Good morning! How are you doing on this beautiful resurrection morning? The longer I live the more aware I become that the Lord has surrounded us with signs of his resurrection power and presence. The rhythm of sleeping and waking is one of those signs. Falling asleep is a sort of miniature dying to our need for control. Waking up is a sign of resurrection. There is a part of our human nature fights this. We fight going to bed and we fight getting up in the morning!
I want to begin by sharing with you the secret to a good night’s sleep. Are you interested? Spirit of the Living God, meet us in this place. Right here in the midst of what ever is going on within us today. Remove every fear, every anxiety, every attitude that would exalt our own spirit over your own. Melt away every resistance that would shut us down to your transforming work within us. Breathe your life into the spiritually dead places within us. Fill us with yourself, crush, soften, make pliable again those places that have become hardened against you.. Make us supple, responsive, alive, filled with your Holy Spirit in Jesus name. AMEN
There is a cosmic battle going on around us for our souls. This battle doesn’t end when we become a Christian, in fact, in some ways it intensifies. It is a battle between our natural sinful self and the Holy Spirit. Some have called it the outer man and the inner man, others call it our human spirit vs the Holy Spirit.
The Apostle Paul understood this struggle. He had been a very religious man, but his spirit was in all out rebellion against the Spirit of God. It wasn’t until he was broken on the road to Damascus that Paul was able to recognize this.
He thought he was a spiritual man. It was only through his temporary blindness that he realized how spiritually blind he had really been. He wrote in Romans 8. The sinful nature cannot please God. Those who live according to the sinful nature have their minds set on what that nature desires. But those who live according to the Holy Spirit have their minds set on what the Holy Spirit desires.
The sinful man is hostile to God. It does not submit to God, nor can it. Those controlled by the sinful nature cannot please God. This sinful nature remains within us as long as we live in this world. We don’t want the church to be as God wants it to be, we want it to be as we want it to be. We don’t want our parents or our spouse or our children to be as God wants them to be, we want them to be like we want them to be. And when we don’t get our way, we get mad, we throw a fit!
This is Pentecost Sunday. Today we remember how God poured out his Holy Spirit upon the church. We need to ask ourselves. Which spirit is leading me? Which spirit am I submitting to? Am I being ruled by my own sinful spirit, or the Holy Spirit of God. Paul says one leads to death and the other to life.
Let’s begin by going back over 550 year before Jesus was born. The nation of Israel, it would seem, is no more. After years of siege, Nebuchadnezzar and his mighty war machine have torn down the walls of Jerusalem and demolished every building. His purpose was that no one would ever live there again.
The few survivors have been herded 1000 miles east where they are living in exile in the sand outside the walls of Babylon. It’s impossible for us to imagine the hopelessness and brokenness of their situation. In their minds, they are already dead. But in God’s mind, they have been brought here to be raised from death to life.
Let’s open our Bibles to Ezekiel 37. One morning there in the refugee camp in the midst of the heat and the sand fleas, the LORD sweeps his prophet Ezekiel into a vision.
“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. 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.” Ez 37:1-2
Ezekiel finds himself standing in an ancient battle field, among the dry sun bleached bones of what was once a great army. Whatever power was once there, it is there no longer.
And the LORD asks him, “Son of man, can these bones live?” What a stupid question – until you consider who it is that is asking the question!
“Son of man, can these bones live?” Ezekiel is no dummy. Look at his answer in vs 3, “O Sovereign LORD, you alone know.” The word Sovereign means supreme ruler or authority or power. The One who is above every other one. By the way, that’s not us!
Our sinful nature rebels against this. We want to be sovereign. Our sinful nature is willing to give God a little credit, even be a little religious for the sake of getting God either off our back or on our side. But we don’t want to submit the sovereignty we think belongs to us.
“Son of man, can these bones live?” Can they raise themselves to life? Are they capable of the sovereignty they claim? Israel got in this mess because they chose to serve their own sinful spirit rather than be obedient to the Spirit of God. That’s a dead end, its always been a dead end. They wanted God to be there for them, they wanted the privileges and entitlements but they had no interest in serving God or obeying him. Does any of this sound familiar?
“Son of man, can these bones live?” And the LORD says to Ezekiel, prophesy to the bones. To prophesy means to proclaim God’s word over these dead dry bones! Say to them, “Dry bones, listen up! This is what the Sovereign LORD says!
Who or what is Sovereign in your life this morning? Is it the Holy Spirit of God, or your own Spirit? Know how you tell the difference? My own sinful nature is concerned about one thing, me. And it sees God as a threat to me! The Holy Spirit is concerned about the things of God. What are the things of God? To set me free from my bondage to myself and to make me more like Jesus. Whose spirit are you listening to this morning?
“Dry bones, hear the word of the Lord! I will make breath enter you, and you will come to life. I will attach tendons to you and make flesh come upon you and come over you with skin; I will put breath in you and you will come to life. Then you will know that I am the LORD. Ezek 37:5
And the dust begins to stir; clacking and rattling the dry bones rise and connect. They are sheathed in tendons, ligament, muscle, skin. It was like Adam created again out of the dust of the earth but there was not breath in them yet. “Son of man, can these bones live?”
Then the LORD said to Ezekiel, “Preach, proclaim the word of the LORD. Prophesy to the breath.” The word Spirit, wind, breath are all the same in Hebrew. I imagine Ezekiel shouting “Come Holy Spirit, come Breath of God, come Wind of Heaven, breathe into these slain that they may live – not to serve themselves any longer, but to serve you – for that is where life is found!”
Then the LORD gives Ezekiel that application of his vision! Vs 11 “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.”
“Our bones are dried up and our hope is gone; we are cut off!” How amazing! They rejected the leadership of the Holy Spirit to serve their own sinful spirit and just as God had warned them, all there glorious plans ended in emptiness and death, powerless to save themselves.
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. Then you, my people, will know that I am the LORD... I will put my Spirit in you and you will live…then you will know that I the LORD have spoken, and I have done it!” Ez 37:13-14
Can I share a spiritual truth with you? You will never find the life you seek in serving your own sinful nature, that which your own spirit seeks. Until that nature is broken you will find yourself at war with the Holy Spirit. You will be at odds with what the Holy Spirit is doing in your life, in the lives of those you love, and in the church. Until that sinful nature is broken, you will expect the entitlements, but refuse the discipline. You will want the blessings, but refuse the sacrifice.
The Lord wants to set us free, to break the chains that hold us back and interfere with his Holy Spirit filling us and flowing through us. This Sunday is Response Sunday. Many of you are on board with a financial commitment to the future of our church. You need to be aware; the Lord is more interested in your heart than in your money. Don’t use your gift as an excuse to avoid turning over the sovereignty of your life to the Holy Spirit.
Some of you may feel pressured to make financial commitment you are not ready to make. You need to figure out who you are fighting with. Is this a battle between your spirit and the Holy Spirit? Are there things in your life that you need to get right with the Lord? The Lord is more interested in your heart than your money. Write on your card, “Lord, I give myself and all that I am to you. Break those things in me that are not of you. Fill me with your Holy Spirit that I may do your will.”
If as you pray the Lord is encouraging to step out in faith in a way you have never done before, trust him, obey him. Out of your brokenness you will find life. “Son of man, can these bones live?”
Yes, yes, yes! “Come Holy Spirit, come Breath of God, come Wind of Heaven, breathe into our dry and dusty bones that we might live! We have been held captive to our own sinful nature, our own spirit that stands in rebellion against you and we cannot free ourselves. Breathe your life, your joy, your power, your freedom into your people. And we will stand up as a mighty army to proclaim your mighty works to the world!” AMEN
