church

INI
Pentecost
May 31, 2009
Ascension Lutheran Church, Tacoma WA
Paul Naumann, Pastor

GOD MAKES EVERYTHING NEW
Ezekiel 36:24-28

Grace be unto you and peace, from God our Father and from our Lord and
Savior Jesus Christ, Amen. This morning God draws our attention to the
prophet Ezekiel, the 36th chapter, beginning with the 24th verse, as follows:

For I will take you from among the nations, gather you out of all countries, and
bring you into your own land. Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you
shall be clean; I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols.
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. I will put My Spirit
within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will keep My
judgments and do them. Then you shall dwell in the land that I gave to your
fathers; you shall be My people, and I will be your God. So far our text.

In the name of Jesus Christ, Who has sent His Spirit into our hearts, Dear
Fellow Redeemed,

According to the book Nutrition and Aging, by Dr. Irving Rosenberger, an
astonishing thing happened in the last century. Over the course of the 20th
century, the average human life expectancy worldwide increased by 25 years.
And it’s still increasing, especially owing to a wide variety of new medications
to control traditional killers like diabetes, heart disease and high blood pressure.
Many of us have loved ones whose lives have been dramatically improved and
extended by these drugs, or by procedures like heart bypass surgery, heart valve
replacement, and joint replacement. My own father, when asked how he’s
doing, often says he feels like brand new. That’s because major parts of him are
brand new, including a heart valve, a pacemaker, and both knees.

It’s exciting that a person’s life can now be so dramatically improved simply by
repairing or replacing a few worn-out parts. But imagine if you could do it not
just for a few parts of the human body, but for all the parts. And imagine if all
the parts were not just repaired, but completely replaced by parts that were
much better than anything you ever had before. As it turns out, that’s a pretty
good description of what God does, spiritually, for us believers. Do you
remember what Paul told the Corinthians? If anyone is in Christ, he is a new
creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new. – II
Cor 5:17. There’s a profound and very comforting truth here. So if you’ve been
feeling worn-out and run-down lately, if you’ve been missing the renewing
power of your Christian faith, if you’ve been struggling, trying in vain to make
changes in your own life…why not let God take over? The truth is, He’s the
only one who can get the job done. And He does it not by repair, but by total
replacement! This day of Pentecost we consider the words of the prophet
Ezekiel under the theme:

GOD MAKES EVERYTHING NEW

I. It is God who gives us A NEW CLEANNESS
II. It is God who gives us A NEW HEART
III. It is God who gives us A NEW SPIRIT

GOD MAKES EVERYTHING NEW. And it’s a good thing, because at the
time of the prophet Ezekiel, the people of Judah were badly in need of renewal.
Ezekiel was a prophet of the Exile. It was the waning days of the divided
kingdom. The northern tribes had already been conquered and carried into exile,
never to return. Despite this witness, the people of the southern tribe of Judah
persisted in their filthy idol-worship, bowing down to the false gods of Canaan.
Ezekiel warned them, in stern and frightening terms, to repent. When false
prophets were telling the people that everything was fine and that no judgment
was coming, Ezekiel condemned the false prophets and spoke of the judgment
to come. But the people refused to repent. They preferred to remain in the dirt
and filth of their idolatry, bringing to mind the condemnation Peter speaks of in
his second epistle, For it would have been better for them not to have known
the way of righteousness, than having known it, to turn from the holy
commandment delivered to them. 22 But it has happened to them according to
the true proverb: “A dog returns to his own vomit,” and, “a sow, having
washed, to her wallowing in the mire. – 2 Pet 2:20-21 In the year 597 BC God’s
patience ran out, and the hand of the Lord’s judgment finally fell. King
Nebuchadnezzar conquered Jerusalem and carried the people of Ju dah away
into lonely captivity in Babylon, far to the north.

BUT GOD MAKES EVERYTHING NEW. It is God who gives A NEW
CLEANNESS. The purpose of God's judgment on Judah was to make the
people acknowledge their filthy condition – to recognize their sins and repent.
And this it did. But the judgment came with a promise, too. A promise of
return, a promise of cleansing and renewal. The Lord said, I will take you from
among the nations, gather you out of all countries, and bring you into your own
land. Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean; I will
cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols. The Lord promised
to return his people to the Land of Israel, and this He did under King Cyrus,
seventy years after they were carried into captivity. He sprinkled them with
clean water, He restored them to ritual cleanness and allowed them to resume
their temple worship in Jerusalem. And with the resumption of the animal
sacrifices He reminded=2 0them yet again of that sweet, ancient promise: that
one day the Lamb of God would arrive, the Redeemer who would truly take
away the sins of the world!

Like so many of the wonderful prophesies of the Old Testament, this one had
both a near-term fulfillment and a longer-term fulfillment, one that would come
to pass far in the future. It applied to the people of Judah in their return from
the exile, but it also applied in a specific way to the events of Pentecost, and to
the sanctification of believers by the Holy Spirit down through the ages. Right
down to you and me. For to you and me, too, God has promised a new
cleanness. And do we ever need it!

& nbsp; We in America are such a hygienic society that we take being clean for
granted. That is, until we can’t get clean. Has that ever happened to you? Were
you ever in a situation – camping or travelling or whatever – where you had to
go more than a day or two without bathing? It bothers you, doesn’t it? It makes
you feel uncomfortable. You feel dirty and sweaty, and after a while you can’t
ignore it, and you can’t get it out of your mind, and above all else you can’t wait
to get CLEAN!

Sin has the same effect on the Christian conscience. Our conscience is the
voice of God's Law in our hearts, reminding us of our sin. It tells us that we are
corrupt and dirty. That we have defiled ourselves with the filth of our own
idolatries. Not falling down, perhaps, before false gods of silver and gold, but
paying tribute to more subtle idols: the worship of money and pleasure, the
temptation to fear, love or trust in something more than we fear love and trust
in god! For our sins, we too are deserving only of punishment. Like the people
of Judah, we too are dirty, with no way to get clean on our own. The writer to
the Hebrews issues a chilling warning to believers: How shall we escape if we
neglect so great a salvation? – Heb 2:3 /

But GOD MAKES EVERYTHING NEW. You can't do it yourself - God has
to wash you clean. Jesus said to Nicodemus, “I tell you the solemn truth, unless
a person is born of water and spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.” – Jn
3:5 The great news is that the Lord did exactly that, didn't He – when He
washed you clean in the waters of your Baptism. On that day the Lord cleansed
you from all your sins and sent His Holy Spirit into your heart. He entered into
a covenant of grace and mercy with you, a covenant that He will never break.
What a comfort for your day-to-day living! The Apostle Peter says p lainly,
Baptism doth also now save us (not the putting away of the filth of the flesh,
but the answer of a good conscience toward God,) by the resurrection of Jesus
Christ. – 1 Pet 3:21. (KJV). Martin Luther said that Baptism is useful to us in
our everyday life because it reminds us that our sins are buried with Christ, and
that "…a new man shall daily come forth and arise who shall live before God in
righteousness and purity forever.”

So you see, when you come to faith in Christ, GOD MAKES EVERYTHING
NEW. Not only by giving us a new cleanness, but also by giving us A NEW
HEART.

Some of us are old enough to remember the first successful heart transplant.
Do you remember the year? It was 1967. The operation was performed by Dr.
Christiaan Barnard of South Africa. He was among the first in the medical
community to realize that there are times when a human heart is simply beyond
repair, and an entirely new heart is needed.

The same is true of the sinful heart of man. Only from a spiritual standpoint,
every human heart is beyond repair. Jeremiah says, The heart is deceitful above
all things, And desperately wicked; Who can know it? Jer 17:9. The people of
Judah thought they could repair their hearts. They promised to reform, but
failed to live up to it. They promised to give their hearts to the Lord, but in the
event their hearts reverted to flinty stubbornness. They were stiff-necked and
stony-hearted people, like those we read of in Noah's day: Then the LORD saw
that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intent of the
thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. – Gen 6:5. God's people thought
they could repair and reform their own hearts, but of course it was impossible.
So God promised to go one better - to replace their old, defective heart with a
brand new one. But that's how He works: GOD MAKES EVERYTHING
NEW. He said, 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.

For us, too, our first thought is to fix our hearts ourselves - perform some kind
of repair job. "If I just try a little harder and get rid of a few bad habits," you
think, "maybe then I can please God." But it never quite seems to happen, does
it? Paul speaks for all of us when he says, I know that in me (that is, in my
flesh) nothing good dwells; for to will is present with me, but how to perform
what is good I do not find. For the good that I will to do, I do not do; but the
evil I will not to do, that I practice.-- Rom 7:18-19. We want to speak kindly to
our children, and we end up yelling at them. We promise to love and cherish the
spouse that the Lord has given us, but we find ourselves intentionally hurting
the very one we love the most. We intend to put God first, to never miss our
prayers, to regularly read our Bibles, to give our hearts completely to the Lord,
and yet somehow…it all falls apart. With Paul we confess, Oh wretched man
that I am! Who shall deliver me from this body of death?

The sinful and stony human heart cannot be repaired - it must be replaced. And
that's a task that is far beyond our power to accomplish. But it's not beyond
God's powers. God can do it, and He DOES do it! GOD MAKES
EVERYTHING NEW. That's why, in a few moments from now, you and I will
be able to sing with absolute confidence: Create in me a clean heart, O God,
And renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from Thy presence, and
take not Thy Holy Spirit from me. – Ps 51:9-11 Pentecost reminds us that God
HAS created in us clean hearts by the power of His Holy Spirit. He has put
faith in our hearts to believe and trust in Christ. You can trust absolutely that
when the Lord Jesus gave up his life on the cursed tree of the cross, your sins
were fully atoned for. Your account has been paid, and you have been set free.
As Scripture truly says, There is therefore now no condemnation to those who
are in Christ Jesus. -- Rom 8:1.

GOD MAKES EVERYTHING NEW, by giving us a new cleanness, by giving
us a new heart, and also by giving us A NEW SPIRIT. God promised a new
spirit to Israel in their return from captivity. He said, I will put My Spirit within
you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will keep My judgments and
do them. Then you shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers; you shall
be My people, and I will be your God. And He kept His promise - Israel did
return joyfully to their homeland and to the worship of the true God. We read in
Ezra, Then the children of Israel who had returned from the captivity ate [the
Passover] together with all who had separated themselves from the filth of the
nations of the land in order to seek the LORD God of Israel. 22 And they kept
the Feast of Unleavened Bread seven days with joy; for the LORD made them
joyful – Ez 6:21-22.

God has kept His promise to us, too. Against our will, and in spite of our sinful
nature, He says to us, I will put My Spirit within you, and that’s just what He
does. He continually bestows upon us His Holy Spirit. He does so through the
means of grace: the gospel conveyed through His Holy Word, and the Gospel
conveyed through the Holy Sacrament of Baptism, and the Gospel conveyed
through the Holy Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper.

Again, it is God who does it all. “We are weak, but He is strong.” We do
nothing for our salvation. We did not cooperate in our conversion; we made no
"decision for Christ." Jesus said, "You20did not choose me, but I have chosen
you." One writer pointed out how many first person singular pronouns there are
in our text for this morning – did you notice that? I will take you from the
nations… I will sprinkle clean water on you… I will cleanse you… I will give
you a new heart… I will put my Spirit within you… There’s almost nothing
about what we do. Everything is about what God does for us. And that’s as it
should be, because when it comes to salvation, our faith rests 100% on God.

Now that's not always an easy truth to swallow. Because we human beings
want credit. We like a pat on the back. We like to hear praise. It’s hard for us to
hear that we’re stubborn sinners, that God has to save us in spite of ourselves
rather than because of ourselves. But there’s also a beautiful truth here, isn't
there? For it’s GOD WHO MAKES EVERYTHING NEW. He's the one who
gives us faith. He's the one who works through His Holy Spirit to produce fruits
of faith in the lives of His justified believers. What a comfort! We can’t depend
on ourselves, but we can depend utterly on our gracious God. We can rest all
our confidence in Him, without a single misgiving that we may somehow fail
because of our own weakness. For none of it is up to us, it’s all up to God! As
Paul told the Philippians, It is God who works in you both to will and to do for
His good pleasure. – Php 2:13. We all know our faith comes from God, but that
verse tells us that the fruits of our faith - the good works that we do - even that
comes ultimately from God, not from ourselves. How revealing is the passage in
Ephesians in which Paul says, For we are His workmanship, created in Christ
Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in
them. Eph 2:10.

I was rea ding the other day about an author who visited Hoover Dam on the
Columbia River. Up until then he’d always thought that the power was
generated by the froth – the water spilling so spectacularly over the top of the
dam.. But the tour guide explained that that's just overflow. The real work goes
on unseen, down deep in the heart of the dam. That's where thousands of tons
of water spin the turbines, produce the power, and then are released unnoticed
into the river below. That’s where the real work gets done; the froth makes no
difference. Likewise many in our day think that the power of the Holy Spirit is
mainly seen in lavish displays of human emotion, in a Christian personality that
always shows great outward excitement and enthusiasm. Well, saved Christians
are joyful, they are sometimes emotional, and once in a while they can get
downright excited. But we need to understand that that’s just the froth. How
reassuring it is to remember, on this day of Pentecost, that it’s God who does
the real work. Just as in the return from the Exile, and just as on that first
Pentecost, it’s the power not of man, but of the Holy Spirit, that works in
peoples’ hearts to accomplish the miracle of salvation. It is GOD WHO
MAKES EVERYTHING NEW. He has given you a new cleanness, He has
given you a new heart, and He has given you a new spirit. May God keep those
turbines running insi de us, and keep His Holy Spirit coursing richly and
powerfully through our hearts and our lives, AMEN.