So John chapter seven, verses 37 to 39. I also have included there 8, 12, and I'm gonna read that one also and I'll explain why I've included that. Please listen to the word of God. On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and cried out, if anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water. Now this he said about the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were to receive. For as yet the Spirit had not been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified. John 8, 12, again Jesus spoke to them saying, I am the light of the world, whoever follows me will not walk in darkness but will have the light of life. This is the Word of the Lord. Amen. Have you ever thought or realized or reflected on how so much of our lives and the patterns of our life are dictated and guided by and driven by seasons and holidays? Is there ever kind of a time in your life where seasons and holidays aren't what you're thinking about and you direct your life by these things? When we think of summer, it's kind of bracketed by two civil holidays, Memorial Day and Labor Day. I know the dates for summer and fall are different, but we think of summer between those dates. As a matter of fact, there's a lot of communities around the country that are seasonal because of the weather patterns, and they open for Memorial Day and they close for Labor Day. Then the school year starts, and that kind of kicks off a whole other thing, It seems to be like a morning like today when you wake up and it's, well, my weather app said 39 degrees out, 6 a.m. And you realize fall is here, even if they didn't declare it fall yet or autumn. And then, well, for some people that brings thoughts of pumpkin spice, but for me, I'm thinking Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year's. The busyness, the season. And what we notice in that is holidays fall in seasons and form like a holiday season. But there's other kind of holidays. For instance, your birthday is a holiday, isn't it? And you celebrate your birthday. Now the whole country might not celebrate your birthday, and certain birthdays they do if it's a president or some historical figure, but your birthday is very important for you. What do you like about holidays? What do you not like about holidays? So many of the most joyful holidays in our life are very sad for other people. Because holidays which are thought of to be for family and for community, if tragedy has happened in one's life, and often death that could be, then the holiday is not as joyful as you make it out to be joyful. It's because there's meaning in the holidays. Every holiday has some sort of meaning, and because of that, there's a past, present, and future significance to a holiday. A holiday's usually commemorating something, so there's the past, and we want to celebrate it. So any of the religiously themed holidays go back to whatever that religion is celebrating, Christianity, Jesus Christ. It's occurring in the present, and it's usually a celebration, but it always sort of has like a future thought to it. Either when it's over you feel disappointed, or it just makes you look forward to the next one. So our lives are driven by these holidays. You know, I grew up in a Hallmark store. I haven't said that lately, but my parents, that's where I grew up. Our whole life was revolved around holidays, but not really in the fun sense. My sister and I kind of dreaded December. We liked Christmas morning, but the amount of work that it took to staff and put merchandise in a store in late nights, and it's exhausting. But we knew about holidays, and Hallmark made up a lot of holidays because they needed business. That's true, by the way, they actually did. If anybody wonders why in June, in the summer, you're thinking about Christmas, it's Hallmark did that to you. Because that's a dry season. See, Christmas is a busy season and then Valentine's is a busy season and then Father's Day and Mother's Day and graduation and all these, but then summer comes and it's dry for the stores. And so what did they do? They said, we're gonna release our Christmas ornaments in the summer. And that's why that happens. And as I mentioned, Pumpkin Spice already, I think y'all have launched Pumpkin Spice way too early. I was seeing that in the summer. But holidays, as I said, today we finally get to this feast, this festival that Jesus is at. He goes up to the festival. And in Judaism, whatever we think about our lives and holidays and the way we celebrate holidays, the Jews have that to the hundredth degree. their whole world revolves around it. And very similar to us, there's usually a seasonal aspect to it, and then the historical relationship to it, and I'll explain that. So let's look at the sermon in the three parts I have there. Experiencing the feast, satisfying our thirst, and receiving the spirit. And you'll notice that those three points follow the text, the three verses of the text very closely. As we enter into this, I want to ask you one more question. Does it ever upset you when a holiday is not being used for what it's meant for? Wow, I didn't realize I would get that kind of response. Yes. Right? So we have this whole thing, you know, Jesus is the reason for the season. And I get that. We've commercialized things. But I see that even with Memorial Day and Labor Day, right? What's Memorial Day? It's a time for barbecues and people say, no, it's to remember the lives lost of our service people that were lost to secure freedom and to defend freedom. What about birthdays? Can you imagine going to a birthday party or birthday celebration for somebody and not honoring that person? Not acknowledging that person, not giving them gifts. I had a case like this. I remember when I was a teenager, maybe eighth grade. So adolescent. I went to this kid's house for his birthday. He had an awesome house. We had a fun party for him. And then he lived by this awesome park. And so we all went to the park. And as soon as we got to the park, everybody wanted to do everything else but what this kid wanted to do. And we were there for the kid. And I remember wanting to do what the other people wanted to do and then looking at how sad he was that we were there for him but doing something else. I said, hey, guys, it's Tom's birthday. Let's play this, because I know he'd like that, and we all got it. But the Jews at this time in history were doing exactly that with all these festivals. All these festivals pointing to salvation and commemorating God's gift to them, his mercy and grace to them, but they forgot the reason for them. And we know as Christians, Jesus Christ, I'm not keeping you in suspense, Jesus Christ is the reason for them. And so feel the tension and the drama, and as I describe this feast or festival of tabernacles or booths, recognize that standing in their presence is what this whole thing points to. And we've already looked in chapter seven how they want to kill him. So in Judaism, there's three main feasts or festival seasons. There's a number of feasts, but there's three main seasons that the Bible says that every Jewish man, the whole family should go, but at least every Jewish man had to go to Jerusalem for. And there was always an agricultural reason that these were associated to, but there was a religious reason that they were associated. And so you think in your minds, Passover in the spring, They obviously, Passover was the Jewish holiday. They also then had Pentecost, which was like right around summer. And then this time of year, the Feast of Booths. And everything was around the harvest. So, that's how these weeks worked. Let me read you a little bit in Exodus about this to give you a picture of it. In Exodus 23. Exodus 23, verse 14. Three times in the year you shall keep a feast to me. You shall keep the feast, so this is the first one, of unleavened bread. As I commanded you, you shall eat unleavened bread for seven days at the appointed time in the month of Abib, for in it you came out of Egypt. None shall appear before me empty-handed. So the feast of unleavened bread is associated with the Passover. So the Passover was the major feast that kicked off this seven day feast of the unleavened bread in the spring. Verse 60, you shall keep the feast of harvest of the first fruits of your labor of what you sow in the field. This one is also called the Feast of Weeks, and it's kicked off by Pentecost, which is 50 days after the Passover. And by the way, you see how Christianity kind of follows this pattern. Jesus is sacrificed on Passover, the Jewish holiday. So he raises again, you know, on the third day. And then 50 days later, what happens at the Feast of Pentecost? The Holy Spirit is given. And you see how Christ's own life actually corresponded with the Feast. Again in verse 16, you shall keep the feast of ingathering at the end of the year when you gather in from the field the fruit of your labor. Three times in the year shall all your males appear before the Lord God. And that's what this feast is. So the feast of ingathering is also called the festival or feast of boots. So for this I jump to Leviticus. Leviticus 23, verse 23. And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, Speak to the people of Israel, saying, In the seventh month, on the first day of the month, you shall observe a day, a solemn rest, a memorial proclaimed with a blast of trumpets, a holy convocation. You shall not do any ordinary work, and you shall present a food offering to the Lord. So on the seventh month, the first day, there's trumpets blast, this is, this one is called, I gotta look it up, there were so many different feasts, it's the Feast of Trumpets. Now what this feast does on this, and so this is this month, okay, the first day of the Jewish seventh month is this feast that kicks off, now get this, 10 days of repentance and remembrance of sin. So it doesn't sound very joyful, but it's a time of reflection. Because on the 10th day of this month is the day of atonement. Now what's the day of atonement? Yom Kippur, okay? So if you know Jewish feast days, Rosh Hashanah is the one I just described, that's the first day of the seventh month. 10 days later is Yom Kippur. Yom means day, Kippur means atonement, or covering, the day of atonement. One day a year, They would make sacrifices for all the sins of Israel. Now every time you sin and you knew you sinned, you had to go up and make sacrifice, right? But what about the sins you don't know about? What about those? What about the sins you forgot about? What about the things you were supposed to do and didn't do? How do you make up for all those? And so they give you one day a year, but they give you 10 days to think about it. So trumpets are blown, kicks off a Sabbath, you have 10 days to reflect on your failings. Leading up to the Day of Atonement, where the scapegoat, all the sins of the people of Israel are placed on the scapegoat, and then he's sent outside the city And I was talking to some Jewish people and they were saying the rabbis, this wasn't in the scriptures, but then when the goat got off the city, they'd like throw it off a cliff and drop a rock on it because they didn't want the goat to run back into the city with the sins. And then another goat is actually sacrificed, blood is shed for all the sins. So the sins are removed and the blood is shed, Day of Atonement. Five days later is this feast, the Feast of Booths and Tabernacles. Let me read you about this. I'll read this from Deuteronomy. Deuteronomy 16, 13. So notice, it's called the Feast of Boots or the Feast of Tabernacles, but it's associated with bringing in the harvest. So there's agricultural reasons, and now there's gonna be a remembrance. You shall rejoice in your feast, you and your son and your daughter, your male servant and your female servant, the Levite, the sojourner, the fatherless, the widow, and all within your towns. For seven days you shall keep the feast to the Lord at the place the Lord will choose, because the Lord your God will bless you in all your produce and in all your work, of all your hands, so that you will be altogether joyful. So do you hear about the joy and the rejoicing? So get the picture. 10 days to reflect on the repentance you need. The day of atonement comes. Your sins are forgiven as far as the east is from the west as that goat runs the sins out of the city and another goat is slaughtered for it. And then in five more days, you get one week of just feasting and joy. This is the feast Jesus walks in on. This is when he comes. Now in your bulletin, I have all kinds of verses there that you can look up other places where the feast is mentioned. But what I wanna tell you what's happening in this feast, now some of this doesn't come from the Bible, some of this comes from all the religious writings, okay? But you'll see what Jesus is doing. So, seven days, right? All the males come to Jerusalem and their families, because we know this, Jesus came with his family and he stayed in Jerusalem for one of these festivals, and his family went back without him. So the families come too, but at least the men come. on the first day of this feast of booths or tabernacles. Now, what are booths and tabernacles? I'll just say real quick. Remembers the Exodus, when God brings them out of Egypt, and for 40 years, they're living in booths, in tents, in tabernacles. A shofar is blown, you know, that's that ram's horn, blasted every morning. And it signals the beginning of the festival. And this is how every morning what it looks like. The priests go in this procession and all the people are gathered to see this. And there's a lot of singing and songs from the Psalms, by the way. And they go down and they draw water out of the pool of Siloam. And the Pool of Siloam was associated with the temple. And there's eschatological significance to this. There's significance for the future to this, because there's prophecies about how water will flow from the temple to water the whole earth, just like the Garden of Eden. And so they go down, and all these priests go down, and they draw water out. And that's significant and important. Isaiah 12.3, with joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation. Or Exodus 2.10, speaking about Moses. You know what Moses' name means? You remember Moses was hid in the Nile River in a basket. And the Pharaoh's daughter finds him. Exodus 2.10, when the child grew older, she brought him to Pharaoh's daughter and he became her son. She named him Moses because she said, I drew him out of the water. And so there's this ritual of drawing water out of, and then this procession up the steps of the temple and up there, and they pour it out onto the altar. Now we see this happen in other places in the Bible. We see it, you may think of the prophet Elijah, but also in 1 Samuel, we see water being poured out onto the altar. And so they're doing this during this ritual. And as they do that, the trumpet is blown. So water and trumpets, three times, three blasts from that shofar. and great singing. That's how the day starts for seven days. And so the children of Israel, the people, are seeing water being drawn out, water coming up, water being poured out, a visual of water. Well then what happens? In the late afternoon, all these lights happen. The whole temple gets lit up with torches and flames and all this. Now, I'll tell you all the significance of what this is recollecting, but again, there's no light pollution. So when the sun goes down, and by the way, this happens Well, it's not at the new moon. But anyway, when the sun goes down, the temple is lit up. It must have been glorious. And if this doesn't sound exciting to you, why do people wait hours in line at Tanglewood just to see lights? And there's a sense that it's glowing off the temple because the temple's white walls and the light's shining off it and it's up on a hill. A city on a hill. You are the light of the world, Jesus says. That's what the church ought to be. And then everybody is dwelling in booths and tents to commemorate the exodus. All of this commemorates the exodus. They were thirsty in the wilderness, were they not? God dwelt with them in a pillar of fire, and now they have fire. And they dwelt in booths. Trumpets for Seven Days reminds us of the Joshua account. and water being poured out, just like God gave Israel water in the wilderness. And do you remember those stories? We'll talk about those. This is the setting and the moment, because it says, on the last day, the great day. Now, scholars don't know which day this is, because it's funny, when you read about it in the Bible, it says for seven days, but then it keeps saying the eighth day. Let me see, I was trying to look for it before, But I kept losing it. Yeah, it's in those verses I gave you. I had so many verses I was sifting through. But there's an eighth day. And so it's almost like the festival can't end. But on the eighth day, none of that, no water happens, no light happens. It's almost like you just sit and you rest. It's a Sabbath, the eighth day. And so you had all this excitement and festivals for seven days, and then the eighth day comes and you just go. So scholars don't know, did Jesus stand up? On the seventh day, in the midst of the grandest sort of spectacle of water and lights, or was it on the eighth day when they were wishing it was still happening? But that's when he stands up and he says, if anyone thirsts, and by the way, did you notice how he, it says he cried out. The Greek there is like he shrieked it. It's one of those onomatopoetic words that sounds like what it is, like cacaw. Almost like he's the trumpet. that they were hearing. If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the scriptures has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water. It's no wonder they wanted to kill him. For seven days they had just witnessed this spectacle. They know it is given by a gift of God, and this man stands up. It says, all that points to me. I love how this seventh month is just full of festivals. And I love how it starts with a season of repentance. A season of reflection on how we fall short and how we don't live up. And then right there in the middle, forgiveness, and then joy and party. There's all kinds of sacrifices being made at this festival, but they're thanksgiving offerings for the Lord. So Jesus says, thirsts. We talked about the feast. If anyone thirsts, let him come to me. And there's two images being used here by Christ with the water. One is an image of thirst, or the analogy of thirst. But the other is, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water. And so we're gonna look at both of those. Let's look first at the rivers of living water and what's the point of that. We know that water is life. When scientists are trying to find Life in the universe. Either a planet that we could all go and live on after we've destroyed this one, or where there might be aliens. I'm not validating any of those viewpoints. I'm just saying, when scientists are looking at planets, what do they look, the main thing they're looking for? Liquid water. Liquid water. Plants that are too hot have none. You have to be in that Goldilocks zone in the solar system with a star at the right size, and everything has to work out perfectly. And that's why, when you look at Earth, it's the most beautiful planet there is. You just see that in the sky. That just big blue and green ball is mostly blue. Water. They can't find that anywhere. I've been out to South Dakota, to the Badlands. Just a dead canyon. Dead. I've never been to Death Valley in California. I would assume it's the same thing. No water. No water. You walk up, and I know you're probably not supposed to do this, but I touch it, and it just crumbles under my hands, just eroding. You look around, no life. Dead. But water grows crops, and it feeds livestock. It cools us off. I love going in creeks and lakes and refreshes. Water cleanses. These analogies are all used. And Jesus says, out of that person will flow rivers of living water. Now I will say there's some commentary difference on this, because who is the living water coming from? If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scriptures have said, out of his heart will flow living waters. And so grammatically, Jesus says this is the Holy Spirit. We're going to get to that. But the Holy Spirit doesn't flow out of us. He's rooted in Christ and he flows out of Christ. And so some commentators say, Jesus is the one that is the source and the waters are flowing out of him. That's how all the imagery comes together, by the way, that Jesus is the temple of God and from the temple of God, the river is there and the river's gonna fill the earth. But we get filled up with the water. Remember when Jesus tells the woman at the, the well in John 4. Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water I will give him will become him a spring of water welling up to eternal life. And so this, what I think is going on in this verse is similar to Jesus saying, I am the light of the world. And then what does he say? So he says that in John's gospel. What does he say in Matthew's gospel? You are the light of the world. And then in Revelation, the churches are the lights of the world, right? And so what Jesus has in himself, he gives to us to be that to the world. And so Jesus Christ, the source of the Holy Spirit, gives us his Holy Spirit. And as I said, we will talk about that. But Zechariah 14.8, On that day living waters shall flow out from Jerusalem, half of them to the eastern sea and half to the western sea. It shall continue in summer as in winter, and the Lord will be king over all the earth. On that day the Lord will be one And His name won. And so what you see in the imagery of the Old Testament, and this is what this passage is trying to show, is that the waters flowing out of the temple and out of Jerusalem that fill the earth is God's presence and life going out from the temple. And Jesus says, that's me. Zechariah 13, on that day there shall be a fountain opened up for the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem to cleanse them from sin and unrighteousness. Joel 3.18, in that day the mountains shall drip sweet wine and the hills flow with milk and all the stream beds of Judah shall flow with water and a fountain shall come forth from the house of the Lord and water the valley of Shittim. And so you have all this Old Testament imagery that in that day and Jesus in that day comes to the temple I was talking with a brother yesterday at the men's retreat, just like he goes to the synagogue in Nazareth and he reads the scroll about Isaiah and he says, today this has been fulfilled in your presence. And they want to kill him. And here it's the same thing. They want to kill him in chapter 5, 7, 8, 10. But this is the day. The true temple of the Lord comes to the temple of the Lord while all this water's being poured out, and he's symbolizing how the water's supposed to go and water the earth, and he says, I'm that water. For your own homework, you can read Ezekiel 47, it's long, and it talks about how the water starts off as a little dribble, and it becomes like a bigger stream, and it becomes even bigger, and then it just gushes to the whole earth. Beautiful imagery, read Ezekiel 47. when you go home. So the water flowing out, but Jesus talks about thirst. And we had a whole sermon about thirst, because there was a whole chapter about thirst. This is what I said about the repetition, right? The woman at the well was thirsty. Jesus says, if you knew who was giving you water, I would give you living waters, welling up to eternal life. And she said, sir, give me those waters that I don't have to draw from this well. I'm thirsty right now, actually. In the ancient world, so well acquainted with thirst. I mean, now we have these things. Kids have metal ones walking around school because we've used so much plastic, I guess. I mean, I remember in school and in sports, when I grew up in the 80s and 90s, your punishment was not being able to drink. Say, you're not running fast enough. No water for you. I need water. They don't do that anymore. I'm glad. I mean, we don't know what it's like to leave our house and have to always be thinking, where am I going to get my next drink from? We have all kinds of containers, metal containers, plastic containers, all kinds of containers. We have water fountains, refrigerators, food lines. They didn't have any of that. They didn't have any of that. Water and thirst, a very real thing for them. In Luke 16, 24, It's that story about the rich man and Lazarus, and the rich man just gorging himself. He had everything he needed in life, and he would never share anything with Lazarus. And then the rich man goes to hell, and Lazarus is in Abraham's bosom. And what does the rich man say to the angel? He says, send Lazarus to dip his finger in a little bit of water and put it on my tongue. Total side note. He still viewed Lazarus as a servant. That beggar slave, get him to get me some water while he's rotting in hell and Lazarus is in the glory of his Savior. But the picture of hell is always described as burning and fire. You just want to drip. You can't get it. In the Exodus story, So if you're not familiar with the Bible, God's people end up slaves in Egypt, and he delivers them out of Egypt, and that's where you've seen the Ten Commandments, and the story about the Red Sea crossing as the waters are parted, but now they're in the wilderness with no water. And they start grumbling against Moses and against God. We should have stayed in Egypt as slaves, at least we had water. In Exodus 15, they come to a pool. There's something wrong with the water. Something wrong with it. They couldn't drink it. It was bitter, whatever that means. Maybe there's dead animals in it or something. So God tells Moses, Moses throws a stick into the water and it cures the bitterness of the waters. By the way, Christ's cross cures the bitterness and gives us living waters. So, the next chapter, they're hungry. Exodus 15. And so God rains down manna from heaven, bread. They get to eat it. Exodus 17, they're thirsty again. Do you think they'd remember the other two times? Oh no, they want to kill Moses. God's gonna give them water, and I'll tell you about that. But see what John's doing in his gospel. This is another one of these side notes. Some of you love this and some of you hate it, I'm sorry. So Exodus 15, 16, and 17, John 5, 6, and 7 is following that. Because John 5, Jesus comes to a pool, just like the Israelites came to a pool. And just like the Israelites should have been able to drink from the pool, received life from the pool, but couldn't, the crippled man laying by the pool in John chapter 5 should be able to get into the pool, but he can't. And Jesus heals him. Now Exodus 16, they're hungry, they get the bread from heaven. What is John 6? We spend all these weeks in John 6. I am the bread of life. I am the bread come down from heaven. And then what do they say? Behold, he is the prophet who's come into the world, Moses. It's what the Moses prediction was. So then you get Exodus 17 and John 7. They're judging God, they want to kill Moses, and what does God say? God says, gather the people, assemble them, and I will stand before them on this rock, emblematically. And you strike the rock, and waters will come out of it. Now this happens again in the book of Numbers, by the way. And Moses that time gets judged because of what he does. But the rock is struck, and waters flow out of it. And Jesus here says, I'm the one who gives you the waters. Now who knows what 1 Corinthians 10 says? And the rock that was struck was Christ. Referring to that exodus moment. The picture in the exodus of their thirst, and what are they doing? They're grumbling and judging God. And what does he say? I will stand in the place of that judgment. Not in the place of the judge, but in the one who's being judged. I will stand before you, the jury. And Moses takes a rod and strikes it, which is an act of judgment, and waters flow. And that's our Savior on the cross who struck for us. That's why in John 3 all need to be born of water and the Spirit. I think that's why when Christ was pierced, and I know the medical reasons for this or whatever, but blood and water flowed. He was struck. Christ takes the judgment and gives us living waters, those who were judging him. It's mind boggling. And all this is being foreshadowed here and pictured here. And that's why that call to worship, come to me all who, Isaiah 55.3, what is it? I had it here. Anyone who's thirst, come to me and I'll quench your thirst. Taylor, where are you? You quoted it for me earlier. I'm sorry, y'all. I'm not feeling my best today. So I hope you could see how this feast is pointing to Jesus and how Jesus is saying things that directly relate to this feast. And that's why I included the I am the light of the world verse. because what you'll learn in two weeks is there's a story in chapter eight that wasn't in the original manuscripts, and we'll talk all about that. So in other words, the very next verse from this story, from chapter seven, Jesus says, and he stood up again, and he says, I am the light of the world. He says, I give you living waters. He says, I am the light of the world, and that's what this festival was all about, light and water and joy and rejoicing. All the feasts culminate in Jesus Christ. All the feasts are for the Jews. The Passover feast, He's the Passover Lamb. Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. On the Day of Atonement, He's the scapegoat by which all the sins of His people are placed on. He's the tabernacle or tent of God that the Feast of Booths is looking toward. He is the light of the world. He says, I am the light of the world. And here he says he gives living water. Now this always, I always wondered about this. Why is there seven I am statements, but the living water is not one of them? You would think it would be, right? I am the bread of life. I am the light of the world. I'm the resurrection in the life. I'm the good shepherd. I'm the true vine. I'm the way, the truth, and the life. Why not I'm the living waters? He said, I give you living waters. Because in the Bible, water is always associated with the Spirit. And the Spirit flows from Christ. By the way, I know why I didn't have Isaiah 55, because I was supposed to open the Bible to it. Come everyone who thirsts, come to the waters. And he who has no money, come buy and eat. Come buy wine and milk without money and without price. Everyone who thirsts. Isaiah 44.3 says this, Old Testament. Do you remember when I told you about Hebrew parallelism? When you see two statements next to each other, they're in parallel, they're meant to be compared. He says, I will pour out water on the thirsty land and streams on the dry ground. I will pour my spirit upon your offspring and my blessing on your descendants. The spirit and the water being poured out. By the way, that's why as Presbyterians we pour for baptism. Joel 2, 28 and 29, and it shall come to pass afterward that I will pour out My Spirit on all flesh. Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy. Your old men shall dream dreams and your young men shall see visions. Even on the male and female servant in those days, I will pour out My Spirit. The Spirit is poured out. Now where is that fulfilled? In Pentecost, the coming of the Holy Spirit, and they quote back to Joel. So the pouring out of the Spirit and the pouring of waters are associated. We already talked about John 3. You're gonna be born of the water and of the Spirit. So we receive the Spirit, and we receive the Spirit by faith. You may remember when I preached John 6. John 6.35, I am the bread of life, whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst. And so there you see again, like the Isaiah 55 passage, hunger and thirst being used sort of interchangeably. And as I said there, these are not two different things. Whoever comes to me, whoever believes in me. It's parallelism. They're compared. Coming to Jesus is believing in Jesus in this context. And the same thing for this verse. If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, do you see the parallelism? Whoever believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living waters. The Spirit empowers us to come to Christ because we have thirsty souls. Anybody who has had a conversion experience to Jesus Christ knows how they're drawn to Him, like thirst. Now, John's gospel gives some of the fullest theology about the Holy Spirit in all the gospels. It's very developed. Chapter 14, 15, and 16. So we're going to talk about that probably for months, the Holy Spirit. But I want to say a couple things because this always confuses people. The Holy Spirit in the Old Testament and the Holy Spirit in the New Testament. Because here it says, for as yet the Spirit had not been given. And then we see at the end of John's gospel, Jesus coming in the upper room to the 12, and what does he do? He breathes on them, and he says, receive the Holy Spirit. But then we read the book of Acts, and those disciples in the upper room are hiding there until the Holy Spirit comes upon them, and then they get bold, right? And so how do we view the Holy Spirit? Old Testament, New Testament, John's gospel, book of Acts. Well, here's what I told the Wednesday night class when this question kept coming up. This is what we have to understand. Nobody is saved, Old Testament or New Testament, apart from Christ. The book of Hebrews says they were looking forward to the Messiah. Galatians and Romans says that Abraham wasn't saved by his works, he was saved, he was declared righteous by faith. Faith in what? Faith in the coming Messiah. So here's the thing. If no one can please God without faith, right, the Bible says that, without faith it's impossible to please God. And no one can have faith unless it's granted by the Holy Spirit. It has to be granted by God, by the Holy Spirit, and the Bible says this. Then those Old Testament saints had to have the Holy Spirit. They had to. So how do we understand it? The coming of the Spirit. Because we also have to say something new happens when Jesus Christ is glorified. When something comes to Pentecost that the Spirit is given. This is what people often associate it as, and this is probably the right way to view it is, you know in the Old Testament, the Holy Spirit rushes upon individuals as an anointing, right? Rushes upon Gideon, rushes upon Samson, rushes upon even Saul. Empowers prophets and kings in the anointing. And so what we get in Jesus Christ, is the same Holy Spirit that convicts them to turn in faith, convicts us to turn in faith, but we all get that special anointing. You notice that the disciples were hiding in the upper room, even after this John account where Jesus has received the Holy Spirit and he breathes on them, that was still a foreshadowing of Pentecost. He's saying, what I've been telling you this whole time is about to happen. and they're still up in the upper room hiding. There was no empowerment yet. The very next chapter in John's Gospel, 21, Jesus finds them fishing, and again, the faith wasn't just right or there, and Peter still felt broken. There was something different. Until Pentecost came. The tongues of fire covered each one of them and they started to prophesy and they were bold in the name of the Spirit. Because the Spirit had flowed out from the person of Christ into each individual. Because the fire of God in the tabernacle symbolized God's presence. The fire in the feast of tabernacles was showing God's presence. And now the fire pillars on each one of the apostles that the Spirit comes on them says the Spirit lives in you. Spirit of Christ. Now they go out empowered. About this, Jesus was not yet glorified, just to cover that. There's different ways to view that. The same way the kingdom of God. Is the kingdom of God here? Yes. But is it fully here? Not yet, right? So we get glimpses of Christ's glory in his transfiguration, the disciples did. When they saw him, they saw him in his glory, glimpses of it. His glory is most fully on display in his humiliation on the cross. So when John's speaking of his glory, it's moving to the cross, and there he's lifted up for all to see. And unless the Son of Man be lifted up, he says, and all look at him. So we get glimpses of his glory in the transfiguration. His displays of his glory is on display at the cross. He receives a glorified body at his resurrection. Walks around, could walk through walls. Who knows what else? But when he takes his throne in glory at his ascension, the spirit is given. Okay? There's glimpses, displays of, But that's that vision of Daniel. Behold, I saw one like the Son of Man coming on the clouds, and he's presented before the Ancient of Days. That's the vision of Revelation. Jesus is on his throne. In Acts 1.8, it says, he gives you faith in, no, that's not, what the heck. I'm sorry, y'all. Acts 1.8, but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth. And so that's that empowering of the Holy Spirit that turns scared apostles into bold proclaimers of the faith. That empowers the apostles to do really hard things and go to their death for it, singing hymns. The same Holy Spirit that empowered the martyrs, when you hear about the stories of the martyrs being burnt at the stake. William Tyndale, his anniversary was just this last week. He's the great English reformer who was burnt at the stake. He's the reason we could speak English almost, not really. But a lot of what Shakespeare got came out of Tyndale's accounting of the English language. Shakespearean English, It goes back to the Tyndale Bible. We have an English Bible because of him. And he gets burnt at the stake praying that the king of England would know the glory of the Lord. That England would turn to their savior, Jesus Christ. I mean, what could do that? The power of the Holy Spirit. Whoever believes in me, as the scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water. So we started talking about holidays, as I do wrap up now. We see how all the Old Testament holidays point to Jesus Christ, who's a fulfillment of all of it. But do you know like almost every holiday that we have and celebrate, the reason we celebrate it is because we long for something. And all those things find their hope and root in Christ. I mean, Memorial Day. Remembering men and women who have given their life for people. Jesus says, greater love is no one than this, than someone that lays down his life for his friends, and he's the ultimate person who did that. Veterans Day, Jesus is the one who says, the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve and to give his life a ransom for many, and we celebrate the service of our veterans. Labor Day, come to me all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest, Jesus Christ says. Fourth of July, for freedom, Christ has set you free. Don't submit again to a yoke of slavery. Why is that? You could do that with almost every holiday, even the controversial ones. I'm not going to mention them here just because I don't want to get into it. So you can ask me about it. Because every deep longing of our hearts, anything good in that points to Christ. And anything bad in it is our warping of what's good in it. And that's what John's gospel is showing when he says, I'm the light of the world. I'm the bread of life. The resurrection and the life. It's our Savior. They missed it. He was right there. The true temple of God was right there in the temple. Do we miss it? Are you missing who Jesus Christ is? Are you missing what he gives you? Because I think Christians would look a whole lot different if we weren't missing it. We have the living water, we have the Holy Spirit of Jesus Christ living inside of us. What would that do if we really got that? So as I do close with this, Christians, let's remember that. Let's remember we only exist, we only have life because we are feeding on the light of life because we have the water, the living waters of Jesus Christ inside of us. Let's live for Him. And if you don't know Him, every longing of your heart is pointing to Him. Ask us about it. You could have living waters too. Let's pray.