Ezekiel 37 Devotional

Welcome to the Awakening Church podcast.

We pray this message encourages you and provides the hope and light of Jesus Christ.

Thanks for tuning in.

So today I'm calling it a devotional.

And this is a passage that's near and dear to my heart, something that I've gone back to time and time again.

And if you got your Bibles, would you open up to Ezekiel chapter 37?

Ezekiel 37 · chapter mention

Ezekiel chapter 37.

Ezekiel 37 · chapter mention

If you don't have your Bible, open your phone to Ezekiel chapter 37.

Ezekiel 37 · chapter mention

I don't have notes, I don't have PowerPoint.

You need to follow along.

And so if you're having to download UVersion right now, go for it.

That would be fantastic.

Ezekiel chapter 37.

Ezekiel 37 · chapter mention

Now, I want to begin with just a little bit of a question.

And as I'm thinking about, you know, where we're at and the season and starting the fall and awakening's 10th birthday coming up, let me ask you this.

What's your dream for your life?

Like, isn't it interesting that question?

What's your dream for your life?

You'll answer differently at different stages of your life?

Like, remember back when you're in junior high, what your dream for your life was to be a professional athlete.

Yes, Ryan, it didn't happen.

Okay.

High school, college, all of a sudden, okay, I want to do this career, I want to move here, I want to have this house, I want to work this job.

What is your dream for your life?

And then as you get older and you begin to either realize or not realize that dream, like you begin to become some even disillusioned by it.

Maybe your dream, though, is like, you know, the American dream to be upwardly mobile, the Silicon Valley dream, to have, you know, the next tech startup.

Maybe it's the dream to be um Instagram famous, to be an influencer, right?

And just to be a somebody that everybody knows that they follow you, or to have the picture perfect life, the picture perfect family, the picture perfect kids, like everything that's on filtered on Instagram would be a reality of your life.

Like, what is your dream for your life?

I want us to wrestle today with just a deeper question.

Maybe I believe a better question.

What is God's dream for your life?

You know, we ask that question, even we ask it of, you know, uh, what's your dream for your marriage?

What's your dream for your job?

What's your dream for yada yada yada?

But we rarely stop to ask, like, what is God's dream for your life?

You know, think about this.

I just think this is like that great reversal for us of we live our lives asking God to dream or bless our dreams of God.

Would you somehow, here's my dream, and God, I want you to bless it.

And what would change in our lives, in your life, in our world if we said, no, no, no, God, what is your dream and I want to pursue it?

Like it's a radical different shift.

And could it be that God's dream for your life is better than your dream?

I mean, he created all that there is.

And be able to get after that.

Well, Ezekiel chapter 37.

Ezekiel 37 · chapter mention

Ezekiel has a dream from God, a vision, if you will, and a little bit of the context.

Ezekiel is actually a contemporary of Daniel, uh, not Daniel, but Daniel, uh, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abendigo.

Uh, remember these?

Uh, Roland spoke on this earlier a couple months ago.

Uh a little bit of history lesson for you.

Here is Israel or was taken into captivity to Babylon.

Uh, Ezekiel's part of this group that was ripped from their homeland, exiled, taken into captivity, living in a foreign land.

And talk about a people, think about this.

Talk about a people that had no hope of a future, their home destroyed, not even the ability, filling the sense of possibility to dream.

And God gives Ezekiel this dream.

We pick it up in Ezekiel chapter 37, verse one.

Ezekiel 37 · chapter mention

Begins this way the hand of the Lord was on me, and he brought me out by the Spirit of the Lord and set me in the middle of a valley.

Okay, that's different.

Not exactly my dream.

Oh, and it goes on.

It was full of bones.

Creepy valley.

Okay, here we go.

Put me in a valley full of bones.

He led me back and forth among them, and I saw a great many bones on the floor of the valley, bones that were very dry.

Now, I just want to, as we read through this, just give you observations from the text.

First observation, if you want to take notes, God's hand was on Ezekiel and he placed him in the valley.

God's hand, notice that, God's hand was on me.

The Spirit of the Lord set me in the middle of the valley.

See, I think when we're wrestling, especially with God's dream for our life, we don't understand that there are valleys and wilderness wanderings that are a part of that process.

We think that when we're in the valley, when we're in the wilderness, that we couldn't possibly be in the middle of God's dream for our life.

See, think about this.

Ezekiel was taken by the Spirit of God and he was placed in the valley.

See, we think of the valley or the wilderness as the place of punishment, the place where God has left us alone.

And yet, if you follow the ark of scriptures, you follow the different people in the Bible, what you'll find is valleys and wilderness are not the place of punishment, but the place of preparation.

See, could it be that God's dream for your life and what he wants to accomplish in and through you cannot be accomplished without the value you're currently going in?

And as long as you're wanting to get out, as long as you're trying to just back away from this and resist it, you'll miss out on it.

Think about this, Joseph.

Joseph, God placed a dream on his heart.

He was a young, arrogant, 17-year-old kid.

And God placed a dream on his heart of how he's going to deliver his family, and he was cocky.

He mouthed off to his brothers.

His brothers, older brothers didn't like it, and so they sold him into slavery.

For 13 years, I don't know how long your valley is, for 13 years he was a slave and then a prisoner.

And all along the way, think about this, he couldn't see how this could possibly be the plan to set him up to fulfill God's dream for his life.

And yet the text consistently says wherever that Joseph was, whether it was in Potiphar's home or in the prison, God was with him.

He was with him.

He was with them.

And over those 13 years, even imprisonment, was a setup to place them in a position of power to deliver his family from famine.

13 years.

See, valleys last longer than we're comfortable with, don't they?

And we get disillusioned by God because He doesn't answer our dreams the way we want them.

And he says, No, I am taking you through, I am forming you, I am developing you.

There's things that can only be accomplished in the wilderness in your life.

Not to be fair.

And the reality is, is some of us are in valleys by our own doing.

We've made choices.

We've disobeyed God.

We've gone our own way.

And where we when we call out to Him and repent and say, God, would you forgive me?

I'm turning towards you, He responds and meets us there.

Think about David, the great king.

He was anointed king as a shepherd boy.

He was overlooked by his dad.

His older brothers were taller and more kingly looking, apparently.

He was anointed as a boy, a teenager.

Fifteen years until he became king.

Of those fifteen years, a good number of those, he was chased by the king of Israel, who hunted, wanted a man, a fugitive, fleeing, hiding in caves.

We have psalms that are from David of this time, of the deep formational preparation work that he did in his life.

Think about this.

Do you know how many years he was on this planet before he ever started his ministry?

Help me out.

Anyone know?

30.

What is that?

That's not crazy to you?

God steps into humanity and for 30 years, nothing, seemingly.

What is he doing?

Well, most likely he's doing the family business.

He's carpentry, masonry, he's he's working and helping and doing these things.

And even before he steps into his ministry, he has this moment where he gets baptized by John the Baptist, his beautiful picture.

And as he comes up before he did anything, before he healed anyone, before he preached any sermon, the father says, This is my son, whom I love, whom I'm well pleased.

Like your identity has nothing to do with your activity.

Your identity has to do with everything of who you are, your beloved, before you did anything.

And then he goes into the wilderness for 40 days.

See, the hand of the Lord was on Ezekiel and he placed him in the valley.

The valley is not wasted season, it is the season upon which God is working and forming in us to set us up for what he has for us.

The text goes on to say.

Then he asked me, Son of Man, can these bones live?

Now notice this observation number two, and he sees a great many bones.

And I just want to see this.

Verse 2.

They're not even just bones, they're dry bones.

Can you just say that with me?

Dry bones, right?

They're just dry.

Yeah, thank you.

Maybe Kat or somebody was uh the valley was filled with dry bones.

You want to live out God's dream for your life, you need a perspective, a perspective shift of the valley you're living in.

See, when we look at people around us, we see upwardly mobile, we see affluent, we see people on, you know, the other side of social media that seemingly have their filtered lives all figured out, and we think they're fine and they're just going and it's all right and everything's great, and you're just trying to eke through your life and somehow do a little bit better and make it, right?

And he says, you want to fulfill God's dream for your life.

Begin to look around you and see that this valley, yes, Silicon Valley, is filled with dry bones.

This isn't just the valley of technology, the valley of entrepreneurship, the valley of affluence.

This is the valley of dry bones, and you see all those pursuits are pursuits of people trying to somehow want to be something significant and have meaning and purpose and still searching for it.

When we planted awakening, um, we were doing these prayer walks, and we went downtown to do a prayer walk, and there's about, I don't know, maybe 10 of us, and we're praying, and you know, our vision at awakening is to awaken this generation to what?

New life.

Yeah, new life.

By the way, Jesus doesn't want to resuscitate your old life, he wants to resurrect you to new life, he doesn't want to make your old life better.

He wants to raise up the dry bones and parts of your life and bring radically new life, transformation.

And so we're walking downtown praying this over our city.

And then we see down the street this person that looks so odd, and another person that looks so odd, and they're kind of walking like this and arms out like this.

Well, they're zombies.

And one zombie comes by, another zombie, 50 zombies, a hundred zombies.

We're praying for awakening, and we got caught on the very same day that they're doing a zombie convention downtown.

And we're literally seeing dead people walking.

And if we just had, I just love that picture.

I'm like, God, you're so ironic.

This is amazing.

How cool is that?

We're praying for awakening and zombies are coming our way.

And if we just had this understanding that you don't walk past just people who've got it all figured about figured out, you walk past and you see dry bones, you see aching hearts, you see something inside that is missing and longing and hoping to be fulfilled that can only be fulfilled by Jesus Himself.

The valley is filled with dry bones.

And what would happen, think about this, if you began to see those at your workplace and realize there's dry bones.

Those in your neighborhood and you realize, no, no, no, all of that activity, yeah, it's it's dead people walking, they're they're moving, but it's dead inside, and they need an awakening and dry bones, those in your family at your gym, at your university, at your school.

See, God's dream for your life is that you would begin to see the world as he sees it, to be begin to respond to those in their deepest need, that they would experience new life in him.

That we would begin to go, okay, you know what?

I've been placed in this valley and I'm going through things, and you're actually with me and preparing and working in this.

And as I look around and I see right around me, there's dry bones, and you've called me here for this reason.

And then notice he asked a question, verse three, said, Son of man, can these bones live?

And I said, Sovereign Lord, you alone know.

Verse three, observation three, God asked Ezekiel a question that chat that confronts his assumptions.

God asked Ezekiel a question that confronts his assumptions.

Because by the way, if we were, you know, if you saw a bunch of dry bones and asked you, can these live, what would your answer be?

Oh, come on, be real.

Some of you are like, I'm too spiritual to say no.

I am.

Like, no, you'd be like, no.

Are you kidding me?

But the person who asked you determines your determines your response, because if I ask you, can these bones live?

You're like, no.

God asks you, you're like, oh, maybe, right?

God asks Ezekiel a question that challenges his assumptions.

All I see is dry bones.

They're not even bones, they're not wet bones.

I don't know what it is, yeah.

But dry bones, like they're old decaying bones.

Can they live?

Can your marriage live?

Can the prodigal return?

Can that depression and that anxiety?

See, God asks Ezekiel a question that challenges his assumptions.

And friends, we actually need to be challenged because we look at the world through our frame, through our lens, through our ability, and so we respond accordingly.

And we look at our coworkers and go, like, no, they would never need Jesus, or our friends and neighbors, and go, no, they would never respond to Jesus.

Or, you know what, my marriage, I'm not even going to try because it's already good as gone.

She's the worst.

He's the worst.

My kids, they've just gone so far off the deep end, or that addiction has taken them over, or their health is just crumbling.

And we need our assumptions challenged because we have a God bigger than that.

I love Ezekiel's response.

Notice his response.

He said, Sovereign Lord, only you know.

Sovereign Lord.

Sovereign.

Like you alone are in control.

You have all power and all dominion, all authority.

There is nothing outside of your control and your ability.

And so if you're asking me this question, I don't know.

But you know.

In fact, here's what he's saying.

It's too big for me.

But it's not too big for you.

That's too big for me.

But it's not too big for you.

My marriage and the issues and what's going on is too big for me.

But it's not too big for you.

My prayers for my kid who walked away, or my friend who's caught in addiction, or that depression that has me so entangled in anxiety that's rapping.

It's too big for me, but it's not too big for you.

You alone know.

Observation number one God's hand was on Ezekiel and he placed him in the valley.

Number two, the valley's filled with dry bones, our perspective shift.

Then God asks Ezekiel a question that confronts his assumption.

And where we begin to go, no, no, no.

It's not not about my ability, and even not about what I see.

You are sovereign God.

You're in control, and you're bigger than this circumstance, you're bigger than this problem, you're bigger than this valley, you're bigger than all the things in me, and you alone know.

And then notice what happens next, verse 4.

Then he said to me, Prophesy or preach to these bones and say to them, Dry bones, because that's how you just preach.

Hear the word of the Lord.

This is what the sovereign Lord says to these bones, I will make breath enter you, and you will come in, come to life.

Observation number four.

God commands Ezekiel to speak life to that which is dead.

Can you imagine?

This dream, this vision Ezekiel's having.

He's brought, I mean, this is weird.

He's brought to this valley that's filled with dry bones.

And preaching's already hard getting up in front of people.

It's hard when you have like a crowd that's like quiet.

You're not quiet on me, are you?

No.

See?

See, it's hard.

Think about God's asking him to preach to dry bones.

Literally, a dead crowd.

I know, terrible joke.

I get it.

Yeah, dad jokes don't ever stop.

They're the best.

And God, I love this.

This is so powerful.

Don't miss this.

God commands Ezekiel to speak life to that which is dead.

And it's not just his word, his opinion, Ezekiel's ideas.

It's God's word.

See, we think about a prophet, and most of the times when we think about a prophet, we think about them as foretelling the future.

And certainly that is part of what a prophet does, but it's not not, it's only about 10%.

90% of the role of a prophet is to proclaim forth the word of God to the people of God.

It's to proclaim forth the word of God to a person of God.

It's this is the word of God, not my ideas, not my thoughts, not my My thinking, but this is what God's word says in a time and way that brings and draws people to the ways of God.

That's the rule what a prophet does.

And notice he speaks the word of God and he speaks life to that which is dead.

I just wonder what the influence of the church today would be if we just started speaking life to that which is dead.

How different the reputation of Jesus would be today if we just began to speak life to that which is dead.

You know, my counselor, my wife and I, our marriage counselor, were talking the other day, and she was talking about encouragement, and we're talking about our kids and other people, and she said, you know, encouragement is like the sun to plants.

See, plants just naturally grow towards the sun, and people just naturally grow towards encouragement.

What if we were a community?

Think about this that showed up on Sunday, that got outside of ourselves and just said, oh, I wonder what people think of me.

I wonder if anybody will say hi to me.

And we began to ask, who could I encourage?

Who could I speak life?

Well, as I'm worshiping and I'm just thinking about that person over there, I saw them, and and God just wanted me to just say he loves you.

And wow, that's out of my norm, but I'm gonna go do it.

And think about what would happen just in this room alone if we just started to encourage one another.

And what happens is we gravitate and grow towards encouragement.

And so often we've been trained, I've been trained, that you need to be corrected to grow.

What if we just spoke life to that which is dead?

I mean, all over social media, there's all the dead, all the stuff, all the things, and there's all the all the everybody's opinion.

What if we just began to look at that?

Sovereign Lord, only you know, and I'm just gonna speak life to it.

I'm gonna encourage you.

A friend of ours was teaching the other day, and it was so convicting because it's easy to think about encouragement and go, well, that's just not my skill.

Sarcasm is my spiritual gift, um, encouragement isn't.

And and he said, encouragement is a skill to be developed, and you can grow in it.

I was like, ooh, that means we all can grow in it.

The other day with my son, uh he wasn't doing super hot in school, and he had a lot of things to kind of make up, right?

And so we had some of those tough conversations, and he just began to do the work, do the work.

And he knocked it out and he said, Hey dad, I got it all done.

Uh and these these projects.

I said, Oh, that's great, son, but and my counselor also says that anytime you add a butt to it, it negates whatever you said first, you know.

But even in this context, and wouldn't have worked either.

And I began, but what about this?

What about that?

What about this?

And my son said this.

So insightful.

Dad, can't you just say good job?

Friends, can't we just say good job?

So convicting to me of the areas I need to grow in to speak life to that which is dead, to speak life to friends and co-workers and my kids.

Can't we just say good job?

Look at what you're doing.

Don't we need encouragement?

Like now more than ever before.

Aren't we all dry, like weary, dry bones?

You're like, you're preaching to me, like I'm the dry bones, I'm not Ezekiel, I'm the bones, right?

Aren't we all walking in?

Maybe it's just me, but aren't we all walking in like, man, I'm just dying for some encouragement?

And wouldn't it be amazing if this community, we just began to speak life to one another?

God commanded Ezekiel to speak life to that which is dead.

Text goes on to say.

So I prophesied.

So I preached as I was commanded, verse 7.

And as I was prophesying, there was a noise, a rattling sound, and the bones came together, bone to bone.

I looked, and tendons and flesh appeared, and the skin covered them, and there was no breath, but there was no breath in them.

That's just weird sounding, isn't it?

But think about this.

Ezekiel, he's in the middle of the valley.

He's got this vision, this dream.

Seeing this valley of dry bones.

God asks, can these bones live?

Ezekiel says, Only you know.

He says, Well, I want you to preach to him.

I want you to speak life to him.

And notice this Ezekiel obeyed the odd command of God.

You want me to preach to these bones.

You want me to begin.

I don't even know if this is a good use of my gift.

I think there's a better use of my gift.

Give me some people to talk to, God.

I'm in obscurity over here.

Nobody notices this.

It's hidden.

But Ezekiel says he prophesied, he preached, he obeyed the odd command of God.

I like how C.S.

Lewis says it.

He says that obedience is the key that unlocks every door.

And so often, much of the areas of our life that we're struggling with, that we're wondering, where is the power that God is working in my life?

Where's those things?

It's that obedience, God, whatever you show me, I'll do.

And your word, I want to obey.

Instead of asking, you know, pick and choosing what to obey out of this, I'm gonna say, no, your word to my life.

I'm gonna obey.

This that spirit prompting when the spirit says something to you, and you're like, get this nudge to like maybe share your faith, and you're like, no, I'm scared.

I don't want to do that.

It's obeying it.

You want to see God work, you obey those little promptings, and as you obey him, you see him show up powerfully.

You ever have that like you're in a Starbucks or something like that, or Pete's or coffee or somewhere, and you get this or at work and you get this prompting, like you're supposed to encourage someone or say something, and you're like, no, that's weird.

I get those, and I have the exact same feeling.

I'm a pastor, and I'm like, I don't want to do that.

Like, really?

Even pastors, yes, even pastors.

Years ago, I was running in my neighborhood, and I have this same route I run.

And as I was running, I seen this dad and his kids playing in the front yard, and I go by, and I just got this internal prompting, like, hey, you should stop and talk to him.

And I was like, no, that's weird.

I'm literally on a run, okay?

I'm not like sweaty, all of this sort of stuff, and and I go by once, and my route hasn't where I pass a couple times by this house.

And the next time, like, no, you really need to talk to him.

He's still outside.

I'm like, no, I don't want to do it.

And I'm like, God, hello.

You said my body's a temple, I'm taking care of my temple, I'm obeying this over here.

And I get further away, and I just sense that, like, man, I'm gonna miss out on what God's doing.

And so I run back, and he's no longer in his front yard.

And so I'm like, okay, well, he's not there.

Oh wow, next time, God.

And then I have this like a little still small small voice that says, Well, you could knock on the door.

I could, but that's weird.

I don't want to do that.

Okay.

He opens the door, and I'm like, um, hey, this is weird.

That was my opening line.

But I've been running past your home.

It's like, no, I've been noticing that.

Yeah, you lost some weight.

I'm like, well, yeah, thank you.

Um, and I'm like, I'm a Christian, I'm a pastor, and I run by, and I just felt like God was telling me to just tell you that Jesus loves you.

And I know it's kind of weird, and it's like strange.

He's like, well, I don't think it's that strange.

Like, if you really believe in Jesus and this, I'm and why wouldn't you tell everybody if that's what you really believe?

I'm like, yeah, no, that's what I meant to say.

That was good.

That was good.

We developed a friendship.

He was into volleyball.

We started playing volleyball.

Now, here's the thing: this isn't a story that has the nice neat bow of like, and he came to know Jesus, and his name was Chris Nye, and now he's a pastor, right?

That's not the story.

I don't, he moved, I don't know where he's at.

All I know is I was obedient in that moment.

All I know is I stepped in and said, Okay, God, this is weird, and I don't want to do it, but somehow you showed up, and I got to be one point of your light and your love, and I'm trusting you and what you're gonna do and bringing dry bones to life, and I just was obedient, and I'm so grateful, and it was scary at the same time.

What's the odd command?

What are those things for you?

If you go, like, okay, God, I don't know about this, but I'm gonna just, man, God loves you.

I'm gonna pay for your coffee.

Obedience is the key that opens every door.

Ezekiel obeyed the odd command of God.

And then I want you to notice is that the bones, and this is just a small little point, and we're landing the plane here, is the bones took on flesh, but they didn't take on life.

And I love this picture because this is so helpful and it takes the pressure off of me, and it takes the pressure off of you.

Transformation is a process, isn't it?

Like he preaches, and you see something come together, and now it looks like a body, it's not dry bones, but it isn't living yet.

And it's this process.

And I think in our Google world, instant access, like if my Amazon package doesn't come within 24 hours, it's the worst.

We think transformation should happen instantly overnight, right?

The reality is you're in process, you're in the valley, you're walking with him, and he's working through you in your life, and as you're yielded to him, it takes time and formation, and transformation doesn't happen overnight.

It isn't, it isn't even instapot, gang.

It's crock pot.

It takes time.

And I love the last person, is then he said, Prophesy to the breath, prophesy, son, and say to it, This is what the sovereign Lord says, Come, breath, from the four winds and breathe into the slain that they may live.

So I prophesied, why not keep going?

As he commanded me, and breath entered them, and they came to life and stood upon their feet a vast army.

And where Ezekiel only saw dry bones, God saw an army.

He saw dead, useless wasteland, and God said, No, I can use that.

I can use you.

See, there's so many things in your life, isn't it true, where you're going like, no, it's dead.

Useless.

And God's going, oh.

When you surrender that to me, when you surrender yourself to me, I want to use you.

The church, we are the church.

We're to be an army of healers, bringing life and hope to those in need.

See, God is fundamentally in the business of bringing and making dead things come to life.

I just want to leave you as we close and we worship together.

Um just a couple questions.

First question.

Did you walk in dry and weary and tired?

You were you're in the valley.

Would you just come to Jesus in this moment?

He wants to meet you, he wants to speak to you, he wants to breathe life into you.

Would you just bring him the things that are in you, not what ought to be in you, and just present it to him?

And at the beginning, we talked about God's dream for life.

Would you begin to say, okay, do you is his dream better than your dream?

And begin to wrestle with that.

God, I I want to believe that your dream is better than my dream.

But the reality is, is I still hold on to my dream.

And you're calling me into purpose and significance in life.

You are the resurrection and the life.

You don't want to resuscitate my old life, but you want to make me new and bring life around me.

And so, would you just wrestle with your dream versus God's dream?

Do you really believe it's better that his ways are good?

Jesus, thank you for this time.

Thank you for your grace.

Thank you for your word.

God, would you speak to us and would you bring about new life in us?

The areas that we need your tender touch, your healing touch.

Where we need to believe for the impossible, not because of our ability, but because of yours.

Would you make us a people who breathe life, speak life, and hope to those around us.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.

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