Week #12 Beyond Dr. Pepper, Gatorade & Ozarka
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Which beverage has marketed itself the best? Is it Sprite? Which has encouraged you to obey your thirst? Or perhaps it’s Miller Lite which of course, tastes great & is less filling? Do you prefer Gatorade, which is thirst aid for that deep down body thirst? Would you agree that Diet Dr. Pepper is truly just what the doctor ordered? Maybe you don’t drink beer but when you do, you prefer Dos Equis. Would you agree with Folgers that the best part of waking up is Folgers in your cup? Which bottled water do you prefer, Fiji water, which claims to be earths finest water or are you more of an Ozarka fan because you prefer water that is just born better. I remember the 80’s when Pepsi claimed to be the choice of a new generation. Lately Coke encourages you to drink their product and in opening their bottle they claim you will be opening happiness. My favorite television show ever might be Mad Men. The show has one final season to show in the spring of 2015 and then after 7 seasons I will be looking for a new favorite show. The show is about advertising and how the industry changed America permanently. It’s set in the 1960’s and the show is really part history lesson and part drama. It’s about an advertising firm on Madison Avenue in New York City and about how their line of work changed the culture of our country forever. I suppose advertising has always been around to a degree but the invention of the television clearly changed the game. Advertisers really have one motive, they are trying to bait you into feeling like you need to go and spend your money on something that will make your life better in some way. In the show we go behind the curtain to see how the owners of Heinz, Cool Whip, Chevrolet, Mountain Dew & John Deere tractors might have felt over the years in wanting you to feel like you just couldn’t live without one of their products. I think advertising might be a fun industry to work in but in my opinion the industry taps into the emptiness that we all feel from time to time. Everyone is on a search. Everyone is searching for more joy, more happiness, more adrenaline, more meaning, more fun, more relevance, more power, more significance, more thrills, more memories, more anything that can cure our boredom, loneliness and the purposelessness we all struggle with from time to time.
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Even celebrities struggle with this Tom Brady was once interviewed on 60 minutes & I will never forget hearing him say these words… “Why do I have three Super Bowl rings, and still think there's something greater out there for me? I mean, maybe a lot of people would say, "Hey man, this is what is." I reached my goal, my dream, my life. Me, I think: God, it's gotta be more than this. I mean this can't be what it's all cracked up to be. I mean I've done it. I'm 27. And what else is there for me?” KROFT: “What's the answer?” BRADY: “I wish I knew. I wish I knew.” Troy Aikman, on the night of that first Super Bowl victory, he delayed attending a party with his teammates, instead ordering beer from room service and sitting alone in his hotel room for a couple of hours. “I kept thinking back to the time when I was a teenager—how I thought that all my problems in my life would be solved the moment I turned sixteen and was able to get a car,” he recalls. “Well, here I was at the top of professional football, and I found myself thinking, ‘Now what? Now what?’ “Why would you feel that way?” I ask. For several seconds, Aikman just stares at me. He appears dumbfounded that I would even ask such an absurd question. “Well, isn’t that what it’s all about?” he asks. “To keep raising the bar for yourself?” So that the ladies that don’t like football don’t feel left out I have one more illustration. I am fascinated and saddened by the story of Marilyn Monroe and she so much reminds me of the woman we are about to read about in John chapter 4. Marilyn Monroe had it all. She was beautiful. She had money. She was famous and successful. And even though she dated or married numerous men she died all alone with a phone in her hand. She had spent time in relationships with athletes like Joe DiMaggio, and with writers such as Arthur Miller, and with singers such as Frank Sinatra, and with Politicians such as John and Robert Kennedy, and with actors such as Marlon Brando. No one knows for sure who she was and wasn’t romantically involved with but it could be that she was romantically involved with all of those men. And yet why did she seem to die so thirsty? Unsatisfied? Sad? Unfulfilled?
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The truth is that all of us are born with a yearning. All of us are born on a search. All of us are born thirsty. Hungry. Empty and yearning to feast and guzzle down something that will satisfy us. The question is, what is meant to satisfy our thirst and what is meant to nourish our deepest hunger? John chapter 4 has the answer. Let’s turn in our bibles to John chapter 4. 1Now Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard that he was gaining and baptizing more disciples than John— 2 although in fact it was not Jesus who baptized, but his disciples. 3 So he left Judea and went back once more to Galilee.4 Now he had to go through Samaria. 5 So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph. 6 Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about noon. Have you ever walked to Breckenridge from Albany? That would be between 25-‐30 miles. Jesus has walked that far in John chapter 4 and because he is fully human and fully God he is tired. It’s noon. It’s hot. His feet hurt. He is thirsty. And he shows up at a famous watering hole. A famous place to get water. He is at the well of the legendary Jacob of the Old Testament. This is no ordinary watering hole. This was the well of the Old Testament hero Jacob. 7 When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?” 8 (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.)9 The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.) If you go to Israel today, Jews & Muslims don’t really speak much. Even though they are related through Abraham. There is a bitter rift between them even to this day. In the 1960’s some of you remember the bitter racism that existed in America. Black people being forced to stay in different hotels, eat in different rooms, use different water fountains, ride different transportation, etc. Some of you lived through that and remember what a bitter rift looks like up close. Well, Jesus enters the picture representing one side of a bitter rift. He is about to penetrate through 500 years of racial hatred. Jews & Samaritans didn’t get along. In the Old Testament the kingdom of Israel was divided into two. One side was carried away by Babylonians and the other side by the Assyrians. Well, when both sides were released from captivity, the Jews from Babylon built their temple and made a strong push to reclaim ancient Judaism. They built their temple in Jerusalem. But the Jews from the north intermarried with non-‐Jews and essentially became half-‐breeds and didn’t recognize the modern return to Jerusalem. So one Temple was built in Jerusalem and the other was built on Mount Gerazim, near Jacob’s well. Both sides believed their temple mount was the site where Abraham nearly sacrificed Isaac and both sites were bitterly opposed to one another. The Jews looked at Samaritans as second-‐ class citizens and half-‐breeds and those who worshipped in the wrong place. As the text makes clear, Jews did not associate with Samaritans. So Jesus really shouldn’t have been talking to this Samaritan. Because Jews didn’t usually do that.
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But this woman has another strike against her in that she is female. Another reason Jesus should’ve avoided a dialogue with her. It has been said that the Jewish rabbis used to thank God each day that they had been born a. a Jew and b. that they were not a woman. Women in the ancient world were considered to he little better than livestock. It was considered in poor taste for a rabbi to speak with a woman in public, even if that woman were his wife. Two weeks ago you saw Jesus have a conversation with a man named Nicodemus. He was a man. Not a woman. He was also a Jew and did all the right religious things. And he had a great reputation. Now we see Jesus in a dialogue not with a male but with a female. Not with a Jew but with a Samaritan, not with someone who did everything right but with someone who likely had done a lot of things wrong. What is John trying to tell us about Jesus? Jesus isn’t a racist. He isn’t a chauvinist. He isn’t partial to the religious. And he yearns to sit down with women and men, black people and white people, Jews and gentiles, Arabs and Mexicans, rich and poor, handsome and physically challenged, white and black, English speakers and Spanish speakers, prisoners and police officers, school teachers and lawyers, children and adults. John is beginning to show you that “God so loved the world, that he gave his only son. That whoever believed in him would not perish but have everlasting life.” I want you to see here that before Jesus fills the void in this woman’s life he first sat down with her. God has given me three words of vision for this church. Sit, Drink, & Eat. And this passage will describe what I desire to see on the Lord’s behalf in our fellowship. I want everyone in Albany to know we yearn for them to come and sit with us. Just sit. Eat. Belong. Not just white people. Mexican people too. Not just people that speak English but people that only speak Spanish. Not just people with large incomes but people with very little too. Not just long time Presbyterians but anyone that wants to know Jesus. To be like Jesus, is to put people at ease. Even people we perceive are very different. Even people who we think are living and worshipping the wrong way. Jesus cuts across so many boundaries to sit with this woman. Would you join me in asking people to come and sit with us? We have church suppers. We have men’s outings coming up. We have women’s outings. We have prayer gatherings. Bazaars. Christmas programs and meals. There is power in simply sitting down with people and my prayer is that the word would get out in Albany that MMPC is a place where everyone is welcome to find a place to sit at our table.
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Ronald Reagan played college football and he had some black people on his team. And the hotels they stayed at often wouldn’t let his black teammates stay in the hotel. And he thought it was absurd so he either slept on the bus with them or he drove them to his parents house to spend the night. A very Jesus-‐like thing to do if you ask me. It takes courage to cross cultural boundaries and to mix the pot of different people groups but heaven is a quite a cultural place. And if we are going to be like Jesus we have to be willing to invite people that are different to come sit with us. People from all different walks of life.
10 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.”11 “Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? 12 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?”13 Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, 14 but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”15 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.” Jesus tells the woman that she needs living water, water that truly quenches thirst and literally puts an end to it, even water that wells up to eternal life. And the woman essentially reply’s, “are you greater than the most interesting man in the world? Are you saying you don’t drink beer but when you do you prefer dos equis? Are you saying you are greater than Jacob?” And Jesus will eventually answer that question with a resounding yes. She’s saying, “are you able to quench my deep down body thirst beyond how Gatorade can? Are you offering water that is greater than Fiji water, earth’s finest water?” I’m not used to how dry it is here in Albany. I’ve lived in humid cities. Austin and Houston. It’s been cold this week. Very dry in my house when the heater is forced to blow all night. I wake up in the middle of the night so thirsty. Jesus is making it clear in this passage that he knows the world you live in is a dry place. He is saying in no uncertain terms, that he is the cure not to dry mouth in the middle of the night but to the parched soul. He is proclaiming that he is the answer to our thirsty souls. Blaise Pascal once said, “There is a God shaped vacuum in the heart of every man which cannot be filled by any created thing, but only by God, the Creator, made known through Jesus.” Jesus is saying in no uncertain terms that he alone has the capacity to fill the empty vacuum sack that is our soul.
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Jesus, sitting with this woman, invites her to take a drink of living water. Then… 16 He told her, “Go, call your husband and come back.”17 “I have no husband,” she replied. Jesus said to her, “You are right when you say you have no husband. 18 The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true.”19 “Sir,” the woman said, “I can see that you are a prophet. 20 Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.” You might imagine now that Jesus is talking to Marilyn Monroe. He is essentially saying, “Marilyn, Joe D, Frankie Blue Eyes, JFK, his brother, the author and the Godfather, haven’t satisfied your soul have they? Would you like a sip of something that won’t disappoint you like they have?” Now she feels exposed and tries to change the subject in regards to which piece of geography was best to worship on. The application of this is that I want our church to be ever looking for people to welcome to come and sit with us and I also want people to have a drink with us. A drink of living water. I yearn for anyone who hasn’t to experience living water. Let’s be ever inviting people to come sit with us and the reason it’s so critical that they do is so that they can one day drink and guzzle the living water that is the Lord Jesus himself. No man or woman on this earth will ever not buy the latest ad from Madison Avenue until they guzzle the living water. Some of you are drinking the wrong water right now. Maybe someone here needs to be reminded that there is only one water fountain that truly delivers. Fiji water is not earth’s finest water – the Son of God is. And you can know him today by the power of the Holy Spirit sent by God the father when his son ascended back to his right hand after his resurrection. Even Christians go back to wells that don’t deliver. Some of us are tempted to drink too much as though that would satisfy our deepest longings. Others of us are perpetually chasing an investment that would be like Gatorade to our souls. Others of us put way too much pressure on our spouses to be our living water. The woman in our story likely did that 5 times and every time she switched husbands she likely thought the next one will give me living water but each time she discovered that the arms of a man couldn’t deliver what only Jesus can. Let’s show our spouses grace church. They aren’t living water. Let’s go to Jesus for living water, not our spouses. I remember a pro athlete once saying, “I once guzzled a whole 2 liter of Dr. Pepper after a football game because there was no water and I was still thirsty when I got done!” That’s what life is like. You can guzzle so many things but until you guzzle Jesus you will never know eternal life, joy or peace.
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I like Pirates of the Caribbean, They drink but they are hollow and it goes right through their skeleton bodies unto the ground, it does nothing for their cursed souls. Our souls are cursed friends, until we drink living water. May we be a church that constantly invites people to sit and drink with us. 21 “Woman,” Jesus replied, “believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. 22 You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23 Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. 24 God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.”25 The woman said, “I know that Messiah” (called Christ) “is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.”26 Then Jesus declared, “I, the one speaking to you—I am he.” Jesus is clear. “I, the one speaking to you, I am he.” Jesus might be speaking to you now. Agree with him. He’s the one. The only one who makes true worship happen. I love the story of Stephen Baldwin came to faith. He’s Alec’s little brother and you may remember him from the Flintstone’s movie, or from Bio Dome or from the Usual Suspects. In his biography he tells the story of being at the playboy mansion with another famous actor and they were about to go do drugs and do things with women that they knew wasn’t right. He had been drinking that kind of water for a long time and decided it was no longer satisfying. Something told him if he went down the spiral staircase at the playboy mansion that he would never come out again. And so he went home to his wife. His wife had recently had a collision with Jesus and had begun praying each morning on her face for her husband. Their housekeeper from South America had led her to faith and living water. Stephen says his wife presented him with living water but he still wasn’t ready to drink it. So he drove to the Arizona desert and climbed a mountain and waved his fist at God and said, “Bring it. If you are real, bring it. I only have one request, give me all of it. Don’t you dare hold back on me. I want the full experience.” In other words, he asked not for a sip of living water but to guzzle a whole gallon. And the rest of the novel is the story of what a sweet and life changing difference the Lord Jesus has made in his life. May anyone in Albany that has never had the unrivaled experience of drinking the living water that Jesus alone has to offer drink freely of his unparalleled water.
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27 Just then his disciples returned and were surprised to find him talking with a woman. But no one asked, “What do you want?” or “Why are you talking with her?”28 Then, leaving her water jar, the woman went back to the town and said to the people, 29 “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Messiah?” 30 They came out of the town and made their way toward him. 31 Meanwhile his disciples urged him, “Rabbi, eat something.”32 But he said to them, “I have food to eat that you know nothing about.”33 Then his disciples said to each other, “Could someone have brought him food?”34 “My food,” said Jesus, “is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work. 35 Don’t you have a saying, ‘It’s still four months until harvest’? I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest. 36 Even now the one who reaps draws a wage and harvests a crop for eternal life, so that the sower and the reaper may be glad together. 37 Thus the saying ‘One sows and another reaps’ is true. 38 I sent you to reap what you have not worked for. Others have done the hard work, and you have reaped the benefits of their labor.”39 Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me everything I ever did.” 40 So when the Samaritans came to him, they urged him to stay with them, and he stayed two days. 41 And because of his words many more became believers. 42 They said to the woman, “We no longer believe just because of what you said; now we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this man really is the Savior of the world.” I want people to sit with us, drink with us, and finally, I want people to eat with us. The disciples come back with Taco Bell. Or Taco Bueno. Whichever you prefer. I just imagine they were low on funds so they kept it cheap. And Jesus says, “I’ve already eaten. I have food to eat you know nothing about.” And the disciples say, “the McDonalds drive through was faster and some other disciples must have beat us to the punch.” And then, Jesus says, “my food is to do.” I have secret food. Doing is my food. Doing God’s will. My stomach is so satisfied. Look up guys! A whole village is about to come to know me. You think I’m concerned about food? Come on. Look at the harvest. The text says, “many Samaritans believed in him because of the woman’s testimony.” It goes on to say that “many more became believers” as a result of a woman who was invited first to sit, then to drink, then to eat. So Jesus says, “you think I care about eating Taco Bueno right now? Come on guys. Stop thinking about your stomachs. What about the harvest? A whole village is about to come to know me. I’m full. The woman became a missionary after meeting Jesus and led her entire village to Christ. She began to eat. Jesus wants to sit with you, then he wants to give you an eternally satisfying sip of water that will never leave you with a dry soul, then he wants to give you secret food. He wants you to start doing his well and being nourished by that experience.
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Sit, drink, eat. My life changed when I was given the chance to sit with people on a mission trip. I was invited by my college roommate to go to an orphanage in Mexico. At the time I was drinking from all the wrong water hoses. And I heard preaching like never before, and I sang songs like I never have, and I took a tiny sip of living water and it wouldn’t be long before I was guzzling it because it was unlike any water I could find anywhere else. I personally discovered that Jesus truly was the living water my dry soul had tried so hard to find but to that point couldn’t seem to discover. And then I began to hug on little orphans, did some cement work, even began to do God’s will there in Mexico and even though I ate rice all week I have never been so full. For the first time in my life I had been given a place to sit. I felt that people accepted me not for how cool I was with a beer in my hand but just because they loved me. And I began to sip living water and it was so thirst quenching to meet Jesus. And then I began to eat and attempted as best I could to do God’s will and I had never eaten food that was so nourishing in my life. That’s my story. I love Troy Aikman. I love Tom Brady. I love Marilyn Monroe. And I love everyone in Albany, Texas. Because I know how thirsty I once was, how starved my soul was and what life was like when I was searching for a place to sit down, I have no judgment towards anyone. I just want people to experience the life changing power of the gospel. I want people to sit with us. I want people to drink living water. And I want people to be nourished by the doing of God’s will, which is the greatest meal you can ever eat. May God empower us all to carry out that mission. At the end of the day I vote for sprite. Their marketing ad is the best. Obey your thirst. For God’s sake, I agree with them. I strongly suggest that all of us obey our thirst. A thirst that can’t be quenched by Sprite, or Gatorade, or Coke, or Pepsi, or bottled water or beer or any other liquid but only by the Son of God and by the power of the Spirit to the glory of God the Father. Amen.
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Benediction: May we leave this place feeling the joy of a secure seat at the table of Christ, with quenched thirst and nourished souls provided to us by the living water of Christ and the work he has given us to do. May we leave this place and offer others a place to sit, drink and eat. Amen.
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