I Got This!Ezekiel 17: 1-24

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

In a comedy show: George Lopez, there are times that the family finds itself in some predicaments. Thinking he can provide the solution, one of George’s expressions often is: I got this! As the father of the house, George often sees himself as solution. Sometimes he is, sometimes he isn’t. At the end of our word for today, God says, I will do this. Borrowing the expression, today, we see God – the father of the church – say to his church – say to us: “I Got This.”

What does he “got”? The word of God before us brings us to a low point in the life of God’s people in the Old Testament. We are at the time of the Babylonian exile. Before we read the Word, it might be best to illustrate it with the following map:

God’s people – his Old Testament Church – are on the left hand side of the map living in their country of Judah. But, because of their wickedness, God used the kingdom of Babylon – on the right side of the map to take them into captivity. Babylon’s leader, Nebuchadnezzar, is described as an eagle. He came and broke of the cedar in Judah. The cedar refers to the last king of Judah. He replaced him with a seed – a puppet King – a man by the name of Zedekiah. But there was another eagle – another ruler --- this was the Pharaoh of Egypt. He made a treaty with Zedekiah to agree to defend him if Zedekiah rebelled from Nebuchadnezzar. When Nebuchadnezzar saw this, he swooped in, Pharaoh didn’t back up his promise. The remaining people in Judah were taken into captivity and Pharaoh himself was destroyed. Surely, a low time in the history of God’s church. It is of this time that we read in Ezekiel 17:

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17 The word of the LORD came to me: 2 “Son of man, set forth an allegory and tell the house of Israel a parable. 3 Say to them, ‘This is what the Sovereign LORD says: A great eagle with powerful wings, long feathers and full plumage of varied colors came to Lebanon. Taking hold of the top of a cedar, 4 he broke off its topmost shoot and carried it away to a land of merchants, where he planted it in a city of traders.

5 “ ‘He took some of the seed of your land and put it in fertile soil. He planted it like a willow by abundant water, 6 and it sprouted and became a low, spreading vine. Its branches turned toward him, but its roots remained under it. So it became a vine and produced branches and put out leafy boughs.

7 “ ‘But there was another great eagle with powerful wings and full plumage. The vine now sent out its roots toward him from the plot where it was planted and stretched out its branches to him for water. 8 It had been planted in good soil by abundant water so that it would produce branches, bear fruit and become a splendid vine.’

9 “Say to them, ‘This is what the Sovereign LORD says: Will it thrive? Will it not be uprooted and stripped of its fruit so that it withers? All its new growth will wither. It will not take a strong arm or many people to pull it up by the roots. 10 Even if it is transplanted, will it thrive? Will it not wither completely when the east wind strikes it—wither away in the plot where it grew?’ ”

11 Then the word of the LORD came to me: 12 “Say to this rebellious house, ‘Do you not know what these things mean?’ Say to them: ‘The king of Babylon went to Jerusalem and carried off her king and her nobles, bringing them back with him to Babylon. 13 Then he took a member of the royal family and made a treaty with him, putting him under oath. He also carried away the leading men of the land, 14

so that the kingdom would be brought low, unable to rise again, surviving only by keeping his treaty. 15

But the king rebelled against him by sending his envoys to Egypt to get horses and a large army. Will he succeed? Will he who does such things escape? Will he break the treaty and yet escape?

16 “ ‘As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign LORD, he shall die in Babylon, in the land of the king who put him on the throne, whose oath he despised and whose treaty he broke. 17 Pharaoh with his mighty army and great horde will be of no help to him in war, when ramps are built and siege works erected to destroy many lives. 18 He despised the oath by breaking the covenant. Because he had given his hand in pledge and yet did all these things, he shall not escape.

19 “ ‘Therefore this is what the Sovereign LORD says: As surely as I live, I will bring down on his head my oath that he despised and my covenant that he broke. 20 I will spread my net for him, and he will be caught in my snare. I will bring him to Babylon and execute judgment upon him there because he was unfaithful to me. 21 All his fleeing troops will fall by the sword, and the survivors will be scattered to the winds. Then you will know that I the LORD have spoken.

Yes, the Lord had spoken. It was done. But what about God’s promises that the people of Judah would be God’s chosen people? What about the promises that the Savior would come from them? What about the promises of salvation? Were they gone? No, for in these next words, we see God saying, “I Got This.”

22 “ ‘This is what the Sovereign LORD says: I myself will take a shoot from the very top of a cedar and plant it; I will break off a tender sprig from its topmost shoots and plant it on a high and lofty mountain. 23 On the mountain heights of Israel I will plant it; it will produce branches and bear fruit and become a splendid cedar. Birds of every kind will nest in it; they will find shelter in the shade of its branches. 24 All the trees of the field will know that I the LORD bring down the tall tree and make the low tree grow tall. I dry up the green tree and make the dry tree flourish.

“ ‘I the LORD have spoken, and I will do it.’ ”

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What does this mean? What is this “shoot from the top of a cedar” that God will plant? Again we look at the map.

In the little city of Nazareth, there lived a young virgin girl, who was a descendant of King David so she carried in her the royal blood of the kings of Judah. To that young virgin girl, 400 plus years later after the Babylonian captivity, the angel would appear and say: 31 You will be with child and give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus. 32 He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, 33 and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever; his kingdom will never end.” (Luke 1: 31-33)

That was God saying: “I Got This”. “I got this covered. I will keep my promises. I will bring about the salvation. I will do this.”

Do this, he did. From the tender, humble life and death of Jesus came the salvation for all. The reign of Jesus, our Savior/King, extends for all eternity. He rules our hearts and lives with this grace.

Two Points:

First: Zedekiah, the puppet king, sought help but sought it in the wrong place. He turned to humans for help, in this case it was Pharaoh. What is worse, he had no faith in God so he saw no need to turn to God. The one he turned to for help, was defenseless and worthless. The one he didn’t turn to – God – allowed the Babylonians to overtake him.

Who do we turn to for help? If we are looking for prosperity in any region to the neglect of our trust in God, we are courting failure.

Second: This brings us to our continued process of our looking at our congregation and our ministry.

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Brothers and Sisters – Over the past months, from time to time I have shared with you some of my thoughts and struggles in the ministry. I have talked to you about “sowing reckless love” which means that we want to just get out there and “throw around the love of God”, that is, to share the message of Jesus without regard to what it will cost us. I have talked to you about our growing in our Lord. How important it is for us to have a growing relationship with Jesus. How do we grow? By being in the Word and Sacrament.

Today, the Lord of the Church, reminds us – me – each one of us, that his promise is: “I Got This!” Throughout the history of the church, we have seen the church go through some low times. In fact, it is true that, on a human level, the church should not exist. In words of the song we sang:

Built on the Rock the Church shall standEven when steeples are falling.Crumbled have spires in ev'ry land;Bells still are chiming and calling,

In the last song we will sing, the words remind us of the challenges before the church:

Though with a scornful wonder The world sees her oppressed,By schisms rent asunder, By heresies distressed,

We may now always feel like our church is flourishing. We may not even feel like our faith is flourishing. This has been the history of the church. It also has been the history of our congregation. From a human point, we should not be here. We too have gone through difficult times. Members come and members go. Finances go up and go down. Sin and conflict have attacked us. In 2 weeks, I will have been here 24 years. I didn’t think I would last a year. But here we are. But my problem was that I put too much emphasis on myself. Almost to the point that I would say, “I Got This.” I can do this, I can change this. How foolish we are if we seek to find strength in ourselves. Like faithless Zedekiah who turned to Pharaoh, are we tempted to turn to ourselves for our help.

We do not and cannot flourish without a close relationship to our God through his word. We find strength in God’s promises but how can we have that strength if we are not in his promises. In Psalm 92 our God says: "The righteous will flourish like a palm tree, they will grow like a cedar of Lebanon; planted in the house of the LORD, they will flourish in the courts of our God”.

God says, “I Got This!” He has it in his Word. Brothers and Sisters, let us flourish in God’s word!

As the Lord declares so it shall be. This is the simple, yet very powerful message of the Bible. The true Christian church is every gathering of believers firmly planted on Christ the cornerstone. God’s church is built on his word alone. The holy Christian church is the invisible church. It has no building or boundaries. The holy Christian church consists of every believer who confesses Christ as his or her personal Savior. God knows them. This is God’s church. God plants this church. God loves this church. God provides for this church. God blesses this church. It is the church that you belong to. "Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with God’s people and members of God’s household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone" (Ephesians 2: 19-20)

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So, we seek to move forward in our ministry. Right now, our leadership is in discussion about the plan, the vision for our congregation. It is good for us to be diligent in our work, for God does work through us. But, no matter what we do, our confidence is that our God says: “I Got This!”

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