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Introduction
After we had first moved to Tucson we had a big get-together with the church – likely 80 people hanging around the house. Eventually the door opens up and in comes Bob Stickle, unannounced and without an pomp or circumstance, yet everyone turns around and celebrates that Bob showed up! Now we can have a good time!
And all I could think is “I want to be like Bob!”
I think there’s a part in all of us that wishes we could be the life of the party in some way. Maybe not people hooting and hollering like they did for Bob, but to be the kind of person that feels like a breathe of fresh air when you walk in the room; to be a person that’s putting down something everybody else wants to pick up.
That’s what Jesus wants you to be – and he wants you to be more.
Scripture Introduction
In John 7:37-39
John 7:37–39 ESV
37 On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and cried out, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. 38 Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’ ” 39 Now this he said about the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were to receive, for as yet the Spirit had not been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.
Jesus wants you to be like a cool drink on a hot summer day.
Jesus doesn’t want you to be the life of the party, he wants you to be the life of the world.
The Feast of Booths
To really appreciate the purpose Jesus is giving us we need to fit it all in its context.
Jesus is going all of this on the last day of the feast.
That feast is the Feast of Booths
John 7:2 ESV
2 Now the Jews’ Feast of Booths was at hand.
You can read about this in Leviticus 23.
The Feast of Booths was like a week-long Thanksgiving in Israel. During the week you would reenact Israel wandering in the wilderness for forty years while God provided food and water. They’d set up tents (booths) and celebrate the luxuries they were currently harvesting – olives and grapes for oil and wine.
So it was a holiday that remembered God’s providence in the past, celebrated his providence in the present, and prayed for God’s providence in the future.
Part of this prayer for the future days was a ritual in which the High Priest would go down to the Pool of Siloam, draw water and bring it back to the temple. After the trumpets were sounded and psalms sung, he would pour the water of the altar.
On one level, this was a ritual that was asking God for the rain they needed. But it also represented a much deeper need.
The Exilic Mind-Set
Even though Israel is in their own land and worshipping at the temple, they would consider themselves in exile.
- They’re back in their own land – but Rome is the one ruling over it.
- They’re worshipping at the temple – but they don’t know if God is there to accept it.
And Israel was warned about this. God sent them prophets who said ‘If you continue in your sin you will find yourself in both a literal and spiritual drought.’
Isaiah 32:10–14 CSB
10 In a little more than a year you overconfident ones will shudder, for the grapes will fail and the harvest will not come. 11 Shudder, you complacent ones; tremble, you overconfident ones! Strip yourselves bare and put sackcloth around your waists. 12 Beat your breasts in mourning for the delightful fields and the fruitful vines, 13 for the ground of my people growing thorns and briers, indeed, for every joyous house in the jubilant city. 14 For the palace will be deserted, the busy city abandoned. The hill and the watchtower will become barren places forever, the joy of wild donkeys, and a pasture for flocks,
Because of sin, God would withhold the blessings of rain, and the blessings of himself – leading to an empty and desolate nation.
But not forever! Israel would be dried up…
Isaiah 32:15 ESV
15 until the Spirit is poured upon us from on high, and the wilderness becomes a fruitful field, and the fruitful field is deemed a forest.
That’s what the Feast of Booths looked forward to. It looked back on the days when God was with Israel in the wilderness, leading them every day, feeding them, giving them water. It mourned the present absence of God and so looked to the future day when God would return and and end their spiritual drought.
Connect: The Modern Drought of Meaning
Plenty of people are feeling that drought today. Harvard found that 58% of young adults found they had zero purpose in life.
“I have no purpose or meaning in life. I just go to work, do my mundane job, go home, prepare for the next day, scroll on my phone, and repeat.”
Life for many people is just one long search for the briefest moments of satisfaction. We will scroll endlessly on our phones in hopes of that one funny video or unique headline. And when we find anything worth stopping at it only gives us the briefest chuckle before we scroll ever on, having already forgotten what we just saw.
How depressing is life that so many would rather hunt for happiness in internet memes than find hope to find it somewhere outside?
We’re good at recognizing the problem, but not the solution. We find dissatisfaction in life and think we need a better job, a new toy, more money, a social cause. Those things will make you a little happy for a little bit, but they will never fill that eternal emptiness that so many people find within themselves.
We find ourselves jumping from puddle to muddy puddle, hoping that this is the one that is deeper than it seems, and live life dipping into wells that have long dried out.
If Anyone Thirsts!
It is to this hope of Israel and to our unsatisfied longings that Jesus cries out:
John 7:37 ESV
37 On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and cried out, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink.
Life without Jesus gets dry. You were made to be in his image and when you cut yourself off from that created purpose, you’re going to get thirsty.
Once someone finally recognizes that thirst, Jesus says he’s the one who can quench it. He’s the one who can give you more than doomscrolling, working until you die, and a life full of emptiness.
Jesus is what satisfies the soul.
Rivers of Living Water
But it doesn’t stop there
John 7:38 ESV
38 Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’ ”
Jesus is the ultimate source of this living water, but it will flow through you.
Some have come to the conclusion that that gives us too much credit. ‘His heart’ must be Jesus’ heart. But look back on what Jesus said to the Samaritan Woman about living water:
John 4:14 ESV
14 but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”
Jesus is the river-head – the source from which all that living water comes from. But people will often get their first experience of that living water through you – as if you were the cup that holds the water Jesus offers to the thirsty.
Out of the Heart
It is important to see where all of this action is coming from – the rivers of living water, the Holy Spirit, is to flow out of your heart.
To be more literal, it’s to flow out of your belly. It is something that needs to come from within yourself as it flows out into the world.
What I mean by this, is that we can’t expect to simply change a few behaviors and expect to be this rushing river. Jesus is not wanting to his people to be really good rule followers – that’s what the Pharisees were. He wants his people to be transformed at a fundamental level into people of God.
We’re told that all of this water is just another way of describing the Spirit:
› No slide
John 7:39 ESV
39 Now this he said about the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were to receive, for as yet the Spirit had not been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.
This is what Jesus has been after for the entire Gospel.
- He speaks to Nicodemus and tells us you need to be born all over again – something brand new made by the Spirit
- He speaks to the Samaritan woman at the well and says to us “It’s not about where you worship, it’s about worshipping in Spirit – it’s about who you are as a person.”
- He speaks to the Pharisees in chapter 5 and says to us “The time is now for you to pass from death to life”
- Then he speaks to the crowds and us in John 6, and says stop chasing after the things of this life and make me the very substance of your life as you eat my flesh and drink my blood.
The only way for the Spirit to flow from our hearts is for it to first make a home in us -changing us into people of love, sacrifice, mercy, and humility – people who look like Jesus.
Don’t believe people when they say your religion needs to be kept private – they don’t know how much they’’re asking. If the Spirit has taken up residence in your heart it’s not just a part of you – it is you. it’s all of the life within you.
Only then can the Spirit, the rivers of living water, flow out of us.
What Does That Look Like?
But what does that look like? Do I need to bring this exciting energy to the party like Bob does? What makes the water living water? What does it do?
Ezekiel 47 gives us a good picture.
Ezekiel is a prophet who is shown a vision of this massive temple:
Ezekiel 47:1 ESV
1 Then he brought me back to the door of the temple, and behold, water was issuing from below the threshold of the temple toward the east (for the temple faced east). The water was flowing down from below the south end of the threshold of the temple, south of the altar.
Ezekiel and his angelic guide follow this trickling water a thousand paces and the water’s ankle deep. They go another thousand and it’s knee-deep, another thousand and it’s waist deep, and finally
Ezekiel 47:5 ESV
5 Again he measured a thousand, and it was a river that I could not pass through, for the water had risen. It was deep enough to swim in, a river that could not be passed through.
And wherever this water goes it brings life.
Ezekiel 47:8–9 ESV
8 And he said to me, “This water flows toward the eastern region and goes down into the Arabah, and enters the sea; when the water flows into the sea, the water will become fresh. 9 And wherever the river goes, every living creature that swarms will live, and there will be very many fish. For this water goes there, that the waters of the sea may become fresh; so everything will live where the river goes.
Ezekiel 47:12 ESV
12 And on the banks, on both sides of the river, there will grow all kinds of trees for food. Their leaves will not wither, nor their fruit fail, but they will bear fresh fruit every month, because the water for them flows from the sanctuary. Their fruit will be for food, and their leaves for healing.”
There are a few details to focus on to help bring this picture to life – this picture of Jesus and us.
Heading East
The first thing is the direction of this river of living water – it’s heading East.
East is an important direction in the bible – East is where people go when they leave God behind.
- Adam and Eve are cast out of the Garden of Eden – to the East
- Cain murders his brother Abel and is sent East
- The people who built the tower of Babel wanted to live independently of God, so they headed East.
- The temple faces East which means that as you exit the temple you’re heading East
- When Israel was taken captive by Babylon they were taken East
And that’s the direction this river is flowing – not because it is leaving God, but because it is invading where God is not. It is going into the land that is opposed to God so that the river can give it life.
Let’s make the connections:
- Paul says that we, booth as the church collectively and as individuals, are the temple of God. You are the place where people can see God.
- The Holy Spirit that takes up residence in your heart is now also flowing out of it to reach others so that they might have life as we do
Heaven on Earth
Everywhere this river goes in Ezekiel there are living creatures. The banks are filled with fruit trees for food and leaves for healing. Even the dead sea turns into fresh water! This river turns the barren wasteland into the Garden of Eden – where man dwelt with God before sin and death entered into the world.
John uses this same picture to describe what heaven is like in Revelation 22:1-2
Revelation 22:1–2 ESV
1 Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb 2 through the middle of the street of the city; also, on either side of the river, the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.
Here’s what Jesus wants us think of when he says that river of living water will flow out of our hearts.
- He wants us to look back to the Garden of Eden, when everything was good.
- He wants us to look forward to heaven, when everything will be made even better.
- And he wants us to look around the world as it is right now – and understand that he’s fixing it, and he’s doing it through us.
Application and Conclusion
So don’t stop the waters from flowing.
- Don’t sit around waiting for God to save the world – he’s already doing that through you
- You are overflowing with the solution to this world’s unmet desires and needs.
- And as we go throughout the week we give the same invitation that we’ve been hearing throughout the gospel
John 7:37 ESV
37 On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and cried out, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink.