Hi, I’m Dave Scherrer and you have, I hope, once again, found Kingdom Offerings. I hope you have been here at Kingdom Offerings before and that you’ve found this podcast to be encouraging. Perhaps it’s roused your curiosity about the gospel of the kingdom.

Each of these podcasts and all of the Backyard Conversation blogs, also found at our One Hundred-Fold Ministries homepage, that all of them have pointed you toward the kingdom of God, because as Dr. Gordon Fee, New Testament scholar, has stated, “Without the gospel of the kingdom, nothing else matters.” That’s a big statement – “Without the gospel of the kingdom, nothing else matters.” But I trust Dr. Fee knows his Bible. He’s been studying it and teaching it for over 60 years.

It’s a bit troubling in that I am guessing that most of us would have a difficult time defining, putting words to the unique component parts of this gospel kingdom that matters so much. And yet the longer I meditate on the kingdom hope, the more I believe in it, the more I set my compass by it. This kingdom gospel, celebrating it and sharing it is why One Hundred-Fold exists. So welcome to One Hundred-Fold. Welcome to Kingdom Offerings.

In the last two Kingdom Offerings, the last couple of podcasts, I told a story, a story about The Six City Fair. And central to that story is the idea of thirst. People are dying of thirst, and that’s a problem. The story asks the question, if you are very, very, very thirsty, if you were dying of thirst, what do you imagine you’d be willing to do to secure water for you and those you love? So I want to say if you missed the story, it might be good to go back and listen to parts one and two. You’ll be able to find those pretty easy on our homepage under Kingdom Offerings.

So I want to say I’ve never been thirsty to the point of fearing for my life. I’ve been thirsty, but not like some of those in desperate parts of the world who walk miles to get brackish, bad water for their family because that’s all there is.

And I want to say as a side note, according to the United Nations, 26% of the world’s population, two billion people or more, do not have access to safe drinking water. So someday, we’ll talk about that. But for now, I just want to say how grateful I am to have always had an abundance of clean water. I’m glad I live in the USA. I have never been thirsty to the point of death.

But there was this one time that I was very thirsty. I remember it very clearly. It was Easter of 2016. I was taken by the statement of Jesus during the upper room supper on the night of his betrayal, where he said in Matthew 26, “I tell you I will not drink again of this fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father’s kingdom.”

So I was intrigued by that statement. I asked myself, “What does that mean? Would Jesus not drink anything until He came back again in power, or maybe not until He ascended?” I don’t know. I thought about that. Anyway, I remembered that Jesus ate with the disciples after His resurrection, but before His ascension, and I’m imagining He had to wash it down with something. Anyway, what I concluded was that Jesus didn’t drink again, at least from that Thursday night until His resurrection. Two and a half days later, at least.

So that year, 2016, I decided to fast from food and drink from Maundy Thursday evening to Resurrection morning. Two and a half days. I was thirsty on Sunday morning. Not unto death, but I was pretty thirsty, more thirsty than I have ever been prior to that and since. I was thirsty enough that preaching three times that Sunday morning, Easter morning without wet from my whistle, was a pretty big test. And this brief test of fasting from food and water had a profound impact on my spiritual journey. It’s freeze-framed in my mind and heart.

So let’s talk about thirst. At the Six City Fair, the sudden lack of water became a life-and-death problem. Thirst. I want to say that there is physical thirst, but that is not the only thirst that is out there. In fact, God uses the concept of thirst as a metaphor in his scriptures to get our attention for His refreshing Spirit.

Jesus says in the Gospel of John, Chapter 4, “Whoever drinks of the water that I give him or her will never be thirsty again. The water that I give will become in him and her a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”

In John 7, Jesus stood up at the last day of the feast, and says, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said,” (Jesus quoting the Old Testament), “Out of their heart will flow rivers of living water.”

In Isaiah, he says, “I will pour water on the thirsty land and streams on the dry ground. I will pour my spirit on your offspring and my blessing on your descendants.”

The very end of the Bible, Revelation 22, “The Spirit and the bride say, ‘Come’. Let the one who hears come. Let the one who is thirsty come. Let the one who desires take the water of life without price.”

Clearly there is a theme within Scripture to connect to us this idea of physical thirst and the even bigger idea of spiritual thirst – the longing for God. So in the story of the Six City Fair, it is the second water bringer whose name was Rashait, an Anglicized name that I took from the Hebrew Reshith, which means the beginning, the best, the first, the choicest. This water bringer is the best. Think of the idea of first fruits, the very best of the best. That’s who this water bringer is.

And the young boy who’s in a crisis, his name was Avid. And in Hebrew, that’s a verb that expresses eagerness or longing, a thirsting for more. Avid was thirsty. He was thirsty for the best. This little boy had lost his father, he was all alone, and he was looking for something more.

His physical thirst was driving him to satisfy his spiritual thirst for love and purpose and community. Rashait, the water bringer, who represents the Christ figure in the story, said to the young orphan, He said to Avid, “You see, there is more, of course. When you agree to these terms and sign over your life to my Father, all that you have is now ours. But Avid, listen to this, it’s important. All that my Father and I have is now yours too. My Father is king over all things, and all His power and all His riches will be yours to use. You will be like a son to my Father. You will be a prince. You and I, Avid, will do great things together. I will teach you all things concerning our kingdom. You will be my disciple in all things. But you will be more than my disciple. I will call you friend and brother. You will use this power and position and privilege that my Father gives you to extend His kingdom. But all that I have in my Father’s name will also be yours. Do you understand? You will have a father again.”

That’s from The Six City Fair. Frankly, it’s kind of talked about in the Gospel of John. In the Gospel of John, there is a story recorded about Jesus meeting a Samaritan woman, a woman with a shady reputation. Jesus is weary from travel and He rests by a well as His disciples go to town to find food. It is here that our woman arrives to draw water. Jesus, the Jewish rabbi, startles the Samaritan woman by starting a conversation. “Can you give me a cup of water?”

The woman is suspicious and tentative. Rabbis would not normally speak to a woman like her, she must have thought. But Jesus knew her deep thirst, her thirst for forgiveness and love and purpose. And so He turns the conversation upside down.

In John chapter four, it reads, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.” Jesus continued, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water that 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.”

You see, Jesus is trying to help us understand by using this powerful metaphor of thirst that He is the only satisfactory source to quench our dry and thirsty souls.

A little bit later in John 6, He uses this same metaphor of thirst. Jesus told His disciples, “Whoever believes in me shall never thirst”. In John 7 – “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. The one who believes in me, as the Scriptures has said, will have streams of living water flowing from deep within him.”

This is the good news of the kingdom of God. We find the path to that kingdom by believing on in Jesus to provide what we need for a truly satisfying and peaceful thirst-quenching life.

And let me just say that in a world where you have to pay for your second cup, Jesus offers unlimited refills. You will not be thirsty. Anyone who believes in Jesus, who receives His salvation, who abides in Him, will never spiritually thirst again because that person drinks from an inexhaustible supply of pure, cold, living water.

So welcome. Welcome to the More, the inexhaustible More of the Kingdom of God. This is Dave Scherrer, and as I record this podcast in 2024, we are just days away from Christmas. So I want to encourage you. This Christmas don’t be shy. Ask Him, ask God, for the gift of living water. He has His hand outstretched with a cold mug full of life.

Hey, Merry Christmas.