229 ~ IT IS WELL WITH MY SOUL ~ Part 1

Hi and welcome to the Via Zion Sermon podcast.

We are a local church based here in Chennai, India.

We are so glad you are with us and hope that this will

encourage, inspire and instill fresh faith in you.

We have a fresh word for you today called It is Well with My

Soul. We look together at God's Word

and hope to discover the joy that comes from enjoying God's

presence more than attempting to serve Him or ask Him for things

that he already knows we need. As you listen in, will you check

the condition of your soul and ask God to help you live with a

fresh understanding of who He is?

Hi Church, what a joy it is to bring God's word to you today.

We have been looking at the book of Romans and then Gesham shared

with us about prophet Elisha and Naman and today we're going to

be looking at A2 part series. We're looking at part one of it

and I have titled it it is well with my soul.

You'll see why in a bit. But two weeks back when I was

doing my quiet time, this particular verse from Isaiah

just jumped off the page at me and it just left me riveted.

It left me with more questions. It didn't really minister to me,

but it left me with a lot of questions.

And I want to share that verse with you and then explain to you

why I was so puzzled. It says Isaiah 12 verse three

says. With joy you will draw water

from the. Wells of salvation.

Now I know that the prophets had these different images that they

used to explain certain biblical principles, but this is the

first time I was reading of salvation being likened to a

well from the wells of salvation.

And interestingly, it says with joy you will draw water.

And this, this was a season, this has been a season where

there's been a lot of hard work that we had to put in on

different things. A lot of striving and joy

wouldn't be one of the predominant emotions of the

season. Excitement maybe, exhaustion,

yes, but joy, maybe not. And when you look at the whole

the verbiage that is used, it says with joy you will draw

water. And if anyone of you have seen a

well, if you've seen a well in a village, you've seen a.

If you have a well in your house, you know that a well to

take water out of it requires a lot of effort and.

The the the adjective used to describe that would not be joy.

It's a lot of, you know, back breaking, exhaustive work.

And so this verse just didn't leave me.

It kept, you know, hounding me. And I decided, OK, let me get

into it. Let me find out what this

actually means. What is God?

Telling me from this passage, and so here's what what I

deduced over the period of two weeks, and this is what I want

to share with you. And I believe God has a word for

each of us that love him. God is calling us into a place

of drawing water from the wells of salvation with joy.

Now, here's the thing about salvation.

Salvation is a free gift. We looked at that in Romans.

We did nothing to deserve it. It's purely the grace of God

because of which we had salvation offered to us.

And we just respond to it. And it's amazing because the

minute we respond to it, you know, with repentance, He

forgives us. We are called, you know, into

the we're called righteous. We're made, you know, it's

imputed. Righteousness is given to us.

We are counted and credited to be, you know, a child of God.

We are now one in the family. And it's amazing.

This whole concept is so beautiful, feels so simple.

But you know the hard part of that.

The hard part is living out that righteousness, living out that

salvation. Every day, working out our own

salvation is what is hard because every single day of our

lives until we reach eternity, we have battles, we have

obstacles, we have setbacks, we have our glory moments, we have

our terribly hard moments. And in between all of the stuff

that follows, being human is so dramatic that joy sometimes

seems to elude us. And I believe that's where God

is calling us. He's asking us, rather than to

strive and struggle to make it through this Christian life,

He's calling us to a place of joy.

For too long we emphasize on on what not to do, that we've

forgotten what we must do. I'm reminded of how Adam and

Eve, when they were created and before sin crept in, they had

this undisturbed walk with God. He would walk with them in the

cool of the day, in the garden. And primarily God had created

them for relationship. God had created them to enjoy

His company. And today I want to leave that

with you, that God is calling us into a place of enjoying His

presence. The wells of salvation are given

to us in Jesus, but the call on us is to enjoy God's presence.

That joy comes from a place of being with him, of resting in

Him, of communing with Him. And so I want to just go a

little deeper to understand what these wells look like.

What are the struggles that we face?

How do we practically draw from these wells?

That's what we're going to be looking at today.

And we're going to be looking specifically at the story of

Isaac. Now, we look at Abraham a lot.

Abraham, the man of faith, he was the patriarch, you know, the

father of all nations and all of that.

We know this about him. Now, one thing that we didn't

emphasize on when we look at Abraham was Abraham dug a well

in in the land of Beersheba and the promised land.

He and his servants found a, they dug for water, found a well

and they made a oath around it with the king of the land

saying, you know, we dug this well.

Fast forward about 70 years later, Isaac, his son is in the

very same land. He is in a place called Gerar.

And the interesting thing about Isaac's life is it's marked by

him digging wells at different points along his journey.

When we look at Jacob, Jacob had this habit of building altars.

Isaac only, it only mentions Isaac building 1 altar, but it

mentions him building many wells, digging many wells.

And so today we're going to be looking at what this actually

indicates to us in today's time and the time that we live in.

If you know anything about how a well is dug, a well is

basically, now we have these bowel drillers.

You know the guys who come, they have a drilling machine and they

dig down deep. And at a certain point when

they're digging, water rushes in and they know they've hit the

aquifer, the aqueduct, the underground source of water.

But in the olden times, they would actually dig manually

through the ground in the desert, in the Negev Desert.

They would dig and go deep until they reach the water source.

And once they reach the water source, there was no need of a

pump or anything to draw it up. Just by virtue of pressure and

the way it was angled, water would rush into the cistern,

water would rush into the well. And today the same goes for

wells which are being dug everywhere.

You see a garden, you find an old well that maybe was dug

50-60 years back. These are both rain fed, but

mostly fed by underground springs.

And the interesting thing about a well is if you if you watch

these guys who come to dig a bow well, they won't stop at the 1st

place that they hit water. They usually go deeper than

that. The reason being, sometimes you

can hit a shallow point of water entering, but that won't be a

permanent source. You need to go deeper into the

bedrock of that place to find a deeper source of water so that

the water is more perennial than the other one.

And I want to ask you today, have you been in this place, in

your Christian walk, in this walk with Jesus, where you have

been content with the shallow with him?

I know Psalm 23 by heart. I know Psalm 91, I'm good.

I know what to do. I know about the blood of Jesus.

I know about the Spirit of God. I think I'm sorted.

I know all the big words. But God is saying, like the

psalmist says, deep cries out too deep.

Our God is a deep God. He goes deep with us and he's

longing for us to go deep with him.

We cannot be content with the shallow life anymore.

Too many of us are living hand to mouth, hand to forehead,

heads bowed, fists clenched because we are not willing to go

deeper with God. We are so stressed.

We are striving. We are so exhausted.

We have lost hope purely because, purely because we have

not gone deeper to the source. I want to encourage you with

this. You cannot stay content with

what you receive in a church service for two hours on a

Sunday. That's not enough.

You cannot go. Deeper by saying just read the

verse of the day. You cannot grow deeper just by a

nice discussion with Christian friends.

You need to go deeper with yourself, with your Creator.

God is calling you to draw deeply from the wells of

salvation. It is the.

Endless presence of God. I love that when you read about

Moses and Abraham, there was a continual communication with

God. It never ended it it, it didn't

end even at the time of death because they just crossed over

into eternity and we're with him forever.

And I wonder if we want to live that those kind of victorious

lives, lives of impact that we need to go that deep to actually

live with that kind of purpose and impact.

In ancient times, a well was so, so pivotal to their very

existence, very pivotal to their sustenance because you have to

understand it's a desert land where Abraham was settled, where

Isaac settled. These were desert lands, barren.

And in the midst of that, they made the effort back breaking

work of digging, digging, digging until they found water.

It was a persistent effort that they put in, and the water that

was brought out served to fuel entire communities, entire

households, entire livestock and herds of these families.

It was so important. Without the well, without the

water that came from it, the entire community would perish.

And so these wells were life saving.

These wells were central to their sustenance.

And so today, as we look at Genesis 26, I want you to keep

your Bible open at Genesis 26. It's a story of Isaac's

prosperity against all odds. It's the common theme of his

story is that his people dug wells as they moved.

From place to place. And we're going to look at that

a little deeper to understand how we on this journey of life

can also dig wells right where we are at.

OK, so we're going to be reading Genesis chapter 26.

Genesis 26 · chapter mention

I'm first going to read from verses one to six.

It says now there was a famine in the land besides the previous

famine in Abraham's time. And Isaac went to Abimelech,

king of the Philistines, in Jeddah.

The Lord appeared to Isaac and said, do not go down to Egypt.

Live in the land where I tell you to live.

Stay in this land for a while, and I will be with you and will

bless you. For to you and your descendants

I will give all these lands, and will confirm the oath I swore to

your father Abraham. I will make your descendants as

numerous as the stars in the sky, and I will give them all

these lands. Through your offspring.

All nations on earth will be blessed because Abraham obeyed

me and did everything I required of him, keeping my commands, my

decrees, and my instructions. So Isaac stayed in Jarrah.

We're going to just pause there. If you notice, there's some very

important things. There's a famine in Isaac's

time. There was a famine in Abraham's

time. It's the same problem, but

different generations. OK, New family, though.

Isaac, Rebecca and their twin boys.

Same promise. The promise that was given to

Abraham follows Isaac. He says you're going to be a

blessing, and you're going to be a blessing to many others.

I'm going to bless you. But there's an old problem which

has come back. It's the famine.

But there's a new solution this time.

The last time there was a famine in the land, Abraham and Sarah

moved to Egypt. This time God says don't move to

Egypt, stay in Gerard and Isaac. Stayed, it says.

Now in between this, just after this for a few verses, we see a

mistake that is repeated across generations.

Abraham and Sarah lied to the Pharaoh, lied to Kim King

Abimelech about Sarah being his sister.

And they get caught. But then, you know, God is so

graceful, God is so gracious that he just, you know, says

it's fine. I'm going to, you know, look

after them. I'll protect you guys as well.

Coming down to the next generation, Isaac tells

Abimelech the same thing. He says she's my sister.

And they leave her alone again. He has to come face to face with

ABI Malik and say, yeah, sorry, I had to say that because my

wife is very beautiful. You see how some things repeat

across generations when we're not careful.

But the interesting thing about Isaac was he was obedient to

God. When God said stay, he stayed.

I want to ask you this before we move on.

Have you moved? When God asked you to stay?

Did God ask you to stay in that marriage?

Did God ask you to stay in that job?

He said, wait, I've got a moment when you need to move, but did

you move prematurely? An important part of seeing the

prosperity that comes from God's hands is that we need to stay

when He asks us to stay and move when He asks us to move.

Continuing from verse 12, Isaac planted crops in that land and

the same year reaped a hundredfold because the Lord

blessed him. The man became rich, and his

wealth continued to grow until he became very wealthy.

He had so many flocks and herds and servants that the

Philistines envied him. So all the wells that his

father's servants had dug in the time of his father Abraham, the

Philistines stopped up, filling them up with earth.

Then Abhimalyk said to Isaac, Move away from us.

You have become too. Powerful for us.

So Isaac moved away from there and encamped in the valley of

Girar, where he settled. Isaac reopened the wells that

had been dug in the time of his father Abraham, which the

Philistines had stopped up after Abraham died, and he gave them

the same names his father had given them.

So look at this interesting thing.

Something supernatural is happening in Isaac's life.

He is having an increase during the time of famine.

Famine. Nothing grows.

There's no rain, there's no crop growth.

Livestock are languishing. Nothing much is happening.

It's a very still environment. But here it says Isaac planted

crops and in the same year he reaped a hundredfold.

That is nothing short of supernatural.

That is not natural. That is not something that

happens. You ask a farmer, That's not

something that happens. And so it says because the Lord

blessed him. It was not the ingenuity of

Isaac, it was not his good luck. It was because God blessed him.

And it says he became rich and his wealth kept increasing.

And it says that his wealth induced the jealousy and the

insecurity of the Philistines. Now, here, you have to

understand, here there's a plot twist.

Isaac is the wealthy Chieftain. He is flourishing in the middle

of a desert. He's flourishing in the inner

valley. He is flourishing when the rest

of the land languishes. The edge that he had was a

supernatural favour of God. It was not him.

It was not because he was so special.

He was special. He was the son of of Abraham.

But there was something else that was on him that gave him

this kind of favour. And you have to understand that

when we experience that level of favour, there's bound to be

opposition. There's bound to be those who

come and try to block your blessing.

There were those wells that were dug in the time of his father,

which he was probably using for his cultivation at that point.

And these guys come and block it all up.

They throw dirt, they throw carcasses in, they throw old

things in just to block the supply of water.

But the interesting thing is it says that.

He moved away when he. Experienced the opposition when

they come in his face and say we're done, get out of here, he

doesn't stay and. Fight, he knew.

That his time had come to move. He moves and he.

Reopens the wells that were dug before that had been closed up.

You have to understand that he had a grit and a determination.

He could have just languished and gone.

Oh God, my lot in life is so hard.

I've had these kids with so much difficulty and this wealth.

I don't know what to do with it now.

I've had this opposition. He could have just sat back.

But there's something about Isaac that made him go get the

promise that God had kept for him.

He didn't languish. He didn't relax.

He kept his hand to the plow. He kept working.

You need to understand that a lot of time when you times when

you see people around you who God is blessing, yes they had a

part to play in it. But the supernatural favour of

God can't be explained. And if you want to experience

this, you need to walk in obedience to God.

When he says move, you move. When he says stop, you stop.

When he asks you to plant, you plant.

When he asks you to reap, you reap.

A lot of us want the shortcut. We want the harvest without the

sowing and God is saying I need you to do your part.

I work along with you, or rather you work along with me.

If I'm not working, how's He going to give me the blessing?

There are parts of this that I need to step in.

Dirty my hands, dirty my feet. I need to work with God.

I need to be obedient. Don't be jealous of those who

are blessed. They are doing something that

has got God's attention. They have been obedient in the

hidden places that has elevated them publicly.

Don't be jealous. Don't waste your time being

jealous of them. They are.

They are backed by the supernatural favour of God.

Instead, look at your own life, God.

Why am I lacking this? I want this favour for myself

and I'm sure God will show you areas in your life where

obedience needs to come to the forefront.

And it's so important to remember that just because

you're in a desert experience, you're in a wilderness, you're

in a barren place, it doesn't mean God can't bless you.

God will bless you in that place.

That is the power of our God. He is able to make you thrive

hundredfold in the land of Baroness too, because that is

God. He loves to work in those odds.

I also want to encourage you that maybe you're in a season

where nothing is working. And you've just thrown your

hands up in defeat. You're like, I can't do this

anymore. But maybe God is calling you

back to some spiritual disciplines that you ditched a

long time back. You, you prayed and fasted in

the past. You've given it up for 20 years.

God is saying now is the time I need you to start praying again.

Maybe you're someone who meditated on His word.

You drank it up like it was oxygen, but you gave up saying,

you know the word doesn't work. God is calling you back.

He's saying reopen those wells, the wells that you stopped up,

the wells that the enemy stopped up using your disappointment.

I want you to reopen it. What was your family doing that

was good? Maybe your family as a family,

you were generous. Maybe you you gave your tithes

and offerings. Maybe you spent time in the

world. Maybe you had family prayer.

And maybe now you've stopped all that because you feel enough.

It didn't work. I didn't see any returns from

it. I didn't get rewarded for it.

God is calling you back. He's saying open those wells up,

remove the things that have blocked it up.

Come back, build me that family altar.

Bring your children. Together and pray with them.

Maybe God is saying you have not tithed.

You have not given your offerings for years on end.

Test me in this. What is God calling you to

reopen? Which wells has He called you to

reopen? Continuing from verse 19,

Isaac's servants dug in the valley and discovered a well of

fresh water there. But the herders of Gerard

quarrelled with those of Isaac and said the water is ours.

So he named the well Essec because they disputed with him.

Then they dug another well, but they quarrelled over that one

also, so he named it Sitna. He moved on from there and dug

another well and no one quarrelled over it.

He named it Rehabot, saying now the Lord has given us room and

we will flourish in the land from there.

He went up to Beersheba. That night the Lord appeared to

him and said, I am the God of your father, Abraham.

Do not be. Afraid, for I am with you.

I will bless you and will increase the number of your

descendants for the sake of my servant Abraham.

Isaac built an altar there and called on the name of the Lord.

There he pitched his tent and there his servants dug a well.

It's so interesting he he goes to the first part he they

discover a well of fresh water. They're so excited, but it

incurs problem. So he moves on, digs another

well. There's problem there too.

He goes to the third place and there there is peace.

Rehoboth a place that they have room they will flourish.

But then he didn't stay there. He didn't stay at Rehabot.

He moves to be a sheba. A lot of us tend to stay at the

place where we find ourselves. You know, it's roomy, it's

spacious. I have, you know, elbow room.

I enjoy this job. I get to boss over other people

or maybe I get to do my own thing.

I love this. This is where I'm at.

But God has been calling you to be a sheba and you're stuck at

Rehabot because you're way too comfortable and I'm speaking to

you. If you're that person, you have

been saying, God, don't call me to do more.

I'm satisfied here. I'm happy here.

This this you know. This net that I'm getting from

this company, this net income is good.

I'm sorted, I'm able to clear all my bills.

I'm able to have a little bit of extra.

God, don't call me to the next place.

Let me settle it. Maybe God has been directing

your attention to using some of those, you know, those passion

projects that you've been on your heart and he's saying move

in that direction. But you're saying, I don't want

beer, Shiba, I want rehabot. I'm good here.

But I love that Isaac didn't stay at the place where he was

content and at peace. He kept looking forward.

Beersheba was where his father had made a covenant with the

king of the Philistines, and so there was already a well there.

And yet he goes there, and his servants again.

Dig and find another. Well, now we're not sure whether

they'd read up the same well that his father did.

It was a separate one. But again, there's that, that

consistent effort. And when I say effort, a lot of

times we think as Christians we don't have to put an effort.

It's all done for us. Everything is free salvation,

grace. But here's the thing, you know,

when we work out our our salvation, Paul talks about

working it out with fear and trembling.

It's not really about striving. It's really about being willing

to do what God asked me. There are seasons when God will

say stay and rest, I need you to rest up.

But there are seasons when God will say, get up, go meet that

person, get up, minister here, do this, write that, post that.

And we have to be so ready to be obedient.

So rather than striving, it's a call to obedience.

It's a call to be available to what God wants us to do.

And it's so beautiful. It says he went to Beersheba.

He builds an altar. It's his first altar.

He builds an altar. He calls on the name of the Lord

eternal, and he pitched his tent and his servants.

Dug a well, I love that. Isaac didn't live in the glory

of past Wells. Doug, it's so easy for us to

say, oh, you know what? This is my resume.

This is what I've accomplished. This is what I've done.

If you talk. To a lot of people, they say,

you know, this is what I did, you know, back in the day, 10

years back, 15 years back. We have our, you know, fancy

resumes. We've got it all formatted well.

But God is asking in the present, what are you doing in

the present? Where can you testify to my

presence in your life? What have I been commanding you

to do in this season? And how have you been

responding? Isaac didn't live in the glory

of the past. He could have lived as the son

of Abraham, the mighty Chieftain, The one who.

Who was so? Prosperous.

He could have just lived and relaxed on his laurels or on his

father's laurels, but instead he got up and he went forward.

As God led him, he kept moving. And so I want to encourage you

this today, seasons will change, life will happen, people will

enter, people will leave. We have our highs, we have our

lows, ups and downs, joys and sorrows.

The the requirement of us is that we keep moving in the

direction God is leading. That we don't just fall back,

sit at a place of disappointment or sorrow and say the world has

ended, but we rise up and we keep moving in the direction

that the Spirit of God is leading us in.

So let me shift this analogy. We looked at Isaac.

We looked at all these wells that he dug along the way, the

effort he took. But as we look at our lives, I

believe that the wells are deep places where we as individuals

have sought sustenance from. The wells in my life are the

places and the people and the things that I have leaned on to

give me satisfaction, to bring me contentment, to bring me

happiness. Note that I see happiness.

I don't say joy because it was not long lived.

There have been days when we're so disappointed with some

element of ministry that I've just sat and and watched a

Netflix show. I have just sat and read a book

cover to cover because I just didn't want to read the Word of

God. There have been days when I've

gone and worked out or run outside just to get my mind of

the things that I need to be dealing with.

There have been the wells that I have dug which didn't bring me

any satisfaction at the moment. Yes, it did help me, but long

run nothing. And I.

Believe God is directing our attention to our own lives to

see where we have hewn those wells.

Where did I dig those wells? Who was I leaning on for that

contentment, for that sustenance?

What was I looking for that I thought would fulfil my need

when in reality it didn't? I want us to open Jeremiah

Jeremiah 2:13

chapter 2 verse 13 for my people have done 2 evil things.

They have abandoned me, the fountain of living water, and

they have dug for themselves craps to cisterns that hold no

water at all. This is our problem.

This is our problem. When I told you in the

beginning, when I read that was with joy they will draw from the

wells of salvation. I was thinking God.

Joy is the last emotion I would say I'm feeling right now and

when I when I talk to friends, when I talk to others, you know,

from. Church, neighbours, all of us

are having this joyless, joyless existence.

They're a small minority who are so joyful and I love them, but

majority of us are literally trudging through our daily

lives, balancing homework, family, so many things.

And joy is not the common strain.

And I realized that that is because we have this problem.

If you have to diagnose our disease, it is this.

We have done 2 evil things. We have abandoned the fountain

of living water. We have dug cisterns for

ourselves which don't hold water.

They're cracked and broken. And so I want to come back to

this place today. I want us to look at our own

lives and see where we have abandoned the fountain of living

water. Jesus is the fountain of living

water. It's very simple.

When I look for intimacy outside of Jesus, it's incomplete.

When I look for satisfaction outside of Jesus, I find that

it's no satisfaction. When I'm looking for happiness

outside of the pursuit of my God, I find that it's

incomplete. When I go solo instead of

partnering with him, I find that I lack joy.

When I'm I'm stressing and striving on how to accomplish

stuff on my own, I lose the joy of communion with Jesus.

But when I make just decisions and, you know, choices on my own

without consulting him, I have abandoned the fountain of living

water. When I step into opportunities

that seem very good, very ripe, but I don't ask him.

I don't. Check with him.

I don't bring him into it. I have abandoned the fountain of

living water as a writer, as a creative, when I create things

or attempt to create things without him breathing his life

into me. I've abandoned the fountain of

living water. What has given you sustenance in

the season? I want to ask you, in past

seasons, what has been your sole dependency?

Did you come to the fountain of living water and saying, Jesus,

I need you tell me how to do this.

My job sucks. Help me Lord this relationship.

Is so hard what do I do Parenting is hard, Lord.

Marriage is hard managing my family, my extended family is

difficult what do I do? When I look to him for

everything, I bring him back as the fountain of living water

because. He is like the message version

talks about. He and him being like an

artesian well. An artesian well doesn't use a

mortar. It's dug it such a pivotal way

in such a in such a neat direction that water's always

bubbling out from it. The underground streams are

brought to the surface. And in the same way with Jesus,

I don't have to try so hard to draw from him.

I just need to go to him and say, Jesus, I need you.

Jesus, I need you more than I need Netflix.

Jesus, I need you more than I need sex.

Jesus, I need you more than I need alcohol.

Jesus, I need you more than I need social media.

I need you more than I need my gym trainer.

What is it that you have replaced as your fountain today?

The fountain is many things. Many, many things.

God is calling you back. Maybe your fountain was a toxic

relationship, a friendship that was just drawing you away from

the fountain of living water. Nothing and no one can satisfy

us like Jesus. It's a very simple concept.

There's nothing to it. You can test me on this and see.

Try it. I ask those who have walked out

of relationships that were so harmful for them when they asked

God, Lord help me, I'm in this relationship.

I know it's wrong. I know it's displeasing.

Take away the urge to be with this person.

They they pray that prayer. God answers them in amazing

ways. I have friends who have told me

when they prayed about certain things God came through.

When they invited God into the mess, God came in and changed

it. I'm asking you today, what have

you replaced at the centre of your life?

Have you been struggling with the same sex attraction?

You feel that that is where you get your satisfaction.

God is saying, will you bring that to me?

I will satisfy that need like no other human can.

Have you been struggling with an extramarital affair?

The the temptation to step into that?

God is saying, bring it to me. I will bring you so much

satisfaction, you won't need anything else.

Struggling with an addiction to pornography because you feel,

you know what? I don't get what I need.

But he's saying I am all you. Need.

Will you come back to me? I want to provoke you to think a

little bit today. What if in the coming months and

years this, you know, the touch of Jesus just like a Sunday, you

know, bit of Jesus, bit of his people, but the rest of the week

running on the fountain that you have dug for yourself.

What if those are just temporary stimulants?

It won't get you anywhere. It's not going to satisfy you.

What if God is calling you for something deeper?

And I want to encourage you today that if you try Jesus, if

you bring your. All to him.

He will take you to a place of deep joy.

If you've been someone who's saying like me, you know what?

I'm doing everything I can and fulfilling those targets, but I

still feel joyless. I still feel disconnected.

God is calling you back. I'm not your fountain.

He's saying you need to come to me.

Maybe you feel like you've lost so much in the past year.

You're hungry for a miracle. You're thirsty for a miracle.

He's saying, come to me. God is calling us back to him so

he can fulfill and meet us at the point of our need.

So I want to ask you as we go to the next part, part of this, can

you identify the fountains that you have situated your life

around? You feel your sexuality needs

this fountain. You need your artistic ability

needs this fountain. You need your you think your

physical health needs that fountain.

Who or what has taken a position in your life as the fountain

when you need to bring back the fountain of living water front

and centre of your life? The second thing he says is

Jeremiah talks about the second evil, which is US digging our

own wells that don't hold water. Like I mentioned, all of the

things that we sometimes lean on don't hold water when I fixate

on just. How I how healthy I should be.

I miss out. I miss out on experiencing God

even when my body is not so whole, when I'm so concentrated

on how I look, how filtered and and well put together my

appearance is. I forget that God works in the

midst of my brokenness. I forget that God loves me as I

am, bed hair and all. I forget that when my whole

personality is tuned towards feeding the needs of my inner,

you know, the the my flesh. I miss out on what God brings

for me, you know, in previous seasons.

All of us have worked so hard to dig those wells.

You pursued that relationship which you felt gave you

satisfaction. You pursued that job opportunity

which felt it would increase your, you know, your worth and

your salary and your perks and all of that.

Maybe you pursued a certain opportunity on the side of your

job thinking it'll, you know, help you.

But God is saying today, you don't need to strive so hard

because I am the well. I'm already there.

I'm already in your life. The only effort we need to take

is to drink deep from Him. Can you imagine that?

We don't have to anymore. Go and dig and say, Lord, I

don't know where you are. I'm going to dig a well for you.

No, Jesus, Emmanuel is with us through his Spirit.

He lives in US. I no longer have to be striving

for that life partner. I no longer have to be striving

for control over my situation. I no longer have to be striving

to accumulate money and the other things I never had because

now I can just strive to know God more.

And that's when I come back to enjoying Jesus.

The whole point of what we're looking at today is not for me

to tell you what not to do with your life.

You enjoy Netflix, go ahead and watch Netflix.

You have friendships that you enjoy.

Go for it. But I'm calling you to a place

where you enjoy God more than you enjoy everything else

because every other system we have dug has holes in it.

The the hole that I'm in because of pornography is a huge, it's

not a cistern. That's a gaping pit.

That, that place that I have said where you know what those

things that I I can't do in my marriage, I do it outside.

Again, that's not actually a cistern.

That's not a well, that's a hole in the ground.

It's going to trap you. It's going to drown you.

God is calling me. Into a place where I just rely

on Him and where I begin to enjoy Him as I am for who He is.

And that is what God is asking us to do.

Remember the salvation. God has access You and I have

access to the will of Jesus. The fountain of life is now with

me. The only thing I know, the only

effort I need to make is to draw from him and drink of him.

That's all I have to do. That's the only effort.

Can you believe it? That's the only effort.

But the problem is too many of us are saying I don't have

enough time to, you know, sit with the word prayer.

No, I don't have time for that. That will be your biggest

mistake. All of us, and I have to say

this, it's going to sound a bit harsh.

None of us have an excuse to not sit in the world.

None of us have an excuse to say I don't.

Even the most busy human in the world waste at least one hour on

social media, waste at least 45 minutes on a useless, completely

dead end activity. Why not convert that to time

with Jesus? Why not say God?

I want to just enjoy try this and see from this week on what

if you. Spent at least 15 minutes

enjoying the presence of God just sitting with him.

It could be just a scripture. That you want to read, you want

to think about. It could be sitting and looking

at nature, could be watching the rain on your balcony, It could

be anything. But what if you were to actually

enjoy God for who He is rather than He knows what we need?

Before I ask it, He already knows what I'm going to ask for.

It's good to pray. But what if I first enjoy God?

Then everything I do comes out of that place of enjoyment, so

it changes the way I pray. I'm no longer sitting down to

pray. Because I need to.

Because I have to. It's because I want to.

Prayer does not become this monologue, it becomes this

conversation. Meditation no longer becomes

this drudgery, but it's really just sitting with him and saying

God, you're the Jesus, you're the living word.

Explain this to me. The best example, the best

example of understanding how to draw and drink from Jesus is the

woman at the well, the Samaritan woman at the well.

John Chapter 4 illustrates this beautiful story.

John 4 · chapter mention

And I was just watching the short documentary by a Bible, a

biblical scholar who's an archaeologist.

And he takes her to the takes us to the very point where the

Samaritan woman had come the, the well in Samaria Saika's, you

know, the plotted Saika. And he shows us that well and

you won't believe it. The well is just this big, just

a small square. It was 150 feet deep.

So there is no way for someone to climb in and get the water.

There's just a pulley system, a very primitive one.

You just let down your your bucket.

You have to. It takes a long time for it to

go reach the water. Then you pull it back up, fill

your jugs, and you take it back to your home.

This is the process. And here was Jesus sitting at

that. Well, when this woman comes out

at midday, no one usually fills water at midday because it's too

hot. Most of the village women come

in the mornings, fill it up for the day and go back.

Now she was a woman of ill repute.

She had was living with someone outside of marriage.

She was in a living relationship.

She was there at at a different time so she didn't have to meet

anyone else. She comes there and she sees

Jesus. She doesn't know who Jesus is.

And he asks her, can you give me some water?

And she's she first is shocked because she knows he's a Jew.

She's a Samaritan. They don't interact.

She says, how come you're asking me for water?

We are different. You guys look down on us.

That's what she was saying. And he said, if you knew who was

talking to you would ask me for a drink of water.

And she's confused. And then Jesus goes on to

explain how he gives water that leads to eternal life.

She goes back and forth. I love how she dialogued with

him. She's he says, OK, fine.

You know what? She says I want this eternal

life. How do I get it?

He says, go get your husband. This is coming from God himself.

Who knows what she's up. She says, I don't have a

husband. She says, you're right, you've

had four men who are husbands, and the one that you're with now

is not your husband. And she says, oh, I guess you're

a prophet. And then she quickly pivots to

another question that seems to be topmost on her mind.

She asked him of worship. She says, you guys say that you

should worship in Jerusalem, but we worship up on this mountain.

What do you think? And he tells her, you know what,

location doesn't matter. God is spirit.

He wants worshippers who come to Him in spirit and in truth.

And it's so beautiful because she doesn't leave it there.

She says, you know what, the Messiah is coming and he's going

to explain all this. But she felt I can't understand

this, but it's beautiful because he says I am he.

And she takes him at his word. She takes him at his word.

She goes back, she brings an entire village to Jesus.

They all are saved. But here's what I love about

this moment because I've been breaking my head, been asking,

God, Lord, how do I enjoy you more?

And this is the key. The key is to come to Him

whatever time. I don't know what time you're

free at. It could be midday, it could be

the afternoon, it could be early morning, it could be the night.

He waits for you, He waits for you.

Will you go and sit with him? Will you dialogue with Him?

Too many of us have so many questions about faith, about

God, about eternity, about suffering.

We're asking the wrong questions to the wrong people.

We're asking the right questions to the wrong people.

If we post our questions on social media for some person who

has no clue what they're talking to reply to it.

We take polls instead of going to the one who has the answers.

He is the way, He is the truth. He is the life.

He has all the answers. Why are we turning to other

sources when I can go to the source himself and say Jesus I'm

struggling with this. Too many of us are misusing our

WhatsApp status is to ask questions to pass our opinions

when we need to go sit with the one who has all the answers.

I need to quieten myself down and sit with him, dialogue with

him, head butt with him. He can.

Handle it. I've always said this.

He can handle my wrestling. You want to deconstruct, go to

the one that you're going to deconstruct.

Go to him. Have you been facing obstacles

at work? Have you been having obstacles

in your health? Go to him.

Have you been having unprecedented success?

Stay with him. Have you been having a a

difficulty in finding stability? Go back to him.

What is it that you have been overlooking?

Maybe you've said prayer is no longer something I want to do.

Maybe meditation on God's word. It's too boring.

I I have better things to do. God is calling you back.

He's saying that's where the dialogue begins.

Will you come to the well? Will you go to the source?

Will you sit with him? God, I'm struggling in this

marriage. That should be your cry.

Not talking to others who will encourage you to walk out of

that marriage. Not going to others who have an

axe to grind, but instead going to him who put you together and

saying, Lord, what do I do? Tell me what to do.

Lord, teach me how to speak. Lord, my child is so wayward, I

don't know what to do. Help me come to the well.

Enjoy him. Too many of us want to serve him

without enjoying him. Too many of us want to know more

about him, but we're not enjoying him.

He's calling us. Back to an Eden kind of setting,

right where we are at. You could be in a hospital right

now. You could be at a police station

right now, getting someone out, making sure that your case goes

away. I don't know where you're at,

but wherever you're at, you can have the communion that was

meant for us in the Garden of Eden if you would choose to draw

with joy from the wells of salvation, Jesus himself.

And I'm not telling you this as if I figured it out.

I'm far from figured it out. As I've been reading this, I

realized that's where my joy was missing.

God, I'm running to do the things you've called me to do.

I I'm living all these responsibilities.

I have work that I have to finish, but in all of that, like

Mary will, I choose the better thing, which is to just sit at

your feet, to just enjoy you because you are worth enjoying.

Everything I do enjoy in this world is from you.

And I believe that when I come to this place of enjoying God, I

will move from just existing, just surviving, to a place of

flourishing. That's the difference between a

well that I dig and the fountain of living water.

The well that I dig is just for my bare existence.

It's just for me to get through. But when I come to Jesus, he

makes me flourish. He makes me thrive even in the

land of my affliction. Will I choose to draw and drink

deeply? Maybe.

You know in your heart that you need to get back to the Word of

God. You know that you need to get

back to prayer. You know that you need to get

back to hearing from God, but you've been putting it off

saying, you know what, God, I have so many other things that I

need to do. Those are more important.

God is saying, will you reopen those old wells?

I'll meet you at the well. So even as I close, I'm just

going to pray a very simple prayer.

I'm going to pray that all of us will enjoy God because He's

worth enjoying. He's worth experiencing.

Have you been waiting for His miracle power?

It will come. Have you been waiting for

provision? It will come.

But primarily, we were created to enjoy Him.

He enjoys us, He loves us, He waits for us, but do we wait for

Him? Those of us who are in very long

waits, the wait will become better when we start to enjoy

God. So as I pray, can you make that

your prayer? Father, I just thank you for

creating each of us in your image, and I thank you that Lord

eternity is lodged into our hearts, that we have this

desperate yearning for eternity. And I just pray for each of us,

no matter where we have looked for the fountain of water, we

have looked at all temporary sources.

Father, if we have looked to people, if we have looked to

things, if we have looked to money, if we have looked to

connections, whatever it is, God, we are sorry and we want to

come back today to the fountain of living water, the water that

never runs dry, that fills us up to overflowing.

We come back to you today. Fill us up got fill us up to

overflowing, strengthen us from within.

We want to enjoy you. We want to enjoy your presence.

We want to see your face. We want to feel your breath in

our lungs. We want to experience the the

joy that comes from knowing more of you.

If I'm sitting in your embrace, I pray that each of us, no

matter what our location, that we will.

Worship you out of a place of enjoying your presence, that

Lord, we will love you and serve you from a place of enjoying

you. God, forgive me for striving.

Forgive me for running ahead of you.

Help me to enjoy you. That's all I want.

And I pray that for every brother and sister who's

listening in right now that they would enjoy your presence in

Jesus mighty and matchless name, I pray Amen, Amen.

Have an amazing week. May you enjoy the presence of

God like never before. Thanks for listening to this

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