Hope Lost. An elderly man lay dying in his bed, close to his last breath..suddenly smelled the aroma of his favorite chocolate chip cookies wafting up the stairs. He gathered all his remaining strength, and lifted himself from the bed. Leaning against the wall, he slowly made his way out of the bedroom, and with even greater effort forced himself down the stairs, gripping the railing with both hands.
Finally arriving at the kitchen he leaned against the door frame, gazing into the kitchen. He thought he might already be in heaven: there, spread out upon newspapers on the kitchen table were literally hundreds of his favorite chocolate chip cookies.
Was it heaven or was it one final act of heroic love from his devoted wife, seeing to it that he left this world a happy man?
Mustering one great final effort, he threw himself toward the table.
He could already taste of the cookie in his mouth; just the aroma seemingly was bringing him back to life. His hand, slowly made its way to a cookie at the edge of the table, when it was suddenly smacked with a spatula by his wife. "Stay out of those," she said, "they’re for the funeral."
For many of us this morning it, we find there are times where it can be difficult to hold onto a sense of hope in our lives. Relationships might be falling apart, Bills could be piling up, our health could be faltering. It is hard to have hope when life is hitting us so hard.
We see the same in the Old testament period – then too it was hard for your average person to hold onto a sense of hope. The Hebrews had available to them the revealed word of God – as we do, specifically the law, which empowered a Godly life. They had the Covenant of God promising salvation– as we do. They had great kings, judges and prophets who are empowered by the Spirit of God to guide them in their understanding - – as we have some wonderful Christian leaders today. God was with them, as he is with us, and yet hope about everyday life….wasn’t strong.
We saw in our Ezekiel passage that ‘Our bones are dried up and our hope is gone; we are cut off.’ There is no hope of healing, of robust excitement, there is only a dryness seen in the future. It does not have to be that way. Last time we saw how we are not controlled by fate, that our lives don’t just move along to an inevitable conclusion - Spinning out of control. We are in a dialogue with God, who can change the direction of our lives at any time, where circumstances, mistakes, faults, bad decisions, have placed us where we are…..we are not stuck. Life can change.
Today we see, that not only are we not controlled by fate, but we are also given something to help control our lives, to guide us, to give us direction, to hold us up when we fall, to give us wisdom and to give us certainty in our relationship with God. God is able to give us a solid hope – no matter where were are in life, no mater what is happening in life, right now.
We have been given the Holy Spirit. As a Christian the Holy Spirit comes upon all Christians. It wasn’t always that way. In th OT the Holy Spirit came upon only a select few. The people of the Old Testament lived under the Old Covenant. God had established a covenant with the Hebrews. He would be their God. They would be his people, with a condition – they would obey his law as given through Moses and the Prophets.
In our day we may view the law as oppressive – but it wasn’t. It was given as an expression of God’s Grace and Love for his people. The way of the law, was a way of blessing and freedom.
Psalms 119:1 Blessed are they whose ways are blameless, who walk according to the law of the LORD. 2 Blessed are they who keep his statutes and seek him with all their heart.
But the Hebrews persistently broke the covenant, turning their backs on God’s laws, forgetting how he had saved them as a people and turned to worshiping other gods. The problem wasn’t that they didn’t know the law or that they lacked leaders to remind them – leaders who had the Holy Spirit, but it was a matter of the heart.
Hope was being lost.
They had the law. They knew what God wanted them to do. Men and women memorized Scripture, lived as righteously as possible and hose right over wrong. And it didn’t matter – their hearts would still go astray. They had an understanding of God – written down - It was accessible, learnable, but it wasn’t with in. It was here – outside. It needed to be here – inside.
We can still live the same way –many of us do - a lot of us do. We try our best to serve God, reading the latest and greatest Christian bookor learning from wonderful teachers, diligently living our lives well. And we will end up the same way, losing hope. But it doesn’t have to be that way. We have available what they didn’t have….
The prophet Joel speaks of it
Joel 2:28 ‘And afterward, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your old men will dream dreams, your young men will see visions.
The key difference is – the presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives. The prophets of old knew this would come about. When – they weren’t sure, but it would be magnificent.
The prophet Jeremiah speaks of it specifically in our passage today.
Jeremiah 31
Jeremiah 31:31
“The time is coming,” declares the LORD,
“when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel
and with the house of Judah.
Jesus declares that he offers us the new covenant with his blood, "This is the cup of the new covenant…."
33 “This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after that time,”
declares the LORD.
“I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts.
No longer is the word of God out here, the covenant of God is now able to be – where? Here in our hearts.
How? – by the Spirit of God.
Trinity.
Father - initiates
Son - accomplishes
Spirit – makes effective
The Father initiates the new covenant. Jesus accomplishes the new covenant. The Holy Spirit makes it effective in our lives. How? --- by writing in on our hearts.
Our Scripture passage from Ezekiel also speaks of this coming of the Spirit. We see mixed images: Scattered bones – grave yard; In the beginning he speaks of scattered bones and in the end speaks of opening graves. This is not a contradiction! Now it doesn’t make sense to the western mindset, but it is no problem for the ancient eastern mindset.
Islamic armies invade Jerusalem and they took this as a prophecy that an army would rise up against them, so they dug up all the graves they could find and ground bones to dust.
Though it speaks of an army, this is about spiritual renewal.
Ezekiel is having a vision, "Hand of the Lord was upon me" – He is in the spirit. He views a valley full of scattered bones as if left from a battle. These bones are dry meaning that there is no chance of renewal.
We have times in our life, where we know, nothing can change, where there is no possible way it could.
Antonio – in Oklahoma.
He lost his wife – years before and had sold his business, as he was etting up in age, he saw it was the end of the line and that he would always be alone. Florence came along. So at 85 they married, taking their honeymoon on the Amazon! Hiking way way back in the Jungle, literally chopping through growth in the Amazon. This guy was like Indiana Jones, can you believe it? Getting married at 85 can really put the life in you!
Ezekiel is asked by the Lord
3 He asked me,
“Son of man, can these bones live?”
I said, “O Sovereign LORD, you alone know.”
He’s sure nothing can happen here. He’s not going to tell God that!
5 This is what the Sovereign LORD says to these bones:
I will make breath enter you, and you will come to life.
In the OT – Breath = God’s Spirit. We see this with Adam .
14 I will put my Spirit in you and you will live,….
Again, we see the Holy Spirit is promised.
Jesus is born, grows up, and enters into ministry. What is the source of his authority? What is the source of his power? The prophets tell us it is the Spirit.
Isaiah 11:2 The Spirit of the LORD will rest on him — the Spirit of wisdom and of understanding, the Spirit of counsel and of power, the Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the LORD —
Jesus not only has the Spirit upon him, as some men and women did in the OT, but he is able to baptize us with the Holy Spirit, for he is the Lord God himself.
John the Baptist says
Mark 1:8 I baptize you with water, but he (Jesus) will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”
Jesus – gives us the Holy Spirit the same Spirit the OT Prophets had the same that Jesus had, the same as the Apostles had. And fear that life is never going to change can now go away – because with the Spirit we are given hope….
Romans 5:5 And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.
Do you know, the worst of us here in this room, the one with the least faith is greater than all the prophets before John the Baptist
Luke 7:28 I tell you, among those born of women there is no one greater than John; yet the one who is least in the kingdom of God is greater than he.”
Because we have the Holy Spirit – From Jesus – permanently, who will make Jesus, effective in our lives. We have been given a wonderful gift – the Holy Spirit. When the Holy Spirit was given to men and women in the Bible, it was always for a purpose, purpose, much greater than themselves, a life changing purpose. If we have been given so much, with the Holy Spirit, with the possibility of so much power to do God’s will, certainly God has wonderful plans for each of us!
We are given a solid hope – no matter where were are in life, no mater what is happening in life, right now, because we have the Holy Spirit so we are never cursed with a situation that will never change.
