Sermon Tone Analysis

If Anyone Thirst

                                                                                   October 12, 2008

*John 7:37-38*

This weekend we celebrate Thanksgiving.

We all have so much to be thankful for.

We live surrounded by abundance.

God has given us this abundance for which we are thankful.

Scripture says when we take delight in Him, He gives us the desires of our heart.

Consider this story: A very old man lay dying in his bed.

In death's doorway, he suddenly  smelled the aroma of his favorite chocolate chip cookies wafting up  the stairs.

He gathered his remaining strength and lifted himself from the bed.

Leaning against the wall, he slowly made his way out of the bedroom, and with even greater effort forced himself down the stairs, gripping the   railing with both hands.

With labored breath, he leaned against the door frame, gazing into the kitchen.

Were it not for death's agony, he would have thought himself already in heaven.

Here, spread out upon newspapers on the kitchen table were literally hundreds of his favorite chocolate chip cookies.

Was it heaven?

Or was it one final act of heroic love from his devoted wife, seeing to it that he left this world a happy man?

Mustering one great final effort, he threw himself toward the table.

The aged and withered hand, shaking, made its way to a cookie at the edge of the table, when it was suddenly smacked with a spatula by his wife.

Stay out of those, she said, they're for the funeral .

In Experiencing God Day-by-Day, Henry Blackaby talks about The Desires of Your Heart

Take delight in the Lord,

and He will give you your heart’s desires.—Psalm

37:4

*Your relationship with God ought to bring you more joy, satisfaction, and pleasure than any other relationship, activity, or material possession you have.

Scripture exhorts you to delight yourself in the Lord, finding your greatest pleasure in God and the things dear to His heart.*

*How can you find pleasure in what God enjoys?

Only as you spend time with Him will you begin to take delight in the things God loves.

As you spend intimate time with God and allow Him to show you your situation from His perspective, you will begin to see things as God sees them.

As you adjust yourself to God, your heart will begin to desire the same things God's heart desires.

When you pray, you will find yourself asking for the very things God desires.

Matters foremost on God's heart will be preeminent in yours.

Your first request in prayer will not be for yourself, but for God's name to be exalted and His kingdom to be extended (Matt.

6:9–10).*

*Have you been asking God to give you the desires of your heart without first seeking to understand what is on His heart?

God places this important requirement for those who pray: that we seek His priorities and make them our own.

This great qualifier prevents us from asking out of selfishness.

As we find joy in the Lord, we will see what is truly important, and we will long for these things as the Father does.*

Our key Scripture this morning speaks of the lavishness of God towards His people.

It is taken from John, chapter 7. Please turn to it now and follow along as I read verses 37 and 38:

/On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and proclaimed, "If any one thirst, let him come to me and drink.

He who believes in me, as the scripture has said, 'Out of his heart shall flow rivers of living water."'/

Some images are attractive; some are repulsive.

This image is attractive.

Most people, I think, would like their heart to be like a deep mountain spring overflowing in rivers of living water.

Even before we have a clear idea of what this image is referring to, we yearn for it because it seems to imply fullness and completeness to the point of overflowing.

It implies sweet coolness and refreshment.

It implies moisture and growth and life.

The Bible is full of beautiful imagery.

The image of springs or streams is particularly evocative.

Listen to Psalm 1/: “How blessed is the man whose delight is in the law of the Lord.”

He will be like a tree firmly planted by streams of water.”/

This picture of the tree by a stream is repeated by Jeremiah in chapter 17, verses 7 and 8: /“Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord ….

For he will be like a tree planted by the water that extends its roots by a stream … “/ The tree planted by the stream is an image of spiritual health, of fruitfulness.

But Jesus is not merely a poet evoking emotions by images.

He is that, but much more.

These very evocative words refer to something real.

The words are not meant to make us feel good because of their beauty and their associations.

They are meant to put us in touch with something solid and powerful and living.

Jesus is offering a very desirable experience, but he is offering it only as the result of some real, personal dealings between us and him.

It is real because He is as real today as he was two thousand years ago, as real as the person next to you.

No experience you have or will have is of any value whatever if it doesn't have this real and living Jesus.

Our experience is essential, but it will slip through our fingers and disappear if we focus on the experience instead of on Jesus.

So in thinking about this text we must talk about our experience, but it will be all in vain if Jesus doesn't shine through as distinct and powerful and beautiful over all.

We need to focus on the Living Water, not just the fruitful tree.

The feast referred to in verse 37 is the Jewish feast of Tabernacles or feast of booths, as we learned last week from 7:2.

The origin of the feast is described in Leviticus 23.

Moses says,

/You shall dwell in booths (or tabernacles) for seven days, and all that are native in Israel shall dwell in booths, that your generations may know that I made the people of Israel dwell in booths when I brought them out of the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.(vs 42-43)/

God ordained that his people bring to mind in yearly feasts the great things he had done for them when he delivered them out of bondage in Egypt.

God's purpose in bringing the people out of Egypt and through the wilderness was to show his power and his love for Israel, so that she would always cleave to him and trust him and obey him.

The feast of booths reminded the people of this trek through the wilderness and how God miraculously provided all their needs.

One of the needs God had provided was water.

In Exodus 17 Moses tells us how the people, soon after their escape from Egypt, moved south from the wilderness of Sin and camped at Rephidim.

There was no water there and so, instead of trusting God who had split the sea for them, /"the people thirsted there for water and murmured against Moses" /(17:3).

So Moses cried to the Lord, and God caused water to come out of a rock.

According to verse 14, Jesus had gone up to the temple about the middle of the feast.

Now it was the last great day of the feast as he stands up to shout the words of our text,/ "If any one thirst, let him come to me and drink."

/Whether the people at the feast grasped the full significance of this or not, we can see in John's gospel that Jesus saw himself as the fulfillment of the Jewish feasts.

He was the fulfillment in the sense that the saving power and grace of God which the Jews celebrated were now present and available in Jesus.

The longing for God and for the arrival of his kingdom, kept alive by the recurring feasts, need not be a mere longing any more.

God had now drawn near in his Son, and he offered his saving rule to all who would submit.

The waiting was over.

As Jesus said, /"The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe the gospel" /(Mark 1:15).

Everything in the Old Testament had pointed forward to a time of fulfillment.

Jesus is that fulfillment.

John shows Jesus now as a replacement and fulfillment of both the tabernacle and the temple.

John 1:14, /"The Word became flesh and tented (or tabernacled) among us."/

And in John 2:19 Jesus says, referring to his own body, but also alluding to the Jerusalem temple, /"Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up."

/We no longer meet God at the tabernacle or the temple.

We meet him in Jesus.

Another example of how Jesus fulfills the Old Testament is John 3:14, "/As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life."/

Whatever health and hope and salvation was offered in the Old Testament through ceremonies and symbols and sacrifices are now offered through the death of Jesus Christ.

They were all foreshadowing what was to come; now Jesus is here, and the shadows are swallowed up in his light.

Light, water, bread – all – beautiful images of Jesus’ sustaining power.

Last month, in John 6, we heard the Jews ask Jesus for a sign like Moses gave to Israel in the wilderness, namely, the miraculous manna (6:30).

Jesus answers, /Truly, truly, I say to you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven; my Father gives you the true bread from heaven . . .

I am the bread of life; he who comes to me shall not hunger./

(6:32, 35)

Again Jesus fulfills the Old Testament by offering himself as  all the sustenance we need, and more, than was ever had in the Old Testament era.

So when we hear Jesus cry out at the feast of booths, /"If any one thirst, let him come to me and drink," we understand him to mean, "If you are thirsty for God, if you are longing for the consolation of Israel (Luke 2:25), if you are eagerly looking for the kingdom of God (Luke 23:51), for deliverance from sin and oppression (Rom 6:23), then no longer look back to the days of old, and don't look forward to the future, just look to me.

In me all the past is summed up, and in me the future hope has arrived.

If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink."