Revival in the Valley

Intro

Fifteen years ago on a day like any other I get up get dressed and prepare for whatever God has for me to do. I leave my apartment as a college student and fairly new to the ministry on foot headed for the Gill to pay a visit to one of youth of the Church where I was a youth minister at. Now you may ask, “What is the Gill?” The “Gill” is short for Gallium juvenile Denver detention center. As, I said I was on foot because the Gill is located in heart of the neighborhood. I walk out the complex set for the Gill and immediately across the street from my residence is a Wittier Elementary School. Wittier Elementary is a historic school in Denver it is a historic landmark and was at one point the only school for African Americans in Denver. And as I pass by I see on the fields and playground children who have been kissed by nature’s sun, Black and Hispanic children, beautiful children, children with worlds of potential, children who are gifted by God to do great and wonderful things. But, the school was going to be turned into private school. Now only one block away from my complex is Zion Baptist Church. Zion is the oldest Black Church on the West Coast and although it had such a rich history it was threatened by foreclosure because of drop in attendance because of displament of the poor due to gentrification and now the membership was either dying of or being evacuated from their homes. As I keep walking and I see the Gill only a few block ahead of me I am reminded that if I turn right at this street I will be only three blocks away from Manual High School, which is the oldest Black High School in Denver and has a rich history of preparing some of the finest minds and athletes to come out of Colorado. However, Manuel High school was scheduled to shut its doors due to poor test scores, violence and low graduation rates. Now, I have, in my mind just had a ship wreck of faith because I see with my own eye, the results of a broken people and community torn by racism, oppression, sin and hopelessness. And now, I have to go speak to a young man but I have nothing to offer. In just that short time I have gone from joy to sorrow, happy to sad, upbeat to beat down, from singing, “woke up this morning with my mind stayed on Jesus” to “Guide me of great Jehovah pilgrim through this barren land”. I went from saying, “This is the day that the Lord has made” to “cursed is the day I was born, and the day my mother gave birth to me.” At that moment I said to myself “this is what it must have felt like when Ezekiel was taken to the Valley of the Dry bones.

Maybe you know how this fills too. Maybe it bothers you to see your community struggling to make ends meet. Maybe you live in a valley neighborhood like I did where it seems all hope is lost. Maybe you work in a valley and everybody is nothing buy dry bones and every day you have to face these dry bones called supervisors, bosses, coworkers and subordinates. Maybe you live in a valley, yeah maybe your house is a valley. And there is some dry bones eating out of your refrigerator and won’t get a job or go to school. Or maybe your married to some dry bones and you try and work things out but they just stay the same, dry. Maybe you yourself is a valley of dry bones. Yeah, maybe the dry bones aint the people around you but maybe the dry bones that are affecting you are the skeletons in your own closet that you have yet asked God to deal with. But, here is the good news. God specializes in reviving dry bones. And Just like God asked Ezekiel “… these bones live?” (Preach on that question and what it implies)

(Bring up to text)

1. A Word to the Bones

The first things first. When Ezekiel begins to speak to these bones the first thing he says, and the first thing the LORD told him to say is, “Hear the word of the LORD…” Now don’t you ignore this as if it’s a minor detail, because it is not. In fact here lies the power in the preaching in the first place. In order for Ezekiel’s message to the bones to be effective it has to be the word of the LORD. Not the word of Ezekiel, but of the LORD. Too often, in pulpits across America we hear a word from “whoever” and not from the LORD, because the ideas that are being preached are not from the word of the LORD but from the imagination of the preacher. (Preach) Or they won’t preach what it says.

Now the word to the bones is that God is going to restore them back to a place of wholeness and vitality. He tells them that he is about to do something for them that they can’t do for themselves and that is to bring life back into their dead situation. The word to the bones is not a word of condemnation but of Love. The word to the bones is not a word of judgement but of salvation. The word to the bones is not a word discourage but of encouragement. The word to the bones does not point out the reason why the bones are dead in the first place but it tells them that they still have usefulness to God. The word to the bones does not point out their brokenness but points them to wholeness. The Church, if it is to be effective, must stop pointing fingers at sinners. Just because we don’t condone the behavior does not mean we condemn the person. Tell the bones it’s going to get real and real soon.

You don’t get person to come to church by telling them they need to come to church because they are living wrong. You get a person to come to Jesus by telling them that Jesus still has need of them.

Now there is a basket in my house that contains nothing but toys. But, most these toys are busted up: dolls with no heads, princesses with no clothes, McDonald’s toys with no legs, moving parts with no batteries. You know busted up toys. And one day I decided I was tired of looking at the busted up toys so I started picking out the really busted up ones. And later that day to my surprise my daughter asked me if I had seen Princess Anna and Queen Elsa. I said, “uh No” but God spoke to me and I traced my steps and got those toys back because what I learned was that what was busted and broken to me, was life and fun for her (Preach). And so he prophesies to the bones. And the bible says in verse 7 (read v. 7) that it happened as he was doing it. This is good news that while the word is going forward God is already working it. (Exegete v.7&8 quickly)

2. A Word to the Breath

Just because someone is well put together does not mean they are whole. You can fix people up and place them in a new environment, around new people, or a new church, or a new spouse, or a new job, school or whatever. But if they don’t have a God breathed life altering changing experience that fills them with the Holy Spirit they will go back to doing whatever it was that caused them to end up in the valley dead as bones in the first place. This prophesying to the breath is the same word that is used in Genesis when God breathed in to Adam and he became a living soul. It is also the same word used for Spirit. So this is interesting because God already promised the bones now corpse that he would fill them with breath, that was the first promise he gave them. So, he could have done it already. God could have caused the breath to enter after the bones got up. But God waits. God arranges it as such that Ezekiel becomes the conduit by which the promise is both declared and delivered. So here is the proverb realized that “death and life are in the power of the tongue” not that you have power to create but there is power in what God says and that power is accessed by faith if you would say what he said.

Ezekiel speaks to the winds as ordered and the winds blow. The winds have to blow and they have to be filled with the Spirit in order for them to become what God has intended them to be. The winds have to blow in order for them to receive what God has planned for them to get. The winds have to blow in order for them to be restored to what they lost. The winds have to blow before they have strength enough to fight the good fight of faith. The wind in the text represent God’s voluntary participation in the process of restoration. The win is God’s Spirit granting His people new life whereby they can again live in their purpose and their calling. Maybe I’m not preaching good enough, is there anybody here that wants the winds to blow in your life so that you can go to the next level in life. Blow!

3. A Word to the Blessed

Notice that in v.11 God still calls them “bones.” They have been put back together, received the breath of life and they are now standing strong as an army of the LORD but God still refers to them as bones. This is because the process is not finished after you come back to life, but, the process also entails being blessed and receiving the promises of God.

The reason is this, the people of Israel referred to themselves as dry bones and not having hope and being cut off. They have literally thrown in the towel on life and are wallowing in the guilt of their sins, despite God’s promise to them. They call themselves bones because they can see past their brokenness, they can’t see past their fears, past their sin. They are stuck in a place where all they can imagine for themselves is what they have become accustomed to being.

He promises to bring them out of their graves, to put them back into the land, and to put his Spirit in them. So long story short, God in his infinite goodness is going to give them back what they lost, and restore his relationship with them.

I don’t know who needs to hear this but what you thought you lost God can revive what you lost: You thought you lost you joy, but the Joy of the Lord is your strength. You thought you lost you mind…Mind of Christ. You thought you lost your family…Church family. Job…Provides. Opportunity....Opens doors. Moment…redeem the time. Health…Heal your body. Chance…Anther chance.

Do it LORD!