Thirsty for Life: Who Are You Really Living For?

Introduction

Have you ever been thirsty? Not the ordinary, everyday kind of thirsty, but an intense thirst, the kind that lingers because you haven't been able to drink for a while. The speaker opens this message, the second part in the series "Why Live for God?", with two memories. The first is awful: sick with a stomach bug, she vomited everything she swallowed and sipped herbal tea by the teaspoon, feeling like she was dying of thirst. The second is beautiful: on a multi-day hike with a friend, one spring morning, they came upon a small spring with the clearest water you could imagine. The water ran over a long, flat rock, then cascaded down for several meters before continuing its way through the forest. They took the time to fill their bottles there.

There's another kind of thirst, she says: a thirst for life. You may have already heard someone say, "I feel like I'm missing out on life, on real life." Sometimes it's the people who quit their jobs to travel the world by van, by boat, or on foot. When she worked in geriatric care, an elderly patient kept telling her, "Enjoy life while you can, dear, because it goes by fast, and for me it's too late." And one day, while carpooling, a young driver who wasn't especially religious was asked, "What would you ask God if you saw him face to face?" He answered, "I'd ask him if I could have a second life." He had his whole life ahead of him, and yet it was as if he already knew it wouldn't be enough. This message, preached during a baptism service, answers that thirst from Jeremiah 2:13 and 2 Corinthians 5:14-15.

Outline of the Message

1. A Thirst for Life That Nothing Seems to Quench

• People who say "I'm missing out on real life" are all expressing the same thing: a thirst for life. And that thirst needs to be quenched, or we risk dying of thirst, first a little on the inside, and then one day physically. And by then, it will truly be too late.
• At this church, we love looking into the Bible to see how God sees things. And God speaks to exactly this issue with his people, in a way you can tell hurts him: "My people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that can hold no water" (Jeremiah 2:13).
• God compares himself to a spring of living water, like the one found in the forest. God's diagnosis of that feeling of missing out on life is clear: we forget him, the source of life, and we dig our own personal cisterns meant to hold a little water, but they're cracked.
• To illustrate, the speaker brought a bottle. Imagine my life is this bottle, and during the hike I took a detour to avoid the spring, telling myself: "I have my bottle, I'm proud of it, I'll keep it." If that bottle has a hole in it, I won't get very far. Over several days, I risk dying of thirst. Don't we do the same thing in our lives? "I rely on my own resources, I trust myself, I live for myself, everything revolves around me." And yet it feels like it isn't enough.

2. What Jesus Did That Was Extraordinary: Dying of Thirst in Our Place

• The passage handed out includes someone else in the equation: "For the love of Christ constrains us, because we judge thus, that if one died for all, then all died" (2 Corinthians 5:14). The author is talking about the person of Jesus.
• What was so extraordinary about Jesus? To reflect on this, the speaker reads a poem called "A Simple Life": a man born into a modest family, in an insignificant village of a tiny country, a carpenter until age 30, then a traveling preacher for three years. Never owned a house, never went to university, never wrote a book, never held political office, never raised an army, never traveled more than 200 km from his birthplace. A small group of friends, the jealousy of religious leaders, his friends fleeing, one of them denying him, a rigged trial, a cross between two thieves, his executioners gambling for his clothing, the only possession he owned on earth, a borrowed tomb from a friend. Dead at 33. Twenty centuries later, he is worshiped by more than 2 billion people, considered a prophet by billions more, and at the foundation of the human rights so many nations still appeal to. All the armies, all the parliaments, all the kings put together have not shaped humanity as powerfully as this one simple life.
• How is that possible, when his human life was more ordinary than most of ours? The text explains it: "one died for all." Jesus didn't just die, he died for us, in our place. Further in the same chapter, Paul explains that Jesus took our place (2 Corinthians 5:21) to reconcile the world to God (2 Corinthians 5:18-19).
• We, human beings, were cut off from the source, who is God. Jesus chose to come and live in perfect harmony with God, and then to die of thirst in our place: God cut him off so that we could regain access to the source we had abandoned. It's the most extraordinary thing that has ever happened, and it has changed so many lives, including the speaker's own, and Paul's and Jeanne's, who share their testimony during this baptism service.
• What happens when we put our trust in Jesus? We're reconciled to God. That's the second bottle in the illustration, filled with pure water because it's right at the source, at peace with the source. The person who trusts Jesus comes back to God, and their life is new, renewed. God promises a life of abundance, a new life, an eternal life. That is exactly what baptism expresses. The speaker testifies to having experienced this herself: a guilt that weighed on her, which Jesus set her free from, and an assurance that has kept growing in her, day after day, ever since.

3. To What End? So That You No Longer Live for Yourself

• The second sentence of the text: "and he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves, but for him who died and rose again for them" (2 Corinthians 5:15). If you're a believer, you're used to hearing that Jesus died for you. But to what end? So that those who live would no longer live for themselves, but for him.
• What could be more natural? When someone saves your life by giving up their own, you don't just go on living as if that person didn't exist. Those who are reconciled to God, then, live for Jesus.
• That doesn't mean Jesus is the only thing left in their life. People generally keep their job, their family, their hobbies, their personality, their strengths and their weaknesses. But all of these things become soaked in what Jesus did through his life and his extraordinary person: he gives meaning to work and activities, strength in relationships and families, he refines our character, he helps us make good use of our strengths and handle our weaknesses well.
• "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation: old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new" (2 Corinthians 5:17). That's so powerful that you can't normally keep it to yourself.

4. A Love That Grips You and Compels You to Plead

• Paul says the love of Christ grips us, constrains us, holds us tight. It doesn't leave you unmoved. It shakes him up so much that a little further on he writes: "Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were pleading through us: we implore you on Christ's behalf, be reconciled to God" (2 Corinthians 5:20). In other words: please, don't let yourselves die.
• Have you ever begged someone not to die? That's what Paul is doing here. The question put to the congregation: does the love Jesus has for us grip us enough to push us to share it, or does other people's death leave us unmoved?
• Summed up with the two bottles. The first, full of holes: "I beg you, don't miss out on real life, let yourselves be reconciled to God." The second, filled at the source: "Let the love of Jesus grip you, so you can love others."
• The message closes with a prayer: thank you, Lord Jesus, for your love, for this extraordinary thing you did and that we got to experience, for this new life, this abundance, this taste of eternity that you place in our lives, and for this celebration we shared together.

Key Takeaways

• The feeling of "missing out on real life" is a thirst for life, and God gives the diagnosis in Jeremiah 2:13: we've forsaken him, the spring of living water, to dig our own broken cisterns.
• Relying only on your own resources, living for yourself, and making everything revolve around you: that's walking around with a bottle full of holes. You won't get very far.
• Jesus didn't just die, he died in our place. He was cut off from God, the source, so that we could regain access to him. It's the most extraordinary thing that has ever happened in history.
• Trusting Jesus means being reconciled to God: a new life, renewed, abundant, eternal. That's what baptism expresses.
• According to 2 Corinthians 5:15, the purpose of Jesus's death is that those who live would no longer live for themselves but for him, and that his love would push them to plead with others to be reconciled to God.

Personal Application

1. Have you ever felt like you were missing out on real life? Which "personal cistern" do you turn to when that thirst wakes up?
2. Where in your life do you rely only on your own resources, as if your bottle alone could get you through the whole hike?
3. Jesus died of thirst in your place to bring you back to the source. What does that change, concretely, in how you see your relationship with God?
4. Your work, your family, your hobbies, your personality: which of these areas are already soaked in what Jesus did, and which still revolve around you?
5. Does the love of Christ grip you enough to make you plead with someone around you not to let themselves die of thirst? Who could you invite this week to be reconciled with God?

Scriptures Cited

• Jeremiah 2:13 – the double evil: forsaking the spring of living water and digging broken cisterns
• 2 Corinthians 5:14-15 – the love of Christ constrains us; one died for all, so that they would no longer live for themselves
• 2 Corinthians 5:17 – if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation
• 2 Corinthians 5:18-21 – reconciliation, ambassadors for Christ, "be reconciled to God," Jesus took our place

Frequently Asked Questions

What does the image of the broken cisterns in Jeremiah 2:13 mean?

In Jeremiah 2:13, God confronts his people with a double evil: forsaking him, the spring of living water, and digging their own cisterns, broken cisterns that can't hold water. The sermon applies this image to our lives: when we rely only on our own resources and live for ourselves, we're like a bottle with a hole in it. We end up thirsty on the inside, with the feeling that we're missing out on real life.

According to 2 Corinthians 5:15, why did Jesus die for us?

2 Corinthians 5:15 answers directly: he died for all so that those who live would no longer live for themselves, but for the one who died and was raised for them. Jesus took our place to reconcile us to God, the source we had abandoned. The natural response to someone who saves your life by giving up their own is to stop living as if that person didn't exist.

Does living for Jesus mean giving up your job, family, and hobbies?

No. The sermon points out that those who are reconciled with God generally keep their job, their family, their hobbies, their personality, their strengths and their weaknesses. What changes is that all of these things become soaked in what Jesus did: he gives meaning to work, strength in relationships, he refines our character, and he helps us make good use of our strengths and handle our weaknesses well.