September 29, 2002

Service Theme – "Our God is Worthy of Praise"

Ezekiel 37:1-14

A House of Healing for Our Dry Bones

1. Introduction

1. Illustration – Mother Teresa (Jesus, the Word to Be Spoken. Christianity Today, Vol. 35, no. 14) said, The church wants "renewal." Renewal does not mean changing a habit and a few prayers. Renewal is faithfulness to the spirit of the constitutions, a spirit which seeks holiness by means of a poor and humble life, the exercise of sincere and patient charity, spontaneous sacrifice and generosity of heart, and which finds its expression in purity and candor.
2. Context – Mother Teresa understood completely what God is trying to say through Ezekiel in today’s passage. God wants to transform our hearts and lives, and He is using a rather vivid word picture to help us understand what He wants to do in us. Let’s read Ezekiel 37:1-14 together to see what this word picture is.

1. Scripture Passage

1. Ezekiel 37:1-14, from the New Living – The Lord took hold of me, and I was carried away by the Spirit of the Lord to a valley filled with bones. ² He led me around among the old, dry bones that covered the valley floor. They were scattered everywhere across the ground. ³ Then he asked me, "Son of man, can these bones become living people again?" "O Sovereign Lord," I replied, "you alone know the answer to that." ⁴ Then he said to me, "Speak to these bones and say, ‘Dry bones, listen to the word of the Lord! ⁵ This is what the Sovereign Lord says: Look! I am going to breathe into you and make you live again! ⁶ I will put flesh and muscles on you and cover you with skin. I will put breath into you, and you will come to life. Then you will know that I am the Lord.’ " ⁷ So I spoke these words, just as he told me. Suddenly as I spoke, there was a rattling noise all across the valley. The bones of each body came together and attached themselves as they had been before. ⁸ Then as I watched, muscles and flesh formed over the bones. Then skin formed to cover their bodies, but they still had no breath in them. ⁹ Then he said to me, "Speak to the winds and say: ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: Come, O breath, from the four winds! Breathe into these dead bodies so that they may live again.’ " ¹⁰ So I spoke as he commanded me, and the wind entered the bodies, and they began to breathe. They all came to life and stood up on their feet—a great army of them. ¹¹ Then he said to me, "Son of man, these bones represent the people of Israel. They are saying, ‘We have become old, dry bones—all hope is gone.’ ¹² Now give them this message from the Sovereign Lord: O my people, I will open your graves of exile and cause you to rise again. Then I will bring you back to the land of Israel. ¹³ When this happens, O my people, you will know that I am the Lord. ¹⁴ I will put my Spirit in you, and you will live and return home to your own land. Then you will know that I am the Lord. You will see that I have done everything just as I promised. I, the Lord, have spoken!"

1. Causes and Cures for Dry Bones

1. I did some research about "dry bones" on webmd.com. I found it interesting that the two most common topics that came up when I typed "dry bones" into the search engine were cancer and arthritis. Let me share a little of what I learned. Cancer of the bone marrow, that is the part of your bones that is active your whole life, is called leukemia. The bone marrow normally produces red blood cells, which carry oxygen; white blood cells, which fight disease; and platelets, which aid in clotting. When leukemia hits the bone marrow, it starts producing abnormal blood cells, cells that are unable to function normally. The cells that are meant to give life suddenly become agents of death. Because the blood cells are no longer doing their job, the body is unable to fight infection and to effectively distribute oxygen and to stop bleeding. That’s what leukemia does. Arthritis is an inflammation of the joints. The connective tissue that is supposed to cushion the joint and produce lubricating fluids becomes inflamed. In rheumatoid arthritis, which is what my father-in-law had, that connective tissue become abnormally thick and can even calcify. The soft tissue that is supposed to cushion can become hard tissue that caused pain and immobility in the joint.
2. Why am I spending time talking about medical issues? Simply for this reason: we suffer from spiritual cancer and spiritual arthritis that causes our spiritual life to die out within us. The bones Ezekiel saw were dried out – the marrow could no longer give life, even if the bones had been inside bodies. But God had Ezekiel speak to those old, dry bones anyway. The first time Ezekiel spoke the supporting structures came onto those bones – muscles, tendons, ligaments, internal organs, almost everything needed for life. Only one thing remained – those corpses needed the breath of life to be breathed into them. Why? The bones had no life in them, and simply putting flesh on them wasn’t going to change a thing! Life needed to enter the flesh, start up the organs, and restore the bones if those bodies were to become truly alive.
3. Again, what does this have to do with us? All of us start out life like those old, dry bones, needing spiritual life breathed into us. We need the Holy Spirit to breathe into us so that we may come back from spiritual death and move forward into eternal life. But some of us stop short. Some of us only allow the structures of religious life to be placed onto our dead, dry bones. We go to church, we give some of our money, we do our best to say and do the right things, but we don’t allow the inner core of our beings to change. I’ve known of folks who have gone to church their whole lives and have been good people, but they never come spiritually alive. These folks have lived their lives according to a religious structure, but will never make it into heaven. Why? God is not interested in having His dwelling place inhabited by corpses. Corpses cannot worship and praise Him and enjoy the sweet fellowship of His love. God wants living, breathing people to fill heaven with the sound of worship and praise and to bask in His love and His holiness. Spiritually dead folks just can’t do that!
4. That’s exactly why God gave this vision to Ezekiel. God wasn’t just promising the Israelites that they would return from exile and once again inhabit the Promised Land. In verse fourteen, He says, I will put my Spirit in you, and you will live and return home to your own land. The Israelites didn’t need God’s Spirit just to find a house! They needed God’s Spirit so that they could become spiritually alive and enjoy a vital, loving relationship with Him! The old, dry bones symbolized the way the people had related to God in the past – through old, dry rituals that had no meaning because the people did not allow them to have meaning. God was promising to breathe His very essence into them, so that they could live spiritually each and every day of their lives. That promise came true with the coming of Jesus, and that is why we have hope!
5. I said a few minutes ago that we have spiritual cancer and spiritual arthritis. They have a single cause – sin. Sin is a cancer that destroys spiritual life. Sin is an arthritis that hardens us and makes us unable to move with the Spirit. Sin does all that and more to us. All of us are born with a terminal case of sin. Unless we allow God to intervene in our lives, we die spiritually from sin. In Romans 3:23-26, Paul says, For all have sinned; all fall short of God’s glorious standard. ²⁴ Yet now God in his gracious kindness declares us not guilty. He has done this through Christ Jesus, who has freed us by taking away our sins. ²⁵ For God sent Jesus to take the punishment for our sins and to satisfy God’s anger against us. We are made right with God when we believe that Jesus shed his blood, sacrificing his life for us. God was being entirely fair and just when he did not punish those who sinned in former times. ²⁶ And he is entirely fair and just in this present time when he declares sinners to be right in his sight because they believe in Jesus. In the Old Testament, God declares that the life of every living creature is in the blood. Jesus shed His blood so that our old, dead, dry spiritual bones could come to life. The blood of Jesus Christ is the only cure for the spiritual death sentence of sin.
6. Illustration - In Discipleship Journal (Issue 125, p. 24), William Farley writes: In October of 1993, the Lord arrested me with Isaiah 66:2: "This is the one I esteem: he who is humble and contrite in spirit, and trembles at my word." I wanted a deeper relationship with God, and I felt impressed that this verse had something to do with it. But I didn't understand the connection between humility and trembling before God's Word. So I prayed, "Lord, please make this verse real to me." Five days later my wife and I were driving down the Oregon Coast. While I was meditating on 1 Corinthians 13, another verse caught my attention. "Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known" (v. 12, emphasis mine). I realized that God saw spiritual darkness in me to which I was blind, that he loved me despite this spiritual cancer, and that someday he would let me see it as he saw it. I prayed again, "God, please open my eyes to this evil in my heart." As we followed Highway 101 south, I sensed a connection between Isaiah 66:2 and 1 Corinthians 13:12. So I prayed a third time: "God, show me the connection between those verses." A few minutes later my wife began talking about a movie she liked. Irritated by the intrusion of such a trivial topic into my meditation, I condescendingly belittled her opinion. Instantly, three life-changing words knifed into my consciousness. They weren't audible, but they came so suddenly and were so completely non-volitional that I lurched behind the steering wheel. THERE IT IS! What was that? I wondered. Then I realized that God had spoken to me. So I asked, "What is it? An overwhelming sense of moral ugliness of it—my arrogance and pride—washed over me. For the first time, I saw this sin in God's light. My next sensation was the profound conviction that God had loved me for 45 years despite this besetting sin he abhorred. For a moment, he let me know myself as he knew me. It was painful to see my pride as God saw it. Yet I was glad for that glimpse. I wept for my sin, and I wept because of God's indescribable love. Farley allowed God to remove the spiritual cancer that was poisoning his heart. And that’s exactly what He wants to do in us.
7. You may be thinking, "Pastor Brian, I know all this stuff. I’ve heard it before." But there is a big difference between having all the right religious structures in our lives and being spiritually alive. All of us have areas of our hearts and lives where we haven’t allowed God to breathe spiritual life into us. Maybe it’s the big one, maybe we don’t have a personal love relationship with Jesus Christ. Maybe we’ve been allowing fear to keep us from doing what we know God wants us to. I know that one – I allowed fear to keep me from following God’s call into the pastorate for eighteen years. Maybe it’s a sinful habit we don’t want to give up. The problem is that, if we let those sins run their course, like cancer or rheumatoid arthritis, they will kill us. Yes, rheumatoid arthritis if untreated will eventually enter the vital organs and fill them with lesions and kill them off, so we can’t afford to even dally around with sin. We can either be like the old, dry bones on the valley floor, or like the vast living, breathing army of God. That’s our choice.
8. It goes a bit farther than that, though. The results of our choices regarding sin affect everyone in this room and in our communities. You see, we are called to be a house of healing in our communities. We are called to be tools God uses to breathe spiritual life into all those who are spiritually dead on the valley floor. We have stated our mission as this: Sodaville Evangelical Church exists to: love God; share His love with you; reach out with compassion; and apply the Bible and prayer to real life. Sounds like spiritual life giving to me! We have stated our purpose as this: The passion of Sodaville Evangelical Church is to reach people for Christ by accepting all people where they’re at and moving them toward Christ-like maturity. We do this by providing a safe and stable place to share, serve, and grow together into a loving Christian family. Sounds like spiritual life giving to me, too! We have stated that these are the reasons we exist. God has stated that He will supply the breath of life if we supply the obedience. How do we supply the obedience? Two ways. First, each one of us as individuals have to allow God to do the spiritual surgery and radiation and chemotherapy He needs to do to get rid of the spiritual cancer and arthritis in our hearts. If all of us will choose each day of our lives to do this, we’ll be in good shape. The second way is for us to commit ourselves as a congregation to being God’s tools for breathing spiritual life into our communities. We’ll be doing that right now through a ceremony in which we rededicate ourselves and this property to accomplishing God’s purposes and plans. Through this ceremony, we’ll be renewing our covenant with God to be His tools and to allow Him to use us and sanctify us for His purposes. Then we’ll celebrate the covenant with a meal, in this case a potluck. So if you are willing to covenant with God for yourself and for this congregation to become a house of spiritual healing and life, please join us in this ceremony. As Agnes Sanford, in Christian Reader magazine (Vol. 33, no. 4), wrote, Only love can generate the healing fire. Let’s rekindle that fire right now through this time of rededication.

1. Rededication Ceremony

INVOCATION

In the name of God: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

MINISTER’S STATEMENT

Beloved in Christ, we are now gathered in solemn assembly at this sacred hour before the Lord our God – maker of heaven and earth, source of every good – to rededicate to him this house which was built and dedicated a mere five years ago to the honor of his name and for the extension of his Kingdom.

SCRIPTURE

For the Lord has chosen Zion; He has desired it for His dwelling place:

"This is My resting place forever; Here I will dwell, for I have desired it.

I will abundantly bless her provision; I will satisfy her poor with bread."

(Psalm 132:13-15, NKJV)

Now, my God, I pray, let Your eyes be open and let Your ears be attentive to the prayer made in this place. Now therefore, Arise, O Lord God, to Your resting place, You and the ark of Your strength. Let Your priests, O Lord God, be clothed with salvation, And let Your saints rejoice in goodness.

(2 Chronicles 6:40-41, NKJV)

In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lifted up, and the train of His robe filled the temple. Above it stood seraphim; each one had six wings: with two he covered his face, with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. And one cried to another and said: "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; The whole earth is full of His glory!"

(Isaiah 6:1-3, NKJV)

Lift up your heads, O you gates!

And be lifted up, you everlasting doors!

And the King of glory shall come in.

Who is this King of glory?

The Lord strong and mighty,

The Lord mighty in battle.

Lift up your heads, O you gates!

Lift up, you everlasting doors!

And the King of glory shall come in.

Who is this King of glory?

The Lord of hosts,

He is the King of glory.

(Psalm 24:7-10, NKJV)

ADDRESS

(The shall the Lay Leader say:)

It becomes us in this high and holy hour to bow in worship before the Lord our God. The Most High does not dwell in temples made with hands, yet he commanded his servant Moses to build a tabernacle, and prepare a place for him, where his honor would dwell. And then at the dedication of the tabernacle, and afterward at the dedication of the temple God sanctioned and confirmed the work by the revelation of his glory, and blessed his people there. Our Lord has also given us the blessed assurance that he will meet with his people wherever they assemble themselves in his name. Thus reassured, we feel that God will accept this house which has been built to his glory.

Having this confidence, we now rededicate this house unto the Triune

God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, to be his sanctuary and dwelling place, where his Word shall be preached, the sacraments administered, and such other services held as are according to the order and The Discipline of The Evangelical Church.

To this end we also rededicate ourselves to him with all that we are and possess, without reservation, to be his through the covenant of grace by Jesus Christ our Lord.

PRAYER

Lord God of our fathers, your people built this house for worship and glory. You who are above all the heavens and who fills the immensity of space with your greatness and omnipresence, we pray you to accept this house in the name of your Son our Savior. You dwelt in the temple of old, and wherever two or three are gathered in your name, you are in their midst.

So make this place your habitation, that it may show forth your power and glory from time to time in the salvation of sinners and the edification of your people, that this house may be preserved from all unholy purpose and exercises, and be devoted to your service alone, and to the redemption and up building of souls; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

THE LITANY

Minister: In the name of God: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, we rededicate this church to Christian worship.

People: God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.

Minister: We rededicate this church to the training of children in the knowledge and experience of God, to the summoning of youth to a life of Christian service, and to the sanctification of the family.

People: Remember also your Creator in the days of your youth.

Minister: We rededicate this church to the spiritual enrichment of all; to the guidance of those in trouble, the direction of those who have erred, the help of those confused and distressed, the consolation of the dying and the comfort of the bereaved, and to the hope of eternal life.

People: "Behold, all souls are Mine," says the Lord. "Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me."

Minister: We rededicate this structure and the people who worship here to the task of the Church of our Savior Jesus Christ, to evangelism and education, social service, economic and civic righteousness, Christian unity, and international good will, the kingdom of God and the brotherhood of man.

People: Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.

Minister: We rededicate this church to world-wide missionary endeavor that the kingdom of this world may become the Kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ.

People: Go therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit: teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you always, even until the end of the world.

Minister: We rededicate this church in loving memory of those who in former years built our spiritual foundations in faithful service, and with deep gratitude for those who have labored and prayed to make this building and the ministry centered here possible, also to those who in years to come shall worship God and His Christ here.

People: Breathe on me, breath of God, fill me with life anew, that I may love what you love, and do what you would do.

THE DEDICATION

We, the ministry and people of this congregation, compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, with gratitude for our heritage and appreciation of the sacrifices of those who have gone before, do now consecrate ourselves to the furtherance of God’s cause at this place, and do at this moment rededicate this building unto God Almighty, in the name of

God: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

ADDRESS TO THE ELECTED LEADERS OF THE CHURCH

(The minister shall request the elected leaders of the church to present themselves at the front of the church. The Pastor-Parish Relations Chairman shall say:)

You have been selected by the church to the responsible position of leaders of this house of worship, which has now been rededicated to God.

The house of God is sacred; it is God’s holy temple, where he is to be worshiped in the beauty of holiness and love; therefore, do nothing in vain glory, but by love serve one another. Nothing should enter this sacred place that will defile the temple of God; but at the same time let it ever be remembered that all works of justice, of mercy, of love, of helpfulness of whatsoever kind, are proper in the house of God. Protect this ministry of

God at all times; preserve it for constant service; improve it as need arises.

Help keep this a holy place, and with the congregation assist the Minister in winning men to God and his church through the Lord Jesus Christ. In the name of the Holy Trinity, I now charge you to exercise wisely your authority over this property and the people who worship here, to hold them in trust for God and The Evangelical Church and to nurture them. May faith, hope and love always guide you in your task remembering that except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain who build it.

THE LORD’S PRAYER

Our Father, who art in heaven;

Hallowed be your name;

Your kingdom come;

Your will be done, in earth as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread,

And forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.

And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil.

For Your is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever.

Amen.

BENEDICTION

Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us, to Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.

(Ephesians 3:20-21, NKJV)

(Adapted from the 2002 Discipline of the Evangelical Church, New King James version rituals)