Living Water
Notes
Transcript
We all know what it is like to be thirsty. I’m sure you can remember times when you labored in your yard on a hot day and needed to go inside and cool down and drink a glass of cool water.
When my son was boy scouts, his troop went on a walking tour of the Gettysburg battlefield. This 10 mile self-directed hike lead us through Cemetery Ridge, Big Round Top, Picketts Charge, Seminary Ridge it is a comprehensive tour. The packing list we were given ahead of time, which I did not read, emphasized the need to bring plenty of water. I packed two regular water bottles - one for each of us - for a middle of July hike. My thinking - we will have plenty of opportunity to fill up along the way - it is a National Park. Wrong. FYI - outside of the visitor center - there are no water sources in the park. Half way through the hike, we had drunk nearly all our water. I kept looking for a fountain - none to be found. 3/4 the way through the hike, John had finished his bottle and I was trying to ration the rest of mine for him. The day got hotter, we got more and more thirsty. Near the end of the hike, I saw what I thought at first must be a mirage - but soon realized that it was real - a Dairy Queen. We broke from the pack and staggered toward life-giving slushes.
That was probably the thirstiest my body has ever been.
Our souls can also get thirsty. We can feel as if we are wandering through a dry and weary land. We can become disillusioned by the world, we can feel lost and disconnected from any sense of purpose, we can feel abandoned by others, and we can feel alone, powerless, and stuck in a rut. Our soul can get thirsty. We thirst for more, for significance, for purpose, for connection, for power, for peace.
Jesus tells us that he can quench a thirsty soul.
This is what he told the Samaritan
woman at the well. You may remember the story. Jesus and his disciples had been walking quite a distance. It was around high noon, and his disciples’ headed into a village while Jesus rested at the well located outside of town. He is soon joined by a woman who approached the well in the heat of the day with her jars. Not the normal time to do such a chore. He ask her for water, and she responds as one would among two people groups who disliked each other, “why would you, a Jew, ask me, a Samaritan for water?”
Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” The woman said to him, “Sir, you have nothing to draw water with, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob? He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock.” Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”
Jesus can quench a thirsty soul. We hear him again say it in today’s gospel reading. Let me set the scene. Here it is the last day of the Feast of Tabernacles - a 7 day celebration where Jews remembered their ancestors who wandered in the wilderness with Moses, where there was little food and water - a time when they had to learn to depend on God’s provision and care. During the Feast of Tabernacles, every family would construct make-shift temporary shelters or “booths” - sleeping out under the stars. Ever day of the festival, the priests would process from the Temple to the pool of Siloam, draw water, bring it back to the Temple and pour it out on the altar while reciting Isaiah 12:3
With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation.
The Feast days reminded the people of God delivering them from Egypt, but also pointed toward a future time when the Messiah would come and dwell among them.
It is in this setting that Jesus stands up and proclaims..
John 7:37–39 (ESV)
... “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.
Jesus can quench a thirsty soul. It is why he came. Our soul is thirsty because we are separated from our Creator and it is sin that separates us. Jesus came to set us free, to lead us out of the land of sin and death into His Father’s Kingdom. To do so, He became one of us and walked the path of suffering. He dealt with all that plagues humanity head on, he took on our pain, our suffering, our shame, and he allowed himself to be nailed to the cross, by his sacrifice we are set free.
Free to receive living water.
We need Living Water
If we are to live into who God has created us to be - we need the Spirit of God in us. This is the gift Christ has made possible for us to receive. If we believe, by faith, that Jesus is Lord, then the Spirit of God indwells in us.
We celebrate Pentecost today to remind us that it is the presence of the Holy Spirit - not our efforts or our plans - that empowers us to be the Church.
J.I. Packer said it this way...
The Christian's life in all its aspects-intellectual and ethical, devotional and relational, upsurging in worship and outgoing in witness-is supernatural; only the Spirit can initiate and sustain it. So apart from him, not only will there be no lively believers and no lively congregations, there will be no believers and no congregations at all. - J.I. Packer (2005)
We need living water. If we are to navigate the times in which we live, to spread the gospel in a post-Christian culture, and to be brave enough to love all people, to speak truth in a time where confusion seems to reign, and to hold fast to Christ - we need to be filled with the Holy Spirit.
Early Church Father Tertullian stated...
The Lord challenges us to suffer persecutions and to confess Him. He wants those who belong to him to be brave and fearless. He himself shows how weakness of the flesh is overcome by courage of the Spirit. This is the testimony of the apostles and in particular of the representative, administrating Spirit. A Christian is fearless. - Tertullian (c. 160–220)
The Holy Spirit is the One who will make you fearless if you allow Him to overflow your life.
The overflow of Living Water
When I speak of overflow - I am saying that the power and gifts that the Spirit gives a believer is not to be stifled by the believer. The Spirit does not reside in you just for you. You are part of something bigger. The gifts that He gives you, whether it be wisdom, knowledge, unshakable faith, ability to counsel, pious humility, healing, miracles, discernment, the gift of speaking in tongues, or whatever gift you receive - it is to be used as overflow - poured out onto others.
Pastor Francis Chan, in his book Forgotten God, writes...
The Spirit is intentional as He apportions these spiritual gifts to each person, according to His will and purposes. The most obvious and stated purpose of these manifestations is for the good and edification of the church. The Spirit desires to use us when our hearts are aligned with this vision, when we are filled with genuine love for the church, and when we desire to see the church grow in love for God and others. - Francis Chan, Forgotten God
Yet here is the reality of our day and time. The Church, especially in America, often does not operate in the Spirit. We don’t see much evidence of overflow. If we did, we would not be able to shut our doors due to those desiring to come in.
As a whole, It appears we have
Cut the flow of the Living Water
When a river encounters a barrier, like a boulder or fallen tree, flowing water carves out new streams. When it comes to the Holy Spirit, He tends to move powerfully where the people are receptive and thirsting for God.
According to Lifeway Research,
The places where Christianity is growing the fastest? Africa (2.77% growth) and Asia (1.50%). In 2000, 814 million Christians lived in Europe and North America, while 660 million Christians called African and Asia home. This year, 838 million live in the global North, while almost 1.1 billion Christians live in Africa and Asia alone.
In America, it is a different story and much of the reason falls upon the Church. We have to examine ourselves - are we thirsty? And if so, are we satisfying our thirst with the only One who can quench it? Do we seek after the Lord, is our deepest desire to please Him, and are we willing to change our ways and follow His?
There is a quote I came upon from A.W. Tozer that gave me pause...
... to expose our hearts to truth and consistently refuse or neglect to obey the impulses it arouses is to stymie the motions of life within us and, if persisted in, to grieve the Holy Spirit into silence. - A.W. Tozer
To hear God’s Word spoken, to read Jesus’ teachings, to have it explained in a Bible Study or sermon, to listen to God’s truth in song as it is played on Christian radio, and to go through all the motions of worship…and yet not to let it really change you, to continue to act the same way unbelievers act, to not be able to discern right from wrong and do what is right…that is what stifles the Spirit and numbs a faith.
And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.
Release the flow of Living Water
What is the remedy? What can we do to be a Spirit-filled, Spirit-empowered church?
What did Peter say that very first day when the Spirit filled the Church?
Now when they heard this they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, “Brothers, what shall we do?” And Peter said to them, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself.” And with many other words he bore witness and continued to exhort them, saying, “Save yourselves from this crooked generation.”
Repent and be baptized. If you sense that you have stifled the Holy Spirit in your life, or question whether you have ever received the assurance of his presence, then Repent and be baptized. You may say, “I was baptized” - that may be true. And if you did receive baptism, we do not need to administer water again. But maybe you need to ask Jesus, send me the Holy Spirit. Holy Spirit come, fill the heart of your faithful once more. I need you, I need your power, I need your presence. Stir within me the fire of your presence. Give me your good gifts so that I may share them with your Church. Make me fearless. Amen.