Well, we are in a
collection of messages that we have called
the river wild. We're taking time
this spring to look at some of the amazing
realities, river stories in scripture. And today if you
have a Bible we're going to be in
Ezekiel, chapter 47. Of course you do get
10 brownie points if you can make your
way successfully to the book of
Ezekiel in your Bible. And I want to give
you a message that I'm calling, with
deepest appreciation to the man in black, five
feet high and rising. Five feet high and rising. This is what Ezekiel had
to say in the 47th chapter of his prophetic book. He said, "Then he brought me
back to the door of the temple; there was water, flowing
from under the threshold of the temple toward the east,
for the front of the temple faced east; the
water was flowing from under the right side of
the temple, south of the altar. He brought me out by
way of the north gate, and he led me around
on the outside to the outer gateway
that faces east; and there was water, running
out on the right side. And when the man went out to the
east with the line in his hand, he measured 1,000 cubits, and he
brought me through the waters; the water came up to my ankles." "Again he measured 1,000 and
brought me through the waters; the water came up to my knees. Again he measured 1,000
and brought me through; the water and it
came up to my waist. Again he measured 1,000,
and it was a river that I could not cross;
for the water was too deep, water in which one
must swim, a river that could not be crossed. He said to me, "Son of
man, have you seen this?" Then he brought me and return
me to the bank of the river. When I returned, there,
along the bank of the river, there were very many trees on
one side and on the other." "Then he said to me:
"This water flows toward the eastern region,
goes down into the valley, and enters the sea. When it reaches the sea,
its waters are healed. And it shall be that
every living thing that moves, wherever the
rivers go, will live." One translation says, wherever
the rivers go it turns fresh. "There will be a very
great multitude of fish, because these waters go there;
for they will be healed, and everything will live,
or everything will be fresh, wherever this river goes. It shall be that fishermen will
stand by it from En Gedi all the way to En Eglaim;
they will be places for spreading their nets. Their fish will be
of the same kinds as the fish of the Great
Sea, exceedingly many. But it swamps and marshes
will not be healed; they will be given
over to salt." "Along the bank of the
river, on this side and that, will grow all kinds of
trees used for food; their leaves will not wither,
and their fruit will not fail. They will bear
fruit every month, because their water
flows from the sanctuary. Their fruit will be for food,
and their leaves for medicine." And God we thank you for this. We feel a little bit
like we're standing in front of a magnificent
painting in an art gallery. We don't quite know
whether the goal is for us to understand
the use of light, to understand what the
artist was doing here, or simply just to bask
in it for a second. But as we, for these
moments, consider what you're trying to say to us
through this powerful chapter, I pray that our minds
would stop from just trying to worry
over these things, and trying to puzzle
over these things. And we would just simply
sit back and take it in. And have ears to hear
what you're saying to us. Because we realize
that there are things you want to
do in our lives that are unlocked by seeing
a glimpse of the way this river flowed
from this vision. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. When I was in Bible
college I took a semester and went overseas to do
my studies in England. And while I was
there, I realized who knows when I'm
ever going to be back. And so I want to get
everything out of this I can. And you know we were allowed
to travel on the weekends. And so two, three
weekends out of the month, I would go somewhere
explore something. Try and explore the sea I lived
in, which was York, England. It was a weird year to
be there, it was 2001. I was there during
September 11th, I was standing in
a fish and chip shop watching on television
as the planes are crashing into this tower. And being an Old
York, while this was all going on in New York. And being separated from
family knowing if I could, if I wanted to, I
couldn't fly home. It was just very it was very
disequilibrating to be there, but I loved and I look back
fondly on many of the trips. Going to Edinburgh, Scotland
and visiting and touring. Spending a weekend
down in London, and staying in a hostel. But one of the most memorable
trips was when a few of us went to a city that
everyone told us you've got to see it to believe it. It's called Lindisfarne,
and it's a tidal island. And tidal island that
you can only access certain times of the day. So sometimes when you approach
this 1,000 acre island, which is at the North of England
just below Scotland, you look at it you go there's
no way I can get there unless I hire a boat
to take me out there. Because it looks
like there's no way. But then the tide goes out
and a road is revealed. And there is in fact a road that
you can drive to this island, but you have to
time it just right. You can only, during a
few hours in the morning and a few hours and
evening, drive there. And once you're
there, you're there. Because this tidal
island is completely cut off from vehicles getting
in when the tide comes in. And so if you live there, or
if you want to visit there, you have to consult the
Lindisfarne website, which has a tidal chart that tells
you what time of day you can commute by car. And it looks like this where
you see, OK, safe to cross, unsafe to cross, safe to
cross, unsafe to cross. And there are literally-- you
know, we went in the morning and then we started
touring, saw this castle, found something to eat. And then the tide comes
in, and the water comes up. The moon starts
pulling on the ocean, because that's how
that works by the way. And all of a sudden
we're like, oh yeah, you can't go anywhere because
we had come in by car. We had no access to a boat. And so now here we are, six
or seven college students, and we were like we're stuck. We've seen the things that
there are to do on Lindisfarne, and well one thing
led to another, and the closest I
ever came to getting arrested while living
in England actually took place on Lindisfarne. Save that story for
a different day. But it felt so weird
to be at a place where we literally
couldn't leave this island, because this water had risen. Which is at the center
of Ezekiel's vision that we've just read here. Where an angel has come to him
to show him something of what God's going to do in
a hopeless situation. And the encouragement
that he gave to Ezekiel, and by extension
to the whole nation of Israel, and ultimately to us. And all of God's
people have lived under the hope and the
promise, and it all centers around a river. A river that comes
from the altar. A river that comes
from the altar and leaves through a temple. A river that comes from the
altar and leaves the temple and comes through a gate. And eventually
flows to all of us. And this obviously
is something that is all a prophetic
description of what God was going to do through Jesus. We know that because
it involves an altar. We know that because
it involves a temple. We know that because
it involves a gate. On the altar, in
the temple that you access by going
through the gate, was this picture of
sacrifice and what it would take to have a
right relationship with God. And Ezekiel was living at a
time he wrote this somewhere around 597 BC, at a time
when all hope seemed like it was lost. He wrote this at
a time when he was living as a captive
alongside 10,000 or so others at a little colony
alongside a river. A river called the
Chebar River in Babylon. And we know that he
was there because even in the first chapter of his
book, he said it came to pass, and he dates it. And then he says, "As I was
among the captives"-- this is Ezekiel 1:1-- "I was among the captives
by the River Chebar, that the heavens opened and
there I saw visions of God." And the angel came
to show him that God was one day going to
bring about a river that would water the whole world. How is it going
to happen, it was going to happen through a
temple, and water coming out from under the altar, and
coming out through a door. Now at this time, the
temple had been seized. At this time, the temple
had been torn down. At the time that these
were living in exile, this seemed like
completely impossible. Because of Nebuchadnezzar
armies that had raised the city of
Jerusalem to the ground. And so as he stood
here by a river, and saw from the angel of God
a promise of a coming river, it seemed completely
and totally impossible. But it was fulfilled. It was fulfilled
not only literally, when the Jewish
people got to return to the promised land under
men like Zerubbabel and Ezra and Nehemiah. And there they
actually physically did rebuild the temple,
and physically did rebuild the walls around the city. But much more important, it
was fulfilled symbolically in that it was always a picture
of what Jesus was going to do. Because Jesus was
always talking about how the temple was
actually a picture of his temple, his body. In fact, one of the
reasons he was put to death that they finally
utilized in his trial, was his statement from
John, chapter 2, verse 19, "Destroy this, temple and I will
raise it again in three days." And that was what they used. They said, oh he said he's
going to tear down the temple. They were trying to build him
as some kind of a terrorist, but he wasn't pointing
to that temple when he said those words. He was pointing to
pointing to this temple, the temple of his body. That he was the
lamb upon the altar that you read about
in the Old Testament. That he was that
sacrificial lamb. Behold the Lamb of
God, John the Baptist said, who has come to take
away the sins of the world. So the literal fulfillment
of Ezekiel's vision here, that the temple's
going to be rebuilt, you're going to live
in the land once again. The promise God gave
to Abraham, these have not been forgotten by God. He is going to keep
them, but they all pointed forward to a day
when Jesus Christ would come. Who is the temple, who is
the lamb upon the altar, and who is the gate that you
can use to access this new life. He said in John
chapter 10, verse 9, "I am the gate; and
whoever enters through me will be saved. He will come in and go
out, and find pasture." So this prophecy
that this angel gave to Ezekiel, the priest who
had a unique connection to the temple. And who would have been
sadder than anybody standing by the River Chebar and
remembering glory days when there was a temple. Glory days when the
people of Israel lived in and accessed
the city of Jerusalem, the city of peace. He, more than most,
would have had this nostalgic sense
of hopelessness over what was gone. And the angel comes from
God with an assignment. I know you feel
abandoned, I know you feel forgotten, I know
you feel like your greatest days are behind you. But I got news for you. There is a gate, there is a
temple, and there is a river. A river who makes glad
the cities of God. And the point of this
literal fulfillment of this temple being
rebuilt was to point forward to the symbolic fulfillment of
what God was saying through it. And that is that
through Jesus being on the altar of the
cross, through Jesus going into the Holy of Holies
with his own sacrifice for us. That issuing forth
from that temple, issuing forth from that
building, flowing out, we could access
life through him. And so we had this picture
of a river coming out to make glad the cities of
God, which Psalm 46:4 says, is a reality. So this vision is both
literal and it's symbolic. And it is also, from our
perspective, both past and it is future. It's both past and future. What do I mean? Well I mean we can, from where
we sit here in the year 2021, look back and go, yeah
the Jews did go back into the promised land. They did live there once again. The temple did get rebuilt.
There was an actual temple there with priests doing
sacrifices in and on behalf of the people when Jesus
came to die on the cross. And Jesus did come
and die on the cross. And Jesus did rise
from the dead. So we look at that, and the
coming of the Holy Spirit is a part of that
river that today comes to make glad all of our hearts. But we also see in
it a promise of what he will do at the end of time. What Jesus will do when
he returns to this world. What Jesus will do when, as he
left, he left from a mountain. And the disciples saw
him ascend into heaven. The Bible says that Jesus
will return in like manner. That is to say there's coming
a day when Jesus Christ, who came to this world as
a baby 2000 years ago, grew up in obscurity, died
a death of humiliation on the cross, that he is
going to return as a King. He's going to return
as a champion. He's going to return as the
sovereign ruler of this world. And He will rule, and reign
with a rod of iron forever. And He will take up that
mantle, King of Kings and Lord of Lords. And all of those things that
were spoken over him as a baby. The prophetic voice,
Prince of Peace, he's a wonderful counselor, that
he's the mighty God, that he's the father of eternity. All of those things will be
realized when he returns, not as a humble lamb, but as
a reigning victorious lion. And on that day, Revelation and
Zechariah and Joel and Ezekiel and all of these works
that were written by God, that we
have in the Bible, all speak of a coming day. Where, like in the
Garden of Eden, all who live in his kingdom
will experience the joy of a newly recreated world. That God will take this
world and, like a seed that gets planted and
comes out different. Same seed, but looks different. So our bodies will come out of
the ground in the Resurrection glorious, and will be
given a body like this body meaning our body
is the seed sown. That's why we as Christians we
believe as we bury someone who trusted in Jesus, we are
not saying goodbye forever for death is not the end. That we will see them, not
only see them, but see them in that same body only new. In that same body
only different. It will be like Christ's body. We will get to live
in these bodies once again with Jesus
in this world that is itself reconfigured. And in that day there's
going to be a river flowing from Jerusalem, the
headquarters, the capital of God's city. That represents the tip of the
spear of his entire kingdom, and this new heaven a new
earth that we get to live in, there's going to be a river. As we're told that as he steps
foot on the Mount of Olives, it's going to split in two and
a river is going to gush out. And I don't know what
of that is meant to be taken as symbolic and literal. But I know in the
Garden of Eden there was a literal river
that was wicked awesome. Right, it's like the Hawaiian
punch in the water fountain from Mr Deed's. Like that's Hawaiian punch, like
what the heck this is great. All I know is that
in this world God created it to be full of
rivers and lakes and mountains and there's going to be beauty. In heaven we're not
going to be on a harp-- playing a harp on
a cloud, it's not going to be some mystical
opaque experience. Y'all there's going to
be rivers in heaven. How great is that? Like who doesn't love being
on a river, in a river, near a river, around a river? And this river
that's going to flow from where God's throne is,
the symbolic headquarters, the Washington DC of
his coming kingdom. This river's going to flow
out, and from it water is going to flow. So that part of it is
still future to us. There's not a river
flowing out of Jerusalem, there's water under Jerusalem,
but getting water into the city has always been a hurdle. It bubbles up into
the spring over here, and they had to
get it in and there would be water pipes that
were to bring the water in. And you go there,
and Pools of Siloam. So the river, we know
there's water down there, it's going to come
out is the point. And we'll get to experience. So we look to the past and
see the fulfillment of it, and we can look to
the future and believe for the ultimate
coming fulfillment. That is to say
that today we live in a space like the Saturday
between Good Friday and Easter Sunday. Where he kept one promise,
but another promise is yet to be kept. He did what he said he would do. So why do I believe that Jesus
Christ is going to come again? Because he came the first time. And the people around-- many people missed
his first coming because it seemed illogical,
it seemed impossible, it seemed improbable. And so they were busy and
missed his first coming. So we today are
meant to always live in the perpetual hope
of his second coming. I'm telling you Jesus
Christ is coming again. And we look forward to that day. And in the middle,
in between, we are to live in that
spiritual mode of believing that right now, just
like that river is coming that's going to hydrate
the whole world there is today. Psalm 46:4, "A river who
makes glad the city of God." As God's people live we're
to always believe his spirit is flowing into us, flowing
through us, much like a river. And that, by the
way, Psalm 46:4 was the basis of Martin
Luther's hymn, A Mighty Fortress is our God. Because when you have river,
when you have access to water, life always follows that river. Five different things
I want you to jot down about this river in Ezekiel's
vision that he sees. Standing by a river, getting
a beautiful vision of a river, as we look forward to the river. And as we experience the river
now, what do we need to know? First of all, this river
goes from small to big. I find that interesting. He says, He took me
around to the back side through this door
said, hey you see that? He said, what is that water
coming from this building? It's a little bit of water. When God wants to send
a flood, it always starts with a trickle. It was just a little
bit of water coming up. Just a little bit
of water there. You would never look at
that little bit of water and go this is going to
turn into a raging river. This is going to be
like class 5 Rapids. This is going to-- Kevin Bacon and Helen Hunt,
this is where that scene-- this is Kootenai Falls. You don't look at
the little trickle, it doesn't scream thunder,
doesn't scream majesty. But that's how
God's kingdom works. Jesus said in Matthew, chapter
13, "The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed,
which a man took and planted in his field. Though it is the smallest of all
your seeds, yet when it grows, it is the largest
of garden plants and it becomes a tree, so
big that the birds of the air can come and perch
in its branches." So the things that God
right now in your life wants to do, that
10 years from now is going to be this
massive tree with birds in the branches, a strong,
thing a wonderful thing, a thing that the world is
going to take note of. I'm telling you, it's
right now in your heart. It's just a mustard seed. It's just a little
bit of trickle. It's just a little bit of water. Today we're easily able
to miss out on the things that God wants to do
because the huge things that God wants to
do, they start small. But it's got to start somewhere. It's got to it's got to
start with that dream. It's got to start
with that idea. Getting out of debt,
getting healthy, getting a marriage
to be at a place where it's actually
functioning well. Those things, they
start with a trickle. And so don't today
despise the small things. That business that
you've got in your heart, you got to step out in faith. It's got to be
that mustard seed. You got to be willing to believe
for it, and fight for it, and dream. And you've got to keep
willing to persist even though people
around you will tell you it's a terrible idea. One of the most incredible
things about so many of these great
stories that we would hear on a program,
like How I Built This, is so many of
these companies all had to endure through a phase
where everybody in their life said there's no way
it's going to work. So just play it safe. There's no way
it's going to work. But you've got to
believe when it's small. God loves to see the plumb
line in the hand of Zerubbabel. Most weird thing anyone's
ever said to you, but that Zechariah 4:10. It says, "Do not despise
these small beginnings, for the Lord rejoices
to see the work begin, the Lord rejoices to see the
plumb line in Zerubbabel's hand." That's a direct connection. Because here's
Ezekiel, by the river. Back in Israel,
temples destroyed. Back in Israel,
there's not two rocks you could stack
upon one another. I mean it is charred. It is burnt, it is nothing. And Zerubbabel will be
the one, the first one, to undertake this job of
rebuilding a massive temple. Of rebuilding a glorious temple. And how did it start? Well how does any project start? The surveyors got to come,
the engineers got to come, the architects got to come. You got to look and
go, can we build here? Do we need to bring
fill dirt in here? What are we going to need to do? And part of that is measuring
the levelness of things. And so in that day, a
plumb line, literally that was the very
first thing you do. We need to build something
and make sure it's level. Build something and
make sure it's level. That is to say it's the
ultimate humble beginnings. It's un-sexy it's un-glorious
but he's just standing there, I wonder if we
could put this here. I wonder if this could go there. And how easy is it to get
discouraged in those days. But God loves to
see the work begin. Don't get discouraged if what
is happening in your life is just a little bit
of a trickle right now. You just got to keep going,
you just got to keep trusting. You just got to keep
persisting through failure, persisting through failure,
persisting through failure. It can become a raging river
if you don't lose heart. Jesus said on this rock
I'll build my church. I was thinking this morning
back to the beginnings of our church, 15 years ago. And yes, now by God's grace it
does touch around the world. And yes, we get to
see so much happening. But it started with a trickle. He didn't say, I will build
my church on this mountain. He said, I'll build this
church-- you could actually say on this pebble. Because he was talking about
Peter, and his confession that Jesus Christ is God. That tiny little confession. How does revival start? It starts with one person
being willing to say Jesus Christ is Lord, and to
tell someone else about it. On this pebble I will
build the church. So who's willing to be a pebble? Who's willing to play your part? Who's willing to
tell one person? Who's willing to post one
thing on your social media? Who's willing to step out in
faith, and at lunch time, share the gospel with one person? To take that stab? I got to spend time
with someone this week that I, there's no reason I
would have any opportunity to have influence with them. But God opened a
door, and so I'm sitting there at this
meal with this one person. And I felt like God wanted me
to do what I could afterwards. So I sent him a little
DM afterwards, said hey, it was super good
to talk to you, I'd love to be available if
you ever want to talk more. Talk a little bit
about what we both did. And it was incredible. He wrote back, and I felt
like when I wrote back, God wanted me to take
it a little bit further. So I found this message that at
one point in our conversation, I referenced. And I sent it to him. I slid up into his
DMs with the gospel, you see what I'm saying. I'm just telling
you, and who knows what God could do in his life
through that one little DM. If he watches that one
little 46 minute long message that he's going to watch
from my friend Louie Giglio, preaching the gospel and
using space as a metaphor. Who knows what God could do. And all I'm telling you is
that when you're a pebble and when I'm a
pebble, and each of us go our various ways to
our various assignments. And you work at a hospital,
and you work at a school, and you work at a tire
rotation shop, all of us together are saying, God you
could build your kingdom on me. I'll be that mustard seed. I'll believe you could one
day have a tree with birds in its branches. I'm going to start small. God's kingdom works
from small to big. Secondly, it always takes
things from death to life. Where God's river touches,
life can spring out of where there is
only dust today. I don't know if you
noticed it, but he said the river goes to the sea,
and when it touches the sea its waters are healed. What he's talking
about is the Dead Sea, the lowest place on Earth. 1,300 feet below
sea level, a sea whose salinity level is 6 times
greater than the ocean, 25% salt content. There's so much salt in the Dead
Sea the two things are true. Number one, it's
impossible to sink. You can try. They told me that, I'm like I'm
going to find a way to sink, and you can't. You just bob to the surface. There's so much salt,
you're just like dang it. Right, and so you would be-- I'm sure it's not impossible
to drown in the Dead Sea, it would just take
a lot of work. You'd have to work
really hard at it, right. Because you just
keep coming back up. And the second thing
that's true about it is that there's no life in it
and there's no life around it. As you drive up you just see
there's no trees around it. There's no there's
no life around it. And when you get
into the Dead Sea there's no fisherman
fishing because it can't support any plant
life, any animal life. Because there's only death. And so when he
saying my river is going to flow into something
that's completely dead and bring it to
life, what a picture we have of what it
is to know Jesus. To be dead in your sins, to be
stuck and completely stranded. And to be completely
helpless, and to be in a place where there is no
life whatsoever. But to have his river touch
us, the river coming from the altar, y'all. The river coming from
the temple, y'all. The river coming
through the gate, y'all. And now all of a sudden where
we were dead, headed to hell, stuck in our sins by
nature children of wrath. Who's thankful that
he has saved us, and changed us, and made us new. The gospel is not bad
people becoming good, it is dead people
coming to life. We were dead, but we are alive. That's why we're not
afraid to celebrate. That's why we want this
church to feel like a party. Because we were dead, but we
were giving our life back. We were lost but
now we're found. We were hopeless,
but now we have hope. We were lying there in our
casket of sin and selfishness, and Jesus called
us to come forth. We've been given new life. Jesus said that the
only way to describe what it is to have a
relationship with him is to be born again. Born from above. And so we look at life knowing
that physical death can't touch us. Because when we die we're going
to-- like David said in Psalm 23-- we're going to cross through the
valley of the shadow of death, fearing no evil, knowing
that he is with us. And he is able and capable
to make such a promise. Because he died and then he
rose up again, and he said I'm the resurrection and life. You want life? Come to me, I'll give it to you. Guys, we get to face death
we get to face the grave and know that it does
not get the last word. That we are going to live
forever in God's kingdom. And that right now, we
are alive on the inside, and are here to tell that story. So the river takes what is
dead and brings it to life. It takes what is small
and all of a sudden, you look one day-- after you
been faithful for a while-- and you look up and you go, wow. Look what big
things that God has done using my little pebble. And then thirdly, it takes what
is toxic and it makes it fresh. Takes what is toxic,
and makes it fresh. Ezekiel was told,
did you see that? Did you see what happened there? That river as it was
heading toward the Dead Sea to bring things
from death to life, do you see the route it took? Do you see where
it passed through? And Joel tells us something
about the actual specific area that it touched on the way. Joel said, "It shall
come to pass in that day, the mountain shall
drop down new wine, and the hills shall
flow with milk, and all the rivers of Judah
shall flow with waters, and a fountain shall come
forth of the house of the Lord, and water the Valley"-- got to be real careful,
saying this next verse. But I'm an expert in saying
the wrong thing usually, so I'm being really careful-- "Shall water the
Valley of Shittim." So I'm reading that
I'm like that's interesting that God gave
us the actual specific name for this place, as
being water here. That trees are going to
grow up all alongside. Just like when you
fly in an airplane you see there's trees
all alongside rivers. Fresh water, there's
going to be fresh life. Fresh water, there's
going to be civilization. Fresh water, there's
going to be cities. Fresh water, that's
going to be activity. There's nourishment,
there's a river, there's life through
the Valley of Shittim. So I grabbed this Bible
encyclopedia off my shelf, and I look there's Shittim
and I find it there and it says two
entries under Shittim. That number one,
it is a proper noun for the lower portion of
the Kidron Valley, outside of Jerusalem on the
way to the Dead Sea. But then number two it
says it's a synonym, and became a synonym for
any of the wadi's in Israel. A wadi is a wasteland,
a wadi is barren, a wadi is any area that
there's no fertility. There's no growth, the
ground has nothing. In any area that any farmer
would say, pass that's no good, there's nothing here. How great is it that
that's just Shittim. They were like,
how about that one? Shittim. Want to buy that? It's got a great deal on it. Shittim. So a specific portion
of the Kidron Valley, and any area in
your life that is barren and can't produce life. So I start to think about what
I know of the Kidron Valley. And I remember that
Jesus walked through it with his disciples on his way
to the Garden of Gethsemane the night that he was betrayed. That he took them as they walked
and he pointed to the vine and said, I'm the vine. As he would tell this,
and they would sing, as they would walk in-- that was all through
the Kidron Valley. And then I also
remember what I know of what they used to Kidron
Valley for in Jesus's day. Or the lower portion of it,
which we would call Shittim. And that is that it
had become a landfill. Because it wasn't
desirable, because there was no water there, they used
it to throw their trash upon. So think about the last
time you were at a landfill, and you have to almost brace
yourself when you go to one. It's like we've got to go
to the landfill today, OK. Going to like get ready
for it psychologically. Because even to see the
reality of consumption, to see the reality of
things being thrown away. And the birds circling,
and the stench, that was the Kidron
Valley, that was Shittim. And in Jesus's day,
it was also used to throw the bodies
of anybody who died who had no family willing
to pay funeral expenses. The funeral for
indigents and criminals took place by them literally
tossing their remains on the Kidron Valley trash heap,
where it was burned constantly. And this became a synonym
for any area, any place where there's no life. Garbage. Trash. So now I think it just
hits a little bit different when the angel says to Ezekiel,
and by extension to all of us, take the area where you would
say there's no way anything desirable could come. There's no way something
good could come from here. And I will take my
river and I will send it through the Valley of Shittim,
and life will spring up. And you just watch
if, trees spring up. And you just watch
if there's not one day commerce and
joy and people and life where there was
only garbage before. And this is the
story of the gospel. This is what it means
to follow Jesus. You come to him and you watch
him bring death to your-- death inside of you to life. And now he says, now let's talk
about your Valleys of Shittim. And now let's talk
about the dysfunction. And now let's talk
about what's toxic, and it's going to become fresh. And we want to hold
those things back, and we want to say there's
no way that can happen. He says, you just
watch in that area. I'm talking about that area. I'm talking about that
part of your schedule. I'm talking about
that part of how you get when you're triggered. I'm talking about that
vice you turn back to again and again and again. And he says, there's
going to be trees there, there's going to be life there. And we go, you got
to be Shittim me. I just don't I don't see it. Come on, I worked hard on that. That was my great
breakthrough this week. Come on, you're welcome. [APPLAUSE] But that's the promise, guys. That's the journey
of following Jesus. That's Isaiah, 35, "That's the
wilderness and the wasteland"-- that's Kidron and
Shittim being glad. "The desert rejoicing and
blossoming like a rose. Blossoming abundantly
and rejoicing with joy, and with singing
glory of Lebanon given to it, excellence
of Carmel and Sharon." These are the desirable places. This is where you want
to buy a farmland. No, now all of a
sudden that blessing is on the Kidron, the
blessing of Carmel, the blessing of Sharon. The rose of the air,
it's blooming in Shittim. Why? Because they, "See
the glory of the Lord, the excellency of our God. So strengthen the weak hands,
make firm the feeble knees." "Tell the fearful hearted
among you, "Be strong and do not fear! Behold, your God shall come with
vengeance, for the recompense of God; He will save you. The eyes of the blind will be
opened, the ears of the deaf will be unstopped. The lame shall leap like a
deer, the tongue of the dumb shall sing. For waters shall burst
forth in the wilderness, and streams in the desert. Parched ground shall become
a pool, and the thirsty land springs of water; in the
habitation of jackals, where each lay, there shall be
grass with reeds and rushes. Come on our great lion King
is going to take the elephant graveyard, he's going to
take that barren land, and turn it into grassland. There's going to be
nourishment, hydration. I'm telling you, church. [APPLAUSE] And he always brings healing
to the toxic parts of our lives after he brings
salvation into our souls. The mistake with
religion is religion tries to deal with your Shittim
before your soul is saved. And you sit down in
the church and you hear that mad pastor tell
you about how you better quit smoking, and better
quit getting high, and better quit getting drunk. Because you know the religion
tries to do with our Shittim's. And God says, I always
work on the inside before I touch the outside. You don't have to do anything
to earn the life that Jesus wants to give you, you just
need to believe in him. But once he saves you,
he loves you too much to leave you toxic. So now he's going to start one
by one to work on that area. And that's why we keep coming
and keep worshipping, keep trusting, and keep
growing, keep seeking, keep stepping out in faith. Because we still got
some Shittim places, we still got some barren places. We still got some places
that there could be fruit, there's not fruit right now. There's still some
salty areas, there's still some bitter areas. There's still some
stuff from your past that you haven't dealt
with, that you've just locked up that you just
pretend it is not there. You still got some
withered hands that you have not
reached out to Jesus so He can make them whole. You still got some
dumb areas of your life that they could be
full of singing, but you're still holding
those things back. Anybody with me on saying I want
to move from toxic to fresh? I don't want to be
held back by my pain. I don't want to be held back
by the difficult things I've gone through. I want every
wasteland in my life to be turned into a
fountain of water. Jesus, send your river to me. Send it to this area. Send it to the broken places. Sit down, I got one
more thing to tell you. Actually, I got two
more things to tell you. But just right
now, I feel so much that God is opening our eyes
up to see that just because He saved us doesn't mean
that we're walking in the promise of salvation. There can be areas where
we sold ourselves short. And we're tolerating dry land,
when there could be roses. We're tolerating dysfunction,
when there could be health. We're still toxic, but
we're meant to be fresh. The fourth thing is that
God wants to move you from shame to celebration. From shame to celebration. I got to thinking
about how it would feel to be one of the
captives by the River Chebar. And to know that
you're in captivity, and to know that you
have no one to blame but yourself because
God warned you and didn't want you to go there. And that he was so
good that for 490 years he sent prophet after prophet,
he sent message after message to reinforce the message he
communicated at the beginning. And that is dwell on the land,
obey me, let me be your God. Don't be like the
people around you who idolize things in this world. Instead, trust me. Walk with me, walk by
faith, not by sight. If you'll do that
and you'll test me and be willing to give
up a day of the week and honor me and not
worship your career. But take a day when
there's more work to do, and more money to be made,
but instead say no I'm not going to-- I'm going to let the land rest. I'm going to rest and worship. If you'll just do that,
if you'll just not put other God's
before me, there's no one who can step
up against you. There's nothing
that can stop you. But if you turn
your back from me, eventually you'll be
taken into captivity. And for 490 years, they didn't
honor God with the Sabbath. They didn't honor God,
they turned to idols. They end up behaving just
like the world around them that they were meant
to be a light to. And so, as God
promised would happen, he deactivated the
force field which is what we do to ourselves
when we don't walk with him. And now enemies
were able to come in that could never have
taken us out otherwise, but we gave them a key. We brought the Trojan horse in. And so now all of a sudden
what are they doing? They're sitting down
by the Rivers of Chebar mourning the life that
they used to have. Mourning what their relationship
with God used to be like. And Psalm 137 captures
the feeling of shame that they're stuck in. When it says, "By the rivers
of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept when
we remembered Zion. We hung our harps upon the
willows in the midst of it. For there were those who carried
us away captive and they asked of us a song, and
those who plundered us requested mirth,
saying, "Sing us one of the songs of Zion!" But how shall we sing the
Lord's song in a foreign land?" They were buying
the lie of shame. That you are your
mistake, and that you only deserve your relationship
with God when you're having a good day spiritually. And so God brings
this river and one of the things it
has to overcome is their reluctance to worship God
when they've been doing bad. And this, we can easily
get caught up in as well. And God told me to ask
you what river have you hung your harp up next to? What tree, what willow tree have
you hung up your worship song on? Because you failed
God at some point, you did something
you knew better. And so now you identify
yourself only by your worst day. And you think that
God, up in heaven, maybe can tolerate you coming. But just doesn't want
you to talk much, and doesn't want
you to eat much. And yeah, you can come to
heaven, just please shut up and be quiet because do you
realize how much of a mess you've made that
he's had to redeem. As though that were
God's attitude. When the absolute
opposite is true. And that he is a
Father who loves you. And yes, your sins were so bad
that Jesus had to die for you. But you are so
loved that Jesus was glad to come and die for you. And for the joy set before
him he endured the cross, despising the shame. And you go what joy
was it that kept him going when they were
putting nails through his hands? What joy was it, Jesus, that
kept you going when a spear was puncturing your heart? Jesus what joy was
on your mind when they were pressing a crown
of thorns upon your head? And he would say, you
were the joy before me. Because you were lost
and I wanted to find you. And you were separated
from me by your sins, but I thought you like a
sheep that had gotten away. And I got you. And even though you are
still a knucklehead, and you still have
bad days, I love you in the midst of your
greatest failures. And so you don't need
to hang up your worship song because of your failures. That is the perfect occasion
to pick up your instruments. To take your harp up
from your willow trees, and to give God
your best praise. Why? Because you are not
defined by your worst day, you are defined by
Jesus's greatest day. And upon the occasion of you
remembering what you wish you could forget is the
greatest occasion to give your God
a song of praise. And we have to move from
shame over what we've done. That always causes us
to stand like, this and to think like this,
and to live like this. And instead, to turn into
a posture of celebration because of what God has done. And we are-- we're
bringing God no honor by rubbing our own noses
in the carpet of sins that have been forgiven. And as far as the
east is from the west, so far he has removed
us from what we've done. And when your God looks at
you, he only sees Jesus. When he looks at you, he
doesn't see what you can't help but remember. And that is the wrong
that you've done. And when we get this shame
to celebration switch, we're not feeling ashamed
and defined by shame. Which only takes
us to a dark place. Which only takes us
to relapse, which only causes us to live far. Which is what the
devil wants to happen. He wants you ending back
up spiraling back down when you live a life of
shame, but instead when you remember it's a celebration
over what Jesus has done. The Father was glad to run to me
and put a robe on my shoulders and a ring on my finger. And so I'm not standing
high and riding high in the saddle
because of me, I'm riding high in the
saddle because of Him. And if he can forgive
me, if he can love me, then I can love myself. If he can forgive me,
if he can love me, then I can live a
life of celebration because of how good my God is. And not be defined
by my sin, but be defined by my forgiveness
that he has given to me. And when we make that switch,
we become powerful in his hand. Judas lived the shame
narrative after failing Jesus. Where did that take him? Suicide. Peter also failed him
on that same night, and he was tempted to
live in that shame cycle. But Jesus grabbed him
said, do you love me? Then feed my sheep. Do you love me, Simon Peter? Yeah. Feed my sheep. Do you love me? Tend my lambs, take
care of my sheep. You see he was using
that which Peter was-- he saw it happening. He was wanting to get back
into that shame narrative, and Jesus lifted him up to
the celebration narrative. And then upon that
rock, upon that pebble, upon the same pebble that
failed him and denied him outside the temple. Is now going to stand
outside the temple and preach the gospel so
good that even someone like me could be forgiven. Even someone like
me can be restored. And so now we stand, not
hiding those things back, but now we're proud of them. Because they're badges
of honor of God's love. Now we stand upon
those same failures. Were not marked by
our shame, but we're going to live till our
last breath telling the story of celebration
of a God so good that he plans a party
even though we're the chiefs of sinners. And I think some of us, if we're
honest long enough and quiet long enough and we stop
distracting ourselves long enough, we'll realize
that we need that river to touch some of our shame. And to touch some of
those guilt's, and some of those things that
we're haunted by. And allow Him to cause that
river to come rushing in. Doing what Isaiah 61
says, it can happen. When the river touches,
"Instead of shame and dishonor, you will enjoy a
double share of honor. You will possess a double
portion of prosperity in your land, and everlasting
joy will be yours." [WOOING] I like it, I mean that's
exactly how I was feeling. I'm glad that there
was some of that right there in there
for you as well. I mean can we just
say thank you to God. That we're free from shame. And that we will never, as
we whisper with our King, hear him saying, shame on you. He always says shame off you. For the shame was on my son,
and now you're restored. The shame was on my son
and now you're forgiven. And now you're loved,
and you can never do anything to lose his love. Fifthly, and we're done. Worship team, come on up here. We're going to close
this message out, and we're going to
continue it next week. The river keeps going, right. The river goes from
shallow to deep. And I love this because
it started with a trickle and it ended up as a flood. But in between he says
it was at my ankles, and then it was at my knees,
and then it was at my hips, and then it was five
feet high and rising. I had to swim across, it
was it was too tall for me. And this is what it is like
to grow in your relationship with Jesus. There's more to discover. There is more to explore. There's more that you're
even going to find, that you didn't realize that
was there inside of you, that he put there at salvation. There's more--
yeah, I don't care if you've read this Bible
from cover to cover-- there's more for you to find. "Oh," Paul said, in Romans
chapter 11, verse 33, "Oh, the depths of the
riches is full of the wisdom and knowledge of God! Oh how unsearchable
are His judgments and His ways past finding out!" There is always more to learn. There's always more to see. There's always more to do. And the way that you move
best from ankles to knees, from knees to hips,
because some of you today are at a place where
you're in the ankle stage. And that's OK, you
just got to keep going, got to keep discovering,
got to keep learning. And some of you are at the hips,
and some of you it's overhead. And some of you, now you
need to go from overhead to really discover what's life. And the way for you to keep
getting deeper and deeper and deeper into
these things that God wants for you for the
river, is to let it flow from you to other people. And that's why he
ends, I believe with this picture of
fisherman drying their nets. Where there was nothing,
no fish can live there. Now all of a sudden fishermen
are drying their nets. Why? Because they spent
all day fishing. And so what do we have? We have this idea of
a river coming to us, and taking us from death to
life, and from toxic to fresh. But the way we keep going
into the depths of all the he has for us is we don't
let it stop with us. We let it flow to other people. We never dam up God's blessings. We never shift into a
mode of spirituality that's all about us. We keep thinking, God who
have you put me in front of? Who have you given me access to? Who in the place where I
work needs to know you? Who can I invite to my home,
and as I open a bottle of wine and cook a dinner for them, can
tell them the goodness of God in my life? Who can I entertain
and show love to? Who can I give hospitality to? Who can I tell about what
God has done in my story? Who can I influence? Who can I impact? Who can I be a part
of you fishing for? Did not Jesus say, I will send
you out as fishers of men? And in every different river,
in every different company, at every different level,
there are different people that we're meant to impact. And as we continue to
have that heart that says, freely I've been given so
freely I'm going to give. There is no limit to what God
can do through one person who God's river has touched. Where did we begin? Lindisfarne, that's right. Lindisfarne. When I went there, the tour
guide said something peculiar, he said welcome to Holy Island. And at first I was like
crap, we took a wrong turn. We're not Lindisfarne,
we're at Holy Island. And he said, also
known as Lindisfarne. Holy Island? He said yeah, this island
has a rich connection to Christianity in England. From here, he said,
the gospel rang out all over the island of England. Holy Island? I was like Holy Island, Batman. That's awesome. And he began to tell us
the story of a monk, named Aiden from Ireland. Lived in a monastery
in Iona 635 AD, when King Oswald of
Northumbria, which is what we would
call England today. He heard about the revival that
was breaking out in Ireland, and the impact when people knew
Jesus how different they lived. And how art and business--
all these things would just flourish. If you think about what happens
when someone's got the creator living inside of them. What they're opened up to. To the moon, right. So he asked for a
monk to come down from this monastery
at Iona to preach. And they said a
monk, named Carmen, this monk spent a couple
of days talking to Oswald and trying to do his
best to win the-- he called them pagans-- over to Jesus. And he came back
to the monastery and reported it was
a complete failure because it didn't work at all. I tried to tell
them about Jesus. Those people-- I can't
do nothing for them. They're savages. He said, this direct quote,
"They're barbarians." And Anglo-Saxon paganism had
taken its heart in Northumbria, indeed. Gone were the days of
Constantine's Christian empire. And so they said,
well it didn't work. And we're going right back
to Oswald, it didn't work. But one monk raised
his hand, named Aiden. Aiden raised his
hand and said, maybe the problem with you trying
to preach the gospel to them begins with you describing
them as barbarians. Like I'm not an expert. I'm not a smart man, Jennie. But I know this, that I wouldn't
want to be called a barbarian. And so maybe it
wasn't your message that was the problem,
maybe it was your spirit. Maybe it was your tone. Maybe it was that you
didn't have any kindness or love for these people. Did you have to get off your
high horse long enough to get to know anybody? And everybody at the
table instantly went, well we know who to send. Carmen you're out,
Aiden you're on. So they sent Aiden
to Oswald's court. And he says, I'm here to get
to know you guys, to love you. Thank you for the
opportunity and the honor. Oswald said what do you need? What do you want? He said, well I would love to
build a training school where I could raise up people
to preach the gospel. Because I don't just want to
reach one part of Northumbria, I would love to see everybody
here get to hear the gospel. He said pick anywhere you want. So Aiden scoured the area and
where he chose, of all places, was an island
called Lindisfarne. And he liked it because of
the way the water came in, and the water came out,
and the water came in, and the water came out. He said all the
students are going to have enormous
periods of every day where they can't go anywhere. And then I want
there to be, he said, the symbolic moment
when the water recedes. And now all of a sudden,
these commissioned people can walk this road that
wasn't there before. And they could take this
gospel all over England. And that's exactly what he did. There on Lindisfarne,
Holy Island, Aiden opens up what is in our
heart for Fresh Life leadership college. That is to say, young
people who come in and spend a season serving
God and knowing God. But it is always
meant to go out. It's always meant to be
about touching other places. It's always meant to be-- we
can't keep it in Kalispell, we got to go to Billings,
we got to go to Whitefish, we got to touch to Portland, we
got to get to Salt Lake City. Come out to other
cities and other places. We must go. We can't just say we've
been given death to life. We have to be a part of
this message being preached, this message going out. And so every time
the waters receded, there was a chance
for someone else to go walk this road
that wasn't there before. And to take this message
they had been given, and to go somewhere else. And within 30 years
of Aiden's school being opened on Holy
Island 75% of England had converted to Christ. And the whole
Anglo-Saxon paganism was basically swept
off the island. And from that tiny little
1,000 acre piece of land, people ended up going
out telling the gospel and it rang out
all over the world. So don't you tell me God
can't use one person. And what I love about
Aiden, is if you look into-- they call him Saint Aiden
now of Lindisfarne-- is that he was a
person who was humble. He was a person who
cared for the poor. He was a person always
trying to help people. In fact, one time
he got in trouble. He gave away King Oswald's
horse without asking King Oswald because he heard a
family needed it. That was just how
there was always this message that rang out
with help that physical things needed to be done to. You couldn't just tell
someone about Jesus, but if they were hungry
leave them hungry. He wanted to clothe the naked,
he wanted to feed the hungry, he wanted a bed
for the homeless. And church, this is how
we change the world. We have the gospel of
Jesus on our tongue, but we have kindness in a
sweet spirit in our lives. And we are willing to be
the hands and feet of Jesus. Come on, the water's
rising a little bit. We're believing it's
rising from ankles to knees, from knees to hips,
from hips it's getting taller now. Come on, it's five
feet and rising up. There's still more in
front of us right now. We're believing a
river is going out. We're believing God has
something new for us. Come on, let's cry out for God
to do all that he has for us.
