Overflow: Where the River Flows

Well, for the last five weeks, we've been tracing God's desire and design all throughout Scripture, from the beginning pages all the way through the book of Revelation. In this series we've been calling Overflow. We've been tracing God's design and desire. His desire has always been to dwell among his people. And his design is that his presence brings abundant life and he has a purpose for it.

Here's how we've been saying it. God's presence brings life so abundant that it overflows. And wherever it flows, new life begins. God's design and desire have never changed. But there's also another thing that's been consistent throughout this story, too.

It's the human pattern. The human pattern on repeat is that God draws near. His presence brings life. He blesses us with good things. And before long, we start taking his presence for granted and hoarding his blessing like it was meant only for us.

And instead of living like an abundant flowing river, receiving from God and allowing his life to flow through us into new places, we start building reservoirs. Now, let me be clear. Scripture has a lot to say about preparing for the future, working hard, investing, building healthy relationships, developing our abilities. All those things are great and wonderful things. They're good resources.

The problem comes when we build a big enough reservoir of resources that we convince ourselves that we no longer need the source all those resources came from. Because resources make terrible sources. A reservoir can't produce anything. It can only hold what it's been given by a true source. And once we start living from the reservoir instead of the source, which we do, we all do, our river stops flowing because we believe that we have to protect what we have from others who might take it.

This is the tragedy of reservoir living. God gives us something meant to flow and we turn it into something that we have to guard. And the upside down reality of the reservoir is the more we accumulate, the more anxious we become about losing it. The tighter we grip, the less it flows. And because of all this, the people God intended to bless through us, the places God intended to bless through us, start looking like undeserving takers, and they threaten what's mine.

There's a word the Bible uses over and over for what happens when we trust something created by God to do for us what only God can do for us. The Bible calls it idolatry. Idolatry is one of those sins that we don't really identify with. I think it's because we've narrowed it in our minds down to, like an Old Testament problem. Those People that weren't very scientific like we are.

I mean, they did that. They worshiped other gods. They built altars and shrines. They made images and bowed down to them. But that's just weird.

Like, we don't have that problem, right? We don't do idolatry. We've got other sins, but not that one. I mean, we don't have a BAAL statue in our living room. I doubt any of you sacrificed anything to Asherah this week.

None of you had to move the golden calf out of the driveway to back the minivan out this morning, right?

Idolatry is not our problem. That's their problem.

But God says something, convicting through the prophet Jeremiah, and he shows us what's at the root, the real problem under idolatry at the time Jeremiah's preaching, God's people have absolutely taken part in the idolatry that we think of. They worshiped other gods. But I want us to see how God describes the root issue. Underneath that, he narrows it down to two sins that he says He holds against them. Jeremiah 2:13.

My people have committed two sins. They have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water. That sounds a lot like what we're talking about, doesn't it? If God were to say these things to us in our context of this series today, maybe he would say it like this. My people have done two things.

They've walked away from me, the source of living water, and they have spent their lives building reservoirs that can produce life. Idolatry is trusting something God created to provide what only God can provide. And if we can convince ourselves that idolatry isn't our problem, then we can remain completely blind to the very things that we're trusting instead of God. Things that may actually be keeping us from the abundant life that he has in mind for all of us. So before we move on, I want us to take a few minutes and let God expose some of these things in us.

What are you depending on to make you feel safe? What are you terrified of losing because you're not sure that you'll be okay without it? What do you run to first when you're anxious or lonely or insecure or things feel out of control?

What do you protect so fiercely that anyone who threatens it starts to feel like an enemy? What good resource in your life has quietly become the thing you're depending on as your source? Because whatever you believe you absolutely have to have in order to be okay, has Enormous power over you. And sometimes the clearest evidence that something has become an idol isn't how much we enjoy having it. It's what happens inside of us when that thing gets thrown, threatened, or taken away or fails to give us what we expect from it.

So how do you know if you have an idol? Well, I wanted to keep. Make this as. As easy as we could to diagnose. I'm going to date myself here.

But when I was asking all these questions, it made me think of those old Jeff Foxworthy, you might be a redneck. Jokes. Anybody? Anybody? Okay.

All right. So here are the signs. You might have turned a resource into a source. Here are the signs. You might have an idol.

You might have an idol if you say it's just a truck, but then some guy in the Walmart parking lot hits that truck with their door and suddenly you turn green and yell hulk smash. Like you might have an idol if you say, I'm not really a materialistic person, but your closets are full and your attic is full and your basement is full and your garage is full and you're still pricing out a storage unit. You might have an idol if you say you trust God with your future, but you check your retirement account multiple times a day when the market gets a little soft. You might have an idol if you're expecting another person to make you feel whole and secure and wanted and enough and calling the burden that you've placed on them love.

You might have an idol if you say you trust God to provide, but every time you practice generosity it still feels like losing. You might have an idol if you call it being responsible, but really all you're trying to do is control every outcome around you so that you are not dependent on anyone, especially God. You might have an idol if you say my identity is in Christ, but one criticism can wreck your week and one word of encouragement can bring you back to life. You might have an idol if your kid makes a bad decision and you're more concerned about how this looks on you than what's going on in their lives. You might have an idol if you love your church as long as the music is just right, the preacher agrees with you, the programs meet your needs, your kids continue to like it, and nobody asks you to change or give or serve.

You might have an idol if you say Jesus is lord and God is sovereign over kings and kingdoms, but on election night you find out that who's sitting in the oval office has complete authority over your peace.

You might have an idol if you've heard every one of these and only thought of somebody else that really needs to hear this sermon.

You know, a resource has started to become a source. Because when the resource shakes, you shake. When the resource is threatened, you feel threatened. When the resource fails, your whole sense of peace and control and identity and security begins to fail with it. And without ever bowing down to a statue in our living rooms, we worship our false gods all the same.

The truth is, our generation has built bigger and better reservoirs than any generation before us. We have more wealth, more information, more control, more technology, more convenience, more insurance, more health care, more entertainment, more everything.

And yet we're still anxious and lonely and divided and afraid. We're still searching for something that will finally make us feel secure. We have never had more wells to drink from, and we're somehow still dying of thirst.

And that makes Jesus words from John 7, those words that we looked at last week so powerful. John 7:37 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. Do you hear what Jesus is saying? You don't need another reservoir.

You don't need a bigger reservoir. You need to come to to him the Source and drink. Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink. And Jesus doesn't stop with what he wants to give to us. He tells us what he intends to do through us.

Whoever believes in Me, as scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them.

And we've already noted, John explains exactly what Jesus means by this. He meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive. So if you are in Christ, you have become the new dwelling place of God's presence in this world. His Spirit dwells in you. And just like that beautiful river back from the garden that flows.

The life of God is designed, yes, to give abundant life to you, but to be so abundant that it's far more than you need. And it is never intended to stop with you. It was intended to overflow, to form new streams, new headwaters of God's blessing out in new places. And there's a phrase in Jesus statement that we skipped over last week. I want us to notice it today.

He said, whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said. What scripture? Well, there isn't one specific Old Testament verse that says end streams of living water will flow from them. Jesus is pulling together a picture that God has been painting through the prophets for centuries. Isaiah talks about God pouring water on Thirsty ground in streams, on dry land.

Joel sees a fountain flowing out of the house of the Lord. Zechariah sees living water flowing out from Jerusalem. And one of the clearest, biggest, most beautiful pictures of all is given to the prophet Ezekiel. And this prophecy from Ezekiel is given at a really interesting moment, moment in history. About 700 years have passed since God brought his people out of Egypt through the waters of the Red Sea.

Generations have come and gone. Israel has received the promised land that he promised to Abraham to give to them. They have built a kingdom, they've constructed a temple, accumulated wealth and power, and they have wandered from God further and further. And the prophet Jeremiah that we looked at just a minute ago, he warned God's people what would happen if they continued abandoning the source and putting their trust in false sources. And eventually all those warnings came true.

Jerusalem falls. The king is gone. The land is taken. The beautiful temple that Solomon had built, the Presence, the place of the presence of God, is destroyed. Not one stone sitting left on top of another.

The people are carried away as captives in exile in Babylon. Everything they thought would make them secure is stripped away. All their reservoirs are empty.

When God gives Ezekiel this vision. This is so important. Ezekiel has been living in exile in Babylon for 25 years already. It's going to be about another 40 years before they will come out of exile, and almost 600 years before Jesus will stay, stand in Jerusalem during the Feast of Tabernacles and say, let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink. So Ezekiel, standing right in the middle of the story behind him is God's faithfulness and Israel's repeated attempts to find life wherever else they can find it.

And ahead of him are promises that he will not live long enough to see fulfilled. And right there, while God's people are still in exile, the old temple still lies in ruins. God gives Ezekiel an incredible vision. An angel comes to visit him and takes him on a tour of a new temple. A temple that's unlike any earthly temple.

It's a totally new kind of temple. And that should get our attention, because all through the series, the Tabernacle and the Temple have been about the presence. They have been about the place where God's pleasant is presence dwells among his people. With all that in mind, let's see what Ezekiel sees. Ezekiel 47:1.

The man or the angel brought me back to the entrance to the temple. And I saw water coming out from under the threshold of the temple toward the east. For the temple faced the east. Remember when Adam and Eve were sent out of the garden. They were sent out to the east.

In this new temple, water is flowing out in the direction of sin. You remember where Israel was sent into exile. It was Babylon out to the east. And now this river, this trickle of water, is starting to flow to the east. Ezekiel 47, verse 3.

As the man went eastward with a measuring line in his hand, he measured off a thousand cubits. A cubit is the distance from the elbow to the tip of the fingers, about 18 to 20 inches. He measured off 1,000 cubits and led me through water that was ankle deep. He measured off another thousand cubits and led me through water that was knee deep. He measured off another thousand and led me through water that was up to the waist.

He measured off another thousand. But now it was a river that I could not cross because the water had risen and was deep enough to swim in. A river no one could cross. And he asked me, son of man, do you see this? The angel's like, hey, are you paying attention?

Don't miss this. Why? Because this is scientifically impossible. You don't start with a trickle and a mile from there you've got a river that no one can pass through. This is a miraculous nature defying river.

The further this water gets from the temple, the deeper it becomes. Let's keep reading. Verse 6. 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.

He said to me, this water flows toward the eastern region and goes down into the Arabah where it enters the Dead Sea. When it empties into the sea, the salty water there becomes fresh. So this impossibly multiplying river flows out of the place of God's presence. It grows and grows, and wherever it goes, it brings so much life that even when it gets to the deadest place on the planet, the Dead Sea, it brings abundant life. Verse 9.

Swarms of living creatures will live wherever the river flows. There will be a 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 En Gedi to En Eglam. There will be places for spreading nets.

The fish will be of many kinds, like the fish of the Mediterranean Sea. Verse 12. 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. And as all this wraps up and the book of Ezekiel closes, here's what we read. In the name of the seed City, from that time on will be, the Lord is there, the Lord is there. And because the Lord is there, life is there. Because the source is there.

The river flows. And wherever the river flows, dead things come alive. And listen back to those words from Jesus, whoever believes in me. As Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them. And John says, by this he means the Holy Spirit.

The presence Ezekiel saw dwelling in this very new kind of temple is the presence that now dwells in you. If you belong to Jesus, the name of your city is, the Lord is here.

His Spirit lives in you. And if this is all true, then where is the life of God flowing through you?

The river Ezekiel sees keeps flowing. And the further it flows, the more life it brings. Notice, it flows toward the wilderness. It flows towards the desert. It flows down to the Dead Sea.

It flows toward death, toward the place where nothing should be able to live. And still, wherever it flows, life begins. We church were meant to be people through whom the river of God brings life to dead places. But as long as we spend our lives building bigger reservoirs, guarding what we have, viewing people in need as undeserving takers who threaten what is ours, the world around us will remain dry and barren and dead.

This should completely change the way that we think about following Jesus, because most of us naturally spend our lives trying to avoid dead places. We work hard to insulate ourselves from brokenness and need and mess and people who might require something from us because it's exhausting. But the river doesn't avoid dead places. It runs toward them. It runs toward the lonely person.

It runs towards the struggling marriage, the neglected, those who are overlooked, the neighbor everyone else avoids, the addict, the poor, the person who's made a mess of their lives, the person who can never repay you. The places everyone else has already decided are hopeless. That's where the river flows. And the reservoir says, protect what you have. The river says, let it flow.

Because wherever the river flows, everything lives.

God has given every one of us things he never intended to stop with us. Grace, hope, resources, influence, experience, relationships, opportunities, gifts, time, compassion, forgiveness. All of it given so that his life can keep flowing through us into dead and barren places. So who is experiencing the grace of Jesus because it's flowing through you? Who is more hopeful because you showed up?

Who's being served because you gave your time? Who's experiencing generosity because you loosened your grip? Who knows more about Jesus because you opened your mouth? Who has become welcomed because you walked into the room? What dead place is beginning to show signs of life?

Because the spirit of God living in you is flowing there and beyond. Us as individuals, we as a church have this same calling. God didn't put us here just to become a giant reservoir where we pile up Christians and resources and knowledge and amenities so that we can be comfortable and keep it all to ourselves. We gather here to fix our eyes on Jesus, to remind ourselves that there are streams of living water inside of us that were intended to flow out through us and to go out of this place, built up, encouraged and empowered to go let the river flow into our workplaces and schools and homes and neighborhoods, our community, into the ends of the earth. God's beautiful design has always been overflow.

God's presence brings life so abundant that it overflows. And wherever it flows, new life begins.

So let's get super practical. Let's take a step toward making this a reality. Here's what I want to challenge all of us with this week. Instead of suddenly trying to flow out into every dead place that we can possibly think of, I just want us to take a small step.

I want us to this week, pray and ask the Holy Spirit, what's one place that you intend for this river to flow? Through me into a new place. And then, just like we talked about in our Holy Spirit series, how do we walk in the Spirit? We ask, we listen, we obey. So we ask the Holy Spirit, what's one place that you want this river to flow?

And then we listen. We keep our eyes up. We are paying attention to the world around us, looking for that answer. And when he makes it obvious to us, obey. Let it flow.

Let it flow.

Maybe it's your time, your home, your money. Maybe it's your story, your experience, your influence. Maybe it's just noticing someone that everyone else keeps walking past when the Holy Spirit says, that's it, let it flow. Let it flow.

I kept trying to think of one really sticky sentence that could kind of tie all of this together that everyone would remember and we would all walk out and never forget this, and it would change our lives. And everything I came up with with was really cheesy.

But then all this talk about rivers and reservoirs and letting things flow, it reminded me of this beautiful deep film from 1994. It's a story about friendship and loyalty and sacrifice. Two men who refuse to give up on each other as they journey across the country together. It's A story about how sometimes the most meaningful things in life are worth going to very great lengths to pursue. And there's this incredible scene where the two main characters, Lloyd and Harry, are trying to get.

They're trying to get to Aspen.

They're traveling through the mountains on a tiny little motorbike, freezing to death as they drive through Colorado. And somewhere along the way, Harry says, I've got to stop. I've got to go to the bathroom. Of course, the movie is dumb and dumber, just in case you thought I was not human.

So Harry says, just go, man.

Now, I realize this might be the least spiritual illustration that I have ever used, ever. But I'm convinced you're going to walk out remembering it.

God has given you grace. Let it flow.

So bad. So bad. God has given you resources. Let it flow. God has given you forgiveness.

Let it flow. He's given you influence and experience and compassion and opportunities. A home, a story time, money, hope. Let it flow. Let it flow.

Inside of all of us is this miraculous, impossibly multiplying river of life that God put in us. Yes, for us, but with such great abundance that it would overflow from us and become the new headwaters of life in dead places. The trees along that river that Ezekiel sees, those trees bear fruit every month. Trees don't do that. They never lose their leaves, and their leaves bring healing.

These are miraculously growing trees. And that river runs all the way down to the Dead Sea. The weird thing that my brain does in comparing things to all of this, I was thinking about the Mississippi river this week and thinking, how long would it take for the entire outflow of the Mississippi river to fill up the Dead Sea until the Dead Sea would become fresh water. So if you took all the entire outlet of the entire Mississippi river every day, AI says it would take 90 years for the entire flow of the Mississippi river to spill over and replace all of that death with life. And Jesus says something that is 90 years worth of power.

And life is in you.

It's in you. And our choice today is to pool all of that up for ourselves. Or we can let it flow. That's our choice. You must walk out today knowing that you have something inside of you that was made for way more.

And you will either walk out as those who deny it and disobey, or you will walk out as those who see life differently. And so my challenge to you is ask, Holy Spirit, where do you want the trickle to begin?

Keep your eyes up. And when he highlights that thing, because he will do it Just do it.