What would happen if you couldn’t take your next breath?
Have you ever thought about how important the Holy Spirit is to your spiritual life?
I was thinking about this question this past week. If you’re anything like me, when you were a kid growing up, there was nothing more fun in the summer than getting to go swimming. And inevitably as kids, one of the games we would play in the pool would be to see who could hold their breath underwater the longest.
So that got me thinking about this question… Who holds the Guinness Book of World Records for holding their breath under water the longest?
I was shocked to learn that there is a whole sport that has developed around this, mostly by free divers, people who practice holding their breath for long periods of time so they can stay underwater longer when diving in the ocean or other places.
The sport is called “Static Apnea.” It… “is a breath-holding discipline, a unique sport in which athletes submerge themselves face down in the water for as long as possible without a breath of air.”
According to what I could find in the Guinness Book of World Records online, there is both a male and a female record holder for holding your breath under water the longest.
On July 10, 2009, Karoline Mariechen Meyer from Brazil set the record as the female who was able to voluntarily hold her breath underwater for the longest with a record time of 18 min 32.59 sec!
On February 28, 2016, Aleix Segura Vendrell of Spain set the record as the male who was able to voluntarily hold his breath underwater for the longest with a record time of 24 min 3.45 secs!!
Kids, do not try this at home!!
Breath = Life
We know what happens when we can’t take the next breath. We die.
This is why one of the first things that first responders and medical professionals always check when they arrive on the scene to help someone who is hurt is to make sure a person’s airway is clear. To make sure they can breathe. It’s why they put an oxygen mask over their face.
This is why when you board an airplane and they go through their pre-flight take off speech, they are going to tell you every time you board that plane before you take off that in case of emergency, an oxygen mask will fall from the overhead compartment. And when it does, secure it to yourself first before helping anyone else.
If you can’t breathe, you can’t help anyone else breathe!
Breath = Life.
This is true of our physical lives and this is also true of our spiritual lives.
The Spiritual Breath Problem
The problem so many of us face is that we’re trying to live spiritual lives and we’re holding our breath.
We’ll show up at church on Sunday and take a deep breath, we’ll breathe deeply the breath of God as we hear the Word of God read, as we sing songs of worship, as we participate in communion and we are encouraged by fellow believers and disciples of Jesus.
Then we walk out those doors to our car to go to lunch and we’re holding our breath! We’ve got to hold our breath until next Sunday. And if we can’t be here next week because we have a conflict, then we have to make this breath last two weeks! The world record is 24 minutes, but somehow we think we can make this breath last much longer!
Or we’re not breathing at all.
We may or may not show up, but being physically present is not the same thing as being mentally present, or emotionally present, or spiritually present. We can’t remember the last time we opened the Word of God to read the words of God for ourselves.
By the way, your scripture, the Bible, is said to be “God-breathed.” So if you’re wondering how to breathe spiritually, one undeniable way is to open the Word of God and read. Breathe deeply the breath of God on the page!
Maybe you can’t remember the last time you did that, you sat with Jesus, sat with His word, and just inhaled. Or you can’t remember the last time you prayed, really prayed to God, inhaling His promises, breathing out your fear and anxiety, trusting Him with it all.
Click here to listen to our Riverside Podcast on Breath Prayer
Or you can’t remember the last time you really worshipped. When you were just in complete awe and wonder of who God is and all He has done for you and you just inhaled His grace and exhaled His praise.
What happens when you stop breathing? You die.
This principle is true physically. It’s also true spiritually.
A Valley of Dry Bones
Ezekiel had never known what it means to belong to a community of people who are seeking God and seeking the Spirit of God together. All he had known was exile.
Ezekiel was a prophet of God who lived some 600 years before Jesus. At this point in the history of Israel, the people of God are far from God. That was true in more ways than one.
Because of their sin, they had been defeated by their enemies and are now living in exile in Babylonian captivity. They’re 700 miles away from Jerusalem. Jerusalem has been destroyed. The Temple has been destroyed. They are physically and spiritually far from God. This is a direct consequence for their disobedience!
But God wants to give Ezekiel hope. He wants to give him a vision of what will be one day. So listen to the vision that God gives his prophet, Ezekiel.
Ezekiel 37.1-14
1 The Lord took hold of me, and I was carried away by the Spirit of the Lord to a valley filled with bones. 2 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. 3 Then he asked me, “Son of man, can these bones become living people again?”
Don’t miss the imagery here, God is giving Ezekiel a vision of death. Not just death, but old and dried out bones that have been dead for a long time.
There is no life in these bones and there has been no life in these bones for a long time.
Can Dry Bones Live Again?
Ezekiel looks around at these bones, turns to God and says that only thing he knows to say…
“O Sovereign Lord,” I replied, “you alone know the answer to that.”
What happens when you get a vision from God and what you see is death all around you? Talk about a hopeless moment. Talk about coming to the end of yourself.
It’s at this moment when it seems like all hope is lost that God gives Ezekiel this vision.
4 Then he said to me, “Speak a prophetic message to these bones and say, ‘Dry bones, listen to the word of the Lord! 5 This is what the Sovereign Lord says: Look! I am going to put breath into you and make you live again! 6 I will put flesh and muscles on you and cover you with skin. I will put breath into you, and you will come to life. Then you will know that I am the Lord.’”
In other words, here’s the purpose of this resurrection, here’s the point of this new life, here’s the intention behind this decision to breathe life into death… SO THAT YOU WILL KNOW THAT YOU KNOW THAT YOU KNOW THAT I AM THE LORD!
7 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. 8 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.
9 Then he said to me, “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.’”
So these bones have muscle and tissue and skin but they don’t yet have the breath of life. By the way, the word for breath, wind, spirit, Spirit, the word ru’ach is used 9 times here in Ezekiel 37:1-14! And now God tells Ezekiel to speak to the Spirit to come and inhabit these dead bodies!
BREATHE…
Right here in v9, God tells Ezekiel specifically to speak these words, “Come, O breath, from the four winds! Breathe into these dead bodies so they may live again.”
That word for “breathe” in the greek is the word emphysaō which means to blow at or on, breathe on.
This is significant because it’s only found two other times in the Greek Bible.
In the Greek Old Testament called the Septuagint, this would have been the Bible many if not most of the people of Jesus’ day would have used living in a Greek-speaking world, this same word is found in Genesis 2.7 when God breathes life into Adam! Then it’s found here again when God tells Ezekiel to speak to the winds, to the ru’ach and tell them to emphysaō, breathe life again, into these dry bones.
And then it’s found one more time. And I’ll tell you where that is in just a moment. But let’s finish this story first!
10 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.
11 Then he said to me, “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.
So now we know what these dry bones in this vision stand for, they are a picture of the people of Israel! Wow! The nation of Israel is so far from God that God compares them to a valley of dry bones! A valley of dry bones where all hope is lost!
Are We Like that Valley of Dry Bones?
I think sometimes we read these words and we read about how far Israel got away from God and we’re quick to judge them pretty hard. But I wonder, I just wonder how many of our churches are really valleys of dry bones? How many of our churches are old, dying, trying to live as the people of God apart from the Spirit of God? How many of our churches are filled with people whose lives, like Israel, are not filled with the presence of the Spirit but instead are filled with sin?
You know what happens to the people of God when you separate them from the Spirit of God, from the breath of God? You see it right here, they die! They become a valley of dry bones!
And here again we’re reminded, we are not bad people who need God or who need the Spirit of God to make us better people. We are DEAD people, dead because of the sin in our lives that separates us eternally from God our Father… this is spiritual death, this is biblical death, this is eternal death, it’s separation from God because of our sin.
We are DEAD people who need the Spirit of God to bring RESURRECTION into our lives, breathe life into our dry, dead bones, and give us LIFE!
So God tells Ezekiel,
12 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. 13 When this happens, O my people, you will know that I am the Lord. 14 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!’”
The Promise
This is the promise, this is the future, this is what Ezekiel and the people of God were waiting on but wasn’t fully realized until Jesus, the Son of God, came from Heaven to Earth.
And before He went to the cross He promised that He would give us HIs Spirit. That He would send His Spirit to us to be our Helper. That His Spirit would be poured out on His people.
Then Jesus went to the cross and died to pay the price for our sin. He was buried in a borrowed tomb for three days. And on the third day, you know what happened? The Spirit of God raised Jesus Christ up out of that grave!
And do you know what Jesus did on the first day after his resurrection? After the Spirit of God breathed life back into His lungs?
Let’s take a quick look at John 20.19-22.
19 That Sunday evening the disciples were meeting behind locked doors because they were afraid of the Jewish leaders. Suddenly, Jesus was standing there among them! “Peace be with you,” he said. 20 As he spoke, he showed them the wounds in his hands and his side. They were filled with joy when they saw the Lord! 21 Again he said, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I am sending you.” 22 Then he breathed on them…
There’s the only other place our word emphysaō is used in the Greek Bible! And it’s my conviction that John used it on purpose. He could have said it another way. But he knew that this word connected his readers back to Genesis 2.7 when God breathed life into Adam’s lifeless body and to the time when God told Ezekiel to prophesy to the ru’ach, the wind, the Spirit, to breathe new life into that valley of dry bones. And he knew when he carried that word forward in telling this story of Jesus on the Sunday of His resurrection that they would be astonished… that in the same way that God breathed life into Adam, in the same way that Ezekiel called for the wind to breathe life into the valley of dry bones, JESUS BREATHES on His disciples!
AND THEN HE SAID THIS…
and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit.”
Are you breathing?
Are you breathing? I’m not talking about physically breathing. Are you breathing spiritually? Are you breathing deeply the breath of God? Because if you’re not breathing you’re not living.
Some of you are wondering why you never experience the presence of God in your life. Why you don’t feel close to God. Why you show up at church but nothing seems to change for you. That could be for a lot of reasons, but don’t miss this…
Your spiritual life depends on your ability to breathe deep the breath of God and to receive His Spirit.
So…
Would you be willing to open yourself up to the Holy Spirit of God, to the breath of God?
Would you be willing to pray, Spirit of God, breathe your life into my dry bones. Lord Jesus Christ, breathe on me and allow me to receive your Holy Spirit in my life.
This is what happens when the breath of God fills OUR lungs, we breathe in His Spirit, when we breathe in His grace, when we breathe in His love, when we breathe in His words of life, we breathe out songs of praise. We breathe out an anthem for His great name. We breathe out HOPE! And LIFE! And the good news of resurrection!
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