At that time the Feast of the Dedication took place at Jerusalem; it was winter, and Jesus was walking in the temple in the portico of Solomon. The Jews then gathered around Him, and were saying to Him, “How long will You keep us in suspense? If You are the Christ, tell us plainly.” Jesus answered them, “I told you, and you do not believe; the works that I do in My Father’s name, these testify of Me. But you do not believe because you are not of My sheep. My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me; and I give eternal life to them, and they will never perish; and no one will snatch them out of My hand. My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand. I and the Father are one.”

— John 10:22-30 NASB

Some of us want to impose our own conditions on God’s grace. Some people say it is available only to the select few, or to those who don’t sin, or to those who are baptized. We want to say that salvation belongs to some particular set of denominations and not to the others. Some people have even gone so far as to say that those who speak in tongues or faint at church, those who are “slain in the spirit”, are the only ones who are truly saved.

And I assure you, for everyone whose salvation we question, there is someone out there who questions ours as well.

I think that everyone here is walking the road to God. Some of us might be farther down the road than others. Some of us might be just getting started. And there might be some of us who are tempted to leave that road and go another way. But I think the very fact that we are in a Christian church and that we are intentionally listening to the gospel message means that we have each been called by God to be here.

In our scripture today, Jesus says that those who don’t believe are simply not the sheep of His pasture. We here the Good Shepherd’s voice, and we follow, because we recognize that voice. We are the sheep of His pasture.

How did we get here? How did we get so lucky? Most of us were raised in a church, maybe even in this church, and we’re here because we recognize the songs, the liturgy, the scripture, and the people. It’s just where we feel at home. We belong here. We didn’t earn the right to be here; it’s a gift of God. We were raised hearing that Voice of Jesus., We recognize that Voice. Others may have come to faith later in life, but something about that Voice, that message of love and forgiveness, rang true to us.

In today’s scripture, Jesus said, “My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow me.” I’d say we’re here because we want to follow Jesus. We know that voice. The next statement should give every one of us the confidence to face anything life throws at us. It should make us bold in our faith: “and I give eternal life to them, and they will never perish; and no one will snatch them out of my hand.” We can debate whether you can give up your salvation, but this verse tells me that no one can steal it from you. You won’t be lost by accident, an no one can take your salvation away. It’s a promise from Jesus Himself, and you can take it to the bank.

Now, consider what comes next: “My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all”. Do you realize that God has given us to Jesus? We’ve considered before that the ability to believe in Jesus is itself a gift of God, and that no one can just decide to believe. So God has given us that gift of faith. But in our scripture today, we learn that we are God’s gifts to Jesus. We follow Jesus because God has put us in the Good Shepherd’s pasture.

There are other places in the gospel of John where Jesus makes the same point. In John 6:37-30, Jesus says, “All that the Father gives Me will come to me, and the one who comes to Me I will certainly not cast out. For I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent me. This is the will of Him who sent Me, that of all that He has given me I lose nothingh, but raise it up on the last day. For this is the will of My Father, that everyone who beholds the Son and believes in Him will have eternal life, and I Myself will raise him up on the last day.”

And at John 17:6-10, in what we call Jesus’ High Priestly Prayer, Jesus says, “I have manifested Your name to the men [and women] You gave Me out of the world; they were Yours and You gave them to Me, and they have kept Your word. Now they have come to know that everything You have given Me is from You; for the words which You gave Me I have given to them; and they received them and truly understood that I came forth from You, and they believed that You sent Me. I ask on their behalf; I do not ask on behalf of the world, but of those whom You have given Me; for they are Yours; and all things that are Mine are Yours, and Yours are Mine, and I have been glorified in them.”

We talk a lot about the gifts of God – the gifts of tongues, of healing, of prophecy and such. But in another sense, each of you is a gift of God. God the Father has given each of us to Jesus Christ. We have been intentionally placed in Jesus’ care. I don’t look for another shepherd because I know that I was given to Jesus by God Himself. I don’t reject anyone who tries to follow Jesus Christ, because they were given to Jesus by God as well.

In the Old Testament, the original covenant, we learn that God set a nation apart for Himself, so that they could carry the message that there is but one God over all, a God who cares, and loves, and forgives. Now, God has set us apart as well, not by making us all members of one race, or one nation, but as sheep of one Shepherd, as followers of Jesus Christ.

Peter, who spent most of his life thinking his family and his country were the chosen people, said about all believers in Jesus, “But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession, so that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light”. And we know Peter was talking to Christians, and not just to Israelites, because he also said “for once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.”

So don’t keep looking for the gifts of God proof of salvation. If you’re looking for the gifts of God, look around you. Look in the mirror. WE are the gifts of God, and we were given to Jesus Christ, who will not let us go, and who will give us eternal life. He will raise us up on the last day.

This knowledge gives us the power to live joyously, confidently, and in the power of the Holy Spirit. We fear no one. We don’t even fear death itself. We will never perish. Hallelujah!

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, receive the Good News. Amen.

The apostles gathered around Jesus and reported to him all they had done and taught. Then, because so many people were coming and going that they did not even have a chance to eat, he said to them, “Come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest.”

So they went away by themselves in a boat to a solitary place. But many who saw them leaving recognized them and ran on foot from all the towns and got there ahead of them. When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd. So he began teaching them many things.

— Mark 6:30-34

When I was associate pastor in Palm Beach Gardens, FL, one of several hurricanes missed us and crossed the state a few miles north of us. One Sunday, a very weary woman came into our service. She introduced herself as a Disciples minister, then broke down crying. She was from San Diego and had come here to help with the destruction from the hurricane.

She told heart-wrenching stories about people living in their storage sheds, with plastic tarps for roofs and wood fires for cooking. She told us about her work with the physical needs of the people she met, but also about the extreme emotional toll the storm had on the people. She was from out of town, so she did not represent an area church.

We discussed ways that we could help in an already crowded field of volunteers. She suggested that if we volunteered, we might be able to recruit people into the church.

I’m sure you know that Disciples churches aren’t exactly evangelical. My senior pastor and I had a sense that although there were no Disciples churches in the affected area, there were plenty of churches where people could and perhaps should attend. Besides, we were too far away. We just had a sense that it would be taking unfair advantage of a natural disaster if we used it as a platform to gain members.

Her response was, “Well, SOMEBODY should bring them in!”

I will never forget that event. We were convicted of finding an excuse to avoid recruiting new church members. Our excuse sounded legitimate – that there were other churches closer, that the people probably had a different denominational background, and so on. But while we were making excuses to not evangelize, apparently so was everybody else. In the midst of the destruction, the people were like sheep without a spiritual shepherd.

I bet we have excuses for not evangelizing. There are a lot of churches in Guyton. A lot of people have backgrounds and families in other denominations. We aren’t big enough for some people. We don’t have a big singles group. We are too liberal for some people and too conservative for others. But the lesson I learned is that if we are not shepherding people into the kingdom of God, they are likely to be sheep without a shepherd.

In today’s Gospel story, Jesus has taken His disciples by boat to a solitary place. Jesus had sent them out two by two to evangelize, and they had returned to report on their success. Jesus was suggesting that they all take a break in a solitary place. But the people figured out where they were going, and when they landed the boat, that place was not so solitary. It was full of people looking for answers, looking for a teacher, looking for a shepherd. Jesus and the disciples needed a break, but the people needed a shepherd. So Jesus forgot about his needed break and started teaching the people.

This story comes just before the feeding of the five-thousand, which comes before the event of Jesus walking on water and calming a storm. Between those two events, Jesus was praying alone on a mountaintop. That was His time to recharge.

The story says that Jesus had pity on the people, because they were like sheep without a shepherd. The same phrase is used in Matthew. Let’s look at that, in Matthew 9:35-38:

Jesus went through all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and healing every disease and sickness. When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.”

“The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few.” There were plenty of people working the field after the hurricane, but there was nobody harvesting those who were ripe for spiritual revival. In John 4, Jesus has so impressed a Samaritan woman that she brought the whole town out to hear him. It was another time that Jesus needed a break.

The disciples had gone to get food. “Rabbi, eat something,” they said. Jesus answered, “I have food to eat that you know nothing about.” “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work. Don’t you have a saying, ‘It’s still four months until harvest.’?” How is that a saying? It must have been that when one person says, “We can’t take a break,” or “Why are you doing nothing?”, the person resting might say, “It’s still four months until harvest.” It’s kind of like saying, “What’s the hurry?”

Jesus goes on to say, “I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest.”

We all tend to make excuses for why we aren’t out inviting people to church, or testifying about the Kingdom of God. There’s lots of time, we say. What’s the hurry? The people aren’t ready. Somebody else will do it. Our barns are not big enough.

Meanwhile, lost and hurting people are looking for a shepherd. It doesn’t matter that we aren’t good enough, big enough, rich enough, loud enough, contemporary enough. It doesn’t matter if we need a break. No excuse matters, because we are not the shepherd; Jesus is.

Here’s the question: Are we going to go another week without inviting someone to church? Why? Do we really think everybody has a church, or are we just afraid to ask? Look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest! There are workers in the field who really have their hands full, and they are asking the Lord of the Harvest to send more workers.

Guess what? We are more workers. We are those who are too often sitting on the sidelines, waiting for instructions or for the ideal opportunity. Meanwhile, there are people who are lost and confused – Matthew says they are harassed and helpless – and they are like sheep without a shepherd.

You can be an answer to prayer. We can be workers in the field, gathering the harvest, bringing in the sheaves. We may need rest, we may be few, we may be busy, and none of that matters. Look! The field is ripe for harvest! Pray that the Lord of the Harvest will send workers into His field! I pray that when He sends us, we will go into the field, harvest the grain, and introduce those harassed and helpless sheep to the Good Shepherd who leads this church.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.

You, Lord, showed favor to your land;
you restored the fortunes of Jacob.
You forgave the iniquity of your people
and covered all their sins.
You set aside all your wrath
and turned from your fierce anger.

Restore us again, God our Savior,
and put away your displeasure toward us.
Will you be angry with us forever?
Will you prolong your anger through all generations?
Will you not revive us again,
that your people may rejoice in you?
Show us your unfailing love, Lord,
and grant us your salvation.

I will listen to what God the Lord says;
he promises peace to his people, his faithful servants—
but let them not turn to folly.
Surely his salvation is near those who fear him,
that his glory may dwell in our land.

Love and faithfulness meet together;
righteousness and peace kiss each other.
Faithfulness springs forth from the earth,
and righteousness looks down from heaven.
The Lord will indeed give what is good,
and our land will yield its harvest.
Righteousness goes before him
and prepares the way for his steps.

— Psalm 85

The English sonnet is a rigorous poetic form. Every English sonnet contains three four-line stanzas called “quatrains” and a two-line stanza called a “couplet” for 14 lines. Every line contains 10 syllables. The rhyme scheme of the quatrains is “ABAB”, and the rhyme scheme of the couplet is, of course, “CC”.

Because it’s such a rigorous form, the language can become a bit stilted. The sonnet becomes even more stilted if it aims too much to a commercial intent. All this considered, I still wrote a sonnet for our church:

If you are looking for love and respect
Where people welcome you just as you are,
Then join in our prayer to God to protect
This gentle oasis, this crowning star

In the Kingdom of Christ attracting all
Who are weak and weary, lonely and blue.
If you think God’s not there or does not care,
Guyton Christian Church wants to welcome you.

If you want to live with Jesus as Lord,
If you cry for the Holy Spirit’s power,
Join brothers and sisters of one accord
And visit us once, just for an hour.

The table of Christ is where we would share
God’s love. Please join us. We welcome you there.

Some day I’ll write a better one for Guyton Christian Church. But my point here is just to explain my particular affection for the Psalms. They’re all hymns, and many are prayers. Just as rhyme and rhythm are poetic devices in English, ancient Hebrew has other poetic devices that don’t translate into English. However, most modern translations evolved from the King James Version, which was written in Shakespeare’s lifetime and heavily influenced by his poetry. The result is something new and beautiful, and something that shows the fingerprint of God.

Today’s psalm, #85, is a prayer an a hymn. As with many such psalms, it acknowledges God’s favor to God’s people Israel, the people’s sin and God’s resulting anger, and a celebration of a love so strong that it lets God forgive us and turn from wrath. Before the resettling of Israel, the Christian church put itself in Israel’s place in all of scripture. Today, Israel is again a land and a people, so we’ve lost that personal sense of scripture. But we lose nothing of what the psalm says about the loving, merciful nature of God. We are right to call ourselves children of God, just as Israel did. And, importantly, we are right to admit that we are just as fickle and sinful as were the children of Israel, and indeed all nations throughout history.

Psalm 85 comes up on the lectionary for this week, and it is particularly significant to me. It teaches us about God. It tells us something about prayer. And the ideas expressed are in and of themselves very creative and poetic.

The first four verses are a stanza. They refer to a time when God brought Israel out of exile and restored the land. “You forgave the iniquity of your people and covered all their sins,” verse two says. The original Hebrew then includes the word “selah”. We don’t know what that means, but it’s probably something like “amen”. I can imagine the thought of God forgiving and hiding the sins of the people would make them want to shout, “Amen!”

The next four verses seem to be another stanza. In them, the people are asking God to repeat that act of forgiveness. “Restore us again, God our Savior, and put away your displeasure toward us.” Verse 6 says, “Will you not revive us again, that your people may rejoice in you?”

This is common throughout the Hebrew Bible, and especially in the psalms. It goes something like, “O God, we cannot rejoice in our affliction. If you restore us, if you forgive us, we will survive to sing your praises.” It’s a plea that God seems to answer again and again.

Verse 8 makes a deal with God. “I will listen to what God the LORD says; He promises peace to his people, his faithful servants – but let them not turn to folly.” In other words, I’ll read God’s promises and instructions. I’ll take the peace that God promises, but I understand that obedience is part of the deal. Peace comes to doers of the word, and not to hearers only.

Verse 9 describes what I like to call “proximity blessings.” “Surely his salvation is near those who fear him, that his glory may dwell in our land.” In other words, if his salvation is near those who fear him, then it is also near to everyone else in the land.

Paul taught that a Christian spouse should stay with a non-Christian spouse if possible so that the spouse and the children could also be sanctified –in other words, so that they would receive that proximity blessing. People who come into the church without believing are still receiving the blessing of God, because God’s hand of blessing is on the whole church. That’s a good thing, because when one of us falls, the rest of us are there to pick them up.

The last four verses are so poetic! “Love and faithfulness meet together; righteous and peace kiss each other.” What a beautiful picture! It is also meaningful. The next verse explains: “Faithfulness springs forth from the earth, and righteousness looks down from heaven.”

That’s a very Christian view of our relationship with God. Think about it. What comes from us? What springs from the earth? Faithfulness! Belief in God, or, more likely, loyalty to God. And what comes from God, or down from heaven? Righteousness! Think about the Genesis verse that Paul quotes in Romans: “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness.” Abraham was not righteous, and neither are we, so righteousness has to come from God. He credits us as if we were righteous, and he teaches us to be righteous. Our part can only be faith.

People think the message changed from “old” to “new” testament. It did not. The entire Bible makes clear that we are not righteous. The entire Bible makes clear that only God can make us righteous. And the entire Bible makes clear that God will credit us with righteousness if we provide faithfulness.

Psalm 85 is a prayer for revival! “Restore us again, God our Savior, and put away your displeasure toward us.” “Will you not revive us again, that your people may rejoice in you?”

I think you know what our part is here: Faithfulness. Believe in God, and be loyal to God. I often pray for revival at Guyton Christian Church, and that this community will receive a proximity blessing.

I have to confess something. I personally have found revival at Guyton Christian Church. In so many ways, you have restored my faith. I have received a proximity blessing, and because you are faithful, I am blessed to be a part of this church.

But we want more, don’t we? Don’t we want God to forgive our sins and give us reasons to rejoice? Don’t we want the entire land, all of Guyton and Effingham County, to see the glory of God?

My fervent prayer is that God will revive us again, individually and as a church. I pray that we will receive God’s righteousness through our faithfulness, and that the entire community will see the glory of God.

I hope that you will all join me in a prayer for revival at Guyton Christian Church. Please, let us pray:

“Restore us again, God our Savior. Revive us again, so your people may rejoice in you. Show us your unfailing love, and grand us your salvation. In Jesus Name we pray, Amen.”

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. 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. He asked me, “Son of man, can these bones live?”

I said, “Sovereign Lord, you alone know.”

Then he said to me, “Prophesy to these bones and say to them, ‘Dry bones, hear the word of the Lord! This is what the Sovereign Lord says to these bones: I will make breath enter you, and you will come to life. 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.’”

So I prophesied as I was commanded. And as I was prophesying, there was a noise, a rattling sound, and the bones came together, bone to bone. I looked, and tendons and flesh appeared on them and skin covered them, but there was no breath in them.

Then he said to me, “Prophesy to the breath; prophesy, son of man, and say to it, ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: Come, breath, from the four winds and breathe into these slain, that they may live.’” So I prophesied as he commanded me, and breath entered them; they came to life and stood up on their feet—a vast army.

Then he said to me: “Son of man, these bones are the people of Israel. They say, ‘Our bones are dried up and our hope is gone; we are cut off.’ Therefore prophesy and say to them: ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: My people, I am going to open your graves and bring you up from them; I will bring you back to the land of Israel. Then you, my people, will know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves and bring you up from them. I will put my Spirit in you and you will live, and I will settle you in your own land. Then you will know that I the Lord have spoken, and I have done it, declares the Lord.’”

— Ezekiel 37:1-14

A lot of people think Ezekiel is talking about the end times, and that may very well be. He talks in detail about the Temple even though it has been destroyed and the people have been taken captive. He talks about Israel possessing the land when that honor belongs to whichever army is winning at the moment. In Ezekiel’s time, Israel was the battlegroundfor Assyrians, Babylonians, Medes, Egyptians and Persians. Jerusalem fell in 586 BC, about halfway through Ezekiel’s ministry. He writes about the restoration of Israel and Jerusalem while he is still exiled into Babylon. In that way, he teaches that God is sovereign and with God’s people even when they are not in Jerusalem or running the Temple.

Ezekiel’s vision of the Dry Bones is a story of resurrection, not just of Israel, but of all God’s people. The dead are not just dead – they are skeletons, dried bones, beyond repair and redemption. So when God asks if the bones can be brought to life, Ezekiel says, “LORD, only you know.” The story is a setup for God doing the impossible with people.

The interesting thing about scripture is this word “wind” or “breath”. In the Hebrew, he word for both is “Ruach”, so that translators just have to pick one based on the context. In the Greek, it’s “Pneuma”, and translators have the same problem. It’s no accident, and I think God invites us to try both out in this passage.

Ezekiel preaches his heart out to the bones, and it does a little good. They come together, regain their moisture, take on flesh and start looking like people. But they are still not alive. So God tells Ezekiel, “Prophesy to the breath… ‘Come from the four winds, o breath, and breathe into these slain, that the may live.” Or, is he preaching to the Spirit? Jesus said the Spirit will come when we ask for it. Jesus said the spirit was like the wind, coming and going in a mystery, and on the day of Pentecost, the disciples heard the sound of a rushing wind before the Holy Spirit came into the room.

On the day of Pentecost, the disciples were maybe a few dozen in a room. Before the day was out, they had won 3,000 converts. Peter said it was a fulfillment of the prophet Joel: “In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy. Your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams. Even on my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my Spirit in those days, and they will prophesy.” That’s all inclusive; all ages, all genders, all peoples, slave and free. And if Peter was in the last days, what days are we in now?

Sometimes preachers think they’re talking to dry bones, pouring their hearts out and nothing happens. Sometimes our prayers don’t seem to go past the ceiling. But sometimes the bones rattle and come together, take on flesh and start looking almost alive. The last step is for God to pour out his Spirit. That is what we pray for.
Have you ever heard your sons and daughters prophesy? I have. They have a great understanding of scripture, and some great ideas about how to spread the gospel. I’ll try to encourage them to share that with you.

I’ve heard the visions of your young men, and the dreams of your old men. I don’t know which side of that divide I fall, young man or old man, but it doesn’t matter. Young and old alike, men and women, EVERYBODY has a dream, a vision, a prophesy when God pours out the Spirit on all flesh.

I suppose I’m wearing the mantle of Ezekiel at the moment. The bones have come a long way, coming together and taking on flesh. The discouragement that swept over Israel after so much was is starting to fade. The smoke is clearing from the field of battle. The only ingredient we need to become a vast army for the Kingdom of God is the wind, the breath, the Spirit. We have the words of life, the Gospel of Jesus Christ, who says that God will generously give the Holy Spirit to all who ask for it. Well, I’m asking. I invite you to be asking, too. Let’s pray:

Gracious God, we have spent too much time in the valley of the dry bones. We have been tossed about by conflict and confusion. But you are not the author of confusion. You have been rebuilding us, putting flesh on the bone, and now we cry to you to breathe on us with that life-giving Spirit. Make us an army for your Kingdom, winning souls for Jesus Christ by sharing the Good News of salvation, forgiveness and love. Fill us with your Spirit, Lord, as on the day of Pentecost so long ago.

In Jesus’ name we pray, Amen.