Valley of Dry Bones

So I'd like to welcome everyone to church this morning. I'm glad you're here with us.
If this is your first time, I'd especially like to welcome you. I know it can be awkward to visit
a new church and wonders whose seat this is and how things go and when to sit and when to stand,
but just relax. And we're glad that you're here. Don't want to make anything awkward. We're kind
of good at that sometimes, but we don't want it to be awkward. I'd also like to welcome everyone
who's visiting online. I believe that God can bless you right where you are this morning.
So I don't have any specific announcements other than the ongoing men's study and just
regular things that are happening around the church. Healing room is the first week of the
month on Thursdays. So I will pray for the offering. We're not going to pass a bucket or a plate
or put anybody on the spot. There's a box in the back or you can give online at the website.
If you write a check, just make sure you write your check out to Two Rivers Church. They're
the ones that helped us get this whole thing started. So dear Heavenly Father, we thank you
that every good and every perfect gift comes from you. We thank you that you provide for
us all the days of our lives. We thank you that you give us wisdom and insight. You open
up opportunities and favor and jobs and all sorts of things in our life, Lord, that we
could never do for ourselves. So we acknowledge you in our giving and what a wonderful thing
to give back and to sow a seed into the kingdom of God where it may leave our hands, but it never
leaves our life. So we thank you for that in Jesus' mighty name. Amen.
All right. So we're going to be in Ezekiel 37 today. If you guys want to turn with me, we'll
get to that text in a moment. Today we're going to be talking about what is the gift of faith
and what does that mean to have the gift of faith? What does it mean to have saving faith?
My message today is titled, Lord, You Know. And before I get into it, I want to pose the question
of what is the object of your faith? What is the object of your faith? Psalm 20, it says,
Some trust in chariots and others in horses, but we depend on the Lord our God. They will fall
down, but we will stand firm. And you see, in every generation, there's chariots and horses
and objects that people put their faith in. And maybe today we would call that our savings or our
health or insurance or our career, our reputation, our intelligence, our education, whatever it may
be that we lean on and we have some confidence that that thing has the ability to care or provide for
us. And there can be wisdom in these things, right? They're not wrong. It's not wrong to have a
savings. It's not wrong to be educated. It's not wrong to have some kind of a plan for your life,
right? But none of these things are God. And in fact, they make terrible gods. And, you know, when
we lean on those things and sometimes they get taken away or they change or they don't hold up
the way that we thought, right? And, you know, some of us, we can get a long way in our own strength.
We're smart. We're intelligent. We've got it. We've got the thing. We've got the riz. But when trouble
comes, right, we can find ourselves in a crisis if our faith is in the wrong object. So the question
is not just, do you have faith? Everybody has faith in something, right? I push the gas pedal in my car
and I have faith that I'm going to go. So the question is, what is the object of our faith?
And when we talk about faith, we need to understand that Scripture talks about faith in a number of
different ways. The first one it talks about is saving faith. It's just the faith that I believe
that Jesus Christ died for me on the cross and he is my Savior. I would call that saving faith.
But then there's this thing called, like, growing faith. We see the faith of people grow throughout
their lives. We see this progression of believing in God more and more, knowing his word better,
and continuing to place our faith in him. And what I want to really talk about today is what 1 Corinthians
12 calls the gift of faith. And I would define it as, the gift of faith is a spirit-given confidence.
And it looks honestly at impossible places and trusts the God who speaks and acts. So in 1 Corinthians 12,
Paul says, to another is given faith by the same spirit. So we're talking about spiritual gifts.
And he's obviously not talking about saving faith there, because he's writing to the church. It would
be silly to say, well, you need the gift of faith when you already have saving faith. So they're two
different things. He's talking about this God-given confidence. It's not optimism, and it's not a denial
of what we see, and it's not like a personality trait. Its origin is ultimately not with us, but it's with God,
right? That's what makes it a spiritual gift. So I think Ezekiel 37 illustrates this really well.
First, it's talking about God's promise to restore his people, Israel. But in this vision that Ezekiel
has, we see what faith looks like when God starts speaking into this place that it's just absolutely
beyond hope. So Ezekiel 37, starting at verse 1, it says,
The hand of the Lord was upon me, and he brought me out by the Spirit of the Lord, and placed me in
the midst of the valley, and it was full of bones. He made me walk all around them. I realized there
were a great many bones in the valley, and they were very dry. He said to me, Son of man, can these
bones live? I said to him, Sovereign Lord, you know. Then he said to me, Prophesy over these bones and
tell them, Dry bones, listen to the Lord's message. This is what the Sovereign Lord says to these bones.
Look, I am about to infuse breath into you, and you will live. I will put tendons on you and muscles
over you, and will cover you with skin. I will put breath in you, and you will live. Then you will know
that I am the Lord. So I prophesied as I was commanded. There was a sound when I prophesied.
I heard a rattling, and the bones came together, bone to bone, and as I watched, I saw tendons on them.
Then muscles appeared, and then skin covered over them from above, but there was no breath in them.
He said to me, Prophesy to the breath. Prophesy, Son of man, and say,
this is what the Sovereign Lord says, Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe on these corpses
so they may live. So I prophesied as I was commanded, and the breath came into them.
They lived and stood on their feet, an extremely great army. Then he said to me, Son of man,
these bones are all the house of Israel. Look, they are saying our bones are dry. Our hope has
perished. We are cut off. Therefore prophesy and tell them, this is what the Sovereign Lord says,
Look, I am about to open your graves, and will raise you from your graves, my people. I will bring
you to the land of Israel. Then you will know that I am the Lord when I open your graves and raise you
from your graves, my people. I will place my breath in you, and you will live. I will give
you rest in your own land. Then you will know that I am the Lord. I have spoken, and I will
act, declares the Lord. Amen. So verse 1 right away, he says, notice where God brings Ezekiel
right away. You know, he doesn't bring him to this place that looks happening. It doesn't
look alive. It doesn't look promising. It doesn't look impressive. He brings him to this
valley of bones, dry bones. That means that, you know, this wasn't a recent death. This
wasn't a mistaken death. Oh, he's just sleeping. Like, these are dry bones. And they're scattered.
They're dried out. They're dead. And humanly speaking, the situation is completely beyond repair.
And what I like is that God does not rush Ezekiel past this reality. He says in verse 2, he says,
walk around them. You see, faith is not denying reality. It's not denying reality. The gift of
faith does not require you to pretend that whatever it is that you're facing is not bad. And it doesn't
require you to pretend that the bones aren't dry. It doesn't require you to minimize the pain that
you're experiencing. It doesn't require you to dismiss the disappointment that you feel in your
heart or how something just looks impossible. It doesn't ask you to say, well, don't look at the
problem. Just deny it. Faith doesn't say that. So God shows him the problem. He says, walk all around it.
See how many bones there are. See how dry they are. See how scattered they are. Because faith is not
about pretending that things are better than they really are. You see, biblical faith is trusting God
in the middle of whatever reality that we face. And you can look at things honestly and you can still
listen for God. And then God, yes, Ezekiel, a question. I love this question. He says, son of man, can these
bones live? And Ezekiel answers, it's an interesting answer. He says, I love the answer, right? You love
the answer. He says, sovereign Lord, you know. You know. And Ezekiel doesn't sit there, oh, of course
they can. I'm a man of faith and I'm just going to speak this over this thing. And it's just, he doesn't
do that. He doesn't say, well, I'm going to stir up my faith and I'm going to do this and I'm going to do
that and my faith and my words are going to make this happen. He never says that. And he also, he also
doesn't go to God and say, well, this, this looks impossible. This is impossible. This isn't going
to change. He doesn't do that either. He says, Lord, you know. And I think that this is a point of humble
faith in his life. He's placing his confidence in God. You see, the object of our faith should always be
God. It should never be us. It should never be what we see or what we think. And I think that if
God gives us an unusual faith, it doesn't make us better or stronger than the person who's scared
or uncertain that's standing next to us. But it means that God gave us something to help build up
others. It's never about superiority. You see, and faith does not get to ignore scripture. It doesn't
get to overrule wisdom. It doesn't get to, you know, deny reality or, or be the hero or any of those
things. But it says, it stays submitted to God and it says, well, Lord, you know, you know. But it also
says, Lord, this isn't about my will. This is about your will. This is about what you want. And Ezekiel's
answer, he shows it. He shows where his heart is. He says, Lord, you know, not I know. How many of you say
to I know? I say that a lot. I know. How many of you think, well, I control this, right? I got control
of the situation until you don't. And he says, Sovereign Lord, you know, you know. That is the
posture of faith. And in verse four, God tells Ezekiel to prophesy over these bones. He says, speak
to these bones. Now, I think it would have been nice if he got a crowd, you know, people that were
responsive and interested in what he had. Well, go preach to this crowd of people that are really,
they really like you. They really want to hear what you have to say. Let's go tell them something
encouraging and they'll be pumped up about it. There's no visible potential in what he's speaking
to. It is dead. He's speaking to bones. And this is where faith has to act in hardship, right?
And in verse seven, it says, So I prophesied as I was commanded. And that's where his faith,
he heard what God had to say and he started to speak it. And, you know, faith will start to speak
and start to act and start to believe before there's anything to go off of, right? There was
nothing to go off. It will speak and act and move before there's evidence. And it will start to give
and trust before there's any sense of abundance or success or payoff, before there's a clear path,
before there's any type of visible outcome. And I think that this can be a very personal and very
painful lesson. You know, many of us have some vision that God has given us, something that
that he's entrusted us or asked us to do or called us to. And that moment, you know, remember when the
vision came and it was really exciting? Wow, God's going to turn this thing around. He's going to help
me build this. He's going to, he's going to help me transform my family. He's going to help me start
a business or, or whatever it may be. And we're excited, right? And we feel that possibility. And
there's like this vision. We can almost see the future. And then it doesn't come easy.
And then when the vision doesn't come easy, or it doesn't happen the way we thought, the
temptation is to what? It's to quit, right? And the temptation to us, well, maybe I didn't hear
God right. You ever, you ever said that to yourself? I've said that to myself. Maybe I didn't hear God
right. Maybe that was my idea. And you knew in the moment it was God, and now you're questioning it,
right? And the temptation of to think, well, if this really was the Lord, it wouldn't be so hard.
Lord. You ever fallen into that one? I've fallen into that one.
But God-given vision is never completed without resistance. God-given vision is never completed
without resistance. And if you read scripture, they tried to kill Moses when he was just a baby.
They tried to kill Jesus when he was just a baby. You know, when Joseph, he was a teenager,
he had all these dreams from God, and those dreams got him what? He was thrown into a pit.
David was anointed king, but he was overlooked and mocked and humiliated before he ever had a chance
to do anything. But the seed or the vision of whatever it is that we're given is often contested
before anything is obvious. And it's funny that, you know, when it's just a seed, when it's just an
idea or a vision, you know, nobody thinks much of it. Nobody's impressed. Nobody wants to help water
it. Nobody wants to rearrange their life around making it happen. It's, what was that story in
school? It was the little red hen. I don't know, a couple of us remember that. And this little red
hen picks a sweep. I'm going to make some bread. Well, who's going to help me, you know, who's going
to help me grind the grain? Well, I'll do it next time. And who's going to help me bake the bread
and mix the dough? I'll do it next time. And all of a sudden, when it's ready, everybody shows up to
eat. Right? You see, when the tree is fully grown, everybody comes out of the woodwork to eat the
fruit. But you see, faith protects the seed before the crowd respects the tree. Faith respects the seed
before the crowd respects the tree. And you see, almost every vision from God has to survive this season
where it's underground, where it's hidden, where maybe nobody else can see the potential
that you see. And that's why the gift of faith is so necessary, because otherwise the vision
would die. You see, someone needs to see it. And often that happens supernaturally in prayer. God
will give us a vision. He'll speak to us. He'll say, well, I want to do this. I want to do that. For Ezekiel,
it was, I want to bring these bones back to life. And I encourage you to write down whatever God
speaks to you about a vision. Whatever he says, well, I want to do this, or I want to do that, or I want
to see this happen around you or in the world. Write that thing down and hold on to it for all it's worth.
Hold on to it for all it's worth. Because if you just go around this week, I want you to look.
And everywhere you look, you're inside of some kind of a vision. You get in your car, you're sitting
inside of a vision that someone had to make that car. You're in your house. Someone had a vision to
make that house before it became reality. This whole town was a vision. Fifty years ago, it was
cotton fields. There was nothing here. But someone had a vision. And they followed it and they took it
seriously. Maybe when no one else did, hold on to that thing. It's from God. Test it. Present it to
God. Hold on to it. Don't let it go. Don't say that it's less than what you know that it already is. Amen?
So Ezekiel prophesied when everything looked dead. And he spoke when God commanded him to speak.
And in verse 7, it says the bones came together. There's sound. There's movement. There's structure.
There's tendons. There's skin. There's muscles. And something is starting to happen, right? But there's
still, there's still no breath. And I think that that's an important word for us as a church. You see,
you can have a structure, right, without breath. You can have systems without breath. You can have
songs and worship and teaching without breath. And you can have schedules and buildings and plans.
Lord knows we have meetings and microphones and instruments, but still need the breath of God.
And you see, structure's not bad. I think this story even teaches us that. You see, the bones coming
together, that mattered. The tendons mattered. The muscles mattered. The skin mattered. You know,
order matters. Wisdom matters. Planning matters. Serving matters. But structure is not enough.
You see, man does not live by breath alone. The church does not live by organization and structure
alone. We need the breath of God. We need the spirit of God. You see, in the gift of faith,
like Ezekiel is teaching us here, understands both. You see, faith doesn't despise having structure.
But faith also understands that structure can be an act of obedience. We have to build this space for
us to even have church. Let us be sitting outside. Y'all like air conditioning, right? Y'all like having a
bathroom that works, right? You know? We need structure to function. But the structure is never enough.
So we can't choose between structure and spirit. You see, we can bring the bones together, but we have
to cry out to God for the breath. We can prepare the room and ask God to fill it. We can build the
altar, but God has to send fire. Amen? But Lord, if you do not breathe this family, we will not live.
The church won't live. Your vision won't live. We need the breath of God to breathe on everything
in our lives. And in verse 10, Ezekiel prophesies what God gave him. The breath comes. They live. They
stand on their feet. And once was a valley of dry bones becomes an army. You see, this is something that
only God could do. Ezekiel could speak, but he couldn't manufacture the breath. He couldn't give
them life. He could obey, but he couldn't raise the dead. He could prophesy, but the words and the
life that he gave through his words came from God. This is why the gift of faith should never make us
a hero. You see, if faith is operating in me, it should make me more humble. It should make me more
dependent on God, more submitted to Jesus, not impressed with myself. Jesus is the impressive one.
And the gift of faith is there. It strengthens the church, and it strengthens people, and it lifts
their eyes back to God. And it's not done by denying the cares of this world. It's not by minimizing
the pain and the disappointments that we experience. And it's not about pretending stuff doesn't exist.
But it's saying that, you know, even here and even now, even amongst these dry bones, even in this
mess, God is present, God is able, and God is faithful. And God is still worthy of our trust.
When everything fails, when everything breaks, when people let us down, God is not only good,
but he's able to turn it around for good. Amen?
And in verse 11, it says, God explains this whole vision, I think. It's not a motivational speech. It's
really about the people of God. You see, God-given vision is always about what's dear to God's heart.
God-given vision is always about what's dear to God's heart. And I think that's a great litmus test
for visions and words and things that, you know, God may speak to us in our prayer time or however,
that, well, is it close to God's heart or is it about me? That's a great test, right? Is this about
the people of God and God moving in the world and drawing people to him or is it about me?
You see, and in this story, we have the nation of Israel, God's people are in exile.
And they feel completely cut off from everything. They feel like every hope and every promise that
they had is gone. You ever know what that feels like? Walking through a valley of dry bones.
And maybe you haven't used those words, but you've definitely had the feeling.
And I think it's amazing that God does not leave his people there, but he does allow them to experience it.
Verse 12 is the heart of the whole message, I think, here. He says,
Therefore, prophesy and tell them. This is what the Sovereign Lord says.
Look, I am about to open your graves and will raise you from your graves, my people.
I will bring you to the land of Israel. Then you will know that I am the Lord. I underline that.
Because that's the point of this whole thing is, then you will know that I am the Lord.
It wasn't about Ezekiel. It was about the Lord. It says,
When I open your graves and raise you from your graves, my people, I will place my breath in you,
and you will live. I will give you rest in your own land. Then you will know that I am the Lord.
I have spoken and I will act. I just went through that verse and I circled every I in there.
Because it was all God. It was all God. It was, I will do this. I will do that. I will raise you up.
I will bring you home. I will give you breath. I will do this. I have spoken and I will act.
You see, the foundation of faith is not Ezekiel's charming personality, his ability to speak and impress people.
The foundation is not the strength of the nation of Israel.
The foundation is not the condition of the bones. It had nothing to do with that.
The foundation is the faith in God who says,
I have spoken and I will act.
And this is why the gift of faith is so important to strengthen the church.
You see, it lifts our eyes back to God.
So the question I asked earlier is what is the object of your faith?
What is the object of your faith?
Is it your abilities? Is it your talents? Is it your job?
Is it your personality? Is it your ability to maintain control?
Is it your talents? Is it your savings?
Psalms said, our faith is in the Lord.
The God who speaks, the God who acts, and the God who breathes life into dead places.
And Lord, you know, you know, you always know.
God always knows.
He knows everything.
He sees everything.
He knows what we think about it.
He knows how discouraged we can be at times.
That's why I love Ezekiel's answer.
Lord, you know.
And I believe that God can speak into anything.
I believe he can speak into any negative situation.
I believe that he has the power to raise the dead.
He had the power to raise these dry bones into an army.
I believe that when we pray, he hears us and he answers our prayers.
And I believe that he can breathe life into anything.
So what do we do?
What do we do?
Well, I think the first thing we can do is ask God to grow our faith.
You know, not a faith that denies pain or makes noise at prayer meetings or gets all wound up about something.
Genuine faith that says, Lord, you know.
Because I think when we get to a place where we're so discouraged and doubting, I think that we quickly forget that God does know.
He does know.
And we don't have to get to a place where we deny the pain.
We don't have to get to a place where we pretend that it's not real.
But we can ask God for the kind of faith to stand in that valley and say, Lord, you know.
Because if God has spoken and God has breathed, the valley does not get the final word.
The army left.
And sometimes we have to pray, Lord, I believe.
Help me in my unbelief.
A great way to overcome unbelief is to read what God says.
Every promise that God has made is for today.
And it's for you.
Right here.
Right now.
Promises of a hope and a future.
Promises of deliverance and a healing.
Promises of blessing.
Promises of speaking and walking with you.
All of those promises are for you.
And they're for today.
And they're still good.
Amen?
And so often we lose faith when we get afraid.
When we're tired.
When we're disappointed.
We forget what God said.
And you can start to respond to those things in faith.
And you can say, well, I don't have to be afraid.
No weapon formed against me will prosper.
I don't have to be afraid.
Well, I don't have to be tired because the Lord promises to refresh me.
Right?
I don't have to be disappointed because I know that God has a better plan for me and a plan for the world than what I can already see.
We don't have to get angry and divided and worked up over what we see in the world around us.
Because we know what God's plan is.
And if we ever wonder what that plan is, we have this.
And we can know that that plan is better than anything that we could ever ask for or imagine.
So when I find myself discouraged and afraid, I try to say, God, give me the faith to get over this.
Give me the faith to see what you could do with this.
And show me where I've been afraid and tired and disappointed and divided and upset.
Because behind every one of those little things, I'm going to find that I disagreed with something that God said.
When I find myself scared or afraid or disappointed or anything, I will find there is a word from God that speaks directly to what I am experiencing.
And it will help me have faith.
And it will show me.
And I encourage you this morning that if you've never, never placed your faith in Jesus, I believe that this is a great day to do that.
Today can be a day that you move from unbelief to belief.
And for some of us who have followed Jesus a long time, moving from unbelief to belief may be a small area of our life.
Well, maybe I don't believe God for my next job, my next meal, my next paycheck.
Well, I'm going to place my faith in God today for that one small thing.
Or maybe you've been struggling with something for a long time and it just, you know it's wrong and you can't get over it.
And it's time to say, well, I'm done fighting and struggling and bare knuckling this thing, white knuckling this thing.
I'm going to place my faith in God who raises the dead.
This is a great day to take whatever it may be, your fear, your depression, your anxiety, your disappointment, and exchange it for the truth of God.
And if that sounds like, well, I've got to read this whole book to get that sorted out, use your phone.
Serious.
Bible verses about disappointment, search.
Bible voices about shame, search.
Bible verses about fear, search.
And it's free.
And you will find that there is a promise and an answer to the things that trouble you and discourage you.
And you will find that the valley of dry bones, whatever it may be in your life, God has a promise to go with it.
And you will find that as you exercise this muscle of faith, that it will get stronger.
And it will start to respond to things in faith.
And it will say, Lord, you know.
You know.
So you can start replacing those thoughts and disappointments with faith.
You know, not empty religion.
Not faith in your ability to take care of yourself.
But faith in Jesus Christ, the one who was raised from the dead.
So dear Heavenly Father, we thank you that you give us the gift of faith.
We thank you for every promise that is in your word that is available to us.
And I pray for each and every person here this morning that you can continue to grow them in their faith.
And that you can give them faith for the impossible.
That you can give them visions and dreams of what could be.
That you can give them a supernatural revelation of what it is that you have planned for their life,
their family, their business, their home, whatever it may be, Lord.
But we place our faith in you and Lord, we say, Lord, you know.
Lord, you know.
So we thank you that you have given us Jesus to place our confidence and our trust in.
We thank you that our faith is in the one who raises the dead.
I pray a blessing over each and every person here.
I pray that the things that they set their hand to this week are successful.
I pray that their words bring hope and joy and healing.
Lord, I pray for each person here experiencing sickness.
Lord, that you can bring healing to every disease, every pain, every bodily ailment, Lord,
that you paid for on the cross, that they are healed in Jesus' mighty name.
Lord, I pray over family relationships that are fractured and broken.
I pray that you bring healing and restoration.
And Lord, I pray over every discouragement and doubt.
Lord, that those are replaced with faith in Jesus' mighty name.
Lord, we thank you that you are the object of our faith.
And that our faith in you is enough to overcome not only the things that we face,
but to overcome death and the devil himself.
And that we can have complete victory in your mighty name.
And all God's people said, Amen.
Amen.