John 7:25-39 – The Gospel of John

Welcome to you.

My name's Mark.

I'm one of the leaders here at the church, and it's great to have you here with us.

Thank you to Sarah for leading us in that time of lament.

I think it was an important thing to do, and I appreciated the reading of Psalm 10 and those prayers.

Please, uh, if you have a Bible on your phone, uh or if you have a hard copy, in fact, you know, if you've gone vintage, uh, you could turn up John 7.

We're actually going to focus in on right at the end of the reading.

Uh, we're really just going to look at about three verses uh this morning.

Uh Jesus' invitation to come and to drink uh from him.

Confusion continues about who the uh who Jesus truly is in the verses preceding, and we'll pick up uh some of those thoughts again next week.

But it'd be good just to kind of focus in and do a deep dive, no pun intended, uh, into this invitation to come and drink from the living waters that uh that Jesus offers us.

One of the things that we fail to uh appreciate, I think, uh if you've lived in Ireland for any length of time, is the connection between uh water and life.

Uh water is so abundant here uh that uh we would like to have a little bit less of it from time to time.

And so this idea that if you don't have any water, you don't have any life kind of gets lost on us.

But if you uh have come from or spent any time in a more arid climate, a climate which tends to be hotter and drier, you know this connection.

That water leads to life, that if there's no water, there's no life.

You may have uh also experienced that when the rains do come and that deluge falls in an arid land, what happens to the land?

Here in Ireland it gets a bit muddier, but in an arid climate like in Israel, the whole place bursts into bloom.

The whole place comes to life.

Water is life.

Jesus offers this invitation at a feast called the Feast of Booths.

Now, we're not you're not gonna understand any of Jesus' invitation if we don't do a little bit of what's going on in the background, because all of the significance, the spiritual and cultural significance of the feast is all swirling around in the background of what Jesus is saying.

So let me just uh give you a little bit of a kind of uh history lesson.

Jesus is saying this at the Feast of Booze.

We know that from 7 verse 2, uh, that the uh now the uh the now the Jews' feast of booze was at hand.

Feast of booze is one of the big three, uh the big three being Feast of Booze uh or Tabernacles or Sukkot, that's my what you might know it as.

Uh Passover is the other one, and third is Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement.

Those are the big three.

And during the Feast of Booze, why is it called the Feast of Booze?

Well, it's a week-long festival where the people of Israel would have constructed booze or tents, it's where everybody in Israel went camping for a week.

Now, that does not sound like my idea of a good time, uh, but for some of you, that sounds fantastic.

Uh, so they would construct tents.

They would live on the roofs of their houses for a week or outside in the wilderness for a whole week.

Why?

To remind them of the time in their history when they spent 40 years living in the wilderness, in booths, in tents where they were a roaming, nomadic pilgrim people.

They had been rescued from slavery in Egypt and brought out into the wilderness of Sinai, and there they lived for 40 years in booths, in tabernacles, in tents.

And they were homeless.

God had not yet brought them to the promised land.

And so every year they remember their homelessness.

They also remember in that that God miraculously provided for them.

That though they were in the desert, God fed them with the manna, those flakes from heaven that they baked into bread, and that he satisfied their need for water by bringing water out of the rock.

And this mysterious uh rock followed them around and provided them with water wherever they went.

And the Jews remind uh were remembering this every year.

Every year they remembered that they were a pilgrim people, every year they remembered that they were waiting also for Messiah to come.

It's not just that they were looking back and thinking we were once homeless, but also kind of looking forward and thinking there is a there is a fuller rest to come, there is a more permanent home to come when Messiah comes.

And so in the Feast of Booze, there was a looking back and a looking forward, a looking back to God's past faithfulness and an anticipation of the fuller realities of those promises.

All of that's going on in the Feast of Booze.

Now, at the end of the week, on the seventh, or every seven years there was an eighth day added on, but the week culminated in this great ceremony where all of the people would gather together and they would follow the high priest.

And the high priest would take a flagon of water.

Let's pretend that this is a flagon of water, whatever a flagon is, I don't know, a jug, right?

A flagon of water, and they would all process through Jerusalem down the valley to a place called the Pool of Siloam.

And there in the pool of Siloem, the priests would take this flagon of water and they would they would blow shofars, trumpets, right?

Why does that matter?

Because it's shofars with the instrument of joy, right?

They were supposed to, it was a great time of celebration and feasting.

It would be our equivalent of striking up a reel, be getting the fiddles out, everybody would be whooping and cheering.

And so they blow these instruments of joy and they would process back to the temple, holding aloft this flagon of water.

Then when they got to the temple, what would they do?

They would go to the altar and they would ceremoniously pour out the water on the altar and all around it, soaking it, drenching it, remembering that God provided for them in the wilderness.

That was the absolute apex and pinnacle of the whole ceremony.

All of this done with that looking back and looking forward, all looking forward and in anticipation that God will fulfill the promises that He has made.

The promises that He made in the Old Testament, that actually he would pour out not just water, but his spirit.

There are many ways or many places in the Old Testament where water being poured out is linked with either salvation or andor the pouring out of the Spirit of God.

Let me give you two, Nehemiah 9.

Uh Nehemiah 9, uh around verses 15 to 20.

Let me read to you verse 20 of Nehemiah 9, which is actually set in the Feast of Booth, so it's a very important one.

Uh, where the priests say, You gave your good spirit to instruct instruct them, and did not withhold your manna from their mouth, and gave them water for their thirst.

Do you see the linkage?

You gave them their good spirit, your good spirit, and you satisfied their hunger, and you give them thirst for their or you quench their thirst of their mouth.

Do you see?

Or Isaiah 55, verses 1 and 2.

Isaiah 55:1

Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters.

He who has no money, come buy and eat, come buy milk and wine without money and without price.

Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread and labor for that that does not satisfy?

And so, swirling around the feast of booze were images of Exodus and being rescued from slavery, God's miraculous provision, water and spirit, and the future promise of the pouring out of the Spirit of God onto the people of God that he might satisfy the deepest longings of their hearts.

And it is in the context of all of that going on for a week in the minds and in the senses of the people of God.

It is in that context that Jesus stands up and says, If anyone thirsts, come to me and drink.

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

Do you see?

Do you see how it takes on this new red?

It sounds nice to us just coming to a it's like, oh yeah, water's quite nice.

You know, it's crystal, it's clear, it's thirst quenching.

But once you understand all of what's going on in the background, you're like, oh, imagine how electrifying that moment would be.

In my mind's eye, I imagine that the ceremony has just ended where the priest has just finished pouring the water on the altar and the and the flagon's empty.

He's shaking out the last drips.

And Jesus raises up his voice and says, If anyone's thirsty, come to me and drink.

That flagon's run out.

But I'll give you living rivers of living water.

Come to me and drink.

And all of the attention turns from the priest who will die and the altar that will pass away to the Messiah.

Do you see?

Let us ask some questions of this text in order to understand a little better.

First, who is invited to come?

Who is invited in Jesus' words to come and drink?

Look at the very first clause of 37b, Jesus' words.

If anyone thirsts, who's invited to come to Jesus and drink from him?

Anyone who thirsts.

Thirsty people are invited by Jesus to come and to drink.

What kind of thirst are we talking about here?

Is it a physical thirst?

Is Jesus there?

Is he the water boy?

Is he there with his bottles of water, handing them out like the end of a marathon?

You know, they've just walked up a hill from uh from the pool of Siloam.

He said, I've got bottles of water, guys.

Physical thirst?

No, of course not.

No, it's a thirsting that we don't do with our throat.

It's a thirsting that we do with our soul.

It's a thirsting that happens in our soul.

What this means is that the soul can thirst.

The soul can feel parched.

You've felt it before.

Perhaps you feel it now.

Do you know what it feels like?

It feels like it feels like restlessness.

It feels like unmet desire.

It feels like a sense of meaninglessness.

It feels like grabbing on to things only to sense that they're slipping through your fingers like like sand.

It feels like a longing that in some unacknowledged way you realize that nothing in this world is going to satisfy.

Yeah, that's what C.S.

Lewis said, right?

If I feel in my soul a longing that nothing in this world can satisfy, I must only then conclude that I was not just made for this world.

That's what soul thirst feels like.

And Jesus says to everyone who has a thirsty soul, come.

Come to me and drink.

Does he say come and buy?

No.

He says, Come and drink.

The water that Jesus offers, like the water of the prophet Isaiah that I read just a moment ago, costs you nothing.

It's water for your soul and it's free.

Moreover, in Jesus making this invitation, he is implying that he is the one who can satisfy your thirsty soul.

He's saying you feel thirsty in your soul, and success isn't quenching it.

Sex isn't quenching it.

Money, comfort, power, position, praise, adoration, the affirmation and congratulation of others isn't quenching it.

Come to me.

I can quench it.

I can quench your thirsty soul.

You feel your soul parched, come to me and drink.

I'll give you water.

I'll give you water that will satisfy your soul.

I'll end the restlessness.

Come and drink from me.

So who's invited to come?

Anyone who thirsts.

Anyone who thirsts.

What does the thirsty person do?

Secondly.

The invitation there is come and drink.

You see?

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

But notice how it is paralleled.

Verse 38, keep reading.

What's going on?

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

Some implications of this.

First, it means that the soul can drink.

Have you ever thought about that?

The soul can drink.

It doesn't have a mouth, it doesn't have a throat, but it can drink.

Here's what this means for you.

There's more to this world.

There's more to this life.

There's more to you than that which is material.

There is more to this life, there is more to this world, there is more to you than a scene.

You were made with more than mouth and throat.

You were made with a soul.

Imagine that for a second.

You were made with an eternal, precious, conscious, dignifying, valuable soul.

A part of you that will not be seen by any surgeon that cuts you open.

But it's there.

And it thirsts.

And it longs.

And it feels and it yearns.

Coming and drinking is parallel with believing in verse 38.

And so this helps us understand what faith in Jesus is.

It means that faith in Jesus, believing in Jesus, is a it's not a mechanical movement, it's not a physical movement, but it is a spiritual movement.

It's a spiritual movement of moving towards Jesus, coming to him, spiritually speaking, for the satisfaction of your soul.

That's what faith in Jesus is.

It's coming to Jesus, moving towards him spiritually speaking, saying, I believe in you.

I am trusting that you will be the one that will satisfy the longings of my soul.

That's so much more, isn't it, than maybe what you've been brought up with.

It's normally believe in Jesus and you get to go to heaven when you die.

Believe in Jesus and He will help you be a better person, or uh He will be emotionally enabling to you in suffering.

No, no.

Part of what it means for the Christian to believe in Jesus, to trust in Jesus, is to move towards Him and consequently away from all of those other things, to come to Him and say, I believe that you are the one who will satisfy the deepest longings of my soul.

My longing for intimacy, my longing for control, my longing for affirmation, my longing for whatever it is will be satisfied by you.

That's what coming and believing means.

It is trusting that Jesus can and does and will satisfy your thirsty soul.

What is the result of drinking?

Verse 38.

As the scriptures, it said, out of his heart, that is the believer's heart, right?

Not Jesus' heart.

So Jesus, he is the well spring, but in the same way that he said to the woman at the well, uh, that if you drink the water that I will give you, that will well up as a spring to eternal life.

So in the believer's heart, this is God promising you something, out of his heart or her heart will flow rivers of living water.

What is the result of this drinking?

Rivers of water.

Not just one drink, not a flagon that will empty, but a never-ending supply of soul-satisfying water.

Why?

Because the river maker has come to live in you, never to leave, never to abit.

And so the cool, pure, eternal waters of joy and peace and life and hope will flow forever over your soul, and they will find every crack and ravine and crevice that has been hewn out by grief and sorrow and longing, and his water will cascade like waterfalls into those valleys until they are lakes of grace in your soul.

Don't you long for that?

Don't you want that?

To have all of that grief and sorrow flooded with his mercy and grace, if his grace is an ocean.

And we're all sinking.

And it gets even better.

And when your soul is satisfied and those rivers begin to run, those rivers begin to flow, they cannot be contained by you.

They flow out of you, they change every part of you.

When all of those valleys become lakes, it changes the terraform of your life.

The landscape of your soul is different.

The soul that has found its satisfaction in Jesus is at peace with itself and with others.

Because it is no longer fighting with others for a finite.

Supply of satisfaction.

This will change you.

This will change every part of you.

This will be seen by people around you.

They might not be able to put their finger on it.

But imagine how that will intrigue those who don't yet know Jesus.

How that might impact your relationships with them.

When you are looking to them, you're no longer looking to them for affirmation and satisfaction.

You're no longer trying to play power games with them because why?

Because your soul is satisfied somewhere else.

And so you interact with them as a different person.

The rivers of water flow out of you.

It changes your speech.

It changes how you think.

It changes how you love.

It changes how you act.

Rivers.

Rivers of water.

Where does this all come from?

This thing.

The final question.

The answer is there 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 yet been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.

These rivers of living water are a way to describe a way to describe the presence and work of who?

Of the Holy Spirit in the life of the believer.

He is the river maker.

He is the one, remember in creation, who brooded over the waters, and now he comes and he fills your life with his presence and with that living water that he provides.

Jesus, in his incarnation, in his earthly ministry, was with humanity.

And now because of his glorification, God himself, the Holy Spirit, is in us, not just with, but in us.

God has taken up residence in the life of the one who has come to Jesus to fully and unendingly satisfy the soul of the believer with himself.

He is the one who satisfies the longings of our souls.

This promise of the giving of the Spirit builds throughout John.

We've already been thinking about it in little ways.

You think of John 3, where Jesus looks at Nicodemus and says, Nicodemus, you need to be born of what?

Of water in the Spirit.

To be cleansed, made pure by water, and transformed by the Spirit of God.

Or we've seen at the end of John 3 that John tells us that Jesus is the one who gives the Spirit without measure.

All of the other, all of the prophets of old had a flagon of the Spirit of God, and they drained it to the dregs as they poured it out in their ministry.

But the Messiah has come.

Jesus has come and he gives the Spirit to us without measure.

The Christian life is not one that is rationed by the Spirit of God.

The Spirit of God comes in abundance and flows into our lives.

And later on, we'll get to it in a, I don't know, let's say about nine months' time or so, ten months' time.

In John 14, Jesus will say that he will go to the Father and that he must go to the Father.

Why?

In order that he might send the Spirit to be in the believer, enlivening, equipping, illuminating, energizing, sending us out.

The Spirit is that great field commander of the Christian life.

You think of uh Luke chapter 2, where Jesus is driven out into the wilderness to face temptation.

Luke 2 · chapter mention

What does Luke tell us?

And Jesus, driven out by the Spirit, went into the wilderness and was tempted.

The Spirit is the field commander who sent Jesus out into those temptations that he might prove himself to be the better Adam.

And he sends us out.

To do what?

To go and to make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit, and teaching them all that Jesus has taught us.

For surely I am with you, Jesus says, even until the end of the age.

How is it that Jesus is with us until the end of the age?

By his spirit.

His spirit is with us now.

His spirit is in this place, in this room.

Where?

Where does it reside?

Is it some gas that goes through the ventilation system?

No.

It resides, he resides in every heart, joining us together, joining us across continents and time zones and across the generations to every believer in Jesus, uniting us all to the glorified and risen Lord.

As John Calvin said, that without that work of the Spirit, all of the benefits of Jesus, what are the benefits of Jesus?

Forgiveness, adoption, eternal life, justification, being sanctified, that is, progressively made into the im into his image.

All of those benefits come to us by the Holy Spirit.

He is the one who joins us to the risen and glorified Lord Jesus.

His perfect obedience is ours by the Spirit of God.

Jesus says that he must go back to his Father, that he might send the Spirit, and the road back to his Father.

How is it that Jesus is glorified?

It says there in the end of verse 39, Jesus was not yet glorified.

In John's gospel, where is Jesus glorified?

What is the glorification of the Son of God?

It's the cross.

It's his death.

And so he's dying, he prays that high priestly prayer in John 17.

And how does it begin?

Father, glorify me.

Father, the hour has come.

That is the hour of my death.

It's the hour means in John's gospel.

The hour has come.

Glorify me now.

With the glory that I had with you before the foundation of the world.

Where is the Son of Man glorified?

He's glorified as he is lifted up, suspended between heaven and earth, because he is the great mediator between heaven and earth.

And so he hangs in the balance between heaven and earth, and that is where he is glorified.

And because that is where he is glorified, he sends the Spirit.

And God dwelt with them in the tabernacle, a tent where his presence was made manifest.

And there he provided for them, sustained them, led them, and guided them, sent them bread from heaven, water from the rock, and led them with pillar of cloud and with flame.

And now on this, the greatest day of the feast, Jesus stands up and says that all of the symbols, all of the signs, all of the pictures of Exodus and salvation and thirst-quenching water find their culmination and climax and ultimate fulfillment in me.

Won't you come to him and drink?

I am the better Exodus, Jesus says.

I am the way of salvation.

I am the one who gives rivers of living water.

How?

Because I die and I rise again and I ascend to my Father and I sit with him in glory.

And I send the life-giving spirit to you all.

All of the blessings of God that we experience in our life are achieved by the cross and resurrection.

And so they pierced his side, and from that wound flowed what?

Blood and water.

That he might save from wrath and make us pure.

And so the words of the prophet Joel are true.

That in those last days says, Lord, I will pour out my spirit on all flesh.

You are invited.

Every one of us here has a thirsty soul.

You're drinking from something.

And like that flagon, that something runs out.

Unless it is Jesus.

You are invited to come.

Drink deep.

Find life.

Know the satisfaction of your soul.

Let's pray.

Father, I pray for everyone here this morning who acutely knows the yearning, thirsting of their soul, who knows at some perhaps even unspoken level, that their soul is parched, and the things that they have been chasing have been like a breath of wind.

I pray that they, by that same Holy Spirit, would hear and heed that invitation of Jesus to come and to drink.

And Father, I confess that even those of us who have journeyed with you for counts of years still turn aside to find satisfaction in things that we have been told time and time again will not satisfy.

May we come and know your mercy and your grace and drink again from Jesus.

Know again his forgiveness.

Experience again his love.

See again his sanctification and change within our lives.

And may it all be to your praise and your glory.

Amen.

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