Levi Lusko - Welcome the Wind

Well, we greet you in the name of Jesus at every single Fresh Life location, Church Online, podcast streaming audience. Welcome! We’re glad you’re here. Thanks for coming, and thanks for being with us. Whether you’re on YouTube or listening later on Apple Podcasts, it’s really an honor to have you in this moment with us. We’re so excited for a lot of reasons, especially as we get into God’s Word- that’s always exciting! But we are also thrilled because we had the chance on Friday to release a brand new Fresh Life Worship record, «Hope in a Future,» out now, and I am telling you, it’s some of the best songs we’ve ever released. It’s just amazing! I mean, I’ve been a part of the process, of course, all throughout, but having it on this week, I was like, «Oh my gosh, I forgot about that one!» That’s just ministering to my heart. So, you want to stream these; they’re on Spotify and all the places-Amazon, Apple Music.

So, could we honor our worship team? Just thank God for their hard work and creativity. We just speak grace and power over these songs as they go out in Jesus' name. May they touch people and encourage people. We’re opening Fresh Life Whitefish next weekend, and we’re so excited! I mean, I would say there has seldom been something so hard that we’ve ever done, but they’re all hard. Then you forget how hard they were afterwards-like a mom having a baby, right? If there wasn’t that grace of forgetfulness of the pain, I don’t think anybody would ever have a second child, and I don’t think any church would ever build a second building, that’s for sure. But we’re trusting God and excited, just knowing that it’s going to be a place where there will be life change and callings, where people will gather, and youth will assemble. Children will come to know Jesus and will be in heaven forever, so it’ll all be worth it. It just sucks in the midst of it.

You know, it’s funny. We had this amazing staff time this summer. We brought in a wonderful counselor, Deborah Feta, who you’ve heard speak here at the church many times. She’s incredible; she’s fantastic. She is an expert on mental health and has written many books about it. She came in for a whole day with our staff and spoke to our team on how to be emotionally and mentally strong leaders. Right? Because it’s not just love God with all your soul; it’s also mind and body.

So, we had this whole thing, and the most irritating thing was that she did not run it by me. She gave us that little questionnaire to fill out. I don’t remember the exact number, but she said it has an 87% success rate at predicting whether you’re going to have a major breakdown in the next three years or something like that. You just had to answer yes or no to questions like: have you moved recently? Have you gone through any severe financial duress? Have you lost a loved one? Have you had a child go off to college? All these things. I was like, «I am not filling this out. I refuse to fill this out. I absolutely do not want to know that I’m 87% guaranteed to have a mental breakdown in the next three years.»

The message today from God’s Word is the power of God’s Holy Spirit to change even the most hopeless circumstances. Come on, are you encouraged even just by my content today? The big idea, let’s see it on the screen: the power of God’s Holy Spirit to overwhelm and change even the most hopeless of circumstances. How many of you are grateful that God’s not scared of statistics? How many of you are encouraged by the fact that you can be, in the world’s eyes, absolutely barreling toward a meltdown, but by God’s grace, you can be hard-pressed but not crushed, struck down but not in despair, perplexed but not giving in to despairing of life? That in Jesus' name, the difficulty you face in this life can lead to ultimate joy and glory in God’s hands.

The cross is proof that we celebrate today-the cross that was the darkest day in human history, where the worst, most dastardly deed that has ever been done was perpetrated under the sun. It was so dark that the sun could not even shine upon it, and it grew dark in the sky. Yet, out of that, we glory in the cross, and we call that day Good Friday. In Jesus' name, the worst thing you face can actually be a day of triumph and a day of joy. The power of God’s Holy Spirit can change even the most difficult of circumstances. Yet, in those hopeless times, here’s what you need to know: we have a part to play in tapping into that power. You have a part to play in tapping into that power. It is not just going to happen on its own.

The scripture in front of us is a familiar text: Ezekiel 37. I’ve never preached this in our church; I’ve preached it to our team and to myself a billion times. Ezekiel 37 is a vision that you’ve known. You’ve sung it; you’ve heard it. But let’s, one more time, as though for the first time, read it, believing God will release fresh power into our lives today. The hand of the Lord came upon me and brought me out in the Spirit of the Lord and set me down in the midst of the valley, and it was full of bones. Then he caused me to pass by them all around, and behold, there were very many bones in the open valley. That’s like a second repetition of that, so he’s trying to get the idea across: this is like the full-blown elephant graveyard from The Lion King, and indeed they were very dry. So God said to me, «Son of man"-that’s God’s nickname for Ezekiel-"can these bones live?» So I answered, «Oh Lord God, you know.»

I think Ezekiel would do great in a presidential election because that was the most politically non-answer answer, right? He asked the question; I want to know what you think of the situation. Again, he said to me, «Prophesy to these bones and say to them, O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. Thus says the Lord God to these bones: Surely I will cause breath to enter into you, and you shall live. I will put sinews on you and bring flesh upon you, cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and you shall live. Then you shall know that I am the Lord.» Excuse me. So I prophesied as I was commanded, and as I prophesied, there was a noise. Someone say, «There was a noise.» And suddenly, a rattling-one translation puts that as bigger than a rattle; it’s more like an earthquake breaks out. But the ground rattling under you counts as rattling. He says the bones came together, bone to bone. Indeed, as I looked, the sinews and the flesh came upon them, and the skin covered them over, but there was no breath in them.

Also, he said to me, «Prophesy to the breath. Prophesy, son of man, and say to the breath, thus says the Lord God: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe on these slain that they may live.» So I prophesied as he commanded me, and breath came into them, and they lived and stood upon their feet, an exceedingly great army. And he said to me, «Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel. They indeed say, 'Our bones are dry; our hope is lost; it’s hopeless; these circumstances are doomed, and we ourselves are cut off.' Therefore, prophesy and say to them, thus says the Lord God: Behold, O my people, I will open your graves and cause you to come up from your graves and bring you into the land of Israel. Then you shall know that I am the Lord when I have opened your graves, O my people, and brought you up from your graves. I will put my spirit in you, and you shall live, and I will place you in your own land. Then you shall know that I, the Lord, have spoken it and performed it. Says the Lord, is there anybody thankful for God’s Word? There’s nothing like it!

The message that we are in this season is „Welcome the Wind.“ The year is 576 BC, and the nation of Israel is only ten years into their captivity. Now, some of the nation of Israel had been in captivity since the year 722, but 586 was when Judah fell, and Jerusalem was pillaged and plundered. All of these great gold vessels and most holy place articles had been dragged off to captivity for this Babylonian king to be raising up and toasting his gods in defiance of the God of creation. You have Ezekiel, and you have all of these people who have now, for ten years, been living far from the place where the temple was-far from Israel, far from where the nation of Israel had been established after Moses brought them out of Egypt and Joshua brought them into the promised land, and eventually, David assembled the articles and Solomon built this great temple-with God’s glory coming down from heaven.

The Jewish people, in fulfillment of all the prophecies and promises God had given to Abraham, now had a place in the promised land to grow, to multiply, and to be a blessing to people, all to the ends of the earth. But they had forgotten their way because they had forgotten their why. When we lose our why, we always lose our way. Instead of being a light to the people of the world, they began to try and be exactly like the people of the world. Money became more important, and sex became more important. They began to imitate those whom they were called to influence. This message has no bearing on us today; we don’t ever do any of those things. None of us conform ourselves to the pattern of this world and instead need to be transformed by the renewing of our minds. Oh wait, it’s a perpetual problem and a struggle. Why? Because our calling is to be in the world but not of the world, and that is always a difficult dance at the edge of a blade.

On one side of the blade, we pull ourselves away from the world to live in a monastery, only drinking milk from Christian cows and only wearing clothes produced on a Christian loom. It’s like you need to call the factory and make sure the loom is saved before you buy the shirt, you know what I’m saying? This is a real struggle, and the church pulls away, saying, „The world’s so bad, and so naughty, and has such cooties.“ This is the Pharisees pulling their jackets in tight so they don’t become defiled by the dirty, sinful people of the world. The problem with that, which comes from a good place, is that it essentially tells the world to go to hell. We can’t reach a world that we’ve forsaken, and the posture of „we’re better than you“ negates the fact that we are exactly the same as you. We were just saved first, and God intends to use us to save you.

But the other side of the knife’s blade that we’re meant to dance on is where we now are doing exactly what the world does. We’re believing what the world believes, and we’re valuing what the world values. We can try so hard to be like the world to reach the world that we end up having nothing to offer the world because we were always called to be a peculiar people. We are always called to be weird; we are always called to go against the grain — not marching to the same drumbeat that the world is. Jesus said there’s a broad road that leads to destruction and a narrow road that leads to eternal life. So, the trick then becomes to be on that narrow road but still be in the world and have something to offer the world, to rub shoulders and sit at the table like Jesus, who was the friend of sinners.

Well, that proved to be a dance too difficult for the Jewish people to dance on the knife’s edge, and they ended up giving themselves over to idolatry and running roughshod over the Sabbath, which was meant to be a day to honor God. For 490 years, they had neglected the Sabbath, and so they owed God a backlog of 70 years. God said to them, „Exile, you will go for 70 years.“ Here’s the thing: when God says something is His, either we give it or forfeit it. Either we give it or forfeit it. It’s true; Warren Wiersbe once said if we don’t give the tithe, the washing machine will break. God will eventually let us lose that money that we choose not to give Him. It’s His, and once it’s His, it’s not going to be ours regardless of what we choose to do. We can honor God, or we’ll end up losing what He has said is His.

So it was for the Jewish people who had not given God these Sabbath days and had not given God these seventh Sabbath years for the land to lie fallow. Off they went into exile. The land was always going to be theirs because it was a perpetual covenant, but their enjoyment of what was theirs was conditioned upon their honoring and following God. They were not doing that; they were honoring God with their lips but their hearts were far from Him. Now they were waking up hungover in a set of circumstances they were never meant to live in. As they looked around them, it was just dry bones. Can you relate? Have you made mistakes? Have you fallen off the path? Have you strayed from the straight and narrow? Have you, like me, known better but done worse and woken up to see with heart sickness what your life has become that it never needed to be?

Or perhaps it wasn’t exactly like what they’re facing, and your valley of dry bones has come from a medical situation that you never asked for, or the loss of a loved one that you thought was always going to be there, or just a depression you can’t explain-a melancholy that doesn’t make sense. It’s possible to just wake up one day and look around and go, „How did I get here in this elephant graveyard? All I’m seeing is dry bones; very dry.“ You have to understand how the Jewish people would have heard this. You see, to not be buried is literally a fate worse than death. To die is bad enough, but to not be buried is to be dishonored-not to be sown in awaiting the resurrection on the last day. It’s to not be buried like a seed expecting and believing for the coming forth. Not only are you defiled, but you’re also defiling because anybody who comes across you is going to be defiled just by touching you, because the Jewish people did not touch death.

So, this valley of dry bones would have been just absolutely the worst fate imaginable-to think that you were not given a proper burial. They were very dry, and I love that detail-it’s not even a little moist! Like, okay, gross, we get it. No marrow left! But you see what I’m saying; it’s not like they’re just dead, not like barely dead or mostly dead from The Princess Bride, which is a little bit alive, right? We just need Miracle Max, and we’ll be good. No, these things have been out there so long, everything had decomposed, leaving only the bones, and the bones had become completely dry. They had become bleached by the sun because your bones inside of you aren’t white like a skeleton costume from Halloween. They become that way when the sun beats down on them for years.

Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and so many others were called during this time to preach both before the captivity happened and after it happened. What was their message? Their message was always one of hope, even while they were, in the same sentence, telling the people this was coming. They were already predicting and prophesying hope. You see, God is the God of hope; it’s not just what He does; it’s who He is, beloved. We learned that last week: God is the God of hope. So, even in the most hopeless of circumstances, even when your life feels like a valley of very dry, bleached white, no life in them bones, there’s always hope. He can make a way where there is no way.

So, Ezekiel is given this vision, famous for a reason, of him standing there in the Spirit of God, instructing him to welcome the wind to come in and move in a situation that feels completely hopeless-where you have no control to change it, where you don’t know how to do anything about what you’re looking at that terrifies you. It all starts with a question: „Can these dry bones live?“ What God was seeking to ignite in Ezekiel’s heart was belief that God can move even there, even if your mother and father forsake you, even if you make your bed in the middle of hell-even there. I know for you, you have that dry bone in place. Maybe it’s not what you’re experiencing; maybe it’s what you’re terrified that, if it did happen, you wouldn’t be able to go on-what you couldn’t live without if this happened, if this took place, if this went down.

It’s those fears that lock us up at 2 a.m. where we start to spiral. We feel that fear closing in, and our chest gets a little bit tighter, and we just don’t know how we’re going to make it out if that were to happen. God wants you to know today: even if that happened, He would be there with you. His right hand would uphold you; He would still be your life and the lifter of your head. He would be a tower for you to run to and be safe.

What God begins to give to Ezekiel is using a tool called prophetic foreshortening — this vista, this view into the future of God’s hope, His glory, His plan unfurling. What did he see? Well, he could certainly see in this vision of the valley of dry bones coming to life what did take place not even 70 years from then when Cyrus, king of Persia, gave the order for the temple to be rebuilt. Go to the British Museum in London; it’s free and overwhelming. You can see Cyrus’s cylinder, where archaeologists have found the instruction order from Cyrus, the king of Persia, who ordered the temple to be rebuilt in Jerusalem. God said ahead of time that’s exactly what would happen and even named Cyrus as the king who would be on the throne of an empire that wasn’t even in charge yet, by the way, because it was a Babylonian king that took the Israelites into captivity.

But it would be a Persian king who would send them out, and that would be one movement of the fulfillment of this prophecy. It seemed impossible. When does a conquered, subjugated people who had been assimilated into another empire ever end up going back and restoring — putting a flag in the ground again? And yet, the Jews have done that not one time, not two times, not twelve times, but it continues to be a struggle for the descendants of Abraham to still live and still be the people of Jacob, the sons of Jacob, and to still be in the land that God promised to Abraham He would give them.

Yet, what has happened again and again and again? You try to kill them, you try to exterminate them. You have a Holocaust where Hitler tries to wipe them off the earth; you have Haman who tries to kill every single one of them. God will raise up an Esther. I’m telling you, God has His people’s back. So, of the future, we don’t just see 70 years and Cyrus saying, „Yes, build a temple.“ We go even a little bit further after that, and we see Artaxerxes Longimanus telling his cupbearer Nehemiah, for whatever reason, „Yes, you can go and restore the walls, and I’ll pay for it. Take my bodyguards with you! Right? Take Chuck Norris, and take Jack Bauer, and take all the Avengers with you.“ That’s a dated reference; I’m preaching good on this Sunday morning!

He said, „Take everybody you need to go, and be protected and safe. I’m going to give you a passport, and I’m going to let you go to the king’s forest and chop down logs and build the snake gate and build the dung gate; yeah, go ahead and build the entire walls around.“ Why? Because God said it would happen. Because God said the dry bones could live. Because when God wants to make a way, there’s nothing that can stop Him. There’s no one that can keep our God from doing what He wants to do. And that same power lives in you, beloved-do you hear me? That same power lives in you-the dry bones can live! Come on! When God says move, they move. When God says live, they live. When God says there’s going to be a sound, there’s going to be a sound. And we get to participate in that power or not; it’s up to us every single day, every moment, depending upon whether we avail ourselves to the power that surges.

I bought this cold plunge from Australia years ago. Right now, goodness gracious! Go to Amazon, go to Instagram-even me mentioning it today, you’re going to see like 17 ads for cold plunges in your feed just for me talking about it. Your phone’s listening, vaguely, right? But it wasn’t always that way. Cold plunging-I saw Laird Hamilton doing it, and I was like, „That’s so cool!“ I wanted to get one. I was buying ice for a while, and that wasn’t a great solution, and then I got a little ice maker in my garage, but that wasn’t enough to keep up with the demand. I just had a hunger for more cold plunging, and I found this company in Australia that makes little units for Olympic teams to travel with — cold plunges on the go with an inflatable tub. I mean, this was way before the pandemic! So, I was like, „Gosh, that’s great.“ I bought it, not knowing it was 220, not 110, because it’s Australian. So, I had to figure out electricity to power this thing, had to get an electrician to come put in a 220 plug — a whole deal.

Then I’d have to take it down every winter because it couldn’t survive in the cold; it makes things cold, but our entire life is cold all winter! So, it would freeze solid if it had water in the tubing. So, taking it apart, putting it back together, taking it apart-now they make them to have heat and cold, which I’m currently saving up for, and then I’ll just be able to have it all year long, sitting out there, like an anti -Alex all winter long. It would be not freezing, using the heat to do… anyhow.

One year, I was setting it up in the summertime to cold plunge, and I turned it all on-all the tubing sorted out. My family was like, „You’re crazy, Dad. It’s just mad science!“ I’m out there with a tube, you know, just trying to get the suction flowing through this machine so it can, you know, make me cold for three minutes at a time. I’m an idiot; it’s fine. I get everything set up, and it doesn’t turn on. I’m trying nothing-nothing! But then I remembered, oh my gosh, we had this electrical issue happen in our house where someone plugged a shop vac into an outlet that was only for lights-it was a low-voltage outlet for lights only, but someone plugged the shop vac in. They had to get on a ladder to do it because it was up in the ceiling, so it made no sense to me. But that’s all right; God has special children everywhere.

So I was like, „What on Earth?“ because flames shot out of the outlet when it happened. We had to bring in an electrician to check; he was like, „I’m pretty sure your house is good, but there could be a short somewhere. Shoot, we could just rip it all open.“ I was like, „Oh Lord, have mercy on us all.“ They did the best they could to check, and we had to replace some sections of electricity, cabling, and conduit. So, that was all done.

When this happened, I hadn’t had the cold plunge up and running since that, so I was like, „Maybe there’s a fault in here somewhere.“ I was literally ten minutes from calling an electrician to come and do all this. I was already like, „Oh, this is going to be so expensive!“ when I remembered that there’s a second circuit breaker and that they had installed a dedicated circuit breaker just for the 220 because it’s more power unless anyone accidentally, you know, did that. So, I was like, „Oh my gosh.“ I went, and sure enough, it was just switched to off.

Think about it: all the power in the world that I needed was coming straight to my house, and I’m ready to rip open walls when all I had to do was go like this: *click* and now all the power came surging, and the cold water came rushing out! God, through His Holy Spirit, has opened you up to a life of power that can overwhelm even the most hopeless of circumstances that you face in this world. But you have a part to play in tapping into that power.

I think sometimes we run around saying, „Oh my gosh, I need a new marriage! I need to move over here! What’s wrong? Where’s the peace?“ I need to find a new… like, you see what I’m saying? We run around crazy thinking we need to do this or do that or do the other thing, and God goes, „No! You’ve just got to open yourself up to the power that’s coming straight to your house, but you’re blocking it. So, what can open up the lines and welcome the wind?“

Five things to jot down: The first is dependence. God said, „Can these dry bones live?“ The actual correct answer should be for Ezekiel to say to God, „No, they can’t. It’s impossible.“ Now, he gave the diplomatic Church answer: „Oh God, you know.“ Right? „God, you know.“ But the true answer, the human answer-the accurate answer, if you’re standing in a valley filled with dry bones-is, „Can they live? No!“

O dry bone, have you ever just been driving down the road, and you look to the side, and there’s just a dry bone? Just driving, just driving down the road, got sunglasses on, just a dry bone driving down the road. You ever pull into Starbucks, order a latte, and there’s just a dry bone sitting at the table reading the newspaper? Just chirping the newspaper! You ever see just a dry bone scrolling Instagram? No! No, dry bones don’t live; they don’t, they can’t. It’s not in their nature unless an outside power comes upon them and reverses everything we know about the world and how it runs.

Dry bones can’t live, and that’s why God picked it. God could have picked any number of visions, any number of things, but He intentionally picked something for Ezekiel to see that could not happen-here we go-unless God moved in power. So, I’m not trying to answer for Ezekiel because it’s easier to see what someone else should say in their vision than your own. But the correct answer should have been, „God, no, they can’t unless you say they can, and then they will.“

You see what I’m saying? It was custom-built; his situation and yours. For Ezekiel to be completely dependent upon God. Remember that God never asks questions for His benefit, but always for ours. It’s not like God didn’t know where Adam and Eve were when He said, „Where are you?“ Right? You ever play hide and seek with your four-year-old? They’re standing in the middle of the living room with a blanket over them: „No, they can’t see me! I’m over here!“ And you’re like, „Where’s Billy? Where’s Billy?“ Just giggles!

When God asks the question, „Cain, where is Abel?“ it’s not for His benefit; it’s for ours. His questions are not for information but for transformation. God asks questions because He’s giving us a chance to depend completely upon Him. If you hear anything I say today, hear this: we need God’s power to do God’s work because He’s not the God of the hard; He’s the God of the impossible. He’s the God who does what no one else can do. So, He puts us in front of a valley of dry bones and asks if they can live.

This is why God has allowed you to face what you’re facing, and you are going to face what you’re going to face so you will trust in Him, so you will rely on Him and not yourself. With all due respect, here’s what I want to say to you today: it doesn’t matter what it looks like! I know your life right now, in some way or another, looks impossible. „I don’t think I can do this. I feel… I just don’t know.“ You’re tempted to walk away with your shoulders shrugged, but I want to say to you that the valley of dry bones, with them bleached and rotting in the sun, didn’t look like a belligerent army marching with banners, but that’s where it would end up.

The seed never looks like the harvest it contains. This ministry today looks very different than it did with just a few people gathered for a Bible study 17 years ago. But if there’s belief, and there’s a God who raises the dead, anything can happen; and that’s true for your valley of dry bones as well for what you’re up against today. So we need to trust Him.

Peter Jeffrey said, „No faith is needed to do the possible.“ Again and again, God asked people not to do what they can, but what they can’t. If you’re tempted to walk away from a calling because you say, „I can’t do this,“ that is in fact what qualifies you to participate in a holy move of God in and around you. Because Jesus said, „I am the vine; you are the branches. If you abide in Me, and I in him, you will bear much fruit.“ But look at it-without Me, you can do how many things? Nothing! The bones will just sit there! But dependent upon God, there can be fruitfulness even in a barren place.

The second ingredient to welcome the wind in your life and story is faith. The just shall live by faith! Apart from faith, no one will see God move. Faith is what switches the circuit breaker from off to on. A lot of times, we’re going to need faith because what God calls us to do doesn’t make a lot of sense in the moment. I want to prepare you for it. If you are only going to be prepared to do things when you fully understand what the outcome is going to be, and you fully see why it was a wise choice to do it, then you will not watch God work in your hopeless circumstances.

Occasionally, it’ll happen just because He’s good and because of common grace. But for you to really watch God work in your life-for that wind and the power of His Spirit to work through you like He intends for your story to play out, for history to be changed, and for eternity to be altered, and for you to walk around exhilarated, saying, „I have no idea how that happened, but man, that was fun! Can we do it again?"-to welcome the wind, you’ve got to welcome the weird.

And you know what? There aren' t many weirder things I can think of as a preacher than being called to give a sermon to a valley of dry bones. Now, I’ve preached in some pretty dull worship experiences in my life, but preaching in a valley is a different level. He’s literally called by the only One living to stand up, and He says, «You’re going to preach a sermon; you’re going to give a word; you’re going to open up Scripture, and you’re going to preach to the valley of dry bones.»

Those dry bones aren’t going to give him much feedback, either! What is he preaching to-ribs? A humerus without a sense of humor? That’s not fun; that’s not enjoyable preaching. That’s not a good atmosphere of faith. Well, he’s just going to stand up and say, «Well, turn in your Bible, I guess, to the book of Ezekiel! Here we go!» God is looking for obedience, not understanding. He doesn’t call you to understand Him; He calls you to worship Him. He calls you to obey Him.

He calls you to trust Him, and of course, He’s going to set things up in a way where you don’t see why it makes sense. Baptizing yourself in the river doesn’t cure leprosy! God’s marching around Jericho is not sound military strategy for bringing down a fortress. I just got to thinking this week about how five loaves and two fishes don’t actually line up with the Costco order I would pick for feeding and catering a large multitude. And no bathtub water does not usually produce the best wine anyone has ever tasted. But neither does the cross make sense for the salvation of the world! It’s an instrument meant to kill. How does it bring love and life?

Because our God is the God of the impossible, not the hard. He intentionally likes to stack the deck against Himself so that when He moves-not if He moves-when He moves, He will get all the glory, and the power, and the praise because it will be clear that it was not me and it was not you, but God. What is it? He chooses the foolish things of the world — that’s 1 Corinthians 1-to put to shame the wise. And God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things that are mighty. So know this: as you sense God stirring, as you sense God calling you, it doesn’t need to make sense to be from God.

In fact, Proverbs 3 says, «Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding.» So, when Ezekiel starts to go, «Man, I feel like God wants me to preach to this valley of dry bones,» but it doesn’t make any sense-that’s not cause to think God’s not in it, but perhaps that He is. Because it didn’t make sense in the natural, but God’s ways are not our ways. As the heavens are high above the earth, so God is high above us; He sees what we don’t see. So, if you feel stupid sometimes-you’re doing it right! If you feel stupid, like, «I don’t know, but this is what I feel like God wants me to do,» you’re perhaps doing it right!

The third ingredient is authority. If we want to welcome the wind in our lives, we need to stand in our God -given authority. He was told, «I want you to stand up, and I want you to preach My word to those bones.» That became his assignment; that became his calling. And once he had his calling, he was meant — by the way, Ezekiel was a priest, and as a priest, he was meant to stand in his place and represent God. A priest represents God in a moment.

As a conduit of God’s Holy Spirit, a conduit of God’s Holy power, he wasn’t meant to be like, «Well, I guess I’m just going to, you know, well you guys aren’t even listening anyway; you’re just a bunch of dry bones.» No! He was meant to stand there and drive it like he stole it! You see what I’m saying? Are you hearing me? He was meant to, with authority and conviction and boldness-not trusting in his own resources but trusting in the God who raises the dead-believe for fruit production as God’s word thundered through him. «Is My word not like a hammer? Is My word not like a fire? Will it not accomplish that which I send it out to do?»

So, he could actually stand in his God -given authority. And hear me, you’re meant to, too! Amen! For Scripture says, «In Christ we are a kingdom of priests to our God. We are a chosen generation. We are God’s holy nation. We are His own special people. We are a royal priesthood, brought out of darkness into His marvelous light.» What am I saying to you? I’m saying to you that if you don’t write this down, I’m judging you. I’m prejudging you!

God wants you to speak His word to your circumstances. God, hear me again-God wants you to speak His word to your circumstances. This, I believe, is what Jesus meant when in the Great Commission He said, «Assuredly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.» Why is this so important for us to understand? That the weapons, Paul said, of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds! You see, life and death are in the power of the tongue.

And as a priest in your home, as a representative of the Gospel in your school, as a part of the Great Commission in the lobby of your hotel room trip-if you’re watching in Birmingham, I’m telling you, you are a part of the priesthood of all believers! You have been appointed and anointed for the purpose for which you’ve been sent. And when you plant your feet in a room, in a moment, you are there authorized by the Holy Spirit of God to speak hope to the hopeless, to speak salvation to those who are dying, to speak comfort to those who are afraid-to bring God’s love and strength and power into dry bones, into hopeless situations, into difficult occasions.

You are meant to open up your mouth and speak God’s word to your circumstances, to the dry bones that you encounter, to the difficult places that you find yourself standing in. I want you to understand — you are not to let your dry bones go unattended. Don’t let your dry bones go unattended! Because who’s going to speak God’s word to your life if you won’t? No one else is coming! No one else has been called. If you see something, say something!

You are meant to open up your mouth and speak God’s word. I’m not talking about being weird; I’m talking about letting your speech be seasoned with salt. I’m saying whatever you do, whatever you say, wherever you are, do so in the name of Jesus. You are not on accident in your life; you are not on accident in what you’re going through. You are not by mistake in your trial, in your grief, in your melancholy, in your sadness, in your sorrow. You are there to stand with your feet planted and to use your God -given authority and say, «In the name of Jesus, I speak life and not death! I speak hope and not despair! I speak comfort; I speak power; I speak possibility. I speak potential. I’m saying, 'Dry bones, you can live! You can move! You can assemble! You can become something! You can do something! God can do the impossible, and He wants to use us! '»

And we have the authority as His representatives to go into the highways, the byways, the boardrooms, the skateparks, the classrooms, and into the hospital rooms to speak life and safety and salvation in the name of Jesus. Here’s the crazy part-how you speak changes the way you feel and the way that you think. As God’s word flows through you, you’re going to find-this is Isaiah 55:11–13-just take note of it and read it later, Isaiah 55:11–13. As that happens, what’s going to take place? The toxic is going to become fresh. The barren is going to become fruitful. The anxious is going to become peaceful. The thorny is going to become leafy, and the weak in your life is going to become strong as you begin to watch God work through words-just as He built the world through speaking.

You watch as God’s word passes through your lips into your situations, into your midnight fears, into your night terrors, into your sorrow, and you watch God’s word go out. You begin to see it transform, especially when, at the beginning of your sermon, you don’t feel it. God only knows who-who knows it’s in God’s hands now! We begin to speak it. Begin to speak in faith. Begin to speak God’s plan. Begin to speak God’s promise. It’s not an exhaustive list, but I just took a few minutes this week and put together some faith confessions that I would hope could begin to fill your mouth in moments of fear. When you are tempted to move to Amazon to buy something, when you’re tempted to go to social media and post something, when you’re tempted to text three friends-and yeah, there’s a place for all of that, but I’m saying don’t let your dry bones go unattended!

When was the last time they heard you speak a sermon? When was the last time you preached over your own soul, preached over your own home, preached over your own circumstance? When was the last time you put a fresh coat of the blood of Jesus Christ over your children’s bedrooms, over your roof, over your car, over your coming, over your going? Do you understand? You’re blessed coming in, and you’re blessed going out. And God wants hope to abound, joy to abound, and peace to abound even in a prison cell. Come on! I’m preaching to those at the Deer Lodge location today! I’m preaching — listen, at the Pando app today, I’m telling you that you can speak God’s word over your dry bones!

So, look at it on the screen and take a picture of it if you want. We’re going to put it up full for you to see some of the declarations you can begin to make. You can speak over your dry bones: «I have a future and a hope, and no weapon formed against me shall prosper.» I don’t want you just to think these things; I want you to speak them. I want you to preach them. I want you to declare God’s Word. I want you to declare that your name is written in heaven, that your Father has good plans for you, and that you are unstoppable in the will of God. Is anybody with me on that today?

«I am blessed coming in! I am blessed going out, and I am blessed to be a blessing. My life is not my own; I have been bought with a price.» Look at this: «If I’ve been crucified with Christ, and the life that I now live, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me. Then what can I say? The Spirit that raised Jesus actually lives in me! Therefore I’m the salt of the earth and the light of the world! So I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength, and nothing can separate me from the love of God because there’s a calling on my life, and I am chosen! I am loved! I am called!»

You see what I’m saying? I’m just getting an oil change! I just was — I’m just getting my oil changed, but I’m anointed into this Jiffy Lube. I am called into this moment. I’m going to encourage you. Get in front of me! I’m going to bless you! I’m going to smile at you! I’m going to notice you! I’m going to see you! I’m going to believe that maybe, just maybe, there can be a little interaction where a little bit of life can be transferred. Do you understand what I’m preaching today? Your dry bones can move! And I’m going to dwell in the house of the Lord forever! What do I have to be afraid of? I shall live and not die, and I will declare the works of God! Am I helping someone today?

But, it’s going to take endurance. The fourth ingredient-because I’ll have you notice it wasn’t like God said, «I want you to preach, bro,» and he got up and said «live!» and fully fashioned soldiers came running out like the American Express logo, ready- they were just like soldiers, ready. It wasn’t like growing orcs out of the ground, either! It wasn’t like he preached his whole heart out, and there was just the dry bone that just moved around a little! Literally, God-I preached my heart out to this church and sometimes I’ll like just see a little dry bone move! I' d settle for that. Nothing but it would be encouraging if a little more happened! You’re going to hear this sermon for 38 minutes-I worked a whole week on it!

You see what I’m saying? My expectation and the reality of Pinterest is sometimes different. It’s like it takes endurance! So first they just were bones moving, but that’s better than not moving, can you agree with me on that? And we serve a God who can celebrate the rattling of a baby and not just the triumphant marching of an army. Some of you in your life today, you’re not an army; you’re not! But you’re so far from where God wants you to be and where, by God’s grace, you will be. But praise God! There’s movement! Praise God there are signs of life! Praise God you’re trying to walk God! Praise God you’re here today! Praise God you opened up His word! Praise God that you want to serve Him! You’ve shared your faith, maybe a little, maybe it wasn’t that good. Maybe that prayer wasn’t even that good, but you tried!

Come on! There are signs of life, and God’s celebrating that today! God’s not just mourning where you’re not; He’s celebrating where you are! He’s championing your future! We serve a God of endurance; therefore we serve a God of process. The process is grace to grace and then grace to more grace and grace to more grace and further up and further in.

Eventually-and I know you today feel like a failure, but I felt the Holy Spirit stir in my heart to tell you, «You’re not a failure; you just aren’t finished yet! You didn’t fail; you’re just not finished! You’re just not finished!» Come on! Faithful is He to complete the work that He started in us! If you’re not a fully marching army today, that’s okay! At least you’re not lying there as a bleached bone! At least there’s a little bit of movement! At least there’s a few sinews on you! At least there’s a little bit of skin on you! There might not be breath in you yet; you might not be fully fashioned yet! You might not be deployed yet to be the weapon in the hands of God that you ultimately will become, but faithful is He to complete the work that He begun!

So, you’re not stuck where you started. There’s always more in store! Always more in store! So keep going! Keep walking! It’s a big gap from where you want to be; that’s okay-it’s one day at a time! How do you eat an elephant? It’s the oldest analogy of all time-one bite at a time! How do you see an elephant graveyard moved? One declaration of God’s truth at a time, one day, one moment of God’s Spirit movement at a time.

We’re going to end here; the fifth ingredient is obviously worship-sound. We said it in verse 7: the sound, the sound, the sound! «I prophesied as I was commanded, and there was a noise.» You see it? «There was a noise! There was a noise! There was a noise!"-there was a sound rising, and then the bones moved, and not before. God said, «Let there be light,» and then there was the sound of God moving towards the garden, and then they got to see God and walk with God.

When God moves in power, you will almost always hear it before you see it. In your heart and in your circumstances, there almost always needs to be a sound that rises before you’ll see the movement in your life that you’re going to see. God Torrey said, «In the pursuit of God, He waits to be wanted.» My Father has it! Jesus said He has all the power you would ever need-all the grace, all the strength-but He waits for you, as a child, to come to the Father and say, «Daddy, Abba, I need You.» How much more will the Holy Heavenly Father, who dwells in light unapproachable, give the Holy Spirit to you, but He waits!

Here we are to be wanted. It’s that flipping of the switch from off to on that opens our homes and opens up our lives to His power. So when we change the sound, we change the game. But it will almost always include praising when you don’t feel like it-letting these declarations rise when you’re in your heart, saying, «I don’t even know, but choosing to obey anyway.» I close with a heartbreaking moment, and it was this summer when we went to the journeys of Paul around the Mediterranean-Rome and Ephesus and all around, preaching and all the things-and we ended up in Santorini, which is a place that apparently everyone wants to see, blue and white and stand in line; let me save you some money and time: stand in line for an hour to take a photo on Instagram of how great your experience is!

Literally, we’re in a sea of bodies like this, waiting to get that exact photo that looks like you’re having such a great time in Oya-Oya, Santorini! The lowest moment of the trip for me was this amazing, epic spot. I’m sure it’s fine, and I’m sure it’s great, and if anyone from Oya is listening, bless you! But we actually had a great time chatting with our tour guide in Oya because he was a Jesus person. We got to encourage him and get to know him, talk with him, and it all happened because Carrie and Cody were with us. Someone noticed them who was there and asked for a photo with them. He’s like, «Well, why do they want a photo with your friends?» I’m like, «Oh, they’re well-known worship leaders.» He goes, «What worship?» I said, «Music.» He goes, «What kind of music?» I’m like, «It’s about Jesus.» He goes, «I’m a Jesus follower!»

Now, we had the best time ever and invited him to eat with us at lunch. He’s like, «No one ever invites me to eat; I just get you to rest.» What?! I was over there saying, «No, sit with us, bro; we’re family! Come on, man!» And we had the greatest time with this guy! But the thing that broke my heart was the windmills because there’s this wonderful breeze on the Aegean Sea that we did not have in Rome. The devil is a liar: Rome is hell in summer! Let me tell you something. There is no breeze; it was hot-it was 100 degrees-no breeze, stifling, standing on marble, baking, right? Just, «Oh look — amazing art!» Sweat dripping down my back, right?

Then we got to the nation of Greece; completely different! Because on the Aegean Sea, there’s this amazing wind that comes, and so there are windmills everywhere-Santorini, Mykonos. You see this hillside covered with windmills, but what broke my heart about them is that none of them were spinning-not one of them! And it was the windiest day ever. We were standing there, beautiful wind-like, «Oh- the Holy Ghost! Ahh! It’s amazing!"-but the windmills just stood still. You know why? Because all the sails had been taken off!

There were just spines sticking out where the sails used to be. You see, it was well known that all up and down the Aegean Sea, there would be grain mills attached to these windmills going back to 700 AD — 700 BC when the windmill was invented. I mean, literally, you’d have these windmills turning to mill the grain! But they all have been deactivated, and so now you just have these windmills-they’re just standing there!

Our tour guide said most of them are cafes, restaurants, and Airbnbs. Some of them cost $2,000 a night to sleep in a windmill! Everyone wants to come sleep. It’s the iconic thing, and everyone wants to take a photo in front of the windmill. Three times in this text, the Holy Spirit is referenced: once He is called a wind, once He is called breath, and once He is called spirit. But all three are the same Hebrew word: it’s «ruach»! Moving air is what that actually means! Moving air-breath is moving air; wind is moving air; spirit is moving air.

When we get to the New Testament, the Greek word for spirit is exactly as interchangeable-"pneuma,» wind, breath, air. On the holy day of Pentecost, God’s Spirit came upon all of us who are willing to ask for it and came like a mighty rushing **ruach**. What is a windmill that has been deactivated? A tacky, touristy, overpriced photo op. The windmills are now a symbol of what was. And that is what can happen with the Holy Spirit in His church when we come for Holy Ghost photo ops at Christian concerts-and the idea of the Spirit is a great, nice idea when we’re listening to Christian radio but not a day-by-day reality, where we are forcefully, by the power of the Holy Ghost, declaring His truth over our dry bones and seeing them come to life!

So what makes the difference? I believe level one makes the difference when you begin to speak God’s word to yourself! But where it really gets interesting and fun is where, like Ezekiel, you’re speaking truth over someone else’s dry bones. Ezekiel means «The God Who Strengthens.» Ezekiel hadn’t turned from God; it was the people of Israel who had. He was there as one of the few who hadn’t, and he preached for 20 years, and then the nation of Israel eventually got sick of it and put him to death. But he today is in glory with crowns to lay at Jesus' feet! Why? Because he didn’t just preach God’s word over himself; he preached God’s word over others.

So, yeah, use that list! And when you’re scared and afraid, preach it over yourself. But where you will really begin to see God strengthening is when you’re turning to other people in their distress and lifting them up! It’s always more blessed to give than to receive. So Father, would You help us? Would You give us strength and give us peace as we declare Your truth to ourselves and to others?