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. I will take you from the nations and gather you
from all the countries and bring you into your own land. I will sprinkle clean water on you
and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses. And from all your idols I will cleanse you 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. 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. Can people really change? I think many of
us have conflicting feelings about this question. On the one hand we like the idea of change.
Every year many of us make New Year's resolutions vowing to set new patterns.
Every year hundreds of thousands of books and articles and blog posts are written in order to tell us how
to change for the better. How to get in shape. How to find a healthy romantic relationship.
How to become a better friend or parent. How to study more effectively. How to be a better leader.
The American dream is based on the assumption that anyone can change.
That by hard work and with the right opportunities anyone can rise to the top.
Maybe you're not happy with your life now. But you hope that moving to a new place.
Or maybe getting married or having kids or retiring.
Will bring the change that you hope for.
We like the idea of change.
But on the other hand I think we recognize that deep and lasting change
is difficult and elusive.
William James, early psychologist back in 1890, wrote,
In most of us, by the age of 30, the character has set like plaster and will never soften again.
And often the older we get, the less optimistic we become that people can really change.
Last year Jeffrey Kotler, writing in Psychology Today,
said, I've spent the past 35 years writing books about change,
interviewing people about their experiences,
researching the features that are most associated with significant transformations that endure over time,
and here's my conclusion.
I don't know.
It's a mystery.
A process so complex and multidimensional that it defies understanding.
On one level, change is pretty easy.
The hard part is making it last over time.
He estimates 90% of attempts to stop a bad habit
or even follow through on a New Year's resolution will fail.
He then went on to list some of the factors that prevent us from changing.
We overestimate our own abilities.
We underestimate how hard it will be to sustain a new commitment.
Our environment triggers old patterns.
We sabotage our own or others' efforts to change because of fear.
Often, he says, some of the most deeply life-transforming events are also painful and traumatic events
that we would never seek out on our own.
Now, this morning's passage is about change.
It's about deep, lasting, heart-level change in people and, by extension, in communities.
The prophet Ezekiel was living at a time when deep and lasting change for the better seemed nearly impossible.
He was living in the aftermath of one of the most traumatic and awful events of Israelite history,
the Babylonian exile, brought on by the repeated moral failures and spiritual degradation of the Israelites.
The city had been burned.
The temple looted and destroyed.
The king humiliated and taken captive.
The leaders and landowners deported.
It was a tragedy.
It was a mess.
But Ezekiel and the other prophets said,
it was a mess that the people had brought on themselves.
If you look up at verses 16 through 19,
Ezekiel presents God's perspective on the Babylonian exile.
And he says when, basically, God says,
when Israel lived, when you lived in your own land, you defiled it.
You polluted it by your ways and your deeds.
So he says, so I poured out my wrath because of their violence and their idolatry.
I scattered them among the nations.
He says, in accordance with your ways and your deeds, I judged you.
You see, the Israelites hadn't just made a one-time mistake or an excusable error.
They had been involved in ongoing and unrepentant rebellion against the creator of the universe.
Treason against their rightful king.
Infidelity toward their faithful lover, the Lord himself.
The Israelites were God's masterpiece.
His very own people who he had chosen in order to display his glory and beauty to the world.
And they had polluted the land he had given them.
They had dragged his name through the mud.
They had blamed God for their failures and taken credit for God's gifts that he had given them.
They had torn into pieces their covenant with God.
And God responded by finally withdrawing his presence from them and sending them into exile.
Ezekiel was one of those who had experienced the horror of being deported and marched across the desert for hundreds of miles all the way to Babylon.
He had experienced the horror of the exile.
He had seen the death of the nation.
If there was any time in the history of Israel when deep and lasting change for the better seemed absolutely impossible, it was then.
They had blown it.
God had judged them decisively.
And everything they had was gone.
There was nothing to go back home to.
But very surprisingly, the word that God gave to Ezekiel while he was sitting there in exile was a word of hope.
A word of promise that God would one day bring deep and lasting change for the better in the hearts of his people.
Look at what he says in this passage.
Verse 22.
He says,
You, you have profaned my holy name among the nations.
That means you've dragged my name through the mud.
Treated it as a common thing.
But he says,
But I, I will vindicate the holiness in my great name and the nations will know that I am the Lord.
The Israelites had become just as bad as everyone else.
Even though God had called them to display his glory and his beauty to the world.
So God had dealt with them justly.
According to their own ways and their own deeds.
In the exile, Ezekiel says,
You got what you deserve.
But he says,
Here's the good news.
God's purpose is not to give you what you deserve.
He says,
It's not for your sake that I'm going to act.
He says,
God's ultimate purpose is to display his own glory and beauty.
So that all the nations will see and know that I am the Lord.
The creator.
The redeemer.
That there is no one else like me.
Israel's reputation was bound up with God's reputation.
And the rest of the world was looking on and saying,
Who are all these people who are being marched through our town all the way to Babylon and taken captive?
Just like the Babylonians have taken so many others captive.
Oh, they worship this God, Yahweh?
Who's this Yahweh?
Well, he let his people be conquered by the Babylonians.
He let his city be burned and his land be decimated.
He must not be much of a God at all.
No better than the gods of all the other nations that the Babylonians have conquered.
And God says,
That is not acceptable.
If it was just about giving the people of Israel what they deserved,
God could have sent them into exile and been done with them forever.
But God says,
No, my purpose is to show the world who I really am.
And I'm going to do that by restoring you once again.
To be my holy people.
To be, to display my holy character to the whole world.
So verse 24, he says,
I'll bring you back home.
Verse 25, he says,
I'll wash you clean.
Verse 26 and 27, he says,
I'll fill you up from the inside out.
I'll give you a new heart.
And a new spirit.
A heart of flesh.
Instead of a heart of stone.
A soft and responsive and tender heart.
He says,
I'll put my holy spirit within you.
So that you walk in obedience.
Verse 28, he says,
You shall be my people.
And I will be your God.
In perhaps the darkest time in Israel's history,
when it seemed that all hope had died,
Ezekiel proclaimed a message of hope.
That God would one day give his people new hearts.
Clean hearts.
Spirit filled hearts.
You might say,
Well, that's a nice promise.
But did it ever happen?
Well, approximately 70 years later,
many Israelites did return back to Jerusalem from exile.
They resettled Jerusalem,
rebuilt the temple under Ezra and Nehemiah's leadership.
But that restoration was only partial.
Jerusalem was later conquered by foreign armies.
The kingship was never restored.
The people continued longing for this spiritual renewal
that they had tasted,
but not yet experienced in full.
You know, if you turn to the New Testament,
the New Testament boldly proclaims
that Ezekiel's promise was fulfilled
in the coming of Jesus the Messiah.
In several places,
I refer back to this passage.
John chapter 3,
Jesus was speaking with Nicodemus,
one of the Jewish religious leaders at the time.
And he said to Nicodemus,
famously,
You must be born again,
or born from above,
in order to see the kingdom of God.
He said,
You must be born of water and the Spirit.
Just like Ezekiel said,
cleaned out on the inside,
washed clean,
and filled with God's Spirit.
And then he said,
This is why God sent His only Son into the world,
so that all who trust in Him
and believe in Him would have life,
eternal life,
implanted in them
and flowing out from them.
As Nick read in the beginning of service,
in the service,
Jesus promised later in John,
He said,
If anyone thirsts,
let him come to me and drink.
And whoever believes in me,
as the Scripture has said,
out of his heart will flow
rivers of living water.
The Apostle Paul
brings up this theme
several times in his epistles.
If you look at 1 Thessalonians,
Paul says to the church,
he said,
You turn to God from idols
to serve the living and true God.
You've been cleansed from your idols.
And then he says,
God hasn't called us for impurity,
but for holiness.
God's called us to be set apart
as His holy people.
And then he says,
God gives His Holy Spirit to you.
He's cleansed us from our idols.
He's called us to be holy
and He's put His Spirit within us.
He's given us new hearts.
Or as Titus says,
He saved us.
Not according to our own works,
but according to His own mercy.
And then he says,
By the washing of regeneration
and renewal by the Holy Spirit.
In other words,
He's cleaned us out
and He fills us up.
And we poured out on us
through Jesus Christ, our Savior.
If you look at Ezekiel 36, verse 18,
Ezekiel speaks about the people
who had rebelled against the Lord.
And he said,
God poured out His wrath
on His persistently disobedient people
and sent them into exile.
But in the New Testament,
in Titus,
Titus is saying,
Now because of what Jesus has done
on the cross,
the punishment for our sin
has been removed.
And now God has poured out,
not His wrath,
not His righteous anger
against our sin,
but His Holy Spirit,
His presence,
His mercy,
His grace
on everyone who turns to Jesus
as Savior.
In one more New Testament reference,
2 Corinthians 3, 3,
Paul says to the church,
he says,
You are a letter from Christ,
written by the Spirit,
not on tablets of stone,
but on tablets of hearts of flesh.
It's literally what it says.
Sometimes translated,
human hearts.
It's literally hearts of flesh.
God has given us hearts of flesh,
new hearts.
Jesus removes our hearts of stone
and replaces them with hearts of flesh.
He gives us a heart transplant,
a radical change from the inside out.
Earlier this summer,
I ran into a guy who I've known
for over 10 years.
And for most of the time I've known him,
his kidneys were failing.
He was on dialysis three times a week.
Every time I saw him,
he was groggy.
He was weak.
He was tired.
He walked slowly.
He spoke slowly.
He slept half the day.
And then after I hadn't seen him
for a few months,
I ran into him
while I was walking this summer.
He looked like a different man.
He was energetic.
He was clear-headed.
His speech was different.
He had started exercising.
He had started working part-time.
He seemed like a new man.
And he said,
I've received a new kidney.
A kidney transplant.
Now there was a cost
to this kidney transplant.
Someone had sacrificed
one of their kidneys,
which was working perfectly well,
so that his dysfunctional kidney
could be taken out and replaced.
And a team,
a skilled team of surgeons
and medical assistants
had carefully taken out
the dysfunctional kidney
and replaced it with a new one.
You see, the Bible says
that there was a cost
for God to give us new hearts.
That Jesus Christ died on the cross
in our place,
giving his life,
pouring out his life
unto death for us,
taking the punishment
that we deserve for our sin,
so that God might pour
his Holy Spirit into our hearts.
God has come in Jesus Christ
to give us new hearts.
That's the message of this text.
It's the hope that we celebrate
at Christmas.
And I want to spend the rest of our time
drawing out some implications
of this message.
That God has come in Jesus Christ
to give us new hearts.
First, I want to speak to those of you here
who are not Christians.
Let me speak to you in two groups.
First, some of you may be optimists,
optimistic about change.
Maybe you have an optimistic view
of human nature and human progress.
Maybe you believe that people
are basically good,
or that if we look deep within ourselves,
we can find what we need
in order to truly change.
I want to challenge you
that deep, lasting, heart-level change
is much harder than many of us think.
I think we've seen this
at a broader societal level
over the last few weeks.
Some of the deeply entrenched
racial tensions
that remain in our country.
Whether or not the police were justified
in using lethal force
in particular cases,
I think the events of the past few months
have exposed a long-standing
lack of reconciliation.
Racial equality can be expressed
in principle through laws and systems,
and it's important to consider
whether those need to be improved.
But racial reconciliation
only happens when people's hearts
are also turned toward one another.
We have laws officially
preventing discrimination
on the basis of race and class.
We have a president who is black.
We live 50 years
after the Civil Rights Movement
and 150 years after
the abolition of slavery,
but there are still
deep levels of mistrust.
Lack of understanding,
lack of love
between black and white people
and other races in the U.S.
And as a white man,
I'm tempted to avoid
cross-cultural conversations
about race
because I can feel guilty
or defensive
about my own inherited privilege.
Some of my black brothers
and sisters in Christ
wrestle with anger
or despair
that their voice
will not be heard.
Many of us are afraid
to speak honestly,
to listen well,
to extend ourselves
toward people
who are different
than ourselves
and who may disagree with us.
These are all matters
of the heart.
And change in these areas
doesn't come easily.
To all of us in the church,
in the midst of troubled times,
we need to talk with each other,
listen to each other,
and most importantly,
to pray for one another
that in the midst
of upheaval and turmoil,
the church would be
a place of hope
and reconciliation
and representing
the faithful presence
of Jesus Christ.
You know,
the Bible's very realistic
about how hard it is
for us to change.
I think if you really
dig in to pursuing
whether it's racial justice
and reconciliation
or combating
the global sex trafficking trade
or pick any other issue,
working with people,
with drug and alcohol addictions,
you'll see how entrenched
our human,
even self-destructive patterns are.
How hard it is
for us to change.
The Bible recognizes
both personal sinfulness
and systemic injustice,
and it says our hearts
are part of the problem
and not the ultimate source
of the solution.
The prophet Jeremiah says
the heart is deceitful
above all things
and desperately sick.
Who can understand it?
Change is a lot harder
than we think
at the level of the heart.
But you know,
the Bible also brings us
good news.
Maybe you've got to the point
where you're pessimistic
about change
and you don't think
anyone can change.
And you're cynical.
But the Bible says
God and His grace
can intervene
in order to change
even the hardest heart.
And I could tell
a lot of stories here,
but I'll tell just one.
There's a rather intense
YouTube video
that's been making the round
since last week
by a man named David Wood.
For many years,
people would have called him
a psychopath
or a sociopath.
He had no feeling
for anyone else.
His dog died
when he was five.
He felt no sadness.
His best friend died
when he was in high school.
He thought,
so what?
At one point,
he wondered
if something might be
wrong with him.
But then he decided
that he had evolved
to a superior state
compared to the rest
of humanity.
So one day,
he choked his friend
because of a disagreement.
He watched his mom's
boyfriend beat her.
And though he could
have defended her,
he couldn't care less.
One night,
he came into the room
where his dad was sleeping
and beat him over the head
with a hammer
until he almost died.
He was taken
to a mental hospital
and finally to jail.
In jail,
he met a Christian
in his cell
named Randy.
who had turned himself
in after 21 felonies.
David despised Randy
and other Christians.
He teased them
mercilessly.
Randy would sometimes
fast and pray
for,
sometimes for several
days at a time.
David,
ever the competitor,
would go without food
a day or two longer
than Randy each time
to outdo him.
In order to argue
against Christian beliefs,
he started studying
the Bible.
One night,
after he hadn't eaten
for several days,
he was reading
the Gospel of John
and he read Jesus' words,
I am the bread of life.
He had spent
his whole life
searching for liberation
from social norms.
He was now locked up
in a jail cell
and he read,
you will know the truth
and the truth
will set you free.
His health
was rapidly declining
and he wondered
how much longer
he could keep this up
and he read
Jesus' words,
I am the resurrection
and the life.
He said,
even for me,
this was weird.
This book was talking
to me.
After a long process,
he finally surrendered
to Jesus Christ.
He prayed
one night
to repent of his sin
and receive Christ
into his life.
And he said,
when I sat up,
the entire world
looked different.
Like everything
was a different color.
For the first time
in a lot of years,
I didn't want
to hurt anyone.
And I had a strange sense
that I had somehow
known the truth
all along.
For years,
I was willing
to sacrifice everything
for a freedom
from external control.
But now I realize
that true freedom
is found
in not having
this inclination
to turn against
our Creator.
After I prayed,
I felt like
I had been fighting
my whole life
and I finally had a chance
to sit down and rest.
And that rest
has never gone away.
He's now married
with four kids
and works for
a Christian apologetics
ministry.
In the conclusion
of his video,
he quoted this verse.
Ezekiel 36, 26.
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.
Have you experienced
that deep,
lasting,
heart-level rest
that doesn't go away?
It does not always come
in such a dramatic
experience that you
can point to
by date and time.
But Jesus Christ said
to all who will
listen to Him,
come to Me,
all you who are weary
and burdened
by your sin,
by your shame,
by your guilt,
by your fear,
whatever burdens you,
and I will give you rest.
He says,
my yoke is easy
and my burden
is light.
change is possible
through the power
of Jesus.
Second,
let me speak to those
of us who are Christians.
Let me give three groups.
First,
if you're a new Christian,
if you've recently
started following Jesus,
if that's you,
I want to encourage you
to rejoice
in this new heart
that you've received
from God.
Rejoice that Jesus
has cleaned you out
of your sin and guilt
and filled you up
with the Spirit of God.
The Apostle Peter says
according to His great mercy,
He's caused us
to be born again
to a living hope
through the resurrection
of Jesus Christ
from the dead.
And he says,
in this,
you rejoice.
Though now,
for a little while,
you've been grieved
by various trials,
but though you haven't
seen Him,
you love Him.
And though you don't
see Him now,
you believe in Him
and rejoice
with joy inexpressible
and full of glory.
As a new believer,
you might have lots
of questions
about the Bible.
You might feel fearful
and anxious
about what lies ahead.
You might be dealing
with baggage
from a messy past.
God might be convicting you
and showing you
all the ways
that you fall short
and all the sinful habits
that you need
to break free from.
And you might be wondering,
how in the world
will I ever live
like a good Christian?
Rejoice.
Because God has given you
a new heart.
And God has poured out
His Holy Spirit
into you.
His favor,
His mercy,
His love,
His grace,
and that's greater
than any of those things
that you're facing.
It's the best gift of all.
It's the best reason
to rejoice.
Because you have
a new heart.
Second group of Christians,
if you've been a Christian
for some time
but you feel stuck,
the joy you experienced
when you first believed
in Christ,
has faded,
you're still falling
into the same old
sinful and self-destructive
patterns,
maybe you wonder
whether this is even true.
Do I really have
a new heart?
Is God's promise
true for me?
Well, think of it this way.
What the Bible is saying
is that through the mercy
of Christ,
we've had a heart transplant.
Now, I don't know
if you've ever had
any kind of radical surgery,
but if you've had
major surgery,
you don't walk
out of the hospital
dancing and jumping
for joy
and ready to run
a marathon.
More often,
you go out like Jacob
after he wrestled
with the angel
all night,
limping.
And there's a long process
called recovery
before you experience
the full benefits
of an organ transplant.
Doctor sends you home.
Take not an organ
and say if you have
a knee replacement,
doctor sends you home,
you've got your new knee.
But then you have to do
a series of exercises
over the next several weeks
and months
that feel painful
and hard
until you gradually
begin to experience
the benefits
of your knee replacement.
Now, for a Christian,
spiritually speaking,
the process of adjusting
to and living out
of your new heart
that God has transplanted
into you
by His Holy Spirit,
that process takes
a lifetime
until you die
or until Jesus comes again.
Some of us have had,
many of us have had
the heart transplant
from Jesus,
but we've gotten stalled
or discouraged somehow
in the recovery process.
Sometimes we've stopped
following the doctor's orders.
And so we're not experiencing
anywhere near
the full benefits
or not seeming,
not growing
in experiencing the benefits
of the new heart
He's given us.
But if you've turned
to Jesus in faith,
His promise is still good.
He's given you a new heart.
He's implanted
a new principle
of spiritual life
within you.
He's put His very own
spirit into you.
And God doesn't go back
and do reverse surgeries.
You have a new nature
even if you don't feel like it.
So instead of
complaining
that you feel
just as bad
as you did before,
you need to get up
out of bed
and do the exercises
that the doctor
has ordered
and stretch yourself
like the doctor
has told you to
because that's the way
you'll grow stronger.
That's the way
to get used to
and live out
of that new principle
of life
that's been implanted
in you.
That's what Peter says
in his epistle
continuing that same passage.
He says,
prepare your minds
for action.
In other words,
get ready for a fight,
for a struggle.
It's not going to be easy
because you have
a new nature
but it's fighting
against your old nature
which is hanging
on to you
and trying to pull you back.
But he says,
set your hope fully
on the grace
that will be brought
to you when Jesus
comes again.
He says,
don't be conformed
to the passions
of your former ignorance
but be holy
in all that you do.
He says,
love one another
earnestly
since you've been
born again
and like newborn infants
long for the pure
spiritual milk
of God's word
that by it
you may grow up
into salvation.
So that's what he says.
He says,
long for God's word.
Love one another.
Take practical steps
to be involved
in others' lives.
Recovery is not
a solitary process
as a Christian.
God's given you
a new heart.
He's also given you
a new community.
We need to work out
together what that
looks like.
But God's given you
a new heart.
So be encouraged.
Paul says,
not only has God
renewed our hearts
but he also says
our inner self
is being renewed
day by day.
God gives us
a new heart
and then he continues
renewing us
by his spirit
day by day
by day by day.
It's an ongoing
process of his grace
and mercy
being poured
into our lives.
And our call
is to work out
what God
has worked
into us.
Finally,
let me speak
to those of you
who've been Christians
for some time
and now you're
on the homestretch.
Maybe you're
in the second half
of your life,
perhaps in your
later years,
perhaps facing
health problems
or other reminders
that your physical
body is not as strong
as it used to be.
And one day
we will all die.
What I want to say
to you is this.
The new heart
that God has given
you is a prelude.
It's an anticipation.
It's the first fruits,
as the New Testament
says,
of God's promise
of a resurrected body
and eternal life
in God's new creation.
You see,
the heart of Ezekiel's
promise in this chapter
is that God will give
his people
new hearts.
But if you look,
if you read the rest
of the chapter,
what I didn't read,
even look at verse 29.
He starts talking about
the land being restored.
The land that was desolate
would one day
become abundantly fruitful.
The cities would be inhabited.
The waste places rebuilt.
The desolate land
would become like
the Garden of Eden.
And the people
would multiply
like a flock.
It's a promise
of a new creation.
Come back next week,
Pastor Nick will be
preaching the whole sermon on.
But the point
I want to make here
is that the new heart
that God has given you
is the down payment,
it's the guarantee
of what he's going to do
one day
in making a whole
new heavens
and new earth.
nor will we live
with Jesus forever.
The Apostle Paul
makes this connection.
2 Corinthians 4,
he says,
so we do not lose heart.
Though our outer self
is wasting away,
our inner self
is being renewed
day by day.
For this light,
momentary affliction
is preparing for us
an eternal weight
of glory
beyond all comparison.
As we look not
to the things
that are seen
but to the things
that are unseen.
And then he goes on.
He says,
for we know
that if the tent
that is our earthly home,
our physical body
right now is destroyed,
we have
a building from God
that will last.
A house
not made with hands,
eternal in the heavens.
For in this tent,
this temporary body,
in this tent we groan,
longing to put on
our heavenly dwelling
so that what is mortal
may be swallowed up
by life.
And then he says this,
he who has prepared us
for this very thing
is God,
who has given us
the Spirit
as a guarantee.
God's given you
his Holy Spirit
to dwell in you,
to renew your heart
day by day
as a guarantee
of his promise
that one day
he's going to make
all things new.
Amen.
You can say amen.
We're in a Baptist church.
It's alright.
It's worth affirming
this promise
of a new creation.
So brothers and sisters,
God's given us new hearts,
cleansed from sin
and filled with his Spirit
so that we may know
that one day
he'll give us new bodies
and a new creation
and it'll be glorious.
That's the promise
we hold on to
in this season of Advent.
We think about
anticipating
the coming of Christ.
That's the promise
that we hold on to
and look forward to.
That's the hope
that we have.
Let's pray.
Lord, we thank you
that though
in our sinfulness
we cannot
change ourselves
in that deep
and lasting
and heart level way.
We thank you
for sending your son
Jesus Christ
so that we might
have new hearts.
We thank you
for his sacrifice,
for his coming
into this world
for his laying down
his life on the cross,
for his body broken
and his blood poured out
so that we might
receive life.
Lord, we thank you
for your promise
that one day
you will come
and make all things new.
Lord, we pray
that you would
renew our hearts
day by day.
We pray that you would
sustain us
by your grace.
In Jesus' name
we pray.
Amen.
Well, this morning
we come to the Lord's Supper
where we remember
the sacrifice
theatelly sermon
of Shelby
that should satu
replied.