X Marks THE Spot

Sermon Title: X Marks THE Spot

Quote:

It is one thing for the Living Water to descend from Christ into the heart, and another thing how--when it has descended--it moves the heart to worship. All power of worship in the soul, is the result of the Living Water flowing into it, and their flowing back again to God.

Author: G.V. Wigram

Opening Scripture:

John 5:1–9 (NKJV)

After this there was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. Now there is in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate a pool, which is called in Hebrew, Bethesda, having five porches. In these lay a great multitude of sick people, blind, lame, paralyzed, waiting for the moving of the water. For an angel went down at a certain time into the pool and stirred up the water; then whoever stepped in first, after the stirring of the water, was made well of whatever disease he had. Now a certain man was there who had an infirmity thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there, and knew that he already had been in that condition a long time, He said to him, “Do you want to be made well?”

The sick man answered Him, “Sir, I have no man to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up; but while I am coming, another steps down before me.”

Jesus said to him, “Rise, take up your bed and walk.” And immediately the man was made well, took up his bed, and walked.

And that day was the Sabbath.

X Marks THE Spot - Where is the spot? The place Jesus meets us at our point of need with His Spirit & His Word.

Main Idea:

God can take “A Place of Misery” & turn it into “A Place of Mercy”

The man did not need to be the first into the water in order to be healed. He needed the one who spoke the world into existence to say the word and make it so. He did not need an angel to tap dance on the water. He needed Jesus to say the word. That is all it took. He didn’t need the water, he needed the ONE who made the water. He needed the LIVING WATER.

Scripture Reference:

Jeremiah 2:13 (NKJV)

“For My people have committed two evils:

They have forsaken Me, the fountain of living waters,

And hewn themselves cisterns—broken cisterns that can hold no water.

Verse Exposition:

Jesus is essential! just like water is essential to the human body and without it nothing works, so it is with the Spirit of God. We need to be full of the Holy Spirit every moment of every day or nothing works. How do we make it out of sin? The Holy Spirit. How can we find joy in a world of chaos? The Holy Spirit. Where can we turn when life gives us times of test and trial? The Holy Spirit.

BUT… the later part of the verse says they have hewn their own cisterns… we can try and replace the anointing of the Holy Spirit in our lives with other things but it will NEVER do what Jesus can. Broken cisterns that can hold no water… anything that tries to take the place of the Holy Spirit in our lives is vanity and just a temporary high.

Scripture Reference:

Isaiah 44:3–4 (NKJV)

For I will pour water on him who is thirsty, and floods on the dry ground;

I will pour My Spirit on your descendants, and My blessing on your offspring;

They will spring up among the grass like willows by the watercourses.’

Verse Exposition:

Did you catch it? He will POUR water on those that are thirsty! Do you come to Jesus like one who is thirsty? He brings FLOODS on the dry ground. He will POUR our His Spirit on ALL flesh! And BLESSINGS on your children. His Spirit wasn’t just put in us to be a stagnant pond, He gave it to be a river and spring of living, active, alive and flowing Waters.

Scripture Reference:

John 4:3–26 (NKJV)

3 He left Judea and departed again to Galilee.

4 But He needed to go through Samaria.

5 So He came to a city of Samaria which is called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph.

6 Now Jacob’s well was there. Jesus therefore, being wearied from His journey, sat thus by the well. It was about the sixth hour.

7 A woman of Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give Me a drink.”

8 For His disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.

9 Then the woman of Samaria said to Him, “How is it that You, being a Jew, ask a drink from me, a Samaritan woman?” For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.

10 Jesus answered and said to her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, ‘Give Me a drink,’ you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water.”

11 The woman said to Him, “Sir, You have nothing to draw with, and the well is deep. Where then do You get that living water?

12 Are You greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well, and drank from it himself, as well as his sons and his livestock?”

13 Jesus answered and said to her, “Whoever drinks of this water will thirst again,

14 but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst. But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life.”

15 The woman said to Him, “Sir, give me this water, that I may not thirst, nor come here to draw.”

16 Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come here.”

17 The woman answered and said, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You have well said, ‘I have no husband,’

18 for you have had five husbands, and the one whom you now have is not your husband; in that you spoke truly.”

19 The woman said to Him, “Sir, I perceive that You are a prophet.

20 Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, and you Jews say that in Jerusalem is the place where one ought to worship.”

21 Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe Me, the hour is coming when you will neither on this mountain, nor in Jerusalem, worship the Father.

22 You worship what you do not know; we know what we worship, for salvation is of the Jews.

23 But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in Spirit and Truth; for the Father is seeking such to worship Him.

24 God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.”

25 The woman said to Him, “I know that Messiah is coming” (who is called Christ). “When He comes, He will tell us all things.”

26 Jesus said to her, “I who speak to you am He.”

Exposition of Opening Text:

Back to our opening text for just a moment. The man at the pool of Bethesda was looking for an encounter. But he was looking in the wrong place. The story was an angel would come a stir the water. But we have no proof that it ever happened. His response to Jesus’ question “Do you want to be made well?” was rhetoric to the traditions of man “I have no help, I am all alone” He is desperate (38 Years) He is hopeless (no one to help) He is hurting (Had an infirmity)

What is Jesus’ response to his desperation, hopelessness and hurt? ‘Rise, take up your bed and walk!” There is always a chance we can just stay in our own place of pity and self loathing… BUT GOD… Who is RICH in MERCY!

X Marks THE Spot - Where is the spot? The place Jesus meets us at our point of need with His Spirit & His Word. And will we respond?

The Place where Jesus found him? Bethesda = “House of Mercy”

Scripture Reference:

John 7:37–39 (NKJV)

On the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out, saying, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.” But this He spoke concerning the Spirit, whom those believing in Him would receive; for the Holy Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.

Verse Exposition:

Jesus is GLORIFIED and is Spirit has been made available to every thirsty and longing soul!

Scripture Quote:

Isaiah 55:1–3 (NKJV)

“Everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; And you who have no money, come, buy and eat. Yes, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. Why do you spend money for what is not bread, And your wages for what does not satisfy? Listen carefully to Me, and eat what is good, and let your soul delight itself in abundance. Incline your ear, and come to Me. Hear, and your soul shall live; And I will make an everlasting covenant with you— The sure mercies of David.

Scripture Exposition:

Only Jesus can satisfy! Only Jesus can fill the empty and broken. He repairs the broken pieces and then fills in the life that is surrendered. Committed and connected to the Source.

Scripture Reference:

John 6:35 (NKJV)

And Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life. He who comes to Me shall never hunger, and he who believes in Me shall never thirst.

Verse Exposition:

Are you thirsty? Where is is the place you will be intentional about meeting Jesus?

Quote:

Christ is not a reservoir but a spring. His life is continual, active and ever passing on with an outflow as necessary as its inflow. If we do not perpetually draw the fresh supply from the Fountain of Living Water, we shall either grow stagnant or empty, It is, therefore, not so much a perpetual fullness as a perpetual filling.

Author: A.B. Simpson

X Marks THE Spot - Where is the spot? The place Jesus meets us at our point of need with His Spirit & His Word.