Come Thirsty: Sermon John 7:37:39

Dear God, take our minds and think through them; take our hands and feet and work through them; take our lips and speak through them, take our hearts and set them on fire for you. Amen

I remember going to school at the University of Tennessee right after high school and one of the really cool things about being a student is that you get free football tickets. The season always starts about the first weekend in September while it is still hot in Knoxville. Especially those day games and being a college student most of the time I didn’t have enough cash to buy a coke at the ball game. So I had to wait till I got back to my dorm room to find something in the fridge. If you have ever gone to Knoxville to a game then you know that the UT campus is really remarkable. You can go to and back from Neyland Stadium the same way and be going uphill both ways. So getting back to my dorm room and opening that bottle of Coke was just wonderful. I don’t think I have ever had a Coke that tasted that good.

Thirst is our body’s low level indicator. In fact if you feel thirsty then your body is already dehydrated and you need to get some water in your system. Dehydration causes headaches, dizziness, and decreased blood pressure and if nothing is done it leads to death. We are made up of about 75% water and we need water for our bodies to function and the more we are hydrated the better our bodies function. But our souls also have a low level indicator also. Our souls need spiritual water, the kind of water that Jesus is talking about in the gospel of John this morning. When we fail to receive this living water then our spirits show signs of dehydration. We feel depressed, angry, bitter, full of resentment these are all signs on spiritual thirst.

Jesus knows of our need of spiritual water. Our scripture reading this morning has Jesus at the last and greatest day of Festival of the Tabernacles, which celebrated the miracles that the Hebrews experienced in their 40 years in the wilderness; including God bringing forth water from the rock. So the priests would bring large basins of water to commemorate that miracle. Jesus, in the middle of a big party, with thousands of people around stood up and shouted, I want y’all to imagine this, He stood up probably on a chair or even on a table and said “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me, and let the one who believes in me drink. As the scripture has said, ‘Out of the believer’s heart shall flow rivers of living water.’” Now this was a festival, a party, most people I imagine were drinking wine some were drinking water, but I would be willing to bet that very few of them were thirsty, physically. However, Jesus could see through the physical and into the spiritual. He saw a deep thirst of another kind.

I want us, for a moment, to step back in the way back machine, all the way back to the creation of man, Day 6. God formed man out of the dust and breathed life into his nostrils. He did something else too. He gave mankind a need, a thirst, for God. He also gave man freewill. He did not preprogram us to worship Him specifically, why? I think it is because He did not want humans to be robots with no choice but to worship God, but for us to choose God of our own freewill. It is like the love we have for our significant others, one of the greatest joys is the fact that our wives or husbands or fiancés choose to love us instead of anyone else. That is what love is all about. God wants us to choose to love him. That is greatest feeling in the world, to know that people love you because they want to, not because they have to.

We have a void in our lives that is only filled by God. We try to fill it with other things, like money and stuff, some fill it with drug and alcohol use, some fill it with sexual improprieties, and others fill it by dominating and oppressing their fellow human beings. These things fill the void for a moment but the feeling does not last for very long. This is because these things are not what God wants for us. He wants to fill the void with the living water of the Holy Spirit.

The phrase “living water” is unique. Jesus is referring to the Holy Spirit which would come on the Day of Pentecost. I want you to close you eyes and picture two different scenes. The first scene is a stream flowing to a lake. The stream is surrounded by trees and flowers. You look down at the water and you see clear down to the rocks at the bottom. You reach down and touch the water and it is cool and clean to the touch. You scoop some out of the stream and put it to your lips and it tastes good better and anything you get from a bottle. You see small fish swimming in the water and you have no problem dipping your toes in the cool, clean stream. Now I want you to think of another scene. This one is outside a factory. The water comes from a drainage pipe from inside the factory and the water collects in a pond outside. It is scummy with a green and yellow sludge. It stinks so bad you cannot get close to it and even if you did you wouldn’t want to reach down to take a drink. There are no fish swimming in the water in fact there is not life at all only a putrid, nasty pool. Which one of the two would you rather have? Which one is living water? Which one does God desire for us? The Spirit of God is a living spirit that dwells within us and helps us in ever aspect of our lives.

Jesus said “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and let the one who believes in me drink. As the scripture has said, ‘Out of the believer’s heart shall flow rivers of living water’”. Come to me and drink. There is the answer. Come to Jesus, He will give you the Spirit which will flow out of your heart. It will reach every aspect of your life. Do you think you heart is too dry? There is nothing He hasn’t seen, he’ll understand, and he’ll forgive. His water is good, fresh water. His water heals and purifies. His water strengthens and renews. This is the living water of the Holy Spirit.

Water has a unique property. It will conform to any space it is put in, a glass, a fish bowl, a pond, or even the ocean. It also goes wherever it is needed. When we drink water we don’t have to tell the water which part of the body it needs to go into. The water goes where it’s needed. So does the Spirit through Jesus Christ. Need help in your marriage, there goes the Spirit, need anger management, the Spirit helps, do you have addictions that affect your whole family the living water moves there as well. .

The two scripture lessons today show two different symbols for the Holy Spirit. One is water and the other fire. I think God chose these symbols first because they were something everyone is familiar with, even in Biblical times, secondly because anything that is touched by water, like in a flood, or in a fire is never the same. So it is with the Holy Spirit. When we are touched by the Holy Spirit we are never the same. We cannot help but to be different. Paul tells us that those who are in Christ are new creations because the old is removed by the grace of God. We are purified by the power of God’s living water. We are strengthened by God’s living water. Remember the words of Jesus, “‘Out of the believer’s heart shall flow rivers of living water.’” We do not have to go to a well to fetch this water it comes from within each of us because it is grace of God dwelling within each of us. Living water is God’s grace that is abundant for all people and it is with us even before we know that its there.

I want to close today, by telling a story. It is a story about a small fish in a river. He was swimming around minding his own business when he happened to stop by a group of humans standing by the riverside. It was a class taking a field trip. The little fish stopped and listened to the teacher speak. He heard the teacher say, that water is one of the most important elements on earth. Without is life could not exist and every creature on earth would die. Well this disturbed the young fish and he went frantically looking for some water. He knew he had to have some of this stuff or he would die. So he went to a group of young fish playing and asked them if they knew where he could find some water. The young fish mocked him and told him to go away he was ruining their fun. So the little fish went swimming down the stream and came upon an older, wiser fish. He asked the old fish where he could find some water. The old fish looked and laughed that the scared little fish and said “You are swimming in water, it is all around you”.

We have a tendency to ask where God is. When there is a tragedy we always wonder where God is. Sometimes we get so deep in ourselves that we think that God gave up on us long ago. This is not the case. God’s living water is always around us and within us. We come thirsty to God and God tells us to drink in deeply. Jesus tells us to take in all that we can and more because our cup truly overflows with God’s grace and love.

Let us pray…

Grant, O Lord,

that what has been said with our lips we may believe in our hearts,

and that what we believe in our hearts we may practice in our lives;

through Jesus Christ our Lord by the power of the Holy Spirit. Amen.