Rainmakers 1981

Jesus promised that if we believe in him, rivers of living water will fall from our hearts into the world around us. Jesus promised that if we believe in him, signs of the kingdom will follow us everywhere we go. Jesus promised that if we believe in him, the works that he did, we will do.

And even greater works than his, we will do because he has gone to the father and sent the spirit. So how come the discrepancy between these high promises from our Lord and the piddly little trickle of life that squirms out of us with barely enough force to quench the thirst of a mouse? We have our eyes open. We can see that we're surrounded on all sides by people with heartbreaking needs, people who are depressed, people who are almost insane with loneliness, marriages breaking apart, sick people, the dying, women with small children caught in the economic squeeze who can't find enough money to pay their bills and buy the groceries, old folks with no one to take care of them.

And some of these people are reaching out directly to us and we're like a farmer standing in the middle of 500 acres of crops that are withering and shriveling under a scorching sun. We've been praying for rain. No rain comes.

If I don't get some water to these crops, they're going to die. So what am I going to do? Either I bring down rain from heaven or I start carrying water in buckets from the river to my 500 acres. The temptation is to start carrying water in buckets with our bare hands.

In fact, the ministries of most of us are pretty much a bucket brigade. But a bucket brigade for 500 acres is utterly absurd. The only hope for these 500 acres of withering crops is a soaking rain from heaven.

Now, when Jesus said that if we believe in him, out of our hearts will flow rivers of living water, he made clear that the source of the living water is not earth but heaven. But we're so accustomed to trying to make things happen. The movers and shakers of this world make things happen.

They see the problem, figure out the solution, and they work that solution. But in the kingdom of God, you don't make things happen. God makes things happen.

In the kingdom, all you do is stand before God, put yourself in a position where God can cause his kingdom to break through into this world through you. On the surface, it looked like Elijah was able to make the rain stop with a word, boom, now no more rain. And then when he's good and ready, that he has the power to turn around and with a word make it rain again.

But the inward reality of that was that Elijah was standing before God all the time and Elijah was simply putting himself under God and yielding to God and fitting in with God's purpose. When Elijah said, there will be no dew nor rain these years except by my word, he spoke as a man who stood before God and spoke what God gave him to speak. And when in the third year of this drought, Elijah goes up to Ahab, the king, and says, go up and eat and drink.

When there is the sound of the rushing of rain, Elijah was not speaking out of himself. He was speaking out of God. Our Lord worked miracles.

Every word that came out of Jesus mouth was prophetic. But Jesus never made things happen. The father made things happen.

Jesus never did one thing out of himself, never spoke one word out of himself. He did what he was given to do and he spoke what he was given to speak. He put himself in this world, the son of God in human flesh, divested of his divine prerogatives, made himself available so that the kingdom of God could break forth into this world through him.

We have to learn to give up trying to be a bucket brigade and to stand before God so totally yielded to him that he can make it rain through us. When we do this, there will be rain. Living water from heaven will flow through us into this dry earth.

It's not as if the kingdom of God comes up to us all worried and wringing his hands and saying, gee, things are really rough these days. Nobody wants to believe in Jesus Christ. I'm looking for volunteers who will help to put Christ back into Christmas.

Will you bring your bucket and help out? No. Kingdom of God comes to you and me and says, the time has come for me to speak to this to this world through you. Give me your body, your soul, your spirit, and I'll get the job done.

Eli, uh, Jeremiah chapter one. Now, the word of the Lord came to me saying, before I formed you in the womb, I knew you before you were born. I consecrated you.

I appointed you a prophet to the nations. Then I said, oh Lord God, behold, I do not know how to speak for I'm only a youth. But the Lord said to me, do not say I am only a youth for to all to whom I send you, you shall go.

And whatever I command you, you shall speak. Be not afraid of them for I am with you to deliver you, says the Lord. Then the Lord put forth his hand and touched my mouth.

And the Lord said to me, behold, I have put my words in your mouth. See, I have set you this day over nations and over kingdoms to pluck up and to break down, to destroy and to overthrow, to build and to plant. Jeremiah was not a bucket brigade.

Jeremiah was a rainmaker because when the kingdom of God came to Jeremiah and claimed him, he yielded totally. He didn't say, yeah, okay, Lord, I'll do it, but let me keep my sand collection. You know, and I have a few other things I want to drag along here.

He says, he gives the whole thing up and giving his entire yielding, his entire life to the kingdom of God, living water begins to flow through him. Living words come out of this man's mouth and things began to happen. Supernatural, eternal, final, glorious things began to flow through Jeremiah.

So how do we get beyond being a bucket brigade to the place where we can bring rain? How do we get to the place where the kingdom of God can in fact break forth into this world through us? The first thing that has to happen, if we're ever going to be of use to God's kingdom in this world is that we have to get rid of our buckets, put them down and hold still. The only men and women who will be ever, ever be of use to God redemptively in this world are the ones who are willing to give a yielded life, totally yielded life, who are willing to hold still, who are willing to let God call the shots. The best example of this in all scripture is Mary from Luke one.

In the sixth month, the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph of the house of David. And the virgin's name was Mary. And he came to her and said, Hail, O favored one, the Lord is with you.

But she was greatly troubled at the saying and considered in her mind what sort of greeting this might be. The angel said to Mary, Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. Behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son and you shall call his name Jesus.

He will be great and will be called the son of the most high. And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father, David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever. Out of his kingdom, there will be no end.

And Mary said to the angel, How shall this be since I have no husband? The angel said to her, The Holy Spirit will come upon you and the power of the most high will overshadow you. Therefore, the child to be born of you will be called holy, the son of God. And behold, your kinswoman, Elizabeth, in her old age, has also conceived a son.

And this is the sixth month with her who was called barren. For with God, nothing will be impossible. And Mary said, Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord.

Let it be to me according to your word. Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord. Let it be to me according to your word.

It's as if Mary puts down her buckets and gives up trying to do things her own way anymore and deals and bows and holds still and worships before the living God. I'm your handmaid. Do what you want with me.

Now, for all our surrendering, all our decisions, our commitments, our promises to God, have we ever come to the place, each of us, where we come to a full stop before God, silence our hearts and our mouths and yielded the whole mess which we call our lives to him? Lord, I'm your servant. Do whatever you want with me. We probably said that word a million times, but to really do it, to really hold still and to give up the whole business to him.

If we're going to be the means by which heavenly rain begins to spread out over this dry earth, we are also going to have to learn to leave the familiar place where we are, whatever that is, geographically, spiritually, mentally, whatever, and follow the land into the unknown every day. From Genesis 12. Now, the Lord said to Abram, go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you, and I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great so that you will be a blessing.

I will bless those who bless you, and him who curses you, I will curse, and in you, all the families of the earth will be blessed. Abram left his country, his kindred, his father's house, and went out into the unknown to a land that God was going to show him. In response to our Lord's command, Peter launched out into the deep, the unknown, to let down his nets for a catch, and when that catch came up, brought his boat to land, forsook everything, and followed Jesus into the unknown.

To live by faith is to follow God, walk with God into the unknown every single day, which means, for instance, that we leave the familiar realm of flesh and enter into the realm of the Spirit of God every day, and the realm of the Spirit of God is unfamiliar territory for our flesh, even if we've been following Jesus for 50 years. Every day, it has some danger, and it has some risk, and it's an adventure, and it's the unknown, but not just in the so-called spiritual realm. While we walk with God into the realm of the Holy Spirit, we also, at the same time, follow God, walk with him out among people.

Launching out into the deep on that sea was really a symbol of launching out among the multitudes, going out among people, exposing ourselves to the multitudes and the masses. It means that we go out and begin to talk to people that we've been afraid to talk to, and if we're honest, two of us hasn't been afraid to talk to people, people we've just been afraid to say boo to, and we're going to also go out there and we're going to listen to people that, for years, we've walked by and never given them a chance to even say good morning to us. It means that we're going to open our hearts to people who might just step on us, break our hearts, make ridiculous demands of us, hurt our feelings.

As long as your Christianity is a bucket brigade, you can be living in familiar territory all your life. All you're doing is in a rut, you know, it's a kind of an endless rut. You know where you're going, you know what you're doing, and nobody can get you out of that rut.

But when we begin to draw close enough to God so that he can make us into rainmakers, so that he can cause redemptive living water to flow out into the world through us, this means that we're going to be following the Lamb into the unknown all the time. In order to bring the reign of God into this dry earth, the means by which this happens, coming through us, we are also going to have to learn to speak what God gives us to speak. Then the Lord put forth his hand and touched my mouth, and the Lord said to me, Behold, I have put my words in your mouth.

See, I have set you this day over nations and over kingdoms to pluck up and to break down, to destroy and to overthrow, to build and to plant. Most of us have seen so much hypocrisy in our own lives, as well in the lives of those around us, that we're very hesitant to speak, for fear that all is going to come out is some more spiritual doubt. But if we have in fact and are in fact seeking to yield ourselves utterly to God, and if we are following the Lamb into the unknown day after day after day, then the Lord puts forth his hand and touches our mouth, dumb as it may be, confused and tongue-tied as it may seem, and for all the garbage that's flowed out of it before.

And he says, Now I put my words in your mouth. Speak them. Living water, redemptive life flows into this world through the spoken word.

It is the spirit that gives life, says Jesus, the flesh is of no avail. The words that I speak to you, they are spirit and they are life. And now those words Jesus has spoken and continues to speak to us, find utterance through us.

We begin to speak them and as they flow across from our hearts, across our mouths, the desert begins to flow with streams that bring it life. Now, this same word that we speak not only brings life to the world, it brings persecution to us. Just as it brought persecution to Elijah and to Jeremiah, put Jesus on the cross, caused Peter to die for his Lord.

And it will do this for us too. And we need to conquer our fear of persecution to the point where we are willing to accept it as part of life, knowing that with the persecution will come streams in the desert. The Lord is calling every one of us in this place today, who is frustrated with this piddly trickle of life, where there should be a river of living water gushing forth from us, to give up our bucket brigade.

Lay down the bucket or the 50 bucket or the thousand bucket. Draw near to him and let him make us into men and women who can call forth rain from heaven. For the living water that will bring life to this world does not come from the earth, it comes from heaven.

Heaven will give forth that living water from God through us. When we give to the Father a totally yielded life, when we follow the Son into the unknown every day, and when we speak as the Spirit gives us utterance. And the time and place to do these three things is here and now.

Let's wait upon God. Lord God, we see in the scriptures and in the history of the body of Christ down through these centuries, the men and the women who have really been doorways through which the kingdom life has flowed into this desert world. And we just ask that you'd help us to turn from our self-efforts and learn to follow their example.

God, help us to learn what it is to be poor in spirit and to yield. And where in our lives so far, Lord God, we've tasted this and experienced it and done it. Help us to do it better.

And help us today, Lord God, today, really now, to root out of our hearts those things, those fears, those resentments, that anger, the distractions, the lust, the idolatry, the self-love, whatever it is that distracts us, hinders us from yielding ourselves utterly to you. We ask it, Father, in Jesus name.