The Gift of Living Water — K.P. Yohannan

The Gift of Living Water as God’s Call

What is the theme of our study today, do you remember? The gift of living water. So many nice statements or titles of teachings we hear, but it doesn't necessarily help us to understand what it means.

God, I think, keeps on always trying to speak to us about our need of Him by using things that we can understand. Like, think about somebody says something terrible about you, they gossip about you. Think about times you said something to someone, but all of a sudden they are angry with you for they didn't understand what you were trying to say.

Or, think about someone that lost 100 rupees or 500 rupees and somehow, some mysterious reason, people began to talk about you, that you had taken that money. And sometime you've been fasting and praying and you didn't want to tell anyone and you didn't realize that your face, your body language, and it reflected a sense of weakness.

And the person who sees you thinks something is wrong with you. Either you are sick or you are not happy with them. Think about times that you didn't have the resources, the money that you desperately need.

I mean, that's a very simple thing, I can borrow 100 rupees to give offering, but what about other serious needs? I'm sure you will know someone in your family or someone who is in trouble, they borrowed money and they don't know how to pay it back and they have a lot of problems.

Paul’s Losses and the Knowledge of Christ

Now, these are all physical realities we deal with, but how does these things God uses? This is His silent, loud voices. That's the reason Paul said in Philippians 3, he said, you know, there's a lot of things I can boast about, they're all true.

He talked about, you know, having the privilege to be born in a super upper-class family and to have the best of credentials as an individual. In every way, you can read that. But then he makes this drastic statement, but all these things I consider as done.

It's good enough only to be thrown into the dustbin. But then he continues, that physical achievement, experiences, somehow connects with something far more transcending, something more very special, uncreated, untouched by man's hands.

He says, so that I may know Christ and somehow I may enter into the suffering of Christ and through all this I may experience resurrection from the dead. It is not talking about the last trumpet sound and people getting resurrected, that is part of the story, but he's talking about living in this world of turmoil and pain and agony and suspense and imprisonment and being stoned and all the agonies, how to live a life, truly a triumphant life.

Enduring Life’s Storms Under Christ’s Protection

It is like, you know, when I was a small boy, just 14 kilometers from here, our mode of transportation was always canoes. Now, of course, you know, there are roads and cars and motorbikes and all those things, but during the monsoon season, there's no way we get anywhere except we have canoes and there are little boats or canoes, you can sometimes carry one person.

We had one. And some years ago I tried to get in one of them and it capsized immediately because I lost my balance. Then there are canoes that carry three people, four people, ten people, you know, different kinds.

But while you are going along in this river or the monsoon season, you have the storm, the lightning, the waves, and we fellows are quite content with whatever is going on because we are safe within the canoe.

How do we go through this life, no matter how lengthy or short it may be? The Bible says, even the best of life is full of sorrows. I mean, especially if you read the Bible, you'll find it. And sometimes people ask, why does somebody want to be the prime minister of the country or the chief minister of the country or to have any position?

What an amount of crisis and pain. You think it's easy. Well, go to the Bible. You read about someone like Solomon, born to the most famous king, David, and he was born with all the luxuries. And then you'll find out, not only that, he was miraculously given an incredible amount of wisdom and knowledge and he was extremely rich and he was filthy rich and he lacked nothing.

I mean, you cannot imagine any human being climbing the ladder of success. But you'll find the diary that he wrote, his personal diary, Ecclesiastics, he says, oh my goodness, life, life, he says, it's vanity.

Vanity, oh vanity. Emptiness. It is like chasing the wind. You never catch it. It's full of sorrows. Then you find him trying to find what is life all about. And he turns to all the luxuries of the world and life you can imagine.

He said, I said no to nothing. And then all he has is emptiness, thirst. I mean, here's a bottle of water that I'm sure it's not salt water. Is it? No. I believe you. Otherwise you wouldn't be living there, sitting there.

I remember the months I traveled in a ship. There were five, six hundred people. And we arrived in the middle of the ocean. There's plenty of water. Billions, trillions, or gallons. But we don't drink it.

You can. The more you drink salt water, the more thirsty you become, and more desperate and sick you become. I ask you a simple question for you to think. We are always concerned about poor people. The people with leprosy, the beggars, the blind, the widows, and orphans.

We all are. But when it comes to movie actors, brilliant lawyers, medical doctors, rich business people, we don't think those thoughts. But the question is this. How come in many societies, some of the highest, the people who achieved the very dreams many have, the ratio, the percentage of suicide among those people, think the poor farmers, no.

Christ the Rock Who Satisfies Human Thirst

So when Jesus talks about offering living water, and the Old Testament, of course the entire Old Testament is actually, is talking about Christ. And Paul says in Corinthians, the rock that followed them was Christ.

So here's a bunch of people who are desperately thirsty, and God said to Moses, strike the rock, and water will come out of it. That's what happened. And so it's a picture of Christ, his body broken, pouring out his blood.

And that brokenness and giving up his life became the answer to the desperate thirst of the whole humanity. Whoever is thirsty, let him come and freely, you have no charge, receive this. Some years ago, the first time that particular verse struck me with a different meaning.

And I said to myself, in my tiny village, with thousands of people there, born by this river, and so many other people, I got five other brothers, and my parents, and neighbors, and all that, and I was terribly shy and timid, and the only thing I knew to do well was to climb coconut trees to escape from my father wanting to punish me.

See, I think there is something about monkeys, to realize, with all the billions of galaxies, and angels, and all the stuff going on, this God is thinking about me. And as a matter of fact, here, if you read the Greek text, Jesus, he says, abandoned where he was, and going north.

And he had to go. It is like there was an external compulsion. The reason was, the father knew, out of all the people living in Samaria, there was one little woman that he was thinking about. And she was not the movie star.

As a matter of fact, all the women were to draw water either early morning, or in the evening. But the morning, sun rises, needs some water in the house, and she wants to go, but she can't. Because that's when all the women will gather, by the well, and the gossip, and the talk, and everything else.

And usually, the one story they all talk about, this nameless woman. Because her life was not secret. It was very public. And she was rejected, ostracized, alienated. Then, deep sense of guilt, and condemnation, rejection.

I, reading this thing, I'm surprised that she didn't commit suicide by now. That also tells me, the more she gave herself to horrible sins, her heart became hardened. And then there's a saying, there's a line you cross, and then you're abandoned, and God gives you up.

So I look at this woman, and her story of the pain, and sin, and failures, and rejection, and all that. And you know, it is not written there, but I can tell you, having several husbands, or they died, and then remarried, and all you can imagine is the abuse, and all the stuff she's living with.

She didn't want to appear in public. But God was thinking about her. And I tell you this, we all have this problem. I do. We all have this problem. We somehow think, if I do enough good things, somehow it will balance out.

God’s Grace for the Shamed and Wounded

And God will bless us. If we pray hard enough, if we fast enough, and give money, or help the poor, it is built into our nature. And I'm not saying we should do those things. But it's hard to believe you can be so wretched, but then God turns attention from all those people, and think about one person who nobody wants, nobody cares about.

I don't know about you, we all have secrets. The other day, I was going to pray for someone, husband and wife, they came, and I said to the husband, would you be willing to go out of the room just for a minute?

So she was alone in my room. I asked her a question. You came here that I would pray for you for healing. But is there something in your life, something happened to you as a young girl, as a school girl, as a professional person, that you are so hurt, so angry and upset, some bitterness, unforgiveness, some incident that you do not want to tell anyone in the world.

Well, I promise you, no one will hear that from me either. But this was one of the good experiences I had. She said, there's nothing I can think of. And then she described her journey. But why would I ask a question like that?

Especially our culture, that is what you call shame culture. We don't, psychiatrists usually don't make good living in our culture because nobody tells anything, really. They will go in circles, but never, never really tell the real story.

I do not know where you are in your personal journey. But all I can tell you, the scripture is given to us, Bible is given to us, not for us to study and get degrees. But it's given to us, they are stories of people.

God is saying, this is exactly I deal with you. I do care about you. And I will take off from thousands of people wanting to hear me and I will walk 40 miles and be tired and worn out and wait until you come.

I can talk to you. That's what happened. And of course, in the early days of the church, the first three, four hundred years of the church, one of the big controversies of Christology or about Christ to us, did Christ have two wills or one?

He lived as a man, so he never sinned, which means his will was pure and only one, that's God's will. So there's no variations. But so happened to be a cultist teaching. That is not true. He was man, the same time he was God.

And he had to choose just like Adam. So he didn't commit sin not because he was having this one will, determination in his mind as God. No, he had to choose between the will of man and the will of God.

And this is an incredible reality that helps us to understand that whoever come and freely receive this. So some people are waiting for some supernatural, some thunder, lightning, something to happen for them to become spiritual, to stumble onto some spiritual rock and all the sudden things changes.

No. As a matter of fact, I'm telling you the whole reality of life is this. That you and I are given the choices and the choices I wish is between bad and good. No. But often it is between two good things.

But being sensitive to Christ and who he is and what is life about help us to make the right choice. Well, so gift of living water for whom? A woman like this Samaritan woman? Yes. What about saints? What about the people of God who were traveling through the desert?

Following Christ’s Call to Sacrificial Service

They were set free from Egypt. So, the reality is this. You know that I don't sing, I don't attempt to sing and nor do I know how to do it. But, you know, there is a stanza or some song goes like, you can have the whole wide world but give me Jesus.

A lot of people are dreaming about oh, I'm going to get married and it's going to be wonderful life and children and house and motorbike and cars and this and that. I'm talking a lot of young people here.

And if you think Mother Teresa, a young bright girl who want to give up her entire future to join her sister's order from the Catholic Church and leave her country to be alone the rest of her life to serve.

You think everybody said oh, great, wonderful, do it. We clap our hands for you. No. Yesterday I heard about one young girl who really considered joining the Sisters of Compassion. A graduate. To serve in leper colonies.

To clean their wounds. To embrace the lonely and the dying. Infected with HIV and AIDS. Dying on the streets. But she will make a decision not to do it in the end. And you say, what happened? She listened to her parents.

She listened to her friends who said three years of your life you're going to throw away, stand still. There's a young man that I heard about, I never met him but prays continually that God will allow him he'll have to go to China.

I know a young student that went to our seminary who desperately wanted to end up in Nepal and ended up in Nepal. And learned Nepali and reads Nepali language and speaks fluently. So how does God offer gift of living water to people today?

Sharing Christ’s Living Water With the Hopeless

Is he walking around finding wells bridges trees public parks leper colonies talking to people? It's you. The story of the woman is quite interesting. She just couldn't wait to tell the whole community because she knew while her life was in such horrible darkness and misery she knew there's a lot of people there who had no hope and she said you better come and see this man.

He told me something that nobody can tell you. Most men look at me for my flesh but he looked straight into me and saw me and he will do the same for you and somehow strange enough my inside I'm at peace.

And then a lot of people meet Christ who offers the same gift he offered her. So I encourage you to make those choices as God speaks to you not because somebody else is doing it. But then as a follower of Christ you can be wandering as a thirsty dying soul if you stop following him.

The shepherd always goes ahead but you must follow. And may the Lord help us to understand this Christianity not as a series of dead doctrines but a living reality that actually is more real than all the physical realities that we understand.