Reason to Celebrate.

When Cassie told me the theme for this Sunday, it wasn’t exactly what I expected to hear. I figured I’d be told something more, I don’t know, churchy? Like grace or love or redemption. Celebrate wasn’t something I felt like I’d been taught in Sunday school, not something I’d been preached to about. It hasn’t even been a theme at Lakeview, & trust me, I’ve seen MANY themes at Lakeview. 

​So why celebrate? I spent a few days trying to wrap my head around it, googling celebratory verses found in the Bible, but I still couldn’t comprehend why we were focusing on celebration. Don’t get me wrong, 170 years of this church being in existence is beyond reason for celebration, but how am I supposed to preach about it? 

​I don’t know if y’all are aware, but celebration has changed quite a bit in the last 170 years. If everyone in this sanctuary was taken into Waller Hall to celebrate something, I’m not so sure we’d all enjoy the same kind of party. Speaking for most of the students behind me, we’d like some pretty loud music, flashing lights, & a LOT of food. Obviously that’s probably not the same for a significant number of you sitting in the pews so, again I ask, how am I supposed to preach about celebration when it’s so different for everyone here?

​The more prayerful I was about the theme, the more it all came together. Those “churchy” themes I mentioned earlier, grace & love & redemption, those are our reasons to celebrate. Noah seeing the rainbow after all the days of the flood is a reason to celebrate. Moses parting the Red Sea is a reason to celebrate. David defeating Goliath is a reason to celebrate. Jesus Christ conquering the cross & giving us a shot at eternal life is a reason to celebrate. 

​I want to look again at the verse from the New Testament, “Now all glory to God, who is able, through his mighty power at work within us, to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think.” (Eph. 3:20) That verse is pretty incredible in itself. Through His mighty power at work within US, those of us sitting here today & in every other church & all over the world, is God able to accomplish INFINITELY MORE than we could ever imagine. This is coming from Paul. Paul saw dead people rise. He saw lepers healed & the blind regain their sight, & he is telling us we can’t even begin to imagine what God is capable of accomplishing. That is a reason to celebrate. 

​In Ezekiel 37, this truth is made blatantly obvious. Before Jesus is anywhere close to being born, before the Gospel is ready to be spread around the world, God shows some of His immeasurable might in this chapter. Ezekiel is drawn by God into a valley filled with bones. Dry, lifeless bones that are who knows how old are scattered everywhere. The voice of God calls out to Ezekiel: “Son of man, can these bones become living people again?” 

​Ezekiel’s answer to God is pretty stunning to me, he replies:

​“Oh Sovereign Lord, You alone know the answer.”

​Just like that, Ezekiel gives all power & credit to God. He takes the attention off of himself & directs it back to the one who deserves it. 

​This is a common struggle. When we’re trying to love people or make good decisions or do things for others we find ourselves craving credit. We want everyone to know the great things we do instead of directing their attention back to the reason why we’re doing them. 

​I’ve been the pile of bones. We all have. A hopeless pile of dried up carcass that those who pass by look at & think “Oh how unfortunate” or “No getting through to them” or “If God could help him/or her He can help ANYBODY”.

​Here’s the thing. God CAN help anyone. That’s the point of the Gospel. God gave his only son so that WHOEVER believes in him can have eternal life. Not so some people, or the right people, but so ALL PEOPLE are given the opportunity to have eternal life. 

​The amazing thing to me is the way God spreads the life. He tells Ezekiel “Speak to these bones, tell them to hear My word, that I’ll put breath into them & make them live.” 

​God doesn’t just say “Step aside & watch this.” No. He says, “You say it. You preach my word. You spread the life.”

​God is telling us this every single day of our lives. Regardless of where you are or what you do you are being called just like everyone else. It doesn’t matter how old you are or what kind of education you have or how well you know your Bible you are called on a daily basis to spread the life everywhere you go. 

​Are you aware of the things that will happen when you do?

​Because Ezekiel spoke the message. Ezekiel did as God told him and bones rattled, came together as complete skeletons, then were covered in muscle & flesh & then skin. There still was no life or breath in them. So God tells Ezekiel once more to speak His word & tell them the winds will breathe into them so they might live again.

​I love the wording in the verse that follows; “So I spoke the message as he commanded me, & breath came into their bodies. They all came to life & stood up on their feet – a great army.”

​How amazing is that? A great army. Ezekiel spoke the word of God across a valley of dry bones & a great army rose up, ready to continue spreading life across the nations. 

​Being the bones is not fun. Feeling lifeless & having no hope is not a good place to be. We all have the power to do what Ezekiel did. There is enough Holy Spirit in all of us to greatly transform every person we speak to. 

​I feel like this is a huge reason to celebrate. 

​At Texas Youth Academy this past summer, I spent two weeks with the most amazing group of people I’ve ever met. I was finally surrounded by a group of peers, all Methodist, who were beyond excited to sit through two hour lectures from college professors over themes like baptism & incarnation & the principles of Methodism. We were waking up at 6 and going to sleep at 11 for two weeks, & I honestly cannot remember anyone complaining once. While it was nice to be so comfortable with people similar to ourselves, we were constantly reminded that we’d soon enough be released back into the real world. We were told to be like leaky sponges with our faith. When you dip a sponge into water & pull it back up, it’s so saturated with liquid that excess comes pouring out. That’s how it should be in everything we do, our faith should be plainly evident to everyone we’re around.

​God can take dry bones & turn them into living beings again. Imagine the incredible things he can do through you for other people. 

​When I was at Passion in Houston, I sat with 14,000 other students ages 18-25 & listened to Christine Caine lecture us on our laziness. My generation likes to hone in on the promise that God has everything under control, so we can just lay back & expect it all to be done for us. Then she said something that really caught our attention:

​“We are responsible for the complete evangelization of the planet before the second coming of Jesus Christ.”

​Now, while I have grasped at this idea for a while, I never heard it put that bluntly until that day. It seems like way too much to accomplish. We’re all looking around going “I’m eighteen years old. I haven’t graduated high school. I barely have a say in whether or not I can go to the bathroom most of the time, & you want me to do what?”

But I heard an incredible sermon at the Texas Youth Academy reunion over Christmas break. Thera Freeman is our TYA director, & she gave the message for the night. She spoke about how scientists say that the water on Earth is the same water that’s always been on Earth, that we currently use the same water as people throughout all of history used. If this is the case, there is a very good chance that all the water we use has, at one point or another, been blessed in some way. You could very well be bathing in some of the water Jesus was baptized in, for example. Also, we ourselves are made up of about 70% water. Assuming most of water on Earth is holy in some way or another, who are you to think yourself unable of accomplishing things God asks, such as spreading the Gospel to the entire world.

​We look to the valley of dry bones for something worth celebrating. What better reason to be overwhelmed with joy than the fact that God can turn even the most hopeless cases into something useful for his kingdom?

​What better reason to celebrate than knowing God has equipped all of us to do the very same thing? 

​You are just as capable as Ezekiel of bringing the dead to life. You have the power to completely transform someone from dry bones to living flesh. You can give someone the same words God has given you & bring them out of the valley & into the army. 

​If that’s not reason to celebrate, I don’t know what is.