Quench That Thirst
CCCAG June 10th, 2018
Scripture- Highlighting John 7:32-39
Gatorade Thirst Quencher commercials
Anyone remember that commercial? Here is some of the history of that drink
How many people here have been to the deep south, like Alabama or Florida in August or September? It’s hot, it’s humid, and if you are not careful, you will be dehydrated in no time and even suffering heat exhaustion just spending the day at the beach.
Now imagine doing something like competitive sports? Think for a moment about being a football player doing 2-3 practices a day in that oppressive heat.
This experience was what The Florida Gators football team was going through every single year. The coaching staff asked the college’s school of medicine for help because water just wasn’t cutting it- the player would drink gallons of water and would still suffer from heat exhaustion and cramping.
The school of Medicine came up with a recipe for fluid replacement which included water, sodium, sugar, potassium, phosphate, and lemon juice.
Basically, they took the IV solution of Lactated Ringers and made it taste good.
The coaching staff immediately saw a much better performance during practices, and they dominated teams in the second half of football games played in Florida over the opposing teams, and is even credited for the Florida Gators winning the 1967 Orange Bowl. The university decided to market the drink to other athletic programs, and Gatorade was born.
Today if you walk through the supermarket or even Kwik Trip and look for something to drink, you see dozens of options.
Coffee Drinks, Fruit Drinks, flavored waters, protein drinks, and of course a few dozen different brands of soda. That doesn’t even include the various beers and alcoholic beverages available.
Quenching thirst, just with soft drinks, is a 200 billion dollar/year industry in our country, and competition is fierce to provide that one drink everyone will love.
Bringing it back to the scripture we are studying this morning, first century Israel is a desert climate. Jesus is teaching during the Feast of Tabernacles, so it’s August or September where Temperatures in Jerusalem average 90’s to 100 degrees F. Everyone he is talking to is probably at least a little thirsty, so Jesus masterfully uses the topic of thirst to make a very critical point about living a life that is pleasing to God.
Prayer
Jesus sets up this teaching about thirst by pointing out the difference between the religion of Judaism that everyone listening had grown up with, and the relationship with God that Jesus was there to repair and bring people back into. He does so in a very subtle way, but in a way that makes the crowds and the Jewish officials question the very thing that Jesus will later drive home.
I. 33 Jesus said, “I am with you for only a short time, and then I am going to the one who sent me. 34 You will look for me, but you will not find me; and where I am, you cannot come.”
This is a very mysterious statement that Jesus gives, but it is a statement meant to make the person question what He is talking about. In the video, you saw the Jewish religious leaders going crazy trying to figure out what Jesus is talking about.
Is He going away to the Gentiles to teach Jewish people outside of Jerusalem? That makes sense- we won’t go there and live among the unwashed heathen so if Jesus goes there then we are rid of him, and if he comes back after living among the Gentiles we can discredit him for breaking the Law.
Maybe Jesus is talking about suicide- making a religious or political statement by killing himself in a public manner to protest Roman rule, as some people had done in the past.
As usual, the religious leaders and most of the people were trying to find an earthly answer to a spiritual question.
Nothing messes up people’s lives like trying to find an earthly answer to a spiritual question (elaborate if time)
What they didn’t realize is Jesus is making a spiritual statement.
“You can’t come where I am going.”
The undercurrent of what Jesus was saying is “I am going to the Father. Heaven is a completely different environment than earth, and you cannot survive there as you are today”
Several years ago, scientists studying genetics released a press statement stating that the DNA of a human being and other things in nature are very close.
For example
You and I, regardless of our ancestry, are 99.999% genetically similar
Chimpanzee and humans- 96%
Dogs and Cats- 90%, with dogs edging out cats in my opinion
Human and mouse- 85%
Human and cow- 80%
Human and fruit fly-65%
The scientists further asserted that this proves evolution is a fact since we are genetically similar to all other animals.
Creation scientists responded immediately to the fact that our DNA is similar to other living things by saying, “Well, duh”
1- We live on the same planet, breath the same air, drink the same water, eat the same things and even each other so if our DNA was completely different then we couldn’t exist in the same environment.
Jesus is saying in this statement that our earthly makeup is incompatible with existence in the heavenly. Transporting a person of that era from earth into heaven would like catching a fish in a net and tossing it on the shore and saying, “I hope you now have a joy filled life on land”
It can’t happen. The fish is designed for life in the water like we are designed for life on dry land. We can’t exist in each other’s environment because we have the wrong makeup.
It’s just like that in the spirit. The average person thinks that they will go immediately into heaven because they are a “good person”. What they don’t understand is that flesh and blood cannot inherit what is a spiritual place. If God were to supernaturally transport a person from here into heaven, you would be a fish out of water, struggling even to breathe in this new environment that because of sin, we cannot survive or thrive in the presence of God.
The Apostle Paul tells us in 1 Cor 15
1 Co 15:44–53
By the way, this is an awesome verse to use evangelistically to explain why you need to be born again through faith in Jesus. Bookmark it for later use.
If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. 45 So it is written: “The first man Adam became a living being”; the last Adam (Jesus is called the 2nd or last Adam), a life-giving spirit. 46 The spiritual did not come first, but the natural, and after that the spiritual. 47 The first man was of the dust of the earth; the second man is of heaven. 48 As was the earthly man, so are those who are of the earth; and as is the heavenly man, so also are those who are of heaven. 49 And just as we have borne the image of the earthly man, so shall we bear the image of the heavenly man.
Here comes the important point
50 I declare to you, brothers and sisters, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. 51 Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed—52 in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. 53 For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality.
Let’s unwrap this in the context of what Jesus is staying here in John 7
In Genesis chapter 3, when God banished Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden, we have always been taught that their banishment was a punitive measure- a result of their sin, and for sure that was part of it.
But it was also protective. God’s requirements or qualifications for entering into heaven is absolute holiness. That means you have never ever thought or done anything outside of God’s perfect will.
No human being has ever met that standard except for Jesus, that’s why Jesus could become our substitute- coming to die and suffer the punishment that God has to give all who rebel against His will and Word. Jesus bore that punishment, that through faith in Him, we die to ourselves and become born again into a new nature, with a new desire for heavenly things.
The Bible compares our desires to what we thirst for.
The born-again person echoes what David says in Psalm 63-
O God, thou art my God; early will I seek thee: my soul thirsteth for thee, my flesh longeth for thee in a dry and thirsty land, where no water is;
Being human comes with having thirst. That brings us to our next point-
II. Everyone is thirsty for something
The verse from Ps 63 is not the cry of the natural man.
If you ask anyone outside of the Christian faith and asked them what energizes them, what they live for, or what the rely on and you will never get God as an answer.
For some, it’s what they do for a living.
Let’s me expand on that a bit
When you get introduced to someone, and you share names, what’s the second question that is usually asked?
“What do you do for a living?”
For many people, that is their identifying characteristic about themselves.
Some people identify by what they like to do outside of work.
For some it’s what sports team they follow.
For some it’s their hobby- hunting, fishing, gardening, crocheting
We all have something that we do that we look forward to which energizes us at the base level.
For the person outside the faith, it’s always going to be something from this earth that gives them their source of strength and joy.
It’s what they use to quench their spiritual thirst, but that well always runs dry or worse- it’s like drinking salt water from the ocean, leaves them even more spiritually dehydrated.
For those of us who have given our lives over to Jesus, we have access to what Jesus called “Water from above”.
It’s the living water.
III. Living Water
Everything Jesus said up until this point is meant to bring focus on this point.
Remember, he is speaking to people sitting in 100-degree heat. They are surrounded by other people sweating as much as they are. Not only that, but the animals were also there, bring along a rather interesting smell to the place. That and the burn offering smell would have been mixed in to the environment.
This would be the same smell you’d get from a dozen hot farm workers sitting in a barn in August having a barbeque. Not only are they hungry, but incredibly thirsty listening to Jesus teach.
Jesus uses that to show them what they really need spiritually. It’s not just the momentary satisfaction of a thirst that is quenched, but a source of spiritual power that is unlimited.
And that comes in the person of the Holy Spirit.
It’s the restoration of what to that point, only Adam and Eve had ever known- the very presence of God living within them.
No one prior to this even knew what that was like.
37 On the last day of the festival, the great day, while Jesus was standing there, he cried out, “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me, 38 and let the one who believes in me drink. As the scripture has said, ‘Out of the believer’s heart shall flow rivers of living water.’ ” 39 Now he said this about the Spirit, which believers in him were to receive; for as yet there was no Spirit, because Jesus was not yet glorified.
That’s an incredible thought for you and I sitting here in the 21st century
All those heroes of the Old Testament after Adam and Eve- Seth, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Joshua, all the judges including the prophet Samuel, Saul, even King David had the Holy Spirit upon them in some measure, but none of them had the Holy Spirit take up residence inside their very spirit and souls.
That’s what Calvary’s cross, what Jesus did for you and me.
The veil was torn, the dead were brought back to life, the followers of Jesus knew what it was to be born again and experience that relationship that Adam knew.
It’s all because of Jesus.
Isaiah 58 says this about this generation of believers-
The LORD will guide you continually,
and satisfy your needs in parched places,
and make your bones strong;
and you shall be like a watered garden,
like a spring of water,
whose waters never fail.
12 Your ancient ruins shall be rebuilt;
you shall raise up the foundations of many generations;
you shall be called the repairer of the breach,
the restorer of streets to live in.
That restoration is available to whoever calls Jesus Lord and Savior.
I ask you a question- do you feel dry and powerless this morning?
Do you feel helpless, hopeless, or alone
Do you worry more than you praise
Do you question what is the point in life?
This is your answer. Jesus made a way for you to experience that life-giving power through the very person of the Holy Spirit to come and change everything.
You just need to accept it.
Prayer
Celebrate the life Giving Spirit by recognizing the price Jesus paid to restore us to the Father
Communion
