Women’s Sunday
“Awake My Soul and Sing”
Major Deannie Moore
Preliminary Music Video (3:45)
Awake My Soul with Tasha Cobbs Leonard (Official Lyric Video)—Hillsong Worship
Welcome and Announcements
Call to Worship and Prayer
We’ve come together today to worship the one true God who gives us life and we say, “Crown Him with many crowns, the Lamb upon His throne. Hark, how the heavenly anthem drowns all music but its own. Awake my soul and sing of Him who died for thee, and hail Him as thy matchless King through all eternity.”
Lord Jesus, thank You for Your presence in this place. Thank You for the abundant life we have in You. We know that without You we have and are nothing, but because of the life You breathe into us, we can rejoice, singing out Your praises to everyone we meet because You are faithful and true. Help us to honor and glorify You in every aspect of our time together this morning. As we begin by giving our tithes and offerings, we pray that You will be pleased and ask that You bless us as we are obedient to You. Thank you, Jesus. We pray all these things in Your name, Amen!
Offering/Offertory (4:30)
Rattle by Zach Williams (lyric video)
Dramatic Reading
Ezekiel 37:1-14 and Proverbs 4:20-22, New Living Translation (NLT)
Three readers: Narrator, Ezekiel, The Lord Props: Bones
Narrator: This is a reading of Ezekiel 37:1-14 from the New Living Translation. Listen to this conversation between the prophet Ezekiel and the Lord, and what happened when Ezekiel trusted and obeyed God.
Ezekiel (to the congregation): The Lord took hold of me, and I was carried away by the Spirit of the Lord to a valley filled with bones. He led me all around among the bones that covered the valley floor. They were scattered everywhere across the ground and were completely dried out. Then He asked me…
The Lord (to Ezekiel): “Son of man, can these bones become living people again?”
Ezekiel (to the Lord): “O Sovereign Lord, You alone know the answer to that.”
The Lord (to Ezekiel): “Speak a prophetic message to these bones and say, ‘Dry bones, listen to the word of the Lord! This is what the Sovereign Lord says: Look! I am going to put breath into you and make you live again. I will put breath in you, and you will come back to life. Then you will know that I am the Lord.’”
Narrator: God is not only the Creator of life, but He is also the Restorer of life.
Ezekiel (to the congregation): So I spoke this message, just as He told me. Suddenly, as I spoke, there was a rattling noise all across the valley. The bones of each body came together and attached themselves as complete skeletons. Then as I watched, muscles and flesh formed over the bones. Then skin formed to cover their bodies, but they still had no breath in them. Then He said to me…
The Lord (to Ezekiel): “Speak a prophetic message to the winds, son of man. Speak a prophetic message and say, ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: Come, O breath, from the four winds! Breathe into these dead bodies so they may live again.’”
Ezekiel (to the congregation): So, I spoke the message as He commanded me, and breath came into their bodies. They all came to life and stood up on their feet—a great army. Then He said to me…
The Lord (to Ezekiel): “Son of man, these bones represent the people of Israel. They are saying, ‘We have become old, dry bones—all hope is gone. Our nation is finished.’ Therefore, prophesy to them and say, ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: O My people, I will open your graves of exile and cause you to rise again. Then I will bring you back to the land of Israel. When this happens, O my people, you will know that I am the Lord. I will put My Spirit in you, and you will live again and return home to your own land. Then you will know that I, the Lord, have spoken, and I have done what I said. Yes, the Lord has spoken!”
Narrator: Proverbs 4:20-22…“My child, pay attention to what I say. Listen carefully to My words. Don’t lose sight of them. Let them penetrate deep into your heart, for they bring life to those who find them, and healing to their whole body.” Let’s draw near and listen to the Lord today.
Song of Praise (5:04)
Praise (feat. Brandon Lake, Chris Brown, & Chandler Moore) | Official Lyric Video
Additional Song Option:
SASB (2015) #231/Tune #799—Praise Him! Praise Him! Jesus, Our Blessed Redeemer
Leader Recognition and/or Enrollment Ceremony (5:00-10:00)
Leader Recognition
Have a small gift to give to each of your current Women’s Ministries’ leaders/volunteers.
The Salvation Army Women’s Ministries “is international in membership and one of the largest Christian women’s organizations in the world.” Its mission is to “bring women into the knowledge of Jesus Christ, encourage their full potential in influencing family, friends, and community; equip them for growth in personal understanding and in life skills, and to address issues that affect women and their families in their world.”
I’d like to invite [names of the women] to join me. Today they are officially becoming members of this worldwide organization. They will join with over 750,000 women across the world in serving Jesus to transform lives, change the world for good, grow as individuals and together, speak out for those who can’t speak for themselves, and support the Army’s redemptive work around the globe.
Proverbs 31 tells us of what appears to be the perfect woman. Well, none of us is perfect, but together we can work and support each other to be the women God has called and purposed each of us to be. We begin by zeroing in on Proverbs 31:30 which tells us, “Charm is deceptive, and beauty does not last; but a woman who fears the Lord will be greatly praised.”
Ladies, I am thrilled to officially welcome you as members of The Salvation Army Women’s Ministries. [If you have membership letters from THQ and cards, give those to the women at this time.]
[To congregation]: Join me in a prayer of blessing over our new Women’s Ministries members.
Father, thank You for the gift of being women of God and the opportunities we have to grow together in You. Thank You for [new members’ names] and for their desire to be part of an organization that serves You for the betterment of not only their lives but for the world. Bless them, Lord. Help them to grow in their knowledge of You through the fellowship of the women of the [corps]. Thank you, Jesus. It’s in Your name we pray, Amen!
[To congregation]: Join me in welcoming our new Women’s Ministries’ members…sisters!
Song of Worship (4:25)
King of Kings (Lyric Video) – Hillsong Worship
Sermon
Introduction
Text: Ezekiel 37:1-14
How about breathing? Anybody like it? I would hope so. I mean, I do. Everyone in this room is breathing, right? Okay. Good. Does anybody know CPR? What’s one of the first things you check? You check to see if the person is breathing. Breathing is a sign of life.
In today’s text we get a vivid picture of what happens when the breath of life is removed from a person. More than that, though, we can see what happens when the breath, the Spirit, of the living God is removed from our lives. This happens when we turn from God and living for Him to living for ourselves.
Ezekiel was a prophet of God. The text is from the book of the Bible that is named after him, and in it we see God using Ezekiel to proclaim God’s wrath to people who were chosen and called by God. Instead of serving God, the people sinned by turning away from doing things God’s way and began doing whatever they wanted to … basically breaking every one of the ten commandments. Because of their sin, they were in exile, they were taken from the land God blessed them with and were now captives of their enemies. This is a picture of the spiritual condition of God’s people. But now, instead of telling Ezekiel to speak a judgement of death over them, God tells him to speak life.
What Do You See? (Vs. 1-2)
In a vision, God takes Ezekiel to a valley. Everywhere he looks he sees bones. The valley is full of them. He doesn’t only see the bones, though, he notices that they are “completely dried out.” “The bones of the human body are made up of living cells that need a blood supply to stay healthy. When blood flow is disrupted to part of a bone, the bone tissue begins to die, and the bone can eventually break down and the joint will collapse.”
(National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Disease)
What do you see? Are there bones in your life? Are they completely dried out? Are aspects of your life beginning to collapse?
What Do You Know? (V. 3)
In verse 3, the Lord asks Ezekiel, “Can these bones become living people again?” Here’s what Ezekiel knows. He knows that he doesn’t know! He says, “Lord, You alone know the answer to that.” Think about it. Perhaps we’ve stopped living in obedience to God—stopped praying, reading His Word, trusting Him. Perhaps we have allowed the things of this world to take first place in our lives.
What do you know? When we recognize that things in our lives aren’t as they should be, when we see that things are slipping, that we’re moving away from God in one way or another, when we feel things dying and drying up, that’s when we need to admit what we know…WE DON’T KNOW! We don’t know how to fix it on our own, only God knows!
What Do You Say?
The Lord tells Ezekiel to prophesy … to speak … to the bones. So, Ezekiel spoke the message as God commanded him. He spoke God’s Word and promises to the bones of death. God told Ezekiel to speak words of life and that’s exactly what he did. And when he was obedient and spoke what God told Him to say, something began to happen. Life began to spring up and what looked like a hopeless situation began to change into something living and brand new. Bones came together as bodies and lungs began to take in air as God breathed into them once again.
What do you say? Do you speak life into the situations of your life, or do you complain and mope around, watching as things become more desolate and hopeless looking? When God spoke to Ezekiel, he did what God told him to do because, regardless of what he saw around him, he believed God. He believed God was able to do what was impossible for anyone else.
When Jesus healed the blind in Matthew 9:28b-30a (NLT), Jesus asked them, “’Do you believe I can make you see?’ ‘Yes Lord,’ they told Him, ‘We do.’ Then He touched their eyes and said, ‘Because of your faith, it will happen.’ Then their eyes were opened, and they could see.”
In Matthew 17:19-20 (NLT) we read, “Afterward the disciples asked Jesus privately, ‘Why couldn’t we cast out the demon?’ ‘You don’t have enough faith,’ Jesus told them. ‘I tell you the truth, if you had faith as small as a mustard seed, you could say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it would move. Nothing would be impossible.’” What do you believe? Do you believe “with God all things are possible?” (Matthew 19:26b)
Conclusion
What Will You Do?
Do you see dead, dried up bones when you look at your life? Do you go through life and feel as if you’re walking through a graveyard? That’s not the life Jesus died to give you. In John 10:10 Jesus’ says, “The thief’s purpose is to steal and kill and destroy. My purpose is to give them a rich and satisfying life.” (NLT) Of course, the “thief” is Satan. He wants to suck the life out of us.
But here’s John 10:10 in The Message paraphrase. Jesus says, “I came so they can have real and eternal life, more and better life than they ever dreamed of.” Stop stifling the Spirit of God. Just as He spoke life into existence in the very beginning, He can speak new life into you if you’ll let Him. Let God breathe into your life. Let Him put you together again and wake you up to sing His praises. Let Him turn the graveyard into a garden.
What will you do? Will you let God breathe today?
Time of Reflection
Fall Afresh [Lyric Video] | Jeremy Riddle | Vineyard Worship (3:20)
Additional Song Option:
SASB (2015) #294/Tune 159—Breath on Me, Breath of God
Benediction
Father, breathe life into us today. Awake our souls and give us a new song to sing that reflects Your goodness and faithfulness in our lives. Jesus, help us to be faithful, “following the Spirit’s leading in every part of our lives” (Galatians 5:25b, NLT) and living in obedience to You every day, every moment. Thank You for the time You’ve blessed us with this morning. We have been encouraged and challenged by our time together and the message we heard. Work miracles in our lives and help us to do our part to win the world to You. In Your name we pray, Jesus, Amen!
