The Overflowing Life (John 7:37-52) Myles Holmes | June 22, 2025

Hello and welcome to the Redemption Church Podcast.

We're a church in Newmarket, Ontario, Canada that exists to glorify God through the fulfillment of the Great Commission and the Spirit of the Great Commandment.

Thanks for joining us today.

Amen.

Amen.

It's so good to be together this morning.

I do want to just make a quick note before we start our time together that as of a few minutes ago, the air conditioning wasn't working, which you might feel, you might feel that right now.

We are working on it, but it does remind me of one of my great preaching heroes, Charles Spurgeon.

When he started preaching, the masses were flocking to him.

They built the Metropolitan Tabernacle.

And the first Sunday that they built it, wanting to, you know, accommodate more people, there was already people, so many people that they were crammed in the aisles, they were hanging from things, they were outside the windows trying to hear Spurgeon preach.

And they said there were so many people in that building that sweat was dripping from the ceiling in the age with no air conditioning.

And so here we are.

Maybe we could get that going here.

I don't know about you.

I read things like that.

I'm incredibly thankful for air conditioning.

Praise God for air conditioning.

However, let me just encourage you that the Lord has a word for us this morning.

His word is a living word, and when we open it up, he has something to say to us.

And so we need to this morning push past the potential 21st century discomfort of being in a room without air conditioning on a humid day and hear what the Lord has for us this morning.

And in light of that, I'd like to ask you to take your Bibles and open them to John chapter 7.

John 7 · chapter mention

We're going to be beginning in verse 37 this morning.

And if you don't have a copy of God's word, the ushers are making their way to the front, and you can flag one of them down.

They would love to put a copy into your hand, which you can keep as our gift to you, because we do believe that this isn't just any word, this is the living word.

As you turn there, I want to tell you about a rare medical condition that I only learned about this week, but I'll talk to you as though I'm an expert and have all sorts of knowledge on, which is how our day and age works.

It's called a dipsia.

It's when your brain loses the ability to feel thirst.

And on a hot day like today, that seems like it might be a really good thing.

You know, thirst can be painful.

Dehydration is incredibly painful and dangerous.

With a dipsia, your body still needs the water.

It's still dehydrating, but something is broken in the signal that is telling your body to drink.

There's no thirst, there's no drive to drink.

And it's an incredibly fascinating problem to think about because as painful as thirst can be, as annoying as thirst can be, especially when you're not in the presence of water, thirst is actually an incredibly important thing for us to experience.

The pain of dehydration, as deep as that can be, and as painful as that can be, is absolutely necessary to living a safe and healthy life.

Now you know where I'm going with this.

I want to address this on a spiritual level to ask you this morning, what if the thirst that you experience?

I'm talking about that that hunger beneath our physical being, talking about that ache for something more.

I'm talking about that that need that each of us have to experience something that we currently don't have right now, in whatever scenario that is, what if that thirst in your life wasn't a problem, but a gift that was pointing you to something greater that you needed to experience?

Let me ask you this again and ask you to consider this on a spiritual level.

What if the thirst that you have in your life for something that is currently not in your grip, what if it wasn't a problem, but a gift?

What if the thirst that keeps you scrolling long after you said you stop was something that was actually pointing you to something deeper?

What if the pressure that you feel from society and from work and maybe your family to perform and to be something and to prove something and to achieve something for yourself?

What if that what if that pressure was actually pushing you to something different than what you're really chasing?

What if that ache you feel when when like life is just not in your control, when things are not going the way you plan, and you feel that anxiety welling within you?

What if that feeling is actually supposed to be pointing you to some deeper satisfaction, just like thirst points us to the need for water?

What if this morning?

Jesus did not want to take away that thing that you desire, even if it's not for him.

What if instead he wanted to step in and fulfill it?

To satisfy it.

See, loved one, this is the wonder of the gospel that Jesus doesn't just satisfy your thirst.

What Jesus is telling us this morning as we hear him speak at the festival of booths is that he wants to take that thirst that we often have for other things, that drive that we often have to accomplish great things, maybe not even for the kingdom of God.

That longing to experience something, maybe it's not even for Jesus.

Jesus wants to take that.

He wants to not only satisfy it, what Jesus wants us to understand this morning is that he wants to accomplish something through it.

That thirst is actually necessary if you long to fulfill your purpose as a human being.

That thirst that maybe it's driving you to business, maybe it's driving you to your family, maybe it's driving you to people pleasing, whatever it's driving you to, that thirst is actually essential to what God wants to do in and therefore through you.

This is exactly what Jesus is going to say in John 7.

Jesus finds himself at the end of a the feast of booths, which, if you've been with us through the Gospel of John, we've been with Jesus when he was thinking about going up, and then last week when he was up there, and here we find that he's there on the final day, the greatest day, and he's there with a number of religious people who are there wanting to be there.

Like the feast of booze was their time.

This is when we get to not only celebrate what God has done, but we get to ask God to do some pretty amazing things, to fulfill some pretty necessary needs for us.

They were there in need.

At the heart of this feast was a reminder that they were still in the wilderness, that they weren't yet home, that they needed something.

The feast of Booze was established when Israel left Egypt and was wandering in the desert, and God there provided them manna and water, and here are their ancestors meeting thousands of years later, wandering through that same desert, dependent on God to provide food and water.

Particularly central to the feast of booths was that every morning the priests would come out and pour water over the altar, and it was this ceremony and symbolism of something great.

It was asking God to provide rain for the crops.

Rain, which you could imagine meant life.

If that rain didn't come, it was only famine and death.

In other words, here are these crowds of religious people performing this religious ceremony there because they need water.

There because they need God to provide something for them.

Now Jesus steps into this, and I want you to see, we're gonna read this whole text, but I just want you to see this really quick.

Jesus steps into this need and he doesn't avoid it, he doesn't minimize it, he presses right into it, he steps in the way of it, and look at verse 37.

He 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.

You get the picture.

Hey, listen, you see these priests trickling water over the altar, and I just want to tell you, Jesus tells us this morning, he's stepping in the way of our need, he's stepping in the thing that we are hungry and thirsty for, and saying, I want to tell you that if you come to me, I will provide through you all the things that you're longing for.

For life for other people.

It's fascinating.

Jesus this morning, he's putting his finger on our thirst, on our ache, on our need to perform, and he's he's not saying get over it.

Isn't that what you often say to yourself?

You know, you spend too much time maybe on social media or watching Netflix, or you know, you just know that you're too committed at work and it's taking away from your family.

And what you say is like, I just gotta get over that.

I just gotta like stop doing it.

And Jesus doesn't come and just say, hey, stop needing things.

What Jesus says is this if anyone thirsts, let him come to me.

Let him come to me.

That actually the precondition for following Jesus is dependence, it is thirst, it is need that you can't follow Jesus unless you actually need him.

He takes a very thing we're tempted to escape.

Our deep thirst.

And he turns it into an invitation for us this morning.

Not just to be filled in him, but to overflow in him.

That's our main point this morning.

That's what I want you to see this morning.

That Jesus turns our thirst into rivers, rivers of life for others.

That Jesus this morning is inviting you not just to be filled, but to allow his Holy Spirit to flood the world with life through you.

And we're gonna spend most of our time this morning in the first three verses of this passage, but I want to draw some comments from up to verse 52.

So would you stand with me as we read this passage together and honor the Lord for his word that he's given as a gift to us?

Beginning in John 7, verse 37.

John 7:37

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

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.

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.

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

They replied, Are you too?

Are you from Galilee too?

Search and see that no prophet arises from Galilee.

This is the word of the Lord.

You can take a seat.

And the first thing I want you to see this morning is that you were made to thirst.

You were made to thirst.

At this point in John's gospel, he's been ministering for about two years, and everywhere Jesus has gone, he has faced human need.

He saw it at we saw it in John 4 when Jesus encountered the woman at the well, and that woman was thirsty and alone and ashamed of the life that she had been living.

And Jesus met her with compassion there.

We saw it in John 6 when he fed a crowd of thousands who's who their need was just like physical hunger.

And here is Jesus, he sees the crowd coming and he sees their physical need.

It is not a need for him.

And the following days will show that as Jesus expounds what they really need is him, and they all leave him.

However, in that moment, what Jesus does is provide for their need, longing that they would see a deeper hunger they have for God.

Everywhere Jesus goes, he experiences human need and he longs to step in the way of it and fulfill and satisfy it.

And here now in John 7, it is exactly the same.

It is the last day, John calls it the great day of a week-long celebration, remembering how God had provided for Israel in the wilderness.

Two symbols really were at the center of that ceremony, and that was water, which Jesus will address here, and that is light, which we will address next week in John chapter 8.

John 8 · chapter mention

And crowds packed into Jerusalem to perform rituals and reminders that God would provide for their need, that God was a providing God, that he had done it throughout history, that he will do it again.

And so every day the same ceremony would happen.

It was almost like the Olympics, you know, the opening ceremony, except not as weird as it was this last time.

Let's just not go there, let's just move on, okay?

The priests would come out, they would pour water over the altar, and people of God would celebrate as they thought about all the times that God had provided for them in their lives.

Jesus is there at the crowd, with the crowd, and he's seeing the thirst that is beneath the surface here.

He's seeing the desperation in the hearts of the people who all they want is water for another season of life.

Everywhere Jesus went, he found people who were needing something, thirsty for something.

And Jesus' mission and heart was to step in front of that need and point them to the reality that the fulfillment of that thing is not actually what you think it is, it's only Him.

And this morning, I want you to understand that nothing separates us from that.

As the ascended Jesus is in heaven now and he looks at our world, the marks of thirst are everywhere.

I mean, we don't have crowds going to religious temples anymore to perform religious ceremonies.

There are some people.

What about social media?

I mean, listen, we don't wave palm branches in Jerusalem to celebrate the coming of Hosanna, but we certainly do flock to these social platforms to see what's new there.

And there, there's just this endless stream of content that you can get absorbed into because there's why, why, why?

Because there's this endless thirst of human beings to want more, to think maybe it's the next reel that I see, maybe it's the next TikTok that I laugh at, maybe it's the next show that I watch that will really, really satisfy the itch that I have just to be entertained.

Maybe it's in the next one, and so we keep going.

We are thirsty for something.

We are still gathering in gyms, in the uh therapy offices, in co-working spaces, in bars, on dating apps, and even in churches.

Gathering, hoping we will find something that will touch the ache that is beneath the surface.

And maybe this morning, that's even why you're here.

Maybe you're not here for Jesus.

You're just here, I just need something.

And I've tried everything else and nothing else is working, and so maybe it's in the church.

And Jesus wants to meet you this morning.

He's brought you here for a reason.

That the restlessness you experience in your career, that the longing you have for romance, that the felt need you have for rest, that the escape you often run to, that it's all pointing to something greater.

That your thirst is for some someone.

I want you to notice in the text here, notice how Jesus responds.

This crowd is not there for him, and he knows how many of these people will follow him.

It is a small handful.

And yet, notice you see the compassion of Jesus here in verse 37?

Look at the text with me.

Jesus stood up and cried out.

He stood up and cried out as though he's bursting at the seams.

If anyone thirsts.

What Jesus is saying to us this morning is that he only wants to speak to those who need.

Jesus stands up and cries out, listen, what does he say to the people who pretend like they have their whole life together?

He looks at them and he says, You whitewash tombs.

He's always angry at them.

And if that's you this morning, if you come in this place, like, listen, I'm good and I'm here because God needs me.

Jesus does not have a word for you.

But if you crawled into this place and you're like, I just don't, I mean, I am barely hanging on here.

I don't know what I'm gonna do this week, I don't know how I'm gonna get by.

Jesus stands up and points at you.

He points at your heart and he says, I am here for that.

And so, loved ones, some of us need to take great comfort right now because Jesus stands up and cries to our need.

Some of us need to be uh humbled right now because in our pride we we come like we have something to offer Jesus.

And listen, Jesus, he will ignore you, he doesn't care for that.

Jesus doesn't need anything from you.

The only thing Jesus lacks is need.

He doesn't need anything, he wants to be your savior.

This is a compassionate heart.

That no matter all the other wells you've gone to, no matter how ashamed you are of the things that you've turned to for satisfaction, no matter how sinful those things may have even been, no matter how embarrassed you are of them, Jesus stands up and cries out if anyone thirsts, if anyone thirsts, if anyone thirsts.

Loved one, you see the precondition for Christianity?

Is there anything else that's like this?

Have you ever go to a job interview?

And they say, Hey, listen, if you want this job, you're gonna really have to suck at it.

Like you're you're gonna really have to not be able to perform.

I mean, that wouldn't be a very long interview, but would it?

And here is Jesus.

Listen, if you want to be in my kingdom, what you need is need.

No other way in.

We're made to thirst.

Second thing I want you to see this morning is that we were meant to drink deeply.

We're meant to drink deeply.

Notice what Jesus says.

If anyone thirsts, now he doesn't just stop there and he doesn't say go away.

What he says, if anyone thirsts, let him or her come to me and drink.

So again here, love one, the answer isn't stop thirsting.

The answer isn't fix yourself or fill yourself.

The answer is find what you are looking for, not in the thing you think will satisfy you, but in Jesus Christ.

Believe, you notice that?

That's what that's that's the synonym here in verse 38.

You see that in the text.

Whoever believes in me, believe that Jesus is the savior of your need and of your thirst, that deep beneath the hunger that is driving you maybe to perform, driving you to romantic relationship, drive you to whatever it is, deep beneath that hunger is a heart that longs for Jesus, that is trying to fit a square peg into a circle hole until it finds Jesus and is home.

Notice then what he says next.

It's so fascinating.

And this is instructing us about how we find satisfaction in Jesus Christ, okay?

This is showing us how we come and drink deeply.

It's so important.

What he says next is this.

Can you look at the look at your Bibles with me?

And if you're looking at me, this is just kind of an awkward moment we're having right now, okay?

Look at your Bibles.

Verse 39, who or 38 out of whoever believes in me, as the scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.

Rivers of living water.

Now, this is crucial to understanding how in the Christian life you can find satisfaction.

And it is especially crucial to us because we live in a consumeristic age where satisfaction is all about consuming.

Isn't that true?

Like if you in this age, if you were to pull people, hey, how can you be satisfied?

Well, I just need more money.

I just need some time to watch that new next, like I just need a week.

All the parents were like, yeah, amen, right?

Amen.

I just need a week away from them, you know.

I just I just need some rest.

I just need to get past this next hurdle.

I just need this, I just, I just need that.

It's the meme monster.

It's like this idea of it's all about what comes in.

It's it's this consumeristic lie we've been taught about ourselves, that joy and satisfaction is all about someone serving your needs.

And loved one, don't think that you're immune from this.

We all, we all swim in these waters.

And so if you think, if you're listening to this right now and you're like, no, listen, I'm good, I'm not consumeristic at all, like, yeah, yeah, right.

We all fight this.

And what Jesus is saying here is so important that if you, your, your thirst, it is not quenched by storing up, it is quenched by letting it flow.

It is the difference between a container and a conduit.

A container is, you know, I'm I'm uh treading into plumbing waters here, and I'm not really good with my hands, so I'm gonna offend.

At least there's one plumber in the church that I will offend, and I ask for his forgiveness, and you know who that is, and you know he'll forgive me.

Anyways, moving on.

You know, the conduit stores water.

It is a tank for water.

Sorry, a container is that.

Container is a tank for water.

A conduit is a complete opposite.

A conduit is a pipe that that allows a flow of water to come from some source, allows water to flow through it and and then leave.

It is the complete opposite of a container.

And Jesus is saying, you are, listen, your heart is not a container, your heart is a conduit.

Now, what happens, loved one, if you treat your heart, if theologically, like we're talking about, like we're under, we're discerning the soul here, right?

If your soul is a is a conduit and you are treating it like a container, what is the problem?

The problem is that it will not hold water.

Now listen, what Jesus is saying has deep implications for us.

Why is it that no matter how much you get of the thing you are thirsting for, it does not satisfy?

Why is it?

Because you are not a container, you are a conduit.

So if you're treating yourself like a container, your heart has no bottom, so you pour it in and it just leaks right out.

Don't you feel like that?

Like, how long does it take when you get off the plane of your vacation that you had been dreaming about, that you had pictures of at the office, that your the background of your home screen was like that beach, you know, with the feed in it.

And how long does it take after you get off that plane for you to be like, I need another one?

You know, like my wife and I, we I mean, this is besides the sermon, it's just a really great point.

We schedule a vacation from the vacation.

That's what I mean, that's how long it takes.

Like, wait, man, we really need to rest from that vacation that we just had.

But most of us treat our thirst this way.

We want to feel better, we want to be full, we want to quiet the ache.

And so we turn to the things of this world.

And listen, we can be honest right now.

We we can be honest, okay?

In a in a church, we can be brutally honest and say that the reason why we turn to the world is because the world feels good.

It satisfies the thirst, it fills us for a moment.

Success, success feels good.

Romantic relationships can fill you, vacations, affirmation, productivity, all these things, they work.

And food.

Can we talk about food for a moment?

Like food is the greatest of all of them.

And I gotta stop myself from getting off track here because I got a small group social.

And uh, you know, at home I've I'm gonna put some mac and cheese on the smoker, and it's gonna be really good tonight at our small.

That's a plug for small group, because one of the things our small groups do really well is food.

Every small, anyways, let's move on.

Food can fill you.

You get a hit, you get a boost, you get a you get a break from the pressure from all these things.

They give you a moment of peace.

What's the problem?

They never overflow.

Why?

Because they are leaky.

They satisfy you like a sugar rush.

It is a hit, but the Bible says it is a fleeting pleasure.

It's a fleeting pleasure.

As soon as you have it, it's already leaving.

Why, loved one, because your heart is a conduit.

This has always been the problem of God's people.

Look at how God spoke through the prophets in Jeremiah chapter 2.

Jeremiah 2 · chapter mention

He said, My people have committed two evils.

They have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and dug for themselves cracked cisterns that can hold no water.

In other words, you've forsaken the infinite supply of water that is God Himself, and you've dug and tried to hold water in cisterns in containers that have holes that can hold no water.

That is us.

We've left the source of satisfaction, the source of joy, and we've turned to substitutes, and we wonder why we are dry.

Loved one, you're a container.

You're you're a conduit.

You are not a container.

You cannot find joy if you just keep trying to fill yourself up.

The second problem with the container life is this that if your view of joy, like if your theology of finding satisfaction in this world is that you just need to get the right things in, then you can never actually really serve or love other people.

Do you understand what I'm saying?

If your idea of satisfaction is that you just need to get enough of the right thing in, that you just need that that something, then you can only ever use other people to fill your container.

This is the the wonder of the gospel is that apart from the gospel, you can never really truly serve anyone but yourself.

That sounds pretty radical, doesn't it?

And yet you you begin to understand it's true.

You might sacrifice in your life, you might give in your life, you might do incredible things for other people, but the reality is that if you are doing that to fill up your satisfaction thirst tank, then all you are doing is using other people for your need.

You're not pouring out for them, you are using them to pour into yourself.

And the question for us is this is that really love?

I mean, it's certainly love of self.

But apart from the gospel, can you love other people?

Suppose your container is empty and you turn to your spouse for approval.

You serve them, you help them, you show up for them.

Listen, if it's just to feel their love or to feel their affection or to feel their approval, the question at the end of the day is who are you loving, yourself or them?

Are you loving yourself and using them to fill up your container?

That's not love at all.

You work late to impress your boss.

Every project you are given, you crush, you go over and above to gain affirmation.

You're not just doing your job.

You're trying to quench a thirst that is inside you that says, I'm only as good as what I achieve.

And your work can never really be about anything noble.

It's only really about serving yourself.

Parenting can be like this, right?

Like, I mean, this is where conviction lands so heavy for me.

There are times where the behavior of my children has nothing to do with them and everything to do with the fact that I am like in the lobby of the church that I'm supposed to be a pastor of, and here's my kid, you know, doing the just the kid things that they do.

That I'm in the grocery store and this person's making me look like I'm not a good parent.

See, it's not about them at times.

At times it's it's totally about me.

And if your uh theology of satisfaction is that that you need to be filled up, you will always look to other people and ask, will this fill me?

Can we talk about ministry burnout for a second?

Because ministry burnout is something that we really fear as Christians.

It really is, because we've seen other people experience it, and and many of you have walked through it yourself.

You've been at a time where you're just serving, serving, serving, serving, and there's just nothing left.

And you've given so much.

And loved one, I want to be so sensitive here because burnout is a real thing, but but I just need to tell you that that happens when you find yourself, maybe it is because of busyness, maybe it is because of the ministry, whatever it is, you find yourself disconnected from the source.

And what you were actually doing is at some point you start serving in the church, you start doing the ministry you're doing so that you can fill yourself up, so that you can feel good about yourself.

But all of that is leaking out.

We use these things, but apart from the source that is Jesus Christ, the fountain that is God, we cannot pour out.

We only pour in.

But here's the promise that Jesus gives to us this morning.

When your life is filled by Christ, then and only then can it start flowing beyond you, because this is what we're talking about when we say we're we're looking for the overflowing life, because Jesus is an infinite source, and what you have done is connected the conduit, you've taken the hose and attached it to the source, and now water is flowing through you.

This is why, church, we come back to this again and again.

This is why the first mark of a maturing disciple is.

I'm gonna stop here and test you, okay?

Because I just preached on this like three weeks ago.

Can you remember?

We did four weeks on this.

Can you remember what the first mark of a maturing disciple is?

It is abiding.

Abiding in Christ.

This is where it all begins.

Jesus says, Come to me and drink deeply, believe in me.

Now, when that's happening, notice it in John 7, verse 38, but also notice it in the marks of a maturing disciple.

John 7:38

When you are abiding in Christ, you are connecting yourself to a source.

So that one of the ways you know that you're really abiding in Christ, here's a good test for you, okay?

You start to become like a fire hydrant that's bursting at the outlet.

Because you're drinking from an infinite stream.

And now Jesus is doing this work in you, and you're beginning to well up, and it's like you're shaking.

You're like, I just gotta do something.

And what needs to happen is that the cap needs to take off, be taken off that fire hydrant, and it needs to explode all over the street that is the kingdom of Christ being established in Newmarket and in your town.

That's what needs to happen.

You drink so deeply from Jesus from Jesus that it's just like it's welding up in you.

This desire to what?

The next two marks of a maturing disciple.

Do you know what they are, loved one?

Abiding in Christ.

Here we are, we're reinforcing this.

Remember, this is so helpful for us as we consider what scripture says about growth and maturity.

We abide in Christ, then we connect in the church, then we reach the community.

And I want you to understand that two-thirds of your discipleship has to do with outflow.

It has to do with the way that you fellowship in the church and reach the lost.

But it all begins here with abiding in Christ.

And so listen, you cannot have mature discipleship apart from both of those things.

This is why I love what has been happening in our church recently, where I'm not gonna name names, but over the last like few weeks I'm talking, people have come up to me separately and they don't know what's going on in the other people's lives, but they have just said this to me.

I just feel the I feel the need to do something more.

I feel the need to serve more, I feel the need to lead something, I feel the need to step up in this area, and I look at that and I praise the Lord because that's what it's like to abide.

They are fire hydrants who are drinking so deeply of Christ that one turn of the wrench and they will burst life throughout the church.

You must abide.

You must abide.

Because only when Jesus fills you can you flood the world with life.

Now let me just take a moment here to apply this to those of you who are stuck spiritually.

You've been reading your Bible, you have been praying, you have been listening even to sermons, desiring growth, but you're not growing.

Why?

Often, very often, I mean, I see this so many times.

Often it's because we've believed the lie that is that says our growth is simply about what we consume.

If we get to the right church, if we listen to the right things, if we get around the right people, then we'll just we'll start growing.

But Jesus is telling us here spiritual growth is stunted when there is no outlet.

If you are constantly receiving but never releasing, then you will never grow.

You will become spiritually stagnant.

You are like a tree that is in one of those fish tank things that are for trees.

Is it a terranium or something like that?

And but but there's no flow of air, there's no life, and so you can have all the right nutrients, but you will not grow.

There's no room to grow.

And the reason for so many is because you are not serving.

You're looking for a sermon, but you are not looking for an opportunity to serve.

And there is nothing that can actually be said to you that will help you because what needs to happen is you need to take a step of obedience.

You need to take a risk in your life to do something that you may not think you're able to do, to share the gospel with someone that you think they might not even hear you, to serve in a capacity that you think, I don't even know if I can do this.

You need to get to a place where you're looking at Christ and you're saying, Listen, you're gonna have to provide.

I'm thirsty.

And Jesus then will look at you and say, If anyone thirsts, come to me and drink.

You will be filled.

Abiding, it does not work apart from connecting and reaching.

So listen, loved one, if you want to grow, are you connecting?

Are you connecting in the church?

Loved one, if you want to grow, are you reaching the lost?

Are you sharing the gospel?

Are you pressing on and seeking the salvation of lost souls?

Jesus is telling us here, listen, you were made to thirst, you were meant to drink deeply.

One more thing I want you to see.

You were sent to spill over.

You were sent to overflow.

What Jesus reveals here isn't just personal encouragement for us.

That's so often what we want from Jesus.

Jesus, show me, show me how to show me how to be filled, show me how to be satisfied.

What Jesus is doing here, it's it's like in the movie when the general comes up.

I haven't seen many movies, so I'm talking really, you know, generally here.

But the general comes up, no pun intended, and he lays out the battle plan and he says, Listen, this is what we're gonna do.

And he's got the little, you know, G.I.

Joe things, and he says, he's gonna move here, and this person's gonna move here.

Jesus is laying out the his kingdom plans and saying, Hey, listen, this is how I am going to reach the world with the gospel.

You ready for this plan?

You ready for this plan?

And love, I just want you to see at this point in the message, your thirst is essential to it.

The thing that drives you in your life, when you redirect that to Jesus, it's essential to Jesus' plan.

Jesus lays out his plan, and the top of the banner is, I want you to be satisfied in me.

I want you to live a life that shows what we read in Psalm 63, that my steadfast love is better than life.

That's the battle plan.

And when you do that, look at verse 38, out of your heart will flow rivers of living water.

Jesus is at the Feast of Booths, and they're trickling water down the altar, and Jesus is saying this, listen, I got a plan to flood the world not with a trickle of water, not even with a river of water.

It's in the plural here, with rivers of water.

I got a plan to flood the world with rivers of living water.

Now, John here in verse 39 gives us an interpretive key.

He said, Now this he said about the spirit.

This he said about the spirit.

So notice something incredible.

What Jesus wants to do in your life is not just produce even one tiny trickle from you.

He doesn't want to just produce a tiny stream from you.

Jesus wants to produce rivers of life.

Water that spiritually flows from your heart through the Holy Spirit to others, bringing life.

Now the connection is overwhelmingly clear here for the Jewish people.

They are celebrating the feast of booths.

They're pouring water over the altar.

They are reading all these texts throughout the Old Testament that talk about the water.

And Jesus is looking at these people and saying, Listen, all these things point to me.

If you abide in me, I will show you where water is going to come from.

So, so loved one, what Jesus wants to do in your life is not just like supernaturally charge you up just for yourself and your own emotional pleasure.

He wants to supernaturally transform you.

He wants the spirit to take residence in your life so that you not only receive the water of God that satisfies all thirst, that it flows through you to others.

Jesus is saying this.

This is the way my kingdom advances.

It requires, I've got the infinite source of water that is myself.

It requires conduit to be connected to it.

It requires the piping of the local church.

It requires believers who will allow that water to flow through them to their own satisfaction and for the life of those around them.

Now, this isn't a new idea.

This was always God's kingdom plan.

Turn with me back to Ezekiel 47.

You're gonna turn back from John, you're gonna pass some minor prophets.

If you hit Daniel, you've got to slow down, you're almost there.

If you hit Lamentations, you've gone too far.

If you have a little Bible song in your head that gets you through, you can sing that right now out loud.

I'd love to hear it.

Let's hear it together.

Ezekiel 47.

Love that sound.

Love that sound of flipping pages.

Ezekiel 47.

And gives us a vivid prophetic picture.

There is a temple in verse one.

And water is issuing from below the threshold of the temple.

And Ezekiel is taken to this water, and it is just in verse 2, trickling.

In verse 3, he begins to walk down this water, and it is then ankle deep in verse 3.

In verse 4, he keeps going and it becomes knee deep.

By the end of verse 4, it says that this water and this vision that he is having, that again is coming from the temple, this water is waist deep.

By verse 5, he measures it and he could, it was so deep he could not pass through.

It was deep enough, he says, to swim in.

At this point, Ezekiel comes back to the edge and he looks over.

And look at verse 8 with me.

He's speaking to the Son of Man.

He said to me, This water flows toward the eastern region and goes down into the Arabah and enters the sea.

When the water flows into the sea, the water will become fresh, and everywhere the river goes, every living creature that swarms will live, and there will be very many fish.

All the fishers in the house are saying, This is great.

We got to find this pool.

We got to find and like catch some big fish.

But if you understand the spiritual connection that Jesus makes at the feast of booths, Jesus is saying, This I am the temple, and I am inviting you into union with me.

So that when you place your faith in me, when you believe in me, living water will flow through you, and everywhere the living water goes, there will be life.

Jesus came to point to a new and better temple.

And by union with Christ through faith, Paul says this in 1 Corinthians chapter 3, verse 16 do you not know that you are God's temple and that God's Spirit dwells in you?

1 Corinthians 3:16

Which means this, the river that once flowed from the temple in Ezekiel's vision now flows in you.

Wherever the spirit-filled life goes, life overflows through them.

So when you labor in your life to connect into the church, to reach the lost, an overflow of life comes through you to other believers.

I praise God that happened in my own story.

Before I knew Christ, I was on a hellbound race.

Before I knew Christ, I had no hope in life.

I literally believed that at a young age, anxiety and anger that that came from a tough family divorce, it would have been the end of me.

I honestly believe that walking that path, I would not have been here today.

And yet, there was a believer at a local church who believed that God's will for them was to work through them.

That God's plan to reach the world was to satisfy their thirst so that they would become rivers of living water for others.

And so they opened their mouth, they shared the gospel, and now by the sheer grace of God, here I am with the privilege and one of the greatest wonders of my life to be able to do the same thing now.

To do it in this church, to do it in my family, to do it in my neighbor.

This is one of the greatest privileges.

To be able to open your mouth and speak words of not only life, eternal life.

You see this love, love and one?

When you labor to spiritually influence others, when you serve in kids' ministry, when you pray with someone hurting, when you open your Bible with a coworker, when you disciple a new believer, when you show up for someone who is suffering, you become a conduit of multiplying life.

You need to serve those people as much as they need you.

You need an outlet.

Living water must flow through you to bring life.

We see it in the rest of John 7.

We don't have time to unpack every verse this morning, but notice this the words of Jesus cause massive division.

Some mock him, others are confused by him, others are furious, but something else happens to some believe.

And to those who believe, life starts to rise.

So there are some who look at Jesus and recognize no one ever spoke like this man.

And you know what they're saying?

No one ever brought satisfaction into my life like this man just did.

They had found a steadfast love that was better than life.

Otherwise, I wonder how you walk in this morning.

I wonder where the resistance to Jesus is this morning.

Maybe the resistance is just you just haven't given your life to Jesus.

And you've been seeking all these other sources of satisfaction in this morning, you just need to hear Jesus' words.

Come to me and drink.

Maybe you've done that for eternal life, and your resistance this morning is in serving him.

That in the busyness of your life, you just don't know how you can make it work.

That in the ache of your what you're experiencing in life, you don't know how you could do it.

And Jesus' message here for you is come and drink deeply.

So that through you can overflow life.

And when you don't need to fix your life, you don't need to get it all together.

You already are thirsty, and you were made to drink deeply.

When you come to Jesus, you are sent to spill over.

But it can only happen when you come to him with your need, which is how we respond to him now.

Could you pray with me?

Father, we are needy.

And we are reminded of these words.

They really are the only barrier to your kingdom if anyone thirsts.

God, you turn away the ones who believe that they are self-sufficient.

You turn away the ones who are not desperate for satisfaction.

But you call this morning all those who are thirsty and longing for satisfaction.

You call them to come to you.

And so, God, our response now as we sing to you is a response of the heart to say, Lord, we we come.

And we want to be made into rivers of living water.

We want to serve you, God.

You are all we have.

So we sing this to your glory, and we sing this for our joy.

In the name of your Son, Jesus Christ.

Amen.

Could you stand and sing with me this morning?