Where Life Happens

Intro / Announcements

Good morning. Welcome to TRC. I hope everyone had a wonderful Easter weekend. I know we had a lot of fun celebrating together here.

Couple of announcements before we get started:

If you’re new today, first, welcome! Also, Connect Cards are a great way to let us know you were here! There should be one in a seat next to you. And if you fill it out and turn it in (either to me, Janelle, or in the white box in the back), we have a gift for you and I’ll also send you a thank you card for being our guest!

Connect Cards are also a great way to let us know if you have a prayer request, would like get more involved here at TRC, or even if you’ve made a decision to follow Jesus. We’d love to pray for you. We’d love to help you take your next steps of faith.

Also, Men’s Breakfast is coming up on the 11th. If you are a dude and you’ve never been, you’re missing out. The next one will be Chick-Fil-A here in Glastonbury.

Lots of other things going on. If you’re interested in finding out more, you can talk to anyone with a green lanyard on or visit our “Events” page at theriverchurchct.com

As you can see, God has blessed our small church with lots of kids! And our River Littles team (that’s Kinder and below) is looking for a few more team members. As I’ve said before, this is not babysitting, this is the early stages of discipleship. This is the future of the church and world. This is sharing the love of Jesus with our little ones. If you’re interested, grab a River Kids pamphlet and talk with Alyssa Zeek.

Finally, we don’t take a tithe and offering during service. However, TRC is supported by your generous giving and your offerings go towards furthering God’s Kingdom here in Glastonbury and beyond. If you’d like to give, there is a white box in the back or you can give online at theriverchurchct.com/give.

Speaking of giving. I have a short video to show you how a portion of our giving is used. Many of you know we keep 10% of our offerings for missions. Now, 6% of that is given to what’s called the Cooperative Program. Here’s a short video about what that means...

Although we are still waiting for God to send us our own missionary or church planter to support. Through our network partnership, our church is ALREADY helping support God’s work all over the world. In fact, TRC was support through funds given to the Cooperative Program. So this is a really cool thing! Let’s pray for our tithes and offerings and this morning’s sermon.

Things are changing here in CT. I’m sure you’ve probably noticed… it’s been raining a lot lately. Not snowing (although I prefer snow). But here in CT, we’ve been getting a lot of rain and warmer weather.

However, the most significant change I’ve seen take place recently is - the blooming of the trees! Now, that’s cool! I love that! But all of a sudden, the trees that have appeared dead, due to the freezing cold, are showing life. I think that’s one of the coolest lessons the transition from winter to spring teaches us: Life still happens. It might feel cold and dead, but in the right season, life happens again.

I believe we see this perseverance of life in the Bible. The grand story of the Bible starts with God creating perfect life, but sin enters the world and with it, death begins to infect everything. Yet, God made promises of life from the beginning. And although there are season where everything seems dead, life continues to happen.

And in the Bible, God used men called “prophets” to speak or remind people of God’s promises. These were men who spoke as God directed them. Sometimes they gave warnings or judgements. But many times they spoke God’s words of life!

And one of the most famous of God’s prophets was named Elijah. He was a man who spoke powerfully for God and did many miracles. But the time came for his life on earth to end and the question became, “Who be the messenger of life - God’s prophet - if Elijah was gone.” Well, we find out that Elijah’s powerful ministry of life would continue through his servant Elisha, who was also a prophet.

And as Elisha takes over as God’s prophet, I believe there is a lot we can learn, even today, in his first miracle. I think it’s applicable to where we are at as a new church in Glastonbury.

Look what happens:

2 Kings 2:19–22 ESV

Now the men of the city said to Elisha, “Behold, the situation of this city is pleasant, as my lord sees, but the water is bad, and the land is unfruitful.” He said, “Bring me a new bowl, and put salt in it.” So they brought it to him. Then he went to the spring of water and threw salt in it and said, “Thus says the Lord, I have healed this water; from now on neither death nor miscarriage shall come from it.” So the water has been healed to this day, according to the word that Elisha spoke.

First off, we read that the men of the city say to Elisha...

The situation of the city is pleasant!

Now, the city they were in was the city of Jericho. Jericho was this amazing city that was perfectly situated to flourish. If you fast -forward to Jesus’ day (like 900 years), we see this through the story of Zaccheaus - the head tax collector. The reason why Zaccheaus was super rich was because Jericho was a prosperous town.

Now, hit rewind and go all the way back to Joshua’s day, when the Jews first came into Israel and you find something interesting. Jericho probably sounds familiar to you, even some of you kids, because why? Yes, it’s the city with huge walls that God told Joshua and the Israelites to march around 7 times and then yell. And the walls supernaturally fell down. But that’s not the interesting thing I’m talking about. Look at this:

Joshua 6:26 NLT

At that time Joshua invoked this curse: “May the curse of the Lord fall on anyone who tries to rebuild the town of Jericho. At the cost of his firstborn son, he will lay its foundation. At the cost of his youngest son, he will set up its gates.”

Okay… now, curses are a little weird and spooky. I know I’m asking, “Why is God’s leader placing curses on things and is this something God’s people should do today?” Short answer is no. Joshua is simply declaring God has destroyed the wickedness in this city and it’s to be a reminder of His victory. To rebuild it would be rooted in a spirit of rebellion against God, which has consequences, thus invoking a curse.

Yet, someone did rebuild it and the curse was being enforced. The men of Jericho described their city by saying...

But the water (life) is bad and the land unfruitful.

Basically, this should be a prosperous city, but this place is cursed! The water is bad… Water is life… if the water is bad, life is bad. Case and point: the land is unfruitful. It won’t produce life!

And what thy are really asking Elisha is, “Since you’re supposed to be the new prophet, prove it.”

Elisha said...

Bring me a new bowl...

A new bowl represented God’s new vessel. It represented Elisha, the new prophet of God. And he says...

Put salt in it.

Salt, especially in the realm of worship, represented purification and preservation. It had this cleansing quality about it.

And Elisha takes the salt and throws it into the spring of bad water. Now, I understand the religious symbolism of all this - salt in the water … purify the water - but, I don’t know about you, but… putting salt in water has never made water better! Salt in water usually makes it worse! And yet we see...

Thus says the Lord, “I have healed this water… so the water has been healed to this day.”

It was truly a miracle. In this story, not only does Elisha prove that the prophetic ministry of life Elijah had continued, but also, with God, dead things come to life. Cursed things are healed.

Message of the Cross:

And isn’t that the gospel? I know it’s a story that happened 900 years before Jesus died on the cross, but I believe this story points to the cross.

There was a curse on Jericho that brought death. But with God, life still happens. And the greater reality is there is a curse on men called sin which brings death. But in Jesus, life still happens.

Elisha used a new bowl to represent God’s new work. Jesus is the new covenant - He’s the new Adam.

Salt represents perseveration and purity. Jesus is our perseveration and purity. Humanely speaking, salt shouldn’t make the water better, but it does. Jesus dying on the cross seems like foolishness, but to those who believe, it’s the power of God unto salvation!

And through Elisha the curse of Jericho was broken forever - the water has been healed to this day! And as we learned last week on Easter, through Jesus, the curse is broken forever - and those who put their faith in Jesus have eternal life.

This first miracle of Elisha points to the miracle of the Cross!

Glastonbury:

And I shared this with a few people on Easter before the service. I believe this story has an application to us here at TRC.

Like Jericho, Glastonbury is a beautiful and prosperous city. But when you dig deep, you find there is brokenness here. Like Jericho, “the water is bad and the land is unfruitful.” Especially when we look at the town’s spiritual condition - it looks dead.

But guess what, with God - life still happens! There is a new bowl in town - a new instrument of God, our new little church. And Jesus calls us, “the salt of the earth.” And if you will, he has gathered us into this new bowl and thrown us into the waters of Glastonbury and beyond.

And some of us can really identify with the part of salt not making the water better. God use me? Are you kidding me? But yet He does. Not because we are great, but because we have the message of life, we have the gospel! And through us, God begins to heal the waters of this town - of New England. This town, this part of the country may look dead, but just like Jericho, just like the transition from winter to spring, God is bringing life. He is bringing healing through our little church. And as we are a church that loves God, loves one another, and shares Jesus with our community, people will realize, this is where life happens.

And with that, I want to introduce you to something we are revealing this week. Most of you are familiar with our mission, vision, and values. If not, you can see them on your bulletin. But these are the things we believe God has called us to as a church. Our vision is the picture God has given us. Our mission is how we get to that vision. And our values are the the filters that help us accomplish our mission. But here’s the thing, while that’s great for us already in the church… a lot of times they don’t make sense to our community. And so we’re introducing a phrase that summarizes our vision, mission, and values in a way that’s understandable to our community: Where life happens!

Our vision is still the same. Our mission is the same. Our values are the same. But I believe the phrase “where life happens” accurately summarizes all of those in a way that people who don’t go to church understand.

And you can go deep with this, like… we talk about Jesus here. We love Him. This is where we people meet Jesus. And Jesus says, “I am the life!” This is where life happens.

We are also a relational church. Many of our values speak to that. We don’t do fake here. We are real. We are messy and we embrace that in God’s love and grace. Our church lives look like our real lives. Because this is where life happens.

And even the fact that we have a lot of kids in our church. As crazy as it can get sometimes, the fact is - kids are a picture of life. That’s how our church is known. We are small but we have a lot of kids. People say, “Your church has a lot of life!” Why? Because this is where life happens.

Because it’s true. God is doing something special in our church. God is bringing life to our family and communities. Even if some of those looked dead at one time. Even if it looked like the winter freeze had killed it. God is bringing life. Things are starting to blossom again. God is using the River church to heal waters. This is where life happens!

Response:

The worship team is going to come up and I want to encourage you to be excited. Be excited about church. Be excited to belong to a church where life happens. River Church - God is doing big things!

And maybe you’re here this morning and you’re not part of our church. That’s okay. We’re glad you’re here and you are welcome in this place. But maybe you’re here and you’ve heard about waters being healed, curses being broken, and how Jesus broke the ultimate curse and brings ultimate healing. And maybe you realize you need that. Maybe you’re like Jericho (or Glastonbury) and every thing is good on the outside but bad on the inside. Or maybe not - maybe it’s bad on the outside and inside. Regardless, with God, dead things are brought to life. Bad things are healed and made good. That’s because Jesus took the root of all bad things - the curse of sin - and he destroyed it on the Cross. And rose to life 3 days later to prove death had lost it’s power. That the curse had been broken. And if you’ll simply call upon His name, He says He will save you.

He will forgive you of your sins and give you eternal life. He will give you a new heart. He will bring healing to your bad waters and unfruitful land. If you need that kind of healing, call out to Jesus. He’s listening and He’s ready to bring you new life. You’re not here by accident. You’re here because this is where life happens.