SERMON OUTLINE:
(1). Background: ‘Sukkot’.
(2). Jesus: Announcement.
(3). Water: Symbolism.
(4). Cross: Paradox.
(5). Salvation: Choice
SERMON BODY:
Ill:
• According to the American radio and television writer Andy Rooney.
• The two biggest sellers in any bookstore, are the cookbooks and the diet books.
• The cookbooks tell you how to prepare the food,
• And the diet books tell you how not to eat any of it.
Ill:
• Orson Welles once said,
• “My doctor has advised me to give up those intimate little dinners for four,
• Unless, of course, there are three other people eating with me.”
Ill:
• A California scientist has computed that the average human being,
• Eats 16 times his or her own weight in an average year,
• While a horse eats only eight times its weight.
• This all seems to prove that if you want to lose weight, you should eat like a horse.
• TRANSITION: Harvest is a time to give thanks to God for the food,
• But without sunshine and rain, there is no food!
• I want to speak on water:
• “If you are thirsty, come to me! If you believe in me, come and drink!
Ill:
• Peter Cotterell missionary story.
• Often, we do not appreciate what we have been given!
• On one occasion visited a Chief in Ethiopia and the Chief asked him this question,
• “How long does it take your woman to fetch the water?”
• Peter thought to himself, how do you explain the system of pipes and a tap etc.
• He tried his best to answer, then asked the same question to the Chief.
• The Chief replied, “It takes my woman six hours”
• He then added, “Instant water, how happy the people of London must be!”
• TRANSITION: We take it for granted,
• But we forget that it is a luxury many people in the world do not have!
(1). Background: ‘Sukkot’.
Reading: John chapter 7 verse 37 to 39.
37On the last day, the climax of the festival, Jesus stood and shouted to the crowds, “If you are thirsty, come to me! 38If you believe in me, come and drink! For the Scriptures declare that rivers of living water will flow out from within.”? 39(When he said “living water,” he was speaking of the Spirit, who would be given to everyone believing in him. But the Spirit had not yet been given, because Jesus had not yet entered into his glory.)
• The festival of shelters:
• Was a type of harvest festival that lasted 7 days (in time, an extra day was added).
• In English we call it, the Feast of Shelters/booths/Tabernacles,
• In the Hebrew language much simpler, one name: Sukkot.
It was one of the big 3, one of the major feasts:
• Although other festivals or holy days are mentioned in the Old Testament.
• e.g. Purim, the Feast of Trumpets (Rosh Hashanah/New Year),
• The Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur), and the Day of Assembly (Azaret)
• There were three major feasts/festivals:
• Passover, Pentecost & Shelters.
• It was compulsory for all Jewish men who lived within 15 miles of Jerusalem to attend,
• And a good Jew outside that area would also try to be there for the festivals.
• At the time of Jesus, the population of Jerusalem could increase four-fold!
• As pilgrims flooded the city.
These three (Passover, Pentecost & Shelters) were seen as the key ones:
• NUMBER 1: The Feast of Unleavened Bread (Pesach/Passover),
• (Passover was a time when the Jews remembered their time in Egypt. Slaves/freedom)
The other two feasts were agricultural. When the Jews thanked God for the harvest.
• NUMBER 2: The Feast of Weeks (Shavout/Pentecost),
• Where the Jews thanked God for the harvest of grain.
• This feast took place about seven weeks after Passover.
• That is when the grain harvest would be for the Jews.
• As Christians we remember God's gift of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost.
• Acts chapter 2.
• NUMBER 3: And the Feast of Shelters/booths/tabernacles (Sukkoth).
• In the early autumn. Jews gave thanks for the harvest of grapes.
• Grapes were the fruit which they made into wine (Deuteronomy 16:13).
• At this feast, Jews left their houses and lived under shelters [also called tabernacles].
• They made the tabernacles with the branches of trees.
• This was to remind them that God gave them food and drink in the desert.
• Moses led them through this desert after they left Egypt.
• God provided their food in the desert by a miracle.
• Then he also provided a land called Israel for them to live in.
• You can read about the Feast of Booths in Leviticus chapter 23 & Deuteronomy chapter 16.
• The festival is a weeklong feast.
• It begins on the 15th day of the Hebrew month Tishrei,
• Roughly late-September to mid-October on our modern calendar.
Note:
• The book of Deuteronomy extends involvement in the festival,
• Not only to men (male Jews).
• But also, to priests, orphans, widows, immigrants,
• And both male and female children and even slaves (Deut. 16:14).
“Be joyful at your festival-you, your sons and daughters, your male and female servants, and the Levites, the foreigners, the fatherless and the widows who live in your towns.”
• This feast was a week-long harvest festival,
• That marked the end of the busy harvest period and the end of the Jewish year.
• That God provided for their needs.
Note: Link to Water.
• Each day during the festival People collected water from the Pool of Siloam.
• As it was carried back to the temple in a gold vessel.
• This water was then poured out in front of the altar of burnt offerings,
• And Isaiah chapter 12 verse 3 was recited:
• “With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation.”
• Trumpets would be sounded, special Psalms were sung,
• And the people gave thanks for the rain.
That was a look back and a look forward.
• A look back: It reminded people of the rain God had sent in the time of Moses
• The people were dying of thirst in the desert wilderness.
• (Exodus chapter 17 verses 1-6).
• A look forward: to the days when abundant, living water,
• Would flow from the temple in the messianic kingdom.
• (Ezekiel chapter 47 verses 1-12 & Zechariah chapter 14 verse 8).
Now on the last day of the feast, there was a special closing ceremony:
• When even more water was poured out in the temple.
• Many scholars believe that Jesus made his proclamation about the Living Water,
• At the very moment this water was being poured out in front of the altar.
• Notice how Jesus waited for the “last and most important day of the festival”,
• And I believe he timed it to perfection, at this exact moment in the ceremony.
• He made maximum impact! (John chapter 7 verses 37-38)
37On the last day, the climax of the festival, Jesus stood and shouted to the crowds, “If you are thirsty, come to me! 38If you believe in me, come and drink! For the Scriptures declare that rivers of living water will flow out from within.”
• This life-giving, free-flowing water is symbolic of the Holy Spirit,
• Which believers would receive after Jesus had completed his earthly mission,
• And been glorified.
(2). Jesus: Announcement.
• On the last day of the feast, the most important,
• The priests (big knobs) would be there pouring water.
• Jesus quite deliberately interrupted events,
• By drawing attention to himself by shouting out; “I am the water for the thirsty”.
Question: What did he mean?
Answer:
• Jesus uses the physical to point to the spiritual.
• What water does for the body, Jesus can do for the soul.
Ill:
• Water in John’s gospel
• “Living water” (4:10) - available
• “Well of water” (4:14) – draw on it
• “Fountain - river of water” (7:37) – constantly flowing
(3). Water: Symbolism.
FIRST: SOURCE OF LIVE.
• At any given time, half of the world’s hospital beds,
• Are occupied by patients suffering from a water-related disease.
• A lack of clean water and basic sanitation,
• Is responsible for 1.6 million preventable child deaths each year.
• And millions more children suffer from waterborne illnesses,
• Such as typhoid, worms and diarrhoea.
Ill:
• 2/3 of the human body is water.
• Water lubricates our joints so we can move.
• Our nervous system is really a system of tiny waterways.
• 80% of your brain matter is water
• 80% of your blood is water.
• If we lose 15% of our bodies water, we die.
Note:
• The Bible talks about two types of people.
• Not good or bad, not rich or poor, not even religious and non-religious.
• Dead & alive.
• All humans were at one time dead in your trespasses and sins.
• Quote: Ephesians chapter 2 verse 1:
• “As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins,”
Quote: Verse 4 goes on to say:
“But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions--it is by grace you have been saved.”
• (a). LIFE comes from God: “God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ”
• (b). Gift that cannot be earnt: “Mercy… it is by grace you have been saved.”
• (c). God’s Riches At Christs Expense.
SECOND: SATISFIES
Ill:
• Holiday one way you can spot the British from the locals/Europeans.
• We order a coffee, but they order a coffee and a bottle of water.!
• The coffee is to please the taste buds,
• But the water is quenching the first.
Quote: French mathematician and philosopher Blaise Pascal
“There is a God-shaped vacuum in the heart of each man which cannot be satisfied by any created thing but only by God the Creator, made know through Jesus Christ.”
• TRANSITION: Water quenches our physical thirst,
• Jesus quenches our spiritual thirst.
(4). Cross: Paradox.
• Jesus the water of life,
• On the cross cried out, “I thirst”
• Jesus made seven statements when he hung on the cross,
• The shortest is John chapter 19 verse 28 "I thirst."
• In the Greek New Testament, it is one word of four letters.
• It is a unique statement, because it is the only statement,
• In which Jesus himself referred to His body and His physical suffering.
• So, we can be satisfied, he thirsted.
• So, we can live, he must die.
Ill:
• The fact Jesus thirsted shows again to us he was fully human.
• He entered our world to be its saviour!
• In the book ‘Miracle on The River Kwai’.
• Ernest Gordon's Tells the true story of some Scottish soldiers,
• Who were forced by their Japanese captors to work on a jungle railroad?
• Under the strain of imprisonment, they had degenerated to cruel behaviour,
• But one afternoon something happened.
• "A shovel was missing. The officer in charge became enraged.
• He demanded that the missing shovel be produced, or else.
• When nobody in the squadron budged,
• The officer got his gun and threatened to kill them all on the spot!
• It was obvious the officer meant what he had said.
• Then, finally, one man stepped forward.
• The officer put away his gun, picked up a shovel, and beat the man to death.
• When it was over, the survivors picked up the bloody corpse.
• And carried it with them to the second tool check.
• This time, no shovel was missing.
• Which meant that there had been a miscount at the first check point.
• The word spread like wildfire through the whole camp.
• An innocent man had been willing to die to save the others!
• The incident had a profound effect on all the prisoners.
• From that moment on they began to treat each other like brothers”
• TRANSITION: An innocent man sacrificed his life on behalf of others.
• Sadly, in that case it was all in vain!
• The Bible teaches that Jesus would give his life as a sacrifice:
• “The just for the unjust, the righteous for the unrighteous”.
• Then he might bring us, reconcile us to God!
Quote: Gregory of Nazianzus, A.D. 381:
“Who was Jesus
He began His ministry by being hungry, yet He is the Bread of Life.
Jesus ended His earthly ministry by being thirsty, yet He is the Living Water.
Jesus was weary, yet He is our rest.
Jesus paid tribute, yet He is the King.
Jesus was accused of having a demon, yet He cast out demons.
Jesus wept, yet He wipes away our tears.
Jesus was sold for thirty pieces of silver, yet He redeemed the world.
Jesus was brought as a lamb to the slaughter, yet He is the Good Shepherd.
Jesus died, yet by His death He destroyed the power of death.”
(5). Salvation: Choice
Ill:
• Water has to be drunk to be of any use!
• Man, who lived in a house well stocked with bottles of water.
• He had taps producing clean water.
• He had maps of how his water supply came from the reservoir.
• He even knew the names of the directors of the waterboard.
• Yet, he died of thirst,
• And sadly, his last words were, “I believe in water!”
SERMON AUDIO:
https://surf.pxwave.com/wl/?id=0MNAa7a15wAhwruFfIK0vvbwZMLkbpQM
SERMON VIDEO:
https://youtu.be/7JgHNxH909Y
