29 Days of Promise
I WILL GIVE YOU A NEW HEART
Ezekiel 36:26-27
Great Commission Church
Series intro: Why the promises of God?
Intro: The children of Israel had become so corrupt and worldly that God scattered them among the nations as a judgment against them (17-19). And they only got worse! While they were dispersed in foreign lands, they brought shame to the Lord. They continued to profane His name. The foreigners even said, “These are the people of YHWH, and yet they have gone out of His land,” meaning He could not keep them safe. The LORD’s reputation was being tarnished. His ability to provide for and protect His people was called into question by pagan unbelievers. Was Israel’s God inadequate at the task of…being God?
Ezekiel 36:26 I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.
Ezekiel 36:27 I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will keep My judgments and do them.
What is the difference between the heart and the spirit?
The heart includes the mind, the will, and the emotions; it is in fact the center of the personality, the inmost part of a person.
The spirit is the impulse which drives the person. It regulates our desires, our thoughts, and what we do.
The two are closely tied together in the Bible, so we need not make a definite distinction.
What is the difference between a “heart of stone” and a “heart of flesh?”
The heart that is stubborn, rebellious and insensitive (a heart of stone) will be replaced by one that is soft, impressionable and responsive (a heart of flesh).
In Ezekiel 18:31, God commands them to “get yourselves a new heart and a new spirit. For why should you die, O house of Israel?”
Here God says, “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you.”
So man’s responsibility and God’s sovereign grace run on parallel tracks. They coexist. Man cannot make himself a new heart unless God gives him one.
Phil 2:12 Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling;
Phil 2:13 for it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure.
Pharaoh – a hardened heart is stubborn/unresponsive to God…
Ex 4:21 And the LORD said to Moses, “When you go back to Egypt, see that you do all those wonders before Pharaoh which I have put in your hand. But I will harden his heart, so that he will not let the people go.”
Josiah – The Lord blessed King Josiah because unlike the kings before him, his heart was soft before the Lord…
2 Chron 34:27 “because your heart was tender, and you humbled yourself before God when you heard His words against this place and against its inhabitants, and you humbled yourself before Me, and you tore your clothes and wept before Me, I also have heard you,” says the LORD.
Nabal – After his disrespectful encounter with David, his heart hardened, and it even affected his physical health…
1 Sam 25:37 So it was, in the morning, when the wine had gone from Nabal, and his wife had told him these things, that his heart died within him, and he became like a stone.
“The heart of stone is the dead heart … which is unreceptive and makes all the limbs incapable of action. The heart of flesh is the living heart, full of insight, which is at the same time ready for new action. The new spirit brings to the heart the new vital power to hold on steadfastly in willing obedience.”
Why would I need a new heart?
Because I am not full of goodness but am overcome with wickedness on the inside.
Prov 20:9 Who can say, “I have made my heart clean, I am pure from my sin”?
I should be suspicious of what is in my own heart. I must not trust it. It is a poor leader.
Jer 17:9 The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; Who can know it?
Jer 17:10 I, the LORD, search the heart, I test the mind…
As defective as my heart is, I can do an adequate job of hiding the real me from everyone but God.
Psalm 130:3 If You, LORD, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand?
Why would I need a new spirit?
John 2:24 But Jesus did not commit Himself to them, because He knew all men,
John 2:25 and had no need that anyone should testify of man, for He knew what was in man.
Under the old covenant (Moses), believers prayed to be renovated. They felt they needed cleansing for renewal.
Psalm 51:10 Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me.
There was a lingering fear that what they had by grace could be taken away from them through disobedience.
Psalm 51:11 Do not cast me away from Your presence, and do not take Your Holy Spirit from me.
1 Sam 16:14 But the Spirit of the LORD departed from Saul, and a distressing spirit from the LORD troubled him.
2 Sam 7:15 But My mercy shall not depart from him, as I took it from Saul, whom I removed from before you.
2 Sam 7:16 And your house and your kingdom shall be established forever before you. Your throne shall be established forever.
But a better covenant from God was coming.
Hebrews 8:6 But now He has obtained a more excellent ministry, inasmuch as He is also Mediator of a better covenant, which was established on better promises.
God’s Why:
Why does He promise me a new heart and a new spirit?
(a) For His own glory
Ezekiel 36:22 “Therefore say to the house of Israel, ‘Thus says the Lord GOD: “I do not do this for your sake, O house of Israel, but for My holy name’s sake, which you have profaned among the nations wherever you went.”
(b) For the nations to know Him (36:23)
Ezekiel 36:23 “And I will sanctify My great name, which has been profaned among the nations, which you have profaned in their midst; and the nations shall know that I am the LORD,” says the Lord GOD, “when I am hallowed in you before their eyes.”
He wants His name to be great, so that the nations may regard Him not as an ineffective tribal god, but as the Lord of the whole earth.
My What:
What is the result of having a new heart and a new spirit?
Ezekiel 36:27 I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will keep My judgments and do them.
Ezekiel 36:28 Then you shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers; you shall be My people, and I will be your God.
walk in holiness
receive the promises
know the Lord
God’s promise of a new heart/spirit is not simply erasing the debt of our sins. It is more than bringing us from the negative to zero mark. It will also involve the positive implanting of a new nature that will make us live by faith and obey Him.
