A story to start…
A man went to his pastor and said, ‘Before I can truly trust God I need to know who He is and who I am. I need a revelation from God.’ The pastor wasn’t sure what to suggest. Eventually he said, ‘Go and stand in the rain, lift your face to heaven and ask God to reveal himself to you.’

The man went outside, his face lifted up to the rain and waited.  After an hour, he went back to the pastor, wet and bedraggled. ‘Well? Did you have a revelation from God?’

‘No. I stood in the rain, letting the water drip down my neck, and got wetter and wetter. I didn’t hear from God. I just stood there feeling very ignorant and very stupid.

And the pastor replied, ‘What more of a revelation did you want?’

Worship
Whether you know this song or not, these words by Craig Musseau are a simple way of worshipping God.

Here I am once again.
I pour out my heart for I know that You hear every cry.
You are listening
No matter what state my heart is in,
You are faithful to answer,
With words that are true
And a hope that is real.
As I feel Your touch,
You bring a freedom to all that’s within.
In the safety of this place I’m longing to . . .

Pour out my heart, to say that I love You
Pour out my heart, to say that I need You
Pour out my heart, to say that I’m thankful
Pour out my heart, To say that You’re wonderful.

Sermon on the Mat: Broken Cisterns
‘My people have committed two sins:
They have forsaken me, the spring of living water,
and have dug their own cisterns,
broken cisterns that cannot hold water.’ Jeremiah 2:13

I think this verse is one of the best summaries of the human condition and our relationship with God. We all need water and in the picture Jeremiah draws, God is offering a spring of clear, cool water, constantly replenished. But the people turn their back on that spring, and instead seek to supply their own water, digging wells that run dry.

Why? Why do we turn from what God offers and seek our own, poor substitutes? The answer is the words, ‘our own’. We want to do it ourselves. We want to be in control. We’d rather sweat and toil over our own, pathetic cistern, because ‘at least it’s ours’. As the theologian Daniel Hawk puts it, ‘everyone believes there is a god, and they are it.’ Or at least, we want that to be true.

It’s not just with God. How many of us find it easier to offer help, than accept help ourselves? We don’t want to admit we have needs, we can’t cope, we need other people. Admitting weakness makes us vulnerable. Yet God created us to live in community. ‘It is not good for man to be alone,’ he said in Genesis 2:18. We are not meant to be all-sufficient. Only God is all-sufficient.

God has everything we need, the best of all that we need. We just have to ask. Sometimes I think the biggest barrier between us and God is that his gifts of love and life are free. To receive from him, all we have to do is admit we need him. To make ourselves vulnerable enough to open our hands and our hearts and accept what he freely gives.

Often we’d prefer it if we could dig our way to everlasting freedom.
But we can’t. It only comes as a gift from God.

We have to step back from the distractions of our day-to-day lives, and ask God to provide what we need. But there’s a problem there: most of us are fairly competent most of the time. To use Jeremiah’s imagery, our lives might be cracked cisterns, but they’re not completely broken, they do have some water in them. Most of the time we can get by. There may even be times when we thrive. So we struggle on, forgetting that it needn’t be this way. That it could be so much better.

Jesus said, ‘I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.’ (John 10:10)

Jesus doesn’t just offer water from a different cup, but a different type of water: incomparable, completely transforming, life-giving. Not ‘water to get by on’ but water that enables us to truly live.

What are you struggling with at the minute? Where are you just about managing in your own strength? You need to stop digging, open your hands and ask God. He is waiting to load you up with more gifts than you can ever imagine: love and strength and purpose and forgiveness and mercy… As the words of the so-called ‘children’s’ song puts it:

I don’t just get a dollop or a splodge
Or a tiny little drop of God’s love, God’s love
How cool that I get it all, like a mighty waterfall
Splashing all over me

I don’t get less if I make a mess
I never get less than his very, very best
His love for me is totally free
And nothing I can be or do will earn it. (Doug Horley)

Can you stop now, close your eyes and open your heart to receive an outpouring of love from God?

Prayer
Father I’m sorry when I forget all you have done for me and all you want to give me, and just struggle on by myself. Please help me to ask for help and to rely on you more and more each day. Amen.

Please pray for –
– Wisdom for those deciding how to ease lockdown restrictions
– Those still shielding, children still off school and people furloughed or laid off work, that they will find purpose in each day and respite from their loneliness
– That people of all backgrounds and races will feel truly valued and accepted.