Invitation to the Thirsty

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Passage Breakdowns, SOAPS Format & Instructions (Weeks 1-12)
Passage Breakdowns, SOAPS Format & Instructions (Weeks 13-26)

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8:40 Service | 10:00 Service | 11:20 Service | Sermon Audio

Good morning Chapel family. When I came on staff at The Chapel back in the late ‘90s, I led a young adults group called “7:37.” It was an exciting time, and God used that group to produce a lot of lasting fruit for his kingdom. In fact, some of the fruit of that group are people like Paul Klouse and Ryan Baitzel and Doug Becker and Kevin Howard and Tracy Manno and Dave Barone—all of whom are serving in full-time ministry to this day—and a whole lot of other people whose names you probably haven’t heard. So it was a great season of ministry.
But you’re probably wondering why we called it “7:37.” Two reasons: the group started at exactly 7:37pm on Wednesday nights—that was our attempt to get people to show up on time. But the main reason is a Bible verse that’s part of today’s Scripture. In John 7:37 Jesus says: “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them.” Because we looked around us and we saw a generation that was thirsty for something more than the world was offering. And the group was all about helping people to satisfy that thirst through Christ.
Close your eyes and listen to that invitation one more time: “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them.” Have you ever felt spiritually dry? I think all of us have—emotionally exhausted…empty…hollow…maybe even burned out. And that’s why this invitation is so beautiful: it’s an offer of an inner Source that keeps giving refreshment and life and energy. And it’s an offer to everyone who comes to Jesus and believes.
That sounds easy enough, right? Well, it’s usually not that easy. Coming to a genuine belief in Christ usually involves some struggle. And that’s why today’s passage is so helpful. When Jesus spoke those words, he was surrounded by a crowd of people at Jewish religious festival. And through the chapter, you’re going to see people in that crowd wrestling with the claims of Christ—questioning and doubting and trying to figure out if they should put their faith in him. So if you’re at a point in your spiritual journey where you are questioning and doubting and wrestling with faith, or if you’re at a point of spiritual dryness, or both, this is for you.
So, one of the main Jewish holidays is the Feast of Tabernacles. It happens every fall, and it’s the celebration of how God sustained his people for forty years as they traveled toward the Promised Land, living in tents. So during the 7 days of the festival, people gather in Jerusalem and actually live in little huts or tents, and there are religious gatherings each day. So Jesus goes to Jerusalem for the festival. The religious leaders are already suspicious of him, so they’re watching for him. And that’s where today’s passage begins: John 7, starting in verse 12. Let’s hear God’s Word…
12 Among the crowds there was widespread whispering about him. Some said, “He is a good man.”
Others replied, “No, he deceives the people.” 13 But no one would say anything publicly about him for fear of the leaders.
14 Not until halfway through the festival did Jesus go up to the temple courts and begin to teach. 15 The Jews there were amazed and asked, “How did this man get such learning without having been taught?”
16 Jesus answered, “My teaching is not my own. It comes from the one who sent me. 17 Anyone who chooses to do the will of God will find out whether my teaching comes from God or whether I speak on my own. 18 Whoever speaks on their own does so to gain personal glory, but he who seeks the glory of the one who sent him is a man of truth; there is nothing false about him. 19 Has not Moses given you the law? Yet not one of you keeps the law. Why are you trying to kill me?”
20 “You are demon-possessed,” the crowd answered. “Who is trying to kill you?”
21 Jesus said to them, “I did one miracle, and you are all amazed. 22 Yet, because Moses gave you circumcision (though actually it did not come from Moses, but from the patriarchs), you circumcise a boy on the Sabbath. 23 Now if a boy can be circumcised on the Sabbath so that the law of Moses may not be broken, why are you angry with me for healing a man’s whole body on the Sabbath? 24 Stop judging by mere appearances, but instead judge correctly.”
25 At that point some of the people of Jerusalem began to ask, “Isn’t this the man they are trying to kill? 26 Here he is, speaking publicly, and they are not saying a word to him. Have the authorities really concluded that he is the Messiah? 27 But we know where this man is from; when the Messiah comes, no one will know where he is from.”
28 Then Jesus, still teaching in the temple courts, cried out, “Yes, you know me, and you know where I am from. I am not here on my own authority, but he who sent me is true. You do not know him, 29 but I know him because I am from him and he sent me.”
30 At this they tried to seize him, but no one laid a hand on him, because his hour had not yet come. 31 Still, many in the crowd believed in him. They said, “When the Messiah comes, will he perform more signs than this man?” Now skip down to verse 37…
37 On the last and greatest day of the festival, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink. 38 Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them.” 39 By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive. Up to that time the Spirit had not been given, since Jesus had not yet been glorified.
40 On hearing his words, some of the people said, “Surely this man is the Prophet.”
41 Others said, “He is the Messiah.”
Still others asked, “How can the Messiah come from Galilee? 42 Does not Scripture say that the Messiah will come from David’s descendants and from Bethlehem, the town where David lived?” 43 Thus the people were divided because of Jesus. 44 Some wanted to seize him, but no one laid a hand on him.
45 Finally the temple guards went back to the chief priests and the Pharisees, who asked them, “Why didn’t you bring him in?”
46 “No one ever spoke the way this man does,” the guards replied.
47 “You mean he has deceived you also?” the Pharisees retorted. 48 “Have any of the rulers or of the Pharisees believed in him? 49 No! But this mob that knows nothing of the law—there is a curse on them.”
50 Nicodemus, who had gone to Jesus earlier and who was one of their own number, asked, 51 “Does our law condemn a man without first hearing him to find out what he has been doing?”
52 They replied, “Are you from Galilee, too? Look into it, and you will find that a prophet does not come out of Galilee.” This is the Word of the Lord.
As you can see, there’s all kinds of controversy swirling around Jesus. The religious establishment has made up its mind about him. Remember, back in chapter two Jesus flipped over the merchants’ tables in the temple, and the leaders demanded to know what gave him the right to act like that. Then in chapter five, when Jesus healed the paralyzed guy by the pool, they faulted him for healing on the Sabbath day. It says in John 5:18 For this reason they tried all the more to kill him; not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God. So the religious leadership, by this point, is officially anti-Jesus, and if he shows up at the festival they plan to arrest him.
But among the people, the attitude is more varied. You can see them struggling to figure out what to think about Jesus. And it becomes clear that there are some things blocking them from belief. So let’s talk first about The Barriers to Belief. The first barrier I see is Fear. There’s a buzz of conversation running through the crowd: “What do you think about Jesus?” “I think he’s a good man.” “I don’t know—I don’t trust him—I think he’s deceiving people.” But no one is saying anything too loudly. It’s all hush-hush. Why? Verse 13 says But no one would say anything publicly about him for fear of the leaders. Everybody knows Jesus is on the “Most Wanted” list, so there’s tremendous social pressure to not have anything to do with him.
In 2026, it’s fashionable to talk about spirituality. People love to say, “I’m not religious; but I’m a very spiritual person. I believe there’s a higher power.” That’s very mainstream, and very acceptable. But if you bring up Jesus, a social boundary has been crossed.
Remember Patricia Heaton—she played Debra on Everybody Loves Raymond. She has made her faith in Christ well-known in Hollywood. And she said this: “I think Jesus is a scary subject. God you can make into anything you want. But confronted with [Jesus] you have to say, ‘I believe that or I don’t.’ It’s very powerful.”
In the book Finding God at Harvard, Kelly Monroe, who is, herself, a Harvard graduate, wrote this: “Some students feel marginalized in the classroom, not because they are African-American, Asian-American, [or] international students but primarily because they are believers.” And she also notes that there’s one word that’s an embarrassment in the classroom, and students sometimes refer to it as “the J word”—Jesus!
Have you felt that? At your job…at school…even in your family? It can feel like the topic of Jesus is off-limits. There’s a fear of bringing him up! Why is that? Why is there something about that name? Here’s part of the answer: there’s a spiritual battle. Satan is desperately trying to keep people from the living water of Christ. 2 Corinthians 4:4 says the god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers. And one of his strategies is to use fear. I don’t want to be looked at as weird; I don’t want to be ostracized. I wonder if that strategy is working on you? Are you being held in check through fear? You do not have to let that happen. Step over that barrier and move toward Jesus.
Another barrier we see here is Misjudging. So Jesus realizes that the religious leaders are still upset that he healed on the Sabbath day. And in verse 23 he says, “Look—you’re angry with me for healing on the Sabbath. But you regularly circumcise babies on the Sabbath. So if it’s okay to do that little procedure on one part of a baby on the Sabbath day, why do you have a problem with me healing an entire person on the Sabbath?” And then he says—verse 24—Stop judging by mere appearances, but instead judge correctly. In other words, “Think. Don’t just look at the surface and make a snap judgment. Make sure you understand it before you form an opinion on it.”
This warning is needed today more than ever. Don’t just watch a quick video from your favorite podcaster, or celebrity, or influencer. Don’t form your opinion of Jesus from something you heard a professor say once.
I hear people say, “I could never be a Christian, because there’s been so much oppression and abuse done by the church.” Is that true? Well, some terrible things have been done by people who claim to be followers of Christ—from the Crusades to the Inquisitions, and even early American slavery was supported by many Christians. But here’s the question: were those people faithfully following Jesus when they did those things? No! They were twisting hi teachings. Think about this: are there incompetent, unethical doctors out there? Doing terrible things in the name of medicine? Unfortunately, yes. Does that mean medical science is a hoax? Of course not. You don’t reject the whole system just because there are some bad practitioners. And yet, people do that with Christianity all the time. And Jesus would say, “Stop judging by mere appearances. Judge correctly.” Don’t let a sound bite or an Internet meme form your opinion about something so important.
There’s one more barrier to faith I see here: Pride. The Jewish leaders are so offended by Jesus that they send temple guards to go and arrest him. So they’re expecting them to report back with Jesus in chains. Instead—verse 45—45 Finally the temple guards went back to the chief priests and the Pharisees, who asked them, “Why didn’t you bring him in?”
46 “No one ever spoke the way this man does,” the guards replied.
47 “You mean he has deceived you also?” the Pharisees retorted. 48 “Have any of the rulers or of the Pharisees believed in him? 49 No! But this mob that knows nothing of the law—there is a curse on them.”
Can you hear the pride? We’re the ones with the education! We’re the ones with the truth! And anybody who would question that, and even consider the possibility that Jesus had something we don’t have, must be ignorant or cursed.
Pride is dangerous. It’s especially dangerous for successful, smart people like the Pharisees. Because when you’re used to a certain level of status and respect, and you’re used to thinking about yourself in that way, it’s hard to admit that maybe you’ve been wrong. Anybody have a hard time admitting when you’re wrong? When’s the last time you were in an argument with your significant other, and you admitted you were wrong? That’s a great test of pride. And pride makes it hard to admit that maybe Jesus has something you need. Ask yourself, “Have I been holding back from fully believing in Christ because of pride?”
So those were some of the barriers that were keeping people in that crowd from believing in Christ, and the same exact barriers are there today. So ask God for the grace to move beyond the barriers, because that’s when you can genuinely encounter Jesus.
Let’s talk about how that works—point number 2—The Path to Belief. In that Feast of Tabernacles crowd, there are some people moving toward faith in Christ. And it’s so interesting to see how God is drawing them to faith. For some people, it’s the amazing things Jesus has done. Look at verse 31: Still, many in the crowd believed in him. They said, “When the Messiah comes, will he perform more signs than this man?” They have seen or at least heard about the miraculous things Jesus has done, and they’re saying, “If this is not the Messiah, I don’t know what is. What more could we expect a Messiah to do? This has to be him.”
For other people, they are more convinced by the things Jesus says. When Jesus starts teaching in the temple courts, verse 15—The Jews there were amazed and asked, “How did this man get such learning without having been taught?” He didn’t have any formal rabbinical training; he was raised by a carpenter. And yet he taught with incredible authority. He claimed that his teaching came directly from God, and it really seemed that way. And then the temple guards who are sent to arrest Jesus come back empty-handed; the Pharisees say, “Why didn’t you arrest him?” And they say, “Because no one ever spoke the way this man does.”
Jesus said, “No one comes to me unless the Father, who sent me, draws them.” And we see the Father drawing people to faith through the works of Jesus and the words of Jesus.
But there’s one other way the Father draws people to faith, and this one might surprise you. Look what Jesus says in verse 17: Anyone who chooses to do the will of God will find out whether my teaching comes from God or whether I speak on my own. Think about that. It doesn’t say, “Anyone who becomes convinced that my teaching comes from God can then choose to do God’s will.” It’s the other way around. Anyone who chooses to do the will of God will find out whether my teaching is real. Do you see the sequence? In other words, even if you’re not completely sure yet that Jesus is the real thing—even if you still have questions—choose to follow him, and things will become much more clear. There are certain things you see much more clearly from the inside.
In his book Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis uses the analogy of swimming. If you want to learn to swim, you don’t learn it from reading manuals watching YouTube videos about swimming. How do you learn to swim? Jump in the pool. You can read all you want that the human body is buoyant, and you’ll float on the water, but you don’t really know what that looks like or how it feels until you…what? Jump in the pool. So Jesus says, “There are some things about me that you will never truly know until you jump in and start following me.”
In my own experience of spiritual searching, when I was trying to figure out if I believed in Jesus, there were some questions that I still didn’t have clarity on. But I reached a point where I’d seen enough, and I realized it was time to jump in. Just make a choice. And once I did that—once I was swimming in that water of following Jesus—things became so much more clear.
So…look at the amazing things he’s done—how he’s affected the world. Listen to his unique teaching—like nobody else. And then make the choice to jump in and follow him, and the understanding will follow. Because when you do that—for the first time or for the thousandth time—there’s a beautiful reward that follows.
Let’s talk about The Reward of Belief. During the seven days of the Feast of Tabernacles, there was a special ceremony every morning. The people would gather at the Temple, and the priest would hold out a golden pitcher. Then he would lead the crowd down to the Pool of Siloam. He would dip the pitcher into the water, and the people would recite the words of Isaiah 12:3--“With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation.” Then they would walk back to the temple, the priest would walk around the altar, with the choir singing, and he would pour the water on the altar. They would do that every day. But on the seventh day—the last day—the priest would circle the altar not once, but seven times. The anticipation would build, and after the seventh lap he would pour it out to the cheering of the crowd—and that was the highlight of the holiday. If you got to see that, the whole trip was worthwhile.
And Jesus chooses that moment—the final day of the feast—to say what he says in verses 37 and 38: 37 On the last and greatest day of the festival, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink. 38 Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them.” So at the very moment when everyone is thinking about water and wells and how God satisfies our thirst, Jesus stands up and basically says, “You no longer need to watch a priest pouring out water on an altar. That’s a beautiful ceremony, but the ceremony has been fulfilled in me. Come to me and drink.”
When you’re spiritually and emotionally empty, come to me and drink.
When you’re tired of what the world offers, come to me and drink.
When you’re disillusioned with the things that you thought would make you happy, come to me and drink.
When you’re disgusted with yourself, come to me and drink.
When you’re disappointed with people, come to me and drink.
When you’re feeling anxious and depressed, come to me and drink.
Because here’s the promise: whoever believes in me, rivers of living water will flow from within them. You will have an inner source, called the Holy Spirit, that will continue to flow, and will sustain you through the dry times of life.
The author John Sanford told this story, which I’m paraphrasing. There was an old well outside of a family farmhouse in New Hampshire. Everybody loved drinking from it, because the water was always cold and fresh. Even during droughts, it never dried up. People used it every day. It stood there for years, until eventually the farmhouse was modernized. They brought in electricity and indoor plumbing, so the well was no longer needed. They sealed it up.
Years went by. One of the children who had grown up in that house was now the owner of the house. One day his kids asked him about the well, and he told them how amazing the water had been. “Dad—let’s try some!” Dad was in a nostalgic mood, so he pried off the cover and lowered the bucket, but he heard a clunk. He couldn’t believe it—this well had survived the most severe droughts! But it was bone dry.
He started asking some of the older folks in the community about it, and here’s what he learned: wells in that area were fed by hundreds of tiny, underground trickles of water, called rivulets, that would steadily seep water into the well. As long as water was regularly drawn out of the well, those little rivulets would remain open and new water would keep flowing in. But when the water in the well just sits, the rivulets clog up with mud and the flow stops. And the man realized: the well dried up not because it was used too much, but because it wasn’t used enough.
And as soon as I heard that story, I thought, “That is a picture of our souls.” Even as believers in Christ, we can get so dry, not because we’ve lost the Holy Spirit, but because we’ve stopped drawing from the well…so the living water stops flowing. It gets clogged. Jesus said, “Come to me and drink,” and that’s not just an offer of initial salvation; that is a way of life. Every day—throughout the day—cultivate the habit praying and reading the Word and worshiping in your car and just turning your thoughts toward Jesus. Because every time you do that—every time you turn toward him—you are drawing from the well. And the more you live that way, the more the water will keep on flowing. Because I promise you: there are desert times coming. And you need the living water.