The Thirst Only Jesus Can Satisfy

Audio Transcript

This morning, I ask you to take your Bible and turn to John chapter 7, please, as we continue our study through the life of Christ.

We’ll be in John chapter 7. This is a very lengthy chapter. You’ll thank me later for not digging deep into every single verse, but I want to try to draw out the main threads from this chapter. There are about four different stories all running simultaneously through this chapter, and hopefully we can tie them all together by the time that we’re done this morning.

Last Sunday when we were here, we saw Jesus high up on the mountain with Peter, James, and John, and He revealed His glory to them, His blinding glory, and it was such a wonderful moment that we saw Peter wanted to stay there forever. But not even Jesus can stay on the mountaintop. He had to come back down into the valleys of real life, and boy, chapter 7 opens with a strong dose of real life.

There they are on this mountain, seeing Christ’s glory, and not long afterwards, they’re back down in the real world, facing the real problems, and John chapter 7 begins this way in verse 1. “After this,” these things we’ve looked at the last couple of weeks, “Jesus went about in Galilee. He would not go about in Judea because the Jews were seeking to kill Him.”

Well, what a lovely way to start our Sunday morning sermon. They were seeking to kill Him yet again, I might add, yet again. Now, that verse might not make a lot of sense to us here in Greenville, so show that map if you would. Hopefully this will help. Now, we follow Jesus all the way up north there to Caesarea Philippi and then onto the mountain, as I mentioned.

Now He’s back down in Galilee, that pink area where He spent most of His ministry. And for the time being, He’s been avoiding Judea down south in the orange there where Jerusalem is, because as it said, there were people making plots to kill Him. But regardless of those threats, He will return to Judea, to Jerusalem specifically in this chapter, because He has a very important announcement to make during a very specific event in a huge gathering in Jerusalem.

And what is that event? Verse 2 tells us, “Now the Jews’ Feast of Tabernacles was at hand,” or was near. We’ll look at the feast in just a second, but before Jesus even gets there, He’s confronted with yet another attack.

Verses 3 through 5. “So His brothers said to Him, ‘Leave here and go to Judea so that Your disciples may see the works You’re doing. For no one acts in secret if he wants to be known openly,'” or publicly, or if he wants to become a big shot, is what they’re saying. “‘If You can do these things, show Yourself to the world.'” And then we hit verse 5, which is one of the saddest statements you’ll ever read. “For even His own brothers did not believe in Him.” And you say, “Wow, Jesus had brothers? I didn’t know that.” He had sisters too.

Take a quick peek at Matthew chapter 13, verses 55 and 56. The crowd said, “Is not this the carpenter’s son? Is not His mother called Mary? And aren’t His brothers James, Joseph, Simon, and Judas? And aren’t all His sisters with us?” So what do we pick up there? And this is why it’s so important to cross reference as you read the Bible as much as you can. We learn from that one verse in Matthew that Jesus had at least four brothers who are named here, and at least two sisters, although I would argue at least three, by the way it’s worded. It didn’t say, “Aren’t both His sisters here,” or just, “Aren’t His sisters here?” It said, “Aren’t all His sisters?”

That seems to be a phrase that you would use if there were more than two. We don’t know, but He had brothers and sisters, and it’s so sad to know that the very ones who grew up in the same household, who ate at the same table, still did not believe. But in all fairness, who would be able to believe that their own half-brother was the promised Messiah?

Any of you think your brother might qualify?

So we put ourselves in their sandals, so to speak, and you can understand. I mean, it’s awfully sad to say that even His own brothers did not believe. And yet we give them a little bit of grace, and we can certainly understand, you know, that would have been a challenge for anyone. They just needed a little more time. But I wanted to add this in for you this morning. You want to see something beautiful? If we jump ahead from here, about seven months, seven and a half months from this moment. After Jesus has ascended back to heaven, His followers are waiting in that upper room in Jerusalem, praying, and who do you think was there with the disciples?

We jump ahead to Acts chapter 1, verse 14. About seven months later, “they,” that’s the 120, His followers, “they all continued with one accord in prayer with the women, and Mary, the mother of Jesus, and with His brothers.” Isn’t that beautiful?

Now, they refused to believe while Jesus was alive, but after He was put to death and they saw Him raised to life again, they didn’t need any more convincing. They believed, and they went on to call Him their Lord. So that’s just a beautiful little peek ahead. We won’t be in Acts for another eight or nine years, but we will get there at some point.

So now this Feast of Tabernacles, just a quick description of this. It was an annual gathering in Jerusalem that all Jewish men were required to attend wherever they lived on that map that we saw. They all had to travel in. This was one of three feasts of the year that were required. The ceremonies in this feast lasted for seven days, and then there was an eighth day added on to the end as sort of the grand finale. And at the beginning of this festival, this is where I would have been out. Each family had to build a little shelter out of tree branches, and they had to live in that shelter all week. I’d be like, “If it doesn’t have AC, I’m not part of this festival anymore.” But every family had to go outside, get tree branches, palm branches, whatever, olive branches, and they had to build a little lean-to.

And they had to live inside that shack for the entire week, and it was a way of paying tribute to their ancestors who had lived in the wilderness for 40 years. But every day there were great things happening. There were times of reading of the Law, there was singing of psalms and celebrations, and there was feasting, lots of feasting. And they did this not only to remember God’s past provisions, you know, taking care of His people during their years of wandering, but also to give Him thanks for the current harvest which had just occurred at this time of festival, and also to look forward and ask for His blessings for the future, His ongoing provision.

Hundreds of thousands of people packed into Jerusalem for this event. So this festival is underway now, and we pick up in verse 14 back in John chapter 7.

“About the middle of the feast, Jesus went up to the temple and began to teach. The Jews marveled, saying, ‘How did this man get such learning when He has never studied?'”

As you look through the Gospels, you see everyone who heard Jesus teach had some kind of reaction. Mostly it was amazement because He had never been to any rabbinic school. And the religious leaders in that day taught, “If you want to know about these things, you have to learn them from us.” And Jesus goes on to say in these verses, “My doctrine comes directly from God, the One who sent Me.” Now, we hear a statement like that, and it’s like, “Oh yeah, of course, it came from God, God sent Him.” I want to tell you, that statement made their heads explode.

It was blasphemy in that day for anyone to talk about God in such a personal way. And here God comes along talking about God as His Father. Now, Israel talked about God as their Father, as the nation’s God. But Jesus comes and says, “No, He’s My Father.” It was unheard of in that day. And not only that, “I haven’t needed to come to your rabbinic schools because My doctrine,” He said, “comes directly from God.” And so a dispute broke out among the crowd.

Verse 30. “Therefore they tried to seize Him, but no one laid a hand on Him because His hour had not yet come.” Now I want to tell you that statement is loaded. If you want to spend some time digging behind that, of what that means. The people wanted to seize Him. Many of them wanted to kill Him, but they were utterly helpless in doing so because of God’s sovereign power.

Verse 31, “Yet many of the people believed in Him and said, ‘When the Christ comes,'” the Messiah, “‘will He do more signs than this man has done?'” So this division grew to the point where the Pharisees had to get involved. Verse 32, “The Pharisees heard the crowd muttering these things about Him, and the chief priests and Pharisees sent officers to arrest Him.” So the religious big shots who already hate Jesus, who want Him dead, they’re tolerating Him at this point because the people are afraid of saying anything about Jesus because of the religious leaders, and the religious leaders are afraid to act because of the people.

But yet they send temple guards to arrest Jesus and to bring Him in. Now just tuck that away. We’ll come back to that later. So the guards have been commissioned with one job in mind. “Arrest Jesus and bring Him back to us.” Now, there are many things that went on during this week-long festival. But the most symbolic moment in the entire Feast of Tabernacles was every day when a priest would walk down out of the temple area, down the hill, down to the Pool of Siloam, carrying a golden pitcher.

And he would bend down and he would fill that pitcher with water from the Pool of Siloam. Then he would turn and he would carry it back in a great procession through the Water Gate into the temple courtyard with trumpets blasting along the way and singing in praise. And then he would circle the great altar and he would begin to ascend up that altar. And he would lift that golden pitcher high into the air for everyone to see.

And then he poured the water onto the altar, and the crowd erupted. Psalms of praise would ring out, and there were shouts of joy as they remembered God providing water in the desert, and as they prayed for His rains of blessing in the days to come. This was the pinnacle moment, the focal point of all seven days of this festival. They did it each day, seven days of this. Seven days of processionals, seven days of water pourings, each one building toward that eighth day, which was called the greatest day of the feast.

And on that last day, the priest made seven trips around the altar instead of one, waving palm branches and singing psalms, and even more blasts from the trumpet. Now this was the eighth day, the heightened moment of this entire week. The spotlight focuses in, if you will, on that altar at this moment, and then suddenly the ceremony was over. The water was gone. The music stopped, and a deafening silence fell over the crowd as they stood in reverence of this moment. And some have said of this time that it left a sense of something missing. It was intended to leave a sense of longing unfulfilled.

And this appears to be the moment that Jesus chose to speak these epic words. Verse 37.

Imagine the shock this must have created in that moment. No one broke protocol. Yet Jesus stands up in the biggest festival of the year, in the most sacred moment of reflection, and He interrupts it.

He cried out at the top of His lungs, and I imagine His voice must have echoed through that enormous temple courtyard, off all the marble there. “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink.”

He’s saying, “For 40 years in the wilderness, your ancestors had no water. But God miraculously provided water from the rock or they would have died in the desert. And every year at this feast, you pour out water to remember all of that, but I’m standing here telling you that rock in the wilderness, that was Me.”

“You’ve been pouring out water for centuries to remember an ancient provision that satisfied the thirst of your forefathers, but you are still thirsty,” is what He’s saying to them. “You’re going through all this ritual, but your soul is still empty. It’s still thirsty. You can’t quench your thirst by living off the faith of your ancestors.” And in a sense, Jesus is saying, “You don’t need the ceremony anymore. You need the source. Come to Me, and you’ll never be thirsty again.” What a moment this must have been. I so often wish I could teleport myself back in time to just be a fly on the wall and just be there watching these things unfold. And you see, the context of Scripture is so important. You read a verse like John 7:37 and 38, and you’re like, you know, you picture, I don’t know, was Jesus hanging out on the street corner with some buddies and He just happened to say those lines?

No, it was at a pinnacle moment in this most holy ceremony. Jesus stood and interrupted it, and instead of pointing attention to the water on the altar, He points attention to Himself and says, “I’m the water that you need.” And notice what He said, “If anyone is thirsty,” not if the righteous or thirsty, not if you’ve kept all the religious rules, not if the Pharisees approve of you, anyone. Anyone.

The Samaritan woman who had been through five marriages, “Come.”

The tax collector who had gotten rich by robbing his neighbors, “Come.”

The Roman soldier with blood on his hands, “Come.”

And you, you, sitting here today, with every secret in your heart, with every failure stacked up behind you that you can’t forget, every unsatisfying thing you’ve tried to fill the void, He says to you, “Come.”

You need to know, I mentioned this a few weeks ago when we were looking at Jesus being the living bread, that hunger, that thirst inside of you is not a problem, it’s a gift. Because it’s pointing you to the One who can satisfy it. It’s like a key that’s made only for one lock. That emptiness that you feel so often inside of you, that you cannot fill, it’s a gift. It’s pointing you to Him.

And what Jesus said that day in that statement, it wasn’t random words. He didn’t just rock up at the moment and say, “Yeah, maybe I should say something. What could I say?” Jesus is here every moment of His life fulfilling prophecy, carrying out His Father’s will step by step, day by day.

This wasn’t a random statement. It was a combination of several Old Testament passages. One of them was a verse that was actually sung during these water ceremonies. Isaiah 12:3. “With joy you will draw water from the well of salvation.” He was also referencing Isaiah 55:1. “Everyone who thirsts, come to the waters.” And Isaiah 44:3, “I will pour water on the thirsty land and streams on the dry ground. I will pour My Spirit upon your offspring.”

He was saying, “Every one of these passages that you know so well, they’re all fulfilled in Me. I am the well of salvation. I am the One who satisfies your thirst.”

And then He says something astonishing. Well, you know, it’s not to us, sadly. We’re not amazed by these statements much anymore, I don’t think. We’re so used to them. But again, putting yourself back in this time, what Jesus just said would have been theologically revolutionary.

He says that those who believe in Him will not only receive living water, they’ll become a source of it. Did you catch it? It’s easy to miss after that epic statement that He made. But He said, “Out of his heart,” or the deepest part of him is what it means, “will flow rivers of living water.” What is He talking about? Well, He answers it in the very next verse, John 7:39. “Now He said this about the Spirit, whom those who believed in Him were to receive. For the Spirit had not yet been given, because Jesus had not been glorified.” What in the world is He talking about here? Well, under the Old Covenant, in the Old Testament that we read about, the Holy Spirit came upon people, prophets and kings and priests, for a specific task.

But then the Spirit left.

Have you ever wondered about that prayer in the Old Testament? “Take not Your Holy Spirit from me.” We don’t have to pray that today. Thank the Lord. But this was a desperate prayer in the Old Testament. “Oh Lord, You’ve put Your Spirit upon me. This is the most amazing thing ever. Please don’t ever take Your Spirit from me.” But in the Old Testament, that’s what happened. The Spirit came and anointed someone, gifted someone for a specific task, but then the Spirit left. Here, Jesus is promising something entirely new.

He’s saying that the Holy Spirit will come and live inside every believer permanently. But that’s not all. He says, as a result of that, “You will not just experience a trickle of spiritual life, not just enough to get you through the week, it will be rivers of life, rivers of living water.”

This is what Jesus was promising. Not a life that merely survives, but a life that spiritually thrives.

There’s so much on this subject. I had an awful lot of things that I wanted to say at this point. But we will get to this again down the road later when Jesus makes that statement, “It is good that I go away. Because if I don’t go away, the Comforter will not come, but He will come and be with you and be in you.” And so down the road, we will look more at the Holy Spirit and His work in the life of a believer. But what Jesus is saying here is remarkable to these people back in that day. Well, I told you we’d come back to something here that we touched on earlier. We saw that the religious leaders had sent the temple police, the temple guards, to arrest Jesus.

Whatever happened with that? We’ve been looking at this festival and all kinds of things going on. Whatever happened to those guards who got sent out to arrest Jesus? Well, they did go out to get Him, but look at John 7:45 and 46. “Then the officers returned to the chief priests and Pharisees, who said to them, ‘Why did you not bring Him?’ The officers answered, ‘Please see this. No man ever spoke like this man.'”

So here you’ve got these tough guys, Guido and Vinny. They’re sent out through this crowd. They begin making their way, pushing their way through the crowd toward Jesus, and the closer they get to Him, they begin hearing His voice, and they push through the crowd some more, headed to arrest Him, to drag Him back to these religious leaders and get their pat on the back for a job well done. But they get closer and closer, and they begin to hear what He’s saying, and then they begin to listen to what He’s saying.

And something stirs in their heart.

Something unexpected happens. These tough guys, with their handcuffs, going to arrest Jesus, they pause, and they stand there with the crowd, and they begin to listen. And conviction falls on them. They’ve never heard anything like this in their life. They’re frozen in their tracks.

Until finally they turn. And I imagine nervously walk back to these members of the Sanhedrin. You did not mess with these 70 men who ran Jerusalem. They make their way back like, “Yo, Vinny, what are we going to say? Like, I, I don’t know what to say. I mean, you want to arrest Him? No. Are you kidding me? Him?” And so they walk back. That must have been a long walk. Maybe they circled the building several times. Nervous to go in.

The Pharisees were furious. “Why did you bring Him back?” And they said one of my favorite lines ever. It’s so true. It was true then. It’s true today. “No man ever spoke like this man.”

Have His words ever impacted you like that? Or do you see Jesus as, eh, just another guy from history? I don’t know. Maybe it’s just me. I can’t read the Gospels and read the words of Jesus without a lump in my throat. There’s something unworldly about them. There’s something unearthly about this man. There is. And of course we know why.

The Pharisees, this ruling council, said to the guards in the verses that follow, “Have you been deceived too?” Do you hear the slap in the face? “Oh, you too? You’re idiots too for believing in this guy?” Oh my goodness. “Can we get a couple new guards, please? You’ve been deceived too, have you?”

And then, look who shows up. Verse 50. Nicodemus. What? Nicodemus, who had gone to Jesus earlier and who himself was one of them, that being the Sanhedrin, the feared ruling council, asked, “Does our law judge a man without first hearing from him to determine what he has done?” And they replied, “Are you from Galilee too?” And we go, “Well, what are they into geography?” No, this was a slander. “Are you another moron from Galilee?” “Look into it,” they said, “and you will see that no prophet comes out of Galilee.” Well, that was a lie. There were multiple Old Testament prophets that came out of Galilee. You see, they’re picking and choosing the Scriptures to fit their cause, and we often do the same, don’t we? They’re belittling Nicodemus.

Verse 53, “Then each went to his own house.” So this is remarkable. All this time has passed. I don’t even remember when we were in John chapter three. We took, I think, two weeks to study Nicodemus’s encounter with Jesus at night.

He snuck out at night because no member of the Sanhedrin was allowed to be on the streets at night. It could possibly tarnish their reputation as a godly man. But Nicodemus didn’t want to go during the day because he was a member of the Sanhedrin and would have gotten in huge trouble for going and asking Jesus for advice. So he goes at night. We looked at that encounter in great detail. Jesus told Nicodemus about being born again. He said, “You’ve got all the religious pedigree, Nick. You’ve got it all. You’ve got it all down pat, like, well done.” But He said, “Unless you’re born again, you will not see the kingdom of God.” And poor Nicodemus, he couldn’t quite put it all together.

And so he walked away still wondering. And I told you then, when we finished looking at Nicodemus, I mentioned him walking away. And I said, “The wheels were turning.” You know why? Because I’ve read ahead. I knew about this moment, and oh, by the way, there’s one more moment later to come when we’ll see Nicodemus again. And boy, is it beautiful, but you’re going to have to wait a couple years for that.

Nicodemus talked to Jesus that night, and again, he fell under conviction. This mighty, learned, powerful figure in Jerusalem knew the Old Testament Scriptures better than any of us ever will, and yet Jesus said a few specific sentences to him, and it cut him to the heart. And he walked away through those dark streets that night back to his house thinking, “Oh my word, there’s something to this.” And all this time, we haven’t heard anything about Nicodemus, but his heart has been stirring. Even while he’s still a part of that wicked religious ruling council, the Sanhedrin, these people who hated Jesus, Nicodemus has been sort of, if you will, going into work every day as a secret possible follower of Jesus.

And now, all this time later, in front of his unsaved, unbelieving colleagues, he finds the courage to speak up and say, “Don’t accuse Jesus without first hearing Him out.”

Oh, that could have been catastrophic for him.

It’s not a full confession of faith, but it’s a step. Are you with me? It’s a step. It’s a step that said, “I’m not done thinking about this. I’m still thirsty for what He told me that night.”

Well, I need to begin winding this down. In this one chapter, and I’ve just lightly touched on it, but in this one chapter, we’ve seen all three possible responses to Jesus.

Some believed in Him.

Some rejected Him. And some are still wondering about Him.

And every one of us fits into one of those categories. Some in this crowd we saw believed in Jesus. Others, like the Pharisees, totally rejected Him. And still others, like the temple guards and like Nicodemus, were so impacted by hearing Him speak that they said, “There’s something about this man. He’s really got me wondering.”

See, the message of Jesus puts people into one of those categories. If Jesus had come along peddling some mediocre, plain vanilla, believe whatever you want to believe message, He wouldn’t have divided people. But because He spoke the truth, because He said things like, “I am the only way to God,” He divided the crowds. You ever notice Jesus said, “I did not come to bring peace, but a sword”? And you go, “Well, that seems kind of not nice.”

This is what the truth does. You want me to, I could give you an example. You want me to divide this crowd right now? Tell me who’s too hot and who’s too cold. We’ll split this church wide open right now. You see, there are some things that separate people.

Jesus came and He spoke the truth. And that truth divides. And it’s one of the things that I love about Him. I could not follow a Savior who was speaking some marshmallow-y doctrine. “Well, your way is your way. My way is my way. Whatever you believe, let’s all just get along.” Like, “No, man, I’m out of here. There’s no way I want to be part of something like that.”

If you go to the doctor and you have some terrible condition that has just been discovered and it’s life-threatening, do you want a doctor to go, “Listen, everything’s fine. You just go enjoy your summer.” Or do you want a doctor who leans across the desk and says, “I hate to tell you this, but you got X, Y, and Z, and these are your options. We’ve got to move fast.” Well, you don’t want to hear that, but you need to hear that. The truth hurts sometimes. And it seems that everywhere Jesus went, He was creating disruption in people.

He was making them choose. I love what my favorite old British author, Malcolm Muggeridge, once said. He said, “Everywhere Jesus went, He started a riot. Everywhere I go, they serve me tea.”

And isn’t that a beautiful picture of how different Jesus is from us? He, He went somewhere and the place just erupted. They want to throw Him off a cliff, and then other people want to give their lives for Him. Why don’t we have, like, a tenth of that impact on the world around us? You notice how skilled we’ve become at being chameleons in the world? We’re in this situation at work, and we become this kind of person. And then when we’re with family, we become that kind of person. We’re here on Sunday morning, and we kind of fit in.

When’s the last time you really ticked somebody off because of your stand? I don’t mean going around being a jerk. I just mean your boss comes to you and says, “I need you to cut some corners here.” And you go, “Yeah, the thing is, I’m not going to do that.”

There’s never been anyone like Jesus in history. And when you really see Him, you begin to realize He’s not just another teacher. He’s not just another option among many options.

He’s the One your soul has been searching for. And that’s exactly why His invitation still matters so much today, because even though we live in a world that offers every kind of satisfaction, people are still dying of thirst.

I meet them regularly.

They try products and books and diets and drugs and careers and entertainment and relationships and pleasure, but none of those things can do what they promise to do. They may distract your soul for a moment, but they can never satisfy your soul.

All the while, Jesus is standing here crying out, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to Me.” And people walk on by. “No, I think the answer’s over here. Thank you, though. Thanks.”

Coming to Him to drink means believing in Him. That’s what this is talking about. It means stopping your search for life in things that cannot give life. It means trusting the One who can actually give you life. You know, this sermon today, it’s not about some historical feast. It’s not about a golden pitcher. It’s not about the Pool of Siloam.

The sermon is about you believing in Jesus because only He can satisfy your soul. That was the point of His words then. It’s the point of His words now.

Are you thirsty?

Are you thirsty? Not for another religious experience, but for Him. For the living God.

For a peace that doesn’t run out, for life that doesn’t dry up.

Jesus made it clear in John chapter 4, when He spoke to the woman at the well, his life was in shambles. They’re sitting on the well, and Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water,” the things of this world, “everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never thirst.”

That is His promise: a spring of living water welling up inside you that will never leave you thirsty again.

Look, I know a lot of your situations here because we talked through the week, but there’s a lot I don’t know. So I don’t know, maybe, maybe you walked in here today carrying a thirst that no one else can see.

I bet you there’s a few people like that. I bet you walked in here, and it was all smiles and courtesy, as it, you know. That’s wonderful, that’s all fine. But man, if people knew, if people knew the thirst you had inside that you’re too ashamed or too afraid or too proud to speak about.

I was chatting with one of our guys this week, and I mentioned, it’s, it’s a danger to come into a room like this and look around at other people and go, “Oh man, she’s really got it together. Oh, look at that couple. Boy, if I had a marriage like them.” Don’t be fooled. Nobody in this room has it all together. I do, but you know, I’m speaking of you out there.

No, listen, start with me. I mean, it’s a danger to look around at other Christians in the church and think, “Oh, if my could just be like them.” If you got to know them, you might be in for the shock of your life because we’re all battling the same mess down here.

But maybe you have a thirst inside that is well hidden. You’ve tried to fill it. You’ve tried to ignore it. You’ve tried to outrun it.

Nothing works.

Jesus says to you right now, “If you’re thirsty, come to Me and drink.”

If you never have, will you come to Him this morning? We’re going to sing a couple of closing songs, and this moment will be gone forever. What will you do with what you’ve heard today?