Grapevine Ministries
Messages from the bible to uplift and encourage those that need a word from the Lord, to strengthen their faith. Ps Phillip Barker is an itinerant pastor in Perth, Western Australia.
Grapevine Ministries
Living Water: The Holy Spirit Within Part 1
The Holy Spirit—our constant companion, guide, and source of divine strength. This profound truth stands at the heart of today's exploration into what Jesus called "Living Water."
Drawing from John 7, we journey to Jerusalem during the Feast of Tabernacles, where Jesus made a remarkable proclamation: "If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. He who believes in me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water." This wasn't about quenching physical thirst but about receiving spiritual nourishment through the Holy Spirit.
Understanding the Holy Spirit requires recognizing His true nature as the third person of the Trinity—not an impersonal force but a divine being with personality, emotions, and purpose. While in the Old Testament the Spirit came upon specific individuals for specific purposes, after Christ's resurrection, this divine presence became available to all believers. As Jesus told His disciples, "It is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you."
The Spirit's work in our lives is multifaceted and transformative. He convicts us of sin and righteousness, assures us of our adoption as God's children, empowers our witness, produces spiritual fruit, and imparts gifts for the church's edification. Perhaps most comfortingly, He serves as our Counselor, bringing peace when circumstances overwhelm us and wisdom when we don't know how to pray.
This indwelling presence means we're never truly alone—even in our darkest moments of grief and suffering. The Holy Spirit reminds us of God's promises, offers divine perspective on earthly challenges, and provides the comfort we desperately need. Like water sustaining physical life, the Spirit sustains our spiritual life, refreshing our souls and flowing outward to impact others.
Explore this divine wellspring within you. Read John 14:16 and 14:26 to deepen your understanding of the Helper whom Jesus promised would "abide with you forever" and "teach you all things." The living water awaits—will you drink deeply?
Good morning, good afternoon, wherever you are in the world - Welcome to Grapevine Ministries.
Now, I know we've been talking about people's loss and things that they're going through lately, but I thought I would actually do things a little differently today. The opportunity to be reminded that we have the Holy Spirit living within us, and you know so I'm calling this Living Water. Right, it's all about the Holy Spirit. We're going to be in the Gospel of John today, chapter 7 in particular. So if you mark that in your Bibles, then you can follow along or you can actually read the scriptures later on as I get into more detail. So I'm going to skip around a little bit, so I'm not going to be reading right from the start all the way through, but we'll see how we go. Reading right from the start all the way through, but we'll see how we go. This is all about the occasion when Jesus had gone to Jerusalem for the Feast of the Tabernacle. So for those who don't know it, if you read Zechariah 14, 16, it says this Read Zechariah 14, 16. It says this and it shall come to pass that everyone who is left of all the nations which comes against Jerusalem shall go up from year to year to worship the King, the Lord of hosts, and to keep the feast of the Tappadackle, that's Zechariah 14, 16. Now some may ask why are thousands of Christians coming to Jerusalem each year to celebrate the feast of tabernacle? After all, isn't this a Jewish holiday? And, like I've said so many other times, you've got the Jews and you've got the Gentiles, okay, and so you have Christians and non-Christians, and just to confuse things, you have what they call the Messianic Jews, which are Jews that believe in the Messiah, jews that believe in the Messiah. So now, the answer to this lies in the unique universal significance of these ancient Bible or biblical feasts and its past, present and future relevance to all the nations. Every biblical holiday given to the Jewish people has three aspects. Israel was commanded to observe the holiday in the present in order to remember something God has done in the past and because of something in relation to future, prophetic words, and the purpose of each one of these festivals is hidden within that. I know it's a little confusing, but you know Now this isn't a sermon on that, so I don't want you to get stuck into this and get dragged down and be speaking all about the tabernacle and everything. Just a quick little overview saying that, okay, a lot of the Jewish festivals are still celebrated because we've got to look at past, present and future things that God has done and that puts it in a big aspect of it.
Speaker 1:The Holy Spirit is the third person of the Trinity. We've got one God who reveals himself as three persons Father God, god the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, or God the Son, is Jesus right Now. In John 7, jesus introduces us to the Holy Spirit by referring to him as being living water. Today's study is about the person, the role of the Holy Spirit and how it plays a role in everyday lives, and all of us that believe and this is very important, following on from what I was talking about before when we're going through grief and suffering and having to deal with, you know, that sort of thing in your life is, if nothing else, we have the Holy Spirit within us to guide us, to protect us, to give us wisdom, to understanding and also to comfort us at us. So we're going to go through John 7, 1, 10, 13, and 37 to 38. Now here we go.
Speaker 1:After these things, jesus walked in Galilee, for he did not want to walk in Judea because the Jews sought to kill him. Now, the Jews, the festival of the tabernacles was at hand, but when his brothers had gone up, then he also went up to the feast not openly, but it was in secret. Then the Jews sought him at the feast and said when is he? And there was much complaining amongst the people concerning him. Some said he is good, others said no. On the contrary, he deceives the people. However, no one spoke openly to him for the fear of the Jews. To him for the fear of the Jews.
Speaker 1:Now, the first thing I want to say about here is that you've got to understand that Jesus. You know he's God, so he's not stupid. There's a plan and a purpose for him to be fulfilled, and so he doesn't need to get into situations where he has to be using the gifts openly all the time. So sometimes it's smart just to avoid things. It's not that he's scared of anybody, but sometimes it's good just to avoid a confrontation, if you can. On the day, that great day of the feast, jesus stood and cried out saying If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink he who believes in me. As the scriptures have said, out of the heart will flow rivers of living water, and this is where you've got to put things in their right perspective.
Speaker 1:Christians' understanding of the Holy Spirit often falls into the one of three categories. They're either misinformed, sometimes leads to an overemphasis. Leads to an over-emphasis on supernatural things can lead to abuse and strong practices. Also, the uniformity. You may not have been taught what the Bible says about the Holy Spirit. And those that are well well informed have a balanced biblical understanding of the Holy Spirit See Jesus' introduction of the Holy Spirit at the Feast of the Tabernacles. Sorry, you're not going to hear this bit, but I had to cough, okay. Okay.
Speaker 1:The seven-day feast is to commemorate God's gracious provision to the Israelites during their 40 years of wandering in the desert. The Israelites would camp in makeshift booths or huts throughout the feast to remember how God took care of them when they camped in the desert. Each day of the feast, the priest would take water from the pool of Silamon and pour it around the altar, praising God for the water he provided in the desert. Okay, making sense so far. On days Now, on day one through to six, the priest would quote Isaiah 12.3. It says this Therefore, with joy, you will draw water from the wells of salvation. And on day 7, the priest would quote Isaiah 44.3, for I will pour water on him, who is thirsty and floods on the dry ground. I will pour my spirit on your descendants and my blessings on your offspring. Jesus used this ceremony involving water to introduce the living water of the Holy Spirit living water of the Holy Spirit.
Speaker 1:Often Jesus capitalizes on literal things to discuss spiritual things. I'll give you a classic example. I mean, in the Bible they talk about fiery arrows in end times in Revelation. Fiery arrows in end times in Revelation. Now, the thing is, jesus couldn't be talking about ballistic missiles because they didn't exist. So what you have to do I mean, if you're Jesus or if just say, hypothetically, someone got catapulted from here back to there you can't use modern day terminology to explain something that transpired back in the day, so you have to use things that relate to that time period, that time frame and what takes place. So this is why Jesus talks about farming a lot and he talks about living water and things that everybody can relate to in their natural. Now, we know we live in this world, but we're not of this world.
Speaker 1:Okay, and we need to try and focus on things that are spiritual, not necessarily things that are in the natural, because that's the realm that jesus works best in all right, so he does things like talking about the water and then literally he talks about bread to explain spiritual bread that feeds the soul. That's in John 6. Water is used to explain spiritual water that quenches your soul. So that's in John 4. But it quenches you spiritually, not physically. And this is what we need to be aware of sometimes is that when you read scripture in your head, you're looking at things from a spiritual perspective, but seeing it in a natural perspective.
Speaker 1:So what you need to try and do is study the word or listen to podcasts like mine or other. You know pastors that are of the same word of faith teaching. All right, be careful not to get in too many different speakers from all around the world and find out that they're not of the same doctrine. Okay, um, yeah, and you can be pentecostal, you can be baptist, you can be uniting, you can be um lutheran, you know, you could be Lutheran, you could be a lot of different denominations, but it's word of faith teaching. Okay, you don't want to, sort of like, get into some of these other religious organizations and their teaching and I'm not going to mention them, but you've got to make sure that you stay true. But you've got to make sure that you stay true.
Speaker 1:I used to listen to a lot of Pastor Mark Barclay's sermons and I also did his SMTI, which is Spiritual Ministry Training Institute. It's really worth looking into if you want to learn more about that. But Brother Barclay, he specializes in teaching not only pastors but congregation members to let them understand how things work within the church, within the entity, and so he goes into great detail. But one of the things he repeatedly uses this phrase where he says oh well, that's not what I'm saying, let's see what the Word of God says. So he always refers back to the Word of God. So if someone's telling you something from a biblical perspective, or they're actually trying to teach you something from the Bible, make sure it lines up with Scripture. Now, I know I'm not going to get through all of this today, so we'll probably have to do a part two, but I'll give you an example.
Speaker 1:When I first became born again, you know, I'll give you a little bit of a quick history, otherwise I'm going to get right off track here. Um, uh, maria, my lovely wife, okay, born up, uh, a Catholic, okay, um, and so she didn't know a lot about anything except the Catholic teaching. But when we were going to get married, she was putting down a few ground rules, like we have to go to church and we have to have our kids educated in a Christian school. And I got there and I didn't really want to argue with her because I loved her and I was happy to go along with the road. But the one thing I found is that things weren't adding up. So when I was asking the nuns and the priests for answers about certain things, I wasn't getting it. I had that desire to know more. I wasn't getting it. I had that desire to know more. And so Maria's sister got some friends of hers from a local church, okay, and they came around to try and explain it to us. And the one thing that he did that was different to everybody else is, every time I asked him a question, he said well, let's see what the Word of God says. You know, at first time I thought, well, maybe he's not that well educated, but he was. He was just saying that it's not what is according to Ian, it's what is according to the Word of God, and so he always backed everything up with scripture. So even when I'm speaking. If you know, I might even mention certain scriptures, but what you've got to do is you've got to make sure that it lines up with the word of God, because you know, I do my own research and sometimes I might get it wrong or misinterpret the way that it's done. So that's what they say about when you're a carpenter measure twice cut once. Now, this is the thing that I was talking about before I get way off track. This is the thing I was talking about before I get way off track the Holy Spirit.
Speaker 1:Before and after the resurrection of Christ. In the Old Testament, the Holy Spirit was sent to specific individuals to fulfill specific purposes. Now, when Jesus was glorified after his death and resurrection, the Holy Spirit became available to all who would believe and to receive. John 16, 7 says this it is to your advantage that I go away, and for I do not go away, the helper will not come to you, but if I depart, I will send him to you Right Now. This is Acts 1, 4-5. And, being assembled together with them, he commanded them not to depart from Jerusalem but to wait for the promise of the Father, which he said you would have heard from me, for John truly baptized with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit Not many days from now. Right, and we go on.
Speaker 1:The person and the role of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the third person of the Trinity. There's one God who reveals himself in three parts. Okay, as I mentioned this before God, the Father, god the Son, jesus, and God the Holy Spirit, or the Comforter. The Holy Spirit has always existed, being so co-equal and co-eternal with God. Now, if you read Genesis 1 to 2, you'll see where that is there. The Holy Spirit is not an it or a force. He has all the attributes of a personality, if you look at, say, 1 Corinthians 2.11 and 1 Corinthians 12.11, and 1 Corinthians 12.11. And for the emotional aspect of it, you can even look at Ephesians 4.30.
Speaker 1:Now, it's a good idea to I keep saying this, but I'm trying to not spend too long reading all the scriptures because otherwise you're going to not be able to get the message, and that's what I want to do. So John 16, 8. And when he had come, he will convince the world, convict the world of sin and righteousness and of judgment. You can even go into Titus 3, 4-6. But when the kindness of the love of God, our Saviour, towards man appeared not by works of righteousness, which we have done, but according to his mercy. He saved us through the washing of regeneration and the renewing of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us abundantly through Jesus Christ, our Savior. Wow, when you really get into this, I mean I always say the same thing. I mean lots of gold nuggets, but realistically, you really get into this. I mean I always say the same thing. I mean lots of golden nuggets, but realistically, you can get lost in the word of God if you really choose to.
Speaker 1:Now there's an assurance in relation to this as well. In Romans 8, 15 to 16, it says this For you did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but to receive the Holy Spirit of adoption, by whom we cry out Abba, father. The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God. This empowers everybody, right, as it talks about in you know, like Acts 1.8, it says but you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you and you shall be witnesses to me in Jerusalem and all Judea and Samaria and to the ends of earth. And it goes on in Acts 2.41. So if you read right through the book of Acts I mean just the start of it to start with, okay, you'll see that it is so prevalent about what is going on, and this is when the Holy Spirit came and this is when we were actually able to be filled with the Holy Spirit. Acts 4.31 says and then they had prayed, the place where they were assembled together was shaken and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and they spoke in the word of God with boldness.
Speaker 1:See, the thing is, when you look at this, you get a clear understanding of the purpose of the Holy Spirit and how you can get him into you. You know, when you grow a fruit tree, it is no good to you unless it produces fruit. And to get the best fruit, what you do is you keep pruning it and bringing it back to a healthy level and you get a really strong trunk system and then it will produce really, really good fruit. I mean, if you read Galatians 5, 22 to 25, he talks about the fruit specifically, and it gets there and it says but the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such, there is no law. There is no law and those who are in Christ have crucified the flesh with its passion and desire. If we live in the Spirit, let us alone walk in the Spirit and the gifts of the Spirit will be manifested. I think it's a very important thing to know that. You know, sometimes when God is talking about you, know you're never alone. He says I will never leave you nor forsake you. And we think, well, where is God, you know? Is he in this high-off place? Is he out there in the stars somewhere? No, he lives within you and you can call on him anytime to comfort you.
Speaker 1:I used to use that scripture Galatians 5, 22 to 25 every time my kids, when they were younger, you know they used to, you know I used to add limit a little bit, but they were like at each other and fighting over something so ridiculous sometimes and I would just used to say love, peace, joy, happiness, sickness, mildness, against such, there is no law. And they go yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, and and and they would stop arguing and, but rather than me trying to shout over them when they're shouting at each other over some trivial thing, I used to use that all the time and it got to this point where my kids knew that scripture. You know Galatians 5, 22 to 25. And trust me, you know you can use that yourself if you've got young children. You start rattling off scripture and they sort of get lost because they're expecting a particular type of reaction. And most children play out and mess up because they want attention, and negative attention is better than no attention at all. And this is how. I'm not saying it's got to work all the time, and I'm just going to say it works straight away, but it is something that I use that don't work very effectively. Now we're getting lost again, which I always do.
Speaker 1:Okay, let's go on to 1 corinthians 12, 7 to 11, and I'll read this one out. But the manifestation of the Spirit is given to each one for the profit of all, for to one is given the word of wisdom through the Spirit, another the word of knowledge through the same Spirit, another faith by the same Spirit, and another gifts of healing by the same Spirit, to another the working of miracles to another, prophecy to another, discerning of spirits to another, different kinds of tongues to another, the interpretation of tongues, but one of the same Spirit works in all things, distributing to each one individually as he wills. Now, this is primarily structured around the Pentecostal faith, but it is still prevalent in a lot of other religious organizations. I'll say it's the easiest way of doing it and to give you a classic example the Pope okay, he speaks in tongues, and so sometimes you think, oh yeah, and different people will tell you different things about the Holy Spirit and speaking in tongues, healing. A lot of people say that healing died out when the 12 disciples died off, or it was only present when Jesus walked the earth. There are so many different confrontations and different interpretations.
Speaker 1:I honestly believe. Do your own research, see what the Word of God says and come up to your own conclusion. Me personally, I believe without a shadow of a doubt, okay, that God heals today, because I am a living testimony to that. All right, now you've got to understand that. See, also, the Holy Spirit is a counselor, he's a comforter, he gives you peace. He gives you peace, he enables you to be able to rest in him.
Speaker 1:See, sometimes, when I don't know what to pray about a situation I'm in, I don't know how to deal with what's going on in my immediate family or other people that I know, and I'm constantly getting phone calls about people that are going, and I'm constantly getting phone calls about people that are going through challenges in their life, both physically, medically and also spiritually, and so the thing is always seek his wisdom and his knowledge, and that alone can comfort you. John 14.16 says this and I will pray the Father and he will give me another helper that he may abide with you forever. And John 14. 26 says this but the helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you. Revealing this is all about revealing the role of the Holy Spirit in your life and the fulfillment of what God has said, or Jesus has said he will do. I'm going to do a chapter two on this because I'm not getting where I want to go, so I'm going to follow up with this next week, hopefully, unless the Lord puts something else on my heart. So I'm going to leave it there.
Speaker 1:But if nothing else, read John 14, 16 and John 14, 26. All right. And it says and I will pray the Father and he will give me another helper that he may abide with you forever. And in John 14.26, it says but the helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, that's Jesus. He will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you. So he's reminding you of his word, and it says that in the scriptures remind me of my word, prove me now. All right, let's just leave it for there and we'll go on with this next week, hopefully, and we'll see how we go. God bless you all and we'll talk to you later. Bye for now.
