From Exile to Hope: The Power of Resurrection

Basically, one of the things that happens is God says to the people of Israel, he says, look, I'm going to be your God, you're going to be my people, and I'm going to give you everything. Everything I'm going to give you is a gift from me. I'm going to give you some land. I'm going to give you a national identity. I'm going to give you a law, a code that you will live by, a way to articulate your life and your purpose and your relationships with me and with one another. I'm going to give you all of these things. I'm going to give you your freedom. I'm going to bring you out of Egypt. Everything that you have, everything that is yours is a gift from my hand to you because you are my chosen people. [00:25:25] (40 seconds)  #DivineGiftsAndIdentity

And so the blessings of God begin to be withdrawn. And ultimately, they are carried into captivity in Babylon. Jerusalem is destroyed. The walls are torn down. The temple is destroyed, right? All of the symbols of God's blessing and his presence, they lose. And now they are in a place of exile. And basically, they're saying, and Ezekiel gives voice to this. Basically, what they're saying is, we have no hope. We have no hope. We have no hope for a future. We have no hope for a future at all. And God comes to them, even though they've betrayed him, even though they've walked away from him, even though they've been disobedient to him, even though all of that has happened, God still comes to them through Ezekiel with this amazing message of hope. They have no hope. And Ezekiel says, God is your hope. [00:26:44] (62 seconds)  #LossAndExileDespair

These are brittle bones. In other words, there is no DNA here. There's no life. There's nothing left. The marrow has dried up completely. They're dead, dry, brittle bones. And this is a picture of how Israel was viewing themselves. Israel was looking at themselves as sort of this valley of dry bones. The whole people of God see themselves this way. [00:28:32] (27 seconds)  #ValleyOfDryBones

They've been put into this dominant culture. They're scattered. And they know that within a few generations, right, their kids are going to the Babylonian high schools. They're marrying their Babylonian neighbors. They're getting jobs in the Babylonian factories and fields, right? They know that within a few generations, even the memory of Jerusalem will be gone. They are dry bones. [00:29:19] (26 seconds)  #GenerationalCulturalAssimilation

They also say that their hope is dying. They used to have a hope. They had a very specific, you know, sometimes we talk about hope, and it's a very sort of generic, generalized idea of hope. But they're not talking about just a general hope. Their hope was very specifically a promise from God that came to them through Abraham. [00:29:58] (19 seconds)  #PromiseOfAbraham

When God blessed them through Abraham, the promise was, not only am I going to bless you, but through you, I'm going to bless the whole world. In other words, they are the vehicle, they're the conduit through which God's blessing will come to the whole world. And it's through God's promises to Abraham that ultimately they come to have God's revelation, right? They know the creator God, the God who made the heavens and earth, the great I am. They know this God. They've heard God's promises. They know that God is at work saving and restoring a world that is broken. [00:31:02] (42 seconds)  #CutOffFromLife

So you and I, like Israel, are cut off from our true home. We're exiled from our true selves. We're cut off from our true hope, from our true nature, from our true purpose, from our real calling. We're cut off from all of those things in exile. Cut off from God. [00:36:41] (21 seconds)  #FragileFoundationsOfHope

Most people have no hope in something that can survive death, much less overcome death. They only had hope for this life. In 1 Corinthians 15, Paul writes this to the church in Corinth. He says, if we as Christians have hope only for this life, then we are the most miserable of all people. In other words, if my hope is only for this life, right, if my hope is only for this life, I'm miserable. [00:42:44] (36 seconds)  #SpiritBreathOfLife

Not only is this a picture of Israel but this is a picture of you as well. This is a picture for you and for me. We see this in John chapter 20. In John 20, after his resurrection from the dead, and don't miss the importance of that, right, after his resurrection from the dead, Jesus gathers his disciples together. So this is a story for Jesus' disciples. Anybody who follows Jesus and believes in Jesus has this experience. Jesus says, come together, and he says to them, look, I am going to breathe on you. It's just the same language. I'm going to breathe on you. [00:45:30] (43 seconds)  #BornBySpiritRenewal

How do you get that hope in you? Not just so that it's a thought, but that it's a hope that lives in you. A couple of things I want to say. First of all, you have to hear the truth. This passage is filled with language of Ezekiel speaking. Say this. Pronounce this. Preach. That Ezekiel was a preacher. Right? And what God is describing here is God's design for preaching. In order to get this hope, you hear God's word. He doesn't just say, snap your fingers. He doesn't say, wave a magic wand. Right? He doesn't say, lift your hands. He doesn't say any of those things. What does he do? He says, Ezekiel, preach. Preach to them. God's design for preaching is not just that it's an intellectual exercise, but that it's a source of life. [00:47:30] (70 seconds)