If Any Man Thirst

[00:00:00] This audio sermon is provided by AnabaptistSermons.com and may be freely copied and distributed. You may not sell or edit this sermon. Our prayer is that you would be blessed by this ministry. Good morning and a greeting to all of you in the name of our Lord Jesus. I invite you to open your Bibles this morning to the Gospel of John, chapter 7. [00:00:37] John, chapter 7. I can't help but just adding something here. This is extra. It's preliminary. It doesn't have anything to do with the message at all. This past week I was involved in a project. We were looking over plans of a 1727 church building in Augusta County. And it's one that's up for reconstruction for a historical place. And one of the things that observations I made about the sketch, they were trying to decide how they were going to pay for this church building. [00:01:18] And so they went the route of renting out the pews in the church. So you rented the pew to a family. They paid so much annual rent for a pew. And that's how they financed the church building. Well, I made an observation to the group of us that were there discussing this project. I said you know something is different about the culture of that day versus the culture of the 21st century. Which pews do you think were most expensive? The front ones. People were willing to pay more for those. [00:01:56] I told them, I just kind of confirmed it this morning, I told them that in the modern culture, I said the back ones would be the most expensive. And actually the front pews in those churches were about three times the annual rent of the ones that were in the back of the auditorium. I don't know what that says about culture shift, but it was rather interesting. By way of personal introduction, bear with me, I hope I make it through this morning. [00:02:34] I didn't have this problem when I consented to this assignment this morning. Down through the years, and especially I would say maybe ten years ago, in my personal journey, This passage, John chapter 7, verses 37 to 39, were deeply troubling to me. I found my Christianity, what I understood to be Christianity, to be largely a burden. [00:03:11] It was a heavy load. I got tired of Christian faith. I found that one of the great motivating factors for me to persist was fear. I was afraid of what would happen did I not persist. I was afraid of hell. I was afraid of judgment. I was afraid of failure. [00:03:44] I was afraid of what people might say. were I to turn aside from my commitment to the Lord Jesus. But just honestly, I was tired. And I would look at a passage like this. I would look at other passages of Scripture that talked about Christianity as being something abundant, something supernatural, something rich and overflowing. And I would scratch my head. [00:04:17] I was frustrated with my own inability to live this kind of rich life. I was frustrated with my repeated failure. I felt like I was living on planet earth, not in the heavens. But I would read the stories in Acts and say, these men had something. [00:04:52] Peter, when he got up there and preached to the thousands on the day of Pentecost, something had happened to that man. Something had gripped him deeply. Paul, something drove that man. What made Paul tick? Why did Paul travel the globe? Did he really believe when he got in front of those scholars on Mars Hill in Athens that he had something significant to contribute to the discussion? [00:05:27] Did he really believe that what he said had the potential to radically alter the lives of those people and not just the people, but the entire world in which they lived? And then you read the testimony of the Romans talking about the early Christian movement. And one of the things they said is, these are the people which have turned the world upside down. We have that recorded in the book of Acts as well. And it was said repeatedly. And I told the Lord, you know, Lord, if there's something like that to be had, that's what I'd like to have. [00:06:09] I'd like to have that kind of life. I'd like to have that kind of richness. I'd like to possess that kind of motivation, that kind of longing, that kind of passion, that kind of life. And I think we could say life in capital letters. The kind of life that goes on and on. And these were the words of Jesus. John chapter 37 verse 37. In the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, [00:06:44] If any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink. He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly or out of his innermost being shall flow rivers of living water. But this spake he of the Spirit, which they that believe on him should receive For the Holy Ghost was not yet given Because that Jesus was not yet glorified Let's bow our heads for prayer [00:07:17] Father, we have this short few verses here The words of Jesus to a thronging mass of people And Father, we believe that the words that Christ would speak to us today. And we open our hearts to your truth. Would you teach us through the ministry of your spirit what this means? What it means to each one of us in the many different places you've called us to in life. [00:07:55] What Christ is saying to us today about the potential for life in the kingdom. We ask your spirit to move among us and to teach us about these eternal realities. We pray through Christ. Amen. Here was the scene. This was one of the three great feasts. One of the three great feasts of the Old Testament times, the Feast of Tabernacles, and it lasted for about eight days. [00:08:35] And, you know, nowadays one of the great things to do is go camping, live in a tent for a week. Well, that's what these folks were essentially doing. They went out into the countryside and they cut down palm branches and sticks and they would tie them together in bundles, Carry them into the city, and on rooftops and in public squares, public places, they would pop up these little tents, cover them with palm branches, and they would live in those tents, those little huts, for a week. At camp, we go to the countryside, they camped in the city. [00:09:08] And daily they would have these feasts, daily they would come into the temple to offer sacrifices. And it was a very, very festive time. On a side note, you know, I wonder sometimes if Christians know how to celebrate anymore, really celebrate. The Old Testament folks, they knew how to celebrate. They knew how to feast, to celebrate, to delight in the deliverance that God had brought, the joy he had brought into their midst. They knew how to celebrate, and they celebrated well. That's what they were doing here. [00:09:39] And they would march in big groups in ceremonial events. And one of the events here, on the eighth day, the last day of this great feast, a group of the people would march together as a group down to the Pool of Siloam. And archaeologists say there's, you're talking about a thousand steps approximately, I mean actual steps, over the course of about a half a mile. That was the trip. Down, you dropped in elevation, a huge distance. [00:10:11] Then they went to the pool of Siloam with a pitcher, they would dip out a pitcher full of water, and they would turn and go all the way back up, another half a mile, back up approximately a thousand steps, back up to the temple. And while the priest was at the altar offering the sacrifice, this pitcher of water was taken up, and with great ceremony and celebration poured out. Now if you recall, the Feast of Tabernacles had to do with the celebration of God keeping them [00:10:42] and preserving them while they were living in the wilderness. While they were actually tenting. While they were out in the wilderness for 40 years, God kept them. Their shoes didn't wear out, he gave them manna every day, he gave them water to drink. Against all natural odds, God preserved these people. And so the Feast of Tabernacles, they would move back into those little huts and they would celebrate God's preservation, God's care for them through these various ceremonies and sacrifices. And many historians believe that the climatic moment of that entire eight weeks [00:11:18] was that this last sacrifice when the lamb was killed, the sacrifice was being consumed and these people would march in with celebration and take this pitcher of water. They had mixed a little bit of wine in. It wasn't just pure water anymore. It was water with a little bit of wine. It was living water. And they would pour this out in celebration of how God had provided for them waters in the wilderness. [00:11:51] I don't know if you've ever been in a desert. The closest experience I've had, back in 86, a friend and I traveled all over the United States and Alaska. And we came in August, first part of August, we came through Death Valley, the second lowest place on planet Earth, next only to the Dead Sea. And it was 116 degrees. And we were driving a little black Nissan pickup with no air conditioner. [00:12:21] And just on the side note, I had chicken pox I think that's as close as I got to getting a feel of what it might be like to live in the desert The intense heat, the pressure was just, you know, it just drove in There was no place to escape the heat And coming into Death Valley, they had signs up They suggested you drink at least a quart of water every hour That's the kind of fluid you can lose. [00:12:58] And you don't realize you're sweating because it evaporates just as quick as it leaves your body. So you feel perfectly dry. In other words, it's the kind of place in which you could get thirsty. You could get very thirsty. And here are the children of Israel remembering And reflect with me just a moment How did God provide water for them? Through various means But one of the most dramatic [00:13:28] Was when Abraham struck Moses, pardon me, struck the rock And God provided supernaturally Water Fresh water A river of water For these people in the wilderness of course he struck it twice he was only supposed to once but here in the midst of this celebration now nearly 1400 years later thousands of people gathered on Temple Mount [00:13:59] they're pouring out the water with a bit of wine mixed in living water, life-giving water in celebration of God keeping them and this stranger from Galilee stands up in the middle of the crowd And he says, if anyone's thirsty, let him come to me and drink. Just a bit startling. Possibly. But he went another notch further and made this radical claim. [00:14:32] He said, he that believes on me. And then he goes back to the Jewish scripture. He said, as the scripture has said. Out of his innermost being will flow rivers of living water. I don't know what the immediate response was of those thousands of people. You can read down further, it says this man's a prophet. [00:15:09] And of course, as Christ always does, there was division. over what he said and over what he claimed. What was Jesus talking about? I'd like to ask you. Could you say that your life could be represented by this metaphor? A life that is represented by a stream of water. [00:15:43] Rivers of water, an abundant outflow of richness. Is that what your life is like? I'm guessing that many of the scholars of the day's minds immediately flash back to Isaiah 55. Ho, everyone that thirsteth, come ye to the waters. And here was this man saying, believe in me. [00:16:19] Anyone who comes to me, believes in me, drinks from me, will have streams of living water flowing forth from him. There's another verse now, two verses actually. In my journey and study of scripture, there's a trilogy that repeatedly came up. [00:16:55] And I have found a very stimulating and probably have not really mined its depths yet. but three words that recur are recurring repeatedly throughout the New Testament and especially in the epistles and it seems like a scripture we've kind of got these three clusters we've got the Old Testament that speaks prophetically about the coming of Christ we have the Gospels that tell the story of Christ when Christ was here, what his life was like, what his teachings were [00:17:26] and then we have what comes after the Gospels that look back to Christ and his ministry and begin to explain how this actually works out in moment-by-moment living, in congregational life. Well, Paul, in looking back to the teachings of Christ, made this statement in Galatians 5, verses 5 and 6. He said, For we through the Spirit wait for the hope of righteousness by faith. For in Jesus Christ neither circumcision availeth anything, nor uncircumcision, but faith which worketh by love. [00:18:05] These three key words, and I think there are three key words throughout the New Testament, and they're specially brought to their depths of richness in the epistles. I have the words hope and faith and love. And faith and love have a chapter to themselves in the New Testament. There seem to be the crowning words that kind of sum up the essence of Christianity. [00:18:36] And I think I've talked about this before. But what we toss into that is the idea of hope. And I'd just be curious if any of you would tie those words at all with the words of Jesus here. What might hope be like? And obviously the word faith is pretty self-evident because Jesus said, He that believes. And we associate very quickly the word believe with the word faith. I would like to suggest here today that in more theological terms what Jesus is talking about [00:19:09] is hope as the thirst of the soul. Faith as the response when it finds its object in which it hopes and in which it trusts. And I think the entire outworking of Christianity, the stream that is to flow out of us, can be summed up, and I'm going to call it a summation, in one word. And that's the word love [00:19:39] Because all that issues forth is to be love And love has its little tooth and nail bits Love is not just easy, love is not just nice Love is hard Love is sacrificial Love calls people to hard things Love is not just this easy warm emotion Love is much more than that But the entire law and prophets hang on that one word that one command to love [00:20:09] God first of all and man, our fellow man out of response to our love for God so I'd like to use those three words to kind of unpack and to kind of open up what Jesus is saying here thinking first of all of what thirst might be like and I'm guessing most of us here don't know what it's like to be thirsty Thirsty. Thirsty in capital letters. We might have gotten thirsty. You know, you may have gone two hours or three hours without a drink. And finally, you get something to drink and you say, well, this is second best to being in heaven. This is delightful. This is refreshing. [00:20:51] But most of us have never been in a situation where we were nearly dying from thirst And then had those cool waters into our parched lip and down our throat We were never really thirsty, thirsty So we may find it hard to understand what a true thirst is like But I think thirst can be likened to the desires of our hearts [00:21:26] We're people of desire We have strong desire We have passionate desire Jonathan Edwards, I love what he has to say He said desire is like a viper Hissing and spitting at God and us if we try to restrain it And I think you'll find that what you do, the way you live life, is a direct outflow of what you want. [00:22:04] Or of what you desire. So, when you watch my life, when you see the kinds of decisions I make, the kinds of choices I make, you know something about what I really want. you can know a good bit about what I really want and I would like to go so far as to suggest that desire is fundamental to the way we live life [00:22:36] it's foundational and you cannot choose against your desire that's kind of a radical statement But I'd like for you to hang on to that and ponder that And I was reflecting on that with Wayne And you can reflect on it in some of your own crisis moments You have knowledge of what you should do [00:23:08] But what's deep within our hearts is such a strong desire for something That we cannot even choose to do what we know we ought to do because there is some kind of overriding, overwhelming longing and desire for something. And I would even suggest that the Holy Spirit is not given to us to so much strengthen our will to go against our desire as he is to change our desires. And I'm going to say change our desires [00:23:43] or bring the promise and hope of fruition in a godly way for our desires. Now I'm not talking about just some kind of fleeting desire. I'm talking about the desire of your heart. The deepest ache of your soul. Think about the words of Jesus when he said, Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks [00:24:15] Jesus says that out of the heart of man come all kinds of evil All kinds of evil flow forth from desire of man And we can't talk about this forever But in James, the epistle of James Paul makes the, or James makes the statement that what really brings conflict in the world is human desires. We lust. Lust is a form of demanding desire. [00:24:51] It's what I want. And I want it so badly that I demand it of you. Or I demand it of society. and it's desire gone wrong. It's desire with a kink in it. So we can't restrain that desire. We're going to live out of the desires of our heart. And I think those desires are directly connected to thirst. [00:25:26] Men are born thirsty. Children are born thirsty. and all mankind at some level is on a search to satisfy that thirst. And thirst is probably a good image because it's probably the one thing that will drive a man to the most radical measures. To get something to drink. [00:26:00] rather than die thirsty. A productive thirst is one where you realize, you know, I have a tremendous sense of need. My desire is overwhelming and there seems to be no satisfaction for it. I would also suggest that much of modern psychology today is an attempt to categorize the thirsts of the human heart. [00:26:37] And we can talk about a bunch of those. I'd like to just mention a few just to help you identify what I'm talking about. Now, one of the thirsts of the human heart, psychologically categorized, is a sense of belonging. I long to belong. I want to belong to someone. I don't want to just be a ship at sea. And you think about human relationships, that sense of belonging is driving lots and lots of people. [00:27:17] And one of the impacts of it is that it's become the in thing to accept any type of lifestyle, any type of sinful lifestyle, any type of ungodly behavior, Because we believe that in order to affirm a person and give them a sense of belonging, I must accept and embrace all the ungodliness to be sure that they don't feel rejected. The Bible tells us that the reality is that we're all beggars. [00:27:54] We're aliens. We're outcasts. We are in a broken relationship And that's why we have this ache That's why we have this desire Because we were created for relationship But the fundamental relationship for which we were created Is the relationship with our Heavenly Father And we know that in this evil world There are many, many people who will grow up [00:28:25] without a healthy relationship with an earthly father. And we grieve over that loss. It's not the way it was intended to be. But there is no one who must live outside of a meaningful relationship with their heavenly father. And you know, in one sense, you can have a heavenly father, you can feel his love, you can live in a relationship with him. And there's still a deep sense of loss to the one who does not know an earthly father. [00:29:04] It's not, God is not a replacement. He's the one that walks along inside and says, you know, I understand. I understand the pain of your loss. I'll be with you. And in my presence you can make it. You can even lead a rich and abundant life. In spite of that longing that remains for an earthly father with whom I can have a meaningful relationship. [00:29:37] But I've seen men on search of a replacement for their earthly father their entire lifetime. They can never get enough. They can never get enough from another man. That's thirst gone amok. Thirst gone bad. The thirst is not the problem. It's where we seek to drink that becomes the problem. And you know, another one that's probably been worked to extremes is a sense of self-worth. [00:30:11] How do I feel about myself? And we discuss that in a host of different ways. And it's a deep longing of everybody to be worth something, to be a value. I don't want to be a nobody. I want to know that somebody believes in me. I want to know that somebody loves me. We need, you know, they say we need that healthy self-esteem. You know, scripture has some pretty brutal things to say about man. Enough to kind of dismantle anybody's self-esteem. [00:30:44] So do we not say that? To protect somebody's self-esteem? I think thirst, thirst of the soul calls us to be honest about who we are. And in fact as God has said that one of our biggest problems is we think too highly of ourselves. We think so much of ourselves that we can't find somebody to rebuild us, to remanufacture us. Because we're kind of in a pretty neat little package. [00:31:18] We think pretty highly of ourselves. And the list could go on. Underlying a lot of these things is a hunger, a thirst, a longing, knowing that something is not the way it ought to be. Something is wrong, something is broken, something is twisted. And we don't know exactly what it is. And we find this thirst, this desire, driving people to all kinds of things [00:31:51] Materialism, the pursuit of stuff, the pursuit of wealth Hedonism, a love of pleasure It all keeps coming up empty, keeps coming up empty And the thirst remains It also drives some people to asceticism It says, well, if we abandon everything and just, you know, just live as an ascetic, just move to the mountains and live in the caves, or we abandon all the comforts of life and I just wear an old camel's hair shirt and eat nothing but oatmeal day after day after day. [00:32:25] I can't think of a greater torture and we just reject all the comforts of life then surely this will satisfy it's empty again one of the common forms that that this thirst takes to seek to satisfy itself is religion we seek through religion to meet the ache and the longing of the human heart and religion I would say is simply a system through which we seek to achieve goodness [00:33:02] or a system through which we seek to relieve guilt and religions throughout the world are an attempt to do that and many people even use Christianity that way to seek to relieve their guilt Just like if I'm a good Christian, if I do all the right things and I try to kind of get my little package together and I come to church every Sunday and you know the list goes on and on. Everybody has their own lists. That's what's interesting about it. But I get this done, then surely I can satisfy and kind of quench the guilt, satisfy the ache of my heart. [00:33:43] I think the godly response, the godly thirst is hope. And hope is one of the finest responses of the human heart. It's a thirst. It's a deep, aching thirst. Webster says this about hope. It's desire accompanied by expectation. It's not just an empty desire. It actually expects something. It longs for something with an expectation that at some point this longing can be satisfied and come to rest. [00:34:26] There are many famous little lines about hope. Hope springs eternal in the human heart. Where there is life, there is hope. And the writer of Ecclesiastes, anyone who is among the living has hope, has a thirst, has a longing, with some degree of expectation that that longing will be satisfied. But you know, sin, and the resulting suffering of sin, has worn away the hope of many people. [00:35:14] Hope has died for so many people, and resulted in cynicism and hardness. We're afraid to hope. We're not sure that we can hope again. And I've found a lot of people who have suffered in relationships are afraid to hope. They go into new relationships with closed hearts. They want to just keep it safe. [00:35:48] I'm not sure that I can hope again. I'm not sure that the desires of my heart for a meaningful relationship are worth the risk so we close down our hearts and we resolve to insulate and to protect ourselves from suffering from relational suffering to never risk sacrificially loving someone again [00:36:18] because it's at that point they have the power to hurt me. To never risk the opening of the darkness of my own heart to someone else for fear of rejection and scorn. And I've heard people say, you've heard people say, you know, if they really knew me, they wouldn't like me anymore. and so a lot of people refuse to hope that I can be who I am [00:36:50] in my own darkness and someone will love me enough to help me find my way out but you know suffering and suffering folks is just a part of life Suffering also has a way of opening and softening the heart. Suffering has a way of awakening thirst, of making you thirsty. Suffering has a way, has the potential I would say, of opening up your heart to the realization, you know when I suffer, things are not the way they ought to be. [00:37:32] But there's a time coming, there's a day coming, when my hope can be realized Where things will be beautiful, where things will be as they were intended to be Where there will be no more pain, where there will be no more suffering, no more crying What we find in the person of Christ is a willingness to suffer that way To pay the ultimate price in suffering with a thirsty heart I think [00:38:04] with a hope in God that even in the midst of my suffering God can bring about beauty for ashes and in the midst of your suffering if you can open your heart that way what you'll find is an overwhelming thirst beginning to grow in your heart for redemption An overwhelming thirst that the kingdom of heaven could be realized in your own life [00:38:35] In your own relationships An overwhelming thirst beginning to break out That creates a tremendous longing for things to be the way they ought to be So that when you begin to walk down the street And you see an abandoned child Your heart leaps and you say, you know, this is not the way it ought to be And maybe you have very, very little to offer But you offer a moment of beauty and love to that child When you know a friend who's suffering over the loss of a loved one [00:39:07] Or when you see someone being abused, someone suffering When you see chaos, destruction and disaster Your heart cries out to just minister in love In the one small way you can It begins in your home begins to your children, to your spouse, to your neighbors, and begins to impact the way you view the world. You view the world with the hope of restoration, the hope of redemption. [00:39:40] And in the middle of this, we know, folks, it's not going to happen in our lifetime here. But God has effected salvation and redemption in such a way that it can begin to happen Life can be experienced Love can be felt Redemption and restoration can be seen Little by little In small beacons of light in the midst of the darkness But what do you do with that longing? And here's where the words of Jesus come in [00:40:12] He says Come to me. When you long for things to be that way, come to me. Trust me. Bring all those desires of your heart. And don't go running after them. Bring them to me. I will understand what you're talking about. I came into this world to see those godly desires realized and brought to pass. And I would say little by little As little beacons of light today [00:40:42] For the fuller reality in the coming kingdom In the full realization of the kingdom of heaven What is this kind of faith? Faith comes to the Lord Jesus and just places its full weight on Him And I think sometimes we make faith, especially in our modern world, we make faith something that's purely intellectual. [00:41:15] But faith is more than that. Faith does not demand. Faith brings its desires and does not say, Jesus, you must meet this desire. Faith brings the desire, brings the hope, brings the longing, and gives it up to Jesus. is honest with Jesus. He says, Lord Jesus, I long for this. I long and yearn for a relationship with my Father. I long and yearn for a meaningful earthly relationship. [00:41:46] Someone that I share heart to heart. It may be longing for a spouse. It may be longing for children. It may be longing for a zillion things that are right and godly and good. But it does not come demanding. It comes with an open hand. It does not just deny the hope, the longing and desire, but it permits it to live. And the ache and the thirst expands and grows until it feels unbearable. But we find, we give it to Jesus, we find that Jesus understands that. [00:42:20] He knows what to do with it. He's not promised that I will meet that immediate desire in the immediate way you would like to have it met. But he has promised there's a day coming when the deepest desire of your heart will be fully satisfied. And Jesus is the only one that can do that. We must believe that Jesus is who he said he was. [00:42:52] We must embrace him as a person, not just a savior, as Lord, as master. The person of Jesus is the one to whom our hearts must reach out. You know, trust, faith, is longing to taste God being faithful to me. It's longing to know in reality what God has to offer, what God has to effect in my life. [00:43:32] And comparing it to food and drink, faith is not just the drink, it's the longing to drink. And it's the longing for more while you're drinking. Did you ever notice sometimes you get full and you'd love to just keep on drinking, but you can't keep on drinking because you're full, but you're still thirsty? I think that's the way hope and thirst is in this life. Healthy thirst burns and burns and burns. And we keep drinking. And we keep drinking. But the day is coming again when faith is going to vanish into full reality. [00:44:09] Faith is something that children do naturally and intellectuals struggle with. Faith is something that dies with cynicism and self-satisfaction. Faith is something that can be replaced by such things as hedonism, materialism. Faith is more like an ache for what you've not yet realized. [00:44:40] But it realizes in whom my satisfaction rests And it reaches out to him It's found its object of longing And I would like to say that faith is not merely an intellectual understanding Ability to lay hold of information and truth But it's childlike in nature It's trusting beyond the point of human reason. [00:45:15] It's a willingness to risk. Not only what I can calculate as a good risk, but beyond that. I'm willing to trust Jesus far beyond what makes sense to me. So faith is a longing for that to be reality. And I take that risk. I go far beyond what reason tells me I can trust him with. Faith is not merely the ability to look at facts and then to claim the power of God to live in the light of those facts. [00:45:49] I've heard that definition of faith. I think that's just a bit lacking. It must spring from a desire. It must spring from a longing to know the God of the reality. To know the God of the facts, to know the person who embodies the truth and out of which the truth emanates Faith is not merely taking God at his word, claiming the promise, and entering the reality I think that's a modernist view of faith [00:46:21] Rather, it's the longing and desire for the God who made the promises A longing to enter into the reality that does not yet exist Faith springs from hope planted in the human heart by God himself. And when we bring those kinds of things to the Lord Jesus, what does he bring to us? He ministers the Holy Spirit to our hearts that issues forth in rivers of living water. [00:46:55] so often the outflow of our lives seems so much like a trickle and we get into a tight situation and we feel like we need inspiration we need hope we need something to offer and so we start pumping you know those old pumps and it rattles and it clatters and clonks for a long time and finally you get this little trickle you say well my faith came through for me again It seems like Christianity so much today is like that. [00:47:32] My own journey has seemed so much like that. But Jesus has promised more. He has said that my spirit is available to provide an overflow. An abundant overflow. A river. In fact, as he didn't just say a river, he said rivers. Rivers of living water. Listen to this beautiful passage from Ezekiel 47. [00:48:10] The man brought me back to the entrance of the temple, and I saw water coming out from under the threshold of the temple toward the east. The water was coming down from under the south side of the temple, south of the altar. He then brought me out through the north gate, led me around the outside to the outer gate facing east, and the water was flowing from the south side. As the man went eastward with a measuring line in his hand, he measured off a thousand cubits, and he led me through the water, and it was ankle deep. [00:48:43] He measured off another thousand cubits, and he led me through the water that was knee deep. He measured off another thousand, and he led me through the water that was up to the waist. He measured off another thousand, but now it was a river that I could not cross, because the water had risen and was deep enough to swim in, a river that no one could cross. And he asked me, Son of man, do you see this? [00:49:20] Then he led me to the bank of the river. When I arrived there, I saw a great number of trees on each side of the river. He said to me, this water flows toward the eastern region and goes down into the Araba, where it enters the sea. When it empties into the sea, the water there becomes fresh into the salt sea. This river brings fresh water. that's the Dead Sea by the way [00:49:56] I think maybe the Gulf both of them are salty these are life-giving waters when it empties into the sea the water there becomes fresh swarms of living creatures will live wherever that water flows there will be large numbers of fish because this water flows there it makes the salt water fresh So where the river flows, everything will live. Fishermen will stand along the shore. The fish will be of many kinds, like the fish of the great sea. [00:50:34] Fruit trees of all kinds will grow on the banks of the river. Their leaves will not wither, nor will their fruit fail. Every month they will bear, because the water from the sanctuary flows to them. Their fruit will serve for food and their leaves for healing. Is your life a river flowing from the temple, progressively deepening and broadening? [00:51:11] Are they life-giving waters where swarms of fish are living? Where the trees are growing along the banks, fruit trees, yielding fruit, not just intermittently, but every month, every month, fresh fruit. The trees whose fruit is feeding the hungry, the trees whose leaves are bringing healing to the people. If your life is to be a river of abundance, you'll have to get thirsty. [00:51:46] If our fellowship here is to be a place of refreshment and healing, it must be filled with thirsty people. If this community is to be influenced by the life of the kingdom of the heavens, God's people will have to accept the growing ache and longing and desire for the kingdom of God to be realized in their own hearts. If this country is to be impacted with the power of the gospel, Christians are going to have to get thirsty. [00:52:27] So thirsty, they'll drink deeply. So thirsty that their aching hearts will seek God diligently and trust Him. Trust Him with the deepest desires of their hearts. God has promised to meet thirsty people Christ gives to drink for thirsty people You know, growing Christians are thirsty people [00:52:58] They're not satisfied They're not merely at rest They're longing with deep desire to know Christ in new ways Are you here this morning in your heart, you would honestly have to say, I have need of nothing. Your thirst is gone. If that's the case, you're on dangerous ground. You're dying. [00:53:32] But God is still awakening hearts. He's still planting hope. And He can do it for you. Abundant living is the result of thirsty lives.