Pastor Tom Hilpert

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Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again. In other words, you can pay your bills, but you’ll have more to pay next month. You can get comfortable, but soon you’ll be uncomfortable again. You can have your “highs” but you’ll come down again sooner or later. What he is really saying is this: This life doesn’t offer any permanent satisfaction.

Listen to the podcast for the whole sermon, or download the written version at www.newjoyfellowship.com

 

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I think sometimes we are like that woman. We are just going about life, taking care of business, doing our stuff. If only we knew who is right there in front of us. If only we knew how gracious God is. Don’t feel badly if this is you, but honestly, I think most people aren’t looking for Jesus on Tuesday morning at eleven o’ clock. We’re just doing our thing, getting water, printing reports, unloading the truck, whatever it is we do. But that isn’t life. The woman wanted water – ordinary water. Jesus wanted to give her living water – life. The regular stuff is just an imitation of the life-giving stuff. We can look at her, knowing who she’s dealing with and say — “Don’t be so stupid! Why are you going on about Jews and Samaritans and men and women? Look who’s there in front you.”

I say to you — “Look who’s there in front of you.” Why are we going on about stocks and gas prices and elections? That is not life. Now, I can guarantee you, when it was all over, the woman still eventually had to come back and get water out of the well. But I also guarantee that after being with Jesus, she viewed that task differently. That was just stuff she had to do. She had learned who was standing in front of her in the middle of the daily grind.

listen for the whole sermon…

 

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I think this is one of the keys to joy – stop making yourself the central figure in your life. Stop making another person the central figure in your life. The way to joy is to allow Jesus to the be protagonist in your life’s story. Let him be the main character. Let him be the one that the story of your life is about. I think it is much easier to sustain joy when your life is not about you, and it isn’t about your kids or spouse or any other human being either. Joy surprises us when we let Jesus be the the main character in our life’s story. Think of it this way: it can be hard to be joyful at a friend’s wedding if you are mainly thinking about yourself. After all someone else is the center of attention. But when you accept that your place is not at the center of attention, and if you are thinking about your friend and the joy that is in her life at the moment, you find it easy to rejoice, and the whole wedding can be wonderful experience, even though you are neither the bride nor the groom.

 

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John 3:16 is one of the best known verses in the whole bible.  But do we know the verses around it, and how they explain it?  Listen to the podcast for more.

 

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As I’ve thought about it this week, I realized one of the best ways to explain being born again is to describe how it worked for someone I know.  Listen to podcast for more.

 

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I don’t know if John does this deliberately, but both the making of water into wine, and the next thing he records about Jesus, tend to be things that surprise us modern Christians. They surprise me, anyway, and I think I’m not alone. It’s easy to get comfortable with our own — often limited – conception of what Jesus is like. I’m certain there are many people, who, if they were completely honest, would say, “Jesus would never make wine for a party!” There are probably just as many who would say, “Jesus never would use force to chase good businessmen out of their place of work.” And yet, that is exactly what Jesus did, recorded in John 2:13-25.

 

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In the New Testament, you don’t find “ordinary Christians” and then “disciples.” Every Christian was a disciple. In its simplest form, being a disciple just means walking with Jesus. It is all about getting to know him, listening to him and living out our lives in relationship with him and under his guidance and leadership. It is my prayer that as we continue this series on Jesus, we will get closer to him, and become better disciples.

If we are honest with ourselves, I think some of us would agree that one of the hardest things about being a disciple is that we can’t physically see, hear and touch Jesus. At least, we think that might be part of the problem. And yet John writes this:

¹⁰ He was in the world, and the world was created through Him,yet the world did not recognize Him.¹¹ He came to His own, and His own people did not receive Him.

That is an amazing statement. Even when Jesus was on earth, even when people could see him and hear him, they did not recognize who he really was.  Why not?

 

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Jesus Christ was not born into a wealthy family. Throughout his entire life, he had little money. He was not a part of a powerful elite. Although one of his ancestors was a king, neither he nor any of his relatives were considered nobility. Jesus had no position in government. He had very little, if any, behind-the-scenes political influence. He did not even hold any official religious position or title.

All this is true, and yet Jesus Christ has had a deeper impact upon world history than any other single person in the entire human race. I’m not talking merely about an impact from the perspective of faith. I mean a real, objective influence upon the course of human events. The person of Jesus Christ and faith in him, has dominated Western civilization for roughly two-thousand years.

 

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There is an awful lot of material still left in the history of Joseph and his brothers. There is the fact that finally, after 22 years, Joseph’s original dreams came true – his brothers bowed before him, and he did, in fact, have some authority over them. Along with that is the remarkable attitude of Joseph, who truly forgave his brothers, and saw only God’s hand where evil had been done. There are the particulars of how it played out – especially noteworthy is how Judah took responsibility for his brother Benjamin, defending him to the last. And of course, there is the small matter of God working through Joseph and his brothers to save multitudes of people from starvation.

But this story is not really Joseph’s story – it is God’s story. We can trust that surely God will treat us in the same way he treated Joseph – that is, through varying circumstances God will remain steadfastly with us, and give us the strength we need. Just as God delivered Joseph from prison, God will and does deliver us from the prisons of our own sin, from difficult circumstances in life, and even from the sins of others. Not only that, but God’s care for us extends beyond us, to others around us as well.

 

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I am convinced that we need to take a lesson from Joseph’s earlier days, and learn that we can experience the faithful love of God in any circumstance – no matter how bad it gets. We can rise above what life throws at us as we allow our relationship with God to become the dominant thing to us.

Once we have learned that lesson, I think Joseph’s life tells us at least one more thing. It is this: We sometimes give up too soon. When five years had passed and everything went the exact opposite direction of Joseph’s dreams, it wasn’t over. When ten years had passed and things had gone from bad to worse, it wasn’t over. And when it really was over for Joseph, his last hope crushed by the carelessness of the cup-bearer, it actually was not over.

I don’t think God is primarily concerned with our comfort here on earth. I stand by my statement that this life is not about this life. But I do believe he is eager to work in and through our lives to show us, and those around us, how real, incredible and good he is. Yes, he wanted Joseph to need no other comfort than a relationship with him. But he also had plans for Joseph in this life. Joseph experienced the reality that horrible circumstances were not as important and real to him as his relationship with God. Once that happened, God knew that Joseph would be able to handle incredible power and luxury, and take exactly the same attitude. In peace, comfort and unimaginable wealth, none of it was as real and important to Joseph as his relationship with God.

 

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