God is a God who brings living water from unlikely places during unlikely times. Because God is like this and we are created in his image we are naturally drawn to it.
This is why blockbuster movies are built around the idea of comebacks and underdogs. Rocky unexpectedly beat Apollo Creed when it was just supposed to be an easy fight for the champion. Rudy wasn’t good but everybody is rooting for him by the end of the movie as the coach sends him in. Bugs Bunny survives Yosemite Sam every single time and this cartoon survived for 40 years on reruns. There is something in every one of us that champions an unlikely cause.
2 Corinthians 12:10 That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong. NIV
Your weakness is not what keeps you from purposes of God. Your weakness is what drives you into a greater reliance upon Him.
Ezekiel is called by God in a time of devastation and despair. Babylon had invaded Israel and things were very bad. Chapter 37 tells this amazing story about how God told Ezekiel to speak to a valley of very dry bones and those bones came to life.
In the midst of devastation Ezekiel found the grace, strength and faith to speak life into a valley of death. Ezekiel couldn’t speak life in the valley if he himself had been dry. It was his conversation with God that positioned him to declare life in the face of death.
We are living in a time where the world around us is full of fear. A world full of fear needs a church full of faith.
In order to speak life into dry valleys full of discouragement we must experience the living water that comes from God. This living water available not only refreshes you, but becomes in you a fountain of living water springing up out of you into the world around you.
John 4:6-14 …Jesus, wearied as he was from his journey, was sitting beside the well. It was about the sixth hour. 7 A woman from Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, "Give me a drink."…9 The Samaritan woman said to him, "How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?" (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.) 10 Jesus answered her, "If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, 'Give me a drink,' you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water." 11 The woman said to him, "Sir, you have nothing to draw water with, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water?...13 Jesus said to her, "Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, 14 but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life." ESV
Samaritans were descendants of Abraham who had intermarried with Gentiles. Jews despised them calling them calling them "half-breeds and "dogs” referencing their history of compromise and shame.
Jesus sees more in you than other people can see. God’s purposes for you are more powerful than other people’s opinions of you. This Samaritan woman from both a legacy of disqualification and had a history of disqualification. In God’s divine plan this was first person Jesus ever told He was the Messiah and she became the first evangelist ever recorded.
This woman’s unhealthy disposition to talk to men actually was used by God. The very thing the enemy had used against her now became a tool in the hand of God to evangelize city. She wasn’t uncomfortable talking to men, women or children and went telling the Messiah had come.
Today Jesus having a conversation and some would ask how is it that you are having this conversation with someone like me.
We Bring GP2RL Action Point:
Rehearse 2 Corinthians 12:9-10 every day this week, thanking God for a deeper reliance upon His grace.
OUTRAGEOUS GRACE: LIVING WATER FROM UNLIKELY PLACES
Discussion Guide for Community Leaders
Click here for a downloadable pdf file of this guide.
UNDERSTANDING THE SEASON: We are growing in the understanding that our weakness is not what keeps us from the purposes of God. Our weakness is what drives us into deeper reliance upon Him.
2 Corinthians 12:9-10 But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore, I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. 10 That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong. NIV
We want to start our group meetings making room for conversation that brings confirmation that God is speaking to us all as we discuss what we are hearing from the Lord as a family:
DISCUSSION QUESTION:
1. Where are you reading in your Bible and what are you sensing from God?
God told Ezekiel to speak to a valley of very dry bones and those bones came to life. Ezekiel couldn’t speak life in that valley if he was dry.
DISCUSSION QUESTION:
2. It is common for people to feel spiritually dry at times. How do you respond when you feel this way?
It is amazing how God uses everything in our lives, even feeling empty or weak, to take us deeper when we bring this to Him. This is the case with our past as well.
John 4:6-14 …Jesus, wearied as he was from his journey, was sitting beside the well. It was about the sixth hour. 7 A woman from Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” 8 (For his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.) 9 The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?” (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.) 10 Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” 11 The woman said to him, “Sir, you have nothing to draw water with, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? 12 Are you greater than our father Jacob? He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock.” 13 Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, 14 but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” ESV
Samaritans were descendants of Abraham through Joseph who had intermarried with Gentiles. Samaritans were hated by the “true Jews” because of their history of compromise and shame.
DISCUSSION QUESTION:
3. Everyone has reasons why they can’t be used by God. How does the Samaritan woman speak to you about getting past your past?
We Bring GP2RL Action Point:
Share today’s message online so others know you aren’t perfect but Jesus is. #DestinyOKC