Rafting on Whitewater

Life is full of challenges—whitewater moments that threaten to overturn your plans and leave you scrambling. But in 2 Peter 1:3-4, the apostle Peter reminds us that God has provided everything we need to live with integrity, strength, and courage. In this episode of Wisdom for the Heart, Stephen Davey uses a powerful rafting story to illustrate why the rough waters of life may be exactly where God wants you to be. Calm waters may look safer, but they can be spiritually dangerous. God hasn’t called us to comfort—He’s called us to faithfulness.

Stephen explains how God’s power equips us, how His promises sustain us, and how clinging to those truths enables us to grow more like Christ while escaping the spiritual corruption of the world. You’ll also be reminded that God doesn’t give us what we can handle—He empowers us to handle what we’ve been given.

Whether you’re in a season of hardship, temptation, or discouragement, this message will inspire you to trust God’s provision and stand firm on His promises. Don’t miss this encouraging reminder that you’re not rafting alone.

Transcript

Whitewater Rafting As Life’s Metaphor

SPEAKER_00 0:25

Peter's attempting to encourage uh his original readers and all of us to not give up, to stay in the race. And I hope with an illustration taken from the writings of a pastor who uh with his brothers, they grew up in the mission field and and they decided to travel to Zimbabwe. And they had for years wanted to do some whitewater rafting on the Zambezi River. And the Zambezi is famous because at one point on its journey to the Indian Ocean, it it uh uh becomes it flows over the Victoria Falls, the largest falls in in the world, and it creates dangerous white water. They were going to begin rafting at the base of Victoria Falls. He writes uh about his experience with his brothers. Um massive amounts of water pour over the top of the giant falls, dropping nearly 1,000 feet. The roar is deafening. After cascading over the falls, the water rushes down the gorge in torrents, creating the largest rapids anywhere in the world. In the United States, the highest class rapid you can legally raft on is a class 5. The Zambezi Whitewater Rapids can reach class eight. I don't really know what that means, but it sounds really, really dangerous uh to me. He writes, this trip was not for the faint of heart. Already nervous and fearful, I was eventually suited up in a tight, overstuffed jacket, life preserver, a thick crash helmet on my head. As I sat on the edge of this eight-person raft, I wondered if it was really that dangerous. Then the guide began to speak, and I heard him say, now when the raft flips over, I said, wait. He didn't say if, but when the raft flips over, stay in the rough white water. You will be tempted to swim toward the quiet water at the edge of the banks of the river. Don't do it. It's in the calm, stagnant waters at the river's edge where crocodiles are waiting. So when your raft flips over, stay in the rough water. He goes on to make an application that we can easily understand that stagnant waters are more dangerous than white water. The believer might not want to stay in the rough waters of service or suffering, but the rough water, he writes, is actually a place of God's protection, where our trust is strengthened. We must resist the temptation to swim to where it seems safe and calm. Stagnant waters are where deadly enemies are watching and waiting. You know, I couldn't help but think the Christian life is like boarding a raft, isn't it? And going down class eight rapids. And if you've been a believer long enough, you know that's true. It probably took you about three days to figure that out. That Christianity didn't smooth out the water, it became rough white water. God never promised us a smooth sailing. He promised us a safe landing, right? Well, the apostle Peter is about to give us some tour guide instructions in the text before us, and I kind of view it as, you know, what to do in white water, how to handle fast moving rapid. So I invite your attention back to 2 Peter, where we're in chapter 1. And now verses 3 and 4 are going to conclude his opening comments. I view verses 3 and 4 as the conclusion of his initial insights. Now, in our last study in verse 2, Peter wrote out that prayer request he had for his readers and for us. So let's get a running start there. May grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord. Now you could translate verse 3 to begin with a word, seeing that, or seeing this, or in light of this. In other words, grace and peace can be multiplied throughout your journey in life. Now, in light of that goal, in light of the direction you're now heading, let me give you two assurances. Here's the first assurance The provision of God equips us on this journey of godly integrity. Seeing that his divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness. Stop there for a moment. Now remember, Peter's writing to people who are experiencing what we could call class eight rapids. The pressure is building. Their lives aren't easy. They've been displaced. He's writing to people in modern day Turkey. Many of them have moved, many of them are on the run, as it were. It's a challenge for them, and persecution is beginning to coalesce around these people called Christians. It's as if Peter wants them to focus on this assurance. What God has provided, it's as if he says, Never mind what you would like. Think about what you already have. By means of his divine power, you could translate it, God's divine dynamic. The Greek word gives us our word dynamite or dynamic. Because of God's dynamic power, you have everything you need. It's been granted to you. You might note that verb. That verb for granted has this idea of a bestowal, a regal sense of being granted something from a royal hand. In fact, when I studied this text, I immediately thought of the program Marcia and I watched some time ago, where Queen Elizabeth invited to Buckingham Palace ordinary British citizens where she honored them. She put a ribbon around their neck, honoring them for their service. And among them was a farmer, a shepherd, a teacher, a civil servant. And they were granted this honor from the hand of the queen. In a sense, that's the idea. Our sovereign king, our Lord, has granted, has bestowed on who? Us, Peter writes. Ordinary Christians, all of us who are believers today, we've received this grant, this royal bestowal to help us, equip us. And let me tell you, this is more than a ribbon around your neck. This is divine provision for the rest of your life. The tense of the verb lets us know that these are permanent bestowals. This is permanently granted to us. And that's encouraging. Because God isn't saying then, Peter isn't describing God as saying, maybe one day, hey, you know, you didn't do a very good job teaching this year like you did last year, or you weren't a very good civil servant, or you didn't serve me like you did, you know, last month or last year, you know, with with the same energy or passion. I want the ribbon back. Now, this is permanent. It comes with the package of being a believer, this royal grant from God. But just as Queen Elizabeth wanted to encourage these ordinary citizens, so God wants to encourage us to stay at it. You're living a life of godly integrity, he writes, of godliness, life which is godliness. Godliness simply refers to a worshipful attitude toward God. It's a God-focused attitude in life. You get up in the morning and you begin the conversation. You talk to him throughout the day. You're encouraged by something you've read from his word. It's just focusing, a godlike focus in life. And he tells us, by the way, how godliness is developed, verse three. Notice the middle part, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence. So he repeats this idea from verse 2 that the more we come to know Jesus Christ and you find him in the word, you don't make it up. You can talk to people out there on the street and say, Yeah, no, I know Jesus and I know God. Well, let him describe him, and it has nothing to do with the Bible. This is the disclosure of who he is. So the more you come to know him through his word, the more you come to know who he really is, the more you come to know what he's really done for you, who you are in him, what he's given you, the more you grow in that kind of knowledge, well, the more you're going to focus less on what he hasn't granted you and appreciate what he has granted you, his dynamic in your life to help you survive that white water rafting journey through life. So if I can boil down this opening assurance to this point, Peter's effectively saying that every Christian has been granted everything they need from God to walk with God. So you know what Peter's also saying in that by implication? He's saying this to these original believers who don't have it easy, but he's saying God has provided to us all, every one of us, everything we need for a life of godliness. And that means, in blunt terms, none of us have any excuse for living anything less than a God-focused life. There's no out here. From the very beginning of your Christian experience, coming to faith in Christ, Peter's saying, God's provided everything you need for a life of godliness. The resources are there. The question is: are we applying the resources to our lives? And that's a daily decision. Jay Allen Blair writes in his commentary on this text about a Welsh woman who was living in a remote valley in Wales. And along with all the others in her village, they didn't have electricity for quite some time. And so they would light their kerosene lamps uh at night to provide lighting. Well, eventually, and through much difficulty, power uh lines eventually made it down into her valley and connected uh to the homes in her village and her own home for the first time had electricity. But three months after her power meter had barely moved, you know, not like mine, it just keeps, you know, it's like a fan, a ceiling fan, or yours too. Well, you know, they wondered, you know, what's going on, and so they contacted her to see if her lights were working. And she replied, oh yes. I switch on the lights every night so I can see to light my kerosene lamp. And then I switch them back off. Wow. Well, there's there's an image of the believer who has that power within him, the dynamic of God, resources. And we're gonna flip the switch on today. We're gonna activate, so to speak, as we surrender to him and focus on him and live for him today. So here's here's the first assurance for the journey on the white water of life. Number one, the provision of God equips us on this journey of godly integrity. Here's the second assurance the promise of God, the promises of God encourage us on this journey to final victory. He goes on to write in verse four, by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises. You might underline, by the way, in your Bible, the repetition of that word granted. There it is again. This is a bestowal. This isn't something you have to earn. You have it. You got it from the hand of divine royalty. You have had bestowed upon you these precious promises. Well, Peter doesn't list them, but if you ransack your Bible, you'll come up with more than you can ever claim in a day. Well, you've got the promises of eternal salvation. Whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved. That's a promise you're depending on forever. You've got promises of daily forgiveness, because daily we fail them. 1 John 1 9. It's written to Christians. If we confess our sins, he's faithful and just. So forgive us our sins and cleanse us from unrighteousness. That keeps that fellowship uh clean and open with our Lord. You're not getting saved over and over again, but you're having restored fellowship over and over again. What a great promise. Promise of God's guidance. Psalm 32.8, I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go. Promises of God's wisdom for living. James 1.5. If you lack wisdom, ask God. He'll give it to you, and he won't reproach you for asking. Oh, here he comes again. Here she comes again. No, he'll never reproach you. You ask. He'll give it to you when you need it. Promises of God's presence. I will never leave you nor forsake you. And on and on and on. He refers to these promises as precious. That's a favorite word of this burly fisherman. Precious. You can translate it priceless. We would. He also, you'll notice, calls them here very great promises. He's giving it to us in the most exaggerated terms possible because that's how we ought to feel about it. In fact, in the original text of the Greek scriptures, it's has the word mega built into it. Mega. Greatest. You could translate this, these mega promises. These are the greatest of all time promises. The greatest of all time. I found that in the Greek text. Aaron Rodgers was the quarterback. He's 41 years old now. And you know, many thought he was finished, but he's now playing for the Pittsburgh Steelers, having a you know pretty good season so far. I'm not a Steelers fan. If you are, you know, find another church, as far as I'm concerned. You know, and I I just love to see an old man doing well. I mean, it's kind of like, oh, please don't get hurt, you know. So I was watching him. But at one point, a fan was shown holding a big, you know, placard, and it said Aaron Rodgers equals GOAT, right? G-O-A-T. And that means greatest of all time. I don't know. There's some debate about that. You might feel that way. But that that GOAT acronym is now being used, you know, for some NASCAR driver, hockey player, basketball player, whatever. And there's a lot of debate about, you know, do they really, do they really deserve it? There's disagreement and debate. I gotta tell you, uh, the world out there, you talk to them about the promises of God. These are the greatest of all time promises, and they'll go, oh, I don't think so. But for those of us who've come to life in Christ, is there anything greater than salvation? Eternal life? Is there anything greater than forgiveness? Is there anything greater than his wisdom for life? Is there anything greater than his promise of being with us? I'll never leave you. You got that. That was bestowed on you at salvation. It's easy to forget that in the white water of life. Now, what Peter's gonna do, and I wanted to cover two verses just to shock you. Uh what he what he's gonna do here is tell us that this is gonna produce two results in our lives. The first result is that we're going to experience the character of Christ. Notice the middle part of verse 4. So that through them, the antecedent is, the promises of God, you may become partakers of the divine nature. Now he's writing to Christians that you may become this, you may become partakers in the divine nature. That that refers to this ongoing development, this ongoing growth in understanding the richness, the pricelessness of these promises. Now, we don't become divine at salvation. Just talk to our wives. You know, we don't we don't become little gods. I mean, Kenneth Copeland teaches that heresy. That's heresy. We're not little gods. There's no divine spark. We just no. We we did receive not a divine nature, but at salvation we received a new nature, didn't we? We have the old one, we have the new one, and as new creations, Paul writes, old things are passing away. Behold, all things are becoming new. 2 Corinthians 5, 17. So as we grow up in the faith, we start acting like our father. Like a child. Where'd they get that accent? Mom and dad. Where'd they get that appetite? Mom and dad. They're they're partaking, as it were, the nature. So also we are partaking of his divine nature. It might be helpful for you to know that the word partake, partakers is koinonos. You may be familiar with the word koinonia. It means fellowship with, sharing. We are sharing in the likeness of Christ as we grow in him. Well, how do you know if you're sharing in his nature? Sharing in the likeness of his nature. Well, one author provoked my thinking along these lines very helpfully when he wrote, if you just look around in nature, you'll notice that nature determines appetite. The pig wants slop, sheep want green grass. Nature determines behavior. Eagle flies high in the sky, it's their nature. A squirrel climbs trees and gets into your bird feeder because it's their fallen nature. Nature determines environment. Fish wants water. Um nature determines association. Lions travel in prides, geese fly in formation, bees gather in hides. What that means then is as Christians, new creations in Christ, as we grow to share in the likeness of the nature of Christ, guess what happens to our associations? They change. Where are you comfortable? Now we have friends who are unbelievers, and there's a reason for that. But where do you just feel at home? Places like this with believing friends. Our environment changes. Where do you want to hang out? It changes. Our behavior changes. We learn to talk differently, we learn to think differently. Our appetite changes. What do we really want? What satisfies us? That's the first result of these promises. We are experiencing the character of Christ. The second result is this we escape the corruption of the world. He writes at the end of verse 4, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of lust upon lust, you could translate it, because of sinful desire. It refers to the evil passions of the human heart. You could translate it craving, illicit craving. And he he doesn't pull any punches here in saying that we as believers can get caught. We need to keep escaping. Ultimately, there will be the final escape from the very presence of sin. In the meantime, it's a battle all along the way. But he's giving us a picture of what we might be craving. And it's not a very pretty picture. He uses a word for corruption that's used for a decomposing organism. It conveys the idea of utter ruin, of total decay, the world, Peter uses here as a reference to the unredeemed human race. The Apostle John defines the human race by calling it the world, the desires of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life. Desires, lust, and pride. That's the world. We still have that old nature that panders to that. But he he just pulls off the mask. He says, look, what you're craving after, what you're longing after, what you're lusting for is actually a decaying, decomposing, putrid, destructive lifestyle that will lead to total ruin. For the believer. Peter writes when you say no, you escape. Love is dramatic language. You don't just walk away from sin. You don't just say no to that sin. You don't just say no to that temptation. Peter says, You're escaping. You're escaping. This decomposing trap of sin. The greedy, grimy clutches of sin. It doesn't look greedy. It doesn't look grimy. I mean, it looks new and shiny and exciting. Interesting. Oh, but it's dangerous. And whenever you resist the temptation to sin, you are literally escaping. Christians are escapees. Satan hates to he he hates escapees. He's after you. Peter will write. He's like a lion. He's hungry, roaming around, seeking someone to discredit. That's not the unbeliever, by the way. He has them. He wants to discredit you and me. He can't have your soul as a believer. But he can ruin your testimony. He can sideline you. He can get you on the shelf, so to speak. He can convince you to get out of that white water. Oh, look at over here. This is calm. It's it's quiet. Oh, it's a trap. White water is part of God's design to develop us, but also to protect us. Calm water can be stagnant where greater enemies are waiting for you and me. The idea of escaping here has its final victory when we're glorified, when we're free from the presence of sin. But there's a sense here in Peter's letter, his writing, this is a daily victory. This is this is uh one escape after another. As you trust the provision of God, as you lean on, as you turn on the light of the promises of God. Let me let me simplify these verses in one statement. Here it is. God doesn't give us what we can handle, he empowers us to handle what we've been given. God doesn't give us what we can handle. That's really another way of saying sometimes he gives us more than we can handle. Maybe that's how you're feeling today. But he empowers us. He has granted to us all that's necessary to handle what we've been given. How? By trusting in his provision and clinging to these greatest of all time promises. So let's suit up and grab your crash helmet as you enter the world and the white water of life. Pray with me if you would. With your heads bowed, no doubt you you know the definition of white water in your life right now. I don't, you do. And the Spirit of God knows. He knows where you're being tempted. That's why he wants us to see it as a corpse. It looks exciting, it it seems fulfilling, it is something that will bring into your life a putrid decomposition. We need to be reminded of that. Perhaps it's some challenge, some difficulty, some need that you have. It's rough. It's tiring, it's painful. Why don't you talk to the Lord for just a moment and ask him to refocus you on not what you would like, but what you have been granted. Because he's at work in your life today. Maybe there's something that needs to change. Maybe there's something to start, something to stop. Maybe some of your challenges are related to your appetite, your environment, your association. Maybe guardrails need to be clear. Whatever it is. Ask the Spirit of God to make it clear.