, do
it.
We clap our hands for you.
No.
Yesterday I heard about one young girl who
really considered joining the Sisters of Compassion.
A graduate.
To serve in leper colonies.
To clean their wounds.
To embrace the lonely and the dying.
Infected with HIV and AIDS.
Dying on the streets.
But she will make a decision not to
do it in the end.
And you say, what happened?
She listened to her parents.
She listened to her friends who said, three
years of your life you're going to throw
away, stand still.
There's a young man that I heard about,
I never met him, but praise continually that
God will allow him, he'll have to go
to China.
I know a young student that went to
our seminary who desperately wanted to end up
in Nepal.
Ended up in Nepal.
And learned Nepali and reads Nepali language and
speaks fluently.
So how this God offers gift of living
water to people today?
Is he walking around finding wells, bridges, trees,
public parks, leper colonies, talking to people?
It's you.
The story of the woman is quite interesting.
She just couldn't wait to tell the whole
community because she knew while her life was
in such horrible darkness and misery, she knew
there's a lot of people there who had
no hope.
And she said, you better come and see
this man.
He told me something that nobody can tell
you.
Most men look at me for my flesh,
but he looked straight into me and saw
me.
And he will do the same for you.
And somehow, strange enough, my inside, I'm at
peace.
And then a lot of people meet Christ
who offers the same gift he offered her.
So I encourage you to make those choices
as God speaks to you.
Not because somebody else is doing it.
But then as a follower of Christ, you
can be wandering as a thirsty dying soul
if you stop following him.
The shepherd always goes ahead, but you must
follow.
And may the Lord help us to understand
this Christianity not as a series of dead
doctrines, but a living reality that actually is
more real than all the physical realities that
we understand.