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Thirsty? John 7:37-39
A
man is crawling through the Sahara desert when he is approached by
another man riding on a camel. As the rider approaches, the crawling man
whispers through his parched lips, ”Water. . .please. . .can you give. .
.water…”
“I’m sorry,” replies the man on the camel, “I don’t have any water with
me. But I’d be delighted to sell you a necktie.”
“Necktie?” whispers the man. “I need water!”
“They’re only four dollars a piece.”
“I need water.”
“Okay, okay, two for seven dollars.”
“Please! I need water!” the man exclaims.
“I don’t have any water, all I have are ties,” replies the salesman, as
he heads off into the distance.
By now the man has lost all track of time, crawling through the desert
seemingly for days. Finally, nearly dead, with clothes tattered and skin
peeling under the relentless sun, he comes to an oasis with a
restaurant. Summoning his last bit of strength he staggers to the door
and confronts the headwaiter.
“Water. . .can I get. . .water,” the dying man pleads.
“I’m sorry, sir. Neckties required.”
Have you ever really been thirsty?
When you are thirsty, there is not much else you can think about, like
appropriate clothing attire for fine dining. When you are thirsty, you
cannot get it out of your mind. It is all you think about.
As we come to our text today, it is found in the context of thirst. As
you may remember we are with Jesus in Jerusalem during the Feast of
Tabernacles. The Feast of Tabernacles was a time to remember when Israel
lived in the wilderness before coming to the Promised Land. One of the
rituals was intended to remind them of the time that they were very
thirsty.
Here is how the story goes as it reads in Exodus 17:1-7
All the congregation of the people of Israel moved on from the
wilderness of Sin by stages, according to the commandment of the Lord,
and camped at Rephidim, but there was no water for the people to drink.
Therefore the people quarreled with Moses and said, “Give us water to
drink.” And Moses said to them, “Why do you quarrel with me? Why do you
test the Lord?” But the people thirsted there for water, and the people
grumbled against Moses and said, “Why did you bring us up out of Egypt,
to kill us and our children and our livestock with thirst?” So Moses
cried to the Lord, “What shall I do with this people? They are almost
ready to stone me.” And the Lord said to Moses, “Pass on before the
people, taking with you some of the elders of Israel, and take in your
hand the staff with which you struck the Nile, and go. Behold, I will
stand before you there on the rock at Horeb, and you shall strike the
rock, and water shall come out of it, and the people will drink.” And
Moses did so, in the sight of the elders of Israel. And he called the
name of the place Massah and Meribah, because of the quarreling of the
people of Israel, and because they tested the Lord by saying, “Is the
Lord among us or not?”
So during the feast, water is poured out to remember the wonderful
supply God gave to the Jews in the wilderness
Each morning at the time of sacrifice, the priests would draw water in a
golden vessel from the Pool of Siloam and carry it to the temple to be
poured out. It was a very festive time each day, as people would wave
palm branches, rejoicing and praising God.
This is the background, then, to which Jesus speaks, when He says: “If
anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink.”
One thing that should catch our attention today, is that though rejected
and condemned, Jesus continues to offer Himself to those who will hear
and receive Him
In our studies so far this year, we have seen Jesus condemned by the
Jewish religious leaders in chapter 5.
In chapter 6, Jesus is abandoned by the multitude in Galilee.
Then in chapter 7, a warrant for His arrest is issued in Jerusalem.
But notice that Jesus does not turn away from those that have turned on
Him. He continues to extend that gracious invitation. Though He has
already suffered large-scale rejection (and will experience more during
the next six months), He continues to offer Himself as the answer to
their deepest needs.
The apostle Paul will later reinforce the connection between this
incident in Exodus and Jesus in his letter to the I Corinthians.
He writes in I Corinthians 10:1-4
I want you to know, brothers, that our fathers were all under the cloud,
and all passed through the sea, and all were baptized into Moses in the
cloud and in the sea, and all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank
the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the spiritual Rock that
followed them, and the Rock was Christ.
Paul understands that the rock that Moses struck in the wilderness was a
foreshadowing of what Jesus would do for us. When Moses struck the rock,
life-giving water came out. In the same way, Jesus was about to be
struck, and He would fulfill this text. He would offer life-giving
water.
So, as the water is poured out during the Feast of Tabernacles, He, in
effect, is making the claim, “I am the Rock that you celebrate. I can
satisfy your thirst. I can satisfy your innermost needs.”
As we look at this text a bit more completely, please see that we are
designed to be satisfied.
Jesus offers Himself so that we will have hearts that are content and
souls that are satisfied. And since we are designed to be satisfied, we
will find in our study of John 7:37-39 three courses of action we take
to accomplish that state of contentedness.
Here is our text…
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.
The first course of action is to Grab A Hold.
We are invited to come (Isaiah 55:1).
This is a theme that continues throughout Scripture. The prophet Isaiah
would announce: “Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters…”
Jesus continues the invitation. “Come!” “Make the move!” “Reach out as I
reach out to you!” “Grasp on to me!”
Each one of us can come. Because each one of us has access to Jesus. No
one has to be left out.
It is a universal invitation. If “anyone” desires to drink they may.
There are no ethnic, intellectual, or social qualifications. You just
come…
When Elsie Wagner and her husband were in town shopping, they ran into
some friends who invited their whole family to have dinner with them
that evening. Elsie said she would check with the others and call to
confirm plans.
Later Elsie phoned to say that there would be five of them coming for
dinner at six o’clock. At the other end of the line, there was an
ominous silence. "Have I got the wrong number?" Elsie asked.
"I sure hope so," came the reply.
When you connect with Jesus, there will be no wrong number. There will
be no ominous silence. You are welcome. You are invited to come.
The second course of action is to drink quickly.
But we must mention at this point that there is one condition. You have
to drink. You have to accept the invitation.
You see we can satisfy thirst if we drink.
If I stand here thirsty, with a glass of water in my hand, and I don’t
drink it, what good is the glass of water? We must take it, bring it to
our lips, and drink. We need to gulp it down, if you will. We will not
be satisfied until we consume it.
The great thing about what Jesus offers is that He will never run dry.
He will always have more than we need. We also don’t have to wait in
line (like waiting for a drink at a fountain). It is always available,
Jesus desires to fill our emptiness.
As human beings we have many innate drives. It is how we survive and
exist. We have a drive to fill our stomachs. We get hungry. But, as I
mentioned before, the drive for thirst is all-consuming. When we are
thirsty, we cannot get it out of our mind.
This concept of thirst is used to describe the emptiness of our souls.
For each one of us has a sense of being driven and a chronic
restlessness. We become dry, weary and torn. Because no matter what we
have or what we do, we are incomplete. Our lives are not perfect. We
have times of regret, shame and rejection.
It is away from this that Jesus invites us to and tells us to drink. It
is from this that Jesus wants to save us. He wants to believe and fill
us with Himself.
The third course of action is to flood.
Here we find Jesus probably quoting from the prophet Isaiah (58:11 or
44:3-4) to demonstrate that the water is to make a difference in us.
We are filled with water that never abates. It never stops. It keeps
going. When we are filled with the water Jesus offers, it does not stop
with us. It gushes out of us! It keeps coming and touches those that we
touch. We become, in effect, a former thirsty person showing thirsty
people how to get a drink.
We have living water that gives us power, joy and hope.
I believe that the promise is not only that we will be satisfied, but
that we will be satisfying. We should and will become a blessing to
others. We will share the power. We will share the joy. We will share
the hope.
So let me ask you…are you satisfied?
In recent years, there have been some advertising campaigns that have
spoken to satisfaction. For a while, when you watched a Snickers ad, it
said, “It really satisfies.” Of if you watched a Gatorade commercial,
you would hear, “Gatorade is thirst aid for that deep down body thirst.”
There are products out there that advertise satisfaction. They promise
it because we are surrounded by discontentment.
You know, the world is full of things that do not satisfy. In fact, they
are really poison.
Ask the drug addict.
Ask the alcoholic.
Ask the gambler.
Ask the person addicted to sex.
Ask the materialist always looking for more.
Money, sex and power have never quenched our spiritual thirst. They are
dangerous substitutes for the “living water” Jesus promises. And all
they do is ultimately kill us.
Unless, we have Jesus, it is a life of confusion. Because since we have
diseased spiritual taste buds, every choice we make is wrong!
I think we need to understand this about ourselves our greatest need is
significance.
We possess significance when we realize that we are made by God and made
for God. We are designed for a personal intimate relationship with Him.
This is our most crucial longing, even if we don’t see it at first. Yet,
God continues to frustrate us so that we will understand our deepest
need.
John Piper puts it this way…
“He frustrates the human race again and again. He causes every wreath to
wither, every gold cup to tarnish, every muscle to sag, every face to
wrinkle, every sexual exploit to go sour, every sin to sting, until we
have put Him off too long.”
He wants us for Himself. Everything else must grow dim for us to fully
understand. Everything else must fail for us to fully experience the
blessing.
I had the privilege of experiencing Niagara Falls. I was impressed as I
stood at the edge of the cascading water. There is so much of it. And it
is never exhausted. It just keeps coming.
In the same way we are designed to be fruitful
Ephesians 5:18
Paul tells us to be filled with the Spirit. Or more accurately, “be
being filled.”
The water is a picture of the Holy Spirit in us. And just as water
produces fruitfulness, so does the Spirit of God satisfies us and
enables us to bear fruit. We are to become, as the text alludes, like a
mighty river that flows and touches others. My deepest soul-thirst is
not just to be a receptacle, but to be a river. And you know what?
Rivers can’t be held back!
Try to stop the Amazon, the Nile or the Mississippi. They can’t be held
back. And neither should we.
Just as rivers are places of life, we are never more alive than when the
Spirit is flowing through us. Have you noticed this as well? Rivers
change things! They don’t keep the status quo. They constantly clean
their environment. They change course. They change the depth and run
deeper. Sometimes, they even overflow the banks. There is always
progress. There is always a pushing forward. Rivers describe adequately
what it is like to be a Christian, a person with their spiritual thirst
quenched. You are designed to be satisfied.
Are you?
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