Word of Salvation – March 2025
Christ… The Living Water
Sermon by Rev. John W. Westendorp on John 7:37-39
Scripture readings: Ezekiel 47:1-12; John 7:1-14 & 37-39
Theme: Jesus announces salvation in terms of an abundance of living water thru the working of His Spirit.
Introd: My daughter recently attended a “Body Mind and Soul” festival in Canberra.
These New Age festivals have become very popular and are now held regularly in all our major cities.
They feature everything from psychics to crystals… from tarot card readings to aroma therapy.
My daughter’s church got permission to put up a Christian stall.
She commented on how popular this festival was and how many people there were really searching.
In fact there was one held in Sydney some time earlier where they did a survey.
They found there were more searchers and seekers than actual New Age converts.
More than half of those attending were still looking for answers.
Something to fill the emptiness inside them.
And they were looking for it in tarot card readings, in aroma therapy and crystals.
We live in an age addicted to materialism… a culture that idolises things.
But people find that it leaves them empty, frustrated and unfulfilled.
That makes the invitation of Jesus in John 7 so relevant for us today in our culture.
A] THE NEED THAT IS ADDRESSED (vs.37).
- Jesus invites people to come to Him and have their emptiness filled.
He speaks of that in terms of thirst that needs to be quenched with water.
I’m sure all of us can relate to that kind of imagery.
Thirst stands for needs… and drink for those needs being met.
That’s language that speaks to us.
Run around a soccer field for an hour and you appreciate a drink of water.
In fact, when we dry out we become desperate for a drink.
That imagery of our need for water especially fits Australia.
We live in a sunburnt country. The driest continent on earth.
We’ve seen the images of bleached bones of cattle around dried up waterholes.
Water is not just something for our comfort and enjoyment.
Water means life… our very survival depends on it.
So behind these words of Jesus is not just a felt need for water.
Behind it lies that deeper reality that without water we perish.
And Jesus particularly means that on a spiritual level.
Just as lack of water leads to certain death so by nature we are doomed to eternal death.
Unless the deepest need… our spiritual need… is met in Him.
That’s the heart of the issue in that well-known story of Jesus and the Samaritan woman in John 4.
He asks her for a drink… something she finds strange.
He tells her that if she really knew who was talking to her she would ask water of Him.
And He would give her living water…. the water of life (vs.10).
- The context in which Jesus gives this invitation is also very telling.
It is the last day of that great feast… the ‘Feast of Tabernacles’
One of the most colourful and joyful festivities on the Jewish calendar.
It was a feast with a real holiday atmosphere… a kind of a week-long camp.
People moved out of their houses and into huts made of palm branches.
A reminder of the forty years Israel had lived in temporary shelters in the wilderness.
It was an exciting time of commemoration and celebration.
One part of that week-long ceremony was especially meaningful.
Every day a procession of priests would get a golden pitcher of water from the Siloam pool.
They would then pour it out at the base of the altar in the temple.
Throngs of people watched and sang while the priests did that.
That was especially meaningful in an arid land where water was scarce.
It was not only an act of thanksgiving for the gift of water.
It was a reminder that in the wilderness God had brought water out of the rock.
And it looked forward to Messiah’s kingdom when water would be there in abundance.
On the final day – the eighth day – the feast ended.
But on that eighth day there was no procession… and no pouring out of water.
That was in recognition that the promises of God for that abundance had not yet been fulfilled.
The age of Messiah had not yet come.
And it is precisely at that moment – on the eighth day – that Jesus stands up and cries out:
“If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink.”
It’s a wonderful invitation for our deepest needs to be met in the Messiah Jesus.
- Let me point out a couple of things about this invitation.
First, the invitation is issued without any reservations or limits.
You cannot say that what Jesus offers might not meet your needs… or not be meant for you.
It’s a universal offer… not just for very good people… or for very spiritual people.
Anyone aware of their emptiness.. their thirst… can come.
Anyone who searches for meaning in a Body, Mind and Soul Festival can come.
All that is needed is an awareness of your own need.
Second, there are no qualifications made about people’s need.
He doesn’t apply this imagery only to those whose passions is for material prosperity.
Or only to those who are thirsting for the sexual and the erotic.
Jesus does not limit it…. nor does He grade people as to how great their thirst has to be.
You can come to Him if you are absolutely desperate… if you’ve tried everything else.
You can also come to Him when you feel the first twinges of your own emptiness.
Third, notice that there is a link between the awareness of thirst and the drinking.
It is those who are thirsty who are invited to come and drink.
I wish that I could go to Jesus on your behalf and have your needs met for you.
But I can’t… and you can’t drink from Christ Jesus on behalf of your spouse or your child.
Each of us is personally responsible for getting that emptiness inside filled.
Each of us has to make sure that we go to Jesus and drink.
B] HOW ABUNDANTLY THAT NEED IS MET (vs.38).
- We should also notice this evening/morning how well that need is met in Jesus.
Today we’re often promised that certain products will give us fulfilment.
If only we have the latest gizmo… we’re going to be happy.
Contentment and peace of mind if we’re with the right insurance or superannuation company.
Fulfilment is by jetting off to yet another tourist destination…. Bali… Fiji… holidays in the sun.
‘Trouble is: that sort of fulfilment only lasts for a little while.
The novelty wears off and we’re back to square one.
And that’s where the New Age movement comes in with its solutions.
They say that there is a deeper dimension of life that needs to be dealt with.
A deeper thirst that needs to be satisfied… and they have a whole host of answers.
But how do their remedies measure up to Jesus?
Jesus does not just fill us to the point where our thirst is satisfied.
He fills us much fuller than that with His living waters…. full to overflowing.
Notice how Jesus puts it in verse 38:
Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him.
- Jesus fills us far more abundantly than just meeting our own needs.
What He gives us is like a fountain… like a river.
It not only stems our own thirst and gives us fulfilment.
It is a vibrant new life within us… Jesus speaks of it in terms of a river of living water.
It pours out of us like a torrent to be a blessing to others as well.
So that as the life of Jesus comes into us we are able to offer Him to others as well.
But only… only as we first of all drink from Him by faith ourselves.
In the O.T. there is a beautiful picture of what Jesus meant by this river of living water.
You find it in Ezekiel 47.
I believe Jesus had that story in mind when He spoke of this being according to Scripture.
In a vision the prophet Ezekiel saw water flowing out from under the temple door.
Just a trickle of water… flowing out into the direction of the Arabah.
That’s out into the desert… where everything is dead and dry.
But that little stream becomes deeper and deeper till it’s a river that no one can cross.
And Ezekiel shows the impact that this mighty river makes.
Great numbers of fruitful trees grow all along its banks.
Swarms of living creatures are there wherever the river flows.
And even the salt water of the swamps is made fresh by the water from the river.
- Ezekiel was seeing in his vision a picture of the new life that comes from Jesus.
A picture of the growth and spread of the church of the Lord Jesus.
It’s a picture of the blessing that the church of Jesus brings to the world.
Because that stream in Ezekiel’s vision begins at the temple of God.
And it is the church that is the temple of God… the dwelling place of God’s Spirit.
Here we find something of the radicalness of the Kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Jesus doesn’t just quench our thirst so that we can sit back and enjoy life.
It’s not so that we can go back to our material toys and trinkets with a new sense of fulfilment.
No! It is so that the blessings of God might multiply dramatically as we serve others.
Not just water for us to drink.
But an ever richer and deeper tide of life-giving water to bless others around us.
That’s why the Lord has placed us as Christian churches in this city.
So the Water of Life might flow into the parched wilderness of our society.
C] THE ROLE OF THE COMING HOLY SPIRIT (vs.39).
- I also want to draw your attention to something else in this text that is a little unusual.
When I teach you from the Word of God I stand here before you.
If I took a chair and sat down to preach you probably wouldn’t be too impressed.
That’s not the way we do things in the Christian church.
But it’s interesting that it was the custom among the Jews for a Rabbi to sit and teach.
We have on record several instances of Jesus sitting down to teach and preach.
But not here! John specifically mentions that at this point in the feast Jesus stood up.
And then it was not just in order to teach… but to cry out in a loud voice. Notice:
On the last day of the feast Jesus stood and said in a loud voice…!
It may seem to you that I’m making too much of this.
Maybe Jesus simply stood so that among the temple crowds, people could see Him… maybe!
And perhaps Jesus simply cried out in a loud voice in order to be heard. Perhaps!
After all He didn’t have the benefit of an amplifier and microphone.
But if that is so obvious then John needn’t have wasted time telling us.
It seems to me that John deliberately wants to show Jesus is here taking on the role of a Herald.
Like an ancient Town Crier who has an important announcement to make that must be heard.
Because Jesus has an important Messianic announcement to make.
That the water poured out during these last seven days is really pointing to Him.
That He is the Rock who gave Israel their water in the wilderness.
He is the Messiah who brings in the new creation in which there will be no more thirst.
The new earth where there will be the river of the water of life as we see in Rev.22.
- In fact this is really nothing less than an announcement of Pentecost (that we remember on Sunday/today).
Jesus is proclaiming the out-pouring of the Holy Spirit on that first Pentecost.
Of course John would not have understood that at the time.
That knowledge would only have come with the wisdom of hindsight.
So in vs.39 he offers us this word of explanation:
By this Jesus meant the Spirit whom those who believed were later to receive.
Why does John tie this matter of Jesus quenching of our thirst in with the coming of the Holy Spirit?
Because Jesus was soon to return to heaven.
The ascension separated Jesus from His church until the day of His returns.
Jesus ascended – and today He’s sitting at the right hand of the Father.
So how on earth can Jesus Christ meet our deep needs and quench our thirst?
Well, He does that through the Holy Spirit.
That is why His quenching of our thirst is not just making sure our own needs are met.
Believing in Him doesn’t merely take away our own feelings of emptiness.
Rather it provides that mighty stream that pours out of our innermost being.
And that water of life in us is a river precisely because it is actually the Spirit of Jesus in us.
We are the temples of the Holy Spirit.
And the Spirit of life makes that water of life flow out of us.
He makes it flow into the desert places of need in our neighbourhoods.
It flows from – and through – us into our workplaces and sporting activities…
into our classrooms and social life.
So that blessing and joy are brought into our community through those whom He indwells.
- Let me make one other comment in closing.
We as a Christians may never separate the work of Jesus from the work of the Spirit.
Some of us put too much emphasis on the Holy Spirit. Others of us hardly dare talk about Him.
Jesus shows us both positions are wrong by giving us a beautiful balance.
It is Jesus who quenches our thirst and it is He who meets our deepest need.
It is He who brings life and salvation… BUT He does that through the gift of His Holy Spirit.
And the living water is really just another way of talking about the blessings of the Holy Spirit.
There would be no living water apart from the Spirit of God.
On the other hand all of this has to wait until Jesus has finished His saving Work.
It is totally dependent on His cross and His resurrection.
Only after Jesus has been glorified will the Holy Spirit be able to come and do His work.
So we cannot talk about the Spirit’s work apart from Jesus.
Because that overflowing ministry of the Spirit was won for us by Jesus.
But because of that we now enjoy this wonderful and glorious blessing – our thirst is quenched.
More than that. The waters of salvation now pour out of us like that mighty river Ezekiel saw.
What a wonderful privilege it is to let that river of life-giving water flow…
into our needy community… with its thirsty people…
into our broken, hurting world… with all its pain and suffering.
May the Spirit of Jesus fill us and so enable us to bring others the Water of Life for God’s glory.
Amen.