Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: To all who are weary and need rest.
To all who mourn and long for comfort.
To all who fail and desire strength.
This church opens wide our doors with a welcome from Jesus Christ, a friend of sinners.
Let's pray.
You are the God of creation.
You are the God who knows all things, who holds all things.
And you are the God who calls us by name.
And, Father, it is you we seek today.
You are the desire of our heart, Father, it is you that we want.
So in your goodness, in your faith faithfulness, you say, all who thirst, come to me and drink.
So, Father, we drink.
I pray it is less of me and more of you.
I so desire this church to be your people, for you to be our God.
So will your spirit permeate our souls. Fill this room. Fill every person watching online or listening in their car or out working. Father, I just pray that you meet us wherever we are.
In your mighty and perfect son's name, we pray.
Amen.
Well, I'm gonna brag a little bit. Cause I have the most beautiful granddaughter in the entire world.
I know you think yours are, but mine is. Okay? If you ask her right now what her name is, she will boldly declare that her name is Spider Woman. Okay?
On Thanksgiving or on Halloween, we were here at Trunk or Treat, and she looked at me and she said, spider.
All these other Spider men, they're just wearing a costume. I'm the real one.
And I said, girl, you are the real one.
So we had a special date a couple weeks ago, and I took her out and we went shopping for some clothes. And you can imagine, all the girl wanted was Spider man stuff.
So I got her some Spider man stuff, and we went to.
Now, here's what you need to know about the Collings women.
We are drink orderers, okay? If there is water, we will chug it. We are probably the most thirsty girls. And so we often order several drinks. Okay? So I took a picture to send to my family that day to show them that I was teaching Selah, right? Okay.
I made sure that we ordered her a lemonade and a water, okay? Cause Sunny. That's what she calls me. Sunny had a morning meditation, which had some sort of ginger and dirt in it.
I had a water and a coffee, and we drank every last sip. Okay? Because your girl is a thirsty girl. You will see a water bottle with me just about all times of the day. And then when that water bottle runs out, instead of, like, refilling it here at church, I'll start sipping coffee. And I'm thirsty. And I'm taking sips of things that dehydrate anyone in the room like this.
But what happens when it's our soul that thirsts?
What happens when it is our desires and the longings of our human nature.
That's trying to find water, but we sip other things that dehydrate?
Dad's series really got me thinking. And I loved so much the idea that there are encodings in who we are.
It registered deep within my soul that there is an encoding of the law of sin. That is, it's deep, man.
But there is a reality that there is an encoding of Christ within my heart.
And I've been seeking him and I've been desiring him more and more and more. But there is a thirst in the human soul church.
And I think what so many of us do is we take our cup and we. We go to people and we spread our love and we spread our help, and we spread our prayers. And then our cup is empty, and we start pointing it back to the very people we're trying to love.
And we point it back, and I'll point it back to my husband and say, fill my cup.
And then something happens, because we're not hardwired to be the soul fillers of cups. Amen.
And then my needs aren't being met, and there is a thirst.
I go to a job and I sprinkle. And I've worked hard and I've tried hard, and now I'm lifting everybody. And I'm lifting and I'm lifting, and my cup is empty.
And I'm trying to point it to anything that will fill it.
But it's hard to fill a cup tilted.
It's hard to fill a cup on its side.
In Jeremiah, chapter 2, verse 13, it says this.
For my people have committed two evils.
They have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters.
And they hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water.
This is.
Jeremiah was talking to a group of people who had forsaken God and started seeking other gods.
And they hewed out these cisterns. It's this poetic image. And back in the day, they would get these cisterns and they would literally break through the earth, break through stone.
And they'd create a container or a reservoir that would hold water.
Oftentimes you try to plaster it or keep it so it not break.
But the image here is a cistern that holds water, rainwater.
But the cistern has been broken, and the people have left the living Water for, for something man made.
And I think about how subtly this happens in our life, how subtly the western culture can draw us from the living water into man made substitutes.
I think so much about how easy it is that when I am tired or done, I want to turn off and how easy it is to mindlessly scroll or mindlessly watch.
And so I go to this turned off mode to refresh.
But how many of you know you're just as thirsty when you're done and you're not really getting refreshed?
How easy is it to say, I've had a bad day and hard things have happened and I'm just gonna go have one drink.
But one doesn't quite hit, so maybe three.
And before long you've lost any sense of like count and it just feels numb and it feels good. But then you wake up in the morning and there is a shame and there is a thirst because it did not satisfy.
It happens easy. It's just one text message.
I'm just going to look them up on social media.
Seems innocent. Sometimes when it starts, there's a thirst. And some of us, we struggle, truly struggle, like chemically struggle with depression and with anxiety. And so then it's like, well, how do I get this anxiety away?
And I want to ask, where do you go when you're discouraged?
Where do you mentally go?
Where do you go when you're lonely?
What do you seek?
Because I believe with all my heart that there is the human condition where we long to be accepted, we long to have some sort of significance, we long to have security, we long to belong and we long to feel loved.
And those desires, those are not wrong. But where it becomes problematic is where are you going to drink when those thirsts arrive? Where are you going to satisfy that thirst?
I've agonized over this sermon all week long because here's the truth. This isn't just for a sinful nature.
What I've realized is you can be spiritually thirsty and emotionally dry.
You can be trying to do the right things.
You can maybe even be serving and ministry and showing up and saying, God, I'm for you, I'm going to be working for you.
But we're not connected in the kind of way that fills the cup.
The substitutes have become our norm.
We don't even realize it.
I was seeking God and I was just so.
I've said it a couple times.
I've struggled this year because it has been a crazy year. We had over 20 deaths just in the first few months of this Year we had a severe family emergency with a sickness.
We've struggled with relationships that I thought were so life giving and God was so in it and it was so good. And they were broken and I was left devastated. And you carry this weight that it is the honor of my life, church. It is the honor of my life to be part of this church.
But there's a weight you carry.
And oftentimes on a Sunday, you'll go from one person to the next whose cup is empty.
And it's not always spiritual. Sometimes there is true sickness and the cup is empty and the body is failing them.
Sometimes it's kids who you're just an exhausted parent and your cup's empty.
And oh, how life cycles. And now you become an exhausted caregiver to your parents.
And I meet and I pray and I seek God for people. And part of my heart says, father, I need you.
I need you.
But why do I feel so thirsty?
Why do I feel so dehydrated?
And I've been paying attention. And I go to the substitute more than I would like to admit.
My family, we have a joke because there will be at least one person not on their phone, and we'll look around the room and we'll call each other iPad kids, because everyone is next to each other and no one is talking to each other.
So whoever's not on their phone will look and be like, okay, everybody on your phone.
And we try to harass each other because you notice it when you're not in it.
Right before service, my husband said, sorry, I had to fix the heat, and now I'm so hot.
I said, could we fix the heat after church?
Who's hot?
Every woman above 40 rose her hand. Just so we're clear, can we turn down the heat a little bit?
I love you so much. Thank you. Jacob Burger.
I'm in so much trouble.
Oh, I'm in so much trouble.
All right, listen. We are spiritually thirsty.
We're physically exhausted, and we're mentally overstimulated. Can you hear me, church?
We're spiritually thirsty. We're physically exhausted. Because when you go to the wrong source, you're hewing out a cistern.
This picture in Jeremiah is this picture of hard work. Work.
It's this picture of taking an axe and breaking into the ground, breaking into rock. And this is sometimes what it looks like when we create substitutes, we create patterns that maybe serve us well for a little while.
Maybe it's no big deal for a little while. And these cisterns you strive to make them look good. And they even hold water for a little bit. Church.
But the problem is they break and they leak.
And so we have to try harder to keep up the front.
We have to physically try harder. Because some of us have created cisterns of perfectionism.
And we hide behind hard work and success.
And we hide. And so what do we have to do? We have to work hard. Harder and harder to keep it going.
So even though I might be seeking God, I am still hewing out this cistern of myself.
I'm going to things that will not satisfy.
I think about.
How often we're exhausted, how often we're tired, how often we are in need.
I think about the ways that my mind can try to take control.
See, if I want safety, then that looks like safety in my bank account.
If I want security, then that means save harder, try harder, do more.
Any amens in this room?
It's hot. Your girl needs a friend up here today. Okay.
God's put it on my heart. And I just want to say it that sometimes, even now, we use false.
Even now we turn to astrology. And we'll say, what's your sign?
And we look to a piece of paper or the way the stars are organized to seek how my life is lined up or what my life should be. And I want you to know that is a false God. Church.
That is not the living God. We don't go to the stars to figure out our life. We go to the one who created the stars. Church. Church.
Sometimes life has beaten us down a bit.
And there's a level of bitterness in us, a level of cynicism.
And what happens is we wall up to protect.
And so my cistern is I'm emotionally geared up to protect.
When people tell me stuff, I've been there and done that. And I have a bitter edge about it sometimes when I think about our life. Church.
Resentment could be more of a driving force than you will ever know.
And you try to hide it, but it always comes out one way or another.
And today, with all my heart, I believe God is calling us to something bigger.
I believe God does not want us to keep hewing out these sisters and these substitutes.
I believe with all my heart that God wants to work inside of every single one of us and say, I have an answer for your soul.
I have a quenching for your thirst.
And there is a need that only God can meet.
And today I want him to elevate us.
I want him to lift us out of the substitute, out of the cistern.
I was reading this story about a woman and she's from a village that there's no really good water. And so she has to daily go walk and get water.
And as I was reading about her life, it didn't give us a ton of description. But you know how you can't get someone out of your head.
She was one of these girls I just couldn't get out of my head.
And I was just thinking about her because in the story she had broken relationship after broken relationship after broken marriage after broken marriage.
And when I thought about her, I was thinking, if we take away the details of where we live, if we take away some of the details of exactly her struggle versus our struggle, we're way more alike than I thought.
I believe she wanted to be loved.
I believe she wanted to be chosen.
I believe she wanted security.
I think she wanted to matter.
I think when she walked into a room, she wanted someone to light up and be glad she was there, there.
I think she really, truly desired to be known.
But somewhere along the way in her story, life had beaten her down.
Her relationships doesn't say this, but I think every time she started a new one, she was thinking, maybe this one's it.
She had hope.
But then failed relationship and failed marriage and she would try again, and maybe this time I could be enough.
Somewhere along the way, she just got beaten down.
And it wasn't just a story that I read in some book.
The story that I found in the Book of John.
We know her as the woman at the well.
And in this story, she is coming to a place all alone.
You often hear theologians debate about her story.
See, we know for sure she had five husbands and was with this six guy that she wasn't married.
We don't know why, But we do know that her cistern, she was trying to fill her cup and be loved.
And it never satisfied.
And on this particular day, she had a divine appointment.
She didn't know it yet.
As I was writing this sermon, I was thinking about the show this is Us. Do you guys remember that show? I'll age myself a little bit. This Is Us. At the end of every episode, there was always this twist ending that you couldn't see coming.
Like the first episode, you think they're both live. You see, meet all these people and you think it's the same time frame. And then at the last minute it zooms out and you see that one of the couples is in the 70s and one of the couples is in modern day. And you're like, what it's like this big plus plot twist and that's how I read this story. Is this woman who is longing for something to satisfy, something to fill the cup. Life has worn her down. Life has left her empty. And now it's no accident that as she approaches the well, Jesus Christ is there.
The Bible tells us he had to go through Samaria.
He had to go.
And some people will show you geologically. But listen, I believe it was a divine appointment because God knew of her thirst. Church.
He knew of her hunger.
He knew of her longing and her emptiness. And he said, I am the living water. And so I have a divine appointment with my daughter today.
Can we pop up John 4:10?
Jesus said to her, if you knew the gift of God and who it is that is saying to you, give me a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.
Jeremiah tells us that we have forsaken the living water.
We've hewn out cisterns. And now the New Testament. Jesus Christ is saying, I am the living water.
He's saying, I'm asking you for a drink, but I would be giving you something that will satisfy so much longer, so much more. Let's go to verse 13.
Jesus said to her, everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again. He's talking about the water that he asked her to draw from the well.
Verse 14.
But whoever drinks of the water that I will give, he will never be thirsty again.
The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.
There's an invitation from Jesus Christ that shows us an inexhaustible grace. Church.
See, let me tell you this living water, that we won't thirst. It doesn't mean once you connect with Jesus, you won't feel pain again. You won't have the ache of life. And that's not what it's saying. It's saying, but when you come to Jesus, you know the source to take your pain to you know what cup to drink from.
You know that there is a living water inside of you that is welling up. That the gift of God is within us.
And then in this life, he did not give us the spirit of fear, but he gave us the spirit of power, of love and a sound mind.
That the living water inside of us, it is a quenchable, I don't know, Satisfies.
Sometimes it satisfies different than we think.
So sometimes we fall in love with God. For a moment we get on fire, but then things don't go the way we expected.
So we turn to the substitute.
Sometimes we are so full on the substitute, we don't even know or thirst for the real thing anymore.
There's this ancient story. I don't know if it's a parable or. But you probably heard it. It goes like this. There is a grandfather and he's talking to his son and he says to his grandson, he's telling him a story and he says, there's two wolves inside each of us.
There is a bad wolf and a good wolf.
And the grandson looks at the grandfather and he said, who wins?
And the grandfather says, the one you feed.
The one you feed.
I know it to be true that the taste of sin is so much sweeter the more I taste it.
But the love and the grace of God is so much more satisfying and so much more whole and so much more fulfilling the more I taste it. Church Amen.
And so what I'm saying today is, what, cistern? What have you built in your life?
What substitutes do you go to?
Because Christ is saying, I am the living water.
And in him is an answer to every single one of our miseries.
What are you in need of today?
What's your soul thirsting for?
I ask that our hearts are open. Because I'm going to do something a little different.
The Bible tells us that God's answer to our misery is his mercy.
And sometimes in our misery, we just keep going to the substitute.
But we're wore out.
And he's offering us today an inexhaustible.
Listen to me.
Has someone ever come to you with their problems over and over and over again, and you're just kind of tired of it?
Okay, Just speaking for a friend up here.
Jesus never gets tired.
Jesus never tires of you.
There's a story in the book Gentle and Lowly.
It's one of my favorite books of all times. If you've never read it, buy it today.
Gentle and Lowly.
And in it, the author uses an example.
And the example is of a doctor who has worked hard to find a cure for a tribe.
And he finally found the cure of their sickness.
And he comes to the tribe and he brings a team, and he's excited to give them the cure. But the tribe will not accept it.
They're not open to it.
The author says, imagine how that doctor feels.
He wants to give him the cure.
Then one day, a couple people from the village show up.
They accept the cure.
Now imagine the delight in that doctor's heart when he has worked and he has Found. And he is here to give freely.
When those people start to heal, imagine the joy.
There's a picture of Jesus Christ.
He is the good doctor.
He is the living water.
And in my life, I have a practice that sometimes I have to step out of my normal routine when I'm really longing for God.
Sometimes I can't just pray at the same spot.
I have to physically get up.
I have to go somewhere different.
Now, oftentimes, church, it's right here.
Because my soul is thirsty, but my body's exhausted.
And I come and I just kneel up here and I look at the empty cross.
And I remind myself what he did, but I remind myself the cross is empty for a reason, that I follow a God of victory, a God who conquers, a God who is not done writing your story.
I follow a God of living water. And the Holy Spirit springs up within me.
And when we follow and we drink from the living water, our life is not easily overcome. Church, that is the story of the Bible.
You would count a lot of these men and women out, but God says, do not count you out yet.
The strength comes from the living water.
So today I want to invite you to my practice.
If you are in need of living water, invite you just to come and spend a moment with Jesus up front.
I know it's uncomfortable.
I know it's awkward.
Sometimes the living God is calling us by name.
And all I could think this week is he has a divine appointment with someone here. Today wasn't just for her.
It was for you, who need it.
So with all heads bowed, all eyes closed, if you are in need of the inexhaustible grace of Jesus Christ, come to Jesus.
You are in need of a quenching, of a thirst that keeps coming back time and time again.
Come to Jesus.
If you are in need of a savior.
If you are in need of being chosen and loved, come to Jesus.
Now, some of you can feel so uncomfortable. You don't want to come up, that's fine. You sit right where you are. Because God met her right where she was.
And he will meet you right where you are today.
We are a church that follows Jesus Christ.
So, Father, we call on your mighty name.
We are a church that loves you and seeks you and is in need.
And nothing else will satisfy.
We are left thirsty.
We are left hungry.
So, Father, I pray that you, the living water, will give us a drink.
[00:36:20] Speaker B: I
[00:36:20] Speaker A: pray for the exhausted. I pray for the hurting. I pray for the sick sinner. Father, in all of us, we come to you and say, fill us.
We come to you with great expectation, knowing that you are our God and that nothing is impossible for you. So whoever is seeking you, Father, if it's in this room or if it's online, I pray, will your soul be true within them?
I pray, Father, for those who have been trying to do it on their loan. Will you be their God?
Will they lay down the substitute at your feet?
Will they drink of the living water that only you can offer?
Will you save their soul?
In your mighty and powerful son's name, we pray.
Amen.
