ABOUT THIS EPISODE
Fathers are funny animals. They want the best for their kids. But when their kids rebel, when they don't play the game, that blessing dries up quicker than you can say Jack Robinson.
I was listening the other day to a well known actor, Alan Alda, being interviewed by an equally well known interviewer called Michael Parkinson in the UK. Now Alan Alda, of course, became famous as the character Hawkeye Pearce in the long running TV series MASH. Alda's now over 70 years old and he was telling us how a couple of years ago he was travelling in South America and he had the most incredible pain in his stomach.
They rushed him to a Doctor who detected a blockage in his intestine. Now unless the Doctor operated immediately and cut that part of his intestine out he was going to die. When it comes to life and living blockages in any part of our body are almost always deadly. In our airways, in our bowels, in our eyes, something that can send us blind. And it turns out that spiritual blockages are just the same, they're deadly.
Our lives can sometimes be full of tiredness and worry and we're running out of steam and we're running out of puff and our batteries are flat. Okay, sure we have our ups and downs but sometimes our lives seem to be on this downward spiral. Day after day after day we've got this sub-optimal thing happening and that reality in life can sometimes dominate our vision.
We think that that's all there is, we think that it can't get any better but that reality stands in such stark contrast, let me say, to the promises Jesus made to us, if only we'd believe in Him.
Have a listen to some of those promises again today. John chapter 10, verse 10:
The thief comes only to steal, kill and destroy but I have come that you may have life in all its fullness, in all its abundance.
In fact, literally in it's super abundance. Matthew chapter 11:
Come to me if you're weary and burdened because I will give you rest (said Jesus). Take my yoke upon you and learn from me because I'm gentle and humble of heart and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.
John chapter 7:
If any of you is thirsty come to me and drink because whoever believes in me as the scriptures have said, rivers of living water will flow from within them. By this He meant the Holy Spirit whom those who believed in Jesus were later to receive.
And then just before He was handed over to be crucified, John chapter 14, verse 27 He says to His disciples:
Friends, peace I leave with you, my peace I give to you. I'm not giving the way the world does. Don't let your hearts be troubled, don't let them be afraid.
Jesus promised us super abundant life. Rest for the weary, drink fullness to overflowing for the thirsty, peace for the troubled. The problem is that it doesn't always work out that way in our lives and so either Jesus is a liar or there's something else.
S D Gordon, around the late 19th or early 20th century wrote a fabulous book called Quiet Talks On Power. He's one of my favourite authors and he kind works on a similar premise to what I'm working on with Jesus' promises except he looks at it from a perspective of God's power and he says, "Look, the natural life as a Jesus believer is to have God's power to accomplish the things that God calls us to do."
And he tells this great story at the beginning of the book about a blockage. He talks about a mid western American town in the late 1800's. It was a dry area and it relied heavily on water from a dam up in the hills. Water after all equals life – no water, no town, no life.
Now the town grew and prospered and filled with people until one day the water pipes ran dry. People went up to the reservoir up in the hills and it was full but there was just no water flowing down into the valley to the town. No water – no life. So people began to leave the town and the tumble weed was blowing through the main street and it became a veritable ghost town.
Then one day they received an anonymous note, somebody had sabotaged the pipes right up near the reservoir. Someone had put a small plug into the pipe and the authorities went up there and checked it and sure enough they found it. They removed that one small blockage and the water started to flow again. Life came back, the people returned to the town because that little blockage stopping the water from flowing had been removed.
A small blockage can have such a huge impact. Can I tell you? There are so many people missing out on Gods abundance because of blockages in their lives. They may only be small, they may only be tiny compromises, "Well I believe in God but not in this area of my life. Well you know, I believe in God but I don't think He'll ever fill me to overflowing", some people say.
There is a simple name for that, it's called sin. I know it's not a popular word. I know these days people say, 'Oh come on Berni, sin, that is such an old fashioned concept'. Maybe it is but it only takes the smallest blockage to stop the water from flowing. Listen again to Jesus, John chapter 7, verse 37:
If anyone is thirsty let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, rivers of living water will flow from within them.
What's Jesus' plan? Jesus planned the normal Christian life is a flood tide of blessing, full to overflowing. And you see, that's His plan, not just for Mr and Mrs Super Christian, not just for some hot shot preacher or worship leader, if anyone is thirsty let them come to me and drink and whoever believes in me from their belly will flow rivers of living water.
This is all for us and when we do it our own way, when I decide I'm just going to grumble and go my own way, I'm going to cheat or lie, I'm not going to believe in Jesus blessing, you know what it does? It blocks the flow. It's deadly. Sin is like that plug in the pipe.
God is a fantastic God. God is a holy God. And when we rebel against Him, even in those hidden places, in those little things. In fact, especially those little hidden things, that sin becomes like a blockage, it stops the natural flow that Jesus has planned.
The Bible says that the wages of sin is death. Even though the reservoir is full of fresh, clean, life giving water. Even though Gods plan for us is for His Spirit to pour down into us in abundance. To fill us not just to the top but to overflowing. To have a flood tide of blessing that enters into this world through us, our sin blocks that plan.
His plan is to have us full to overflowing with abundant life. With joy, with peace, with rest. Sin blocks His plans and there is only one way to fix it. It is to unblock the pipe. Jesus said "Repent".
Repent for the Kingdom of God is at hand.
Do you know what repenting means? Repenting is turning away from the sin and back to God. It's saying, "I am going to look at that little blockage, that little compromise, that little hidden thing that no one except God and I know about. I'm going to look at it and I'm going to call it what it is. It is sin. It is anti God. It is blocking Gods plan for my life and I'm going to turn away from that and hand that part of my life over to Jesus. I know I've been holding it back. I know I've been kind of denying it. I'm going to hand it right now over to Jesus in humility and obedience."
I guarantee you, when we take that step, when we hand that blockage over to Him and say, "Lord, you know something, I don't even know how to get rid of that blockage but You do. Take it away." I guarantee you that the Spirit of God will start flowing and fill us absolutely to overflowing.
