Come All Who Are Thirsty
Download MP3Before we take a look at God's word together, I wanna take just a couple of minutes to talk about who we are as a church and why we do things the way we do them. I often get questions from those visiting the church asking these questions like, why are we meeting here? Why do we do things this way? And and I know we have a number of people who are somewhat new to Redeemer. So I thought we'd just take a few minutes from the pulpit and address these common questions.
Joel Brooks:So who are we? Well, we are the family of God. We are a hospital for sinners. When you invite people to church, I I hope you invite them to meet your church, not just to come to church. Because church is the people of God.
Joel Brooks:It is a people and not a facility. And and so while we want our building, our meeting place to be safe and and functional, reasonably safe. If you're in the balcony, it's not completely safe. But reasonably safe and functional, that is not our focus. That's not where energy is.
Joel Brooks:It's really on the people who come. We meet here in Avondale because 7 years ago when this church started, we saw a large need for a stronger evangelical presence in East Birmingham, because there just there was a lack of one here. And I realize that a lot of you don't live from around here, you're coming from different parts of the city and that is fantastic. We want to equip you to reach out in faith to the community you are in and to serve there. But we do meet here in East Birmingham strategically, Not just because there's a lack of an evangelical presence or a strong presence here, but also we believe that God has a special heart for the poor.
Joel Brooks:And being here allows us to strategically invest in those areas, areas of Woodlawn, East Lake, areas in Avondale. And so that's why we we continue to meet here. Why do we do things the way we do them? I I don't realize until I talk to some of you that we do some odd things here. But I guess the word I would use is there's an intentionality to everything that we do.
Joel Brooks:For instance, every service begins and it ends with the reading of scripture. This is intentional because we believe God's word must be central to all that we do. The preaching that you're gonna hear is what I would call expositional, meaning we're gonna go through whole books of the Bible. This is how I believe that we can best teach through the entire counsel of God and also how we cannot be a victim to to our times in which when you're only preaching on the topics that your current culture thinks is relevant. When you preach expositionally, you allow God to tell you what is relevant.
Joel Brooks:And so we might do occasional topics, but the bread and butter of what we do up here, whether it's from me or from Jeff or from any elder, is gonna be expositional preaching. As for how we do our worship, and particularly how we do our songs, we're not scared to be loud, as you can tell. We're not scared to be loud or to be quiet during our services. I bet there's probably some people come in here with a confusion thinking that, that being reverent and being reserved mean pretty much the same thing, but those are not synonyms. God commands that we are always to be reverent and that we are to never be reserved.
Joel Brooks:That we are to never hold back in our worship. But we're to worship Him with all of our heart, soul, strength and our mind. And so there's times that we're gonna be loud and sing with everything we have, with all of our passion. We don't sing because the band is awesome. We've intentionally set the band off to the side so that the band would not be the focus, but the words in which we are singing are the focus and especially the God to whom we sing these words.
Joel Brooks:He's the one who deserves our attention and our praise. And so there's gonna be times when we sing our lungs out and there's also gonna be times where we have quiet reflection. Often I hear the word awkward to describe our services. That's appropriate at times because it can be painfully quiet and awkward. But we're going to take time to pray.
Joel Brooks:We don't put in times of prayer in our services just so we can have a time of transition. You're not gonna close your eyes and open them and the band's gone, you know, or there's stuff moving on stage. When we pray whether your staff or your band or volunteer or whether in the congregation, we all pray. We all want to cry out to the Lord together. This is a very important time for us.
Joel Brooks:And sometimes when I have times of prayer, when you pray quietly in your pews, sometimes I'm gonna give you the opportunity to stand up and to do a declarative praise out loud before God's people. And sometimes, I wanna make us huddle up in groups and pray together as groups. We'll we'll probably do that after the message. This is an important time. I think God changes us when we pray, especially in groups like this.
Joel Brooks:Because when those of us who are strong, you could pray on behalf of those who are weak. Those of you who are rejoicing could come alongside those who are full of sorrow. We can be the family of God as we spend these times in prayer. From the beginning of this church, we have often said that if we cease to be a people who pray, may God close these doors. And this is still our prayer.
Joel Brooks:So there is a intentionality in all that we do. That's who we are. That's what we do in a nutshell. We try to keep it simple. We don't perfect it.
Joel Brooks:We don't claim to do it better than anybody else. We keep it simple and we are trying to be intentional in how we go about things. So that's who we are and what we do. And now let's take time to look at God's word together. John chapter 7.
Joel Brooks:I'll begin reading 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. 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 was not yet glorified. When they heard these words, some of the people said, this really is the prophet. Others said, this is the Christ.
Joel Brooks: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? So there was a division among the people over him. Some of them wanted to arrest him, but no one laid hands on him. The officers then came to the chief priest and the Pharisees who said to them, why did you not bring him?
Joel Brooks: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 a cursed. Nicodemus, who had gone to Him 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?
Joel Brooks:They replied, are you from Galilee too? Search and see that no prophet arises from Galilee. Pray with me. Our Father, we ask that You would breathe life into these words, that you would be a fountain coming to us. Lord, I pray in this moment at this time that my words would fall to the ground and blow away and not be remembered anymore.
Joel Brooks:But Lord, may your words remain and may they change us. And we pray this in the strong name of Jesus, amen. If you remember last week we talked about this, this story here takes place during the Feast of Booths or the Feast of Tabernacles. This was the Jewish equivalent to Thanksgiving, but it lasted an entire week. Jerusalem would have been slam packed with people flocking in from all over to celebrate.
Joel Brooks:Jesus, however, was not one of them at this time, not initially one of them. He was out in the country where he was far away from the crowds. He used to have 15,000 people, you know, who were following him. But then all these people had left. And he just had a handful of disciples.
Joel Brooks:And at this point, it looks like Jesus's ministry is grinding to a halt. Jesus's brothers approached Jesus. And they said, Jesus, we know what you need to do in order to revamp this ministry. Now, keep in mind, his brothers didn't believe in Jesus. They didn't believe he was the messiah, but they knew he could at least do a few tricks, maybe he could get some following.
Joel Brooks:And so they said, hey, you know what you need to do? You need to go to Jerusalem. That's where all the action is. That's where the feast is. It's swarming full of people.
Joel Brooks:If you go there, kind of do the thing you do, we could get the 15,000 people back. And so they encourage Jesus to do this. And so they encourage Jesus to do this. Now, Jesus had heard this line of reasoning before Go up to the temple and throw yourself off at the pinnacle. But the angels rescue you.
Joel Brooks:And when people see that miracle, they will worship you. And Jesus rejected satan then and he rejects his brothers now. He actually says some really condemning words to his brothers in verse 6 of chapter 7. He told them, my time is not yet come, but your time is always here. Go up to the feast.
Joel Brooks:In other words, I walk my life with a purpose. I'm following the sovereign plan of my father. But you, And if that's your goal is just for people to like you and for you to do whatever you want when you want, then fine. Go ahead. You know why?
Joel Brooks:Because it doesn't really matter what you do. It doesn't really matter what you do. It's strong condemning words from Jesus to his brothers. His brothers leave then, they're probably ticked at him. And they leave, they go off to Jerusalem.
Joel Brooks:After a few days, Jesus decides to go to Jerusalem as well. He just didn't wanna go with his brothers. He didn't wanna go with all the fanfare that they would try to bring. He he wanted to go in secret. This is important because remember, Jesus had a target on his back.
Joel Brooks:Last week, we saw how people were trying to kill Jesus. And so he doesn't want to draw any attention to himself. He needs to come quietly. And so when he comes into Jerusalem, he comes in stealth, but then he does begin teaching some. Because his picture would be everywhere.
Joel Brooks:Jesus was allowed to go and even start teaching without people initially recognizing him. And so, he's teaching. Crowds are starting to gather a little bit and listen and then it starts dawning on him on them going, wait a second. You're the guy we're trying to kill. You're the guy we're trying to kill, aren't you?
Joel Brooks:And yet, Jesus, he keeps teaching. Then during the last day of this feast, during the most climatic moment, Jesus completely forgets about hiding. And He cries out and He makes a huge scene. He actually goes to the temple, the most packed place you could go during this festival, and he calls out for everyone to hear, come all who are thirsty. Come to me and I will give you a drink.
Joel Brooks:Now, if you are trying to not make a scene, if you're trying not to draw attention to yourself because people are trying to kill you, this is not the thing that you should do, is to to draw attention to yourself in this way and to scream out in the temple, yet Jesus did. It's almost as if he couldn't help himself. Even when he had a target on his back. When when I was a youth, I was a teenager. I was I think I was a young teenager.
Joel Brooks:At least in my mind, I was a young teenager. I went to a Sandy Patty concert. Any of you all know who Sandy Patty is? Bless you if you don't. I think our youth group went to the Omni in Atlanta.
Joel Brooks:That was before Phillips Arena. I think my mom forced me to go. I'm gonna blame her. Throw her under the bus. But I'm there at the Omni.
Joel Brooks:There's probably about 10,000 people listening to Sandy Patty. I just get up and I'm just walking around. I can't take it anymore. And, and I'm up there somewhere on the bleachers I mean, up in the the nosebleeds seats. And for some reason, Santi Patty, she hit kind of a lull, maybe she was talking and there was a there was a quiet space in the concert and I yelled at the top of my lungs.
Joel Brooks:I just go as loud as I could and 10,000 people just stared at me. And I just ran, I just ran. Now, why I did that? I'm not really sure. I was a stupid teenager.
Joel Brooks:I think that's probably why I did it, just because why not. But if the crowd was hostile and I was trying to hide from them, there is no way I would have done that. Why? The Feast of Tabernacles was that week long celebration. The word tabernacles is just the word tent.
Joel Brooks:And that's what they were celebrating was the time they were remembering back in Israel's history when they lived in tents in the desert and God took care of them for 40 years. God rained manna down from heaven for them and He gave them water that came from the rock that Moses hit. And so they're remembering God's provision in the past and they're also praying for God's provision in the future. They lived in a very arid land. They needed God to keep giving them rain, to keep giving them water.
Joel Brooks:And so they remembered the past and they were hopeful to the future. And this ceremony, this holiday remembered this. So as a way of both remembering God's past and exodus, and they would pour out this water on the altar. Thus remembering how water flowed from the rock. And on the last day, the greatest day of this feast, the day that is being described here in John 7, the priest would go to the pool of Siloam 7 times.
Joel Brooks:And on the 7th time, they would they would scoop up this water and there would be a massive of procession going back to the temple. And the people were going absolutely nuts during this time. It's a massive celebration. There would be flute playing. There would be dancing.
Joel Brooks:There would be singing. Loud cheers would be erupting as the priests are getting closer and closer to the temple. I read this in one, ancient Jewish commentary. The author wrote this. He said, he who has never seen the ritual of drawing, the ritual of drawing of the water, has never in their life witnessed joy.
Joel Brooks:It was such a joyful time. And as as a high priest, as he's getting closer and closer to the altar and all the people are going with him, they begin chanting Isaiah 12, with joy you will draw from the waters of salvation. And at the climactic moment, the high priest on that 7th time, he'd hold up the picture and everybody would go quiet before he poured it. And it was likely here on the last and the greatest day of the feast, as John 7 says, likely in that silent moment before the pitcher is poured that Jesus cries out. Come to me.
Joel Brooks:If you're thirsty, come to me. If you want joy, come to me, if you want life, come to me. But Jesus watches this ritual take place and he can't be silent. He has to shout out. And And I want us to look at exactly what Jesus said.
Joel Brooks:Let's look at what Jesus said. Jesus says this, if anyone thirst, let him come to me and drink. Who is it that can come to Jesus? Who is it that Jesus is offering life to? He says it's for the thirsty.
Joel Brooks:In revelation 22 in the last chapter of our bible, the apostle John writes of this vision of the kingdom of God, the new Jerusalem coming down. This is the same apostle who who wrote the gospel of John. Now he's writing how things are going to end, or for us as Christians, how things will really begin. And when the city of God comes down and Jesus reigns forever, our eternal destiny is not that we would be some disembodied spirit floating in the clouds, playing harps, but then we will have real bodies and we will live in a real city in which Jesus will reign. And John writes about this.
Joel Brooks:And we read these words. Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, Bright as crystal flowing from the throne of God and from the lamb through the middle of the street of the city. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. So in this glorious vision that John has of the future reign of Jesus, he sees this life giving water flowing from the presence of Jesus. That not everybody's inside the city.
Joel Brooks:There are some people who are locked outside of the city gates on the other side of the walls. We read about this in 1st verse 14. Outside the gates are the dogs and the sorcerers and the sexually immoral and the murderers, and the idolaters, and everyone who loves and practices falsehood. So outside of these city walls, there's all the evil people. I mean, the sorcerers, the adulterers, the sexually immoral people.
Joel Brooks:They're all on the outside. They can't get to this life giving water that flows from Jesus' presence. So one would assume if they're the ones on the outside of the wall, then the ones on the inside of the wall need to be the righteous. Those are the ones who get to drink, right? That's what you would expect to see, but it isn't the case.
Joel Brooks:It's not the main difference between the 2. It's not that those on the outside of the wall are evil and those on the inside are righteous. Is that those on the outside are evil and those on the inside are thirsty. That's what Revelation 22 says. They're thirsty.
Joel Brooks:We read the spirit and the bride say come and let the one who hears say come and let the one who is thirsty come. Let the one who desires to take the water of life take it without price. That's the difference. These are the people who actually recognize their need for Jesus. The prostitutes are going to get in before you.
Joel Brooks:And the reason is because they know they need me. And you don't think you need anybody. They are thirsty. And the water that comes from my presence is for those who thirst. Jesus doesn't say if anyone is righteous, let him come to me.
Joel Brooks:He doesn't say if anyone is moral, come to me. If anybody is qualified, come to me. If anybody goes to church, if anybody tithes, if anybody is not coveting, come to me. He doesn't say that. He says, if you are thirsty if anyone thirst, I offer eternal life to whoever thirst.
Joel Brooks:You need to feel that your soul is dry. So you have to be thirsty, but you can't just go anywhere to satisfy your thirst. Jesus says you have to go to Him. If anyone thirst, let him come to me. You don't go to broken cisterns that don't hold water, you go to Jesus.
Joel Brooks:Single women, you don't just go to try to find a man. Man, you don't go and they're just trying to pick up a date to somehow fill that hole in your heart to quench it. We don't go to the gym to work out and think if I could just lose a few pounds and then I'd really be pleased that will somehow satisfy me. We don't do these things. We go to Jesus.
Joel Brooks:The question is, are you going to Jesus to satisfy your thirst? Where do you go for satisfaction? Whether you know it or not, your entire day, you're constantly taking little sips. You're constantly taking little sips. I know we need we need to take, you know, big drinks of water.
Joel Brooks:We need to take big drinks of God through his word. Big drinks through prayer. But what I wanna focus on right now is throughout the day, we're all taking little teeny sips. You know, when you're meeting somebody for lunch and you get there maybe 2 minutes before them, you've got a 2 minute window to do anything. What well are you gonna go to in your boredom?
Joel Brooks:Tinder, Pinterest, check your draft status, fantasy league. Where where are you gonna go? These are one of those little mini moments. I challenge you to take some of those little mini moments that you have if for that minute that you're waiting for your friend to arrive, instead of trying to to satisfy whatever boredom, you know, that you have, you were to sip on Jesus. You were to think, how about I just meditate on the fact that God is eternal?
Joel Brooks:Do you think you would be richer or poorer if you took one minute to meditate on the fact that God has always existed? That a 1000 years ago, there was God. 10000 years ago, there was God. A 1000000000 years ago, there was God. Just chew on that.
Joel Brooks:Then you think in a 1000000000 years in the future, there is God. Chew on that for a minute. Do you think you'll be richer or poor than if you took that time to reshuffle your draft? God is saying take sips from me. Or what if you took that minute to just look around the room and pray for the people around you?
Joel Brooks:God, who here is hurting that I can pray for? God, is there any any way that you can use me as a vessel of grace in somebody's life in this room at this time? Take those moments. Just think how different your life would be. Jesus, he he cries out for us to come to him and to drink, always be coming to him and drink.
Joel Brooks:And then he tells us what he's gonna do for you when you come. Jesus says, if we come to him, he's gonna give us living water. And then the result of this is living water is now going to begin flowing from us as well. It's the same thing He told the woman at the well when he told her the water that he gives will become in her a spring of water welling up to eternal life. Jesus says, come to me and I'm gonna give you a fountain.
Joel Brooks:And so Jesus, we come to him, he gives us life And then this life flows out from us, we become a life giving people. We become so filled with God's Spirit, that His Spirit begins flowing from us to others. When people are around us, we don't bring them down. Ask yourself this question. Are you a life sucker?
Joel Brooks:Are you a life giver? It's kind of not the most fun question to ask. But it's something we need to look in the mirror and ask. And come to him, we become like him. And so just as he gives us life, as we go to others, we begin coming becoming an instrument in which we can give them life.
Joel Brooks:We become mini fountains. This is what Jesus said happens when we come to him. Now, this is what Jesus said, but why did he have to get up and cry out these words at this moment? If you read through the Gospels, you're going to find it very rare that Jesus ever stands up and cries out about anything. He does a few times, but rarely.
Joel Brooks:Why do that hear? What was he seeing? As I mentioned before, this Feast of Tabernacles is when they remembered God's provision for them. And in particular, they remember the time when Moses struck the rock in Exodus 17 and water flowed from the rock and the people got to drink from it. The Israelites at this time, they had just walked through the Red Sea.
Joel Brooks:They had just come out on the other side, they instantly began grumbling, murmuring. They were hungry, God gives them manna. After they have manna, they instantly begin grumbling that they need water. Actually they do more than grumble, they're really mad when you get to Exodus 17. They actually tell Moses, we want to stone you.
Joel Brooks:We want to kill you. They bring an official accusation against Moses. And the accusation is this, Moses, you brought us out here in order to kill us and we want to put you on trial because we believe you deserve the death penalty. And so this is what happens. They want to take Moses on trial And what happens next after they say this is one of the most astonishing things that you will ever read in scripture.
Joel Brooks:God, He talks to Moses and He says, so the people want a trial. Well, let's give them a trial. Let's give this grumbling, murmuring people a trial. Moses, I want you to go and get your staff, get your rod, you know the rod that you struck the Nile with that turned it into blood, you know the the rod of judgment that brought the plagues. I want you to go and get that rod and I want you to assemble all the Israelites together and we're gonna meet at this rock.
Joel Brooks:And so Moses, he gathers them all together and the people are like, oh my gosh. What have we done? As they are gathered before. And so, so they're wondering what's gonna happen? What's gonna be the verdict?
Joel Brooks:How is this all gonna play out? And then we get this incredible twist in the story. Something astonishing happens. The Lord God doesn't put the people on the dock. He doesn't put them on trial.
Joel Brooks:He puts himself on trial before them. We read in Exodus 17:6, it says that Yahweh comes and he stands before the people at this rock. Yahweh stands before the people. This is incredible because it is the only time in scripture that the Lord ever stands before anybody. The Lord never stands before people.
Joel Brooks:It's always the other way around. People stand before Him, kings stand before Him, angels stand before Him, or usually they can't stand before him. 1 Samuel 6 says, who can stand before the Lord? But the Lord never stands before anybody. Yet here he does.
Joel Brooks:He is acting as the inferior. It's astonishing. And then what happens next shocks us even more. With Yahweh standing there at the rock, being the defendant, the people being the plaintiff and Moses holding the rod of judgment and the people there are trembling waiting for what's going to happen. God says, Moses, take that rod of judgment and strike where I stand.
Joel Brooks:Strike where my presence is. And so these grumbling, murmuring, sinful people Watch as the rod of judgment doesn't go towards them, but goes towards the Lord. And from that rock comes life giving water to all the Israelites. They deserve judgment, but what they receive is grace And the Lord takes the judgment on their behalf. And when Jesus sees this being acted out, when Jesus sees this being demonstrated 1400 years later at this Feast of Tabernacles, And the water is about to pour out, meaning it's symbolizing where the rod of judgment is about to come.
Joel Brooks:Jesus cries out to everybody, said, this is me. This all points to me. Come to me if you're thirsty. That's what this is pointing to come to me, and I will satisfy you. Come to me for life.
Joel Brooks:Yes, you are trying to kill me. Yes, you are a grumbling, murmuring, sinful people. But you know what? I'm gonna take the judgment for you and I'm gonna give life giving water from me. I'm gonna give you my spirit.
Joel Brooks:Come to me who are thirsty. Jesus, he cannot keep quiet at this moment when he sees this play out. Jesus tells the guilty, he tells those who deserve wrath. He says, I will come to you not in judgment, but in mercy. Won't you come?
Joel Brooks:The question is, are you thirsty? Pray with me. God, I pray right now you would give us a desire for you and a thirst for you. Every person here is a grumbler, a murmur, a sinner. There's no doubt about those things.
Joel Brooks:All of us deserve judgment. But Jesus, you have taken that on our behalf. And now you say come to me and receive mercy, receive life. The question is, are we coming to you with such a generous offer? Are we taking you up on it?
Joel Brooks:And I pray that now through your spirit you would give us that desire to do so. We pray this in the strong name of Jesus. Amen.
