John 7:37-44

It begins with just a tickle in the throat. Just a little dryness, just a little cough. You swallow a couple of times, and just keep going. Soon, the dryness is back, and swallowing isn't coming as easily. You cough a couple of more times, just to kind lube things up again. But now your lips are getting dry, and your voice is starting to sound a little gravelly. Your throat is closing up, your mouth isn't working anymore. You're thirsty.

If you keep going for a while, not only will your throat feel tight and dry, soon your head will start to hurt. Even your nose will get dry. Wait even longer, and your muscles will begin to cramp. Your body won't move right. And wait longer yet, and you will die. Because you were thirsty.

This is how people are thirsty, and not for water, but for purpose, for meaning, for security, for hope. Their marriages and their dreams, their jobs and their families, they’re lives are dry. They don’t start off dry. It’s just a little tickle, a little cough. And soon their lives begin to cramp up, and if they don’t drink, soon, their marriage, their career, their hopes, their lives, will die.

And for those who are thirsty, Jesus says, come to Me. If you don’t, if you don't drink, you'll die And get this: If you’ve come to Jesus, if you’ve believed in Him, you become a source of living water for those who are thirsty. Through you, Jesus pours out His saving power to those dying of thirst.

It's the last and greatest day of the Feast of Tabernacles. The Feast of Tabernacles celebrated God's care and protection for the people of Israel as they journeyed for 40 years through the desert. The Jews recreated the shelters they had lived in in the desert, in order to remember God as their shelter.

But along with building the tabernacles, they also celebrated with water. For a nation that had spent 40 years in the desert, water is about as precious an item as you can find. Each day of the
week during the feast, a priest would dip water out of a pool, out of the pool of Siloam, and they
would pour this water into the altar. And each time they dipped and poured, the priest would say the words of Isaiah 12:3

Each dip and each pour, every drop reminded them of God's miraculous providing of water from the rock, keeping them alive in the desert. It reminded that they would have died, unless God had quenched their thirst.

On the seventh day, the last day of the festival, the priest dipped and poured and dipped and poured and dipped and poured, seven times. And in the middle of this gushing river of water, on the last and greatest day of the Festival, verse 37:

You can just imagine the reaction of the people as Jesus says this. They know the ritual, they’ve carried out this tradition for years. Now, Jesus stands up in the middle of the routine and asks anyone if they’d like a drink of water? Not now, Jesus. Maybe later.

But this can’t wait. And if Jesus’ first statement seemed a little inappropriate, His next statement is down-right confusing. Verse 38:

Which, if this was said by anyone other than Jesus, would have been a pretty arrogant thing to say. On this great, last day of this very important feast, Jesus is saying that He is the source of water, that He is the source of care, that He is the one that keeps the people of alive? Whoever believes on Jesus will be okay? Whoever believes on Jesus will be safe, will be saved?

The people know better. They know that it was God that saved them in the past. They know it was God who provided water for them from the rock, that it was God who led them through the desert. How can this rabbi, this teacher, say that HE is the Provider, the Protector, the source of life? Unless…huh…unless Jesus is saying that He is God.

And this explanation, the only explanation anyone could come up with, stirred up a hornets nest. Continuing after our text, the people start taking sides. Some people want to stone Jesus. They’re understanding, alright, that Jesus is claiming to be the Lord, the Protector, the Savior of His people. And that just couldn’t be right. Jesus must be either nuts, crazy, a lunatic, or He’s lying, and only claiming to be God. Either Jesus really thinks He’s God, or He’s only pretending to be God. Either way, He’s no source of living water, He’s no protector or provider, He’s no Savior. He must be taken out.

But some, some hear His words. And they know, they get it. That’s God, talking there. That’s God, the same God who brought water out of the rock. That’s the God that we’ve just been thanking all week, by building tabernacles and pouring water. He’s here. He’s standing right here. He’s the Christ. He’s the Messiah. He is God, come to dwell among them. And they believed.

They believed in Jesus, and just like Jesus said, streams of living water flowed from within them. Which sounds strange, because didn’t we just say that we knew that Jesus was the living water? Isn’t He the source for this water that quenches all thirsts, the water that gives eternal life? Look again at verse 38:

It says that if you believe in Jesus as your Lord, as your Savior, if you believe that He came to die and rise again to save you and protect you and provide for you, then streams of living water will flow from within you, from out of you. You will be a source of living water.

You will be a source of living water, because of the Holy Spirit. Verse 39:

Yes, Jesus is the living water. Yes, Jesus is the source. But when we believe in Jesus, when He becomes our Lord and Savior, when we hand our lives over to Him to own, He hands His life back over to us. His life becomes our lives. Because of the Spirit.

Here in John 7, Jesus’ life had not been distributed yet to those who believed in Him. Verse 39

This is the miracle of Pentecost. If Christmas is the day that Jesus began living on earth, Pentecost is the day when Jesus began living in believers. And it’s the Holy Spirit that brings that life. Think of it this way: In order for our bodies to be alive, we need to have our spirits in our bodies. It’s our spirits that make us living human beings.

So when the Spirit of Jesus, the Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit becomes the Spirit that is in us, we become alive in the same way that Jesus is alive. Romans 8:11 says:

So, if Jesus is the source of living water, and the Holy Spirit is giving you the life of Jesus, because you believe, then you also become a source of living water to those around you. It is Jesus, only Jesus, who saves. It is Jesus, only Jesus, who can redeem and restore and put things back together again.

But as Jesus is redeeming and restoring and putting things back together again, He’s using you as a conduit, a pipe, to deliver the living water. Certainly, He uses your mouth to let people know the source of living water. But He uses more than your mouth. He uses you, your person, your style, to bring life.

And people want life. They may not call it that, but it’s what they really want. They want to live, live abundantly, live at peace with other people, at peace with themselves. They want to be free from anxieties, free from regrets. They want to wake up in the morning not dreading the day. They want to go to sleep at night, and sleep like a baby safe in their mother’s arms. They want life.

And there are plenty of places to look for this life. You want to sleep good? Try a Sleep Number bed. Take a pill. Want to stop worrying? Focus on something else. Fill your life with lots of things that distract, that take your attention away from the fears and regrets. They search for life in substances, chemicals, drinking the regrets and fears away.

Even religion, church, even worship can look like the source of life. The people in John 7 were walking right past the source of living water, while they were worshipping with pools and pots. Not that there was anything wrong with what they were doing, they were just missing the Person, the Man, Jesus. The singing was great, they were busy with the church, they attended the worship, and they missed the source of living water. So many miss the source of living water and settle for something cheap.

But some have started to realize that all of this stuff wasn’t working. There wasn’t enough stuff in the world to keep us distracted. Even with new beds and new pills, we still weren’t waking up to a new day, eager to face the challenges. Having drunk ourselves to forget, we still woke up remembering, now with new regrets.

We had even been busy worshipping and working, teaching, active in our church, and even that wasn’t cutting it. We sometimes found the songs to be empty words, and the praying long and dry, and the preaching of God’s word pointless. We put our money in the collection, but only because we should. We weren’t really worshipping when we gave. It was a relief to get out and have coffee with friends. Worship and church were not cutting it.

Until, while we were buying or drinking or worshipping, we heard the voice of Jesus come over the songs and over the prayers and over the preaching. We heard Him say:

And we met Jesus, we believed in Jesus, and the Holy Spirit did the life transfer of Jesus life into us. And we were full.

And there was so much life, so much of Him, it overflowed. The life comes out of our mouths in the words we say. We’re hanging out with friends, and they’re frustrated, and because we listen, and because we care, and because we show a love that is different from anything else they know, they want to know more. And we tell them where we found this love, from Jesus.

And we’re talking with neighbors who have filled their lives with everything besides Jesus, and they just look so lost and empty. And as we spend time with them, they start to catch on that we’ve found something, and our lives are full, and it’s not because we have lots of things, but it’s because we have Jesus.

These friends, these neighbors, they need us to spend time with them. They need us to speak to them, to tell them where we found life. They need to know us, they’ll want to know us, because we are sources of living water. And as they know us better, they’ll be drawn to the original source, and they’ll know Jesus, too.

We were thirsty, and we found living water. The Spirit pumped this water from the source and quenched our thirsts. Now, let others know. They’re so thirsty, and you have what they need. Let them see the living water in you. Let them know where you got it from. Let them drink, and live.