Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

Thirst and Satisfaction

Our lesson tonight is about thirst.

Normally we think of being thirsty as a bad thing right?

It means we’re in need of something (water) that unless we receive it we will die.

And Dying is bad.

Catie and I were hiking badger mountain with Abram, our 2 year old a few weeks ago and we forgot to bring water.

We were taking turns holding Abram since he is too small to hike the whole way, again, he’s 2, and by the time we got to the top we were hot, dehydrated, and ready to head back down and drink the nasty hot water that we left in the car.

No one wanted to drink the water, but we knew that we probably needed it to get home without feeling like we would pass out.

We got home fine by the way.

But, that doesn’t mean it was a bad thing that we were thirsty was it?

Would someone open their bibles and read Psalm 42:1-2?

That “panting for flowing streams” is a longing or a desire for flowing streams.

The psalmist’s thirst is his longing or desire for satisfaction which is found in the “living God.”

Being Thirsty

Being thirsty is a normal healthy thing.

It means that we have the ability to see what we need something to live or be satisfied.

The struggle for people is to know how to be thirsty well.

I want to take a look at three different types of people who thirst tonight: the thirst of the empty soul, the thirst of the dry soul, and the thirst of the satisfied soul.

As we are looking at these types of people I want you to ask yourself, “Do I thirst for God?” and, “How do I thirst for God?”

Let’s first take a look at the Thirst of an Empty Soul...

Thirst of the Empty Soul

This is the soul of someone who has never known God or His goodness.

He does not seek after God, and he has only what is in front of him to find his satisfaction for his soul’s thirst.

All of us, regardless of when we were saved have had this kind of thirst.

God did not make us content in our natural sinful condition.

We are not born into this world aligned right with God.

Ephesians 2:3 reads,

That “carrying out the desires of the body and the mind” is when we attempt to find our satisfaction, or our identity, in the things around us.

Everything from “money, sex, power, houses, land, sports, hobbies, entertainment, transcendence, significance, education,” identity and anything else that we latch on we turn to for our satisfaction because we do not know what the thirst, the desire of our hearts really means.

Sometimes people are more serious in their quest for quenching their soul’s thirst.

They seek out religion, meditation, psychology or philosophy to find satisfaction in their thirst.

It can make the believer think that this person is searching for God, but the truth is that:

We think it is a craving that can be satisfied by these things, but only Jesus Christ can satisfy our souls.

We read in John 4:14:

The irony for the unbeliever is that while he remains perpetually unsatisfied in many areas of his life, he is satisfied in his pursuit of God, while never being able to know Him.

This is the same attitude of the parable of the rich man in Luke 12:19 “And I will say to my soul, “Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.”

’” This is a tragedy.

The man is complacent in his pursuit of God because his thirst is lacking.

In the same way, the Empty Soul does not thirst properly for God and that improper thirst is taken with him to the grave.

An Appeal (Maybe move to the end)

That’s some heavy stuff.

I’ll stop right there and say that if you think this is where you are, please come talk with me or any leader in this room.

You do not have to wander through that kind of thirst alone.We really are here for you and more importantly God is

The Christian knows that Jesus satisfies.

But even the Christian struggles with maintaining a thirst for God.

This brings us to our second type of thirst, The Thirst of the Dry Soul.

The Thirst of the Dry Soul

This is the person who is a Christian.

They are indwelled by the Holy Spirit and therefore cannot lose their salvation.

So, how is it that Christians end up having dry spells in their relationship with God?

What do you guys think?

Let’s look at John 4:14 again:

There are about 3 ways that our soul dries up:

How the Soul Dries Up

Taking in too much of the world and less of God

Have you ever noticed that drinking some things actually makes you thirstier?

Or even sick?

Alcohol is an obvious example of this.

How about salt water though?

Have you guys ever had salt water?

You would think that any kind of water would quench your thirst but absolutely not that.

So as your body drinks salt water, it moves water to and from your red blood cells.

As you have more salt, water moves to the blood cells leaving the other cells parched and as you have less salt, it moves from the red blood cells to the other cells.

It’s a balanced system.

Your kidneys actually send signals to your brain when you have too much salt in your diet to make you thirsty enough to drink water and balance the system.

Make sense?

With salt water, our kidneys have to pull water from the other cells in our body, which makes us even thirstier.

There’s too much sodium in our bodies and no way to flush it out.

As a result we get sick from dehydration.

Sodium is good!

Too much is bad...

The same is with what we take in from the world.

Too much attention given to the world only makes you sick.

We take it in, but we can’t quench our thirst because it’s just salt water.

We sense God’s Absence

Do you ever feel like God’s just “not there?”

While God never leaves us or forsakes us Hebrews 13:5 we can sometimes perceive that God is distant from us.

Even the psalmist recognizes this:

Even Jesus experiences this at the cross.

This doesn’t mean that God has left us.

Sometimes God withdraws from us to enable us to trust in Him.

“When the sun goes behind a cloud, it is no less near than when its rays are felt”

Physical and Mental Fatigue

What is a time that you have been so weary that you actually thought you were going to lose your sanity?

We are made as one complete, whole being.

Our body and our soul aren’t separate, but they are dependent on one another.

If the body dies, so does the soul.

We don’t live outside of a body!

It’s good to be reminded then that when we are physically sick or mentally anguished we can brood and get frustrated.

We need to care for our body, mind, and soul.

We need rest and rejuvenation.

The Satisfied Soul

This is our last type of thirst.

The person who thirsts for God because he is satisfied and wants more satisfaction!

So John Piper is a pastor who has written some pretty great things for the church and he was thinking about his church and how thirsty for God it was.

He was asking “O Jesus, what did you mean?” regarding thirst in John 4:14.

Here is what he wrote about thirst from God’s perspective:

When you drink my water, your thirst is not destroyed forever.

If it did that, would you feel any need of my water afterward?