More Than Tap Water Series

Streams of Living Water

More Than Tap Water

Exodus 31:1-5

October 24, 2004

Mark Eberly

This morning we are going to be learning about the sacramental life. It is the sacred life. This is different from the holy life, as we will see. It is often called the incarnational life. The word “incarnate” means God in the flesh. So we are going to look the tradition of finding God who is always around us. He manifests Himself first through Christ then in our everyday life. As Dr. Blackaby says, “God is always at work around us.” God is already at work, we just need the eyes to see it.

So the sacramental life is learning that there is more to life than just tap water. There is more to life than just your ordinary, everyday occurrences. There is a sacredness or sacramental element in our daily lives. Most of us don’t think about tap water too much. It is there most of the time. We take it for granted.

We need to altar the focus of our lives in such a way that we stop taking from granted the hand of God that is at always at work. This is a life that is not just prayer-filled but it also becomes worship-filled. Every event is an opportunity to interact with God whether it is by acknowledging His goodness or seeking direction.

A worship-filled life is one that discovers the presence of God in even the most mundane details of life. A worship-filled life finds the sacred in the ordinary.

The Worship-Filled Life (Incarnational or Sacramental Life)

• Finds the Sacred in the Ordinary.

This is just part of it, however. It is very important because we often cruise through life and through our day never realizing what God is doing around us. We have God-moments throughout our days. Daily we have opportunities to worship God that are missed because we have taken the time or effort to recognize them.

However, this is only half of it. The worship-filled life then takes the ordinary and sets them apart to be sacred.

• Uses the Ordinary as the Sacred.

The worship-filled life uses everyday, ordinary materials to symbolize the sacred. These ordinary-turned-sacred items and events become important markers to point us toward worship. They become a means through which we move deeper into God’s presence.

Let me show you this in Scripture. Turn to Exodus 31. In this passage we see God giving direction to Moses and the people in the construction of the place of worship. Through a guy named Bezalel we see both elements at work. We see God using the skills of a blue-collar worker to take ordinary materials to make something sacred to be used in worship. But it is Bezalel’s relationship to God that has enabled him to be used this way. God has placed a calling upon his life, he has responded to it, and God uses him right where he is at.

Then the Lord said to Moses, “See, I have chosen Bezalel son of Uri, the son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah, and I have filled him with the Spirit of God, with skill, ability and knowledge in all kinds of craft – to make artistic designs for work in gold, silver and bronze, to cut and set stones, to work in wood, and to engage in all kinds of craftsmanship.

Here we have a normal, everyday worker. He is a blue-collar worker. And God has given him special abilities and it is not special ability to preach or to lead worship but to take ordinary materials and make something beautiful consecrated to God. This is huge. This means that God can take whatever you do: changing diapers, flipping burgers, selling things, teaching, as well as making things or repairing things, and use you for His glory and Kingdom. There is no job too small. There is no skill insignificant to be used by God.

And do you know the requirement? That the Spirit of God fills us. Did you know that this is the first time in the Bible that this phrase is used “filled with the Spirit of God?” And it used not with royalty like Moses but with craftsman that God has given some artistic ability.

God is at work all around us – in every area and every arena. God is already there. We just have to look for Him. We just need eyes to see.

Believing Is Seeing.

You’ve heard that seeing is believing. Honestly, I don’t think that is true. You see what you believe. If you don’t believe that God cares for you and that God is at work in your life everyday, you will never see the miracles that God does around you. They will be good fortune or good luck. But if you believe that God loves you more than you will ever know and that God is always at work around you, you will look for and see evidence of that.