The sermon focuses on Jesus' invitation in John 7:37-52, where He calls those who are spiritually thirsty to come to Him and drink, symbolizing receiving the Holy Spirit. This invitation is open to all, emphasizing that belief in Jesus as the Christ leads to eternal life. The sermon highlights Jesus' continuous invitation throughout His ministry, despite rejection, and the transformative power of accepting this invitation. It draws on the imagery of living water, illustrating how believers, through the Holy Spirit, become channels of grace, spreading the Gospel. The sermon also addresses the importance of a personal response to Jesus' call, urging believers to live out their faith actively, and to embrace the life-changing power of the Holy Spirit. It concludes by challenging listeners to decide what they will do with Jesus' invitation and to live out their faith with perseverance and conviction.

This morning we will be in the book of John chapter 7 verses 37 through 52. I'm not certain that I'll finish all of that, but we'll do what we can with it. But chapter 7, verses 37 through 52. And so, On the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out saying, If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.

But this he spoke concerning the Spirit, whom those believing in him would receive, for the Holy Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified. Therefore, many from the crowd, when they heard this saying, said truly, this is the prophet. Others said this is the Christ. But some said, will the Christ come out of Galilee? Has not the Scripture said that the Christ comes from the seat of David and from the town of Bethlehem where David was?

So there was a division among the people because of him. Now some of them wanted to take him, but no one laid hands on him. Then the officers came to the chief priests and Pharisees, who said to them, Why have you not brought him? The officers answered, No man ever spoke like this man. Then the Pharisees answered them, Are you also deceived?

Have any of the rulers or the Pharisees believed in him? But this crowd does not know the law is accursed. Nicodemus, who came to Jesus by night, being one of them, said to them, does our law judge a man before it hears him and knows what he is doing? They answered and said to him, are you also from Galilee? Search and look, for no prophet has arisen out of Galilee." Father, we thank you this morning for your Word.

We thank you for your love for us. We thank you for this marvelous invitation, Father God, that we can look at and respond to, Lord God. Yet today, that is open. I thank you for your love for us, and I pray for your Holy Spirit's work this morning on my heart, Lord God, and those who hear. I pray in Jesus' name, Amen.

And so after we've been walking through the book of John, we need to keep in mind a focus of John 20, 31. I'm going to say it again. These things are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God. This is the purpose of it. And that believing you may have life in His name.

Aside from Jesus Christ, we don't have life. We have death. Before we're born again, we don't have life. The work of Christ raises a dead person. It is the greatest miracle that has ever happened in all of humanity that a dead person should come to life.

That someone who is spiritually dead is now alive. This is the greatest miracle and one human soul is worth more than everything in the world. That needs to kind of spur on our desire for evangelizing. But after looking at this picture of what has been the ministry of Christ to be incurred because he was rejected, We can expect that within our lives, within what God is doing in our lives and how He has us walking through. Giving the Gospel to family, to friends, to co-workers.

We get discouraged sometimes because we get mocked. We get discouraged because people don't want to listen to us. We can't get discouraged. And today is a perfect picture of that. So after looking at these pictures of unbelief from previous weeks, And Jesus' ministry being one of relative rejection, we see that He doesn't give up.

He doesn't stop. It doesn't stop Him. He seizes this moment that He has here, and this is the last day of the feast and he uses it to invite people to come to him. This is amazing feast going on that has nothing to do with Him, but it's got everything to do with Him, realistically. And so, just as the water is being poured out during the final ceremony of this feast, Jesus cries out.

He cries out this amazing invitation. And so there's this ceremony and they get a golden pitcher and they fill it with water from the pool of Siloam. And as they pour it out, it represents God's provision for their crops and for their time in the wilderness. And as this is going on, Jesus gives this beautiful, priceless invitation. He says, if anyone thirsts, Let him come to me and drink." In chapter 3, he gave...

And this is not his first invitation that he gives. There's been multiple. In chapter 3, he gives it with Nicodemus. When he tells Nicodemus, you must be born again. And multiple times in chapter 5, after he healed a man at the pool of Bethesda, in chapter 6, after he fed the multitude, the 5, 000 plus, when He fed the multitude 5, 000 out of five loaves and two fishes, this was the first of seven I Ams.

I am the bread of life. And so with the bread come down from heaven. And now in chapter seven again, he invites again. And Jesus will invite in chapter eight and he will continue on for the last six months of his earthly ministry, inviting people to him. And so this offer of invitation is for anyone to come to him for salvation.

And I doubt that there's a day that went by in his ministry when Jesus did not invite someone. And it's convicting to me because there's many days that go by in my life, in my ministry, where I don't invite someone. And it's got to be eye opening for those who profess Christ fully. And so, I doubt that there was a day that He didn't invite someone to salvation in Him. To the kingdom of heaven, that ultimate destination of forgiveness of sins, to eternal life.

And he does this yet today. He's still doing this today. He did it to the woman at the well. Jesus answered and said to her, it was in chapter 4 verses 13 and 14, Jesus answered and said to her, whoever drinks of this water will thirst again, but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst, but the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life." See this this fountain of water that's springing up from a person, it's a fountain. It doesn't have a limit of water that comes out and it doesn't sit there and get stagnant.

It's not in a bird bath where it just you fill the thing up and then it gets it gets moss and fungus growing in it. It's a fountain that grows up and it's continually replenishing. It's fresh and so this is what it is, a fountain of water. Here again we have the analogy of water and drinking unto eternal life. And he makes it clear that admiring Jesus is not enough for eternal life.

You can't sit at the edge of the water and look at it and say this is really in its incredible water this is clear water I bet it tastes really good it doesn't do any good unless you drink the water I can't sit in my fishing boat in my garage and catch fish I'm a pretty good fisherman but I'm not that good. It's a joke. And so, you have to put the thing in the water. You have to go where they are. You cannot possibly benefit from admiring Jesus.

You've got to take him in. You have to receive him. You have to submit and give your entire life, soul and spirit to Jesus. And without it we we don't have any separation from the pagans. We don't have any separation from the pagans.

We don't have any separation from damnation and hell. But when you look six months later, this invitation, by the way, is exclusive. And so when you look at six months later after today's text, where Jesus is standing before Pilate for judgment, we see how Pilate would eventually, ultimately cave into what is the relentless crowd, to what everybody else wants him to do he would cave into that even though his own conscience wanted him to do what his wife wanted him to do which was have nothing to do with this innocent man. That was his wife's desire to have nothing to do with it. This guy is not guilty.

Just let him go and don't do anything. And that was Pilate's heart as well. He wanted to do that. But even though that situation stood in front of him, Pilate uses Barabbas. He looks for an easier way out and so he says to Barabbas, he says to the crowd, maybe they'll take Barabbas.

And he says, okay, I put before you Jesus of Nazareth and Barabbas. Who do you want? Release Barabbas, they all say. Let Barabbas go. And then he says to them, but what do you want me to do with Jesus?

And what do they say? Crucify Him. If you don't answer that question today, which is, What should I do with Jesus? We still have to answer that question today. We have to answer that question every day when we get up, every time we eat a meal, every time we go to bed.

What do I do with Jesus? Every time we choose to listen to a raunchy joke or some stupid music, what should I do with Jesus? Every time we reject the truth, What should I do with Jesus? This should still be asked of us. It's not a one-time thing.

And as I go through the text today, I'm talking about this golden invitation that Jesus gave. Come to me all you who are thirsty and drink. That is not something that is a one and done thing. I'm talking to everybody here. There are inevitably those here who have never received Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior.

And I will plead with you today to give your heart and life to Jesus today. Don't wait. And those who know Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, I will say, come and dine. Drink. Have that fountain renewed in your life, in your heart, that you can live for Jesus in a way that you never have before.

So when we see at this point, Jesus captures the moment and He gives them the opportunity. But in verse 37 of today's text, we see one more powerful invitation. And this is in that closing ceremony, but in Isaiah 12 3 this is prophesied that this was going to happen This isn't that that they were following Scripture to do it They they made this up, but this was prophesied therefore with joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation and so at this point Jesus captures this moment and he turns it to himself and Rightfully so if I take a situation I turn it to myself It's wrongfully so One person ever that could take a situation and turn it to himself rightly is our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and he did that in this case. He turns the thing to himself and again we see the importance as he cries out. Again, he cries out in a crowd that everybody from the closest to the furthest, from those that believed in him the most to those that hated him, could all hear what he was saying.

He cries out. The importance and then the urgency of the gospel message makes it necessary to cry out. When we see the big picture, when you look at the big picture, the reality of things, the lost state of humanity, And you can see it anywhere in life, but it's so obvious at a fair booth when you sit there and you see people walking by. You given the opportunity, the moment to sit back and look at the truths of Scripture, all the material that we've laboriously put forward, and then you see the contrast in humanity walking by. When we see the lost state of humanity and the grip of darkness in the world on people, that it has a hold of them.

And we know the redeeming, freeing truth of the glorious Gospel. When we know that it is the power of God to redeem and save, crying out is not difficult. It's natural to cry out. So here, in this invitation of Jesus to come to Him, I'm seeing three actions in this. And I picked through and kind of analyzed this.

Three realities that have to draw our attention and and the first one is if anyone is thirsty and And that we read right there in 37, if anyone is thirsty, if anyone thirsts, come to me. If anyone, that's the word I want to focus on and pick up. Because so long I felt like I was not anyone. I felt like, you know what, that's for someone else. That is for religious people, that's for holy people, that's for other people that aren't like me.

And I was wrong. I was wrong. It's for anyone. It's for the greatest man, it's for the lowliest wretch. But at the foot of the cross to repent, that's who it's for.

And this invitation is open to all and we see that in other times that he invited people. He invited in Matthew 11 28, come to me all you who labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest. All. Who's part of all? I'm part of all.

John 3.16, of course, when he talked to Nicodemus, for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. That's anyone, that's anyone. 1st Timothy 2, 3, and 4. For This is good and acceptable in the sight of our God, of God our Savior, who desires very few men, right? All.

He desires all to be saved and to come to the knowledge of truth. All. All to be saved. There are no limits. There is no one that is not included in this.

People come to Jesus because they're thirsty, they're spiritually dry. So not because they're adding Jesus to their already awesome life. Okay, I've got this, I've got that, now I'm going to go to church and I'm going to have Jesus. Put Him on the top of this awesome life of mine. He's going to be the cherry on the top, and I'm going to have this, right?

No. No. He quenches the thirsty soul. Those who are dry, living in a parched land. Those who have realized that they have nothing to offer.

Those who have repented of their sins because they know that they are wretches. For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. It's contrary to think that we bring something to our own salvation, but a dry pocket full of dust and sand. That's what we bring to our salvation. What Christ brings is water.

Life-giving salvation. So people come to Jesus because they're thirsty, because they realize that they're in desperate need. Like the Philippian jailer in Acts 16 verses 23 through 34. Remember when the earthquake shook the jail and all the doors just the chains fell off, the doors jarred open And all of a sudden the jailer saw that the doors were open and he's like, well, I'm gonna die. I'm gonna get killed because all of my prisoners are gone.

And he said, I might as well just fall on my sword and kill myself. And Paul yelled, don't take your life everyone is here and he said what must I do to be saved and he told him believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved, you and your household. That's what it was. That's what it takes. And the second point is come to me.

He says that right there. It's if anyone thirsts let him come to me. Come to me. Come to Christ. He is the only one.

He didn't say, if anyone thirsts, let him go to the temple and perform this ritual and that ritual. He didn't say if anyone thirsts, start going to church and reading your Bible. He didn't say if anyone thirsts, be a good person. Say these repetitive prayers to this saint if anyone thirsts. He said, if anyone thirsts, come to me and I will give you drink.

I will satisfy. He is the only one to satisfy. It's only Him. And so turn your back on the world, He's saying. Come to Me.

He invited the fishermen, the apostles, Follow me. What did they do? Okay, as soon as I get done with I gotta mend my nets and I gotta clean up and I'll fold this up and then I'll I'll be with you where you want me to meet you. And no. Follow me.

Drop. They went. That was it. There's no question. Follow me.

Life as you know it is over. Everything that you were is behind you. You turn your back on the world, you turn your back on your self-confidence, you turn your back on your works, you turn your back on your pride. Whatever stands between you and that call, You turn your back on and you follow Jesus. And that's what we have a picture of here.

Whatever stands between you and Christ is gone. It's only Him. No one else can offer what only He can do. You can't get salvation. There is salvation in no other.

Jesus said in John 14, 6, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father but by Me. Not morality, not good works, not regular attendance, nothing. Nothing. Don't we realize that most moral people don't feel the thirst for Christ?

There's those who are really morally good. You can do a lot of good things, and I know many people, but to have that thirst for Christ, that proper moral self-righteousness stands right in between you and Christ. We lift that up like it's something we're adding onto our salvation and we can't do anything. So, none of that. The religious leaders rejected him.

But not the sinners. Not the tax collectors. Not the prostitutes, the destitute. Not the thirsty. Not the thirsty.

Many of these came to Jesus, the thirsty, those that knew that they had a need. And the third thing that I have in this is to drink. This river doesn't work unless you drink. It's this never-ending well that comes up and we need to consume. We need to make Christ our own.

We need to embrace that. We need to embrace Him. And John 4.14 says, but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst, but the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up unto everlasting life. This is what believe truly is. This is what it is to believe.

We've talked about that last week and the week before. What does believe look like? To come out of your sin and trust Him as your Lord. That's it. To jump over that cliff and trust Him.

To take that step of faith. This is highly prophetic as well. Isaiah 41, 18 says, I will open rivers in desolate heights and fountains in the midst of the valleys. I will make the wilderness a pool of water and the dry land springs of water. Ezekiel 47 tells us of a river of life which will overcome even death itself and change everything.

There's so much prophetically about this what Jesus is proclaiming in the text today. You see, when you're in Christ, this water flows to you, but it doesn't stop in you. You're not a bucket. You're not a pond. You are a river.

A river is a picture of water that's constantly flowing. It's always moving and it's flowing through you. And by the way, that river and that water, that life-giving water is the Holy Spirit. That's the power and the work of the Holy Spirit in your life. And because we're so dense in the head, God and His grace and mercy gives us an analogy of something that we as people can understand.

And it doesn't mean nearly as much to us as it did to the people in the day of this text when water was, I don't want to say scarce, but it was a luxury and you couldn't turn a tap on. You had to go and get it and bring it to you. It was work. And good water was difficult. And so this is something that we don't fully, I believe, understand.

But when you're in Christ, this water flows through you. You're not a stagnant pool. And when you see, and I've seen people that profess Christ that have this puddle, it's a stagnant puddle of muddy water with some moss growing out of it, it's not what Christ means for us to be. We can't have this river running through, living separately from everyone else. We're part of a body, part of Christ's church.

And we live together, we work together, we function together, And that river flows through. It flows through us individually. It flows through this body of believers. It flows through the work that God has ordained for us to do. This is the work of God.

This is the power of the Holy Spirit. So not only do we drink in, but it flows through us. We get this from living water, spiritual life. We get sanctification from it. We get justification, conversion in the first place.

We get adoption, redemption. And this constant spring of living water is making us more and more like Jesus every day. It doesn't just flow through us and unchange us. It's living water. It's transforming water.

It makes us like Jesus. If that's what you want to be more like Jesus, drink this living water. That constant spring of living water is making us more and more. It's a river that's through us. And that blessed one from that water flowing through us becomes the blesser.

The receiver becomes the giver. Right? You see what I'm saying? We take it in and it goes through us. This is God's plan.

We take in and it goes out. We become the channel of grace. Not a little trickle. Well, they deserve a little drop, so I'm gonna squeeze them a little drop. There we go.

That's their share. Okay, and then I'll give them some over there when they deserve it. No, This becomes a river. Not a trickle, it's a river. And it's a channel of grace that comes through us because God in His grace and mercy and love has changed our hearts, our desires, our motivation, and we don't live for us anymore.

We live for Christ, and we have love and grace and mercy for other people too. And as it comes through us, we pour it on other people. We can't help it. It's how God made us. It speaks again of the Holy Spirit.

And we see verse 39 of our text is a prophecy. This is a prophecy of the day of Pentecost in verse 39. It says, But this He spoke concerning the Spirit, whom those believing in Him would receive, for the Holy Spirit was not yet given because Jesus was not yet glorified." It's a speaking of when He would be glorified and the Holy Spirit would come. In Acts 1-8, he prophesied this as well, but you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you shall be witnesses to me in Jerusalem and in all of Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth." And that was in Acts 1-8, that he prophesied that. But when the day of...

I don't have a slide on this, but it's Acts 2-1-8. It is the action, the act of the Holy Spirit coming upon them. It says, when the day of Pentecost had fully come, they, the disciples, were all in one accord, in one place, and suddenly there came a sound from heaven as a rushing mighty went and it filled the whole house where they were sitting. Then there appeared to them divided tongues as a fire, And one sat upon each of them, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues. And the Spirit gave them utterance.

And there were dwelling in Jerusalem Jews, devout men from every nation under heaven. And when this sound occurred, the multitude came together and were confused because Everyone heard them speak in his own language Then they were all amazed and marveled saying to one another Look are not all of those all of these who speak Galileans And how is it that we hear each in our own language in which we were born? So this is the power of the Holy Spirit. They didn't have to take a crash course on learning all these different languages. This is the crash course of the Holy Spirit on these people.

And suddenly, they were understanding each other in different languages. This is God's perfect plan when He gave them the Holy Spirit that the Word of God would go out to these different lands. It's from that Pentecost day forward that the river that cures a person's spiritual thirst began to flow to all the world. This was the beginning of it. So here we see the river as it began.

Jesus' disciples spoke in all the languages and all the people could understand them as the Gospel was being spread. It was being spread to all the languages, to all the people of the world. It wasn't exclusive to that point. It was given at that time to the whole world. So because the power of the Holy Spirit opens the life gate, that river will flow.

I'm convinced that we don't give in our finite minds enough credit to the power of the Holy Spirit in our lives. And that's a reality, but Because the power of the Holy Spirit opens that life gate, the river is going to flow. That is the work of God. That's why Jesus had to go away, so the Holy Spirit would come to dwell in a Christian and flow through a believer. Jesus had told this to the disciples in John 16, 7.

He said, nevertheless I tell you the truth is to your advantage that I go away for if I do not go away the helper will not come to you but if I depart I will send Him to you." And then further on in Acts chapter 2 we read that thousands are saved by the power of the Holy Spirit. There are thousands that came to Jesus by the power of the Holy Spirit. It all begins with a response. It begins with a response to the invitation. Come to me.

That's where it starts. Thousands were saved. It begins with that response to Jesus' invitation to come to Him and you will never thirst. And what an amazing invitation it is. Your life will take on eternal glory in Christ.

Eternal glory in Christ if you receive this invitation and respond rightly. This is an open invitation to all for God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever, anyone, this invitation is open to anyone and everyone. And the question is, today, What are we going to do with that invitation? Where will we go with that invitation? I could go on.

I have notes. I have notes to preach for another half an hour. I'm not going to use them. Because this text today, it stops here. Because this invitation is not for those who have not heard the gospel before, it is for everyone.

It is for those who do not know the gospel of Jesus Christ. It's for those who have been born again for the last 20 years, five years, three years, one year, one month, this invitation lays true to everyone in this room. What will we do? Because our eternal destiny depends upon what you do with this invitation today. If there's a hinge, heaven and hell, we need to decide.

We need to know where we are going, and we need to drink. We need to receive Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior. We need to see that God's plan of salvation is for all, and it is through Jesus Christ. These things are written that you might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you might have life in His name. Where do we stand with that?

I really, I want to ask you that today. And I want to beg you to reckon that answer of that question. I want you to put that out in front of you and see what God does as you bring it to Him as you pray that you would submit your life totally and completely to the work of Jesus Christ, to the glorious gospel. Let's pray. Father we thank you this morning for your care, for your love for us Lord God.

While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Lord, there's nothing that we did or can do to deserve life in You. Father, we love You. We give our lives to You, Lord. Help us, Father.

Help our unbelief. Father, help us to grow and to love you more than we love this world. Help us to see the perseverance of those in your Word. Lord God, be it the apostles, be it Nicodemus, who just can't shake this reality that you are come from God. Lord God, might this same Spirit that worked in His heart as we continually hear of Him, Lord, in Your Word, might that work in our hearts, Lord God, to Convict us of not just our sin and our wretchedness, Lord, but that You are holy, that You are the Son of God, and that we have life in Your name and Your name alone.

Father, I pray for this body of believers here. I thank you for those who have been faithful for so many years. I just pray, Father God, for work of your Holy Spirit on our hearts this morning, Lord God, to love you more, to submit to you