Feasting On God

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Father, when we ask you things like that, show us your glory.

What we're saying is not do fun stuff that only God can do.

But what we're saying, God, is remind us what we were created for.

Because the Bible says that we have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.

So the glory of God is our native environment.

So we need today to define the glory of God because that definition will have radical implications and consequences for our life.

And so now, Holy Spirit, illuminate the Bible.

It's more than words on a page contained in a book that we don't read probably as much as we should.

It is life, it is living water, it is it is marrow and fatness.

It is fatness and sweet wine, God, to our spirit today.

So nourish us, feed us, intoxicate us on the truths of the gospel today.

We pray in Jesus' name.

And everyone said, Amen.

You could have a seat if you've got a Bible.

I invite you to take it.

Open up to John chapter 7.

John 7 · chapter mention

If you don't have a Bible, there's one on your row.

I'm on page 893.

I want to talk to you today about feasting on God.

I wanted to I wanted to make the title of this sermon, What Happens When Jesus' Water Breaks?

But see, that's the thing.

My wife who grew up in church, she kind of helps me.

She's like, yeah, not so much.

You can't say that.

And I'm like, well, that's what happens here.

And so instead, we'll talk about feasting on God.

And what I mean by feasting on God, I don't know if you've ever been somewhere with men and watched the men eat like as a sport, like you just kind of and like go to Rudy's and watch like real men eat.

Like I went to a wedding recently and they had fried chicken at the at the at the reception, which was awesome because usually they have food that's not good.

And the groomsman came in late because apparently it takes an hour and a half to take pictures.

Memo, get your pictures taken early, okay?

And so, but they came in.

The smallest groomsman was probably 6'2, about 275.

Yes, thank you.

Whoa.

And there was one cat, he's about six foot seven, about about easily three bills.

He ain't never seen a biscuit he didn't like, okay?

And they walked in, it's like a shadow came over the room, and I leaned over to my wife and said, Somebody's fixing put a hurt on some chicken.

I saw one of those guys, he had a chicken leg, he stuck it in his mouth and just pulled the bone out.

I was like, I am so glad I'm here right now.

And there was just a plate of bones left when they were done.

I was just like, that is awesome.

So every time I read the word feast in the Bible, I think of that.

Oh, put it down.

And he's just chewing, and I was like, he's like a Viking.

Look to be a lodge with the finest meats and cheeses for me and all my warriors.

Not the kind of feast they're talking about here, okay?

When we talk about feasting on God, I do mean nourishing yourself in such a way, hear this.

Nourishing yourself in God in such a way that everything else becomes unnecessary.

Because it doesn't satisfy.

Now, what do you mean?

Here's what, more importantly, this is what Jesus means in John chapter 7.

John 7 · chapter mention

Now remember, earlier in the chapter, his brothers had said, hey, if you want to convince the world that you really are the Messiah, you should do some of these little magic tricks that you do.

Go up to the feast and do these little things you do, and that way everyone will believe you.

And Jesus said, Hey, my time has not yet come.

You can go anytime because you live disconnected from the timing and the purposes of God.

So you can be willy-nilly.

I can't.

And so they leave, and later Jesus' water breaks, and the Father says, It's time to go.

We've got to give birth to some new understanding here.

So he goes to the feast.

He's at the feast.

Three verses we're going to read this morning.

John 7, verse 37.

John 7:37

Uh, 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.

And whoever believes in me, as the scripture has said, the Bible verifies and establishes what it means to believe in Jesus.

You don't get to define that.

I don't get to define that.

As the script, whoever believes in me, as the scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.

Now, this he said about the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were to receive.

For as yet the Spirit had not yet been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.

There's three things in the text I want to just point to today.

And the first one is just an invitation.

An invitation.

It's verse 37.

Now, when you read the Bible, one of the best things you can do to grow spiritually is stay curious.

Stay curious.

Here verse 37 again against that backdrop.

On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and cried out, If anyone thirst, let him come to me and drink.

Now, when you hear that, when you read that verse, does anything stick out in your mind?

Anything make you curious?

Think about it.

It's not long, it's not profound, it's pretty simple.

It just says, on the last day of the feast, the great day.

Here's the way my mind works.

By the way, the way your mind is oriented towards the truth determines how you see the world.

And so you need to orient your mind towards the truth of the gospel.

It's that first few sentences, first few fragments of a sentence, on the last day of the feast, the great day.

What makes the last what is the feast he's talking about?

Is it a bunch of big gruesmen eating fried chicken?

No.

But then he says, secondly, it's on the last day of the feast, the great day.

So two questions you gotta answer right off the bat is what is this feast he's talking about, and why is the last day called the great day?

Let me give you some historicity.

I say this about five times a year, so let me say it here.

Before Christianity is personal, it's historical.

Does that make sense?

Before Christianity is personal, it's historical.

It's not just me in my life feeling better, doing what I want to do, getting forgiveness for the things that I should not have done.

There's a historical background to this, never so more so true than right here in John chapter 7.

John 7 · chapter mention

He says, on the last day of the feast, it's the feast of booths or the feast of tabernacles for the Jewish people.

They celebrated and they remembered God because they had these rituals, these feasts.

I think there's seven of them that happen at different times during the year.

And now you say, what do you mean it's called sukkot in the uh in the Hebrew language?

Uh and so sukkot, it was called Sukkot because a sukkah was a little hut, a little small version of a tabernacle that they would live in for seven days, okay?

I'm gonna give you two questions all to summarize all of this today.

And here's my first question: What rituals do you have as a family that allows you to remember that this life is temporal?

Because the Jews for seven days would move out of their houses and live in this little, had to have at least three sides with a thatched roof so that they could see the stars above and lay in bed at night and be reminded that this all depends on you, God.

This all depends on you.

Because here's the reality: God instituted Sukkot as a reminder that dependence upon him was not something that ended when the promised land was reached.

Let me say that again to an American audience.

God instituted the festival, the Feast of Sukkot, uh the feast of Booze.

Why?

To remind his people that dependence upon him didn't end when you entered into the promised land.

By the way, you say, well, I don't know.

Everybody in this room has a promised land.

You realize that, right?

For many of us, it's retirement.

It's man, I just can't wait because I get to that.

Then you know what?

I saved and I've invested and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

And I get to that, and and and what?

Finish that sentence for me.

When you get to that, what do you do?

You just say to God, thanks, I'll take it from here.

It's the worst thing you could do in your life.

There's so many people who get, they spend the last 20 years of their life playing bocce ball and drinking Pinot Grigio and going to Napa.

And this is like, and they're gonna stand before God and go, hey God, I love bocce ball.

Now, by the way, nothing playing wrong playing bocce ball.

I was at a conference in California.

I went to the pastor's house for dinner.

That cat has a professionally built bocce ball course in his backyard.

I was on the side of a mountain overlooking the city.

I was like, I need a raise.

He had fire pits with round tables around them.

And I was like, shut up.

And he had a wine cellar in his house.

I was like, only in California can you be this liberal.

Amen.

I was just walking around.

One guy walked up to me and said, What do you think about this botchy ball cord?

I said, I'm really just jealous.

I could make it some spiritual thing like this is bad.

It's not bad.

I think this is an interesting game.

So I'm not knocking any of those things, okay?

Don't mishear me this morning.

I'm just saying this dependence upon God.

God institutes the festival of Sukkot to remind his people that dependence upon me doesn't stop when you get to the place in life you've always wanted to get to.

Because you're most likely to put it in the ditch when you get there.

That's why.

And so the Jews, they observe this feast every year for two reasons.

Because they wanted to remember two things that we are hardwired to forget.

Number one, the temporal nature of this life.

The temporal nature of this life.

That's why they lived in these little temporary booths.

Just to remind themselves, do not get too attached to this world or the things of this world.

Secondly, to remind themselves of the fact that we must ultimately rely on God to provide for us.

Now that sounds really innocent.

I'll unpack it in a minute.

Let me say it again.

The fact.

To remind themselves, to purposely discomfort themselves for a week.

So to remind themselves that, hey, ultimately we rely on God to provide for us.

Because here's the danger: the longer you live, the better network you establish, the more you can trust in your network.

And God says, No, it comes from me.

It all comes from me.

And so when we read something like this, and I say, stay curious.

He says, hey, Jesus says, on the last day of the feast, the great day.

That's the second thing that your mind ought to go, bing, like, whoa.

What makes the last day the great day?

Great question.

I'll tell you why.

On the last day or the great day of the feast, uh, the priest would go down.

I mean, they had these beautiful ornamental costumes on and all this stuff.

They would go down with golden containers and scoop water out of the pool of Siloam that the guy in John 5 was laying by, waiting, who'd been paralyzed for 38 years.

They would scoop water out of the pool and they would come back and they would be chanting and singing as they're walking.

And the priest would walk around the altar seven times, and then they would pour this water out, and they would recite from Isaiah chapter 12.

Isaiah 12 · chapter mention

It's only six verses.

It sounds like, oh, that's a long thing.

Just six verses.

And they would be doing all this kind of stuff.

Now, here's the thing: uh uh the the feast of Sukkot, the feast of booths, it happened in Jewish culture right not long after Yom Kippur, uh, the Day of Atonement.

Now, on the Day of Atonement, what they would do, because you know for the Jews, there is no forgiveness.

They don't believe Jesus is the Messiah.

So no one's died on the cross for their sins.

So Yom Kippur, the priest, takes his hands and puts them on a scapegoat, and he sends the goat to transfer the people's sins onto the goat, and then they send the goat out into the wilderness, and the goat dies of deprivation.

No, no kid comes home and says, Look, mommy, I found a goat.

They're like, get away from that goat.

That's the scapegoat.

That's where the phrase comes from.

You make this person responsible for your behavior.

And so Jews during Yom Kippur, they would say to God, We know we we tried to do good this year and we didn't.

Please forgive us.

We'll do better this next year.

Now, some of you are like, wait a minute, I'm not Jewish, but I pray those kind of prayers.

Yes, yes.

And so, why do I tell you that?

To give you the context for what's going on at the Feast of Booths on the last day, the great day.

All this is going, the priests are walking around dressed up like majorettes with a bunch of Christianets who don't even understand what this is about, going through these religious rituals, just walking in a circle seven times.

Now, when you were a kid, did your parents ever make you go to church and you just thought, please no?

Anyone?

Can I see your hand?

Yes.

You were just like laying in the pew, mouth breathing.

Your parents like, get up, I'm gonna give you a whip and for what?

I went about eight times as a kid.

Uh, and the eight times I went was after my dad and stepmom had some knockdown drag out, or one of them got too drunk, or whatever.

And I remember just thinking, why do we come here?

You don't believe any of this.

I believe I was seven years old, I thought that.

I remember walking into church thinking, this is the most empty thing we do.

You don't believe a bit of this.

But I didn't say that.

I'd have gotten beat, and I just sat there.

And I was just like, oh, people do this every Sunday.

People in the Bible thought the same way.

They got this thing on the last and the great day.

It's the great day because they've got a processional.

The priests are going around and around the altar seven times with golden pitchers of water they scooped out of the pool of slum and they go to pour them on the altar.

And this is what's happening in the background.

They're reciting Isaiah chapter 12, which says, You will say, In that day, I will give thanks to you, O Lord, for though you were angry with me, your anger turned away that you might comfort me.

Isaiah 12 · chapter mention

Behold, God is my salvation.

I will trust, I will not be afraid, for the Lord God is my strength and my song.

He has become my salvation.

With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation, and you will say, In that day, give thanks to the Lord.

Call upon his name, make known his deeds among the people, proclaim that his name is exalted, sing praises to the Lord, for he has done gloriously.

Let this be made known in all the earth.

Shout and sing for joy, O inhabitant of Zion.

For great is you great in your midst is the Holy One of Israel.

You hear that last part?

For great in your midst is the Holy One of Israel.

Did you notice the phrase, in that day, in that day, in that day?

Most scholars believe it's at this point in the ceremony, in the pomp and circumstance of the ceremony.

Has anybody ever been to an old school wedding?

They don't do this anymore.

Remember a long time ago at a wedding they would say, at some point, can anyone show just cause why this man and woman should not be joined in holy matrimony?

If so, please speak now, forever, hold your peace.

Remember that?

Did you ever pray someone would stand up and say something?

I prayed every time.

Every time I'm like, somebody stand.

Oh, wouldn't you love to be there?

And they say, can anyone show just cause?

And somebody just stands up and says, Yeah, I don't get it.

He's an undisciplined loser, he's a con artist, he's in debt, she's a beautiful woman.

What does she see in him?

Can someone explain that to me?

And then other people start popping up.

Yeah, me too.

What's she doing with him?

You would be on one level, you'd be like texting your friends, oh MG, you should have come.

Your friends text back.

Why?

Is there an open bar?

No.

This thing just got off the chain because the preacher asked the question, and 14 people said, we object.

Never happens.

Never happens.

This is what Jesus does.

It's like the He stands up and he objects to them just going through this empty religious ritual where they walk around circles and pour out water, and then they say, Oh, for great in your midst is the Holy One of Israel.

At this point, Jesus stands up and says, I think I'll be great right now.

How about that?

And everyone's like, What?

And he says these words.

If any man, if anyone thirst, let him come to me and drink.

See how simple Jesus is and yet profound?

They're walking around these empty religious rituals, pouring out water on the altar, and Jesus says, Hey, if anyone thirsts, translation, if you're tired of going through the motions of religion and you want a relationship with a real God, come to me and drink.

And everybody in the crowd starts taking off their religious costumes, like, I'm so sick of this.

And the Pharisees, the Jews of the day, were livid.

Notice, by the way, they're talking about in that day, in that day.

And Jesus says, What about today?

This is free.

I don't have time to go into this, but remember this.

When you talk about your life always in terms of the future, like one day or in that day, all you're doing is giving yourself permission to be the same person you've always been right now.

When you talk about, well, one day, well, in that day, and that's what the Jews were content to do to talk about, well, in that day, when the Messiah comes, you know, in that day, in that day, and Jesus stands up on the last and greatest day of the feast and says, How about today?

How about we just up in this thing right now and get down to the get down?

And the people were like, free at last, free at last.

Thank God Almighty, I'm free at last.

And he says, This, if anyone thirst.

Now notice the flow of movement towards Jesus.

Hear these words.

Sometimes you gotta break the Bible down to get what it's being said.

Take those first two words, if anyone.

If anyone.

If you really believe that the gospel is open to anyone, who would you have a spiritual conversation with this week?

If anyone.

If anyone.

He doesn't qualify it.

He doesn't say, hey, if you're in the top 25% of the earning bracket, I need to see you.

If you've got it all together, I need to see you.

Jesus says, I so trust myself and my capacity, I'll take anyone.

I don't care how jacked up you are, how sinful you've been, or what a bad reputation you have, or what your credit score is, if anyone.

Again, if you really believe that, who would you have a spiritual conversation with this week?

And then he just says this little word, thirsts.

If anyone thirsts.

Like, like, like that doesn't happen.

Now, this is a God who way back in Jeremiah chapter 2, a book of the Old Testament, said this.

Jeremiah 2 · chapter mention

He said, My people have only committed two sins.

Number one, you've forsaken me, the well of living water, and number two, you've dug for yourself wells that hold no water.

And so he's it's it's almost this word is rhetorical.

If anyone thirsts, like, are you kidding me?

When you forsake God and you try to find sufficiency in yourself, you not only do you thirst, you are going to die of thirst.

And Jesus is so subtle and so provocative.

He says, If anyone's in touch with your natural state of being, despite all that is available to you, you can't seem to feel good about any of it.

If you're sick and tired of being sick and tired, if you're tired of just being thirsty, of always trying hard, but not quite measuring up.

And thirdly, he says this let that person come to me.

Let them come to me.

What is that?

It's a personal invitation from a personal God to a personal relationship.

It's not instructions to an institution.

If anyone thirsts, let that person come to me.

And then he says this.

You got to get your head around this this morning because we don't think about Jesus in these ways.

Much to our chagrin and shame, he says, and drink.

He doesn't say, if anyone thirsts, let him come to me and pray a prayer.

And based on your effort or your sincerity, I may or may not accept you and let you in.

Not what he says.

He says, if anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink.

I love that Jesus says, Come to me and drink.

Come and get a mouthful of the juicy, goodness reality that is found only in me.

You got to recapture, beloved, what it means to believe in Jesus.

Because here's my here's my fear.

I just put all my cards on the table.

Now don't walk out this morning and kind of go, ooh, he was mad at us today.

No, I'm not.

Not at all.

I'm deeply concerned for American Christianity because here's my fear.

We don't talk about coming to Jesus and believing in Jesus in terms that the Bible talks about.

We talk about coming to Jesus and believing in Jesus in terms that the Bible actually never talks about, like praying a prayer.

Well, I I prayed the prayer when I was eight, and I've been the same person my whole life, and I but I meant that.

Is if your sincerity somehow obligates God to take you to heaven regardless of how you live.

The problem that plagues the American church is it doesn't have enough people who've come and drink deeply of who Jesus is and what he's all about.

You got to recapture what it means to believe in Jesus from the Bible.

It's not this mere mental ascent or this fear-based decision about, oh, I don't want to go to a place called hell.

None of that is sufficient motivation to believe.

This is the thirsty soul's only place of satisfaction.

And people that believe, that come to Jesus and drink, they're satisfied by God in a way that makes them want more of Him and less of everybody and everything else.

There's a sufficiency that you find in God.

That you don't find in anybody or anything else.

Once you've drank of Him, so could we just be done for the rest of our lives with this unbiblical notion that to believe in Jesus, that saving faith is this decision to believe some facts about Jesus.

No, it's not, because you can believe all the right things about Jesus and never drink of Jesus.

Do you realize that, beloved?

And some of you right now, your brain should be kind of going, This sounds familiar.

Because you're trying to produce the overflow by effort instead of intimacy.

It's just not there.

It's coming to Him and slinking your deepest thirst in Him and personally tasting the goodness that is found only in God.

So there's an invitation.

There's an invitation.

And that is it.

Jesus says, Come to me and drink.

It's very, very experiential.

And it's radically consequential, which is why the second thing we see is this is this observable consequence.

Verse 38.

He says, Whoever believes in me, as the scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.

You hear that?

Whoever believes in me, we don't get to define what it looks like to believe in Jesus.

Because here's the thing.

God will allow you and I, if you're like, well, I my faith is a personal matter and I've got my own faith.

That's not biblical Christianity.

God defines that, and the Bible, the holy writ of Scripture, validates it, or it's not valid at all.

He says right there in verse 30, whoever believes in me, as the scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.

That's the observable consequence.

Streams of living water will flow out of his heart.

If you have the NIV, I think it says out of his inmost being.

The literal in the Greek is out of his belly.

Because it was the seat of emotion.

That's the place where you felt things the deepest.

When Paul says to the church at Corinth, he says, your God is your stomach.

What he's saying is, is what rules you is whatever you feel the strongest.

You're ruled by your feelings.

He's basically saying to the Corinthians, grow up.

You're ruled by your stomach.

Your God is your stomach.

That doesn't mean they're fat and they like bacon too much.

It means, hey, but this is the same place that Jesus is talking about.

He says, hey, whoever believes in me, just like the Bible has said, out of his inmost being, the deepest, most connected place in them, will flow rivers of living water.

It becomes, it's such an observable consequence.

The question is no longer, are you satisfied?

Can we for once just move past ourselves?

Because American Christianity is obsessed with the self.

We sing from a place of obsession, I'm hungry, I'm thirsty, wash me, fill me, cleanse me.

Worship has eroded into this job description that we sing to God, asking God to do what the Bible says God's already done.

He's already washed you.

He's already filled you.

He's already cleansed you.

Why do you keep wanting to go back and revisit that all over again?

Someone said to me the lady was visiting the first service, and she said, Wow, that sermon was basically telling Christians to grow up.

That was kind of different.

And I didn't say it, proof positive.

I don't say everything I'm thinking.

What I wanted to say was, yes, because all we do is give birth to more babies every Sunday.

But when you begin to say what the Bible says, it jars us.

It causes us to kind of go, now wait a minute.

If there's this observable consequence and Jesus says, Hey, you want to know who believes in me?

Because the scripture says it like this out of his heart, out of his inmost being, out of her deepest place, will flow rivers of living water.

It's so observable that the question is no longer, are you satisfied?

Instead, the question becomes, are other people's thirsts being quenched from being around you?

Let me say that again.

Are other people's thirsts being quenched from being around you?

Or let me say it like this.

That means you should, I should, with regularity, find yourself in situations where your water breaks because new birth is about to take place.

Have you ever been in a room when a woman says, Oh, my water just broke?

It's the weirdest thing.

Nobody is neutral to that phrase, by the way.

You're never in a restaurant and the lady at the table next to you says, Oh, my water just broke.

And then they come out with guitars and sing, happy birthday to you.

Hey, her water just broke.

I mean, people go to DEF CON 4 when a woman says that.

People start yanking tablecloths off the table.

I don't know, boil water, we gotta do something.

Ask yourself this question.

Look at me.

When's the last time your water broke?

And something got born that you wasn't planning on being born.

And I don't mean always some kind of, oh, this was awesome.

Sometimes it's inconvenient.

Like last night at about 9.02, my phone rings.

I look at it.

It's 9.02 on a Saturday night.

I mean, I'm over here in a I'm sleeping in a hyperbaric chamber getting ready to preach three times, okay?

Whoosha, whoosha.

I look down, I recognize the name, I answer the phone.

You ever answer the phone and think, because the voice on the other end said, Hey man, uh, did not say I hate to be calling?

I know it's 9.02 and you got to preach three times.

Didn't validate my experience at all.

Just called me and said, Hey, I'm running a fever and I'm so shaky I can't get to the hospital.

I need you to come get me and take me to the hospital.

This cat lives in Houston.

I live in Sugarland.

I don't know if you know, those are not the same city.

I got friends who are like, oh, you live in Houston.

I'm like, shut up.

I don't.

I live in Sugarland, 21 miles from Houston.

It's the same thing.

No, it's the same stupid.

That's your problem right there.

And so I'm like, uh, yeah, I'll I'll I'll be right there.

And so I went from a glide pattern of watching the Texans and the 49ers.

How was it to get to see that whole game?

Did you enjoy that?

Laid up on your bed, and hey honey, we got any more coffee?

I'm slogging it into the hood down there in Houston, pick my friend up, and he's just like, he's got his front door open so he can see me pull up as I go in.

Help him get my truck.

We go to West Houston uh hospital, medical center over here, get him in the emergency room, put him in a wheelchair, wheel him in.

When two dudes walk into an emergency room, they're trying to figure out the nature of your relationship.

And so they're looking at him, asking him questions.

He can hardly talk, he's got COPD.

He's like, he sounds like a turtle with a hangover, okay?

And they're looking at me, and I'm like, uh, he had hip surgery about eight days ago.

He's got hungry fever, uh, he's got COPD, it's hard for him to breathe.

He checked his oxygen, it's probably down, and he's got infection somewhere.

When you get on top of this, and the lady says, What is the nature of y'all's relationship?

And I said, I'm his pastor.

It ain't that.

And she goes, Oh.

And then she was like, uh, and she said, You're his what?

And I said, I'm his pastor.

We don't see many pastors bringing their parishioners to the emergency room.

Yeah, my water broke.

And she is just like looking down and looking up, like, yeah, I was laid on my bed watching the the preseason in the Texans and just flipping around channels, just living in the lap of luxury, and my phone rang, and my water broke.

And another nurse walked over and she's like, excuse me.

Were we talking about water breaking?

Yeah.

Yeah.

And so when your water breaks, God's giving birth to something.

You can't fight against that because once that water breaks, that baby's coming.

Okay, would you like to sit over here?

Sure.

She said, Would you like a cup of coffee?

No, I had plenty already.

And then they walk ten feet away and talk about me like I can't hear them right there.

And then the nurses are going and they're giggling.

He said, He's water broke.

He says he's his pastor, but we don't know what the nature of their relationship is.

And I'm like, oh, can I stab these women with a hypodermic needle?

Ah.

Here's the thing.

When I say the unobservable consequence, here's all I'm saying.

We'll go on to the last point.

Let you out of here.

Look at me.

Your water ought to be breaking on a consistent basis because God's not done giving birth.

I walked out dressed.

My wife said, What are you doing?

I said, I'm going to the hospital.

I said, What?

My friend Jeff needs to ride to the hospital.

Demmo hospital's mom's 84.

She's on oxygen.

She can't drive.

He's so sick he can't drive.

Well, baby, it's Saturday night.

I know, right?

I know.

Leave me alone.

My water broke.

I gotta go.

Got home sometime after 11.

And I was just like, thank you.

Because I know you're not this way, but sometimes I think my life is my own.

I get to do what I want with my time.

Yeah, I know.

I'm the only one.

But when your water breaks, guess what?

The baby's coming.

God has given birth to something that you can't birth.

Here's the last thing we see in the text.

A necessary definition.

Verse 39.

Verse 39 says, now this he said about the Spirit.

When he says, Whoever believes in me, as the scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.

He's talking about the Holy Spirit.

See, when a person becomes a Christian, God comes to live inside of you by his spirit and he takes up residence.

He doesn't leave, he's there.

This is his temple.

That's why the Bible says, Don't you know that you've been bought with a price?

Therefore, glorify God in your body.

You're not your own.

Your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit.

Your body becomes the house that God abides and dwells in, controls, rules over by his spirit.

Now, this he said about the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were to receive.

For as yet the Spirit had not yet been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.

There's the necessary definition.

It's that last little phrase, because Jesus had not yet been glorified.

Beloved, let me say this.

The way you and I define glory determines the path our life will take.

Now listen very carefully, because some of your folks can get mad at me.

I don't want you to, but you're going to.

The way you define glory determines the path your life will take.

What do you mean?

The Bible says the Spirit had not yet been given because Jesus was not yet glorified.

It's that little phrase, that little word glorify.

What do you mean Jesus has not yet been glorified?

What does that mean?

That means that Jesus, hear this, had not yet been betrayed by a close friend, had not been falsely accused, had not been mocked, beaten beyond recognition, nailed to a stick by a bunch of religious imbeciles, made a public spectacle of, dies, is buried, rises again, appears to his disciples and small gatherings of people, and then a crowd of as many as 500, and then he ascends back up into heaven.

And the Bible rolls all that up into one word: glory.

Jesus had not yet been glorified.

So the way you and I define glory determines the path your life will take.

And so it behooves you today, number one, the first question, in case you forgot, is hey, what rituals do you engage in to remind you that this world is temporary?

Because my concern is we got way too much investment in this world.

Like it's gonna last forever.

It's not.

Secondly, how do you define glory?

Is glory you always get in your way?

Is glory you living the most comfortable life imaginable?

That's why things like last night are good because it stabs me awake and kind of says, hey, you don't get to just lay around Saturday night and watch football.

Now let me be clear.

Nothing wrong with laying around Saturday night watching football.

But when the phone rings, you don't act offended.

My wife looked at me and said, Yeah, loving people is not convenient, is it?

You know where she learned that?

And I said, Yeah, you're exactly right.

Not convenient at all.

But the ladies in the mercy room, she said, come over to me and she said, Well, sir, we're probably gonna keep them overnight.

And uh, I'm sorry for your inconvenience.

I said, No inconvenience at all.

This is not about inconvenience, this is about glory.

First your water broke, now I don't know what glory is.

This is this is the this makes God look great because I don't mind being inconvenienced for a friend of mine because this is the kind of when God works inside of you, he makes you a person that's not offended when you don't get your way.

Oh, I love getting my way.

Me too.

So God's glorified when I don't get my way.

See, the let me say it again.

The way you define glory determines the path your life will take.

And here's my concern: far too many of us Americans, you work your whole life, you save, you go to college, you get out, you save your money, you work, you put your time in, you save your little nest egg over here, and you spend the last 20 years of your life just doing nothing but glorifying yourself.

Oh man, we did this, we went here, we went here, we went here, and here's my fear.

This is top-level fear.

You're gonna have more experiences than God's gonna get glory.

That's why it behooves us to just define glory.

With this this definition of glory, because if you're not careful, your kids won't find you interesting.

Your grandkids won't find you interesting.

Oh, they love you when you take on a chick-fil-one six or seven.

They get to be 15 or 16, they look at you and they just think, I don't want to be you when I'm 69, so no thank you.

And your feelings are hurt.

And you call your daughter and go, Why don't the kids love us?

It's worse than that.

It's not they don't love you, they don't find the life you live interesting.

That ought to be like a stake in your heart.

You say, What do you mean?

Because you, your grandkids ask you, Well, Grandpa, what'd you do?

Oh, we went skiing, and then we went parasailing, and then we played bocce ball in the pastor's backyard overlooking the city.

It was awesome.

And the kids are like, Okay.

That's it.

That's what old people do.

Grandpa, you never sit at the table and say, Yeah, we went skiing, and then we went here, and then we went to this country where people don't know Jesus and they hate people that do.

And your grandma and I almost died, but God intervened and we lived.

And it was awesome.

And your kids set down their phones and they're like, say, what?

What are you talking about, Willis?

And you're mad at your grandkids because they don't find you interesting anymore.

You're not interesting because you have an insufficient definition for glory.

That's how you end up not interesting.

Now, let me be clear.

Am I saying it's wrong to go on vacation?

Not at all.

Am I saying it's wrong to go skiing?

Not at all.

Go wherever you want.

You just have to have a definition for glory.

Because the way you define glory determines the path your life will take.

More than anything in your life.

So if you get to the end of it and you're kind of like, I wish we'd have done this differently.

I wish we'd have spent more money on this and less on that.

Don't beat yourself up.

You just say, oh, we we had an insufficient definition for glory, and it got us.

It got us.

Because the Bible's replete with God's centrality of God's glory.

Scripture always tries to orient us around the glory of God.

Let me close with a few verses about glory.

Matthew 5, 16.

In the same way, let your light so shine before others so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who's in heaven.

That's like plagiarism.

They see your good works and God gets the credit for it.

Wouldn't that be great?

For you to go through life and no one know all the stuff you did.

Because you don't put your name on the building.

I walked into M.D.

Anderson this week to visit somebody.

Right there in the foyer.

And I've heard these people's names on PBS.

And I'm just standing there, and there's a lady standing there, and she goes, What are you looking at?

I'm looking at a man and woman who had a lot of money and have no record of what they did with it.

And she says, Wow, that's harsh.

That's biblical.

These people want glory.

That's why they put their name on it.

That's why Jesus said, When you give, don't let your right hand know what your left hand is doing.

If your right hand is not supposed to know what your left hand is doing, why should the city of Houston know who paid for this wing of the hospital?

Can you feel how harsh I sound right now?

I mean, the people working in me as you walked up and said, sir, is there a problem?

Yes.

We're robbing God of glory.

Security came over.

This is getting out of hand.

I don't want to call my wife.

I mean, where are you?

I'm in jail.

And I'm not mad at those people.

They're not bad people.

No one loved them enough to say, hey, God's blessed you.

Don't promote yourself.

In the same way, let your lights shine before others and say, may see your good works and give glory to your Father who's in heaven.

If God's going to get glory, why should you take any?

1 Corinthians chapter 10, verse 31.

1 Corinthians 10:31

So whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all for the glory of God, whatever you do.

Eating and drinking are the most binary, simple, rudimentary, base-level behaviors.

Whatever you do, do all for the glory of God.

John 15, 8, but this is my by this is my father glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples.

God is not glorified by a relationship that bears no fruit.

It makes him look inept.

By this is my Father glorified.

Psalm 115, one, not to us, O Lord, not to us, but to your name give glory for the sake of your steadfast love and your faithfulness.

They were so stricken by this.

They said it twice, not to us.

Not to us, O Lord, not to us, but to your name be the glory.

Here's what I'm laboring towards.

Is that we could all just walk out today and learn to just lay this question over every circumstance and situation as a template and just kind of think through this.

And it's simply this.

Hey, what does it look like for God to get glory in this situation right here?

Yes.

Yes.

I said that in a last service in a friend of mine sitting right in this room who's going through a hellacious divorce right now.

And they're lauriered up and going at it.

I got subpoenaed.

So I'm all in my yard this week while y'all are living it up.

And I looked up and the guy standing on my sidewalk.

Sir, I'm sorry.

It's okay.

You tell them they can put me under the jail.

I'm not going to violate clergy lady confidence.

Well, sir, they they may send people to arrest you.

Please come on a Sunday.

In the first service, about 8 50, right when I get up.

Where's the pastor?

He got arrested like Jesus.

And I had the audacity, the gall to say to him, just say to your attorney, hey, what does it look like for God to be glorified in this brutal divorce proceeding?

Can you hear how foreign that sounds?

Y'all are looking at me like, who gets divorced for the glory of God?

Somebody should.

Or then you got to drop down and ask, can you really?

What circumstance?

Maybe before you go to bed tonight, you could just say to your husband or to your wife or to yourself, if you're not married, hey, what circumstance do I just need to lay this question over as a template and say, you know what?

What does it look like for God to get glory in this?

Because the Bible says that one day the glory of the Lord is going to cover the earth as the water covers the sea.

That didn't happen by accident.

That happens because of our intentionality.

That happens because as I'm leaving last night, I checked on my buddy and said, They're gonna kick you overnight.

You good?

I'm good.

Then he says, I'll call you tomorrow.

I need to ride home.

Yeah! Whoa! After I preached three times, absolutely.

And you know what?

That little voice in me, I just my water broke again.

I was like, oh, there it goes.

And he said, You're capable of so much more when I do it.

And I was like, okay.

And the little lady, she walked me to the door and she goes, Are you leaving now?

And I said, Yeah, you're gonna miss me.

She said, kind of.

This was I don't know.

And I I said, I'm I just I just want God to get glory.

And so when he's ready to go home, call me.

I'll come get him.

I thought you live in Sugarland.

Yes, I do.

And I'll come get him.

Well, why would you do that?

Because I want God to get glory.

I want you to see me walking in and thinking, you know what?

This person doesn't mind being inconvenience for that guy in there.

Who can do nothing for me, by the way?

There's nothing for the in me for this.

And that sounds harsh, or it's not.

It's just thank you for coming.

I don't want to come back, ma'am.

I hate the emergency room.

It means bad stuff's happened to people.

Well, we enjoyed your stay.

Just stop.

Just stop.

Two things I want you to walk out of here with today.

Number one, what rituals do we employ as a family to remind us that this world is temporary?

The Jews, it was the feast of booths.

They spent seven days in a tent.

Imagine, I'm not saying do that.

I am saying pitch a tent in the backyard and tell your kids we're gonna sleep out tonight.

Just remind ourselves we should be burning in hell, but instead we got this big, beautiful house, and every once in a while we're gonna wean ourselves from this just so we'll appreciate it more.

And number two, how do you define glory?

That's what I want you to walk away with today.

Let's pray.

God, thanks for the Bible.

It's so thought provoking and so soul stirring and so satisfying that it's it's it's just It's easy to get carried away with just three simple verses.

Because Jesus, you were the king of compression and consequence.

You just, and in about four or five sentences, you radically reoriented the religious subculture of the day.

Not just for them, but for us as well.

And so press upon us the necessariness of a definition of glory.

And so, Lord, we want to think about these things.

We want to think about your invitation today.

Come to me and drink.

God, we've made it a little cheesy religious formula.

When instead it is a life-altering experience that doesn't stop with us.

It goes on to affect everybody around us.

Because we got something in us that will not stay put, it is oozing out.

And so, Lord, our water should be breaking because new births should be happening.

And God calls us to think deeply about that today.

We want to spend just the next minute or so just thinking about that.

So, Holy Spirit, brood over us, we pray in Jesus' name.

Father, we pray today for ears to hear your invitation to come to me and drink.

We repent of defining Christianity in terms of some formula and not a person, not an experience with a person that is deeply consequential.

So much so that it goes on to affect people, and people find themselves wanting to be around us for reasons they can't explain.

There's so much teaching on evangelism in the American Church because people aren't interested in us.

Because the Spirit's not flowing out of us.

Thank you for being so thought-provoking and mind-arresting.

We don't want the thinking to stop now.

We want to take it with us as an act of worship.

And so we say thank you in Jesus' name.

And everyone said, If you're a guest, let me say thanks for being part of our service.

Hopefully you've had a chance to fill out one of those guest cards we referenced earlier on your way out here in just a minute.

If you just drop it on these wooden boxes by the doors, uh that's all we ask of you.

And for the rest of us, if you call this church your home, if today's the day you worship God through obedience or generosity and giving, that's where you do that as well.

Make it let me make you aware of a few things that are starting up around here that you need to know about.

First of all, our women's fall gathering is coming up next Sunday night.

Today's the last day to register.

They are in the lobby this morning.

There's only limited space still available, uh, but you do not want to miss this opportunity to hear Elizabeth Woodson.

There'd be a delicious catered meal right here in the sanctuary.

There's the information.

They're registering in the lobby.

Second thing I want to remind you of is that new Bible studies started today.

They meet at this hour.

We have classrooms upstairs up here and on my on both sides, right and left, and behind me back here in the fellowship hall.

It's a great opportunity to get in a smaller environment, learn more about yourself, God, Christianity, the church, uh, and just meet other people.

Thirdly, uh, let me remind you that midweek classes are coming.

We have midweek classes that go for 10 weeks in the fall, 10 weeks in the spring.

They start at 6:30 at night and they end a little bit before 8.

We have uh we have programming for preschool children, youth, and adults.

Uh you can register online.

That's when they start.

It says September 11th and 12th.

Women's studies start meet on a Tuesday morning, uh, and the midweek studies meet at night on Wednesday night.

And so that's why it has two different dates there.

Uh, but you can go to our website, just grandparkway.org.

You can click on that.

We need you to register because we know what class to put, what, how big the class is determines the classroom it gets put in, okay?

Last thing I'll remind you of is that uh I know that I've got uh somebody said, Man, you, you, you, you, you, you're going at it the past couple Sundays.

Well, I'll give you some time back next week, okay?

How about that?

Last announcement.

Ross King will be here next week.

I'm giving you time back right there.

Uh he won't just be leading worship, he'll lead worship, he'll do some of his songs.

Ross is a provocative thinker.

He's an artist.

Uh, he lives in Nashville.

He's from Brighton Codge Station.

He went to AM.

There you go.

There you go.

You people are everywhere.

Uh, anyway, don't miss this opportunity to expose yourself and your mind to Ross King.

He's just a refreshing gift that God's given the church.

He'll be in all three services next Sunday, okay?

Stand on your feet.

Let me speak a blessing over you.

Hold your hands out.

You come to understand that you've been invited and that you're expected, and you're capable.

Otherwise, Jesus wouldn't invite you in the first place.

Depart now and lean into and live into these realities in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

Amen.

Bless you.