Brian's Sermons

The Fifth Word: “I am thirsty.” (John 19:28) Today as we reflect on Jesus’ last words from the cross, I want to start elsewhere. I want to start earlier in Jesus’ ministry, in John 4. Jesus was on his way from Judea to Galilee, and on the way, he went through Samaria. Around noon, he stopped by Jacob’s well to rest. There he met a Samaritan woman who had come to draw water. He asked her for a drink. She responded, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.) Jesus answered her, “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.” “Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his flocks and herds?” Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks...

...after righteousness, for they shall be filled. Have you ever been hungry? Not the "Pastor Brian is preaching long and I haven’t eaten yet" kind of hunger, but really hungry? I don’t think most of us really, really know what it’s like to be truly hungry or thirsty. When we’re hungry, we generally know that soon we’re going to get to eat. When we’re thirsty, we know that soon we’re going to get a drink. But when you’re really hungry, I mean really, really hungry, when you’re starving, there’s nothing else that you’d rather have but food. When you’re really, really thirsty, there’s nothing else you’d rather have but water. Nothing else will even get your attention. This is what Jesus is calling blessed: to be starving for God – to want nothing more than Him. And if we put this into the context of the first three blessings: the poor in spirit, the mourners, and the meek, we realize that the more we put aside what we do have, the more we long for what God has. Truth be known, w...