Sermon Title: What will quench your thirst?

Sermon Text: John 7:37-39

Sermon Date: August 14, 2005

She came from a broken home. She became convinced her father left because of her misbehavior, that she was bad and he had rejected her, not her mother or the marriage. So of course she carried that baggage into her life. Then on the night before her wedding, her grandfather pulled her aside and warned, “This man you’re marrying is too good for you, but if he leaves you, we’ll take you back.”

This story is in the book “If God is love.” It is the story of the mother of one of the authors. His father later told his son of the first night he left his wife home alone. He returned to find her hysterical and sobbing in their darkened living room. When he asked her what was wrong, she replied, “I was afraid you’d never come back.” Though he assured her he’d never leave her, it took many years for his mother to trust his father’s love. (If God is love, p. 26-27).

“It took his unconditional love to heal her deepest wounds, calm her secret fears, and transform her into a mature, beautiful human being. Where love is triumphant, fear ends.” (p. 27)

We have all felt fear in our lives. Fear of spiders, fear of never realizing dreams, fear of being left alone. Maybe we also fear that we will never be loved, like the woman in the story. Can you imagine being told that you are worthless by your grandfather on the eve of the biggest day of your life. I can’t. My grandfather thought the sun rose and set because of me. My grandfather got up in the middle of the night to make pancakes for me because I woke him and said, “I’m hungry.” My grandfather dug nails out of my sand pile after I dumped them in while he was building his garage and I don’t remember him ever raising his voice to me although I deserved it on the nails. That is what grandfathers do. The role of the grandfather is not to tear down. It is to build up. It is to make us breakfast when we are hungry, to bring us water when we are thirsty. Grandfathers and Jesus have a lot in common. They want the best for us.

In our scripture today, Jesus brought the notion of thirsting for God to his listeners. In Chapter Seven he has had some challenging conversations with the disciples. They think he is behind the scenes too much. They are acting like a Hollywood agent, wanting him out in front of folks, doing stuff to get himself more publicity. But he tells them in The Message – “This isn’t my time, its’ your time. It’s always your time.” They have nothing to lose, no one is after them because Jesus healed a man on the Sabbath. He talks about to the crowd and they don’t know what to make of him. There is talk of him being the Messiah but can you trust it? Later, at the end of the Feast, he said – read from bulletin.

The Pharisees wanted him arrested but the police wouldn’t touch him.

Today begins a series of sermons to entice you to join a small group called “Come Thirsty.” We have small group leaders in training right now preparing for the week of September 25 when they begin. They will occur at different times and places, probably not here at the church. They are to help us grow in our spiritual journey and to encourage us as we deal with the stuff life hands us. We look for life to be neat, tidy and fair, but a therapist friend tells his clients that “fair is on 38^th street in Indianapolis and comes once a year in August.” Life just isn’t fair.

Max Lucado is the author of this small group ministry, a well-known author of many, many books. He wrote this because everywhere – in bars, in homes, and even in churches, people are thirsty. The foreword of his book is written by musician Michael W. Smith and he says: “We all know what it is like to be thirsty – both physically and spiritually. That longing to quench your dry mouth can be powerful. But a dry heart – that’s unbearable. You need refreshment and you need it now. If your heart has become a little crusty, if your spirit is dry, if your heart is parched, you’ve come to the right place.”

Television would like to convince us that they have the answer to our thirst problem. I mean, how many kinds of bottled water are there? Don’t you wish that you had been the one to “discover” that phenomenon? I sure do. I would own my own island with those profits. When Shawn and I stayed at the Hyatt in Denver at the biennial there were bottles of water in our room…for a small fee of $5.00 per bottle and these were sitting right next to the bathroom sink where water flowed for free…not exactly free but you know what I mean. We still laugh about the absurdity of it. But people are opening those bottles and paying those prices or they wouldn’t still be there. People are thirsting for the wrong kind of water.

You can see that we are building a well. It isn’t ready, of course. It looks like we have a long way to go but never fear, it will be built. And it will be ready for you to find that drink that will quench your thirst.

Max reminds us that God has provided everything to satisfy our spiritual thirst. We all need to go to the WELL of God’s provision. Here is how he suggests we look at it. W E L L.

W – God’s Work: God is actively working and you and for you. We cannot save ourselves. Ephesians 2:8-9 says that salvation is God’s work. “By grace you have been saved by faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast.” 1 Corinthians 15:10 says: “By the grace of God I am what I am.” This encourages us to receive salvation on our behalf and rely on it with confidence. We are saved by grace. God’s grace. Grace defines us. Because of God’s grace, we are free to live the lives God has in store for us. We didn’t earn, in fact, we can’t earn it. It is purely and simply grace from a loving God. We are God’s work in action.

E – God’s Energy: God has given us his energy to be all that God intends us to be. We cannot live the Christian life in our own strength. Thankfully, we don’t need to. God offers us energy, power and spirit – and we can’t get it any other place than from God.

Galatians 3:3 comes with a challenge. “You began your life in Christ by the Spirit. Now are you trying to make it complete by your own power? That is foolish.”

Romans 8:5, 9-11: “Those who trust God’s action in them find that God’s spirit is in them – living and breathing God!…But if God has taken up residence in your life, you can hardly be thinking more of yourself than of God. Anyone, of course who has not welcomed this invisible but clearly present God, the spirit of Christ, won’t know what we’re talking about. But for you who welcome him, in whom he dwells – even though you still experience all the limitations of sin – you yourself experience life of God’s terms.”

L – God’s Lordship: Some aren’t comfortable with words like Lord and King. It feels too militaristic but it means sovereign, not general. It means that God’s ways are always good and we can trust God’s perspective and his purposes. Mary Ellen Ton discovered that after she was badly burned in the fire at the Edna Martin Christian Center. Since many of us know and love Mary Ellen (who will be with us for Homecoming), her story is powerful. The agony of recovering from the burns was devastating to her, Gene and the family and friends that surrounded her. Still she found a way to trust in God’s sovereignty and claimed this verse as her own and the title of the book she wrote about her experiences:

Isaiah 43 says: “When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; And through the rivers, they will not overflow you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be scorched, nor will the flame burn you. For I am the Lord your God.” Her book title “the flames will not consume you.”

When life is unfair, when life is brutal, when people disappoint you, when you disappoint people, even then….the flames will not consume you.

L – God’s Love: When I pray for someone I am aware that God loves this person so much more than anyone else does. In fact God’s love is immeasurable and nothing, nothing can separate us from God’s love as Romans 8:38-39 reminds us.

1 John 4:16 says it clearly “God is love.”

Ephesians 3:17-19 says: “May your roots go down deep into the soil of God’s marvelous love. And may you have the power to understand, as all God’s people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love really is. May you experience the love of Christ, through it is so great you will never fully understand it. Then you will be filled with the fullness of life and power that comes from God.”

The story at the beginning of the message is the total opposite of all we have just heard about God – there was no good work, no positive energy, no heavenly lordship or love in the words of the grandfather. Nothing in her story held any hope for her, except a man who loved her even when she didn’t love herself. And that man’s love quenched her thirst and probably opened the door for her to find the loving God we talk about.

Jesus talked about living water. He probably wasn’t talking about baptismal waters either. Nor about the water we need to drink to survive. He was talking about the relationship with God that saves us from dying of dehydration. Remember, you are already dehydrated before you know you are thirsty. So you could be thirsty and not even know it….right now…..today.

Discover what a deeper relationship with Jesus can do for your life. Come to the well and drink.

Thanks to “Come Thirsty” and Max Lucado for the sermon outline for this.