The Overflowing Christian — John 7:37-52 (06.07.2026)

Good morning. Our scripture reading today is going to come from the book of John, chapter 7.

John 7 · chapter mention

Please remain standing as just a way of honoring the reading of God's Word.

So John chapter 7, starting in verse 37. On the last day of the feast,

John 7 · chapter mention

the great day, Jesus stood up and cried out, If anyone thirsts,

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 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 the Pharisees believed in him?

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

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?

They replied, Are you from Galilee too? Search and see that no prophet arises from Galilee.

This is the word of the Lord.

All right, you can have a seat. Good morning, everybody. Go ahead and turn in

your Bibles to John chapter 7.

John 7 · chapter mention

If you brought a Bible and if you didn't bring one, I think we're going to have,

we'll have the scriptures on the screen. While you're finding your way to John,

John 7:37

chapter 7, verse 37 is where we'll be starting. Pray for us one more time.

Father, I do now pray for this sermon and that you would grant me the words that you want me to say.

And I pray that you would grant to every person here, the ears to hear what

you want us to hear, and that you would, by your spirit, bring about transformation and life,

breathe life into us through your word in Jesus name. Amen.

All right. So you may be familiar with a story in Luke's gospel of Mary and Martha.

And it's a pretty famous story. You have Jesus and the disciples are passing

by Martha's hometown and Martha invites them in and she prepares a meal for

them. She shows them hospitality.

And her sister Mary is sitting at Jesus's feet, listening to him.

This is Luke chapter 10, it says, Mary sat at the Lord's feet,

Luke 10 · chapter mention

listening to his teaching.

And then Martha gets upset about this. Martha's working hard to try and, you know, be a good host.

And Mary's just sitting at Jesus's feet, listening to him.

And Martha goes to Jesus and is like, will you tell my sister to get up and help me?

And the Lord replies to Martha, Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled

about many things, but one thing is necessary.

One thing is necessary.

Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her.

I want you to have that story in the back of your mind today.

It's relevant for the point of this sermon and this text.

Last week, we had guest preacher, my good friend, Ben Whittinghill from Vermont,

and he covered the first half of John chapter seven, and he ended with the verses

that we are starting with this morning, where Jesus stands up at the Feast of

Booths in front of this big crowd on the last day of the feast,

and he cries out in a loud voice, if anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink.

And then he says, whoever believes in me, as the scripture said,

out of his heart are going to flow, will flow rivers of living water.

That's the main text that we're looking at. And then the remaining portion of

the passage is really the response to that, to what Jesus said.

It says everybody kind of wrestling with it.

And what I want to argue this morning and show you is one that we come to him

and drink, yes, when we first believe in him.

So many, if not most of you in this room have believed in Christ.

You have come to him. You've believed the gospel. You've put your trust in him.

And so you have done that. You have believed and therefore you've received the

Holy Spirit. I want to argue though,

that's not the only application of this, that the first time that we come to

him in belief is not the only application of this, that we continue with our

thirsty souls to come to him and drink.

So that's one thing I want to share from this.

The other is that then there's a result, right?

That rivers of living water will flow from your innermost being.

That's what happens when we come to him and drink. And I want to show you that.

That's not just like a feeling or that's actually something that you can know

is happening or not happening in your life.

You actually should be able to recognize when this is happening.

So I'm going to go ahead and tell you sort of the main idea of my sermon.

So you know where I'm headed. And that's this, The Spirit of God fills believers with the life of Christ.

As we continually come to Him and drink so that the grace and truth of Christ,

overflow from them to others.

That's the main point. That's a lot of words, but I'm going to unpack that for

us. So the Spirit fills believers with the life of Christ as we continually

come to Him and drink so that their life overflows with the grace and truth of Christ to others.

So point number one, drink deeply.

Drink deeply. Look at verses 37 through 39.

So 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 deeply.

When Jesus speaks, he's almost always quoting Old Testament scripture or referencing

scripture or he's fulfilling scripture.

So I want you to keep that in mind, not just today, but anytime that you read the gospels.

When you read the gospels on your own and Jesus speaks, if you're familiar with

the Old Testament and as you become more and more familiar with the Old Testament.

Your mind should be linking almost everything that's coming out of his mouth

to something from the Old Testament scriptures because he is fulfilling them.

He is full of them. He is, remember who Jesus is. He is the word of God incarnate.

He is the word with human flesh on.

So when he speaks, think, is this connecting to something in the Old Testament?

Keep that in mind. And so when Jesus says, if anyone thirsts,

let him come to me and drink, he is doing just that.

And his hearers would have likely connected that to multiple places in the Old Testament.

One of those would have likely been a very famous verse in Jeremiah 2,

13, where the Lord, he's rebuking his people because they have forsaken him.

And he calls himself the fountain of living waters. Sound familiar? Living waters.

So here's this passage in the Old Testament that they would have thought of.

And so just as Jesus brought this up, if you were with us when we went through

John chapter 4 and Jesus had the encounter with the woman, the Samaritan woman

John 4 · chapter mention

at the well, he is telling her,

in that encounter with the Samaritan that he is the fountain of living water, that he is the water,

that he can provide the water to her that will ultimately satisfy her soul.

So that's one place that they could have gone. And there's another place they

would have likely also connected to Jesus's words, which is a well-known passage in Isaiah. Isaiah 55.

Starts with this, Isaiah 55, one, come everyone who thirsts come to the waters.

So just as God, Yahweh, the old, old Testament God, who's the same God invited

thirsty people to come to him and drink.

Now Jesus, the word of God in flesh stands up at a public feast and cries out,

inviting thirsty people to come to him and drink.

And last week, Ben talked about the fact that he can say that because of who

he is, because he is God. And so when we come to him, he is what we are thirsty for.

He's the one that our souls are thirsty for.

What I want to do this week, what I want to focus on this week is that at the

ground level, tomorrow morning, Tuesday, Wednesday, this whole week. How do you do that?

Like, is this just some vague concept or is there a way that we're,

that we are taught in the scriptures to come to him and drink?

How do we do it? Well, first thing we need to know.

Is verse 38. It says, whoever believes in me.

So the first thing that we do is we come to him and drink by believing in him.

We believe that he is the one who fulfills the Old Testament.

We believe that he is the one who came and he died in our place on a cross,

that he took our sin and our shame, that he rose from the dead on the third

day and that he ascended to heaven.

So we believe that's where we start.

When we believe, the Bible says that we pass from death to life,

that the spirit of God comes to dwell within us.

And as I said, for the majority of you, that's already happened. You have done that.

You have believed in him. You have been connected to the life of God.

The Spirit of God, has come to dwell inside of you.

So, as Christians who have believed, who have received the Holy Spirit,

how do we continue to come to Him in faith and drink to satisfy our thirsty souls?

The next couple of verses in that passage in Isaiah 55 that Jesus would have

been pointing to with His invitation at the feast, they are very helpful.

Listen to how the Lord told Israel to come to him and drink.

Isaiah 55.2, listen diligently to me.

And eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food.

Verse 3, incline your ear and come to me, hear that your soul may live.

Isaiah 55 could not be any clearer. The way we come to the Lord,

the primary way that we come to the Lord and drink is by listening to him,

by inclining our ears to him, by listening.

It means more than just hearing his word read aloud, right? I mean, like, we all know this.

If parents say this all the time, when their kid doesn't obey,

right? When their child doesn't obey, we say, we don't say, well,

you just didn't hear me. We say, no, you weren't listening, right?

And that means more than just that the sound went into your ear.

It means that you heard it, you received it, and you acted upon it.

And that's what the Lord is saying. Listen to me. This is how you come to me if you're thirsty.

Listen diligently to me.

We come, and here's the point. Let me just say it as clearly and plainly as I can.

We come to Christ by his spirit through the word.

This is the primary way we come to him and drink.

In his word, we see him, we hear his instructions to us, we learn to trust him.

This is his communication. A relationship requires communication,

and the Bible is his primary means of communication.

You cannot have a relationship with God divorced from his word.

Yes, there are other ways that we see his glory. The word of God says the heavens

declare the glory of God. We do.

We experience interaction and communion with God in other places.

Yes, absolutely. Absolutely, but primarily it happens through the word of God.

That's why our services are structured the way that they are.

That should be what we see from beginning to end.

We begin with a call to worship from God initiating. We want to hear what he has to say.

We sing songs that are saturated with the scriptures. We pray the scriptures.

We preach the scriptures. We hear and respond to the scriptures.

John Piper says, and I agree with him, a relationship with God happens most

fundamentally by the Spirit through the Word.

So that's the invitation. Come to Him and drink. We are always thirsty.

We are always thirsty, whether we recognize it or not, but we don't always come to Him and drink.

Our souls are thirsty for the refreshing waters of the Word,

and often we do turn to empty things that cannot satisfy.

That could be entertainment. It could be our ambitions. It could be sinful pleasures.

It could be distractions to numb ourselves.

But whenever we find ourselves, and if you've been walking with the Lord for

very long at all, you know you are going to find yourself in places where you

feel, we might say the words dry, spiritually dry. What is that?

Always, always beneath a dryness, beneath a lack of zeal and passion and love for the Lord.

Always there is a famine of the word of God. Always.

You're not reading it or you are reading it, but you're not chewing on it.

You're not meditating on it. You're going through the motions.

I have found myself in that place so many times where I might be going through

the habit, but I'm not listening diligently, right?

And so we find ourselves in that place because we've been thirsty,

but we haven't been drinking.

Psalm chapter one is a beautiful Psalm.

Just this picture of the blessed man or woman, the happy man or woman is who?

Is the one that meditates on the word of God day and night. And then it gives this picture.

They're like a tree planted beside a stream of water and it bears fruit and

its leaves do not wither.

In every season. Because why? Because even when there's a drought or it's.

Out of season, its roots are going down deep into the soil and drawing up water from that stream.

And that's a picture of the blessed life or the happy life.

It's those who are drinking deeply from the word.

In John chapter six, Jesus had said, the words that I've spoken to you are spirit and life.

The words that I've spoken are spirit and life. Here's what we know.

In order to know Jesus, we must know his word. And I would say you will never,

never, never know Jesus better than you know his word.

Because this is the revelation of God. It's the revelation of God to us.

So this is the first step. We must come to him and drink and drink deeply.

And as we do, as we drink deeply, we feel our hearts become full and then can overflow to others.

And that's point number two, that those with full hearts are able to overflow to others.

So he says, whoever believes in me, as the scripture has said,

out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.

This he said about the spirit whom those who believed in him were to receive.

So those who drink deeply from Christ and from the word in relationship with

Christ will experience what Jesus is talking about.

They'll have rivers of living water. So most Bible scholars,

commentators believe that what Jesus is referring to when he says this rivers

of living water, he's referring to,

a prophecy in the book of Ezekiel, in Ezekiel chapter 47.

Ezekiel 47 · chapter mention

And Ezekiel gets this vision of the temple. And remember the temple was the dwelling place for God.

And so he sees the temple and out from beneath the throne or out from beneath

the temple, there is this stream of water that's flowing out.

And this river that's flowing out from the temple is everything that it touches

flourishes. So trees begin to flourish and bear fruit on both sides of the river.

And it says that the fish that are in the water are flourishing and multiplying.

It's living water that's giving life to everything that it touches.

That's sort of the picture, right? So let's not overthink this.

So Jesus is saying that if you come to me and drink, and I'm arguing that this

is something we actually actively continue to do as Christians,

not just one time when we believe the gospel,

but we continue to come to him and drink primarily through interaction with him in his word,

the result will be that the spirit will cause rivers of living water to flow from us.

What are those rivers of living water? It is the life of Christ himself.

We'll get more and more specific, but it is the life of Christ himself. How?

Okay. He said this, John makes this little, this little note,

right? A little narrative note in verse 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.

When he says, because Jesus was not yet glorified, what he means is he had not yet gone to the cross.

The cross and his death on the cross and burial and then subsequent ascension

to heaven was all his glorification.

It was like his coronation. So that hasn't happened yet. And so the spirit had

not yet been given. If you're familiar with the story, then after he ascends

into heaven, It's seated at the right hand of the father.

Then Acts chapter two, the church is in prayer and waiting. And what happens?

The spirit is poured out on the church at the day of Pentecost.

It is a moment in redemptive history,

a marker in redemptive history that's now forever true, that the spirit is given

to the church, to all who believe in him, who put their trust in him.

So now we are the temple of God.

God is no longer dwelling in a temple made with human hands in Jerusalem.

He now dwells within the hearts of believers. years.

And so when we believe in him, we receive the Holy Spirit, we become the dwelling place of the Lord.

And that means that we carry God within us.

That means that as Jesus lived and had an incredible impact everywhere he went,

that we are able to because he indwells us.

He lives in our hearts. His life and power flow through our veins.

And can come out of us. Proverbs tells us that the heart is the center of who

we are. And not just Proverbs, but scripture testifies to this elsewhere.

That's like our center point. Proverbs 4, 23 says, keep your heart with all

vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life.

This is likely another place that Jesus is pointing us to. Your heart is like the spring of your life.

Everything in your life is a pointer to what's in your heart.

So when Christ's life and power are in you because of the indwelling spirit,

you have the ability to be a blessing to others through a contagious joy in

the gospel, through encouraging words, through godly counsel,

through love and through service.

If you want to assess the health of your heart, look at the blessing or lack

of that you are to those around you.

But this passage, as I was reading this again and again, I began to see this

passage is really highlighting the words that come out of our mouths.

The words that overflow from our hearts,

as jesus said out of our mouths let me just show you what i'm talking about here verse 40

when they heard these words okay so this whole section verse 40 begins with

this is all in response to,

words that came out of jesus's heart,

and they're they're responding,

also in verse 40 some of the people said.

So now they're hearing his words and now words are coming out of their mouths.

They're making professions of some kind.

Verse 41, others said, but some said.

There's all these responses and people are speaking. Verse 45,

the chief priests and Pharisees said.

You see what I'm saying here? You have, they're responding to his words and

then they're speaking in overflow based upon whether or not they are listening to his word.

Some believe, some are searching and considering believing, right,

they're wrestling with it.

Some do not believe, but all of their hearts are overflowing with words that

reveal where they are. Do you see that?

And look at what the officers say about Jesus in verse 46.

No one ever spoke like this man.

They don't, while this would have

been true, what they don't say is no one was ever as nice as this man.

No one was ever as thoughtful as this man. No one ever served like this man.

All of those things would be true.

But the point of this passage, and I'm going to hopefully explain why,

is that the primary way that you see what is within your heart is through the

words that come out of your mouth.

And the primary way that they were able to identify that no one was like Jesus,

was because of the words that came out of his mouth.

No one ever spoke like this man.

And these officers could not bring themselves to arrest him because of it.

So when we talk about overflowing to others, yes, it will involve love,

service, contagious joy, encouragement. Yes, yes, yes.

But the primary way is what comes out of your mouth because words build worlds,

because this is a word built world that we live in.

God spoke and it came to be. He holds everything together, every molecule and

atom by the word of his power.

So when we drink deeply from the word and his spirit unites with the word and

our hearts are full because we've been drinking deeply, it overflows from our hearts,

primarily through words.

And that brings us to our final point, testify to the scriptures.

Verses 47 through 52 are basically these religious rulers claiming to use the

scriptures to show that Jesus was not the Messiah.

And they're trying to say, the Messiah is not gonna come from Galilee and he lives in Galilee.

The Messiah is gonna come from Bethlehem. They didn't know that he was born

in Bethlehem. He's fulfilling all of this Old Testament prophecy.

And even though these Pharisees, these religious rulers knew much of the scriptures,

they do not have the Holy Spirit. And so they do not have the word filling their hearts.

If they did, they would have known. Isaiah 9, verse 1 through 2 says,

Isaiah 9:1–2

The land beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the nations, the people who walked in

darkness have seen a great light.

Those who dwell in a land of deep darkness, on them a light has shone.

Scriptures had prophesied that Galilee would be among the first people to see

the great light shining in the darkness, the great light of the Messiah.

And so even though these religious leaders knew many of the scriptures,

they did not have the Holy Spirit indwelling them because they did not believe

in Jesus and therefore they missed it.

They could not see what was clear.

I want to ask you a question for you to think about. When you think about,

if I said, so-and-so is a spirit-filled person, what does that mean in your mind?

What comes to mind? If I say, that person is spirit-filled or that church,

let's say somebody says, yeah, I know

about that church. That church is spirit-filled. What comes to your mind?

Is it, as some people might think, like charismatic gifts or a person who dreams

dreams or has a lot of experiences with God?

What comes to your mind when you think of a spirit-filled person or a spirit-filled church?

Thursday, I was up at, I like to go different places to try and prepare my sermon.

And Thursday I was up at Webbridge Park and I was sitting in one of those pavilions

at a picnic table working on my sermon and I kept hearing this guy behind me.

I just like hear bits and pieces of things he was talking to other people.

And he sat down at one of the other picnic tables and I heard a joy in his voice and I,

looked over at him and I was watching him and I saw this light in his eyes And

I asked him if he was a believer because I thought this guy's,

I think this guy might be a believer. Sure enough, he was.

His name was Roy, 69 years old.

And Roy immediately began to tell me about how the Lord saved him when he was 18 years old.

And after telling me his story, how the Lord has saved him, he started talking

about the Lord and scripture flowed out of him effortlessly.

And I mean, as I'm sitting there with him, talking to him, listening to him,

I'm thinking, this man is an embodiment of exactly what I'm writing my sermon

about, what this passage is about.

He started, he's talking, he's connecting pieces of scripture.

He starts singing in the middle of the conversation.

I would love to give my impression, but it would be brutal.

That's only for Tiffany. She got to hear it. But he starts singing about the

name of the Lord is a strong tower and those who run to him are saved.

And he starts talking about the death and resurrection and ascension of Christ. He's just testifying.

And then he goes to, he starts talking about the church and how the church was

born in Acts chapter two. And he starts quoting Joel two from Peter's sermon at Pentecost.

And he starts quoting this long chunk from Peter's sermon at Pentecost.

And I, in turn, I shared with him what I was studying in John chapter seven.

And I told him, I said, man, you are like the embodiment of what I'm talking about.

I said, can I use you as an example in my sermon? He said, yeah,

yeah, yeah. I tried to respond and give him encouragement from the scriptures.

And even though I only spent maybe 15 or 20 minutes with Roy.

I, when we parted ways, my soul felt refreshed.

You know, it's because rivers of living water were flowing from his heart,

overflowing out of his mouth.

And I was just sitting there drinking.

And my interaction with Roy is I believe that's really the picture of the spirit filled life.

I'm not you know not downplaying anything any other yes god god is amazing and

he does work in incredible and mysterious ways but this this y'all when you

think of the spirit-filled person,

this is what we should think of it's the person who is who is spilling the word,

testifying to the word in a conversation they say that makes me think about,

this, and they point to the word.

The spirit-filled life is never detached from the scriptures because the spirit

who fills believers tethers believers to the revelation of God himself and his

instructions to us in his word.

Spirit-filled life is what Colossians 3.16 beautifully communicates.

Colossians 3.16 says, Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly.

Now that's the drinking. That's the drinking part.

And then what happens? Teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom,

singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs with thankfulness in your hearts to God.

Can you imagine a church, be it ever so small, that did that?

You know, that in all of our interactions, the word of Christ was so richly

dwelling in us that it was overflowing in our conversations such that we could

teach and admonish one another.

This back and forth edification and building up of our faith.

That is the Spirit-filled life, rivers of living water flowing from our hearts.

The Spirit and the Word are always in unison.

John Calvin famously said, For by a kind of mutual bond, the Lord has joined

together the certainty of His Word and of His Spirit.

And we get ourselves into trouble when we try to separate the two,

when we, you know, we take, we try to experience all kinds of spiritual things

apart from the guiding and directing of the word.

Or when we try to study the word and know the word apart from the empowering

and teaching of the spirit.

So when we have rivers of living water flowing from our hearts,

we're not merely sharing opinions, emotions, or even,

just kindness alone, the Spirit takes the word dwelling richly in our hearts

and sends it out of our mouths to give life to others like Roy did for me on Thursday.

If you trust Christ, then you've been given his spirit and you have access to

his word. His life and power are available to you.

Come to him and drink deeply, so deeply that your mind is transformed,

renewed, and such that it overflows from your mouth.

Let me close by bringing us back to John 7.

And the officer's testimony about Jesus.

No one ever spoke like this man.

No one ever spoke like this man because no one ever lived so full of the spirit and the word.

Jesus interpreted his entire life, every experience through the lens of scripture

so that his words, his actions, responses to testing and his identity were constantly

shaped by the scriptures.

When Jesus was tempted, Scripture came out. It is written.

When Jesus taught, Scripture came out. When he explained his mission, Scripture came out.

When he suffered, Scripture came out.

When he died, Scripture came out.

When he met with his disciples after his resurrection, Scripture came out.

Truly no one ever spoke like this man because no one ever lived so saturated

with the word of God as the incarnate word himself.

And we have him inside of us. Let's pray together.

Lord, thank you for these truths.

Lord, thank you that you have given us your spirit, that your spirit dwells

within us. And thank you for your word that we can come to you and drink deeply.

Lord Jesus, you yourself said, man shall not live by bread alone,

but by every word that comes from the mouth of God. And even when you said that,

Lord, you were quoting Deuteronomy 8.

You are always spilling out the word.

Lord, would you make that true of our church?

That we would be a church that lives by every word that comes from your mouth.

And that when we are tested, when we are tempted, when we rejoice,

when we encourage others, when we give counsel, when we give comfort.