All right, listen, I know it's daylight savings time.
I can feel it in the room, okay?
But it's gonna be okay. Church is gonna be good. Worship's already been good so far. We're gonna make it here. We're gonna get through it. And maybe one day they'll get rid of daylight savings time. But till that day, till that glorious day, we must suffer and walk through this process. Hey, before I get into the message, I do have one other thing I wanna mention to you. I wanted to announce it because I loved it so much last year. Some of you last year, or many of you last year, were part of our first ever Passover Seder dinner that we did together as a church last year. That was super fun. Yeah, you can cheer for it, man. It's just really, we're like, really like a card. Really struggling to start this morning. It's gonna be okay. But we are having our second annual Passover dinner, which I'm super excited about. We learned a lot about last year about how to do it, how some things were gonna change. And man, we are looking forward to it. But there are limited spaces. This is a ticketed event. You can go to destinychurch.com slash events. And that's where you can register for yourself or for your whole family and purchase tickets. It's really, really fun. The food is good. But really more importantly than the food, celebrating this meal, this Passover meal that Jesus celebrated every year and seeing the symbolism and being able to experience this in this Easter season is gonna be pretty cool. So it's gonna be on April 12th, which what's unique this year compared to last year is we're actually doing it on Passover. So this is actually Passover day. It's really exciting. It's gonna be a really cool time. And it's just a really fun, rich thing. And so if you came last year, come again. If you've never been, I invite you. It's really, really fun. And we'll be mentioning it because we have to have kind of an idea how many people are coming by the end of this month so that we can start purchasing food and do all that stuff. But I will tell you this, if you're here and you would like to go and you say, man, I'd love to go, but I don't have enough money to be able to do a ticketed thing or whatever that case is, there are people who have already said, hey, I don't want anyone to have finances to be the reason they don't go to this event. And so they've already pre-purchased tickets for people. And so just connect with myself, connect with Pastor Charlie and just let us know. And we'll make sure that you get set up and get registered. No problem, no shame, no questions, no whatever, you're here, there's family who love you. And that's what it means to be part of the body of Christ. Someone's already made a way for you. So there's no reason not to be there for you and for your family, which is amazing. And so God's gonna do it this morning. So do this, go ahead and stand with me for the reading of God's word this morning. Go ahead and stand. I'm gonna be reading from John 7, verse 37 through 39. It says this, on the last and greatest day of the festival, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, "Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them." By this he meant the spirit,
those who believed in him were later to receive. Up to that time, the spirit had not been given since Jesus had not yet been glorified. Father, we thank you for today. Lord, we thank you for this time and your presence. We thank you for this moment to come and learn. Lord, speak to us, guide us, guide your words today. Lord, allow us to experience your goodness and your mercy this morning. It's in your Holy Name we pray, amen and amen. You may be seated.
So this is week three of our Holy Spirit series that we've been doing. I'm gonna do just a quick recap in case you've missed any of it. Week one, we talked about the idea of the person of the Holy Spirit. And we talked about just that, he is one of the Trinity, a person of the Holy Spirit, God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. That he is God, just like Jesus is God, just like the Father is God. He is not a force or an experience that we can conjure, but he is the living God. And that he is the spirit is what Jesus promised. And not only Jesus promised, he said, "It's good that I go away so that the spirit could come. "You want me to go away because what I'm sending "is going to be better than me physically "being present with you." Which is sometimes hard to really, truly believe. We talk about how God created this whole concept of what we're living in, that Jesus displayed, and that the Holy Spirit allows us to experience the very essence of who God is and the love that's between God the Father and God the Son. We talked about last week, the idea, or we started this idea of looking at the images that are used throughout Scripture to display God's character, and specifically to show us what the Spirit looks like. And so last week, we looked at breath, and we looked at how God breathed breath into man, and that that breath is what is able to sustain us, that is able to see the very movement and animation of God's presence, and how Jesus was filled with the Spirit. And that it says, "When he spoke with the breath, "that the God, the Creator, began to move on his behalf." And so we saw this incredible relationship between the breath of God and the speech and creation, and everything that comes along with us. And so it's really, really been a cool, cool time so far. So today, oh yeah, and if you've missed any of those, you can go back and watch them or listen to them, that's great. But today we're gonna look at another symbolic idea that's been with us from page one, and we'll be all the way through the very last page of the Bible, talking about the idea of God and what represents his Spirit. And it's the idea of waters.
In the very beginning of creation, God created the heavens and the earth, and the earth was formed as without void, and the Holy Spirit was hovering, the breath of God was hovering over the waters.
Now, here's the thing.
When we think about waters, and we think about big bodies of water, whether it's the ocean, or if you're a good Oklahoma born person, Grand Lake,
when we think about these big bodies of water, most the time, like when you picture it, not for all of you, but for a lot of you, we're thinking of like, it's some kind of vacation, there's some kind of beach experience, the waves are coming in, it's tropical, it's nice, you can get a nice tan, you can do all that. I guess it's really great experience. But in the ancient mind,
waters were not something that was associated with like vacation and relaxation, for many reasons. But one of the biggest reasons is, is that the water is really, really scary.
The water is chaotic.
The waters are something that are so deep and so vast that we still don't understand.
Some people say we understand more about space than we do our very own depths of our oceans. There's things in our oceans that we've never seen, there's depths that we cannot reach, there are darknesses that are uncapable for us to like fathom how dark it gets, how light cannot penetrate, like the depths and the oceans are a chaos. And it's one thing to be right on the shore and to be looking out in the sea and be overwhelmed by the scale of God's goodness, which I do, I love going to the ocean, I love going to big bodies of water, I think there's something really special. And I think it's because the very thing that in the process of creation,
God took something that was disordered and chaotic, which was the waters, and then did what God always does, which he beings order into chaos. And so with his breath of creation, he spoke order into chaos. And one of the things that he did was that he elevated the earth out of the waters and created the boundaries. And he said to the waters, "You can go to here and no further."
You see, the reason we get to the beach and it's such an enjoyable experience, whether you know this or not, your spirit understands that you are literally looking at the division lines of God's word, that he said that this is where the water shall go to and no further, that this is the idea that God creates, that when you stand on that seashore, you're looking that out there, there are things that literally could eat me in one bite.
But here I'm good and it's beautiful, right? All the places we picture that are beautiful, they're the shallowest places in the ocean.
So those little shallow reefs,
because anywhere light doesn't penetrate, it's scary. And things do some weird stuff in the dark.
But God created and he spoke a boundary and he created order out of chaos. And he is the God who is over the waters and over the chaos with his words.
And we see this idea throughout the thing. When he creates the garden, he then says that he's gonna allow these rivers to flow through the garden and out of the garden. And these rivers are the waters tamed.
They're no longer chaotic and open, but they are controlled. And they say, this is where it's gonna go. And they flow into these things. And life flows out of these places that through this river where it waters the earth and it waters the trees, it is the thing that is ordained by God that these chaos is no longer chaotic, but has been ordered. And it has a process of a flowing thing that people can come to and see.
But then we know the fall happened and they were removed from the garden and they went to different places. And from this point on, when we see people's righteousness be removed through the process of sin, we see something that comes up over and over and over again, the idea that men and women have to pass through the waters to get to the other side of salvation.
We saw it in the story of Noah, when God flooded the earth.
They had to pass through the waters to get to the other side of salvation.
We saw it with the people of Israel when they had to go through the Red Sea. We saw it after they got out of the wilderness and they went through the Jordan. We see it time and time and time again, the idea of the waters being this thing that they get to walk through and pass through, that the waters represent this idea of we can get through the waters because God's Spirit leads us. And on the other side of passing through the waters is this righteousness. And so over time, we see in this biblical narrative that waters, the mass waters can represent chaos, but at some point, these waters also begin to represent God's provision, God's deliverance, and God's cleaning and cleansing power in our lives.
And slowly we see with God's purpose, there's this idea that the water, the very idea of the water represents something that can be flowing and that out of God's presence and under His control and under His boundaries and under what God says, waters can flow out and can create life
and can create abundance and can create gardens in the desert,
that waters can flow.
And we see that symbolism when we look at the temple and the tabernacle, the water basins, and the purification and all these different things. But one of the biggest and the best places that you see this idea is actually from the book of Ezekiel.
I read from Ezekiel, I think it was last week, and maybe you decided like, "Yeah, Ezekiel, "I'm gonna go read a little bit more of Ezekiel." And maybe you're like, "Whoa, that was wild."
You are correct. It's a wild ride. If you wanna just have a really great Friday night, then just sit down, start reading Ezekiel, you'll get about 15 chapters in, you'll be like, "Oh man, I did not know this stuff was in the Bible." But it is, and it's good. And if you only get to 15, don't stop. You gotta keep going to at least 32 and it'll get better. But listen, Ezekiel chapter 47, he has this vision
and he sees this heavenly temple. That is not just a heavenly temple, but it's a temple that is heaven on earth. It's this new creation temple that God is showing Ezekiel. And there's a lot of setup that comes to this, but we don't have time, but I wanna read in chapter 47, verse one, and we may skip around a little bit, but just pay attention, allow your imagination to start to see some of these things here.
It says, "The man," and this is talking about an angel. Ezekiel was on this tour. He's being guided through all these different things. He'd already gotten all these dimensions and stuff. It's a little crazy, but it says, "The man brought me back to the entrance of the temple
and I saw water coming out from under the threshold of the temple towards the east for the temple-faced east.
And the water was coming down from under the side of the temple south of the altar." So, okay, water's pouring out of the temple towards the east.
There's so much little symbolism here. Like, for example, like whenever Adam and Eve were removed from the temple, it says that they were exiled and they had to go east. Every time the Bible gives the direction east, it's talking about the fall and our separation from God. And so now the temple, this new heaven on earth temple is facing east and the water is pouring out from the altar underneath the threshold and is pouring out from the temple to the east towards where man fell, a direction.
And it says, "And he brought me through the north gate and led me around outside to the outer gate facing east and the water was trickling from the south side. As the man went eastward and measuring his line in his hand, he measured off a thousand cubits and he led me through the water that was ankle deep." So this water is beginning to build. Says, "He measured off another thousand cubits and he led me through the water and it was knee deep. He measured off another thousand cubits and led me through the water and it was waist deep." Obviously, this is getting deeper and deeper. "So he measured off another thousand, but now the river, now it was a river that I could not cross because the water had risen and it was deep enough to swim in and a river that no one could cross. And then he said, "Son of man, do you see this?" Then he led me back to the bank of the river. "When I arrived there, I saw a great number of trees on each side of the river. And he said to me, this water flows downward toward the eastern region and goes down into the Araba where it enters the Dead Sea. When it empties into the sea, the salty water there becomes fresh." So a lot of you guys know this is the Dead Sea. It's one of the lowest places on earth and it is the highest salt content body of water we have on the face of the planet. So salty that nothing can live in it. Everything in it dies. There's no fish, there's nothing alive. It's so salty, you are buoyant in there. You can literally, I had some friends who went there and they're like, I fell asleep just like floating in there. Like it's just like this weird gelatinous buoyancy. And you know, I mean, I hear that the salt stuff is good for your skin. I've never done it. I've never been, one day I hope to. But like there's this Dead Sea, it's the Dead Sea. Everyone knows it's dead. Nothing alive there. And it says, "This river that started as a trickle that then pours out and it gets deeper and deeper and deeper, it eventually ends up there. And it says that it transforms something that was dead
back to life."
It was dead and it becomes back there. What was salty water becomes fresh. And then it says, "Swarms of living creatures will live there wherever the river flows. There will be large number of fish because the water flows there and makes the salt water fresh. So where the river flows, everything will live.
Fishermen will stand along the shore from Ngedi to Nelangalung. And there the places will be spreading their nets.
The fish will be many kinds like the fish of the Mediterranean Sea. But the swamps and the marshes will not become fresh. They will be left for salt.
Fruit trees of all kinds will grow on both banks of the river. Their leaves will not wither, nor will their fruit fail.
Every month they will bear fruit because the water from the sanctuary flows to them. Their fruit will serve for food and their leaves for healing."
Now, a lot of symbolism there. And you being the Bible nerds that you are, I know you picked up on some of them. I know some of you picked up on trees, my favorite subject trees. These are little trees, trees everywhere, I'm wondering if fruit trees. You know, I love me some trees. You may be thinking about Psalms 1.
Those who obey and listen to the commandments of God, there'll be like a tree planted on a river bringing fruit in and out of season.
These fishermen who are bringing in fish. But there's something, this was something that was performed and said, this is what's gonna happen. This is the thing in the sanctuary. It has a really, really beautiful picture
of God in this presence. That starts at the Tabernacle, or the temple, and it flows out and it's this health and healing to the nations, health and healing to the nations.
And it's a beautiful thing. And it's a prophecy that the people of Israel really held onto. And it was an important thing for them when they were coming out of Babylon, this idea and this temple. But I wanna take it a step further because we can read it. It's like, oh, that's pretty. That's really neat, this idea of paradise and this sounds really great. But I wanna jump forward to Jesus' day in John chapter seven.
It says, "On the last and greatest day of the festival," now pause, we need to know what festival this is. I know you were about to say, "John, then please tell me what festival it is." Okay, don't worry, I'll tell you, calm down. Don't riot. You're so energetic this morning, it's gonna be hard for me to control you.
The festival that John chapter seven is mentioning, he mentioned this earlier, it's called the Festival of Tabernacles or the Festival of Shelters, okay? Tabernacles, we've talked about it, the tents. This is the tent festival, it's a seven-day festival. And this was a festival that God commanded the nation of Israel to observe when they were still in the wilderness. And it was supposed to be talking about it, they did it in the autumn and it had to do with the harvest and the upcoming planting season. And it was this idea of celebrating God, the one who would bring water to people in the desert.
So like, you know the stories like when the nation of Israel, they got out and they celebrated because they crossed the Red Sea, and then all of a sudden they started complaining, which is like their trend because they didn't have any water, right? And God led them to the place that was salty, remember? And then they dipped the cross, I mean, sorry, the tree in the water and it was no longer bitter, it was all of a sudden fresh. And then there was another place that there was the rock and they hit the rock, they struck the rock and the water poured out. And then another time he spoke to the rock and the water came out, but he was supposed to speak to the rock, but he got angry and he struck the rock. And then all of a sudden what was supposed to be speaking to the rock, he struck the rock. And that's why God said that you're not gonna go into the promised land, because I told you to speak to the rock. And instead you struck the rock.
You remember? And the water, and maybe you don't remember, that's okay, this is all thing. And that's why he didn't do it.
Just in case a side note, if you're curious, the rock represents Jesus and the rock had to be struck the first time, but the second time, whenever he said it, he said you're supposed to speak to the rock because the rock was already struck. You don't strike the rock twice, you strike the rock once. He died once for your sins, once and for all, so that the water could flow all the time. But the second time he tried to strike the rock again, he wasn't supposed to strike it, he wasn't supposed to speak to it. And so because he didn't speak to it, he struck it. That's why he said you just sinned because no one strikes Jesus twice. And when you go and you say, "God, I don't know if your forgiveness is good enough for me. "I think I gotta do my own thing. "I gotta work it off, I gotta do penance, "I gotta do this thing." If you were trying to strike the body of Jesus again, then God is not gonna accept that because you don't strike the rock twice, you speak to it the second time and the water flows out.
(Congregation Applauding)
But that's not what I'm talking about today.
The water pours out, the water pours out, the water pours out. They're supposed to celebrate it. To this day, if you go to places where there's Hasidic Jews, I was reading a book that they call The Familiar Stranger. That's a really great book about the Holy Spirit. You should check it out. Tyler Stanton's the author. But I was reading about it. He used to live in New York, and he lived in a really big Hasidic Jewish community in New York City. And during this time, they still celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles. And during this time in New York, they will literally pinch tents out in their balconies so that they can sleep in those tents overnight. To this day, Jewish people all over the world will celebrate that, and they'll put up these shelters in their backyards or on their patios or wherever it is, and they will sleep outside as this remembrance of when our ancestors went through the desert and God provided water. And in modern times, they would go to the temple and have a seven-day feast, and they would be praying that God would bless the upcoming season with bountiful rain so that they can have a bountiful harvest, that the water would pour out. And as a symbolic gesture, on the seventh day, they would perform a ritual where they would go to the spring of Siloam, and they would bring water in, and they would pour it at the foot of the tabernac, of the altar, to recreate the vision that Ezekiel had so that the water would go pouring out of the temple, and they would bring it in all these cultures, and they'd pour it down. It was this very big ritual that they did every day. And on the seventh day of the festival, Jesus stood, and in a loud voice said, "Anyone who's thirsty, come and drink."
Whoa.
He just encapsulated a history of a people, and in the middle of a very significant holy moment, he stands up. Jesus loves a good theatrical reveal. I don't know if you know about Jesus. He loves a good theatrical reveal. He always waits to just the right moment.
He said, "Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink.
"Whoever believes in me, as Scripture said, "rivers of living water flow within them."
And then the author of John gives us a little narrator note, a little side note. He says, "By this he meant the spirit,
"whom those who believe in him were later to receive "upon that time the spirit had not been given, "since Jesus has not yet been glorified." Back to the story. "On hearing his words, some of the people said, "'Surely this man's a prophet, "'other said he's the Messiah. "'Still other than us, how can he be the Messiah from Galilee?'" Remember the whole Nazareth, nothing good from Nazareth ever comes from this guy.
"Does not the Scripture say that the Messiah "will come from David's descendants? "From Bethlehem, the town where David lived?" Oops, they hadn't heard his story yet.
"Thus the people were divided because of Jesus. "Someone decease him, but no one laid a hand on him. "Finally, when the temple guards went back "to the chief priest in the Pharisees, "who asked them, why didn't you bring him in?"
No one ever spoke this way.
No one speaks like this guy.
When you read Scripture, sometimes, we miss some of these elements. Like he's like, "I'm the living water," and then people are really upset, and we're like, "I don't get it."
This is our whole history.
The God who brings them out of dry places and brings them into gardens, the God who wants to take you out of the desert and bring you into the gardens, the God who says that there's a river that's gonna flow and is going to be my spirit and out of the very presence of God, the throne room of God, the spirit will flow, and it will get deeper and deeper and deeper, and it will transform dead things back to life, and everywhere that it flows, life happens. And so Jesus in his ministry, not only does he say, "I'm the living water,"
and you know, before he announced it to this, remember he announced it to the woman at the well.
Drink from me, and you'll never be thirsty again.
He announced it to her before he announced it to his own people.
He said, "Drink from me, drink from me," and then what does he do? He says, "Water will be poured out. The spirit will be poured out."
Isaiah 12, 3, he said, "With joy you will draw water from the well of salvation."
What do you tell his disciples?
"Follow me.
I'll teach you to be fishers of men."
You remember the fishermen on the banks of the river?
What did he walk around doing? He walked around feeding people with bread and fishes and then healing people who were brought. There will be fruit every month, and out of the fruitfulness, your fruitfulness will be health and healing to the nations.
Jesus in his life began to replay and recreate all of the prophecy of Ezekiel, all of this water is living for it. And he said, "The Holy Spirit is coming. It will be poured out on you,
and you can drink."
And here's what's this amazing thing.
There's two parts.
There's this invitation to come.
Come to me, all of you who are thirsty.
It's an invitation.
It's an invitation.
And this river gets deeper and deeper.
And I believe there's this moment, you can just go angle deep.
You can go thigh deep,
or you can realize, man, this is too deep.
And I need Jesus just to guide me.
I need the Spirit to guide me.
There's this invitation to come.
Come as you are and to drink. But there's something else.
After you accept the invitation to come, there's an invitation to become part of the river.
It says that, "And out of you,
rivers of living water will flow." He said, "Out of me, living waters will flow, but when you come to me and you drink from me, and you abide in me, that now out of you, living waters will flow. And where you go, living waters will flow." And you become part of the river. You become part of the process. And you are now in the process of being part of the current that is taking the healing power of God to the brokenness in our world, that is transforming dry, dead places and to beautiful, lush gardens.
That the Spirit begins to flow. That when you come to Him, there's this invitation. There's an invitation.
There's an invitation to come.
That Jesus left paradise.
He left the presence of God, the Word became flesh.
And He came to dwell among men, east of Eden.
And He flows and He flows and He says, "But the Spirit's coming, the Spirit's coming, that's gonna continue to flow.
And if you come to me and you drink from me, then the Spirit can begin to fill you, and living waters can begin to flow out of you."
Which is why in Acts chapter two, after the pouring of the Holy Spirit in the upper room,
Peter interrupts another festival,
another seven day festival called the Festival of Pentecost. And it says, he said this, "Exalted to the right hand of God, He was received from the Father, the promised Holy Spirit,
and has poured out what you now see and hear." Holy Spirit was poured out like water, poured out on those disciples.
He interrupts that Bay of Pentecost and He preaches this message in 3000 are saved on the very first day on hearing the Word.
Here's the thing.
Some of you hear this and you think, yeah, this is really, this is neat, this is good symbolism, this is good. The water, that's good, I like that.
The breath, yeah, that's good, I like that.
But I know that there's people in this room
that you say, I can't be part of that river.
I can't be part of that flow.
I got too much brokenness in my past.
I made too many wrong choices.
I got too many sins that I'm still dealing with, let alone the ones that are in my history.
I got things that people told me that I'll never be able to shake off. I've got wounds from people that they put inside of me that I don't think I can ever heal from.
People didn't say things to me that when I was younger that I still am traumatized by. I still am walking with issues of guilt of my decisions and dealing with the consequences of the decisions of others towards me. Like I am understanding this idea of the Bible and my worldview is so different and my worldview is filtered through Christianity, but my worldview is not really that effective whenever the real trials and traumas and hardships of life begin to come because they begin to condemn me and to shame me and to break me.
So yeah, I can't be part of that.
I can't be part of it. (Soft Music)
Have you ever been really thirsty?
I mean real thirsty.
It's been hot and you've been working,
you've been sweating,
you didn't have your Stanley.
And you're too grown up to drink out of the water hose.
You're thirsty.
And you begin to get real dry and real parched.
And you may even be out of this thought of,
I don't know if I'm ever gonna be not thirsty again. (Soft Music)
But when you get to the water
and you take that drink
and you keep drinking
and it starts to wash over your lips and into your mouth and it begins to satiate that thirst.
And you wash your face and you pour it on your hair and your body begins to cool off and you drink a little bit more and you drink a little bit more and you drink a little bit more and then all of a sudden, at some point you're not really sure when.
You realize you're not thirsty anymore.
That your thirst has been quenched. (Soft Music)
I know you've got something in your past that makes you feel like you can never have it be forgiven.
I know you have some wounds
that you think will never be healed.
But the quenching water of the Holy Spirit (Soft Music) is made for just that purpose.
To wash you off,
to quench your thirst.
And not just surface level,
but the deepest part of where you are.
Jesus's heart was pierced
and blood and water flowed.
So that you could know that there's not just forgiveness for your sins, but there's a water that is coming to wash you wider than snow, to remind you of his faithfulness, to quench that thirst inside of you, to bring healing and health to the deepest part of you. No matter how deep it is, water can get there. It will penetrate your very soul. Water is the trickiest substance on earth. It is something that we can put in a bucket, but you give it enough time. It can carve a canyon the size of the Grand Canyon. It is a powerful source that with enough time, it can move any mountain in your life. It can heal you in a way that will never be understandable by your logical mind because water is something that brings so much health and healing to you. And the Holy Spirit just says, "I'm just gonna keep washing over you. "I'm just gonna keep washing over you. "I'm just gonna keep washing over you." And the more you open up yourself to God and say, "God, open, I'm open to you. "I'm open to you, Lord. "Wash me with your word. "Wash me with your spirit. "Fill these dry and thirsty bones "so that I can come back to life." The Spirit will heal you and continue to speak life to you. And the Holy Spirit will lead others into your path to speak into your circumstances, to speak life, because those other people who are the image of God, filled with the breath of the Creator, bringing rivers of life can come to you. Those friends can come to you and bring a cool touch from the Holy Spirit
so that you can bring a cool touch of the Holy Spirit to people later.
Your wounds and your shortcomings don't disqualify you.
In fact, it is your wounds and your shortcomings that qualify you to be able to be the recipients of God's grace the most.
That's why in 2 Corinthians 9, Paul says, "But he said to me, my grace is sufficient for you, "for my power is made perfect in weakness.
"Therefore, I will boast all the more gladly "about my weaknesses so that Christ's power may rest on me. "That is why for Christ's sake, I delight in my weakness, "in insults, in hardship, in persecution, in difficulties. "For when I am weak, he is strong."
(Soft Music)
You see, you're broken is what qualifies you for hope and healing.
And let me tell you something,
powerfully healed people become powerful healers.
Powerfully healed people become powerful healers. Those people who were once anxious and God brought freedom can go to other people's anxiety and can be a living water that brings peace in the middle of a mental storm. Those you who battled with fear can bring peace. Those you who battled with addiction can bring freedom. Those you who battled with loss and heartache and sorrow can bring joy. Why? Because you were powerfully healed for such a time as this and that spirit who was with you and you're hurting is the spirit that leads you to their hurting. And you become part of the river and the flow that has fruit in and out of season that brings health and healing to the nations. That is what the spirit does inside of you. That when you receive and open yourself up, you then become the person who brings those things.
So you got a history of anger.
God has a history of being slow to anger.
So you have a history of lust. God has a history of purity.
You have a history of brokenness. God has a history of completeness. You have a history of chaos. God has a history of order. You have a history of dysfunction. God has a history of function. Everything that you may have a history of, God is well acquainted with it. And our son of suffering went before us and paid those prices so that you could be made whole, so that you could be cleansed, so that you could have the spirit rest on you, so your breath could be his breath, so the water can flow inside of you and could bring health and healing to your dry bones. And so that you could then say, look at this, I am not disqualified because of my scars. In fact, just like Jesus, I can know that his goodness flows from these scars. So because they are healed and I'm in a place of wholeness, I can now show my scars to you and say, look how faithful he is. Look how faithful he is. Look how faithful he is.
You are not disqualified from the Holy Spirit because of your past.
In fact, that is what uniquely qualifies you for you to be recipients of his grace and Holy Spirit. (Soft Music)
And you may say, but I made the mistake more than once.
I didn't get divorced once, I got divorced twice.
I got divorced three times.
That woman at the well had been divorced five times.
And the sixth one wouldn't even marry her. But wouldn't you know it, when the seventh man showed up in her life, he brought living water.
Living water, living water. I made the mistake too many times. I've made the mistake all over and over again. I keep going back to it.
The water never stops.
It keeps coming and it keeps coming and it keeps coming. And just like those waves will never stop, they just keep coming and they keep washing and they keep washing and they keep washing and they keep washing and they keep washing and when you finally say, you know what, this is my weakness, God, can you be made strong in it?
All of a sudden your greatest weakness becomes your greatest strength.
And the spirit flows and the water renews
and it washes over you. (Soft Music)
So that we can take deep breaths and remind ourselves,
the spirit's with me.
That we can realize that we're called to flow in our lives,
to flow with this goodness, to be part of bringing new creation
and gardens from deserts.
That health and provision and healing are in the fruits of you, the trees,
who are abiding in Christ, the root, so that your fruitfulness can be made known to all mankind. (Soft Music)
Stand with me today.
Father, you're so good.
Thank you for sending Jesus as the down payment,
as the proof that the Holy Spirit will come. (Soft Music) Lord, thank you that what started as a trickle
becomes a rushing river.
Lord, help us accept your invitation to come,
to come to you.
Also help us accept your invitation to become like you.
(Soft Music) To be part of the river,
flowing and bringing life all around us.
Lord, if there's anywhere in our hearts that are dry,
that are dirty, that are broken, that need your water poured out on them.
Lord, I open myself up to you today in this moment.
(Soft Music)
Pour yourself there.
So that was what was once my deepest wound can become a deep well of victory and healing for others.
God, you're so good to us.
Father, I just pray that your spirit, your word continues to confirm and continues to speak into our hearts, Lord.
And forever you hear that's here, Lord, I know that your spirit is speaking into our hearts about what this means to us today.
Whatever that next practical step is,
whatever that next step of trust is with you, Lord, speak it to our hearts today.
Because we love you, God.
And we wanna be here in your presence.
Lord, bless our Sunday.
Bless our week.
Bless our time in your presence.
It's in your holy name we pray, amen and amen.
Well, church, we love you. I pray that you get a good Sunday afternoon nap. I pray that the spirit continues to speak to you. You are dismissed. Have a great rest of your Sunday.
