A Heart of Flesh
Series: Matters of the Heart • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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· 3 viewsSermon Title: A Heart of Flesh Main Idea: The Lord wants to give you a NEW heart.
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“Therefore say to the house of Israel, Thus says the Lord God: It is not for your sake, O house of Israel, that I am about to act, but for the sake of my holy name, which you have profaned among the nations to which you came. And I will vindicate the holiness of my great name, which has been profaned among the nations, and which you have profaned among them. And the nations will know that I am the Lord, declares the Lord God, when through you I vindicate my holiness before their eyes. I will take you from the nations and gather you from all the countries and bring you into your own land. I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules. You shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers, and you shall be my people, and I will be your God. And I will deliver you from all your uncleannesses. And I will summon the grain and make it abundant and lay no famine upon you. I will make the fruit of the tree and the increase of the field abundant, that you may never again suffer the disgrace of famine among the nations.
Transformational Experiences
Experiences that change you entirely. So much where if your current self were to go back in time to your former self (before the experience) your former self wouldn’t believe how that experience changed you.
The family dog…
Having a child…
Salvation…
“Therefore say to the house of Israel, Thus says the Lord God: It is not for your sake, O house of Israel, that I am about to act, but for the sake of my holy name, which you have profaned among the nations to which you came. And I will vindicate the holiness of my great name, which has been profaned among the nations, and which you have profaned among them. And the nations will know that I am the Lord, declares the Lord God, when through you I vindicate my holiness before their eyes.
…The motive of God…not for the sake of His people. (God does have compassion over and over and over, and the way he is going to help them is compassionate, but in this moment the motive is…)
…for the sake of His holy name (They were defiling His holy name)
…God’s people are profaning God’s name…by their behavior and their heart condition had become hard.
Now by a hard heart, is plainly meant an unaffected heart, or a heart not easy to be moved with virtuous affections, like a stone, insensible, stupid, unmoved, and hard to be impressed. Hence the hard heart is called a stony heart, and is opposed to a heart of flesh, that has feeling, and is sensibly touched and moved. Jonathan Edwards (American Evangelical Preacher)
God has compassion for his people even when they do wrong and defile His name.
But God knows that HE has to do something drastic because the more the people do wrong the harder their heart gets.
Their stony heart. Heart of stone. Practicality. Callous. Not easily shaped. Hard. Destructive. (Stony, flint like, callous, not shapeable)
I will take you from the nations and gather you from all the countries and bring you into your own land. I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you.
Here is what He is going to do. He is going to give these ______ people their own land. He will sprinkle them with clean water. Clean them. Deliver them from idols.
Gather them…clean them (from others land to their own land, unclean and worshipping idols to worshipping the only true God)
God gives not in proportion to our merit, but according to our needs.
He gives help according to our needs.
They didn’t earn a new heart, a cleansing, but he gave a new heart. They didn’t earn their own land, but he gave them their land.
It reminds me when Jesus confounded the Jewish religious elites. The religious elites were upset because Jesus was spending time with tax collectors and sinners. Mark 2:17 “And when Jesus heard it, he said to them, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.”
The PHarisees were religious zealots who were sick on the inside and didn’t even know it. The Gentiles, sinners, and tax collectors were lost without a shepherded and were sick and needing a Savior.
“God gives help not in proportion to our merit, but to our needs.” He went to the cross, suffered, died, and rose again for the sake of all. Because we NEEDED a savior because we could not save ourselves.
And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.
We don’t want to hear the words, you need a heart transplant. BUT…you do. So did they.
So many religions focus mainly on the external to be saved. *(Pharisees. Israel) Hoping that cleansing the outside will lead to an inner cleansing.
They focused on controlling the externals over the internals. But it never really got to the internals.
Sometimes this can work experientially. Sometimes doesn’t.
The much more lasting and transformational experience is when God gives a new heart. (Behavioral modification tactics with kids and pets)
But God peculiarly begins with the heart. Declares that a heart transformation is needed.
You shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers, and you shall be my people, and I will be your God. And I will deliver you from all your uncleannesses. And I will summon the grain and make it abundant and lay no famine upon you. I will make the fruit of the tree and the increase of the field abundant, that you may never again suffer the disgrace of famine among the nations.
Doesn’t just transform the heart, gives them everything needed to live for Him.
Application:
Heart: Western Ideas vs Biblical. Cupid vs Will/Reason. Apply this to mission statement. “To know and love Jesus and help others do the same” / “Love the Lord your God with all your heart.”
5754 Our progress in holiness depends on God and ourselves—on God’s grace and on our will to be holy. We must have a real living determination to reach holiness. Blessed Mother Teresa (Nun and Founder of the Missionaries of Charity)
Love with all our heart is a discipline and an intentional ongoing choice. Not an emotional fleeting experience that comes and goes. Which I love. I love this so much because it implies regularity, planning, intentionality, and a choice. It also means that I have work to do in keeping this relationship with God healthy.
I love seeing the heart as an organ that represents the will, rather the center of emotions. Because emotions are just that emotional and unreliable. I love it because most of life is in the trenches and not on the mountain top. So we need to have a strong Christian will to stay faithful during the normal and hard times. And not just faithful during the great times.
BUT, there is a danger in focusing too much on the will and the planning, and intentionality. If you focus too much on OUR WILL, we forget what this passage is all about. God is doing something for these people that they could not do themselves. He is giving them a NEW HEART.
Then the word of the Lord of hosts came to me: “Say to all the people of the land and the priests, ‘When you fasted and mourned in the fifth month and in the seventh, for these seventy years, was it for me that you fasted? And when you eat and when you drink, do you not eat for yourselves and drink for yourselves? Were not these the words that the Lord proclaimed by the former prophets, when Jerusalem was inhabited and prosperous, with her cities around her, and the South and the lowland were inhabited?’ ”
And the word of the Lord came to Zechariah, saying, “Thus says the Lord of hosts, Render true judgments, show kindness and mercy to one another, do not oppress the widow, the fatherless, the sojourner, or the poor, and let none of you devise evil against another in your heart.” But they refused to pay attention and turned a stubborn shoulder and stopped their ears that they might not hear. They made their hearts diamond-hard…
How is your heart? (The heart doesn’t have a check engine light.)
People were doing the “right” things. Fasting, Feasting, Celebrating, Traditions. And yet their heart was hard.
Disobedience? The longer you disobey the more callous your heart gets. You need a new heart.
Regularly Giving in to Sin? The longer you do this the harder your heart will get.
Do you hear God speaking to you, but you stop your ears from listening? The more you do this the more harder it will get for you to hear God’s voice.
Are you doing the right things externally, but your heart isn’t in it? Scripture says these people made their heart diamond-hard.
God wants to give you a NEW HEART! A heart of FLESH! One that God doesn’t have to chisel his name on. But a heart that he can hold in his hands, protect, shape, and protect.
572Sometimes the more unlikely ones are the first to be converted. You probably remember the story of the man who went to hear George Whitefield preach, who had filled his pocket with stones to throw at God’s servant. But as he preached the gospel, the man dropped one stone after another, until all the stones were gone. And better still, God had taken the stony heart out of his flesh and given him a heart of flesh.—48.471
Charles Spurgeon
