Do you realize how thirsty you really are?

Steve Brown:
Do you realize how thirsty you really are? Let’s talk about it, on Key Life.

Matthew Porter:
This is Key Life. We’re here to let you know that because of what Jesus has done, God will never be angry at you again. Steve invited our friend Matt Heard to do the teaching this week. Matt is a speaker, teacher, writer, pastor, coach, and the founder of a ministry called Thrive.

Steve Brown:
Thank you Matthew. Hello Matthew. I mean, I don’t know if I can deal with two Matthews in this place.

Matt Heard:
You know what? When people call me Matthew, I feel like it’s my mom and I’m in trouble. But that’s alright. I feel like I’m in trouble.

Steve Brown:
He likes to be called Matthew and you like to be called Matt. And for an old guy like me, that’s important. I can keep you apart.

Matt Heard:
And you don’t need to say Matthew for me to feel like you’re mad at me. You sound like you’re grumpy at me all the time. So, I guess I can deal with it.

Steve Brown:
Guys, we’re in for a great week. We know that you know that Matt Heard is one of the voices of Key Life. And we get letters and e-mails from you guys whenever he teaches, and it makes a difference. Matt, maybe you ought to, you don’t just do this. You do Thrive. What in the world is Thrive?

Matt Heard:
I, I’m not sure. I appreciate your tone with that question, but that’s all right. I’ll go ahead and answer that.

Steve Brown:
I was just asking and I’ll make it positive. I understand you have an amazing ministry and it’s called Thrive.

Matt Heard:
That is so much better. Good job. Thrive’s my ministry is the umbrella of my speaking and teaching and coaching, and whether it’s large groups and conferences and churches or small group coaching or facilitating experience, all experiences is both with ministry leaders and marketplace leaders when it’s the coaching. But bottom line, it’s about engaging and equipping each other to flourish to God’s glory in every arena of our life. So, understand the gospel applies not just to Sunday mornings and when I die, but to Monday mornings, whether I’m at the office or trying to root on my favorite team.

Steve Brown:
Tell me the name of the book that you wrote that references all of that.

Matt Heard:
life with a capital L: Embracing Your God-Given Humanity

Steve Brown:
That’s a great book and give me a website and then we’ll get to teaching.

Matt Heard:
ThriveFullyAlive.com

Steve Brown:
ThriveFullyAlive.com Well, what we’re going to do is we’re going to be talking about longings this week.

Matt Heard:
Glad you want to talk about that. As we were talking before, as I came in the studio, you know, years ago, I did some teaching a program on longings. I’m going to circle back around about that subject taken a little different tack. But basically getting your heresy about longings and maybe some of your wisdom and input. So, some of this, you know, we’re circling, bottom line, there’s a passage of Scripture that I want to dive into. And it’s basically a passage that we looked at years ago, but it’s John 4, the woman at the well, and so for so many years, And I don’t know if you’ve heard this before. So often you hear John 4 the woman at the well, people talk about that saying, okay, this is the way to do evangelism. You know, Jesus, I mean, we get the right principles. So Jesus comes, he asks her for a favor, he establishes common ground, asks some questions. All that’s true. It’s great for evangelism, but it’s about longings. It’s about the life we’ve always wanted. And so, that’s why I want to camp out on that. And let’s get some insight together.

Steve Brown:
Okay. Let me read the Scripture and then I’m going to look forward to what you’re going to teach is going to make a difference. This is from John 4 and I’m going to start at the seventh verse.

A woman from Samaria came to draw water. And Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” (For his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.) The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?” (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.) Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” the woman said to him, “You have nothing to draw water with, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob? He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock.” Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty, or have to come here to draw the water.”

Matt Heard:
Love that.

Steve Brown:
Oh, I do too.

Matt Heard:
Love that.

Steve Brown:
I mean, I just want to pause for a while and let that sink in. But this is radio and it won’t work if we do that. Talk to me about this.

Matt Heard:
Well, I mean, when you, putting ourselves at that well, something was going on in her life. And she was pursuing some things and Jesus knew all about her and we’ll talk about that a little bit more probably tomorrow. But bottom line, he’s keying in on something that I think is central to every person, not every church person, not every religious person,

Steve Brown:
but everybody

Matt Heard:
everybody. I mean, we are all thirsty, years ago, I was up in New York, I was speaking a thing up there. I’m board chairman of a ministry that’s headquartered there. I was dragging, I think it was a Tuesday afternoon. I stumble into the hotel, one of the hotels in Manhattan and you know, they go through the credit card driver’s license. And then this guy came over that I had noticed before, and he had a microphone with him and he put the microphone up. He stood right next to the woman that was checking me in and said are you Matthew Heard? And I said, yes. And at that moment, a light came on and next, over to the right, I had noticed it was the light next to a camera guy. There’s a camera guy there. When I said yes, bells, no kidding. Bells started ringing, chiming that they had pre recorded. Confetti falls from the ceiling. Employees behind me start clapping and he says, congratulations. You’re the 25,000th customer at our hotel. We’re celebrating our 20th anniversary, something like that. And he’s got a golden envelope he gives me says, so we’re giving you two free tickets to Billy Joel’s concert tomorrow night in Madison Square Garden.

Steve Brown:
Oh, cool.

Matt Heard:
I said, how cool is that? I was excited. And so, the first thing I thought about was Arlene cause she loves. Actually, the first thing I thought about was the guy had a meeting with the next night and how I needed to call him and tell him God’s will had changed. God’s will is adjusted. But then I called Arlene, Hey honey, got you a, cashed in on some miles with the United, come join me because she loves Billy Joel. So, we go to the concert, I’m listening to these songs and she’s loved him, discipled our boys and Billy Joeled them for years. So, we’ve heard all these songs, but there was a song that I bet I’ve heard a hundred times. I’d never paid attention to the lyrics called River of Dreams. It’s this real, wistful. You wanted, even you, Steve would want to kind of move to it. But the lyrics are this, and in the middle of it, I said, did he really just say that? And the benefit of having a phone during a concert is you can look up lyrics. Hear these lyrics.

In the middle of the night, I go walking in my sleep, from the mountains of faith to the river so deep. I must be looking for something, something sacred I lost, but the river is wide and it’s too hard to cross. And even though I know the river is wide, I walk down every evening and I stand on the shore and I try to cross to the opposite side so I can finally find out what I’ve been looking for.

And then the second verse, he sang some of the same lyrics, but then he says.

In the middle of the night, I go walking in my sleep through the valley of fear to a river so deep. And I’ve been searching for something taken out of my soul, something I’d never lose and something somebody stole. And the beauty of great art, it acts like a hand that comes up to the shutter of our heart. And it helps us articulate stuff that we couldn’t articulate for ourselves.

You know, it does it. Billy Joel is an image bearer. He’s an imago dei. We all are. He’s just really good at asking the questions that are stirring within all of us about something deep that we feel like is missing. And you mentioned that earlier. We’re all missing something. We all have a sense of that.

Steve Brown:
You know, sometimes Christians don’t admit it though because to admit it would say that maybe you’re not saved or maybe you haven’t understood or maybe you haven’t studied the Scriptures. But what you’ve got to do in order to get what Matt’s going to be teaching this week, a realization that there is something missing. That at night when I go to sleep, there’s something more than this. My mentor, Fred Smith, he had a withered hand and didn’t have many friends, but he used to, and the wisest man I’ve ever known. He said he would go out into the woods sometimes and just walk. And during those times he would say to himself, there’s something they’re not telling me. There’s something they’re not showing me. And then he looked at me and said, Steve, the rest of my life, I’ve been trying to find out what it was. So, there’s a sense in which we all do that.

Matt Heard:
Yeah. What are you thirsty for?

Steve Brown:
Yeah. Hey, you think about that. Amen.

Matthew Porter:
Thank you Steve Brown and Matt Heard. Always a good time when Matt joins us and guess what sports fans? Matt will be with us all this week. How cool is that? Well, Steve has preached a lot of sermons in his decades of ministry, but for me, there’s one title that really stands out. It’s called When Believing is Hard and Pretending Doesn’t Work. You don’t just hear that do you? You just, you kind of feel it right? Well, if someone you know or you, either way, is going through it right now, I think the sermon is really going to bless you in a big way. Get it on CD for free right now by calling us at 1-800-KEY-LIFE that’s 1-800-539-5433. You can also e-mail [email protected] to ask for that CD. Or to mail your request, go to keylife.org/contact to find our mailing addresses for the U.S. and Canada. Again, just ask for your free copy of the CD called When Believing is Hard and Pretending Doesn’t Work. And finally, if you value the work of Key Life, would you support that work through your giving? You could charge a gift on your credit card, or include a gift in your envelope. Or just pick up your phone and text Key Life to 28950 that’s Key Life, one word or two. It doesn’t matter. Text that to 28950 and hey, if you can’t give right now, all good. But if you think about it, please do pray for us. Would you? Always needed and always appreciated. Key Life is a member of ECFA in the States and CCCC in Canada. And we are a listener supported production of Key Life Network.