Summer Didn't Kill It - Pastor Tommy Torres

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We hope this powerful word from City Center Church transforms your mind and grows your relationship with Jesus Christ.

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Thank you for joining us, and let's get into the word of today.

Today we're we're continuing uh week two of our series Built for This, where we're walking through the different seasons of life and discovering how God prepares us, how God prepares us to remain faithful during the season that we're in and not try to jump out of that season too early.

And then last week um we began in spring.

And let me tell you, I was blessed to start in spring to preach about spring.

Um I preached on spring, and I don't know if you guys can notice, but my hair is springing out.

People are asking me.

I say, it's a miracle, it's a miracle.

The Bible says that he knows the hairs that are counted on my head, and I kept shaving them off.

I'm like, he knew it was under there, and it's coming forth in the name of Jesus.

Uh so he spoke on spring, and we talked about the story of Isaac and and how spring doesn't begin when the flowers appear.

Spring begins when somebody believes God enough to obey to plant while the ground still looks dead.

Is there anybody like that in the house today that believes God and can plant something where you may not see life?

Today we we we moved from spring into summer, into summer, and I felt the Holy Spirit leading me to continue talking about this water.

Um, Pastor JD shared out in the huddle about water, and we talked, and we just sang a song about living water, cover me.

Pastor Robin just shared about uh the woman at the well, and I believe the Holy Spirit is just tying this all together.

Um, I want to preach about water, the source that the enemies of Israel from last week and and the enemy of our soul has tried to block with dirt, like he did with Isaac.

He he filled the wells.

Last week we saw he filled the wells, blocked access to the water, but what they couldn't do was stop the flow of the source of the water.

It was simply covered.

And last week I believe that people began to remove the dirt from their lives, the stuff that the enemy has has been using to block the source.

And I believe that we left this place.

Many people left this place believing that there is still water in this house.

Amen.

The presence of God has not left this house, the mission hasn't changed, and the source is still there.

And today I want to go to Ezekiel 47.

Ezekiel 47.

God gives the prophet a vision of water flowing from the house of God, and that that the river is bringing life everywhere it goes.

And I believe that there is a word over this house.

I believe that we're about to what we're about to read is a prophetic word over City Center Church, and I'm excited to share this word with you this morning because it spoke to me before I can preach it to you.

Amen.

Ezekiel 47.

We're gonna read verses 1 through 12.

Amen.

Ezekiel 47, verse 1 through 12.

Ezekiel 47:1–12

If you don't have your Bible, it'll be up on the screen.

It says, The man brought me back to the entrance to the temple, and I saw water coming out from under the threshold of the temple and toward the east, for the temple faced east.

The water was coming down from under the south side of the temple, south of the altar.

He then brought me out through the north gate and led me around to the outside of the outer gate facing east, and the water was trickling from the south side.

As the man went eastward with the measuring line in his hand, he measured off a thousand cubits and then led me through the water that was ankle deep.

He measured off another thousand cubits and led me through the water that was knee deep.

He measured off another thousand and led me through water that was up to my 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 that no one could cross.

He asked me, 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.

He said to me, This water flows toward the eastern region and goes down into the Arab the Arabah, where it enters the dead sea.

When it empties into the sea, the salty water there becomes fresh.

Swarms of living creatures will live wherever the river flows.

There will be large numbers of fish because this water flows there and makes the salt water, the dead water, fresh.

So where the river flows, everything will live.

Amen.

Fishermen will stand along the shore from Engedi to Engaim.

There will be places for spreading nets.

The fish will be of many kinds, like the fish of the Mediterranean Sea, but the swamps and 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.

What a powerful and prophetic and timely word.

Amen.

We're witnessing a desolate land where things cannot have life there.

That's what we're seeing in this vision.

But we see a river of life flowing through it.

It wasn't the heat of summer that caused the damage in that region.

The summer didn't create the Dead Sea.

The summer might be revealing the things that might be dying.

And my working thought this morning, and I want to preach from this thought, summer didn't kill it.

Summer didn't kill it, but maybe it exposed it.

And then Father, I thank you for your word.

I ask you, Lord, to use this imperfect vessel to preach your perfect word according to your perfect will to imperfect hearts today.

That we leave not just with information, Lord, but that we leave transformed by your word in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Amen.

Last week I asked who loves the spring, and a few of you raised your hands.

I shared some good things about spring that I love, some things that I hate, like the bees and the snakes.

So let's continue with that sermonic survey, if you will.

Who loves summer?

Who loves summer?

A lot more hands for summer.

Why?

I should have asked, who loves 90 degree temperature?

But when you look at the app, it says 90 degrees, but it feels like 110 degrees.

Like, why doesn't it just say 110 degrees?

Why did it tell me 90 degrees, but it feels like 110?

I should have asked, who likes getting into your car and burning your backside blessing on the seat?

Burning your hand when you touch the steering wheel and your elbow when it touches the inside of your door?

Or am I the only one that doesn't have a remote start?

Summer can be a season of death.

Every time I leave my house in the summer, I have to text my family.

I text my family and I say, if I don't return, because it's so hot, if the heat kills me today, just know that I love you.

And nobody touch my diet coke just in case I do return alive.

We can joke around summer all day long, but the reality is that summer can be a season where things begin to die.

We we just moved into our new home in June, the beginning of June, and I love that the grass was green.

Every single house in this neighborhood, their grass was green when we first saw the home in April, and then when we visited the home throughout May and began moving the end of May, the grass was green.

That house has its own automated sprinkler system that I, by the way, who am not a handyman, single-handedly tested and set up this automatic sprinkler system for the first time in my life.

I set it to auto run every morning at 5 a.m.

And then one day, Janet asks me, Tommy, why is our yard the only yard in the entire neighborhood that's turning brown?

She said, Do I need to call a professional?

She said, We're not gonna be those neighbors that just moved in, and they know that we're pastors, by the way, and we're the ones who have the brown grass one month after moving in.

And she was right.

I went out and I saw our grass, there was a section of our grass that had been green, and now it was turning brown.

So, so I about two weeks later, I got up at 4:50 a.m.

And I went, I waited, I wanted to see, I waited, and I went out 5 a.m.

the sprinklers turned on, just like I had set them up on a few of the sections.

But the section that was brown, the sprinklers weren't working.

They weren't working.

I could hear the water, it was like trying to come out, but it wasn't it wasn't watering, it wasn't coming out, it was just noise.

The sprinkler heads weren't popping up.

So I went over at five o'clock in the morning outside, and I start like the the the the soil, the the the dirt was was hard, it was just drying up.

So I start just digging around the sprinkler where I could hear the water coming up, and then the sprinkler just flung out and just wet everything, and I think I was did it, I was doing it from the wrong side.

I'm not a handyman.

I should have done it from behind the sprinkler, but I did it from the front.

So it came out and it started wet me.

And what I'm trying to tell you is two things.

One, it's just like I set up my sprinkler system on automatic every morning, there there are so many people that have set their spiritual lives on automatic and assume that you're still being watered.

You you set that in January and you think you're still being watered today.

You set it during the 21 days of fasting and prayer, and you think that you're still being watered today, but but no, you're not.

So many people set it up 10 years ago, and you haven't even noticed that there are brown spots around you that are dying, but you haven't taken notice.

And the second thing is the water was there, but it wasn't flowing where it should have been flowing.

That there's still water in the ground trying to make its way up, but you need to first realize what's wrong.

You need to start digging around that thing until the water springs forth and begins to water the dead things around you.

Needless to say, that our grass is green again, and we didn't get a notice from the homeowners' association.

It's time, church, that we stop and take notice where the water is not flowing from, where it should be flowing.

And that brings us to our text today.

But before we talk about the river, we need to understand the context of where Ezekiel is standing and why this vision is speaking to us today.

You see, Ezekiel wasn't prophesying to people who were living through the best season of their lives, he was speaking to a people, to a nation who had been shaken.

Jerusalem had had fallen, the temple in his time had been destroyed, many of the people had been carried into exile.

The future for them, the future they expected, had actually been interrupted.

They were living through transition and uncertainty.

And in the middle of that condition, God gives Ezekiel a vision of a restored house.

God gave them a vision of what could flow again while they were still surrounded by evidence of what had been lost.

God was telling them that destruction would not have the final word, transition would not have the final word in their lives.

The house would not remain just as a monument to what used to be.

He was saying, Life is going to flow from this house again.

How many believe that?

Then Ezekiel says, Ezekiel 47:1.

Ezekiel 47:1

We're gonna walk through this.

The man 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.

Notice where the water begins in the temple.

It begins in the house of God.

The source of the water in Ezekiel's vision wasn't coming from a palace, it wasn't coming from the king's house, it wasn't coming from a political building, the water wasn't coming from a university or a seminary or a business, it wasn't coming from the White House.

The source of the water was God's house.

It doesn't even begin with Ezekiel the prophet.

That lets me know that the prophet is not the source, the leader is not the source.

The water comes from the very presence of a living, omnipotent, and matchless God.

He is the only source of this river that we're talking about.

And since we're talking about seasons, that's a word for city center church in this season.

Because we know that we need a lead pastor, we know that we need a team of pastors, we we need leaders, we need servant leaders, we need elders, we need we need structure, we need to make the right decisions.

But hear me, none of those things have ever been the source of life in this house.

The source in this house has never been and never will be any personality standing on this platform.

The vessel that's being used must always point to the true source, and that's King Jesus.

Leadership can change, but the source has not changed.

Seasons can change, but the source hasn't changed.

The word the church can walk through transition, but the source has not changed.

There's still water in this house because God is still in this house.

Amen.

And the water was coming out from underneath the threshold.

The threshold is the place of entrance and the place of exit.

It's the line between what's inside the house and what's outside the house.

And that means the water was not only present inside the house, it was crossing the threshold.

This next part is very interesting to me.

Did you notice in which direction the water was flowing?

Go back to verse 1.

Verse 1, he says, I saw water coming out from under the threshold of the temple toward the east.

East.

Throughout Scripture, moving east often is a symbol of humanity moving away from the presence and the purpose of God.

Adam and Eve, if you look at their story, they were exiled from the Garden of Eden on the east side.

And the entrance was guarded by cherubim angels on the east side.

Cain left the presence of the Lord and settled east of Eden.

The Tower of Babel was built by people in disobedience.

The Bible says they were moving east, symbolizing being walking away from the presence of God.

Notice this: the entrance to the temple also faced east.

So that means that a worshiper entered from the east, moving west, toward the presence of God.

East is significant.

But here in Ezekiel's vision, the water is moving in the opposite direction.

The water begins in the presence of God, and the water travels eastward, toward the wilderness, and ultimately we'll find toward the Dead Sea.

Why is that important?

Humanity moved east away from the presence of God, but now the river of God is also flowing east after humanity.

Isn't that just like Jesus?

That in our in our in our rebellious lives, we tend to walk away, but the Holy Spirit is always coming after you to draw you back to Him.

Oh, the East represents something powerful in people that walk away from God.

But I love this that it's included that the river is flowing east after humanity.

The river is moving toward the places marked by rebellion, by by dry seasons.

The river's moving towards death.

So it wasn't only crossing the threshold.

The river had a very intentional direction.

The living water of God doesn't just flow aimlessly.

The river knows, he knows where the dead places of summer are.

It was moving beyond the walls, past the threshold.

It was leaving the place of worship and beginning to travel toward the places that needed life.

The presence of God was never meant to become something that we just gather around and enjoy for ourselves and then we leave contained inside this building.

If that's what we're doing, we're doing it wrong.

The water has to cross the threshold and it has to reach our homes, it has to reach our children.

The water has to cross the threshold and reach the marketplace and our workplace.

It has to reach Lanexa and Kansas City and the world.

It has to reach the people who are wounded and forgotten.

It has to reach the people that are convinced that nothing can live in them again.

We can't just keep the presence of God contained in this place.

The water is still in this house, but the water cannot stay in this house.

We are living stones of which he is building his spiritual temple.

So we carry that presence wherever we go.

So the water is coming out of the temple.

Notice what Ezekiel sees in the vision about how the water was coming out.

Verse 2.

It says, He then brought me out through the north gate and led me around the outside to the outer gate facing east.

And the water was trickling from the south side.

Notice that the river doesn't start as a flood crashing through the doors of the temple, it begins as a trickle.

Something small enough to overlook.

Something that didn't yet look powerful, but the size of the beginning didn't reveal the size of what it would become.

This is a word for somebody today.

Don't despise the trickle that you have in your life just because you haven't seen the river yet.

You see, we we've developed developed a strange definition of revival in the church today.

Sometimes we we we only call it revival if the worship set goes longer.

Don't confuse the move of the Holy Spirit on a Sunday for revival.

Revival is not that the sermon goes longer, revival is not that people stay at the altar for hours.

Revival is not just that there are visible manifestations of the Holy Spirit.

All of those things, let me assure you, can happen during revival.

I believe in powerful worship and I believe in lingering in the presence of God.

That's why one of our core values is being spirit-led.

But revival isn't measured only by how long we remain inside this building.

Revival may actually begin with one person deciding to pray again.

Revival might begin with one person returning to a church service after walking away for so long.

And we don't notice it.

That's a trickle.

It may begin with a husband and wife that we may see here so eloquent.

We want to be like them, but we don't know what they're actually going through.

And revival might be them choosing forgiveness instead of divorce.

One person surrendering their life to Jesus in the quiet of their room could start a revival.

Revival doesn't always begin with the roar, sometimes it begins with the trickle.

The danger is that we can become so addicted to what looks so impressive that we ignore what's actually alive.

We want to see the roaring river immediately, but God might be asking whether we're gonna honor the little trickle that he starts.

We want the entire church transformed overnight, but God might be trying to start with one heart in this place today.

We want every seat filled, every ministry filled.

Overflowing with servant leaders, but God may begin with one prayer meeting where only a few people show up and genuinely seek Him.

You see, during a revival, we want to see that entire church hungry for the word of God.

But maybe, maybe revival is stirring up during a Wednesday night girl class where 40 people out of 600 in this room gather to study and learn together.

Maybe revival can start with a small trickle that begins in Sounds of Wednesday, which we start this week, by the way, at 7 p.m.

in Life Auditorium.

Prayer and worship.

The question isn't whether the beginning looks impressive.

The question is, is the water flowing?

Doesn't matter how strong.

Because if the water is flowing, even if it's only a trickle, that lets me know that the source is still active.

And if the source is active, you can't judge the future of the river by what you can see at the threshold when it's only a trickle.

Somebody needs to hear that about your own life today.

You may not see everything you've been praying for yet, but something has begun.

You may not be where you want to be, but but at least you're not where you were.

At least you prayed again, you opened the Bible again, at least you came back to a church service after so many years.

It may only look like a trickle to everybody else, but a trickle is evidence that the water has found an opening.

It's up to you to protect that opening.

Don't allow disappointment to cover it up again.

Don't let criticism make you ashamed of the small beginning.

Don't compare your trickle to somebody else's river.

Every river has a place where it first started and had to cross the threshold.

So before Ezekiel can see what this water will do in the world, the he first has to decide whether he's gonna follow it.

Verse 3 it says, As the man went eastward with the measuring line in his hand, the measured, he measured off a thousand cubits, which was 1,750 square feet or feet, sorry, and then led me through the water that was ankle deep.

He didn't tell Ezekiel to admire the river, check out this river.

He he led him into the river.

You can sit beside water and remain dry.

You can attend a church service on a Sunday or a Wednesday where the Spirit is moving and you might never surrender anything.

You can celebrate what God is doing in other people while resisting what the Holy Spirit wants to do in your life individually.

At first, the water was ankle deep.

You can step in and step out whenever you want when you're in ankle-deep water.

You can stand there without changing your direction.

And many people want an ankle-deep relationship with God.

We want enough of his presence just to feel refreshed, but not enough for him to interrupt our plans.

We want enough of his presence to comfort us when we're hurting, but not enough to confront us when we're wrong.

Some people want enough of God to refresh them, but but not enough of God to actually redirect your path.

Ankle deep Christianity says, you can have my Sunday, Lord, but but you can't have my schedule.

You can have my worship, but but you can't have that relationship.

You can have my words and my prayers and what I sing and what I shout, but but you can't have my habits.

You can have the the stuff that people see on the outside, but but you can't have the hidden part that I still want to control myself.

That's ankle deep relationship with God.

The ankle deep place was an introduction to the water, but it wasn't the destination.

Last week I felt God challenged us to be faithful in temporary seasons, but but hear me, don't mistake that the temporary season for building permanent homes in places God only intended us to pass through.

We remember the first time we felt God, we remember the first time we heard his voice, the first time we experienced his presence, and those moments marked me.

But but I can't spend my entire life standing in the place where the water first touched my ankles.

There's more of God, there's always more of me to surrender, there's always more obedience that I can walk in, there's always more freedom.

The invitation of the river is always going to be can you come deeper?

Can you go deeper?

Verse 4 continues.

It says, He measured off another thousand cubits and led me through the water that was now knee deep.

Knee deep.

Now the water begins to affect Ezekiel differently because ankle deep water touches your walk, but knee-deep water, it begins to affect your your strength and your ability and your stability.

Throughout scripture, your knees become a picture of surrender, they become a picture of prayer and worship.

So it's possible to enter the river with your feet while keeping your knees stiff, but the river will eventually confront everything in you that refuses to bend.

You see, we're not talking about a shallow pool here.

We're talking about a river with the current that's pulling on you.

And I don't know if you've ever walked into a river, but when you're knee-deep in a river, it's not like a pool.

I mean, the the river is like moving your knees.

You can't stand there like this and not move.

You're gonna have to start bending your knees, and the Bible does say that one day every knee shall bow and every tongue will confess that He is Lord.

You see, pride and self-sufficiency doesn't survive comfortably in knee-deep water.

He's gonna check that.

There are things God will only do in us when we're willing to bend our knees again.

Some of us are asking God for deeper water while while refusing to fully surrender.

We want revival, but we won't repent.

We want the river to move, but we're determined to remain standing exactly the way that we entered it.

Church, the river isn't only here to make us feel something, the river is here to change our posture.

And Ezekiel's vision is showing us something important.

Before this river ever changes the Dead Sea, it begins by changing the person who's following the river.

But the man isn't finished measuring.

Verse 4 continues and says, He measured off another thousand and led me through the water that was up to the waist.

So now Ezekiel has gone beyond waste deep water affects your balance.

You you can still stand, but you can't move as quickly as you did before.

You you can't pretend the river isn't influencing you anymore.

Every step now has to account for the current.

You see, that's what happens when you continue following the Holy Spirit.

At first, God may deal with something visible in your walk.

Then he begins dealing with your posture, your pride, and your willingness to surrender or not surrender.

But eventually the river reaches deeper places, it reaches the center of your desires, your emotions, and the decisions that you've been trying to keep for yourself.

The deeper the river becomes, the more of you it touches.

You can't follow the river deeper and keep every part of your life untouched.

The water reaches his waist, and now, now resistance becomes more difficult because the river is becoming stronger.

And some of us have spent years fighting the current of what God is trying to do in your life.

You know the direction the Holy Spirit's leading you, you know God has been calling you deeper, but you keep fighting the current so that you don't lose control.

Verse 5 it says that he measured off another thousand, but now it was a river that he could not cross because the water had risen and was deep enough to swim in, a river that no one could cross.

You see, now the river is deeper than Ezekiel's ability to stand.

He can't touch the bottom anymore.

He can't cross it through his own strength, he can't remain in control of every movement.

At this depth, Ezekiel has to trust what's carrying him.

This is where many people stop.

Because this is where it gets scary.

We'll follow God while we can still feel the ground beneath our feet.

But but there comes a point in following God where the bottom drops out.

There comes a point when you can't rely on your own experience.

There comes a point in God when you jump in the river, you can't rely on your ability or your connections or your carefully developed plan for your future.

There comes a point when God leads you beyond what you can manage and asks whether you trust the river enough to stop fighting for the ground.

The deepest place in God is the place where you can no longer pretend that you're carrying yourself.

That there are places that only the Holy Spirit can carry you.

There are situations that we can't control, and we need to fully depend on the Holy Spirit because our own human efforts are going to fail us.

City Center Church is living in one of those moments right now.

We don't know every detail of what comes next.

And that can make us want to retreat back to shallow water and just wait.

Where everything feels familiar and we can still touch the bottom.

But but God is not calling City Center Church backward toward what feels comfortable.

I believe He is still calling us deeper in what requires trust.

Amen.

This transition isn't an intermission.

We said it last week, where we stand at the edge and wait for somebody else to tell us when it's safe to enter.

God is forming us while we're in this transition.

God is forming this church while we're in the river.

He's refreshing us in this summer season where things run the risk of dying due to the heat.

God is teaching us how to trust his presence when we can't predict every movement in the future.

He's teaching us that our security was never supposed to come from our ability to touch the bottom.

He's also teaching us that he's guiding us, all of us, into the river.

What if instead of waiting for the next lead pastor to lead this church into the river?

We are already in the river when he arrives, and then he just jumps in with us.

The Holy Spirit is guiding this church.

The river is strong enough to carry this house.

Somebody needs to hear that personally.

You're exhausted because you've been trying to stand in water, fighting against the current when that water was actually meant to carry you.

You just never surrendered to it.

If we believe that the water is still flowing from this house, then we need to let that water carry us wherever it wants to carry us.

Verse 6 says the man asked Ezekiel a simple question.

He says, Son of man, do you see this?

Do you see this?

In other words, can you perceive what's going on?

Are you watching?

It wasn't a question of if his eyes were open.

Maybe God was asking whether Ezekiel actually understood what he was with what he was witnessing.

You see, God was asking him whether he recognized that something which began as a trickle in the house had now become a river.

And I believe the Holy Spirit may be asking City Center Church the same question today.

Do you see this?

Can you see that God is still moving?

Can you see that even in this season, He's still saving people?

Can you see that even in this season He He's still restoring families and He's still raising leaders?

Can you see that that what may have looked like a trickle is becoming deeper?

Before Ezekiel is shown what the river will do when it reaches the Dead Sea, God makes him stop long enough to recognize the river itself.

Because if you can't see what God is doing right in front of you, you won't be prepared to understand where the river is going next, or you might actually miss what it's trying to revive during this heat of summer.

Verse 6 continues, he says, Then he led me back to the bank of the river.

And verse 7, when I arrived there, I saw a great number of trees on each side of the river.

Ezekiel had been inside the river.

The New Living Translation actually says that he was surprised to see the trees.

He had been in the river, but now the man brings him back to the bank so he can see what the river had actually been producing while he was simply being carried by it.

Sometimes, see, you're so focused on surviving the current that you don't realize what God has been growing around you.

You've been asking, where is this river taking me?

You're confused, you stepped in.

Where am I going, Lord?

What are you doing?

Well, God has actually been producing life everywhere you've passed, and you haven't even noticed it yet.

Son of man, can you see this?

Can you see what's happening?

Verse 8.

He says, This water flows towards the eastern region and goes down into the Arabah where it enters the Dead Sea.

You see, we already saw that the river had a direction, it was flowing east towards the places marked by rebellion and a sort of a spiritual death.

And now we discover its destination.

It was headed toward the Dead Sea.

And the name fits that place because nothing in it lives.

The salt content is so high in the Dead Sea that fish can't survive, plants don't grow along its banks, nothing that enters it comes out alive.

It sort of sounds just like a tomb.

I'm sure that's what they thought when they put Lazarus in the tomb.

Until Jesus spoke a word.

I'm sure that's what they thought about Jesus when he was placed behind a tomb, because what you put behind the tomb is what's dead.

But how many know that when Jesus says a word, that dead thing has to come back to life?

I believe that the river of life is flowing towards you right now, bringing things back to life, the things that you thought were dead, that you thought the enemy had won over, the things that you've mourned over, the things that you've placed behind a tomb.

If Jesus spoke a word over that thing, it has to come back to life.

Do you believe that?

I I love I love that about Jesus.

The river wasn't avoiding the dead places, the river was flowing directly toward it.

That's the nature of the presence of God.

God doesn't only move forward towards what's already healthy, he also moves toward what's broken.

He he moves toward the marriage that looks finished, the the the heart that becomes hardened.

The river knows where the dead places are and it begins to flow in that direction.

And notice what happens when the river enters the Dead Sea.

The river doesn't become dead when it enters the Dead Sea.

The Dead Sea actually becomes alive.

The river doesn't become contaminated by what it enters.

What it enters becomes transformed by the river.

Amen.

The river is stronger than the death it flows into, and it says that salty water becomes fresh water.

That's a word for someone in this room today or watching online who's been afraid that the dead place is too dead in your life.

You think that too much has happened, too much time has passed, the damage is too deep, the relationship that you're in has been dying for too long.

But wherever the river flows, death doesn't get to remain in control.

The river has to change it.

Amen.

Summer may expose what's dry, but summer didn't kill it.

The heat of summer doesn't get the final word when the river is still flowing.

I wonder how many of us have a Dead Sea somewhere in our lives.

I love that the river doesn't ask the Dead Sea if it's ready to receive it, it just keeps flowing towards it.

Listen, and I want to be clear about this because what we're reading hasn't happened yet.

Okay, this is this is a vision that Ezekiel has had that the Lord gave him because the Dead Sea is still the Dead Sea today.

I've been there, I've gotten into it, I floated in it.

Even as much as I try to sink, I can't.

It's still dead.

But how many know that the word of God has to come to pass?

This is a vision in Scripture that the Lord gave Ezekiel, and it has to come to pass.

This is not Ezekiel recording history, he was recording prophecy.

So I believe that the river of God, the living water of God is flowing to dead places in your life right now.

I believe that people aren't seeing growth in places, the places that still look dead.

Let me tell you, there's a river on the way.

There's a river on the way.

I'm speaking prophetically to you right now that you will start seeing the rivers of life begin to flow into your life in Jesus' name.

Verse 9.

Verse 9 says, Swarms of living creatures will live wherever the river flows.

There will be large numbers of fish because this water flows there and makes the salt water fresh.

So where the river flows, everything will live.

The water doesn't only refresh Ezekiel, it creates an environment where life multiplies.

Fish begin appearing where nothing could live before.

And wherever fish start showing up, somebody has to be ready to fish.

Amen.

Verse 10, look at what it says.

It says, fishermen will stand along the shore, spreading nets from Engedi to Englaim.

That's the vision moving from restoration into mission.

The river doesn't just produce life, it produces a harvest that somebody has to go and gather.

The river actually creates mission for the church.

Amen.

We're not asking God for revival so that we can have better worship set on Sunday.

When the river flows, people who've been dead in sin start coming alive.

And when they start showing up, somebody in this house has to be standing on the shore holding a net.

When people become alive, the church has a responsibility to reach those people, to gather those people, to disciple those people, and to help them grow.

That's our mission here at City Center Church.

The proof that there's water in this house won't only be how wet we look inside the sanctuary, it'll be how many people come alive outside of it.

The water has to cross the threshold.

If God sends fish, we need people ready to cast nets.

Revival isn't only people coming forward, revival is people being taught how to follow Jesus after they get there.

I believe revival starts when we take our eyes off of the summer heat and realize that the summer didn't kill it.

Your season of summer is only revealing what needs water in your life.

And revival starts when you take your eyes off of the dead things around you and you start observing what God is doing within you and through you and around you, bringing life through the river.

And I'd love to end this sermon on this high note.

But then verse 11 gives us a warning.

It says, But the swamps and the marshes will not become fresh, they will be left for salt.

Think about that for a second.

The river is flowing nearby.

Life is appearing everywhere.

Fish are multiplying, trees are growing on the river banks, but the swamps remain unchanged.

That might be the most important verse in this whole passage for a room just like ours.

This is the verse that spoke to me the most.

Because proximity to the river isn't the same thing as surrendering to the river.

Oh, I've had to ask myself this many times have I let the water pass by me week after week without ever letting it carry me?

Or worse, have I let the river carry me and get inside of me, but I've ignored what's happening around me and not let the water move through me?

You see, a swamp receives water.

It just never releases the water.

Who am I speaking to today?

It holds everything until what should have produced life turns stagnant instead.

You can live right next to the river and you can still be a swamp.

That's why the water can't stay in this house.

If all we ever do is receive and receive and never serve and never give and never disciple someone else, we become stagnant church.

A swamp and the flowing river can sit ten feet apart and look nothing alike underneath the surface.

So are you a river today or are you a swamp?

And verse 12.

Amen.

And there's no condemnation if you are a swamp or have been a swamp.

Hey, I we I've gone through those seasons where I just receive and receive and receive, and I realize that you know a tree that produces fruit, the fruit it produces is for someone else.

If that fruit stays on that tree, guess what?

It's gonna rot.

It's gonna die.

The tree can't eat it.

Thank you, Virgil.

So I receive and receive.

But there's been times where I don't give and I don't give.

As a matter of fact, when I came to City Center Church with my family and my wife, we came here simply to receive.

We came here to sit in that back row.

We had our seats assigned, by the way, it was somewhere over there.

And we came with the mindset of I'm jumping out of the river, and I just want to sit here by the bank and just turn into a swamp.

I just want to receive.

I don't want to meet anybody, I don't want to greet anybody, I don't want to talk to anybody, I don't want to hang out with anybody, I want to just come to church, worship the Lord, hear the sermon, and then we leave.

But the Lord reminded me you can't be a swamp and call yourself the church.

You can't be a swamp and call yourself a son of God.

And things that we can do, he's gonna say, Look at all that I did for all these years, Lord.

I need rest, I need sabbatical, I need He's gonna say, I don't know you.

Did you know that?

Well, let me let me read verse 12.

See, I'm trying to extend it.

Verse 12, let's get to the last verse.

Amen.

I know you guys are hungry.

We're talking about fruits and are the salads still okay to eat, by the way.

For the first time in my life, I said it's it's healthier to eat a double cheeseburger with no lettuce than to eat a salad.

First time in my life, I was able to say that about a month ago.

Verse 12.

Let's bring it back.

Let's bring it back.

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.

Did you know that that summer is actually peak season?

It's peak fruit season for a lot of common fruit.

Peaches, plums, cherries, a lot of the berries, watermelon, cantaloupe.

All of these ripen in the summer heat.

Fruit trees near a real water source thrive during these months that are hardest on everything else.

The heat that kills an unwatered plant is often the same heat that ripens a well, a well-watered one.

So the text doesn't say that there'll never be heat.

It doesn't say that summer will never come.

It says their lives won't wither because the water keeps reaching them.

That's exactly what happened in my own front yard.

The heat didn't create the brown patch in my grass, the heat only exposed it.

Summer didn't kill it.

Summer just showed me where the water had stopped flowing.

And maybe that's the word the Holy Spirit has been trying to speak through this entire vision.

Summer didn't kill it.

Summer revealed where the water wasn't flowing.

Listen, and this river doesn't end with Ezekiel's vision from Ezekiel 47.

Centuries later, on the last day of feast of Jerusalem, Jesus himself stood in the temple courts and he cried out in a loud voice and he said, Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink.

He says, Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them.

Jesus is standing in the same house Ezekiel saw in the vision, centuries later, telling the crowd that he is the source of the water that it was always coming from.

He's the temple the water has always flown out of.

And I want to show you how this prophecy culminates.

The very last chapter in the Bible describes a river flowing from the throne of God, and on both banks of it a tree bearing fruit every single month.

Look at Revelation 22, verse 1 and 2.

Revelation 22:1

This is towards the end.

Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the lamb, down the middle of the green, great street of the city.

On each side of the river stood the tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month, and the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations.

That's Ezekiel's vision fulfilled forever.

What began as a trickle under the threshold of a temple now becomes in the very last pages of scripture a river flowing from the throne itself, healing everything it touches forever.

This is the river we're talking about.

It hasn't stopped flowing through this house.

Remember the threshold, the water in Ezekiel's vision.

It didn't do anybody any good staying inside the temple where it was safe and familiar.

It had to cross the line, it had to leave the place and move toward the places that actually need it.

And now, as his temple, we are the carriers of his presence.

That's where the church is.

In this season, you carry the Holy Spirit, and wherever you go in the name of Jesus, you take the river with you.

You see, some of you have been standing at that threshold in this room for a while now, thinking that things in your life are dead.

Your faith, let me tell you, isn't dead.

Your marriage isn't dead.

I say that prophetically, declaring it.

Your calling has not dried up.

But you may need to ask yourself honestly whether the water is still reaching it or whether you've been standing in a brown patch longer than you realized, assuming that the sprinklers were still running.

The question in this passage leaves us with isn't whether the water is here.

Ezekiel already answered that.

The question is the same one the man asked Ezekiel.

He said, Do you see this?

Can you perceive what's going on?

Can you observe all the life that this river is producing?

If you're able and willing, would you please stand with me?

Before we leave this place, I want to ask you honestly.

Where are you standing in the river today?

Where in the river are you standing?

Maybe you're still ankle deep, you've taken a step into it, but you know that he's calling you deeper, he's calling you into more.

Maybe you're your knee deep, and the spirit has been asking you to bend something, change your posture, change something that you've been keeping you stiff for so long.

Maybe you're waist deep and you've spent too much time fighting the current instead of letting the current take you where it wants to go.

Or maybe, if we're honest, some of us aren't even in the river at all.

We're the swamp.

We know the songs, we we know when to say amen, but the water has been passing by us instead of through us.

And I'm not asking to shame anybody, I've had to ask it of myself.

Where are you in the river today?

Wherever you are right now, the invitation is always gonna be the same.

You can always go deeper, you can always come deeper.

If this message spoke to you today and you've heard the Holy Spirit, I I want to urge you to respond to what the Holy Spirit is speaking to you by making your way down to this altar.

I'm opening up the altars.

Every week, I'm looking for the first person.

If one person comes down, that's enough for me.

Praise God.

Thank you, sister.

Amen.

See, you just you just started something, sister.

Week after week, I I I get people that come up to me or that text me and say, you know, I mean the word really really spoke to me.

And you respond to me.

You respond to me.

I'm asking you, don't respond to me.

Respond to the Holy Spirit.

Because He's the one that that that He preached to me, and I had to respond to Him.

Respond to the Holy Spirit.

Pastor Robin shared this story about the woman at the well.

And and and she came, Jesus asked, Can I I'm thirsty, can you give me a drink?

Praise God.

Keep coming.

Thank you.

Take your time, keep coming down.

He said, Can you give me a drink?

And then she argued with him because she was a Jew and he was a Samaritan.

And then he said, If you only knew who you were talking to, you would have asked me for a drink.

And I would have given you living water.

But the story doesn't stop there.

She actually says, How do I get this water?

Give me that water, please.

I want it.

And the story doesn't stop there.

Jesus didn't just give her the living water, he asked her a question.

He confronted her.

You see, he showed grace.

He shows grace.

He says, I have this living water available.

And when she said, Give me the living water, he confronts her and asked her, he told her, Bring your husband.

Go get your husband.

And her response was, Sir, I don't have a husband.

He confronted her, didn't condemn her, he just pointed something out.

And she said, I don't have a husband.

And he said, You're right.

She said, A partial truth.

I don't have a husband.

He said, You're right.

You don't have a husband.

You've had five husbands.

And the one that you're living with now is not even your husband.

Jesus is confronting her with truth.

He presented grace, and now he's confronting with truth.

He said, You've had five husbands, and the one you live with now is the sixth one.

That's the sixth, the sixth man in this woman's life.

And it hit me that Jesus was the seventh man in this woman's life.

He was bringing completion to her, letting her know, look, the rivers of living water that are gonna spring up inside of you.

Stop looking for them in other places.

I'm the one that brings completion to your life.

I don't care about the five husbands that you have and the one that you're living with now.

Let me be the seventh.

Thank you for joining us today.

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