Mark Medley: I'm gonna start in Proverbs chapter 11.
Mark Medley: So if you want to turn there, that's great.
Mark Medley: We're gonna start in the middle of the of the Bible today, but we're gonna go all over the Bible.
Mark Medley: The theme of this message today is all through the whole Bible.
Mark Medley: It's everywhere.
Mark Medley: So are you okay with a lot of scripture this morning?
Mark Medley: Great.
Mark Medley: By the way, I I have compiled a list of books that have been really helpful in my Christian life.
Mark Medley: And um I want to make that available to you guys if you if you want it.
Mark Medley: You can message me or message the office and we can get that to you.
Mark Medley: Just look just books that I have read through the years that have made me a stronger Christian.
Mark Medley: And um it's pretty simple.
Mark Medley: There's 66 of them.
Mark Medley: And um there's 37 in the Old Testament, and there's 29 in the New Testament.
Mark Medley: And these books, I promise you, if you read these books, you can do it in about a year.
Mark Medley: If you read these books, it will make you a better Christian, I promise you.
Mark Medley: So if you want that, you can you can get that.
Mark Medley: So okay, chapter 11 of Proverbs.
Mark Medley: Wisdom of Solomon.
Mark Medley: Most likely Solomon wrote this.
Mark Medley: The wisest man who ever lived.
Mark Medley: So we should we should hear this, right?
Mark Medley: Let's hear his words.
Mark Medley: One gives freely, yet grows all the richer.
Mark Medley: Another withholds what he should give and only suffers want.
Mark Medley: A generous man will prosper.
Mark Medley: He who refreshes others will himself be refreshed.
Mark Medley: That's the wisdom of the Word of God.
Mark Medley: So I'm going to go from there to the very first part of the Word of God, right after, right after creation, in Genesis chapter 2, verses 9 and 10.
Mark Medley: And let's read this.
Mark Medley: And out of the ground the Lord God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food.
Mark Medley: The tree of life was in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge and of good and evil.
Mark Medley: A river flowed out of Eden to water the garden.
Mark Medley: And there it divided and became four rivers.
Mark Medley: So in the beginning, in God's paradise, one river multiplying into four rivers, flowing outward to the surrounding lands.
Mark Medley: And we're going to go from the front all the way to the very back of the book, okay?
Mark Medley: The very last chapter, chapter 22 of the book of Revelation, verses 1 and 2.
Mark Medley: And the angel showed me a river of water, 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.
Mark Medley: Also, on either side of the river, the tree of life, with the twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month, and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.
Mark Medley: So at the end of the book, when all is restored, God is causing all things to flourish by a river that flows from underneath the throne of God, blessing the nations.
Mark Medley: Okay, so rivers are really important in the Bible.
Mark Medley: So you can, in fact, you see this image of a river, if you will, flowing through all of Scripture.
Mark Medley: It's everywhere.
Mark Medley: We're going to be in maybe uh maybe 10 or 12 of those books, those 66 books during this sermon.
Mark Medley: We're going to refer to or read from a bunch of it.
Mark Medley: And you're going to see this river motif is all through the Bible.
Mark Medley: And God reveals part of his plan for mankind through this metaphor of a river.
Mark Medley: And in the Bible, rivers signify life, they signify healing.
Mark Medley: They signify spiritual nourishment and divine presence and comfort and a place of cleansing and a fresh start.
Mark Medley: A line of demarcation from the past and the present and the future, rather.
Mark Medley: A line where the past ends and the future begins and destiny is changed.
Mark Medley: This is all this is in that symbolism of a river.
Mark Medley: And in Ezekiel, we won't read it, but in Ezekiel chapter 47, the prophet sees a river flowing out from the temple of God.
Mark Medley: And the water is flowing, and everywhere the water flows, it flourishes.
Mark Medley: It's just teeming with life.
Mark Medley: There's many fishes, it says, many fish.
Mark Medley: And it's caused the lands all around it to flourish.
Mark Medley: So from the garden of God's perfection, a river.
Mark Medley: From the throne where God reigns in the inn, a river.
Mark Medley: From the temple, this picture in Ezekiel, which is the uh significance of the temple, is it's God's presence on earth flows a river.
Mark Medley: And when we look at the Gospels, in John chapter 7, Jesus said that out of every believer flows a river.
Mark Medley: There's a river from out of you.
Mark Medley: If anyone thirsts, Jesus said, Let him come to me and drink.
Mark Medley: Whoever believes in me, as scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.
Mark Medley: And this he said concerning the Spirit of God.
Mark Medley: Out of us comes this river.
Mark Medley: It's not for us, it's out of us, it's for others.
Mark Medley: So what do we know about rivers?
Mark Medley: Rivers always are flowing out, but they're constantly replenished.
Mark Medley: And there's life all around a river.
Mark Medley: And the flow keeps the water cleaner, and so it's able to sustain life.
Mark Medley: Rivers are always taking their blessing further downstream.
Mark Medley: They're taking it to other places.
Mark Medley: And so by the rivers, we find centers of life.
Mark Medley: We see cities, we see communities all around the river.
Mark Medley: Why do they build cities on the river?
Mark Medley: Because there's life there.
Mark Medley: There's life and there's transportation, there's movement, there's prosperity, and they affect people.
Mark Medley: I mean, the river here affects people in the next county, in the next state, and sometimes it in the next country.
Mark Medley: But Ezekiel in chapter 47 also wrote of a different kind of a body of water.
Mark Medley: One that doesn't flow out, one that holds itself, its water in, and we could call it a bog.
Mark Medley: You know what a bog is?
Mark Medley: Yeah, it looks more like this.
Mark Medley: So a body that's an enclosed body of water.
Mark Medley: It is stagnant, it's dirty water, because there's no flow outward, so it's it's just not healthy.
Mark Medley: When you're in a bog, the water is murky, which means you you don't have any clear vision.
Mark Medley: There's layers of decayed plant debris on the ground, so the floor of it is not solid and it's too soft to support a body.
Mark Medley: If you go into a bog, you go into a bog, you sink, you get stuck.
Mark Medley: That's a bog.
Mark Medley: And I was with Philip Adams a few weeks ago in France, and he told a story about a bog that I want to share with you.
Mark Medley: And about 25 years ago, they were in um uh Belfast, Northern Ireland, and from his church, a group of fathers got together, 12 or 14 dads, and they decided to take their teenage sons camping.
Mark Medley: So they went up into the Moorin Mountains, which are gorgeous and wild, and they camped for a week.
Mark Medley: And he said, as they were going up toward the end of the week, they were going up one of the peaks.
Mark Medley: Uh they they had their equipment, they were walking together.
Mark Medley: It was a great time together with their sons, but there's no trails in these mountains.
Mark Medley: And uh oftentimes there are these bogs, just bogs everywhere, large bog fields.
Mark Medley: And so they were jumping from tuft of grass to tuft of grass.
Mark Medley: They were like trying, you know, doing what they could to not get into the bog.
Mark Medley: Um, one of the young boys, a 15-year-old boy, slipped off of a tuft of grass and fell into the bog.
Mark Medley: And he went up to up to his waist, one leg up to his waist in the bog.
Mark Medley: Because this is what happens.
Mark Medley: It's just there's no real bottom to it.
Mark Medley: You just sink all the way up to here.
Mark Medley: The problem is his body weight kept going forward.
Mark Medley: The forward motion of his body weight went forward and his femur snapped.
Mark Medley: That's a bad story.
Mark Medley: I know.
Mark Medley: But it you probably will never forget it.
Mark Medley: But and Phil said it was just it was gruesome and it was horribly painful, and it took multiple men to work his leg out of that bog, and then they had to carry him, take turns carrying him down uh the mountain to the ER.
Mark Medley: You get stuck in bogs.
Mark Medley: You can break bones in bogs.
Mark Medley: Bogs are dangerous places.
Mark Medley: Bogs also do have life forms in them, but they're parasitic.
Mark Medley: They're leeches.
Mark Medley: They're the kind that grab onto you and suck the life out of you.
Mark Medley: It's not a place teeming with life.
Mark Medley: It's a place that's turned in on itself and it's unhealthy and it's infected.
Mark Medley: It's ingrown.
Mark Medley: Everything's nasty.
Mark Medley: Do you see the wisdom of Solomon now?
Mark Medley: There's one who gives freely but grows all the richer.
Mark Medley: There are those who hold back more than what they what they should give, and they suffer want or they tend to poverty.
Mark Medley: So, what I'm telling you is we have to decide how to live our lives.
Mark Medley: If we're going to live ourselves, live our lives as a river or as a bog.
Mark Medley: And this principle applies to individuals, it applies to me and my own life.
Mark Medley: Am I going to live with my hands open or with my arms folded and my hands shut?
Mark Medley: Am I going to allow what God has blessed me with to go through me out to others or not?
Mark Medley: It applies to my family.
Mark Medley: Going to the culture of my family.
Mark Medley: Is it going to be hospitality?
Mark Medley: Is it going to be generosity in the way that we bless people or we've uh we give our finances?
Mark Medley: It applies to our business.
Mark Medley: Is my business, does my business have a serving ethos?
Mark Medley: Is this what we do?
Mark Medley: We bless people.
Mark Medley: This is what we're here for.
Mark Medley: And it also applies to our church.
Mark Medley: Our church can be a river or a bog.
Mark Medley: And let me just stop a minute and say we are not taking an offering up at the end of this sermon, okay?
Mark Medley: Let me just let, okay, just you can just breathe.
Mark Medley: All right.
Mark Medley: This is not what this is about, okay?
Mark Medley: Let you know.
Mark Medley: Well, it would be a good time too, wouldn't it?
Mark Medley: I know.
Mark Medley: You're right.
Mark Medley: But we're not going to do that.
Mark Medley: That's not the point.
Mark Medley: But I believe God has a word, particularly for this church.
Mark Medley: I I want to it up it applies on different levels, but I think it's specifically for this church.
Mark Medley: In this season, I believe this church is supposed to be a river church.
Mark Medley: And those of you who have been here a long time, you know this has been a prophecy over this church for many years.
Mark Medley: This is a motherlow church.
Mark Medley: This is a resource church.
Mark Medley: This is a church that's not for itself, it's for others.
Mark Medley: It's it's to flow out.
Mark Medley: God wants it to be a river, not a bog.
Mark Medley: So I want to uh apply this principle of being a river to our church.
Mark Medley: And I also understand we have to be sensitive because there is sometimes as church, as a church, and sometimes as uh individuals as well, we have to be sensitive to our seasons.
Mark Medley: There's sometimes when we're going through difficult times and we have to circle the wagons.
Mark Medley: And we have to kind of pay attention to our families or pay attention to the health of our church and allow God to strengthen us and dress our wounds, and we abide in Him and He prepares us, He repairs us.
Mark Medley: Um, you know, that's that's what happened to me personally, you know, five years ago when Melissa died.
Mark Medley: I had to just, okay, circle the wagons, allow Jesus to heal me, allow Jesus to shepherd my soul into a healthy place of grieving.
Mark Medley: And he did.
Mark Medley: He's faithful.
Mark Medley: Uh, but I don't believe we're supposed to stay there.
Mark Medley: There are those seasons, okay?
Mark Medley: So, and I I acknowledge that, but I don't think we're supposed to stay there.
Mark Medley: I think he heals us so that we can be healing to other people.
Mark Medley: I believe God will not allow us to stay there, actually.
Mark Medley: I think he won't let us do it.
Mark Medley: So maybe a look at the book of Acts will help us.
Mark Medley: Is it okay?
Mark Medley: More scripture?
Mark Medley: Is it all right?
Mark Medley: Okay, good.
Mark Medley: When we think of the early, it'll help us understand it if we look at the early church.
Mark Medley: But when we think of early church, maybe you're thinking of the Jerusalem church, right?
Mark Medley: The very first church in the earliest years, right?
Mark Medley: Um, and we read about that in the first half chapters of the book of Acts, but but that church, for whatever reason, that church did not actively do what Jesus told them to do.
Mark Medley: Which is strange.
Mark Medley: Because he said, Go and make disciples, go into all nations.
Mark Medley: He said, Go and outward.
Mark Medley: And I don't know why.
Mark Medley: I've been thinking about that this week.
Mark Medley: Maybe it's because they were just trying to manage the explosive growth that was happening.
Mark Medley: This never happened before.
Mark Medley: Everything was new, and now suddenly you got thousands of people you have to deal with.
Mark Medley: Or maybe they were trying to handle the new problems that came up, like you know, the the widows not getting the right kind of uh help and all this stuff.
Mark Medley: And they had to, there were some things they had to tend to.
Mark Medley: And and or maybe they just still had this mindset of Judaism because the the whole idea of Jewish worship was there's a place and there's a manner in which he worship.
Mark Medley: You all come to the temple.
Mark Medley: People came from other places to the temple.
Mark Medley: The temple was the centralized place of worship.
Mark Medley: So there was a centralized mentality of Judaism right there, the way they worshiped.
Mark Medley: That was their world built around the temple.
Mark Medley: And the church in Jerusalem had power, they had miracles, they had amazing community, they shared what they had with one another, they cared for one another's needs, but they did not obey the command of Jesus to go to all nations.
Mark Medley: But what God knew, and the leaders of this church did not know, is that in just a few years, that centralized mindset is going to be blown apart.
Mark Medley: Because in a few years, that temple in Jerusalem was going to be destroyed, which nobody saw coming.
Mark Medley: Nobody could imagine the temple being destroyed.
Mark Medley: The centralized place, the place where God dwells on earth, the place where we come to meet him in a prescribed way is going to be destroyed.
Mark Medley: And you can't do it that way anymore.
Mark Medley: And God knew that was going to happen.
Mark Medley: In fact, I think it happened because God wanted to do a new thing.
Mark Medley: He wanted to bless the nations with the gospel of his son.
Mark Medley: So if you look in chapter 1, verse 8 of Acts, it says this.
Mark Medley: So outward, as a river flows, God wanted the message of his son to go out to the nations.
Mark Medley: And yet they largely stayed in Jerusalem.
Mark Medley: So that's chapter 1, verse 8.
Mark Medley: Let's look in chapter 8, verse 1 of Acts.
Mark Medley: And Saul approved of his execution.
Mark Medley: That's Stephen's execution.
Mark Medley: And then there arose on that day a great persecution against the church in Jerusalem, and they were all scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria, except the apostles.
Mark Medley: They had become a bog, and God wanted a river.
Mark Medley: So God came with his earth movers and he drudged up that bog so that water could get out of there.
Mark Medley: And if you study church history, it seems that periodically God allows things to happen or causes things to happen.
Mark Medley: Certain people, certain events that instigate change inside the church, and it gets the church from where they are into where God wants them to be.
Mark Medley: I call it God's Ways and Means Committee.
Mark Medley: Whatever it looks like.
Mark Medley: It looked like persecution, which it seems like a bad thing, right?
Mark Medley: Persecution doesn't seem like the blessing of a God.
Mark Medley: But this is what God wanted to do.
Mark Medley: He wanted them outward.
Mark Medley: So I have a question.
Mark Medley: If if um it were left up to the Jerusalem church as they were functioning, would any of us have heard the gospel?
Mark Medley: Probably not.
Mark Medley: Because this is their mindset.
Mark Medley: They were all bogged up.
Mark Medley: But you know, God had a plan.
Mark Medley: He had a ways and meets committee.
Mark Medley: It was fine.
Mark Medley: Um they didn't have any clue in the Jerusalem church that this was for Gentiles as well.
Mark Medley: Although God had been saying it forever.
Mark Medley: If you go back to the very beginning in Genesis, well, when Jesus when God called uh Abraham, he said that you will be all peoples of the earth will be blessed through you.
Mark Medley: And in Psalm 67, it calls for God's salvation to be to be made known among the nations.
Mark Medley: And in Isaiah 60, it says, My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations.
Mark Medley: And Jesus also quoted that.
Mark Medley: And Jesus was prophesied in Haggai as the desire of the nations.
Mark Medley: So the nations is always on God's mind, and yet they're bogged up.
Mark Medley: The Jerusalem church turned inward and taking care of itself.
Mark Medley: No thought about God's bigger mission.
Mark Medley: So we go a little farther in the book of Acts.
Mark Medley: In chapter 11, we see another city.
Mark Medley: It says that the gospel was scattered, they were scattered out, and they went as far as Antioch.
Mark Medley: Antioch is a different kind of church.
Mark Medley: So those that were persecuted went to Antioch.
Mark Medley: But it says if you read there in chapter 11, they still only spoke the word of the gospel to the Jews only.
Mark Medley: They didn't speak it to the Greeks, to the Hellenists, the Gentiles.
Mark Medley: They spoke it on, isn't that strange?
Mark Medley: Okay, they're forced out, but they're still only speaking to the Jews.
Mark Medley: They're speaking the gospel, but to the Jews alone.
Mark Medley: And it says that later those people who came from Cyprus and Cyrene came and spoke the word to the Hellenists.
Mark Medley: Cyprus is an island, Cyrene is northern Africa.
Mark Medley: It took those people from outside that little bog paradigm to understand this is for everybody.
Mark Medley: This is actually for the nations, this message.
Mark Medley: But why did it take outsiders from a small island and from North Africa to break the mold and start preaching to those from other cultures?
Mark Medley: Because Jerusalem had become a bog.
Mark Medley: And Antioch things began to change.
Mark Medley: So Antioch is a center of operations.
Mark Medley: If you read in the book of Acts, it says, Many people believed in Christ, and so Barnabas was sent down to encourage them.
Mark Medley: And Barnabas encouraged them.
Mark Medley: He saw the grace of God there.
Mark Medley: And so Barnabas went and got Saul, and he brought Saul, who is Paul, and Paul was there for a year, and he laid this foundation in Antioch.
Mark Medley: And it says that the people, the believers in Christ were first called Christians in Antioch.
Mark Medley: And so you see this life starting to function there, this growth, this healthy mindset.
Mark Medley: And look what happens in chapter 13.
Mark Medley: More scripture, okay?
Mark Medley: Is that right?
Mark Medley: Okay, good.
Mark Medley: Chapter 13.
Mark Medley: Let's see what a river looks like.
Mark Medley: Now, there were in the church at Antioch prophets and teachers.
Mark Medley: Barnabas, Simeon, who was called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Menaeon, a lifelong friend of Herod the Tetrarch, and Saul.
Mark Medley: While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, Set apart from me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.
Mark Medley: Then after fasting and praying, they laid their hands on them and sent them off.
Mark Medley: Okay, so there was diversity in the leadership in Antioch.
Mark Medley: It's beautiful.
Mark Medley: Multi ethnic.
Mark Medley: We see people from Probably looks like three different continents here in this leadership team.
Mark Medley: There was also multi many different socioeconomic groups.
Mark Medley: There were some who were friends of the king, some that were not so much.
Mark Medley: Differing spiritual gifts.
Mark Medley: There were prophets, there were teachers.
Mark Medley: Okay.
Mark Medley: It's multi multiculty, right?
Mark Medley: Multicultural church leadership team, right?
Mark Medley: They were faithful to pray and fast and minister to God.
Mark Medley: And when they did, God initiated the call.
Mark Medley: Okay, send me out these two.
Mark Medley: And I don't know the other guys because we don't know that much about them.
Mark Medley: But I know we do know a lot about Paul and Barnabas, right?
Mark Medley: And you don't want to lose them.
Mark Medley: If you got Paul in your church, you don't want to let him go.
Mark Medley: You got Barnabas, he's the one who came first and encouraged him and saw the grace of God upon him.
Mark Medley: He was a says a man of faith, full of faith and full of the Holy Spirit.
Mark Medley: You don't want to let those people go.
Mark Medley: It's like, Lord, just take the other guys.
Mark Medley: Can you just take, like, we have other people and the other leaders, they're pretty good.
Mark Medley: Could you take them and use them?
Mark Medley: And Paul's or God said to through the Holy Spirit, separate these two.
Mark Medley: I want your best.
Mark Medley: That's what he was saying.
Mark Medley: And you know what they did?
Mark Medley: Because they were spiritual people, they were good leaders, they let them go.
Mark Medley: They said, okay, hands laid on, send them out.
Mark Medley: Because we're a river.
Mark Medley: We're not a bog.
Mark Medley: We're not gonna get all clogged up and nasty.
Mark Medley: We're gonna let our people go.
Mark Medley: God gave them great resources.
Mark Medley: This church, men and men and women, in order to bless others.
Mark Medley: Antioch was the base from which the gospel flowed like a river out to the to the others.
Mark Medley: So Jerusalem had become a bog and God made it into a river.
Mark Medley: But then Antioch, like they got it from the beginning.
Mark Medley: They were a river.
Mark Medley: And I thought about that this week.
Mark Medley: How could the Jerusalem church, which was led by some of the heroes of our faith, Peter was there, James was there, John was there originally.
Mark Medley: These are people who literally physically heard Jesus' words.
Mark Medley: You'll be my witnesses.
Mark Medley: Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, utterance.
Mark Medley: They heard him speak it from his lips.
Mark Medley: How could they not obey?
Mark Medley: But maybe we shouldn't be too critical because it's pretty much a normal mindset, isn't it?
Mark Medley: I mean, it's why should we say, yeah, those people, why did they not?
Mark Medley: Because we understand it's safe to stay like you are, right?
Mark Medley: Our tendency is to play it safe to hang on to what we have, bog ourselves up, bog our churches up.
Mark Medley: Don't take chances.
Mark Medley: Don't release.
Mark Medley: Don't release our best, at least.
Mark Medley: So this has been an issue for thousands of years.
Mark Medley: God has worked with his people throughout the generations to enlarge their thinking so it fits his.
Mark Medley: So I'd like to end with going more scripture, all right.
Mark Medley: Okay, good.
Mark Medley: We're gonna go to Zechariah.
Mark Medley: We're gonna go to another prophet, okay?
Mark Medley: The book of Zechariah.
Mark Medley: I want to look at an example of how God did this.
Mark Medley: What his mind, um what I want you to see this morning is the heart of God.
Mark Medley: Okay, not just individual um stories, but the heart of God is to expand.
Mark Medley: It's to take this message out to others.
Mark Medley: So God had taken Zechariah, just a little quick uh historical tour here.
Mark Medley: Zechariah had six six visions in his little book.
Mark Medley: And they're pretty crazy visions if you read them.
Mark Medley: But he had taken, uh God took Zechariah on this journey of visions that described how he wanted to reorient his people uh for the future and for his purpose.
Mark Medley: And this was like two generations after Jerusalem's wall and the temples, wall, the wall around the temple had been broken down, and her, the inhabitants were dispersed.
Mark Medley: Now God wants to rebuild, but he's not gonna rebuild it the same way.
Mark Medley: The visions that God gave to Zechariah were about enlargement and about reorientation.
Mark Medley: It ain't gonna be the way you think it's gonna be.
Mark Medley: It ain't gonna be the way it was.
Mark Medley: That's basically that's my paraphrase of the book of Zechariah.
Mark Medley: Okay, so we're talking about rivers and bogs today, but but in the first vision, God spoke to Zechariah about trees.
Mark Medley: He said, There's two kinds of trees.
Mark Medley: I want you to look at Zechariah.
Mark Medley: There's the there's the the cedar, and the cedars of Lebanon were like huge, really tall, impressive, solitary trees.
Mark Medley: And so, I mean, you could think like a giant sequoia, they're not that big, but think about that.
Mark Medley: It's like this is oh my, this is an amazing tree all by itself.
Mark Medley: But he said, the cedar tree has to go.
Mark Medley: I want you to think differently.
Mark Medley: I want you to think like a myrtle.
Mark Medley: A myrtle?
Mark Medley: A myrtle.
Mark Medley: A myrtle is a small, unimpressive tree that is almost shrub-like, and it grows its roots together under the ground so it's strong, so it can actually thrive anywhere.
Mark Medley: It can thrive in the desert, but it thrives because it's interconnected in its roots.
Mark Medley: Okay, and God was saying, okay, it's not singular, solitary, impressive cedar tree.
Mark Medley: It is uh it's and it's a redistribution.
Mark Medley: And so in the second vision, or actually Zechariah's third vision is what I want you to read about here in Zechariah chapter 2, and we'll start at verse 1.
Mark Medley: So I lifted up my eyes and I saw, and behold, it was a man with a measuring line in his hand.
Mark Medley: I said, Where are you going?
Mark Medley: And he said to me, To measure Jerusalem, to see what is its width and what is its length.
Mark Medley: That makes sense.
Mark Medley: We're going to rebuild.
Mark Medley: Yeah, let's look and see where were the foundations originally.
Mark Medley: And behold, an angel, the angel who talked with me, came forward, and another angel came forward and met to meet him and said to him, Run, say to that young man, Jerusalem shall be inhabited as villages without walls, because of the multitude of people and the livestock in it.
Mark Medley: And I will be to her a wall of fire all around, declares the Lord.
Mark Medley: I will be the glory in her midst.
Mark Medley: Up, up, flee from the land of the north, declares the Lord, for I have spread you abroad as the four winds of the heavens, declares the Lord.
Mark Medley: So God said, Stop.
Mark Medley: Don't build it like it was before.
Mark Medley: In fact, you're not gonna have walls.
Mark Medley: In fact, I'm gonna be your wall.
Mark Medley: In fact, I'm gonna be the glory that lives in the midst of you.
Mark Medley: In fact, I'm spreading you out.
Mark Medley: Because God wanted Israel to be a witness of him to the nations.
Mark Medley: He wanted them to be a river.
Mark Medley: And they were in this vision, they were this guy was like digging out this bog, the same bog that was before, this little place.
Mark Medley: And and God said, No, I'm gonna spread you out.
Mark Medley: I will be your walls.
Mark Medley: It sounds a lot like the book of Acts, doesn't it?
Mark Medley: It's not this one single solitary tree temple, but I'm gonna spread you out.
Mark Medley: I'm getting rid of the temple as a reference for God's presence, and your reference point is going to be different.
Mark Medley: In fact, you are going to be my temple.
Mark Medley: This is the message of the New Testament.
Mark Medley: God is building with living stones, all of us, a new temple, a dwelling place for Himself, so that wherever you go, you're carrying the presence of God.
Mark Medley: This is what a river is like.
Mark Medley: And that's us.
Mark Medley: Okay.
Mark Medley: So when we're going through just a personal application, when you go through personal times, like devastating times, sometimes the most dangerous challenge is the temptation to think that God wants to rebuild us the way we were in the past.
Mark Medley: You know, I He wants to just restore us the way we were.
Mark Medley: When God wants to do something bigger, greater, He wants to lift our eyes up so that we can see His vision.
Mark Medley: And it's change.
Mark Medley: And change is challenge.
Mark Medley: Right?
Mark Medley: And insecure, to be sure.
Mark Medley: It there's there's insecurities there, but there's possibilities.
Mark Medley: And there's spiritual adrenaline if you let that in.
Mark Medley: There's this expectancy of what God wants to do.
Mark Medley: So the exile didn't destroy God's people, but it destroyed a mindset inside of them.
Mark Medley: An arrogant mindset, a small mindset, an exclusive mindset.
Mark Medley: It destroyed that so that they're thinking more like Jesus now.
Mark Medley: They're thinking more like God's purposes.
Mark Medley: They're gonna be the people who would bring the knowledge of Yahweh to the nations, preparing them, though they didn't know it yet, preparing them for Jesus who is to come.
Mark Medley: The desire of nations.
Mark Medley: God's moving his plan forward, but sometimes he's got to bust us out of our bog.
Mark Medley: And the purposes of God are always pointing to Jesus.
Mark Medley: And this is where I want to end today.
Mark Medley: It's always pointing to Jesus.
Mark Medley: All of this from Abraham.
Mark Medley: What is the seed of Abraham that would bless the nations?
Mark Medley: It is a person, it's Jesus.
Mark Medley: Who is it in the Psalms?
Mark Medley: Who is it in the prophets that's prophesied as desire of nations as the as the hope of nations?
Mark Medley: It's Jesus.
Mark Medley: It's a person.
Mark Medley: Who is this river?
Mark Medley: Who is this source of life?
Mark Medley: Let's read this from John 7.37.
Mark Medley: On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and cried out, If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink.
Mark Medley: Jesus is the water of life.
Mark Medley: Jesus is this river that brings life to you.
Mark Medley: It's beautiful.
Mark Medley: But we can make a difference.
Mark Medley: We can make a decision this morning to be like a bog and close ourselves up.
Mark Medley: Or we can be like those who scatter and yet they increase.
Mark Medley: It doesn't make sense.
Mark Medley: It's the kingdom of God, it's God's math.
Mark Medley: There are those who scatter and yet they increase.
Mark Medley: There are those who hold more than they need and yet they are they tend to poverty.
Mark Medley: It's just kingdom mathematics.
Mark Medley: So this morning, we want to end focusing on Jesus because this is the whole point of it.
Mark Medley: He is the one who created the garden.
Mark Medley: He is the one who sits on the throne in the end of the book from which flows this river.
Mark Medley: He is the one who is this water of life.
Mark Medley: He's the source of it.
Mark Medley: And there's only one way to quench your thirst.
Mark Medley: And that's to drink deeply from the water of life.
Mark Medley: Jesus is your answer if you're thirsty this morning.
Mark Medley: No one comes to the Father but through him.
Mark Medley: And all of history is moving in a direction toward the glory of God's Son Jesus.
Mark Medley: And when we join with Him in mission, and when we decide to not be a bog but to be a river, to open up and join with Him.
Mark Medley: The Great Commission is a co-mission.
Mark Medley: It's a mission together with God.
Mark Medley: It's joining together with God and with His Spirit toward His purposes.
Mark Medley: And when we decide to do that, then we're becoming a river and not a bog.
Mark Medley: So I want to pray this morning.
Mark Medley: God has declared this church to be a river.
Mark Medley: And it of course it applies in your own life.
Mark Medley: But I'm just telling you, this place is not just for here.
Mark Medley: God is bringing us so many beautiful new people and resources, and we're going to stir them the best we can.
Mark Medley: But it's not for us.
Mark Medley: To grow and closed up and stagnant.
Mark Medley: It's for us to send out.
Mark Medley: So let there be a break in this bog mentality.
Mark Medley: Let's release the river.
Mark Medley: Amen.
Mark Medley: Why don't you stand with me today?
Mark Medley: It's just a change in mindset.
Mark Medley: It's just agreeing with God.
Mark Medley: That's what it really is.
Mark Medley: By your grace, Lord, we're going to line up with you and be rivers and not bogs.
Mark Medley: So first things first, as we're praying right now, um, are you thirsty?
Mark Medley: Are you thirsty?
Mark Medley: Do you know this man who claims to be the water of life?
Mark Medley: And do you hear him calling you to come and drink?
Mark Medley: And if you hear that, that's the Holy Spirit.
Mark Medley: And I implore you on Christ's behalf, be reconciled to God.
Mark Medley: He wants you.
Mark Medley: He will abundantly pardon.
Mark Medley: He will have mercy.
Mark Medley: He stands ready to make your life brand new.
Mark Medley: It's just a matter of coming to him.
Mark Medley: Come and drink of this water of Jesus.
Mark Medley: And for all of us, how are we living our personal lives as a river or as a bog?
Mark Medley: How about our family?
Mark Medley: How about our businesses?
Mark Medley: Do you feel faith rising up in you to stop living closed up and to open yourselves up?
Mark Medley: Do you feel faith rising inside of you to step out and live generously?
Mark Medley: To live like a river?
Mark Medley: And how about this church?
Mark Medley: What might it look like to spill out over our banks and bless others?
Mark Medley: To bless our community, to bless our nations, to bless the places where God is joining us to.
Mark Medley: What are the beginning steps of co-laboring with God to resource other kingdom works?
Mark Medley: By God's grace, we choose to be a river, we refuse to be a bog.
Mark Medley: Lord, we choose to be a river, we refuse to be a bog.
Mark Medley: We choose to be a river, we refuse to be a bog.
Mark Medley: By your grace, make us make us a river of blessing to the nations.
Mark Medley: Let it be, Lord.