Series: Come Alive in 2025
Illustration – fake bones all over the one side of the stage!
Scripture Text for Series:
Ezekiel 37:1-14:
1 The hand of the LORD was upon 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. 2 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. 3 He asked me, “Son of man, can these bones live?”
I said, “O Sovereign LORD, you alone know.”
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.’ ”
7 So I prophesied as I was commanded. And as I was prophesying, there was a noise, a rattling sound, and the bones came together, bone to bone. 8 I looked, and tendons and flesh appeared on them and skin covered them, but there was no breath in them.
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.
11 Then he said to me: “Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel. They say, ‘Our bones are dried up and our hope is gone; we are cut off.’ 12 Therefore prophesy and say to them: ‘This is what the Sovereign LORD says: O my people, I am going to open your graves and bring you up from them; I will bring you back to the land of Israel. 13 Then you, my people, will know that I am the LORD, when I open your graves and bring you up from them. 14 I will put my Spirit in you and you will live, and I will settle you in your own land. Then you will know that I the LORD have spoken, and I have done it, declares the LORD.’ ”
New International Version (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1984), Eze 37:1–14.
Introduction:
Have you ever been to a graveyard? How about a graveyard after a flood?
There were many reports of caskets, bodies and bones floating down the rivers from the floods that took place in North Carolina after the recent hurricane swept through the region. But seriously how do graveyards affect you
How do you feel when you walk through a graveyard – as a kid we used to visit a graveyard by our house at night – we would joke with each other about whether we could find a ghost or not. We would sneak in and see if we could catch a glimpse of someone coming to life again? But we never saw that happen! We never saw anyone come back from the dead!
Reminds me of a funny story: WORKING LATE IN THE CEMETERY
Late one dark night, two men were walking home after work. They were tired and desperate to get home, so they decided to take a shortcut through a cemetery.
They got to about the middle of the graveyard, and they were startled and stopped moving. There was a terrifying noise, "TAP-TAP-TAP" coming from the shadows. It sounded like someone was trying to get out of something like a grave. Trembling with fear, they spotted an old man with a hammer and chisel, chipping away at one of the headstones. They were relieved and walked up to the man working late in the cemetery:
"Hey Mister," one of them said after catching his breath. "You SCARED us half to death. We thought you were a GHOST! What are you doing working here so late at night?"
"Those fools!" the old man grumbled. "They spelt my name wrong!"
Pause for effect!
Another graveyard story:
One graveyard we visited regularly as kids was down the road from my grandma and Pap Kolling’s House where they lived, they lived out in the country outside Carnegie Pa... The cemetery was the local one and has been around for a very long time. We would walk through the graveyard LOOKING AT THE TOMBSTONES AND IMAGINING WHO THESE PEOPLE HAD BEEN- THINKING WHAT THEIR LIVES MUST HAVE BEEN LIKE in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s– in all my years of walking through that graveyard in the morning, at night and during the day I can say I have never anyone come back to life.
Kathy and I have visited many graveyards in our travels – some in North Carolina, Gettysburg Pa, Maine, New Hampshire and a host of other places we traveled to. I always like to take the time to read the tombstones – the date and the name and the epitaph – you may get a glimpse of a person who has been long gone. That is the closest I ever came to seeing dry bones come back to life. I would try to imagine who that person may have been and picture their family and life. But I have never seen anyone dead come back to life – especially dry bones coming to life like in our Scripture text:
I heard a news story from a few years ago – titled SLEEPING IN THE CEMETERY!
According to a March 2005 news report, a tramp in Holland has been found using the cemetery as his sleeping quarters.
The man was charged by police after they caught him a second time sleeping in the graveyard at Nijmegen. The 43-year-old had dug out the earth from under a gravestone and was sleeping inside the hole. He had also gathered other gravestones to make his resting place more sheltered from the wind. This part could be fabricated for the sake of this illustration, but He had dug a hole – removed a body from a nice plush casket and decided it was a great place to sleep at night. The casket was soft and comfortable, so he made his bed and slept in it. He was charged by police with “violating tombs.”
The above illustration was adapted and distorted from the SOURCE: SermonCentral PRO. Citation: “Tramp arrested for sleeping in grave.” March 14, 2005, ananova.com.
So once again I must admit I have never seen dead bodies come back to life in my life!
Yes, I have heard of it happening and it happened to my friend Ed but his was very temporary. Yes, I know Jesus rose from the grave and he raised Lazarus from the dead. But I have never witnessed it personally. So, imagine Ezekiel being carried off by the Spirit of God to a graveyard filled with bones – yes bones like these – here on stage! No tendons, no flesh, no bodies – just bones – I admit that is as dead as dead gets to just have the bones left with the fleshly part of a person.
As we were praying, discussing and thinking about our theme this year as a team – It just arose almost from nowhere - our theme “Come Alive in 2025!” I said that is it – that’s our focus for 2025 at Christian Hills Church and School!
My pledge to Come Alive in 2025!
I am praying for us to Come Alive in 2025 – to come back from spiritual death, from dead lifeless bones, from dead lifeless church systems, from dead lifeless ministries, from spiritually dead lifeless communities and even spiritual dead lifeless lives. To do this I am allowing myself to be placed into the hands of God and be led by His Spirit. I am going to speak His words to others without fear or apprehension and I am going to cry out for Him to send a fresh breath of His Spirit into my life, my family, my church, my community, my city and my country! This is my New Years Commitment!
I am not sure what yours is for the New Year – but I am tired of dead lifeless systems, dead lifeless ministries, dead lifeless services, dead lifeless events and so on – I think you get my picture!
T.S. - So I wrote this sermon based out of Ezekiel 37 to help all of us see that we do not have to be dead and lifeless – that we to can be lead by the spirit into a graveyard and watch God bring it back to life – that graveyard could be a home, a school, a business, a community, a city, a country, a church, a life. But our text reminds us today who has the resurrection power to bring dead things back to life.
Sermon 1: Dry Bones
Opening to sermon:
The question for us today as we approach 2025 is: “Can dry bones be brought back to life? Can something which is dead be resurrected to life by the Spirit of God?” Ezekiel was asked this question by the Lord, and he responded, “Only you know Lord!”
Introduction to Ezekiel:
Ezekiel was a priest who was taken captive by Nebuchadnezzar in 597 BC. He started his ministry or was called into the ministry at 30 years of age.
Ezekiel’s message is all about the “Glory of the Lord.” This book is a compilation over a 23-year period of messages from Ezekiel as he received them from the Spirit of the Lord. They are visions -revelations of the glory of God- messages to Israel.
I myself have 25 years of messages posted on sermoncentral.com under contributor Michael McCartney – there are 900 sermons on this site which I have written – my sermons have been viewed in 185 different countries in the world – with 7.3 million views.
Ezekiel is one of the most colorful prophets. He used pantomime, crying, wailing, slapping his thighs, he ate a scroll, and did many dramatic elements to deliver his message and get his message across to the people (Morris).
Stedman notes, “The story of this book is the story of human life and the book begins with a tremendous vision of God, because all life starts with God…The glory of the prophet Ezekiel was that he saw God more clearly than any other of the other prophets. If your heart needs to be set on fire by the revelation of the character and glory of God, read Ezekiel. He is the great prophet who saw the glory of God.
I recommend you read Ezekiel this month!
Ezekiel saw the Lord and he felt the fresh “Breath of Heaven” rush over his soul, he understood that even though he was hauled off into captivity - God had a specific purpose and call on his life. The Lord revealed himself to Ezekiel and this gave Ezekiel a vision of restoration and renewal that only could come from the power of God! Many times, we need to see into the spiritual realm to see what God can and will do! We cannot look around us and think, is this all there is? We need see into the spiritual realm as the Holy Spirit opens our spiritual eyes to see what could be!
Sermon: The Valley of Dry bones
Scripture Text: Ezekiel 37
Ezekiel 37:1-14(NIV)
1The hand of the LORD was upon 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.
2He 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.
3He asked me, “Son of man, can these bones live?” I said, “O Sovereign LORD, you alone know.”
4Then he said to me, “Prophesy to these bones and say to them, ‘Dry bones, hear the word of the LORD!
5This is what the Sovereign LORD says to these bones: I will make breath£ enter you, and you will come to life.
6I 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.’”
7So I prophesied as I was commanded. And as I was prophesying, there was a noise, a rattling sound, and the bones came together, bone to bone.
8I looked, and tendons and flesh appeared on them and skin covered them, but there was no breath in them.
9Then 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.’”
10So I prophesied as he commanded me, and breath entered them; they came to life and stood up on their feet—a vast army.
11Then he said to me: “Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel. They say, ‘Our bones are dried up and our hope is gone; we are cut off.’
12Therefore prophesy and say to them: ‘This is what the Sovereign LORD says: O my people, I am going to open your graves and bring you up from them; I will bring you back to the land of Israel.
13Then you, my people, will know that I am the LORD, when I open your graves and bring you up from them.
14I will put my Spirit in you and you will live, and I will settle you in your own land. Then you will know that I the LORD have spoken, and I have done it, declares the LORD.’”
Introduction to message:
Introduce the theme “Come Alive in 2025” for this year and our spiritual goal.
We have been praying, we are fasting, for God to send us a fresh wave, a fresh breath to us in this New Year and this new decade. We as a staff and as leadership have been praying for God to restore this church to bring life back into it. To be able to see the presence of God show up on Sunday’s, to see souls saved for Jesus, to see families restored, to see people delivered from addictions and to see us become a church which is serving out community around us.
The term “Breath”
Breath is called “Ruach” in Hebrew – it’s the same word used when God breathed into his creation man in Genesis, the man had form and a body but they did not come to life until God breathed into the creation, Adam did not come to life until God breathed into them His breath, His Spirit.
Genesis 2:7: 7the LORD God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.
See also -John 20:19-23:
Jesus Appears to His Disciples
19On the evening of that first day of the week, when the disciples were together, with the doors locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you!”
20After he said this, he showed them his hands and side. The disciples were overjoyed when they saw the Lord.
21Again Jesus said, “Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.”
22And with that he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit.
23If you forgive anyone his sins, they are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven.”
Ezekiel’s message or His prophetic words focus on the expectancy of the restoration of the spiritual and religious dimension of Israel. It not only communicates that Jesus Christ the Messiah is the restorer of the nation politically but also spiritually and it can also be applied to the church today and to each of our spiritual walks with the Lord. Ezekiel is communicating the need for spiritual renewal in Israel so that the glory of God could return.
In Ezekiel chapters 1-24 we have the message being communicated that the glory of God had departed the nation of Israel. His glory departed because of sin and the unwillingness on the part of the people to repent of it and turn away from it. Ezekiel receives several visions from the Lord to tell the people at the river Chebar why God’s glory had departed them and their temple. Ezekiel was communicating the reason for the fall of the nation of Israel, why God allowed the Temple to be destroyed and why this remnant was allowed to be hauled off into captivity. In the midst of Ezekiel communicating why God’s glory departed – because of sin. He also communicates his personal call to ministry by the Lord in chapters 1-3.
Geisler from his book, “A Popular Survey of the Old Testament” notes the following:
Ezekiel begins with a vision of the glory of God, explaining that Judah no longer experiences it because of their sin (1-24). He then speaks of God’s visitation in judgment on the nations surrounding Judah in preparation for the return of God’s glory (25-32). The book concludes with a description of the return of God’s glory and the restoration of Israel (33-48) (Page 279).
In Ezekiel 37 our priestly prophet is taken away in the Spirit similar to what happen to John in chapter One of the book of Revelation and he is brought to a valley filled with dry lifeless bones:
Thesis: There are three things for us to do to Come Alive in 2025, for our families, our church, and for our community. We must allow the hand of the Lord to guide our lives by His Spirit. We must speak his word faithfully and truthfully. Then we must ask him to send his breath of life from Heaven to resurrect all that is dead in our lives.
I. Allow the Hand of the Lord to be on you (37:1-3)
a. When this happens in your life then you can be led by the Spirit and given a fresh vision of what can be?
i. For 2025 what do you want to come to life?
1. For me it’s that this church explodes with people getting saved and filled with the Holy Spirit!
2. That’s my prayer and what I as pastor of Christian Hills Church desires to see in 2025.
3. But what are you praying and fasting for?
a. Your family to come back to life?
b. Your school to come to life?
c. Your life come back to life?
d. Your city come to life in Christ?
ii. In Ezekiel chapter 1 we have our prophet receiving a vision of God in Heaven and see’s God’s glory and it changes and transforms his life.
1. It was life changing – like a few others mentioned in the Bible who saw the glory of God. Their lives were changed and transformed!
2. We all need a fresh revelation – vision of God to come to life spiritually in this New Year!
iii. Others who had similar experiences:
1. Isaiah 6 – Isaiah saw the Lord and it resulted in his call to ministry.
2. Revelation 1:4, 5 – With the apostle John who received a message of encouragement in a time of despair. He then sent this message to the persecuted church of Jesus Christ!
3. Jeremiah 1 - His call and word from the Lord also inspired him to speak God’s word when no one would listen.
4. Daniel 7 – This parallels Daniel’s vision as well.
a. Getting a fresh breath from Heaven along with seeing the glory of God will transform you, it will encourage you, it will give you direction and hope.
iv. In Ezekiel Chapter 1 Ezekiel receives this vision of the Glory of the Lord and he doesn’t understand everything other than he knows He saw God. He heard His voice rumble from the throne. He saw the brilliant display of God’s glory and felt the fresh breath of Heaven on his life and in that was the call to serve God.
1. When was the last time you felt God breath life into your soul and spirit?
b. In Ezekiel 37 we once again have God’s hand scooping up our Prophet by the Spirit to once again reveal himself to him.
i. When you get a fresh revelation of the glory of God and feel his breath from Heaven – it will cause you to come to life!
1. In these God moments:
a. God will show you how dead things around you really are dead without Him.
b. God will give you a clear description of its lifelessness and deadness.
i. In Ezekiel the first few chapters Ezekiel see’s God’s Spirit depart Jerusalem, Judah and the temple. He makes it clear why things die; they die when sin is allowed to reign freely. He paints the picture that without the Spirit and without God’s involvement things are dead – dead -dead – dry and lifeless.
ii. It’s in these God moments when the Lord will ask you the faith questions:
1. He will ask you if you believe – Do you believe in resurrection power? – Do you believe that life can come back into dry bones?
2. Your answer is critical here – your response needs to be like Ezekiel – “Only you know Lord” – but faith believes in what it cannot see and even though things look dead. He can still breathe the breath of life back into them.
a. Listen God can breathe life into anything dead – do you believe this?
c. Question which arises from our text: How do you allow God’s hand to be upon you?
i. You yield your will to His will.
ii. You go where He sends you.
iii. You do what He tells you to do.
iv. You first and foremost die to yourself.
1. 1 Cor. 15:31 ‘I die daily!”
2. Col 2:20 “Since you die with Christ…”
3. 1 Corinthian 15:33-37: “33Do not be misled: “Bad company corrupts good character.”
34Come back to your senses as you ought and stop sinning; for there are some who are ignorant of God—I say this to your shame.
The Resurrection Body
35But someone may ask, “How are the dead raised? With what kind of body will they come?”
36How foolish! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies.
37When you sow, you do not plant the body that will be, but just a seed, perhaps of wheat or of something else.
T.S. – We must allow the hand of the Lord to be upon us so that He can scoop us off into the Spirit. This is the first step in being able to “Come Alive in 2025”. The next step is to say what God tells you to say in spite of the reaction of those who hear it.
II. Prophesy (speak) what God tells you (37:4-8)
a. The example of Ezekiel’s call and God’s warning to him – speak what I tell you!
i. Ezekiel chapter 2
1. In verse 1-3 we see that Ezekiel is called to his specific ministry by the appearance and vision of God in His glory.
a. I want to be humble here but affirmative that each of you understand this truth – It is God who calls people to the ministry!
i. I can honestly say that I never set out to be a minister I was dramatically called by God to the ministry.
ii. I know when God called me back to pastoring when he appeared to me in a vision in a window at Sand Hill Lake Bible Camp;
1. Describe the vision of Jesus!
2. Ezekiel says “Yes” to the call this is the only reason he received the vision he received – “He said yes to the call” the reason he is standing in this valley of dry bones is because he responded to the call of God on his life.
a. When you allow yourself to be swept away by His Spirit you will find yourself surrounded by dead things but remember God brings dead things back to life!
b. To do what God tells you to do can be the hardest choice in the world.
i. Why? Because when you say “Yes” to God you say “No” to the Devil and he makes it his mission to get you to deny the Lord and to recant your yes to God.
1. In a leadership magazine a few years back I read a startling statistic:
a. 40% of those in full time ministry today will not be there in 3-4 years.
b. The dropout rate in the ministry is climbing because of the pressure and stress of ministry today.
ii. Ezekiel was warned by the Lord that the sheep he would be speaking to would not be receptive to what He was speaking.
1. Ezekiel 3:16-19:
2. Ezekiel 2: 1-10:
a. The Lord tells him that the people will be rebellious, uncooperative, and rebellious.
i. They will resist the direction of God, the teaching of God, they will be disrespectful to him and to God. They will even recruit others to be a part of their mutiny toward God and His ways.
b. They will be impudent/obstinate/stubborn meaning offensive toward God, toward God’s ways, toward Ezekiel and his ministry.
i. They would be stiff-hearted and even hardhearted.
3. The description of his flock is not a positive one is it?
a. How many here would say, “Lord, send me!”
b. But he is commissioned by the Lord to prophesying the Word of the Lord and to tell those who are hearing it to listen and respond to it.
c. The Lord warns and even prepares our prophet/priest that his task would be a difficult one and that all along the path of rebuilding there will be resistance but he was never to be afraid of those who were opposing him because His responsibility was to do what God called him to do.
i. He was to be fearless toward those who would want to deceive the Israelites that they would return quickly back to Jerusalem.
1. Ezekiel was to tell them that no it would not be all rosy in a few years in fact as Daniel and the Jeremiah preached it would be 70 years of exile.
2. He was to counteract the false message of the others with the truth (vs 6) The others were telling the people what they wanted to hear!
ii. To many of us Christians become afraid to share the Words of God and therefore fail what we are called to do.
1. Remember Jesus commissioned all of His followers to preach the Good News not just ministers.
a. Mark 16:15-18
2. Ezekiel was to be faithful to his job, his call from God to his divine purpose for being born.
a. Why? Because there would be some who would listen and heed the Words of the Lord.
b. Why? Because lost souls would find there is hope is exile and understand that God is with them if their heart is in the right place.
c. Why? That many would be set free even in exile and in captivity to another country.
d. Why? Keep preaching, keep declaring the Word of the Lord because it’s not Ezekiel’s job to make them respond to God it’s their free will. He is not held responsible whether they listen and become a doer or not, his responsibility is to deliver the message of God.
i. Listen friends and Christians you job is not to make them accept the Gospel all your responsible to do is deliver the message and the rest lies within the listener.
ii. The truth is God anoints His own Words and he unleashes His Holy Spirit on those who hear.
1. We are to just do what we are called to do:
a. Share Bill Hybel’s story about a classmate which God laid on his heart who he did not follow up on like he was suppose too.
e. Our responsibility is to share the message of the Good news through our words and yes also our actions.
i. We need to just keep ‘Preaching it, teaching it, declaring it and presenting it.”
f. Ezekiel 2:3-7: 3:4-11 is a message of encouragement to all the presenters of God’s holy Word.
i. Johnson states it this way, “Have you ever participate in a church service where people were urging the preacher on? “Amen!” “Preach it!” and “Come On now!” and “Preach it!” The text here is really saying the following to us today:
1. “Preach it Mike!”
2. “Go for it Vernon!”
3. “Speak the Word Moises in Spanish and English!”
4. “Sing with all your heart Ashley!” “Declare my Praise!”
5. It’s as if God is being the cheerleader for all us as we are doing His work and sharing His message through our lives.
d. The truth of God’s Word:
i. When we listen to the Word of the Lord it produces new life, it causes things to be resurrected.
ii. It sets in motion the renewing power of the Holy Spirit to bring something which is dead back to life.
iii. Transformation is done by the Word of God not by man’s wisdom or insight in church management.
iv. God’s Word is what sets in motion a building or a restoring of a life, a family, a church, a community or even a country.
1. It’s the idea of God unleashing through His spoken Word the resurrection power of the Holy Spirit into that which is dead.
2. His Word starts putting it back together!
T.S. – We need to speak the Word of the Lord to those we come in contact with because even though some will be hostile there will be those who respond.
III. We need to call for the “Breath of Heaven to come” (Ezekiel 37:9-14)
a. Ezekiel not only had to be willing to allow the Lord to lead him by the Spirit but he had to do what God told him to do and then once he did the first two steps God then would do the third.
i. God would respond once Ezekiel did the first two steps and then he asked God to do it.
ii. Ezekiel has to do the “Big Ask!” He literally had to ask Him to send His Spirit wind from the four corners of the universe and to bring the power of life which came in the in the form of a Breath from Heaven.
b. Do you remember what Jesus said?
i. “7“Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.
8For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened.
9“Which of you, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone?
10Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake?
11If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!
12So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets (Matthew 7:7-12)
Conclusion:
The question for us today was: “Can dry bones be brought back to life? The answer is: “Yes, they can by allowing the hand of the Lord to direct our lives, by prophesying God’s Word as he tells us. Then by God asking God to send His breath of life back into our lifeless – dry dimensions in life. He does this by releasing His Holy Spirit “The Breath of Heaven” into our lives.
How many want to commit to “Come Alive in 2025!” then I challenge you to come out Tuesday night for our New Years eve service:
8:30am – food and fellowship
Movie “Jesus Revolution”
Prayer and Worship into the New Year!
