CWC (Historic) O T Lesson - Pentecost- KBKuschel
Ezekiel 36:25-27
25 I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols. 26 I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. 27 And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws.
IA1 God’s Old Testament people had abandoned their LORD. They didn’t insist that the I AM, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob was the only true God. They began to be less exclusive. They blended in with everybody else. They worshiped all the gods of the other people in their region, sometimes along with the LORD, sometimes instead of the LORD. Instead of relying on the LORD for protection for their nation, they got all intertwined with political intrigues with the foreign powers around them.
2 God’s Old Testament people had abandoned God’s way of doing things. Instead of loving people, they used people for their own advantage. Instead of using God’s blessings to accomplish God’s purposes, they used their resources for their own gratification. Instead of maintaining stable families, they dissolved family units on a regular basis.
B1 God’s promise is: {25} I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols. The Old Testament people were constantly reminded how God did that. Every time an animal was sacrificed and blood was poured out to God, it reminded them that God washes away sins with the blood of a sacrifice. To the Old Testament people it was a sacrifice that was still going to happen in the future. The sacrifice of the Messiah on the cross.
2 The verse starts: 25 I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean. When the Old Testament people approached God, they had to go through a ceremonial washing. It was a reminder that no human being can stand in the presence of God on his own. Sin makes that impossible. Sin has to be washed away as dirt is washed away with water.
C1 I would venture to say that none of you here today can remember a time in your life when you worshiped Baal, Asherah, Zeus, Aphrodite, Allah, or Buddha. That is a good thing to never have been in the same situation into which the Old Testament people of God had sunk.
2 On the other hand I know for sure that your lives have been filled with impurities from the time that you were born. I know that from the Bible. It teaches us that we are all sinful from the time we were conceived in our mother’s womb. When we started acting and speaking and thinking on our own, we produced sinful, selfish thoughts, words and actions. So in that sense we are all exactly like the Old Testament people of God.
D1 God’s promise is: I will cleanse you from all your impurities. He does that for us in exactly the same way He did it for His Old Testament people. He takes the blood of Jesus the Messiah and washes away our sins. Interestingly enough there is a New Testament equivalent of the statement: 25 I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean. Through the waters of Baptism, to which God’s Word was attached, the forgiveness of Jesus was delivered into your lives, for most of you for the very first time in your lives when you were infants. I would like you, if possible, to contact your parents today and say to them: Thank you for having me baptized.
2 How could washing with water connected with the Word of God deliver Jesus’ forgiveness and the other connected blessings of salvation and eternal life? Because the Word of God and the Word of God connected with the water of Baptism are tools which the Holy Spirit uses to deliver the blessings of Jesus. The promise of God underlying the promise: “I will cleanse you” is:{27} “I will put my Spirit in you.” He has kept His promise to you.
Hymn 181:2
IIA1 Do you know anyone who has an attitude? All human beings on our own have an attitude. We filter our attitude about our selves through our self-orientation. We insist that we are wonderful human beings. We insist that any problems which arise in relationships are always the other person’s fault. We are extremely pleased that we aren’t bad like a lot of people around us are.
2 We also have an attitude about God. We conclude that any God, who demands perfection from humans who can’t produce it, is an intolerant tyrant. We decide that any God, who punishes people who aren’t perfect, is a bully. We surmise that any God, who insists that the only way humans can have a relationship with Him is by being totally dependent on Him, is a control freak. And we would much rather rely on ourselves, thank you very much. So we determine God must not be like that. Or, if He is, we don’t want anything to do with Him.
3 We also have an attitude about the way we live. We know for sure that we know what is best for us. We know for sure that we will always try do what is best for us and the people around us. We know for sure that we don’t need any advice from anybody including God.
B1 I have in my hand a stone. In the other hand I have a stick pin. I am going to stick the stick pin into the stone. It doesn’t work. The pin just bends.
2 In these verses before us today God says we have a heart of stone. What do you think that means? It means that our hearts are so hard that they are almost impenetrable. Our attitudes are so set, that almost nothing can change them.
C1 And yet in spite of the fact that all humans are like that, you confess that you are not a wonderful person, who has no faults, but are bad just like everybody else. What happened to you? God the Holy Spirit through the Law over the course of your life has convinced you that you are sinners and made you willing to admit that. God has kept His promise to you: 26 I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. The promise of God underlying that promise is: “I will put my Spirit in you.” God has kept His promise to you.
2 In spite of the attitude other humans have, you confess that God is not an intolerant tyrant and control freak who bullies people. What happened to you? God the Holy Spirit through the Gospel over the course of your life has convinced you that God loved you so much that Jesus lived and died and rose to give you forgiveness, holiness, and eternal life and because of that you want Jesus to invade every corner of your life. God has kept His promise to you: 26 I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. The promise of God underlying that promise is: “I will put my Spirit in you.” God has kept His promise to you.
3 In spite of the attitude of other humans, you confess that you don’t have all the right answers and don’t always make the right decisions in life. That’s why you look to God’s Word the Bible for answers and directions in life. What happened to you? God the Holy Spirit through the Gospel over the course of your life has convinced you that, if God loved you so much to give you Jesus, when He gives directions and advice, they are based on His love for you and His knowledge of what is best for you. God has kept His promise to you: 26 I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. The promise of God underlying that promise is: “I will put my Spirit in you.” God has kept His promise to you.
Hymn 181:3
IIIA1 There is a third promise in this text: {27}“You will follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws.” We spend a lot of time studying God’s decrees and laws. You will keep God’s laws. You will respect your parents so that the God’s blessings of everything you need for your physical and spiritual well-being will continue to flow into your lives through them. You will respect your teachers so that God’s blessing of education will continue to flow into your lives through them. You will respect those who teach you God’s Word so that forgiveness, holiness and eternal life will continue to flow into your lives through God’s word through them. You will respect your government so that God’s blessings of peace and order will continue to flow into your lives through it.
2 You will take good care of your bodies. You will refuse to do things that will damage your bodies so that God’s gift of your health won’t be burdened by your bad decisions. You will help other people to do the same.
3 You will use your sexuality to cement a life-long relationship with your marriage partner, so that you marriage can be a nest to nurture each other and to nurture the next generation of witnesses for Jesus Christ.
4 You will use your money to take care of yourself and your dependents, to preach the Gospel, to support the needy and to pay your taxes so that you can experience the rich full life on this earth that God intends for you to have.
5 You will use your words to share Jesus with people and to build and maintain good relationships with others
6 You will talk to God and about God a lot to express your relationship with Him and to offer to others a relationship with Him
7 You will have good priorities in life realizing that your relationship with God is the most important one you can have and that God has provided you with a relationship that will last forever because of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus.
B1 None of that is going to happen in your life without help. God offers help. 27 And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws. God the Holy Spirit points us to Jesus. That leads us to want to thank Him for what He did for us. God the Holy Spirit points us to the Law. When He leads us to live the way God wants us to live, we are thanking Jesus for what He did for us.
2 The Holy Spirit does His work tied to tools. The tools are the Word of God and the Lord’s Supper. The Holy Spirit can only keep us connected with Jesus and motivated to live godly lives if we are using those tools.
3 Remember the promise all of you adults made at one point in your life?
Finally, do you intend to shape your life with God’s Word, to hear the Word of God proclaimed every week, to use the Lord’s Supper whenever it is offered, & to study the Word with your fellow Christians in this congregation at every opportunity.,
Lord God Holy Spirit, lead us all to keep this promise that we made so that You can keep Your promise to be in us the rest of our lives.
Hymn 181:4
I will put my Spirit in You
I. You will be clean
A. Text situation
1. OT people had abandoned God
2. OT people had become impure
B. OT cleansing
1. God had to remove sins(cleanse you) - sacrifices of animals etc
2. Ceremonial washing with water
C. Humans all of us
1. Never worshiped false god
2 . Were impure at birth
D. Cleansing
Washing of baptism
Washing of baptism - thanks to Holy Spirit
II. You will have a new heart
A. Human beings on our own
1. View of self- wonderful person
2. View of god - intolerant tyrant
3. View of lifestyle- my way is best
B. Heart of stone
1. Stick pin and stone
2. Hearts that won’t change
C. New hearts
1. Admit sinfulness - HS through Law
2. Want Jesus in life - HS through Gospel
3. God’s way is beast - HS through Gospel
III. You will keep my laws
A. List commandments
1. Respect authorities so blessings flow
2. Take care of bodies so life isn’t such a struggle
3. Use your sexuality to lock into a lifelong partner
4. Use your money to have the good life
5. Use your words to share Jesus and have good relationships
6. Talk to God a lot
7. Keep your relationship with God first
B. Contingent on Holy Spirit’s activity
1. HS motivate to keep God’s Law by pointing to Jesus
2. HS only active in us when we use Word and supper
3. Confirmation promise