Life’s Ultimate Question

Pastor Mike will be speaking on life’s ultimate question. He will be in John 7:37-39.

And use my life Lord and help me to be what I’m supposed to be today and I surrender my life completely to you my friends if you will follow those three things I am convinced that the Spirit of God will flow out of you like a river and you will have an anointing and a power to do the work of Christ hello this is pastor Mike Sanders and we welcome you to our hope worth having radio program and today’s program is the beginning of our 15th year and we’re very excited that we have the opportunity to be able to minister to you through the radio and to bring God’s word to you we hope that his word will change your life and transform you more and more into the image of Jesus Christ now we’re gonna be in the Gospel of John chapter 7 continuing our study in verse 37 through 39 and we’re simply answering life’s ultimate question and when you think about life’s ultimate question and that is what are we gonna do with Jesus we have to make a decision and being neutral is a decision we’re gonna look into the scriptures and learn more about answering life’s ultimate question if this morning you will openly acknowledge that you’re thirsty and you will sincerely recognize that Christ is the one who can redeem and forgive your soul then come to him think about it consider the claims of Christ and receive him as Lord and Savior of your life so what does it mean to come and drink Jesus says come unto me and drink.

Just some thoughts I wrote down to him that I think is what Christ means that can help us really live this out practically. Number one, to come to him is to acknowledge your deep thirst before a holy God.

It is to acknowledge your deep thirst before God. Some people do not come to Christ because they never acknowledge that they are thirsty. They never recognize that there is a holy God and that they are sinners in need of a savior.

They never grasp the reality that this world will never satisfy them. And so out of habit or out of tradition, they just keep going back to the things of the world, looking for the next gig or the next exciting event or the next exciting relationship, hoping that it will satisfy them.

only to find but they are still thirsty Jesus said blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness they shall be filled your first step is to acknowledge it your first step is to acknowledge your thirstiness before God to acknowledge your sinfulness before God no one can come to Christ until they first acknowledge that they are a sinner for all have sinned to come short of the glory of God I was telling our Sunday School class that the good news is so good because the bad news is so bad and the bad news is that I’m a sinner and I came into this world a sinner and I continue to struggle and wrestle with the flesh but thank God the good news is that God commences love towards me and while that I was a sinner Christ died for me and friends it’s not just Mike it’s you to put your name right in there and Christ has died for you and the good news is that whoever believes on the Lord shall find eternal life in Jesus Christ second of all to come to him is to realize you can do nothing in your own self to quench your thirst it is to realize that you can do nothing to quench your thirst you see a lot of people are trying to quench their thirst they come to church and I think that’s good I want you to come to church amen makes sense right pastor wants people to come to church but here’s the thing church attendance won’t save your soul it won’t quench the thirst some people say well I need to go to this class or I need to go to that class or I need to go get baptized and I need to all these things are good things but they won’t save your soul they won’t quench your thirst some people say well I need to go out and and and help the poor and I need to help people in society and I need to do some good deeds wonderful things but they won’t save your soul it’s not like God’s up there keeping score and thank God he’s not because if God is keeping score there’s never enough you and I could ever do to make sure that we have enough points that we would ever be qualified to enter into heaven the deal is this that the gap between me and the righteousness of God is so vast and so big there is nothing that I could ever do that would ever make me acceptable before God so Jesus Christ came to this earth and he died on the cross and he took the punishment of your sin and my sins and he filled the gap between me and God and all those who believe on him all those who come to him and drink of him all those who put their trust in him they are the ones who will never thirst again,

and they are the ones who will be forgiven of their sins, and they are the ones who will find eternal life in Jesus Christ. It’s important for you to realize you can do nothing. I’m not relying on what I can do, but I am relying on what Christ has done, which leads me to my third point of what it means to come and drink.

It means to rely on Christ for the payment of your sins. Jesus paid for my sins. Jesus paid for the penalty of my sins. You say, well, why can’t I pay him? First of all, you don’t qualify to pay because you don’t live, and you haven’t lived, and none of us have, a righteous life.

You’ve never lived a perfect life. You say, I’m a good guy, Mike. I understand you might be a good person in relation to the standards of society and culture, but you are not good in the eyes of God.

You don’t meet the perfect righteousness of God. The prophet Isaiah says, my righteousness is as filthy rags before God. Nothing that I do can ever measure up to the perfection and the righteousness of God.

And so it is essential that as I come to Jesus this morning and drink of him, that I rely on what Christ did because he lived a perfect life. He came on this earth, and his life was sinless. His life was perfect.

He fulfilled every aspect of the law. He fulfilled all that the law required of mankind. Jesus obeyed it. Every part of the law. And yet he never sinned, perfect, righteous, and therefore qualified to be offered up as the Lamb of God, the sacrifice for the sins of mankind.

And now you and I, because of what he has accomplished on the cross, we by faith we rely on what Christ has done for our sins not on what we have done to come and drink to come unto Jesus and drink means to believe on him to believe his claims to believe what he has said about himself Jesus is God Jesus is the Savior he is the Messiah he is the one who has come to be the manifestation of God on this earth he is God himself he is the one who embodies not only the Godhead but he is the one who lives out godliness on this earth Jesus Christ is the exalted one and to come to him and drink of him is to believe the claims of the Lord Jesus Christ.

To come to Him is to trust Him. It is to trust Him as your Lord and your Savior. It is to put every ounce of who you are in full trust of Him that your eternal life is not based on what you achieve on this world or what you achieve in this world and what you might do in this world, but your trust is in Christ and Christ alone.

That you don’t feel or sense any kind of need to add to what Christ has done. My friends, that’s an attack on the atonement. Jesus, when He was on the cross, said, it is what? The work of salvation is finished, my friends.

So why would we come along and say, Jesus, you fell short here. Jesus, you didn’t do enough here, and therefore I’m gonna do these extra things just to solidify my salvation. Absolutely not, my friends.

We trust what He did for us on the cross. We believe in Him, and we not only believe who He is, but we believe in His crucifixion and His resurrection for our salvation, and God’s people said, what does it mean to come unto Jesus and drink?

It means to receive Him. To receive Him, John said earlier in John chapter one, as to as many as received Him gave He them the power or the authority to become the children of God. So many reject Him, so many push Him away in their life.

So many do not want anything to do with Christ, but this morning I say to you, open your heart and receive Him into your life. Receive Him. Just like you would receive a friend into your home, just like you would receive someone into your life, you receive Christ into your life.

You are opening, you are welcoming, you are accepting of Him. For Christ has come to bring you redemption and forgiveness. But it only happens when you receive, you must respond to Him this morning. Somebody can come to your house and they can knock on the door all day, and they can ring the doorbell, and you might be hiding because you don’t want them to know that you’re there.

Pastor Carl and I were out visiting not too long ago and somebody wasn’t sure that they wanted to let these two guys in. And so we were walking, Carl’s determined, buddy, he wants to get in that house, he starts walking around the whole house.

I said, Carl, it’s okay, if they don’t want us, we can leave, buddy, all right? But here’s the thing, open your heart’s door to Jesus this morning because you have to take the initiative. He rings the bell, he knocks on the door of your heart, but you must open it to him.

And that means you must receive him into your life. And upon receiving Christ into your life, Jesus teaches us a profound truth that the Holy Spirit dwells inside of all who believe and receive Jesus.

The third and final point that I want you to see this morning is the inner fountain that flows within those who have received Christ. Come back to our text. Look at verse 38. After Jesus gives the invitation, and he gives the instructions on how to respond to that invitation, he says in verse 38, he that believes on me as the Scripture has said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.

John clarifies this and helps us to understand the interpretation of what Christ said in verse 39, but this may he of the Spirit, meaning the Holy Spirit, which they that believe on him should receive, for the Holy Spirit was not yet given because that Jesus was not yet glorified.

Let me just back up into this a little bit to help you understand what’s going on. When John says Jesus has not yet been glorified, Jesus promises his disciples that upon his ascension that God will send a comforter, a helper, the Holy Spirit, called in the Greek the perikaleia, the one who comes alongside and helps and picks us up and encourages us, the one who empowers us.

And so when Jesus says that the Spirit of God is gonna come upon those who believe, it would not happen immediately at the time that he spoke the words, but it would happen eventually upon his ascension, and you remember on the day of Pentecost that the Spirit of God fell upon the disciples, and they were filled with the Spirit, and they spoke in tongues, and they manifested great works of God because they were filled with the Spirit of God.

When the Bible says that they spoke in tongues, it does not mean that they spoke in an unknown language in the sense that no one had ever heard this language before, but rather they had spoke in languages that they had never been trained in and those who were listening to them could understand and comprehend what they were saying as the disciples were proclaiming the gospel to literally the world that was in Jerusalem.

It was a manifestation of the Spirit’s outpouring upon the disciples because of their faith in Jesus Christ. Jesus says that if you believe on Him, that you are going to have within you, in your innermost being, in your belly, within your heart, within who you are, within your spirit, you are going to have the Spirit of God flowing like a river of living waters out of you.

This is the manifestation that you truly have been born again. Jesus gives an amazing statement here about the Holy Spirit, something that all of us, even as believers, we should take note of, something that we should examine our own hearts with.

For Jesus is teaching us the empowering ministry of God through the Holy Spirit. Too many believers are not enjoying the fullness of the Spirit of their life and therefore they are not empowered to serve God effectively and efficiently for the glory of God.

The Apostle Paul reminded the Galatians of this problem among believers in how they would try to operate in the flesh and how they would try to do things with their own man -made methods and their own ideas.

And the Apostle says in Galatians chapter 3, in verse 2 and 3, get this, he says, let me ask you only this. Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law or by hearing with faith? Faith comes by hearing, right?

Hearing the Word of God. They became believers. Jesus teaches us immediately that the Spirit of God had dwelt in them. Paul goes on to say, are you so foolish, having begun by the Spirit, you are now being perfected by the flesh?

This is what happens to believers. We begin, we’re born from above, we’re born of the Spirit, the Spirit gives life. Jesus already taught us that in John chapter 6. And yet we keep referring, going back to the flesh to try to be more godly, to try to be more like Jesus, to try to be more obedient to God.

We keep relying on man -made methods rather than the power of the Spirit that flows from from our innermost being, the power of the Spirit that flows like a river from us. We continue to rely on the techniques of man rather than the anointing of the Spirit.

I appreciate Pastor Bill’s prayer and asking that the anointing of the Spirit would be upon me this morning. No matter how many classes I’ve taking on teaching and preaching and communicating, nothing ever ever can supersede the anointing of the Spirit of God.

It’s not just in preaching and teaching. You and I not only need the anointing of the Spirit in preaching and teaching, but we need it in our everyday life. You need to be filled with the Spirit in your home to be the right kind of spouse, to be the right kind of parent, to be the right kind of young person who wants to live obediently to God and to their parents.

You need the anointing of the Spirit of God upon your life. You need the anointing of the Holy Spirit as a believer to function in that world, in that workplace, in that place where sometimes it’s so difficult and so hard and there are many temptations that are out there.

You need the power of the Spirit of God upon you. Go back to the verse. I want you to underscore it in verse 38. That last phrase, out of his belly, shall flow rivers of living water. You must examine your life.

Is that the way your spiritual life is? Is your spiritual life so filled of the Spirit that it is just flowing out of you like a living water? God is not calling us to just be containers, but rivers.

He’s not calling us to be the Dead Sea, but He’s calling us to be a great river where there is flowing out of us the power, the anointing, and the joy of the Spirit in our life. He is not calling us to be a swamp, but a refreshing stream.

You know, some people, when you hang around them, they just drag you down, amen? Some people just drain you and sap you of any joy and life in you. You don’t want to be that kind of person. You want to be the person that’s not a swamp, but a person who is a living, refreshing stream.

When people are around you, they’re refreshed, they’re encouraged, they’re strengthened, they’re empowered, they know and sense, there’s something unique about you. It’s the living Spirit of God that is flowing out of you.

That’s what I’m challenging you, believer, this morning. Remember the words. of what Jesus said in John 3, verse 34, that God gives the spirit without measure. It’s not that God says, Mike, you only get so much of the spirit, and this person over here gets another portion of the spirit, and this person gets a little bit more of the spirit.

No, he gives it without measure. The problem is not that we don’t have the spirit. The problem is that we have not allowed the spirit to have us. The problem is our life is not fully surrendered. Jesus said, you want this kind of life?

Come to me. And when you come to me and you drink, I quench your thirst. And not only do I quench it, just as God says, just as the psalmist said that my cup runneth over, God says, I don’t just quench your thirst, but I fill you up so much.

It’s just like overflowing out of your life. It’s flooding out of your life. Every time people come in contact with you, they notice this joy. They know this this anointing. They notice this power because it is the outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon your life.

The Spirit of God lives inside of all who believe, and you have an immense measure or amount of the Spirit of God. It’s not that you are limited. What makes this proclamation so unique about Jesus is that up into the Old Testament times, that the Spirit of God would come upon his people, but not dwell.

The Spirit of God would come upon his prophets, but not dwell. Now Jesus is saying the Spirit of God is permanently indwelling the tabernacle, which is your body, which is your being. Your body is the tabernacle of God, and he is indwelling it.

He is living in it. And the question is, Are we going to stifle the spirit or are we going to let the spirit flow? Are we going to let the spirit, like a mighty river, flow out of our hearts, and out of our words, and out of our thoughts, and out of our minds?

People say, what will flow? What specifically will flow in this river of anointing of the spirit? Just a few things and I’ll be done. I think first the fruit of the spirit will flow out of your heart.

I want to challenge you this morning to spend some time in Galatians chapter 5. We’re taught the fruit of the spirit, joy, love, peace, etc. These things cannot be manufactured. These things cannot be mustered up.

These things cannot be something that you contrive up. They must be something that is birthed in your heart through the spirit of God. And you say, I want those kind of things flowing out of my life.

Then you must be fully surrendered to the Spirit of God. The second thing I think will flow from your heart is the compassion of Christ will flow from your heart. Is that you will see people as Jesus saw them.

Jesus went to this feast and all he saw was religion and all he saw was people who would die in their religion. He saw thirsty souls and he said, come unto me, all of you that are thirsty. And I think that when we are filled with the Spirit and we have the Spirit of God flowing out of us, there’s gonna be a better sensitivity to the souls of mankind and a great sensitivity to their eternal destination and a desire to see them to come and find that their thirst can be quenched in a relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ.

I think there’ll be a power to live obediently to God. The Holy Spirit empowers me to live obediently. It’s the Holy Spirit that does a powerful work in me and through me. What I need every day is the Spirit of God to fill me, control me, to guide me, to anoint me so that I can be obedient to God.

There isn’t enough techniques out there. But when I am filled with the Spirit, my heart is in tune with his heart. I think that faith will flow out of your heart. Some of you are going through trying times.

You’re going through difficult circumstances. You don’t know what the future holds. Hear me well when you are anointed of the Holy Spirit, when you are filled with the Spirit of God, faith will flow from your heart.

You will believe him. and you will trust Him. And you will believe that He will handle this matter. He will take care of this situation. He will be there with you through the problem. You will have an immense faith, a dynamic faith, a daring faith, a faith that just believes that God who walked on water, God who came into this earth and was born of a virgin, God who has raised up the dead and healed the lame and caused the blind to see,

God, will give you the faith to believe that He can handle your situation when you are filled with the Spirit. There are hindrances to us as believers to being filled with the Spirit. It is first sin.

We must confess our sins every day. Every day of your life, take time to bring your sins to God. Nobody’s perfect. It doesn’t matter who you are, it doesn’t matter your position, it doesn’t matter your walk of life.

We all need to confess to God where we have failed Him immensely. I think it’s important. I think another thing that hinders the power of the Spirit in my life, that I might live this overflowing Spirit, spiritual life and Spirit -filled life is unresolved.

Anger and hurt. We gotta get it resolved, we gotta get it settled. Confess your sins to God, confess your faults one to another, the Scripture says. I think it’s important, and thirdly and finally is an unsurrendered life.

If I’m unwilling to surrender my life, not just today, not just on Sunday, thank you for surrendering your life today, but I need you to do it tomorrow, and I need you to do it Tuesday and Wednesday and Thursday.

I need you to do it every day of your life. I need you to get up and thanking thoughts upon God and saying, Lord, here’s my life. I surrender it all to you. I don’t know what this day’s gonna bring forth, but I am yours, you are mine, and I am here for you and your glory, and use my life, Lord, and help me to be what I’m supposed to be today, and I surrender my life completely to you, my friends.

If you will follow those three things, I am convinced that the Spirit of God will flow out of you like a river, and you will have an anointing and a power to do the work of Christ. Now, when we think about answering life’s ultimate question, it’s important that we respond in an affirmative of understanding that Jesus Christ is God himself.

He is sent by the Father, and he is bringing eternal life to all who believe in him. And so, it’s important that we recognize that if we don’t answer this question, then we are putting ourselves in a position where we are really rejecting Christ because you only have two options.

You either receive Him or reject Him. And I hope today that you would receive Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior. And you simply do that by acknowledging that you’re a sinner and recognizing that Christ is the Son of God sent by the Father to die on the cross for our sins and to bring eternal life to whoever believes in Him.

And I pray today that you will call upon God and that you will ask Him to forgive you of your sins and ask Him to be the Lord of your life. And I know this, that when you do, God will save your soul, bless you with forgiveness, and His Spirit will be in you and you will be filled with joy and purpose each and every day.

I wanna encourage you to reach out to us and let us know if you’re making a decision for Christ. You can reach us by going to our website, hopethhaving .com. or you can write us at Hope Worth Having, 600 Miller Street, Chambersburg, Pennsylvania 17201, and let us know how God is working in your life and we’d love to send you some material to help you in your newfound faith.

This is Pastor Mike Sanders reminding you that in Christ there is hope worth having.