Worship + Communion Sunday

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.

I just want to do a a sharing, if you will.

Not a sermon, a sharing.

I feel like I'm doing a song and a dance right now, but um just a sharing.

If you have your Bibles, would you open up to Ezekiel chapter 37 or your phones?

Ezekiel 37 · chapter mention

I just want to give a few things that God ministered to me this week on.

And I don't know about you, but this week I I got down.

I we had a vacation two weeks ago, so maybe it was the post-vacation blues.

Um the whole Delta thing kind of threw me for a loop.

I'm just like, I'm tired of this stupid pandemic.

I don't want to go backwards.

I'm tired of leading through a pandemic, if I'm really honest.

It's just exhausting.

I was exhausted post-vacation.

That sucks.

And I was discouraged and a little bit depressed.

And there's a passage that I've gone to time and time again since we started awakening that God just meets me in.

It's what he's up to in this moment, regardless of what's happening in the moment.

It's actually a vision that the prophet Ezekiel had, it's a dream, it's he's seeing something that God is up to, and we're actually walking in the reality of today as the church.

And he only gotta see it in advance, but we get to live it today.

This is the dream that Ezekiel had.

And Ezekiel was having a bad day, by the way, a bad month, a bad year.

Israel, the context here, they they had gotten taken into captivity, and Zeke was one of those.

And and he's trying to figure out how to lead a people that are discouraged, depressed, and not really sure when or if ever they'll return home.

And God just shows up and gives them this vision.

Like, this is what I'm up to right now.

It begins this way, he says, 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.

It was 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.

And he asked me, Son of man, can these bones live?

That's a weird dream.

So far, not starting very encouraging either.

You're like, man, I walked in dry bones, that's how I feel.

I walked in weary, I walked in tired, I walked in discouraged.

I feel like I'm in the valley of dry bones myself.

I just want to just point out something to you here that's just so amazing to me is God's hand was on Ezekiel and he placed him in the valley.

I think sometimes we think we're in the valley and God's hand's not on us.

Now, to be sure, there's some people you entered the valley because of bad choices.

And there's a moment here where you recognize, man, I made a bad choice and I'm going down this direction, and you repent and you turn around.

But nobody made a bad choice when it came to the pandemic.

And some of you are in the valley of a relationship, you're in the valley of discouragement, you're in the valley of depression, you're in the valley of anxiety, you're in the valley of not another time around again.

And here's just the word of encouragement: God's hands on you.

Like you can be in the valley and God's hands on you at the same time.

Think about Psalm 23 where it says, Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, but you are with me.

Your rod and your staff, they comfort me.

God's hand was on Ezekiel and he placed them in the valley.

And then he there's this little perspective shift here.

The valley's filled with dry bones.

And I just wonder if we began to look around and understand that we live in Silicon Valley, the valley of opportunity, the valley of entrepreneurs, the valley of technology, the valley of get rich quick, the valley of hurry, the valley of hustle, the valley of better and bigger, and all those other things.

And what if we just saw it for what it really was?

The valley of dry bones.

What if at your workplace you realize there's people that are running and pursuing and chasing after, they're looking for someone or something to satisfy the deep need and longing of their soul.

They're walking and they're awake, but they're dead inside.

We actually live in that valley, and I just wonder what would change for us church if we realize that in this valley, even though you might have walked in discouraged, God's hands on you, and he says, All around you are dry bones.

And I'm gonna ask you a question.

God asked a question to Ezekiel, he asked to us today that challenges, that challenges our assumptions and what is actually possible.

Did you notice that?

I just read it.

He said he asked him, Son of man, can these bones live?

Can they?

Can you bring life?

You know, I know so many people that are moving from this area, and they're moving because they feel like this area is just pushing life out of them.

But can he breathe life even here?

Even now, even in this moment.

And I love Ezekiel's response.

He says, and I said, Sovereign Lord, you alone know.

I love that.

Because this is the honest confession of kind of where I walked in this morning.

Tired.

I don't know if it was allergies that got to me this last week.

I'm hopped up on allergy pills, man.

I am.

It's just itchy eyes, itchy throat, tired.

Hey, can these bones live?

Can you do something?

Can this marriage live?

Can this relationship live?

Can can can can you bring life from this depression, life from this anxiety, life from this moment that's just been crippling?

Can this happen?

And his response was, Sovereign Lord, only you know.

Here's what he's saying: it's too big for me, but it's not too big for you.

What if that was your confession?

I don't know what you're walking through this morning, where he said, you know what?

Whatever I'm walking through today, it's too big for me.

It's just too big.

Sovereign, all powerful, almighty, all control.

He has it all, he, you are the sovereign one.

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

So then here's what God commands Ezekiel to do.

He commands him to speak life to that which is dead.

Notice what he says.

I then he, speaking of God, said to me, Prophesy to these bones and say to them, Dry bones, 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 to life.

I'll attach attendance to you and make flesh come upon you and cover you with skin.

I'll put breath in you and you will come to life.

Then you will know that I am the Lord.

He commands Ezekiel to preach life to that what is dead.

Think about how weird that was for him.

He's standing in the middle, this vision, this dream, there's dry bones everywhere.

That's creepy, it's like a whore film all of a sudden.

He's like, No, no, no, preach life.

Think about what would change in your life if instead of just proclaiming the death around you, you just began to speak life.

Imagine what would happen if Jesus' followers online, on Instagram, on Twitter, instead of just condemning and critical and complaining, we began to speak life.

That we speak life to that which is dead.

We'd call forth the truth of what God's doing.

And notice that Ezekiel didn't speak his opinion.

He didn't speak, well, I think this is you know a good idea.

He proclaims he's called to speak the word of God.

Where we just began to go, man, the word of God is powerful and effective, sharper than any double-edged sword.

The word of God is living and active.

Spirit breathe, and we just began to be a people that spoke life.

And the death around you, the death of anxiety, the death of relationship, the death of a friendship, you just begin to speak life and you speak life and you speak life and you speak life and you speak life.

Oh, that we'd be a church, we'd be a people that speak life.

I mean, I wrote this in my notes years ago.

God is in the business of making dead things come to life.

It's what he's in the business of doing.

And you and I get to cooperate with him.

So, so Ezekiel obeys the command of God.

He just he simply obeys.

Notice, so I prophesied as I was commanded.

He obeys the command of God.

The wild, the weird, the awkward.

You know, for the last year with COVID, I spoke to a whatever those things, camera.

The most awkward thing ever, guys.

I mean, I love this.

I love being together.

I love seeing your faces, I love interacting.

I mean, think about Ezeke.

He's he's speaking not even to a camera.

He's got a he's got a he's got a valley filled with bones.

He's like, just speak life.

He's like, that's impossible, but only you know, so I'll just do what you said.

I'm just wondering if there's some things that God has shown you that he's spoken to you that just seemed like, no, that that's just a little too beyond me, or that's just a little too weird.

I would never, you know, I I just feel awkward, maybe sharing with my coworker, or, or, or you know what, just starting to pray in my marriage, or it just would be so weird.

I've never done that.

And you just begin to obey what God says.

I love what C.S.

Lewis said about obedience.

He said, obedience is the key that opens every door.

That would be a people that we'd be a church that just say, God, we'll do whatever you said.

We'll follow wherever you lead.

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

And so, if in the valley your hands on me, then I'm going.

If you're if in the valley your hand's on me, I'm preaching.

If in the valley your hands on me, I'm gonna speak life to that which is dead.

And when he did this, I just want you to notice one little deal that transformation was a process.

In our world of instant, in our world of wanted tomorrow to see change overnight, even in his vision, transformation was a process.

Take a look at this.

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

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

Then he said to me, Prophesy to the breath, prophesy, son of man, and it's 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 as he commanded me, and breathed breath entered them.

They came to life and stood upon their feet a vast army.

Like what Ezekiel saying and seeing is what was fulfilled when the Spirit of God came on Pentecost, by the way, and breathed life.

You can go back and look at Ezekiel 36 of the new covenants pouring his spirit in us.

But I just want you to know that there was this process, and in your life, you're in the process of God.

The first stage you saw the physical come, and then he had to prophesy again, and then the spirit entered.

Some of you are frustrated in the process, you're wrestling in the process.

Good news.

You're in the process.

Great news.

You're like I tripped up again.

You're in the process.

God is actively working in your life to create and form in you the very life of Christ.

To breathe life, that you might bring life everywhere you go.

You know, one of the coolest things is our perspective.

Ezekiel in the valley just saw dry bones, and what God saw was a vast army.

I think in this season, a lot of us would say we just came in dry.

We've been living dry.

There's no army to be found here.

And guess what?

God's looking around, he's gone, there's an army.

There's an army before me.

There is the army of life and hope and love that's bringing hope to the world.

My friend Judy once said this to me.

She said, the church needs the preaching of God's word and the working of the Holy Spirit, and then a vast army will appear.

And for us, in this moment, it's censoring and getting back to what God is actively doing in your life, in the process.

But I think part of what we want God to do is to resuscitate our old life.

If I could just get my old life back, then I would be.

But remember, God is fundamentally in the business of bringing dead things back to life.

That's why Jesus said John chapter 11, I am the resurrection and the life.

John 11 · chapter mention

Jesus doesn't want to resuscitate your old life, he wants to resurrect a brand new life, and that's the opportunity.

That's what we remind ourselves when we take communion.

That we have a God that didn't say to the valley of dry bones, just even come to life.

We have a God who came into the valley.

We have a God who suffered at his own creation's hand, climbed the hill of Golgotha, allowed those he created to beat him, put stakes through his wrist, to take on death and weariness and pain and evil itself.

All of yours.

All of mine, all the darkness, all the thoughts that have you've been even scared to utter to someone else because you're like, I should never have had that thought.

I can't believe that thought came into my mind.

He says, I died for that, I take that.

And he wants to breathe life into your life.

He wants to meet you.

He wants to take the dry and weariness at the foot of the cross.

And breathe the spirit into your life that you might then be life to those around you.

We hope you are blessed by this message.

Please subscribe to our podcast for access to every episode as they're uploaded.

And hey, we'd love to connect with you.

Take a next step by filling out our virtual connection card at awakeningchurch.comslash cards.