He Spoke Life

Synopsis of sermon April 19, 2020

Delivered by Bishop Joseph W. Walker, III, D.Min.

Ezekiel 16:4-7 NIV – “4 On the day you were born your cord was not cut, nor were you washed with water to make you clean, nor were you rubbed with salt or wrapped in cloths. 5 No one looked on you with pity or had compassion enough to do any of these things for you. Rather, you were thrown out into the open field, for on the day you were born you were despised. 6 “‘Then I passed by and saw you kicking about in your blood, and as you lay there in your blood I said to you, “Live!” 7 I made you grow like a plant of the field. You grew and developed and entered puberty. Your breasts had formed and your hair had grown, yet you were stark naked.”

I.         INTRODUCTION

1. Every child of God must know that God cares about you. One of the things we never take for granted are those who choose to login into stream services or read synopsis like this one. The reason we don’t take it for granted is because we know that tuned in are people with stories of worry, stories of rejection, and stories of recovery. You stay connected, because you are in search of a relationship with God.
2. Yet in the midst of it all, we are here, believing God, because we know God is powerful enough to lift us and strong enough to sustain us.
3. We know that His word is transformational enough to move us to a place where we need to be. No matter where we find ourselves, we must know that we are never beyond the grip of God’s grace.
4. God wants to speak to those who have been rejected. God ordered your steps to this stream or synopsis for a reason. God wants to speak to you.
5. Your current situation will not be your final destination. God is at work in your life. Your life and story is still being written.
6. Ezekiel who wrote the anchor scripture, was known as the complicated prophet who God would use to give us pictorial images about what God was saying to Israel, his beloved people. Many of us today, will be able to identify with this prophecy.
   1. In the anchor scripture, Israel (represented by the baby) finds themselves in a particular space. This represents us.
   2. The baby was born in an open field, bloody, and God walks by and says, “live”. God loves his people, Israel. Regardless of your past, can you say, “God loves me”? When you see how this child is in this open space, it goes back to ancient days.
      1. Often defected or deformed infants were thrown into open fields for population control and sometimes, economic reasons. Open fields bring about feelings of anxiety and insecurity. You wonder how you got here in the open field.
      2. Like Covid-19, we ask the question, “How did we get here” and “God do you see me?”. This word is for your life, because God is not going to leave you where you are!
   3. God’s relationship with Jerusalem had not always measured up, but He still loved them.

II.         REJECTION WAS PUBLIC

This situation in our text, was set out there for everyone to see. It was about neglect.

1. Neglect Has An Adverse Effect

Many of us as adults are still sensitive and react to rejection that happened to us during our childhood. Satan will use your past rejections to mess up your destiny.

Some adverse effects are:

1. Not Cut – The baby was in the field and the chord had not been cut. This means that he was in the field and was still connected. Judah was connected to a nation that was worshiping idol gods and had not been cut from it.
   1. When we have not been cut from the disfunction of our past, many of us will cling to something and not be willing to release it.
   2. Many people have not been severed from things that can cause problems in our future. What are you still connected to?
2. Not Cleaned – Back in the day, they would put salt on the child to clean the child. It would protect them from disease.
   1. Nobody thought enough to clean us up and tell us that God had a plan for us.
3. Not Covered – The child was not swaddled. It was an open field, exposed to the elements. There are people that are connected to what they should not be, and not cleaned, and not covered.
   1. We need to make sure that our family is covered. Anything not covered will spoil.
   2. In the text, it looked like the odds were stacked against you (the baby), but note that it says that you are still breathing.
4. The Odds Were Stacked Against You, But You Are Still Breathing
5. In the midst of all that went wrong, the baby was still breathing. Many wrote you off. They said you would never make it, but we thank God that we are still breathing.
6. As long as there is breath in my body, there is potential for me to get things better. If you are breathing, then like the scripture says, Let everything that has breath, praise the Lord”!

Psalm 25:1-2 NIV – “1 In you, Lord my God, I put my trust. 2 I trust in you; do not let me be put to shame, nor let my enemies triumph over me.”

Isaiah 54:4 NIV – “Do not be afraid; you will not be put to shame. Do not fear disgrace; you will not be humiliated. You will forget the shame of your youth and remember no more the reproach of your widowhood.”- God says he has your back in the midst of this.

III.         RECOGNITION OF YOUR POTENTIAL

God always sees your potential.

1. He Pauses When Others Passed By – There I was in my blood. Looked like I wasn’t going to make it and God saw me. He paused long enough to see life in me.
2. In another story, Jairus asked Jesus about his daughter, and Jesus paused to check on her. Just like the woman with the issue of blood, Jesus paused to check on here. We thank God that He paused.
3. Give God glory for seeing you.

1. He Refused To Leave Me The Way He Found Me
2. God is not just other people who just sees you. He has a plan for where you need to be.
3. The story of the boy at the pool at the gate of Beautiful, was still there, because people were satisfied just leaving coins. They kept dropping coins and leaving him there, still cripple. When Peter and John came by, they told him to get up! They actually did something about his situation.
   1. God says you are not going to leave this season the same way He found you. He will meet you blind and leave you seeing. He will meet you deaf and leave you hearing. He will meet you broke and leave you paid. God met you sick and left you healed. He might not come when you want him to, but when he shows up, He’s on time.

IV.         REVERSED YOUR PREDICAMENT

You need to know that God is about to reverse it.

1. No Matter Where You Are, The Word Can Reach You
2. God is trying to tell you that his word will find you where you are, when you need it most.
3. At your lowest point, God’s word will find you.
4. He Spoke To My Not Yet
5. This baby in the text was bleeding. The blood found there was not from someone else. In other words, we are in a field abandoned and bleeding out.
6. When everything said die, God loved you so much that he said, “live”.
   1. You are too blessed to go out and to go under. Your best days are ahead of you. We are speaking to your not yet.
7. Release this word around your house, “live”. Everything connected to you will live. We come to speak life over you!

V.         RESTORE YOU TO PROSPER YOU

God is in the business of restoration. The women came to Jesus looking for healing, it didn’t just come.

1. God Is Going To Move You From Subtraction To Multiplication
2. God has caused you to multiply and bud in the field.
   1. Some of you look at what’s happening now and all you can see is subtraction.
3. Your days of subtraction is about to be over. God is about to flip this and bring you into a season of multiplication.
4. Constriction happens before expansion. You are about to start producing like never before. Our report is not everyone else’s report.
5. Your Growth Will Be A Sign That You Made It
6. Your growth will be a sign to the world that you made it. Your life will be a sign of God’s hand over your life.
7. The same ground I bled in, is about to be the same ground that I’m about to grow in!!
8. There was a bud. It starts out as a little thing. Start getting ready, because this blood will not be wasted. Every tear you shed will not be wasted. All the abuse you had to endure, will not be wasted!
9. God is about to move you from whereas, to therefore. We are walking into our best life.
10. Never give up on God, because “He will never give up on you”