Water for Thirsty Souls

We're going to take you on a time travel for a few minutes. I want you to imagine yourself in Jerusalem. It is somewhere around 30 A.D. You are in the temple along with thousands of other people. You've been in Jerusalem for about six days and you've been observing the festival or the feast of tabernacles. It's the fall festival for Israel. It's the time when they come together to thank God for the harvest that He's given them. It's the time when they come together and thank God for all of the provision that He made for Israel. And remember that provision back in the wilderness and the time when they were going through the wilderness to come to the land. And so you've been worshipping for six days. You've been going to the temple and worshipping with thousands of other Jewish people. But today is the last day of the feast of tabernacles. You get up early in the morning because there are special observances at the temple today. And you leave your little hut, your little lean-to-hut, made of branches of trees that you've been living in to remind yourself of the wilderness wanderings of Israel. You leave that in time to get to the temple before the morning sacrifice at nine o'clock in the morning. When you arrive, you watch the crowd gather thousands and thousands of people there. There are about two million people in Jerusalem at this time during the feast. And you and many, many others are gathered for this special festival service. And you watch the high priest as he takes a golden bowl and leads a procession out of the temple through the water gate down that spiny mountain side called the city of David or Mount Zion to the saloon pool, the Gihon spring, where you hear the crowd as they follow him singing and chanting Psalm 112 and verse 3. As they sing to the Lord, or actually Isaiah 12, 3 is what you will hear as they are singing and chanting with joy you draw water from the wells of salvation. And you hear them as they go down to the well and they draw from the pool of saloon that priest does, dips that bowl and gets some water. They come back toward the temple and they come back through the water gate and into the temple. And as they're coming back, they're singing Psalm 113 through Psalm 118. The songs of a sense, those six Psalms, small chapters, most of them, which deal with the people of Israel going up to Jerusalem to worship. And as they come back into the temple, you hear them shouting and singing Psalm 118 verses 25 and 26. Lord, save us. Lord grant us success. Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord, that is a messianic prophecy. It will be shouted when Jesus comes in to Jerusalem on Palm Sunday. From the house of the Lord, we bless you. And you watch as this great crowd of people and ceremony of people make their way toward the brazen author. And rather than going up on the brazen author as they've done the rest of the week, this time they circle it seven times. In remembrance of the fact that Israel came into the land, that Jericho, and encircled that city seven times, while the priest and those with him are encircling the brazen author seven times. Other Levites are blowing the shofar, the ram's horn trumpet, as they did on that day when the walls of Jericho fell. And your mind is full of the remembrance of God's blessing and power and provision in the Old Testament for His people. You strain to watch as the priest walks up that incline to the top of the brazen author and lifts the bowl high for everybody to see that bowl of water. You strain to watch because you know that your tradition tells you that there is a special blessing for everyone who sees the water poured out. And you watch as the priest pours that water from that golden bowl into a special funnel at the edge of the author that will take it down to the base of the author. And you watch and celebrate with others as they burst into a roar of praise to the Lord for God's provision for all of their needs through the wilderness and bringing them to this land. And you celebrate with others and then you pause as everybody else does waiting, waiting for the sacrifices to get ready and be prepared to be offered. And in those few hushed moments, you look out of the corner of your eye, you see someone stand. And all of a sudden he begins to speak and his voice is so loud, it jolt you, it fills the pimple and you hear him saying, let anyone who is thirsty, come to me. And drink whoever believes in me as scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them. It is spying tingling, it is dramatic, it is awesome. As you wait to see what will happen, the stranger sits back down and then you recognize him, you've heard him teach before. This is Jesus of Nazareth who is talking and it becomes apparent what he's saying. What he's saying is that everything that you've seen here today, the provision of all of Israel's needs in the Old Testament, the water from the rock that has been symbolized in this ceremony today. That is all fulfilled in me. All you need to do is come to me and drink. And you will not only find water for yourself, but springs of water flowing out from you for others. Come to me, all that you've seen today is fulfilled in me. It is spying tingling, it is stunning what you have just heard. And I want you to fill that same drama, that same spine tingling, suddenness and urgency for those of you who have come to this congregation today, who have come to this building, not the temple but the church. And you've come with needs, you've come with spiritual needs, you've come with life needs and some of you are at the end of your rope, you're at the very end of your resources, you're at the end of your strength and ability to try to make life work anymore. And you've come with your soul, bear and your needs heavy upon your heart, I want you to feel the same drama, I want you to feel the same electricity in the atmosphere as you hear Jesus saying to you. If you're thirsty, come to me and drink and you'll find a well of water springing up within you. Come to me, Jesus says, because Jesus Christ is God's provision for all of our needs. And I want you to see that and sense that and feel that and embrace that this morning, that Jesus Christ, just like fulfilling all those ceremonies in the temple, will fill every need in your heart and life today. He is God's provision for all of our needs, first of all for the need of salvation. Notice how He says, I am God's provision for salvation, you'll find it in verse 37. This is an invitation to salvation on the last and greatest day of the festival Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, let anyone who is thirsty, come to me and drink. Jesus is giving an invitation and it's an invitation for salvation, it's an invitation for people who have soul thirst and need a savior. There are four key words in this invitation this morning, the first word is thirsty. If anyone is thirsty, let anyone who is thirsty, and that's where it begins my friend. We know what it means to be thirsty. Most of us don't really know what extreme hunger is, but many of us in this room would know what extreme thirst is. Maybe you've been working too long too hard out in the sun for a period of time and you're just parched with thirst. You know what it's like to be thirsty and have thirst is the recognition of a physical need for water, for fluids to replenish your body. But what Jesus is talking about here is not physical thirst and it is not physical needs. Jesus is talking about spiritual thirst, spiritual needs, he's talking about recognizing a need deep in your soul, being aware of a need, not of your body, not of your physical thirst, but a spiritual thirst in your soul. Ultimately, it is, even though you may not recognize it as such, ultimately it is a thirst for Christ that is created by the Holy Spirit, that thirst is created by the Spirit of God seeking to draw you to the only one who can quench that thirst. So maybe you've come to church this morning, thirsty. You realize you are sinful and you thirst for cleansing from your sin. Maybe you come this morning, burdened with guilt and you're thirsty for forgiveness. Maybe you come this morning to this congregation, keenly realizing your own weakness and failure, you've tried over and over again to get your life together and get your act together and start living like you know you're supposed to. And you just haven't been able to do it and you come this morning with a deep sense of weakness and failure and you're thirsty for strength and deliverance. Maybe you come this morning and you're full of fear and your heart cries out and you thirst for rest for peace in your soul. Maybe you come this morning and you are racked with despair. You literally are at the end of your rope. You don't know what to do next or where to turn and you've done everything you know to do. You come looking for some answer, hoping something will be said or done that will give you some answers. You are thirsty for hope. Just for hope. Just for another day of hope. You come this morning and you recognize something deep in your soul. The thirst. You recognize the need. You're thirsty. You're different ultimately all of that thirst is a thirst for Christ. It's a thirst for the water. The only one who can quench that thirst and meet your need. So Jesus says if you're thirsty, that's okay. That's a good place to be. If you recognize your need, then you'll get some help. And then Christ, are you thirsty today? Have you come here with needs in your soul and you recognize that ultimately it's a spiritual need. Then Jesus says something else. The second word is the word come. If anyone is thirsty, come, he says come to me. He says that's where the thirst will be quenched. Christ alone can satisfy the kinds of thirst that I was talking about a moment ago. And he satisfies that thirst because he came to die for your sins on the cross, to be able to provide you that forgiveness and that spiritual cleansing and that hope through salvation. Jesus Christ came to do that for you so that your thirst might be quenched. Now many of you have gone to so many other things to try to quench your thirst. You have gone to pleasure and you've tried that to fill the void in your life thinking that maybe if I could just be happy, if I could do stuff to make me smile and laugh and be happy, then that thirst will go away, but it hasn't has it. Some of you have gone to pleasure, some of you have gone to money and you thought that will satisfy my thirst. If I can just get this really good job, if I can just make this amount of money and you have found that hasn't quenched the thirst, it's still there, isn't it? Some of you have gone to fame, popularity, climbing the ladder of success, being recognized as the best in whatever you do. And when you reach that top of the ladder, your real has to, I'm still thirsty, there's still an emptiness inside. Now that didn't quench that thirst, some of you have gone to self-indulgence and you've indulged in all kinds of escapist kinds of sins, sins that feed the flesh and make you feel good for a little while, but afterwards you're racked with guilt and you realize the thirst is still there. Some of you have gone to intellectual ambitions, feeling like if I can just get all my questions answered, the thirst will go away. Some of you have gone to religious ceremony, thinking that if I try this or that or the other, if I get into church, if I try religion, if I go through this particular ritual, then somehow the thirst will be gone. And you are just like a traveler in the desert. And you've looked out there on the horizon and you've seen what appears to be a pool of water that will quench your thirst. And you've made every effort to get to that, but the closer you've gotten, the smaller it's gotten. Until finally you realize it's just a mirage, it's not real, I've been deceived. And so many of you this morning, maybe just like that, you've gone everywhere else to try to have your thirst quenched. And Jesus is saying to you this morning, quit going to all of those mirages, all of those deceptions. Come, come to me, he says. Come to him and you will find the deep thirst of your soul to be met. He is the provision for salvation. Turn your back on all those other things. And Jesus who died for your sins on the cross will cleanse you, forgive you, give you life and purpose, eternal home in heaven. Give you freedom, open up your life, give you deliverance, give you peace and rest, he will save you. But there's a third word Jesus says, it's very important as well. It's the word drink. If anyone is thirsty or let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink. When you realize that you're thirsty and there is some water available to you, that water is not going to do you any good if you examine all of its chemical properties. If you think about how marvelous it is and how wonderful it is, how good it would taste. If you understand that it is exactly what you need, it's not going to do you any good until you pick up that glass and drink that water. And what Jesus is saying is it doesn't do you any good just to recognize your need and to know in your mind that there was a man named Jesus who came and died on the cross to pay for your sins. The real question is, have you ever taken him? Have you ever taken him in and the drink is a figurative expression for making Christ your own? It means to receive him, John 1, 12, but as many as received him to them gave you the authority to become the children of God, even to them that believe on his name. Faith in Christ means to embrace him as your savior, to take him into your life as your savior and Lord, abandoning all your confidence in yourself, abandoning all those other places and means you have gone to to try to satisfy that thirst. You come to Christ and by faith you receive him as your savior. You trust your eternal destination to him. You trust your life to him. He becomes your savior and your Lord. Jesus drink him. If I were to offer every one of you here this morning a $20 bill which I'm not going to do by the way. But if I were to offer each of you a $20 bill and I were to pull it out of my wallet, I left my wallet back in the office, sorry. But if I were to pull that out and I were to say, okay, here's $20 and I've got enough for everybody in this room, now come get it. In order for you to have that $20 you would need to actually come. You can't sit there and just say, well, isn't that nice of John to do that? That's so nice. I'm glad he loves me so much that he's willing to offer me $20. And that's so kind and generous of him to do that. It's not going to help you a bit unless you come and actually receive it. Take it. And it becomes your personal possession unless you receive Christ, unless you trust him from your heart by faith, receive him into your life. It does you know good to know that the offer is on the table. You must receive him as your savior. So if you're thirsty, come drink and then notice the fourth keyword. Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink. The provision is unlimited. The provision is for anybody. Oh, Jesus said anyone. Anyone who is thirsty. If you recognize your thirst, anyone realizing their need can come and drink. Don't think that you've done too much or you've gone too far in your past or you're too far away from God for him to accept you and love you. Don't ever think that there's too much that you've done that God somehow can't forgive you. He can't accept you. You've gone too far. You've trampled his name under foot. Don't think that if you realize your thirsty, you can come. You can drink and you can be saved. The question is won't you take him now? Won't you receive him now? If anyone let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink, he is the provision for salvation. But notice he is also, Jesus himself says the provision for the Christian life. Look at verse 38. Jesus goes on to make a promise to the one who does believe in him, to the one who does trust him as savior, to the one who does get saved. Jesus makes an additional promise to that person, verse 38. Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them. Now verse 39, John explains what he meant. By this he meant the spirit whom those who believed in him were later to receive, up to that time the spirit had not been given since Jesus had not been glorified. Now notice his provision. His provision is to meet all of our needs as believers. If we believe in him, trust him as savior, he will meet all of our needs. And by that he means he will give us the Holy Spirit. And he says since he had not yet been glorified, Jesus was going to give the Holy Spirit after he went back to heaven in this church age in a fullness of his working that had been unknown in the Old Testament. The Holy Spirit had been very active in working in the Old Testament. But not in the fullness and to the degree that he would in the New Testament church. And so he promises that he will be with us forever, that he will indwell us. Here it is my friend. Here's the abundance of his provision. God gives the Holy Spirit to everyone who trusts Christ as savior. It's the same provision. No one is slided. You don't get a third of the Holy Spirit or a half of the Holy Spirit. You need to be filled more. No. You get the presence of the Holy Spirit when you trust Christ. Every one of us in this room who has saved has the same provision to live the Christian life. And please note the abundance of that provision. He says there in verse 38, if you believe in me as the Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them. Not just a little trickle coming out of the tap, but this is the full presence of the Holy Spirit, which means rivers, streams of living water, eternal life changing, life authoring, life directing water, the provision for everything you need to live the Christian life you already have in the presence, person and power of the Holy Spirit. It's the same for all of us. And so that living water to give us spiritual satisfaction, peace, rest, calmness, strength, joy, faith, temperance, all of those things, and many others listed in the Bible, the fruit of the Spirit, everything else that we need to live the Christian life is provided by the presence of the Spirit of God. But notice that provision is not to be hordered. Jesus speaks of the Holy Spirit's presence in us as being rivers of living water that will flow from within you. It will flow out to others. And it will touch the lives of other people. And so what Jesus is saying is you are not just a drinker. You are a carrier of the water to other people. We are not just sponges, we are springs of living water. So He has given us the Holy Spirit to enable us to do whatever we need to do to live the Christian life. The strength for living the Christian life is not up to you. It is not up to your power and ingenuity and ability. The Holy Spirit has been given you to enable you to strengthen you to help you every day of your life, every moment of every day. But it is more than just taking all that in and being thankful that God has given us the Holy Spirit to guide us and strengthen us and help us and give us wisdom. He has given us the Spirit of God so that that water might flow out to other people. And we might be a blessing to other people and share that living water with other people. That is His provision. And when you think of the fact that God has made all the provision we need for living the Christian life, then I have to ask myself, why are failure? Why are failure? Why do we fail so much? Why do I fail so much to live up to what God expects of me in His Word? Why? If I had the presence of the Spirit of God within me as an eternal comforter and helper and encourageer and strengthener, why am I failing so much? Why am I not living up to what God expects? And I think there may be a few answers to that. Let me just quickly suggest three. One may be a lack of daily faith. You first came to Christ through faith. You trusted Him because you knew you could not do it on your own. You could not save yourself and you needed Christ to save you. And it is the same way with daily life. We can't do that on our own either. Our own strength and our own knowledge and wisdom is not enough to help us live as we ought to live. That is why we have the Holy Spirit. There must be this constant state of daily walking by faith. I love the way Paul says in Galatians 5, after talking about the battle between the flesh, our sinful nature and the Holy Spirit and the fact that we have the Spirit that can give us that fruit in our lives and help us to be Christ like, he summarizes it by saying this in verse 25. Since we live in the Spirit or by the Spirit, since we've got all this available to us, let us keep in step with the Spirit. It is just like a little child who is trying to walk in the steps of his or her parent. You have seen that happen. Haven't you? Maybe you have had it happen to you where you are walking through the snow and little kids behind you and they are right in step with you. Stepping exactly where you have stepped. Or maybe you would think of it in terms of the Holy Spirit alongside you. He actually is with us every moment of every day. And as you walk through life, you are always looking to see. What does he want me to do? I want to stay in step with him. Now we only know that through the Word of God. And as we let the Lord impress upon our hearts through his Spirit, we are sensitive to his working in our lives. As we stay in step with him, as we walk every moment depending on him, as we every moment say, Lord, I do not have the wisdom I need for the challenges of this day. I do not have the strength to live as I should. I need you. Thank you that you have given me your Spirit. I want to be sensitive to him. I want to walk in step with him all this day and not take off my own way. So I want to stay obedient to you. I want to stay yielded to you so that I do not grieve the Spirit or quench the Spirit. But I can walk in step with the Spirit. So maybe it is a lack of faith daily or maybe it is a lack of time with Christ. Maybe it is a lack of time with Christ. In order for you to be a well spring to other people and waters to be flowing out from you to others, you have to be full yourself. Water can't overflow from an empty glass or a half full glass, only from a full glass. And so it may be that you are not spending time with Christ to get yourself filled up spiritually speaking, full of His Word and full of His wisdom, full of His faith. So that the Spirit of God can then just flow over from you to others. So it is required if we are going to have this kind of Spirit help in living that we first of all get filled up ourselves that we are willing to sit at His feet and receive from Him. That is why worship is so important. That is why time in His Word is so important. If all you do is try to give, give, give, serve, serve, serve, serve. It is great to serve. But that is the capstone of first of all loving Him and then growing in Him so that you receive and you get filled up. And then the service naturally flows out of the overflow of that. But if all you try to do is give, give, give, give, live, live, live, try to obey, try to work, try to do my best and you are not receiving anything. Sure you are going to run on empty all the time spiritually. You have to get full before you can overflow to others. And then the third problem, the reason why the Spirit of God is not working powerfully through us may be a dirty channel. Maybe we have clogged up the channel with sin and disobedience. And so the Spirit of God is not coming through in our own hearts and lives and outward to others because we have got a lot of sin and disobedience in our lives that is choking off His power. That is the reason for our failure. So Jesus says, I have given you everything you need to live the Christian life. I have given you the Holy Spirit. So be sensitive to His presence, His working, His conviction, His nudging, His prompting, walk in step with Him every day. Stay close to Jesus in His Word. Get filled up from His Word and time with Him and make sure there is nothing clogging your life that keeps the Spirit of God from working in you and through you. And then you will sense, I have everything I need. Now that should never become, I have got it licked now, man, I have got this thing down. I can really live the Christian life because there you go, you think, okay, I can do it now. I have learned the tricks. That is self effort. It is a daily requirement of humble dependence upon God knowing that I cannot live as I should on my own. I need His strength, His wisdom, His power, His enablement. I need Him. And thankfully He has given me the Spirit of God to do just that. That is the provision for the Christian life. So Jesus stands up in the temple and basically says, I have everything you need for salvation. I have everything you need for the Christian life to live as God wants you to. Now how are you going to respond? Quickly, let us look at how people responded to Him. Look at the division concerning Christ. As a result of this teaching, there were four responses. We are just going to mention them quickly. Verse 40 and 41. On hearing His words, some of the people said, surely this man is the prophet. Others said, he is the Messiah. So some were impressed with him. He is the prophet that Moses spoke about in Deuteronomy 18 or, yeah, he is the Messiah. They were impressed with him. Now where they went with that, whether that led the genuine faith in embracing him as Savior, we are not told. But they were impressed with him. My friend is not enough to be impressed with Christ. You must trust him as your Savior. So some were impressed with him. Secondly, some were prejudiced against him. Look at the middle of verse 41. Still others asked, how can the Messiah come from Galilee? Does not scripture say that the Messiah will come from David's descendants and from Bethlehem, the town where David lived? Thus the people were divided because of Jesus. Some wanted to seize him, but no one laid a hand on him. Now notice some were prejudiced against him because they thought, hey, Jesus, he is from Nazareth. Doesn't the Bible tell us that the Messiah will come from Bethlehem? They were prejudiced against him because they had wrong information, weren't they? They had the wrong information. He did come from Bethlehem. He was born there. It wasn't until he was two years old that he went to Nazareth after leaving Egypt. You remember the whole story in Matthew? And he was raised in Nazareth from age two or so on, but he was born in Bethlehem. They had wrong information. A lot of people are prejudiced against Jesus because they got the wrong information. That's why we need to be getting clear, biblical information to people. A lot of people don't come to Christ because they don't understand who he is. They got wrong information. Thirdly, there were some who were moved by him, verses 45 and 46. Finally, the temple guards. Remember those guys? Remember last week in verse 32, the high priest and the Pharisees, they were so enraged about what Jesus was teaching in the temple. They sent these temple guards to go arrest him. What did they do? Well, verse 45, finally the temple guards went back to the chief priest, the Pharisees, who asked them, why didn't you bring him in? Verse 46, no one ever spoke the way this man does the guards replied. They went to arrest Jesus and they were arrested by his words. They didn't ever heard anybody speak like this. Arrest him? Are you kidding? And so they were moved by him. Their heart was moved whether or not that resulted in them coming to Christ by faith. We don't know. It's not enough to be moved emotionally by what you hear. That emotional engagement must then lead to a concrete faith in Christ and embracing of him as your savior, a turning over of your life to him. Otherwise, it will just be a fleeting emotional impression. You'll be moved but not transformed. No life change. So some were moved by him and then some fourthly were enraged against him. Look at the response of the Pharisees in verse 47. You mean he is deceived you also? The Pharisees retorted. Have any of the rulers or of the Pharisees believed in him? No. But this mob that knows nothing of the law, there's a curse on them. Oh, the arrogance of self-righteousness. Here are these religious leaders who basically say, you're just like that mob down there. Those no good common people who don't know anything about the law. They've not studied like we've studied. They don't know anything. There's a curse on them. Basically, they were uttering a curse that I will not utter utter in this assembly. But you understand what I'm talking about. They were basically condemning these people to hell. We're up here. We know better. And you think you've been deceived by him too? There are lots of folks who are enraged against Jesus and think of those who trust him as savior as being some kind of low life that really don't know very much. They're certainly not very intellectual if they go for that religious stuff. Kent Hughes, who has written a very good commentary on the gospel of John, one of the ten commentaries that I'm enjoying using in this series. Kent Hughes basically says this. He says, he gives us illustration. He says, when I was a senior in college, I was taking a class in restoration English. And one day, William Calper's hymns were mentioned. As part of the English literature side of things, William Calper's hymns were mentioned in this college class. And I expressed admiration for there is a fountain filled with blood, which is one of the hymns that Calper wrote. Here's what happened. He said, my professor looked up slowly over his glasses. And then with a rye smile on his face said, Mr. Hughes, have you become a tambourine banger? You nobody's saying, don't you? Are you like those miserable little salvation army people that gathered down on the street corner and preached on the street corner of banger tambourine? You want those people? I certainly don't feel that way about those people, but this college professor did. What was he saying? You're a low life, you're a non-intellectual. Don't tell me you're moved by that stuff. And that dribble comes out of many of college and university classroom. By people who have never seriously investigated the claims of Christ. And that's exactly what happens next. Somebody speaks up for Jesus. Look at this, this is fascinating, verse 50. Nicodemus, who had gone to Jesus earlier, he's investigated the claims. He's asked the right questions. Nicodemus, who had gone to Jesus earlier and who was one of their own number, one of the Pharisees and the Sanhedrin asked, does our law condemn a man without first hearing him to find out what he's been doing? That was a dagger to the heart of these self-righteous Pharisees. They have just made the statement, these common mob people, they don't know anything about the law and Nicodemus is basically saying, well you may know it, but you're not doing it. You know what our law says, don't you? Our law says not to condemn anybody till we've given to a fair hearing first. You talk about stoking the pot, stirring the pot of anger against Jesus. Wow, were they ever enraged that, look at verse 52, they replied, are you from Galilee 2? Look into it! And you'll find that a prophet does not come out of Galilee, they were so enraged, they mispoke. If they really knew their Bible, they should have known that Jonah came from Galilee, Nehom came from Galilee, Elijah came from Galilee. But they're just taken up with rage now, the facts don't matter. And there are a lot of people who have turned their back on Christ who have never even investigated the claims. Nicodemus was shouted down by those who, unlike him, had never seriously investigated the claims of Christ. Harry Arnzide, who back in the first half of the last century was pastor Moody Church in Chicago, did a lot of debating with intellectuals and debating on issues of Christianity. And he said, I have never met a skeptic who's ever read one book on Christian evidences. That may be true in his personal experience, and I'm sure there are exceptions, but aren't most people who deny the faith, people who've never looked at the evidence? That's what CS Lewis found at Oxford. He started a club to debate the philosophers and the skeptics at Oxford University. And this is what CS Lewis said, and I quote, we of the Christian party discovered that the weight of the skeptical attack did not always come where we expected it. Our opponents had to correct what seemed to us, their almost bottomless ignorance of the faith they supposed themselves to be rejecting. What he's saying basically is they had never investigated or taken seriously the claims of the Bible and the claims of Christ. They had never studied any evidences to prove the faith, and yet they deny it. Is that academic freedom? No. And that's exactly what's happening in the life of Christ, the Pharisees who have never gone to Him and bothered to ask Him like Nicodemus did about His claims, repudiate Him and refuse Him just dismiss Him. Nicodemus will eventually become a follower of Jesus. He shows up at the resurrection. He's one of the ones who buries His body. Christ always divides. He always divides. He comes to you this morning. He comes to us this morning and he says, I am here to provide everything you need for salvation. If you're thirsty spiritually, just come. Come to me and drink. Embrace me as your Savior by faith. And then he says, if you do believe, I'm giving you the Holy Spirit and He will give you everything you need to live the Christian life. He will give you rivers of living water that fill you up and flow out from you to others if you will walk with Him. You know, obedience and yieldedness to Him. Now the question is this, how will you respond to Christ's provision for you? How will you respond? Will you trust Him as your Savior? Or will you turn your back on Him without even seriously investigating His claims? Will you be prejudiced against Him because of things you've heard about Him or things maybe you feel like hasn't done for you and you've got the wrong information? Are you just mildly impressed with Him or maybe emotionally moved by Him but you've never committed your life to Him? I want to challenge you this morning to go all the way and commit your life to Jesus as your Savior. Trust Him from your heart as your Savior. Maybe you're here today as a believer and you've been struggling. You've been mired in just living on your own strength and power and failing time after time after time again. You're not taking advantage of the resource God has given you in the Holy Spirit to enable you to live as He wants you to live every day. Maybe you need a fresh yieldedness of walking in step with the Spirit each day. Would you bow with me in prayer? Father, speak to our hearts, convince us of our need, cause us to be thirsty. And may we respond by coming to Christ for the living water. And then may we recognize as believers it doesn't stop there. We have the Holy Spirit help us to depend upon Him day by day to walk in step with Him day by day to be obedient and yielded to Him day by day so that we can have that river of living water flowing not only in us and filling us up but through us to others. We ask in Jesus name Amen.