UPRIVER (I)

THE UPRIVER REALITY (I) Back about 40 plus years ago I knew some guys who had been bird hunting for several hours. Early afternoon they got real thirsty! The only water close by was a stream, so they did what most desperate country boys do when thirsty, they drank from the creek. Their thirst was quenched, their body refreshed! They were ready for a few more hours of hunting, and all was well. At least until they hunted up stream and discovered something sickening and nauseating in the stream they drank from. I share that most unpleasant experience with you to remind you that regardless of what is, that is not a certainty of what is to come. Before you accept what you see, as what is, you might want to check out what’s going on upstream. Bad maybe here now, but the ‘Upriver Reality’ assures us with God, good is on it’s way. The bad that is, doesn’t have the death-nail of finality. My current circumstance will not and does not determine my concluding circumstance. There is a three day segment in the life of our Savior, Jesus Christ that affirms to all of His followers, death and dying maybe the water I’m wading through now, but life and living is upstream coming. If we pause and ponder, if we stop and search, ‘Upriver Reality’, gives us hope regardless of how debilitating our present. We have a lengthy list of Bible heroes who lived with hardship, fought through obstacles, persevered because they believed something better was coming. Sarah, Issac, Abel, Enoch, Noah, and Abraham just to mention a few. They believed something better was coming in spite of how much bad had surrounded them. The Bible says this about them! “All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance, admitting that they were foreigners and strangers on earth.” Today as we start another year, I want to help our hope in this series. I want to help you start looking for something better, and position yourself to receive something better. Usually when we make a mess, the mess captures our vision. We can’t see beyond our circumstance, our attention is captivated. And one can only see mess so long until they begin to lose hope. We begin today learning to live with the hope that comes from, ‘Upriver Reality.’ JOS. 3:14-17 (NLT) “So the people left their camp to cross the Jordan, and the priests who were carrying the Ark of the Covenant went ahead of them. It was the harvest season, and the Jordan was overflowing its banks. But as soon as the feet of the priests who were carrying the Ark touched the water at the river’s edge, the water above that point began backing up a great distance away at a town called Adam, which is near Zarethan. And the water below that point flowed on to the Dead Sea until the riverbed was dry. Then all the people crossed over near the town of Jericho. Meanwhile, the priests who were carrying the Ark of the Lord’s Covenant stood on dry ground in the middle of the riverbed as the people passed by. They waited there until the whole nation of Israel had crossed the Jordan on dry ground.” When Joshua gave the word for the children of Israel to get ready to cross Jordan, their national nightmare of 40 years appeared to be over. After decades of roundabout wandering by the previous generation, a new breed of travelers were about to walk into the Promise Land. My prayer is for the next generations, a new breed of travelers in the church to make more progress in changing our community’s climate than the past couple generations have. You can and you will because the reality of what’s up the river. You have got to believe, you have got to imagine that God is up to something. God is putting something together upriver and its coming down when you step in. We will look in detail the next time at ISRAEL’S crossing Jordan. But before we do let’s establish the fundamental fact, the absolute truth that God is a blessing God, and that He is working for your good upriver from where you are right now, regardless of where you are. So what assurance, what hope do we have that God is doing something significant on our behalf? Mark Batterson writes, ‘blessing is God’s ancient instinct.’ He says, ‘before there was original sin their was original blessing.’ The Bible says,“For no matter how many promises God has made, they are “Yes” in Christ. And so through him the “Amen” is spoken by us to the glory of God.” The Bible says, “He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? God Blessing you and me is His default setting. Blessing is God first and foremost reflex. At the beginning of creation when God made mankind, listen to what the Bible says the first thing God did. “Then God blessed them, and God said to them, Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” Blessing His creation is God’s nature, it’s His DNA. The Bible says, “Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.” ... “ Now to Him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to His power that is at work within us.” There should be no doubt, it should be clear and cemented into the minds of Christ followers, it is God’s nature, His instinct, His reflex to bless. Therefore as we speak God is working upriver preparing something good to send our way. We can aspire to be blessed, we can set our heart on good things coming down the river, not because we have always been good, but because God is good, and always has been good, and always will be good. However there is a couple clarifications I need to make about God’s preparations of upriver blessings. ONE, The blessing of God is not an immunity pass on this world’s pain and suffering. Bad things happen to people who are blessed. God’s blessing will keep us from some trouble, but it doesn’t keep us from all trouble. Jesus said so, “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” Jesus was holy, He was perfect, He was His Father’s beloved, but He suffered His share of earthly troubles and hardships, and then there was the cross. But Jesus tells us to take heart that He has overcome the world. There are challenges to be faced, there are hardships to be endure, but as we speak there is blessings upriver flowing your way as a follower of Jesus Christ. Here is the SECOND thing that needs to be said about God’s upriver blessings. God doesn’t bless our disobedience, and willful sin. God doesn’t bless our arrogance, God doesn’t bless our rebellion. We must position ourselves for God’s blessings. In basketball officiating often officials miss or make the wrong call because they are out of position. When we are walking in disobedience we are out of position to receive the blessings God is sending. When we are walking in obedience we are in position to be blessed. “If you fully obey the Lord your God and carefully follow all his commands I give you today, you will be blessed when you come in and blessed when you go out.” When we have bitterness, and we are unforgiving we are out of position to receive God’s blessings. When we are asserting self will into our faith journey we are out of position to receive God’s blessings. This is why we were anointed with myrrh last weekend. We must ‘minimize me’ and surrender to He, die to self, in order to be in the position to receive the blessing God is sending our way. Here is what Paul writes about this. GAL. 2:20:“I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. The life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.”... GAL. 5:24:”And those who are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.” The reason the minimization of me is paramount is God wants to write His story to others through us. A couple weeks ago at the Christmas musical we heard a song by ‘Casting Crowns,’ ‘MAKE ROOM.’ Mary and Joseph had plans, they had goals, they had an agenda. Get married, have a family, live in Nazareth, work in a carpenter shop, and live as any other Jewish family in Palestine at the time. But there was some upriver realities that God was orchestrating, and they were willing to make room for God’s plan. That is the position of the blessed! As we follow their story they wrestled, they questioned, they battled with what God was doing up the river. They initially weren’t ready to step in the water, and neither are we. We really don’t want to give in and step in. Yet through sometimes a painful process we die to ourself, in order for His will to live in us. We reduce me, so He can be exalted! Mary and Joseph gave God the opportunity to write His story, to us, through them. The upriver reality for us is God wants to write His story to others through us. That’s what’s coming down, it’s already started, the only thing keeping it from arrival is a ‘maximized me.’ We put my will and wishes, above the FATHERS. We’re out of position! I invite you to come and position yourself on the river bank into God’s Promised Land. A land flowing with milk and honey, a land where the grapes grow big. A place where you can live in houses you haven’t built, and you can drink from wells you didn’t dig.