TRANSCRIPT

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good morning friends how you doing today good good to see you all uh so um I am just one just amazed uh and and maybe you are as well uh with the kids videos now there have been a few questions about them um centered around and this question mainly why is it that pastor amy can do in five minutes uh what it takes me 45 minutes to do on a regular basis and that’s a fair question um because in actual fact she’s going to cover the whole text today and I’m only gonna get to like verse 16. so she’s doing a great job and uh just yeah way to go so been here a few weeks now uh five weeks in it was fun last week to just get a week to not preach just hang out get to know the community a little bit and and just learning several things about you like juan like south is a singing community I love listening to you guys sing it just brings a ton of joy

and I also got to hear pastor dan uh bring the message and man that guy can bring it uh he’s like it’s like sitting listening to a guy talk to some of his oldest friends because it feels like that’s what you are to him so I said to someone afterwards like listening to dan preach is like listening to the beatles play it’s like smooth and it’s like just you know everything’s like he’s got this flow and you’re just like ah I’m a little more led zeppelin you never know where it’s gonna go it could be all over the place um someone once said to me following me preach is like uh being on a golf cart with someone who is uncertain about where their ball is on the course because he could be going one direction and then you could go another direction and so if you get lost on the way I will pick you back up we’ll make it through together don’t worry we’ll hopefully end up in

a good place so last week of did you see that we’ve been looking at john this gospel this biography of Jesus it’s a little different than some of the others there’s these four biographies matthew mark luke and john john has some different stories uh that aren’t in the first three the same basic elements are there but there’s some stories that you’re like whoa that’s a mind-blowing story and so we’ve been trying to wrestle down into some of the thing behind the thing next week uh we’re jumping into this new series uh called directions uh we’re gonna start to wrestle with experiencing guard in change as a community we’re gonna take the fact that grief is real seriously I mean you guys for one as a community you are an amazing community with the journey that you’ve been on over the last year or so and even the number of you that I’ve

met that have said I joined this church like the week before pastor ryan announced he was leaving or the week after and you still stayed which is just incredible like this has been a journey but but when you have change you have grief as a nation we’re experiencing some just experiencing some change it’s election season I’m not a citizen so I can’t vote so I can’t be blamed for either outcome um like I take no responsibility but regardless of what happens some of you are going to be mad some of you are going to feel like oh my world may never look the same again we’re experiencing change there and as a world where we’re experiencing change in that I am an expert unlike this two inches of all your faces like I know this much and the day that you take your masks off I’m not gonna know any of you anymore I’m gonna have

to go back and learn everyone from scratch we’ve experienced that change and so we’re gonna take that seriously but that’s not this week this week we’re gonna end up in a few different places for those of you that like to know where we’ve been that’s where we’re going you can grab your phone take a little picture we’re gonna jump around a few different texts but we’re gonna land on this one john chapter four uh and we’re gonna try and get to verse 26 but I suspect we might not get that far so here we go I’m going to read it first from my text if you’d like to follow along you can now Jesus learned that the pharisees had heard that he was gaining and baptizing more disciples than john although in fact it was not Jesus who baptized but his disciples so he left Judah and went back once more to galilee now he had to go through

Samaria so he came to a town in Samaria called sikkar near the plot of ground Jacob had left his son joseph Jacob’s well was there and Jesus tired as he was from the journey sat down by the well it was about noon when a Samaritan woman came to draw water Jesus said to her will you give me a drink his disciples had gone into town to buy food the Samaritan woman said to him you’re a Jew I’m a Samaritan how can you ask me for a drink for Jews do not associate with Samaritans 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 sir the woman said you have nothing to draw within the well is deep where can you get this living water 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 Jesus answered anyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst indeed the water I give them will be coming them a spring of water welling up to eternal life the woman said to him sir give me this water so I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water he told her go back call your husband I have no husband she replied Jesus said to her you are right when you say you have no husband the fact is you have had five husbands and the man you have now is not your husband what you have said is quite true sir the woman said I can see that you’re a prophet our ancestors our ancestors worshipped on this mountain but you Jews claim that the place we must worship is in Jerusalem woman Jesus replied believe me a time is coming when

you will worship the father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem you Samaritans worship what you do not know we worship what we do know for salvation is from the Jews yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the father in spirit and in truth for they are the kind of worshipers the father seeks God is spirit and his worshipers must worship in spirit and truth the woman said I know that messiah called Christ is coming when he comes he will explain everything to us then Jesus declared I the one speaking to you I am he so wherever we are you may be anywhere on your journey of faith you may not know Jesus you may have known him for a ton of years together we’re going to pray and we’re going to open this text and see what God has to say to us God as we come together as a community maybe at

home watching on tv maybe listening on podcast maybe somewhere else all together or right here in this building God is a group of people we look to you as we get into this teaching we believe as your followers that you breathed on this book and it came alive God would you breathe on us today make us alive with whatever we’ve carried in today with whatever weights we bear without whatever sense of uncertainty about the future God breathe on us thank you Jesus amen okay so here we go john chapter four now Jesus learned that the pharisees had heard that he was gaining and baptizing more disciples than john though in fact it was not Jesus who baptized but his disciples so he left Judah judea and went back once more to galilee now he had to go through Samaria so one of the things that I love to approach a text with is just as

many questions as I can possibly ask and I think that’s a healthy thing so sometimes you might have had the feeling I shouldn’t question this I should just take it but actually no questions are good there’s this wonderful story about a a rabbi with two followers and he’s trying to educate them in how to read the the Jewish scriptures and so he says to them take this passage and go away and come back with as many questions as you can think of and the first one comes back and he says I found five questions and the second one comes back to him and says well I only found three questions and the rabbi looks at them and says how dare you insult God’s word like that I have 96 questions about this text there’s something about that process of jumping in and asking questions that actually brings so much to light because there’s this stuff under the

surface that sometimes we’re just not aware of now he had to go through Samaria my question is this did he really now geographically this is absolutely right like Samaria was this place in between where Jesus was and where he was going in some senses the quickest route was through it but a good Jewish person man they didn’t go through Samaria if they could possibly avoid it I lived for several years a couple years in new york and we would regularly drive back to Michigan now whenever we drove back to Michigan I would always go the Canadian route even those even if it took longer even though it meant we had passports even though you could get held up at the border I would always go the Canadian route because I’d learn after living five years in Michigan that you never go through Ohio unless you absolutely have to so even when

we got to a point where the Canadian border was closed and I had to go the American route we would get to the place where it said welcome to Ohio and I would turn around to the kids and be like kids hold your breath you can let it out in three and a half hours because I was just ingrained right like it’s that you don’t go through Ohio unless you absolutely have to go through Ohio you avoid Ohio this is exactly the same situation here with just more of a sense of like ah the pain of history a good Jewish person you did not go through Samaria you avoided it at all costs and yet here we see this story about Jesus saying no john’s saying Jesus had to go through Samaria why some kind of divine appointment it seems pulls him into this place that he would never have gone usually but on the surface Jewish people and Samaritans hated each other

with good reason so some of you are history nerds like myself some of you are not and if you’re not then feel free to just let this information just uh sort of drift past you but but the reason for all that enmity was this these have been two separate nations at one point back in prehistory you’d had Israel and you’d had a place called Judah both Jewish heritage nations but two different nations one had been captured by a much larger enemy in about 701 bc and been dragged off to another place but when dragged off they what they had done is they’d moved people in from other towns to to the old Israel and they’d intermarried them so it was all uh like a hodgepodge of different places Judah this other nation which was was smaller hadn’t been taken captive until about a hundred years later when they had gone off none of that that

intermarriage stuff had happened so they’d come back later to this nation Judah feeling that they they were the pure bloods they they were the ones that had stayed true so Jewish people to a Jewish person a Samaritan was an outcast a Samaritan was a nobody and some of the resentment went the other way as well but both of them had this sense of no no we are the ones that have access to the true God you see where the resentment builds this is far bigger than Michigan versus Ohio even though that’s like the next best thing this is like huge this is like absolute hatred this was despising each other and yet still you see this Jesus into Samaria he goes so he came to a town in Samaria called sikka near a plot of ground Jacob had given to his son joseph jacobs well was there and Jesus tired as he was from the journey sat down by the

well it was about noon john uses this particular word for well just to give you a little bit of detail here it’s this word page he’s not talking about this he’s talking about this this idea of well here is is unusual this is like this is an artisan spring this is uh water that moves that’s going to be somewhat important later hold that and just put it to one side but this is not just a hole in the ground that happens to have filled with water this is water that is moving and there he meets a woman who at noon we’re told has come to draw water when a Samaritan woman came to draw water Jesus said to her will you give me a drink so this is the second central character we’ve got Jesus and then we have this woman that’s wandered into the scene now there’s something fascinating going on here we already know something about her just based on

what’s happened here she comes to get water at noon nobody goes to get water at noon it’s swelteringly hot and she comes alone she comes by herself nobody came to get water by themselves either there’s something about her situation that puts her on that fringe of society she’s out there in the absolute heat in this culture you would have girls would often go to collect water early in the morning or in the cool of the afternoon guys would do the heavier agricultural work but these these women would be sent out in a group because it was safer to go and get water and now you have this woman who’s by herself collecting water at noon she’s the fringe she’s the edge of society not only is she a Samaritan but she’s on the fringe even of the Samaritans and this is Jesus conversation with us but before we get too into that we’re

going to change track a little bit if you’re married or in a relationship of any kind or you’ve hoped to meet the love of your life at some point here’s a question for you what was your meat cute now if you’ve not heard this term before I’m going to give you a little definition a meat cute is a scene in which a future romantic couple meets for the first time in a way that is considered adorable entertaining or amusing now I’m hoping to give you just over these first few weeks a little bit of my back history because people always want to know and I can’t just have that individual conversation with everyone so some of you have asked how did you and Laura meet Laura’s America and she grew up in Michigan and we met in bulgaria we had a classic meet cute I was uh there to speak at a conference so I flew in on the Friday I got picked

up at the airport they took me to the to the hotel and I got changed and I thought I’d go see the first night of the conference I wasn’t teaching to the Saturday morning Friday night I walked into the room and there’s about 600 people there mainly from bulgaria but some from other places and as I walked into the room I saw Laura over the other side and God said that’s the woman you’re going to marry now I don’t believe God has spoken to me that clearly many times but that time it felt distinct so what I did was I walked over to her and said God said you’re the woman I’m going to marry did not do that that would can you imagine that that would be seriously that would be a serious error no I I went and sat down like like I was supposed to uh but very close to her like at the row behind intentionally and then we had that

sort of oh that thing that we used to do before virus stuff where we would say go and talk to someone go and say hi to someone and so there was a girl in between me and Laura so I kind of elbowed her to one side and and then did the you know preparation and then said hey my name’s alex what’s your name or something just that creative uh but we ended up getting married a year to the day later after dating across the Atlantic for for a little while that was our meet cue it was this moment where just suddenly um we met and it was happily ever after you see these in movies all the times this is the very unwatched but very wonderful bluebeard’s eighth wife it’s a classic meat cute that the man walks into a department store to buy pajamas um he’s trying to buy pajamas but he only wants the top so he he tries to do a deal with the the

shopkeeper to say I will pay half the price for just the top and the shopkeeper of course says no you can’t do that you need to take the whole thing you have to pay the full amount unfortunately just in that moment a girl walks in and says oh well actually I’m looking for just the bottoms of some pajamas we’ll pay half each and then you know we’ll both take what we want but of course you know instantly that they’re going to fall in love because that’s how a meat cute works in films now here’s the bizarre thing about this passage to a first century audience this in its opening parts reads like a meet you for thousands of years of Jewish history before Jesus at least 1500 years there are all these stories about people meeting their wives at wells it happens time and time again so ingrained was this in the history that it would be very

hard to see a scene between a man and a woman that didn’t end in marriage if they met at a well here’s a couple of stories for you just to sort of get you get you into it this is Abraham a famous person from the old testament has sent his servant to find a wife for his son isaac before he had finished praying he saw a young woman named Rebecca coming out with a water jug on her shoulder she went down to the spring filled her jerk came up again running over to her the servant said please give me a little drink of water from your jug some of the language right even the same as the language we just read how about this one then Jacob went on his journey and came to the land of the sons of the east he looked and saw a well in the field just the next scene we’ll see the love of his life will wander into the scene and the two of them

will happily ever after and then a third one this is Moses when pharaoh heard of this he tried to kill Moses but Moses fled from pharaoh and went to live in midian where he sat down by a well and in the next scene his future wife zepora will wander into the scene and they will happily ever after to Jewish people when they heard wells and two people meeting they heard marriage this scene in its setup reads like something that they can predict predict the future of until it isn’t until it becomes about something entirely different now one of the wonderful things about tension is that we learn best in tension so when something catches us off guard we actually take it in better so you if you read a book will know where it’s going if I were to say to you once upon a time that lived a princess you would say to me of course it’s a fairy tale I

know where it’s going interestingly once upon a time there was a princess is also the opening to a 1997 biography of the life of princess Diana of wales in actual fact you could be reading something completely different to what you think you’re reading but the fact that it changes track it catches you off guard for a Jewish person reading john in the first second century there would be this sense of oh I was expecting this and I got something different altogether subversion is this wonderful thing this is a moment of subversion in tv advertising this is of course sean connery playing James Bond he was the best one we’re all aware of this we don’t need to talk about it any further we take the point we move on but he was also played by several other people including pierce brosnan so when you saw ps brosnan on screen in the 90s

and early 2000s you assumed action adventure James Bond but check out this tv commercial with me so it sets up right it’s James Bond it’s action adventure and then it’s something different all together and it gives you just that it’s sticky right because of that you you remember it this is exactly what happens here to a first century audience you read you expect one thing and then Jesus is on to something completely different altogether so let’s jump in with the rest of their conversation the Samaritan woman said to him you are a Jew I’m a Samaritan woman how can you ask me for a drink for Jews do not associate with Samaritans for all the reasons we just talked about 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

sir the woman said you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep where can you get this living water 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 and remember this writer john knows where he’s going to him there’s this like little wink to us about yes he is much greater than this Jacob person that you’re talking about Jesus answered everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst indeed the water I give them will be coming them a spring of water welling up to eternal life 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 something about that text is weird right look at what look at her response she believes that the

thing he will give her will mean that she doesn’t have to come back and keep refilling her water jug which of course she will because she’ll still need natural water but the something about this conversation something about you how Jesus has moved through this different like levels of conversation that she’s suddenly aware that she is deeply thirsty not just like thirsty throat wise but soul-wise there’s something about this conversation that is starting to open this thing within her that is missing and Jesus begins to unpack just exactly what it is that he has on offer he has something beyond just the water of this world he has something for the soul and that is incredibly good news Jesus will land on this water image a couple of times over the next couple of passages he’s taken if you think about the first few chapters of john these very like natural

images he’s talked about bricks and buildings he’s talked about wine he’s talked about spirit and wind and and then this on the last and greatest day of the festival Jesus stood and said in a loud voice let anyone who was thirsty come to me and drink whoever believes in me as the scripture has said streams of living water will flow from within them by this he meant the spirit Jesus taps into this idea that that water equals spirit that somehow he has this thing to offer us that is good for the soul he talks about it in two different ways he talks about it as something that comes into you and then something that goes out of you as well in the first part we read john chapter four it’s the the spirit comes into you and and then in john chapter seven right here it’s no they’ll flow from without you as well and for those of us that have been following

Jesus isn’t that something that I think we believe we believe that God transforms us from the inside out it’s something that happens to us but that transformation isn’t supposed to stop on the inside it’s supposed to work its way out into the world around us that we are people that are transformed but then we get to go out and help with this whole transformation thing that’s supposed to happen in the world this is what Jesus begins to invite her into he begins to invite her into this experience of the spirit that is life-changing you and I we are streams of living water but I wonder if we always feel that way I wonder sometimes something happens where if we’re honest our experience is far less like streams of living water and and far more like something stagnant I wonder if we feel often like this one here this thing I’ve got here this

beautiful clear Colorado water or something more like this which isn’t healthy one of these fish tanks is going to go to my daughter by the way and what better way to learn about having a fish than having to clean a tank before you own it um so that’s for you this is the sultan sea it’s this place in California that I’m always I’ve been fascinated by you may never have heard of it but in the 50s and 60s the salton sea was the place to go if you were young rich californian with a boat if you wanted a fresh water experience you could drive from san diego to los angeles and end up in this be on this beautiful lake with these crystal waters that was how it was in the 50s anyway but now it’s not like that this is the 50s and this is today 50s today something happened the salton sea by its in its own right is just an anomaly at one point while they were stealing

your Colorado and water they were moving some of the Colorado river into different places they tried to create a channel to irrigate some land and the channel burst open and it flooded the sultan plain so suddenly there was a lake where there had been no lake for thousands of years so as this water just sat there below sea level of course it had nowhere to go there is no outlet on the salton sea so slowly the water evaporates and the salt level becomes higher and higher because while there is no good outlet there is an inland but the inlet isn’t good the inlet is agricultural runoff it’s heavily salted water four million tons of salt get landed in the salton sea every year so this lake that was once a fresh water paradise has now twice the salinity of the Atlantic ocean three times the salinity of the pacific ocean and in it nothing can live these

are the these are tilapia these are fish that have a high resistance to salt water usually they should be fine but now it’s so salty not even tilapia can live in this lake and now the smell is slowly spreading so that there’s times where they have to release a special alert because you can just smell rotten eggs hovering in the air and at some point there’s a prediction that you may eventually be able to smell it over in san diego and los angeles because it’s just that potent in the salton sea nothing can live it’s a picture of what happens when something goes wrong with the inflow and something goes wrong with the outflow of a body of water now Jesus in his analogy he says to us I have streams of living water to give and they will never run dry what that says to me is at the times in our life where when we’re honest we feel more like this than

this the problem’s probably with us somewhere when I feel like that the problem’s probably with me which image resembles your current experience if you were to categorize your spiritual experience your life with Jesus is it that one or is it that one is it this one or is it this one I think every one of us has times in our life where we feel like we trend more in this direction what I just would suggest is one of one of two things is happening either we’ve got to a place where we’ve we’ve finally found a way to shut ourselves off from encountering and living in relationship with Jesus we’ve stopped the inflow and that’s no longer healthy or there’s something about the way that we’re living in the world that makes it very hard for us to live in this life but this word that I’m going to call flow and you’ll see why I’ve caught it flow later I

believe we’re supposed to live in this flow of life with God and sometimes there’s something in our life that if we’re honest has stopped that movement of water it might be unforgiveness in a relationship it might be that sense of like I’m just so mad at that person and I can’t let it go it might be that bitterness thing it might be a lack of generosity it might be a particular struggle with a particular act or action that you know doesn’t fit with the way of Jesus and yet we go back to it and there’s been times in my life where every one of those has been true and slowly but surely my life turns from this beautiful lake that has life in it to something that looks more like this because somewhere I’ve shut the valve off and the water isn’t flowing it’s either not coming in or it’s not going out and the thing begins to stink it doesn’t feel alive anymore and yet

we’re told no you’re a stream of living water Jesus is about to take this woman’s life that that’s broken and messy and he’s about to turn it into a stream or back into a stream he’s about to take something that isn’t flowing that isn’t moving and he’s about to recreate flow he’s about to recreate life as it should be but first an awkward conversation he told her go call your husband and come back I have no husband she replied Jesus said to her you’re right when you say you have no husband the fact is you have had five husbands and the man you now have is not your husband what you have said is quite true sir the woman said I can see that you are a prophet I used to be uh pastored by a man who used to do this kind of thing with people which is always just incredible to see more on that some other time perhaps but this story is fascinating here as

well because there’s two different ways to read this what’s happened in her life on one hand you could read her as the guilty party she’s dotted around different guys she’s ended up now with a guy who isn’t her husband on the other hand you could read her as the victim she could reasonably in the first century have had five husbands that have all died in a time of sickness in a time of different you know experiences like famine she could have lost five husbands she could be someone well acquainted with grief and she looking for some kind of security in the world around her could have landed with the only person who was willing to keep her not to marry her but to keep her somewhere her story could be one of guilt but it could be one of brokenness and Jesus never reveals which it is he doesn’t seem concerned he just seems

concerned that for whatever reason she is a woman whose life has become one that isn’t flowing as it should be whether it’s guilt whether it’s anger bitterness resentment all those different things there is something about her life that it isn’t working as it should and Jesus is about to create something new in her just as he did in this woman thousands of years before because suddenly we’re not reading a meet cute we’re reading a story that far more resembles the story of a lady called Hagar Hagar was a young slave woman to a man called Abraham and you can read the rest of her story I don’t need to go into all the details of it but she was mistreated abused and then told to go told to go as a young woman who was pregnant with a child and tries to make her way across from Israel to Egypt a journey she would never have

hoped to stay alive throughout and she ends up stood by a well and sure her next steps and this is her encounter with God the angel of the lord found Hagar near a spring in the desert it was the spring that is beside the road to sure and he said Hagar slave of sarai where have you come from and where are you going I’m running away from my mistress sir I said then the angel of the lord told her go back to your mistress and submit to her the angel added I will increase your descendants so much that they will be too numerous to count she gave this name to the lord who spoke to her you are the God who sees me for she said I have now seen the one who sees me God sends her back to a horrible situation but with the assurance that it’s gonna work out it’s gonna be okay I’m giving you a new story but this story doesn’t really ever reattach to the

Bible story as a whole it goes off on its own tangent it becomes its own thing she’s given a new stream a new story a new flow but it never becomes part of the big story a couple of thousand years later Jesus is now going to do the same for a woman stood by us a well in Samaria he takes a story with all its brokenness and he gives new life to it he offers this gift of spirit he says I’m going to do something special in your life but but it doesn’t just stop there in this story this woman is fascinating she’s going to press the question she’s not going to just take what she’s offered she’s going to go and she’s going to ask for more she’s going to expand the story into something bigger look what she says to Jesus I can see that you’re a prophet our ancestors worshipped on this mountain but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in

Jerusalem woman Jesus replied believe me a time is coming when you will worship the father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem she’s asking the question wait how involved do you see us being as Samaritans as outcasts you Jewish people say we’re not included we’re on the fringe where we’re the other people and yet we’ve said the same about you how does this story resolve and Jesus begins to impact her that this new spirit thing he’s doing doesn’t just stop with individual life transformation it stops it stops when all people of all backgrounds are pulled together into this thing that God is doing God is spirit and his worshipers must worship him in spirit and in truth the woman said I know that messiah called Christ is coming when he comes he will explain everything to us then Jesus declared I the one speaking to you I am he she has

seen the one who sees her just like Hagar thousands of years before she has seen the one who sees her and he’s inviting her broken as she has been into a new story that story is individual but it’s not just an individual thing it’s a bigger thing it’s a world wide thing he takes streams of living water like all of us are and I would say he joins them into a river to a thing this that is bigger one of the things I love about the Bible is its use of different imagery and this theme of a river will come up about God’s people time and time again have a look at this ezekiel 47 passage you may never have read ezekiel that’s fine it’s a fascinating read it’s got loads of incredible things happening in it but this story just to me is one that stands out then he led me back to the bank of the river when I arrived there I saw a great number of trees on each side of

the river he said to me this water flows towards the eastern region and goes down into the arabah where it enters the dead sea when it empties into the sea the salty water there becomes fresh swarms of living creatures will live because the river flows there will be large numbers of fish because this water flows there and makes the salt water fresh so where the river flows everything will live where the river flows everything will live this biblical writer picks on this image of a river for the people of God and says that is what we’re like where we flow everything is supposed to live and yet are there not people here and people that you know whose experience with church has been the opposite that there was supposed to be this church thing that was like this it was supposed to have this flow it was supposed to move and it was

supposed to bring life and it was supposed to be clear and pure and yet there’s times where their experience of church and maybe to them therefore Jesus has looked far more like this as something where no one can live and yet a group of people who have embraced that spirit who have become streams of living water shouldn’t we look like a river that is pure and good you are called I am called not just to this individual change not to just experiencing Jesus and and embracing what he has done for us but we’re called to be part of this bigger thing that’s life-changing that’s world-changing we’re not just streams we’re also part of this river and where the river flows everything will live this is the amazon river it just fascinates me just how big this thing is 250 miles across at its widest point as it empties into the ocean and it always makes me

think of just my involvement with this people of God this thing that God is doing in the world because this God of the universe he’ll bring history to where it needs to go he’s been doing it for thousands of years it will end up where it needs to be you and I are a part of that story we’re part of that thing every one of us with a part to play you can’t swim against this river it’s too strong too big you can choose to swim with it you can choose to be involved in this story of God where everyone has a role everyone has giftings to bring that’s my dream for south and the church as a whole we’re called to be part of that river but it starts with us as individuals say man which of these am I have those waters stagnated have I blocked myself off if I sort of separated myself from this God who promised that these streams of living water in me would

never end have there been things in my relationships with people in the world around me that that have made it impossible for the flow to stay as it should be have I become this thing when God made me to be this thing you are made to thrive you are made to be alive you are made to be fresh you are a stream of living water and yet so often our experience is the opposite where the river flows everything will live I believe that God for some of us has some work to do in our hearts today over this course of the next week we wanted to invite you in to a spiritual practice that you can just jump on board with whenever you remember we’re in a time where people are washing hands a lot more we’re using a lot more flowing water that could continue for a while and what we wanted to invite you to do was to take that time not to do anything overly

mystic but to take that time to use something that’s so practical to remind yourself of what God has said about you you are a stream of living water so I’m going to invite pastor Aaron to come back on stage and when you look uh on the screen there’ll be a devotion or a practice that pastor yvonne will walk through where you can just take that 30 seconds that you might wash your hands and just use it to remind yourself with the flow of water what you are made to be you’re made to be this thing that’s beautiful that’s fresh this isn’t what you’re made to be for those of you that feel like you’ve got to that point of I just feel stagnant as we sing I believe there’s a freshness of God’s spirit to come in if you’ve never embraced Jesus as as somebody that you want to commit your life to you can do that that’s what he promises for you just as this

woman in the well 2 000 years ago he sat with her and said I can give streams of living water he says the same to you in 2020 you are invited in and that process that’s just a prayer away that’s just as simple as sitting here in this space this space is fairly large but right now I believe it can become really small I believe that you can say that the God who sees me I now so in some incredible way feel like I see him maybe not physically but spiritually that experience of this God who loves you so as we sing feel free to open yourself up to that