Rivers of Living Water

From John chapter 7 verses 37 through 39, on the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and proclaimed, if anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. He who believes in me, as the scripture has said, out of his heart, her heart, shall flow rivers of living water. Now this he said about the Spirit, which those who believed in him were to receive, for as yet the Spirit had not been given, because Jesus had not yet been glorified.

There's one thing which has marked the day each one of us came to faith, every single one of us without exception. If you look back at the time when you began to realize that that God really loved you, and you began to respond to that call, and you entered the kingdom, you notice that the first thing about it was that, for the first time in your life no doubt, the Word of God was no longer something just going out in general, but that it was coming directly, personally, to you. Now the Word of God is something which is addressed to me, and I find myself expecting that God's going to do something for me.

And suddenly in your heart you just know that when you ask for forgiveness, you're going to get it. And as long as that attitude of expectancy continued in your heart, you lived in the atmosphere of heaven, and you received all the things that you were believing God for. Then one day, in many cases at least, through some disappointment perhaps, or through some word of rebuke, you allowed that expectancy to shrivel.

And when that expectancy that God was going to do something for you, and that God had good things for you, began to sink down, your relationship with God began to drift. And as the expectancy crumbled down, so did your vision. So that the honeymoon with God, instead of being followed by something even better, sinks down into some kind of boredom, some weary drudgery.

And instead of rising up and going from strength to strength, you shrug your shoulders and say to yourself, well okay, I guess the honeymoon's over, and I'll be like all the rest of those Christians, I'll just make it through somehow. Moreover, just as many of us have allowed that honeymoon experience with God to sink down into boredom, so we have also given up on ever really being abundantly fruitful for him. You know, we wish we could touch those lives with God's power and grace, and we wish we could set those captives free, and we really wish that we could bring multitudes into the kingdom.

But after that first rush of enthusiasm passed, it seems, we began to turn our eyes inward and content ourselves with just making it somehow ourselves. So that instead of looking to God for all this abundance that he has for us, and looking around and seeing all these bottomless needs that are crying for touching and healing and help, we just look away from it all into ourselves, and we're forever taking our pulse and preoccupied with our own spiritual life. And as we do it, we get sicker all the time.

No wonder, you know, nobody invites us to their parties. You know, if we're not wet blankets, we're at least boring. You know, here I am with Jesus in this lonely valley, and that's the way it has to be, I guess, until he comes.

You know, and we give, if we don't say it, we think it, it's all over. What a contrast between that atmosphere that we give off, our self-righteous isolation. Now granted, there was an isolation which our Lord walked through and that you and I will walk through.

There will be a loneliness. That was pointed out Wednesday night. There will be a loneliness, but it was not the loneliness of withdrawal from people.

Jesus was continuously touching lives. And the promise we see in our Lord is that those of us who follow him, listen, he who abides in me and I in him, she who abides in me and I in her, he it is, she it is, who bears much fruit. See, by this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples.

He who believes in me, as Scripture has said, out of his heart shall flow rivers of living water. Now I don't see how we can take that to mean anything other than the normal Christian, the average Christian, not some great big celebrity, but little people like ourselves, every one of us, is meant to be the source of rivers of life going out and touching the world, the fountainhead of divine mercy constantly flowing forth, a spring of forgiveness and grace and healing that never stops, the same spirit that continuously flowed out from our Lord and touched people's lives now needs to be, and God desires to be, flowing out from us in the same way. Now instead of occupying ourselves with regret, you know, let's for just a few moments turn aside and forget about the fact that we've fallen short of this so much, and not worry about that for a minute, and let's just look at what it is that he promises us when he says rivers of living water will flow forth.

And our example obviously is Jesus himself, and that example is repeated in the apostles and people down to this day. Rivers. This may sound almost mechanical or arbitrary, but consider with me for a moment.

The first river of living water that flows out from those who abide in Jesus is a river of prayer that goes forth to God. Before we minister to anybody else, we're just ministering to God, and in our Lord's life we see prayer not as some duty he has to perform every day. Prayer was his life, and it was that river of prayer constantly flowing up to the Father joyfully and expectantly that caused everything else that happened in his life to take place.

Every word he spoke and every deed he performed was the outflow, the overflow, of a river of prayer that was constantly going forth to the Father. And what a difference it makes in us when prayer is no longer, uh-oh, I forgot my prayers today. You know, oh yeah, I got to get that half hour in.

Oh no. You know, maybe I'll get struck by lightning. But it becomes rather joy, thanksgiving, you know, something we desire to do, something we just, you know, can't do enough of.

We want to pray. It becomes the most natural thing in the world for us to go to our Father and talk to him and lay our anxieties at his feet and call upon him for help and lay before him all the things that are in our hearts so that we're continuously just praying to God, all the time praying. One thing is for sure, nothing else good will ever come forth from our lives until that river of prayer is flowing toward the Father.

Forget about trying to minister to the world and everybody around you until you first learn to minister to the Father in prayer. The second river of living water that is to flow forth from those who abide in Jesus, following the first one of course, is a river of life in the spoken Word of God. Now we all know how to quote scriptures and we know, for instance, our Lord quoted scriptures and whenever he quoted scriptures, it was life.

Almost everything that Jesus said really came out of the Old Testament. But then there were the Pharisees and the scribes, they quoted scriptures and it was death. Satan quoted scriptures to Jesus and it was death.

And the difference was that when Jesus quoted, it wasn't just a dead quote of a letter, he was coming forth with the Spirit. My words are spirit and they are life, not the dead letter that destroys and kills. Rules and regulations, condemnation.

And so from our hearts is to flow a river of life, words that are in accord with scripture, burning first in our own hearts and burning so full and so free that they just burst forth. And when they come forth from us, the lives that are touched by these words are not defeated and destroyed and discouraged and condemned, but they're encouraged even when they're hard words and they're touched with life. The words coming forth are going to be life and they're going to flow as naturally as the birds sing and they're going to be down to earth.

This was the desire of the early believers. Look in Acts 4, we were saying in Sunday School today, Peter and John come back from their arrest and they share what happened and the whole body begins to pray and that prayer going forth is the river of prayer going up to heaven. You know, behold their threats and grant thy servants to speak thy word with boldness while thou stretches forth thy hand to heal another river.

That signs and wonders may be performed in the name of thy holy child Jesus. And as they prayed, when they had prayed, the place where they were gathered was shaken and they were filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God with boldness. Now notice too that the spoken word of God is not eloquence.

The Roman world of that day was loaded with order. They didn't have TV, they didn't have radio, but there were lots of men who were gifted speakers. People were connoisseurs of fine speaking, but it was not orating that did the job.

Peter and John, Paul, these men were not men who were gifted speakers, they didn't have silver tongues, and yet the words that they spoke brought life. City after city of the ancient world was stirred by spoken word coming forth from ordinary people. It was not professional evangelists, it was not gifted trained preachers, it was plain down-to-earth human beings whose mouths were now the fountainheads of words of life coming forth that caused this to happen.

The third river that is the flow forth from us as we abide in Jesus is a river of healing water. Lives are to be healed as we touch them. Granted, there are people in the body who are gifted for healing.

They have a special gift, that's true, but what we often do is then well that's not my gift and we put it aside and we forget about it, but just as surely as the word of God goes forth from our mouths, it is to be followed by a stream of healing. All of us, every life we touch, somehow if it's going to be touched in the name of the Lord, it's going to be touched with healing. The life, the body, the mind, the family, we need to touch that sick street corner, and that sick office, and that sick shop, and that sick school, that sick marriage, and down we can go all the way.

And it should again be as natural as everything we do, eating and sleeping, that we leave behind us if we truly abide in Jesus, a trail of healed families, healed bodies, healed minds, healed spirits, healed places. These signs shall follow them that believe, doesn't say that special apostles, specially gifted people, these signs shall follow them that believe, in my name shall they cast out devils, they shall speak with new tongue, if they drink any deadly thing, in other words they're protected, it won't hurt them, and they shall lay their hands on the sick and they shall recover. How do we get into this? How do we get to the place where that kind of life flows forth from every one of us? On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and proclaimed, if anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink.

He who believes in me, as the scripture has said, out of his heart shall flow rivers of living water. Very simple. If there's going to be an outflow of life like this, first there has to be an inflow.

You know, if there's going to be a river flowing out, we first have to drink the river that flows in. Jesus says, come to me and drink. If you're thirsty, come and drink.

And that's what faith is. Faith is to drink, to take it in, to swallow it. For instance, we are to, first of all, I believe, drink Jesus' forgiveness.

Many of us know all about forgiveness, and we're telling everybody else about forgiveness, but the one thing we fail to do is to swallow it ourselves. There are people in this gathering right now, I'm quite sure, who are walking around with burdens of guilt on their hearts that have been there for a long time. And the Lord wants to forgive them, and he wants to remove that.

You know, and they see it, and they hear it, and they understand it, but the one thing they won't do is swallow it. Drink it in. If he tells you, if he comes up to you right now, as he does, with those scars in his hand, and points to the cross, and says to you, my child, your sins are forgiven.

That means that forgiveness has flowed right up to the door of your heart. Now all you have to do is open the door and let it swallow down, and immediately you will experience peace. And some of us, you know, we don't have to look back years, it's just this past week.

There have been things in this week that have disappointed us, we've discouraged ourselves, we've blown it, you know, and we're bummed out by it, and here we are walking around, what we need is the forgiveness of the Lord, which is available to us. It's right there, but we're not swallowing it, we're not drinking it. If the Lord comes to us and says your sins are forgiven, it won't do us a bit of good until we drink it in.

Really drink it in, keep drinking it in, until you begin to experience the peace that you absolutely will, if you come to him and drink forgiveness. We need also to drink Jesus' promise of life. I have come that they might have life.

I didn't come to bum everybody out. I didn't come to grind down with condemnation. You're gonna go to hell.

You know, there is the warning all the time of hell, but that's not his purpose. His purpose is to save us from that, by offering us life. I'm not saying there's there's indeed a hell, and as Jesus says, it's going to be full, and the reason he comes is to spare us that, by offering us life, and this comes down to specific down-to-earth things in us right now, that are a need in your life that he doesn't want to meet.

He cares if you're broke. He cares if you don't have a job. He cares if you're lonely.

He cares if you're having trouble in your home. He cares if you're worried about your child. Specific, definite things that are troubling us, he offers an answer for, if we'll come to him and drink.

Lord, I need help, and I keep drinking his promise of life in, until I know that he's taken care of. It's ridiculous for us to say lofty prayers, and to say all kinds of wonderful things about what God will do, and not drink in help for our own problems. There's not a thing in your life, not a trouble, not a burden, not a worry, that he doesn't care about, if you come to him and drink.

And then finally, we need to drink from Jesus his word of correction, and that's the last thing you want to swallow. That we don't like. That goes with it.

You know, don't try to take all the goodies and forget the correction. There may be an attitude in our life, an attitude that's really taking us down the wrong track. Or there may be a way in which we have begun to cut corners.

Oh, God won't mind, I'll just think I'll flip around this one. Or a way in which we're being deceptive, you know, and we're deceiving ourselves and other people. And we go on with this, and we pretend it's not even there, until finally, in his love and mercy, God comes and puts his finger on it.

Boom. You know, and he does it, the reason he puts his finger on that thing is because that attitude is going to destroy us. That cutting of corners is going to ruin us if it goes on.

And so he hits it, out of love, for our own good. And our reaction always is to defend ourselves, and justify ourselves, and have all kinds of good reasons why we do what we do, or don't do what we should. And many of us have gone on for years justifying the fact, for instance, that we won't forgive, or that we're compromising the area of something that we know is not pleasing to him, that's lust, or self-righteousness, or you know, I mean, nobody has to name it, you know what it is, each of us knows.

But when we finally swallow, drink, that correction, peace. Now, suddenly the war is over, I'm no longer busy trying to justify myself, I admit it, Lord, you're right. Thank you for not letting me get away with that.

Thank you, Lord, for helping me, bringing me to the end of myself. Psalm 119 has everything in it. Thou hast dealt well with thy servant, O Lord, according to thy word.

Teach me good judgment and knowledge, for I have believed thy commandments. Before I was afflicted, I went astray, but now I have kept thy word. Thou art good, and doest good, teach me thy statutes.

It is good for me that I have been afflicted, that I might learn thy statutes. The law of thy mouth is better unto me than thousands of gold or silver. Thank you, Lord, for showing me that thing and not giving me any peace until I swallow your correction.

And it's when we swallow the correction, whatever it is, that the river of living water begins to well up inside our heart and overflow. If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. He or she who believes in me, as the scripture has said, out of his heart shall flow rivers of living water.

Now the promise that those rivers are going to flow is made to every single one of us. And the invitation to come to him and drink now is made to every single one of us. Let's pray.

Lord, we just know that that when we have drunk deeply of the river of life that you bring to the very door of our hearts right now, we know that that river is going to flow out and that there will be much fruit. And we pray, Lord God, that by the power of your Holy Spirit, you will help us to receive wherever we need it, the forgiveness that comes through the blood of the Lamb. And to take into our hearts and hold on to the promises of health, where we need help and know we need it, and oh Holy Spirit, help us right now where you are convicting us to face it and admit it and receive it where we need to be corrected and deliver us from going on and on and on and on trying to justify ourselves.

For in thy sight, Lord God, shall no man living be justified. Thank you that we don't have to justify ourselves. Thank you that you will now help us.

Finally, Lord, if it should be that there are those among us who still stand outside the door completely of the kingdom, that you just so wonderfully encourage them, or any among us who have been out who've run away and want to come home to you, that you just give them strong encouragement right now to do just that in whatever way is pleasing to you and helpful to them. We ask it in Jesus' name, Father. Amen.