"Living Water" (Salter) | John 7:37-52

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A reading from John chapter 7, verses 37 through 52.

John 7:37–52

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.

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 been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.

When they heard these words, some of the people said, This really is the prophet.

Others said, This is the Christ.

But some said, Is the Christ to come from Galilee?

Has not the scripture said that Christ that the Christ comes from the offspring of David and comes from Bethlehem, the village where David was?

So there was a division among the people over him.

Some of them wanted to arrest him, but no one laid hands on him.

The officers then came to the chief priests and Pharisees, who said to them, Why did you not bring him?

The officers answered, No one ever spoke like this man.

The Pharisees answered them, Have you also been deceived?

Have any of the authorities or Pharisees believed in him?

But this crowd that does not know the law is accursed.

Nicodemus, who had gone out to him before, and who was one of them, said to them, Does our law judge a man without first giving him a hearing and learning what he does?

They replied, Are you from Galilee too?

Search and see that no prophet arises from Galilee.

This is the word of the Lord.

Thanks be to God.

Please be seated.

Well, the passage this morning, really this chapter, is the storm center of John's gospel.

It follows the escalating conflict with the healing at the pool and the charge of Sabbath breaking.

Chapter 6 intensifies the offense with Jesus as he fed the crowds, walked on water, and he challenged the grumbling congregation to eat his flesh and drink his blood, and many walked away.

And then an existing death threat on Jesus emerges.

Chapter 7, which we are concluding this morning, gathers all of that hostility into a single week, the Feast of Tabernacles.

And by the end of that feast, things are boiling hot.

Our verses this morning fall on the last day of that weeklong feast.

Let's pray that we would hear Jesus.

Father, we do pray as we sang that you would give your word success, Spirit of Holiness, on us to send.

Right now, through your word.

In Christ's name.

Amen.

Well, I want to begin with something very simple this morning.

You're thirsty.

You haven't had water in quite a while.

Initially, in that moment, you feel nothing.

The body actually remains silent until you're down about two percent.

And then it finally sends up the first warning sign.

Dry mouth.

Thirst.

But I want you to know that thirst is a late warning.

By the time you feel it, you're already behind.

And if you ignore the thirst, it worsens your situation.

Things start to happen in your body.

Your blood thickens.

With thicker blood, your heart begins to race, and the body shuts down non-essential functions.

Then something cruel seems to happen.

Thirst itself fades away.

You stop feeling dry.

And that's the most dangerous moment.

Because the body has fine has stopped signaling for the one thing it can't live without water.

You see, the danger is not the person who is thirsty.

The danger is the one who has been dry so long that they no longer feel it.

This physiology is a parable of the soul.

There is a deeper drought we cannot cure on our own.

And that is the thirst for God Himself.

And here's the part this morning that should warn all of us.

Sometimes the most religious people are often the driest.

And they're often the last to feel it.

And that's dangerous.

This morning our passage brings us to a whole city gathered for a joyous feast that was centered on water.

On its last and greatest day, Jesus stands up and shouts to anyone who is willing to admit they are thirsty.

This morning, first in verses 37 to 39, Jesus is going to invite us and we're going to see how.

And then in verses 40 through 52, people are going to respond to him, and we're going to see how and ask ourselves, how do we respond?

We'll see the crowd do the two things people still do when Jesus offers himself.

People either duck and dodge him or they search and see.

Let's begin.

How does Jesus invite us?

Verses 37 through 39.

Well, I first want you to see that he invites us passionately.

Verse 37, on the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and cried out.

Before we look at what he says, notice how he says it.

He doesn't say it quietly, he doesn't say it to just a few friends.

No.

He stood up and cried out when Jesus raises his voice like this: something enormous is coming.

This is not a leaflet left on a table.

It is the fountain standing up and roaring like a waterfall.

It is the word made flesh, speaking and inviting.

And so, how does Jesus invite us passionately?

But look how he invites us graciously.

Verse 37.

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

I want you to notice how little Jesus asks.

He doesn't ask if anyone has cleaned himself up.

Or if anyone has finally gotten his life in order, come to me.

No.

Just if anyone is thirsty.

You know, you don't qualify for this water by being strong.

You qualify for this water by being empty.

Thirsty.

The only people who cannot come are the ones who will not admit that they are dry.

I want you to notice this is not a thirsty crowd begging water from a reluctant God.

This is God in the flesh, the fountainhead standing up and pleading with the thirsty to come and drink from him.

So this morning, if you feel even a flicker of need for him, that flicker is the invitation.

That's the thirst.

Bring nothing to him but your thirst.

Let me ask you plainly, what have you added to that one word?

That one small word, thirsty?

If anyone is thirsty and having a good week?

If anyone is thirsty and hasn't done the major sins, if anyone is thirsty, what have you added?

What are you still waiting to become before you believe you're welcome to come?

How does Jesus invite us passionately, graciously, and then so clearly, and I might say this, so clearly to the people there, but I'm afraid because of our lack of understanding probably of the Feast of Tabernacles and some of the cultural things that are going on, it's not as clear to us.

So I want to help us see this clarity of what he does with what he says next.

In verse 38, he says, Whoever believes in me, as the scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.

Notice he says, as the scripture has said.

Meaning Jesus is not inventing a new promise.

Here he is claiming to be the ancient fulfillment of an ancient expectation and hope.

And furthermore, when he says, as the scripture has said, he is not quoting a single verse.

Because a single verse would be too small for what he is claiming.

Jesus is actually gathering up the whole hope of the prophets in this one sentence.

It's amazing.

Think about where he's standing and when.

Our text started that way.

On the last day of the feast.

That means something.

This was an eight-day ceremony where the people commemorated their journey in the wilderness by living in booths or tents for this celebration.

I said this a few weeks ago.

This was Old Testament family camp.

They went out and camped together to remember the wilderness.

And one thing they remembered every day of the eight days was God's provision of water.

They remembered this with a special ceremony.

Every day the priest would carry water up from the pool of Siloam and would pour it out at the altar.

And with that water they were remembering, but they were also pleading.

They remembered with that water the rock in the wilderness.

When the people were dying of thirst, and God brought what?

Water out of the stone.

But they also remembered God's promise through the prophets to pour out water on a thirsty ground, a dry ground, an exiled ground, that he would pour out is the language, his spirit on their offspring.

And this led to their pleading.

They were begging him to do it again during the Feast of Tabernacles.

Every day the priest would pour out water, and their hearts were not only remembering, but they were pleading.

Send the Spirit.

Read it today.

It is the picture of the fullness of redemption.

What is pictured?

A river flowing out from where?

Underneath the temple, where Jesus now stands.

That river was ankle deep, and then it became knee deep, and then it was too deep to cross, and then everywhere it went, it brought life even to the dead sea.

That's the image of Ezekiel 47.

Dead water turned fresh, trees growing on the banks with what?

Leaves for the healing of the nation.

Does that sound familiar?

Zechariah 14 had promised the same.

Living water flowing from where?

Jerusalem.

And the Lord would be established as king over all the earth, a river from the place where God dwells, healing the whole world.

That was the dream.

The whole feast was rehearsing as they remembered the past provision.

They were hoping for the edenic vision of that river to come back through the sending of the Spirit on the last day.

So, on the last day of the feast, the priest did not just do the pouring out of the water once.

He did it seven times.

So it's on that day of in the temple, the priest pouring the water out seven times that Jesus in a loud voice says, If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink.

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

Do you see what he's doing?

He takes the river that was meant to pour out of that building and relocates it to himself.

Why?

Because John 1 and 2 have already told us he's the true temple.

He's tabernacled among us.

He said, Destroy this temple and I'll raise it again in three days.

He is the temple, the true temple standing in, the temple, which was supposed to pour out rivers.

For a thousand years, the feast had pointed to a source of living water from the place where God dwells.

And now Jesus stands here and says, You want to know where God dwells?

Right here.

Out of me will come living water.

He'd already told the Samaritan woman of this water.

The true temple declares that he is the true water.

And in the very feast Israel had rehearsed for centuries, the reality finally has stood up and cried out the rivers are flowing.

Come thirsty and drink.

Verse 39, though.

Now this he said about the Spirit.

See, the Spirit was crucial to the vision of Ezekiel 47, Zechariah 14.

The pouring out of this river would come as the Spirit would defend, but he says, descend.

Of 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.

So here John adds, the spirit has not yet been given because Jesus has not yet been glorified.

You see, the river could not break loose until the glorification, the price was paid.

So remember your Old Testament.

The rock.

The water did not come in the wilderness until what?

Moses struck it.

And so the rivers will not flow until the rock is struck.

And on a Friday afternoon, a soldier would drive a spear into Jesus' side, and out of the wound would flow what?

Blood and water.

And so Paul says in 1 Corinthians 10, 4, that the rock was Christ.

Do you see how Jesus invites us?

Passionately, graciously, and clearly.

Because the rock was struck for you.

All these biblical streams from the prophets conferred, converge in Jesus, the true temple, torn down, raised, and then the river of life finally runs free to us.

And we see this all the way to the consummation in Revelation.

Is there a temple?

No, because the Lamb is the temple.

And what is there?

Rivers flowing from the city for the healing of the nations.

This is a glorious true story.

Jesus is showing this wonderful fulfillment.

How does Jesus invite us?

Passionately, graciously, and clearly.

Do you see it?

Do you recognize that waters flow through you now if you're in Christ, not from you alone?

Why?

Because the Spirit's been put in you.

And from Jesus and the pouring out of the Spirit.

Now those rivers that give life to dead things flow through dead people once like us.

Jesus doesn't hand you a substance called grace and walk away.

The living water is his own spirit, so that to drink it is to have Christ Himself living in you.

That's what pours out of us.

That's why we're alive.

So the fountain has stood up in the middle of the temple and cried out, It's me.

The only question left, and the only question left for all of us today, what are you going to do with him?

What are you going to do with such an amazing claim to be God in flesh, temple, water, fulfillment?

Well, let's look at how do we respond to Jesus' invitation because I think we're going to see how we respond as we see how they respond.

Look at verse 43.

So there was a division among the people over him.

You see, there's going to be varied responses.

This passage is a catalog of every way we refuse him, every way we duck and dodge Jesus.

There are many diverse responses, but they share one common thing.

I want you to hear me.

All the responses of ducking and dodging Jesus share one thing.

They don't come close enough to really hear him.

Look at the first one, verse 40.

When they heard these words, some of the people said, This really is the prophet.

Others said, This is the Christ, but some said, Is the Christ to come from Galilee?

Now notice that last response.

Is the Christ to come from Galilee?

This first response is rejection with prejudice.

They reject him on the base of a prejudiced belief.

Galilee.

What's that got to do with anything?

Well, it's the wrong side of the tracks.

Remember?

Can anything good come out of Nazareth?

You remember that prejudice?

It's actually bigotry wearing discernment's clothes.

They seem discerning, but they're prejudiced.

And so they miss Jesus because they come with their own preconceived notions of prejudice and they reject Him.

Then, second, you have certainty with ignorance.

They're sure about a fact they never checked.

They assume.

He's from Galilee.

That was his hometown.

But they never asked where he was born.

They're certain with ignorance.

They will not look.

They will not ask.

They ignore his birthplace.

They ignore all his statements.

How many times has he said it in this chapter?

I have come from the one who sent me.

Where I am come from, you cannot go.

I have come from heaven.

They just think he came from Galilee.

They miss that he came from heaven.

They miss where he was born.

But they are certain and yet ignorant.

People who will not examine their assumptions are at the mercy of whatever they are told.

Are you there?

Third, they have knowledge but blindness.

Verse 42 is ironic.

Has not the scripture said that the Christ comes from the offspring of David and comes from Bethlehem, the village where David was.

That's the question they're asking to prove that Jesus isn't the Messiah.

They have the right verse, but they're blind.

They quote the Bible correctly.

Yes, the Christ is to come from Bethlehem, from David's line.

But they wouldn't ask.

Jesus, where were you born?

If they had asked, they might have connected the dots.

But their knowledge, they thought was enough, and they could not see their blindness.

Look, you can quote the right prophecy, you can hold the right doctrine, and you can still miss drinking from Christ.

You see it right here.

They're biblically right.

And they're so far from Jesus.

The statement that they say that is meant to disqualify Jesus for who he is becomes actually the credentials for who he is.

Yes.

And then fourth, you have decisions based on pressure.

Verse 44 through 48, some of them wanted to arrest him, but no one laid hands on him.

The officers then came to the chief priests and Pharisees who said to them, Why did you not bring him?

The officers answered, No one ever spoke like this man.

The Pharisees answered them, Have you also been deceived?

Have any of the authorities or the Pharisees believed in him?

But this crowd that does not know the law is accursed.

Why don't you notice their response right there, verse 48?

Have any of the authorities or the Pharisees believed in him?

What is this logic?

All the important people don't buy it, so neither should you.

So you should go with them.

You should go with the powerful and the influential and the educated.

Isn't that still a response today?

Making decisions based on pressure?

You got four responses, and not one of them comes close and deals with Jesus because they're predisposed to unbelief.

Let me illustrate it.

In the spring of 1941, warnings reached the Kremlin.

Joseph Stalin dismissed them.

His spy in Tokyo, Richard Sorge, warned of Germany's attack on Russia.

German divisions massed along the Soviet border, the Luftwaffe Plains crossed Soviet airspace.

German diplomats evacuated their families from Moscow.

Churchill and Roosevelt warned Stalin directly, and he dismissed it all as provocation.

Why?

He had made a pact, the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact in 1939 with Germany, and he had been predisposed to trust Hitler.

And Hitler was deceiving him by writing him personal letters.

And in the final 10 days before the invasion, Soviet intelligence named the attacks date 47 times.

And on June 22nd, 1941, three million German troops crossed the border and caught the Soviet Union unprepared.

The evidence was there, but Stalin's will to believe it was absent.

And one historian noted of this on a World War II episode.

I love this statement.

I wrote it down right when I heard it.

You can get all the intelligence in the world, but if you are predisposed not to believe it, it doesn't make any difference.

The religious leaders were not short on intelligence.

They had Moses, they had the prophets, they had the signs, they had the testimony of their own officers, and they had even Nicodemus' caution at the end.

But like Stalin with his 47 warnings, the religious leaders had the whole Old Testament open before them, or like us with the whole Bible before us.

And let's be honest.

Do we miss him because we're predisposed to unbelief?

Which of these four is most commonly your response to Jesus?

Do you reject him over where he came from?

Are you certain about something you never checked?

Do you have Bible knowledge with no sight?

Or are you deciding what you think of Jesus based on pressure of whether important people believe in what they say?

Any of those will keep you from hearing him.

So how should we respond?

Don't duck and dodge.

Search and see.

The turn, the hinge of this whole passage, the right way to respond.

Look at verses 50 through 52.

Nicodemus, who had gone to him before and who was one of them, said to them, Does our law judge a man without first giving him a hearing and learning what he does?

And they replied, Are you from Galilee too?

Search and see.

That no prophet arises from Galilee.

Search and see, they snap at Nicodemus.

That's exactly the right advice.

And it's the one thing they will not do.

The very thing Nicodemus is asking them to do is search and see.

Do you see that?

We haven't given him a hearing.

We haven't learned anything about what he does.

And the same charge Jesus had laid on them earlier, you search the scriptures thinking they give you life, and all the while they're pointing to me and you missed it.

And the passage quietly shows us three people in this passage who searched and saw.

Verse 40, when they heard these words, some said, verse 41, this is the Christ.

What made them say that?

They listened to him.

Then the officers, verse 46.

The officers didn't arrest him.

They answered verse 46.

No one ever spoke like this man.

They were sent to arrest him, to shut him up.

They came back and with empty hands and one sentence, no one's ever spoken like this man.

Why did they say that?

Because they listened to him.

And then Nicodemus.

He had come to Jesus by night in chapter 3 of John.

He had searched, he had seen, and now in front of all his colleagues in broad daylight, he stands up and asks at great risk to himself for the one thing they will not give: a fair hearing.

The man who searched into the dark now stands up in the light.

Hear him.

But know this hearing is not drinking.

The crowd heard and divided, the officers marveled and went home.

Only Nicodemus will keep coming.

Do you see the irony?

The Pharisees judged everyone, deceived, cursed, and biased, and every charge now comes right back on them.

The advice they're giving is the very thing they should do, but they want to.

Let me ask what would it cost you this week to open the Bible and look for yourself?

Rather than take the crowd's word for it or even mine.

It comes down to one charge for all of us this morning.

Here it is.

Deal with Jesus.

Listen to Jesus.

Open his word.

Come close enough to hear him.

Search and see.

I want to tell you in closing about a man who searched.

In 1930, a London advertising man named Albert Ross set out to end the Christian debate for good.

He had this title before he had his evidence Jesus, the Last Phase.

He thought he would strip away the miracle of the resurrection and show the world that Jesus was just an ordinary man.

And you know, he made one mistake in writing that book.

He read the Bible.

And he weighed the trial, and he weighed the tomb, and he weighed the garden, and he saw the frightened friends turn into martyrs.

And the book he set out to write refused to be written.

And so, writing under the name Frank Morrison, he wrote instead a book he titled, Who Moved the Stone?

And the first chapter of that book was titled The Book That Refused to Be Written.

Why?

Because he dealt with Jesus.

He listened to Jesus.

The detective that came for a corpse found the Lord of life.

If something stirred in you this morning, I think that's the alarm going off that you're thirsty.

You need living water.

I want to tell you this morning the fountain is open because the rock was dry.

Would you come and drink?

Would you search and see?

He is the living water.

Let's pray.

Your word is truly amazing, Father.

To see so much of the scriptures fulfillment bound up in this text and in you, Jesus, is stunning.

And we go back to that gracious invitation.

If anyone's thirsty, that's it.

So, Father, I pray for all who are here.

Let us come to you and drink.

So that from you we receive the water, so that out of our hearts flow rivers of living water.

Help us search and see and come and drink.

In Christ's name.

Amen.