Pastor Sherry’s message for March 8, 2026

Scriptures: Ex 17:1-7; Ps 95; Ro 5:1-11; Jn 4:5-42

There is an anonymous story told of an Ohio State University student who was academically competent but tended to need time to complete assignments (he was smart but not speedy). He was troubled by a Calculus class he needed to pass—and wasn’t—taught by an annoying professor. The guy seemed to delight in frustrating his already discouraged students (You know the type. They seem to dislike students and should never be allowed to have authority over them.) During exams, he would walk around, watching them like a hawk, hoping to discover someone cheating; and he would frequently announce the amount of time left just to interrupt their trains of thought and to agitate everyone. In a class of 1,000 students, the slow-but-steady young man was the only one not to turn in his exam when time was called. The prof waited impatiently and then, an hour later, when the young man finally finished his test, the prof asked him what he thought he was doing. The young man answered, “Turning in my exam.” The prof replied, “Your exam is an hour late. Congratulations! You’ve failed it. So, I will see you next term when you repeat my class.” 

The student smiled and asked, “Do you know my name?” The professor replied gruffly, “What?” The student rephrased his question, “Do you know what my name is?” With irritation, the prof replied, “There are 1,000 students in this class. What makes you think I would know your name?” The student then smiled, and, lifting up a tall stack of test booklets, placed his completed test in the middle of the pile and casually exited the huge lecture hall.

Life sometimes presents us with tests–and authority figures– like that one. We may think our prospects are slim and we don’t have much of a chance at succeeding. The truth is that if we have a relationship with the Lord, we can make it through about any trial that might come. Let’s see what light our passages today have to shed on this issue: 

A. Our OT lesson comes from Exodus 17:1-7. The context is that God is leading His people from the Wilderness of Sin—and doesn’t sin truly place us in a wilderness?–to a placed called Rephidim. The Children of Israel have already experienced God’s miraculous deliverance of them from Pharaoh’s Chariots at the parting of the Red Sea. Three days into the desert, they come across a pond of bad water which the lord empowers Moses to turn good. He then leads them to an oasis with 12 delicious fresh water springs, so they can load up their water skins. By the 15th day out of Egypt, they have run out of food (except for their herds), but God supernaturally supplies them with manna. Now they find themselves at Rephidim where there is no water.

Having apparently learned little about trusting in the Lord for His provision, they fail to pray and ask for His assistance. Instead, they turn on Moses. It’s a test which they flunk. God has provided for them already, at least 3-4 times! Psychology tells us the best single predictor of future behavior is past behavior. Jehovah Jirah truly is our provider. By now, they should have trusted in the Lord and sought Him out in prayer. Moses, afraid for his life, pleads with God to intervene. And God uses him to lead them to the Rock at Horeb, at the base of Mt. Sinai (where they will soon receive the Ten Commandments).

There God makes water rush out from the rock, enough to satisfy 2 million people and only Heaven knows how many animals. Moses names the place Massah—which means testing—and Meribah—which means quarreling. It becomes a monument to their lack of faith in God.

It is also a testimony to their rebellion, their hard hearts, their ingratitude, and their self-pity. Many centuries later, Paul will write 1 Corinthians10:1-4-→I don’t want you to forget, dear brothers and sisters, about our ancestors in the wilderness long ago. All of them were guided by a cloud that moved ahead of them, and all of them walked through the sea on dry ground. In the cloud and in the sea, all of them were baptized as followers of Moses. All of them ate the same spiritual food, and all of them drank the same spiritual water. For they drank from the spiritual rock that traveled with them, and that rock was Christ. And he followed up in verses 9-10-→Do not…put Christ to the test, as some of them did and… don’t grumble as some of them did….Because Massah and Meribah is also a reminder of God’s gracious and abundant provision—in spite of His peoples’ attitudes and behavior! Unlike the calculus professor at Ohio State, God is for us, not against us. Our Lord tests us to help deepen our faith and trust in Him.

B. Psalm 95 picks up the same theme! This is one of the psalms that memorializes the Israelites’ rebellious lack of faith. Verses 8-10 state (NLT)-→The Lord says, “Don’t harden your hearts as Israel did at Meribah, as they did at Massah in the wilderness. For there your ancestors tested and tried My patience, even though they saw everything I did. For forty years I was angry with them, and I said, “They are a people whose hearts turn away from Me. They refuse to do what I tell them.” Other psalms say essentially the same thing: Psalm 81:7-→You cried to Me in trouble, and I saved you; I answered out of the thundercloud and tested your faith when there was no water at Meribah. Psalm 105:40-41(NIV)-→They asked and He brought them quail and satisfied them with the bread of Heaven. He opened the rock and water gushed out; like a river it flowed in the desert. Psalm 106:13 (NLT)-→Yet how quickly they forgot what He had done! They wouldn’t wait for His counsel!  In the desert their desires ran wild, testing God’s patience in that wasteland.

You see, our God tests our faith in Him. As we develop in our spiritual walk, He tests us to discover whether we love Him for what He does for us or because of Who He is. As Paul reminds us in Romans 5:3-5-→We can rejoice too, when we run into problems and trials, for we know they they help us develop endurance [patience, persistence]. And endurance develops strength of character, and character strengthens our confident hope of salvation. And this hope will not lead to disappointment. For we know how dearly God loves us, because He has given us the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts with His love.

Returning to Psalm 95, God provided for that generation, but—because they repeatedly failed His tests, (v.11)—So in My anger I took an oath: They will never enter my place of rest [the Promised Land]. He did not detest them, but He was angry and grieved with and disappointed in them. They wandered in the wilderness because they did not trust God. He waited for the last of that adult generation to die before leading the people into the Promised Land. 

C. Our Gospel lesson (John 4:5-42) relates Jesus’ encounter with a Samaritan woman around her need for living water. First, we note that He had to go through Samaria. Jews normally avoided traveling through Samaria.

The Samaritans had intermarried with non-Jewish northern people after 721BC, and were considered mongrels by their Jewish kin in Judea. Nevertheless, Jesus stopped there to fulfill a divine appointment with this woman. (Never believe that women are second class citizens in God’s eyes! Jesus, the King of Glory, went into Samaria precisely because the Father told Him to meet with this woman.)

She comes looking for water at noon, a time when other women would have been elsewhere. No doubt she hoped to avoid them, and their “snarky” comments. Additionally, she was probably lonely, discouraged, and feeling empty and weary.

She encounters Jesus, the Word Made Flesh, the Living Water. He engages her first, thus overcoming barriers of gender, race, religion, religious practice, and morality. He meets her where she is, with compassion and love. He steps into her reality, promising her water that…becomes a spring gushing up to eternal life. She is curious and asks Him to give her this water, so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water. But one thing stands in her way: her sinful lifestyle. Unlike the student from Ohio State, she is known to Christ. He knows her sinful history of 5 husbands and a 6th paramour. When He calls her out on her sins, she believes He is a prophet. But He reveals Himself to her as the promised Messiah. Thrilled, she abandons her water jugs and brings her whole village to Him. She and they all partake of the true Living Water, the Word of God, Jesus Christ. She and they—considered by the Jews to be no better than feral dogs—are transformed and saved!

We need to be aware that God will test our faith. When we accept Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior, we should expect the testing to begin and not be surprised. Further, we don’t want to be stubborn and stiff-necked like the ancient Israelites, repeatedly failing God’s tests. No, we want to be like this Samaritan woman, realizing we are lost, unfulfilled, and desperate without Jesus. We want to learn from the tests to deepen our faith. We want the Holy Spirit to develop in us endurance and patience; to mold and shape our characters to look more and more like that of Jesus; to transform our attitudes and behaviors; to increase our hope; and to discover if we can continue to love Him even when He doesn’t give us what we want.

So the question really is, Will we pass God’s tests? When we experience deprivation, loss, a heart-breaking health diagnosis, or some trauma, will we doubt God’s presence and His provision, like the ancient Israelites? Or will we like Moses, go to Him in prayer for help, trusting in Him to rescue us? Or will we, like the Samaritan Woman, open ourselves to His loving correction and transforming power?

Thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ!

©️2026 Rev. Dr. Sherry Adams