John, pt. 41 | July 7:37-38

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July 9, 2023 Pastor Jeff Rice Covenant Reformed Baptist Church Tullahoma, TN

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John, pt. 42 | John 7:37-39

John, pt. 42 | John 7:37-39

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All right, it feels so long since I've been in the pulpit, and I only missed a week, but when you're a preacher and a week goes by that you don't preach, it feels like years.
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So if you ever put me on a sabbatical, don't put me on it long, because I'll go crazy.
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In our time today, we're going to be considering, in the Gospel of John, chapter 7, verses 37 and 38.
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John, chapter 7, verses 37 and 38, and this is our 40, this is message number 41.
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The 41st, how would you say that, like how's the proper way, 41st, okay, thank you, 41st message in this gospel.
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If you don't know, when you get into a pulpit sometimes, or any kind of public speaking, you can't remember any words, right?
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So if you don't believe me, try it out. All right, let me pray. Father Lord, we love you, and we thank you for your precious
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Son, Jesus Christ. Jesus, thank you so much for reconciling us to yourself by what you have done in your life, death, burial, resurrection, and ascension.
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We now have been reconciled by what you have done.
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Faith in you, or please, in Jesus' name, use me this day to speak to your people,
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I pray. Amen. Let's begin with the text, John, chapter 7, verses 37 and 38.
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If you remember, we walked through this somewhat two weeks ago, and we are going to revisit it today, and we will revisit it next week as we complete the chapter, hopefully.
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Verse 37, now on the last day, the great day of the feast,
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Jesus stood and cried out, saying, If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink.
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He who believes in me, as the scriptures said, from his innermost being will flow rivers of living water.
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Our theme for this Lord's Day is living water, and my proposition is this, those who thirst for righteousness drink from the fountain of living water.
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If you're not thirsty for righteousness, you have no desire for living water.
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Only those that thirst for righteousness will drink from the fountain. And as we gather here today,
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I am sure of one thing. Look, I'm sure of this 100 % that every one of us here knows what it's like to be thirsty, right?
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So for those of you that don't know, I professionally roofed houses for a long time, and for a majority of this time,
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I worked for Barnhill Home Improvement, and so my boss has become a good friend of mine, and I've got to see him come to know the
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Lord. But after probably, well, when
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I first started working with him, all we did was new construction. And in new construction, you don't have a water supply, right?
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There's no water supply, and so we have to bring our own water. We would bring a cooler, put ice in it, fill it up with water.
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Well, we was roofing this house one day, and we forgot to bring water.
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And we're in a new construction area, and I'm dying. Listen, I am so thirsty, right?
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Like, it's bad. When I think about what it's like to be thirsty, I think about this day and the hot sun on our roof, 120 degrees up there, burning up, and just,
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I feel like I'm going to die. So what do I do? I go walking until I find a residential home, and I sneak in their backyard, and I turn on their water faucet.
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I tell people all the time, like, if you're in America, as long as I can sneak in your yard and drink from your water, life's pretty good, right?
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Life's pretty good, and you don't come out and shoot me. And so I can remember turning on this water from the house.
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I'm sneaking around like I'm hoping no one comes out with a gun, right? And I'm dirty, and my hands are dirty, and the water, like where you turn the water on, it's probably like that far away from the ground, so I can't stick my mouth underneath it, right?
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So I'm having to fill my dirty hands with water in order to drink. And listen,
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I was doing it. Like, I just could not get enough. Like, I was going at it. I was so thirsty.
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Like, it was humiliating how thirsty I was. If someone would have saw me and how dirty I was drinking from their spout,
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I would have been humiliated. But guess what I would not have stopped doing? Drinking the water.
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Like, I was thirsty. It was dire need. I told Danny, I was like, listen, I'm sorry.
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I'm taking a break. And I walked to find a house to sneak in their yard to drink their water.
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Now, you probably haven't been that thirsty. I have.
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In our outline today, Jesus gives an invitation to receive the
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Holy Spirit. He gives the prerequisite, the condition, and the result.
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So point number one, the prerequisite. Point number two, the condition. And point number three, the result.
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And as we transition, I want to tell you a made up story. So the one I just told you a second ago, it really happened.
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This one that I'm about to tell you has not really happened. It's made up.
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But I think the story is important in order for us to understand what's taking place here. There was a man in the middle of the desert who was very thirsty.
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And in his search for water, he came across a gallon jug filled with water sitting beside a rusted water pump.
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The gallon of water had a note on it, which said, use the water to prime the pump and drink all the water you want.
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But don't forget to fill the gallon jug back up with water.
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So the man is left with a choice. He could have the sure thing, which is a gallon of water, right?
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I'm going to tell you right now, that day when I was underneath, when I snuck in that yard slurping water from my dirty hands,
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I drank a lot more than a gallon and was still thirsty. He can have the sure thing, which is a gallon of water, where he can listen to the instructions that were left on the jug.
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The sure choice would allow him to drink water. The not so sure choice might leave him without water.
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He's left with a decision to make. Now, concerning the context, in our text, we are at the last day of the
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Feast of Booths, which really is debated whether if it's the seventh day or the eighth day.
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The seventh day was more convincing to me because it was about a celebration of water for the first day to the seventh.
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For seven days, the priest would get water from the Pool of Siloam, which was considered living water because it came from the
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Gion Spring. For six of those days, the priest would walk around the
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Altar of Sacrifice one time each day, pouring out the water after he walked around the altar, pouring out the water on the
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Altar of Sacrifice. And on the seventh day, he would walk around the altar seven times, and again, he would pour out the water on the
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Altar of Sacrifice. It would have been at this time Jesus stands up, and he gives the invitation.
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Point number one, the prerequisite. Look at verse 37.
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So think about that. The priest has walked around the altar seven times, and he pours out water.
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Jesus says, verse 37, well, the text says, On that last day, the great day of the feast,
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Jesus stood and cried out, saying, If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink.
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The prerequisite to receive the Holy Spirit is to be thirsty.
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It's to be thirsty. Two weeks ago, during our fellowship meal,
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Pastor Cal heard that my surgery on my mouth was moved up to Tuesday the 27th.
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Pastor Cal didn't want me to have too much on me that week, so he made me step down from preaching.
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He made me. He was like, I got it. And I was like, but, and he was like, no.
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So if you think I got, like, I'm in control of things, like, you got things twisted. I don't,
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I'm not controlling anything. He made me step down. I was like, yes, sir. He made me step down from preaching.
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He didn't want me to have to go through this surgery, and I'm grateful for it. He didn't want me to have to go through the surgery and be in pain and trying to deal with all this as I was studying.
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During his sermon, however, I began to understand God's sovereignty in that situation.
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Pastor Cal preached on righteousness, and as he was preaching, I understood that I needed to hear his sermon.
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And I understood that you needed to hear his sermon, especially to understand what we're supposed to be talking about today.
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As I was preaching, I was like, of course he made me sit down. Of course. We had to hear what he had, what
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God gave him to tell us. We needed that in order for us to take this next step in our text.
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I didn't think about preaching that text. I didn't think about preaching on righteousness. So God moved my surgery up.
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Pastor Cal made me sit down. Again, the prerequisite to receive the
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Holy Spirit is to be thirsty. If you are not thirsty, the Holy Spirit is not for you.
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It's not for you. If you're not thirsty, it's not for you. But the thirst here that Jesus is speaking about, it's not about water.
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Has nothing to do with water. Has to do with the Holy Spirit. Has to do with righteousness.
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It has to do with righteousness. It's not about being thirsty for water.
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It's about being thirsty for righteousness. If you look in Matthew, Pastor Cal preached to us
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Matthew. His text was Matthew chapter 5, verses 17 through 20. I just want to look at verse 20, and we're going to look at another verse that he mentioned.
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So turn your Bibles to Matthew chapter 5. We'll look at verse 20. Verse 20.
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For I say to you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.
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Unless your righteousness goes beyond that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.
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In order to enter the kingdom of heaven, we need a greater righteousness than the
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Pharisees and the scribes. He also read to us from Matthew chapter 5, verse 3.
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And I'm going to read verse 3, but I'm also going to read it to verse 6. Matthew 5, verse 3.
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Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
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Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.
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Blessed are the lowly or the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.
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Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.
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Blessed, we have the poor in spirit. The Pharisees, were they poor in spirit?
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Did they mourn? Were they the meek?
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Were they lowly? And did they hunger and thirst? I can tell you right now, they definitely hungered and thirsted.
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Without a doubt. Without a shadow of a doubt. They hungered and they thirst for righteousness.
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To hunger and thirst for something is to see the need for that something.
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To hunger and thirst for something is to see the need in your life for that something.
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I thirst for water that day. I saw the need for water.
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And I was willing to walk for however, how many blocks it took to find a home that had a water spout so I could drink from it.
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And wasn't nothing going to stop me. Nothing was going to stop me from getting water that day.
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To hunger and thirst for something is to see the need for that something. Our outward righteousness, you and I, mine and yours, our outward righteousness fails in comparisons to the scribes and the
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Pharisees. I went back and listened to your message Tuesday again, just to get it in me.
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And I was like, man, it really does. Like their outward appearance.
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I can't even hear that saying that you can't even hold a candle to me.
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You can't even hold a candle to me. It was at a time where when a master, let's say a master skilled sword maker, what do you call a sword maker?
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A blacksmith, let's say a master blacksmith, right? I'm freestyling here, a master blacksmith, and he's training someone to do this work.
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Well, at this time, there was no electricity. All you had was a candle light. And so the person that was learning the trade would walk around following him with a candle.
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And as he was doing the work, he had a candle where he could see the masters, whatever the sword maker, make the sword and he had a candle.
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And that's what the saying comes from. You can't even hold a candle to me. It means you can't even be someone who is learning my trade.
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Ladies and gentlemen, we cannot hold a candle to the Pharisees. We can't hold a candle to their outward appearance of righteousness.
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There's so much greater than we can even fathom. Jesus says, unless our righteousness surpasses them,
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I also feel the need, I kind of pointed out it earlier, need to point out that the scribes and Pharisees, they met the prerequisite of thirst.
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They met that. So much so that they established, they used the law to establish their own righteousness.
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Look with me at Romans chapter 10. Let's look at verses one and two.
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Paul's speaking, brothers, my heart's desire and prayer to God is for them.
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The them here is the Jews, right? Scribes, Pharisees, all of them, the
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Jews. My heart's desire and prayer to God for them is for their salvation.
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Paul wanted all the Jews to be saved. Look at verse two. For I testify about them that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge.
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They have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge. Verse three tells us, and I'm not going to read verse three yet, but verse three tells us that they establish their own righteousness.
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Don't look at verse three. We'll get there. Verse three tells us they establish their own righteousness.
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They have a zeal for God, right? They have a pursuit. They're pursuing him just in the wrong way.
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They've established something in the wrong manner. They use the law of God, which the law is good.
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They use the law of God in order to establish their own righteousness. Hence, their outward appearance.
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Now, if you want to be able to hold a candle to the Pharisees, guess what you're going to have to do? You have to establish your own righteousness.
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That's what the Jehovah's Witnesses do. That's what the Mormons do. You think you can hold a candle to them?
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That's what they're doing. They're trying to establish their own righteousness. Jesus goes as far as to say in Matthew chapter 23, verse 25, he says, woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you
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Jehovah's Witnesses and you Mormons. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you clean the outside of the cup and the dish, but inside they are full of robbery and self -indulgence.
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It's often missed what Jesus is saying with that text that Pastor Cal was preaching.
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So if you look back at Matthew chapter 5, verse 20.
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Chapter 5, verse 20. I want to point out something that's often missed. For I say to you, and Jesus is saying it to you, that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.
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Not only must the outside of your cup be clean, but the inside of your cup must be clean.
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The scribes and Pharisees, the outside was clean. Inside wasn't. Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses, outside clean.
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Inside not. It's not clean. Look at verses 21 and 22.
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You have heard that the ancients were toad. You shall not murder.
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And whoever murders shall be guilty before the court. But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother shall be guilty before the court.
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And whoever says to his brother, recall, which means worthless, you calling your brother worthless, shall be guilty before the
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Sanhedrin. And whoever says you fool shall be guilty enough to throw,
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I mean, guilty enough to go into the fiery hell. You say, well,
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I have not murdered. Yeah, thanks for cleaning the outside of the cup. Appreciate it.
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Have you been angry for no purpose? Have you said something about a brother that you shouldn't have said?
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That's the inside of the cup. Who's guilty? Verse 27.
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Now, let's hold off on 27. Forgive me. Whoever says, oh, excuse me.
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When Jesus says, whoever murders shall be guilty before the court, at this time, if you were guilty of murder, guess what happened?
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You were put to death. They kill you. It's like Texas. You ever heard that saying, you kill someone in Texas, Texas will kill you.
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That's how it was. If you murdered someone, you would be put to death. Jesus points out that not only,
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Jesus points out that everyone who is angry with his brother should also be put to death.
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Everyone. He's not leaving anyone excluded. Murderers should be put to death.
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Those who have been angry with their brothers for no purpose should be put to death. And ultimately, if you go as far as to call your brother a fool, you're not just guilty before the courts of deserving death, but you are guilty enough to be thrown into the fire of hell.
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The law of God was so much higher than even the scribes and Pharisees understood.
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They could not, you cannot meet the demands of the law. It's too high.
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We cannot meet the demands. We cannot hold a candle to Christ.
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It's not good enough to have an outward appearance, but what you are feeling about another matters as well.
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Now look at verse 27 and 28. You have heard that it was said, you shall not commit adultery.
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But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.
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You say, well, I have not committed adultery. Well, thank you for cleaning the outside of the cup. But have you looked with lust?
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Because that's the inside. Who here is not guilty? It's not about being guilty of the sin.
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It's not just, excuse me. It's not just about not being guilty of the sin, but it's also about the desire of sin.
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It's not good enough to have an outward appearance of righteousness, clean cup.
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But what you desire matters as well. Pastor Cal, in his sermon, he gave a definition of righteousness, which
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I think is fantastic. He said, righteousness is conforming to God's law in intent, desire, and action.
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Now, the first two sound pretty easy. You can intend to.
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You have the desire to, but you do not have the ability to. See the problem?
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See the problem? All three have to connect. Turn back to Romans with me.
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Let's look at verse, I mean, chapter three. Verses 19 and 20 tells us the purpose of the law.
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The purpose of the law. Now, whatever the law, excuse me.
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Now, we know that whatever the law says, it speaks to those who are in the law, so that every mouth may be shut and all the world may become accountable to God.
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Because by the works of the law, no flesh will be justified in his sight.
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For through the law comes the knowledge of sin.
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If there was no law, you would not sin. Sin is lawlessness.
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It's law -breaking. And if you did not have that law written in your mind and on your heart, you would not know what sin is.
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The law was given to show us that we are not righteous.
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It was given to shut our mouth and to give us something to desire, and that is righteousness, which goes to the intent and the desire.
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But we cannot fulfill the demands in action. The sacrificial system at this time was a form of righteousness to them.
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Speaking of the Jews, the scribes and the Pharisees, if the scribes, listen, if the scribes and Pharisees were truly righteous, clean cup inside and out, there would be no need for the sacrificial system.
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There would be no need for an escape goat. There would be no need for sacrificing animals.
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Doesn't matter what the outside of the cup looks like. If they were truly righteous, there would be no need for that.
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Now turn back to Romans chapter 10. Let's read verses one through four.
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Again, Paul writing, and he is speaking about the Jews. My brothers, my heart's desire and prayer to God for them is for their salvation.
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For I testify about them that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge.
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For not knowing about the righteousness of God, what's the righteousness of God? Faith in Christ.
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And seeking to establish their own, they did not subject themselves to the righteousness of Christ, of God.
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For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.
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God gave the Jews this sacrificial system as a system of a form of righteousness.
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But once Christ came, it was over. It was no longer any good. Mattered nothing. It didn't even matter.
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Stop doing it. Every time you did it, you're crucifying, once again, the son of God to your own harm. And so because they kept doing it, their establishment of this was for them, their own righteousness.
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So as we're reading in our text, and Christ is saying that if you're thirsty, come to him. It was a true invitation for them to stop with the sacrificial system and come to him.
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So yes, they met the prerequisite of thirst, but they did not meet the condition.
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So point number two, the condition. The condition was that they did not meet the prerequisite of thirst.
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So the condition is just the ending of verse 37, and we'll read verse 37. And then we'll focus on the ending.
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On the on the last day, the great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out saying, if anyone is thirsty, there's the prerequisite.
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Here's the condition. Let him come to me and drink. The condition for the thirsty is to come to Jesus and drink.
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I pointed out two weeks ago that coming to Jesus to drink is to believe.
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Verse 38 tells us that. Look at the verse 30. I mean, excuse me. Yeah, verse 38a.
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He who believes in me. So just look at the ending of 37 and the beginning of 38.
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If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. He who believes in me.
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So believing in Jesus is how you come to Jesus and drink.
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For the most part, this group of Jews were thirsting for righteousness, but they were unwilling to come to Jesus.
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They were unwilling to believe. They didn't believe what he was saying. In the same way that that gallon of water that we spoke about earlier is only a temporary solution.
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The sacrificial system was only a temporary solution. Something greater was there.
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You had the you had the jug of water, a gallon jug, but then you had a water pump, a pump that had living water that was running underneath it.
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And all he had to do was prime the pump and he will receive the water. The gallon of water was temporary.
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The sacrificial system is temporary. It was only good for a certain amount of time until Christ.
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The law was only until Christ. The prophet Zechariah prophesied about a fountain that would come from the house of David, that this fountain would be opened.
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And in our text, Jesus is claiming to be that fountain. He is claiming to be the fountain that was prophesied by Zechariah.
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The fountain by which they and you and I must drink from.
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Ladies and gentlemen, listen to not drink from this fountain is to reject
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Jesus Christ. To not drink, to not believe in Christ, to not drink from this fountain is to reject
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Jesus Christ. Turn with me to Jeremiah chapter two.
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Jeremiah chapter two. I want you to look at verse 13.
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Jeremiah chapter two, verse 13. God's speaking through Jeremiah.
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For my people have done two evils. They have forsaken me, the fountain of living water to have for themselves cisterns, broken cisterns that can no longer hold water.
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To reject Jesus is to establish your own righteousness. The two evils is to reject
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God's righteousness, which is Jesus Christ, faith in Christ. And it says that they have established for themselves cisterns that cannot hold water, their own righteousness, which was the law according to righteousness given to them by God in the sacrificial system.
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When Christ came, it was over. There was no more. So the two evils, the rejection of God's righteousness and the establishment of their own righteousness to reject
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Jesus is to establish your own righteousness. It's not just, it wasn't just true for them.
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It's true for you. If you reject Jesus, you establish your own righteousness. That heart that you're born with, that heart of stone is a heart of self -righteousness.
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The heart that God gives you in regeneration is the heart of faith.
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And as long as you got the heart of self -righteousness, you're going to trust yourself and not trust in God's righteousness, which is faith alone in Christ alone.
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Turn to chapter 17 of Jeremiah. Again, picking up on the fountain.
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Chapter 17, look at verse 13.
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Chapter 17, verse 13. Oh, Yahweh, the hope of Israel, all who forsake you will be put to shame and those who turn away on the earth will be written down because they have forsaken the fountain of living water, even
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Yahweh. Jesus is the fountain.
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Thank God's righteousness. Jesus is God's righteousness. Jesus is the fountain.
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And if you turn away from the fountain, you forsake Yahweh. And if you forsake
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Yahweh, you will be put to shame. You will be put to shame. Your name will be written down.
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In Exodus chapter 17, we see that God gave water to the Israelites through a rock, a rock.
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And the Apostle Paul tells us that that rock was Christ. Look with me in 1
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Corinthians chapter 10. 1
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Corinthians chapter 10, we'll look at verses one through four. For I do not want you to be unaware, brothers, that our fathers were all under the cloud and all passed through the sea.
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Speaking about the, as they were leaving Egypt and going to wander into the wilderness.
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And all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea.
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And all ate the same spiritual food. Speaking about the manna and the quail.
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Right here, verse four. And all drank the same spiritual drink.
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For they were drinking from a spiritual rock which followed them.
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And that rock was Christ. The prerequisite to receive the
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Holy Spirit is to thirst for righteousness. The condition to receive the
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Holy Spirit is to believe in Jesus. Now let's look at our final point.
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The result. The result is found in John 7, verse 38.
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He who believes in me, as the scriptures said, from his innermost being will flow rivers of living water.
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In John chapter four, Jesus speaks with a woman of Samaria.
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Jesus is tired. He's been traveling. He sits down.
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A woman of Samaria comes in the evening to get water. Jesus speaks to her and says to her, give me a drink.
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Ladies and gentlemen, Jesus didn't have to have a woman or anyone to give him water.
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When I was preaching through this, I spoke about the humanity of Jesus in this section. Jesus could have said water and water from that.
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Well, it came up like a water fountain right into his mouth, right? He had the power to do that. He did not do that.
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He did not do that. He didn't use miraculous powers to satisfy his own needs.
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Remember, Satan told him you could tell these stones to become bread and they will. And he could have, but he did not.
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His miraculous powers that he did, he performed these signs were for other people and to show who he was.
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He didn't have to wait for someone to get there to get him water. He could have said water right into his mouth.
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That simple. I believe that, do you? He has that power. The woman came.
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She's wondering why is it that this Jewish man is talking to me? Because Jewish people did not speak with Samaritans.
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And if you were a rabbi, like he was, and a man, you did not, you didn't speak to women in public.
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You didn't speak to your own wife in public. You didn't speak to your daughters in public. You for sure didn't speak to a woman of Samaria.
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And she tells him, he tells her that the water that she drinks from, she'll be thirsty again.
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And that he's offering her living water. And she mentions to him that he has, doesn't even have anything to get water with.
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And so I want to read verses 13 and 14, where it picks this up. So she just had told him that he doesn't have anything to get water with.
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And Jesus answered and said to her, everyone who drinks this water will thirst again.
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But whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never thirst ever. But the water that I will give him will become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life.
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Ladies and gentlemen, believing in Jesus is eternal life. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whoever believes in him will not perish, but have everlasting life.
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All throughout the book of John, it's been telling us this, right? Believing in him is eternal life. And here it's drinking, coming to him and drinking, which earlier
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I mentioned, it's believing in him. Believing in Jesus is eternal life. You cannot have eternal life unless you believe in Jesus Christ.
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And our text is telling us that when we drink from the fountain of living water, what comes in us, the living water, comes out of us, the living water.
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It comes in us and it comes out of us. Look at verse 38 again.
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He who believes in me as the scriptures said from his innermost being will flow rivers of living water.
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If living water is in you, you cannot contain it. You cannot contain it.
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If you think you're containing it, ask yourself, do you have the living water?
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Did you drink from the spout? Verse 39 tells us what the living water is.
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But this he spoke of the spirit, whom those who believe in him were going to receive.
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For the spirit was not yet given because Jesus was not yet glorified.
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The living water is the Holy Spirit. What comes in us, the
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Holy Spirit, comes out of us, the Holy Spirit. Right?
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You following? Now, I don't want you to miss this. Every day at the feast, the priest would take a golden jar and fill it with water from the pool of Siloam that came from the
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Gion spring. And they would pour it on the altar of sacrifice. Imagine, just think about it.
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And as they're pouring it, Jesus makes this public proclamation on the last day. And he tells them that he is the fountain of living water.
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Stop going to the pool of Siloam. He is the fountain of living water, not
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Siloam, not the Gion spring. Him, him alone is the fountain of living water.
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Think about what they were thinking. Like just picture it. This is a crazy man. They were forsaken the fountain.
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They weren't forsaken Siloam, Gion spring. They were forsaken
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Christ. Repentance and faith for them would be them turning away from that feast celebration of traveling to that, to the pool of Siloam to get water by turning to Yahweh and trusting in Jesus.
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How do you turn to Yahweh by trusting in Jesus? By coming to Jesus, by believing in Jesus, by drinking from the fountain, which is
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Jesus. The prerequisite to receive the Holy Spirit is to thirst for righteousness.
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The condition to receive the Holy Spirit is to believe in Jesus. And the result of believing in Jesus is to be filled with the
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Holy Spirit. Now I want to finish up that made up story.
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The man took the gallon of water and he primed the pump. And by doing so, he was not only able to drink from the pump, he was able to bathe in the water that came from the pump.
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And when the man was rescued after staying by, after staying where he could be nourished by the water and after filling the jug back up for the next person, he added words to the notes.
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He added these words, prime the pump. Don't be foolish.
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Prime the pump. If you're here today and you are not a
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Christian, I pray that this message primed the pump.
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Do you thirst for righteousness? Do you thirst?
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Are you like I was that day when I was actually thirsty for water and I was willing to do whatever it took?
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Heathen drinking from my dirty hands, sneaking into someone's yard. I had no idea.
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Drinking like a dog slurping water from my hand. I was that thirsty. If you're not that thirsty for righteousness, the
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Holy Spirit is not for you. But if you are that thirsty, if you thirst for righteousness, if you long to obey the
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Lord, then come to Jesus. Come to Jesus and be filled with the
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Holy Spirit. And from you will flow the Spirit of the living
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God. I'm going to go back to something
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Pastor Cal said when he was speaking about righteousness. It was intent, desire, and action. And though we intend and though we desire, we cannot fulfill the action.
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And that's why the Bible talks about the just for the unjust, the righteous for the unrighteous, the righteous, the one who kept the law for the unrighteous, those of us, every one of us that broke it.
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All right. There's only been one that's been able to keep the law of God. And that is Jesus Christ. Although we have the intent and the desire, we cannot fulfill the action.
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God condescends. He sent his son to live the life that we could not live and to take our punishment in his death.
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He was buried and he rose again on the third day, satisfying the demands of the demands of the law and proving that death has not received the victory.
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Christ is the victor. Christ is the victor. He has won.
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He has overcome. And you and I can overcome in him. Though we cannot perform the actions to the
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T, though we cannot hold a candle to Christ, Christ holds us in his hands and he will never let us go.
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But that's only if you've drunk from the fountain. I'm available to anyone who wants to talk.
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Pastor Cal is as well. Let's pray. Father, thank you for this day.
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Lord, we thank you for the gospel. We thank you that you have revealed yourself to us and that although we were born with a heart of stone, a heart of self -righteousness, and that we were trying to establish our own righteousness through the gospel, you have removed the heart of stone and you have given us a heart of faith to where we can trust in Jesus Christ, to where we can trust in your righteousness.
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Lord, I just pray for anyone here today that has not trusted in you, that has not trusted in your righteousness,
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Lord, that you will bring the law down on them. And they can see that even though they may have intent and desire, they do not have the action.
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And only one has been able to perform that action. And that salvation is trusting in that one,
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Jesus Christ. And Lord, I pray that as we prepare ourselves to partake in the supper, that you are searching those that believe in you right now, their hearts,
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Lord, and you're bringing any sin to mind to bear to them, Lord, and that you will graciously give them repentance and faith.
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And Lord, that you will use this in conforming us to the image of your son. We pray that you bless it, you bless those that partake, and you help us to live and to love and to spread the message of truth.