"The Heart Renewed By God" – Ezekiel 36:26-27 “A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh.” The study opens with a warning about method: when we suffer many losses we must go into the depths of our own life, not into the circumstances around us; the wise man searches his inner being in order to set it in order with God. From there it develops why the heart must be renewed —because in the heart everything is stored, and circumstances gradually deform our being— and why it is so easy for it to harden: the heart is not stable, today a thing makes you weep and tomorrow it does not. It sets the passage in the exile, with Ezekiel going in the caravan with the people, and separates the four terms of the verse: new heart, new spirit, stony heart and heart of flesh. It continues with Psalm 51, where David, confronted by Nathan, does not justify himself but asks for a clean heart —and where it pauses on Uriah, the meek man who was left with nothing—; with the new creature of 2 Corinthians 5:17, where old things are passed away; and with Romans 12:2, where only a renewed mind can discern the will of God. It closes with an image that is not forgotten: the hen that fills her crop with pebbles, believing she is eating grain.
I. Search the inner being.
A. When we suffer many losses we must go into the depths of our own life.
1. Not into the surrounding circumstances: the wise man searches his inner being.
2. And he searches it in order to set it in order with God.
3. When we decide on spiritual growth, your life will never be the same.
B. Nothing learned on earth has power.
1. It brings no freedom, forgives no sins, makes no new creature.
2. You can shout and pull and tug; but there is no effect in the depths.
3. The Word does have effect, and imparts it to knowledge; and knowledge leads to deeds.
II. The heart must be renewed.
A. It is like an obligation, because in the heart everything is stored.
1. What you forget is not of the heart: it is of the mind.
2. Circumstances gradually deform our being.
3. If we are affected, there are areas we must make new.
4. We cannot live a whole life with pettiness, with anger and with strife.
B. It is not you nor your efforts.
1. The fear of conversion lies in knowing God will begin to renew many things.
2. When someone tells you “you went too far with this,” you say: what did I do?
3. The Holy Spirit renews us; we read the Word, and God keeps doing what we lack.
III. Ezekiel and the people in exile.
A. Ezekiel is one of the great knowers of the prophecies.
1. With Isaiah, Jeremiah and Daniel, they lived the time Jerusalem was destroyed.
2. Many were going to hide, and many were going to be killed.
3. But Ezekiel made a decision: he went with the people, in the caravan.
4. They would be seventy years away from their nation.
B. Israel had gone far from God and its heart had hardened.
1. It is proper to mortals: a mortal hardens very easily.
2. The heart is very vulnerable: today a thing makes you weep and tomorrow not.
3. So we are called not to be ruled by the heart: the heart opines.
IV. God wanted to transform the interior.
A. He did not merely promise to forgive: He wanted to transform their inner being deeply.
1. What you have inside you is what is dangerous: anger, rage, resentment.
2. Mockery would be a pleasure to human beings: “see, I told you so.”
3. Say that to your children, and at fifteen they will ask your blessing and run.
4. Because they will say: what is inside him cannot do it.
B. In the heart is life: from there it flows and is sent through the whole body.
1. While it beats in so violent a flame, it harms us ourselves.
2. And no one else does us that harm: we are the ones who allow it.
V. A new heart and a new spirit (v. 26).
A. A new heart means a renewed mind and will, sensitive to the voice of God.
1. If you read the Scriptures every day, every day you learn more.
2. If you stagnate, the Word is not producing faith in you.
3. The power of the Word is that it produces faith: that is rule number one.
B. A new spirit is a life driven by the Holy Spirit.
1. Not by pride nor by rebellion.
2. Because we act more from pride and speak more from rebellion.
C. The stony heart indicates spiritual coldness and disobedience.
1. It is the one that always argues back, that always imposes itself.
2. The heart of flesh means softness, love, and willingness to obey.
3. If God would work in us to will and to do, it must be in a heart of flesh.
4. Because a stony heart throws it out: it does not go in.
D. If something caused you great pain, take it out.
1. If not, we end up shut in a room, and it is always the same.
2. Like hens without grain: they peck and eat the pebbles, believing they are fed.
3. And when the crop is opened, there are the stones: she was never nourished.
VI. One week depending on God.
A. Take one week to begin an individual life with God.
1. After that week it will become a habit.
2. And you will say: my life is new, and in my life is Christ and the Holy Spirit.
3. One becomes tiresome when they see you and say: here he comes with three complaints.
4. And life goes by; and what you might have reaped is not there.
B. God changes not only what we feel, but who we are in the depths.
1. With our mouths we commit to nothing: of fifteen things you say two.
2. Because in the other thirteen you would tell the truth; renewed, you do.
3. Life is no tale: it is of the strong, it is for resolve.
4. And we must be renewed, because it is easier to be deformed than renewed.
VII. I will put my spirit within you (v. 27).
A. God promises not only commandments, but the inward strength to keep them.
1. The more we harden, the worse it is, and what is coming is worse.
2. It symbolizes the living presence of God dwelling in the human heart.
3. The older we grow without renewal, the clumsier we become.
B. “And cause you to walk in my statutes”: the Spirit guides our steps.
1. I cannot live by my own will: the human will is properly stubborn.
2. We get into a stubbornness so violent that we cannot serve.
3. And do you know what Jesus did with the disciples? He washed their feet.
C. “Ye shall keep my judgments”: willing obedience, born of love.
1. God does not merely command: God enables.
2. He transforms the interior so that we live in faith, obedience and joy.
3. Children around us hear and learn: all that is hidden passes to those nearest.
VIII. Create in me a clean heart (Psalm 51:10-12).
A. It is a breaking psalm, because the easiest thing on earth is to do harm.
1. David wrote it after being confronted by the prophet Nathan.
2. Instead of justifying himself, he repented and cried out for inward renewal.
3. Who could accuse the king? No one: only Nathan came.
4. “Among so many sheep, you took the lamb of the one who had only one.”
B. Uriah, the man who was left with nothing.
1. David gives him the letter so he would be killed in battle, to clear his conscience.
2. Uriah took with full seriousness the sentence David was giving him.
3. A meek man, full of love and piety, who had never known evil.
4. David knew evil and had to be renewed; and in that renewal he lost the child.
C. He does not ask for a repaired heart, but a new one, born of divine grace.
1. To renew is to make again what has been wearing out or weakening.
2. What once was a fire is no longer fire: the spiritual life wears away.
3. It must be brought back by grace, because you contribute not one cent.
4. We forget we will die one day: the time that was lost does not return.
D. “Take not thy holy spirit from me”: that ought to fill us with dread.
1. If the Holy Spirit departs, how shall we obtain eternity?
2. Will the Lord say “thou wast faithful in little,” or will demons come for us?
3. “Restore unto me the joy”: sin robs gladness, but forgiveness restores it.
4. God does not only forgive: He cleanses, renews and restores.
IX. If any man be in Christ (2 Corinthians 5:17).
A. Everyone joined to Christ is a new person.
1. “In Christ” is to have a living relationship, not merely to believe He exists.
2. “New creature” means no mere outward change, but an inward re-creation.
3. And Christ does it, who paid with His body and poured out His blood.
B. Old things are passed away.
1. The errors, the sins and the wounds of the past stay behind. Period.
2. If you stay bound to them you destroy yourself: no joy, no prayer.
3. If you feel as you did when ungodly, know that on conversion all things are new.
4. God erases the past and writes a new history: we are no longer defined by what we were.
X. Be transformed by the renewing (Romans 12:2).
A. “Be not conformed to this world”: do not adopt the values of a society far from God.
1. In other words: do not follow the current.
2. When we speak with another, everything turns into boasting.
3. Vanity of vanities: to pretend you know more than anyone is pure vanity.
4. What fills you today will not fill you tomorrow.
B. “Be transformed”: to change form, from within outward.
1. We must take out everything in our life that does not profit.
2. And restore the passion that died in us, the faith, the eagerness, the purity.
3. It is pleasant to live half and half; but the curse is in the flesh.
4. When one is converted, the sins come out through tears.
C. Only a renewed mind can discern and enjoy the will of God.
1. When the Spirit renews our thinking, it changes our way of living.
2. His will is always good, acceptable and perfect.
3. Do not waste so much time on what is vain: it will be charged with great interest.
4. The heart deceives its own owner: only my heart can do harm to me.
Christian Church Mega Zoé · Pastor Edermira Cruz
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