Life For Dry Bones

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0:00What can I say? Church, God is so good. He's great and greatly to be praised. I do hope that every single one of you encounters Him today. He draws your eyes to Christ, gives you hope today, refreshes your eyes with the joy of the Gospel.

0:21So we're in a sermon series on Ezekiel just for the month of December. Now everybody knows that Mount Everest is the highest mountain on earth. If you didn't know that, they might enroll you here at Chester Elementary. It's the highest mountain on earth. Hundreds of people get to the summit of that mountain every year. Hundreds, right? You would think that if the highest mountain on earth has been summited so much, hundreds of times every year, that every other mountain in the world would have been summited at least once, right?

1:00But that's not true. There are over two dozen mountains on earth that have never been summited by anyone. Most of them are in China, Pakistan, Nepal, or India. The 40th highest, if you're looking for a challenge, the 40th highest mountain peak on earth has never been summited that we know of by any human.

1:28It's strange, right? If we can get to the highest one, why can't we get to these other ones? Well, they're considered to be impossible. They're considered to be unclimbable mountains. For a variety of reasons. Some of them are off limits. The country won't let anyone climb. For political reasons, they have spiritual beliefs that they won't let anyone climb the mountain. Others of them are just too technically difficult. They're actually more difficult than Everest.

1:58They're beyond human capacity at this point to climb. They're too deep. They're beyond our resources. Now, it's time for you to bring the impossible circumstances, the unclimbable mountains in your life, in your heart, to mind, right? We all have unclimbable mountains in our life. Things that we look at and we're like, that will never be any different. This will never change. This circumstance is impossible. That mountain will never be summited. We all have impossible problems and unclimbable mountains.

2:43Bring them to mind because we're about to dive into a passage that breaks things wide open. In today's passage, the impossible becomes possible because God brings His power to bear. His power to bear on those situations and on the deepest, the hardest, the most unclimbable mountain that each one of us faces. God brings His power to bear right on that. We're in an Advent series on Ezekiel 34 and 37. It's called God Said He Will. These chapters give us promises we can rely on if we rely on the One who gave them to us.

3:26If you rely on the God of these promises, you can rely on His Word, what He says here. What He says He will do. So turn with me to Ezekiel 37. Let's hear the Word of the Lord.

3:50Let's lay aside every folly we have that we can somehow get together the power and the resources to address the deep problems in ourselves and instead look to the Lord's power. He comes to us now with His Word and His power. His Word is unfailable. It's true in every part. Let's rely on it today. The hand of the Lord was upon me. And He brought me out in the Spirit of the Lord and set me down in the middle of the valley. It was full of bones. And He led me around among them.

4:33And behold, there were very many on the surface of the valley. And behold, they were very dry. And He said to me, Son of man, can these bones live? And I answered, O Lord God, You know. Then He said to me, prophesy over these bones and say to them, O dry bones, hear the Word of the Lord. Thus says the Lord God to these bones, Behold, I will cause breath to enter you and you shall live. And I will lay sinews upon you and I will cause flesh to come upon you and cover you with skin and put breath in you and you shall live and you shall know that I am the Lord.

5:24So I prophesied as I was commanded and as I prophesied, there was a sound. Behold, a rattling. And the bones came together, bone to its bone. And I looked and behold, there were sinews on them and the flesh had come upon them and skin had covered them. But there was no breath in them. Then He said to me, prophesy to the breath. Prophesy, Son of man, and say to the breath, Thus says the Lord God, Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe on these slain that they may live.

6:01So I prophesied as He commanded me and the breath came into them and they lived and stood on their feet an exceedingly great army. Then He said to me, Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel. Behold, they say, our bones are dried up and our hope is lost. We are indeed cut off. Therefore prophesy and say to them, Thus says the Lord God, Behold, I will open your graves and raise you from your graves, O my people. And I will bring you into the land of Israel and you shall know that I am the Lord when I open your graves.

6:43And raise you from your graves, O my people. And I will put my spirit within you and you shall live. And I will place you in your own land. Then you shall know that I am the Lord. Lord, I have spoken. And I will do it, declares the Lord. Pray with me.

7:13Lord, we come to you kneeling before you, your glory, your power, but also, Lord, open-handed to receive from you mercy, life-giving grace. Lord, help us to not just listen for life tips but come to you for life itself. Lord, we need deep help and you give it to us. You promise us that. Lord, help us to come to you to press in even further, to go with you further up and further in into the Gospel, into the love of Christ our Savior. In His name we pray.

8:08Rescue for scattered sheep was what God said He will do week one. And then, oh, I'm forgetting. Oh, oh, peace for a fractured flock last week. This week, God says He will give life for dry bones. Anybody here looking for some life today? Only God can make hopelessly dead people truly alive. If you've heard or read any passage in Ezekiel, it's probably this one. This passage is meant to renew your hope. That's what it's meant to do. To renew your hope.

8:47And it does that by revealing God's power and God's will to give us life. So hope comes when we see God's power and God's will to move into the dead places in our lives and to give us life. So there's three sections for us today. Life promised, life prefigured, and life provided. Here's the first one. Life promised. The life of the prophets could be described in one word, intense. It was intense to be a prophet. Ezekiel's life was arguably the most intense.

9:31God had him act out some of his prophecies. If you haven't read Ezekiel in a while, read it. Boy, God told him one time to build a model of Jerusalem under siege. So he was like doing a little model kit of Jerusalem. That was his prophecy. That was probably kind of fun. God also had him shave his head as a prophecy.

9:57For one prophecy, God told him to lay on his side every day for 430 days as a form of prophecy to the people. But I really think more dramatic than any of that were the visions that he received from the Lord. These amazing visions where he was caught up and he was experiencing something. These visions were... These are not merely dreams. It's not like he was watching a movie. He was experiencing these things as if they were real. He was participating in them.

10:32The hand of the Lord was upon him, he says. He was brought out in the Spirit of the Lord to a valley. A valley of overwhelming death. Full of bones. Human bones. God leads him all around this valley. Walks him around.

10:56Everywhere he looks. Bones. Bones and more bones. Something catastrophic has happened. Some disaster or war. There's three things that shock Ezekiel here when he looks at this valley. One is the sheer number. They're all over the valley. There are so very many of them. And then when he inspects them, when he gets closer, he's astonished at how very dry they are.

11:39These bones are the only thing left of a decay process that has long since finished. These bones are the only thing left. Life has not been in this valley and in these bones for a long, long time.

11:56If you've ever picked up leaves or sticks from your yard, if you get some that have just fallen, that stick is still kind of pliable. It's a little bit hard to break. If that stick's been lying there for a year, you can break it easily. The dryness, it's devoid of life. It's been so long without life, these bones just turn to dust when he touches them. The third and the most troubling is this. All of these bones are lying on the surface of the valley.

12:27None of them are in a grave. In the Old Testament, it was a curse to bury someone without putting them in a grave. For someone just to have their body, their corpse, lie out and not be buried, it was a sign that God had cursed them.

12:46Whatever happened here with all of these people so long ago, it was serious. It was not just death that he was seeing. He was seeing curse. Cursing from God.

13:03The great number of bones, the complete lack of life, the curse of no burial, it all adds up to this bleak and desperate scene. It would have been horrifying to stand in that valley.

13:18The gravity of death would have been just overpowering. In verse 11, you see that God says the bones represent the people of God. At this point, the people of God are in exile in Babylon and not by accident. For generations, they had turned away from the Lord. For generations, God had warned them that judgment was coming. Judgment is coming. Turn and repent. Judgment is coming. Turn and repent. Give up your idols. Come back to me, the Lord says. They didn't listen.

14:00When judgment came at the hand of the Babylonians, that's when they are crying out now. Our bones are dried up. Our hope is lost. We are indeed cut off. Another way you could translate we are indeed cut off is we are doomed.

14:16That's how they feel. They see how bleak their situation is. And I need you to come with me to relate to these people. As difficult as it is to go into this and find ourselves relating to them and agreeing with them and feeling how they feel, we must do it. Because they are not the only rebels. They are not the only ones who are facing God's judgment. This is all of us on our own. On our own. When we turn away, we worship idols, we disregard Him and His ways.

15:00God announced a long time ago in the garden, when you sin, you shall surely die. On our own, we are dead in our sins and that's why we feel the breakdown of our bodies. Anybody here feeling the breakdown of your body?

15:25That is not the way God made your body to be. That was not the way it was in the first seven days. Death was not part of God's very good creation. It's a punishment. You shall surely die.

15:49And now we feel this decay in us. Our bones are dried up. We are cut off from life, from God. It's not an accident. It's not a fluke. It is a punishment just as God's people were sent into exile.

16:05So we too are invested in the outcome of this vision. As Ezekiel stares at the bones of this valley, God asks him a question. And here's where the turn starts.

16:21Son of man, can these bones live? This is a challenging question. Nothing like this has ever happened before. The prophets Elijah and Elisha each brought a dead person back to life, but those people had just died. Just recently died. This is a multitude of people and they're just bleached bones. Ezekiel is thinking, can these bones live? I've never heard about anything happening like this. I've never heard of God doing anything like this.

17:07This problem is much worse than anything that he's seen God do before. But on the other hand, God knows, Ezekiel knows better than to limit God's power. He knows that with God all things are possible. So he's thinking, I've never seen this before, but with God all things are possible. And his answer is very careful. Oh Lord God, You know.

17:38The meaning of the Hebrew is this, only You know. Only You know, God. I don't think he's being coy. I think he's giving an honest answer. He's saying, God, if You want to make them live, they will live.

17:58If that's what You want to do, they will live. This is a faithful reply. People of God, can You reply like this? There are places where each one of us needs God's life-giving power.

18:23Can these dry bones live? Can you believe? Do you believe that God can do something that you have never seen Him do before? That's the challenge put to Ezekiel and that's the challenge to you right now. Do you believe that God can do something that you have never seen Him do before?

18:50But pay attention now to what God does next. God doesn't totally let Ezekiel off the hook. He tells Ezekiel not just to believe it's possible, but to act like it. Prophecy over these bones. And say to them, O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. In other words, speak to the dead. Can you imagine if I went out to the cemetery and said, hey, that was an exciting sermon about Ezekiel 37. I'm going to preach it to these people lying in their graves.

19:28That's the same as what Ezekiel was told to do. Prophecy over these bones. Tell them to hear the word of the Lord. Walk up to them and say, listen up, bones.

19:41What an ask. Right? Long ago, God told Moses to speak to a rock to call forth water for the people. What did Moses do? He was too embarrassed or too unsure to do that. So he struck the rock like he had done before.

20:05But Ezekiel does what Moses didn't do. He speaks to those bones. He prophesies to those dry, brittle, cursed bones. Can you speak to the dry bones in the name of the Lord?

20:28Can you speak to the dry bones in your life in the name of the Lord? God brought Ezekiel to this valley to look at a deep and serious problem. A problem that is overwhelming. An unclimbable mountain.

20:47Too often I get focused on the small things. The problems that aren't that deep. I would rather look at things that I can maybe do something about. I would rather not look at things that I feel overwhelmed by. Anybody here relate to me?

21:08I don't want to look at unclimbable mountains. But we need to have our sights set on the deep problems in our life. Don't look away. Look at the spiritual deadness that remains in you and around you. Don't be afraid to look at those things because you are not resting in your own power but in the power of the Lord.

21:37Look at those things. Speak to those things in the name of the Lord. The Lord is a life giver, a life bringer. The problems that we look at, they need more than the world's power. They need God's power. Think about the real problems in us. The disobedience that we still struggle with. The lies that we believe. The fear that wrecks us. The addictions that we have. The entrenched sin. The old self that's clinging on to our heels. These are issues that money won't solve, therapy won't solve, technology won't solve, medicine won't solve.

22:24We need to look to God and His power and not look away to the small problems or not try to look at the big problems and treat it with the world's solutions. We need to look at the real problems with God's power. God's promises to move into those places and bring life. Can these bones live? Ezekiel is asked.

22:53Oh Lord, You alone know. You have the power to do it. When Ezekiel did this, here's what he saw. He saw life prefigured. You know, doctors hold a lot of prestige in the world, but you soon learn that they have their limits. Anybody here ever have that moment in the doctor's office where the doctor, you realize, oh, he doesn't know, she doesn't know what to do. They're guessing. It's an educated guess, sure, but there are things they can't figure out.

23:38There are things they can't fix. But our God is a position whose power has no limit. That's what Ezekiel 37 shows us. It's life prefigured. It depicts God's overcoming power to overcome death and restore life.

23:58It's literally happening before Ezekiel's eyes. God's not just telling him about his power. He's showing him his power. He's restoring life in every way we need. There's three ways that he restores life here. First, there's physical life. When he prophesies, behold, a rattling. The bones are moving. The bones came together, bone to its bone. In other words, everything is in its place. Everything is connected exactly how it should be. Have you ever ordered something and it comes some assembly required?

24:37Usually that means all assembly required. If you're like me, the instructions sometimes have been terrible. There's missing pages in the instruction book. It's in the wrong language. There's confusing diagrams.

24:55There's missing pieces. There's extra pieces. Inevitably, I am left staring at a picture and holding up a part and like, I think this goes here. I don't know. Pick up the next thing. I think this goes here. You're just crossing your fingers and hoping this thing looks like a table. God made us. He doesn't need an instruction manual. Bone to its bone, it means every part comes together exactly the way that it should. He is not guessing. He's not looking at a picture of a human and looking at bones.

25:36Hmm, I think this goes here. He's doing it. He's the designer. He puts all the bones back where they belong. But that would just be a skeleton if He did this. A dry, brittle skeleton. He recreates all the parts that have decomposed a long time ago. The snooze, the muscles, the tendons, the blood vessels that He then fills with blood. He doesn't need stem cells. He can create these parts just by speaking. And then He puts a fresh coat of skin on the whole thing.

26:15Those dry bones are men and women with hair and fingernails and saliva and taste buds. Our bodies are breaking down. But do not fear. There is nothing that God's recreating power cannot overcome. No form of death in this world that you suffer is too violent or too destructive for Him to undo.

26:47No mental illness is beyond His ability to resolve. His healing and His recreating power is greater than any force that comes against us. I can think of no one better to tell us the truth about this than Johnny Erickson Tata.

27:07This remarkable Christian woman has been in a wheelchair since she was in her 20s. Read with me. Read along as I read the quote on the front of the bulletin. I still can hardly believe it. I, with shriveled bent fingers, atrophied muscles, gnarled knees, and no feeling from the shoulders down, will one day have a new body. Light, bright, and clothed in righteousness. Powerful and dazzling. Can you imagine the hope this gives someone's spinal cord injured like me?

27:45Or someone who is cerebral palsied, brain injured, or who has multiple sclerosis? Imagine the hope this gives someone who is manic-depressive. No other religion, no other philosophy promises new bodies, hearts, and minds. Only in the Gospel of Christ do hurting people find such incredible hope. for God's recreating and restoring power for whatever ails you.

28:19Speak to those dry bones. The things that ail you. And say, you will not have the last word over me. Jesus will. He will make all things new including this breaking down body.

28:38But listen, after the physical healing that Ezekiel sees, it seems to hit a roadblock. These bodies are lying on the ground. They're whole again. But there's no movement, no animation. There's no breath in them. For a moment, it seems like the promise has come up short, but God is not finished yet. He tells Ezekiel to keep prophesying. The breath came into them and they lived and they stood on their feet.

29:10If you skip down to verse 14, it says that God says, I will put my spirit in you. And this tells us that this filling is spiritual life. He, in his power, gives us physical life, but he also gives us spiritual life. This is crucial. This is when God says you shall live. Turning dead bones back into whole people is amazing, but without renewed life on the inside, what is it? It's taxidermy.

29:42It's weakened at Bernie's. And yet, that's all that some people ask for. Plenty of people were happy to receive Jesus' physical healing and then walked away. Didn't want to follow him. Didn't want to give him their praise in their whole lives. We need more than God to be our taxidermist. We need him to be our healer. The one who fills us. The one who makes us alive physically and spiritually. God has the power to do this, not just to heal our bodies, but to change the filling of the Spirit, the new birth.

30:34God's got life-giving power. It's got one more part, though. God also brings relational life between us and him. Three times this passage says, you shall know that I am the Lord.

30:51Human doctors heal people to do something challenging or to make a lot of money or to make a name for themselves. I have not met a doctor yet who got into the healing practice so that he could bring his patients home for dinner and make them part of his family. Doctors don't do that. I tried. I knocked on my doctor. No, I'm just kidding. They don't want you to come to their house. They're fine seeing you in their office. They don't want a love, but we will run to him and we will say my Lord and my God, my Father and my Friend, my refuge, my Redeemer, my all in all.

31:51You have healed me and now I know that you are the Lord and that I belong to you. Listen, if God's purpose is to give us life so that we'll know him, shouldn't that be our highest joy?

32:10Shouldn't it be our highest joy that we know him and that we are close to him because of his initiating healing power bringing us to him resurrecting us making us whole this Advent may the Lord refresh the joy of your salvation knowing that he did this principally so that you will know him as savior as father as friend let's talk about life provided we've heard about life promised life prefigured now life is provided you know mountains are only unclimbable until the right person comes along someone who has access someone who is strong enough someone courageous enough Ezekiel's vision gives hope to people who are spiritually dead and physically dying but today's passage leaves the birth of Jesus was the unfolding of this Ezekiel 37 promise the gift of life in him was life and the life was the light of men not a little bit of life but life to the full everywhere Jesus went there were dry bones and his word made those bones rattle and come together as he was walking around the earth he came as a life giving warrior rebuking disease and injury making people whole for Jesus this battle was personal it was personal the battle against sin and death it had looked at his people for too long you see that when he comes to Bethany and Mary and Martha are there the whole community is there weeping over Lazarus death Jesus comforts Martha with his word I am the resurrection and the life Martha whoever believes in me though he die yet shall he live but so deep was his passion that this enemy

34:33needed to be defeated that when he went out he was deeply moved in his spirit greatly troubled it says at what death was doing to the people who were still physically alive he was angry determined to do something about death and ultimately his healing ministry had to go beyond touching people healing people in Galilee Judea Jerusalem it required him to go to the cross he had to take the sting of death in the place of sinners like you and me that he did and he was laid in the tomb a dead man but three days later he came out and you know how he came out alive and victorious completely renewed restored resurrected he would never die again could never die again people of God if your faith is in him his resurrection is the preview of yours Paul tells us each in his order Christ the first fruits and then at his coming those who belong to Christ the last enemy to be destroyed is death listen I we all know maybe some of you young people don't know this yet but the older you get the more dry those bones feel and listen it's not just the physical decay the breakdown the fact that our bodies don't work like they used to the number of unclimbable mountains that seems to rise up in our life goes up the number of places where we say we're like Lord I want you to do something here and I want you to do something here and I want you to do something here I'm asking you Lord to bring life to the dry bones that I see here here and here not just our physical bodies our hope can feel lost sometimes

36:46but I want to remind you the last enemy to be destroyed his death if you belong to him death will not be victorious it will not win the victory spiritual death physical death relational death it will not win the victory Jesus has already won the victory the living resurrected Jesus when he returns you will be raised to life as surely as he walked out of that tomb new creation can these bones live they can and they will in the Lord Ezekiel's vision shows us the power of God and the will of God and so we can walk through the valley of dry bones with hope because in him in Christ we're already alive he he he he he he and he he