The House That God Built

Texts: 2 Samuel 7:1-17; Matthew 7:13-29

I DON’T KNOW IF YOU’VE HEARD this before, but archaeologists have very likely found King David’s palace in Jerusalem. The discovery was actually made in 2005 by Dr. Eilat Mazar, the lead archaeologist on the dig. Since then, Dr. Mazar has taken a lot of heat for saying colossal stone structure was built by King David. Because believe it or not, there are even a lot of Jewish archaeologists who don’t believe David ever existed, or if he did, he was just some hill-country chieftain who would never have lived in a palace as massive and imposing as the structure Dr. Mazar has uncovered.

And what she uncovered is massive and imposing. It could only belong to a great king, the architectural evidence dates it to the time the Bible says David reigned, and what’s more, in the ruins were found a copper scroll, high-quality pottery, and some beautiful ivory spoons also datable to the 11th century BC. Dr. Mazar was asked why this important structure wasn’t found before. Her answer was that previous archaeologists weren’t looking in the right place. She believes that the Bible-- the Old Testament, at least, being Jewish and not a Christian-- is historical. So going by clues in God’s Word, she found the palace just where everyone should have been looking all along.

It’s a wonderful thing that King David’s palace in Jerusalem has been found. It’s wonderful any time archaeology confirms the historical nature of Scripture. Archaeology, when it’s been done by real scholars and not by sensationalist journalists, always does confirm Bible history, whether the archaeologists in charge believe in the Bible or not.

On the other hand, it doesn’t matter if Dr. Mazar is right or if she turns out to be wrong about this particular ruin being King David’s palace. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying it doesn’t matter if all Bible history is just fables and our faith is based only on stories that people have made up in their heads. Just the opposite. Our God, the Creator of the world and everything in it, is a God who makes Himself known in human history. The Bible is the story of His interaction with real people in real places and real times. We should expect to find evidence of those people and places when an archaeologist in the Middle East takes up his pick and spade.

Nevertheless, as marvellous as this archaeological discovery is, our faith can never be based on the house King David built for himself. No, it must be based on the house the Lord God Almighty built for him-- and for us.

Our reading from 2 Samuel finds David when "he was settled in his palace and the Lord had given him rest from all his enemies around him." It grieved him that there he was living in a palace of cedar-- which is to say, a palace with its walls decorated with cedar panelling-- and the Ark of the Lord’s Covenant was still housed in a tent. If you go back to chapter 6, that tent wasn’t even the Tabernacle; it was, as we read in verse 17 of that chapter, "the tent that David had pitched for it." That didn’t seem right, and David began to think of building a proper house or temple to house the Presence of God.

Humanly-speaking, it was a good and noble idea. Nathan the prophet has no reason to assume differently; after all the Lord clearly was with David and would prosper him in this venture as well. But the Lord God had something else in mind. He gave Nathan a message for David, saying that it wasn’t for David to build Him a house; rather, He would build one for David. Not a physical palace of stone and cedar that would one day be destroyed by the Babylonians and buried for millennia. The Lord would build for David a house in the sense of life, greatness, and peace for him during his days on earth, of security for the people of Israel, and beyond all that, the Lord would build him the house of a family, a dynasty, a bloodline that after he was gone would be established forever in the sight of the Lord.

None of these things could David really achieve or guarantee for himself. Even the mightiest of warrior kings is at the mercy of external political and military forces. And the promise of an everlasting "house" for David could only be fulfilled after he died. It all depended upon the Lord his God. The Lord said He would build David a deathless house, and all David could do was to say Thank you and receive the promise God had made.

In our reading from St. Matthew, on the other hand, Jesus tells us that we must build the house of our own lives in the right way on the right foundation and that if we don’t, it won’t last forever, it will certainly be destroyed. How ironic! We think of the Old Testament as containing the message of the Law. That it’s all and only about what God’s people (including us) must do to please Him or else face His judgement. And the New Testament proclaims the Gospel, the good news of what God has done for us, which we receive by faith. But with our two readings, Law and Grace seem totally switched around!

We shouldn’t be confused or surprised, for the Old and New Testaments of God’s Word together make up the one story of Himself and how He saves us and restores us to Himself. Law and Gospel, judgement and grace run through the entirety of Scripture and God and His power is sovereign throughout. The Lord’s word to David is the promise of the Gospel. Out of His free grace He foretells the coming of the Son of David who would build the house for the Lord’s name and whose throne would be established forever. And Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount (where our Matthew verses today come from) is in effect the final and most perfect declaration of the Law, which shows us how much we need God working in the promised Son of David to build the house of eternal life for us.

I once heard a sermon on the Sermon on the Mount where the preacher said it wasn’t written for Christians, but for Jews. This bothered me a great deal at the time, because it seemed she was saying that we as Christians didn’t have to listen to it. But in a way she was right. In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus takes the Law of God to its ultimate level. Mere outward legalism will not do. It isn’t enough for God, He says, for us to just follow the rules. Our hearts and minds and spirits have to be totally obedient as well. Nor will mere profession of sound doctrine help us. We must do the will of our Father in heaven-- and His will is perfect holiness. We must hear Jesus’ words and act upon them perfectly, or the fall of our house will be great. But making our way into the kingdom of heaven by our own perfect obedience is the Old Covenant way. It didn’t work for the Jews, why should we gentiles want to try it for ourselves?

Matthew records that when Jesus was done preaching that day the crowds marvelled at how He taught. Jesus spoke as if He were the ultimate authority on God’s law. He didn’t cite other rabbis and previous cases the way the scribes very rightly and humbly did. But another valid response to this sermon would be, "Who then can be saved?"

A lot of people read the Sermon on the Mount and think "Yeah, I’m a nice person, I can do all that." If we think that way, we’re out of our blooming minds. How can we in our blindness and willfulness find the narrow gate Jesus speaks of in verse 13? How can we really discern between false and true prophets? By the fruit of their lives, Jesus says, but people are led astray by silver-tongued, miracle-working orators every day, and if they’re glib and impressive enough, no one cares how they treat their wives or if they kick the dog, or even if their ideas destroy millions of human lives.

In verse 23, the NIV translation says that when the kingdom of heaven comes, Jesus the Judge will say to the false prophets, "Away from me, you evildoers!" But the Greek literally calls them, "workers of lawlessness." In other words, no matter how holy or spiritually powerful someone might seem to be, he is a false prophet if he proclaims or practices anything against the revealed Law of God.

And here in verses 24 to 27, Jesus says we are to build the house of our lives upon these words of His. What words? His words confirming (as it says in 5:18) every jot and tittle of the Law and the Prophets.

Well, I don’t know about you, but that scares me silly. I want to build my life as a holy house for the Lord to live in, but I can hardly pitch a tent. And you’re in just the same situation. What hope is there for you or me or any of poor fallen humanity?

Our hope is in the King of the Lord’s kingdom, Jesus Christ, great David’s greater Son. The Lord says to David in 2 Samuel, "I will raise up your offspring to succeed you . . . and I will establish his kingdom. He is the one who will build a house for my Name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever." In the short run, this word pointed to David’s son King Solomon, who built the first Temple in Jerusalem. But it looks beyond Solomon to Jesus Christ, who is Himself the house of the Lord. In Him we meet with God, in Him the sacrifice for us was lifted up on the cross, in Him we find acceptance and forgiveness and holiness. Jesus is the King who will sit on the throne of God’s eternal kingdom, judging the nations and declaring His faithful ones not guilty before Him. Jesus is the one who, as it says in verse 14, is the true Son of God the Father; not by adoption, or by any human custom of calling kings sons of the gods, but truly and from all eternity, in His very substance and in everything He is.

The Lord told David that when the royal son promised to him does wrong, he will be punished by the rod of men, with floggings inflicted by men. We know that Solomon did go astray and God punished him for it through his enemies. Our Lord Jesus the Son of David never did any wrong, but God His Father laid on Him the wrongdoing of us all. He permitted Jesus to be punished and flogged by the hands of men, that we might escape the eternal punishment we deserved for breaking God’s holy Law. The love of the God the Father will never be taken away from Jesus Christ the Son of David, and so God’s love will never be taken away from us who trust in Him. We will live and prosper and please Him in the house He builds for us in His kingdom forever.
It is a good and noble thing to be like David and want to do things in this life to honor God.

Whether in great projects or in our everyday relationships, our striving to obey God’s Law is a way for us to build a house for His Name on this earth. But with the wrong foundation, that effort will fail and we will be left only with ruin. At best, we’ll end up glorifying only ourselves.

But God builds a house for us, which is Christ and His word alone. He is the eternal mansion house God builds for us to live in and the only solid Rock and sure foundation our lives can have. In gratitude and love we now make that house visible to the world, by our conduct, our obedience, and our trust.

It’s good news that the house of King David has been found in Jerusalem. It is even better news that King Jesus, Son of David and Son of God, died for your sins and rose again and has become a royal house where you can dwell for all eternity.

Accept the house that God has built for us, the house of His servant David, Jesus Christ our King. In Him we have rest, in Him we dwell in safety, in Him we perfectly keep the Law of God, in Him we are made great and forever endure.
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Photo is of a capital from structure identified as the palace of King David.

Revelation, Recognition, and Reckoning

Texts: Exodus 1:8-2:10; Romans 10:5-17; Matthew 16:13-20

HOW WELL DO WE KNOW the men who are running for President of the United States this year? One candidate, we know a great deal about his public career, but maybe not so much about his private life. The other candidate, we’re still learning who he is as a policy-maker and as a private citizen. One thing good about the way our American presidential campaigns seem to go on and on, it’s more likely that we’ll find out what we need to know about the candidates before the first Tuesday in November.

How are we going to find that out? I doubt any of us here know Senator McCain or Senator Obama personally.

Well, we can listen to their speeches and interviews, and to how they do in the debates this Fall. But how do we know if they really mean what they say, or if it’s all just political rhetoric?

Maybe we’ll rely on our gut feelings about how each man looks and how he carries himself. But haven’t we all known times when somebody who seemed really impressive at first turned out to be a real disappointment? How are we going to get to the real, honest, behind-the-scenes truth about our presidential candidates?

I guess we’ll have to rely on third party sources. Like the newspapers. And the TV news. And talk radio. And Internet bloggers. These sources have revealed a lot about these two men since they first started running-- when was it, sometime in the Teddy Roosevelt administration?-- and hopefully we’ll get enough reliable information from them before it’s time to vote.

But what do we do when there’s something we absolutely have to know about a certain Person, but there’s no earthly, human way we can find it out? What if it’s desperately important that we get a particular answer concerning this Man, and we don’t even know enough to ask the question? What if our very lives and futures--not just for the next four or eight years, but on into eternity--depend on knowing who this Man is and what He is doing? And what if the truth about Him were so cosmic, so unimaginable, that we’d never think or dream of trying to discover it for ourselves?

We’d really be stuck, wouldn’t we? Our own intellect couldn’t tell us what we needed to know. Our instincts and gut feelings couldn’t lead us to the truth. Human authorities and pundits would be no help to us at all. We’d go to our doom and die and rot in dark ignorance unless something more than human, something beyond the circles of this world comes to us and opens our minds and reveals to us the identity and true character of this most important of men.

There is a Man like that, and for the last two thousand years He has been asking men and women of every race and country, "Who do you say I, the Son of Man, am?" Jesus of Nazareth confronts us with His person and His work and demands that human beings confess and acknowledge who and what we understand Him to be. Our whole fate into eternity depends on getting the answer right, and our of our own human knowledge and initiative we never, ever can.

But, we protest, is it really like that? After all, isn’t Jesus like our presidential candidates? Can’t we just be reasonable about Him, too, if we’re deciding if this Man Jesus really is the Savior and Christ? It’s like, the Press gives us the information about the candidates, we make a choice. Same way, the Bible tells us about the teachings and miracles of Jesus, and we say, "Yes, on that evidence, our reason tells us that He is the Messiah and Lord of all." Isn’t it as simple as that?

Afraid not. In our passage in Matthew 16, Jesus and His disciples are making a retreat in the hills around Caesarea Philippi. As they sit there, Jesus asks the disciples, "Who do people say that the Son of Man is?" Could they honestly answer that the people recognised Him for who and what He really was? No! All those crowds had heard the glorious teaching from Jesus’ lips. The people has seen the miracles our Lord performed. Countless many of them had benefitted from His wonders themselves. Did the crowds get the answer to Jesus’ question right?

No. The disciples had to answer, "Some say you’re John the Baptist raised from the dead. Other people say you’re Elijah or Jeremiah or one of the other prophets, brought back to life." The people had all the evidence about Jesus right in front of them, but their reason and gut feelings and human ability all rolled up together could never bring them to the deep truth of who the Son of Man is.

But then Jesus says to His disciples, "But who do you say the Son of Man is?"
And Simon Peter immediately declares, "You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God!"

No human reasoning could have brought Peter to that conclusion. For one thing, Peter as a good Jew, who knew good and well that the Lord, the living God of Israel, does not have sons and daughters the way the pagan so-called gods were said to. The idea was totally beyond his imagining. But he declared it: "You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God!" and it was the eternal truth. As John Calvin puts it, "Though Peter did not yet understand distinctly in what way Christ was the begotten of God, he was so fully persuaded of the dignity of Christ, that he believed Him to come from God, not like other men, but by the inhabitation of the true and living Godhead in His flesh."

How did Peter know? How was he persuaded? Jesus says this: "Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father in heaven!" God alone, by the power of His Holy Spirit, was able to reveal to Peter and the other disciples who and what Jesus of Nazareth was and is and always will be. Not the opinion of the crowd, not the judgement of the religious leaders, not even the reasoning of Peter’s own mind could have brought him to recognise that truth, only the revelation of the Father in heaven.

Our Lord goes on to say, "And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it."

The name "Peter" means "a rock," like we might call someone "Rocky." So is our Lord now saying that He will build His salvation community, His church, on the flesh-and-blood man Peter? Some Bible interpreters think so, and they give pretty persuasive answers why. But others point out that everywhere in Scripture only God is described as the Rock of our salvation, and upon Him alone must we ground our faith, for by Him alone we are saved. Jesus has just blessed Peter for recognising what His Father in heaven has revealed to him, and does Christ now undo that and give His glory to a mortal man, however enlightened? Does He say, "You are Peter, Rocky, and on you I will build my church?" No, our Lord says, "You are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church," that is, upon the Holy Spirit-revealed recognition and declaration that Jesus of Nazareth is the Christ, the Son of the living God.

Jesus says, "The gates of Hades"-- all the powers of death and the grave-- "will not prevail against" His church. How will He effect this? He says to Peter: "I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven."

This word "you" is indeed singular. For Peter is the first representative of how God would use His power on earth to open the kingdom of heaven to mankind. Peter was the first in the church to receive God’s revelation of Christ as God and to confess that it is so. Peter was appointed by God to be the first to preach the word of Christ crucified for our sins and risen for our new life, on the day of Pentecost when he commanded the people to repent and be baptised for the remission of sins. Peter was the first to declare to the Jewish authorities that the name of Jesus Christ is the only one given under heaven by which we must be saved. He was the first to enter a Gentile’s home and open up to him and his household the riches of grace that seemed to be reserved for the Jews.

In all these things, Peter uses the power of the keys, which is nothing less than the preaching of the Word of God, calling people to believe and be saved. It is by the preaching of the Word of God that the Holy Spirit opens the minds of sinners and reveals the saving power of Jesus Christ.

Peter was the first to do this, but he was not the last. What does it say in our Romans passage? "How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!" For "faith comes from what is heard, and what is heard comes through the word of Christ." Through the preaching of the Word the Lord our God goes on revealing to His elect people who and what His Son Jesus Christ is, and what He has accomplished on our behalf. With His Word preached comes the blessing of His Holy Spirit, to bring people from unbelief to belief, from self-righteousness to the righteousness of God.

But with this revelation there comes a reckoning. The Word of God preached can bind as well as loose. For as Paul says in Romans, "Not all have obeyed our good news." When the word of God is preached, not everyone recognises that Jesus Christ is the Messiah, the Son of the living God. They go on thinking He’s only a human prophet. Or a Great Teacher. Or a Good Moral Example whom they can come up to, if they just try hard enough. Sadly, there are those who keep wanting to pull Christ down out of heaven to their level. Others feel Jesus needs their help, as if they needed to pull Him up from the dead. At the end of days, the Word of God will witness against such people in the judgement.

In the days before Moses was born, the King of Egypt stopped recognising the greatness of Joseph. He was blind to the special blessings the Lord had laid on His chosen people, the Hebrews. In fact, he was jealous of God’s people, and set out to destroy them as a separate nation. He certainly wouldn’t have recognised anything special in the infant Moses. But God was working in the Hebrews and He was working in the life of Moses, preparing him to be the one who would reveal God to His people and to all who would recognise the Lord and believe. At the same time, the word spoken by Moses brought judgement to Pharoah and all Egypt with him.

Even more, now, God calls us to hear Him as He reveals Himself in His Son Jesus Christ through His Word read and preached. By His word He brings us to recognise Jesus Christ for who He really is, and to become like Peter, ready to confess with our mouths that Jesus is the only Lord, risen from the dead for our salvation.

It is on the rock of divine revelation recognised, confessed, and proclaimed that Jesus Christ builds His Church, such that the gates of Hell will not prevail against it. God reveals Himself and opens the kingdom of heaven by the means He has established, now and forever. Not by the church’s good works. Not by praise bands or well-rehearsed choirs. Not by meetings and conferences and general assemblies. Not by dressing up or dressing down, not by candles and incense or by the latest sound systems or high-tech extravaganzas. These things can support and promote the Word-- or they can detract from it. Despite all our human devices, the God of power and might still reveals the truth of Christ in the way He always has: in the preaching of His word by fallible, erring human beings like Simon Peter, human beings who have been inspired by the Holy Spirit to confess before the world, "You, Jesus, are the Messiah, the Son of the living God."

God gives this message to everyone who believes. We’re not all called to be ordained preachers, or Bible study leaders, or Sunday School teachers. But God instills in every Christian the word that is near us, on our lips and in our hearts, the word of faith that Peter and all the apostles and every faithful preacher has always proclaimed: Jesus Christ is Lord, and all who call upon His name will be saved.

Who do you say the Son of Man is? Believe the good news that your Father in heaven has revealed to you! Recognise your Savior in love and obedience, and may it always be reckoned to you as blessedness, now and in the world to come.

Water from the Rock

Texts: Exodus 17:1-7; John 7:37-44

HOW MANY OF YOU HERE came to Vacation Bible School last week?

This message is for you. But we’ll let the grownups listen in, won’t we?

It was a wet week, wasn’t it? You explored the "Great Bible Reef"!

On Monday, you learned about how the mother of Baby Moses put him in a basket in the Nile River so he wouldn’t be killed, and how he was rescued by the daughter of King Pharaoh.

On Tuesday, you heard how General Naaman was sick with a terrible skin disease, and how God healed him when he plunged seven times into the Jordan River.

On Wednesday, you discovered how Jesus sat in a fishing boat and taught the people on the shore of the Sea of Galilee. And how afterwards, He told the fishermen to let down their nets to fish. And how an enormous catch of fish came up, so the fishermen were really scared, and Jesus said, "Don’t be afraid, but come with Me, and I’ll teach you how to catch people!"

On Thursday, you saw how Jesus healed a blind man by putting mud on his eyes and having him wash it off in the Pool of Siloam.

And on Friday, you found out how if you build on sand, the floods will come and wash your house away. But if you lay your foundation all the way down to rock, your house will stand firm. Was Jesus just talking about houses to live in? No, He was teaching us how to live. That if you listen to God and do what He says, even if you do have trouble, He will make sure everything comes out all right for you. But if you don’t, the bad things that happen in life will crash down like a terrible storm and your life will be ruined.

So what is that? Two rivers, one lake or sea, one pool, and one terrible flood. That’s a lot of water! And you had one rescue, two healings, one calling of disciples, and one lesson on how to listen to God and live. That’s a lot of things happening with water!

But do you ever think about what it would be like to go without water? I mean, to have no water at all?

You might say, "I’d drink Coke or Pepsi instead!" But what if there was no water to make Coke or Pepsi? What if there was no water, so the cows all died and there wasn’t any milk? What if the trees all dried up, so there was no orange juice or lemonade?

That would be horrible, wouldn’t it? You’d be so, so thirsty! And if you didn’t get something to drink, you’d die, too!

Well, a long, long time ago, God’s people Israel were really thirsty. They were afraid they were going to die. I’ll tell you how it happened:

Remember Baby Moses in the Nile River in Egypt? The Egyptians were really mean to God’s people. The Israelites had to work as slaves all day in the hot sun. They didn’t get to rest and their Egyptian masters whipped and beat them and treated them cruelly!

When Moses grew up, God told him to go tell King Pharaoh to let God’s people go free. Moses foster-mother Pharaoh’s daughter was dead, and her father the old Pharaoh was dead, and the new Pharaoh didn’t want to listen to Moses and he didn’t want to listen to God. But God did all sorts of awesome and marvellous miracles and He showed the Egyptians He meant business! So Moses led God’s people Israel out of Egypt.

God promised that He would bring them to a new country were they would be free and have everything they needed. But first, they had to go through the desert. A great, dry, terrible desert. The Israelites couldn’t find water anywhere. No water for themselves, or their children, or for their cattle or their sheep.

So they complained. And griped. And moaned. They said, "Moses, why did you bring us out of Egypt to make us and our children and our livestock die of thirst?" They were so mad, they wanted to kill Moses!

Would you have complained, too? Would you have been mad because you were thirsty? That would have been very foolish! All those people knew what God can do! He defeated the Egyptians, and the Egyptians were the strongest people in the world back then! If God can do that, He surely can get His people a drink of water!

And He did. He told Moses to walk ahead and take some of the elders with him. Do we have any elders here today? Raise your hands! Moses took people like that with him. God said, "Go to the big rock at Mount Horeb, and I’ll be standing there in front of you. Strike that rock with your leader’s staff, and water will come out of it for the people to drink."

Moses obeyed, and that’s what happened. Enough water came out of that rock for everyone to drink as much as they wanted, and their sheep and cows drank all they wanted, too.

God told Moses, "Every Fall, I command the people to celebrate a special holiday. It will be called the Feast of Tabernacles ("tabernacle" is another word for "tent"), because I had My people live in tents in the desert." God wanted His people to remember how He’d taken care of them in the desert.

So God’s people came into their own Land, and every year they would get together in Jerusalem and celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles. This holiday lasted eight days. On the last day, the priests at the Temple in Jerusalem would pour out a great big jar of water, all down the front steps of the Temple. The people would see the running water and be happy and joyful. They would remember how God gave them water out of that rock in the desert. They would thank God for giving them rain in the Promised Land, so they could grow food and eat. They praised Him because He gave them water so they could have life.

Do you ever remember to thank God for the gift of running water? You can just turn on a faucet, and there it is! But if God doesn’t send the rain and the snow, there wouldn’t be any water in the pipes! We should always thank God for giving us water, so we can drink and live.

But God has another kind of water for us, too. He gives us water for our spirits, so our spirits can live. He calls it "living water." Do you know how to get living water? Listen, and I’ll tell you how.

One year at the Feast of Tabernacles, something very exciting and different happened. Jesus the great Teacher was there, teaching at the feast. Now, those people didn’t really know who Jesus was. They didn’t know He was the Son of God. They didn’t know He was going to die for their sins, because He hadn’t done it yet. But they knew He was special, and the people liked to listen to Him tell them about God.

Well. On the last day of the feast, the priests were about to pour the water down the front stairs, to celebrate the water coming out of the rock in the desert. And Jesus stood up and called out really loud, "If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink!"

Jesus was telling everybody, "I’m like that rock at Mount Horeb that Moses hit and the water came out for everyone to drink! Come to Me, and you’ll have water for your souls!"

You’re young now, and maybe you don’t know yet what it’s like to be dry and thirsty in your soul. It’s like you want something, but you don’t know what. Nothing can make you happy. You’re sad a lot. You work and work, but nothing seems to matter and nothing seems to do any good.

Everybody gets dry and thirsty in their souls, and only spiritual water can make that thirst go away.

And Jesus is the only one who can give you spiritual water. "Come to Me and drink!" He says.
Do you know how to come to Jesus? You say to Jesus, "Jesus, I believe that You are the Son of God. I believe You died to take the punishment for my sins. I trust You to love me and take care of me all the rest of my life. I believe that someday You will bring me to live with You in heaven, no matter what happens to me here on earth." Jesus is like that great Rock in the desert, that Moses hit and the water came out of. He will give you His living water, so your soul feels like you’ve just had a long drink of cold, clear water.

But Jesus promises you more than that! He also said, "Whoever believes in me, . . . streams of living water will flow from within him!" Jesus’ disciple John (he wrote our Gospel lesson today) says Jesus was talking about the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the living water we need for our souls. Jesus sends the Holy Spirit to us when our hearts are thirsty and dry and the Spirit gives us life. He’s like a cold drink of water on a hot summer afternoon.

And what do you think? When the Spirit gives us Himself to drink, is there only enough for us, or is there plenty of the Holy Spirit left over?

There’s plenty left over, of course, because the Holy Spirit is God and you can never run out of God. Jesus says, "Whoever believes in me, streams of living water-- [that is, the Holy Spirit]-- will flow out of him." You get the living water Holy Spirit from Jesus, and the Spirit flows out of your heart and helps other people, too. He gives you His love and peace, and then you can tell other people about His love and peace, too.

God reminded His people Israel at the Feast of Tabernacles how He’d taken away their thirst in the desert. Can you think of two ways God uses something wet to remind us of what He has done by sending His Son Jesus to die for us?

Yes, He gave us the water of baptism, to show how Jesus washed away our sins and to remind us that He has given us the living water of the Holy Spirit.

And He gave us the wine of the Lord’s Supper. We drink it and we know that Jesus takes away the thirst in our souls. He is the living Rock that gives us the living water of the Holy Spirit, so we can believe in Him and live.

I’m glad God gives us ordinary water, aren’t you? But I’m even more glad that He gives us the living water of the Holy Spirit. Believe in Jesus. Drink the water He gives, and your soul will never have to be thirsty again.

(Preached on Vacation Bible School Assembly Sunday)