Are You Thirsty?

John 7, verse 37. It says, On the last day of the great festival, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, Rivers of living water will flow from within them. By this he meant the Spirit whom those who believed in him would later receive. Let’s pray together. Father, we come before you excited about the text we’re about to read, just feeling the anticipation of what it means to be called into your kingdom, called into your presence. I just thank you so much for this invitation and what it means. God, I pray today that we will understand this invitation in a new light, that we’ll hear it from the eyes and the ears of someone who lived in the day when Jesus called it out so that we can translate it into the time we’re in right now. God, I pray for anyone today who is thirsty, anyone today who is dissatisfied, anyone who is discontent, that they can see that there is only one place to go and it always has been and it always will be Jesus Christ.

Father, I pray that that’s the case today, that we’re convinced of that, that we grow in our knowledge and our love and our affection for him. We just ask that you’d be with me. Ask that you’d be with our hearts today. It’s in Jesus name, Amen. For those of you who don’t know me, my name is Tony. I just want to say welcome to the Broward Church. We’re in a series called the Ministry of Jesus. Today is the last day of a seven day festival called the Feast of Tabernacles. Last week we met Jesus in the middle of a feast. This week, it’s the end of the feast. This week, Jesus makes a tremendous appeal to his hearers. Last week, as I mentioned, we found him right in the middle of the feast trying to convince his hearers, trying to convince these pilgrims who had come to the temple courtyards to hear from different rabbis, trying to convince them that the gospel of him, his gospel, was a true gospel. He was making a case through logical means to everyone listening, not to listen to the hypocrisy of the religious leaders, not to listen to their life draining good news, but instead that they should put their hope, they should put their affection, they should have their hearts turned away from the religious leaders of the day and towards him.

That was Jesus a few days ago, but now we fast forward and here on the last day of this great feast, Jesus’ appeal changes. He no longer makes a logical argument. Instead, he gives a bold invitation. The invitation we just read is an invitation to heaven, to salvation, to satisfaction, to justification, to fulfillment. In the Book of John, there are many such invitations. In fact, I doubt there was ever a day where Jesus did not make an appeal for people to come to him, to people to come away from the religious society, away from the sin dominated world and towards him. But here, this appeal in John 7, in my opinion, is the most dramatic one. It’s beautiful, it’s powerful, it’s compelling, it’s remarkable. And even more so when you take a look at the setting. Today, we’re going to do a little bit of a Bible study. And after the Bible study, we’ll make some relevant connections to our lives. But I just need you to stick with me for about 10 minutes or so as we unpack why this moment, this time was so profound. Are you guys with me? All right, verse 27, this is what it says, on the last day and greatest day of the festival.

This festival is the festival of booths. It’s one of the main three festivals of Jewish life. There is the festival of Pentecost or the Feast of Pentecost of Passover, and then Tabernacles or Booth’s. This Feast, the festival of Booths or the Feast of Tabernacles is when the Jewish people would celebrate the wilderness wandering, where they lived in tents for those many, many, many years as they migrated for four decades. This festival was a celebration that during that time God protected them. He preserved them and He met all of their fundamental needs. He brought food from heaven and water out of a rock. It’s remarkable. Imagine there’s this nomadic tribe living in the desert, guided by Yahweh, their God. God institutes this feast in Leviticus 23, and it would be an annual feast of remembrance taken during the time of in the fall. This is what it says in Leviticus 23, verse 40, On that day, you are to take branches from luxurious trees from palms, willows, and other leafy trees and rejoice before the Lord your God for seven days. Celebrate this as a festival to the Lord for seven days each year.

This is to be a lasting ordinance for generations to come. Celebrate it in the seventh month. Live in temporary shelters for seven days. And all native born Israelites are to live in such shelters. So your descendants will know that I had the Israelites live in temporary shelters when I brought them out of Egypt. I am the Lord your God. This is the feast. It’s a celebration of the fact that God led them through the wilderness. And so what they’re supposed to do is though they’re living in cities now, though they’re living in beautiful homes or beautiful homes for their first century, what they’re supposed to do is leave those homes and live in tents or structures that they build from trees. It’s like, imagine if we said to you guys, hey, in the month of June, brothers and sisters, I shouldn’t say June, July. No, I shouldn’t say July. Let’s pick a better month. Let’s say January. In the month of January, we’re all going to live in tents in this church for a week. That’s what we’re going to do. Basically, that’s what it was. It was a reminder that they lived in tents, but they were provided for.

So they took all these branches, palm trees, willow trees, other leafy trees, luxurious trees, and they built these temporary housings to commemorate the wilderness wanderings. But of course, the religious leaders took all of this a bit further, and so they developed a special ritual for the last day of the festival. In addition to living in these temporary structures, the Pharisees instructed the people to bring branches to the altar and put their branches around the altar and make this makeshift covering over the altar. It was supposed to be a temporary structure for the Lord because the Lord also dwelled in tents. Tens of thousands of people are at that courtyard that day. Tens of thousands of people are there because they were instructed to be there by God’s ordinances and also by the religious leaders to come. They’re bringing their palm branches, they’re bringing their willow branches, and they bring them to the altar and they lay them over the altar, making this temporary structure. Then what tradition tells us is the high priest would go to the pool of Saloma and they would gather a golden pitcher and they would put it in their hand and they would fill the pitcher with water and they would come back and they would pour water over the altar in order to remind the people that God provided water for the people out of a rock.

And as he pours that water, they were supposed to recite, all of Israel was supposed to recite this, with joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation. So the whole community is remembering the wilderness wandering. Specifically, they’re taking a moment to remember that God brings water in the desert out of a rock. All of this is symbolic of God’s ability to bring about substanance, salvation, to let them be provided for their lives. That’s the idea. The water then would come to the altar in the hands of the priest. He would pour it out and everyone would recite his verse. Then the priest would lead the community in the Hallel, which is Psalm 113, 14, 15, 16 and 17. It’s a song. It’s a great song. By the way, it’s where we get our word Hallelujah from. That’s the scene. It’s a beautiful ceremony. It’s vivid. It’s about protection. It’s about perseverance. It’s about deliverance. It’s about substanance. Now, all of that is happening at the temple, and Jesus is standing in the temple courtyard teaching and preaching. The Bible says that Jesus stood and said in a loud voice.

This is a strong word. This stood and said in a loud voice, loud voice is a word for yelling at the top of your voice. It’s screaming. In fact, in the Bible, it’s translated to cry out, yelling, screaming, shrieking, exclaiming. Jesus is standing there in the temple courtyard on the last day while this beautiful ceremony is happening, commemorating the protection and the way that God had provided for the people for years and years and years. The Bible says he stands up in such a loud or start speaking in such a loud way at the top of his voice. He obviously wants people to hear. What does he say? He says, Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink. His voice is so piercing and the moment is so dramatic that later on people will say, This is the Messiah. Jesus uses the drama of this moment to make a pretty profound point. You are thankful to God for water in the wilderness, water that satisfied the thirst of your forefathers. But if you come to me, I will satisfy the thirst of your soul. That’s the moment. It’s chills, right? Can you imagine being there?

I picture it. It’s like the priest, it’s the quiet moment. Right as the priest is about to pour the water that Jesus says it. That’s what I envision. He’s about to pour it. Jesus says, Come to me. Come to me and drink. Come and drink. This is not the first time we’ve heard such an invitation from Jesus. John 4, you might remember the conversation with the woman at the well. He says to the woman, The water that I give you is living water. Drink of this water and you will never grow thirsty again. Jesus uses the illustration of thirst because it’s both relevant and also communicates our need for God. Let me just explain. You and I don’t think about thirst the way they thought about thirst. Israel is not South Florida. Out here, you breathe and you drink a liter of water. It’s 98 % humidity. You never think about thirst. But in a land where there was no water, water is a perfect illustration and expression of people’s greatest need. The people standing there understood they need water. And it’s no coincidence that Jesus uses the illustration of water to explain the impact God has on someone’s life.

The idea of thirst, in fact, because of the setting is everywhere in the Bible. It’s all over the place. I’m going to show you some verses just so you get a sense of the impact of water and the thirsty land. This is Psalm 107, Let them give thanks to the Lord for his unfailing love and his wonderful deeds for mankind, for he satisfies the thirsty. Here’s another passage, The burning sand will become a pool, the thirsty ground bubbling spring. What’s the idea? You are a thirsty ground, you can become a bubbling spring. Again, you and I don’t think about having big bubbling springs because we have water everywhere. But for these guys, having access to water that was personal was life changing for them. Speaking of the impact of God’s redemption on man, this is what Isaiah 44 says. It says, For I will pour water on a thirsty land and streams on the dry ground. I will pour out my spirit on your offspring and my blessing on your descendants. They will spring up like grass in a meadow, like poplar trees by flowing streams. Here’s a couple of more. Come, all who are thirsty, come to the waters.

And to you who have no money, come, buy and eat. What is he saying? Water was so difficult to come by. Maybe you didn’t have the ability to even get your water. You had to pay for it. And so he’s like, You don’t have to buy this water. It’s free. Jesus would then echo these ideas in later verses. In John 6, verse 35, he says this, Then Jesus declared, I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty. And then in a final view, in the last days, there are two great passages in the Book of revelation that speak about this idea of fulfilling our thirst. Revelation 21 verse 6, He said to me, It is done. I am the Alpha, the Omega, the Beginning and the end. To the thirsty, I will give water without cost from the spring of the water of life. And then revelation 22, verse 17, the Spirit and the bride say, Come, and let the one who hears say, Come. Let the one who is thirsty come, and let the one who wishes take the free gift of the water of life.

In this festival, Jesus understood clearly that these men and these women knew exactly what being thirsty was. And then he explains that he and he alone could satisfy their souls. Jesus is dramatically capturing this moment and just turning the whole thing. Anybody here is just a you have to buy a bottle of water. You don’t trust the filters. Anybody? Yeah, okay, there’s still a few of you. Yeah, I get it. You understand that? Three days without water and you’re dead. And living in Jerusalem, which is essentially a desert, it was even more profound that we needed to figure out how to get water. I’m going to show you something. This is a 1,000 AD. This is an old picture painting, but this is a 1,000 AD. This is where David would have lived. At some point, they had a spring. I don’t know how to pronounce this, Geshan Springs. This is the only source of water in Israel. I’m sorry, in Jerusalem. So if you lived, let’s say, over here, you were traveling all the way to the spring to grab water, and then you’d bring it back to your home, and you’re doing that every single day.

You lived outside of Jerusalem in one of the smaller to a well to get water. You remember the story of the Samaritan woman, right? She’s walking to the well in the middle of the hot sun in order to get water. In order to get water, and Jesus meets her there, it was the woman’s duty to go get water. Most people traveled between two and three miles on foot to get their family’s water. This would be a morning task. Women would make their way to the well, retrieve water from the well, and then carry that water in clay pots and clay pots on their shoulders or on their heads and bring it back to the family. Again, this was a daily task. Every single day you had to go get water. In Israel at the time, you had an average of seven children with two adults living in your family. That’s about five gallons of water per day. Five gallons of water per day. I wanted to feel what this was like. Can you guys turn up the Licoes? I want it to feel what it was like to carry five gallons of water. So last night I bought a five gallon jug of water.

This is a five gallon jug of water. It weighs about 45 pounds. I’m not putting it in my head, and I also… You’re turning them off. I want you to go on. Thank you. So this is 45 pounds of water. I have a handle because Home Depot makes handles and it’s made of plastic, so it’s relatively light. But imagine this is a clay pot and imagine instead of it being there, I had to carry it on my head. Yeah, I’m not doing this. And I had to do it, and I had to do it every single day to get water. I spilled some water on me. Every day, two miles to get water, carrying it on my head, bringing it home, two miles. The next day, going and getting water and then coming back and going and getting water and coming back and going and getting water and coming back and doing this every single day. Imagine this. What is water? It’s this idea that you go to something to get fulfillment that never fulfills you, that you have to keep going back to day after day after day after day after day after day.

Thirst is an illustration. It’s the constant struggle to feel satisfied. That’s what it is. Come to me if you cannot be satisfied and I will give you something that fills your soul. Now the calling seems a bit more relevant, doesn’t it? Jesus isn’t just asking for physical water. What he’s asking or he’s not just talking about physical water. What he’s talking about is something deep in your soul. There’s so little water that you have to go pick it up and bring it back, and then you would drink it and you would be finished for the day. You’d think, oh, that was wonderful. I have to go and do this whole thing over again. How much time, how much energy, how much of your life is dependent upon getting this water. So when Jesus declares, Let anyone who is thirsty come to me, he’s saying, if your soul needs satisfying, I’m the one to do it. There are three words in this text that I want to unpack for just a little bit. Thirst, come, and drink. I want to talk about each of them for a moment, but let me just give you a review.

Thirst is the acknowledgement of the problem, the acknowledgement of the alienation, the acknowledgement of the deprivation, the acknowledgement of the condition, the acknowledgement of the idea that there’s actually something that I’m trying to fill my life with that I can’t just seem to fill. Come. That’s like trust. It’s like the Bible saying, hey, come to the person that can actually solve the problem. And then there’s drink. That’s the ascent. That’s resolutely making a commitment that you are the one that can satisfy my soul. Let’s talk about each of them just for a little bit more time. Thirst. Remember, they’re there to be reminded of how God provided for them spiritually, or rather God provided for them in the wilderness, how he provided for them water. And how did they get their water? Well, we talked about it before. God provided water from the rock. What’s the spiritual parallel? Well, God gave them a way where there was no way. He satisfied their thirst when they couldn’t have it satisfied any other way. So we start the conversation by saying, Hey, if you’re thirsty, I have something that can satisfy you. He’s like, Hey, are you carrying something and laboring something for something that you’re trying to use to satisfy your soul that hasn’t satisfied your soul?

Another way to ask this question for us is, is your life in a state of discontent? Or is it discontentment? I don’t know. Mary will tell me later. Do you have a thirsty soul? Do you have a thirsty soul? Is your life in a state of like, I guess I just got to feel something and there doesn’t seem to be a way to fulfill the needs I have down low. The thirst of the soul is manifested by a life of dissatisfaction. You ever feel this? That you just can’t figure out why you can’t be thankful? You can’t figure out why you can’t be grateful? You can’t break the funk? I’d venture to say it’s because you have a thirsty soul. One of the most annoying things that I have to deal with as a preacher is that I often go through what I’m preaching about. It’s so annoying. It’s like, I pray, God, would you bring this to the surface of my life? And he does. And it’s very annoying. I should not pray that anymore, but I have to go through it anyway. This week and last week, I had a real week of thirsting.

I could feel it because I was irritable, I was disappointed, I was down. I didn’t even enjoy the things I typically loved. All of that was just struggling. So what I would do is, you know this, right? You’re feeling thirsty and so what do you do? You go and you go do the thing you want to do. You’re like, I’m going to get some ice cream. You’re like, Maybe ice cream will help me solve all my problems. And then you put it down and you’re like, That did nothing for me. I love ice cream, but that’s not something that would do it. So I was like, Fine, you know what I’ll do is I’ll go out with my friends and I’ll go hang out. So you go back to the well of your friendship and you’re like, Okay, friendship. If I hang out with my friends, maybe this will make me feel better about myself. And then you do it and you notice very quickly that it doesn’t satisfy your soul. And so you’re like, You know what I need to do? I need to buy something. So last week I bought a new pair of glasses.

I’m like, Maybe this will help me feel good about my life. And you just put it over here. And honestly, just last week, I could probably travel back and forth 50 times of all the things that I was trying to do to solve the thing that was in my heart where I was just thirsting. You ever found yourself there trying to fill your soul with illegitimate water where it doesn’t quench your thirst, but instead it’s like saltwater? It just makes you more thirsty. I was looking for soul satisfaction where there was no soul satisfaction. In fact, I was looking for, I think, a temporary boost to forget how thirsty I really was. Only to discover that I didn’t quench my thirst at all. I just distracted myself for a moment from my thirstiness or something like that. When we talk about Jesus’ call to be thirsty, I think what we can say is if you’re living a life where you’re trying to fill something and you can’t seem to fill it, you’re probably dealing with some spiritual thirst. Probably dealing with some spiritual thirst. Notice the invitation is beautiful if anyone is thirsty. If anyone is thirsty, the invitation for Jesus is to everyone and anyone at any point in time.

I think it’s because Jesus also knows that everyone is thirsty, but not everyone is willing to admit they’re thirsty. All of us crave something more, something else, and all of us try to fill the thirst with something different. It wasn’t until Friday night that I thought to myself, I should be praying. I’m like, You are an idiot is what you are. When was the last time you just went out to pray? I’m like, Oh, I thought I needed ice cream, but what I really needed was time with my God. You get this, though, right? You search for things that will fully and finally satisfy you, and they don’t, and you become an anxious person. There’s a a madness when someone is trying to fill the void. It’s like they’ll go for everything. There ends up being no hope, no deliverance, no peace, no forgiveness, no liberation from sin. That is just you just end up in a parched place. He’s talking to the thirsty. He says, To the thirsty, what should they do? They should come. Come. This signifies approaching God. If anyone would come after me. Seeing Him coming is this idea that you see Him as the only thing that could satisfy your soul’s thirst.

He is the living water. So you come. You come to Him. You come to Christ. It means you come with all your heart, with all of your will, with all of your time. If you were here today, you would come with your feet and you would kiss his head and you would pour perfume on him and you would touch the edge of his cloke and you would fall at your knees and you would worship. But because he’s not here in the flesh, you do it in your heart and you do it in your mind. You do it with your time. You come to him in prayer. You come to Him through reading. You come to him in crying out in tears in worship. You come to him spiritually speaking, you move towards him because you know the buckets don’t actually satisfy. You turn your back on the world, you abandon everything else. You have this abandonment of self confidence. You cast yourself at the feet of the incarnate Grace. You come before Christ with this understanding that he and he alone can satisfy my needs. The Bible tells us that men struggle with this. In Jeremiah 2, verse 11, there’s a really profound struggle of mankind.

It says, 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. This is what men do. This is the struggle of man. We abandon the living water and we try to fill ourselves with a relationship. We try to fill ourselves with more wealth. We try to fill ourselves with a new dream job. We try to fill ourselves with some other things. This is what we do. We run to different wells. Some of us here today are dissatisfied and we believe that if we just… Something in our situation would just change, then we would be filled. Some of us here are struggling with this idea that if I only had a husband or a wife, then I would be finally and fully satisfied. If I only had more money in the bank, I’d be finally and fully satisfied. If my children would come back to Jesus, then I would be satisfied. If you would fix this woman that you got to put in my marriage, God, then I would be fully satisfied. Let me just say this, brothers and sisters, if that’s what you think today, if you think something could change in your life and then you would have satisfaction, you are deceived.

This is a lie. You have believed a lie and you have forsook the spring of life. You say, how do you know it’s a lie? Well, I know it’s a lie because at every level of your life, you have said the same thing. When you were 16, you said, Once I get my driver’s license, then I’ll be fully satisfied. Then you thought, When I go to college, I’d be satisfied. And then when I finish college and when I get a girlfriend or when I get a boyfriend or when I get a job or when I could pay off my student loan debts or when I bought a house or when I got married or when I had kids or when those kids get to school, then I’d be satisfied. If I had a better job, if I had a nicer house, if I could just fully fund my retirement, then I’d live in peace. If the husband could just get it together, then I’d be happy. If the kids would become a Christian, if my treatment would end, then I’d be happy. If my parents got better, then I’d be happy. At every level of life, you said the same thing.

I just want to let you know, you and I cannot be trusted to make judgments on how to meet the thirst of our souls. We say a lot of things, but I don’t think you can be trusted because you’ve said a lot of things. So Jesus, when he stands up, he’s just saying, I’m it, guys. I’m the one. Please, would you come to me? The first thought is to know you’re thirsty, and the second thought is to come. Because here’s the point, right? There is no one else you can come to. Who are you going to go to? You’ve gone loads of places. You’ve moved that bucket so many times. Where are you going to go? He is the way, the truth, and the life. You come to him and you come to him alone. Let me just make a quick qualification. If you want to come, you have to first thirst. You can’t come before you thirst. To thirst is the only qualification. It’s not your morality, it’s not your religiousity, it’s not your good works, it’s not being a benevolent person, it’s not being a basically good dude. The only qualification is that you’re thirsty.

Very often, benevolent, basically good dudes don’t come to Jesus because they see no need to come to Jesus. First you’re thirsty and then you come because there’s nowhere else to go. Then lastly, you drink. Drink means to appropriate. It’s this idea that a river flowing through a parched land does no good unless you get down and consume it. Drinking means you’ve gone to the point where you know the person you’re going through. You’re walking to the stream. You’ve gotten to the stream, and then you say, Look, whatever that stream makes me do, I will do. If I need to move a little bit, however, I just need to put it into my soul so I could fully and finally be fulfilled. I love how the songwriter says it. I heard the voice of Jesus say, Behold, I freely give the living water, thirsty one. Stoop down and drink and live. I came to Jesus and I drank of that lifegiving stream. My thirst was quenched, my soul revived, and now I live in him. That’s the sentiment of every Christian. I came and I didn’t just come, but man, I consumed. I dove in headfirst.

I spent more time in prayer than I ever had before. I spent more time reading my Bible than I ever had before. I spent more time with disciples helping me guide my way to heaven. I spent more time worshiping God. I listened to the music and to sermons and to all of it just to consume my soul with the goodness of God’s grace. I didn’t just come, but I consumed, I drank. I have a very simple question for you, brothers and sisters. Very simple. How is your prayer life? You know this already. But how is your prayer life? Do you pray every day in a way that’s not distracted, in a way that’s not recycled? Do you have genuine words for the God of the universe? Do you cry to him when things are struggling? Do you praise him when things are great? Do you praise him when things are terrible? Do you listen to his voice and try to speak to him? How is your prayer life? Let me ask you a question that’s related to that. This is so simple, but how about your reading life? Do you spend uninterrupted quality time with the words of God?

If you’re not, it might be time for you to get back to some simple, life changing practices. Look, this invitation is both for the disciples and also for brand new people. For the disciples, this is just simply, hey, look, get back to the spring. Get back to the spring. Go back to the water. Go back to the water. Go back to the water where you can fully and finally be satisfied. For those of you who are new, I want to invite you to come and learn what it means to drink, what it means to consume from the well of Christ. You can go loads of places if you’re new here, and you can go loads of different churches and have gospel invitations that ask you to close your eyes and lift your hands and say a prayer. But I just want to tell you why we aren’t one of those places. From the words of Scripture, we have firmly concluded that men and women need to make a conscious decision. They need to decide wholeheartedly to give their life to Jesus. That’s not based on an emotional high, but based on the radically transforming work of the Holy Spirit.

If you’re new here and you’re like, Man, I want to figure out how to be satisfied. I want to encourage you and I want to invite you to a Bible study. Many of the members here have gone through Bible studies or walked through it in a personal way to figure out, Okay, how am I personally thirsty and how can I personally drink from the well of living water? I want to invite you to that. If you want that, you can talk to our hospitality team. You can talk to somebody next to you. Someone will hook you up. Okay, the text doesn’t end here. This may be the most remarkable part about the invitation. Verse 38, whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them. And by this, he means the Holy Spirit. We’re going to see that in just a second. He’s using a collection of verses in Isaiah. He makes references here to Ezekiel 37. It’s a composite statement. He’s saying, Look, from your innermost being, you’ll drink from him and then from your innermost being, you will become a river of life.

Let me give you a simple analogy. This water that flows to you when you come to Christ comes into your life and it does two things. One is it acts like a pump and it allows you to tap back into the soul satisfying work of Jesus Christ. So the Holy Spirit is like a pump because every once in a while you live in the flesh or whatever you want to call it and you just get all messed up. And if you go back to the Spirit, you go back to those simple practices, it gets back into action and your soul feels satisfied again. That’s number one. You don’t have to go get baptized a million times to feel this. You can just go back to Jesus Christ. Secondly, notice it doesn’t say that you become a bucket. It doesn’t say you become a reservoir. It says you become a river. It’s really an amazing statement. Not only do we drink and have our souls thirst satisfied, but we become a fountain, a river of life that flows from us. I think verse 38 is talking about the way that we can have impact on the community. It’s thrilling, isn’t it? We receive soul satisfying spiritual water, which is analogous to a spiritual healthy life and all of its components.

We receive that and then what happens is we are able to give that same blessing to the rest of the world. The blessed one becomes the blessor. The recipient of sovereign grace becomes the channel of sovereign grace. Notice it’s not a trickle, it’s a river. It’s not like, well, I’ll do a little bit every once in a while. It’s like, No, I’m showering the world with love. I’m giving the whole community, my workplace, my home. I’m showering it with the spiritual blessings that God has given me. I understand some of you have become and some of us have become stagnant ponds. If that’s the case, I want to encourage you. You may need some spiritual Drano or whatever to get the stuff going again. But get back into the Word. Get back into prayer. Get some help again. Have somebody disciple or mentor you. Get the river flowing so you can bless the world the way you have been blessed. He ends by saying, By this, he… I didn’t put this in. By this, he spoke of the Spirit. What an amazing invitation, right? It’s like this whole thing is because God is going to implant a portion of himself in all of us.

I wish I could have the time to talk about this. It’s a beautiful thing. It has eternal significance. It’s one of the most remarkable invitations in all of the Bible. I want to pivot for just a moment as we take communion. Here’s the pivot. There’s a moment when Jesus is on the cross and he says this line, I’m thirsty. There’s loads of metaphorical ways you can look at that same line. But the way I think about it is this, at the cross of Christ, God takes our thirst so that we could be recipients of fulfillment forever. He takes our thirst, carries on himself so that we could have a life of satisfaction. God wants to offer that to you. I hope you’ll accept his invitation. Let’s pray.

Lord, we come before you understanding that you give us more than we could ever need. Lord, you satisfy us with good things. That’s what the Bible says, that you guide us to streams of water. I think about the passage in Psalm 23, you lead us besides streams. Your rod and your staff, they comfort us. And you say you do it for your namesake. I love the fact that even your satisfying of our soul is for your namesake.

God, I just want to say thank you, Lord, for the amazing gift that you’ve given us and having a fulfilled life through Jesus Christ our Lord. I pray that we’ll accept that invitation. That will become men and women that buy into it, that hold on to it so that we can be fully and finally satisfied. I pray for those brothers and sisters today who have become stagnant, who have become just their buckets and they’re not actually blessing the world. I pray, Lord, that you’ll give them just some more, I don’t even know, Lord, courage, maybe give them first steps, maybe help them take the next step, even today, even in their heart right now, so that they can do the thing that you want them to do, Lord. I pray for those who are first timers here or who are studying the Bible. God, I pray that we’ll give those brothers and sisters or those people the opportunity to leap into streams of living water where their whole lives will be trained forever because of your grace. Lord, thank you for the cross where you took on our thirst so that we could be satisfied.

I just want to say thank you for Jesus. Thank you for his death, his resurrection, and the life that he given us. I pray for the bread that represents his body and the juice that represents his blood. That as we take of it, that we will just remember the sacrifice he made for us. We love you. We praise you.