SPEAKER_00: We are in a sermon series if you're just new to us.
SPEAKER_00: The sermon series this month is thinking, praying, and living a missional life.
SPEAKER_00: And so we read a passage that speaks about that from Ezekiel chapter 47.
SPEAKER_00: Then he brought me back to the door of the temple, and behold, water was issuing from below the threshold of the temple, toward the east, for the temple faced east.
SPEAKER_00: The water was flowing down from below the south end of the threshold of the temple, south of the altar.
SPEAKER_00: Then he brought me out by the way of the north gate and led me around on the outside to the outer gate that faces toward the east.
SPEAKER_00: And behold, the water was trickling out on the south side.
SPEAKER_00: Going on eastward with a measuring line in his hand, the man measured a thousand cubits, and then led me through the water, and it was ankle deep.
SPEAKER_00: Again he measured a thousand and led me through the water, and it was knee deep.
SPEAKER_00: Again he measured a thousand and led me through the water, and it was waist deep.
SPEAKER_00: Again he measured a thousand, and it was a river that I could not pass through, for the water had risen.
SPEAKER_00: It was deep enough to swim in, a river that could not be passed through.
SPEAKER_00: And he said to me, Son of man, have you seen this?
SPEAKER_00: Then he led me back to the bank of the river.
SPEAKER_00: As I went back, I saw on the bank of the river very many trees on the one side and on the other.
SPEAKER_00: And he said to me, This water flows toward the eastern region and goes down into the Araba and enters the sea.
SPEAKER_00: When the water flows into the sea, the water will become fresh.
SPEAKER_00: And wherever the river goes, every living creature that swarms will live.
SPEAKER_00: And there will be many, very many fish, for this water goes there that the waters of the sea may become fresh.
SPEAKER_00: So everything will live where the river goes.
SPEAKER_00: Fishermen will stand beside the sea.
SPEAKER_00: From Engedi to Engelem, it will be a place for the spreading of nets.
SPEAKER_00: Its fish will be of very many kinds, like the fish of the great sea, but its swamps and marshes will not become fresh.
SPEAKER_00: They are to be left for salt.
SPEAKER_00: And on the banks on both sides of the river there will be grow all kinds of trees for food.
SPEAKER_00: Their leaves will not wither, nor their fruit fail, but they will bear fresh fruit every month, because the water for them flows from the sanctuary.
SPEAKER_00: Their fruit will be for food, and their leaves for healing.
SPEAKER_00: This is the word of God.
SPEAKER_00: So we pray that there will be spiritual vitality and freshness and healing in our hearts this morning as we look into your word.
SPEAKER_00: As we are led by your Spirit, we pray in Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: As I mentioned earlier this morning at the banquet last night, we talked about the river.
SPEAKER_00: Where the river flows, everything lives.
SPEAKER_00: That is a powerful statement that God says in his word.
SPEAKER_00: But where the river doesn't flow, things are barren, things are dry, things are hard, things die where there's no water, where there's no life.
SPEAKER_00: You know, we could say that this is certainly true of those who have not come to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: We could say that this is certainly true for all who have not yet professed the name of Christ, who are not followers of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: But I've been a pastor long enough to know, and I've been a man long enough to know that sometimes this speaks to me and my spiritual dryness, and this speaks to you in your spiritual dryness.
SPEAKER_00: We know, don't we?
SPEAKER_00: We know.
SPEAKER_00: That the river's not always flowing in us, and the river's not always flowing through us.
SPEAKER_00: What about that?
SPEAKER_00: What does Jesus have to say about that?
SPEAKER_00: What did he give Ezekiel in the Old Testament about that?
SPEAKER_00: The river.
SPEAKER_00: The angel takes Ezekiel on one more tour.
SPEAKER_00: Four major prophecies in this book, and this book is far too long, and there's far too much complexity and depth to it for us to do anything but touch on it.
SPEAKER_00: But what about this prophecy, this vision that the angel of the Lord gave Ezekiel one more tour of the new temple?
SPEAKER_00: Ezekiel in this vision stands in the inner court of the temple.
SPEAKER_00: And the angel has a measuring stick.
SPEAKER_00: Think of a big measuring stick.
SPEAKER_00: And he points out that the water is but a trickle under the temple threshold.
SPEAKER_00: And put yourself perhaps in Ezekiel's shoes.
SPEAKER_00: Why is he showing me this?
SPEAKER_00: The temple of all places, representing the presence of God.
SPEAKER_00: But there was a problem because Ezekiel is not in Jerusalem where he was raised.
SPEAKER_00: He, like Daniel, we saw two weeks ago, is now living in a pagan country called Babylon.
SPEAKER_00: And because there were not rivers of living water flowing to and through the people of God in Daniel's time and Ezekiel's time, God punished his people.
SPEAKER_00: And God moved his people out of their homeland for centuries and moved them to a faraway country.
SPEAKER_00: They were very aware that they were very far from God, many of them.
SPEAKER_00: You know, if you're far from God, it's a good thing to know that.
SPEAKER_00: Not everybody knows that.
SPEAKER_00: They may feel it, but if your heart is far from God, it's good for you to know that.
SPEAKER_00: Because you can't do anything about it until you acknowledge that.
SPEAKER_00: By taking that measuring stick and looking at this little trickle under the temple threshold, Ezekiel was getting a very vivid image of the spiritual climate of the people of God for many years.
SPEAKER_00: And then the angel took him on a tour of the river.
SPEAKER_00: He took him to the outer gate as the water got deeper.
SPEAKER_00: It goes from ankle deep and now it's knee deep.
SPEAKER_00: And then he takes him further down the river, and now it's waist deep.
SPEAKER_00: And he keeps taking them down.
SPEAKER_00: And this river current is picking up force.
SPEAKER_00: And then he takes him further.
SPEAKER_00: And he takes him to the part of the river that he couldn't cross.
SPEAKER_00: It was just too deep.
SPEAKER_00: The river was too powerful.
SPEAKER_00: And the angel said to him, I'll tell you where this river is going to go.
SPEAKER_00: This river is going to go all the way to the Dead Sea.
SPEAKER_00: And eventually it's going to make the things that are dead come alive.
SPEAKER_00: And he points out on this tour of the river, he says, Look along the banks of the river where the river flows.
SPEAKER_00: Do you see the trees?
SPEAKER_00: The green trees lining up the banks of the river.
SPEAKER_00: Do you know why those trees are green?
SPEAKER_00: Do you know why all those beautiful flowers are along the banks?
SPEAKER_00: Do you know why you see all the life?
SPEAKER_00: Because that's where the river flows.
SPEAKER_00: Wherever the river flows, everything lives.
SPEAKER_00: If you're not a follower of Christ, if you're not following Christ, the place to begin is to acknowledge that you don't have that water.
SPEAKER_00: Noah, nobody has that water, that life-giving power, but Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And that's where it begins.
SPEAKER_00: Ezekiel understood that.
SPEAKER_00: What's the message about this river?
SPEAKER_00: Well, we read it earlier this morning in the worship service.
SPEAKER_00: That's why we read it.
SPEAKER_00: On the great day of the feast, the last day of the feast in Jerusalem, near the end of his ministry, Jesus stands up, and typically rabbis did not stand up and cry out.
SPEAKER_00: Typically, it was that was considered uncool.
SPEAKER_00: If you were a rabbi, if you were a learned teacher of the scriptures, you sat and you didn't shout out.
SPEAKER_00: If people wanted to benefit from your wisdom as a learned rabbi, you would just probably speak like this, and other people, they would see the value of your great learning, and they would come and they would sit and they would listen, maybe ask questions.
SPEAKER_00: Why did Jesus not do that?
SPEAKER_00: Let's go back to the text.
SPEAKER_00: On the last day of the feast, the great day, that Jesus stood up and he cried out.
SPEAKER_00: Why do you think he cried out?
SPEAKER_00: Which was uncharacteristic of him in many of his teachings.
SPEAKER_00: He cried out because he knew that people were dying all around him.
SPEAKER_00: He cried out because he knew that there were many people that were listening to him that were dying inside.
SPEAKER_00: They were not connected to the vine.
SPEAKER_00: They were trying to be the vine.
SPEAKER_00: You know, none of us are called to be the vine.
SPEAKER_00: There's only one vine in the Bible, and that's Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: We are called to be branches that are in the vine.
SPEAKER_00: And if we are the branches in the vine, we will bear fruit.
SPEAKER_00: It just goes hand in hand.
SPEAKER_00: We talked last night at the banquet.
SPEAKER_00: Healthy organisms grow and reproduce and multiply.
SPEAKER_00: That is true biologically, but it's also true spiritually.
SPEAKER_00: Any healthy organism where Jesus lives by the Spirit indwelling us will flourish.
SPEAKER_00: We'll have life and will be life-giving Christ in us and Christ through us.
SPEAKER_00: Because wherever the river flows, everything lives.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus knew that people were drying up and dying all around him.
SPEAKER_00: That's why he stood up and cried out, If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink.
SPEAKER_00: And do you know the powerful word of the powerful king is still today?
SPEAKER_00: How could I preach a sermon without raising the question of Jesus?
SPEAKER_00: Is anyone here thirsty this morning?
SPEAKER_00: That's a wide range.
SPEAKER_00: You may be here this morning and you may not know anything about what I've said so far.
SPEAKER_00: You may not know that the Son of God came to this earth to give living water to people who were spiritually dead.
SPEAKER_00: Dry?
SPEAKER_00: Do you know he can do that?
SPEAKER_00: He's been doing it for millennia.
SPEAKER_00: But it starts with acknowledging our thirst.
SPEAKER_00: If you don't acknowledge your thirst, you're not going to find help.
SPEAKER_00: And so I repeat the question is anyone here this morning thirsty?
SPEAKER_00: You might say, well, for what?
SPEAKER_00: How about for life, spiritual life?
SPEAKER_00: How about for peace?
SPEAKER_00: Are you looking for peace and you don't have peace?
SPEAKER_00: And you know you don't have peace.
SPEAKER_00: You know your anxiety is running amok.
SPEAKER_00: You know that your anxiety keeps you up at night.
SPEAKER_00: You know that your anxiety is very distracting and debilitating in your waking hours.
SPEAKER_00: If anyone is thirsty, Jesus says, I'm not calling you to a philosophy.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not calling you to religion.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not calling you to a long set of do's and don'ts.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus calls people who are thirsty to himself.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus says, let him come to me and drink.
SPEAKER_00: You can drink this morning.
SPEAKER_00: If you're in need of forgiveness, Jesus can forgive you this morning.
SPEAKER_00: If you're in need of peace, Jesus can give you peace this morning.
SPEAKER_00: If you're in need of love, you're really in need of love, of being loved.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus says, You come to me and I will love you.
SPEAKER_00: I will receive you.
SPEAKER_00: Whoever believes in me, as the scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.
SPEAKER_00: Did you note that word, that universal word, whoever?
SPEAKER_00: I think that includes you.
SPEAKER_00: I know it includes me.
SPEAKER_00: There have been times in my life where I have been spiritually dry.
SPEAKER_00: There have been times in my life where I have known that I felt like I was kind of going through the motions.
SPEAKER_00: There are times in my life where I have preached from a dry heart.
SPEAKER_00: Let me tell you, for those of you that will never do that, that's not much fun.
SPEAKER_00: The preacher can do that.
SPEAKER_00: The preacher can preach a sermon that is theologically correct, doctrinally sound, and even interesting to listen to, but that doesn't mean that he's got rivers of living water flowing in him and through him.
SPEAKER_00: This past week I had the privilege with Pastor Josh and Pastor Mike to go to a conference on the praying church.
SPEAKER_00: You know the book you're all reading?
SPEAKER_00: A Praying Church by Paul Miller?
SPEAKER_00: Paul was speaking.
SPEAKER_00: Paul was speaking about the book.
SPEAKER_00: And I was just reminded in a very, very compelling way how much my life was changed by Paul's dad, Jack Miller.
SPEAKER_00: I asked myself, what would my life look like?
SPEAKER_00: What would my ministry look like if God had not used Jack to really open up the scriptures to me in a new way?
SPEAKER_00: To open up the gospel to me in a new way.
SPEAKER_00: It changed my heart.
SPEAKER_00: It changed my life.
SPEAKER_00: I wish I could say that since that time, 30 some years ago, I wish I could say that my heart never went dry again.
SPEAKER_00: But you know better than that.
SPEAKER_00: None of us are hooked up to some water source where the water just pours constantly and automatically.
SPEAKER_00: It just doesn't work that way.
SPEAKER_00: For good reasons.
SPEAKER_00: If that were the case, you wouldn't need a real relationship with Jesus, would you?
SPEAKER_00: If you just were hooked up to this water source and it just flowed automatically, you wouldn't, we wouldn't need Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: That's why you're not hooked up in that way.
SPEAKER_00: He says, I want to give you more than power.
SPEAKER_00: I want to give you a relationship with the living God.
SPEAKER_00: I want you, I want you to see that you can't do anything without me.
SPEAKER_00: I want you to see that only in me will you find satisfaction.
SPEAKER_00: Only in me will you find forgiveness.
SPEAKER_00: Only in me will you find hope and purpose in your life.
SPEAKER_00: Aren't you tired?
SPEAKER_00: Aren't you worn out trying to find it in other places?
SPEAKER_00: When I met Jack Miller, I was aware of my thirst and my dryness.
SPEAKER_00: I'd been a pastor long enough and had been relatively successful enough that I got a call from this church to come.
SPEAKER_00: The Lord had done some things in our ministry, but that's no guarantee.
SPEAKER_00: You can't live off of your past, Christian.
SPEAKER_00: You can't live off of the living water that you maybe enjoyed ten years ago, one year ago.
SPEAKER_00: That's not what Jesus is saying in this passage, is it?
SPEAKER_00: Let's do a little bit more deeper dive in the language, the grammar.
SPEAKER_00: That is John 7.
SPEAKER_00: Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.
SPEAKER_00: Now this he said about the Spirit, the Holy Spirit, whom those who believed in him were to receive.
SPEAKER_00: For as yet the Spirit had not been given, because Jesus had not yet been glorified.
SPEAKER_00: Whoever believes in me, that's a present tense in the Greek.
SPEAKER_00: Continual.
SPEAKER_00: Continually, present tense.
SPEAKER_00: And as Jack taught me, there was a point in his life, even after he was a pastor for many years and he was a professor at a seminary.
SPEAKER_00: He said, I'd failed to see, I had failed to realize the most important point of this promise from Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: He said, I had always known, looking back that this was true, looking back to Pentecost.
SPEAKER_00: At Pentecost, it was clear rivers of living water were coming by the filling of the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: And I knew future, looking forward, that the day was going to come when that would be true.
SPEAKER_00: Revelation chapter 22, the last book in the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: Remember, we started this worship service looking at Genesis chapter 2.
SPEAKER_00: And what was there in that garden?
SPEAKER_00: A river.
SPEAKER_00: Revelation chapter 22.
SPEAKER_00: Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle of the street of the city.
SPEAKER_00: Also on either side of the river, the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month.
SPEAKER_00: Man, I want that kind of life.
SPEAKER_00: Yielding fruit each month.
SPEAKER_00: The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.
SPEAKER_00: There's so much we can unpack here, but just notice that the Bible starts with the river and the Bible closes with the river and the new heavens and the new earth.
SPEAKER_00: God loves rivers.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is the Lord of the river.
SPEAKER_00: And he wants you and me to drink of those rivers of living water.
SPEAKER_00: And we can't get it anywhere else.
SPEAKER_00: No matter how hard we try to work it up ourselves.
SPEAKER_00: Whoever believes in me, present tense.
SPEAKER_00: And by the work of the Holy Spirit right now, you can believe and be filled with the Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: You see, when you receive and rest and surrender to the Spirit, you don't go home and do your spiritual workout.
SPEAKER_00: This is not like spiritual karate where you work your way up, you know, from the lowest belt to the black belt.
SPEAKER_00: I have found that a lot of Christians think that.
SPEAKER_00: A lot of Christians think that you just have to, it takes, it takes a lifetime, you just have to work really hard.
SPEAKER_00: You got to do your homework.
SPEAKER_00: And eventually you just learn more and more Bible, and you live a whole Your life mostly because you think you know your Bible.
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't work that way.
SPEAKER_00: You're not here to work yourself up to a spiritual black belt.
SPEAKER_00: You're here because Jesus wants to give you living water.
SPEAKER_00: And I have found in my own life, when he gives me living water, the life comes instantaneously.
SPEAKER_00: Because the river is flowing from Jesus, the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: That's the way it works, my friends.
SPEAKER_00: And so what Jack Miller discovered was this verse, this promise isn't just looking back to Pentecost, it's not just looking forward to the new heavens and the new earth.
SPEAKER_00: This promise is for now.
SPEAKER_00: Whoever believes on me now, stop trying to find life.
SPEAKER_00: Stop trying to create a life of fulfillment on your own on this side.
SPEAKER_00: You never will.
SPEAKER_00: If you think you're getting it, the bottom's gonna fall out on you.
SPEAKER_00: It can't last.
SPEAKER_00: It's not real living water.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, the fact.
SPEAKER_00: These rivers of living water signified life-giving power provided from Jesus alone to flow in us and just flow through us.
SPEAKER_00: Power for holy living, power for witnessing present tense, habitually, continuously present activity.
SPEAKER_00: The abundance of the Spirit is for those who are believing now and who believe ongoing.
SPEAKER_00: But because we remember the confession of sin earlier this service?
SPEAKER_00: Because of our flesh, sometimes the living water, the hose, if you will, gets kinked up, doesn't it?
SPEAKER_00: The hose gets kinked up.
SPEAKER_00: And there's no water flowing, there's no river.
SPEAKER_00: And you know what that feels like, just like I do.
SPEAKER_00: That's when we become critical.
SPEAKER_00: That's when we become judgmental.
SPEAKER_00: That's when we gossip.
SPEAKER_00: That's when we are kind of hopeless.
SPEAKER_00: That's when we get focused on what we do for Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: You didn't see that one coming?
SPEAKER_00: We get so focused on what we're going to do for Jesus that we miss the most important step of just being with Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus, speak into my heart.
SPEAKER_00: What is it that you would show me today?
SPEAKER_00: What is it that I'm missing because I'm not believing?
SPEAKER_00: I'm not resting in you, and I'm not receiving rivers of living water.
SPEAKER_00: You can do church that way, you can do the Christian life that way, but it's no way to live.
SPEAKER_00: Do you believe Jesus?
SPEAKER_00: I'm just going to pause for a moment.
SPEAKER_00: I don't think you need to hear my voice right now.
SPEAKER_00: Do you hear Jesus speaking through his word?
SPEAKER_00: I'm just going to read it one more time.
SPEAKER_00: Whoever believes in me, as the scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.
SPEAKER_00: Can we just take a moment of silence right now?
SPEAKER_00: Can we talk to Jesus?
SPEAKER_00: He's omnipotent.
SPEAKER_00: He's able to hear every voice, every heart.
SPEAKER_00: If you're dry, would you tell him about that?
SPEAKER_00: Jesus, we are trying to listen, but we need your Holy Spirit to hear you.
SPEAKER_00: Nobody here can hear you without the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: Holy Spirit, would you fall fresh?
SPEAKER_00: Would you fall fresh on us among us now?
SPEAKER_00: Only you can take us to Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Only you can show us the things that are dry within us.
SPEAKER_00: For some of us, it might be our marriage.
SPEAKER_00: For some of us, we might feel dry because we're just worn out by poor health.
SPEAKER_00: We may be dry because we've been so religious.
SPEAKER_00: We've missed Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: We've been so busy.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, you know.
SPEAKER_00: You know us all.
SPEAKER_00: You created us all.
SPEAKER_00: Would you speak to each heart here this morning?
SPEAKER_00: Would you give us faith to believe that if we come to you, Jesus, that rivers of living water will flow in us and will flow through us.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, we want those rivers of living water to flow through this church, through this city, into this world that you gave.
SPEAKER_00: Oh Jesus, we we bow before you.
SPEAKER_00: We come in your name.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: Where the river flows, everything will live.
SPEAKER_00: That river went deeper and deeper as it descended eastwards toward the mountains, toward the Dead Sea.
SPEAKER_00: That river which started in the Garden of Eden, runs all the way through the new covenant into the new heavens and the new earth.
SPEAKER_00: If you're a follower of Jesus Christ, one day you will see that.
SPEAKER_00: One day you will participate in that.
SPEAKER_00: This is not fantasy.
SPEAKER_00: This is reality.
SPEAKER_00: One day, you and I, if we are followers and believers in Jesus Christ, will see the rushing current of God's river and everything will live.
SPEAKER_00: There will be no dead parts in you.
SPEAKER_00: We will be surrounded by vegetation life on the banks of the river.
SPEAKER_00: But we've got to be in the river.
SPEAKER_00: I'm here to testify to you today that Jesus met me in my dryness more than once.
SPEAKER_00: And the Holy Spirit opened my mind and my heart to receive his life-giving power.
SPEAKER_00: I still need to do that.
SPEAKER_00: But all how I love what the river can do in my life.
SPEAKER_00: What would the river do in your life?
SPEAKER_00: May Jesus meet you this morning.
SPEAKER_00: May Jesus give you what you need this morning.
SPEAKER_00: May He be glorified.
SPEAKER_00: May we be changed.
SPEAKER_00: May we find new power to love people.
SPEAKER_00: Do you struggle loving people?
SPEAKER_00: May we have new power to forgive people.
SPEAKER_00: Do you struggle forgiving people?
SPEAKER_00: May we have new peace.
SPEAKER_00: May we have joy.
SPEAKER_00: May we start sharing the good news.
SPEAKER_00: That's what people in the river do.
SPEAKER_00: They share this good news and we talk about the healing for the nations and the leaves.
SPEAKER_00: Because it's life.
SPEAKER_00: One of the things that we're praying for is that these chairs will all be filled, not so that we can be proud of our church growth, but because there are so many more people in this city that need to be in this river.
SPEAKER_00: We heard testimonies last night at the banquet.
SPEAKER_00: Testimonies of people who have been saved by the power of the gospel through this church ministry this year, people who have been renewed and revived through the power of the gospel this year.
SPEAKER_00: We want to see these chairs filled so that the Lord of the river will give life and give power to people who don't know what that is, who will join us one day in the new heavens and the new earth.
SPEAKER_00: But the river has to flow in us before it can flow through us.
SPEAKER_00: So Lord, let the river flow through us.
SPEAKER_00: Oh Lord Jesus, let it flow in us.
SPEAKER_00: We yield, we submit now by the work of your spirit to anything and everything that would block that beautiful rushing current of your love.
SPEAKER_00: We yield to you.
SPEAKER_00: In the name of Jesus, we come.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.