3/27/22 Exodus 17:1-7 “Are You Missing Life?”

25 Mar 3/27/22 Exodus 17:1-7 “Are You Missing Life?”

3/27/22    Exodus 17:1-7      “Are You Missing Life?”

I remember sitting at home one time writing my sermon for the week at this time of the year and we were supposed to have a winter storm.  It was supposed to rain, which had already started.  Then we were supposed to get snow.  It was supposed to be up to 18” and we ended up with 8”.  Of course, all of this was going to have an adverse effect on the flood situation as it does every spring around here.  These things caused me to think of all the unknown factors that we have to deal with in our lives every day.  I might add here that we as a churched people seem to be quite good at dealing with many unknowns.  That snowstorm at that time was an unknown.  The flood was an unknown.  Just about anything in our lives on a daily basis is unknown.  Oh, we plan on things but many times our plans have to be scrapped because something unknown or unforeseen happens.  It is kind of like having children’s time on Sunday morning when I ask a question.  It is an unknown for me because I have no idea how the kids will answer the questions.  Today, as we look at our reading in Exodus, we find that the people of Israel are in an unknown situation.  Moses had taken them from a safe life in slavery to the wilderness where they didn’t know what would happen next.  Let’s see if we can understand why unknown situations aren’t as bad as we think they will be if we have the proper leader.

Our reading today is about water.  We all need water or we would not have life and it was the same way 3400 years ago and it will be the same way 3400 years into the future.  A fellow named Ralph Andrus compiled a few interesting facts about water that I’m going to share.  I can only assume that they are true.  For instance, did you know that the human body is over 2/3 water and that by the time you are 70 years old, you will have required 1½ million gallons of water.  This seems a little high but the point is that we need a lot of water to maintain life.  Studies have shown that if you increase water consumption, you can decrease fat deposits.  Water is a natural appetite suppressant.  Going on a diet can be pretty easy.  The body will absorb cold water faster than hot water.  Studies have shown that if you decrease the amount of water you drink you will be more sensitive to pain.  If you lose 2% of your body’s water supply, your energy will decrease by 20%.  A 10% body water loss and you cannot walk and a 20% body water loss and you are dead.  The important thing here is to remember just how vital water is to all of us.

I think that before we start this passage we need a little update on what has been happening.  Moses has led the people of Israel out of Egypt.  The Egyptian army had been crushed by the Red Sea.  They were now in the wilderness which was a very dry region.  Unless you have been to the desert someplace, it is hard to imagine how dry it can be.  It is kind of like people can’t imagine how flat it is here because there are so few places in the world where it is as flat as we have it.  So they have a million people in the wilderness.  They run out of food and God provides them with manna and quail.  He has already given them some water but this has run out.  Now they are stuck in the arid region with no water and they are thirsty.

This first thing they do is turn on Moses.  This doesn’t make any sense.  Moses had already shown them how to get water once and the manna and quail.  But now they turn on him.  It is kind of like the small boy that Jeff Strite tells about who dialed “O” and asked the operator to call a number for him.  The little boy couldn’t speak clearly and she didn’t understand.  Finally, the boy was so frustrated that he said, “You operators are dumb,” and he slammed down the phone.  His mother heard him and made him call the operator back and apologize.  After he did this he waited until his mother left and called again.  He asked, “Is this the same operator I talked to a little while ago?”  “Yes,” came the reply.  “Well,” the boy said, “I still think you are dumb.”  The boy doesn’t realize that it is his fault and not the operators.  The same thing was happening to Moses.  He had done everything he had been told to do and they were out of water.  Moses was in trouble with the people.  He probably didn’t know if the people were going to stone him or not.  His back was against the wall.

This would have to be a hurtful place for Moses to be.  He has been their leader and now they hate him because they have no water.  This had to be a tremendous blow to him personally.  We all have things like this happen to us.  I remember when I first got to our first charge, there was a group of people who didn’t like me.  They wouldn’t talk to me for the longest time unless they absolutely had to.  So they left the church for no reason that I knew about at the time.  This was a blow to me personally.  I would have never recovered from this without the help of Jesus working through the other folks at the church.

I think that it is also important to realize that we are talking about thirst.  Water is one of the basics of life that a body needs.  I haven’t been really thirsty for a long time.  Generally what we call thirst is pretty minor compared to what happens when you get stuck in a desert.  I would guess that these people are having a real need for water.  Maybe their tongues are getting a little dry or swollen.  Maybe they are losing energy.  These would be a hardy people and they would know when they are in danger, real danger, due to a lack of water.

So we have this tremendous need of the people.  Notice what Moses does first.  He goes to God in prayer.  This followed the pattern of the people.  The people would bring complaints and troubles to Moses and then Moses would pray on behalf of the people.  This was the accepted way of talking to God.

Before we go on here, I would like to say that this is a tradition that is carried on even today in some denominations.  People can come to priests or ministers and ask them pray on their behalf.  This even happens around here sometimes but for a different reason and all of this is ok.  However, one of the results of Jesus coming to our world was that there was no longer any need to have someone else pray for you.  You can do it yourself.  There is not a person in here today or a person in the community who cannot stop and prayer to Jesus.  We don’t need the go-between person anymore.  I don’t mean to be disrespectful to anyone.  If this is the way you feel comfortable doing it, then it is ok.  But you don’t have to do it that way.  Incidentally, I will say prayers for anyone who asks and we do it all the time.

So the first thing that Moses does is he prays.  He doesn’t begin by telling God what to do.  He doesn’t say, “O God, we need water.  Bring us some water.”  Instead he asks God, “What am I to do with these people?”  He asks God for help and he doesn’t tell God what to do.

This is something that we need to be aware of as we pray.  But before we can talk of how to pray, we have to make sure that we are praying in the first place.  You all need a prayer life.  You need this so that you can get to know Jesus better and better.  When you get to know Jesus better, then when you get into a jam like this, the chances that you try to tell him what to do will decrease.

What you are starting to do when you have a prayer life, is that you are beginning to rely totally on Jesus.  Now I don’t think that we do a bad job in this area as a group, but you also don’t do it that well either.  Some of you come to church once a week and that is enough praying.  Or it may be once a month or twice a year.  Well I’m saying to you that this is not enough.  You are wrong.  You need to be in contact with Jesus every day, and many times a day.  If you are here today and sliding by with just a minimal prayer time or no prayer time at all, I can tell you with 100% certainty that you are missing a lot of the best things of life.  You may think that your life is not so bad, but you are only kidding yourself.  Join with Jesus every day and your life will get better, a lot better.

So we are now all promising ourselves that we will have a prayer life and things will get better.  So how does God answer Moses?  He tells him to take the staff that he used to part the Red Sea and go with Him to Horeb and strike the rock with the staff.  We read about things like this in other places in the Bible.

God is great at telling us things that sometimes don’t make any sense.  He had told Moses to hold up his staff and the Red Sea parted.  He told Joshua how to stop the Jordan River so they could cross it.  He had Joshua march around Jericho and the walls fell down.  Here He tells Moses to strike a rock and water will come out.  Doing my research for this sermon I found that you can actually get water from a rock, but there just isn’t very much there.  These people are thirsty and this seems like a ridiculous thing to do.

You may think that praying is a ridiculous thing to do.  But this is only the ground work. If you don’t pray to Jesus then He can’t tell you what to do.  I would like to say that most of the time, He will tell us things to do that are very logical.  As a matter of fact, he plants ideas in us and we often make the mistake of thinking that it is our own idea.  For the most part we are not used to relying totally on God.  This is a problem everywhere.

Let’s just take a look at this story.  There are people who say that this is just a story to show us how much we need grace.  Often times in the Bible when they talk of water, they are really referring to grace.  So called experts tell us that this didn’t really happen because it is impossible.  You can’t get water for a million people from a rock.  I think that it is a little confusing to say that you cannot get water from a rock but Jesus can supply us with water and many other things.

I think that God actually did this plus all the other miracles of the Bible.  I think all these other people who disagree with this are being led by Satan and I think it is about time we stand up for our Creator.  I believe in all these things because I remember what a wreck I was before Jesus came into my life and changed everything.  I was a rotten, broken-down schmuck with absolutely no direction in my life.  Jesus performed a miracle in me.  Today, I am still a rotten, broken-down schmuck, but I now have great direction.  This is what Jesus does.  If He can do this in me and you and many other people, then I think that He is totally capable to doing all these things in the Bible like getting water from a rock.  As a matter of fact I think that His miracles of the Bible only scratch the surface of what Jesus can do.  This is why I say, get a prayer life and start to enjoy all the wonderful blessings of Jesus.

After all this doubt by the people, they get their water.  They will survive for another day.  Then Moses asks the question, “Is the Lord among us or not?”  And that is the question that I have for you today.  Is the Lord among us or not?

On the surface we can look at this question and say that we cannot live without water and we need to rely on God to help us to have water.  There is nothing wrong with this interpretation.  But there may be more.  As I have already said, sometimes water has the meaning of grace.  Just as we cannot live without water, we cannot live without the grace of God.  You can do lots of things and be very successful in the eyes of Satan.  But you will not have a good eternal life.

God loves you so much that He will extend you grace for all the things you do wrong.  He wants you to be in a position where you can receive this at any time.  This is why it is so important to have that personal relationship with Jesus.  Take this from a man who has lived on both sides, life without Jesus is no kind of life at all.  You need Jesus for life.  So if you don’t know Him, then confess your sins to Him and ask Him into your life.  Even if you are not sure, do this.  I can look at the most successful people in our neighborhood and know that if they don’t have Jesus, they aren’t getting any of the blessings.  They are missing the boat.  They are missing life by not knowing Jesus.  You need to be focusing on Jesus.

I think that some of you know that I used to like to ride a motorcycle.  This was the time of year that I always thought that I should sell it because I didn’t get to ride it that much last year.  But when I did, I sure enjoyed it.  But before I could ride, I had to take a class on riding motorcycles.  It was a very good class and I learned a lot.  One of the things that they teach you is how to ride on your two wheels going around a curve at 60 mph.  They tell you to always be looking at the end of the curve once you see that there are no obstacles on the curve.  You should never look right in front of the bike but always to the end of the curve.  For some reason if you look right in front of you as you are going around that curve, you run a very high risk of crashing.

Our Scripture today is telling us the same thing.  If you don’t keep your eyes on Jesus, then you will end up with a very empty life.  You will miss all the wonders that God has planned for you.  You will be too busy looking for the next dollar to pay the bills.  You will be too busy trying for personal gratification to realize that unless you are working for God, you will have no satisfaction no matter what you do.  You cannot live without Jesus.  You can only exist.  Remember this as you are trying to find ways to be happy.  There is only one way to be happy and that is through Jesus Christ.  Take it from a man who has been on both sides.  Jesus is the only way and He wants you to be with Him all the way.  Praise the Lord for His wonderful plan.  And thank you, Jesus, for first loving us.  Let’s pray.