"I thirst"

Later, knowing that all was now completed, and so that the Scripture would be fulfilled, Jesus said, “I am thirsty.” A jar of wine vinegar was there, so they soaked a sponge in it, put the sponge on a stalk of the hyssop plant, and lifted it to Jesus’ lips.

Dipso…I thirst

Thirst:

Thirst is a Physical need

· Have you ever been thirsty? Of course you have. Thirst is a basic human experience.

· But while it is common to us all, Jesus experienced it uniquely. That’s the side of it we will be looking at today.

· It’s one of the required elements for life…simply we can literally die of thirst.

· Thirst is a physical requirement, but it also has a spiritual component to it. Jesus said to spiritually thirst was a blessing

Thirst is a Spiritual blessing

Matthew 5:6 NIV84

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.

· A blessing b/c God promises to meet our spiritual thirst.

· WE have experienced this right. You are at work or at school and you are thirsty. You get up and go to the water fountain…excuse me, pardon me, Oh HEY>>> how have you been doing? DID you catch that game last night?

· Before you know it, you have been talking for 10 minutes and the bell rings and you think…or for Pete’s sake, I forgot to get a drink and then the teacher won’t let you out of class…and you are distracted the rest of the class.

· When we read the words, I’m thirsty. We have a way of understanding them. It was different for the Jews, even Jesus. Jesus spoke intentionally his entire life, this would be no different. They heard these words in a context of the OT.

· Jews understood the power of the term thirst. They thought of the exodus

o Physically being lost

o Spiritually being lost

When Jesus said I THIRST, it wasn’t the first time to THIRST

In fact, you could say thirst actually

ILLUSTRATES his mission.

· What I mean is that GS do all sorts of things. But for many people think of GS, they think…cookies.

· For Jesus, he often referred to being living water.

· It happened the first time he proclaimed his thirst.

John 4:1-15

4 Now he had to go through Samaria. 5 So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph. 6 Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about noon. 7 When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?” 8 (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.) 9 The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.) 10 Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.” 11 “Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? 12 Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his livestock?” 13 Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, 14 but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” 15 The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.”

· This was his mission. To become living water. To share with us his living water.

· Now, here on the cross, he was thirsty because he was pouring himself out for us.

· He was emptying himself, of himself, for us. It’s what he came to do.

When Jesus said he was thirsty, not only did it illustrate his mission, but proclaiming his thirst…

DISCLOSES his divinity

· We talked about Psalm 22 last week how they gambled for his clothes

· Also in

Psalm 69:21 NIV84

They put gall in my food and gave me vinegar for my thirst.

· These prophecies of Jesus were written several hundred years before his birth and here Jesus was on the cross fulfilling them.

· In fact there are over 400 prophecies of Jesus

· 100 about his death

· Fulfilled them all AND lived a sinless life to show he was the son of God

He wasn’t just the son of God, he was completely human. When he said, I THIRST

EXPOSES his humanity

· his suffering and agony was real

· He was the creator of the world, yet he was unable to drink because he was a man nailed to a cross

· not metaphorical, his thirst was real

· real and physical, but it is also spiritual

· It revealed a separation from God that is best explained by thirst.

· Compared to others separated from God

· Story of Lazarus the beggar

Luke 16:19-31

Luke 16:24 NIV84

So he called to him, ‘Father Abraham, have pity on me and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, because I am in agony in this fire.’

· He was a man on a mission

· Emptying himself for our benefit

· Revelation 7 tells us that when God is finished Thirst will be no more

That’s what Jesus came to accomplish. Not to try and do it. Jesus came to bring this about.

I said earlier that when Jesus said I thirst he was illustrating his mission. It was an illustration because Jesus lived his mission. Jesus was God in the flesh who came that we might have living water for eternal life.

Yet here he is on the cross, thirsty. He poured himself out.

That’s why when he whispered I THIRST…he was actually amplifying our call

AMPLIFIES our call

Matthew 25:34–46 (NIV)

34 “Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. 35 For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, 36 I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’ 37 “Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? 38 When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? 39 When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’ 40 “The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’

As we have received the living water from Jesus, we get to give it to others.

That’s why David Taylor and I were playing kickball in the gym on Friday. We started a WyldeLife at SMS.

We had donut Olympics

We ate donuts on a string

We pushed donut holes around the gym with our noses

We did all this in order to get an opportunity to tell some middle school kids about this Jesus who has proven himself to be living water.

Do you know him or

Are you thirsty?

One thing for sure, if you know him, you will find yourself thirsty to serve. Because you were saved to serve.