From Dry Bones to Living Faith: The Power of the Gospel

• Ezekiel's Vision of the Valley of Dry Bones [00:46:29 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor introduces the specific biblical text (Ezekiel 37) and the context of walking through previous chapters to build towards this vision.
• The Power of Death vs. The Power of God [00:46:46 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor outlines the two contrasting truths to be explored: the 'ugly power of death' and the 'astounding life-giving power of God'.
• Christological Fulfillment [00:46:55 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor states that the Old Testament vision ultimately points to Jesus and his resurrection.
• Ezekiel's Vision of Dry Bones [00:46:29 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor introduces the biblical text from Ezekiel 37, describing the vision of a valley full of dry bones as the central metaphor for death and hope.
• Community Death [00:53:17 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor explains how the bones represent the nation of Israel/Judah losing their identity and culture through Babylonian exile and assimilation.
• Physical Death [00:54:58 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor discusses the finality and horror of physical death, referencing historical massacres, modern cremation trends, and the inevitability of death for all people.
• Spiritual Death [01:01:00 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor begins to define spiritual death as a separation from God caused by sin, citing Ezekiel 18 and Isaiah 59.
• Physical and Spiritual Death [01:00:27 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor contrasts the undignified nature of physical decay with the separation from God caused by sin, defining spiritual death as the ultimate fate.
• The Valley of Dry Bones ([Ezekiel 37](https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Ezekiel+37&version=KJV)) [01:05:36 ▶️ 📄]
  > An analysis of the biblical vision where dry bones rattle, come together, and are filled with breath, symbolizing God's power to restore life.
• Resurrection and Redemption in Christ [01:11:15 ▶️ 📄]
  > Connecting the dry bones vision to Jesus' crucifixion and resurrection, explaining that believers are made alive in Christ and will experience physical resurrection.
• The Role of Preaching [01:15:18 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor notes that God chose to use Ezekiel's prophetic words to raise the bones, illustrating that God uses human speech to bring spiritual life.
• Resurrection and Eternal Life [01:14:08 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor contrasts the 'undignified end' of death with the glory of resurrection for believers, describing a communal people of God standing before the throne in joy and freedom.
• Evangelism and the Power of Preaching [01:15:18 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor explains that God chose to use Ezekiel's prophetic word rather than acting alone, illustrating that God uses human messengers to bring spiritual life to those who are spiritually dead.
• Pastoral Encouragement and Faithfulness [01:17:12 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor encourages all believers, regardless of role (pastors, missionaries, parents), to speak God's message, reminding them that God can move people from death to life when we are faithful.
• Trust in God's Care [01:18:00 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor argues that because God can raise the dead, believers should not doubt His care regarding their pain, fear, failure, or sin patterns, as nothing is too difficult for Him.
• The Lord's Supper [01:19:25 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor explains the theology of communion, emphasizing that it is Jesus' table, not the church's, and warns against partaking in an unworthy manner while inviting unbelievers to trust in Jesus.

• Sermon Illustration [00:51:45 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor references the movie 'The Princess Bride' to distinguish between 'mostly dead' and 'all dead,' applying it to the dry bones.
• Sermon Illustration [00:51:57 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor uses a hypothetical comparison of a modern mass shooting (14 people) versus a historical event in 1760 to illustrate the concept of 'degrees of dead' and how distance affects perception.
• Sermon Illustration [00:54:00 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor shares a personal family history of immigration from Sicily to illustrate how cultures assimilate and lose their distinct identity over generations.
• Sermon Illustration [00:55:45 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor uses the image of filling Panther Stadium and 13 more stadiums to visualize the estimated one million deaths during the Babylonian siege of Jerusalem.
• Sermon Illustration [01:00:27 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor shares a personal anecdote about his mother wasting away in palliative care to illustrate the undignified and ugly nature of physical death.
• Sermon Illustration [00:59:30 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor references an episode of the TV show 'House' where the character House states that there is no such thing as dying with dignity, only living with it.
• Sermon Illustration [00:59:54 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor references a scene from the TV show House M.D. where Dr. House states there is no dignity in death, using it to validate his personal observation of his mother's undignified death in palliative care.
• Sermon Illustration [01:00:35 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor challenges the congregation to walk through a graveyard and ponder how many names on the tombstones have no one left to remember them, illustrating 'community death' and the fading of memory.
• Sermon Illustration [01:06:32 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor uses the analogy of an anatomy book with transparent layers to explain the biblical process of the dry bones coming together: bones, sinews, muscles, blood vessels, and skin, but lacking breath.
• Sermon Illustration [01:07:46 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor uses a sports analogy, comparing the reversal of the dry bones' resurrection to a Super Bowl team losing and then winning just two weeks later, highlighting the absurdity and marvel of the event.
• Sermon Illustration [01:13:50 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor uses the analogy of a bullet leaving a gun to describe the believer's transition: starting in glory, ending in an undignified death, and immediately entering a glorified state.
• Sermon Illustration [01:14:56 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor uses the biblical story of Ezekiel and the dry bones as a preview of God's redemptive work, noting the 'strange' fact that God commanded Ezekiel to prophesy to dead bones despite having no power to raise them, illustrating God's choice to use human instruments.
• Sermon Illustration [01:16:29 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor uses a self-deprecating personal anecdote about his appearance ('average height and a bow tie') to emphasize that he has no special powers, highlighting that the power lies in the message of Christ, not the messenger.
• Sermon Illustration [01:20:43 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor describes the practical logistics of the Lord's Supper at his church, including serving bread and juice/wine family-style, maintaining silence for reflection, and the specific arrangement of cups to distinguish between wine and juice.

• Pastoral Charge [00:47:03 ▶️ 📄]
  > Turn to Ezekiel 37:1-14 and read the passage.
• Pastoral Charge [01:00:35 ▶️ 📄]
  > Visit a graveyard to reflect on mortality and forgotten lives.
• Pastoral Charge [01:17:05 ▶️ 📄]
  > Repent and trust in Jesus for salvation
• Pastoral Charge [01:18:44 ▶️ 📄]
  > Accept Jesus as the central treasure of one's life
• Pastoral Charge [01:20:30 ▶️ 📄]
  > Non-believers are invited to return next week to partake in communion after trusting in Jesus

[00:10:27] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_01]
[00:10:27] Good morning, Harbor Church. Good morning, Harbor Church. Oh, there we go. Happy Easter to you.

[00:10:39] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_02]
[00:10:39] A couple of announcements as we get started this morning, but first, our mission and vision.
[00:10:46] Here at Harbor, we are a family of God, bound together to glorify and enjoy Him forever.
[00:10:54] We do this by sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ, strengthening each other in Him, and showing him to our community and to the world. Now our announcements, I'll try to keep brief for you this morning. We're going to start with a couple of no's. All right, so today's Easter
[00:11:14] Sunday. There is no Sunday school today, so no Sunday school. Also, there is no women's Bible study this Wednesday, and there is no Wednesday adult and youth Bible study as well. So no Wednesday women's Bible study, no evening Bible studies, no Sunday school. Also, I want to note
[00:11:40] for you the Ladies' Fellowship Crochet Night at the home of Sarah Mueller. So ladies, mark that down on your calendars there. And let's see, can you come if you don't know how to crochet? Okay,
[00:11:54] great. So you don't even have to know how to crochet to come. So no excuses. No, I'm teasing.
[00:12:01] I'm teasing. But also I want you to note another one for the ladies is the sip and see for Katie Saunders and Baby Isaac. And if you haven't met Katie yet, she's over there. Wave to us there,
[00:12:15] Katie? All right. So if you enjoy babies and you enjoy sipping and seeing babies, then there you go. Don't sip the baby. That's weird. All right. So you've got other announcements there, but I'll let you take a look at the announcements, and the Lord will call us to worship.

[00:12:40] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_00]
[00:12:40] Morning, everyone. Just a quick announcement as well. I know there's probably gonna be a lot more people here, so there's chairs up front. I know that's a scary prospect, but it's traditional that many Christians throughout the centuries, probably, perhaps, depending on
[00:12:58] who you're reading, as far back as the 300s, that when on Easter Sunday, Christians would say, He is risen, and the people would respond with, How about that? Yeah. The Lord God calls us to
[00:13:13] worship from his word this morning. Would you please stand as we recite God's word together, preparing our hearts to worship and adore him? I'll begin, and if you would respond in the bold and underlined. When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality,
[00:13:32] then shall come to pass the saying that is written, death is swallowed up in victory.
[00:13:38] O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?
[00:13:43] The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law.
[00:13:48] But thanks be to God, who gives us victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
[00:13:54] Let's pray together.
[00:13:56] Lord God, we are about to pray in the Lord's Prayer, Your Kingdom Come.
[00:14:02] Lord, when we pray that prayer, we pray that the kingdom of sin and Satan might be destroyed.
[00:14:09] Lord, that the gospel may go out and be propagated throughout the world, that everyone whom you pursue shall come into your kingdom.
[00:14:21] Lord, that the church would be furnished with all the gospel officers and ordinances, prayer and preaching and sacraments.
[00:14:31] Lord, we pray that your church would be purged from all its corruption and hypocrisy and error and heresy.
[00:14:39] Lord, that your people would be confirmed and comforted and built up in Christ.
[00:14:44] That you, Jesus, would rule in our hearts.
[00:14:48] Lord, that we would listen to you, love you, obey you, sacrifice to you.
[00:14:55] And Lord, that we would look for a future fullness to come.
[00:14:59] When your kingdom comes at our resurrection and that we reign with you forever and ever.
[00:15:07] And Lord, would you work all things for this one reality.
[00:15:12] Lord, we thank you for Easter morning, reminding us that you have fully defeated all your and our enemies.
[00:15:21] That no one can separate us from your hand, nor will you ever fail to bring your children home.
[00:15:28] So Lord God, please help us to worship you and adore you this morning.
[00:15:32] Our risen Lord Jesus.
[00:15:34] And so, Lord God, to that end, we now pray the Lord's Prayer as we now say out loud, all together.
[00:15:42] Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.
[00:15:46] Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.
[00:15:51] Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.
[00:15:57] And lead us not into temptation that deliver us from evil.
[00:16:01] For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever.
[00:16:06] Amen.
[00:16:07] As you stand, let's sing together.

[00:16:09] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_04]
[00:16:09] Search and lift your voices.
[00:16:25] Christ, all the voices.
[00:16:33] Resurrect and worship Christ.
[00:16:50] The tomb we're dead.
[00:17:29] Assemble for Jesus.
[00:18:18] Now we sing your victory.
[00:18:24] He seeks us.
[00:18:30] Stand, stand.

[00:18:33] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_00]
[00:18:33] Sin is not a victimless crime. It injures God's holiness. It injures God's glory.
[00:19:01] Every time that we neglect the Lord, it does injury to those things.
[00:19:06] And so if we're going to worship the Lord, we're going to be excited about Christ rising from the dead, we have to acknowledge why he came in the first place.
[00:19:14] Why did he have to die in order to be risen?
[00:19:17] And that's our sin and our neglect of the Lord God.
[00:19:21] And so, we're going to take a moment to confess our sins out loud, and then we're going to give you space to confess your sins privately and silently to him.
[00:19:29] So, brothers and sisters, let's confess our sins out loud together.
[00:19:35] Oh, injured, neglected, provoked benefactor, when I think but for a moment of all your greatness and goodness, I am astonished at the indifference in my heart.
[00:19:47] I blush and cannot lift up my face before you.
[00:19:51] I have played the fool and made a significant blunder.
[00:19:55] Yet this foolish heart of mine would make its having neglected you so long a reason to keep neglecting you.
[00:20:03] Every one of your rational creatures should be all duty and love for you.
[00:20:09] Each heart should be full of a sense of your presence.
[00:20:12] A desire to please you should swallow up every other desire.
[00:20:17] Yet you have not been in all my thoughts.
[00:20:20] And faith, the end and glory of my nature, have been so strangely overlooked.
[00:20:27] Pluck me as a brand out of the burning.
[00:20:30] Break this fatal enchantment.
[00:20:32] Let me finally come to the place where I am not tempted to wish you never made me or that you could forever forget me.
[00:20:41] Take a moment.
[00:20:43] The Lord calls us to confess our sins.
[00:20:45] Would you silently in your hearts confess your sins to him, knowing he is faithful to forgive you?
[00:21:06] Lord God, I'd like to think that the greatest thing that I could do against you would be murder or adultery.
[00:21:16] Certainly those things are heinous in your sight.
[00:21:19] Lord, equally heinous, equally evil, Lord, is my callous neglect of you, of just carrying on as if this life is the life that matters.
[00:21:31] and the next one is far off.
[00:21:34] Lord, of treating you as some attachment to my life rather than the one who gives my life shape and purpose and meaning.
[00:21:42] Lord, I am sorry.
[00:21:44] I am sorry for the ways in which I treat worship as a checklist.
[00:21:49] Ways in which I treat prayer as just something to get through and more of the ways in which I treat reading the word as a lecture, Lord, rather than a heartfelt message from my Lord and Savior.
[00:22:06] Lord, please forgive us of our sins and the ways in which we've neglectful of your grace and goodness.
[00:22:13] And Lord, give us new hearts.
[00:22:15] We ask these things in Christ's name.
[00:22:20] If you know Jesus, you have a promise.
[00:22:23] And it's a promise for everyone who confesses their sins, knowing that Christ's faithful forgive them.
[00:22:30] This is the promise from Romans 6, 23.
[00:22:32] For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
[00:22:41] This is the promise of eternal life for all those who know Christ.
[00:22:45] Your sins no longer define you.
[00:22:48] Christ now defines you.
[00:22:50] Because this is true, let's stand and sing of him who is worthy.

[00:23:32] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_04]
[00:23:32] is a new is the glory of the lord to be the light within is a good that we remind ourselves is anyone aware he's anyone in this world the spirit of the messiah of those in the dwell again
[00:25:32] is anyone aware he's anyone as we come to confess our faith together

[00:27:21] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_02]
[00:27:21] We're confessing this morning from Westminster Shorter Catechism, question number 37, a question dealing with the benefits of death.
[00:27:33] We don't often think about death in this kind of category, but all of us, if the Lord does not return soon, have to face this one reality, but we do not face it as those without hope.
[00:27:48] So I ask you this morning, dear Christian, what benefits do believers receive from Christ at death? The souls of believers are at their death made perfect in holiness and do immediately pass into glory and their bodies being still united to Christ do rest in their graves till the
[00:28:13] resurrection. And with our memory verse, we continue in 1 Corinthians 15 verses 3 and 4.
[00:28:20] Let's say it out loud together. For I deliver to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, that he was buried, that he was
[00:28:35] raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures. Continue to stand and let's sing.

[00:28:41] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_04]
[00:28:41] He is risen, He is risen, and the stone is rolled away.
[00:29:00] He is risen, He is risen, proven by the empty grave.
[00:29:10] Touch His wounds, His hands, His side, and leave all your doubts behind.
[00:29:18] He is risen, He is risen, He is risen, and alive.
[00:29:31] Death is beaten, sin is vanquished, God's just wrath is satisfied.
[00:29:40] Christ is risen, Christ exalted, seated at the Father's time.
[00:29:48] His body taught a living way He is risen, He is risen He is risen from the dead He is risen, He is risen This is all, He is risen Jesus risen, He is returning For the day of the Lord
[00:30:48] We'll see His face Jesus risen, Jesus risen, Jesus risen from the dead.
[00:31:12] This is all that stands.
[00:31:19] He is risen, and we are changed.
[00:31:33] And death itself will pass.
[00:31:37] We are risen, we are risen from the grave.
[00:31:47] Risen, with him risen, we are risen from the grave.

[00:31:59] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_00]
[00:31:59] You see, I'm going to read from John chapter 20, verses 11 through 18.
[00:32:07] Jesus is in the tomb. It's been a long time.
[00:32:12] There's no hope that he's getting out of this.
[00:32:16] Mary and other ladies are just going to go visit to refresh, refresh the body.
[00:32:23] Here's God's word.
[00:32:24] But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb.
[00:32:28] And as she wept, she stooped to look into the tomb.
[00:32:32] And she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had lain, one at the head and one at the feet.
[00:32:41] They said to her, Woman, why are you weeping?
[00:32:43] She said to them, They have taken away my Lord, and I don't know where they have laid him.
[00:32:48] Having said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing.
[00:32:52] But she did not know that it was Jesus.
[00:32:54] Jesus said to her, Woman, why are you weeping?
[00:32:58] Whom are you seeking?
[00:32:59] Supposing him to be the gardener, she said, Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.
[00:33:09] Jesus said to her, Mary.
[00:33:12] And she turned and said to him in Aramaic, Rabboni, which means teacher.
[00:33:18] And Jesus said to her, Do not cling to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father, but go to my brothers and say to them, I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.
[00:33:30] Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, I have seen the Lord, and that he had said these things to her.
[00:33:40] The Lord is risen, and he is interceding on our behalf.
[00:33:45] Because this is true, we can go to God in prayer.
[00:33:48] So I'd ask that our associate pastor, Titus Frye, would come up and lead us in prayer.

[00:33:52] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_02]
[00:33:52] Let's pray.
[00:34:05] Oh, Father, as we come before you, we are thankful that we pray to you, the God of all power.
[00:34:16] We are thankful, oh Lord, that we serve a risen Savior, that we serve a Savior whom death could not hold, that sin could not defeat.
[00:34:32] And no matter what schemes Satan brought against him, he proved victorious when he rose from the grave.
[00:34:39] Lord, we are thankful, oh God, that you do not stand far off, but you call us to draw near to you.
[00:34:49] And so, Lord, we bring our request before you this morning.
[00:34:54] Lord, I ask that you would please be with all those who are recovering from sicknesses and injuries and surgeries.
[00:35:05] Lord, we ask that you would please be with Pam as she recovers.
[00:35:10] Be with Tim, Lord.
[00:35:12] Help him, oh God, to be still and to know that you are God.
[00:35:17] Lord, we pray for Marty's niece's mother-in-law.
[00:35:22] She is healing from a car accident.
[00:35:25] Lord, we ask that you would work in her.
[00:35:28] God, we thank you for the wonderful report of Kent's scans.
[00:35:34] We ask that you would bless him, that you would minimize the side effects from the chemo.
[00:35:42] Lord, we ask for all those who have been affected by cancer, which we hate.
[00:35:52] Lord, we pray for Lindsay's sister-in-law.
[00:35:55] We pray for Crystal's father.
[00:35:58] Lord, we ask that cancer would not be the defining thing in their life, but Christ would be.
[00:36:07] Lord, we lift up Bennett to you.
[00:36:10] As we do each week, oh God, we ask that you would minimize his suffering from seizures.
[00:36:17] We ask that you'd be with Ryan and Emily and give them strength.
[00:36:21] We lift up to you Janice's Uncle Mike and his cancer battle.
[00:36:27] Lord, we are reminded that our bodies are frail and that dark death looms around the corner.
[00:36:36] But thank you, O God, that Easter reminds us that death is not the end of the story.
[00:36:42] There are great benefits that await those who are in Christ.
[00:36:47] And so, God, we lift up to you this morning our missionary, Cynthia Rubel, serving mothers in Nagoya, Japan, Lord, I pray that as she ages, that you would supply her and strengthen up her replacement
[00:37:06] as she serves those who are in deep need.
[00:37:10] Lord, I pray that you would bring to her more mothers to stay, and that the mothers who come and give birth to their babies, that they would find hope in Christ.
[00:37:24] Lord, we lift up to you the broken families that are in our community.
[00:37:30] Father, we recognize the deep hurt that many carry because of family.
[00:37:38] And so, Father, we pray that they would find great healing in Christ, that the wounds that even those who should have loved us the best, that those wounds would be healed at the foot of the cross.
[00:37:52] Now we pray for our sister church here in Mooresville, Shearer Presbyterian.
[00:37:59] We ask that as they come before you to worship this morning, they would sense your closeness, they would hear your word, they would see the glory of Christ.
[00:38:09] I pray that you would strengthen Pastor Steve, his family, his time with you.
[00:38:18] I pray for Corey Wing, who's serving there also, that you would help him, especially as he finishes his studies.
[00:38:26] God, we pray for our own leadership here at Harbor Church.
[00:38:30] Lord, I am so thankful for the elders and the deacons here, for their heart for you, for their commitment to you, for their humility and their desire to serve. Lord, may they be examples to all of us here. Would you give us great wisdom, oh Lord, in how to shepherd your
[00:38:50] church. Lord, we remember our outreach this morning. We pray that you would give us a desire and excitement to reach out to the lost. Lord, I pray even for the outreach ministry that we have
[00:39:07] here, Lord, that it wouldn't be a ministry that gets our leftovers, that it would be a ministry that excites us and drives us forward. We pray, O Lord, that as we reach out, we would see fruit, we would see the lost be saved. And so, Lord, with that in mind,
[00:39:31] we remember someone now in the quiet of this moment and lift them up, someone who doesn't know Jesus. Oh Lord, for all those who were lifted up here, we pray that the power of your spirit
[00:39:58] would work in them to draw them to you, to convict them of their sins, to convict them of the righteousness of Christ, that they would run to him, cling to him by faith. Lord, you know that
[00:40:15] these bones can live. And so we ask, Lord, that you would raise up the dead to find Christ. But we ask for our church planting efforts, that you would give us great wisdom, great sensitivity, great humility.
[00:40:33] Give us a hunger to see more people come to Christ.
[00:40:38] Give us hearts of sacrifice and service.
[00:40:42] Lord, if you don't do these things, if you don't walk with us, then it will all come unglued.
[00:40:47] Unless you build the house, the labor is labor and vain.
[00:40:51] And so, oh God, we ask that you would build the house.
[00:40:56] Lord, would you meet with us as we come to hear your word proclaimed.
[00:41:01] Would you soften our hearts where we come to you even this morning dull from the week behind us.
[00:41:14] Our spiritual ears have been dampened by all the noise around us.
[00:41:19] Oh Lord, would you help us to hear your word?
[00:41:23] Would you help us to see Christ clearly?
[00:41:27] Lord, would you quicken us to new life because of the word that will be preached this morning.
[00:41:33] We ask that you would meet us here in power because you are alive and you are risen.
[00:41:41] We ask that you would do these things for the honor and for the glory of Jesus.
[00:41:46] In his name we pray, amen.
[00:41:51] As the deacons prepare for the taking up of tithes and offerings, we want you to know that if you're a visitor here with us this morning, we do this as an act of worship to the Lord, not because we have some kind of guilt that we have
[00:42:07] to pay off to him to make him love us or to forgive us, but because he is the God who has given to us greatly and he calls us to give back to him. And so if you're a visitor, we want you
[00:42:20] to know we don't expect anything from you. You can let the plate pass you by and no one's going to look at you funny or judge you for it. But as members of Harbor Church, we agreed to support
[00:42:30] the church in her work and in her worship. And part of the way that we do that is by giving together. And so as we do give, I ask that you give of your voice, give of your prayers, give
[00:42:43] of your attention this morning, and if you so choose, give of your tithes and your offerings.
[00:42:48] And if you do, give with cheerfulness, give with joy.

[00:43:22] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_04]
[00:43:22] Oh God, we ask that you would take the tithes and the offerings that have been given this morning

[00:45:09] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_02]
[00:45:09] and you would use them to build up your kingdom, that you would use them for the glory of our risen Savior, that through what has been given this morning, many will come to know, trust,
[00:45:27] and love Jesus.
[00:45:31] This can only happen if you do it.
[00:45:33] So we ask that you, oh God, would work.
[00:45:37] We ask these things in his name.
[00:45:39] Amen.
[00:45:40] Would you stand with me as we praise God together by singing the doxology?

[00:45:44] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_03]
[00:45:44] Praise God from whom all blessings flow.
[00:45:54] Praise him all creatures here below.
[00:46:00] Well, today is the final chapter in our series.

[00:46:29] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_00]
[00:46:29] We've walked through a couple chapters in Ezekiel, and we've been building towards this particular vision today that God gave to Ezekiel.
[00:46:41] And so what we're going to see is two very important truths that lead to one ultimate truth.
[00:46:46] The first truth is that we're going to see the ugly power of death in all of its forms. And then we're going to see the astounding life-giving power of God and ultimately how this all points to Jesus and his resurrection. So I encourage you to turn your
[00:47:03] Bibles, there's a few Bibles there as well, to Ezekiel chapter 37. Read verses 1 through 14.
[00:47:14] This is God's holy word. The hand of the Lord was upon me and he brought me out in the spirit of the Lord and set me down in the middle of a valley. It was full of bones. And he led me around
[00:47:29] and among them. And behold, there were very many on the surface of the valley. And behold, they were very dry. And he said to me, son of man, can these bones live? I answered, oh Lord God, you know.
[00:47:45] And he said to me, prophesy over these bones and say to them, oh dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. Thus says the Lord God to these bones, behold, I will cause breath to enter you and you
[00:47:58] shall live. And I will lay sinews upon you and will cause flesh to come upon you and cover you with skin and put breath in you and you shall live and you shall know that I am the Lord.
[00:48:11] So I prophesied as I was commanded. And as I prophesied, there was a sound and behold, a rattling, the bones came together, bone to its bone. And I looked, and behold, there were sinews on them, and flesh had come upon them, and skin had covered them, but there was no breath in them.
[00:48:29] And 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
[00:48:41] live. So I prophesied as he commanded me. And the breath came into them, and they lived and stood on their feet, an exceedingly great army. Then he said to me, Son of man, these bones are the whole
[00:48:55] house of Israel. Behold, they say, our bones are dried up and our hope is lost. We are indeed cut off. Therefore prophesy and say to them, thus says the Lord God, behold, I will open your graves and
[00:49:10] raise you from your graves, O my people, and I will bring you into the land of Israel, and you shall know that I am the Lord. When I open your graves and raise you up from your graves, O my
[00:49:23] people, and I will put my spirit within you, and you shall live, and I will place you in your own land, then you shall know that I am the Lord. I have spoken, I will do it, declares the Lord.
[00:49:37] Let's pray.
[00:49:39] Lord God, help us to always be grateful and thankful for your word.
[00:49:44] We could not know one thing about you unless you revealed it.
[00:49:50] So Lord God, every word that you speak, we ought to cling to.
[00:49:55] Lord, I pray that you would open up dead hearts.
[00:49:59] Help us, Lord God, to love, cherish, believe, trust, and obey your word this morning.
[00:50:06] Lord, for your glory and for our good, in Christ's name we pray. Amen.
[00:50:12] I want to start with the vision of the bones.
[00:50:14] Look at that and the meaning of it, and then how God raised those bones, and then lastly, the deeper meaning behind this raising.
[00:50:23] So the vision of the bones, Tyler preached last couple weeks on chapters 35 and 36 of Ezekiel.
[00:50:30] And Ezekiel's prophecy in those chapters dealt with two high mountains.
[00:50:34] But now, Ezekiel, in the spirit, he sees a vision of a low valley.
[00:50:41] Two mountains, now we're in the valley.
[00:50:43] Why a valley?
[00:50:45] Maybe you wouldn't catch it, but Judah would.
[00:50:48] The Jews would.
[00:50:49] Because Judah, God's people, are in exile.
[00:50:53] Babylon is their captors.
[00:50:55] And so Babylon is located, according to Genesis chapter 11, on the plain, the valley of Shinar.
[00:51:03] So it's a valley of sorts.
[00:51:05] It's fitting, right?
[00:51:07] So Jewish exiles living under Babylonian captivity, they would have made the connection.
[00:51:12] Oh, I know where we are.
[00:51:14] And Ezekiel sees bones, human bones.
[00:51:20] That's disturbing.
[00:51:21] I know you dressed up.
[00:51:22] You came to Easter to hear nice, pretty things.
[00:51:25] But we're going to start with bones.
[00:51:27] And it's only going to get worse from here.
[00:51:30] There's some sort of massacre that has taken place.
[00:51:34] Verse 2 says that these are dry bones, meaning that they've been exposed to the elements for a long time.
[00:51:39] They're bleached by the sun, and now they become white.
[00:51:45] You see, there's a difference of degrees of dead.
[00:51:48] According to Miracle Max in The Princess Bride, there's mostly dead and all dead.
[00:51:55] These bones are all dead.
[00:51:57] So, for example, if I told you, north of Statesville, 14 people were killed, That'd be horrific, shocking.
[00:52:05] But if I told you the murders took place on February 27, 1760 at Fort Dobbs, well, you bring your kids to that, right?
[00:52:18] So these bones that Ezekiel sees, they're long dead.
[00:52:23] They're now a museum piece.
[00:52:26] So whose bones are they?
[00:52:27] Verse 11 says, these bones are the whole house of Israel.
[00:52:32] right in other words judah the jews the nation of israel is so dead it's become ordinary by the whole house we mean that somehow some way the entire people are now obviously the people the
[00:52:50] whole people of god are not entirely dead right because ezekiel's still alive and ezekiel's got friends we also know in in other parts of the old testament we know that daniel and his friends Meshach, Shadrach, and Abednego. They're still alive too. So it can't mean that they're all dead.
[00:53:06] So what kind of death are we looking at here? I actually think there are kind of death on three levels. This is the meaning of the bones. There's a community death, there's a physical death,
[00:53:17] and then there's a spiritual death. So I want to look at each one in turn. For first, there's a community death. This is where I think the first meaning is most apparent. Verse 11, God says,
[00:53:29] well, this represents the whole house of Israel, meaning the group, meaning the nation, right?
[00:53:36] They're dead as a people. The Babylonian method for dealing with conquered peoples, particularly who are stubborn, is what they would do is they would grab a whole bunch of them and they would scatter them throughout the empire. And as they scatter, they become assimilated into Babylonian
[00:53:55] culture. So they no longer are a Jew or a Scythian or an Egyptian. They become just Babylonian. This actually happens all the time in immigration. So, for example, my family, my great-grandmother came over the boat from Sicily. She spoke no English. My grandfather,
[00:54:14] English and Italian. My mom, no Italian. That's what happens. Over a couple generations, Christians sort of assimilate, but the Babylonians did this intentionally. They wanted to wash away any Jewishness of the people. They want to get rid of their language, their culture,
[00:54:32] their religion. You see this in the book of Daniel. Daniel is taken as a youth, probably about 13 years old, and he's given a Babylonian education, and he's used in service of the empire.
[00:54:43] He's a tool. That's how the Babylonians thought. So in Ezekiel's time, Judah was no longer a They are on their way to becoming a museum piece, like we think of the Kushites or the Assyrians or
[00:54:58] the Aztecs. Never to rise again. Bones. This also refers to physical death. I want to linger on this a little bit longer. They're not exactly balanced here. When Babylon fought with Judah, they were merciless. In 2 Kings chapter 25, you read about how Jerusalem, the capital, was surrounded.
[00:55:24] It was besieged. People starved in the city. Then once the city was broken into, there was a massacre of the population. They burned every great house. They destroyed the temple. King Zedekiah, who was king at the time, he had his sons killed before him and his eyes put out, so that was the last
[00:55:45] thing that he saw. That's the Babylonians. In fact, ancient estimates, people during the time or right after estimated about a million people died. Now, put that in perspective. I want you to think of the Panther Stadium. Fill that stadium full of people. Now think of 13 more
[00:56:08] Panther Stadiums full of people. That's a million people. This is in some ways what the whole vision about bones is turning on, this mass execution of people. And we know today, just like they knew
[00:56:25] back then, that physical death is kind of final. Ezekiel knows how death works, just like you know how death works. That's why when God says in verse 3, he says, hey Ezekiel, son of man, can these
[00:56:40] bones live? You can almost imagine Ezekiel thinking to himself, well, you know, if it wasn't God asking me, I would have chuckled and said, no, but God's asking me, so I'm going to leave my options
[00:56:53] open. You know God. He doesn't want to commit. Ezekiel knows that death is permanent. No matter how much you want it to not be permanent, it is. When someone is gone, they are gone. Ezekiel also
[00:57:12] knows that death comes to every single person. Most modern Americans, we don't see death like we did 100 years ago. We just really don't. Death for most of us is relatively out of sight.
[00:57:25] Most funerals, I do a lot of funerals as a pastor, most of them are cremations. You don't even see a body. We don't farm, at least most of us, so we don't see meat being processed. It's
[00:57:35] over there somewhere. I actually met a guy who was doing a PhD on Puritan funeral services for children. You see, because in the 1600s, the mortality rate of children under the age of five was 50%. I want you to think, if you're a parent, I want you to think, number how many kids you have
[00:57:55] and then cut it in half. You see, in the 1600s, if you were a faithful pastor, you absolutely needed to know how to do a child's funeral. I know very few pastors today who know how to do that.
[00:58:08] it's super rare. Yet death is in front of every single one of us all the time.
[00:58:16] Can I increase your anxiety momentarily just for one sneeze, one cough, one notification on your cell phone, and you are killed in a head-on collision? Every single one of you risked death to get here today. You could choke on food. There could be a shooter. You could get sick. You could
[00:58:39] have a heart attack. There are dangers every single day. I have counseled many of you even who have dealt with anxiety over stuff like this. Now, you may feel like you can delay death with
[00:58:51] some good diet and some good driving, but death is coming to us all, and it's going to come as a surprise. Have you thought about that? Have you pondered that? Death is often mysterious for many
[00:59:06] people. As a pastor, I hear lots of questions about death. What will death be like? Then did I do enough good? Did I choose the right religion? Is there something beyond or is it just a blank
[00:59:17] slate? And then there's the fear, right? What are people who I leave behind? What are they going to do? What's my family going to do once I'm gone? What would your answer be to those things? Death
[00:59:30] is ugly. I was watching the TV show House. Some of you maybe have watched it. Some of you haven't.
[00:59:37] It's kind of a crusty doctor thrust into the middle of things. So he doesn't always say the right things that sometimes are poignant. Well, anyway, in this particular episode, a woman is dying and she's giving up treatment. And she says, she asked to be sent home to die with dignity.
[00:59:54] And House says this, he says, there's no such thing. Our bodies break down sometimes when you're 90, sometimes before we're even born, but it always happens. And there's never any dignity about it. It's always ugly. You can live with dignity, but you can't die with it. And as a
[01:00:11] pastor, I thought, boy, that's right. I have seen bodies break down. I've seen dying people lose their bodily functions at the end. Unwashed, naked in a gown, machines keeping them alive.
[01:00:27] I watched my mother waste away in my dining room in palliative care. There is no dignity to that.
[01:00:35] I hate it. And the worst part is that they get forgotten. I challenge you over the next week or two, go and walk in a graveyard and look at all the names. And I want you to ponder how many of
[01:00:49] those names have no one to remember who they were anymore. Gone. Memories disappear. That's dry bones, folks. And that's the fate of us all. Community death, physical death, spiritual death. Earlier in Ezekiel chapter 18 verse 4, Ezekiel quotes a proverb, the soul who sins shall die. Not just
[01:01:17] the person, the soul who sins shall die. What is soul death? Isaiah describes it this way in Isaiah 59. Your iniquities, your sins, have made a separation between you and your God. Why are they separated? There's no longer a friendly relationship between us and God, but we are
[01:01:39] separated as if we're enemies. That's because of sin. Sin is doing what God says not to do. It's also not doing enough positive good either. It's not treating God for who He is, the highest and
[01:01:54] best thing. So if you don't treat God as the highest and best thing, you are automatically treating Him as lowly, as trash. Ephesians chapter 2 verse 1 says that we are dead in our trespasses
[01:02:10] and sins. And this is by nature, by the sinful nature that we have inherited from the very beginning. You can be spiritually dead even while physically alive because you're under judgment of a righteous and holy God who we have treated terribly. We are unable to do enough good to rub
[01:02:36] it all out, whether we're aware of it or not. Just like gravity, it works whether you believe in gravity or not. So what got Israel to be exiled was because of their sin, their idolatry, their
[01:02:53] injustice, their rebellion against God year after year after year. And this deadness, this spiritual deadness makes them unfeeling. They don't feel it anymore. 30 years prior to the exile, there's a king, King Hezekiah. King Hezekiah was told by the prophet Isaiah, he says, listen, God is going to
[01:03:16] punish Israel's sin in the next generation. It's coming. Babylon is going to destroy and exile the people. Do you know what Hezekiah's response is? Second Kings 20 verse 19, the word of the Lord that you have spoken is good. Good! For he thought, why not? If there will be peace and security in my
[01:03:41] day. He could care less about what happens to his kids and his grandkids because he's going to be fine with his own life. He didn't take the reality of God's judgment seriously. It's not my problem.
[01:03:56] It's far away. Spiritual death is the worst death. It's worse than the death of a nation. It's worse than the death of a culture. It's worse than the death of a loved one. Spiritually dead means that
[01:04:10] you can have no true comfort in this life.
[01:04:14] And it means that after this life is over, a holy and eternal God will fairly, proportionally give what sin deserves, nothing more, nothing less.
[01:04:26] We call that reality hell.
[01:04:29] Now, maybe you think that's heavy-handed.
[01:04:31] But after all, we've already talked about death and mass murder, so why not go all the way?
[01:04:37] You know, Jesus often talked about hell.
[01:04:40] he actually talked about hell more than he did about heaven he tells a parable in luke chapter 16 about a rich man who who lived his life the way that he wanted to completely ignoring his sin
[01:04:52] and then and then he didn't take the reality of judgment seriously and he goes to hell and he is in anguish he cries for just a drop of water because of the flame there is no goodness there
[01:05:05] there is no cheer there there is no goals there or purpose there there is no hope there and empty and pitiless place. This is not some ghost story to get people to behave. It is a revealed,
[01:05:19] clear teaching of Jesus of the reality of where your sin is heading. And I don't say this lightly.
[01:05:29] And without any change or intervention, we who are spiritually dead are as dead as dry bones.
[01:05:36] but God raises the bones. Let's talk about that. Let's walk through what happens with these dry bones, verses 4 all the way through 14. See, Ezekiel is supposed to prophesy. That is shorthand version of an authoritative speaking what God told him to say. It's delivery. He's
[01:06:01] a delivery man. He's delivering God's word. He's supposed to deliver it to dry bones. You ever try to talk to dry bones, and it works so well, right? But there he is. He's supposed to talk to the dry
[01:06:12] bones about what God is about to do, and then God does something. Bones start to rattle. Can you imagine how eerie that would have been to see a valley full of bones, and all of a sudden the
[01:06:22] bones are starting to rattle, and you start to see the parts come together. When I was growing up, I had this anatomy book. Maybe you had something like this where it had all the different body
[01:06:32] systems like separated by transparencies so you could start with the bones and you add on the muscles and you add on right right that's what happens here right you see the bones and then the sinews and then the muscles and then the the blood vessels and the nervous system and
[01:06:47] then the skin and it's all it's all there but there's no breath now what's interesting here is the the hebrew word for breath or soul or wind is ruach it's all the same word so when he says
[01:07:01] there's no breath and that means there's no life force in them. They're not living yet. They're just shells. And so in verse 8, Ezekiel must speak to the winds, to the spirits, to come into the bodies and make them alive. And the result, verse 10, is not just a bunch of living
[01:07:20] people, but an army ready for war. It's marvelous. It's absolutely hilariously astounding that the dead, who had no hope whatsoever, all of a sudden, everything's reversed. It's like your team lost the Super Bowl, and then like two weeks later, all of a sudden, somehow, everything's reversed,
[01:07:46] and you won it. And the message couldn't be clearer to the exiles living in Babylon.
[01:07:54] Verse 12, God's promise, I will bring you into the land of Israel. In other words, I'm going to raise you back as a community.
[01:08:03] You will be a nation again, not just a nation.
[01:08:05] You're going to be an army ready to fight, right?
[01:08:07] Full strength.
[01:08:09] Verse 13, I will open your graves and raise you from the graves, O my people.
[01:08:15] I will raise your dead.
[01:08:18] You'll get them back.
[01:08:20] And then verse 14, I will put my spirit within you.
[01:08:23] You will have a new spiritual state in which God is present with his people, no longer separated by sin.
[01:08:30] community, physicality, spirituality. How did it happen? How did it happen? Two things. First, God's power happened. This may be a news break. Dead things don't just come back to life.
[01:08:51] They just don't, except by God's power. This is a miracle. He put every particle back together.
[01:09:00] Where did he get the substance to make the sinews and the ventricles and the nerves?
[01:09:05] Where did he get that?
[01:09:06] God just did it.
[01:09:08] He just did it.
[01:09:09] Because if God can take the dust of the earth that he did in Genesis and form it and breathe life into it and make the first man Adam, so he can make new life through the course of dry bones.
[01:09:23] If God is creator, he is also resurrector.
[01:09:29] And the second is this.
[01:09:32] God does it because he wants to.
[01:09:34] Not just because he can, but he wants to.
[01:09:37] It's his will.
[01:09:40] Ezekiel has no power to raise the dead.
[01:09:44] He did not gain any superpower.
[01:09:47] He didn't even know such thing could happen.
[01:09:49] He says, you know God.
[01:09:52] I can tell you also, you know what didn't have power to raise the dead?
[01:09:55] The bones.
[01:09:56] No power.
[01:09:58] They're dead.
[01:09:58] all God's gracious, sovereign, soul-freeing, death-raising, destiny-changing choice happens.
[01:10:09] He chose to raise the bones to life.
[01:10:13] When God puts something in his mind, he cannot help to succeed.
[01:10:19] Psalm 115.3 Our God is in the heavens. He does all that he pleases.
[01:10:26] What has he pleased to do? Raise the dead.
[01:10:31] But when is God going to do this?
[01:10:34] Because if you read in Ezra and Nehemiah, these are books that are written after the exile.
[01:10:41] The people of God have returned, right?
[01:10:43] So they're starting off, but the wall's broken down, the temple's remade, but it's not as good as it was before.
[01:10:49] I mean, it fits and starts, right?
[01:10:53] It's incomplete.
[01:10:54] The city is still being built.
[01:10:56] People are going to still struggle in their sin.
[01:10:58] and, by the way, the dead did not exactly return.
[01:11:03] So it's only partial.
[01:11:05] But there's a deeper meaning that's coming.
[01:11:08] So we've seen the vision of the bones, the raising of the bones.
[01:11:10] Now here's the meaning, the deeper meaning of the bones.
[01:11:14] Here's the deeper meaning.
[01:11:15] God, before all time, committed to not leave his creatures in sin and death and decay.
[01:11:22] And in the fullness of time, God sent forth his Son, born of a woman, born under the law to redeem those who are under the curse of the law. That's us, the dry bones.
[01:11:36] He did that for all that we have done and all that we have left undone and all of our unconcern for those things. And though the world rejected him, he persisted and his name was Jesus and he
[01:11:53] was crucified. He was beaten. He was bruised. He was given a very undignified death. He did this because Jesus, at the moment of the cross, represented the sins of his people there.
[01:12:12] And so when he died, he was judged for our sins, for our carelessness and callousness.
[01:12:21] so that as Ephesians 2 says that while we were spiritually dead while we're still dry bones he made them alive in Christ you're made alive in Christ even though you're dead and that was proven on Easter morning
[01:12:38] because Jesus rose from the dead and he's the first fruits of the raising of the dead just as surprising to Ezekiel as seeing dry bones come out of the ground and come back to life
[01:12:51] so too was it surprising to the women and the disciples when they saw Christ risen from the dead do you doubt that your sins were paid for do you ever struggle with pot the possibility that
[01:13:02] maybe maybe God doesn't forgive you and of all of your sins look and see if Christ is still in the tomb if he's still in the tomb you're on your own if he is out of the tomb your sins are forgiven
[01:13:15] in Christ. There's no halfway. The point is this. Death and all its effects are no more for those who trust in Christ. Spiritual death is dealt a death blow by the gift of faith.
[01:13:38] And one day, God will put all your parts together so that you can live physically in new bodies.
[01:13:45] Before that time, when you die, you are immediately into glory.
[01:13:50] Like a bullet out of a gun, right?
[01:13:52] You start off life in a glorious beginning and then an undignified end and then immediately a now glorified beginning.
[01:14:04] That's the reality.
[01:14:05] That's what changes for a believer.
[01:14:08] Because we're all going to go someday.
[01:14:10] but for for those who trust in christ you go from the worst undignified end to glory and it's not just for you it's for all of y'all communally we will be one people of god
[01:14:32] from every tribe and nation and tongue who was rejected by the world but now redeem and resurrected standing before the throne forever in utter joy and freedom and excitement and peace and holiness and life, save to sin no more. What a thought. The vision of the dry bones is a preview
[01:14:56] of the entirety of God's redemptive work in Christ. It's all there. So what's the takeaway?
[01:15:06] Three things for you. Here's the one strange thing that I couldn't get over as I was reading through this text. The strange thing is that God could have simply said, hey, Ezekiel, watch me as
[01:15:18] I raise all these bones. Could have, but he didn't. What does he do? He tells Ezekiel twice in verse 4 and verse 9. He tells him twice, I want you to prophesy. I want you to authoritatively
[01:15:34] deliver my message to the dry bones, which is a ridiculous proposition. Why does God do it that way? Ezekiel has no power to raise the dead, and the bones have no way to respond. But here's the
[01:15:50] amazing thing. God delights to use people to speak his message, and that is his chosen instrument to bring the dead to life. That's his chosen instrument. Of all the instruments he could have chosen, he chooses that one. So first point of application, if you do not know Jesus this
[01:16:14] morning, here's the message. The wages of sin is everlasting death, but the free gift of God's eternal life in Christ Jesus. There's the message delivered to you. I am saying that to you, but I
[01:16:29] have nothing special about me. I got average height and a bow tie. That's it. I have no special powers, but if you trust in the promise that I just told you, you go from death to life,
[01:16:45] darkness to light. A soul as dead as dry bones will live eternally when that message is believed.
[01:16:54] You can have a future of everlasting life in a new body that takes the sting out of death.
[01:17:02] You'll have a people to belong to.
[01:17:05] Turn to Christ.
[01:17:08] But second, if you do know Jesus, I want to encourage you.
[01:17:12] No matter who you are, we have some people here who are pastors.
[01:17:15] We have some people here who are missionaries.
[01:17:17] We've got elders here.
[01:17:18] We've also got moms, dads, teenagers, small children.
[01:17:22] if you know Jesus and you know his message, when you speak it, it gives life. So when you tell others God can choose in that moment to move someone by his omnipotent might to move them
[01:17:43] from death to life, never ever discount what God can do when we are simply faithful. Never discount that. And the last thing is this. This truth lasts a lifetime. If God can raise the dead,
[01:18:00] why do we doubt his care? Why do we doubt his care? For every pain that you ever feel, for every fear you ever fear, for every failure you experience, for every problem you have, and every sin pattern that clings to you, and every funeral that you attend,
[01:18:16] And nothing is too difficult for God to put right.
[01:18:21] It may be in this life, but it most certainly will be in the next.
[01:18:27] So turn to the one who raises a dead nation, a dead person, and a dead heart, who himself has conquered death.
[01:18:39] Would you see him as your treasure of your life today?
[01:18:44] Let's pray.
[01:18:46] Lord God, I pray, please, would you press into us the amazing truth of your victory over sin and death.
[01:19:00] Help us, Lord God, to believe it, to trust in it as our only hope in this life and death.
[01:19:07] Lord God, help us to live it out.
[01:19:10] Lord, prepare our hearts to eat of this meal.
[01:19:14] Lord, to be reminded of your love for us.
[01:19:18] We ask these things in Christ's name.
[01:19:20] I ask the elders to come forward.
[01:19:25] Every week, we celebrate the Lord's Supper together.
[01:19:30] This is not the meal of Harbor Church.
[01:19:36] It's not the meal of the Presbyterian Church in America.
[01:19:38] This is Jesus' table.
[01:19:41] And he, it's bread here, it's wine and juice here, bought in a store, nothing special about it.
[01:19:47] Except for this one thing, that when someone who is in Christ eats it by faith, that spiritually something happens we are actually raised to be to be fed upon christ spiritually and and and there's there's two sides to this we are encouraged in our faith but if we
[01:20:07] if we even drink in an unworthy manner not discerning who christ is what he's done if you don't know jesus then this could actually work the opposite way compile upon us the the fact that
[01:20:20] we've rejected Christ up until this point. So if you don't know Jesus this morning, let these things pass you by. We don't do this to point you out and make you feel bad. Far from it. What we want you
[01:20:30] to do is we want you to trust in Jesus. We will want you next week to come and to eat because Jesus is your Savior. It was on a night in which Jesus was betrayed. Days before he would be raised
[01:20:43] from his grave, Jesus took the bread he broke and said, this is my body given for you. Eat of it, all of you in remembrance of me. And here at Harbor, we like to serve family style. So you
[01:20:53] want to hold on to your bread until everybody's been served and we'll eat together. And we like to have silence during the Lord's Supper. It's a time for us to reflect, open up your Bible,
[01:21:05] pray, think about the Lord, and reflect upon what he has done for you. The body of Christ was given for you. Let's eat in remembrance of him. In the same manner, after the supper, Jesus took the cup, he blessed it, and he said,
[01:24:05] This is my blood in the new covenant, shed for many for the forgiveness of their sins, forgiven because Christ went to the cross for us.
[01:24:12] And we know that because he was raised from the dead.
[01:24:15] As you eat, as you drink, reclaim the Lord's death until he comes again to make all things new.
[01:24:22] Now, here at Harper, we have both wine and grape juice.
[01:24:25] Wine is on the outermost ring.
[01:24:26] All the inner rings are juice.
[01:24:28] And just like the bread, if you want to hold on to your cup until everybody's been served, then we'll drink together.
[01:27:15] Lord, if Christ was shed for us, let's drink in remembrance of him.
[01:27:20] Let's pray together.
[01:27:22] And for the Father, we thank you that before all worlds, Lord, you chose us in love.
[01:27:26] And Lord, you set apart a plan to redeem all of your people, not losing one single sheep.
[01:27:34] Lord Jesus, eternal Son, you were born, you lived under the law.
[01:27:39] Lord, you lived a perfect life and were a perfect sacrifice for us.
[01:27:43] And you were judged for our sin, accomplishing our salvation for us.
[01:27:47] and we're raised from the dead and now continually interceding on our behalf.
[01:27:51] And Holy Spirit, we thank you and you have applied all the Father planned and the Son accomplished to us in our lives that we might have a new future and a new destiny.
[01:28:02] Lord, we pray that you would grow us in thankfulness and humility and joy.
[01:28:08] Lord, from this day forward and forevermore, we pray these things in Christ's name.
[01:28:14] Would you please stand as we sing and behold our God.

[01:28:35] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_04]
[01:28:35] Before we close, we don't have Sunday school, but we have snacks.

[01:32:10] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_00]
[01:32:10] We have lots of coffee.
[01:32:11] I want to give a special shout-out to Cassandra Larson, who has revamped a lot of that, so you need to check it out.
[01:32:16] if you have questions you want to talk with somebody i'm happy to talk with you after the service um here now the lord's word over you as you go out to the world from first peter five
[01:32:30] and after you have suffered a little while the god of all grace who has called you to his eternal glory in christ will himself restore confirm strengthen and establish you to him be dominion forever and ever. Amen.