 would like to share part of the vision that we are talking about in our church part of the series is called hitting a home run as you if you play base baseball you know there's those four bases that you have to touch before you hit a home run and we believe as believers they have to touch four bases in our spiritual growth so that we can hit the home run which is for us to become disciple makers in the kingdom of God and the first one is to believe the second one is to belong the third one is to be built and the fourth one is to become I'm going to read two verses from the story that most of you are very familiar with if you ever came to a Pentecostal or Charismatic church and it's the Valley of the dry bones I'm pretty sure that you were told to prophesy to something that's dry dead and not moving in your life so this verse in the Pentecostal circles is like bread and butter prophesy to your dry bones come on somebody but today I'm gonna read verse 9 and verse 10 it says the following and he said to me prophesy to the breath prophesy son of man and say to the breath thus says the Lord God come from the four winds of breath and breathe on these slain that they may live so I prophesied as he commanded me and breath came into them and they lived and they stood under feet and exceedingly great army I want to share with you three points from the last verse they lived they stood under feet and exceedingly great army they lived they stood under feet and exceedingly great army the background of the story is the Ezekiel was told by God to prophesy into the Valley of the dry bones for a corpse to decompose and to turn into bones it has to be dead for a very long time these were not dead people these were dead bones meaning they already have passed that they've been dead for so long that their body turned into bones these bones were dry these bones were resemblance of something that died long time ago and there was a valley filled with them and this is a prophetic picture of Israel tri cities because we live in the valley there's a lot of dry bones in our valley and I believe God wants to raise a prophetic people in our city who are not just gonna prophesy to two or three bones on the side but they will prophesy to the dry bones in the whole valley by prophesying I mean that we will preach the gospel that we will proclaim the good news that we will manifest the kingdom of God and that we will see a mighty move of God that will touch our region and our valley and though we have a valley we will see a spring of living water flowing through it amen we see here prophet is prophesying to the dry bones and the first thing that happens with these dry bones the scripture says is the flesh appears on these bones a flesh muscles blood vessels veins show up and the skin covers these what used to be bones and bodies were created but these bodies did not have life in them because there was no breath in them it's kind of like the picture of the creation of man when God created a man he fashioned he put his hands into the ground and out of the ground he made our bodies but we were lifeless until God breathed his spirit and then man became a living soul so we see God creates first out of the dry dead bone a body but this body has no life because then the spirit has to be prophesied into this newly created body and then they lived the first thing is they lived Christianity is not a religion it's new life if you came to church and you only got introduced to religion you got ripped off Jesus came to give us life and more abundantly Jesus did not come to give us a new religion we have millions of religions we don't need another one what humanity needed what humanity needs is life religion is a vacuum it sucks everything it sucks life out of people but Jesus is the giver of life how does Jesus give us his life at chapter before chapter 36 of Ezekiel Ezekiel prophesies of the new covenant of the dispensation of grace that's going to come and Ezekiel chapter 36 verse 25 it says the following then I will sprinkle clean water on you and you shall be clean I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols that speaks of the forgiveness of our sins when we trust in Jesus' finished work on the cross I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in within you I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh I will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statues and you will keep my judgments and do them this is what new covenant new religion that world sees us as but what Christianity is all about we trust in Jesus he forgives us of our sin and then God does this miracle through the preaching prophesying the preaching of the gospel God first creates new heart the way these dry bones were first turned into new flesh and then breath came into them God takes us and makes us within us a new spirit but this new spirit is useless lifeless without God's holy spirit so God creates a new nature when you get forgiven of sin puts it inside of you he takes the old nature out see some people believe that Christians are schizophrenic they have an old nature and a new nature the scripture doesn't teach us the Bible says God takes the old out and puts the new in the only Christian the only thing the Christian battles with is not the old nature it's the old mindset because the scripture says those who are in Christ are new creation and old things have what it doesn't say the old things have become second meaning you have an old and a new nature you only have one nature and that is the new one the only thing you're battling with that is within is the old mindsets that needs to be renewed through the knowing of God's word and so God takes the old out puts the new in but the new does not work without the Holy Spirit because the new nature is the lock the Holy Spirit is the key new nature cannot function without the Holy Spirit therefore God puts a new heart inside of us and then he puts his spirit in that new heart because Holy Spirit cannot live in junk he has to have a new place where he can come and live and then the Bible says this beautiful word and he says I will cause them to walk in my statues meaning it will be natural for them to want and do things I ask of them because there is no external pressure of the law there is an internal motivation of my spirit Christian life is not hard Christian life is easy with the new heart and the new spirit a drunk does not struggle to drink he struggles to stop drinking a drug addict doesn't find it hard to do drugs they find it hard to not do drugs a Christian who has a new heart and the new spirit it's not hard for him to do the right thing it's hard for him not to do the right thing because the new nature and the Holy Spirit causes him it's an internal motivation and when you don't have that and you constantly put external pressure to do right you have to ask yourself a question have you been born again have you received a new heart do you have the Holy Spirit living in you because my friend if you have a new heart and the Holy Spirit it's natural it doesn't mean you'll get it right all the time it doesn't mean that you will be perfect it does not mean you will never make mistakes it does not mean you will not fall it does not mean you will not trip but one thing you will have is life you might not be religious but you will be alive you will not maybe act Christian ease or church in ease but you will be alive and that's one thing the church cannot give you is life because that comes from new nature and the Holy Spirit one thing religion cannot give you religion can clean you up the same thing as a morgue cleans up a corpse but a morgue cannot bring the corpse back to life religion cleans up a corpse but only new nature and the Holy Spirit will make them alive any alive people we have in the house this afternoon anybody grateful that Jesus gave you life my God he didn't just take the bad stuff he gave you life some of you you don't have the finances but you have life you don't have a boyfriend but you're alive you might not have the children but you're alive you might not have a place to live but you have life because Jesus gives life my God my God so they were alive the Bible says these dry bones they became alive and that's the first stage of spiritual growth it's spiritual birth it's when you are born when you have this new life in you but I want you to see the second thing that happened here it says that after they were alive they stood on their feet because it's possible to be alive and sit on your butt it's possible to be alive and lay on your back all your Christian life is spent like this I call them sleeping saints slumbering saints and then they're sitting saints all they do is they sit on their butt but see the Lord is not interested in just making you alive the Bible says they stood on their feet not just one foot but two feet and I believe this part speaks of Christian maturity which involves two things becoming a member of God's family and becoming mature in God's word belonging to life group and being built so belong and build two feet that God wants you to stand on being connected to the body and being committed to Christ amen so the Lord doesn't just want you to be alive he wants you to also mature maturity Christian maturity is the fruit of the spirit Christian maturity is your attitude it's how you react to situations in life really 90% of all the things that happen in our life happen in our life as a result of our reaction and our response your response your reaction your attitude is where the maturity is formed and created Rick Warren who coined this graph and these five circles of commitment have mentioned that there's five levels of commitment for a believer the first level is the community level the community level are level are the people who are outside of the church the second commitment level the circle gets smaller these are the crowd the crowd are the people who attend the church frequently or infrequently then the circle gets smaller where people become part of a congregation and if you noticed the circle is smaller and then after the congregation the circle gets even smaller where people become part of the community and then the circle gets even smaller where you become the core people who become ministers people who become leaders who people who become people who disciple other people notice a few things about these circles the closer you get to the core the smaller the circle when Jesus had the crowd 5000 people came to eat fish tacos on the ascension the congregation was smaller there was only 500 people on the day of Pentecost the circle was even small there was only 120 the amount of people that discipled others was even smaller so it is normal for the circle to get smaller as you get closer to the cross everybody comes when you give out free hot dogs but it's the moment Jesus invited people to pick up their cross this is where people quickly dissipated they quickly found other things they got text messages that they had things to do there were just things they had to do and so that is normal second thing I want you to notice about these circles the closer you get to the cross the higher the price the closer to the cross the fewer the people and the closer to the cross the higher the price it happens like that in the company it happens like that in a business where there are people who are entry-level employees and then there are people who are working also who are like manager positions they pay a higher price they usually get rewarded more they have higher expectations of them than an average employee and then there is a you know people who are in the senior management they have higher expectation they pay a heavier price they carry a heavier burdens and so Jesus has the same thing in his kingdom so what am I saying to you today is this God wants to move us from being alive to standing on both of our feet being connected and that takes a price the reason why it takes a price because for some of us to trust another human being to go to someone else's house for a life group will cost you your offense your past hurts isolation self-rejection and certain things that the enemy wants to keep within our heart so we harbor unforgiveness and self-rejection to develop maturity requires us to stand on both of our feet they were alive then they stood on both of their feet but the whole reason why they stood on both of their feet is for this reason that they could become an exceedingly great babysitting club at daycare an exceedingly great mob and exceedingly great spineless snowflake Christians and exceedingly great shaky wobbly tossed by like a wave constantly mood swings unstable in their ways people the Bible doesn't say that your Bible says that they could become an exceedingly great what army the devil is building a mob the world is a mob you don't believe it open your Facebook destroying everything hurting people even our politicians saying stuff it's crazy mob doesn't believe in authority mob is all about anger mob is all about destroying you to prove a point mob it's all about hurting civilians an army does not live to please civilians an army lives to please the commander an army will protect civilians an army will fight for civilians but an army is organized an army is trained an army is disciplined an army has a sense of duty a sense of commitment and the Lord is building an army not a mob the Lord is not building a gang Jesus is not building a cartel Jesus is not building a crowd he is not trying to fashion a daycare Jesus is not trying to collect snowflakes spineless Christians he is building an exceedingly great army come on somebody my god an army so that tells me that if the Lord gave me life and he helped me to get on my feet I paid off my debt I got my relationships worked out I reconnected with my children God control of these and those habits I got on my feet there are people in this room you got on your feet your family is recognizing you're on your feet you're finishing school God delivered that young man in Sweden and now he's finishing masters he got on his feet and so we need more people in the church not just who are alive but who are not sitting but on their feet they're running businesses they're contributors to their society they are law-abiding citizens they are on their feet they're taking care of their children they're taking care of their spouses they're taking care of their taxes for crying out loud they are on their feet mm-hmm but what reason for what reason are we on our feet so that we could be successful wealthy famous well respected get awards become noted by the community the scripture here says is so that we can become an army advance Jesus's agenda push back the darkness and fight in first second Samuel I'm sorry second Samuel chapter 11 verse 2 and verse 1 and verse 2 it says the following it happened in the spring of the year at the time when kings go out to battle who was supposed to go to battle at that time who kings that David David is smart he learned the law of delegation he's like I know this is my time to go to war I'm not going why I don't want to I have another person who will go on my behalf his name is Joe up David sent Joe up and his servants with him and all Israel they destroyed the people of Ammon and besieged rubber but David smarty pens remained in Jerusalem verse 2 this is what happens when you don't go to battle after you got on both of your feet then it happened one evening that David arose from his bed he's on his feet and walked on the roof of the king's house see God raises you to your feet so you wore not walk he walked on the roof of the king's house and from the roof he saw a woman who couldn't afford shower curtain and the woman was very beautiful to behold if you don't engage in a battle you will find yourself in bondage if you say battle is not for me you will find yourself first in boredom which will lead you will slip into bondage why because God anointed David and appointed David to battle but see people like David are smart people they've read leadership books they went to leadership seminars they know the power of delegation the power of management and the power of doing less but more being done and so they're so smart that people like David said I don't need to fight I fought all my life I deserve a break I'm retired from ministry from living for God I'm taking a break it's my time to chill there's nothing wrong with resting God created us to rest but what I want to address right now is people who are under feet and who use excuses from being in the battle because people like that myself included when we walk away from the battle God calls us to we will wander into a battle we were never anointed to overcome we will fight things we were never called to be in and mighty David who flood Giants couldn't resist a woman why because God's anointing rests on you on your assignment when you walk away from your assignment the anointing stays on the assignment not on you so you walk without the anointing yes you're a giant killer but right now you're the most vulnerable why because God is putting you on your feet to be an army it is time for Kings to go to battle God a kingly anointing inside of you that anointing is for battle that anointing is for ministry that anointing is for a life group that anointing is to support projects that God is involved with on this earth though if you say no to a battle you will say yes to boredom if you say yes to boredom you will say yes to bondage there are many people in this room bondage would have never been your portion if you would have said yes to God's battle our battles easy no but they're better than bondage as a Christian when God raises you up you only have two options you have your assignment your battle or the second one is bondage a mighty David couldn't win a battle because he refused to go into one God raises you up for a time like this Esther and God said to Esther to Mardukai if you remain silent at this time well God picked you as an orphan you're not even Babylonian you are Jewish girl in Babylon he made you a princess it's not because you had a good-looking thing it's because there is an assignment on your life and if you choose to say I am afraid of all the risk I have to take what if I lose my crown trying to save people if you try to be all pretty and all of the stuff I can't get my fingernails dirty because of all this assignment that requires me to do Mardukai says remember God will still win the battle losing you but you and your house will perish Jewish people will be saved because the battle belongs to the Lord but he raised you up for a time as this he gave you the money he gave you the influence he protected you from drugs or delivered you from drugs he set you free from the alcoholism that wiped your family and some other friends that are already dead God raised you up he puts you on your feet so you can become an army so you can fight so you can go into a battle because there are people in bondage that your battle will deliver there are people in bondage that your battle will rescue you in the moment a Christian say but I don't have time but this is too much mark my words if you refuse the battle you will live in bondage I remember there was a time when I struggled with migrant headaches because of some damage that was done to my optical nerve and the very low self esteem I made a promise to God if you get rid of this bad self-esteem that I have and heal my my headaches I will go into ministry and I felt that that prayer was prompted by the Lord two years later I remember that those headaches were gone the self-esteem was really no longer the problem that it used to be but honestly I didn't want to go into full-time ministry I was scared because I didn't want to be poor you know the lot of churches policy not our church but they have this thing where we keep pastors poor so God can keep them humble and I was like let them use let them do that another pastors I don't want to be that person that they experiment that on I was afraid for other reasons until one day when I started to contemplate the idea of not doing ministry I got my headaches back they say I think for a week migrant now popped in pills nothing would leave and I remember the Lord challenged me he said it's ministry or headaches as a God that's not fear you blackmailing me he said did you blackmail a room when you turned off the lights by inviting darkness no the darkness was always in the room the only thing that suppressed that darkness is the presence of light he says when you soup your yes to my assignment suppresses things you don't even know that could easily jump and eat you for lunch your yes pushes a lot of things away you don't even know that I keep at bay because I'm protecting you because my protection rests on your assignment the moment you say no to that assignment it's not I'm not punishing you the same way if you turn off the light in this room the dark the dark this is light is nothing okay you got it on me I'm gonna punish you with darkness no darkness was always huge shows up dear friends there's only one way to stay alive as a Christian and that's to fight that's to be engaged that's to serve that's to live and for those of you who like but that's hard please visit somebody who has two weeks to live in the hospital and tell them that you're bored of living and they will ask you say let's cut can we switch can you lay in this so I can live what you're afraid of living what you're afraid of fighting you're afraid you're complaining that you can get up and both of your eyes see your hands move your feet walk and what are you complaining about again God has given you life it's a gift as a Christian God has given you the Holy Spirit it's a precious gift there's a lot of challenges that are there but that's why you and I are a soldier soldiers see battle as a privilege for a slave bondage is the consequence when you're battling with bondage you're in Egypt but when you're facing battles you're in the promised land you're a soldier and when the battles come your way Gaza's because you've been promoted you are standing on your feet not so you can sip on the drink in the Hawaii Beach but so that you can be engaged in warfare to be an army Christianity is a battle but we fight that battle from a position of victory so dear friends I want to challenge you today God wants to build you into an army could you let him and I want to warn each one of you right the way for those of you who have a excuse list that is longer than 66 books of the Bible may I remind you you can make those excuses and they will make sense in your head you will even convince other people but there's one thing you cannot do when you step out of God's protection you will fight the darkness alone David did and he lost why because it was a season for kings to go to battle if you are standing on your feet it's your season to serve it's your season to participate in what God is doing now if you are not standing on your feet it's not your season to go to battle your season is to mature if you're not standing on your feet don't go to battle first get on your feet get connected get trained get plugged in get mature develop yourself let church develop you let other people help you to be developed so you can stand on your feet but with you are developed it is your season to go into a battle this is not to scare anybody but if it gets you moving let it work I when I meet with pastors many times or youth leaders especially and there I use a verse and I'm gonna close in this I use a verse in the Bible in Deuteronomy what it says because you did not serve me with joyness gladness of heart you will serve your enemies and I tell a lot of times youth leaders and I said if you don't put a smile when you serve God okay just remember serving God is way better than doing drugs it's way better than serving the devil and so I said listen we have to serve God with the good attitude with the joyful of heart why because battle is the privilege of the free bondage is the consequence of the bound we are free people we are standing on our feet and we are an army in the God's kingdom we will move the kingdom of God further we're gonna start life groups we're gonna start online groups we will start morning prayers evening prayers we will start 10 services every day online we will start a process of discipleship online we will host conferences we will release books people will not be able to catch up with them and read them we are going to create we are going to contribute we are going to influence we are not here to sit we are not here to lay we are here to influence we are here to impact we are here to make a blessing and a difference in our world in Jesus mighty name come on somebody