When
we look around us at the state of the world, we can get pretty
discouraged. Even when we look at the
state of the Church, we can be discouraged.
Everything seems to be wasting away.
We wonder if revival is really possible.
We have come to the end of the Easter season. We have been reminded again and again that we
are an Easter people—a people of the resurrection. But still, Jesus is ascended and we don’t
always sense His presence. I wonder if
the disciples felt this way after seeing Jesus ascend into heaven. They were experiencing the resurrection
reality of the Christ. They were meeting
together and hoping for the fulfillment of Christ’s promise. They devoted themselves to prayer as Jesus
commanded, but there is still some remaining fear. Certainly, the Judeans of Ezekiel’s day felt
this way. The people of Israel had been
scattered and the people of Judea had been taken into captivity by the
Babylonians. They’ve been there already
for a number of years. Even though God
through Isaiah had told them they would be there a long time—70 years, that
they should get used to it, build homes, and have families, there was still
discouragement. Then God gives Ezekiel a
great vision. God transports him to the
valley of dry bones. It is the site of a
battle fought long ago. God asks
Ezekiel, “Can these bones live again?”.
We may wonder the same thing.
It is often too easy to look around
and see only death, but we have been celebrating Easter and resurrection for
the last 7 weeks. We know well that we
have new life in Christ Jesus. We have
already been given eternal life, but too often we fail to live into it. The world weighs us down. We fall into scarcity mentality. Our bodies continue to weaken. People we love continue to hurt us. Too often we’re more like the walking dead,
like zombies, instead of resurrected new creations of Christ. We need not just to live, but to thrive. Ezekiel was told, “Prophesy to the
breath—Thus says the Lord God, ‘Come from the four winds, O breath, and breath
upon these slain, that they may live.”
Ezekiel did so, and the breath came into the bodies, and they lived and
stood on their feet—a vast multitude.
God said, “And you shall know that I am the LORD when I open up your
graves and bring you up from your graves, O my people. I will put my Spirit within you and you shall
live.” Post resurrection, the disciples
were living, but not thriving, but they trusted Jesus enough to wait. As they prayed and obeyed God in worship,
they Spirit fell on them with power! And
the Spirit didn’t leave. Despite all the
adversity they would face, even martyrdom, they lived and thrived. God wants us to thrive, not just
survive. We aren’t meant to stop at the
point when the bones have come together, sinew to sinew, with flesh covering
them, standing upright and yet with no breath in them. We are meant to live. This is where the Spirit comes in. It is the breath of the Spirit that gives
life, that causes action!
This week I finished up the new
members classes with the Maples. We
looked at the church’s purposes of mission and fellowship and how they
connect. We saw how both go hand in hand
for the purposes of developing relationships that result in human
flourishing. God calls us to human
flourishing. The expansion of the Kingdom
of God is all about not just human flourishing but the flourishing of all
creation. If God calls us to work for
human flourishing, surely God equips us with everything we need to make that
happen. This is what Pentecost is
about—the pouring out of the Holy Spirit so that we can do the work to which
God calls us.
When we looked at the Nicene creed, we
affirmed that the Holy Spirt is the Giver of Life. In this Ezekiel passage, the Holy Spirit
gives life to these dry bones. It is the
Holy Spirit who gives life to us as well. In John 6:62-65, Jesus says this very
thing. On our own, we can do
nothing, especially when it comes to doing the will of God. It is the Spirit
who gives life. It is the Spirit who
gives us faith. And the Word of God is
Spirit-filled, so we can trust God’s Word for direction and for wisdom. As we continue to gather for prayer and
preaching and the celebration of the sacraments, God’s Word breathes new life
into us, so that like the mighty wind that moved over the waters at Creation, a
new reality emerges. Where there has
been confusion and fear, now there is boldness and understanding. Where there were only broken, dry fragments,
a living presence is brought forth as the people of God spread the Good news
that our God lives and abides with us in the Holy Spirit.
This past year, we have been praying
that we would sail with the Spirit. Last
summer we engaged of 40 Days of Prayer to help us tune in to where the Spirit
would lead us. We don’t need to row in
our own strength to make things happen.
Jesus said, “The flesh counts for nothing.” Instead, we need to sail with the
Spirit. We are starting to see our
prayers bear fruit. When the session
first started with Project Regeneration.
We were unanimous that what we would like to see is a partner to share
our building space. Now it looks like that is coming to fruition with 5 Fold
Ministries. We prayed for new members,
and God gave us the Maples. But that
doesn’t mean we need to stop praying!
God answers prayers so that we will be encouraged and enabled to do the
work to which God has called us. We are
still called to make disciples and to grow the Kingdom of Heaven in
Havelock. We are still called to work
for human flourishing where we are planted.
We are not just instruments of prayer, we can be answers to prayer!
Being Spirit directed is how each of
us should live our lives every day. When
we sail with the Spirit, we don’t need to question whether or not we are in the
center of God’s will. However, there are
times when the Spirit acts as a headwind instead of a tailwind. Sometimes we run headlong into the Spirit’s
force because we have fallen back into our own efforts of rowing where we think
we should go, but as I read in a devotional this week, sometimes, the Spirit
pushes us from the front even when we are trying to cooperate with the Spirit,
because we are strengthened when we are challenged. God doesn’t remove all our adversity; God is
with us in adversity. Just because
things get hard or challenging does NOT mean we are not cooperating with the
Holy Spirit. Jesus Himself was always in
perfect cooperation with the Holy Spirit.
He repeatedly said that He came not to do His own will but the will of
the Father. His life was full of
difficulty and adversity. To live by the
Holy Spirit is to know that God is in control.
Despite our senses, when we feel like failures, when we know that we are
being obedient to God, then God is pleased with us and the results are
His. When we are successful, God still
gets all praise and glory, for without God we can do nothing.
Friends, we are not only a
resurrection people, we are a Spirit-filled people. AS the Bible says, we have not been given a
spirit of fear, but a Spirit of power, and of love, and of a sound mind. God does not leave us hopeless, nor does God
leave us powerless. God gives us
everything we need to accomplish the purpose that God has set forth for
us. We just need to discover His purpose
and our part in it, and together we can.
The Spirit filled church steps out in faith. It is not afraid to take risks because it
knows the gates of hell cannot prevail against the Kingdom of God. The Spirit who works in the Church is greater
than that in the world. In the Kingdom
of God, there are no failures. The
Spirit-filled church is not afraid to stand in for Truth, because the Spirit is
truth. The Spirit filled church knows
that the gospel has the power to transform lives and that the gospel must be
shared with a hurting and dying world.
The Spirit filled church works for justice because it knows that God is
a God of justice and righteousness—a God who is for the poor, needy, and
downtrodden. I love the ways that we
have already seen God use us to promote flourishing. Let’s keep praying and watch what God is
going to do in and through us next. May we continue to listen to and live by the
Holy Spirit. May Trinity Presbyterian
Church continue to be a Spirit filled church and may each of us live
Spirit-filled lives. May God cause us to
thrive and flourish as we work for the flourishing of others around us.
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