Swim At Your Own Risk Series

RIP TIDE

Swim at Your Own Risk

As you saw in the promo video,

we’re starting a new series this month

called RIP TIDE!

I’m real excited about this series

because it has something for every one.

I don’t care if this is the first time

you’ve ever been to church,

or if you have been going to church all your life.

There’s at least one principle in these messages

that you can use for your life.

So make sure you don’t miss

any of the messages in this series.

I really want you to grab a hold of this wave

and ride it out!

Let me give you an overview of some of the upcoming messages in this series.

RIP TIDE

Week 1 Swim at Your Own Risk

Week 2 Life Guard On Duty

Week 3 Danger Strong Current

Week 4 HELP!

Week 5 No Swimming

Let’s get started tonight by looking at RIP TIDE

1. Swim at Your Own Risk

How many of you like the beach?

I know our teens do.

In fact they let me drive them to the beach

this past summer.

Now I must admit that even though

I’m a Florida Cracker,

I don’t necessarily care that much for the beach.

I don’t like it when the sand gets in my shoes,

the salt water makes me feel sticky,

and the sun is way too hot.

I’m just not the beach bum type.

How many of you here are good swimmers?

That’s good. I don’t swim well either.

In fact, I never even learned how to swim

until I was a teenager, and met Kelli.

She taught me how to swim,

and I taught her how to drive!

Now that’s a productive relationship!

I can swim well enough to save myself if I have to,

but I’m not going to go swim in a marathon

or anything like that.

Those of you who are like me,

and don’t swim well either,

have you ever gotten caught in a riptide

in the ocean?

Did it scare you?

I remember once when I got caught in one,

and it liked to scared me to death.

I just knew that was the end for me.

But even though

I might not be the best of swimmers,

I am fairly strong.

It’s kind of a natural thing in my family.

The fact that most of us work outside helps too.

But even with my strength, I had a hard time

fighting against the current of the Rip Tide.

Now, those of you

who consider yourselves to be good swimmers,

have you even gotten caught in a riptide?

Did it scare you?

My wife told me

that she thought she was going to drown one time

when she got caught up in one

when she was a child.

They are scary.

Let’s take a look at what a Rip Tide really is.

Sometimes, people call them “undertows”.

So let’s look at both of these words

so we can have a full understanding.

Riptides and Undertows are related.

Breaking waves approach the beach

carrying water toward the beach.

The water can’t just pile up there

it has to escape back out to sea somehow.

If there’s a place along the beach

where the waves aren’t as strong,

the water near the shore

escapes through that weak spot,

flowing back out to sea.

This is a Rip Tide.

If there is no spot with weaker surf,

the water flows down and under the waves

and back out to sea, forming an undertow.

On the other hand, let’s look at the word undertow:

un•der•tow - noun

An Undertow is:

A strong sea-ward bottom current

returning the water of broken waves

back out to sea.

Did you get that?

When the waves crash onto the beach,

that water has to go somewhere.

It doesn’t stay on the beach.

So there’s a strong current under the water

that returns the water back out to sea.

When there is no channel for the water to travel in,

it takes a wide part of the water out to sea.

If a person gets caught in the undertow

they can be pulled under the surface of the water,

and carried back out to sea

with the rest of the water.

That’s how strong this current is.

Even though you can’t really see the current,

you can see and feel the effects of the current

in a tremendous way once you are in it.

Now Rip Currents (or “rip tides”)

are sometimes mistakenly called an undertow.

However, a rip current

will not pull you under the surface of the water.

It has the same strong pull as an undertow,

but it’s more subtle.

This is even more dangerous,

because you don’t realize what’s happening

until it’s too late.