Episode 1631: Redemption Road

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Scott Maderer: [00:00:00] Thanks for joining me on episode 1,631 of the Inspired Stewardship Podcast.

Paul Granger: I'm Paul Granger. I challenge you to invest in yourself, invest in others, develop your influence and impact the world by using your time, your talent, and your treasures to live out your calling. Having the ability to lean into our faith in God is key, and one way to be inspired to do that is to listen to this.

The Inspired Stewardship podcast with my friend Scott Mader

Scott Maderer: and get unbound from our own little narrow picture of what it is to be God-like to be serving God. That is what Paul is arguing about in Romans. That's turning to the spirit instead of to the flesh. [00:01:00]

Paul Granger: Welcome and thank you for joining us on the Inspired Stewardship Podcast. If you

Scott Maderer: truly desire to become the person who God wants you to be, then you must learn to use your time, your talent, and your treasures for your true calling.

In the inspired Stewardship podcast, you will learn to invest in yourself. Invest in others and develop your influence so that you can impact the world.

In today's spiritual foundation episode, I talk about Ezekiel chapter 37 verses one through 14, Psalm one 30, and Romans chapter eight, verses six through 11. I talk about how the arc of waiting and lint is coming to an end, but that waiting is an active process. Also, share how this is a call to remove the stones in our lives.

Ezekiel [00:02:00] 37, 1 through 14 says, the hand of the Lord came upon me and he brought me out by the spirit of the Lord and sat me down in the middle of a valley and it was full of bones. He led me all around them. There were many lying in the valley, and they were very dry. He said to me, mortal, can these bones live?

And I answered, oh Lord God, you know. And then he said to me, prophesy to these bones and say to them, oh, dry bones. Hear the word of the Lord, thus says the Lord God, to these bones, I will cause breath to enter you and you shall live. I will lay sinew on 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.

So I prophesied as I had been commanded, and as I prophesied, suddenly there was a noise, a rattling, and the bones came together, bone to its bone. I looked and there were sinews on them and flesh had come upon them, and skin had covered them, but there was no breath in them. Then he [00:03:00] said to me, prophesied to the breath, prophesy, mortal, and say to the breath, thus says the Lord God come from the four winds of breath and breathe upon these salan that they may live.

I prophesized as he commanded me, and the breath came into them and they lived and stood on their feet A vast multitude. Then he said to me, mortal, these bones are the whole house of Israel. They say our bones are dried up and our hope is lost, and we are cut off completely. Therefore, prophesy and say to them, thus says the Lord God, I'm going to open your graves and bring you up from your graves.

Oh my people and I will bring you back to the land of Israel. And you shall know that I am the Lord. When I open your graves and bring you up from your graves of my people, I will put my spirit within you and you shall live, and I will place you on your own soil. Then you shall know that I, the Lord, have spoken and will act, says the Lord.

Psalm one 30 says, out of the depths, I cry to you, oh Lord, Lord, hear my voice. Let your [00:04:00] ears be attended to the voice of my supplications. If you oh Lord, should mark inequities, Lord who could stand, but there is forgiveness with you, so that you may be reviewed. I wait for the Lord. My soul waits and it is Word I hope.

My soul waits for the Lord more than those who are watched for the morning more than those who watch for the morning. Oh, Israel hope in the Lord. For with the Lord there is steadfast love, and with him is great power to redeem. It is he who will redeem Israel from all its inequities. Romans Chapter eight, verses six through 11 says, to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the spirit is life and peace.

For this reason, the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God. It does not submit to God's law. Indeed it cannot, but those who are in the flesh cannot please God. But you are not in the flesh. You are in the Spirit. Since the spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not [00:05:00] have the spirit of Christ, does not belong to him.

But if Christ is in you, then the body is dead because of sin. The spirit is life because of righteousness. If the spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through his spirit that dwells in you

this Sunday. This last Sunday was that transition. It. It's not officially the end of Lent yet, but we're coming up on Palm or Passion Sunday, and then there's Holy Week and Easter, and all of that has its own momentum. So we're concluding this with these passages. From the Bible. So starting with Psalm one 30 it's a Psalm of the ascent they call it.

These are thought to be pilgrim songs sung by those traveling [00:06:00] to Jerusalem for worship and sacrifice. See Jerusalem set up on a hill. And so approaching it from any direction meant going up. So there's a geographical reference in Psalm of the ascent. It's also a theological reference. If you think about Psalm one 30, it starts out of the depths.

I cry to you, oh Lord, it's coming at the lowest place. And that then climbs from those depths into faith and hope. What begins is a personal cry for help becomes a corporate call to hope in the Lord. And the Psalm is addressing. The God of forgiveness and promise and await for redemption, and then invites everyone of the nation, all people, to wait with hope to wait.

With that transforming love to wait and see that love can heal, all broken, all [00:07:00] sinfulness, both in the person and in the body. It also makes clear, however, that waiting is not a passive helpless, worry filled fear. Instead, it's an active anticipation, a, a search for signs of change and hope. It implies that there are lives at stake.

Not just the life of the individual, but the life of the nation, of the, of the group, of the corporate being an entity. And the calling of the church today is to identify that which brings life and redemption, that which lifts up and brings together rather than tears down and separates what brings hope instead of fear.

Out of those depths, no matter what depth you find yourself in, alone or as a church, that's where the possibility of life is. [00:08:00] That's the redemption road that we travel, and that's redemption is not an exclusive possession. It's, it's a way of inviting and including everyone. No matter how dim it may seem that they deserve it, no matter how it may feel like they don't deserve it, it's still an invitation to them as well.

Think about the Ezekiel passage standing in a valley of dry bones. Can these bones live? And the answer is, you know, Lord, I don't know on my own, I can't do this on my own. But if I turn it back to you, Lord, you know the answer. It's beyond me, but it's not beyond you. That might be why Ezekiel was brought to that place of death and dryness to be the one that could hold out, hope to be the one that made the declaration, not the one that did [00:09:00] the resurrection, but the one that called out that here, even in this death filled place, even at the lowest place.

It is not over. There's still hope. This may look like the end of everything, but it's not. You can still call out life, even in the face of death, call in the breath and declare what life is. Life is turning your face forward to God, even in those lowest points, and it's hard work. We can't do it alone. We can't do it by ourselves.

We have to come to community and clear the stones from our path. We have to take away the stones that are holding us back, the stones that are blocking us today, that allows us to hear and share the invitation. To [00:10:00] reach out to building community, to loving our neighbor, to serving, the hurting, the forgotten, the ignored, the scapegoated, those children of God who are the face of Christ for us that.

Is what Paul is talking about. He says that flesh is stone. Not that bodies are bad, but what he talks about is living in the flesh instead of the spirit. It's not flesh that's bad, it's just like love of money, not money is what is the source of evil. Paul is talking about pride. Paul is talking about doing it all on your own.

Paul is talking about looking out for yourself. That's the flesh moments. But when we instead redeem, unite and build up, when we call in others and get unbound from our own little neuro picture of what it [00:11:00] is to be God-like to be serving God, that. Is what Paul is arguing about in Romans that's turning to the spirit instead of to the flesh.

Thanks for listening.

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