It’s Time To Live Again
Ezekial 37:1-14 John 11:17-44 9/28/08
How do you feel about birthdays. Do you say my birthday is coming with a smile on your face, or do you say, oh no here comes my birthday again as though it was something to dread. Today we celebrate our church’s 46th birthday. How many of you think 40 is pretty old and 50 is really pushing it?
How many of you realize 40 is very young and 50 is just the start of life. How you feel about your birthdays is really the result of what has been happening in your life. Life can beat upon us so badly, that sometimes we just don’t want to come outside anymore, and we certainly don’t want to see another birthday.
But birthdays can be a chance also to recognize that God has given us a new year, and that it’s time to live again no matter where you are. Even in our darkest moments, God has a plan that leads us back to life. You may be starting to mess up at school and it’s not even October yet, but it’s not over.
You may have lost the boyfriend of girlfriend you thought was going to be the one. Some dream you had for your family isn’t going to happen. A vision for ministry that you believed God for isn’t coming together. You may have had some health problem return that you were sure was finally behind you. Your business has had a downturn and you’re starting to worry about the money not coming in. You’ve had a falling out with someone, and you wish you could somehow make it right, but it’s not happening.
In all of these situations it’s easy to start to get discouraged. I had one of those discouraging moments at the start of this month. Having coming back from vacation excited about what God was going to do and then coming to church the first Sunday and seeing how many people were not here. It was like, “God after 19 and ½ years of hard work, there were the same number of people in worship that Sunday as almost had been at the end of the first year. What on earth went wrong.”
There are times, when it’s not going to be a matter of what went wrong, but rather can you still be faithful where you are. I want you to accept, there will never be a perfect place for you to be in, in your life. You have to know how to live where you are.
I want us to look at a bible character by the name of Ezekial. Ezekial was born into a family of priests. Solomon had built this beautiful temple to the Lord. It was magnificent. As Ezekial grew up, each time he went passed the temple he thought inside, “one day I’m going to work there. One day the people will come to me, and I will offer sacrifices on their behalf to God.
One day I’ll start to move up the ranks of the priest and who know I may even become one of the chief priests. Ezekial spent his entire young life, preparing to become a priest to serve in the temple. The Jewish law provided for a man to enter into the priesthood at the age of 30. Ezekial thought all he had to do was to make it to age 30. That 30th birthday was when he was planning on really living.
How many of you have been where Ezekial was and you were saying one day, “I’m going to be on that team.” One day I’m going to get that job. One day “I’m going to finish my education.” One day I’m going to get out of this neighborhood. One day “I’m going to do this or that.
We may all have one day visions, and it’s good to have them, but you also have to be prepared for interruptions in your life, because none of us are gods, and all of us need a savior to walk with us through this world. There is going to be a stumbling block between us and that one day. What will we do when we hit it.
Go back with me for a moment in history. While Ezekial was looking forward to one day becoming a priest, the people were busy living their own lives as though God did not exist. They were far more interested in money, in wild sex parties, and worshipping other things than they were in God. Times were good financially so they felt they didn’t really need God.
God told them to repent or he would remove them from his presence. There response was “who is the Lord that we should worship Him.” They forgot He was the one who brought them out of slavery in Egypt. They forgot He was the one who put health in their bodies and light in their eyes. They forgot he was the one who got them out of bed each morning and enabled them to go to work. They forgot he was the one who really was in control of everything.
When they refused to repent and turn back to God, God sent the Babylonian army to destroy the city of Jerusalem. It happened about 600 years before Jesus came. They vicious Babylonian soldiers massacred the people in the city, young and old, male and female alike. They set fire to the magnificent temple Solomon had built and had stood for 400 years and they reduced it to rubble and ashes.
The people who were not slaughtered who were professionals, they took away as captives to another country far away. Historians tell us that Ezekial was probably about 25 years old when he was taken into captivity by the Babylonian army.
That means that he was just 5 birthdays away from obtaining his goal of serving as a priest in the temple. He watched his dreams, his hopes, his plans for the future all go up in flames as the Babylonians set fire to the temple.
Ezekial tells us in chapter 1 of verse 1, when he was 30 years old, he was among the captives by the river of Kebar. Now most of us have heard of the Jordan River, but what was the Kebar River. It was a canal off the Euphrates River in Babylon which is present day Iraq. He had envisioned that at age 30 he would be in Jerusalem finally ascending to the priesthood with a grand coronation. He had envisionsed. His family and everybody would be celebrating with him. He had envisioned being at the top of his game. But it didn’t happen that way. Tell your neighbor their might be a change in plans.
Instead, he finds himself in rags, just a step above being a slave with the other captives, not even having property they could call their own. You talking about being in a place with no hope for the future and thinking things can’t get any worse than this. Where on earth was God? Ezekial’s 30th birthday was so far from what he had in mind it wasn’t even funny. Have you ever had circumstances look so bad, that you just had to laugh to kind of keep your sanity.
But you know something, it didn’t keep Ezekial from opening his mouth and speaking for God. You know you don’t really know where you are with God until things start to go bad. That’s when you begin to realize there is a price to pay to follow after Jesus.
In Chapter 37, Ezekial said, “ the hand of the Lord was upon me, and brought me out by the Spirit of the Lord.” He said, “the hand of the Lord was upon me, and he brought me out.” Ask your neighbor, “whose hand is upon you today, and who is leading you.”
Who or what has it’s hand upon your life. Is it the streets? Is it the music industry? Is it the television? Is it the movies? Is it the recreation industry? Is it the pursuit of money? Is it a drug addiction. You need to find out what hand is on you, and what is it that you need to do switch it for the hand of God. That hand is going to take you somewhere. Don’t put your blind trust in it. Open your eyes and see where it’s going to take you. You might need to tell that hand to get off of you.
God’s hand is taking you somewhere for a purpose. Sometimes the hand of God is going to take you to some places you’ve never thought about going and some places you don’t want to go. Imagine with me for a moment two great armies colliding with each other on the battlefield with swords and spears.
(erie music) The death toll is amazing. There are far too many dead for the living to bury them all so they strip them of their clothing and valuables and they just leave them to rot in the sun. Over time, scattered all over the plains is this pile of bones in every direction. They have become bleached white in the sun. It’s an erie sight to see the skulls, the rib cages, the arm and leg bones. (erie music)
When the hand of God is upon Ezekial, God places him in the middle of this former battle scene and God’s hand leads him up and down this massive cemetery. I think God is telling him, look you think you and your people have it bad, what about what took place here in this place. All the hopes, the dreams, the fears, the love, the hate, the plans, they had, stopped right here on this battlefield. Look at how dry the bones are. They have been here for a long time.
Then God asks the impossible. “Ezekial, can these bones live?” What is the situation around your life today. What is it that it seems to be robbing you of your life? When God’s hand is upon you and walking with you, God asks “ Can life be brought again out of this disaster.” Ezekial responded, “Oh Sovereign Lord, You Alone Know.’ I want us to notice that Ezekial admits, he does not know the answer as to whether those dried up bones could live again, but he does know who does know what it would take for it to make it happen.
I don’t know what bad decision you have made. I don’t know what situation you are in at home. I don’t know why getting a job has been so hard for you. I don’t know if you’re going to lose your home or lose your car. I don’t know if, how and when things might turn around for you. But I do know who has the answer to all of those questions. I do know who has the power to make you start living again. His name is Jesus. Tell your neighbor, it’s time to start living again.
God told Ezekiel 37:4-6 (NIV) 4 Then he said to me, "Prophesy to these bones and say to them, ’Dry bones, hear the word of the LORD! 5 This is what the Sovereign LORD says to these bones: I will make breath enter you, and you will come to life. 6 I will attach tendons to you and make flesh come upon you and cover you with skin; I will put breath in you, and you will come to life. Then you will know that I am the LORD.’"
I want you to notice, that God told Ezekial to take some actions. Notice that God’s plan was a little out of the ordinary. Some of us would have objected to talking to bones. We only want to talk to large crowds of people. Some of us would have said, I can’t make this happen. We think we need to be super spiritual to be used by God. We are afraid of failure. Some of us would have been afraid something might happen if the bones came to life. We are afraid of success.
The first thing we need to do is to do what God tells us to do. We think we can have life and ignore the steps and plans God wants us to take. Obedience is the key to getting life. We want God to bless us with finances and we won’t tithe. Yet God says, test me in this. Tithe and see if I won’t open the windows of heaven. How long do you have to be saved to know if you’re not tithing you’re being disobedient to God?
We want God to bless us in our relationships. How long do you have to be saved to know, if you do not treat others in your home the way you want to be treated, you’re going to have a mess in your house. How long do you have to be saved to know, if you want a change on the outside of you, the change has to begin on the inside.
Ezekial did what God told him to do. He began to speak the word of God over a hopeless looking situation. We need to start speaking, the word of God into hopeless looking situation. The Word Of God says, “God will provide for my needs, I will put him first in my giving and start tithing. The word of God says God wants me to prosper, “I will fill out that college application. I will try for that job.”
The word of God says “I can have a good marriage, I will humble myself and love my spouse” The word of God says, the one who Jesus sets free is free indeed, “I will not be addicted to this stuff anymore.” The word of God says, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me, I will not let my present circumstances cause me to lose my joy and my faith in God.”
Ezekial started prophesying, and all of a sudden he started hearing some rattling of some bones. Bones bumping into each other trying to get back together again. You see some bones and been blown over there by the wind. Some had been kicked around by some animals. But God knew where every piece was and how to get every piece to come back together again.
Just because your life seem way out of control with pieces, scattered all over the place, just keep on speaking the word, and things will start coming back together again. Don’t get scared when you hear the rattling noise. It’s just the sound of people saying, “you can’t do it, and it won’t work.” Don’t listen to them, God is still pulling things together for you.
Ezekial saw these bones come together, and then tendons grew and held them together, the muscles grew on the bones, and the skin started covering the muscles. All of sudden he finds himself in the middle of a massive army, but nobody’s moving, and nobody is alive.
God tells him to prophesy once agin. Ezekiel 37:9-10 (NIV)
9 Then he said to me, "Prophesy to the breath; prophesy, son of man, and say to it, ’This is what the Sovereign LORD says: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe into these slain, that they may live.’" 10 So I prophesied as he commanded me, and breath entered them; they came to life and stood up on their feet--a vast army.
You see even after we get things put back together, it’s not enough for us to think we can handle it from here. We need to have the Spirit of God breathing inside of us, and inside of our dreams for us and for them to become truly alive. It looked like God was taking Ezekial to a cemetery. God was actually taking him to a place to discover how to bring life back into his situation. Don’t run from God yet. God has taken you to a place so that you can find out how to bring life back into your situation.
God told Ezekial, my people are just like these bones were. Tell them I am going to give them life, and take them back to the country they came from. Then they will know that I am their God, I will put my Spirit in them, and they will live again.
There may be people who have written you off today because of the mistakes you have made. You may have written yourself off today just feeling like a failure. But I want you to know there was a guy by the name of Lazarus, who died sooner than he was scheduled to go. People told Jesus, if you had of come sooner, he might have lived. People told Jesus, if you try to do something now, it will be too late, because he’s stinking too bad. People told Jesus, if you try to do something now it won’t work.
Jesus didn’t listen to any of them. Jesus said, “Take away the stone.” Jesus didn’t say, “would somebody please go in and drag him out.” Jesus didn’t say, “Death could you please let him go.” Jesus didn’t say, “I hope I can pull this off.” The Bible says, “Jesus first prayed to his Father and said “thank you for what I know you’re about to do.” Then Jesus said, “Lazarus come out.” Just like those bones came together some 500 years earlier at the word of God, Lazarus came walking out of that grave. Jesus said, take the grave clothes off of him, and let him go.
It was time for Lazarus to live again. It’s time for you to start to live again. Tell your neighbor, take off those grave clothes and start living your life for God. Make up your mind, for God I’ll live and for God I’ll die. God is not through with you yet. Don’t lose your hope, don’t lose your joy, don’t lose your faith, and don’t lose your praise.
9/28/08 Sermon Outline Pastor Rick
“It’s Time To Live Again”
Ezekial 37:1-14 John 11:17-44
A. What About Birthdays
1. What Is 40 What Is 60
2. Birthdays—What’s Going On
3. Life Gives A Beating—God’s Plan
4. School, Relationship, Family Dreams
5. Health, Business, Falling Out
B. The Power Of Discouragement
1. Discouraging Moment—19 ½ years
2. No Such Thing As The Perfect Spot
3. Live Where You Are.
C. Ezekiel—The Man, The Dream
1. The Goal Of Being A Priest
2. The Temple Solomon Built
3. Ezekial’s One Day
4. Our One Day
5. Be Prepared For Introductions
D. A Moment In History
1. The Life & Rebellion Of God’s
People
2. Repent Or Face Consequences
3. 587 BC Babylonian Army
4. City & Temple Destroyed
5. Ezekiel 25, Just 5 Birthdays Short
6. It’s All Over.
E. In Another Land As Captives
1. 30 At Kebar, Not At The Temple
2. Where Was God
3. It’s So Bad You Got To Laugh
4. You Find Your Faith In Tough Times
F. Whose Hand Is On You
1. Ezekiel 37:1—The Hand Of The Lord
2. Streets TV Hobbies Addiction Money
3. Get Your Hand Off Me
4. God’s Got A Purpose
G. Let’s Go To The Cemetary
1. The Battle, The Bodies, The Bones
2. God Has A Lesson With Bones
3. Bleached & Dry Bones
4. Can These Bones Lives
5. God Knows
6. What About Your Bones
I. God Wants You To Take Action
Ezekiel 37:4-6 (NIV) 4 Then he said to me, "Prophesy to these bones and say to them, ’Dry bones, hear the word of the LORD! 5 This is what the Sovereign LORD says to these bones: I will make breath enter you, and you will come to life. 6 I will attach tendons to you and make flesh come upon you and cover you with skin; I will put breath in you, and you will come to life. Then you will know that I am the LORD.’"
1. You Take Some Action
2. Do Away With The Objections
3. Not Enough, Can’t Do It, It Might
Work
4. Pride, Failure, Success
J. Do What God Tells You To Do
1. Blessing, Relationships, Home
2. Speak The Word
3. The Rattling Of The Bones
4. God Brings It Together
Ezekiel 37:9-10 (NIV)
9 Then he said to me, "Prophesy to the breath; prophesy, son of man, and say to it, ’This is what the Sovereign LORD says: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe into these slain, that they may live.’" 10 So I prophesied as he commanded me, and breath entered them; they came to life and stood up on their feet--a vast army.
5. You’ve Got To Have The Spirit
6. God Make A Promise
K. It Looked Over For Lazarus
1. People Tried To Stop Jesus
2. Jesus Didn’t Say
3. Jesus Did Say
4. 600 Years—Same Result
L. Time To Live Again
