The Spirit of a Hustler, Min. Barbara Florvil

0:00 Hello, Alfred Street. This is Minister Barbara Florville here, and I'm so glad that we get together virtually. God is good, and God is good in the airwaves and online, so we thank the Lord that we get to do something like this so that we can experience the word of God all together. honor to my pastor the Reverend Dr. Howard John Wesley for this opportunity. God is truly great and greatly to be praised right where you are in your home through your phones and through your computers and right in this space right now so let us get ready for a word from the Lord. We'll be reading from Ezekiel chapter 37 verses 1 through 14 and it reads the hand of the Lord came upon me and he brought me out by the spirit of the Lord and set me down in the middle of a valley. It was full of bones. He led me all around them. There were very many lying in the valley and they were very dry. He said to me, mortal, can these bones live? I answered, oh Lord God, you know. Then he said to me, prophesy to these bones and say to them, oh dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. Thus says the Lord God to these bones, I will cause breath to enter you and you shall live.

1:28 I will lay sea news on you and will cause flesh to come upon you and cover you with skin and put breath in you and you shall live and you shall know that I am the Lord. So I prophesied as I had been commanded and as I prophesied suddenly there was a noise, a rattling and the bones came together bone to its bone and I looked and there were sinews on them and flesh had come upon them and skin had covered them, but there was no breath in them. Then he said to me, prophesy to the breath, prophesy mortal and say to the breath, thus says the Lord God, come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain that they may live. I prophesied as he commanded me and the breath came into them and they lived and stood on their feet, a vast multitude.

2:25 Then he said to me, mortal, these bones are the whole house of Israel. They say, oh bones, our bones are dried up and our hope is lost. We are cut off completely. Therefore prophesy and say to them, thus says the Lord, I'm going to open your graves and bring you up from your graves. Oh, my people, I will bring you back to the land of Israel and you shall know that I am the Lord. When I open your graves and bring you up from your graves, oh, my people, I will put my spirit within you and you shall live. I will place you on your own soil and then you shall know that the Lord has spoken and will act, says the Lord. Amen.

3:21 I would like to speak from the topic, the spirit of a hustler. Let's pray. God, there is none like you. God, we thank you that we have no one and nothing to compare you to. So open up our minds and our spirits to whatever you plan to do. We thank you, we love you, and we praise you in the matchless name of Jesus Christ, we pray. Amen.

3:53 I don't have any biological children yet. So when I get to stand behind the pulpit, I get to tell stories about yours. Either it be a Boy Scout or a Girl Scout, a crossover youth or a higher ground teen or a college student, it's all fair game. Don't be scared now. They really give me good material sometimes. Recently, during one of our eVillage sessions with our college students, I asked the college students, what makes you unique? What is something that is truly unique to you, something you used to do even as a young person. And one of the young ladies said, I'm a hustler. I said, oh. And she said, yes. Ever since I was a little girl, I made things work for me. Nothing illegal, but I did get real money sometimes, not just play money. I got an exchange of opportunities, I would start the first lemonade stand on my block. That was me.

4:58 And having done things like that ever since, as a broke college student today, I learned to make use with what I've got. She said, I taught myself to do different things. I taught myself how to do hair, and I even taught myself how to do nails. And now, if anyone knows anything about getting your nails done. Sometimes it's not just paint. Sometimes there's a whole scientific process called acrylic nails. And this young lady knew how to do that. I know I lost some of our men, but just to let you know, yes, this young lady was truly a hustler in college. And I know that she was a hustler because when all you have is a desire and half the resources and none of the privilege and you can make something out of it, you've got a hustler spirit. When you can make one plus one equals three, you have a hustler spirit. When you can be set down in the middle of a mess of an unfair and seemingly hopeless situation, you can make nightmares into a dream, you've got a hustler spirit. When you can make an apartment in the projects feel like a penthouse suite, you've got a hustler's spirit. I said, when you can make a table set in a food desert of a community look like a five-star buffet, you've got the spirit of a hustler.

6:18 When you make the neighborhood playground into a gym, you've got a hustler's spirit. When you can make a deficit look like an opportunity, you have got a hustler's spirit. When you can make gardens grow out of concrete you can make something out of nothing you can take what was destined for death and bring it to life you have got a hustler's spirit and some of you know what I mean because a hustler knows no time and is not a respecter of persons just ask an enslaved person on us at plantation taking scraps of what came from the master's table and making it a meal for a family chitlins and pork rinds and soup in the winter. Hustle. Just ask the Gullah Geechee people who learned the language of the people who stole them and created their own.

7:14 Hustle. Just ask Big Mama who couldn't shop in the department stores and she learned how to sew so every Sunday you still looked your best. Hustle. Just walk down to Howard University and ask any college student who's had a 20 credit course semester, fit three work study jobs, had time to cross, secure the bag, and still look good while doing it. He's got a barbershop in his dorm room and she's adding four inches to her nails and 20 inches to her hair and I'm not reporting anybody because I got respect for a hustler's spirit. And when you've got a hustler spirit, all it takes is the right spirit to turn what is downright disastrous and set it up for radical faith.

8:09 And unfortunately, it also means that at some point in your life, you might have been placed in the middle of a valley. for the spirit of a hustler is often born out of adversity formed in calamity it is born in valleys where you fought fights you never chosen to fight battled on battlefields in wars you never waged and often even the hustler though they have made the most out of the situation they have lost something in the battle even the hustler may end up in the valley surrounded by reminders of what they have lost you may have lost a little bit of your power a little bit of your strength on the battlefield you may have lost a little bit of your tenacity or your ability to smile and laugh easily. In the valley, what you have lost might be a little bit of your voice, a little bit of your spirit. Your slain is not necessarily your body, but it was yourself.

9:21 It was all that makes possessiveness possessive. You no longer have yourself, your peace, your joy even a little bit of your mind your hope you may lost a little bit of your faith and your bones are dry your hope is lost and you feel cut off from life and then God sets you down in that valley as if you weren't aware of the whole heart the hole in your heart since that situation, as if you don't feel your bones getting more brittle as the years go by as a reminder that things may never be the same. As soon as you realize that mama really isn't coming back, as soon as you realize that this relationship really wasn't healthy and really wasn't any good for me in the first place, God goes ahead and sets you down in a valley of dry bones.

10:22 and then God leads you all around them. God brings you back and forth among them so that you are taking it all in. These bones are dry. They are many. These are many slain. These are many that lost in the battle, slain in the fight. And all of these, none of these, have been claimed. God sets you down in the middle of the valley, brings you to and fro, back and forth, so you can take in the disastrous nature of the disaster, the hopelessness of the hopelessness, the lowness of the valley, the impossibility of the impossibility, and in the thick of the memory of tragedy, of all the things that remind you of your battle scars, and the parts of you slain and left in a valley filled with other dry bones.

11:26 God has the audacity to ask a question of your brokenness. Can these bones live? You've lost so much and too much in the fight for your mind and your will and your life and you look at all that was lost and all that was slain and God presses the point of your pain and asks, can these bones live? And this is where we are in the text. Ezekiel has been set down in the valley and God has brought him to and fro and truly takes him to the extent of the calamity. And then God asked, can these bones live? And I'd guess that Ezekiel might have paused and thought about the fact that he had no personal precedent of seeing dry bones come to life.

12:27 But before he could let any doubt come out, I think this is what Ezekiel said to himself. If I, Ezekiel, know anything about God, it's that by chapter 37 of this book of my life, I've seen you as a divine warrior. I've seen you in a chariot drawn by heavenly creatures with four wings each. I've seen you in a wheel, in the middle of a wheel. I've seen you on a throne surrounded by angels. God, I've got 36 chapters of unmitigated evidence that you can do whatever you want to do. And if I know anything at all, Ezekiel isn't alone in this. I know that you too have been asked a question about what seems impossible. And in your flesh, you might have wanted to say no. In your mind, you might have wanted to say, I don't really have any precedent for that. But in your spirit, you have reminders of how God has shown up before.

13:25 In your spirit, you have reminders of the places God has placed you in before. You have a reminder of that time when you were in the middle of the doctor's office and the doctor's report was no good. And then somehow, someway, believed God's report and God healed you. And I wouldn't stop there. Don't you remember the time when you were in the middle of the unemployment line, underqualified for the things you needed experience for and overqualified for the things you have already done. And then somehow, some way, God made a way out of no way. And I wouldn't stop there. When you were set in the middle of a dispute and they accused you of a lie and it seemed no one was going to help you to set the record straight and God came and made crooked ways straight. And I can't stop there because when I think of the goodness of Jesus and what he's done for me, All I can say is my soul cries hallelujah and thank you God.

14:26 Oh Lord, my God, only you know. And that is all right with me. And so at an admission of God's all-knowing power and omniscience, that's when God gets to work. He tells Ezekiel to prophesy to these bones. I will put breath in you. I will cause sinews and flesh and skin to come upon you and you shall know that I am the Lord. And as Ezekiel did, as God said, there was a rattling of bones. Bones coming together and flesh forming and skin covering. And it is a wonder how even in a vision, God requires a process. Even in a vision, God requires a process. Ezekiel is in a vision where God sets him down in a valley of dry bones. And God walks him back and forth just to see how bad it is and asks, can these bones live?

15:26 And God could easily, at the blink of an eye, have living people at the bottom of a valley rejoicing. But instead, God spoke of a process. The process of making bones live. there was a rattling and a noise and sinews and flesh coming together and skin covering them and sometimes God just has to show you step by step to remind you that he created it. Sometimes God has to take you through the process so that you know that he knows the inner workings of your life. Have you ever been in a situation where if this didn't happen, then that wouldn't have happened? But since this happened, that happened. And since that happened, another thing happened. Sometimes things, we want things to just work out.

16:21 We wonder why can't God just make things happen? Why can't we just let God have things just come together? But God is calling us to sit through and trust the process. go ahead and speak those things that are not as if they were and then watch them come together piece by piece those things you didn't even think about as necessary watch them come together to get things going in your life in a way that you couldn't have without god god knows the history of your company god knows what your supervisor is going through ask God for the vision and the process. God knows your partner. God knows everything that he or she has dealt with. God knows the inner traumas and the pain that they've dealt with. Ask God to show you the vision and the process. God knows everything that you've been through and that you will go through. Ask God for the vision and the process. And for God's sake, don't forsake the process and the God of its making, bones, sinews, flesh, muscles, skin, and watch it all come together.

17:43 And now that it has all come together, bones and flesh and skin, moving, rattling together, making noise, but even in this village, God has visions, God has something to say about our reality. that none of it matters. That they're not truly alive until God's breath is inside them. You may have the strongest bones your doctors have ever seen, the most glowing skin of the entire skin-tanned community, the strongest muscles at your local planet fitness. And God is saying, if you don't have God's breath, You're nothing but well-dressed bones in the valley. It's worth noting that God mentions breath eight times in this passage. And it makes me wonder how many times God calls us to his breath and we miss it.

18:46 it makes me wonder why Ezekiel had to prophesy again about the breath. Sometimes we are so consumed by the things that we touch, the things that rattle, the things that make noise, the things that we see that we miss the breath. And it takes something threatening our breath to remember it. With the outbreak of the coronavirus, we have never been so aware of our breath. Information has been circulating about its symptoms saying shortness of breath is one of them. And it's in the reality of this virus that we have suddenly been consumed by our breathing. Something we forget to do all the time. Breathe. Something my Apple Watch is literally set to remind me to do breathe for a minute.

19:41 And in all of this concern, it's a reminder that it takes our breath being threatened for us to appreciate it. It makes sense, but it also begs us to wonder when the world threatens God's breath in us, why are we so often okay with just being well-dressed bones in the valley? the breath in this passage is the same breath God breathed in Genesis the ruach which is God's spirit when not just our natural breath but our very spirit is threatened when our hope is tested there ought to be some precautionary measures that we take there ought to be vigilance in care and protection we ought to protect our minds with prayers and pray for God's power from on high. We ought to guard our spirits when they are threatened. We ought to remind ourselves of our safety under the wings of God in his pavilion where there is a hedge of protection all around us.

20:50 When the spirit of God in us is threatened, we ought to isolate ourselves from situations that make us vulnerable. We need to do everything possible to not just become well-dressed bones in a valley. If you've got to be in the valley, if you've got to be in the midst of the worst, don't you dare leave without getting God's breath inside of you. And as God invokes the power of breath in this passage, all throughout this passage, there is but one refrain that speaks to the purposes of God to the people of Israel. that you would know that I am God and put breath in you and you shall live and know that I am the Lord. Oh my people, I will bring you back to the land of Israel and you shall know that I am the Lord. I will put my spirit in you and you shall live and I will place you on your own soil and you shall know that I the Lord have spoken and will act says the Lord oh that you would know that I am the Lord and you shall live I would like to submit to you that the miracle isn't about dry bones coming together it's not about watching flesh and sinews and skin wrap itself around what was once dead I'd even go as far as to say that God wasn't really asking about bones when he said, can these bones live?

22:31 I think God was really asking, am I God to you? do you believe no do you know that i am god do you know that i am sovereign do you know that i am powerful do you know that i'm a present help in times of trouble do you know that i'm the first hustler that i can take anything and make it into something i can make nothing and make it into everything i can take a system that is rigged against you and make it for your good i can make what has no potential and give it possibilities. I'm the one who taught your mother how to make a regal Sunday dinner out of $25. And I'm the one who taught your siblings how to make it out of college with nothing but a refund check and pay it back. I am the one who taught your grandmother how to sew in the same wonder that I knitted your mother in her womb. Don't you know? I am the one who flung the stars in the sky. I keep the snow in the storehouse. Don't you know I caused the water and the land to be friends, but not be all on top of each other. Don't you know I took dust and I made you. God wants you to know that God is God.

23:51 And he does that so that when he opens your graves and bring you out of them, that it wouldn't be the last time. And this would not be the last grave God would open up and bring back to life. Just so that you would know that God is God, God opens up another grave. Another grave where battles had been fought, a war had been waged, and it was a war for your heart, a war for your mind, a war for your spirit, a war for your hope. And God, just so that you would know that God is God. Let earth's final hope die so that he could walk out of your graves. God hustled a rigged system that was against us so that we can breathe again and have life in Christ. God hustled the one that tried to scam his children, hustled the valley and made it invert itself into a hill called Golgotha where God would take death and dry bones and battles and everything that you lost and make it know life. Do you know that God is God? All is not lost. Breathe easy again, my friends. God is Lord. Amen.

25:19 Let us pray. God, we thank you that all is not lost. Thank you that in the history of our world, all you've been trying to get us to know is that you are the Lord. So let our lives be a witness to that fact today and always, that we know that you are God and that you make dead things come to life.

25:52 In the name of Jesus the Christ we pray.