Rev. Ian Sanderson
(Australian Uniting Church)
Snowmass Chapel
Sunday, September 28, 2014
SERMON SUMMARY
“IS GOD HERE WITH US OR NOT?”
Exodus 17:7
What God did for the Israelites 33 centuries ago or what God did for a woman in Samaria 21 centuries ago is only of academic interest unless they relate to what God is doing today.
The Moses story relates how God called and used a man uniquely qualified to do a job. An early Christian evangelist describes Moses as having been “instructed in all the wisdom of the Egyptians” as he grew up the adopted son of an Egyptian princess. Later Moses had to acquire other skills and embark on a new career as a shepherd - desert survival skills. All he learnt God used in providing for his people as they fled from captivity and journeyed in the Sinai Desert – a most HUMAN-UNFRIENDLY ENVIRONMENT.
The Sanderson have just spent some weeks in a similarly “Human-
Unfriendly Environment,” on an expedition ship threading its way through ice choked sea passages between the islands north of Mainland Canada. The European seafarers who first explored these regions and survived, were invariably those who learnt survival skills from the region’s indigenous folk, as Moses had done and put to good use during the Exodus.
There are three notable themes to the incident read about today.
THE PROVIDENCE OF GOD IN PROVIDING FOR HIS PEOPLE,
THE PEOPLE’S RESPONSE - QUICKLY FORGOT HOW THEY HAVE BEEN PROVIDED FOR IN THE RECENT PAST - AND
PUTTING GOD TO THE TEST.
My reading scripture suggests God does not like being put to the test. We need to guard against I, silencing those inner voices which question “ IF YOU REALLY ARE IN MY LIFE, PLEASE PROVE IT BY HEALING MY TERMINALLY ILL RELATIVE. HELP ME SUCCEED IN MY BUSINESS EVEN THOUGH I HAVE MADE UNWISE DESCISIONS. HELP ME OR MINE PASS EXAMINATIONS WITHOUT DOING THE NECESSARY STUDY. HELP ME DO THE IMPOSSIBLE.”
Remember when Jesus was tempted to be a miracle messiah, he replied to the voice of expediency with a verse of scripture “YOU SHALL NOT TEMPT THE LORD YOUR GOD.” I knew a Christian businessman who tested God. He couldn’t pay his bills and told a creditor “God told me to build a big house so I could operate my business from it”. Obviously he had overreached himself financially.
Faith does get tested when our life journey takes us into “rocky, barren places”. Good news is that the God who sustained those escapees during their sojourn in the desert and reached out to that woman at the well is alive and well and DOES PROVIDE FOR US - THOUGH SOMETIMES NOT IN THE WAY WE WOULD HOPE FOR.
Another story- THE LADY IN INUKTITUK . Her journey had taken her to a “rocky place”. Like the Samaritan woman 21 centuries earlier, she drank of Jesus’s promised Living Water and it turned her life around.
My own personal journey has taken me into some “rocky places” these 13 months and I thank my God for sustaining me through it. [ personal testimony]. My conclusions are as follows:
God is the holy one who can bring water out of rock, refresh and nourish body and soul. God changed the life of that young woman in Inuktitut by her interaction with Jesus through some Christians who call themselves The Church of the Living Water. This man from Galilee may be a most unlikely source but never the less HE IS!! I commend this Jesus to all who would listen. Know him. Love him. Follow his teaching, be refreshed and challenged by him. Work on your relationship with him, by working on your relationship with your fellows, for he taught that the quality of our relationship with Almighty God totally depends the quality of the relationships we have with our fellow men. Do this and you will refresh and nourish your soul.