Rivers of Living Water | John 7:37-39

okay I want to draw your attention to your thirst your physical thirst like I any when thirsty in here right now I I mentioned this to Sarah my wife and I was talking with her through the sermon she immediately got thirsty when I started talking about being thirsty okay so some of you gonna get thirsty cuz you only drink in coffee this morning but think about the last time you were really really thirsty like you needed a drink of water so badly think about that time just for a second kind of picture that in your mind maybe you don't have one for me I remember being nine years old and playing with my friends and my cousins in the street and I lived in the East Bay and oh my gosh it's like they might as well be might as well be the desert it's the you know I we called the elephant graveyard in my house right it's like the place you just don't want to go cuz just too hot out there it was so hot we're running around the street playing and I remember this one time and about 10 years old going to my my cistern as it were my capri-sun after a long day of playing and you ever there's not enough liquid in those Capri Suns you suck that thing just sucked it dry I was gone and I was so thirsty that me and my cousin's he had they had nothing to drink I had a Capri Sun it was empty I suspect someone still drank it to this day and so we were we we went on a hunt for some for something to drink and we were really really far away from our house and so what do ten-year-old kids do in the neighborhood they find someone's hose and they drink out of it so what did we do we broke on us if we got into someone's yard and we started drinking out of their hose now the hose water was really hot and really gross and but nonetheless it's it was sustaining and the worst part about this this has nothing to do this sermon is my cousin sprayed the water on accident on the window and the people came running out of the house and so we suspect they were trying to kill us because we were 10 and so we ran as fast as we possibly could away and our thirst was not fully quenched terrible terrible you guys all have a story like that I'm fairly sure but imagine this idea of thirst in your mind cuz we're actually in a passage talking about thirst the back end of our story last week the story we talked about the feast of the booze if you were here with us you remember it was this giant feast all dedicated to this coming Messiah and and remembering and commemorating the time Israel was in the wilderness and journeying towards the Promised Land and that's where we were there well at the back end of this party is a water ceremony yeah weird right there's this giant water ceremony and the whole concept surrounds this idea a thirst thirst being thirsty okay and so entering the seven-day water ceremony seven days yeah seven days they would do prayers for rain and then they would do this giant ceremony where they would early in the morning get up and go to the pool near the temple or the the temple and they would fill the golden pitcher like I'm not like a Brita filter like a golden pitcher and they would bring this water over and then they would walk it around but to walk it around parade it around with all of the priests following parading around the temple and then they would pour it out they would sacrifice this water so to speak to God and on this eighth day on this eighth day all the priests would call for silence across the land because the silent day was a day to commemorate what God did but it was also to pray for rain and for crops because think about this this is that late October early November all of the crop seasons are over the the fruit and vegetables are at their largest but the cisterns that blows up the the items that people would catch water with those were dwindling and so a lot of people were looking at their water jugs like I looked at my Capri Sun and we're like we don't have very much and so what they would do is they would pray they would ask God to bring water so was emphasizing this need for water now think about this time right everyone in Israel quiet solemn not not a lot of people talking just somber thanking God may be privately praying Lord Jesus would you be with us would you bring water and in the midst of this in the midst of all this this guy stands up in the middle of the quiet and of the solemn moment and he stands up in every one where everyone is thinking about thirst he stands him he says this if anyone is thirsty let him come to me now picture this quiet time random guy who many people were trying to kill gets up and says if anyone's thirsty let him come to me he is making a powerful statement in this moment the impact of that announcement must have been stunning the people that the religious leaders must have been furious that this man I would have the audacity to ruin such a spiritual and solemn moment now at the time where everyone is fully focused on their physical thirst Jesus this man offers himself as the ultimate source of water that's what he was doing now our passage verse 37 it says this and you're gonna hear it 3 he's only three verse days on the last day of the feast the great day Jesus stood up and cried out if anyone thirsts let him come to me and drink whoever believes in me as the scripture has said out of his heart will flow rivers of living water now he said this about the Spirit whom those who believed in him were to receive for as yet the spirit had not been given because Jesus had not yet been glorified now that sets the stage for what we're gonna talk about but there is a problem for us modern readers right because it's almost 2020 that sounds like crazy to say but it's almost 2020 and so we don't really necessarily relate to this here's one idea that remember that image of your thirst a lot of us haven't really been that thirsty a lot of us haven't really been and I venture to say and most of us probably haven't even been on the certainly haven't been on the brink of life or death if we didn't get a drink of water but you can go get a drink of water right now anywhere there are sinks all over this building some of you have water bottles we give water follows away because we know you're gonna have access to free water there are water all over this place so the hard difficult thing for us to understand is just how thirsty these people were the brink of life or death we don't understand how the Jews felt here now here's the thing though Jesus isn't saying hey bring your water bottle to me and I will be an ever-flowing faucet that will pour water into your cistern and you will always have regular old water that's not what he's doing here he wants to provide not just for physical thirst he wants to provide for spiritual thirst that's what he's saying here this is way different many of us haven't even thought about this now I'm gonna submit to you and say this so Wow may while you may have not experienced actual physical thirst you do have spiritual thirst and your spiritual thirst is great that you might not even know it but it is great you have a great spiritual need with inside you that you deserve know if you want to know there's a kind of a diagnostic test ask this do I do I feel valued do I have purpose do I seek love and relationships in my life do you act you ask yourself any of those questions if you do you have a great spiritual need now we have this need but how do we get this dirts thirst quenching a spiritual thirst quenching thing that Jesus is offering because I don't know about you but I get depressed I get anxious I get tired I get angry I have I have a friction in family relationships and relationships in my life I don't know about you maybe I'm by myself in this but I think all of us share at least one or two of those things we have a need for spiritual refreshment and Jesus is saying in the solemn nough some here saying if anyone thirsts spiritually come to me I got him that's a big claim here how do we get it I'm gonna tell you but there is one thing I think we all need to understand first for us being in the Western world it's this you may not know how spiritually thirsty you are you may not know how spiritual thirsty listen I understand I've been in your shoes you're sitting in a church service the preacher says something telling you you need God and you're like I don't know if I'm there I don't know if I actually need what this guy Jesus is offering I'm not sure I need a spiritual refreshment I feel like I've kind of got things going well for me I don't have a need here I'm not spiritually thirsty I have everything I need right think about your spiritual your not your spiritual thirst rather but your physical thirst for a second remember how thirsty you felt anyone here by chance thirsty in this moment right now like I could use a glass of water okay some of you okay yeah it's hot I'm wearing a sweater I get it we need some water think about this for a second now our bodies have a natural instinct to drink regular water you all understand that right after all our bodies are 75% water our brains are almost 73% water that's quite a bit so it makes sense that human beings would have a natural inclination to look for water everywhere they go they need this water now despite this we often don't drink enough the most most uh the most recent statistics say that three out of four Americans are walking around chronically under hydrated so at three out of four of you of us are chronically dehydrated we don't drink enough water and the most common reason is we save this basic sentence I'm not thirsty boom no that's not there all right that's fine there all right all right I'm not thirsty I didn't have to put that on the board you know but I wanted to surprise you guys there you go I'm not thirsty we have a natural thirst signal and here's what happens we we well while we're living our lives we tell our bodies you know what I don't I don't I'm not thirsty I'm not thirsty right now what happens is your brain says the signal back to your body and your body determines that since there is no water available for you that you don't no longer need to feel thirsty you ever felt thirsty briefly for a really long time in the Olsson it kind of went away yeah I guess I'm good I guess I don't need a drink that's because what happened is your body determined or your brain determined that you no longer needed a search water because water was not available this concept is called neural adaptation this is a real thing now knurled adapt ations a when you're lost in the forest and you can't focus on your thirst because you need to find more water sources but it's not a good thing all the time especially now mainly because the body the body responds by diminishing its thirst signal over and over again to conserve energy that's what it's going to do and so your body will hold on to the limited reserves it has and tell yourself that it's no longer thirsty so in other words you don't know how thirsty you are the more you use spiritual adaptator neural adaptation you don't understand it now studies show that the more we do this the more were we're not able to tell when we should drink and when we shouldn't we now we start drinking when water's available and that's it that's when we start drinking now if you can't understand how physically thirsty you are because three I know for a fact that 75% of us are chronically under hydrated then how in the world are you gonna be able to tell how spiritually thirsty you are if you don't know physically thirsty you are which is way easier to determine how are you gonna know how spiritually thirsty you are now to make matters worse what most Americans do and most people in the last it's when we do feel thirsty we go to we go to to drink but we drink other things so you'll drink I don't Diet Coke or Capri Suns maybe something like iced tea or coffee but what most people don't know is that most of the things that we go for to drink while they temporarily satiate our ability to drink actually make our bodies more thirsty is it that we're that you could drink a liquid and it would make you more dehydrated many of us spiritually go to other sources other than spiritual water and we take them in and as we take them in we're thinking we're satisfying our spiritual needs when in essence we're actually dehydrating ourselves even more that's what's happening so question to ask what are you using to spiritually satisfy your spiritual needs that are actually making you more spiritually needy what are you doing what are you spirit what is spiritually robbing you what is spiritually taking from you that you thought would actually solve your spiritual problems what are the relationships you put yourself in or the the behaviors that you've undertaken to remove the spiritual burden from your body so that you could feel better when you know actually it's making you worse what are you doing what band-aid have you put on a wound that actually needs stitches in other words we've placed these physical and spiritual band-aids on things that are actually causing us great harm and great problems and we need to opt for the stitches in other words again what are you trying to solve eat what eternal problems are you trying to solve with internal and very temporal solutions you see what I'm saying here okay so we're gonna we're gonna we're gonna admit we might not all understand that we're spiritually thirsty but here's the good news Jesus plan to solve our thirst began a long time ago Jesus plan to solve our thirst began a long time ago now while many of us are thinking about our spiritual and our physical thirst moment-by-moment worth searching for vending machines to get ourselves satiated Jesus actually has a plan and he's been utilizing this plan for a very very very long time just to meet your needs pretty powerful stuff now let's look at our text here verse 38 okay verse 38 verse 38 says whoever believes in me as the scripture says out of his heart will flow rivers of living water Jesus is talking about something really profound here whoever believes in me as the scripture has said nice he's referring back to some Hebrew text out of the head of his heart will flow rivers of living water now what does Jesus here talking about because this is a really powerful statement and if you were at the feast of the booze in this moment you would have heard that and went wait a second what is he doing well think back all the way to the exodus book of the Exodus maybe some of you haven't read the book of Exodus it's this great story where God frees his people Israel out of oppression and they come out into the wilderness well guess what in the wilderness that gets hot okay it gets hot I think people get thirsty and so as people were wandering around in the in the desert in the wilderness looking for water trying to get to the promised land they started complaining I don't know if you've ever been a child but if you're thirsty you usually look to your mother for something to drink usually don't go to the hose you know if you're if you're seven years old I've got three kids they seem to ask me to drink I'm like do you know you can get your own water okay they're learning that as we go and so Israel's like them their ground either grumbling there they're angry they don't see water and so God shows up and God's gonna provide water for him and I have that in Exodus 7 teen verse 6 this is behold I will stand before you there on the rock and hora and he's talking to Moses here and you shall strike the rock and water shall come out of it that's wonderful and the people will drink and Moses did so in the sight of the elders of Israel so what does God do God looks at these rocks on the ground and says my people are thirsty what I need to do is I'm gonna take these rocks and I want you to go I'm gonna go out before you and you're gonna strike these rocks and water is going to pour out of them now what one thing people miss in this is it says this part behold I will stand before you there on the rock this means that God most commentators believe that God here is standing before this rock and so when Moses strikes the rock it is imploring that the Lord was struck when this rock was struck God is providing water when they're thirsty providing water by being struck on Israel's behalf you see what I'm saying ok now can we think of another time where the Lord was struck down on the behalf of his people there is one more time and it happens on the cross the crucifixion and on the crucifixion Jesus Christ is strung up on a tree and he is murdered on behalf of those anyone who would believe him and John we're gonna fast Ford in John John 19 verse 33 look this is what it says about Jesus hanging there on the cross it says but when they came to Jesus and saw that he was already dead they did not break his legs and then here it is but one of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear and at once there came out blood and water that's a really interesting idea now there's a lot of different theories about what this is but certainly we know that the Scriptures are intelligently designed but there is one author of the scriptures one spiritual author many human authors and God is placing this together that Jesus here is the rock that was struck in the Exodus and he's the rock that has struck on the behalf of his people for further clarification first Corinthians 10:4 sells us this for they drank from the spiritual rock that followed them and the rock was as Christ Jesus is this rock struck on our behalf so that our spiritual thirst would be fulfilled well well Israel's physical thirst was met by God in Exodus our spiritual thirst is met with Jesus on the cross you see God's intelligent design here these aren't just stories in a vacuum that we like loop together this is actually a progressive storyline being told by God and he's interweaving different imagery that's what's happening here Jesus was the rock struck on our behalf so that the spiritual thirst might be quenched now think about that for a second think about that for a second so many of us try to kill our spiritual thirsts right that's really common in the Western world what we do is we numb ourselves you're guilty of that at times I know I am I just need to not think about the real things going on in my life so the way I do that is I come home I eat some greasy food i watch television and I just zone out or maybe maybe for you it's something else I go out to parties I drink whatever it may be we look for ways to numb ourselves we don't have to hit the reality of the fact that we actually do have legitimate spiritual needs in our day and that's never been more apparent than it is today and in modern Western in western United States because the rise of New Age ISM spirituality is at an all-time high talking to a friend just recently I just visited medium what are you doing at a medium well I want to talk to my brother he passed away okay aren't you a Christian oh yeah a person told me about this at church okay that's litter that that is where we're at where modern spirituality New Age ISM Wiccan in the occultism is now merging together to create a philosophy a way of life that will help people find and meet their spiritual needs but guys I tell you what there's plenty of water available in too many of us drink out of the toilet and there are so many ways to get great authentic delicious spiritual water that has been prepared over millennia for you and too instead many of us go to the the cool trendy thing that's on the latest blog I'll tell you what you're gonna find yourself drinking out of this and you know what you're gonna drink water and water and water you thing you know it's fine this is what works for me and I've heard that before you guys just gonna work it's gonna what I'm sorry it's gonna what's gonna be working for you over and over and over again and then five ten years down the road you're gonna hit a spot you know what I don't feel so healthy yeah that's because you haven't been nourishing your body with the proper fluids you've been eating something terrible for yourself and yes it's new and yes it's vibrant and yes people are talking about it and yes there's commercials for it and so we go and we diet and we take it in and it feels good and it tastes good immediately but ultimately over time you're gonna find out that that spiritual water wasn't very good anymore and that's where we're at we live in a day where our spirits are at war there are we're not we're kind of moving past this predominantly dualistic atheistic society our generation the Millennials are growing up and we're realizing you know what I think there is probably something out there most people are now saying I think there might be some sort of spirit or force or God that might be able to help me I think that might be true people are out of this phase of defiant eighth blatant atheism people are moving into this idea of experiencing people and looking for things and I'll tell you what if you're a viewer and you're Christian you may be the only source of spiritual water that these people have that your friends have you may be that only source that might be true and you've got to lead them to the ultimate source that's the scripture you have a very important role to play and if you're here man and you feel like I just don't know if I'm Christian I'm just figuring this thing out that's totally okay too but might I submit to you and say that these other forms of spiritual nourishment will not meet your needs I know that's controversial to say in a day where we're not allowed to say one thing doesn't work and another thing doesn't work but I'm telling you right now I didn't give my life up to do this for nothing I gave it up because I believe that this is the real deal okay keep going verses through era sorry not verse 0.3 and this is this is the point that gets you if you didn't if you were kind of like man I don't know about all that this is this is the cool part Jesus plan to solve your thirst is permanent permanent in a day where we look for quick fixes to get temporary solutions to problems band-aids Jesus actually wants to provide a permanent solution to the spiritual problems that you've experienced have you ever been to a concert or gone to a motivational speaker or maybe like a retreat or anything like that do you remember coming home if the concert was good of course and you were excited and you were like man I just feel so good I feel like I've I kind of had this spiritual moment have you ever gone to a like a retreat and there was a spiritual moment where you just feel so good how long does that last not long right maybe a couple days a couple weeks maybe a month at the most eventually it goes away Jesus is not about giving you a temporary feeling he wants to permanently solve your spiritual that's where Jesus is at and he does this in a wonderful way and let's pick it up in verse 38 again Jesus says whoever believes in me as the scripture has said out of his heart will flow rivers of living water beautiful and then here's the kicker in verse 39 he says now this he said about the Spirit whom those who believed in him were yet to receive were to receive before as yet the Spirit had not been given because Jesus was not yet glorified no what does all that mean well these rivers of living water that are gonna pour out are coming in the form of holy of God the Holy Spirit he's saying that these rivers of living water it's not just physical water but there's a spirit God in the form of spirit is actually gonna pour out and that is gonna be the mechanism that satisfies humanity that's what's coming so we have this to look forward to because in their day Jesus had not yet been glorified he hadn't gone to the cross he wasn't resurrected and he did not ascend into heaven that had not yet happened and so the Holy Spirit came after that and so there in this time work that hadn't come so Jesus is telling you you're all about to get your spiritual needs permanently met that's what's about to happen and when we all tap Jesus so to speak the spiritual water in the form of the Holy Spirit will flow from him to us that's what gets to happen now this is called regeneration that's when we believe that Jesus suffering on the cross happened on our behalf that had happened in our place that we should have been the ones who were killed but Jesus was the one that was killed and when we believe that this act is true that God gives us the Holy Spirit and this Holy Spirit has power to change us to give us a new heart with new desires that love him that want him and that we're no longer slaves to our sin but that we're free and can grow apart from the brokenness the shame of our past and the fear of the future we have that ability that's what Jesus is telling us now if that's overwhelming to you I understand but man it is still overwhelming to me now when you believe in Jesus you get access to these rivers so these rivers that were formerly off off limits you actually get to go to the rivers and you get to kind of take your sister and or take your cup and and take some of that water for you but here's the thing the water that flows doesn't flow like a river physically it actually flows directly in your heart you see the Holy Spirit comes upon each individual human being that believes in Jesus and you would have access to spiritual water within you think about it like this for you nurses or doctors it's like being hooked up to an IV you have a permanent IV - the Holy Spirit directly into you and here is what Jesus is fully saying as we think about our physical thirst your physical thirst is needed but it's only a symbol of our spiritual thirst and so as you think about how you get thirsty from time to time that's gonna enable you to be able to see how spiritually you also need to drink from Jesus okay water quenches your spirit physical thirst but it's temporary right but your spiritual thirst is quenched for good and it's quenched for good in Jesus that's what he's telling you we can't live without water and we can't live it for eternity without eternal water okay we can't live without water but we can't live for eternity without eternal water Christians believe that when Jesus Christ dies on the cross that we receive this living water this Holy Spirit comes upon us we we get to praise Him we've got this access to this wonderful Holy Spirit it's amazing but after we die we get to go be with Jesus and Jesus Christ will come back and redeem this world and we'll get to live with him forever we get eternity but you've got a hydrating act you've got to drink eternal water to have access to this eternity okay now for further evidence of God's eternal or intelligent design in these scriptures I want to point one other thing out to you because this is really really cool where is Jesus in this moment when he's saying this if you remember last week we have Jesus was actually at the temple Jesus was speaking from the temple he was preaching and telling people about about living water that's Jesus was he was and now in that day there was this hope that this Messiah would one day come right we've talked about this and this was I would come and redeem and renew Israel and the temple was a place where God's presence could dwell it was a symbol of what God might do that the Messiah would one day join them and redeem the world and what they would do in that day is they would read from the prophets in anticipation because they had all these prophetic words about this Messiah one day coming and if you remember from last week Israel was kind of up in arms they were divided over who Jesus was some of them believed him another one wanted to kill him but they would read the prophets and they would suppose see Jesus differently what I wanted to point out one prophecy to you Joel 3:18 they would read this and not know anything about this Messiah but this is what this is their vision so here's what it says it says in that day the mountains shall drip sweet wine this is a day of the Messiah and the hills shall flow with milk and all of the stream beds of Judah shall flow with water do you see the imagery and a fountain shall come forth from the house of the Lord and the water of the valley you Tim now I don't need to tell you what a fountain is but you know a fountain is a place where water is you know where is gonna come from it's gonna come from the house of the Lord and where's Jesus he's standing on the house of the Lord Jesus is at the temple saying that anyone who had was thirsty should come to me and drink he is a fountain flowing water from the temple that's exactly what Jesus is doing and so people are looking at Jesus hearing him and they're angry because Jesus is nothing like the Bible when they don't even understand that as they read their own prophet Jesus is literally fulfilling one of their prophesies directly in front of them that's the sort of intelligence stuff that's taking place here it's beautiful to see now late thankfully for us Jesus makes a way to validate his claims he doesn't just say this and then Mike drop him out and then we got to figure it out okay he actually does offer us in the Psalms the psalmist has taste and see that the Lord is good but you actually get to go in you get to triumph Jesus says come and drink come and drink come believe and Jesus makes this offering confidence he does not make this like modern spirituality people that say this may or may not work depending on who you are how much you pay that's not what Jesus is saying he makes his offering confidence the spiritual sources you seek are not sufficient my spiritual source is sufficient I've got nothing to to win in this in fact I've got everything to lose and I'm still offering it to you that's what he says that's where Jesus is at so I just have one question for you as we close today are you satisfied or are you thirsty are you spiritually fulfilled or do you want something to drink because Jesus makes this offer pretty obviously now if you can sit here and say I feel satisfied consider that you might not have neural adaptation consider you might have spiritual adaptation that you may actually have told yourself you're okay for so long that you've turned off your need for a savior and that you've numbed yourself to the fact that man maybe I do need a guy that can help fix my greatest needs and thankfully for us Jesus brings us that hope in the form of a baby that gets to come in a couple days let's pray [Music] [Applause]

Channel: Bay City

Views: 457

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Id: 6E9MRB1NmE4

Length: 30min 13sec (1813 seconds)

Published: Mon Dec 16 2019