I preached this Sunday (19th Jan 2025) but I’ve forgotten to upload the sermon from 28th April last year so here it is! It is titled Pod #2 because it should’ve been the second episode uploaded last year. I will upload January’s sermon soon!
As a kid, you need to be told what to do. Now that you’re an adult, you always do the right thing. Right?
Not so! Even as adults we eat junk, we sleep late, we scroll.
What stops us from doing what we know is best for us? Physically, mentally, emotionally?
Spiritually?
In this passage we're going to learn from the Bible what's good for us. What we really, desperately, need. We need to drink. Jesus tells us he quenches our thirst and fulfils our deepest needs. And the responses to Jesus will remind us and warn us. Don't let anything stop you from getting that drink.
1. Come to the Christ
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 this he said about the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were to receive, for as yet the Spirit had not been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified. (John 7:37-39)
You can feel the passion as Jesus cries out to the crowds. Come and quench your thirst! But we first need to build a picture of this spiritual metaphor:
Exodus 17:1-7
Look at this story closely. Despite God’s great provision, Israel is not portrayed in a positive light. Look at verse 2: "Why do you quarrel with me? Why do you test the LORD?"
The Israelites in their hearts are testing God. They quarrel. And accuse him of bringing them out of slavery just to have them die. And some of them are wondering if God is there at all.
Spiritual thirst is about the heart, and filling up on anything other than God leaves the heart hollow.
Jeremiah 2:13 puts it like this:
for my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water.
The broken cistern is a devastating picture of the Israel's thirst. For centuries they desperately try to quench it with anything but God, the fountain of living waters. Their hearts were hard towards God.
If spiritual thirst is about hard hearts and hollow hearts, God is in the business of spiritual heart surgery. He had promised in Ezekiel 36:
And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.
Verse 39 says that the Spirit will come, just like in Ezekiel’s prophecy. He will write God’s laws on believers’ hearts.
Being spiritually thirsty is kinda like being a car with no engine. It still has wheels and you can push it around but it's heavy, so it resists. It looks like a car but it doesn't drive. You might as well walk.
The Spirit Jesus gives is a bit like an engine for our hearts. He gives us power to obey God from the heart. That's what a functional heart should do. Jesus gives this to anyone who comes. And he hops in the drivers seat and steers us back into a relationship with God. So come and drink!
If you’re a believer this is good news for you now! However you feel, whenever you feel, you have access to the living waters of Jesus.
2. Crowd Confusion
There’s a few different responses to consider:
When they heard these words, some of the people said, “This really is the Prophet.” Others said, “This is the Christ.” But some said, “Is the Christ to come from Galilee? Has not the Scripture said that the Christ comes from the offspring of David, and comes from Bethlehem, the village where David was?” So there was a division among the people over him. Some of them wanted to arrest him, but no one laid hands on him. (John 7:40-44)
Some say Jesus is the prophet like Moses (Deut 18), some say he’s the Christ, some object, shouldn’t he come from Bethlehem and from the line of David?
The irony of these few verses is that no one is wrong. Jesus IS the prophet like Moses. He IS the Christ, the Messiah. Even the doubters are right. Jesus IS descended from King David. And he IS born in Bethlehem. But the focus is on the division and confusion.
And no one makes a move.
We get served up hundreds of opinions every day about what we need. What's good for our health. Good for our finances. Good for our work-life balance. These are important questions. But don't get confused or distracted from this question:
Who's going to quench my spiritual thirst?
We don’t want to be people who just talk about Jesus. We need to be people that come to him and drink of his living water.
3. Callous and Condemning
The officers then came to the chief priests and Pharisees, who said to them, “Why did you not bring him?” The officers answered, “No one ever spoke like this man!” The Pharisees answered them, “Have you also been deceived? Have any of the authorities or the Pharisees believed in him? But this crowd that does not know the law is accursed.” Nicodemus, who had gone to him before, and who was one of them, said to them, “Does our law judge a man without first giving him a hearing and learning what he does?” They replied, “Are you from Galilee too? Search and see that no prophet arises from Galilee.” (John 7:45-52)
The officers and chief priests have already decided Jesus is no good without hearing him out properly. And it shows in the hatred and vitriol they have not only towards Jesus but anyone who’s sympathetic to him.
The Pharisees won't go to Jesus because they are in denial about their thirst. They think they're already right with God by following their traditions. They have an “I got this” theology. They won't admit that their hearts need fixing.
It’s like an intervention gone wrong - where the person keeps denying they have a problem and isn’t willing to admit they need help.
We must not deny our thirst and our need for Jesus in every arena of our life. In our work, leisure, families and friendship circles.
Yet the pharisees also show us a picture of ourselves- hewing out broken cisterns, heading thirsty towards God’s judgement.
If it weren’t for the grace of our saviour Jesus. And we get to see a glimpse of that in Nicodemus, the pharisee whose heart God has begun to change.
Jesus died for Nicodemus, a heart-hearted pharisee. He died for you and me, hard hearted pharisees. He died so that we might quench our thirst in his resurrection life. And when Jesus sends the Spirit pouring rivers of living water into our hearts. That's a foretaste of eternal life with God. So come and drink.
Two things to take away:
Realise you are thirsty.
Let’s all see the ways in which we chase after things to satisfy and quench our spiritual thirst. Is it success? Reputation? Relationship? Home ownership? Travel?
Don’t let those things come in the way of seeing your true need, for Jesus himself. Let him change your heart and fill it up.
Come and drink.
You might not think Jesus has the pedigree to tell you what stocks to invest in. Or when to quit your job. Or how much money to give at Chinese New Year. But Jesus has the pedigree to give you what you need most. He has the pedigree to quench your thirst. He has the pedigree to give you eternal life.
We can't just live our lives talking about water. We can't think that showing up to church is the same as drinking. We can't think that reading Christian books is the same as drinking. Drinking is drawing near to Jesus in repentance and faith.
So don't just talk about water. Drink it.
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