Show Notes
September 14, 2025 PM service
Proverbs 14:27 "Fountain of Life"
Paster Stephen Lauer
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Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Let's join our hearts in prayer. Seek the Lord's help as we look to hear from him in his word.
[00:00:10] O Lord our God, you, are life and your Word, your Son, the Lord Jesus, gives life.
[00:00:20] We thank youk for your Holy Spirit, that the Lord Jesus gives those who come to him, for he becomes a fountain of life springing up to eternal life.
[00:00:33] O Lord, our God, we ask then that you would open yourself up to us tonight in your word.
[00:00:43] Let more of your graciousness and your mercy and your goodness out to us that we might receive you and drink of you and be satisfied in you.
[00:00:56] Help us by your spirit for Jesus sake. Amen.
[00:01:05] Sermon text this evening is from Proverbs, the book of Proverbs 14:27.
[00:01:24] Proverbs 14, verse 27. Hear God's word.
[00:01:29] The fear of the Lord is a fountain of life, that one may turn away from the snares of death.
[00:01:38] Please be seated.
[00:01:47] So I got to spend my first Tucson summer in the heat and in the dryness.
[00:01:57] And I drank a lot of water, as I'm sure you all do as well.
[00:02:06] Water seems to be a great necessity here, and if you don't have it, you dry up and you get uncomfortable and maybe, maybe have health problems and kidney stones and other things, right?
[00:02:16] And eventually, if you run out of water and you don't drink, eventually you die.
[00:02:21] Now, I suppose that sensation of thirst and even desperation for thirst is something we mostly keep at bay because we know we need to drink water. I see people taking drinks now, talking about this.
[00:02:35] It's funny how the mind and body works, doesn't it? You start to talk about drinking water, and then you feel like you need to drink something.
[00:02:42] Yeah, me too.
[00:02:45] I was going to talk a little bit, just get our minds on this idea of thirst and water, that feeling you get that probably almost all of us had as a little kid in the summer, playing outside. You go outside, you play for hours.
[00:02:59] Maybe moms are a little more attentive here to the problem of thirst and water. But when I was a kid growing up in other parts of the world and weren't quite so dry, you could play for hours outside, and mom did not call you in to get a drink. She left it to you.
[00:03:14] So, you know, hours and hours of playing, sweating hot, and eventually the thirst catches up with you. I saw some kids running around outside this morning by the ark out there, covered in sweat, running over to mom to get a drink of water.
[00:03:32] That insatiable feeling of thirst, that need to drink. We. We know that Feeling, it's physical. It wells up in us, right? And we have. We have to get a drink of water. You can then imagine a little bit. Begin to imagine a little bit the desperation when. When God took the whole nation of Israel, this whole group of people, right?
[00:03:58] Probably a couple million people between parents and children of all ages, several million people. He takes them out of Egypt, right? He saves them from Pharaoh, crosses the Red Sea. They go out into the wilderness, and God leads them wandering in the wilderness until they run out of water and they don't have any water anymore. And they come and they complain to Moses and say to Moses, did you bring us out into this wilderness for us and our children so that we would die of thirst?
[00:04:31] Why did you do this to us? And you get a sense of their desperation, like this was real.
[00:04:37] They didn't have any water in their water bottles anymore. Probably made out of skin, not metal, but they had water bottles and they had run out. And they didn't have anything to give to their thirsty children. They were thirsty. And you know, as you know when you get stuck in the middle of the desert and there's no water and you don't have a car that you can drive over to water like you're, this is it, you're going to die.
[00:05:01] Now, when God led them out and there they were thirsty and about to die of thirst, you remember what God did. He told Moses, take your rod and take the elders with you and go strike the rock.
[00:05:14] And when he struck the rock, God brought a fountain of water, life giving water out of the rock that gave life to the whole nation of Israel. God gave life giving water, a fountain of life giving water to his people. That gives us a picture of what this proverb is about, that those who fear God have a fountain of life.
[00:05:40] We're going to look at that this evening.
[00:05:42] This fountain of life that God gives us who fear him under three points. First, a fountain from fear.
[00:05:53] How the fear of the Lord leads to a fountain of life, a fountain from fear. Secondly, a fountain that turns away, turns away from the snares. And thirdly, a fountain of abundance, a fountain of life from fear.
[00:06:09] We've been looking at some proverbs that talk about the fear of God. And each one we sense this tension.
[00:06:15] How is it that fear can bring life? How is it that fear can bring confidence?
[00:06:22] How is it that something that they seem opposite to us, but here the fear of the Lord brings a fountain of life.
[00:06:33] Summarizing briefly the things that we've seen about the fear of The Lord. Up to this point, we've been emphasizing that you, King Jesus brings his people out of the kingdom of darkness and death into his kingdom of life and light.
[00:06:49] And when he does that, he teaches us the fear of the Lord.
[00:06:54] What is that fear? It's a sense of awe, of respect, even of dread of God for who he is, for his greatness, but also for his goodness and mercy. As that sense of who God is, as we come to know him more, as that impresses itself on our hearts, we respond in awe and fear of God. And that aims us, like when we're trying to aim a boat in the proper direction. The fear of God becomes our aim. So it leads us away from envy of the world and of sinners. And the fear of God leads us toward righteousness and what pleases God. We saw last week that the fear of God brings confidence instead of a terror, terror fleeing before God. The fear of God leads us to confidence in God and in his love for us and in his forgiveness towards us.
[00:07:47] Here we find that the fear of God leads us to the fountain of life.
[00:07:53] What's this all about?
[00:07:55] Well, I think at the heart of the matter, the heart of the relationship between fear of God and this fountain of life is the matter of our relationship with God.
[00:08:08] If you fear God in the biblical sense that we've been talking about, if you have the fear of the Lord, that means you know God and you are in a right relationship with Him. Those who know God, know his love, have been forgiven by him, fear him, know him, have a relationship with him.
[00:08:29] And the God whom you know and fear is life itself.
[00:08:34] He's the source of the natural life of our bodies. But to know him is to have what we call life or spiritual life.
[00:08:44] To fear God means that you are connected with God in relationship with him and you have life. Let's illustrate that when God put Adam in the Garden of Eden, he made this beautiful garden paradise.
[00:08:58] He puts Adam in the garden and he enters into a relationship with Adam. You remember that God comes and visits Adam.
[00:09:08] He spends time with Adam.
[00:09:10] Adam knows God, and there's only love and fellowship in their relationship at that point. But God gave Adam a command. He says, well, you can eat from all the trees, all these fruit trees I've given you, but there's one tree, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and you're not to eat from it. And in the day that you eat of that tree, God tells Adam, you will surely die.
[00:09:34] And God wasn't talking about Adam's body. Dying, physical death, though that's a part of the curse, the death that God was talking about in that promise, in that warning, in the day that you eat of it, you shall surely die. That death had to do with being separated from God.
[00:09:52] What's the result of Adam? He eats from the tree.
[00:09:55] And what does God do? He banishes him from the garden. He sends Adam away from his presence. And then he puts the flaming sword and the cherubim at the entrance to the garden to keep Adam away. Away from what?
[00:10:11] Away from himself.
[00:10:13] Away from fellowship and friendship with God. Adam was now a rebel, having broken God's command. And. And his relationship with God was broken.
[00:10:23] And that fallen state of Adam, banished away from God, no longer is God's friend. The Bible calls death. God calls it death.
[00:10:33] If you disobey me, you will die, and I will banish you from my presence. And that's the life and death that this proverb is talking about. Spiritual life being connected to God and friendship, or spiritual death being cut off from God in rebellion.
[00:10:53] In Jeremiah 2:13, Jeremiah, God, speaking to his people, says that they have forsaken God. Forsaken him, the fountain of living waters. By pursuing after false gods idols, they forsook God. They turned their backs on God. They left him in his loving, comfortable presence.
[00:11:15] And when they did so, they forsook, turned their backs on the fountain of living waters. They turned away from life into death.
[00:11:25] Now, this life and death of the garden, with Adam either being friends with God or being banished from the garden, life and death is pictured as a fountain. If you remember how that garden is described in Genesis chapter two.
[00:11:42] There's a river that flows from the middle of the garden. And the beginning of rivers is a fountain, water bubbling up from under the earth.
[00:11:51] And that river went through the garden, probably outward in like a spiral or something, because it watered the whole garden. And then that river flowed out from the garden and divided into four rivers that we're told watered the whole earth.
[00:12:06] God was in the garden.
[00:12:09] God is the source of life.
[00:12:11] And flowing from God's presence in the garden. To picture that God was the source of life, he sent forth a fountain of living water to give life to the garden and then to the whole earth.
[00:12:24] Adam was separated from the garden from that water source of life in the garden, and from God himself, the source of spiritual life.
[00:12:36] There's a picture of it in Adam in the garden. But we can summarize all of this very simply with what Jesus says in John 17:3.
[00:12:46] This is eternal life that they Know you the one true God and Jesus Christ whom you have sent?
[00:12:55] To know God is to have eternal life. To not know him. In other words, to not be his friend is to be in a state of death.
[00:13:04] That's the life and death that this proverb is talking about.
[00:13:09] So there's a fountain of life to those who know and fear God.
[00:13:14] How does that happen? What does this look like? How is God a fountain of life to those who fear him?
[00:13:21] Well, God, as we've read, is the fountain of living waters. All life, physical and spiritual, flows from him like a fountain.
[00:13:31] It's as though God is saying, I am life.
[00:13:34] Come to me and live.
[00:13:37] The psalmist understands this. You remember Psalm 42.
[00:13:41] He knows that God is life. As the deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, O God.
[00:13:49] My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and appear before God? When can I come and drink my fill of the living thing, fountain that is God?
[00:14:03] How can you come to God, the fountain of living waters?
[00:14:07] You can only come to him through Jesus, his Son.
[00:14:12] He is the way to God.
[00:14:14] He is the way to the fountain of life. People talk about searching for the fountain of youth.
[00:14:21] You don't need to go searching.
[00:14:23] Jesus is the way to the fountain of eternal life.
[00:14:28] In the wilderness, when Moses struck the rock and water flowed from the rock, and God gave life to his people through that water, he quenched the thirst of his people.
[00:14:40] Apostle Paul tells us that Jesus is that rock. He was the rock that the fathers drank from in the wilderness.
[00:14:49] Jesus himself tells us that he is that rock.
[00:14:54] He says, I'm the way to life.
[00:14:56] I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father, the fountain of living waters, but through Me.
[00:15:05] Come to Me, believe in Me, and I will give you to drink of living waters.
[00:15:12] If you know Jesus, if you trust in him, you believed in Him.
[00:15:18] Then you, you have through Jesus, come to the fountain of living waters.
[00:15:25] If you know Jesus, you know the Father.
[00:15:29] Jesus says, this is eternal life, that they may know you, the one true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.
[00:15:37] To know Jesus is to know the Father and to have life.
[00:15:42] But there's a third piece, isn't there?
[00:15:45] We're Trinitarians. A three in one. If the Father is the fountain of living waters and Jesus is the way to the Father, there is another aspect of that fountain of living waters.
[00:15:58] It is the Holy Spirit.
[00:16:02] He is the fountain that Christ plants in our hearts that springs up to eternal life.
[00:16:12] Jesus says, whoever Believes in me. As the scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.
[00:16:20] And then we got that explanatory comment from John. Jesus was speaking about the Holy Spirit, whom He would send into the hearts of men.
[00:16:29] How do we come to know Jesus? We come to know the Father through the Son. How can we come to believe in the Son when Jesus sends His Holy Spirit into our hearts?
[00:16:39] He puts faith in our hearts and he gives our hearts new life so that we can believe in Jesus the Son.
[00:16:45] So the Spirit becomes a fountain of living water, drawing us into the life of the Son and of the Father, and He gives us the fear of God.
[00:16:59] We read that last time from Jeremiah 32.
[00:17:02] God promised that by the Spirit he would put his fear in our hearts. He gives us faith, he gives us a new heart so that we can believe in Jesus, and He gives us fear in Himself.
[00:17:14] That's the fountain this proverb is talking about. Those who fear God are united to the Son by the power of the Spirit through faith and thence to the Father Himself.
[00:17:26] Do you fear God if you know Jesus His Son and Jesus Spirit lives within you?
[00:17:34] Yes, you know the Father and you have a fountain of living waters in God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit flowing from your heart upward to God.
[00:17:49] But if you don't know him, if you don't fear God, then you need to know that Jesus is the way and the truth and the life, the only way to the Father.
[00:17:58] Believe in him and he will give you living waters and you will never thirst again.
[00:18:07] The fountain and fear.
[00:18:09] But the fountain, this fountain, once you've received Christ and been drawn into that living waters to drink of it, that fountain is a fountain that will turn you away from the snares of death. And that's our second point, the fountain that turns away.
[00:18:25] What are the snares of death? This is probably fairly obvious, especially if you've read much of the Proverbs or the Psalms. Even the imagery here is that death is like a hunter or a trapper.
[00:18:42] Death goes out. He's a predator, he's seeking prey. Death is setting the Like a hunter sets traps to catch rabbits or beavers or foxes.
[00:18:56] The hunter, death, is seeking to catch people. You.
[00:19:02] It's like a fisherman who baits his hook or puts a lure on the end of his hook, seeking to catch fish.
[00:19:11] Death is prowling, looking to devour.
[00:19:16] What are his snares or his baits that he baits his hook with?
[00:19:22] They're various sins.
[00:19:25] Think about the New Testament, teaching the wages of sin is death. If we commit sin, we're trapped and the result is death. Death has caught us in his trap. If we sin, we die.
[00:19:39] If, like Adam, we sin and rebel, we die. Not just physical death, but more importantly, if we sin, we're cut off from God.
[00:19:50] And this is what the world and the devil are trying to do.
[00:19:57] It wants to entice us. As we looked at a couple weeks ago, the world wants us to be envious of sinners.
[00:20:04] It wants us to look at what the world has and say, I want that. I want to be able to live that way. And of course, we saw how the fear of God answers that.
[00:20:16] But here something different is pictured in the proverb. Instead of the world trying to entice us, as it were, here we have the world death trying to trap us, ensnare us in sin.
[00:20:32] You can think of Peter's, the apostle Peter's language that the devil prowls about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he would devour.
[00:20:41] This isn't language of enticement and envy. This is language of entrapment.
[00:20:47] Actively there are snares laid out for you.
[00:20:55] Now the focus in the proverb is not on the snares itself, but on the fact that when we drink from the fountain of life, we're turned away from the snares. We're not trapped. So so long as we're drinking from the fountain of life, it turns us away from these traps. So that's the important thing to focus on here. Not the traps, but the fountain and how it turns us away.
[00:21:20] If we drink from the fountain of life, if we have fellowship with God through his Son Jesus, by the power of the Spirit who indwells us, this turns us away from sin.
[00:21:35] Or to put it in Old Testament language, oh, taste and see that the Lord is good.
[00:21:41] If you taste the goodness of God, sin becomes bitter, foul, a thing that makes you gag because you know just how good God is.
[00:21:55] Let's think of a few kinds of snares. There are many all over the Bible. And you could think of them your own, in your own life that you've encountered. What kind of snares or traps are there? Sin traps that try to trap you in sin and lead you away from God into death.
[00:22:11] How about words?
[00:22:13] Words are powerful, aren't they? They can do good and they can do harm.
[00:22:19] Proverbs 12:13 says that an evil man is ensnared, trapped by the transgression of his lips.
[00:22:28] His words become a snare to him, leading him to death.
[00:22:34] Think about Your words.
[00:22:37] What are you tempted to say?
[00:22:40] Lies, flattery.
[00:22:44] They're easy. They get us out of problems. They earn us people's favorite.
[00:22:50] Or maybe we like to use words like daggers to hurt others and tear them down.
[00:22:57] I want to get even with him. I'm going to stab him with my words.
[00:23:02] Tempting, isn't it?
[00:23:03] We like to use our words to express our anger.
[00:23:09] Then, of course, there's those delicious morsels of gossip, things that only I know, that I can share with others about somebody else. It tastes sweet and good when we gossip.
[00:23:27] And then there's slander. We like to use this when we have a problem with somebody. Tear him down, destroy his reputation.
[00:23:36] All of it's enticing.
[00:23:38] It entraps us, but it leads to death.
[00:23:44] But God's words, His Word flows from the fountain of life itself.
[00:23:53] There are words that entrap and lead to death.
[00:23:56] God's words come from life and lead us back to himself, to life.
[00:24:03] Psalm 12:6. The words of the Lord are pure words, like silver refined in a furnace on the ground, pure, purified seven times.
[00:24:15] And then connecting the idea of God's words in their purity.
[00:24:20] He says, you, O Lord, who speak pure words, you, O Lord, will keep them.
[00:24:27] That is his people. You will keep your people. You will guard us from this generation. In other words, the wicked, forever. God's words are given to us to. To protect us, to keep us.
[00:24:41] So drink from God's Word, the fountain of God's words. And what happens?
[00:24:47] You find how wonderful the truth is, isn't it?
[00:24:50] At first, the truth of God's word may bother us because it points out our sin and we have problems with it, and there are things that we don't want to hear. But the more we drink deeply from the word of God and we see its truth. We see how wonderful the truth is that it's a good thing and that it drives out the lies of this world.
[00:25:10] And then we begin to say, see, I don't want to lie.
[00:25:15] I want to live in the truth, even if sometimes it's hard. The truth is better than the lie.
[00:25:22] As we see how good God's word is and how good, how. What it does for us, how it builds us up, how it encourages us, how it strengthens us, what happens. Instead of slander or hurtful words, we see how we can use our words to build up our brothers and sisters.
[00:25:40] You see, as we drink from the fountain of life, we're drawn away from the sinful use of words to the way of using words that delights God and serves ourselves and others.
[00:25:55] You can hear in this proverb the voice of King Jesus saying to you, God has purified your lips. He's purged your lips so that you would praise his name, so that you would bless and build up your fellow believers.
[00:26:19] Words can be a snare. But the fountain of life turns us away from sinful use of words. How about pleasures and delights? God made this world. He filled it with good things for us to do, to eat, to drink, to engage in.
[00:26:36] But they can be snares.
[00:26:39] Food and drink can be a snare.
[00:26:44] What does sin tell us? Death would entrap us.
[00:26:48] Eat and drink.
[00:26:50] Fulfill your sensual pleasures.
[00:26:54] Maybe they become ends in themselves.
[00:26:56] Or perhaps more often. For many of us, food and drink become a way to deal with our anxieties.
[00:27:03] We eat our feelings.
[00:27:05] We seek to numb our anxieties with food or alcohol.
[00:27:10] Numb our sorrows away.
[00:27:14] It can be a trap.
[00:27:17] King Jesus says, drink from. From the fountain of life.
[00:27:24] How does that apply here?
[00:27:26] Think about your anxieties that you're tempted to numb away, to hide from in food or drink.
[00:27:35] King Jesus says, come and drink from the fountain of life in prayer.
[00:27:40] How does he do that?
[00:27:41] Be anxious for nothing.
[00:27:44] But in everything by prayer and supplication, let your requests be made known to God.
[00:27:52] What do you do with the things that you're worried about?
[00:27:56] Not drinking them away and eating them away.
[00:27:59] Taking those worries and troubles of the heart to the fountain of life.
[00:28:05] And Jesus says, leave them there.
[00:28:07] That's what we do with our anxieties. That's how we resolve them.
[00:28:13] And what's his promise?
[00:28:15] That if we would come to the fountain of life and leave all our troubles there, trusting in God, what will he do? What comes back out of the fountain?
[00:28:25] And the peace of God that passes all understanding will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.
[00:28:35] Do you see how different that is from what your heart says or the world says about food and drink and other sensual pleasures?
[00:28:45] Jesus is the source of peace and healing for your soul.
[00:28:54] Then what can you do with food?
[00:28:56] If I'm no longer dealing with my troubles with food or drink, what do we do with food? King Jesus speaks here too.
[00:29:06] Live life for my glory. He says, this is my creation. I made that food and drink for you to enjoy for my glory.
[00:29:16] Whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.
[00:29:22] We can have a good use of these things so long as we drink from the fountain of life.
[00:29:29] For everything created by God is good and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, for it is made holy by the word of God. And prayer. First Timothy 4. 4.
[00:29:43] The snare of food and drink and sensual pleasures. When we drink from the fountain of life, we're turned away from sin to use it wonderfully, beautifully, to the glory of God. And that brings me to my third, our third snare.
[00:29:58] Beauty and charm.
[00:30:00] Boy, that's a good thing. God made.
[00:30:03] But how it gets warped and distorted in our minds and hearts.
[00:30:09] We want people to like us. Maybe we want influence, whatever it is that we want. Security. The world says, buy this clothing, wear this makeup, do this beauty routine, follow this diet, do this exercise, and people will love you.
[00:30:34] You'll have friends, you'll have influence, you'll meet the right person.
[00:30:40] You know the story that the world tells.
[00:30:44] Beauty a good thing, but we can become slaves to it. That sounds like the female version. There's male versions of this too.
[00:30:53] We want people to like us. We want influence and control over others. And the world says, if you live your life this way, you can have it all.
[00:31:03] And it becomes.
[00:31:05] It enslaves us.
[00:31:08] But King Jesus warns us.
[00:31:11] He warns us against that snare, but he beckons us towards back to the fountain of life.
[00:31:19] Proverbs 31, 30. Charm is deceitful, beauty is vain.
[00:31:27] But a woman who fears, fears. The Lord is to be praised. Interesting. The fear of the Lord contrasted with the empty vanity and beauty that this world has to offer.
[00:31:42] The fear of the Lord is a fountain of life.
[00:31:46] Fear God.
[00:31:49] Fear God, and in him you will have a fountain of life.
[00:31:54] And out of that fountain comes beauty.
[00:32:02] The fear of God will turn your heart away from men and seeking their approval.
[00:32:11] It will turn your heart away from your own introspection and your own obsession over your outward appearance.
[00:32:17] Because the fear of God will turn your heart to the source of all that is good and true and beautiful.
[00:32:25] Meditate with me for a moment on Psalm 45.
[00:32:30] In this Psalm, we are shown a picture of the most beautiful man that ever walked the earth.
[00:32:40] Your bridegroom and your king.
[00:32:43] Psalm 45. 2.
[00:32:46] You are the most handsome of the sons of men.
[00:32:51] Grace is poured upon your lips.
[00:32:54] Therefore God has blessed you forever.
[00:33:00] You want beauty?
[00:33:03] Look to the most beautiful man that ever walked the face of the earth.
[00:33:07] Jesus.
[00:33:08] Verse 7.
[00:33:10] The Psalmist is speaking to Jesus about Jesus. He says, you, Jesus, have loved righteousness and hated wickedness.
[00:33:19] That's beauty.
[00:33:21] Therefore God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness. Beyond your companions.
[00:33:27] Your robes are all fragrant with myrrh and aloes and cassia beauty retains from ivory palaces Stringed with instruments make you glad.
[00:33:40] Stringed instruments make you glad. Daughters of kings are among your ladies of honor. At your right hand stands the queen in the gold of Ophir.
[00:33:51] Jesus, the most beautiful one, is where your eyes and your heart need to be turned if you're looking for beauty.
[00:34:00] And then as you gaze upon him, the psalmist turns his attention to the one who stands at Jesus right hand.
[00:34:09] The queen, the bride of Christ, you, the church. As you look on Jesus beauty, he reflects his beauty back on you. He has made you beautiful, and you are beautiful in his eyes.
[00:34:27] Look at what Jesus does for the beauty of his bride. Every believer.
[00:34:31] Hear, O daughter, and consider and incline your ear.
[00:34:35] Forget your people and your Father's house. And the King will desire your beauty, since he is your Lord. Bow to him.
[00:34:47] All glorious is the princess in her chamber, that's you, with robes interwoven with gold.
[00:34:54] In many colored robes, she is led to the King with her virgin companions following behind her.
[00:35:03] King Jesus says, come to me and I will lead you to the fountain of life.
[00:35:09] Pure words, real pleasures and unsurpassed beauty.
[00:35:15] Do you fear God?
[00:35:18] Do you know His Son, Jesus Christ? Then you have this fountain of life.
[00:35:23] Death. Death is predatory.
[00:35:27] It uses sin to attract, it traps, it baits, and it brings to an end.
[00:35:35] But Jesus is the way, the truth and the life.
[00:35:38] He's the fountain that turns away from snares.
[00:35:45] Thirdly, and finally, I want to talk to you about this fountain of life as a fountain of abundance.
[00:35:53] The fountain of life is a fountain of abundance.
[00:35:58] Death attracts, but the fountain draws sinners to life.
[00:36:04] Flowing, rushing, never ceasing, overflowing.
[00:36:13] It draws us to life, to healing, soothing, refreshing life giving, abundant waters.
[00:36:23] Life with no end.
[00:36:27] That's real abundance.
[00:36:29] It's abundance of joy.
[00:36:32] Salvation in Jesus Christ brings joy. Joy.
[00:36:36] Real joy. Not fleeting, passing joys. Real joy. We read from Isaiah 12. With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation.
[00:36:47] This fountain brings you, dear people of God, joy in abundance.
[00:36:54] What kind of joy?
[00:36:56] God's joy over you.
[00:36:58] God delights over you.
[00:37:02] Think of the good Shepherd's joy for you.
[00:37:06] You remember the shepherd?
[00:37:08] He left the 99 sheep, and he went for the one that had strayed. And when he found that sheep, he puts the sheep on his shoulders. And we read that he returned to his home. Rejoicing as Jesus carries you like a sheep on his shoulders, back to his fold. He's rejoicing.
[00:37:32] And then what does the good shepherd do? He calls his friends and neighbors together, and he throws a party, rejoicing over you.
[00:37:40] And Jesus says this.
[00:37:44] There is joy. He says, I tell you. Just so. Even as the shepherd rejoices with his friends and neighbors. I tell you there is joy before the angels of God over one sinner who repents.
[00:38:00] Jesus died on the cross and rose from the dead to save you, his people. He ascended into heaven, entered the presence of the Father as the God man Savior, and a party began rejoicing over sinners whom he had saved.
[00:38:18] The angels of God are rejoicing. Yes, but what does Jesus say?
[00:38:22] I tell you, there is joy before the angels of God.
[00:38:28] Whose joy?
[00:38:29] God's joy.
[00:38:31] God is rejoicing over you.
[00:38:37] Or we could look at Zephaniah 3:17. The Lord your God is in your midst. A mighty One who will save.
[00:38:45] He will rejoice over you with gladness. He will quiet you by his love. He will exult over you with loud singing.
[00:38:56] God is rejoicing over you.
[00:39:00] That's joy overflowing life, abundant, with no end.
[00:39:08] And so Paul says, you have joy at all times.
[00:39:16] We rejoice with others, right?
[00:39:18] Joy isn't a solitary thing. We have parties over birthdays and joy, right? Just like the shepherd did.
[00:39:25] God rejoices over us, we rejoice in him.
[00:39:31] We're a part of that joyful party.
[00:39:35] And so Paul says, rejoice in the Lord always.
[00:39:42] Not rejoice over your sufferings. Not rejoice because you have problems and difficulties. But at all times, every moment, as you drink from the fountain of life, you have joy because God rejoices over you.
[00:39:57] You're rejoicing with Him.
[00:40:01] Secondly, there's an abundance of joy. But I want you to see that this fountain brings an abundance of pleasure, pleasure and delights. Maybe joy is one of those already.
[00:40:10] But more broadly, this fountain of life brings an abundance of pleasure and delights.
[00:40:21] First of all, God is pleased with you.
[00:40:25] He delights over you. You saw that already. If he's rejoicing over you, if he exalts over you, he's delighting in you. He's pleased in. In you. Why?
[00:40:35] Not because of your sin, not because of your straying away like sheep and your anxiousness. No, he's pleased with you because of His Son.
[00:40:45] If the Spirit dwells in you and unites you to His Son, God's love and pleasure for His Son now is extended to you. And what did God say about His Son? This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well. Pleased.
[00:41:01] If you're united to Jesus, God is pleased with you.
[00:41:07] He has pleasure over you.
[00:41:10] He looks at you. He doesn't see your sin and your wickedness. He sees the object of his delight and pleasure, His Son eternally in you. Now united to His Son. He delights in you as His Son.
[00:41:29] Do you think I'm kidding? No.
[00:41:31] God thinks about you.
[00:41:34] Go read Psalm 139.
[00:41:38] From eternity, God thought about you, contemplated you. He thought about you when you were in the womb. He thinks about you every day of your life.
[00:41:47] His thoughts for you are many.
[00:41:52] Psalmist says to God, you formed my inward parts. You knitted me together in my mother's womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
[00:42:01] Wonderful are your works. My soul knows it very well.
[00:42:06] My frame was not hidden from you when I was being made in secret, your eyes saw my unformed substance.
[00:42:14] In your book were written every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them.
[00:42:24] And then he comes to his conclusion.
[00:42:27] How precious to me are your thoughts, O God. How vast is the sum of them.
[00:42:33] The God who loves you, rejoices over you, is pleased in you. For His Son, who delights in you, thinks about you continually. He thinks about everything that you're doing and everything that's happening to you.
[00:42:48] And he is pleased with you.
[00:42:53] That's a fountain of delights.
[00:42:57] If there's a reciprocal joy on our part, so too is there a reciprocal delight and pleasure on our part to God.
[00:43:06] Psalm 37, verse 4 says, Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart.
[00:43:14] The desires of your heart. Of course, being for God, you delight in me. You can have as much of me as you want.
[00:43:24] And we sang. We're about to sing Psalm 36, verse 8 and 9.
[00:43:28] They feast on the abundance of your house, and you give them drink from the river of your delights, for with you is the fountain of life.
[00:43:40] And in your light do we see light. Let's pray.
[00:43:48] Our God and our King.
[00:43:53] As we contemplate your greatness, your goodness, the fullness of all that you have to offer us, our hearts have become enlarged by your mercy and grace.
[00:44:09] And we come before you then with hearts that are full of joy as we consider just how good you are.
[00:44:17] O God, we ask that you would help us to grow, to grow in our vision of the Lord Jesus, of his reign and kingship over us.
[00:44:30] Help us to see that now as our King, he reigns over every area of our lives and that what once was dead and dull, what once was enslaved and in darkness. Now you have shown light and life and freedom and joy everywhere.
[00:44:47] Lord Jesus, help us to find your pleasure in everything that we do.
[00:44:55] Help us to begin to delight each day in serving you in our families in secret, with our brothers and sisters at church. Help us to find a life that is enlivened by this flow of living water that comes from your throne in heaven and flows out like a river of life into our hearts. By the power of your spirit, change us and make us to participate, already ready, in the delights of heaven that you promised to give us.
[00:45:31] For Jesus sake, we pray. Amen.
