The name of "Emmanuel" is often sung at Christmas, but its meaning is often ignored. The very idea that God would be with us is both scandalous and wonderful!

God With Us – God In Us
Water. It falls, it freezes, it brings winter weather. But it’s also critical for life – which is why scientist looking for life on other planets look for water. Water makes up 57% of our body mass and it’s our most basic need.
Medical experts may not agree on everything but they all agree we need lots of water. Drink 8, 8oz. glasses of water a day most say. But most of us don’t do it. We live our lives dehydrated both physically and spiritually, especially at Christmastime. I’m Charles Morris and welcome to Christmas on Haven Today, telling the great story that’s all about Jesus. In the next few minutes we’re going hear a promise Jesus made to us – a promise to heal our spiritual dehydration. This is a program called, “I Will Pour Out My Spirit”.

Have you ever been dehydrated and not even known it? Were you irritable, fatigued, or did you have maybe a dull headache? You probably don’t associate those symptoms with dehydration but that’s what happens to us when we don’t drink enough water. Experts warn that all the salty, rich food we eat around the holidays can leave us more dehydrated than normal. Most medical experts say we need to always drink 8 glasses of water a day, not just to lose weight but to be healthy.
Well you can also be spiritually dehydrated and not even know it. Are you irritable? Have you been joyless, maybe stressed, maybe dissatisfied? Those are all symptoms of a deep, unsatisfied spiritual thirst and often times we feel it the most at Christmastime when we think we should be full of joy. Well, I have good news for you in our few minutes together. Jesus says he has the answer. Jesus promised to satisfy our spiritual thirst. He stood up in the temple during the Feast of Tabernacles and he cried out at the top of his lungs, so that he could be heard over the noise of the crowds. “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink, whoever believes in me, as the scripture has said, ‘Streams of living water will flow from within him.’” That’s John 7:37 and 38 and then John the Apostle adds this explanation in verse 39, “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.”
What an astounding claim by Jesus that day. He said he could satisfy your spiritual thirst. But what makes his words even more astounding is that they were said in the context of the Feast of Tabernacles. Each day of the feast a large, gold jar was filled with water from the Pool of Siloam in Jerusalem and carried by the high priest in a procession back to the temple. As they neared the water gate, three blasts would be blown on the Shofar. The temple choir would sing and every Jewish male would shake a “lulab”, a short of rattle made out of willow and myrtle twigs and cry out, “Give thanks to the Lord!” And then the water was poured out into the altar.
What was this water ceremony all about? Well, it had a backward focus and a forward focus.
It looked back to when the Israelites were in the desert after God had delivered them out of Egypt. They lived in tabernacles, or tents, during the days of the feast to remember when they lived in tents in the desert, during the Exodus and to remember that God had lived with them in a tabernacle. He had filled it with the glory of his presence. The water ceremony celebrated the time when they desperately needed water in the desert and God told Moses to strike a rock and water would come out of it. He did that and it did come out, a torrent of cold, refreshing water gushing out of the rock. It was like a river, enough to satisfy the thirst of all those thousands of people and all their livestock. Everyone drank and drank and drank and they had enough.
But this ceremony also looked forward to something else, to a time when God would pour out the Holy Spirit in the final days. The pouring out of the water on the altar symbolized the Messianic age to come, when God would cause the life-giving Holy Spirit to flow out from the Sacred Rock and abundantly satisfy their thirst for God.
Imagine Jesus standing up and shouting, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink, whoever believes in me, as the scripture has said, “Streams of living water will flow from within him.” He did it right at the moment of that water ceremony. What a bold claim it was!
Jesus was saying, “Look at me, not at that water being poured out on that altar. That’s just a symbol of what was promised. I am the fulfillment. I’ll cause this life giving water in the Spirit to flow out. Come to me, believe in me, drink from me and streams of water will flow not just outside of you but from within you. Your thirst will be satisfied.” That wasn’t just some obscure Messianic prophecy Jesus was promising to fulfill. It was big. It had been repeated again and again by the prophets. It runs throughout the entire book of Isaiah. Isaiah 12:1-3,
In that day you will say:
“I will praise you, O LORD.
Although you were angry with me,
your anger has turned away
and you have comforted me.
Surely God is my salvation;
I will trust and not be afraid.
The LORD, the LORD is my strength and my song;
he has become my salvation.”
With joy you will draw water
from the wells of salvation.

Or there’s Isaiah 35:4-7
Say to those with fearful hearts,
“Be strong, don’t fear;
your God will come,
he will come with vengeance;
with divine retribution
he will come to save you.”
Then will the eyes of the blind be opened
and the ears of the deaf unstopped.
Then will the lame leap like a deer,
and the mute tongue shout for joy.
Water will gush forth in the wilderness
and streams in the desert.
The burning sand will become a pool,
the thirsty ground bubbling springs.

Or how about Isaiah 41:17-20
“The poor and needy search for water,
but there is none;
their tongues are parched with thirst.
But I the LORD will answer them;
I, the God of Israel, will not forsake them.
I will make rivers flow on barren heights,
and springs within the valleys.
I will turn the desert into pools of water,
and the parched ground into springs.

Or how about Isaiah 43:18-21
“Forget the former things;
don’t dwell on the past.
See, I am doing a new thing!
Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?
I am making a way in the desert
and streams in the wasteland.
The wild animals honor me,
the jackals and the owls,
because I provide water in the desert
and streams in the wasteland,
to give drink to my people, my chosen,
the people I formed for myself
that they may proclaim my praise.
And then how about chapter 44 of Isaiah? Isaiah tells them that this promised water is actually the Holy Spirit.

Isaiah 44.3 For I will pour water on the thirsty land, and streams on the dry ground; I will pour out my Spirit on your offspring, and my blessing on your descendants. They will spring up like grass in a meadow, like poplar trees by flowing streams. 5 One will say, ‘I belong to the LORD’; another will call himself by the name of Jacob; still another will write on his hand, ‘The LORD’s,’ and will take the name Israel.
God was promising that at some time in the future he was going to pour out his Spirit and that it would be like water poured out on thirsty ground, like streams on parched soil. The people would drink it and their spiritual thirst would be satisfied. Isaiah describes what would happen when the Spirit was poured out on the people. He compares it to what happens when dry land starts to get water. “They will spring
What a dramatic difference water makes and what a dramatic difference the water of the Spirit makes in your life. It makes you green! That’s what Jesus promised to do that day. He promised to pour out the Spirit of God into all those who believe in him. He promised to satisfy their thirst and make them well water drowned but John said it couldn’t happen until he was glorified and in John’s Gospel, that meant the cross. Jesus was like the rock in the wilderness. He had to be struck before the water would gush out. He was struck down on the cross so that we could drink of the Spirit and then he was lifted up to heaven and on the day of Pentecost the Spirit was poured out on everyone who believed in him. Jesus still pours out the Spirit on everyone who believes in him. And the Spirit satisfies our thirst. It satisfies our thirst because we’re thirsty for God and the Spirit is the presence of God.
The Spirit is God IN us. When Isaiah predicted the birth of Jesus he said his name would be “Immanuel.” And Jesus is our Immanuel. He was born into our world, He lived with us, he took on our flesh and blood and became one of us. After he died and was resurrected he ascended into heaven and 10 days later he poured out the Holy Spirit. The Spirit is God IN us. He’s Jesus in us. Teaching us what it means to be sons and daughters of God. Paul calls him the Spirit of Sonship. He pours the Father’s tender love for us into our souls and that’s what satisfies our thirst, and it satisfies it like nothing else on earth.
Jesus calls the Holy Spirit the Father’s gift. It’s a gift you can receive this Christmas by believing in Jesus. Anyone who’s thirsty can come and by coming to him and putting your trust in his death for you, your sins will be forgiven and Jesus will pour this Spirit into you and satisfy your spiritual thirst. Maybe you are a believer in Jesus but you’ve been forgetting to drink. You’ve gotten dehydrated. I know what that’s like. When I don’t spend time with the Lord I get thirsty. I live like an orphan. The answer for that kind of spiritual dehydration is pretty simple. We just need to drink. We need to live in relationship with our Father. It’s our privilege, it’s our right as the children of God and it can happen to us at Christmastime. Galatians 4:4-6, what a wonderful reminder for Christmastime, “But when the time had fully come, God sent his son, born of a woman, born under law to redeem those under law that we might receive the full rights as sons. Because you are sons, God sent the Spirit of his son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, ‘Abba, Father.’”