Dry Bone Come Alive Pt 2 Series

Opening Video Illustration: Peanut Butter Goggles - Skit Guys!

Series: Come Alive in 2025

Thesis: We can come back to life – nothing is too dead for God to bring life back into it – nothing is too lifeless for God to breath His life back into it! He is the Creator and He can bring back to life anything! Can you catch the vision of this truth and reality for 2025?

We came up with this theme in our Creative meeting, and in our prayer meeting and I really believe it is a fitting theme for us for this New Year! I believe we are on the verge of another Jesus Revolution here in America – and I am going to pray and fast for this revolution to explode in 2025 – I challenge you to pray and fast from Jan 7-14 for a move of the Spirit on this church/school/ surrounding schools and churches and this entire region of Chicago!

Let’s all call on God to breath life back into that which is dead and lifeless! In 2025!

Illustration on stage under sign – Have fake bones all over the one side of the stage under sign “Come Alive in 2025!”

Can I ask you a question: Do you see God in all His glory – Do you really believe God can do the impossible? – Do you see what He sees – do you look at things in this world through eyes of the flesh or the Spirit? Can you see what God sees?

Walt Disney's Leadership and vision - Contributed by Sermon Central on Mar 30, 2011

Walt Disney was a remarkable man of vision. He never gave up. Early in his career a newspaper fired him because they thought he had "no good ideas". That just made Disney try harder. When he was starting out in Kansas City he couldn't sell his cartoons. Some hinted that he had no talent, but Walt Disney had a dream, (a vision) so he set out to conquer his foes. He found a minister who paid him a small amount to draw advertising pictures for his church. Disney had no place to stay, so the church let him sleep in the mouse-infested garage on a cot. One of those mice which Disney nicknamed Mickey, became famous -- as the world knows.

The early days were tough; but that remarkable, creative visionary refused to give up. Walt would occasionally present some unbelievable, extensive dream to his board about an idea he was entertaining. Almost without exception, the members of his board would gulp, blink, and stare back at him in disbelief, resisting even the thought of such a thing. But unless every member resisted the idea, Disney usually didn't pursue it. Yes, you heard me correctly. Unless everyone RESISTED the idea, he would not take it. The challenge wasn't big enough to merit his time and creative energy unless they were unanimously in disagreement! Is it any wonder that Disneyland and Disney World are now realities? This type of faith is required for visionaries in business -- but also for us as Christians. Like Disney we need to dream big and trust in God for the impossible.

When Walt Disney World in Orlando, FL. opened in 1974, Mrs. Disney was sitting beside Walter Cronkite. Walt Disney passed away a few years earlier. Walter Cronkite wanted to say just the right thing to Mrs. Disney, so he leaned over to her and said, "Wouldn't it be great if Walt were here to see this today." Mrs. Disney wisely replied, "If Walt had not first seen this you would not be seeing it today."

(From a sermon by Stephen Sheane, Dry Bones, 8/18/2010)

Walt Disney was a Christian (Background on Walt Disney)

Yes, Walt Disney was a Christian who believed that his faith was central to his life and career:

Baptism: Disney was baptized in the Congregational Church in Marceline, Missouri.

Sunday school: He regularly attended Sunday school.

Prayer: He believed in the power of prayer and that it could provide strength, guidance, and inspiration.

Good works: He believed that a good Christian life was demonstrated through good works.

Religious themes: He often included biblical themes in his original films.

Congregational upbringing: He attributed his success to his Congregational upbringing and lifelong habit of prayer.

Disney said, "All I ask of myself is to live a good Christian life and toward that objective I bend every effort in shaping my personal, domestic and professional activities and growth".

What Disney has become today and its distorted - secular messages of today is not what Walt would have allowed to happen in his day!

Ezekiel 1-3 – Reveals that our Priest and Prophet had a vision of the Glory of God and the throne of God. It happened at his age of 30 (some say on his birthday) because at 30 he would been ordained a priest to serve in the Temple in Jerusalem but he had been hauled off into captivity by Babylon 5 years earlier – he is living in a refugee camp – no temple to serve in as priest – at this point the Temple has not been destroyed in Jerusalem – this will happen later – but he is seeing a vision of God’s throne and Spirit departing which use to dwell in the Holy of Holies – over the Ark of the Covenant hovering – the pillar of fire which stood in the tabernacle now residing over Babylon!