The Spirit connects you to the Source — John 7:37–39

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. Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them.” 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

The Spirit connects you to the Source.

I. The world asks you to pour more than you have.

II. The Source provides more than you could ever pour.

2.1 trillion. This is the number of dollars that were spent in the wellness economy in 2024 by Americans. 2.1 trillion dollars in one year. When you understand what’s all included in the wellness economy, the number starts to make a little more sense—personal beauty, tourism, spas, traditional medicine, and the fitness industry. Ok, some massive industries, all industries that are driven by consumers wanting to be more well, wanting to feel more rested, wanting to have better self-esteem, etc. 2.1 trillion is a large number, and what’s even more remarkable is that this is far and away the most any country in the world spent in wellness industry. China, which has four times the population, came in second with less than half of what Americans spent. Why do we Americans spend so much money on trying to be more well?

There are probably 2.1 trillion answers to that question. But one big reason is simple: we spend so much energy in daily life that we feel like we need to recharge. We know the grind. We know that without some outlet or break, we can burn out under the weight of ordinary responsibilities. As life has sped up, self-care has become more important to us because we want enough strength to keep going.

Self-care is often summarized with the phrase, “You can’t pour from an empty cup.” The world asks us to pour out emotional, intellectual, and physical energy in a hundred different directions. We want to love others and serve others, but we can only pour out so much. There is always one more thing to do, one more thing to do. Self-care recognizes that we don’t have unlimited energy to pour, we can only give so much, and so it emphasizes that we need to balance all the pouring out things we do with activities that fill us up. Like taking a beach vacation, or going to a spa, or working out, or reading a novel, whatever it may be. You can’t pour from an empty cup. And so we end up living in this balancing act: constant cycle of energy in, energy out, filling up, pouring out. It makes sense, it’s a part of being human. Taking time for self-care is good advice.

Until it isn’t. But our sinful hearts can easily turn self-care into selfishness. So how do you know when rest is wise and when it is self-serving? How do you know when saying no, spending money on your body, or protecting your “me” time is a God-pleasing way to care for the life God has given you and when it is just selfishness pretending to be God-pleasing?

These questions are large and nuanced and although they might not seem at first to be spiritual, they affect your relationship with God incredibly deeply. That’s why I’m glad we have Wednesday night studies at Crossroads, where we can get hyper-specific and personal when discussing these things. This sermon is meant to lay out the biblical framework for thinking about these things. But as large and as deep as these questions are, self-care is just one instance of a much deeper issue. And this is the issue that we’re going to expound on in our new sermon series. In this sermon series, Under New Management, we’re going to recognize that the prophet Jeremiah wrote the human heart is deceitful above all things. The number one trait about our hearts without God is that we love to lie to ourselves. We love to tell ourselves and convince ourselves that we are right in the decisions we make. Left to ourselves, we are very capable of baptizing selfishness with respectable names—including self-care.

And the Day of Pentecost is so wonderful because it’s the day when God gave us the solution to that problem. The truth of Pentecost is that our hearts are no longer under our own management. God has given the gift of his Holy Spirit to you and me. The Holy Spirit has flowed into your heart, supplying you with blessings. And when the Holy Spirit enters our hearts, it’s kind of like when the business you work for sells to a new owner or new manager, and the new person comes in and lays out different goals. In the same way, the Holy Spirit enters our hearts and turns us from inward-focused, self-deceiving people to outward-focused, God-loving people. And he completely changes the way we live in this fast-paced world with its constant cycle of pouring out and being filled up again. How does he do that? The Spirit connects you to the Source.

I.  The world asks you to pour more than you have

Our gospel reading begins with on the last and greatest day of the festival, and a little background on the festival is very important for understanding what Jesus says. Jesus spoke these words during the Festival of Tabernacles, when Israel remembered its years in the Siani desert after they had been released from slavery in Egypt. The festival lasted a week, and each morning began with the priests carrying water in this long joyful procession to the temple as a reminder that God miraculously provided water from a rock to his people who were parched in the desert. So when Jesus stood up and cried out, Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink, he was making a stunning claim: the true source was standing in front of them.

Jesus knew that the people at the festival that day were thirsting. They may not have been physically thirsting, like their ancestors in the desert, but they were spiritually thirsting. Their religious teachers were failing them, they weren’t giving the people truth from God that would satisfy their hearts; instead they were telling them that to get close with God you have to do all kinds of different actions and rituals. And so the Jewish people were thirsty because there was always one more thing to do, always one more thing to do.

Sound familiar? The wellness industry in our country tries to address a similar problem, that we feel overwhelmed with all the pouring out we are asked to do. Self-care is almost all physical. We hear about how exercise physically increases dopamine levels. We hear about how increased sleep regulates other hormones. And if we’re feeling out of whack, we can go to a traditional physician to have them give us vitamins that will rebalance the chemicals in our body. And there’s nothing moral or immoral about any of that.

But here is the transition we need to make: the wellness industry may help with symptoms without touching the deepest cause. That is not always wrong, but it can be misleading. It can make it sound as if a better routine or a better purchase will solve what is deepest in us. But our deepest problem is not merely physical exhaustion. Our deepest problem is spiritual thirst. We are all wandering through this sinful world like the ancient Israelites were wandering through a desert. The moment we are born into this world, our hearts are spiritually thirsty. We are born with the unsettling murmur in our hearts that life isn’t perfect and it should be. And so we have a spiritual thirst for that something greater.

What are the things that you search out to quench that thirst? When you are feeling poured out, when you are feeling parched, when your body physically aches because of the weight of what you’re carrying, where do you turn? The world can be cruel: our world moves at such a fast pace, it demands that you fulfill all these responsibilities in your work and relationships and hobbies, and then it offers things to fill you back up but they never fully can. They are always temporary fixes. If you make this world the source of your renewal, it will always require more from you than you can pour out.

II. The Source provides more than you could ever pour

And that raises the natural question: if life already asks too much of me, won’t Jesus ask even more? When Jesus says, “Come to me and drink,” is he giving rest, or just another demand? Won’t he require more pouring out? Won’t following him take away from your sleep schedule on Sunday mornings? Won’t a commitment to a church give you less freedom to get out of town for a while? Won’t it saddle you with even more guilt when you fail to do this one more thing?

Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will from within them. Jesus says whoever believes in me, you will be filled. You will finally be filled. Whoever believes in me, whoever believes that they on their own can never fill themselves up but need to run to me, they will be filled. Why? Because when you believe in Jesus, you believe that God’s love for you overflows all boundaries. It topples all obstacles as it floods towards you and straight into your heart. God’s love for you is seen in Jesus, as Jesus came to earth to live perfectly, always having the perfect balance between resting his body and being incredibly selfless, all the way up until he selflessly allowed himself to be punished for your and my failures on the cross. The cross, when they pierced his side and water mixed with blood spilled out. And then Jesus, when he rose, when he was glorified, ceased to have any limitations on himself, he no longer needed to rest, he no longer needed self-care, and he ascended into heaven and he rules all things 24/7/365 selflessly for the good of all his people. He is the source of love that he fills you with, infinite love.

But Jesus says even more, doesn’t he? He says he will pour out his Spirit on you so abundantly that you yourself become a source. The Spirit is your direct connection to Jesus’ love for you. He is the entire supply chain of how Jesus your manager brings his love into your heart. He’s like a massive pipeline through which Jesus’ love now becomes your love to dispense. You will have rivers of living water flowing from within you. This is a completely foreign concept to our world. We think it terms of just getting by, of supply barely meeting demand, of always trying to do just enough self-care to hang on to the essential relationships. No, not only will you be filled. But you will be a source so that you can fill up so many other people.

Think of it like this: are you more like a faucet or a drain? Are you a person who pours into others, encouraging them, loving them, caring for them; or, are you a person who finds yourself draining from others, who’s default reflex is to complain or to badmouth or to be negative? Are you someone who pours into others or requires attention from others? We all go through cycles in life, sometimes we need others to pour into us. But in general, faucet or drain?

Because God has poured out his Holy Spirit upon your heart, you can be more than a faucet, you can have rivers going out from within you. You can be someone who is always pouring into others, so much so that the world might come after you and ask, how are you doing this? How are you so selfless? And a cool thing is that each believer’s rivers look different from the next believer’s. That’s what we heard in the second reading from 1 Corinthians, that everyone has the same Spirit, but the Spirit gives different gifts and different abilities and different ways to pour out to different people. What are the ways that you pour out Jesus’ love into others’ lives? What are the ways that you show that your heart is under new management?

One of the best examples that we can learn from in all of the Bible is Pentecost. Just a few weeks prior, Jesus actually needed to be poured into. It was the night before he died. And he was in the garden of Gethsemane, and he was begging his disciples to stay awake with him, to sacrifice their sleep, to be with him and pray. And they didn’t. And then guards came to arrest Jesus, and do you know which disciples stood with Jesus? Not one. They ran away and hid. But then, Pentecost happened. And God poured out his Holy Spirit first on these disciples. They boldly stood up to preach. But they didn’t stop that day. They preached and preached until they were thrown into prison. Then they preached to the judge and to the prisoners. Then they got out of prison and preached more. They went all over preaching, healing, helping, pouring Jesus’ love on more and more. And eventually, every one of those disciples, those disciples who had fallen asleep and abandoned Jesus, at some point stood before a Roman judge in various parts of the empire who said if you do not disown Jesus I will execute you. And this time every single one stood with Jesus. Why? Because their hearts were under new management. The Spirit overflowed, and showed them that nothing, nothing, was more important in their lives than telling others about Jesus. That was their gift of the Spirit.

And that’s your gift of the Spirit. The Spirit who connects you to the Source of selfless love. The Spirit guides your heart to know what is right and wrong. And often, that will mean becoming more selfless than the world think you should be. Yet, Spirit-led selflessness does not mean you should ignore your human limits and burn yourself out. This brings us back to the questions from the beginning. Is self-care sinful? No, not in itself. Jesus rested before his glorification, and even the apostles sometimes delegated responsibilities wisely. Rest, limits, and care for the body are part of receiving God’s created gifts with gratitude. Self-care, is it good, will it save us from our stressed out lives? Also no. If you bet your whole well-being on self-care, you’ll not only put yourself into the exhausting cycle of filling up and pouring out, but you’ll cease to look to the source of all selflessness, Jesus, and you’ll lose out on the rivers that could flow from you to others.

The reality is, because you are connected to Jesus’ infinite love, you are capable of pouring out much more of yourself than the world expects. You are connected to the Source of all selflessness. The Spirit brings him to your thirsty heart, not only quenching your thirst, but providing enough extra that out of you rivers of Jesus-like words and actions can reach others. So, when the world has you feeling poured out, come to Jesus and drink. Drink in his selfless love for you, shown on the cross. Drink in his selfless example by immersing yourself in his Word. And drink in the beautiful truth that he pours himself into your heart though the Spirit so you can overflow to others.