May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you Oh Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen.
John Eldridge in his book Journey of Desire, shares a powerful story from a counseling experience.
It had been more than a year since Diane and Ted first
came to see me for counseling. As with
most marriages, the real issues lay buried under years of just getting by,
hidden beneath the way we learned to live with each other so as to not rock the
boat. Sadly, this way involves killing
large regions of our hearts. And so
their struggle toward intimacy required a lot of pain and hard work. But they stuck with it until they began to
taste the true life of a real marriage.
At this point Diane asked Ted about his deepest desires: "If I could be more of what you wanted
in a woman, what do you secretly wish I would offer you?" It’s a question that most men are dying to be
asked. [Ready? This is a powerful
story!] His response? "Clean socks." That
C.S. Lewis explains this as a wider problem… Sisters, it
We are halfhearted creatures, distracted by …drink and sex and ambition, when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased. (The Weight of Glory)
Too easily pleased, too easily satisfied with clean socks.
By this third Sunday in Lent, you are not
surprised I hope, to hear a call to self-examination. We are called especially in this season, to
discard hypocrisy, lies, or any illusions about ourselves or about God. We must relentlessly pursue the truth even if
we find it uncomfortable. As we do this,
we will increasingly sense God
Our first reading this morning, from Exodus
17:1-7, warns us against this inattentiveness.
If this Old Testament passage is Holy Scripture and meant for our
understanding, then it is important to understand that we are reading about our
spiritual forefathers. In order to
understand them, let
My parents were careful with their finances
because of the depression, so it helps to keep that in mind when I talk money
with them. Most anyone of their
generation will remember the great impact of those difficult years. That generation also remembers WWII. I remember television reports of the
assassination of President Kennedy. How
many of us here remember the war in
Just so, the children of
It may be hard to understand their lack of
perspective but we should not underestimate the gravity of their position as a
whole nation without water. But the
truth is, we like them; when we encounter trouble, just want clean socks. It seems easier to not bother God with our
problem… Who
Moses recognizes the meaning of their complaint in
verse 2, "Why do you find fault with me?
Why do you put the Lord to the proof?" And in verse 3, "But the people thirsted
there for water, and murmured against Moses, and said why did you bring us out
of Egypt, to kill us and our children and our cattle with thirst?" Moses gets the blame, not God… The Israelites
had forgotten about their deliverance.
They had seen great miracles, that is "Acts of God" plainly
worked on their behalf but failed to learn anything about God
Moses passes this complaint to God, and what does
the Lord do? Again true to His
character, God provides a miracle to save His people. The Lord instructs Moses to recognize His
presence at Horeb, and when he strikes the rock in that place with his rod,
water will come out of it. Still the
people
This is a greater problem than being
clueless. This reluctance to the
acknowledge the Lord
God answered the Israelite
Remember the words of our processional this morning. We celebrate the… "Grace of our loving Lord. Glorious grace that exceeds our sin and our guilt. Grace that will pardon and cleanse within. Grace that is greater than all our sin."
"But God shows His love for us in that while we were still sinners, [with hardened hearts] Christ died for us." (This from our NT reading, Romans 5:8.)
When we were pleased with clean socks, Christ died
for us! Although we are witnesses to God
What is it that we Christians make so much of a
symbol of execution? It has become a
symbol of God
Max Lucado reminds us of a problem in our
language. He discovered himself using
the word love to describe his
feelings toward his wife and toward a jar of peanut butter! He says, "Overuse has defused the word,
leaving it with the punch of butterfly wing" (3:16, p.34). So husbands, from today on, do not say to
your wife, "I love you", and in the same sentence, ask for clean
socks. More importantly, we must pay
close attention to both God
The Israelites misunderstood their thirst and
missed the magnitude of God
The dialog follows a pattern common to John
According to this pattern, Jesus first asks the
woman for water. The woman is surprised
at his offer, and the conversation moves to a gift of “living water” that
required her to know that He is the Messiah.
Jesus is offering water that would give life, that is "eternal
life". This is, “the love of God …
poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit that has been given to us” (Rom
5:5). The woman either cannot or will
not get beyond the ordinary meaning of water so Jesus continues. He reveals His knowledge of her private life
but the woman deflects His closeness by raising a matter of religious
practice. The issue she raises is a hot
one but Jesus patiently answers and then boldly states that He is the
Messiah. The disciples return at this
point and are amazed to find Jesus in conversation with a woman. Then in verse 28 is a very important
detail. The woman having found living
water, sets aside her water pot to share her discovery back in her home
city. And many came to believe in Jesus
as Messiah because of the woman
We noted the pattern of John
In our first reading, God shows His character, His
heart, His love to us through our need if we will not harden our hearts. Returning to our second reading, we see that
Paul has this same conviction. So
convinced of God
1 Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have
peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, 2 through whom we have
obtained access to this grace in which we stand; and we boast in our hope of
sharing the glory of God. 3 And not only that, but we also boast in
our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, 4 and
endurance produces character, and character produces hope, 5 and
hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts
through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us. 6 For while we
were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. (
What is your need? Are you thirsty? Jesus offers you much more than clean socks, He offers living water!
Amen.