A Message for the Dried Up
I just got my van back after $600 worth of repairs. Oh, what fun to deal with cars! Turns out it was the fuel pump. Apparently, the fuel tank was almost empty and the older fuel pumps in the tank use gas as a lubricant. The pump ran dry and burned out.
Do you ever feel like your running dry and burning out? You usually don’t notice it right away. That’s because you’re so busy. You’re rushing about life like one of those ducks at the shooting gallery, first this way, then that. Back and forth from one appointment to the next. Life gets nuttier and nuttier, stress saps you dry. Tempers are short, pressures are cooking, everything’s a blur. And suddenly, you realize that your original, child-like zeal for Christ has dried up. Not only can’t your faith move mountains, it’s barely crawling deep in the desert of despair; the joy is gone. You find yourself constantly questioning God or hollering at him with a parched heart. Your marriage, friendships and other relationships are reeling. Spiritual study has dehydrated; your prayer life comes in little drips. You feel dried up and burned out.
This is how God’s people felt as they languished away in Babylon. They were captives in a foreign country because they had rejected God repeatedly until he rejected them to ravishing armies of Nebuchadnezzar. Now home was hundreds of miles away. The beautiful city of Jerusalem was a pile of junk; the towering temple was a total wreck. And the people lost all hope. They were all dried up. It was all over. Things would never get good again.
But let’s look at what God, through Ezekiel told these dried up people and what he tells us when we are dried up and burned out.
Eze 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.’" (NIV)
The Spirit refreshes us.
What a sight that must have been. Thousands of bones scattered across a vast valley. Nothing but death for miles. And then God asked Ezekiel, “Son of man, can these (dry) bones live?” It was a picture: could these spiritually hopeless people ever find hope again after all that had happened to them? Or were they too dried up?
Then God did an amazing thing. He brought the bones together and covered them with flesh—the toe bone was connected to the foot bone, the foot bone was connected to the ankle bone. That was amazing in itself, but there was still no life, until the breath, or Spirit, entered them. In the same way, God’s lifeless, hopeless people would only come to life when God’s Holy Spirit entered them.
The same is true for us. Sometime back the Associated Press carried this little quip: "Glasgow, Ky.--Leslie Puckett, after struggling to start his car, lifted the hood and discovered that someone had stolen the motor." Without the Holy Spirit, we’re like Fancy Fords without an engine, not much more than a big paper weight. As great as these human bodies are, they are spiritually hopeless without the Holy Spirit. The Bible calls us spiritually dead, foolish and hostile to God without the Holy Spirit. We may have tons of talent, carloads of cash, a beautiful building, but if we don’t have the Spirit, we are nothing.
It’s the Spirit that refreshes our dry souls with the water of life in the Bible and the Lord’s Supper. In these marvelous gifts he re-hydrates us with new life through his boundless forgiveness and unbroken promises. David writes in Psalm 23: “he leads me beside quiet waters, he restores my soul.” The Holy Spirit revives us like a tall glass of iced tea in the dusty August.
So here’s why we often feel so dried up in our lives, not because we don’t have the Holy Spirit in our heart, but because our connection with him has grown weak. Our Bible study becomes shallow; the Lord’s Supper is routine. Let’s return to the water of life! Then let’s pray like David in Psalm 51, “Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Do not cast me from your presence or take your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation…” “Get me back to where I should be; refresh my soul; change my perspective.”
During basketball season this year at St. Paul’s, I noticed a lot of sweaty boys running from practice to the soda machine. They were so thirsty that they would buy a can of Mountain Dew, chug the whole thing is two gulps, let out an enormous burp and then run back to practice. The thing is, soda actually dehydrates you because of all the sugar. It actually makes things worse. So often we try to rejuvenate our dried up lives with more busy-ness, with more credit debt or more empty beer cans, but the same struggles are still hovering there when we return to reality. We’re usually just more dehydrated. We need spiritual refreshment! The Holy Spirit restores that joy, that hope. He refreshes us.
But the Holy Spirit does more than just refresh us;
The Spirit empowers us.
The new Hulk movie is coming out this summer. Do you remember the old TV show with Lou Ferrigno as the Hulk and Bill Bixby as David Banner? Remember how David Banner would warn people, “Please don’t make me angry; you wouldn’t like me when I’m angry?” Remember how he would turn from this wimpy office worker into that green monster and destroy everything in sight? I remember wishing I had the power to turn from a lifeless, lanky kid into a green giant every time the kids picked on me at the bus stop.
That’s what happened in our lesson today. Not only did God bring the dry bones back together and breathe life into them. Verse 10 says, “…they came to life and stood up on their feet-- a vast army.” Transformed from a valley of dry bones to a power-filled army of the Lord! Empowered from a hopeless people to a mighty army of hope.
In the same way, the Holy Spirit does more than just refresh you. He empowers you through that mighty Word of God and Lord’s Supper. God explained this in the previous chapter of Ezekiel: “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws.” (36:26,27)
Many people think that Christianity is a crutch, a religion of weakness for the weak-minded; in reality, it’s a religion of power and victory, as Paul once wrote, “For God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love and of self-discipline.” (2 Timothy 1:7) Just consider that first Pentecost. A bunch of unschooled, ordinary, fishy-smelling hicks from the backwards state of Galilee preached a sermon so powerful that 3000 people were converted to Jesus in one day. How did it happen? Through the power of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit empowers us.
In the People’s Bible on Peter Pastor Jeske writes, “When we confess that we are ‘poor, miserable sinners,’ we must not let that truth paralyze our lives of obedience and service. Christ’s victory on the cross and from the tomb is a double victory: over sin’s guilt and over sin’s power. Believers are no longer slaves to sin; we can choose not to live in it any longer. As Paul said in Philippians 4:13, ‘I can do everything through him who gives me strength.’” (p. 77)
That means power for your life right now! There’s too much of the “I can’t” disease running around among Christians today. We talked about building bridges to witness your faith last week. “I can’t do that; it’s too hard.” Last week a young man told me that it’s impossible to abstain from sex before marriage. “I can’t do that.” It’s impossible to forgive, impossible to overcome that short temper, impossible to kick that addiction or sinful habit, impossible to find hope. “I can’t do that!” We just resign ourselves to failure. But the Spirit empowers us! Sure, we’ll fall, but he gives us the victory. If he can create a mighty army out of a valley of dry bones, he can overcome the impossible in your life.
That also means power for this congregation right now! The “I can’t” disease is often epidemic here. “We can’t worship at a mall. We can’t find the funds for ministry. We can’t pay for this building. We can’t seem to get any new members. We can’t bring a friend to worship. We can’t change to reach our community.” We just resign ourselves to failure! But the Spirit empowers us! That’s not saying it’s all going to be apple pie from here on out, but he will give us the victory. If he can create a mighty army out of a valley of dry bones, he can turn this “sleeping giant” of a congregation into a mighty army for his wonderful work in Wisconsin Rapids.
If God can do so much with a bunch of dry bones, he certainly can do wonderful things with us! Enough resignation! Enough dried up souls! “Dry bones, hear the word of the Lord!” Like the hymn says, “Let none hear you idly saying, ‘there is nothing I can do.’” Refresh yourself with the Word and Lord’s Supper; then step forward in faith. You’re going to see what God can do in your life!
