A New Heart

Ezekiel 36:22-32

At the end of last year, I preached a sermon called “Because of Jesus” and went through all of the things that are true because of Jesus. Because of Jesus, I am hopeful, I am found, I am free, I am able, I am loved, I am saved, and I am new. One comment I received after the final sermon was “there was so much in there – you could have preached a sermon on every one of those scriptures you used.” So ever since then, I have been preaching from the scriptures I used in that sermon. Kind of like a spin-off series.

In Christ, we have the hope of heaven, where God makes all things new. This can give us comfort when we face sorrow and struggle in this life – we’ve seen plenty of that around here recently. We are told to set our hearts on things above; when we set our hearts on things above, when everything is Holy-Spirit oriented and initiated, we see transformation. But there are times when God’s people are God’s people in name only. When we are not known by our love, but by how we bicker. Thursday I spent quite a while with Rick from the funeral home, and we spent the entire drive from Millersport to Hanover and back talking about horribly mean thing church people have done.

This is unfortunately nothing new – the scripture I read today from Ezekiel came when the people of Israel were in exile. In this occasion, God used exile to humble his people, to test them, to show them their sin, and to turn their hearts back to Him. For some of you who have felt the pain of the desert, know that God has not left you. Even though it sometimes seems like God is far, He will never forget you, leave you, or forsake you.

In fact, while God’s people are in exile, God is speaking to them through a prophet. I want to make something clear – we often think of a prophet as someone telling the future; prophecy is often simply truth-telling. When my college friend David told me he didn’t see me living the Christian life, he was speaking prophetically. Ezekiel tells the Israelites that it is because of their sin that God has exiled them, that it is a time of purification.

God tells Ezekiel to speak to the house of Israel, speaking the word of the Sovereign LORD. Whenever you see the name “LORD” in all caps, you should read it: Yahweh. This is God’s Holy Name – a name so holy that Jews refused to write it out. In fact, if you read Hebrew, you will find it written out with the consonants YHWH but the vowels from Adonai (meaning “Lord”); the Jews were so mindful of not accidentally using the God’s name wrongly that they wouldn’t even write Yahweh. Incidentally, German scholars read the consonants of Yahweh + the vowels of Adonai and that came out to be Jehovah.

Anyway, the one of the worst things that any follower of God can possibly do is profane God’s name. We don’t use phrases like that these days, but what that means is to bring dishonor or disrespect to God’s name.

There was a time in our country when Christian people would not think of using God’s name as a swear word. They would say something else, like “Gosh” instead of using God’s name. Thus they felt safe – they weren’t disobeying the Commandment. But the truth is, every time we disobey God and claim to be Christian, we are profaning his name. When I talk to people who aren’t Christians, when they find out I’m a pastor, I almost always get one reaction or the other. The first reaction is that they give their apologies for not being in church. The other is that they give their reasons why they are not, usually because of church people who have wronged them. They see us as inward-focused and constantly in-fighting, and they are, to an extent, right. And by living this out, we have dishonored God’s name. We have equated God’s name with pointless religion. We have equated God’s name with living in the past.

We have also strayed from the truth and have accepted an ego-centric view of God, that God does everything he does for our sake. Most of us know that God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. (John3:16) So we think that what God does is all about us. This is the modern heresy of the American Church – that it is all about us.

It isn’t all about us! It’s all about God. Did you notice what God says to the people of Israel?

 “Therefore say to the house of Israel, ‘This is what the Sovereign LORD says: It is not for your sake, O house of Israel, that I am going to do these things, but for the sake of my holy name, which you have profaned among the nations where you have gone. I will show the holiness of my great name, which has been profaned among the nations, the name you have profaned among them. Then the nations will know that I am the LORD, declares the Sovereign LORD, when I show myself holy through you before their eyes.

Have you ever thought of this: God has every right and reason to just wipe us all off the face of the earth right now. His justice demands payment. So the very fact that he doesn’t just wipe us out is a demonstration of God’s grace. He is so very patient with us when we don’t deserve it.

God wants to use His people to demonstrate His holiness. This is why God has gathered people together, why He has adopted us into his family. Not because we were something special, not because we are Americans, not because our families have been Christians and not because we’ve been in church for however long. It is always because of His Holy Name. To say anything otherwise is to profane God’s Name.

As we realize how far we have fallen from God’s plan and recognize that we are indeed the ones who have profaned God’s name, then we can go on to the next paragraph. If you won’t admit that you have been part of the problem, I give you permission to spend the next few minutes reading your bulletin or checking your calendar or thinking about what you’re going to do after church. I’m not going to point at someone or other and say “he or she is part of the problem” because we all have been part of the problem. Whenever we are selfish, whenever we think of ourselves before God, whenever we are inward-focused instead of sharing God’s blessing with others, whenever we gossip or badmouth one another or promote our own agendas, we profane God’s name, and we are the problem.

We can easily point our fingers out at “them” but they aren’t the problem. We, who are called by Christ’s name, are the ones who are held accountable to His standards, and we are the problem if we are not following the lead of the Holy Spirit.

But when we recognize that we have profaned God’s Holy Name and realize our role, to allow God to show Himself holy through us, then we can get to the next step. God promises to reward us!

God’s promise was cleansing. What kind of cleansing is it? From all impurities and from all idols. When I was a kid, I went on a lot of canoe trips with my dad. Those were really special times, and I’ll always appreciate that my dad would do that with us. One thing I never understood as a kid and still don’t as an adult: we would be camping for the night along the river, and us kids would be playing in the water, and my dad would toss us a bar of soap and tell us to wash up. So we would wash up in the river. Guess how clean we ended up?! Of course we weren’t clean – we stunk like the river. Why? Because we “cleaned” ourselves while we were in the filth and we stayed in the filth.

If God is saying He will cleanse his people, God is going to have to pull us out of our filth. When God says he will cleanse us from our impurities and from our idols, that just won’t happen if we’re sitting in our filth.

A common misconception about confession of sins and about sanctification is that we are initially made perfect by Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross, and as long as we keep confessing our sins, we’re fine. Actually, I see a lot of church people who bank on Jesus’ sacrifice but do not submit to the Holy Spirit. If that’s you, you are not a Christian. If your life hasn’t changed because of the Spirit dwelling in you, then there is something wrong.

But we can’t just work harder and do it, because on our own, we’re still washing in a filthy river. But when God intervenes, he doesn’t just clean the outside, and he doesn’t just clean the inside. He actually gives us a heart transplant. (I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.)

This new heart loves differently than the old heart. It looks at people with Jesus’ eyes. When I’ve talked about loving unlovely people, this is what I’m talking about. We can’t do it on our own!

And God promises blessing – God will provide for all our needs. Some people read this and believe that God will give us financial and material wealth. Ezekiel doesn’t say that. Notice that the things he talks about are food and subsistence. God will provide for us.

And why will God provide for us? To remind us of His goodness and our sins, to turn us back to him. Remember that it’s not about what you’re doing, but about what Jesus did. And it’s not about our image; it’s all about God’s glory.