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Category: Ezekiel (Page 1 of 6)

Should We Not Be Concerned?

April 8, 2026 / / 2 Comments

“Nineveh has more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who cannot tell their right hand from their left, and many cattle as well. Should I not be concerned about that great city?” ~Jonah 4:11

The last line in the short story of Jonah reveals very clearly our God’s heart and his will. The closing question is extended by God to his nationalistic prophet who has expressed in both word and deed that he cares much more about his own comfort and security than he does for the welfare of the people he calls “enemies.” God’s question challenges the way Jonah thinks and acts. And it should shape our attitudes and transform our hearts to be more in line with those of our Lord.

American Christians have always tended to confuse our religion and faith with our country and our patriotism–this is nothing new. Country singer Neal McCoy sang the national anthem at the Texas Rangers home opener Friday, but he started by asking the baseball fans in attendance to recite the Pledge of Allegiance first. And he ended the pledge–“…with liberty and justice for all!“–by saying “Amen!” Like it’s a prayer. Like it’s sacred or holy.

Again, this is not new. Neither is invoking God and faith and religion to justify a government’s acts of terrible violence and war. Constantine did it early in the fourth century and every emperor, king, prime minister, and president before and since has done the same thing. Generals and kings and presidents have always ginned up support for their wars by telling us that God is on our side.

But the conflation of patriotism and faith in the U,S. has accelerated to such a degree over the past 15 years that many Christians today are uncritically supporting a president who uses increasingly profane language to make over-the-top threats of violence and annihilation against an entire civilization in the name of our Savior. The president and his newly designated “Secretary of War” continue to insist daily and sometimes hourly that killing our country’s enemies is God’s holy will. Donald Trump ends a social media post from the White House threatening to rain “all hell” down on Iran with “Glory be to God!” Pete Hegseth asks our God in public prayer to “help every round find its mark against the enemies of righteousness and our great nation.” He prays in the name of Jesus for “overwhelming violence of action against those who deserve no mercy” and for enemies of America to be delivered to “the eternal damnation prepared for them.” Then on Easter Sunday, again Monday, and into the afternoon yesterday, in an obscene act of bullying and bluster, in a torrent of vile words and images, the president threatened to completely destroy Iran’s power plants and bridges, to take out their water treatment plants, to bomb Iran “back into the stone ages,” and to end their entire civilization.

“Should I not be concerned?”

Iran has more than ninety-three-million people. Should I not be concerned about that great nation? Iran has almost two-million Christians and, for more than ten years, the world’s fastest-growing Church. Should I not be concerned?

“As surely as I live,” declares the Sovereign Lord, “I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that they turn from their ways and live.” ~Ezekiel 33:11

The American Empire and the Kingdom of God are not the same thing. The will of the U.S. president and the will of our God are not the same. To endorse the attitude, the words, and the actions coming out of the White House as God’s will toward Iran is to deny our Christ and his Gospel. After all, our Lord died for us (you and me) while we (you and me) were his enemies. Doesn’t supporting this administration’s assertions that indiscriminate violence against the people of Iran is God’s will deny just about everything Scripture teaches us about the nature and will of our Father? Doesn’t refusing to speak out loud against it make one complicit? Just listening to the president speak like this has an effect on us. It shapes us. It forms us.

Christians do not celebrate the death of human beings made in the image of our God and loved by our Father. No matter how ruthless and evil some of those leaders in Iran are, we love our enemies. We pray for our enemies and their families. We do good things for our enemies. We show concern. Should we not be concerned?

“Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.” ~Luke 6:27-28
“Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven.” ~Matthew 5;44-45

It is good for followers of Jesus to grieve with and weep for the people of Iran who have been abused, terrorized, tortured, and killed by their government. It is proper to mourn the loss of soldiers and civilians who are trapped in the middle of this terrible conflict. It’s okay to acknowledge God’s sovereign use of nations and armies to enact his justice. It is right to join the faithful lament of the prophets and the groaning of the martyred souls under the altar and cry out to our God, “How long?!? How much longer are you going to allow this to continue?!? When will you finally put all things to right?!?”

This is a time for prayer. Reflection. Meditation. Thanksgiving. Mixed feelings. It is not a time to hate. It is not a time to insult or gloat. It is not a time to defend a world leader bent on killing so many people and destroying so many lives in the name of our God who, even Jonah confesses, is “gracious and compassionate, slow to anger, and abounding in love.”

For Christians, this is a time to be concerned.

Peace (not as the world gives it),
Allan

 

Best. News. Ever.

December 13, 2024 / / 0 Comments

If God really was born in a manger in Bethlehem, then we have something no other religion in the world has ever claimed. God became a human being. God himself, the Almighty Creator of Heaven and Earth, has become one with us by becoming one of us. The best news in the whole world is that God and us are brought together in Jesus. In fact, God taking on our everyday human condition is the means of our salvation. God reclaims us as his own by becoming one of us. That’s the best news ever!

But a lot of us are missing it.

I saw a survey early last week from 2022 that showed 43% of U.S. Christians agree with this statement: “Jesus was a great teacher, but he was not God.”

How can that be? That’s impossible! Unless Jesus is both 100% fully God and 100% fully human at the same time, the Gospel is powerless to save. The Good News is just an empty announcement.

Think about, in the Bible, how people responded to Jesus. It’s mostly over-the-top extreme reactions. Nobody was ever just “meh” about Jesus. Some are so furious with him they try to throw him off a cliff. Others are so terrified they cry out, “Go away from me!” Others fall down before him and worship. Why all the extremes?

Because if Jesus is God, then you have to change and center your entire life around him. If he is not God, then he is someone to hate or fear. No other response makes any sense; it can only be one of the two extremes. Either Jesus is God or he’s not. So he’s either absolutely crazy and dangerous or he’s infinitely wonderful and good.

But our world is filled with people who say they believe in Jesus, they say they understand who he is, but it hasn’t revolutionized their lives. There’s no change. They still look and think and act like everybody else. The only way to explain this is that, contrary to what they claim, they haven’t really understood the meaning of Immanuel, that Jesus Christ is God with us.

The Advent of Christ, the arrival of Jesus changes everything. If anyone is in Christ, there is new creation! The old has gone, the new has come! Ezekiel says we’re given a new heart and a new spirit. Romans 12 says we’re given a new mind. Jesus tells us we’re given a new identity and a new family in him. And at the end of Matthew 19, Jesus gives us the hope of living in a brand new world, what he calls the renewal of all things!

Something has happened. Something has been done. And it totally changes everything. It’s the best news you’ve ever heard. And it gives you and it gives all of us a whole new world.

Peace,

Allan

Jesus Won’t Go There?

August 29, 2024 / / 0 Comments

So many of us see the “lost” people in our lives as irretrievably so. They’re out of reach. They’ve been too far gone for far too long. Your children have so much sin in their lives. Your grandkids don’t even believe in God anymore. Your husband has left the Lord and has no desire to return. Your old college roommate is in a really dark place. Your niece is in a horrible place. You’ve tried. You’ve talked to them. You’ve studied with them. You’ve prayed. Oh, my word, you’ve prayed. You’ve tried everything. You just don’t think anybody can reach her. You don’t think anyone can get to him.

Hey. Our God can reach her. Our God can get to him.

Remember our God’s promise in Ezekiel 34: I will search. I will rescue. I will bring them in. I will gather them up. Our God goes into the darkest and most horrible places to breathe his life into death. That’s why he sent Jesus, to show us in person that this is what our God is all about.

Jesus tells those stories in Luke 15 so we clearly get the picture. As long as there is one single lost coin buried in the dirt in the corner of a dark house, I will not stop until it is found. As long as there is one single lost lamb wandering alone out there in the wilderness, I will not quit until it is found. Every single coin, every single sheep, every single lost son or lost daughter.

Where is your grandson? Where is your nephew or your friend at school?

God won’t go there to get him? Jesus won’t go there?

Jesus goes through a storm across the sea into a pagan cemetery in the Gerasenes to give life to a naked man with no name tied to a tombstone. Jesus pulls Peter out of a boatload of despair and breathes his Spirit into him. He goes to an out of the way well outside a Samaritan village to forgive a sinful woman. He grabs a hated tax collector out of a tree. Why? Because Jesus says he came to seek and save the lost!

Christ Jesus went to the darkest and most hopeless place of all. He went to his own death on the cross for your loved one. He was buried in a cold tomb for three days for your loved one. He went there to seek and to save your lost! There is no place on this earth he won’t go. The early Church would say there is no place in hell Christ Jesus won’t go–didn’t go!–to seek and save the lost! He can find your missing person!

Can these bones live? O Sovereign Lord, you alone know. And you alone are able.

Peace,

Allan

That They May Live

August 27, 2024 / / 0 Comments

On Sunday we wrapped up our summer-long sermon series from Ezekiel with the familiar vision of the valley of dry bones in chapter 37. With Cassie and Laylan Bundy’s impressive mural behind me, we explored the bones the same way Ezekiel did. As the Lord walked his prophet around and through all those bones, I led our congregation through the scene as best I could. This is complete desolation. Total death. These are not dead bodies–these are bones. Dead, dry, bleached-out bones. There is no life here, no possibility of life, not one flicker. This death valley is filled, not with dead corpses, but with skeletal remains. This is the very essence of dead. No life. No pulse. No organs. No breath. No hope.

God’s people have been utterly destroyed because of their sin. That’s the picture here. The covenant curses have been executed. The people are cut off. No relationship with the Lord. No salvation. No possibility. Just miles and miles of dead, dry, lifeless, hopeless bones.

And God asks, “Can these bones live?”

I’ve got to believe Ezekiel’s first thought is, “No! Of course not! These bones can’t live! They’re bones!”

But then Ezekiel remembers to whom he is speaking. This is Almighty God, the Creator of Heaven and Earth. So he says, “O Sovereign Lord, you alone know.”

That’s when God causes the bones to come to life. The Lord God breathes his Holy Spirit into the bones and they do come to life. The bones connect together, bone to bone, tendons and muscles, and they’re covered with skin, and they live!

Ezekiel knows that God has the power to make the dry bones come to life. Now, Ezekiel knows that God will make the dry bones come to life! Of course God can. Praise the Lord, yes, God will!

“You will come to life!”

Today, 2,600 years after Ezekiel’s vision, I see dead people. And you do, too. I feel like sometimes I’m walking right through the middle of Ezekiel’s valley of dry bones. There are dead men and dead women and dead teenagers everywhere. Spiritually dead. Cut off from God because of their sins. No relationship with the Lord. No salvation. No life. No hope. I see dead people, And you do, too.

Your son has left the Lord. Your daughter is no longer a member of a faith community, she hasn’t been to church in years. Your husband has never submitted to the lordship of Jesus. Your grandchild has never been baptized. Your niece is living in sin. Your nephew doesn’t even believe in God.

Can these bones live?

The Word of the Lord says, “You will come to life! I will put breath in you and you will come to life!”

 

 

 

 

 

At the end of the sermon, we took time for everyone in our church to write down the name of someone they know who is spiritually dead. A close relative. A former college roommate. A friend at school or work. Someone they love. Someone who is living far away from the Lord. We wrote down the names of those people and placed them on the dry bones mural on the Worship Center stage.

I believe our God looks at the spiritually dead people that you love and he sees life. He sees it.

We all have people like these in our lives. We grieve. We agonize. Our hearts are broken every day. The biggest and most powerful and most effective thing we can do is to give these people to our God. Hand them to God in prayer and by faith in him to bring them back to life by breathing his Holy Spirit into their souls.

 

 

 

 

 

I’m not sure, but I believe every person in the room walked down to the front and placed at least one name on that painting. Older people from the back of the sanctuary, helping each other up and down the steps. Young families with their kids. The whole youth group. It didn’t take long, because we all have those people in our lives. We know exactly who they are. We think about them and pray about them and grieve over them all the time. We all have these people and we all want so desperately to do something about their condition. You would die for this spiritually dead person in your life right now if it would do any good. So if writing their name on a sticker and placing it on a painting in the Worship Center as a symbolic act of prayer, a symbolic act of giving these people to the Lord, is what is asked… Well, everybody did it. No hesitation. Lots of tears. Lots of names. Lots of hugs around that painting.

One of our shepherds, Marc McQueen, led us in a congregational prayer and lifted every one of those names up to the Lord. He begged our God to breathe his Holy Spirit into these “bones” that they may live. More tears. More hugs.

I look at that massive mural this morning–we don’t know what we’re going to do with this thing–and I am reminded that every one of us has these people in our lives. It’s important to give voice to the pain, to publicly acknowledge the grief for loved ones who have rejected our God and are living outside of his will and his eternal Kingdom. It’s also important to tangibly, physically, do something about it. We can feel so helpless. It’s important to be reminded that we are not alone in our pain–every person in the room is carrying a similar burden.

It’s important to be reminded that God alone can make the “bones” come to life. We know this is God’s will. We know this is what he wants. He will bring our loved ones to life. And when he does, in his way and in his time, then, as he says, we will know that he is the Lord.

Peace,

Allan

Fleshing It Out

August 24, 2024 / / 0 Comments

This Sunday at GCR, we’re concluding our sermon series in Ezekiel with the well-known dry bones vision in chapter 37. It’s going to be a special Sunday and I don’t want to bog it down with a bunch of lame puns. So, I’m getting them out of the way right now.

“Read Ezekiel 37:1-14 and we’ll flesh it out together this Sunday.”

“Read Ezekiel 37:1-14 and bone up on your knowledge of this familiar story.”

“Don’t be a bonehead; read Ezekiel 37:1-14 to get ready for this Sunday’s sermon.”

“Make no bones about it–you need to be at GCR this Sunday morning.”

The impressive mural on the stage in our Worship Center was painted by our own incredibly talented sister Cassie Bundy. It’s eight-feet tall and 20-feet long and it serves as the perfect backdrop to what’s going to be a powerful morning at our church. At times tomorrow, the mural will serve as scenery and, at other times, as the focal point of our participation in and response to the sermon. I am so thankful to God for Cassie’s eagerness to share her gifts with God’s people. And I pray that eyes and ears will be tuned in and hearts will be open for our Lord’s powerful message of forgiveness and salvation.

We’re not going to sing “Dry Bones” this Sunday, but we are going to be immersed in the Word of God to us from this significant passage. And if you have a bone to pick with me for anything I’ve written here, don’t let it get under your skin.

Peace,

Allan

You Will Come to Life

August 20, 2024 / / 0 Comments

Things don’t always seem really great. Things don’t always go the way you thought they might. In fact, sometimes, things are really rotten. Things at home. Things at church. People in your family. Situations. Issues. Sometimes it can seem hopeless. Sometimes it can be overwhelming. You don’t see any light at the end of the tunnel. You can’t believe it’s possible for this or that to work out for good. There’s no way.

“Our bones are dried up and our hope is gone.” ~Ezekiel 37:11

Have you looked at the cross lately?

You know, we live by faith, not by sight. We live by the Spirit, not by the flesh. We serve a Lord who has already defeated every single thing that would ever come between us and our God-ordained potential and purpose as his children living in his eternal Kingdom. Our God looks at his Son dying—deader than dead—on that cruel tree and sees hope. He sees possibility. God looks into the darkness of the tomb and sees eternal life. He looks at Sarah’s barren womb and the 100 candles on Abraham’s birthday cake and sees an entire nation of millions of his people. And our God looks at your life, he looks at your church, he looks at the mess that is you and/or the people around you, and he sees great promise. He sees things we don’t see.

“I will put breath in you, and you will come to life.” ~Ezekiel 37:6

The things happening to you or around you—whatever they are, they are not a joke. It’s nothing to be taken lightly. I’m sure it’s all quite serious.

But the cross of Christ and that empty tomb remind us that it’s also nothing to worry about. It’s nothing to lose sleep over. It’s nothing to sweat. The power of the cross and the resurrection of Jesus takes away all doubt and fear and replaces it with holy power and confidence.

God’s power is made perfect in weakness. And you are weak. You are so pitiful. So am I. We are, together, some of the weakest, most pitiful people around.

And that, my brothers and sisters, gives me great courage and hope.

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Here are a few pictures from the second night of our own personal World Series parade in Arlington. Carly and Collin joined us Friday at the ballpark where we received free promotional giveaway championship hoodies, which are short-sleeved and weird; took pictures with the World Series banner, which looks tiny and insignificant next to that massive video board;  the World Series trophy, which was displayed inside Chuck Morgan’s P.A. booth and brought tears to my eyes; and the huge World Series championship ring that was just meant to be climbed on.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Peace,

Allan

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