This message is from the teaching
ministry of James Tippins, pastor of Grace Truth Church. More information
can be found online at gracetruth.org and anchoringfaith.org. A people
for His glory, by His grace. Let's pray, Church. Father, You are truth. Your Word is true. Your son is true. God, I pray that as we hear your
word this morning, father, that it would be as if we are receiving
living water because we are. Or that our thirst is not for
this world, that our thirst is not for the fame that could be
ours, that our thirst is not for a spiritual pride, but Lord,
that our thirst would be for your righteousness. Who is Jesus
Christ? your Son. I pray, Father, that as we all
have gathered here together, some that cannot who will hear
this message in the future, Lord, that we remember that it is for
our good, it is for our assembly, it is for our intimacy, it is
for our worship that we hear the Word this day. It is not something that we're
doing, Father, to fulfill some cultural sense or obligation,
but God, it is that which drives us to the heart of the truth
of Christ. Lord, that we who are your people
are driven to be in fellowship with each other. But God, You
teach us in Your Word. You make it very clear that the
devil, the enemy, is a liar. He is an accuser of the brethren.
So that when we find in our own mouths accusations that are not
founded, Father, we are speaking His tongue. May we not be deceived. May we see and hear the truth
of Scripture this day. May our children see us longing
for the Word. May our brothers and sisters
around us see us in prayer for them. Lord, do that which You
have purposed to do this day. Your Word will not return void.
And Father, even though it may come from the mouth of a sinner,
Lord, by the grace that is mine in Christ, You work. May it give glory to You. In
Jesus' name, amen. John chapter 7, we're probably
only going to deal with verse 37 today. Because as I read through my
notes this morning, I cut half of them out because I feel like
I would rather do more on the Holy Spirit next week, contextually and topically. I am tired this morning and my
body, I don't feel well. And so my pauses are not for
drama. They are for breathing. This feast that Jesus has attended,
the Feast of the Booths, is one of the feasts that we find in
the narrative of history, in the narrative of scripture, that
took place some six months before the Passover, which is sort of
like the pinnacle of the Jewish festivals. The Feast of Booths,
or the Feast of Tents, or the Feast of Tabernacles. And this
feast, as we see in the Old Testament, was commanded of Israel so that
they would remember the provision of God in the wilderness when
God led them out of Egypt. He took them from their domicile.
He took them out of captivity. He took them into the wilderness. And we know the story of the
Exodus. that the whole of those who had
been powerfully redeemed and set free and released from the
bondage of unbelief and paganism, they begin to grumble against
Moses and thus they begin to grumble against God. And of course they grumbled and
said it would be better for us to be in captivity and have a
place to live rather than to be free. and be homeless. It would be better for us to
be in captivity as slaves to an unbelieving people and to
have food rather than to be out here and to starve. This was
their charge against God. It should tell us that as Jesus
speaks in John's gospel, as he centers, as John the evangelist
centers all of his gospel around the feast of Israel, It makes
John's Gospel, by the testimony of present historical and absolutely
future rabbinic tradition, the most Jewish writing of the totality
of the New Testament is John's Gospel. It is the most Jewish of the
writings because it focuses on the pictures and the images and
the festivals of Judaism. And Jesus, in the proclamation
that He makes to the masses, always reveals the essence of
what these shadows meant and why they were worthless in their
function except to point to Him and to point back to what God
had done for them. And when He stands here at this
festival, they have already put a warrant for His arrest. They
are hoping to capture Him during this seven-day feast. And yet the Scripture says that
they cannot capture Him before the hour had not come for His
death. Jesus does not leave. He continues
to intermingle. He goes bold and begins to proclaim
and teach in front of them, answering their own silent gossips and
murmurs publicly. And then they try to put hands
on Him, and they do not do so, for it is not the will of the
Father. But now this last day, and please don't get stuck in
the, well what day is it? Is it day seven, day eight, it
doesn't matter. The point is Jesus is speaking to the issue
of the tabernacle, I mean to the feast of tabernacles, and
He's talking about He alone fulfills the point of it. To give you an image, of what is happening here during
this feast. Every morning, the very first
thing they did was that the priests would take a golden pitcher and
they would parade down to the pool of Siloam. They would fill
this pitcher full of water and they would solemnly and majestically
and regally parade this pitcher of water back into the temple,
back into the inner courts, where people would shake palm branches
and make noise with things so that it would sound like the
sandals hitting the sand of the desert, so they would remember
the senses of the exodus. And then they would play trumpets
and they would all sing and chant Psalm 118. It was a big to-do. Then the priests would pray,
and they would pour this water into this trough that would run
down into the fire of the burnt offering, and the steam would
come, and people would celebrate as if their home team had just
won the championship. It was a very amazing thing. It was a grand gesture by the
command of God to remember the provision of the Father for the
people of Israel who in their unbelief and wickedness had forsaken
the truth, had forsaken their God, but God in His infinite
mercy and the covenant He had with them as a picture of all
who are the elect in Christ. brought them out of Egypt, and
even though He kept them in the wilderness for 40 years because
of their unbelief, in order that God did that, in order that all
the unbelieving generations would perish. You understand that? It brings to mind so many congregations
that I have connected with through the years, and some presently
who are dead. As my grandmother used to say
when I was a young teenager, and we'd be riding around the
country, and we were driving down the streets of New Orleans
one time, and she looks up and she says, Ichabod is stamped
upon the door of that church. And I'm looking out the window.
I'm like, I don't see that. It says First Baptist Church.
Well, it might not have said First Baptist Church. Those guys
are like, what you calling us? Whatever church it was. And then
I remembered she was speaking of the glory of the Lord has
departed. the story of God's glory leaving. And generations
of generations after those who live in unbelief, after those
who push the Scripture away and push the truth away and begin
to do and form their lives in such a way that it fits the culture. And God will not be faithless
to those who are His, but beloved, unbelief of this generation will
affect the future. it will cause us to suffer. The
sin that we commit today will cause pain for tomorrow. Even though we are forgiven,
even though Christ is our propitiation, even though we are justified
by the finished work of Christ on the cross, we still have consequences
to unbelief. There's no greater commentary
of the circumstances of our present-day so-called Christianity, of our
so-called churches, which I stated last week could be called evangelical
cults, than what we see in John's Gospel, specifically John 5,
6, and 7. The reason we teach, the reason
we preach is not that you may have a commentary. You can buy
your own. Not that you can have just the nuts and bolts and the
outline of what the Bible is talking about right there. You
can outline it yourself or ask your children to do it. The reason
we teach every week is so that you may be equipped. Are you being equipped? Are you
being reminded of what the Scripture shows us? Are you being shown
what the Bible teaches? Are you being called to understand
how it relates to you and to this culture in which we live?
Are you paying attention? Do you have your Bibles with
you this morning? We must pay attention to the
Word of God. That's what this whole sermon is about. That's
what Jesus is talking about here in verse 37. Here's this celebration. The
celebration of the provision of God, of the mercy of God,
of the covenant of God, whereby this water is symbolic of the
reminder of what God had done to provide for them water. Now,
there's a lot of ways in which water in the Scripture is symbolic. And I've got tons of Scripture
that we'll talk about in a minute. But it's something to imagine. that as this water was poured
in this trough and it reached the altar of the burnt offering
and what it did As that steam rose, as that water surrounded
the sacrifice of God, it was to remind us of the sealing of
God's covenant promises through the Holy Spirit, effectuated
by the person and the work of Jesus Christ, the Messiah. So
this not only looked back for Israel, it looked forward, and
the picture that they wanted, the hope that they had was that
Messiah would come. Oh, the irony. of how many people seek after
Christ, and they use their Bible, and they use their ministry,
and they use their opportunity to think they're seeking after
Christ, but they miss it. He's right there. He's right
here. And we miss it. Oh, if I could
just have Jesus working in my life, but we're not in Scripture.
If I could just have the Lord empower me, but we're not in
the Word. We can't expect anything else but nothing if we're not
in the Word of God. We will not make it out of this
building today with the proper mind of worship if we're not
in the Scripture. Beloved, when we are not in the
Word of God, the devil uses what we do have against us. If I do nothing else in my studies,
but secure my own thoughts and minds toward Christ. It is well
for you. It is well for you. Jesus stands
there on the last of the feasts, verse 37. We're going to read
it and then we're just going to talk about it for 40 minutes. He stood up and He cried out,
If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink." Now get the
picture that I just gave you about them celebrating the provision
of God in the wilderness with the symbol of water. And I want
to believe, I don't know, nobody has said this is true, there's
no evidence to back it up, but I want to believe that while
the water was going, Jesus stood up and said that. They're going,
whoo, hallelujah, praise the Lord. And they're singing and
they're chanting Psalm 118, and the trumpets are da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da,
da-da-da-da, and everybody's just going crazy, like the touchdown
of all touchdowns. And God is being praised in their
hearts, and Jesus stands up and says, all who are thirsty, come
drink. That's what I believe happened.
Because he's been sort of hiding out in the temple for a week,
and then all of a sudden, there he is, tearing up everything
they're trying to do. 500 years, some 500 years before,
the prophet Haggai stood in this very place. And he proclaimed the Word of
the Lord. In the seventh month, on the 21st day of the month, And the Lord came by the hand
of Haggai the prophet. And there's a lot there, but
I'll just... He's talking about the temple,
and how it was in shambles, and how worship wasn't true, and
how God was going to restore their worship. And he says in
verse 4 of Haggai 2, Yet now be strong, O Zerubbabel, declares the Lord.
Be strong, O Joshua. Son of Jehozadak, the High Priest,
be strong. All you people of the land, declares
the Lord. Work, for I am with you, declares the Lord of hosts,
according to the covenant that I have made with you when you
came out of Egypt. My Spirit remains in your midst,
so fear not." For thus says the Lord of hosts, Yes, yet once
more in a little while I will shake the heavens, and I will
shake the earth, and I will shake the sea, and I will shake the
dry land, and I will shake the nations, so that the treasures
of all the nations shall come in. And I will fill this house
with glory, says the Lord of hosts. And the silver is mine,
and the gold is mine, declares the Lord of hosts. The latter
glory of this house shall be greater than the former, says
the Lord of hosts. and in this place I will give
peace, declares the Lord of hosts." Now, I want you to picture this
500 years before where Jesus stood. Here is the prophet Haggai
standing there and saying, Do not worry, O beloved children
of the Lord of hosts, for He will take the nations, and He
will hold them upside down and shake their riches from their
pockets, and it shall flow into the temple. I will restore it
all here. Everything is mine. And if you
should not look for that which you had, because it is nothing
but a shadow of what you shall be. And now all of a sudden,
in the midst of the Roman occupation of Israel, in the midst of the
most treacherous times and hateful and most godless times of Israel,
here is the provision and the promise of that fulfillment that
the glory of God stands face to face in the midst of God's
people and they cannot see it. Oh, but some see it. See, this
is the turning point here we see in John 7 over the next few
weeks. Some see it and all kind of problems break out. because
that which was unified in worship to the God of the Old Testament
in His provision and His promises, all of a sudden now the center
of that worship changed holistically and in unity from the celebration
and the hope to the fulfillment of that hope presently before
them, that they could see the God and the Shekinah glory of
God in the person of Jesus Christ, fully God standing there, proclaiming
Himself to be the fulfillment of the living water of God permanently. Isaiah speaks, Isaiah 58, 11,
he talks about water there. He says, and the Lord will guide
you continually and satisfy your desire in scorched places and
make your bones strong. You shall be like a watered garden,
like a spring of water whose waters do not fail. You see,
water is a symbol of satisfaction. Water is a symbol of life. Water
is a symbol, if we see in Ezekiel, of what? Cleansing and purity
and righteousness. Water. Water is what we long for when
we thirst. Thirst is not real. It's not tangible. It's the outcome
of when we miss something. If we thirst for water, it's
because there is no water. And we need it, we want it, we
desire it. Our body begins to take over and do what it's supposed
to do in dehydration that we may go and above all things,
we don't eat, we don't think, we just go. And after a while,
if we don't find the water that our body needs, it just goes
to sleep. And we die. Thirst is a serious
condition. Last week I closed out. emphatically, that they will
seek after Christ. I made the illustration of the
prophets that said there will be a famine of the Word of God
in the land. Beloved, there's a famine in
the land, and I believe there's a famine for thirst in a lot
of people's hearts. There's a famine for thirst. Isaiah 12.3 says, With joy, you will draw water
from the wells of salvation." Now, if John 4 hasn't popped
into your head yet, it needs to be there, where Jesus is speaking
to the woman from Samaria, from the city of Sychar, and where
He talks about water that wells up to eternal life. Are you greater
than our father, Jacob, who gave us this well, woman, if you knew
who it was? who would ask you for a drink,
you would ask Him for a drink. He would give you living water. Oh, give me this water. Always. What does your thirst look like
today? What brings you to gather today? What holds you in the
faith today? Is it not a thirst? And the beauty
of the thirst for Christ is it's not a thirst for that which we
cannot have or do not have. It is a continued thirst for
that which has been given to us. Jesus. Because we have been given to
the Son by the Father, we thirst all the more. Nehemiah, verse 15 and then 19
and 20 of chapter 9, And their hunger you gave them bread from
heaven. and in their thirst you brought them water from the rock.
Because of your great compassion, you did not abandon them in the
desert. By day, the pillar of cloud did not cease to guide
them in their path, or the pillar of fire by night to shine on
the way they were to take. You gave your good spirit to
teach them, and you did not withhold your manna from their mouth,
and you gave them water for their thirst." And that's where the
tabernacles festival is supposed to remember. It is supposed to
remember and it's supposed to remind them of their promises
of Messiah. These references refer to the
times when God, you know the two times where God gave water
to a thirsty Israel. And you may think, well, what's
the big deal, you know? What's the big deal? You got
a million people in the middle of nowhere with no water. And
Moses is told by God to take that stick that he was given
as his companion and strike the rock. And from a rock shall there
come enough water, not just the people but the livestock. And of course, God told him to
strike the rock. And then later, God told him
to speak to the rock. Moses was angry. He said, well,
I did it like this before. And the water came, but Moses
died there, never to enter the temporal land of promised shadows. Here in Nehemiah, here at this
feast, the closest references are these times where God gave
water to Israel Miraculously. The manna and the water were
provisions. We've already seen John 6, and what the manna stood
for is what? The body of Christ. What the
water stands for is what? The blood of Christ and the Spirit
of God and the seal of certainty. The manna and the water were
provisions, but they were also symbolic of the law. That Israel was to learn the
holiness of God. Israel was to learn the provision
of God symbolically. That God is true and God provides
and that God is just. But the ultimate outcome of all
of these things is what? Whether God gives manna, whether
God gives water, whether God gives clouds or redemption, whether
God gives anything. What's the hope of the outcome
of what these things can do? Mercy. Mercy. Grace. That's the hope. The hope is grace. The mercy
is independent of these things. The mercy of God is independent
of our abilities. It's independent of our actions.
The mercy and the grace of God is independent of our apprehensions. God gave His good Spirit to teach
them. And God gives His good Spirit
today to teach us. Are you listening? Are you hearing? Are you thirsting? God did not withhold the manna,
though they disobeyed. God did not withhold the water,
though they were in great doubt. And God will not withhold His
Spirit, and He will not withhold His Son for His people. So Jesus then comes. and says, if anyone thirsts,
let him come to me and drink. Isaiah 55 verse 1 says something
very similar. Come everyone who thirsts, come
to the waters. Are you coming to the waters?
My mind goes to the teaching of the Proverbs where it talks
about the sloth being hungry and dying of starvation. And
he puts his hand in the bowl, but he's too lazy to pull his
hand to the food to his mouth. So he dies. See, that's a ridiculous
picture, but that's who we are, beloved, when we are not born
of Christ. That's who we are, beloved, when
we find ourselves intimately religious with tradition and
culture. That's who we are, beloved, without
the mercy and the grace of God. That we may even have Bibles
at home. We may even be part of so-called churches. We may
even think that we are born again, but we have no hunger and thirst
for Christ. We do not put our hand back into
our mouth after we dip it deep Cisterns of the Lord. Beloved, God's children drink.
God's children thirst. And even when our thirst may
what? Move. The first John 2, 15, 16, 17
moving. The lust of the eyes, the lust
of the flesh, the pride of life, the pride of possessions. Don't mistake the idea that sometimes
those things are indeed somewhat Christ-like in their makeup. They could be our faith. They
could be our doctrine. They could be our understanding.
They could be our piety. They could be the very voice
that Jesus uses in His parable that says, well, at least I'm
not like that man. At least I'm not like this guy. At least I'm not like those people. If you remember, as I started
the teaching for last Sunday, making these broad assumptions
about particular traditional styles of Christianity, quote,
quote. And then I warned us, church,
that if it were not for the mercy of God, we too would be just
like everybody else. For in a moment, God can take
away our understanding of Christ. In just a breath, God can remove
our sight. Before you burn me, God will never do that for His
elect. But many, many who claim to be
His fall away. Because the devil takes the Word
of God from them. Because the weeds of life choke
out the Gospel. What is it that will take away
the Gospel from you? Nothing, if you are indeed born
again. Nothing can take you away from
God. Nothing can take you away from
the Son. Nothing can take away the Spirit that is within you.
And nothing can remove the Word of God from you. that Jesus says, if anyone thirsts,
do you thirst? As I've already quoted John 4, and the woman says in verse 12
of John 4, Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us
this well and drank from it himself, as did his livestock? And Jesus says, just like He
did in John 5, and just like He did in John 6 specifically,
He says, anyone that drinks from this particular well that you
speak of, this one that we're sitting at this day, they will
be thirsty again. However, those who drink of the
water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. You see,
there's a little bit of a conundrum here. We thirst for Christ, but
we're not thirsty. Because we're only thirsty when
what we thirst for is not there for us. Otherwise, we quench
the thirst. It goes away. But there's this miraculous work
of God whereby, and this is all imagery. This is not doctrinal. These are pictures for us to
see that we thirst for Christ and therefore we're satisfied
because Christ is given to us. And we to Him. So this is this forever picture
that we see in the New Testament, specifically in John's Gospel,
where Jesus equates thirsting for hunger and hunger for desire
for belief. Evidenced by what? Drinking and
tasting and being satisfied and eating. This is faith. But yet then, as we have a well
that wells up to eternal life, we have water, as Jesus will
talk about next week, verse 38-39, that flows continually from that
one who believes. And I'll mark that out for us
today, so we'll be ready for the next week. Jesus says, whoever drinks the
water that I give will never be thirsty again. The water that
I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up
to eternal life. So we are continually and forever
overrun with the living water of God. We are drowning in Christ. Christ is no longer a cup for
us to reach for. But Christ is the well in which
we've been drowned. It's like the old philosophy
101 class where the teacher says, is a fish wet when he's in the
water? You know, what? Relative conditions, does a fish
know it's wet? Who cares? Filet and let's have
dinner. and drink the water on the side.
But beloved, in that same mindset, in that same way, we who are
in Christ thirst but are quenched. We're in Him in a complete way. But yet our flesh, oh, the wretchedness
of our created, fallen, depraved person, it does war, doesn't
it? and as we are immersed and baptized
into Christ, you see the picture there, as we're baptized into
Christ spiritually by the Spirit through the Word, we then are
able in some sense that our flesh will forget that we're even immersed
and we'll think we're famished and we need something to scratch
the itch that so desperately needs to be fulfilled and we
look and we see something else and we go, maybe that will satisfy
my thirst. those who hunger and thirst for
righteousness. Jesus would use that picture.
What is that picture of righteousness? His name is Jesus. He is the
Christ. He is the Lord of all lords and
the King of all kings. He is the God who created all
things for Himself through Himself, that in all things He may be
preeminent. He is the God that founded all life, and He came
to earth as a human being, fully and truly God, and fully and
truly man, and gave Himself to be a ransom for many. And in
His death and His burial and in His resurrection, He accomplished
the work of redemption and satisfied the justice of God through which we are justified
before the Father. because of the work of Christ. We thirst for Christ, and in
thirsting for Christ, we are satisfied in the work of Christ. We're satisfied in the Word of
Christ. But I would like to say, if we
pause it just a minute, if we think a little bit as a poet
for a moment, what is it Or who is it that thirsts? Who is Jesus
speaking to here? He spoke audibly to everyone
in the room. Every person there heard what
he said. Anyone who thirsts, come to me. Now get that. What are the thirsts
of those people in this audience? Oh, there were many. To glorify
God, the God that they knew, the shielded picture of the God
of the Old Testament. To find glory in their practice.
They thirsted to do what was right. To have a worship experience
that was satisfying to their conscience in that they figured
that God was pleased with them for the pouring of that water.
And in some way, there was some special application of that practice
or that work that God would see and know their sincerity. Yet
God had planted the true water right before them. And they're
still pouring the picture. They're still playing with the
preview. They're still putting together
the miniatures, never to break dirt on the master plan. What
were their thirsts? To be free from Rome. to have that which they wanted,
that they used to know and hear of years before, the days of
old when the temple was something to behold and the worship was
pure and true. They thirsts. They had thirsts. They looked and longed for those
things. They longed for Messiah to come and this was though a
little bit hard to put your finger on, the essence of the thirsting
for the people in the earshot of Jesus. And as they wept in
celebration and joy and the clamoring of that excitement went about
them, here comes in the midst of it all, like a heralding trumpet,
the voice of Jesus, the voice of God Himself. Do you thirst? Anyone who thirsts,
come to Me." You've been there. You've been
there where your mind is so occupied on one thing, one thing that
you want, one thing that you desire, even if it be fitting
to the will and the plan of God, we can be so myopic in our desires
and affections that we can put our whole lives centered on these
things. and we can be so engrossed in
the experience of pursuing whatever it is that we think we want.
Peace, prosperity, relationships, healing, whatever. Oh, I just
want to feel God again, that we can be in a place, even when
we petition our Heavenly Father, that we think we're in a spiritual
realm, that God is working, and we feel the longing of our soul
and our flesh, and everything that we are being drawn into
that desire, that nothing around us matters anymore, and there's
no possible way something could take our focus off of this moment. And then in the midst of that,
where we began to see the heartbeat get up and the breath become
deep and we go, oh, the Lord is so good. I love this festival.
I love this worship service. I love this music. I love this
feeling. Some knucklehead says, all who
thirst, come to me. And just like taking that LP and
going, the music's over. And in our flesh we go, how dare
you interrupt my worship? How dare you interrupt my intimacy
with God? How dare you interrupt my religion?
How dare you interrupt my tradition? How dare you interrupt my faith?
How dare you interrupt my understanding of the gospel? How dare you?
And that's what Jesus did. He interrupted it all. And it
ruined everything, if you keep reading. It destroyed it. And in the same way, when the
Word of God goes forth this day in our world, and the Christ
of the Word, who is the Word that became flesh, is heralding,
He rips apart the song of the culture. And they go, what are
you doing? Why do you preach this? Why do
you stand for this? Why do you proclaim these things?
It is not us who do it. It is Christ who thwarts all
the religious That's what He does. That's who
He is. He is the God of the universe.
And He will stop all that He wishes to stop, and He will stop.
And by the mercy of His providence and His decrees, He will stop
you in your unbelief and in your false worship and give you life,
beloved. That's what He did for you. I told the story last week of
a particular time, but it's happened many times over, where people
get angry when we engage in gospel conversations, not doctrinal
divisions, though those are necessary sometimes, but I mean just who
the Lord is specifically. Do you believe in Christ when
you ask people that and they get angry? That's what this thirst was like
for them. And that's what this thirst is like in our world today.
People are thirsting for some spiritual sense, for some religious
sense, for some Christological sense. And they're seeking after
a false Christ. And the only way they're going
to hear the truth is if we teach the true Christ of who He is
and what He's done and what He's accomplished and for whom it
has been accomplished. But this thirsting, Jesus tells the woman in Sychar
in John 4, well up to eternal life. In John 6, Jesus said to
them, I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to Me shall not
hunger. Whoever believes in Me shall
never thirst. Do you see that? If anyone thirsts, Jesus says, let him come to Me. Now see,
here is the hard part. Here's the difficult thing. It was just as those Jews were
in the midst of that type of worship and in the intimacy of
their own experience, year after year after year after year, as
I tried to paint the picture for us just a moment ago, and
then Jesus just stands up and says, hey, come up here. You're
thirsty. And they turn around and go,
this troublemaker. What's this man doing to us?
He's ruined. Children, I'm so sorry this is
your first cognitive, aware temple experience here. And this crazy
guy keeps ruining it for you. This is not normal. When they
should have been saying, Behold the Lamb. Behold the true offering. Behold
the burnt offering. Behold the water. Behold the
bread. Behold life. Behold God. And some did. By the proclamation of Jesus,
God drew some and saved them from those words. But for most, they were frustrated
by it. Let Him come to me. People say, see, Jesus says,
let Him come. There's nothing going to stop us from coming.
He's already, six months ago, He said what? Come to Me. The reason you do not come to
Me is because the Father has not given you to Me. The reason you do not believe
is because you have not been given to the Son by the Father.
Friends, this is the gospel. This is a gospel issue. as some
people like to so crazily assert. How can it not be a gospel issue
if it's taught in the teaching of Jesus, you see? But if it's
not taught in the teaching of Jesus, it is not a gospel issue. Let Him come to me. That's not
like giving permission. That's just like, come. It's
almost a command. If anyone here thirsts, come
to me. And they got interrupted from
all of the experience they had and they look and they go, you
must be crazy. Why would I come to you? You want the bread? You want
the bread that never fails? Come to me, I am the bread. Really? You're a pretty good chef, Jesus.
Just keep reaching and serving. But you're not the bread. This
is what people want. They want Jesus to serve them,
save them, and all the other things that we could think of,
that they'll want Christ until they've been born of God. And that's what being snatched...
Holy cow! Help us, Lord, to see it. Being
snatched out of the domain of darkness. I don't know why I
always reach down in front of this pulpit. I just envision that's
the darkness down there. Wow! It's the old magician in
me. I've got a rabbit. But reaching
down in the domain of darkness and snatched into the kingdom
of the light of His Son. Somebody asked me Monday when
I was sharing my testimony and sharing with them that my testimony
is that God, through His Word, saved me miraculously. caused
me to be born again through the hearing of Christ from Scripture. And it has been one amazing ride,
and we're not even started. And that person said, so you
didn't have like a wild life? Define that. No, I haven't killed
more than four people. I haven't worked for the cartel
over a week. I mean, you know. I haven't done this, I haven't
done that, I haven't done... But what have I done? I've lied. I've stolen. I've coveted. I've disrespected my parents. I've condoned those who've done
evil. I've not given glory to God in everything that I say
and do, eat or drink. I've made idols. I've worshipped
them. I've coveted money. You've got three hours, I'll
keep going. Being snatched out of the domain
of darkness is not being snatched out of a wicked, evil, drunken,
whorish life. It's being snatched out of unbelief,
too. The transformed life is more
and mostly about, yes, those things go away. God does transform
those who have happened to be fallen deep into sin. But you
know who hardly ever sees their need for salvation are people
like me who are a goody two-shoe. whose family comes in when you're
in high school and says, sees me reading the Bible and goes,
you can't be serious. You're sitting here reading your
Bible. Yeah. What are you? Why would you do
that? Why wouldn't I do that? What's the difference in me and
someone who used to burn Bibles? Nothing. God's mercy, He takes
us out. Jesus Christ in the proclamation
here saves some people, not out of a lifestyle of debauchery
and immorality, but out of a lifestyle of dark, blind, spiritual idolatry. And friends, it is easier right
now in our community to see the street-dwelling people and the
homeless and the drug-addicted come to faith in Christ than
it is to see the deacons of most churches. Because when they hear the words
of Christ, it says, anyone who thirsts, come to Me. They say,
I've already come to Jesus. I did that in 1963. No, you didn't. No, you did not. Spiritual thirst is being satisfied
when one sees Christ, that they can see Christ. They understand Christ. They
believe in Christ. They hold fast to Christ. It's
not about all these other things that the world calls Christianity.
It's about Christ alone. Solus Christus. I point over there because I
want you to see them. We miss them. This isn't decoration,
it's doctrine. But what are they to do? Come
and drink. This isn't some experience that
can't be explained. This isn't some weird thing that
everybody has an internal desire to know and it's special for
them and it's just experiential for them. No, drinking Christ
is believing Christ. It's partaking of Christ's work.
It's having absolute application of the finished work of Jesus
on you. And it's only done by faith.
It's only done by the Father. And He will not give everyone
to the Son. That doctrine, that teaching,
bothers people. It bothers regenerate people,
who maybe they're born again, and then they learn that a few
months later, a few weeks later, and they're like, wow. And it
bothers them in a burdened way. Lord, might I pray you give more
to Christ. Might I pray that you bring the
harvest continually, but your will be done as Christ has paid
for the sins of your elect, bring them home. And that's okay to be bothered
that way, to be burdened that way. But here's another type
of bother, those who have professed Christ for eons and ages, and
they go, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. This isn't true, but then Jesus
is a liar, and we shall not trust Him for salvation, shall we? Either Christ is the way and
the truth and the life, or He is not. Drink. Drink. the work of Christ for
His people. When we hear it, when we see
it, we rejoice, we believe. Why do these people not hear?
We've gone through that. But consider the evangelism of
Jesus in this very moment. Just like last week, the evangelism,
the apologetics of Jesus was just to reassert the gospel of
grace. We hear your argument, Jesus says, I am He. Does it take a class or an outline
to be born again? It takes the Spirit of God through
the words of Christ. In this evangelism here, Jesus
is standing in the midst of people who, until previously, most of
them have all denied Him or rejected Him or scoffed at Him or mocked
at Him. And He waits until the apex of
the feast and declares Himself the point of the entire feast.
This is it, y'all. You're thinking about the provision
of God and the water that He gives. I'm the water. You're
looking here, but look up here. You're looking over there at
all this stuff. Here it is. Here I am. Believe in me. You'll
never thirst again. I will satisfy all the desires
of the most infinitesimal point of your soul. It will be full. Almost makes me think we need
to stop using tiny little cups and tiny little pieces of bread
for the Lord's table. We need to just like jump in
a loaf and eat our way out and swim through. We definitely wouldn't
use alcohol then, you know. Swim through and drown on the
side. I mean, if the picture is the perfection, the fullness
of Christ, oh, let's do it right. You see, I'm being funny. He's the point of tabernacles.
All this grand gesture, all this pomp, all this circumstance,
all this regalia, all these singing and chants. I mean, how many
months did it take them to prepare for such things? The parade of
water, the burnt offering, all of it for seven straight days. And it's not even enough to celebrate
the gratitude and the work of God. to express the gratitude
and celebrate the work of God. It's not enough to take seven
days out of a year to celebrate these things, but then Jesus
just says, they're plainly clothed, here I am, celebrate through
me. What does He tell the woman in
John 4? The day has come and is now here, when no one will
worship on that mountain, Mount Gerizim, the Samaritans, which
was a replica of the temple of Solomon, and Mount Jerusalem. But those worshippers, true worshippers,
will worship in spirit and in truth. These are the ones the
Father is seeking. And the Father finds them, and
the Father gives them to the Son, and the Son's death provides
for them their justification. Christ is this water. He's already
said He's the point of Moses, the Nicodemus in John 3. He's
already shown that He's the greater bridegroom. He's the point of the washing, the joy that
comes through the worship, the marriage, and what it points
to, and it's really about Christ. He's already said that He's greater
than Moses because Moses wrote of Him. The serpent in the desert
was a picture of Him. The healing of God for the Israelites
was the healing spiritually of His sacrifice, and the list goes
on and on and on. He's greater than Jacob. He's
greater than Moses. He is the Passover Lamb. He is
the Word of God. And now He stands and says, drink. Drink. Remember, beloved, as
we close, that the Word of God is the means through which, or
the vehicle, the instrument through which God gives life. The Spirit
of God is the Word that I teach you, what Jesus said a couple
of weeks ago, a couple of verses ago, 2,000 years ago. That's what He's saying today. The Word of God is life. The Spirit is life. The words
that I preach to you, that I teach to you, that I say to you this
day are life. Are you hearing the words? If
you are, you've been given to the Son. We believe you hold
fast. We remind the church of this. It is the Spirit who gives life,
the flesh is no help at all. The words that I've spoken to
you are Spirit and life. So drinking is believing the
Word of God alone, which is drinking, believing in Christ alone, which
by the power of God is giving you the Holy Spirit. Look at verse 38 and 39. We won't
teach it, we'll just end with it. Whoever believes in Me, as
the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of
living water. Now that would be up to incredible
interpretation with a lot of learning to do synergistically
with the Bible, with the Scriptures, if we did not have verse 39 to
make it very plain what Jesus was referring to. And this He
said about the Spirit, whom those who believed in Him were to receive,
for as yet the Spirit had not been given, because Jesus was
not yet glorified. It does not mean the Spirit was
not there. It does not mean the Spirit was
not indwelling the believers, but there was an act of working
of the Spirit that was not working. He's never not there. Understand that. but the Spirit
gives life through the Word and only because of the finished
work of Christ. And Jesus is that life. Whoever believes in Me has eternal
life. Are you drinking and believing
this very moment in the finished work of Christ? If so, rejoice
and know that there is no desire of your heart that is not met
in Christ. For if there is a desire that Christ cannot meet, cast
it aside. Put it away. Let's pray. Lord, may Your Word be true. Hold us fast. Teach us well. Secure our joy. Help us to think
about our faith this moment. And again, think about why we
assemble today. Not that we would get a commentary,
Father, but that we would get a picture of glory, a powerful
truth from Your Word. Your Holy Spirit teaches us and
secures us and empowers us so, Father, we praise You for Your
work. Cause us to pray for one another.
Lord, guard us from the wolves and the dividers. who seem like
in every turn in our own homes and our families and our friends
and our internet, are constantly looking to just devour the truth.
Wrongly assuming, thereby being used by Satan. Being malicious
and hateful. Help us to be loving and gentle.
Lord, help us weep in front of people rather than clench our
teeth. Help us to pray for the sake
of their soul rather than to be satisfied that we won an argument. Lord, help us to stop looking
for this weird, Utopian idealism that many people
call the Christian faith. It will not come. You have not
promised it. You have promised that in the
midst of pain and suffering and fighting and turmoil that we
will have peace. Therefore, let us rest in the
peace that is Christ. It is in His name that we worship
this day. It is by His authority that we speak to you in prayer. For we are alive in Him. In Jesus' name. Thank you for
listening. We hope that this message has
encouraged you in the faith. Subscribe to these messages and
other teaching resources and podcasts at anchoringfaith.org. More information about the church
can be found at gracetruth.org.