1. Please
pray with me. May the words of my mouth
and the meditation of our hearts be pleasing in Your sight, O Lord, our Rock,
and our Redeemer. Amen. Well, a happy Pentecost to all of you! The message from God’s Word this Pentecost
Day is taken from John 7:37-39. Today in
the Gospel of John we’ll see that Jesus invites us to come to Him all who are
thirsty for forgiveness (vs. 37), and as Christians the Holy Spirit enables us
to point those who are spiritually dry to Jesus (vs. 38-39). The message is entitled, “Pentecost Still Refreshes,” dear brothers and sisters in Christ.
2. In
the late 1950s, in a town near the shores of one of the Great Lakes, stood a
drinking fountain that bubbled over with water all year long. The teenagers who
played in that neighborhood on weekends and in the summer would often run to
this never-ending source of water. You might hear someone say, “I’m dying of thirst.” Then he or she
would race to the fountain, drink to the full, and return to the routine of
playing, thirst quenched. People across
the world have been given a divine thirst to believe in Christ, to drink of the
fountain of life, and to be satisfied eternally. On this Day of Pentecost, the
Holy Spirit reminds you that you’ve been given the privilege of thirsting for
salvation and being satisfied, and that joy accompanies your proclamation of
Jesus to a world that needs to thirst (Jn 7:37–39).
3. John
7:37-39 says, “37On 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. 38Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out
of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’” 39Now 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.” In the Gospel of John chapter 7 we’re given the
time and setting for these words of Jesus. The time isn’t Pentecost but the
Jewish Feast of Tabernacles (Jn 7:2). John tells us that there’s great
confusion about Jesus (Jn 7:3–52). Even Jesus’ brothers don’t understand him. Although Jesus’ brothers know he’s someone
great, John states that at this point they don’t believe in him (Jn 7:5). There’s
also confusion about Jesus among the people in Jerusalem celebrating the Feast
of Tabernacles. The views about Jesus’ character range from “He is a good man” to “No, he deceives the people” (Jn 7:12).
The views about Jesus ranged from “He is
the Christ” to “He is the Prophet”
to “He is an impostor who should be
removed from influencing the people” (cf. Jn 7:40–44). In this setting
Jesus preaches.
4. The Feast of Tabernacles was a
thanksgiving festival for the harvest of corn and wine (Dt 16:13) and a
festival of remembrance for the Lord’s presence when the Israelites wandered in
the wilderness and lived in booths (Lev 23:39–43). The Jews reenacted for one
week the living in booths by building thousands of booths and tents outside the
walls of Jerusalem. John says that Jesus made his
invitation for the thirsty to drink from him “on the last and greatest day of the Feast.”
5. Jesus
stood and proclaimed in a loud voice: “If
anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink.” The
importance of the message as well as the confusion of the people called for
Jesus to stand and shout. Certain times call for a standing and “shouting” preacher.
6. Such
was the case at the first Pentecost Festival after Jesus had ascended into
heaven. In fulfillment of Jesus’ promise that the apostles would receive power
when the Holy Spirit came on them (Ac 1:8).
When the Day of Pentecost came there was a sound like a violent wind,
and then what seemed to be tongues of fire came to rest on the disciples. The
sound of the wind caused a crowd to gather in confusion. At such a time of
confusion Peter stood up and addressed the crowd (Ac 2:14).
7. The
message of Peter at the Feast of Pentecost was the same as the message of Jesus
at the Feast of Tabernacles, and it’s our message today: salvation! In
John 7 Jesus proclaimed: “If anyone is
thirsty, let him come to me and drink.” Are men by nature thirsty? Yes, but
for what? We agree with Job’s friend Eliphaz that man is by nature corrupt and
“drinks up evil like water.” Man is
thirsty—for evil. By nature dead in transgressions and sins (Eph 2:1), every
man enters life like the dead and dry bones that Ezekiel saw in his vision. “If a man is thirsty,” shouted Jesus. Jesus
knew how to make a man thirsty; he could unmask man’s sin like no other. In
fact, before he went up to the Feast of Tabernacles, he had told his brothers,
“The world cannot hate you, but it hates
me because I testify that what it does is evil” (Jn 7:7). To those who
despaired of their own righteousness through sorrow for sin Jesus said: “Come to me and drink.” Jesus invites
you and me, the thirsty ones to come to him for forgiveness of sins, life, and
salvation.
8. And so Peter preached at
Pentecost. The Pentecost people weren’t thirsting for Jesus. But Peter stood up
and made many thirsty: “ ‘Therefore let
all Israel be assured of this: God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified,
both Lord and Christ.’ When the people heard this, they were cut to the heart
and said to Peter and the other apostles, ‘Brothers, what shall we do?’”
(Ac 2:36, 37).
9. Like Jesus, Peter cut through the
religious piety of the crowd by setting their evil works before them revealing
their parched, bone-dry, dead condition before God. And Peter directed thirsty ones
to God’s salvation in Jesus in the means of grace: “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ
for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy
Spirit” (Ac 2:38). And about 3,000 drank from the well of salvation through
the waters of Holy Baptism.
10. John tells us in John chapter 7 that the crowd held many opinions about
Jesus: some said that Jesus was a good man, deceiver of people, the Prophet,
the Christ. The last one is the right view; Jesus is the promised Messiah. But
we know that even the apostles didn’t fully understand how the kingdom of Jesus
would come. Even, Peter didn’t understand the need for the cross, as Matthew 16
tells us. And even after the resurrection and before the ascension, the
apostles didn’t fully understand the kingdom of Christ. Before Jesus ascended,
the apostles had asked him, “Lord, are
you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?” (Ac 1:6). Why
didn’t Jesus set them straight at that point? Because they wouldn’t understand
Jesus’ kingdom until the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. Jesus had said to them
in John 16, “I have much more to say to
you, more than you can now bear. But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he
will guide you into all truth” (Jn 16:12, 13).
11. Again, Jesus says in John 7, “ ‘Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture
has said, streams of living water will flow from within him.’ By this he meant
the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive.” After the outpouring of the Holy Spirit at
Pentecost, the apostles had no more questions about “restoring the kingdom to Israel.” In his Pentecost sermon, Peter
preached that Jesus by his resurrection from the dead was placed on David’s
throne and now was exalted to the right hand of the Father (Ac 2:29–33).
12. And believing in Jesus and having a Holy
Spirit-given understanding of the kingdom caused “streams of living water” to flow from the apostles and the other
Jerusalem Christians. Scattered throughout Judea and Samaria the Jerusalem
Christians “preached the word wherever
they went” (Ac 8:4). Philip preached in Samaria, followed by Peter and John
(Ac 8). Peter preached to Gentiles at Cornelius’ house. And after the
persecutor Saul was baptized and filled with the Holy Spirit, the streams of
living water flowed throughout the Roman world. The promise of Jesus at the
Feast of Tabernacles was fulfilled in a special way at the Feast of Pentecost.
And to this day the Holy Spirit poured out at Pentecost works in you as well
the attitude of Peter and John: “We
cannot help speaking about what we have seen and heard” (Ac 4:20).
13. But, how can spiritually dead men respond
to the harvest call? Martin Luther said it best about the Holy Spirit, the Lord
and giver of life, for the gift of faith: “The
Holy Spirit has called me by the gospel.”
John chapter 7 teaches us that the Holy Spirit uses us Christians to
reach others to show them their spiritually thirsty condition and to point the
thirsty to Jesus. So each of us as
Christians is to be like the child who is the first to find the park’s drinking
fountain on a hot summer’s day. The child drinks and drinks, quenching his
thirst. And then he calls out to his friends searching for the fountain, “Here it is; come and drink; it’s good!” Amen.
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