Swim Deep
Notes
Transcript
Introduction: Trickle or Torrent?
Have you ever stood at the edge of a river and watched the current move? There is something irresistible about moving water. It draws you in.
In our passage today, the prophet Ezekiel sees a vision that begins as an ankle deep trickle, and builds into something so vast, so powerful, so life-giving, that it cannot be crossed. A flood full of grace.
Before we go further we need to understand something about Ezekiel though. You see, Ezekiel wasn’t some low-key prophet.
The man ate a scroll!
He lay on his side for over a year as a prophetic sign. He made a model of Jerusalem under siege out of a clay brick and used an iron cook pan as the wall.
He wasn’t the kind of guy you would invite over for a casual dinner and expect a normal evening.
“Hey honey, Ezekiel’s coming. Should we put away the cookware? Last time he stole the skillet."
But, when God gives Ezekiel a vision, you pay attention. Because God doesn’t give visions to eccentric people just to get a laugh or as a practical joke.
We live in some crazy times that are getting more and more desperate. You know it, and you feel it when you scroll through the news, when a neighbor loses their job, when a family falls apart, when the culture around us seems to be unraveling at the seams.
In moments like these, it’s tempting to stand on the bank and simply watch the river go by. We would rather observe from a safe distance, keeping our feet dry, and our hearts protected.
But Ezekiel’s vision won’t allow that. And neither will the Holy Spirit.
Today we are going to wade into this passage together, and I want to show you four key aspects of this vision we need to understand.
The Source
The Depth
The Reach
The Inheritance
At every point, we will see that this vision points unmistakably to Jesus Christ, the One who invites us to stop standing on the bank and dive into our inheritance.
The Source
The Source
Every stream, brook and river have a source. They all begin somewhere. Verses 1-2 give us the source, show us where the river begins.
1 Then he brought me back to the entrance of the temple and there was water flowing from under the threshold of the temple toward the east, for the temple faced east. The water was coming down from under the south side of the threshold of the temple, south of the altar. 2 Next he brought me out by way of the north gate and led me around the outside to the outer gate that faced east; there the water was trickling from the south side.
Notice the river doesn’t begin in the mountains. It’s not a gully washer from a rainstorm. It begins at the threshold of the temple. More specifically, from under the altar, on the south side.
It originates at the place of sacrifice, the very place where blood was shed.
Can you picture Ezekiel in this moment. An angel is leading him around the temple with a measuring stick, and there’s this little trickle of water coming out from under the door.
If most of us saw a trickle of water coming from under our church’s door, our first thought would not be “Behold the river of life.!!” It would be, “Somebody call a plumber.”
God has a habit of starting small. A burning bush. A baby in a manger. A mustard seed. A trickle under a threshold.
Never underestimate small beginnings, because with God, small beginnings have a way of becoming things that cannot be crossed.
The river of life doesn’t originate by human effort or innovation. It’s not a leak that needs to be fixed. It is the fix!! It flows from the place of atonement, in the house of God, through the act of substitutionary sacrifice.
When we read this through the NT lens, we can’t miss the connection. Jesus, on the cross, is the substitutionary sacrifice. He is the meeting place between God and humanity.
When the Roman soldier thrust his spear into Jesus’ side on Calvary, John records,
34 But one of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear, and at once blood and water came out.
The river begins at the cross. Every drop of spiritual life we have, traces its source back to that sacrifice, to that wound in Christ’s side.
The apostle John, who also received Prophetic visions wrote in,
1 Then he showed me the river of the water of life, clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb
The Lamb, the ultimate Sacrifice, is the source.
Many people feel like they’re in a desperate situation. If you’re one feeling desperate, I want you to know that the river is not hidden!! It begins at the cross, the altar of grace. And it moves east toward the promised land.
The Depth
The Depth
It begins as a trickle, but the further it flows, the deeper it gets. We see this in verse 3-6.
3 As the man went out east with a measuring line in his hand, he measured off a third of a mile and led me through the water. It came up to my ankles. 4 Then he measured off a third of a mile and led me through the water. It came up to my knees. He measured off another third of a mile and led me through the water. It came up to my waist.
5 Again he measured off a third of a mile, and it was a river that I could not cross on foot. For the water had risen; it was deep enough to swim in, a river that could not be crossed on foot. 6 He asked me, “Do you see this, son of man?” Then he led me back to the bank of the river.
This is one of the most instructive passages in all of Scripture about spiritual depth. Ezekiel isn’t just describing a river, he’s describing a journey of increased immersion in God, in Scripture.
Ezekiel describes four levels of spiritual maturity. Ankle deep, Knee deep, Waist deep, and Swimming depth.
Ankle Deep
Ankle Deep
Unfortunately too many people in the church today stay ankle deep. They dip a toe in testing the water. They attend church occasionally and know the basic story of Jesus.
They might have been warmed by the gospel. But they’re still largely in control. The water barely reaches the ankle with no impact to their lives. They still walk and choose their own direction, their own path.
You know who the ankle-deep people are. They’re the ones we lovingly call the CEOs of the congregation.
CEO, Christmas and Easter Only. They’re faithful twice a year, every year, and they always seem startled that church still happens in between.
They’ve experienced enough of God to feel good, but not enough to be transformed. Here’s the danger of ankle deep: it’s comfortable. The water is cool and refreshing but it doesn’t actually take you anywhere.
Stepping in a bit deeper.
Knee Deep
Knee Deep
Knee deep is a little more serious. The water affects how you walk. You’re more intentional and have to be sure of your footing.
These are people who are reading the Word, joining a small group, and beginning to pray with real hunger.
The resistance of the water is starting to shape their steps. But they are still, fundamentally, in charge of where they go.
Knee-deep people are great. They’re growing. They’re asking good questions. But they still have one eye on the bank. You know, just in case they need to make a quick exit. They’re committed, with a few asterisks.
Knee-deep is the spiritual equivalent of dating but never quite getting around to a proposal. “I love you, Lord. You’re really great, but let’s just kinda see where this goes.”
Wading in a bit deeper.
Waist Deep
Waist Deep
Waist deep, now we begin talking about genuine surrender. The current pushes you as you move along. You’re more committed than comfortable. The river is now encompassing the center of your body, the seat of your will.
At waist-deep we begin growing in sacrifice, in service, and in the willingness to go where God leads rather than where we prefer.
The river is now influencing our decisions in ways that sometimes even surprises us. We find ourselves saying yes to things we never expected we’d say yes to. We start forgiving people we emphatically said we would never forgive!
Then comes the moment of sheer panic. Our feet no longer touch the bottom.
Swimming Depth
Swimming Depth
It’s too deep to cross on foot. We can no longer touch bottom. There’s no controlling the direction. The water carries us as we swim along.
Swimming depth is the life of a person fully surrendered to the Holy Spirit, swept up in purposes larger than themselves, and trusting God with things they can’t manage on their own.
Swimming depth is terrifying, but at the same time it is glorious. When your feet leave the bottom and you realize you are no longer in charge, everything in your flesh starts to panic. You instinctively want to swim against current, and back to shore.
We have been told our entire lives to keep our feet on the ground, stay in control, and know where the exits are.
Nobody’s parenting advice ever included: “One day I hope you find yourself completely over your head with no footing and no control over your direction.”
Yet, that is exactly what our heavenly Father, God asks of us.
The invitation is always to go deeper. God never says, “Stop, don’t come any closer.” The man with the measuring stick keeps leading Ezekiel further in.
Isn’t that exactly what Jesus does?
He doesn’t invite us to sample the water, to dip our toe in from the bank. He says in
38 The one who believes in me, as the Scripture has said, will have streams of living water flow from deep within him.” 39 He said this about the Spirit. Those who believed in Jesus were going to receive the Spirit, for the Spirit had not yet been given because Jesus had not yet been glorified.
The resurrected, and glorified Jesus is the fulfillment of this vision. He is the one who pours out the Holy Spirit, that living water, into the hearts of all who believe.
So let me ask you honestly: Where are you wading today?
Are you ankle-deep and comfortable?
Are you waist-deep and feeling the pull of the current?
Or have you reached that terrifying, glorious place where your feet no longer touch the bottom? The place where you are simply swimming in the grace, power and purpose of God.
In desperate times, shallow water will not sustain us. Desperation demands depth. So, dive deeper into God’s Spirit.
The Effect
The Effect
The deeper we dive the more we experience the effect of our surrender to the Spirit. Look at verses 8-12,
7 When I had returned, I saw a very large number of trees along both sides of the riverbank. 8 He said to me, “This water flows out to the eastern region and goes down to the Arabah. When it enters the sea, the sea of foul water, the water of the sea becomes fresh.
9 Every kind of living creature that swarms will live wherever the river flows, and there will be a huge number of fish because this water goes there. Since the water will become fresh, there will be life everywhere the river goes.
10 Fishermen will stand beside it from En-gedi to En-eglaim. These will become places where nets are spread out to dry. Their fish will consist of many different kinds, like the fish of the Mediterranean Sea.
11 Yet its swamps and marshes will not be healed; they will be left for salt. 12 All kinds of trees providing food will grow along both banks of the river. Their leaves will not wither, and their fruit will not fail. Each month they will bear fresh fruit because the water comes from the sanctuary. Their fruit will be used for eating and their leaves for healing.”
Do you understand what is happening here?
The Dead Sea, one of the most inhospitable bodies of water on earth, so saturated with salt that nothing can live in it. Yet, it is being transformed. Wherever the river flows, dead water becomes fresh.
The Dead Sea truly is a unique place. The water is so salty that you literally cannot sink. You just bob there like a human fishing bobber. If you lay on your back you could read the newspaper without any floating device.
It sounds relaxing until you get the water in your eyes, suddenly it’s the least relaxing experience of your life. You immediately understand why it’s called the Dead Sea.
It’s not just a place where life can’t thrive, it’s completely void of life. But when the river flows into it, everything changes. It’s purified, and life begins to arrive and thrive.
This is what the Holy Spirit does. You see, He doesn’t just visit places that are already thriving and make them a little better.
He goes to the dead places, the marriages that have gone cold, the addictions that have become tombs, hearts hardened by years of disappointment and grief, and he makes them fresh.
He specializes in bringing life to wastelands. Think about the ministry of Jesus. He went to the Dead Sea places in people’s lives.
John 4, a woman at a well, ostracized by her community, living in moral and relational ruin. Jesus sat down beside her and offered her living water.
John 11, Lazarus, laid dead and sealed in a tomb for four days. By the time Jesus arrives at Lazarus’s tomb, Martha makes an obvious observation.
She says in verse 39: “Lord, there is already a stench because he’s been dead four days.” Well thank you very much captain obvious.
I’m sure nobody wanted to smell that stench. But, Jesus looks at the stone sealing the tomb that holds, the very smelly, Lazarus and says, “Roll it away.”
Lazarus was so dead that Martha was worried about the smell, and Jesus still showed up. I don’t know what you have written off as too far gone, too long dead, or too smelly to bother with, but Jesus has a track record with tombs.
God promises in this passage that, “there will be life everywhere the river goes.” Everywhere. Not just in the nice neighborhoods of your soul.
Not just in the tidy, presentable parts of your life. Everywhere the river flows, dead water becomes fresh and life appears.
What are there Dead Sea places in your life today?
Let the river flow into those places. Let go of the control, dive deep in the Spirit and let Him take you to a promised inheritance.
The Inheritance
The Inheritance
The last half of this chapter switches from the river of life to land, the promised inheritance for Israel.
Let’s start with
13 This is what the Lord God says: “This is the border you will use to divide the land as an inheritance for the twelve tribes of Israel. Joseph will receive two shares. 14 You will inherit it in equal portions, since I swore to give it to your ancestors. So this land will fall to you as an inheritance.
After the vision of the river, God turns immediately to land, to inheritance, and the permanent place he is preparing for his people. This would have been an almost incomprehensible promise to believe in Ezekiel’s day.
The Jews are exiled, their land is occupied by enemies! And God is dividing it up on paper like a surveyor laying out lots for a new neighborhood?
It’s a little like being evicted from your apartment, sleeping in your car, and receiving a very official-looking envelope that says: “Congratulations! Here is the deed for the lot and house being prepared for you.” You don’t have it yet. But the plan is real, and the One making the promise owns everything.
And there is one detail in verses 21–23 that I really don’t want you to miss.
22 You will allot it as an inheritance for yourselves and for the aliens residing among you, who have fathered children among you. You will treat them like native-born Israelites; along with you, they will be allotted an inheritance among the tribes of Israel. 23 In whatever tribe the alien resides, you will assign his inheritance there.” This is the declaration of the Lord God.
Aliens, outsiders. People who were not born into the covenant. People who had no ancestral claim on the land. God says: they get an inheritance too. They are treated like native-born. They receive a portion alongside the tribes.
Do you hear the gospel in that?
Because we anre outsiders. Paul writes in Ephesians 2:12,
12 At that time you were without Christ, excluded from the citizenship of Israel, and foreigners to the covenants of promise, without hope and without God in the world.
That is who we were.
But Paul continues in verse 13,
13 But now in Christ Jesus, you who were far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ.
The blood that flows from the altar, the sacrifice that opens the river. An inheritance that is sealed by the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
The writer of Hebrews says,
15 Therefore, he is the mediator of a new covenant, so that those who are called might receive the promise of the eternal inheritance, because a death has taken place for redemption from the transgressions committed under the first covenant.
The inheritance is not earned, it’s promised! A new covenant secured by blood of Jesus Christ. And it belongs to everyone who comes to the river, everyone who believes, regardless of tribe or tongue or past.
We are living in a time, where it feels like everything is lost. The inheritance the world promised us has crumbled. But, God promises this:
There is an inheritance kept in heaven that cannot decay, cannot be stolen, cannot be shaken. Peter calls it,
4 an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you.
This is our future. Not just a trickle of blessings, but a river of life flowing into a promised land without end. Not ankle deep forever, but swimming in the fullness of God. Not an outsider begging at the gate, but an heir, a full and equal heir, of everything God has promised.
Conclusion: Come Back to the River
Ezekiel was writing to exiled Jews. The temple had been destroyed. Jerusalem was laying in rubble. The people of God were living in Babylon. Every prayer and every lament questioned: Is it over? Has God abandoned us? Is there anything left?
In that desperation, God gives Ezekiel a vision. Not a plan for political recovery. Not a military strategy. A river. A river that starts as a trickle from a temple that, at that moment, lay in ruins. The river grows into a torrent that heals the dead sea and fills the promised land.
The vision is saying: the source of life has not changed. The altar still stands, even when the building doesn’t. The river still flows, even when the land seems dry. God’s promises aren’t contingent upon how the world looks around us.
We are living in a kind of exile, the culture around us has changed. The things we trusted in have shifted. The enemy whispers that maybe God has abandoned us, that maybe the river has dried up, that maybe the inheritance is just our imagination.
Don’t believe it!!
When Ezekiel is done seeing the vision of the river, the angel asks him one question. Just one. It’s in verse 6: “Do you see this, son of man?”
That’s the whole question. Do you see it?
Because if you can see it, if you can see the river of life, flowing into the dead places of this world and your life, then you are standing on the bank. And the only question left is whether you’ll stay there or wade in.
Honestly, I think God is still asking us the same thing every Sunday morning. He looks out at the congregation and says, “Do you see this?” And some of us are checking our phones. But the ones with their eyes open, something is happening to them.
The one who believes in me, as the Scripture has said, will have streams of living water flow from deep within him.”
I know it’s not easy, but God is asking us to simply:
1. Come back to the source. If you have drifted from the cross, from the Word, from worship, from prayer, come back. The river’s source is the altar of grace, and it begins with repentance and faith in Jesus Christ.
2. Stop standing on the bank. Wade in. Go deeper. Don’t settle for ankle-deep Christianity when God is calling you to swimming-depth surrender. Let the Holy Spirit carry you.
3. Trust the inheritance. Whatever feels like a Dead Sea in your life right now, whatever is barren, stagnant, lifeless, bring it to the river. The river makes dead water fresh. And one day, you will receive, in full, everything God has promised.
Swim deep, because wherever the river goes, there is life.
