Some of us wish we could get a fresh start in our jobs, relationships, finances, mortgage company, careers. We all want fresh starts at some point in our life. We follow our lust, desires, passions that lead us in the wrong directions and we find ourselves suffering in our consequences asking God if we could just get a fresh start.
For the next few weeks we will be looking at fresh starts, It is what the Gospel promise’s us, that we are new creatures in Christ and that the old has passed away and we have the opportunity to engage in fresh starts.
Ezekiel has some great imagery, Ezekiel was a young priest who was picked up and carted from his homeland and brought to Babylon right about the age of twenty five, and from twenty five to thirty he and the people of Israel languished in despair. The reason they were brought to Babylon was because Israel has become a nation that was no longer representative of Yahweh, the God of the Old Testament, the God of the New Testament, that they have lived their lives with arrogance. They began to believe that the only person the only power and the only people they needed in their lives was themselves. They became arrogant, prideful, lustful. They went after gods of other nations, they went after wives of other nations. They took their heritage and threw it off to the side, they threw God off to the side. God allowed them in-fact God orchestrated it. That Israel would be ripped apart, the northern and southern kingdom. They would be put in exile and ruled over by other nations. In the mist of Ezekiel exile about the age of thirty, God did something incredible. He gave Ezekiel a vision, an incredible grand vision. The vision was this, that the God he worshiped was bigger than his neighborhood, bigger than his country, the God he worshiped ruled over everything.
The people of Israel believed this, God abandoned them, they were no longer their own nation, and if we are not in our nation then God can’t be with us because he is the God of Israel. But Ezekiel got a bigger picture, That God is a God of the world, and God put his word in Ezekiel to go out and speak to the people of Israel. The message was one of condemnation/conviction to the people, and yet in the mist of that condemnation and conviction God made a promise of restoration to his people.
Ezekiel 37:1-6
37 The hand of the LORD was on me, and he brought me out by the Spirit of the LORD and set me in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones. 2 He led me back and forth among them, and I saw a great many bones on the floor of the valley, bones that were very dry.
What is the image here? God not only showed him the bones, he took him and walked him through back and fourth in the mist of all of the bones that were dried up.
3 He asked me, “Son of man, can and these bones live?” I said, “Sovereign LORD, you alone know.”
4 Then he said to me, “Prophesy to these bones and say to them, ‘Dry Bones, hear the word of the LORD! 5 This is what the Sovereign LORD says to these bones: I will make breath enter you, and you will come to life. 6 I will attach tendons to you and make flesh come upon you and cover you with skin; I will put breath in you, and you will come to life. Then you will know that I am the LORD.’”
This was a valley full of dead dried up bones, and God was saying I can bring you back to life, I can breath life into you, I can put flesh on you, I can put tendons on you, I can make you new again. What an incredible image. to be made new again, to be given a fresh start again. As if all that stuff in the past was just dead and your alive with a whole new life. What has to happen to us to have a do over? to have a fresh start in us?
Fresh Starts Begin With New Hearts
In order to start over again and to start fresh, something has to happen in the very core of who you are, it has to happen right in your hearts. We can’t change, we can’t begin again unless something in the very core of us changes, and we know how hard that is. Most of us don’t even know who we are. We struggle to figure out what our identity is and we struggle to think about the possibility of ever changing who we are. We understand that there has to be an inward conviction if there is going to be a change in an outward direction, but how do you do this? We can’t do it, People don’t change. How can bones come to life?
Ezekiel 36:25-28
25 I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols.
How does change begin? It begins with God. We don’t see our sin, and when we see we are helpless against it. The only way we can change is if God steps into our lives and he cleanses us. How do you change when you have all that baggage? How do you change when you have all that guilt, and shame?
26 I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.
God not only cleanses us but he empowers us with his spirit. He moves us, when we can’t move ourselves.
27 And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws.
He gives us a new direction. Why does he gives His law, why does he give us His word? Maybe he doesn’t want you to go to jail, or to hurt yourself, maybe give us a new direction out of our old convictions.
28 Then you will live in the land I gave your ancestors; you will be my people, and I will be your God.
What can separate us from the love of Christ? What can stand in the way of us becoming new? Nothing...
Fresh starts isn’t something we initiate, it is something God initiates, it happens not just by us committing but by us submitting to God.
Listen:
To God’s Voice, the voice that says, come on this isn’t living, this isn’t life, the voice that says there’s something better out there. That voice that speaks to our core, that tells us that the core gotta change because there is so much better for us to become.
Look:
For those areas in our lives that are just dead, when God speaks we have to look, listen and examine at what it really is.
Long:
For God to change your core, to take you in a new direction, Long to let go and let it happen. If you long to please God, you won’t have time for the other junk.
Let Go:
Of what we think is right and what we think is normal, and we have to follow God, A fresh start means going in a new direction. Let God be in control and take you somewhere wonderful.
What was once the wrong way leads us to a new way, a better way in Christ.
Notes taken by: lorelllawrence@comcast.net
Any errors or miscommunication please refer to me not the pastor, the intent is for you to have the notes for review in the series, also to reflect on during the week.
God Bless,