It Needs Water to Grow

Scripture: John 7.37-39; I Corinthians 12.3-13


Have you ever been really thirsty? Have you been so thirsty that a glass of ice water looks like heaven? Have you ever been so thirsty that you say, I would give a hundred dollars right now for a glass of water. Water is good. Water replenishes. Water cleans. Water heals. A human being can go without food for many days. But you don’t last long without water. Water is life.

There’s a running joke at my house that flowers and plants don’t last long there. We forget to water sometimes. After about a week we notice that the plant is browning and withering. Huh? I wonder what’s wrong with that? We have a brown thumb at our house. Plants go there to die. Though, we are getting better. We have a clematis that has lasted a year now and done well, because we’ve remembered the most basic of rules, “It needs water to grow.”

Jesus connects the human need of water with a spiritual need for God. Jesus says to the Samaritan woman drawing water at Jacob’s well, “I’ll give you water that when you drink it you’ll never be thirsty again.” In John’s Gospel we read that Jesus is in Jerusalem, and it’s the last and greatest day of the Feast of Tabernacles or Booths, which was a feast to celebrate the first fruits of the early harvest. On the last day of the feast, the priests take water from the spring of Siloam and they circle the altar seven times. They are followed by crowds of people carrying myrtle and willow twigs in their right hands and citrons or lemons in their left. After circling the altar, the priests pour out the water through a silver funnel onto the ground. The ritual recognizes that God provides the water that makes the creation grow and bear fruit. It’s on the day of this ritual climax that Jesus stands in the Temple and shouts, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink! Whoever believes in me, as the scripture has said, streams of living water will flow within him.”

Jesus is saying, “I am the water of life. Come to the River. Out of your heart will the river flow.”

The Apostle Paul echoes that when he writes the church in Corinth, “We were all given the one Spirit to drink.” When we believe in Jesus then the Spirit of Jesus, the Holy Spirit, lives in us and flows in us as we continue to worship and live for Jesus.

Now, how come our lives seem to lack power and purpose? How come we often seem so spiritually dry? I know plants need water to grow and you can tell when they are dry. Can you tell when people are dry? Can a person tell that about themselves? Can you?

I asked myself, are there circumstances when a person can be so dry, so dehydrated that they don’t at first notice? I can think of several circumstances:

1) A person who is sick. I’m told that in Africa people sometimes die from diarrhea because they mistakenly quit drinking water and other liquids in the hope that it will lessen the severity of the diarrhea. They treat their mild illness with a much more serious one. They die from lack of water.

2) A person who is physically drained from much activity and exertion. A desert traveler, a mountain climber, a man mowing his grass on a hot day, or a soccer mom hustling from one appointment to the next can become water-poor without noticing at first.

3) A person who has gotten used to dryness will forget, for a time, how good it is to drink.

Are you spiritually dry? When is the last time you felt a closeness to Jesus? Feelings, of course, aren’t the only or even the most reliable way to take our spiritual temperature. But, when you are in a healthy relationship, good feelings should happen. When’s the last day that the love of Jesus filled you and surrounded you with His presence? When’s the last time you were moved to laughter or to tears by the Holy Spirit?

This is why we worship. We worship to be in the presence of the Lord. We worship to be close to him, to know more of His mind, to be changed into his image. If you are dry, you need to drink His presence and believe that “waters will flow from your heart” again.
If you are not growing, maybe that means you’re not drinking the Spirit in worship and in
your life.

Duffy Robbins notes that in Mark 3.14 it says “Jesus appointed twelve apostles that they might be with him and that he might send them out to preach.” The order of the words here is crucial – first, that they be with him, then that he might send them out.

At the end of this service you will be given a benediction, which is a word to send you out to do God’s will in this world this week. Before you go do for God, first you must be with God. Don’t skip the first part. It’s essential.

Let us drink of His presence right now. Come to the water.