A New Heart and a New Spirit

A couple of months ago, Annette did something absolutely terrible. She really thought she was doing something to help me out, and I appreciated the heart behind what she did. And that made it easier for me to forgive her.

And I really thought I’d gotten past it, but as I was preparing today’s sermon, which is the beginning of a series I’m calling “Time for Something New,” the horror of what she did then came rushing back to me. And so, I suppose I’m not really past it, after all.

Now, you need to understand that, while I’m calling her out publicly today about the pain that she caused me, we’ve had private conversations about it before. And I made known her misdeed in the semi-public court of Facebook opinion when she did it. So, consider what I’m doing now as kind of bringing her misdeed before the church.

I hope that doing so will prove therapeutic for both of us. Perhaps you’ll know better how to pray for us.

What happened was this: I went into our bathroom one morning to brush my teeth, and I saw that she had thrown away my tube of toothpaste, when it still had a couple of days of toothpaste left in it!

Now, I don’t know about you guys, but one of my greatest joys in life is to squeeze the very last ounce of toothpaste from a tube I have been carefully flattening in the previous weeks.

I get great satisfaction from knowing that I got every penny’s worth of toothpaste from the tube. And I get great satisfaction from putting a fresh, new tube on the counter to use the next time I brush my teeth.

So, when I walked into the bathroom that day, knowing I had two or three more brushings to go before I got to toss out the old and bring in the new, what I saw in our bathroom nearly brought me to tears.

There in the bathroom trash can lay the flattened and nearly-but-not-completely-empty tube, and a fresh new tube was standing up in the glass with my toothbrush.

At least, I assume it was new. There was no way to tell, because I wasn’t the one to take it out of the box and put it in the glass. And, what’s more, I’d been cheated out of the satisfaction of actually finishing the old tube.

Marriage is hard, y’all. Especially if you’re married to ME.

And, yes, I know the toothpaste thing is a bit silly. And, yes, honey, I DO know you were doing something nice for me. And, yes, I’m kind of an idiot for bringing this up in front of everybody at church, although I DID warn her that I’d be doing so.

And the reason I have brought it up is that I want you all to be thinking about that experience of opening up a fresh, new tube of toothpaste.

Maybe you’ve never lived in a new house. Maybe you’ve never had a new car. Maybe you’ve never even worn completely new clothes that you knew had never even been tried on by someone else.

But everyone has opened a new tube of toothpaste. Or a new container of coffee. Or a new bag of potato chips.

There’s something special about new things. They smell different. They feel fresh. They feel like they’re full of possibilities.

That’s what makes New Year’s Day so special. We look — somewhat arbitrarily — forward to a new calendar year, and we think, “Things are going to be different this time around the sun.”

We think of the possibilities that are open to us. And we hope that maybe we won’t make the same mistakes, that maybe we’ll be better versions of ourselves.

Actually, I think we’re wired that way. We were, after all, made in the image of the God who specializes in doing new things.

And so, for the next nine weeks or so, we’re going to take a look at some of the new things that come about because of that child whose birth we celebrated last Sunday.

Because the Creator of the universe came to live among us as a man and then to give Himself as a sacrifice for we who have rebelled against Him in our sins, we who follow Him in faith have received new hearts and a new Spirit.

We have been made into new creatures and given new names. We have new life in Him because of the New Covenant that God has made with mankind.

And we who have accepted the terms of that conditional covenant are subject to a new commandment.

Having been reconciled to God in Christ, we look forward to the day when, in heaven, we will learn a new song of praise to Jesus in heaven.

We look forward to the day when the New Jerusalem descends upon the earth. And we anticipate the day when the heavens and earth are made new by Him.

But all of this, including the promise of new hearts and a new Spiritthat we will study today, begins with new birth.

Jesus talked to the Nicodemus, the Pharisee and religious leader in Israel, about this concept in chapter 3 of the Gospel of John.

Perhaps you recall that Nicodemus had come to Jesus to try to understand more about this man who had been performing miracles and teaching with the authority of God Himself.

Nicodemus seems to have recognized the hand of God in Jesus’ miracles, and he understood that the miracles were intended — just as miracles in the Old Testament were intended — as signs that authenticated the God-inspired message of the one who performed the miracles.

In other words, the miracles Jesus performed were God’s way of saying, “This one comes in my name and with my message; listen to Him.”

And, unlike many of the other religious leaders in Judea at the time, Nicodemus seems to have recognized this connection.

And so, he comes to Jesus by night, which is John’s way of describing spiritual darkness, and he seems to be trying to understand more about Jesus’ ministry.

And, as He so often does, Jesus cuts right to the chase in verse 3 of chapter 3.

John 3:3 NASB95

3 Jesus answered and said to him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.”

Now, I should note that the Greek word translated as “again” here normally means “from above,” and that’s how it’s used in every other occurence in the Gospel of John. So “born from above” would be the better translation here.

But the Apostle Peter uses the term “born again” in 1 Pet 1:23, and the Greek there is not in question. The only proper translation in that verse is “born again.”

I think it’s likely that as He taught His disciples, Jesus probably used both terms — “born from above” and born again” — to describe the rebirth His followers would experience upon placing their faith in Him.

But I think the “born from above” interpretation is a better fit for this passage in John’s Gospel, because of the conversation that follows.

Nicodemus reasonably asks how someone can be born after already having been born. And Jesus responds by saying that He’s talking about a spiritual rebirth, not a physical one.

Spiritual rebirth is necessary for entrance into the kingdom of God and for eternal life — in other words, life the way it was always meant to be, in fellowship with and in the presence of God and of Jesus.

And spiritual rebirth can only come through faith in Jesus, the one whom God sent from Heaven to bring salvation and reconciliation to we who deserve judgment for our sins against God, for all we who practice evil in any of its degrees.

And that’s the gist of this chapter that includes Jesus’ famous one-sentence statement of the gospel in John 3:16.

John 3:16 NASB95

16 “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.

If you want to understand what Jesus is all about, John 3:16 is a great place to start, and the rest of this chapter serves to expound and illuminate it.

In a nutshell: We are all sinners — doers of evil great and small. And we are all eternal, created as enfleshed souls intended for a relationship of dependence upon God.

It’s hidden here in the English translation, but in the Greek, the emphasis in the phrase “eternal life” is on the word LIFE. That’s because the eternal part of the equation was assumed.

The question was what sort of eternity was in store? And what Jesus is saying here is that He came so that those who believe in Him could have an eternity of LIFE, which in the Bible has connotations of peace and order.

In the Genesis story of the creation of the universe, God is depicted as bringing life out of chaos, and at the end of each day of creation, He describes everything as “good” — a Hebrew word that can mean “pleasant,” or “joyful” or “agreeable.”

What Moses describes in his account of the Garden of Eden is a place of perfect shalom, a place of perfect peace and contentment in the presence of God Himself.

That’s what’s wrapped up in the promise of eternal life. And that’s what was broken when mankind sinned against God in the Garden.

And we break that peace every time WE sin, every time we fail to manifest the character of the God who created us to be like Him — righteous and merciful and gracious and loving and peaceful and self-giving.

And in sinning against God by defacing the image of Him within us, we cause a separation between us and Him.

We continue to have the eternal part of us, but now, instead of enjoying the LIFE, we are cursed by death, both physical and spiritual.

Instead of aligning ourselves with the one who is life and in whom there is only truth, we have aligned ourselves with the father of lies, the one who is served by death.

Instead of having a heart like God’s heart — one that is gracious and self-giving and good and true — our hearts have become hard and selfish and mean and treacherous.

But Jesus, the unique and eternal Son of God, came to offer us eternal LIFE through faith in Him. Our bodies may die, but His promise here is that our spirits — our souls — can have eternal LIFE.

We can, after all, experience, in the presence of God, the pleasant, joyful, peaceful, contented lives for which we were created. And we can have that experience for eternity.

Jesus earned our redemption — our salvation — by taking upon Himself at the cross the just punishment that each one of us deserves for our sins against God.

In other words, God Himself came in the person of His own Son to make Himself a sacrifice to pay the just penalty for OUR sins against HIM.

What’s required of us is repentance and faith. We must repent from our sins; in other words, we must commit ourselves to turning FROM the ways of this world and TOWARDS God’s ways.

And we must have faith in Jesus that He is who He said He is, the Son of God, equal in all aspects to the Father. And faith that what He did at the cross and the empty tomb was both necessary and sufficient to reconcile us to God.

There is more to the message of the gospel, but that’s it in a nutshell. Admittedly, it’s a big nutshell, but there’s quite a lot of theology wrapped up in Jesus’ words in this chapter.

But for the purposes of this first message in the series, Time for Something New, I want to direct your attention to verses 5 and 6.

Nicodemus had asked how someone born of a woman could go back into the womb and be born again.

John 3:5–6 NASB95

5 Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. 6 “That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.

Now, verse 6 is the clue that Jesus isn’t talking about a physical birth and that He is saying spiritual birth must come about from God in the person of the Holy Spirit.

As we will see in a future message in this series, it is the Holy Spirit who gives new life in response to the faith of a new believer.

But I want to focus our remaining time on verse 5. “Unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.”

In other words, being a part of God’s kingdom — becoming one of His subjects — requires being born of water and the Spirit.

Now, the truth is that even Christians don’t spend enough time studying their Bibles, and even when we do, we have a bad habit of ignoring the Old Testament.

And so, we often miss what should be obvious Old Testament references. But it looks like Nicodemus, the great Pharisee and religious leader of Israel, missed this one, too, at least at first.

What Jesus is talking about here comes right out of Ezekiel, chapter 36. This passage really begins back in chapter 33, where word of Jerusalem’s fall to the Babylonians comes to the prophet Ezekiel.

God tells Ezekiel that He allowed His chosen people Israel to be conquered because the nation had sinned against Him. And then, God describes some of the suffering the people will face because they had turned from their faith in Him.

But then, in chapter 34, God describes how He will rescue His people from their exile and how, ultimately, He will institute a new covenant with them and with all who put their faith in Him and His Servant.

And He describes a still-coming time in which all who live on earth will live, in the presence of God, the pleasant, joyful, peaceful, contented lives for which we were created.

And He says that He will do this, not because Israel or we deserve it, but to vindicate the holiness of His great name. He will do this, not because WE are good, but because HE is good.

And here’s the connection to those two verses in John, chapter 3: We’ll pick up in Ezekiel 36:25.

Ezekiel 36:25–28 NASB95

25 “Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols. 26 “Moreover, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. 27 “I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will be careful to observe My ordinances. 28 “You will live in the land that I gave to your forefathers; so you will be My people, and I will be your God.

What did Jesus say needed to happen for a person to become part of the Kingdom of God? They had to be born of water and the Spirit.

“Born of water” is a picture of this sprinkling with water that God speaks of through the prophet Ezekiel. The point is that those who follow Jesus must be cleansed from their sins.

In Old Testament times, this symbolically happened in the water-washing rituals every time someone was to enter the temple.

In the New Testament, this washing happened for believers once and for all with the blood that Jesus shed at the cross. As John puts it in 1 John 1:7, “the blood of Jesus cleanses us from all sin.”

This is a real key to the Christian faith. For too long, the church has made Christianity a moral code. And the message the world hears is one of two things: Either that they have to clean up their act before they can come to Christ or that we are righteous and they are not.

But here’s the real message from this passage of Ezekiel — and, indeed, the rest of the Bible: WE ARE NOT RIGHTEOUS, and without Jesus, WE NEVER CAN BE.

To come to Jesus, we need to repent of our sins. In other words, we need to admit that we are sinners, people who have fallen short of demonstrating the glory of the God in whose image we were made, whose character we were made to reflect.

And we need to make a conscious decision to turn from the wicked and selfish ways of the world. When we do this in faith that Jesus’ sacrifice at the cross is our only way to be reconciled to God, then God accepts His Son’s sacrifice as full payment for the debt that our sins have created.

And then, He does something even MORE wonderful. He removes the hard, dead, stone hearts from within us and replaces them with hearts of flesh, hearts that are alive.

And He doesn’t just give us new hearts; He also gives us a new Spirit, the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Trinity.

And now, with the very Spirit of God within us, we have the ability that we never had before — the ability to truly be good and to truly do good.

We do this out of gratitude for our salvation. But much more, we do it because we are, as we will see next week, NEW CREATURES.

We who have been saved by God’s grace, through faith in Jesus Christ, are no longer primarily creatures of flesh who walk according to the ways of the flesh.

We are no longer to be compelled by “the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life,” as the Apostle Paul put it. We are to be driven by the Holy Spirit within us.

And as we are driven by the Spirit, we will find more and more to be true this promise of God through Ezekiel: “You will be My people, and I will be your God.”

Folks, lots of people are making New Year’s resolutions today, and I get that. There’s something special about Jan. 1, even if it’s a bit arbitrary, just as there’s something special about that new tube of toothpaste.

But if you’ve followed Jesus in faith — if you’ve given your life to Him as Savior and Lord — then you’ve already received the best new things you could ever want, a new heart and a new Spirit.

What I want to encourage you to do today as Christians is to resolve to let that new heart pump new life into you by allowing the new Spirit within you to be the one who guides your every step in this new year.

You will surely fail at some points; we all do. But God is good, and God is gracious, and God is patient, and God desires to have fellowship with you.

When you fail, repent for your sin. The Bible promises us that “He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”

And if you have never followed Jesus in faith, I want to talk to you personally here for a moment.

Augustine of Hippo, one of the early church fathers from the fourth century A.D., wrote this about God: “You have made us for yourself and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in Thee.”

Others have written that we were created with a God-shaped hole that only God can fill.

Perhaps you have found yourself seeking fulfillment in any number of different places. Maybe it was drugs or alcohol, maybe it was in family and friends. Maybe it was in volunteerism or travel or adventures or thrill seeking.

And maybe, as I did years ago, you’ve found that none of those things brings lasting satisfaction. None of them brings fulfillment. None of them seems to settle the restlessness. None of them seems to fill the hole in your life. None of them provides the answer you’ve been looking for.

I’m going to suggest to you this morning that what’s missing is God. What’s missing is the Holy Spirit living within you. What’s missing is the goodness and peace for which we were created.

I’m going to suggest to you that what you desire is the pleasant, joyful, peaceful, contentment of fellowship with God in Christ through the Holy Spirit.

If you find missing yourself missing these things in your life, I promise you will find them in Him. Come and see me today or send me a message on Facebook and let’s talk.

It’s time for something new.