A. The story is told about a man who got himself lost in the desert and began to search for water to quench his thirst.
1. After countless hours searching, he came upon a well with a big opening at the top.
a. He peered down into the well, but couldn't see a thing down there.
b. He looked around and found a small pebble and tossed it in and then listened closely for any sign of a splash or the pebble hitting the bottom, but he heard absolutely nothing.
c. He looked around again and found a bigger rock and tossed it in the well and listened closely, but again, he heard nothing.
2. He then decided to go a bit more extreme and looked around for the biggest rock he could find that he could actually lift.
a. He managed to half drag it, half roll it towards the well and with all his might he got it up onto the opening of the well and let it drop into the well, yet again he heard nothing.
3. Frustrated and disappointed, he turned to look for a new source of water, but then suddenly he was surprised to see a bleating goat flying quickly towards him and the well, screaming at the top of its lungs.
a. The man jumped out of the way as the goat went by him and disappeared down in the well.
4. Bewildered, the man walked away from the well wondering about the bleating goat.
5. A few minutes later, he happened upon a man and asked him if he had any water or knew where he could find some.
a. The man shared his water with the thirsty man and then asked, “Did you happen to see a goat around here? I can't seem to find my goat.”
b. The thirsty man said, “Actually yes! When I was near the well over there, a goat came flying towards me and went right down the well. Could that have been your goat?”
6. The man looking for his goat said, “No... there’s no way that’s my goat. My goat was tied to an enormous rock.”
B. The important question for us today is: where and how do we find the water we need to quench our spiritual thirst?
1. All of us have experienced being very thirsty on a dry hot day, and we know how good and refreshing it feels when you finally get to drink the cold, wet drink you have been desiring.
2. Many people find themselves empty or hungry or thirsty, but they don’t really know that the source of their emptiness, hunger and thirst is spiritual.
C. As you know, water is a precious commodity and is vital to life and existence.
1. Fresh water is a scarce resource - 97% of the earth’s water is salty or otherwise undrinkable and another 2% is locked in the polar ice caps and glaciers.
2. That leaves only 1% of the earth’s water for all of humanity’s needs — all its agricultural, residential, manufacturing, community, and personal needs.
3. So, water is scarce, but immensely valuable.
a. The human body is 75% water.
b. You can live a month without food, but you won’t last more than a week without water.
D. And so, the scarcity and significance of water is likely why the Bible often uses water to illustrate spiritual things.
1. Psalm 42:1-2: As a deer longs for flowing streams, so I long for you, God. I thirst for God, the living God.
2. Psalm 63:1: God, you are my God; I eagerly seek you. I thirst for you; my body faints for you
in a land that is dry, desolate, and without water.
3. Isaiah 12:3: You will joyfully draw water from the springs of salvation…
4. Isaiah 44:3-4: For I will pour water on the thirsty land and streams on the dry ground; I will pour out my Spirit on your descendants and my blessing on your offspring. They will sprout among the grass like poplars by flowing streams.
5. Isaiah 58:11: The Lord will always lead you, satisfy you in a parched land, and strengthen your bones. You will be like a watered garden and like a spring whose water never runs dry.
6. Don’t all those promises of God sound wonderful…springs of salvation, sprouting like poplars, satisfaction and strength, and a spring that never runs dry?
a. Sadly, in spite of these promises of God to provide the spiritual living water that His people need, they often abandoned God’s springs and looked elsewhere.
7. God spoke these words through Jeremiah the prophet: For my people have committed a double evil: They have abandoned me, the fountain of living water, and dug cisterns for themselves—cracked cisterns that cannot hold water. (Jeremiah 2:13)
E. When Jesus came into the world to reveal Himself as God’s Son, the long-awaited Messiah, He employed this same language of spiritual water.
1. In John 4, as Jesus talked with the Samaritan woman at the well, He said: “If you knew the gift of God, and who is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would ask him, and he would give you living water.”
“Sir,” said the woman, “you don’t even have a bucket, and the well is deep. So where do you get this ‘living water’? You aren’t greater than our father Jacob, are you? He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and livestock.”
Jesus said, “Everyone who drinks from this water will get thirsty again. But whoever drinks from the water that I will give him will never get thirsty again. In fact, the water I will give him will become a well of water springing up in him for eternal life.” (Jn. 4:10-14)
2. And then in John 7, we read: On the last and most important day of the festival, Jesus stood up and cried out, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. The one who believes in me, as the Scripture has said, will have streams of living water flow from deep within him.” He said this about the Spirit. Those who believed in Jesus were going to receive the Spirit, for the Spirit had not yet been given because Jesus had not yet been glorified. (Jn. 7:37-39)
F. Jesus spoke these words on an October day in a crowded Jerusalem during the Feast of Tabernacles.
1. The Feast of Tabernacles was an annual reenactment of the wilderness wanderings and the rock-giving-water miracle of Moses.
2. Each morning for the seven days of the feast, a priest filled a golden pitcher with water and carried it from the pool of Siloam up the people-lined path to the temple.
3. With trumpets blowing, the priest would pour the water onto the base of the altar.
4. Then on the last day, the great day, the priests gave the altar a Jericho treatment – seven circles of the altar – and then doused it with seven vessels of water.
5. And it may have been at that very moment in the ceremonies on that last day that Jesus stood and gave His major invitation.
6. The text says that He issued it in a loud voice so it could be heard by everyone.
7. In summary, Jesus invited people to “drink of Him” and promised that living water would flow out of them.
8. To make sure that none of us miss the point, John offered the commentary: Jesus was talking about the Holy Spirit.
G. Each word of Jesus’ invitation is important and precious.
1. Jesus said, “If ANYONE is thirsty…”
a. Anyone means anyone…big or small, black or white, Jew or Gentile or Arab or Asian or African, rich or poor, male or female, healthy or sick, incarcerated or free, American or foreign, educated or uneducated, straight or gay, and so on.
b. Anyone means everyone!
2. But there is one qualification: “If anyone is THIRSTY…”
a. Aren’t you thankful the qualification isn’t: “If anyone is worthy, or qualified, or trained, or mature?
b. All that is needed is an admission of thirst.
c. All that is needed is a recognition of our need.
d. Only those who say that they aren’t thirsty and don’t need or don’t want what Jesus offers are disqualified.
3. Then, Jesus said, “If anyone is thirsty, then come to me and drink.”
a. Could his instructions be any clearer?
b. Spiritual thirst is quenched only by Christ Himself.
H. In the Chronicles of Naria series, C. S. Lewis writes about a young girl named Jill who entered a strange and wonderful country.
1. After a time of wandering, she was thirsty and looked for water.
2. She found a stream but was hesitant to drink from the water because of the presence of a Lion.
3. The Lion asked if she was thirsty and she said that she was dying of thirst.
4. The Lion told her to drink, but Jill was afraid and asked if the Lion wouldn’t mind leaving while she took a drink, but then she realized the presumption of her request.
5. So, she decided to ask the Lion to promise not to do anything to her if she took a drink, but the Lion explained that he makes no promises.
6. Then she asked the Lion of he ever eats girls and he answered, “I have swallowed up girls and boys, women and men, kings and emperors, cities and realms.”
7. Jill said that she dared not take a drink, but the Lion said if she doesn’t she will die of thirst.
8. She said that she would find another stream, but the Lion replied matter-of-factly, “There is no other stream.”
I. Jesus is the only stream. Jesus is the only fountain.
1. Jesus tells us to come and drink – not sip or taste or sample, but to gulp long refreshing swallows of Him.
2. As we drink Jesus in, then the Holy Spirit flows through us and out of us.
3. Max Lucado grew up in the land of ranches in West Texas and says that he learned that there are two ways to increase the value of ranchland: one way is to strike oil and the other is to discover water.
4. If a ranch has a river or creek running through it or drillable water within it, then it is advertised as a ranch with “live water.”
5. When a ranch has “live water” then the livestock have water to drink and farmers have water for irrigation.
6. If you have ever flown out west, then you have seen the lush green circles dotting the brown landscape – the green circle is formed by the irrigation device anchored in the center of the field that carries water in a circular route like the circling line on the radar screen.
7. The presence of water changes dry ranchland into useful property.
J. The presence of the Holy Spirit does the same in our lives as it flows out of Spirit-filled Christ followers to the world around us.
1. We carry the living water of Christ to others to refresh, soothe and soften them.
2. The Holy Spirit flows out of us into the dry places of the world.
3. I love this statement from Max Lucado: “We drink Christ and, consequently, leak life.”
4. The promise of Jesus is that if we recognize our thirst, receive his living water, then we will be refreshed and overflow with the Holy Spirit.
5. If we truly believe in Jesus, then the Holy Spirit will provide streams of living water that will flow from deep within us!
K. So, what do we need to do? Here are 3 things that we need to do: recognize, receive, and refresh.
1. We need to recognize our thirst – we must realize just how much we need Jesus and how lost we are without Him.
2. All of us are sinners who have fallen short of the glory of God and justly deserve God’s punishment. (Rom. 3:23)
3. As Paul wrote: the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord. (Rom. 6:23)
4. When we recognize our guilt and turn to our Savior, then we receive the grace and forgiveness we need.
5. In this process, we also recognize that God made us for Himself and that we will always be restless and empty until we rest and are filled in Him.
6. It is when we hunger and thirst for righteousness that we will be filled.
L. So, once we have recognized our thirst, then we need to drink from Christ and receive His living water.
1. Unfortunately, our enemy seeks to deceive us and entice us to try to quench our thirst in other ways.
a. When we try to quench our thirst with pleasure, or possessions, or power, then we fall into idolatry – turning to anything or anyone other than the Lord to quench our thirst is idolatry.
b. Tragically, so many of us get caught in Satan’s trap which is an endless cycle of trying to be satisfied by things that don’t result in satisfaction.
c. It’s like drinking saltwater hoping it will quench our thirst, but it only makes us more thirsty.
d. We tell ourselves that one more purchase will bring satisfaction, one more one night stand or affair, one more drink or drug, one more pornography or food binge, and we won’t need anymore.
e. But all those things only leave us more empty and thirsty.
2. Let’s bring our parched souls to the only One who can give us living water and supply a stream of living water to flow from deep within us.
3. If you’re not yet a Christian, then the place for you to begin is to believe in Jesus and confess your faith before others, repent from your sins and turn your life over to the Lord, and be baptized into Christ.
4. If you’re already a Christian, then you need to stay connected to Jesus and continue to receive His living water through the Holy Spirit.
5. We need to keep our “hose” connected to the spigot of Jesus and we do so by walking with Jesus in our minds and hearts and by filling our minds with God’s Word through worship, study, prayer, service and fellowship.
6. How much time are you spending each day and each week receiving the living water of Jesus through these things I just mentioned?
M. Finally, once we have recognized our thirst, received the living water, then we can refresh others.
1. We come to Jesus thirsty and empty, but He fills us to the point of overflowing.
2. Our thirst is satisfied so that we can then refresh others.
3. God fills our cup and then we give the cup of cold water to others in Jesus’ name.
4. Let’s be refreshing Christians and a refreshing church.
5. Let’s refresh our families and friends, let’s refresh our neighbors and co-workers, let’s refresh our classmates and even our opponents and enemies.
6. God’s living water will flow from us as we pray for others and serve them in big and small ways.
7. We refresh others when we bear one another’s burdens, outdo one another in love and seek to encourage each other.
8. We refresh others when we invite them to worship and offer to share the good news with them.
N. How wonderful it is that no one has to remain thirsty or empty.
1. Jesus encourages us to drink of Him and He will send the Holy Spirit as a stream of living water flowing through us and from us.
2. Praise God for the life and fruit that the Holy Spirit’s stream of living water brings.
3. Have you recognized your thirst?
a. Have you received and believed in Jesus?
b. Are you being refreshed and are you refreshing others as the living water flows through and from you?
c. I hope so!
4. There is no more blessed way to live than to be connected to Jesus and being filled with the Holy Spirit’s stream of living water.
Resources:
Help Is Here, Max Lucado, Thomas Nelson, 2022
Jesus Offers Living Water, Sermon by Matt Cohen, https://citylightphilly.com/sermons/jesus-offers-living-water/
Rivers of Living Water, Sermon by Douglas Douma, https://www.douglasdouma.com/2019/11/17/sermon-on-john-737-52-rivers-of-living-water/
