Good News Week 55: A Man Carrying A Jug

A Man Carrying A Jug

Alight,

FLOW WITH THE SPIRIT

Luke 22:7–13 CSB

7 Then the Day of Unleavened Bread came when the Passover lamb had to be sacrificed. 8 Jesus sent Peter and John, saying, “Go and make preparations for us to eat the Passover.” 9 “Where do you want us to prepare it?” they asked him. 10 “Listen,” he said to them, “when you’ve entered the city, a man carrying a water jug will meet you. Follow him into the house he enters. 11 Tell the owner of the house, ‘The Teacher asks you, “Where is the guest room where I can eat the Passover with my disciples?” ’ 12 Then he will show you a large, furnished room upstairs. Make the preparations there.” 13 So they went and found it just as he had told them, and they prepared the Passover.

Ok, again it’s the final week of Jesus before his crucifixion.

It’s Thursday.

The day to prepare the Passover Lamb for the Passover Meal.

We will talk more about the Passover Meal but for now just be reminded that the Passover Meal required the sacrifice of a spotless lamb and a meal.

It remembered the Passover of the Death Angel and the deliverance of the Hebrew people from enslavement in Egypt.

So Jerusalem was packed for festival pilgrims.

This festival was something every Jew celebrated.

Jesus had celebrated it His whole life.

This would be his final Passover His death.

And Jesus tell’s Peter and John to go make predation for the meal.

And the disciples weren’t sure were they would celebrate the meal with Jesus.

So Jesus gives them instructions.

There’s a man carrying water.

He’ll show you an upper room.

That’s the place.

That’s were we will gather and celebrate.

Prepare there.

Make Preparation For The Meal

What preparations have you made for the meal?

Listen, we don’t have time this morning, but in that upper room Jesus said he wouldn’t eat of that meal again until He does it with us in the Kingdom.

The Great Marriage Supper of the Lamb.

So let me just ask you, what preparations are you making for that meal?

Is your garment spotless, is it white as snow?

Has you’re heart been consecrated to Jesus?

Have you turned from sin?

Have you set your affections on Jesus?

Are you taking up your cross and following Jesus?

Are you saying no to self and yes to Jesus?

What preparations are you making for that meal?

Have you placed your faith in Jesus?

Are you trusting in Jesus for your salvation?

I’m not asking if you are perfect, I am asking are you allowing Jesus to perfect you in righteousness?

This is called Sanctification.

What preparations are you making for that meal?

We know that the Lamb was type and shadow of the perfect sacrifice that was to come.

We know Jesus is the true and better Passover Lamb.

We know that Jesus is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

Our salvation is not based in our works, but in our faith.

And our salvation is by faith is proved by our works.

My salvation isn’t found in my works but in my faith.

But my faith is proven by what I do with Jesus.

Do I obey him.

Do I trust him.

Do I follow him.

Do I submit to him.

What I do with Jesus proves my faith.

What preparations are you making for that meal.

Are you ready to eat?

Are you ready to for that great day?

If you’re not, today is the day to make preparations.

How?

Listen.

There’s A Man Carrying A Water Jug

There’s a man carrying a water jug.

Jesus told them, Follow him to the upper room.

You can’t get to the upper room if you ignore the man carrying the water jug.

Listen, tradition tells us that the Passover Upper Room is the same room as the Pentecost Upper Room.

You can’t get to Pentecost if you bypass the Passover.

What do I mean?

You can’t receive Holy Spirit infilling, indwelling, and empowerment without Jesus.

We need to meet the man carrying the jug of water.

Why was he carrying a water jug?

In that upper room there would be a basin of water.

Why?

Well, 2 reasons.

One that was understood and one that was about to be revealed.

Part of Passover Preparation required ceremonial washing of their hands.

That was normal.

It was a literal and symbolic cleansing act.

It liberalized cleansed their hands before eating and it was symbolic of a cleaning of their lives before eating.

We’ve got to have the man carrying the water because we have to be made clean.

We have to wash in the water.

We have to be made clean.

It’s through water that Israel was delivered.

It’s through water that cleansing happens.

A sacrament of cleaning from sin.

A symbol of being made clean.

And tangible act that is a spiritual act.

That what a sacrament is.

A physical spiritual act.

Have you been washed?

Have you been to cleansed?

Have you met the man with the jug of water.

Have you dipped your hands in the jug of water.

Have you been washed in the water.

You can’t eat the meal at the Marriage Supper unless you been washed.

Listen, this morning we have a pool of water.

Have you been washed?

You may say, I didn’t come ready to be baptized?

Oh, but Jesus is ready!

The man with the jug of water is ready to pour out streams of cleansing and springs of refreshing.

But, I didn’t come ready to be baptized?

But are you ready now?

Listen, we’ve got towels.

We’ve got a few shirts.

We’ve also got a pool of water ready.

Some of you this morning in your heart you want to jump in, but in your head you're hesitant.

This morning go all in.

Listen, that jug of water was also used for something else.

John 13:1–17 CSB

Before the Passover Festival, Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart from this world to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. 2 Now when it was time for supper, the devil had already put it into the heart of Judas, Simon Iscariot’s son, to betray him. 3 Jesus knew that the Father had given everything into his hands, that he had come from God, and that he was going back to God. 4 So he got up from supper, laid aside his outer clothing, took a towel, and tied it around himself. 5 Next, he poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples’ feet and to dry them with the towel tied around him. 6 He came to Simon Peter, who asked him, “Lord, are you going to wash my feet?” 7 Jesus answered him, “What I’m doing you don’t realize now, but afterward you will understand.” 8 “You will never wash my feet,” Peter said. Jesus replied, “If I don’t wash you, you have no part with me.” 9 Simon Peter said to him, “Lord, not only my feet, but also my hands and my head.” 10 “One who has bathed,” Jesus told him, “doesn’t need to wash anything except his feet, but he is completely clean. You are clean, but not all of you.” 11 For he knew who would betray him. This is why he said, “Not all of you are clean.” 12 When Jesus had washed their feet and put on his outer clothing, he reclined again and said to them, “Do you know what I have done for you? 13 You call me Teacher and Lord—and you are speaking rightly, since that is what I am. 14 So if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. 15 For I have given you an example, that you also should do just as I have done for you. 16 “Truly I tell you, a servant is not greater than his master, and a messenger is not greater than the one who sent him. 17 If you know these things, you are blessed if you do them.

This water was not only used for ceremonial cleaning for Passover but also for a new ordinance, Foot Washing.

Jesus washed their feet.

Their hands had been washed - that was about being made clean.

But foot washing - that was about humility and servanthood.

Jesus washed their feet as an act of servanthood and told us to be servants.

To be humble.

To humble ourselves one to another.

We need the man with the jug of water because we not only need cleansing we need humility.

We need to lay down our arrogance and pride and self-righteousness and our thoughts about what leadership should be and privilege and we need to practice the way of Jesus.

This morning we need the water.

We need the water.

We need the man with the water.

We need the jug of water poured out on us.

See, water also symbolizes the Spirit.

The Spirit washes.

The Spirit applies the work of Jesus to us.

The Spirit would be poured out.

The Spirit would be a spring welling up with in us and overflowing to others.

We need the man with the jug of water pouring out the Spirit on us.

We need the man with the jug of water.

This morning, the well is full, the Spirit is here, the Man is pouring out the water.

What is keeping you from taking a plunge into the cleansing pool?

Water baptism is a public confession of your faith in Jesus.

It symbolizes washing of sin, going under the water is a picture of death to sin and coming up out of the water is a picture of being raised to new life in Jesus.

The man with the jug of water is leading us to the upper room.

To the place of washing, the place of deliverance, the place of humility, the place of new birth, and the place of empowerment.

The jug is being poured out but it never runs dry.

If you need this water, don’t wait.

Meet me at the pool this morning.