September 1, 2024, Message by P. Kevin Clancey
Holy Spirit, come and fill us and give us boldness. Give us courage. Courage, Lord. Courage to have the Spiritual grit. the Spiritual grit. To not be discouraged in the face of any adversity that we’re facing, but to believe in the God of miracles, to believe in the God of provision, to believe in the God of forgiveness, to believe in the God of salvation, to believe in the God of healing.
Lord, tonight. Tonight, Lord, if we need to hear your voice to give us courage to encourage us, then speak it to us.
Speak it to us through the scriptures, through the preachings, or just speak it into our hearts. But, Lord, we pray that we would leave this place with more courage to face Monday than when we came in, and that we would face it with joy, peace, and love. Because you abide in us.
Let your kingdom come. your will be done right here on earth as it is in heaven. In Jesus’ Name we pray, Amen.
All right, dear ones. Hey, look who’s here. You snuck in behind me. What did Jacob say? Your face is to Esau. Your face is like seeing the face of God. I mean, it’s good faces to see right there. Don’t get jealous, people. Goes for all of you. To Sydney was here. Oh, there it is. There it is. Yeah. Thank you. Appreciate it.
All right. dear ones, we’re going through the Bible. We’re reading it through chronologically, and so we’re going to be in Ezekiel 47 tonight.
1 In my vision, the man brought me back to the entrance of the Temple. There I saw a stream flowing east from beneath the door of the Temple and passing to the right of the altar on its south side. 2 The man brought me outside the wall through the north gateway and led me around to the eastern entrance. There I could see the water flowing out through the south side of the east gateway. 3 Measuring as he went, he took me along the stream for 1,750 feet and then led me across. The water was up to my ankles. 4 He measured off another 1,7 5 0 feet and led me across again. This time the water was up to my knees. After another 1,750 feet, it was up to my waist. 5 Then he measured another 1,750 feet, and the river was too deep to walk across. It was deep enough to swim in, but too deep to walk through. 6 He asked me, “Have you been watching, son of man?” Then he led me back along the riverbank. 7 When I returned, I was surprised by the sight of many trees growing on both sides of the river. 8 Then he said to me, “This river flows east through the desert into the valley of the Dead Sea. The waters of this stream will make the salty waters of the Dead Sea fresh and pure. 9 There will be swarms of living things wherever the water of this river flows. Fish will abound in the Dead Sea, for its waters will become fresh. Life will flourish wherever this water flows. 10 Fishermen will stand along the shores of the Dead Sea. All the way from En-gedi to En-eglaim, the shores will be covered with nets drying in the sun. Fish of every kind will fill the Dead Sea, just as they fill the Mediterranean. 11 But the marshes and swamps will not be purified; they will still be salty. 12 Fruit trees of all kinds will grow along both sides of the river. The leaves of these trees will never turn brown and fall, and there will always be fruit on their branches. There will be a new crop every month, for they are watered by the river flowing from the Temple. The fruit will be for food and the leaves for healing.” (Ezekiel 47:1-12, NLT)
And God, may the words of my mouth, the meditation of our hearts, be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our rock, our strength and our redeemer.
So the prophets, especially the major prophets, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel, they give us long. The basic story is, listen, you have sinned and sinned and sinned 430 years. you’ve committed idolatry, you’ve sacrificed your children to pagan deities, to demons, basically. And I’ve warned you time and time again. And remember, you signed on to the covenant.
And the covenant said, if you do x, y, and z, I’ll bless you. If you do a, b, and c, these are the things that are going to happen.
The prophets are basically covenant lawyers. They’re coming as lawyers presenting, as prosecuting lawyers, presenting God’s case to the people of Israel, first in the northern kingdom, and now with Ezekiel to Judah, the southern kingdom, saying, you have broken the covenant. And here’s the promises. Here’s what God said would happen if you broke the covenant.
I’ve been warning you for a long time, and now the Babylonians are coming, and it’s not going to end well for you. That’s the majority of the prophets.
As we read through them, I mean, it can be heavy reading. It’s like, oh, my gosh. Oh, my gosh. Oh, my gosh. And then God gets done judging Judah, and he looks around at the surrounding nations and says, don’t get snarky. Don’t smirk at the destruction of Jerusalem, because it’s coming to you, too.
And we think, oh, my gosh, is there any hope? But all the prophets, Isaiah from chapter 40 on, but Ezekiel also, from chapter 40 on, start to give us hope.
Ezekiel gives us this picture of a future temple because, remember, the big tragedy in Ezekiel’s time was what? The temple was destroyed. Solomon’s beautiful temple was destroyed. And for Israel, that was their whole vision; that’s where God dwelt.
Ezekiel’s point is, God doesn’t dwell in the temple. At the very beginning of Ezekiel, Ezekiel sees this vision of God moving with the exiles to Babylon. God said, I’m a portable God. I’ll move with you.
I’ll go with you, and I’ll bring you back. But here’s a picture. God gives Ezekiel these plans for the new temple. Now, there was a temple built when the Jews returned, but it wasn’t according to the plans of Ezekiel.
Ezekiel’s temple is huge, but it’s a picture of hope. It’s a picture that Israel’s worship will be restored because the temple was a place of worship. And so Israel’s worship is going to be restored. I think Ezekiel’s temple.
A lot of people look at Ezekiel’s temple and say, oh, that’s going to be the temple in the millennium. That’s going to be the temple that this temple is going to get built in Jerusalem.
I think the temple’s Jesus. I think the temple is Jesus. He said, destroy this body or destroy this temple. What? And in three days, I’ll raise it up. And the Jews in 70 AD destroyed the temple. But Jesus was basically saying, in three days, I will rise.
But whatever the temple is, whether it’s Jesus, whether it’s a future temple, whether it’s the temple in heaven, whatever the temple is, the temple is a place of worship.
Now, remember worship? We’ve dumbed down worship in our culture. We think worship is singing our favorite songs. Or maybe those weren’t your favorite songs, but I get to pick them. So there are some of mine. And so, you know, we think that’s what worship is.
Music is a tool for worship. Worship is sacrifice. Worship is humbling yourself. When you showed up tonight, you were worshiping in that you made a sacrifice, right? One of the two most valuable commodities we have is time. You know, people say time and money. And in worship, we do both, right?
There’s a box back there. That’s not a donation box to keep the church alive. It’s an offering box. It’s an act of worship. This is an act. Communion is an act of worship. Worship is actually where atonement, remembrance, and thanksgiving take place. Those are the three primary aspects of worship: atonement, our sins are covered; remembrance.
We read the ancient book and say, remember God’s character, remember God’s faithfulness, remember God’s nature. Give us hope because we remember and then we’re thankful.
We get out of ourselves and say, oh, yeah, I’m not the center of the universe. I’ve inherited a great salvation through Jesus Christ or for the Jews. We’ve inherited this great promised land. We’re thankful. We’re thankful.
And so that’s what worship is. And this river that comes from the temple, I believe, comes. It’s the river that flows from worship.
And I believe that then becomes analogous to our lives as we enter into a life of worship. This river, this incredible river, begins to flow.
And here’s what happens when the river flows. I’m kind of going from the end of the verse to the beginning. I’m starting with the results of the river, and then I’m going to talk about the different depths of the river. But here are the results of the river, all right?
The river flows and the water in the desert, and it comes and it waters the desert. It waters the desert. I like desert. I’m a western American, all right? I go back east and it’s like everything’s green, but it’s humid and all that. And my wife, my wife’s from New Jersey. I married a Jersey girl. She loves that. She loves the rolling hills, the deciduous trees and all that.
I love the high desert. I like Arizona and New Mexico and southwestern Colorado. I like the desert. All right. But here’s what I like about the.
You can always tell in the desert or in the great plains where a river is. You don’t even have to see the water. If you’re driving along the highway and you look to the left and there’s a row of trees, you know on the other side of those trees is water. Because wherever water flows, water brings life.
If you look at a map of the United States before irrigation was popular, Los Angeles is the outlier. But if you look at a map of the United States, every major city is built on a river. Water brings life. Water in the Bible is one of the pictures of the Holy Spirit. It represents the Holy Spirit.
I was going to talk. You could bring it up to you guys again in our little Bible study because we’ve finished a Bible study several months ago on dream interpretation. And one of the things that I have had consistently, not every night, but just regularly ever since about 2006-2007 are what I call high water dreams.
And in these high water dreams, it is either one of two things. I either witness the coming of a tsunami, or I’m in a location by a lake or by an ocean or whatever, where I’m in the water. Like this river, the water never stops rising. It’s just going up, it keeps coming up, it keeps coming up, it keeps coming up. It’s getting higher and higher and higher.
All right, and I had one last week. Had another one last week. I was on the east coast, and I’m looking out, and for some reason, I’m looking out at the Atlantic Ocean. I knew. I don’t know why I knew it was the Atlantic Ocean, but I’m looking out at the Atlantic Ocean, always calm.
And I must have been on a peninsula, because as I was looking out at this calm water, I turned around, and there, right there, was like this. Whoa, my goodness, here comes the tsunami. Here comes this big wave.
I’ve always taken. I’ve always interpreted that, that revival’s coming. That’s how I’ve always interpreted it. So, Lord, I’m ready to get wet. I don’t need another dream. If you want to send another dream, that’s fine. you’re God. I’m not. You can send me 30 more dreams, but I’m actually ready for the realization of the dream.
If the realization of the dream is revival. If, however, it’s a warning dream and I haven’t gotten it yet, then send me more until I get them all right. I’m not asking, Lord, for that yet. Well, okay, Kevin, here comes the judgment. No, I don’t want that. Send me a prophet. Help me out here.
But really, water brings abundance, and it says here, it brings life to these trees, and these trees bring what? They bring fruit, abundance, and they bring healing.
From worship flow, abundance, and healing. From worship flow, abundance and healing. Listen, God is a healer, and God is a provider, but there’s an atmosphere in which those things move easier, and it is the atmosphere of the river of God. It’s the atmosphere of the Spirit of God.
Like I said, my interpretation is that the temple is Jesus. Well, what do you think my interpretation of the river is? Bueller, I just said it. Holy ghost. Holy ghost. All right, the Holy Ghost is moving, and so there’s healing. The water flows east toward the Dead Sea. Not only does it bring abundance and healing, it brings resurrection.
I’ve never been to the Dead Sea, but it fascinates me for one reason. As I’m getting older, you just need to know this about me. When I was born, the Dead Sea was only sick, all right? That’s how old I am. But no, the Dead Sea has always fascinated me.
It’s way below sea level, and it’s a sea with no outlet, right? And so when the water from the Jordan River flows into it, it becomes stagnant. It’s full of salt. In fact, it’s one of the most highly. What do you call a sea that’s highly salted? Highly salted, yeah.
But, you know, people are very buoyant in it, and. But it. But nothing lives in it. It’s. It’s dead. It’s dead because there’s no outlet. But when the life of Jesus flows from the Spirit even to dead things, they come alive. They come alive.
We live in a century, or we just finished a century, where there were more recorded resurrections from the dead than any time in Christian history. More stories of people dying and coming back to life.
There’s three in the New TestAment. There’s hundreds of testimonies, and some of them very, very viable, some of them a little less hard to trace down. But, you know, sometimes we hear miracle stories, and it’s my sister’s second cousin’s boyfriend, first cousin’s removed. And it’s like, okay. But other times, it’s like we had with Julie. It’s like, oh, it’s the neighbor.
It’s the neighbor we’ve been praying for. We know this person. But there are many credible stories of the resurrection of the dead.
But let me tell you this. Every time. Every time somebody says, I don’t want to follow the devil anymore. I want to follow Jesus Christ and be a part of his kingdom. Death to life, resurrection, born again. Death to life, darkness to light.
All right, I once was dead, and now I’m alive in Christ Jesus man. My conversion, I experienced that. I really did.
I look at my life, and I’m, you know, y’all know me. I’m far less than perfect. But when I was 16 years old and I gave my life to Jesus, everything changed. It really did. It really did.
I mean, I kind of mark my life that way. I just mark my life that way. That’s when it really feels like to me, that’s when it began. Not that, you know, my pre-coming to Jesus life, God used that to bring me to Jesus.
I love my parents. I love my sisters. You know, it was difficult being raised with three crazy people, but I love them anyway. It’s amazing DNA and all that, how I could have been the only sane one of the four of us. But that’s how it worked out.
If you’re watching, sisters, love you, you know, you nut jobs, love you. All right, so. But really, death to life. I remember describing it again, how old I am. I remember describing it as like watching black and white TV all of a sudden switching to color TV.
All right, now, you know, if you get into the eighties and nineties, it’s like watching, you know, sometimes I’ll watch ESPN classics and it’s before high definition. It’s like I keep cleaning my glasses. Like, what’s wrong with that? You know, everything changed.
Where the water comes, there’s life. What’s our symbol of new life in the church? What do we do to picture new life? Water. Death to life. You died with Christ. You rise new. This born again thing’s real. It’s real.
You are changed when you’re born again. When the Spirit of God makes you alive, you are new. Death to life.
The river goes. The river grows with no tributaries. This is a miracle, right? Rivers grow with tributaries.
My dad was proud. He was raised in northern Minnesota, and my dad was a piece of work, so many. But he was like, Kev, I jumped over the Mississippi River as a boy, and he did. He took me to the place, like 3 ft wide. This is where the Mississippi River starts.
Go down to New Orleans and see what your jumping will do. Where does the Columbia River start up? In the Canadian Rockies. Anybody know where the Columbia River? Canadian Rockies. There’s probably a place up there you could jump over. You know, if you get up high enough in the Canadian Rockies, you could jump over the Columbia River.
But I’ve also been across that bridge right from Oregon to Washington, and what is that, a couple miles? It’s huge. It’s a huge bridge. The mouth of the Columbia River. Well, why is that? Tributaries, tributaries.
Water flows in the western United States. It flows into the Snake River and other rivers. They flow into the Columbia River, and every time a tributary flows in, it grows the Mississippi River. Every time a tributary, the Missouri River, flows in, if you look at a map of the United States, all the water flows into the Mississippi River and then dumps out in the delta.
But this river grows miraculously. No tributaries. This river grows miraculously. It keeps getting higher. My dream, high water, water increasing. It just increases miraculously. It just keeps growing. It keeps growing. It keeps growing. And that says when the Spirit of God is there, flowing from worship, from the temple. Jesus himself, the Spirit of God comes that there are things that happen that have no natural explanation. They have no natural explanation.
How do sinful human beings get better? How does God make bad people good? the Spirit of God. Listen, here’s the truth. Bad people get worse. Bad people get worse, not better.
All right, what do we call, what do we call beer? A gateway drug, right? Because, you know, the danger is you start with beer and, you know, you get down the road. It’s a gateway drug.
Marijuana. It’s a gateway drug. Well, marijuana is not so bad, but you’ll be doing heroin in a year. Not everybody, but some people. Bad people get worse. Tell you what, little sins grow into big sins. Habits of little sins grow into big sins.
Everybody who is a wicked sinner reached a point where, at some point in their life, they said, well, I do this, but I will never do that. And then what? Maybe you, maybe me. You find yourself doing that.
But the miracle here is God makes bad people good. you’re a part of that. When the kingdom of God entered your life, when King Jesus came into your life and you decided to follow Jesus, you have been progressively, according to the scriptures, being made more like Jesus, being more prepared.
Listen, the promises of the New TestAment are overwhelming. It’s not just that you avoid the bad place and get to go to the good place. You are co-heirs with Christ, and you get to be like the Bible says. I don’t know what we’re entirely like, but we will be like him.
Now, listen, you’re never going to be the Son of God. you’re never going to be the king of the universe, all right? Here’s what I tell you. You don’t get to sit on the throne, but you do get to sit at the table, all right?
You seen that comic with the dog and the cat before God. And God says to the dog, why shall I let you into heaven? And the dog says, I’ve been a good boy. I’ve been a good boy. I fetched for my master. I protected my house. I love my master and I love my family. I’ve been a good boy. And God says, good answer, good answer.
And he looks at the cat and says, why should I let you into my heaven? And the cat says, you’re sitting in my chair, dude. So that’s all right. Be the dog, not the cat. You don’t get to sit in the chair of Jesus, but you do get to sit at the family table.
In fact, tonight we’re invited to the family table. All right? So the river grows with no tributaries. Miracles happen. Miracles happen. My life is, listen, I got unanswered prayer. I got times where I prayed for a miracle, and it didn’t happen.
All right? But you know what? It just takes one to beat the atheist, and I’ve had hundreds. I can’t tell you all the people I’ve seen healed from sprained thumbs to stage four cancer.
I haven’t personally experienced somebody raised from the dead, but everything up to that. I mean, I’ve seen people on death’s doorstep, and I’ve seen the miracle of people being born again. I’ve seen the miracle of lives being transformed. I’ve seen the miracle of marriages being saved.
I’ve seen the miracles of people with one sexuality, with a same-sex attraction, getting married and staying happily married to an opposite-sex person. You know, everything the world says can’t happen, I’ve seen happen. I’ve seen it happen.
So God does miracles. And you know what? Don’t stop believing. Don’t let that. Don’t let the unanswered prayer stop you from the next one. That’s what courage is. Courage is the ability not to quit, not to allow our disappointment to make us stop. Life is full of disappointments.
The most successful people in the natural, in the world, social scientists, people who study this, will tell us the most successful people in life aren’t the smartest people. Turn to somebody next to you and say, hey, good news for you. No, don’t say that. They’re not the smartest people. They’re not even the hardest working people.
The single most consistent characteristic in people who are successful is grit, the ability not to quit. Not to quit. It’s interesting to me when the Holy Spirit comes and fills the disciples, they speak in tongues.
Pentecostalism has made a big thing of that, and I’m all for tongue talking. I talk in tongues a lot. I think everybody should do it a lot. But interesting, I think when I read the book of Acts, the most repeated characteristic of being filled with the Holy Spirit is not speaking in tongues, but is boldness, courage.
the Spirit of God makes you tough because life requires toughness. See? Tough heart, thin skin, bad combination. Soft heart, tough skin, good combination.
All right, miracles. Keep pressing in for miracles. All right, five levels to the river. Here we get to the beginning of the verse. The river begins to flow, and it’s a trickle. It’s a trickle. It’s my dad up in Minnesota jumping over the Mississippi. It’s the mouth of every river; it’s a trickle.
All right. I look at that as analogous to: I’ve heard the message and I believed it. I’m a baby Christian, you know, it’s just a trickle. It’s just. Life has just begun. Life has just begun. When a baby’s born, there’s not a lot they can do.
You know, my youngest had her first a year and a half ago. She’s now had her second. She was much more relaxed at the second. But I’ll never forget, this is every parent’s first child, you know, she’s holding this life in her hands. You know, I always want to be a mommy, and, oh, mommy. And then they’re holding the life in their hands, and she looked at my wife, she looked at Jill, and she said the most obvious and yet the most profound thing with just wide-eyed fear. Mom, I have to keep it alive.
Yeah, you do. It ain’t gonna go hunt and gather. You know, it’s not gonna. She’s not gonna feed herself. You have to keep it alive.
All right, there is a trickle. New Christians, they need the church to keep them alive. And then there’s a level where it’s ankle deep, and that’s your. you’re now a part of the community. Maybe you’re a part of the. I love people who are ankle deep.
I love, like, new Christians in Bible studies because some of us have been at this so long, and we go through Bible studies, and, you know, we can even find the minor prophets without those little cheat tabs on our Bibles.
You know, we’ve been at it. We know Christianese. We know when we pray, we’re supposed to use the word just a lot. God, we just thank you. you’re just so good. you’re just awesome. God, we know how to pray. We know the language. We’ve learned it all.
And then you get a new Christian and a Bible study, and I just love this. This happens all the time. I get a new Christian Bible study, and they’ll read through the Bible, and they go, oh, my God. Pastor, did you know that this was in the Bible? Did you know that this was in the Bible?
I have two responses to that, and the first is, yeah, I did know it was in the Bible, but thank you for reminding me how wonderful it is that that’s in the Bible. Right?
So I love kids splashing around in ankle-deep water. I love my grandkids splashing around in ankle-deep water. I don’t want them to stay there. I want them to learn how to swim. But I love it. It’s great.
Every level of the river is not a stopping place. And see, that’s one of our problems. We have preached a gospel to a certain extent that says, say the prayer, stamp your ticket, go to the good place. But that’s not the New TestAment gospel.
Jesus comes and he preaches the kingdom of God and he says, you’re a part of my kingdom. I’m a king. We’re at war. I’m recruiting people and training people to advance my kingdom on earth so that my will will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
And ultimately we don’t, you know, people will say, heaven is our home. And I get it. I don’t even argue with that. But really it’s not. Our home is the new heavens and the new earth. you’re home now, but it’s just gonna be much better.
It’s gonna be new. It’s gonna be better. And heaven, we don’t go up to heaven in the end. Yes. When we die before the general resurrection, I believe our spirits go to heaven. We’re recognizable. We’re Jesus in paradise. It’ll be great. There’ll be nothing wrong with it. you’ll be excited.
Imagine heaven, John Burke. You get to read it, man. It’s going to be awesome. But it ain’t over. We get the new heavens and the new earth. My wife and I have been doing our DNA.
We did our DNA, and I’ve always been really proud of being Irish. My dad was really proud of our Irish surname, Clancy. I’m Irish. Find out, not so much. It’s disappointing. I’ve worked on my brogue, you know. It’s 13%. It’s third. It’s third.
But I be Scottish, and so is my wife. We’re Scottish. It’s like, oh, I don’t. I have never, you know, I’ve always felt like I’ve been Irish and Scott, you know? No wonder I like the movie Braveheart so much. I’m Scottish. I’ve been starting to study Scotland, and I’m Scottish and I’m English.
Then I’m Irish and Danish, and it’s crazy. All right, I don’t know my point, why I was saying that. But anyway, you know, the older I get, I can never find my way back from my bunny trails. When I was younger, I’d go off track and I’d always remember my way back. And now it’s just for your entertainment only.
So I’m Scottish. I will tell you my favorite Scottish. Anybody want to hear my favorite joke? My favorite joke. So, church, the air conditioner goes out, and the pastor goes, we have to take a second offering, people, to repair our air conditioner. This was years ago. It’s going to cost us $400. We need $400. But it’s the middle of summer. We need this air conditioner. So we’re taking a second offering today.
And so they take a second offering. He preaches a sermon. The usher comes up after the offering, whispers in his ear. He gets a big smile on his face, and he says, it’s amazing. It’s amazing. God is so faithful.
The offering came at $400.02. Isn’t it great how God provides? And everybody’s like, oh, that’s amazing. And then he says, two cent. There must be a Scotsman in the crowd. And from the balcony, a voice comes, aye, there’d be two of us.
So that’s now me. That’s me. Me and my wife. So we’re a part of the church. Don’t stop. Don’t stop. We’re ankle deep. Go knee deep. That’s where we begin to feel it in our lives. That’s where water begins. We can feel it.
You know, you get out in the ocean, and when it hits your knees, you start to wobble a little bit. You know, it’s not like just walking ankle deep.
That’s where we’re beginning the process of discipleship. And we allow the Spirit to teach us, and we’re venturing out. We’re getting a little more bold.
And then there’s above the waist. Now, here’s what I think about water above the waist. We all have experienced this. We all go into a lake or the beach or even a cold swimming pool, and there’s two ways to get in, right?
You just go, you know what? I don’t care. You know, dive right in. But most of us get in ankle deep. Knee deep. But then the real test, right, the real test is the line of your bathing suit, because that first blast above that bathing suit, around the belly button, that’s a new kind of cold.
Your legs have been acclimated. But that when it hits that, I don’t know what that is, but anybody with me on this, right? You go out to Lake Tahoe or in California. Is this freezing?
Or out the lake Tahoe or what the sound. Oh, my gosh. You know, you can, like, get your feet in there, maybe knees. But, man, if you get in over your it’s like, oh, whoa.
There comes a place in our Christian walk and our walk with the Spirit where God allows it to be uncomfortable. Nobody grows in comfort, right? Pain, you know, pain is just weakness leaving the body, you know. You know, people who train, they know. They know that nobody grows through discomfort. No jogger, you know, no runner.
I was driving to church this morning. I saw all these people jogging, thinking, who would do that? And here’s my point. None of them are smiling. I was smiling. They weren’t smiling. But I have other pain in my life that I grow through. There is something about in our fallen, you know, we all crave comfort. We all crave convenience. But there’s something about the, you know, 23rd psalm. Thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me. Not thy lazy boy and thy heated blanket.
Thy rod and thy staff, those are two pieces of wood meant to move sheep along. Sheep who did not want to move. You don’t want to move? Here. Here’s one on the behind. Boom. My rod. Oh, you still don’t want to move? I’m wrapping this sucker around your neck. you’re coming. Where I’m going, a part of the comfort of God is the discomfort of getting waist deep in the river.
But when we say a dangerous prayer, I’ve said this dangerous prayer. I’ve said this dangerous prayer, Lord, I want to be like Jesus.
You’ve probably said the same prayer. Whether you want to be or not, that’s his goal. He’s going to make you like Jesus.
Lord, I just want to go to the good place and, you know, not the bad place. Great. But everybody in a good place is like me.
I don’t believe in after death purgatory. I grew up Catholic. I used to argue with my mother-in-law about this, and she, you know, she wouldn’t always hear me. And she. I told her one time, I believe in purgatory. She thought it was a great victory.
She even told my wife, your husband believes in purgatory. But she didn’t hear the second part of my sentence. I said, I believe in purgatory. She goes, did you? Do? I go, yeah, we’re in it. This is it. This is where that stuff gets worked out.
All right, listen. It’s not supposed to be easy. One of my favorite lines, my wife and I, we moved up here to plant a church. And it was hard. You know, it’s been. It’s been hard. It’s been hard. And. And we. We love the movie. We love baseball movies.
We love the movie Field of Dreams. It’s a great movie. And, you know, Tom Hanks just does a great job as this drunk manager who kind of reforms and develops a bond with his star player, Dottie, this catcher who’s just the best player in the league, and they develop a bond.
You know what? League of Its Own. What did I say? Oh, old man. Dad. Well, that one. Dad. Let’s have a catch. Oh, cry. Cry. Yeah. That’ll be an illustration later. A League of Their Own. Right. Tom Hanks, Dottie. And Dottie quits.
Her husband comes back. He’s wounded from the war. That’s not the reason she quits. She’s having conflict with her sister. Her sister’s jealous of her, sibling rivalry working its way out.
She wants to make room for her sister to shine, who ultimately does, whether Dottie makes room for her or not. And Tom Hanks has this kind of recovered. He’s not drinking as much.
The manager comes up to her and he says, so you’re leaving the team, huh? She goes, yeah. Yeah. I’m gonna go back to Oregon with my husband and make babies.
And he’s like, what’s the deal? It just got too hard. And this is the line my wife and I quote to each other. The hard that makes it great. It’s the hard that makes it great.
If it was easy, anybody could do it. Don’t resent the hard. Nothing in life will make you more like Jesus than the hard.
Listen, the Holy Spirit is a comforter, but he’ll take you places that are hard, not because you’re being punished, not because you’re being judged, but because he loves you enough to grow you up.
St. Augustine said it this way. God loves us so much. He loves us completely, exactly as we are, but too much to leave us that way.
I don’t want to be this guy in eternity. I mean, this guy. I like this guy. He’s all right. But I want to be better than this guy. I want to be more like Jesus than I am today. I want to be more like Jesus ten years from now than I am today.
And to get there, there’s going to be hard. Stay in the river. Get above your waist.
And here’s the fun place. We learn to swim. It’s above our head. There’s a… I don’t recommend this. I’m not this kind of dad, but it is kind of a funny scene.
John Wayne. It’s John. It’s the Duke. So he can do it. And this little kid comes up, and John Wayne’s, like, fishing. And the kid’s like… And the kid goes, I don’t know how to swim. He goes, what? I don’t know how to swim. And the kid’s fatherless and John Wayne’s like, nobody ever taught you how to swim?
No, I don’t know how to swim. He says, I’ll teach you how to swim. Will you? He goes, sure. And he picks the kid up, throws swim. Some people can learn that way. Some people can drown that way. Don’t recommend it.
But really, that’s the funnest I ever had in the water. When I was a little kid, I’d splash into my ankles and knee deep and waist deep was all fun. But you know what? You know, it was real fun when I was a teenager.
And we go out to the beaches in Santa Cruz, and we go out to where the breakers were breaking, and we do what? We body surf.
What happens when you body surf? your feet leave the ground. And what happens? you’re being propelled not by anything you do, but by the wave. That was the thrill. That was the thrill.
Listen, God wants to grow us to the point where we can no longer touch the bottom. And we say, spirit, let’s go. Let’s go. I’m not going to drown. you’re with me.
I remember my daughter when she was three years old or so. We had this kindly couple that let us use their pool, which, by the way, people, take my advice or leave it. Don’t get a pool or a boat. Get friends with pools and boats. That’s the way to do it.
And here’s the thing. This doesn’t apply so much in Washington, but in Central Valley, California, everybody had a pool, and we had all these people in the church. When we were first starting, we were young.
Now, I’d be one of those people, but these people would, you know, they bought houses and they bought pools, and they raised their kids, and the kids use the pool. Now they have a reservoir in their backyard that they use twice a summer.
They will beg you to use their pools so they can, you know, justify having it. I had so many offers to, you know, take my kids. So I took Megan to this lovely couple.
They were so kind to us, and I took them to, you know, always used their pool. Took them to their pool. And I’ll never forget to. She’s, you know, it’s like, okay, daddy, I want to jump in, and I want to jump in without the floaties.
I said, great, but you’re going to catch me, right? you’re going to be there, right? Yeah, I’ll be there. I’ll catch you. And then she’s like, well, wait, how do I know?
Well, there’s only one way to know. There’s only one way to absolutely know.
Now, she had evidence to reasonably believe I’d catch her. If I was going to kill her, I could have done it many times before that day. You know, you got to keep them alive. I kept her alive till three. Chances are I was going to bring her home to her mom.
But really. And I kind of said, I said, Megan, I’ll catch you. And basically, do you trust me? There’s only one way to find out if Dad’s worthy. I could give you 100 assurances from the water. We have a thousand assurances from God.
I will catch you. I’m good. I will save you. you’re forgiven. Now jump.
John Wimber said, faith is spelled R I S K. Listen, ankle deep water is fun. It’s soothing, you know. Now when I go to the beach, you know, take my shoes and socks off, roll up my pants, and you just walk in that place where the water. But you know what? As I do that, I still remember the days where we used to body surf. That was fun. That was fun.
And so, Lord Jesus, where do you have. I don’t want to stop. I don’t want to stop at a safe place. I don’t want to stop. Ankle, knee, waist, Heavenly Father.
And here’s something else, and maybe some of you can relate, or maybe I’m the only old person. The older you get, kind of the more you want to stop, because you feel like I’ve done it recently. My friends Rob and Lori Mangus in Ghana, you know, they didn’t call me up. They DMed me on Facebook and said, hey, we got our West African Grace Covenant preachers conference coming.
We’re getting our pastors and church leaders from Liberia, Benin, Togo, Nigeria, and Ghana, and we’re holding our yearly conference. Dallas isn’t going to be able to make it this year. We were wondering if you would come and be our speaker.
Everything in me said, I love you, Rob and Lori, but no, I don’t want to go to Africa. I don’t want 16 hours on an airplane. I don’t like 3 hours on an airplane. Years ago, I was getting claustrophobic on airplanes, man.
The worst thing I can imagine is being like 4 hours in an airplane and having a panic attack with 12 hours to go. It’s like, you know, so I’m like, boy, I don’t want that. I don’t want to go to Africa.
So, I thought, well, here’s a way out. Here’s a way out. Grace Covenant probably doesn’t have the money and the budget to pay for me, so I’ll just say, well, is Grace Covenant covering this? They text back, no, great. I didn’t answer them yet. I just. Great. That’s my way out.
And then this voice, the waist deep, uncomfortable voice, comes and says, remember when you told me years ago you weren’t going to travel and do mission trips again?
Yeah, I remember that. And remember what my response is. My response was. I remember your response was, oh, when do you get to make those calls? That’s what I remember hearing from God. It’s like, did I say you’re not going to do any more mission trips?
No, you didn’t. Then remember the other thing you told me when you started preaching?
I said, yep. I said, I will preach the gospel anywhere, anyplace, without charging any money if anybody asks me, and I’m providentially available. I mean, I can’t be two places at once, but if I can do it and somebody asks me to come preach to a group of people, I will not ask for money.
If I can do it, I’ll preach the gospel. And I told God that years ago. I said, I love preaching. It’s what I do. And it’s like, okay, so you can’t tell me when and when you can’t do mission trips.
And you already told me that. It doesn’t matter if you’re getting paid for. It doesn’t matter if Grace Covenant pays for it. You are providentially available. You have the money, you can do it. You know. You know, it’s not cheap, but I’m at the stage in my life where, you know, my wife didn’t bail me out.
Honey, you know, Rob and Lori want me to do this mission trip and. But, you know, it’s gonna cost us this much. That’s okay. She’s looking for some help here. Looking for some help. She goes, yeah, you should go.
It’s like, I should go. Am I gonna? What are you? But, you know, I felt good. She didn’t say, you know, do you have life insurance? She said, you can go. So guess what? I’m going. And Stefan’s not even gonna come be my bodyguard.
And, like, I’ve had. And the whole time it’s like, it’d be better if somebody came with me. And I’ve had like five or six people come. I think I’m gonna go with you. I think I’m gonna go with you. And they’re all like. They’re all like.
For some reason, no, I can’t go with you. So I’m gone. So I’m gone. So I won’t be here. October 6. Pray I make it back by October 8. I’m going. Why? Because I want a body surf again.
I’ve been praying to God for revival, Lord. Send it to Poulsbo. Well, I can do that. I can send it to Bremerton and Poulsbo. But guess what, preacher boy? It’s already happening in Africa. Africa is becoming the Christian continent. Well, maybe it’d be fun to preach to. No comment on you. You guys are fine.
But maybe, friend to peace, for a room full of. A room full of on fire people, instead of a smattering, that might be fun. Give that a shot.
So, what’s your Africa today? Where’s God saying to you, dive in. That, you know, jump? Will you catch me? Of course I’ll catch you. you’re not gonna let me die. Could have killed you already. Not gonna let you die.
All right, dear ones. That’s all I got. Five levels to the river. Where do you want to go? How deep? How deep you want to go?
How deep do you want to go? It’s the hard that makes it great. All right. I won’t be like an old person and just start repeating myself. I’m done, Sydney. What am I going to say? Oh, no. I’m not going to say it now. I’m going to say it later.
Now, I’m going to say this as I read Psalm 103 this morning or this evening.
1 Let all that I am praise the Lord; with my whole heart, I will praise his holy name.2 Let all that I am praise the Lord; may I never forget the good things he does for me. 3He forgives all my sins and heals all my diseases. 4He redeems me from death and crowns me with love and tender mercies. 5He fills my life with good things. My youth is renewed like the eagle’s!(Psalms 103:1-5, NLT)
All those promises are right there. I know those are Old TestAment. I know David wrote that psalm. But that is a messianic communion psalm if there ever was one. That’s new covenant promise. Psalm 103:1-5.
Dear ones, you have forgiveness. You have healing. You have been saved from death, the pit into life. But not just that. It’s not like a fireman came and saved you and said, great, pats you on the back. It’s the romance novel. The fireman came and saved you, and he married you.
All right, so that’s. I mean, you good with that, Sophia? So it’s a romance novel. He crowns you with love and compassion. Then he renews your youth like the eagles.
People use that, and they said, well, eagles get new feathers every so often, and so they’re always being renewed. I don’t think that’s what it means. I think it means this.
I could be wrong, but I think it means this. Eagles soar, and they get the big perspective. And what gives us hope? The big perspective. We get God’s perspective on history.
You see, it doesn’t matter what the real estate market does, what the stock market does, how the elections turn out. It matters in this sense that God is blessing and God is moving. He wants his kingdom to come on earth as it is in heaven. We need to work for those things. But we’re playing a game. We’ve already won. We got the big picture.
We’re on eagle’s wings. And we, of all people, have reason to hope. Of all people have a reason to hope.
Let this meal heal your body, assure you of your forgiveness, bless you with the salvation that comes. Crown you with the love and compassion of God, and let it renew you with hope.
Jesus, would your Spirit come to this table and fill these elements as you serve them to us, that all the benefits of the new covenant would be realized in us. We ask it in Your Name, Amen.
Come and eat.
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