Key Verses:
Key Verse Ezekiel 36: 26, 28b"A new heart I will give you, and a new spirit I will put within you… You will be my people and I will be your God."
Key Verse Jeremiah 31:33b "…I will make a new covenant, I will put my law within them and I will write it on their hearts. I will be their God and they will be my people."
Ezekiel and Jeremiah had the prophet/priest ministries just before and during the time of Babylonian captivity. Judah and Israel were God’s covenant people whom the Lord had set aside to carry out his world mission. During the time of Exodus God made a covenant with their forefathers which was also binding to them. The earlier covenant was what Bible students call mosaic covenant can be read about in Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. Twice God had announced a number of punishments or curses that would fall on those who violated this His law, Leviticus 26 and Deuteronomy 28. Final and most severe of these punishments would be deportation from the Promised Land, the land of Israel.
In 586 BC the final curse was completed with the destruction of Jerusalem. God in his goodness had set a holy standard before the people of Israel but because of their sinful hearts they could not keep those standards. The Babylonian king, Nebuchadnezzar carried them to Babylon where they were exiled for seventy years. God promised that he would again restore them to the land and promised He will give them a new heart, a new spirit, and a new covenant. So what have we to do with this promise – we gentiles or people of nations who do not belong to the stork of Israel, living nearly three thousand years later? The answer is found in Christ in the New Testament when all this was fulfilled. We will come to it after examining in brief, the three gifts – beautiful gifts God offered his people.
I. A NEW HEART
To the good people of the western world, a heart is a place of love and sorrow, romance, and tenderness, joy, and compassion, hatred, and prejudice. Yet in the Old Testament, the heart is the seat of wisdom, the place of memory, a person thinks with the heart, and also makes plans and makes decision with the heart. Those who are righteous love the Lord God with the heart and they are upright and pure in heart. Proverbs says, “Guard your heart for out of it are the issues of life”. The heart can also be a place of our downfall. The prophet Jeremiah wrote, “The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately corrupt” Jeremiah 17:9. Is that why we do the things we do?
A man has written a book about 10 stupid things men do to mess up their lives… and these men are usually rational, smart, and intelligent? In our hearts, we are deceitful and corrupt. Sin dwells in there. Sin was classically defined as the heart curved in on itself (cor incurvatum) something is wrong with the heart. Something needs to change with the old heart. God says he would do a major surgery on your heart and give you a new heart. What a gift!
II. A NEW SPIRIT
Ezekiel tells us God would give you a new Spirit. The Spirit gives power, the Spirit gives energy. The Spirit is the wind beneath our wings. The Spirit is the breathe of God within us. In the Old Testament, the Spirit is defined as breathe or wind. Ever tried to do something when you couldn’t breathe? I once choked on a morsel of bread for what seemed like an eternity. I was unable to tell those at the table with me about my agony. I thought I would die. That is the life of one without the Spirit.
After we have received these two gifts, as Jeremiah tells us, then we are ready to receive a third gift of equal importance, a new covenant according to the prophet Jeremiah. God says, “I will make a new covenant with you”. A new covenant is a new relationship. God wants a new relationship with you, with us. He says that in this new relationship, He wants to live with us, actually within us. How close can you get to someone?
My wife and I have enjoyed a dynamic, intimate relationship for a long time. It’s been wonderful and meaningful in spite of our struggles. God wants us to have an even more meaningful, more intimate, much deeper love relationship with Him, which would transform our lives and make it sanctified and Holy for Him. With great benefits to us and those He brings in our lives by divine appointment. A new heart, a new Spirit, a new covenant would be a great gift from God – A new you, a new me, a new us, a new church of Christ. That is a true revival. That is what God desires. God specializes in new things. In the beginning, He created the heavens and the earth, and for a while it was chaotic and he set to make everything good. There is chaos now in the world because of the fall, because of our sin. But God promises in the last book of the Bible, “behold I make all things new, a new heaven and a new earth”. But he wants to start with us now. Who will indwell that new heaven and new earth: Would you like a new heart, a new spirit, and a new relationship with God? 1st John says “great is he within us than he that is in the world”. Paul says in 2nd Corinthians 5:17, “If anyone is in Christ he is a new creation”. God does not want to impose His will on anyone. He says, “When we let Him, He will write his law within our heart”.
III. A NEW COVENANT
This is a brand new year, a gift to you and me from our loving father. We have not earned it. Many of our fellow men desired to see this year. Others planned great things to do in 2012 but did not know their time was up. Praise the Lord you and I are still here. We can enter a new covenant with our great God. Let’s forget New Year’s resolutions and really cultivate a relationship with our God through confession and repentance so we can welcome his gifts. Remember Martin Luther, the German reformer, when he was in depression for a long time? His wife confronted him. We must renew the covenant. We must enter a new relationship with God through faith in the finished work of our great Savior, Jesus Christ. God wanted to start all over with Israel in 587 BC but in 586, their sin of idolatry had earned them a place in exile. For more than 100 years, since the fall of the northern kingdom because of idolatry the southern kingdom had turned its back on God over and over again. When their enemies attacked they had nowhere to run or anyone to turn to. The breaking of the covenant, the commandments of God the nation suffered brokenness, destruction of their most revered place, the temple, their beloved city, and a painful march to exile to Babylon. The Lord is asking us to come to him this New Year to start all over. I tell Henry Madete Asega; Henry don’t kid yourself, you are no better than those idolaters, those children of Israel. Lord have mercy on us. The apostle said, “If judgment starts in the house of God, what would be the end of those who do not know God”? Let’s come to God so he can help us make him known to our fellow man.
In this great nation of ours, we see the same problems faced by the people of Ezekiel’s and Jeremiah’s time. As a church we are not praying, interceding, we are not making disciples, we are not being salt and light. This must change and though the problems are great, God is willing to come to the aid of those of us who are willing to love him with all our heart, soul, and spirit. All this is possible because God has provided a way and that way is Jesus.
In the upper room after the Jews rejected him, he instituted the new covenant in his blood and opened the door to whoever would come to him and find life. You and I are among those the Bible says, “As many as received him, to them he gave the right or power to become sons of God”. We are children of God. Therefore, let’s live like the children of God. Giving him glory and honor and magnifying his name in a perverse and degenerate world. Dr. George Sweeting, MBI’s former president, used to tell us, “Make a commitment to Christ that will make hell gasp for breathe. Life is a series of new beginnings.” Let us start a fresh, wholeheartedly this New Year with Christ as our only hope and resolve to honor God. Jesus told the Jews of his time, “You search the scripture hoping to find life in them – they speak of me but you would not come to me so you may find life”. Sometimes as believers in Christ we don’t even like to search the scriptures. Anything but the Bible! They rejected him and less than 40 years after Christ’s resurrection, the temple and the city were destroyed again. As Pastor Tim reminded us during his Christmas message, we must give our sins to Christ in exchange for his righteousness .We must repent of our sins and receive the gift of God a fresh, which is eternal life that we can enjoy even now till Jesus returns.
