Born Again (Part 2)

The Promise

Ezekiel 36:26–27 NLT

And I will give you a new heart, and I will put a new spirit in you. I will take out your stony, stubborn heart and give you a tender, responsive heart. And I will put my Spirit in you so that you will follow my decrees and be careful to obey my regulations.

1. God promises transformation

Ezekiel 36:26 NLT

And I will give you a new heart, and I will put a new spirit in you. I will take out your stony, stubborn heart and give you a tender, responsive heart.

“I will give you a new heart”

Explain:

A new heart? What is that supposed to mean? What’s wrong with my heart?

You’ve failed. According to God’s word, we do not live up to His expectations of us. We have fell short of His glory. The Bible words it like this, “Our righteousness is like filthy rags.” Therefore, we deserve to spend an eternity in Hell. We are labeled as a sinner. Our wrongdoings have stained our name. However, a new heart means a changed identity. The Bible says once we have accepted Jesus we are new creations or new creatures. A new heart means, a new you.

Its like a spiritual reboot, a fresh start. All of those things you had done wrong in the past, they don’t matter anymore. You have been redeemed and set free. Cleansed from your sin filled past. However, God doesn’t just clean the old heart, He replaces it.

Illustration Idea:

This is a picture of my Granddad. That’s Pops. My Pops has always been a man’s man. He could build, fix, or kill anything. If I ever needed help with something or needed a hard worker, Pops was my first call. He acted and looked so youthful, that everyone assumed him and my grandmother were my parents my whole life. And they even do now! Things changed though. One day, my grandmother gets a phone call. Pops had passed out at the house, that wasn’t like him. He was confused, he woke up in a puddle of blood from where he hit his head. No idea what happened, what time it was, what day it was, how long he’d been laying there. So they made a doctors appointment. After a lot of blood work and a few visits, they tell my grandparents that Pops has cirrhosis of the liver. Apparently, its bad. But he’s strong, he’ll take whatever medicine he needs to and fight this off. Until the medicine doesn’t work. His body is filling up with fluid. He’s so swollen and miserable he can hardly move. At this point, he’s going to the doctor every week to have 2-3 liters of fluid drained off of his stomach because his liver wasn’t doing its job. After battling with this for a while, he gets put on the transplant list. The time comes where he’s close to the top. They start his screening so he’ll be ready to go, and during then they hear the news… 3 of your main arteries are completely blocked. You have 7 blockages in your heart. There’s no way we can give you a new liver if you need stints put in your heart, its too risky. Our family’s heart broke. So now he’s going to the cardiologist. And they break the news, stints won’t fix this… you need open heart surgery. So his response, I’ll do whatever I need to… where do we start? And the answers just led to confusion. “We can’t perform the heart surgery because your liver is not strong enough, we can’t perform the liver transplant because your heart is not strong enough.” So my family frantically starts looking for a solution. Pops needs a liver transplant and a quadruple bypass done simultaneously by 2 different surgical teams. What hospital can pull that off? The answer, there are only 2 in the world who have ever successfully accomplished it. One in Tokyo Japan, the other in Cleveland Ohio. Cleveland it is. At this point, Summer and I are planning a wedding, my brother and his fiance were planning a wedding. Life was chaotic. Pops condition worsened to the point that it started effecting his thinking. He didn’t remember me. The hospital in Cleveland advises them to move up to Ohio to be closer to the hospital in case they have a new liver for him. Months go by. 6 days before our wedding, we get a phone call. Pops isn’t doing well, we don’t think he’s going to make it. They’ve asked us to invite the family up here in case he passes. We drive all night long. I’ve never seen anyone so sick in my life. This superhero of mine dwindled down to skin and bones, unable to move his arms or legs, unable to speak. We stay a few days, and he gets a little better. He’s now conscious. My family tells us to go back down to Alabama and have our wedding. So we do, and my grandparents couldn’t be there. But, I was able to get my Pops to pray over us during the ceremony over the phone. We get married, go on our honeymoon. A few weeks later they let us know that its time for the surgery and they’ve found a liver! We drive back up to Ohio. The doctor informs the family to pray hard, there is less than a 1% chance that he makes it off the table. And even if he does, the recovery will be rough. He made it. They made him stay in Ohio a few more months. And here’s a picture from the parade that the church and our family and friends threw him when he pulled back in his driveway. Here’s his first Sunday back in church with us. God still does miracles. Now why did I tell you all of that? Pops’s liver was beyond repair. There was nothing they could do to save that organ, it was too far gone. It didn’t live up to the standard it needed to for his body to function properly. So what was the only solution, a new one.

The Bible is telling us the same thing. Sin has ruined your heart and there’s no fixing it. You can’t read enough Bible, you can’t listen to enough worship music, you can’t attend church enough, you can’t be a good enough person. All of that is just medicine for a heart that needs a transplant. That’s salvation. If Pops needed a brand new organ to live, how much more do we need a brand new heart to live for God?

Application Question:

Have you experienced this kind of change, or are you trying to follow Jesus with the same old heart?

2. God gives new motivation

Ezekiel 36:26 NLT

And I will give you a new heart, and I will put a new spirit in you. I will take out your stony, stubborn heart and give you a tender, responsive heart.

“I will put a new spirit within you”

Explain:

I said it before, this isn’t about trying harder… its about being filled with something new: HIS SPIRIT

People look at Christianity as a group of people who read a book and follow a set of rules in that book. Like all the Bible is is a set of moral guidelines for us to follow. Don’t get me wrong it is, but we don’t follow it just because that’s what’s right. We don’t follow it because Mom and Dad said so. We follow it because we desire to live that way now that the Holy Spirit lives inside of us. You want to follow God and not do the things you desired to do before because your desire changes. God doesn’t tell you what to do, He helps you do it!

Illustration:

Props (optional): A phone and a charger

"Have you ever had your phone die right when you needed it? You press the power button, swipe, tap the screen—nothing. It doesn't matter how nice the phone is or how many apps it has… if it’s dead, it can’t do anything.

Now, plug it in. Give it power. All of a sudden, it works. It wasn’t about the phone trying harder to turn on—it needed power from the outside to make it work on the inside.

That’s what God does for us when we’re saved. We don’t just try harder to be a good person—we receive a new source of power, the Holy Spirit, who changes our heart. He gives us new motivation, new desires, and new strength to live for Him. You don’t follow God because you “should”—you follow Him because now you actually want to."

3. God softens what sin hardened

Ezekiel 36:26 NLT

And I will give you a new heart, and I will put a new spirit in you. I will take out your stony, stubborn heart and give you a tender, responsive heart.

“I will take out your stony, stubborn heart… and give you a tender, responsive heart”

Explain:

What do you envision a heart of stone to be? What would be some characteristics of a heart of stone? Cold, Hard, Stubborn, Selfish!

Nocw what about a tender, responsive heart? Soft, TENDER, RESPONSIVE, alive!

This is what forgiveness does! It melts a frozen, guilty heart.

Visual idea: You could hold a stone and a sponge. Show how a sponge absorbs water (God’s truth, love, and guidance), but a rock doesn’t.

4. God seals and guides you

Ezekiel 36:27 NLT

And I will put my Spirit in you so that you will follow my decrees and be careful to obey my regulations.

“I will put my Spirit in you so that you will follow my decrees and be careful to obey my regulations”

Explain:

So we’ve agreed, the Holy Spirit is God living inside of you… He helps you walk in obedience. You don’t have to figure all this life out on your own. You don’t have to endure a hard time without Him. He’s always there. He won’t leave you nor forsake you. And there is nothing you can do to be plucked out of the Father’s hand. The spirit is like a seal-its a guarantee that the promise is secure. What God starts, He finishes. You can hang your hat on it.

Conclusion:

If you are born again, these promises are for you! God promises transformation for you, He will give you new motivation now that you have surrendered your life to Him, He will soften your stone cold heart, and he will seal and guide you. However, if you’ve never accepted the gift of salvation, these promises aren’t for you. You have a different promise:

Matthew 25:46 NLT

“And they will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous will go into eternal life.”

Revelation 20:15 NLT

And anyone whose name was not found recorded in the Book of Life was thrown into the lake of fire.

2 Thessalonians 1:8–9 NLT

in flaming fire, bringing judgment on those who don’t know God and on those who refuse to obey the Good News of our Lord Jesus. They will be punished with eternal destruction, forever separated from the Lord and from his glorious power.