1 Now Moses was tending the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian, and…
The Call and the Promise
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. John 7:37–39 (NIV)
The occasion, the ‘festival’ mentioned in this passage was the Feast of Booths or Tabernacles, a time celebrating God’s provision in the wilderness journey from Egypt to the Promised Land. A major theme of the festival was God’s provision of water: water in the desert, in the journey of the Israelites’ ancestors, along with their celebration of God’s provision of rain for their crops in their day. They also saw a spiritual meaning tied in with this, with a key verse from Isaiah:
3 With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation. Isaiah 12:3 (NIV)
Jesus’ listeners understood that this celebration was a celebration of great joy. Jesus’ words also tie in to the promises of Scripture from Isaiah 58:
11 The Lord will guide you always; he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land and will strengthen your frame. You will be like a well-watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail. Isaiah 58:11 (NIV)
Jesus rightly understood that he himself was the fulfillment of this promise from Scripture. It wasn’t just about springs in the desert, or rainfall on their crops. This verse is about the joy and satisfaction of spiritual water in our sun-scorched hearts. Jesus expands on this Old Testament promise:
37b “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.” 39a By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive. John 7:37b–39a (NIV)
By the Spirit of God in you, you are a source of life to the people around you.
Your Own Thirst Leads to a Life of Satisfying the Thirst of Others
The only qualification you need is to believe.
In John 7:38a, Jesus says: “Whoever believes in me.” “Whoever” broadens the application to just that: “whoever believes.”
Jesus must be a terrible recruiter, because I was taught that this is a terrible way of recruiting. It makes it sound as though just anybody can do it, and that keeps people from feeling good about the privilege of being asked to fill a volunteer position. It’s as though we’re saying, “You’re not particularly special; we just need a warm body. Anybody will do.”
But God’s not a terrible recruiter. He starts by offering YOU something: living water that will quench your thirsty soul. He offers something that will satisfy your desperate thirst for a relationship with God. Then, once you’ve found what only God can give you, you can’t help but tell others about it. As someone has said, Evangelism is just one beggar telling another beggar where to find bread. We have found it!
Jesus’ call to witness to others flows out of his promise to satisfy our own thirst.
An Invitational Culture
We need to know that we have a source of living water that will satisfy the thirst of a parched world. We know we have something special. Jesus stood up and shouted out the invitation! During the joyous celebration of the last day of that festival, shouting out the invitation was entirely appropriate. There may be a time to do that; there are times that would be inappropriate. But the principle Jesus declares remains true always: if we thirst, we can come to Jesus. This offer corresponds with the promise Jesus made to the woman at the well, too.
“but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” John 4:14
We are called to satisfy the thirsts of others, and the key to this is our invitational culture. We are committed to inviting, and to be invitational suggests in a culturally appropriate way for the social context (like Peter’s admonition to share our hope with gentleness and respect). In a crowded festival, it may be appropriate to stand up and shout: come to me! Sometimes, like Jesus did with the woman at the well, we use a personal invitation. We commit to an invitational culture that connects with people where they are.
Inviting vs. Bringing
We don’t have to shout our invitations, but we do need to be invitational. I spoke a few months back at an Assemblies of God event, laying out the concepts of inviting our neighbors to serve with us. I had about 25 minutes and then another pastor spoke right after me. After hearing me share about inviting, he boldly emphasized: “At our church we don’t invite; we bring.”
Honestly, his statement kind of went over my head and I thought nothing about it. However, my daughter Anna and assistant Emily, who were with me, were both a bit offended on my behalf. They saw it as an unnecessarily belligerent and arrogant comment—which it probably was. Either way, I’m glad it happened because it helped me to solidify what I believe!
Like that pastor, I also believe in the value of bringing people to church, or to serve, or to Alpha. But I also strongly believe in this: I want our focus to be on inviting. When I want to have friends or family to my house for dinner, I don’t bring them; I invite them. I invite people come with me for a social event. I invite people to go out to dinner. Along with the invitation might be the offer: “We’ll pick you up at your house and then go to the restaurant together,” but I’m still inviting. Inviting is welcoming. Inviting is a part of biblical hospitality. Inviting honors your guest. Inviting respects their free will, free agency. So I invite people to come to church. We don’t just bring, we invite. So how do we invite?
Where There’s a Will, There’s a Way!
When you had your first kiss, you didn’t know what you were doing, but you figured it out. Why? Because you knew what you wanted, and the direction you were going. When we are aware of God’s love for us and God’s love in us, we’ll find a way for God’s love to flow from us.
I do believe in training to be witnesses, and training to invite. We can learn to be aware of when people are most likely to respond to our invitations. We can learn to be sensitive to where people are in their lives, to connect to their real needs. We can always learn how to be better at sharing our testimony with people.
At the same time, we know that I don’t really have to teach you how to invite someone to participate in something you believe in, that you’re passionate about. Someone asked me once, “Ed, how can we get the men more excited about men’s ministry?” My response, which I think may have been a word from the Lord, was this: “I don’t want to get men excited about men’s ministry; I want our men to get excited about God.” The same might be said about getting excited about our witness: We’re not trying to get people excited about evangelism; we want to help people get excited about God. If you’re excited about God, you’ll be excited to share your witness, and, like you figured out your first kiss, you’ll figure out how to get from small talk to God talk.
1 “Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost. 2 Why spend money on what is not bread, and your labor on what does not satisfy? Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good, and you will delight in the richest of fare. Isaiah 55:1–2 (NIV)
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