Preached by Rev. Ed Brouwer at The Gathering Place, Osoyoos
Pulpit Series Volume 20 Issue 23 September 26th, 2010
Groundhog Day (1993 comedy) Bill Murray, (a self-centered reporter) keeps reliving February 2. The day plays out exactly as it did before, with no one else aware of the time loop.
Like the movie “Ground-Hog Day”, we have become stuck, endlessly repeating identical days, until we learn the lesson.
Unlike school, God will not graduate us and move us onto the next grade until we pass the test. Like Israel, we’ve been examined and found wanting. “It will come about at that time That I will search Jerusalem with lamps, And I will punish the men who are stagnant in spirit, Who say in their hearts, The LORD will not do good or evil!” Zephaniah 1:12 NASB
He is searching us “with lamps”, no corner or crevice of our hearts and lives will be exempt.
We are not being examined on our knowledge or
ministry effectiveness, but on the purity of our “spirit”.
The phrase “stagnant in spirit” is rendered more literally in the Amplified translation as “settling on their lees”.
They had not been poured from vessel to vessel, refusing to change and so developed a spirit that said, “The Lord will not do good or evil”. In other words, He is not living and active
in the circumstances of my life.
Many people in Canada today are sentimental believers but practical atheists. They are not current with God. They have not been poured from vessel to vessel.
They say the right things about God,
but in the day to day reality of their lives
they don’t have faith to believe
that He is actively involved.
Consequently, they build their lives, ministries and careers in-dependent of God. Being poured from vessel to vessel is de-signed by God to dislodge us from our independence.
Scriptures show that the church is constantly being perfected one step at a time. We often call these steps, “moves of God or waves of the spirit”.
II Corinthians 3:18 “We are changed into the image of Christ from glory to glory, by the Spirit of the Lord.”
Due to our hesitancy to change, this is not a smooth process.
According to Luke 5:39 some look at the “old” as being better. Being comfortable or settled in the “old” ways.
Jeremiah 48:11 “Moab has been at ease from his youth, he has settled on his lees and has not been emptied from vessel to vessel…. therefore his taste remained in him, his scent is not changed”.
The call to “go on with God” is a call to be poured from vessel to vessel. Our willing-ness to embrace change, to be poured from one vessel to another, is vital to our spiritual growth.
Moab had from his youth been undisturbed by misfortune. The nation had never been overrun or gone into captivity, and so he remained very secure and self-satisfied.
Sadly, we have not escaped being tainted by Moab’s condition.
Many in the church today refuse to be poured from vessel to vessel and have, like Moab, “retained their flavor, and their aroma has not changed”.
We have not given off the flavor or aroma of Christ.
The metaphor of being poured from vessel to vessel is taken from the ancient process of winemaking. Wine would be left for a period of time in a vessel to “rest on its lees”.
The impurities would slowly settle to the bottom and then at the discretion of the wine-maker, the wine would be poured off to another vessel. This process occurred repetitively, until the wine was purified, until it became of perfect “character”.
This process continued for 40 days, the Biblical number of wilderness testing and God’s dealings.
The modern day church knows little of these tests, in fact we resent being tested.
Friends, I beg you to see that if the aroma of Christ is not amongst us, we will only succeed in building yet another church monument to human ingenuity.
It may have loads of energy and human hype, but it will have less and less of the true fragrance of God about it.
To be “poured from vessel to vessel” means that we will be re-located, re-postured, re-aligned and re-settled by God.
Relocation
· After a period of resting on its lees, the wine was poured off to another vessel followed by another period of resting. God uses seasons of both settling and change to bring us on in spiritual maturity.
The only problem is that on the whole we prefer the settling seasons to those of change!
We’re inclined to settle around a truth, an experience, a place, or people, and so God comes to us calling us on in Him.
Those of us that are impatient to move on in God, must learn to be content with the timing of God and wait until He pours us out into the next vessel. Timing is everything!
However, when that time comes, it is not often convenient. The high call of God in Christ Jesus usually comes when we are most satisfied with our lot in life.
It requires a re-location, not always geo-graphically, but always spiritually. We’ve filled the space God created for us in the present phase and it is time to move on into another aspect of our relationship with Him.
Re-aligned
· Being poured into another vessel re-aligns us both internally and externally.
Internally…..we find ourselves relinquishing our will and ways for His.
Externally…..God moves us away from our old “comfortable” alliances into new connections. In other words, we often find ourselves with a new set of friends.
As much as we may wish it differently, the old set of friends has less in common and loses interest. Sometimes, this re-alignment can occur through betrayal as it did with Joseph as he was poured into the next vessel.
Re-postured
· Being poured from one vessel to another requires a re-posturing of heart. Perhaps we were in a round vessel, but now we find ourselves in a square one.
We may experience circumstantial change, relocation or misfortune, but do we learn the lessons that God had in these trials?
Often, we bravely take a grip on ourselves to endure it, but never break. As Saul discovered, “God is not interested in our sacrifices but in our obedience”.
The obedience and sacrifice in which God is interested, is rather “a broken and a con-trite heart”. In fact, our surrender. I Samuel 15:22; Psalm 51:17
So, like “Ground-Hog Day”, we are forced to repeat identical or similar circumstances until we are internally re-postured. Until we surrender our self-effort, our strength to endure the trial.
Re-settled
· We must learn to settle again for as long as the Lord assigns the new season.
One thing I am slowly learning in the 38 years I have walked with God is that He is God! We do not determine anything. Our times are in His hands. He is completely sovereign in assigning the seasons and circumstances of our lives.
As the prisoner of the Lord, I cannot, as much as I might try, change those times and seasons. God has a timetable and He is sticking to it! It’s then up to me to resolve that His ways are perfect and just.
The Call to Maturity
· The apostle issued a call to the Hebrew believers to go on to maturity as they were being poured into a new vessel, the new covenant. Hebrews 6:1-3
This is the whole design of God in life. “For it is God who is at work within us both to will and do according to His own good pleasure.” Philippians 2:13
All the circumstances of life are allowed by God,
both the bitter and the sweet, to bring us on to
maturity in Him, giving ourselves over to His ways.
God is looking for people who will “go on with Him” being poured from vessel to vessel, and thus giving off the fragrance of Christ. As the Lord declared through the prophet, “there will be a banquet for the nations of refined and aged wine”.
“The LORD of hosts will prepare a lavish banquet for all peoples on this mountain; A banquet of aged wine, choice pieces with marrow and refined, aged wine.” Isaiah 25:6 NASB AMEN!!
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