Amen.
Amen. And all God's children said, Amen. You guys can have a seat here today and man, I tell you what, I love songs about the cross and I love singing about the cross and that's what we've been looking at as a church over the last several weeks and we're going to continue to do so here today. But let me just say this, that if this is your first time, like Pastor Bailey mentioned earlier, I do want to say thank you so much for coming here today. And we recognize you could have been in a lot of different places and you have chosen to be with us and to worship with us today. And so if we have not met before, my name is Josh and I'm the pastor here and I would love the opportunity today to be able to meet you before you leave.
And the way that we can do that is take one of those new here cards that's in the seat back directly in front of you. And you can take it out to our welcome center, which is right outside this door, and we will have a volunteer there that would love to get a gift in your hands just as our way of saying thank you for being a part of the service here today. Well, listen, if you're excited to be at church, can you say Amen today? And listen, it is the 11 o'clock crowd and I know 11 o'clock you guys have been just sleeping in this morning, you kind of got a little bit of extra sleep and some of you still look asleep a little bit today.
And but no, it is so good to see you. We had a great 830 service and we are excited for all that God wants to do here in our 11 o'clock service here here today. Like Pastor Bailey said, don't forget next week I want to invite you to come out to the property at 5pm next Sunday evening. And if you're not familiar with what God is leading our church to, I'd encourage you maybe this afternoon or at least sometime this week, take a left out of the parking lot here, take your first right there on Leonard Barrier Road, and you'll go about a half mile and on the left you'll see the construction site of our new building. And we are super excited. God is blessing our ministry here. And so we'll be building in phase one, an educational building to expand our Christian school here. And so we're excited about that.
We had reached a point where there was a waiting list, we had nowhere to go, no way to expand where we are here. And so God has led us to build that building. So it's coming together. And next Sunday evening at 5pm, we're going to gather as a church and we're going to mark the building if you would. And some of the students are going to probably mark it after it's move in ready, I'm sure.
And this is the right way to mark a building beforehand. And so we're excited about that. So be there next Sunday at five o'clock. And we are looking forward to that. We had last Sunday we had eight families join our church. Can we give God praise for that?
And we give God all the glory for that. And we celebrate with those families tonight. I think we have seven families coming to starting point, which is also something we can celebrate. And so if you've been attending our church for any length of time, maybe you want to pop into starting point tonight, you are invited. You can see Pastor Bailey or myself after the service, or you can sign up still online and we'll be notified that you're coming.
But that's happening tonight. A lot of great things happening in our church and we are super excited about it all. But I'm excited about the message today. If you have your Bible, I hope that you do. If you would join me in John chapter number 19.
The Gospel of John chapter number 19. We are continuing a series that we have entitled Words from the Cross. This series, and I want to mention about Easter, this series actually will take us all the way through Easter Sunday, which is happening on April the 20th. What date is it? Very good.
Some of you are paying attention. You guys are awesome. April the 20th. We're super excited about Easter Sunday. You have three options to join us that day. So I'd encourage you to be at one of those. So we are doing a traditional seven o'clock sunrise service. I am talking to the 11 a.m. crowd, so I doubt many of you are getting up at seven to come to that. And but that'll be at 7 a.m. right outside here.
And many have asked that is a different service than our other two services. So you're going to get different music, different experience. It's bring your own chair as well to that. And so that's on at 7 a.m. Then we're going to come in here at 830 and 1030. We will have two identical services in here with our choir.
It's just going to be a great time celebrating the resurrection of Jesus Christ. And what I need from you is a couple of things. I need you to be here. And then number two, I need you to invite somebody. They say statistically that Easter, along with Christmas, are the two times where people that have said no to church invitations all year might say yes to an invitation around Easter Sunday. So what I need you to do is invite somebody.
Don't come alone. Bring somebody to join or to attend with you on Easter Sunday on April the 20th. But the series that we've been in, Words from the Cross, it's going to take us all the way through Easter Sunday.
It's going to lead us all the way into that. And what I wanted to do as we've been kind of leading into Easter, I wanted us to reflect a little bit about the events that lead up to the resurrection, which is why we've been looking at the Words from the Cross. On the Cross, our Savior Jesus, as He hung there dying for you and for me on the Cross, He delivered seven specific sayings, these words that we're looking at, seven specific things from the Cross. Now, if you know anything about Scripture, and in fact, if you're new here, this is not hard to understand, the number seven is so significant in the Bible.
From cover to cover, we learn that the number seven is actually the number of perfection or the number of completion. And so what we believe is these seven statements from our Savior from the Cross are really everything that you need to know about the Gospel. It's not everything that He did because we know that three days after being laid in a tomb, Jesus would resurrect giving victory over life for you and for me.
But these seven things are everything that we need to know about what Jesus came to do for us. So in week number one, we looked at when Jesus cried out, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. In week number two, we looked at the statement that Jesus made to the thief on the Cross and he said to him, he said, today, you will be with me in paradise. And week number three, we looked at Jesus' direct words to his mother, Mary, and then to John the disciple. And he looked at Mary and he said, behold, your son.
And he looked at John and said, behold, your mother giving the care of Mary into John's hands. And then last week in week number four, we looked at the statement, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? And our fifth statement from the Cross that Jesus makes is found in John chapter number 19. One verse today, John 19 verse 28.
Here's what it says. After this, now let me stop you there, after this, just so everybody knows where the story is. After this means everything that has been led up up to this point. At this point in our story, Jesus is hanging on a Cross.
He is at the very last moment, his very last breaths, if you would, from the Cross. So up to this point, when it says after this, it is referring to everything that has happened up to this point. The whole crucifixion idea really started the night before when Jesus got betrayed. So he's talking about the betrayal and then after the betrayal comes the trial before Pilate.
He's talking about that as well. And then after that came the whipping or the word scourging, if you would, the Jewish term would be flogging. That's when the religious crowd and the Romans would take the cat of nine tails with pieces of glass there in the end of it.
And they would whip Jesus over and over, no doubt with the glass ripping into his flesh and just ripping his flesh off of his body. So when he says after this, he's talking about the betrayal, he's talking about the trial, he's talking about the whipping. And then he is laid on a Cross and this was on for hours. So he's on the Cross for like six hours after all of this, that's where we pick up these words from Jesus. And it says after this, Jesus knowing that all things were now accomplished, that the Scripture might be fulfilled. And by the way, on the Cross there was about 20 different prophecies from the Old Testament. Many of them were found in the prophet Isaiah or in the Psalms and there was over 20 of those that was prophesied and fulfilled on the Cross. And after all of that, what had been predicted for years and years before, after everything had been accomplished and everything had been fulfilled, our suffering Savior, Jesus Christ, hanging on a tree, nailed to a tree in your place and in my place, he said these words, I thirst.
I thirst. Now we know, and I say this every single week, we know this story. Jesus is on the Cross and he is hanging there in the middle of two thieves. Now we know that both of those thieves deserve to be there because of their sin, because of their wrongdoing. Both of the thieves on both sides of Jesus deserve to be there. So you say, why in the world would there be three crosses? Have you ever thought about that around this time of the year? Many people, they put crosses out in their yard.
Some churches put them out in their yard. Remember, why do they put three crosses? Well, the three crosses really tell the tale of the entire human race. On one cross, on the left side, I would, or whichever side, you have the cross of rejection.
And that's the thief that didn't trust in Jesus. And then on the other side, you have the cross of repentance. And every single one of us, we find ourselves on one of those two crosses. We're either on the cross of repentance, where we're trusting in that middle cross, which is the cross of redemption. Or we find ourselves on the cross of rejection, where we are rejecting the free gift of redemption found on the middle cross.
But here in this moment, Jesus hangs between two thieves who deserve to be there and one man, Jesus, who had done nothing deserving to be where he was. And in his dying moments, some of his last words, he uttered these words and cried out, I thirst. I thirst. In the few moments that we have, I wanted to look at the significance of the phrase, I thirst.
In fact, out of all of Jesus' sayings on the cross, all of his words from the cross, this is the shortest one that we have. Two words, I thirst. In a few moments, I want to look at the significance of those words. And what do those two words have to do with you?
And what do those two words have to do with me? Well, in order for you to understand that, you have to understand, number one, if you're taking notes, is this, the condition of a thirsty soul. You have to understand the condition of a thirsty soul. Now, the idea of thirsting is really found throughout the Gospel of John. In fact, this phrase here in John 19, 28, when Jesus cried out, I thirst, the only gospel, John's the only gospel that recorded this, that he cried out, I thirst. And so here, John really is doubling down with this memory of the cross, with what he had already written about in his gospel and what he'd already seen. In fact, the word thirst, the Greek word for thirst, it's actually mentioned 11 different times in the New Testament. 11 different times, and here's what's interesting, six of the 11 times are found in the Gospel of John.
Six of the 11 times are found right here in the Gospel of John. And so John is trying to tell us something about being thirsty. Well, I want to mention a couple of these, and they're familiar passages of Scripture, about why John mentions the idea of us being thirsty, and why he encompasses and remembers this moment of Jesus on the cross saying, I thirst.
The first memory that I have about the word thirst is this, it's found in John chapter number four. Now you don't have to turn there, I'll give you kind of the cliff note version if you don't remember what's happening in John chapter number four. But in John chapter number four, we find a very familiar passage of Scripture, it is the woman at the well.
You remember that story? The Samaritan woman at the well. And so this woman, this Samaritan woman, she shows up to the well, and it's the middle of the day.
It's the hottest part of the day. And the reason why she came during the hottest part of the day is very significant because of her lifestyle and the shame that she really had brought to her name and to society. She was not allowed to come when all the other ladies would come down to the well and fetch their water. She was a sinner and she was living in open sin, everybody knew about it. And so what it forced her to do because of the shame that she had caused and the brokenness that she had caused, it forced her to show up in the hottest part of the day when nobody else is there and she could get her water and nobody's going to shame her, nobody's going to rebuke her, nobody's going to condemn her, and she could just get her water and go back.
But on this particular day, she shows up just like she always did in the hottest part of the day and Jesus happened to be there, which is significant in and of itself. Jesus was a Jew and we know that Jews and Samaritans, they had no dealings with one another. They hated one another. There was racial tension between the Samaritans and between the Jews so much to the point that if a Jew had to get north of Samaria, what they would do a lot of times, they would take the extra time in their trip, they'd go all the way around Samaria so that they would have no dealings with the Samaritans. They hated one another.
They would never talk, they would never identify with one another and they had no relationships with the Samaritan people. You hear a Samaritan woman, and by the way, they were in Samaria because we know from John 4, Jesus must needs go through Samaria, and so they're in Samaria. This woman who just comes down to the well in the heat of the day so nobody would shame or condemn her encounters Jesus. We know the story. Jesus is sitting there by the well and he strikes up a conversation with her, you remember this, and he begins to ask her for a drink of water.
You remember this? He asked her for a drink of water, and she is surprised because she's a Samaritan. So she's thinking, why on earth would you, a Jew, ask me for water? And Jesus begins to describe to her, he actually said this in verse number 10 of John 4, he said and answered, and he said unto her, if thou knewest the gift of God, what I'm offering you, and who it is that saith to thee, give me the drink, thou wouldest have asked of him and he would have given thee living water. Literally what Jesus is saying is this, he's telling the woman, he said, if you know who I am, you'd be asking me for something far greater than the water that is found in this well. And so Jesus continues down this conversation for her.
She's confused, and by the way, before we kind of think like we wouldn't be confused, why isn't she getting it? Why didn't she understand what Jesus is saying with this living water? You got to understand during that day, they didn't have the entire scripture the way that you and I have it.
So they didn't have all of this. They didn't understand what you know about living water and what I know about living water. And so many people were skeptical about the teachings of Jesus. Many people were wondering, they were confused by it.
They didn't understand what he was offering with this idea of living water. And so Jesus continues this conversation with her about her life. And Jesus says, where's your husband?
You remember this? He says, where's your husband? And she says, I have no husband. And Jesus said, you're right. You're right. You have no husband because I know that you have had five husbands.
In fact, the man that you're with is not even your husband. And you can imagine the shame the lady felt. That's the exact reason she didn't go to the well with all the other women in the community because she would have felt the shame and the guilt and the judgment from all of those other women. But Jesus knew everything about her, knowing her sin, knowing her shame, knowing her brokenness. And Jesus said this in verse 13 of John chapter number four. He answered and said unto her, whosoever, don't miss this, drinketh of this water that he's offering her, or the water at the well, shall thirst again. Think about it. The water at the well, here's what he knew, is the next day the woman's going to come back, right? Because physical water, it only quenches our thirst for a little bit, right? Now think about it this way. When I think about quenching our thirst, you ever been really, really thirsty where you had to have something so fast?
You need a sip of water. I can remember when I was growing up, I went to a school. I went to a Christian school, and so I was attached with the church, much like this one, you know. And I went to a Christian school, and I don't ever mention the name of the school that I went to because I went there my whole life, and now our Christian school plays them in athletics, so I don't want everybody here.
I always pull for us now and everything, and honestly, I want to beat that school worse than any other school known to man. But this school that I went to growing up, I played soccer for a short season, and I say that very casually because I just wasn't good. I was fast, and so in soccer, a lot of it is speed, and I had speed, and so they put me on the team. But I was terrible at soccer, and one thing that I didn't care for about soccer was how much they made you run.
It was just not my thing. I was just like, really? Give me a basketball court.
It's much smaller, right? And you spend most of your time in the half court and less running, but in soccer, you got to run the whole time. So we'd have these practices, and the way that the field worked where I went to school, the field was like down this hill, so it was kind of in the valley, if you would.
And so you would kind of go down the hill, and you would get to the soccer field, and they would run you at every practice like crazy. And then eventually, when we almost couldn't stand it anymore, they would give us a water break. Now, let me just say this about water breaks. When I was growing up, we did not carry water bottles everywhere with us like kids do today.
You remember that? I don't understand what changed, but every kid has a water bottle with them all the time nowadays. Like I go to our school, and I walk through the halls, and some of these kids are carrying like big old jugs of water to class, and it blows my mind. But when I was growing up, you just kind of looked for a water fountain or stuff like this, but in this case, we were about to die, and they would finally say, water break, and here's what we did.
The nearest source of water happened to be on the edge of the church building, and it was a water hose. You remember those days? You remember those days?
Like we have raised up a very soft society today where there's a lot of moms that would never let their kids drink out of just a hose attached to the side of a building. You know what I'm talking about? And here we were, an entire soccer team running as fast as we could. Running up that hill to get first in line for that water hose meant more to me than winning any soccer game of the whole year, okay?
And I'd go there, and you remember how it is. You'd grab that hose, and you'd put it in, and you'd do it all over you, and you'd drink that water, and I'll tell you this. When you're thirsty and you're about to die, there is nothing better than the cold water coming out of that water hose, okay? And so you know what it's like when you're thirsting, and here's what I'll tell you, though. After that, your thirst is quenched, and here's what happens. Practice continues. So we go down the hill, another 30 minutes later, water break.
Why? Because we're back to that same point we were originally where we're about to die, and we need some water. You see, what Jesus is saying here in John chapter number 4, he's telling this woman that the water that she thinks he's asking for, just a sip of water from this well, he's saying that the water that is in this well, it's always going to leave you thirsty again. Like, it's always going to, you need more, right?
You need more. And Jesus is telling us that the water that he offers us, you will never thirst again. In other words, what he's saying is this, is that the water that Jesus is offering, it quenches our thirst forever. Well, fast forward to John chapter number 7. In John chapter number 7, remember, all of this is in the Gospel of John. John's trying to tell us something about this idea of being thirsty. In John 4, we see the woman at the well.
Well, fast forward to John chapter number 7. All of the Jewish community had gathered there in Jerusalem for a required feast that all of them had to go to. There were seven Jewish feasts, and three of those required that all the Jews go into Jerusalem and they participate with this feast together. The feast was called the Feast of Tabernacles, or in the Old Testament, it might be referred to in some passages as the Feast of Booths, the Feast of Booths. And all of the Jewish community had gathered there in Jerusalem, and they're all there in Jerusalem observing this feast together.
The Feast of Tabernacles was instituted way back in the Old Testament as a reminder to the Jewish people of how God delivered them through the wilderness years where they were wandering in the wilderness. If you've been in church for any length of time, if you go back all the way to the Old Testament, when they escaped out of Egypt and they were complaining, they found themselves there in the wilderness, just kind of wandering around. And they were living in these temporary homes while they kind of wandered around the wilderness, and they would live in these homes and they had no water, and they had no food because they were in the desert. And so what they had to do every single day was rely upon God to deliver food to them every single day. You remember, manna from heaven, right?
Right, manna from heaven. And then he would provide a source of water in a bunch of different ways there in the Old Testament, how he would give them water. Well, this feast, the Feast of Tabernacles, was actually a feast to remember the years that they were provided by God for water, for food, and these temporary homes. So what they would do is they'd come to Jerusalem and they would take the Levitical Feast. They had all these different branches that they would put together, all these branches, and the Jewish people would make for them these temporary homes made of branches.
Think of it like a temporary tent, if you would, and these branches were a reminder of the days that they lived in the wilderness and God would provide for them. And what's interesting about the feast is here's what happened. They would live in these temporary homes for seven days. For seven days, they would live in these homes, and every morning, the Jewish community would follow the priest down to the Pool of Siloam. And the priest would actually lead all of the Jewish people and they would go down there. And what the priest would do, he would take a golden pitcher and as you read about all of this online and in the Old Testament, you can see all of this stuff.
He would take a pitcher, this golden pitcher, and he would take it to the pool and he would dip and he'd fill it with water. And he'd take that pitcher and he'd take it back to Jerusalem and all of the Jews would follow him and they would sing praises to God about how God has provided for them. And they would do this every morning for an entire week as they observed this. And they would take that pitcher and the priest would pour the pitcher of water over the altar as a sacrifice reminding how God is our provider. So the Jewish people, think about this, the Jewish people, they gathered and this was every single year.
Imagine them, they were probably, this was routine for them. Just another day, just another feast. Perhaps they treated this feast the way a lot of us attend church. Just another Sunday, just another thing to check off my to-do list for the week, my religious responsibility, better be in church. Well, for them, this was a yearly feast that they had to do every single year and for a week every day they would go down to the pool with the priest and they would participate in this. Well, what's interesting about this is it happened once a year on the final day of this feast. Jesus says in John 7 that he kind of secretly showed up. People didn't know who he was.
They didn't know why he was there. And so you can imagine on the final day of the feast, remember if you were there every single day, you've marched your way down to the pool. Every single day you're singing your praises, your hymns, just like another song right in church.
You're not thinking about anything. Life is so routine and on the final day of the feast, look at what happens. Things get interesting. John 7 verse 37 says in the last day, that great day of the feast, they'd been doing this for seven straight days. On the seventh day, Jesus stood in the midst of all of them and he cried this, If any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink. You see, Jesus here tells us once again about this living water that he is talking about. Here's my point in remembering John 4 and John 7 that really parallels with why Jesus said, I thirst on the cross, is it's a reminder of this. And here's what you got to understand about thirst in scripture. Thirst is a spiritual metaphor of the emptiness that comes when God is not the center of your life. You see, the Gospel of John, every time he mentions this idea of being thirsty, he's reminding us, he's using this metaphor, something that all of us can relate to because every single one of us get thirsty. And what he's saying is this is a spiritual metaphor of the emptiness that comes when God is not the Lord and the center of your life.
And here's what I mean by this. In this text, literally, Jesus, as he stood up on the last day of the feast and he shouted this to all of these Jews, all of these Pharisees, all of these Sadducees, he's literally saying this. Hey, listen, everybody. You have tasted what tradition will do for you. You have tasted what ritualism will do for you. You have tasted what legalism will do for you. You have tasted what religion will do for you. And here's what he wanted them to know.
All of those things cannot satisfy the major need in their life. And so Jesus, he stands up and he says this, come unto him. And when you do, you will never thirst again. You see, religion continues to make you thirsty.
Tradition leaves you empty. Keeping a list of rules, it leads you to where you constantly thirst. And here's why this is important.
And don't miss this. Up to that point, the Jewish people, especially the Pharisees, they really felt that for them, they had spent their lives trying to become the kind of people that they believed that God would accept. You see, here's the greatest need in their hearts and the greatest need in your heart, and this is why we relate to this story so well. The greatest need that you have in life is to be accepted.
It's to be accepted by a righteous creator. That's the greatest need that we have in life. And so what we do from time to time is we try to get accepted and we look for acceptance in a bunch of different places. We look for it in relationships, right?
We look for it in our career. We look for acceptance in popularity. We look for acceptance in beauty. We look for acceptance in religion. We look for acceptance in keeping a list of rules. We look for acceptance with ritualism. And what we find, and what Jesus is trying to teach us is this, is everything that we are looking to be accepted by God, it all leaves us thirsty.
You see, here's what he said. There's a condition to being accepted by God, and it's very important because the Pharisees and much of the Jewish community, they missed it. They thought that the condition was to be perfect. They thought that the condition was to live a perfect life and to keep every bit of the law that they possibly could, to participate in every ritual that God told them to, to do everything the right way. And here's what Jesus was trying to say, and this is why it's important for you and significant for you.
The condition to being accepted by God is not perfection. It's actually thirst. It's actually admitting that we are thirsty.
Here's his point. Jesus is trying to remind us that all of us are thirsty at the core of what we're doing. We're thirsty for acceptance from God. We want it, but what he's saying is everything that this world has to offer you only leaves you thirsty again. It only leaves you wanting more. It only leaves you like me on the soccer field. That thirst is only a temporary fix, but guess what? A few minutes after that when we start running again, I need more of it because it does not last. The quench that I had a few moments ago, it does not last for forever.
What Jesus is saying is this. The relationship, if you're trying to search for acceptance for that, that's not going to always last. It's not going to always be there. Your career that you're looking for acceptance with, that might change tomorrow.
Your financial situation, if that's what you're looking for for acceptance, that might change tomorrow. You see, your popularity might be changed tomorrow. Religion, all of those things. What he's saying here is this. All of those things can change, and every single one of those leave us wanting more. They leave us thirsty.
So he says, you know what? There's a condition to being accepted by God, and here's where it starts. Admitting that you're thirsty. You must recognize that you're thirsty in need of something that nothing that this world can quench. That only he has, and that's why Jesus says, come to me, and when you come to him, you will never thirst again. In other words, what he's saying is, when you come to Jesus, he's going to quench every thirst for all of time, for eternity. That's the condition for a thirsty soul. So let's look, number two, at the cure for a thirsty soul. If we see that the condition of a thirsty soul is recognizing before an almighty God that we thirst, and that we're in need of a relationship with Jesus to satisfy that thirst, well, what's the cure? Well, if you go back, John chapter number seven, we see, it'll be up on the screen.
He says very simplistically, in the last part of John 737, here's what he says. If any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink. Literally, he's saying, if you're thirsty, come to Jesus. Now, what's interesting to me, because I'm a pastor, and I've worked around the church my entire adult life, here's what's interesting to me, is that he didn't say, if you're thirsty, read this extra book. If you're thirsty, change what you're wearing. If you're thirsty, put on something new.
If you're thirsty, follow this three-step plan, or attend this conference, or whatever. You see, for us in church, a lot of times, we encounter people that are thirsty, and what we do is we put all these extra conditions upon their thirst, and here's what Jesus did. Jesus said, hey, if you're thirsty, all you gotta do, come unto me.
Come unto me. You mean, and here's what he says. He says this, because a lot of us think, in order to cure your thirsty soul, we gotta fix everything up first.
No, Jesus says this. If you come to me, I'll fix everything in your life up. I'm the one, through a relationship with me, I will put the broken pieces of your broken life back together, is what he's saying.
He says, come to me. It's relationship. It's not religion. Come to me is relationship. If he had have said, hey, here's the 10 things you need to do if you're thirsty, that would have been religion.
This is relationship. He says, come to me. Come to me. And so you see this progression. If any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink, because for Jesus, he has this well that will never run dry. And so you see this well that will never run dry, and then you fast forward to our text for today in John chapter 19, and Jesus is hanging on a cross, and he says, I thirst. You see, Jesus was thirsting on the cross.
Now, here's what's interesting, and I want you to see this. This is the same man who said that if you come to him, you will never thirst again. Now, he's crying out.
The one who said, come to him. You'll never thirst. Now, that same man who said that is now crying out on the cross, I thirst.
My question is this. How could the fountain of living water, which is what the prophet Jeremiah called Jesus, how could the fountain of living water be thirsty? Have you ever thought about that? How could the fountain of living water, the well that never runs dry, the one who said, come to me all, and you will never thirst again, how in the world could that same man be thirsty? Listen, it makes no sense unless you know what is happening on the cross. The well that never runs dry seems dry on the cross. It makes no sense unless you understand what is happening on the cross.
You see, here's the point. We said this every single week. The cross, what was happening on the cross is Jesus, our suffering savior, he was becoming us. He was paying for the sin that we committed. And so Jesus, in order for him to become us, he had to take upon himself the thirsty world that we live in. He had to take upon himself, every single one of us, the condition of our human heart is you are thirsty. You want to know why our world is in the mess it is in?
It's not government, it's not Washington, it's not anything political, it's spiritual. The reason why our world is in where they are and why it's in the mess that it's in is because we have a lot of people that are thirsty and they're looking for the quench in all of the wrong places. And they're looking for it in all of these wrong places. And so we blame government, we blame Washington, we blame all these different things.
And here's what I'm going to tell you, it's none of those things, here's what it is. It just reveals how thirsty of a world that we live in today. And so on the cross, Jesus, our suffering savior, cries out, I thirst. You see, here's the thing, he was becoming us, so he had to experience what it is like to be thirsty for us. You see, to say it very directly is this, Jesus became thirsty so that you and I could understand what it's like to feel satisfaction. Jesus became thirsty so that you and I could be satisfied. That's why in John chapter six, another passage where Jesus, he said this, he that believeth on me, in other words, believe on that middle cross, the cross of redemption, if you believe on him, here's what happens, you're never going to thirst again. In other words, what he is offering us quenches every need of the human heart.
We will never thirst again. And so if you're in here today and you're looking for love, here's what Jesus is saying, he loves you. Don't search for love in somewhere else. If you're searching for security, Jesus would say in him, he is your security. If you're looking for acceptance, Jesus would say believe on him and he's already accepted you.
Looking for peace, Jesus would say he is your peace and he gives you the peace that passeth all understanding. Looking for safety, Jesus is your safety. He is your protection. He is your shield.
He is your strong tower. You see, here's the point. All of those things we're looking for. We're looking for love, we're looking for acceptance, we're looking for, you know, friends, we're looking for all of these different things, peace and stability and security. And what we do is when we want those things, we look for them in all of the wrong places.
We're looking for them in finances, we're looking for them in a career, we're looking for them in a relationship and if it doesn't work out, you're like, man, I need another relationship so that I can get all these things that my heart wants, get them all right. And we're looking for all of these things in all of the wrong places and what Jesus is here to tell you is this, he's saying this, we have the need of the human heart, the condition and he's saying this, listen, you're not gonna find the fix that is gonna last forever in any of the things that are on this earth. He says the only lasting fix for the cure for your thirsty soul is a relationship with the man who hung on the middle cross for you.
You see, the man that was willing to experience what it's like to be thirsty so that you could experience what it's like to feel satisfied. You see, that's what's happening on the cross. That's what Jesus is doing for you. So if you're in here today and you say, okay, I get that, what's my next step?
Well, there's really, it depends on where you are. Here's what I'll say. If you're in here today and you're thirsty, you're in here today and I'm not, remember, I'm not talking about, some of you are like, man, I could drink a sip of water right now. I'm not talking about that thirst.
Jesus wasn't either. But if you're in here today and you're thirsty, you're looking for love, you're looking for acceptance, you're looking for all of these different things and perhaps you've lived your whole life trying to fill that and trying to quench that thirst with all the things that this world has to offer. Here's your next step. If you're in here and you're thirsty today, here's your next step. Come to Jesus and drink. Come to him. And when you come to him, here's the good news for you is that all of the acceptance, everything you're looking for in life, you can actually find in a relationship with Jesus. You can find in him all the acceptance that you're looking for. That is found in a relationship with Jesus. So for those who are thirsty, come to him. Come and drink from the fountain, the well that never runs dry. But for those who are what I would call full, those who have tasted and seen, they've tasted what Jesus has to offer, that living water.
Here's what I'll tell you. The church, for some of us, we need to get on our knees and tell him thank you. You know what really resonates with me? Because I've been in church my whole life. Literally, my parents drug me to church when I was like a baby. So I only know church. Church I grew up in, man, we had so many services every single week. We had revivals all year.
We had all sorts of stuff. So I've been in church so many times. It's all that I know. And here's what I'll tell you.
And you're probably like me, especially if that's your story. Church can become so routine, can it? The teachings of Jesus and what he did for us, it can become so routine, so much to the point that we can come to a verse like this and we can just leave here the same as when we walked in.
How in the world? And here's what I think. The Jewish community, as they're coming back on day seven of that feast, they're marching back and forth to the pool.
Can you imagine how routine it was? And then Jesus stands up and that's when they finally understand. They're like, wait. What he's offering us can quench every need of the human heart for forever. Listen, here's your next step. If you're in here and you've tasted, you're a Christian, you're a follower of Jesus, here's my next step for you. We need to just tell him thank you. We need to praise him today because without him, you know where you would be today? You'd still be thirsty. You would still be thirsty looking for the fix, looking for the quench in all of the things that this world has to offer. And what Jesus has offered you is an eternal satisfaction because he was willing to experience your thirst with you so that we could be satisfied in him.
We have a lot to be thankful for. So for you that don't know Jesus, your next step is very simple. Come and drink. Come to him and experience that eternal satisfaction that only a relationship with God can bring. Would you bow your heads with me?
