[0:00] The following message was given at a Sunday celebration at Trinity Grace Church in Athens.! For more information about Trinity Grace, please visit us at TrinityGraceAthens.com.
[0:13] ! Therefore, say to the house of Israel, thus says the Lord God, It is not for your sake, O house of Israel, that I am about to act, but for the sake of my holy name, which you have profaned among the nations to which you came.
[0:50] And I will vindicate the holiness of my great name, which has been profaned among the nations, and which you have profaned among them. And the nations will know that I am the Lord, declares the Lord God, when through you I vindicate my holiness before their eyes.
[1:09] I will take you from the nations and gather you from all the countries and bring you into your own lands. I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from your idols I will cleanse you.
[1:24] And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.
[1:38] And I will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules. You shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers, and you shall be my people, and I will be your God.
[1:54] And I will deliver you from all your uncleannesses. And I will summon the grain and make it abundant and lay no famine upon you. I will make the fruit of the tree and the increase of the field abundant, that you may never again suffer the disgrace of famine among the nations.
[2:10] Then you will remember your evil ways and your deeds that were not good, and you will loathe yourselves for your iniquities and your abominations.
[2:23] It is not for your sake that I will act, declares the Lord God. Let that be known to you. Be ashamed and confounded for your ways, O house of Israel.
[2:35] Let's pray together. Let's pray together. Lord, we thank you for the gift of your holy word. We thank you, God, that by your spirit, your word is effective.
[2:49] So we ask that once again in this church and in all your churches across the world this morning, you would make effective your word so that we might grow in godliness.
[3:00] Praise your name. Amen. 19th century poet and novelist Oscar Wilde, once wrote, one can survive anything nowadays except death and live down everything except for a good reputation.
[3:22] This quote highlights the power of reputation. Someone with a good reputation can dismiss any rumor or criticism directed at them.
[3:33] And while I don't claim to be an expert on Oscar Wilde, I do know a thing or two about Michael Scott, the esteemed regional manager of Dunder Mifflin Paper Company.
[3:48] Michael Scott had great concern for his reputation. When asked about his preferred reputation amongst his employees, whether he'd rather be feared or loved, he said, easy, both.
[4:03] I want people to be afraid of how much they love me. Like Michael Scott, all of us care about our reputation.
[4:15] Each of us wishes to be perceived a certain way by others. Some of us want to be known for our diligence and competency in our careers. Others wish to be recognized for their sacrificial provision and care for their homes.
[4:31] Some aspire to appear trendy and relevant, while others seek to be scholarly and sophisticated. We care about our reputations, sometimes for good reasons, and other times not so good.
[4:47] It's also true that God cares about his reputation. God is concerned about how he is perceived by human beings. Of course, God's not trivial or insecure like us.
[5:02] He's not concerned about his reputation for any inappropriate reasons. Rather, God cares about receiving the recognition that he deserves. He is worthy of all praise, so he desires to be seen as praiseworthy.
[5:19] Specifically, God desires to be known as holy. God wants all the world to ascribe to him the reputation of holiness.
[5:31] But God does not sit idle with his fingers crossed, hoping, wishing that one day his holiness will be universally recognized. No, God is on a mission to establish his reputation, and he has assigned us, his people, an important role in proclaiming his glory.
[5:50] God has called the church to declare his holiness, to hallow his great name throughout the world. And God will accomplish the sanctity, or spreading the sanctity of his name, by sanctifying his own people.
[6:06] Our primary theme this morning in Ezekiel 36, is that God will hallow his name, by hallowing his people. God will hallow his name, by hallowing his people.
[6:21] We're going to look at this in three points, with our first point being the old covenant, and Israel's past. The initial stage of God's plan, to hallow his great name, was through Israel, in the old covenants.
[6:39] The nation of Israel was God's covenant people. They were the descendants of Abraham, who God promised to give a great family, who would live in the promised land.
[6:52] But in the time of Ezekiel, Israel was not living, in the land that God had promised them. Instead, the prophet Ezekiel, wrote to Israel in exile, captured by foreign nations, and forced to labor as slaves, far from their homes.
[7:09] Well, how did this happen? Israel was in exile, because they broke their covenants with God. Israel failed to fulfill their calling from God, and were punished as a result.
[7:23] In this old covenant with Israel, God called them to represent his holiness, to all of the nations around them. In Exodus chapter 19, verses 5 through 6, the establishment of this old covenant, God told them, Now therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice, and keep my covenants, you shall be my treasured possession among all peoples.
[7:49] For all the earth is mine, and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests, and a holy nation. Israel was called to be a holy nation, God's representatives to the watching worlds.
[8:06] They were called to serve as priests who spread the worship of God throughout the world. Israel was meant to be the channel through which God's righteousness extended to the ends of the earth.
[8:19] Israel was even the nation called by God's very own name. In Deuteronomy chapter 28, Moses wrote to them, The Lord will establish you as a people holy to himself, and all the peoples of the earth shall see that you are called by the name of the Lord.
[8:41] So God established and attached his holy name onto his people. It was as if Israel wore the name tag of Yahweh to display his name to all the nations.
[8:55] But Israel failed in their responsibility to hallow God's name. Instead of spreading his holiness to the nations, they embraced the sinfulness of the nations.
[9:07] Israel disowned the God who named them by their constant disobedience and idolatry. Because Israel decided to mimic the nations by worshiping their idols, God scattered them to live among these nations.
[9:24] Israel was exiled as punishments for neglecting their covenants with God. But even though they were in exile, Israel never ceased to bear the name of the Lord.
[9:37] Israel might have forgotten their identity as God's holy nation, but the nations knew who they were and who it was that they claimed to worship. Ezekiel 36, verse 3 tells us that Israel had become the evil gossip of the peoples.
[9:56] The nations mocked Israel's miserable condition and slandered the reputation of Israel's God as a result. Who is this God of Israel, they said.
[10:09] Did he forget about his poor people? The God of Israel is either impotent and helpless or cruel and unreliable since he has allowed his people to suffer such a miserable fate.
[10:24] Israel's exile resulted in the mockery of God's name. Instead of spreading the glory of God's name, Israel dishonored him among the nations.
[10:37] God could not allow the slandering of his holy name to continue. So he declared a message to Israel through the prophet Ezekiel. This message starts in verse 22.
[10:49] If you look with me at verses 22 through 23, Ezekiel said, the Lord threw Ezekiel, it is not for your sake, O house of Israel, that I am about to act, but for the sake of my holy name, which you have profaned among the nations to which you came.
[11:07] And I will vindicate the holiness of my great name, which has been profaned among the nations, and which you have profaned among them. And the nations will know that I am the Lord, declares the Lord God, when through you I vindicate my holiness before their eyes.
[11:27] God announced to his people that he is about to change this situation. He will silence the mockery of the nations and rescue his people from exile.
[11:39] But, do you guys notice God's incentive for acting? God doesn't say that he feels sorry for Israel. He doesn't say that he regrets sending them into exile?
[11:53] God isn't even acting on their behalf. Rather, he's acting for his name's sake. God's motivation here is his holy reputation.
[12:08] If we're honest, the thought of God acting entirely out of self-concern doesn't sit really well with us. It doesn't seem right that God's action is completely self-motivated.
[12:24] We're bothered because it would be wrong for us to act entirely out of pure self-motivation for the sake of our own names. But God is not self-absorbed or egotistic like we can be.
[12:39] It is not inappropriate for him to act out of self-motivation. Actually, it would be inappropriate for God not to act according to his namesake. God is the greatest being in all the universe.
[12:52] He's perfect and praiseworthy, holy in all he is and glorious in all he does. God deserves to be recognized for his greatness. He must delight in his own perfections.
[13:08] Who else would God praise? Who deserves more glory than him? for God to glorify anyone besides himself would be idolatry.
[13:20] God's name must be glorified in the same way that all the planets of our solar system must revolve around the sun. It's impossible for the sun and the other planets to revolve around Mars.
[13:35] The sun's brightness and gravity far exceed every other planet. the sun must be the center of attention and everything must revolve around it.
[13:48] God's name must be exalted by all and praised by all. It's only right. Old Testament scholar Daniel Block wrote that the universal Lord is concerned that all may see his glory and his grace.
[14:05] He acts to preserve the sanctity of his reputation. God will hallow his name and he is determined to do so through his people.
[14:21] But his people Israel have done nothing except profane his name. God saved them from the nations only for them to smear his name by imitating the nations.
[14:35] How in the world will God's name be hallowed by such a sinful disobedient idolatrous people. God reveals his solution in the rest of the passage.
[14:47] Now if you'll look with me for just a second at the entirety of the passage notice how many times the two words I will show up. I count at least 12 I will statements in verses 22 through 32 but feel free to check my math.
[15:04] these I wills show us that God here is the agent of the action. He is the one who's going to accomplish the hallowing of his name.
[15:17] He will not leave it up to Israel yet he intends to achieve it through Israel. First in verse 24 God says that he will gather Israel from the nations and return them to their own lands.
[15:34] Then in verse 25 God says he will cleanse Israel from their impurities. He will wash them clean from the filth of idolatry. Then verse 26 God says he will give them a new heart.
[15:50] This is important. Israel's heart has been the problem all along. Their sinful actions were motivated by their sinful hearts. Israel was subject to their sin nature.
[16:05] The poison of Adam's sin in the garden had always flowed through their veins. Israel's behavior would never change unless they had a change of hearts.
[16:20] Because Israel's problem was their sinful hearts God announced that he will perform heart surgery on Israel. Yay great news heart surgery. He will replace their dead heart of stone with a living heart.
[16:35] Israel's new heart will love God and will desire to worship him. Israel's new heart will be accompanied by a new spirit as God promised in verse 27.
[16:47] God will place his spirit in them and he will cause Israel to obey. God is not going to gamble his reputation on Israel's ability to obey any longer.
[17:04] His spirit will inspire Israel to obey his commands. Hebrew Bible translator Robert Alter summarizes the dramatic action of God in Ezekiel 36 by saying the perversity of this people is such that a kind of spiritual surgery is required.
[17:25] First its heart of stone has to be replaced by a heart of flesh and then it can be infused with God's spirits. God will transform his people by giving them a new heart and his spirits.
[17:44] Once God performs this spiritual surgery his name will be hallowed and his reputation will be restored. But how does God intend to perform this miraculous transformation and when will he give Israel a new heart?
[18:02] Remember Israel broke their covenant with God. So in order to accomplish this it is necessary for God to establish a new covenant with his people. God's promises in the new covenant would be to accomplish the restoration of his holy reputation.
[18:20] But not in the way that Israel expected. God would fulfill his plan to hallow his name not through the nation of Israel but through Jesus Christ and his church.
[18:34] Which brings us to point to the new covenant and the churches now. The new covenant and the churches now. If you'll recall the story of the last supper the evening before Jesus Christ was crucified he ate the Passover meal with his disciples in the upper room.
[18:57] He passed around the bread that represented his body and he poured the wine saying this cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood.
[19:12] Jesus told his disciples that his blood shed for them would initiate a brand new covenant. Here Jesus is referring to the new covenant prophecies that we find in Ezekiel chapter 36, Jeremiah 31 and other places as well.
[19:32] These passages anticipate the arrival of a new and better covenant than God's covenant with Israel. The old covenant was broken by Israel's disobedience and it failed to accomplish the full forgiveness of Israel's sins along with the total transformation of their hearts.
[19:51] But God promised to establish a new covenant that would succeed where the old covenant failed. Jesus' death and resurrection ushered the arrival of this new covenant.
[20:05] The cross and empty tomb of Christ revealed the salvation that had been a mystery to Israel. Jesus established this new covenant along with a new community.
[20:19] While the old covenant was made with the nation of Israel, the new covenant expands to include both Jew and Gentile. All of those who are saved through faith in Christ are brought into this new covenant community.
[20:36] While Israel was a community of the old covenants, the church and our church is the community of the new covenant. And just as Israel was called to be a kingdom of priests and a holy nation, the church inherits this same responsibility.
[20:54] 1 Peter 2 9 says, But you, church, are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, and a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.
[21:20] Old Testament commentator Ian Dugod comments on this saying, the goal of Exodus 19, 6, the creation of a kingdom of priests and a holy nation, is fulfilled in church.
[21:34] By establishing the new covenant through the work of Christ, God has called the church to restore the reputation of his holy name. God has even placed his name upon the church just as he did to Israel.
[21:50] in a passage that you all know very well, Matthew chapter 28, verse 19, the Great Commission, Jesus tells us that Christians are baptized into the name of the triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
[22:07] So, we Christians bear the name of God, along with the responsibility to prove the holiness of God's great name.
[22:17] like Israel, God's name is written on our name tags. This is why, in the Lord's Prayer, Jesus teaches us to pray, our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.
[22:32] When we pray the first petition of the Lord's Prayer, we're not telling God that his name is hallowed, that his name is holy. Rather, we're requesting that God hallow his name, make his name holy through us.
[22:48] Our mission as Christians is for God to hallow his name to the world through our witness. And that's exactly what God says he will do in Ezekiel chapter 26, or sorry, 36, verse 23.
[23:04] God will vindicate his holy reputation through us. God's plan is to hallow his name among the nations, and it's accomplished through the church.
[23:16] Well, how is he going to do this? How will God hallow his great name through us? God powerfully demonstrates his holiness through fulfilling the promises that he made to Israel and to his people into the new covenant.
[23:35] If you'll look quickly with me at the next few verses, God fulfills his promise in verse 24 by calling people from all nations to believe in Jesus Christ. He saves individuals and families through the preaching of the gospel around the world, and he gathers them into church communities to worship and grow together.
[23:56] He fulfills his promise in verse 25 by cleansing Christians from their sins through the precious and powerful blood of Christ. God washes our guilty stains and drowns our idols with the waters of baptism.
[24:11] We are completely forgiven and totally justified in Jesus Christ. 1 Corinthians 6, 9 through 11 paints this picture perfectly.
[24:23] Paul says, Do not be deceived. Neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.
[24:38] And such were some of you, some of us. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.
[24:54] This cleansing of our sin is a tremendous gift of God, and yet there's even more good news for us in the new covenant. It is true and wonderful that God forgives our sins in Christ, but forgiveness is only one component of our salvation.
[25:14] There are additional saving promises in Ezekiel 36. He forgives us and declares us righteous, as well as transforms us in righteousness.
[25:25] God both justifies and sanctifies us in Christ. There's more to the gospel than the forgiveness of our sins.
[25:37] God's promise of pardon is accompanied by his promise to transform us. Remember, God saves us for the sake of his reputation. He wants the world to recognize his holiness.
[25:50] God's name had been tarnished by the sins of those called by his name, his reputation smeared by the waywardness of his people.
[26:02] So, for God to restore his holy reputation, he must transform his sinful people into holy people.
[26:14] The holiness of God's people is crucial for the renewal of his reputation. The world will hallow God's name once his people are made holy.
[26:26] This statement from theologian David Reimer captures the necessity of our transformation. He says, the restoration of God's reputation requires the renovation of his people.
[26:44] Well, how will this renovation be accomplished? Has God left it up to us to renovate ourselves?
[26:55] Many modern Christian self-help books assume the answer is yes. They offer step-by-step solutions towards improvement in certain key areas of the Christian life.
[27:06] Titles can range from such things as 11 keys to discerning God's will in your big decisions and 27 steps towards reviving your marriage. church. While I'm sure that God's people have benefited from the practical suggestions made in these books, they fail to recognize that we lack the ability to sanctify ourselves.
[27:31] There is no amount of individual determination that can accomplish spiritual transformation. God is very aware of our weakness and our inability, which is why he does not make our spiritual renovation contingent on us.
[27:52] God is the only one able to achieve our true transformation. Our holy God makes us holy. He is glorified by transforming sinners into saints.
[28:05] God transforms us first by giving us a new heart. As he says in verse 26, I will give you a new heart.
[28:18] I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. The biblical authors understood that the heart serves as the control center for our thoughts, our feelings, and our desires.
[28:35] The nature of a person's heart determines what they believe and how they behave. Our hearts are sinful, which means our thoughts, feelings, and desires are compromised by sin.
[28:49] The old saying that the heart of the human problem is the problem of the human heart is certainly true. Therefore, external changes of behavior are ineffective without the internal healing of the heart.
[29:02] God promises to give us a new heart. Our old hearts were as good as dead because of the presence of sin.
[29:13] In our salvation, God effectively removes and replaces our lifeless hearts. He gives his people new hearts immune to the poisonous presence of sin.
[29:25] These new hearts are full of love and praise for God, producing godly desires and holy thoughts, resulting in righteous behavior.
[29:38] The promise of the new heart is the core of the new covenant. Along with our new hearts, God promises to send his Holy Spirit to live within us.
[29:51] If you look at verse 27, God says, I will put my Spirit within you. The Holy Spirit is the cherry on top of God's new covenant promises, unless, of course, you don't like cherries like me, then it's the icing on the cake, God's new covenant promises.
[30:09] God's Spirit resides in the heart of Christians, assuming the command of our control center. The Spirit sows seeds of holiness in our hearts so that we will produce holy fruits.
[30:24] We will no longer disobey God's commands because the Spirit will produce obedience in us. He will cause us to obey God's rules. I love how the Puritan Thomas Brooks summarizes the gift and the activity of the Holy Spirit.
[30:42] He says, the Holy Spirit is a gift worth more than heaven itself. And yet, to make men holy, God is willing to give his Spirit upon very easy terms.
[30:54] They shall have it for asking. The Spirit is the author of all the holiness that is in man. It is he that most powerfully persuades men to holiness. It is he that presents holiness in its beauty and glory to the soul.
[31:09] It is he that sows seeds of holiness in the soul. And it is he that causes those seeds to grow up to maturity and rightness. The Holy Spirit is a free gift, a noble gift, precious gift, a glorious gift that God will bestow upon the unclean, upon the unsanctified, that they may be cleansed and sanctified and so fitted for the Lord's service.
[31:37] God gives the new hearts and his spirits to transform his people. The purpose of the new covenant is to create holy people whose faithful worship and godly behavior will restore God's holy reputation.
[31:57] And look with me at the end results of this transformation. Verse 31. Then you will remember your evil ways and your deeds that were not good and you will loathe yourselves for your iniquities and your abominations.
[32:16] Once we receive our new hearts, once the Holy Spirit indwells us, we will look back on our former sins with disgust.
[32:28] One of the marks of Christian maturity is growing to love what God says he loves and growing to hate what God hates. We will grow to see our former lifestyles as God has always seen it and we will detest what we used to crave.
[32:47] Like the Apostle Paul, we will view ourselves as chief of all sinners. But the memory of our former sins will not lead us to despair.
[33:00] When we remember our sins, we will also rejoice in the truth that God has graciously forgotten them. He has scattered our sins as far as the east is from the west and has buried them at the bottom of the ocean.
[33:15] God does not remember our sins, but we will never forget them. Since the magnitude of our sin only increases our joy in the goodness of the gospel, recalling the severity of our sin compels us to reflect on God's immeasurable love for his people just as the Apostle Paul reflects in Romans chapter 5 verse 8, saying God shows his love for us and that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
[33:48] Besides Paul, no one will ever say it better than Pastor Timothy Keller, who wrote, the gospel is this, we are more sinful and flawed in ourselves than we ever dared believe.
[34:03] Yet at the very same time, we are more loved and accepted in Jesus Christ than we ever dared hope. Ezekiel chapter 36 powerfully displays the beauty of the gospel.
[34:20] As precious as these new covenant promises are, if you're like me, I'm sort of left scratching my head, wondering when will these things come to pass?
[34:33] Many of us don't feel like we've been given new hearts that are totally free from sin and full of love for God. We still wrestle with sinful desires and fail to perfectly obey God.
[34:49] So did we miss out on these promises? Has God been delayed in fulfilling them? When will God give me a new heart? The answer is, he already has, but he hasn't yet.
[35:05] Point three, the new covenant and the church's not yet. The new covenant and the church's not yet. The new covenant was initiated by the life, death, and resurrection of Christ.
[35:22] God has already begun fulfilling these promises to the church. But the new covenant is not yet complete. God has not fully given us new hearts yet.
[35:35] It's not as if, of course, God has been delayed. It's all going according to his plan. God will finish the fulfillment of his promises upon Christ's return at the end of the age.
[35:51] So, Ezekiel chapter 36 is very much already in effect, but it's not yet finalized. We should think of the new covenant as a now but not yet promise.
[36:05] In some ways, it's already been fulfilled, but in some ways, it has not yet been completed. Christians are stuck in the middle of Christ's comings, living in the tension between these two times.
[36:22] The tension between these two stages of fulfillment in the new covenant is pretty similar to the process of going from engagement to marriage.
[36:33] When a guy proposes to the girl he loves, he expresses his sincere love and total commitment to her. The moment of engagement is a euphoric experience for the couple.
[36:48] The man rejoices in the knowledge that he has secured his bride, and the woman delights in the assurance that she will be loved for the rest of her life. The engaged couple enjoys sweet relief and peace because they finally found their forever friends, and they're thrilled to share the good news with the world.
[37:11] It's been exactly one year today since I proposed to my wife, Faith, so the excitement of engagement is still pretty fresh on my mind. As wonderful as engagement is for the couple, it isn't marriage.
[37:29] The engaged couple has not yet experienced the joy of the wedding day where they exchange vows in front of family and friends. They still live in different places instead of making their home together.
[37:43] They say goodbye instead of goodnight. They spend their time planning their wedding, wishing away the days until they are married. They rejoice in their engagement, but they long for the day when they're husbands and wife.
[38:02] They're already committed to each other, but they're not yet united together. In the very same way, Christians are pledged in marriage to Christ.
[38:15] We wear the wedding ring of faith placed on our finger by Christ himself. We feel the joy and peace of knowing that Christ has committed himself to us and that we are totally secure in him.
[38:29] He left the throne of heaven and endured the shame of death to save his bride. But the wedding day has not yet arrived.
[38:40] We are waiting for the engagement season to end. Our wedding to Christ will arrive soon, and on the day when we see Christ, we will be like him.
[38:53] We will be radiant in righteousness, washed pure from our sin and shame by the blood of Christ. When Christ returns, we will be lovely and holy like our Savior.
[39:07] Savior. We enjoy many tremendous benefits of salvation now, but the best is yet to come. God has already cleansed us from the record of sin and from our wrongdoings, but he has not yet fully removed the effects of our sin.
[39:29] Guilt and shame still linger in our lives. God has already given us a new heart. He's performed spiritual CPR on us, resuscitating our dead souls to life in Christ.
[39:45] But God has not yet totally removed the presence of sin from our hearts. We still struggle with sinful desires and lack of love for God.
[40:00] God has already given us his Holy Spirit, and he's produced the fruits of the Spirit in us. Most of us, I venture to say, have made remarkable progress in godliness since the day we first converted to Christ.
[40:16] But we're not yet perfectly obedient. We still stumble in both our words and our deeds. And so, our present challenge is learning to live in light of the two stages of fulfillment God's promises.
[40:34] We will endure many challenges and discouragements now. The trials and temptations of today are fierce, and we will often fail.
[40:46] We will stumble in keeping God's commandments, and sometimes we'll succumb to familiar temptations. Satan seeks to capitalize on our failures by stirring us to doubt God's faithfulness to fulfill his promises.
[41:02] We must not allow the difficulties of the now to distract us from the certainty of the not yet. So, brothers and sisters in Christ, you may right now feel the persistent presence of sin in your heart.
[41:22] You might be plagued by sin either committed by you or against you. You may feel dirty or defiled, shameful, and ruined beyond repair.
[41:38] Your sense of shame might feel so devastating that you're sure it will haunt you forever. Dear Christian, please trust that one day soon, God will fully cleanse you from every stain of sin.
[41:53] He will heal you from every sense of guilt and shame. God will completely redeem you and make everything sad in your past and in your presence one day become untrue.
[42:09] Dear Christian, you may struggle with the constant presence of sin in your heart. You might be plagued with the same lustful thoughts that just never vanished.
[42:24] you might be weary from wrestling against the same temptations as always. Your heart may feel as dead as ever, cold towards God and calloused against worshiping him.
[42:41] Christian, believe that soon God will remove sin from your heart and make it fully alive by the power of his spirit.
[42:51] God will give you a heart to love him and to obey his commandments. He will transform your desires so that you love what is good and hate what is evil.
[43:05] God will give you a heart that enjoys worshiping him and detests the very thought of disobedience. God has promised our complete transformation in holiness.
[43:19] he will cleanse us from sin give us a new heart and place his spirit in us to reign over us. Brothers and sisters, we should absolutely treasure these precious promises of God and marvel that it's our privilege to receive them.
[43:40] We should long for the day when Christ returns and God completes our spiritual renovation and we should busy ourselves with stirring one another up to look ahead to the future fulfillment of God's promises, trusting that the not yet will be here soon.
[43:59] Isaiah chapter 60 verses 19 through 21 paints the portrait of our certain future. It says, the sun shall no more be your light by day, nor for brightness shall the moon give you light, but the Lord will be your everlasting light, and your God will be your glory.
[44:21] Your sun shall no more go down, nor your moon withdraw itself, for the Lord will be your everlasting light, and your days of mourning shall be ended. Your people shall all be righteous.
[44:36] They shall possess the land forever, the branch of my planting, the work of my hands, that I might be glorified. And as we eagerly anticipate our glorious future, God will strengthen us to live faithfully in the presence.
[44:55] As God's people trust his promises, God allows the future to slip into the presence, the not yet to visit the already. He has promised that we shall all be holy.
[45:10] And as he said it, he will surely do it. In the meantime, we need to remember that God has commissioned us to display his holiness.
[45:22] So church, let's embrace our call to represent God's holy reputation. God has saved us, and he's claimed us, marking us with his very own name.
[45:35] so let's seek to hallow his name by trusting his promises and worshiping him for all of the world to witness.
[45:47] Let's pray. God, our Father in heaven, you teach us to pray that your name be hallowed.
[46:00] And so God, that's exactly what we request of you this morning. Our Father, would your name be hallowed through your people. God, the people in this room, including myself, are weary sinners on a long process to becoming saints.
[46:21] We can only do so by the power of your Holy Spirit. So God, please make us holy. Cause us to hate our sin. Remove the effects of sin from our hearts and fill us with your Spirit.
[46:35] Produce holiness and obedience in us so that your name might be glorified for those of us whom you've called by your name.
[46:46] Would you bless this church and make this church holy so that it shines the light of Christ to the community of Athens and that people who do not know you will see your glory and worship you.
[47:00] In your name I pray. Amen. You've been listening to a message at a Sunday celebration at Trinity Grace Church in Athens.
[47:11] For more information about Trinity Grace please visit us at TrinityGraceAthens.com and that people come with us and that people come with us come with us and that people and that people come with us and that people come with us and that people come with us and that people and that people and that people come with us and that people and that people come with us and that people come with us and that people come with us come with us and that people come with us come with us and that people come with us come with us