Jesus Provides Drink to the Thirsty

Well, thank you for your singing. Open your Bibles to John chapter 7, please. To the Gospel of John chapter 7. We'll read and then we'll go to the Lord in prayer. Let's start in verse 37. And we'll finish at verse 52.

John chapter 7, verse 37. On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and cried out, If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water. Now 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 had not yet been glorified.

When they heard these words, some of the people said, this really is the prophet. Others said, this is the Christ. But some said, it's the Christ to come from Galilee. Has not the scripture said that the Christ comes from the offspring of David and comes from Bethlehem, the village where David was? So there was a division among the people over him, and some of them wanted to arrest him, but no one laid hands on him.

The officers then came to the chief priests and Pharisees who said to them, Why did you not bring him? And the officers answered, No one ever spoke like this man. The Pharisees answered them, Have you also been deceived? Have any of the authorities or the Pharisees believed in him? But this crowd that does not know the law is accursed. Nicodemus, who had gone to Jesus before and who was one of the Pharisees, said to them, does our law judge a man without first giving him a hearing and learning what he does and they replied are you from galilee to search and see that no prophets arise arises from galilee let us pray oh father we thank you for this lord's day we thank you this for this day that you've set apart for the church to gather and to hear your word and to respond in faith lord we know that it is good for our souls to be fed Jesus Christ the Lord and we know God of our many weaknesses and shortcomings we know just how weak we are and how we will so easily be distracted away from the things that are good for us away from Christ rather than to be nourished by Christ so Lord we do need the spirit to work in us so that living waters will truly flow from our hearts instead of sin And I pray, God, for the people before me that you would help them to hear and listen and take of anything of truth that's said here and to meditate on it and to live it out.

I pray that the Spirit would help them to do that. And, God, I pray that you would help me to proclaim the word. Let it be clear and let it, Father, be cutting, as the word of God is supposed to be, straight to the soul. Lord, and we're so thankful that you do not beat us up over the head with the law. But instead, Lord, you provide us the spirit of grace and you actually heal our wounds and you enable us.

And so we rely upon him now together as a church. And may we, Lord, grow after the image of Christ together as a church as well. In Jesus' name, amen. Well, I say this often, but I truly do love this time of year, the springtime, this time of year. It kind of fits my schedule perfectly to where when I get up, the sun is just coming up and it's beautiful on the eastern horizon.

I don't like to walk and then I'll, because the sun is up and the weather is good too, I like to go on a walk immediately when I wake up in order to really feel like I'm waking up. I don't like to do that when it's dark out because I guess I'm afraid of the dark. And I don't like to do that when the weather is below the 50s because I guess I'm a wimp.

And so now is that perfect time where the sun is just coming up and it's beautiful on the east and the weather is typically in the 50s, or it can be at least, in the morning. And this morning was especially wonderful because it was warm and because you had the beautiful sunrise on the east and then you had storms in the west. And so you had like a very awesome contrast going on, where you had the thunder and the lightning was going off, and you could see the storm over there.

And then over here on the east, you had this beautiful sunrise, peaceful. And really, it created just a beautiful contrast between the two, right? Peace on the east, and then on the west, there's conflict. I wish I could, I wish there could have been a rhyme, but there wasn't. There's conflict, or there was a storm on the west. And really, each side contrasted with the other and really exemplified the other, the peace and the conflict.

And as I said before, this really reminded me of where we're at in John here, is that if you remember, we are in this section of John in chapter 7, 8, 9, and 10, where we are in the Feast of the Booths. And this is a major Jewish feast where the Jews would gather together, and Jesus goes, and we talked about how there's immediate conflict between Jesus and the religious leaders. And we looked at some of that.

We looked at the heart of the conflict. We saw that the Pharisees who fought against Jesus desired to glorify themselves rather than to glorify God, and it exemplified this conflict. But one thing that we said that moving forward through this feast, through these next few chapters, is in this conflict, in this arguing, in this fighting, we're going to see Jesus proclaim very peaceful and beautiful things that he provides for his people.

In fact, what we're going to see is a contrast between the conflict going on around Jesus, the people hating him, and the peace that he proclaims, that he offers to his people who believe upon him. And that contrast actually reveals each other the more beautiful. We see the conflict of the wicked, and we see the beauties the peace that Jesus proclaims that he provides As they pair up together we see it in greater reality and greater clarity And so here in this Feast of Booths in chapter 7 we come across the first statement of Jesus of what he provides for his people that is of great peace to us And we're going to see four moving forward the next few chapters.

And this is the first one we come across. And that is he is the drink. We see the first thing that Jesus offers that's a way of peace in this kind of chapters of conflict is that he is the one who provides drink. He provides a drink offering here. And so as we look at that, let's look at first this beautiful thing that Jesus provides for us. Let's look at the context of it first to let it really reveal itself, the beauty of it.

And again, let's look at verse 37 to appreciate the context of the drink offer that Jesus provides for his people. Look at what he says again in verse 37. On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and cried out, If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. So the context is this is the last day of the feast of booths. And he calls it, John does, the great day when Jesus cries out that this is what he offers to his people.

You see, the Feast of Booths, as we talked about, was a feast in which it celebrated God taking care of his people as they wandered about in the wilderness. And part of how God took care of his wandering Israelites is that he gave them drink from a rock so that they would have water, they would survive, they would have that blessing despite the fact that they're in a desert. And so what would happen on each day of this feast, which was seven days, each day there would be a water ceremony celebrating the fact that God gave his people water in the desert.

And what this ceremony looked like, and we'll see the significance of this in a moment, what this ceremony each day, each morning during the wine offering on the altar, each morning this ceremony of a water ceremony would happen and this is what it would look like on the seven days prior to the last great day there was a water ceremony that happened every day priests would gather water from the pool called siloam in a pitcher and in a great procession they would carry it up to the temple to the altar and when they would enter the water gate the south side of the inner court, three blasts from a trumpet would sound. The priest then marched around the altar three times while the temple choir sang Psalms 113 to Psalm 118. And when the choir reached Psalm 118, every male pilgrim shook a branch in his right hand while on his left raised a piece of citrus fruit and cried out, give thanks to the Lord three times.

By the way, if they didn't like the priests, you know what would happen a few times, they would take that fruit and chuck it at the priest. But that's not the point here. This is what they would do. They would shout out, give thanks to the Lord. And the water then from the pitcher was poured on the altar in the morning time at the same time when the wine was poured out as an offering as well.

And so that whole celebration of water on the altar happened every day during the Feast of Booths. But the thing is, on the last day, the great day, that no longer happened. That's because on the last day, the great day, was a Sabbath day in which the people of Israel would take down their tents, take down their temporary dwellings of, you know, when they would remember the wandering about in the wilderness.

They would put that down and celebrate the fact that they have now entered into the promised land. So they don't need the water from the rock anymore, right? You don't need that anymore. So it didn't happen on the eighth and the great day. And so it was at this time that Jesus cries out when the water ceremony is not happening anymore, come to me, anyone who thirsts, and I will give you drink.

Now, I think it's significant that Jesus chose this time to cry this out. It's like Jesus is saying, guess what happens at the end of the day? When the physical blessing of water is no longer there, guess what is still happening? You're still thirsty. The Israelites had the water from the rock and it went away and guess what? They were still thirsty.

They were still in need. They were still in need of blessing and Jesus uses when it's no longer celebrated to say you're still thirsty and I'm the one, the fulfillment, who can give you the quenching that you need. And it's the same thing for us, isn't it? We have all these blessings that God gives us and at the end of the day of itself, they will never eternally quench us.

We will always need something eternally more. And it's at that moment that we should hear Jesus cry out, if you thirst, come to me and I will give you the drink. I will give you the eternal drink. Because everything in this world cannot fulfill like that. They will run out. It will run out.

And it is then that you are to look to me and I will give you the drink that will never run out. And I think Jesus uses this time exactly to make that point that all the physical blessings that God provides will run out. It's meant to point us to the eternal spiritual blessing that Jesus and Jesus alone can provide. And this is when he cries out. This is the context of the drink offering is that Jesus is saying, I can fulfill eternally even when everything runs out.

Now, we must remind ourselves what we mean or what Jesus means by this illustration when again he says, if anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Remember, this is just an illustration, a physical illustration meant to point to a spiritual truth. Jesus doesn't have a literal pitcher of water saying, hey, the ceremony isn't happening anymore. There's no more water in the altar, but I got it over here.

Come get a drink of water. That's not the point that Jesus is making, obviously. The point is that Jesus can provide the spiritual drink, the spiritual water. Now, we've already talked about this, that illustration, pointing to what it's actually, or looking at what it pointing to We already looked at that in John chapter 4 with the Samaritan woman You remember that With the Samaritan woman you remember they at the well and the Samaritan woman is there at 12 p It hot She was probably an outcast Probably she was a sinner an outcast because she was a sinner.

And she was at the altar or she was at the well about to get water out. And go to John 4 just so we can be reminded of what exactly the spiritual point is because we see it here in this chapter. You remember, in John chapter 4, verse 7, a woman from Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, give me a drink. For his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.

The Samaritan woman said to him, how is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria? For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans. And Jesus answered her, if you knew the gift of God and who it is that is saying to you, give me a drink, you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water. The woman said to him, remember she can't get off the physical, sir, you have nothing to draw water with and the well is deep.

Where do you get that living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob? He gave us this well and drank it from himself, as did his sons and his livestock. And Jesus said to her, everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.

The woman said to him, sir, give me this water always so that I will not be thirsty. I have to come here to draw water again. It's like one of those, ugh, right? She's not getting it. Remember? So what does Jesus do to point to what he's referring to when he talks about drink?

He points to her sin. You remember that? He says, Jesus said to her, go call your husband and come here. The woman answered him, I have no husband. Jesus said to her, yeah, you're right in saying I have no husband, for you've had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband. That's probably why she's an outcast, because she is, oh, what's the proper way to say this?

She's in sin. Okay, let's just say that. She's in utter sin. That's probably the heartbeat of her sin that's revealed to the society. And the reason why Jesus points there is because the drink that he has to offer people is to no longer be caught in sin. And that's why he points to her thirst, spiritual thirst, her sin, and says, go call your husband.

I don't have any. Yeah, that's right. You've had five. The one you have currently is not your husband. He's pointing out her sin because that is her spiritual thirst. And then you remember what ends up happening after all this.

You remember what she gets excited about after he says that I'm the Christ. You remember in go down to verse 28, the woman left her water jar, went away into town and said to the people, come see a man who told me all that I ever did. Can this be the Christ? She's referring to all of her sin. And she's excited about that now because this Christ can deal with it.

So the point here, what we're looking at is what makes us thirsty is that we are sinners separated from God and we're miserable creatures. That is what it means to be thirsty. And so when Jesus says, if you thirst, come to me and I can give you drink, he's meaning I can make you righteous and together with God again. I can take care of that sin problem, your greatest issue that you have of being separated from God, and I can give you righteousness and peace and union with the Father.

And so he's using this analogy of being thirsty and needing water to point to the fact that I can give you ultimate, eternal drink and fulfillment. This is what Jesus means when he stands and he says, if anyone thirsts, come to me. now going back to verse 37 of chapter 7 we should ask the question what does he mean by if anyone thirsts he says if anyone thirsts let him come to me and drink well what does he mean by if anyone thirsts he does not mean that some people can be satisfied without god in their sin so he's not saying hey there's some of you that are fine in your sin and that's great. You know, you're happy in it.

You go ahead and do you. But, you know, those who aren't, you can come to me. Because the fact is, is even if we don't realize it, we are all miserable in sin. Every one of us is miserable in sin. So he doesn't mean to say that, hey, there's some people that are fine and happy in sin and they are objectively happy in their sin because everyone is miserable in their sin.

And what he doesn't mean by if anyone thirsts. He does not mean that there are those who can quench their eternal thirst and sin on their own by their own ability. So in other words, it's not like he's saying, hey, there's some of you who can deal with this thirst on your own, do with your own religion and your own morality. You can go and just do that.

You'll be fine. What he means by if anyone thirsts, let them come, is he's saying that those who recognize their eternal thirst and that they can only be found to be quenched in me. But Jesus is crying out. He's saying that for those of you who have been awakened to your awful, miserable condition of sin and separation from God and realize that I am the only one who can give you drink, those of you come to me and I'll give you drink.

Fact is, is that there are people who don't recognize and understand their miserable, miserable condition and they continue in their sin and they will not see Jesus and they will not respond to this cry. And there are those who will think that they can find their own drink by their own religion and their own efforts. But the ones that he's crying out to hear, the anyone that he's crying out to hear, are those who recognize their awful condition and they recognize that Jesus is the only one who can help their awful condition.

Those are the ones he's crying out, come to me and I will give you drink. How do we know? Well, he moves on in verse 38 And this is how with this offer of drink this is how you need to respond to the drink offer in verse 38 Jesus moves on in verse 38, and this is how one needs to respond in order to receive that drink that he offers. In verse 38, he says, whoever believes in me, as the scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.

And so again, we have to ask ourselves, okay, so how do we drink of Jesus, right? This is an illustration. How does one drink of Jesus spiritually? And this he explains in verse 38 when he says, whoever believes in me, right? And so to drink equals to believe. So you want to know how to drink Jesus and receive eternal salvation, eternal satisfaction?

How do you do that? Believe upon Jesus, right? And that's how you drink of Jesus. What does it mean to believe? What does it mean to believe? Well, believe, it looks like this.

It looks like trusting in what Jesus says about your condition, trusting that it is true. And also trusting in Jesus that what he says about who he is is true. And we've already said it, but what Jesus says about you and I and everyone is that we are miserable creatures in our sin. And we are miserable because we are separated from the Father. And so if you want to drink of Jesus, you need to believe upon Jesus. and to believe upon Jesus to agree with Jesus of what he says about you.

You're miserable. You're a sinner. There's no hope for you in your sin. It will never satisfy. It will never quench your thirst. There's no end there.

There is no happy end there. And so to believe upon Jesus is to agree with Jesus about what he says about ourselves and our sinful condition. But also to believe upon Jesus is to believe or trust in what he says about himself, in which he says, I am the only one who can help. He doesn't say I am an option. Or try your own religion thing, try your own morality thing for a second, it might help.

Jesus says that I am the only option, the only way, the only one who can give you drink. And to believe upon Jesus is to agree with Jesus that he is my only option to have a drink and this thirst to be quenched. If those two major things, who I am and who he is, doesn't come together, you will never believe and drink of Jesus. If you do not believe that you're not that bad and you're not that thirsty and that you can be satisfied in other things, you will not be a believer in Jesus.

And if you do not believe that Jesus is truly the one who can offer and give you that drink, you will not be a believer in Jesus. So here, to drink of Jesus, this offer of drink, in order to do that, we must believe in him. And when those two things come together, it will cause action in you. Right? When you realize, I'm in a terrible condition, say, I need help.

And when you realize, he's the only one that can help, what are you going to do? You're going to go to the one, the only one who can help you. Like imagine being really tired from a lot of work. Let's say you're working a lot of double shifts, right? And you get home, and you have like six and a half hours of sleep, and then you've got to go back to work.

And so what's the greatest thing that you're going to prize for those six and a half hours? Sleep. You're going to want to go to sleep. That's the only thing you're going to want. Go to sleep. What happens?

Two hours go by, and you're out hard. All of a sudden you hear your carbon monoxide alarm go off, right? Now, if you believe that carbon monoxide alarm, what's going to be more important to you than sleep? Getting out of the house, because you don't want to die in your sleep. But if you don't believe the carbon monoxide alarm, you'll roll your eyes and go back to sleep.

So the belief in the carbon monoxide alarm will drive you to act, to go to safety. And if we truly believe Jesus, we will awaken from our slumber, from our deception of sin, and we'll say, I need to go to Jesus for he's the only one that can help me here from this miserable state that I'm in. It will drive action and you will pursue and follow Jesus Christ.

And this is what he's saying. Whoever believes in me, right? Whoever trusts in me, whoever agrees with me and then follows me because I'm the only way, whoever believes in me. And then he says, what happens when you drink deeply of Jesus? He says in verse 38, as the scriptures has said, out of his heart, will flow rivers of living water. This is what happens when we believe and we take him up on his offer, so to speak, of a drink.

Out of our heart flows rivers of living water. You know what comes out of our heart when we are not drinking of Christ? Rivers of dead water. That's what, who was it, Jake read the Old Testament reading, I think. and it's Ezekiel where the dead sea now is alive. That's a physical reality, but it's a spiritual point. The fact is, is that God can make dead things live.

And so before Christ, our hearts are dead. And what do we do from our heart? We sin. That's what we do. We think this will make me happy. This will satisfy me.

This will give me the end that I desire. And it only makes us more thirsty. And what Jesus is saying is that when you believe upon me, I give you of the spirit or I give you from the heart, living waters or righteousness will flow out instead of sin. Matthew 15, 18 through 19, Jesus says, what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart and this defiles a person for out of the heart comes evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander.

It's within our heart. It's within our desires. It's what we want to do. And so we live in the corruption that makes us thirsty. But here, living water represents righteousness. It's good works.

It's doing things that are pleasing to our Father. And it's from a heart, not just outside cold religious obedience. Jesus, when we believe upon him, can change our hearts to where from it we desire, I want to please my God, that's what drives me now, instead of I want to please my flesh while I continue in my thirst. Living waters is righteousness. It's living right before the Father.

And notice how it says, as the scripture has said, in John 7, 38, Jesus says, as the scripture has said. Jesus probably isn't referring to any particular scripture, although there's different scriptures we can go to that promises the working of true righteousness from the heart and making things alive, as we read in Ezekiel earlier today. But I think what Jesus means by, as the scripture has said, is I think he's talking about the whole proclamation of the scriptures, is that although we are found sinners and dead with dead hearts, I am doing a work that will make you come alive from the heart and living waters will come out.

The whole breadth of the scriptures is that, yes, it is bad, you're thirsty, you're spiritually miserable, but I'm doing a work that will bring living waters from your heart. And that work is Christ. And as we'll get to in a moment, that is the spirit that he sends to enable this life coming forth from us. so as the scripture says, I think he's just referring to, this is the overall breadth of scripture, and I have come to do it, is what Jesus is saying, and now verse 39, John in his gospel provides a little bit of a commentary for us, he'll do this from time to time, he'll provide commentary on what Jesus is saying, and here he provides commentary on what Jesus just said about his offer of drink.

In verse 39, the apostle, he writes, now this he said about the spirit whom those who believed in him were to receive. And so there he's offering a commentary. This is what Jesus was referring to. Now you might think living waters, I thought that was righteous living. I thought that was living righteous. And indeed it is.

Jesus is referring to living right before the Father in union with him. But he's referring to the fact that the Spirit is the one who comes in and enables that in your life. And so the commentary from John obviously is correct. We will live righteously when we drink of Jesus. That is because Jesus will send the Spirit within our very hearts to change it to say, I want to please God now and not my flesh.

Good way to look at it, this whole paradigm of how salvation works is you think of yourself as a car okay and you think of like jesus came to die on the cross and rise again from the dead and that's like him established establishing an engine in you okay but in order for that engine to actually go you need fuel for it to to go and the spirit he sends a spirit in order to be the fuel in that engine to cause you to be an actual car, to actually function like an actual car. And so Jesus Christ died and rose again on the cross, and that is like the engine. The Holy Spirit is the one that comes in and fuels it and has a fire to go and make it work, and then so that you would be a car that actually acts as one.

And this is what Jesus is referring to here. Whoever believes upon me, upon my death, upon my resurrection, whoever entrusts himself to me, I will send my spirit into them and change their heart and cause them to walk in forgiveness of sins and righteousness before my God. I will give them eternal drink. Now, we have to press a little thorny issue here.

What does John mean in verse 39 when he talks about the spirit who enables this work? What does he mean when he says, for as yet the spirit had not been given because Jesus was not yet glorified? Some people read this and it looks like the spirit never worked in the sinner to cause them to walk in righteousness before Jesus came on earth. So that would mean that people either weren't ever saved before Jesus or they were, but it wasn't by the spirit's work.

And we know both of those things are false. people have been saved since the time of Adam, and that is as they put their trust in the coming Messiah, who would then give them the Spirit to enable them to be saved and walk in righteousness. But what does it mean here when it says that he hasn't been given yet, the Spirit hasn't been given yet? Well, I don't think John is saying that the Spirit wasn't active before this time.

The Spirit has always been active for the salvation of sinners as they put their trust in the coming Messiah. But I think the point that John is getting at is that with the coming of Jesus and his work on the cross, he would establish the church, and the church would be made up of those who had the spirit within them So everyone in the church would have a manifestation of the spirit working in them And that contrasting with the old covenant Because in the old covenant you could be in the covenant community You could be an Israelite. But does that mean that you have the spirit in you?

No, not necessarily. And so the old covenant community, you could be in it without the spirit. The point is, it's a new covenant with what Jesus would do. Everyone in that covenant community would have the spirit working in them. this is why we when we baptize people we don't just say hey you want to be part of our club great come on in wonderful another butt in a seat we don't do that we say do you know the gospel has the spirit been at work in you and if so as far as we can tell we then baptize and we welcome them in the covenant community does that make sense and but in the old covenant it didn't require the Spirit's work in you.

And so that's another reason I'm getting on a trail here, but that's another reason why we don't baptize babies, because it requires you to have the Spirit working in you to be one of us. And so we must see that in a profession of faith first before we baptize. But that's a bit of a trail. The point being here is that Jesus offers a drink of water that is of the spirit within your heart to cause you to no longer walk in the thirst of sin but walk in righteousness and union with the father this is why we are miserable creatures because we are not with the father but christ and his work offers us this quenching of this thirst so jesus is making a very big statement here jesus makes very big statements a lot jesus typically makes big statements what he is saying is i am the end of the scripture i'm the fulfillment of everything he's saying that your greatest issue your greatest problem i can take care of that do you understand how big that is you know if you really think about it jesus says your greatest issue i can handle i can take care of come to me i'll do it like for someone to say that they either are insane or they have to be God.

And in this case, Jesus is truly God. He's making these massive statements. I will give you the eternal longings of your heart. Come to me and I will do it. I will not let you down. If I make that statement to you, right, I can fulfill everything about you.

Come to me. I am going to let you down immediately. Jesus makes these large, just insane statements to this crowd. And so when the crowd hears it, we can imagine there's going to be a division over it. There's going to be some who say, wow, this sounds right. Others are going to say he's insane.

Others are going to want to arrest him and kill him. How dare he say such things? There's going to be a division from the crowd. And that's what we see here. After he gives this drink offer, we now see, and we're going to go over these next few points here very quickly, a division among the crowd. In verse 40, we see that.

When they heard these words, some of the people said, this really is the prophet. Others said, this is the Christ. But some said, is the Christ to come from Galilee? Has not the scripture said that the Christ comes from the offspring of David and comes from Bethlehem, the village where David was? And so, John says, there is a division among the people over these audacious statements that he was saying.

Notice that the reasons to not believe him come from, and we've already talked about this because this already came up. It comes from reasons that are easily explained. They say, is the Christ to come from Galilee? He's supposed to come from Bethlehem. And we talked about how, yeah, just a quick little look into it and you'll see, oh, okay, that gets cleared out.

And so typically when we see from John reasons not to believe, it's silly reasons that can be easily explained. and that's what we're seeing here. Division among the people. Some people show a sign of belief, others don't. There is division. That's what he's highlighting. Even the division among the people that were sent to arrest Jesus from the Pharisees.

In verse 43 or verse 44, look at your text. Some of them wanted to arrest him, but no one laid hands on him. And the officers that were sent to arrest him, they came to the chief priests and the Pharisees who said to them, why did you not bring him and the officers the answer no one ever spoke like this man so even a division among the officers that were meant to arrest him you remember earlier i think we went over it last time the pharisee sent officers to arrest jesus in verse 32 look at your text the pharisees heard the crowd muttering these things about him and the chief priest and the pharisees sent officers to arrest him those police officers would have been levites in the temple meant to protect the temple from people that would create disruption.

So the Pharisees, afraid of Jesus, send these police officers to Jesus. They hear these wonderful words from Christ, I am the drink that can quench all your longing. And it causes them to not fulfill their mandate to arrest them They go back to the Pharisees and the Pharisees say why didn you bring them We need them And he said no one ever talked like this man This man amazing So we seeing a division of opinion from what Jesus is saying across the board here, right?

Now the point, the reason why I'm emphasizing that, and this is the last major point we're going to make here, is that the religious leaders, what is the point of the religious leaders. It is to bring the people to Christ. That is, all these different opinions, right, everywhere, the religious leaders, the point that they were supposed to do from God is to bring all those opinions and bring them to the Messiah to come and to bow the knee to Christ.

It is to be a good shepherd to the people and to bring them to the over-shepherd of their souls. The whole point of religious leaders were to be good shepherds and lead them to Christ. And so here at this moment, the religious leaders could do it. They could bring them all together and say, okay, this is Messiah. Here's the division. Here's the issues you're having.

We looked into it. He's actually from Bethlehem. It's all right. Go to him. That's what the religious leaders were supposed to do. But what we'll see over and over and over again are the religious leaders are going to drop the ball and do the very opposite.

And it's a tragedy in the scriptures that God would set up these offices of religious leaders and they would not do what they were supposed to do, but do the very opposite and try to get people away from the Messiah. Now, why would they do that? Why might they do that? And we already talked about it. Jesus has already said it a couple times as he argued with the religious leaders.

They do it because they don't desire the glory of God, but they desire their own glory. And because they desire their own glory, they lead people away from Christ instead of leading people to the Christ. And so that's what we see here, is that the religious leaders drop the ball once more, and the way they do it is in a funny fashion. It shows their silliness.

Look at what, after they say, no one's ever spoke like this, in verse 47, the Pharisees answered them, have you also been deceived? Have any of the authorities so the Pharisees believed in him. But this crowd that does not know the law is a curse. So what they're saying is, has any of us believed in him? And the answer should have been, yeah, and you bring people to him, but they fail.

But their answer, what they're saying is, has any of the authorities believed in him? And they're saying that the crowd who does not know the law, that are actually wanting to go to him, they are a curse. They don't know the law. Now, it's irony what's about to happen here. Because they're saying two things. None of the religious leaders are believing upon him.

Therefore, you shouldn't. And these people who are believing upon him, they don't know the law. And what's about to happen in this next verse is going to show there are some religious leaders who are believing upon him. So that part's wrong. And the second part is, and you don't know the law because you're not doing the law. So both things they say here, John in his gospel turns on them and says they are wrong about both aspects.

So, again, let's look at that. The Pharisees answered them. have you also been deceived have any of the authorities believed in him in verse 48 but this crowd doesn't know the law and their curse and both things are going to get turned on their own head when verse 50 nicodemus who had gone to him that is jesus before and who was one of them said to them does our law judge a man without first giving him a hearing and learning what he does see nicodemus is a pharisee and nicodemus went to jesus in john chapter 3 and nicodemus a pharisee is starting to believe. In fact, his courage is kind of building up and he's actually challenging his other Pharisees saying, are we really fulfilling the law by not by the law judging or asking this man who he's about and getting to know everything about him?

And so the point here is that have any of the Pharisees believed? And John here in an irony is saying, yep, one of them is. And then it says, this crowd who doesn't know the law, they're a curse. And And then Nicodemus says, yeah, you're not really obeying the law yourself by not looking into this Jesus and just with hatred in your heart wanting to kill him immediately.

So there's an irony here, a failure of the religious leaders to do their part well, in which they are driven by glory for self, in which they don't care about the law truly. They just care about their own glory revealed here and the fact that they don't want anything to do with Jesus. They just want to kill him. this is going to be contrasted by the way in john chapter 10 when jesus says i am the good shepherd these shepherds they don't cut it they're filled with self-glory they don't care about anything they don't do their job well they don't know the law they don't obey the law but i am the good shepherd as opposed to these false shepherds and so after nicodemus says this showing their hypocrisy showing that they were wrong on both accounts of what they said to the officers in verse 52 the religious leaders replied with a very intelligent good argument that made biblical sense no they resort to name calling they replied in verse 52 to Nicodemus are you from Galilee too you know what they saying there Are you an idiot too What are you stupid You must be stupid too Anyone from Galilee is stupid You must be from Galilee just like that man is, right?

Jesus is an idiot. You must be an idiot too. Are you an idiot too? And he says, search the scriptures and see that no prophet arises from Galilee. You're an idiot. No one comes from Galilee.

Now, again, if they were doing their job, if they cared, they would look into Jesus and see, oh, he's actually not from Galilee. Oh, he's actually from Bethlehem. But they're not doing their job because they're not good shepherds. And then another thing is a prophet does come from Galilee. That is Jonah. But that's neither here nor there.

The fact is that John is just in almost like it's just very ironic that these guys are so bad at doing their job and their hatred of Jesus because they're filled with self-glory. Now, what I want to leave us with here to conclude is that we will make up any reasons we can to not go to Jesus for a drink. We see this over and over again. Here Jesus cries out, if anyone thirsts, come to me.

And that's anyone who thirsts, come to him. And we will make up any reason to say, yeah, I think I would rather do that instead. Or yeah, I don't know about you because of this silly reason. We will make up any reason we can in order not to receive the eternal, life-quenching, everything, goodness drink from Jesus. And we will do that even now. Even believers, we will play around with our sin as we make up excuses not to come to this Jesus.

We see the excuses from the Pharisees that are sad. We see the excuses from some of the crowd. There's misconceptions that if they simply were thirsty, they would let it all go and go to Jesus. So the thing that it presses upon us is that we need to thirst for righteousness. We need to thirst for union and closeness with our Father. That needs to be our greatest desire above everything, anything else this world has to offer.

And when that is happening, we will then see Jesus here and cry out and say, I will give you drink and we will go to Jesus and we will not make up silly, and may I say stupid excuses to not go to him. Now, you may be a Christian right now saying, well, I'm a believer. I have the spirit within me and I still sin. What's wrong with me? And the point is, is this cry from Jesus is an eternal cry as you live this life.

Come to him and you will receive drink. Go to him afresh. Turn away from your sin afresh and go to Christ. He will give you the drink. so often as Christians we can forget the foundational truths of the gospel and think that I will be happy elsewhere and this cry of crisis for you beloved no happiness is found in Christ alone not in sin and he will because he's a good and kind shepherd give you the drink that you need so go to Christ and of course if you've never went to Christ if you always close your ears off and made up silly excuses, stop doing that.

Simple enough. Don't do it anymore. Go to Christ. Stop thinking that your joy is found in your friends or in partying or any other sin that you think is going to satisfy you. It won't. It'll leave you not satisfied.

It'll leave you in eternal wrath. But Christ stands now and says, come to me and drink. I will satisfy you. I will bring you in union with God. I can do it for I've died and rose again and I give my spirit to anyone who believes. Let us pray.

Oh God, thank you for this call of Christ, this cry of Christ, this offer of the gospel. Even in the mayhem with the religious leaders and their hatred of him and the arguing and the fighting that this feast aboost, I'm so thankful, Lord, that Christ reveals himself as the fulfillment of it all. And he gives us everything we need. Lord, would you remind us of this now?

Lord, as I said just a moment ago, for those who have never believed upon Jesus, will you help them to believe upon him now that they would agree with him about their condition, that they are sinners and that their sin will never satisfy and they would agree with Jesus that he's the only one who can satisfy because he has done the work of forgiveness and he provides the power of the spirit of righteousness. Lord, would you remind those believers who before me who have believed maybe for years and years and decades, yet they find themselves tempted with sin? They find themselves tempted with different contrary notions?

Would you help them to see and be reminded afresh of what the gospel is, that is, that Jesus is our only hope, that when we follow him, he truly gives us all the pleasures of this world are found in him, not in sin. And may you help us to delight ourselves in Christ now as we finish out our worship together and as we, Father, continue this Lord's Day and as we go into this week, I pray that we would go into it, Lord, having drank deeply of Christ and his righteousness and his ways and we would please ourselves in him. In Jesus' name, amen.