210516 Sermon on Ezekiel 36:22-28

 Audio recording

Sermon manuscript:

King David was an exceptionally keen observer of mankind. There is nobody else who even comes close understanding the way that people are, except, perhaps, the apostle Paul. But I’m quite sure that even Paul learned what he knew from David’s psalms. So I’d like to begin today with some of David’s thinking concerning man.

The psalm I’d like to look at is Psalm 36. The Hebrew wording is a bit obscure for the very first verse of this psalm, so it gets translated in different ways. I prefer the older translations where the psalm begins this way: “My heart showeth me the wickedness of the ungodly.” The source for David’s knowledge of wickedness is none other than his own heart. So what does he learn about wickedness in that heart of his?

Answer: There is no fear of God before his eyes. The lack of the fear of God is the only way that we can make sense of sin at all. If we feared God we would be too frightened to do anything against his commandments. It’s when the cat’s away that the mice will play. The thought of punishment for what we do wrong is mysteriously absent from our minds. That’s why we are willing to break God’s commandments. We do not fear him. We’ll get away with whatever we want to do.

David continues: “He flatters himself in his own eyes until his abominable sin be found out.” Despite our lack of fear, despite our sins, we go about most our days feeling like we’re not too bad of people. Sure, we sin. We’re disappointed with ourselves. But it’s not that big of a deal. We’re all in this together, and if I compare myself to others, I’m probably doing a better job than they are.

This train of thought will keep chugging along for who knows how long. There’s only one way to make it stop: “He flatters himself in his own eyes until his abominable sin be found out.” When what we have done in secret, when what we’ve done that we don’t want anybody else to know about, finally comes out—to others or to ourselves—then our self-flattery collapses. It takes a heavy dose of reality, an unmistakable sign of badness, to make us stop flattering ourselves. But this is rare. We get so good at lying to ourselves that we can become impervious to the truth.

David continues: “The words of his mouth are unrighteous and full of deceit. He quits being wise and doing what is good. He plots harm on his bed. He puts himself on an evil path. He does not hate what is evil.” We lie to ourselves. We lie to others. We know what we are supposed to do, and we don’t do it. All the while we flatter ourselves in our own eyes.

At this point there is an abrupt shift to a totally new topic. He looks in a new direction. David sings: “Lord, your mercy reaches to the heavens; your faithfulness, to the skies. Your righteousness stands as strong as the mountains. Your judgments are like the great deep. You save both man and beast, O Lord. How precious is your mercy, O God! The children of Adam find refuge under the shadow of your wings.”

At the beginning of this Psalm David is looking in here: “My heart showeth me the wickedness of the ungodly. There is no fear of God before his eyes.” Then he looks to his God and he says, “Lord, your mercy reaches unto the heavens, and your faithfulness unto the clouds.” In here is wickedness and deceit. In him is mercy, faithfulness, righteousness, and judgment.

This is not surprising. We are talking about two very different things, are we not? We are one way. God is another. We all know this. But when it comes to salvation, we necessarily are putting mankind and God together. What is the bridge that we need to build between us and God, between us and our justification?

The answer is that there is none. It’s like it is in David’s psalm. First he describes man. Then he speaks of God’s mercy. There is an abrupt shift. There is no conjunction, no link. The only way that we are saved is by God’s action, by God’s mercy, quit apart from ourselves. There’s nothing that can be done with man to make him truly better or more loveable. That’s like trying to polish a turd. Nothing can come of that except more and more filth.

The reason why I have brought this up using Psalm 36 is because we see the same thing in our Old Testament reading. Ezekiel was a prophet while the leaders of Judah were being held captive in Babylon, the temple back in Jerusalem was destroyed, and this people of God appeared to have no future and no hope. The reason why the people were in this terrible position was because they had been flattering themselves in their own eyes, and even their abominable sins couldn’t make them second guess themselves. God then punished them until they had nothing left.

This is the background to our reading this morning. Then this is what the Lord God says, “I am about to act, O house of Israel, not for your sake, but for the sake of my holy name, which you have profaned among the nations to which you have gone. I will sanctify my great name, which has been profaned among the nations, which you profaned among them. Then the nations will know that I am the Lord, declares the Lord God, when I reveal myself as holy in front of their eyes through you. I will take you from among the nations. I will gather you from all the lands, and I will bring you to your own soil. I will sprinkle purifying water on you, and you will be clean. I will cleanse you from all your impurity and from all your filthy idols. Then I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit inside you. I will remove the heart of stone from your body and give you a heart of flesh. I will put my Spirit within you and will cause you to walk in my statutes, and you will carefully observe my ordinances. Then you will live in the land I gave your fathers. You will be my people, and I will be your God.”

I’d like you to notice why God acts the way that he does. He’s quite emphatic about it. He’s going to act because of his holy name. He is not going to act because the house of Israel had learned their lesson and reformed themselves. If the Israelites were responsible for doing anything, it was to profane God’s holy name among the Gentiles. To profane something is the opposite of consecrating something. It is the opposite of it being holy and divine. The people of Israel had treated God’s name as though it were nothing. Instead they had relied on their military, diplomacy, and economy. Along these lines they flattered themselves in their own eyes. They thought nothing of God’s name. When they were conquered by outsiders, everyone else also thought that this God of theirs must not be very good. Nobody was satisfied with God’s holy name at that time—neither the people of God nor the Gentiles.

So God says to these people, I’m going to act. I’m not going to act because you are good. I’m not going to act because you have reformed yourselves. I’m not going to act because you’ve been trying harder. Then, when he reveals his plan, it turns out to be the most gracious thing a person could imagine. “Your mercy, O Lord, reaches unto the heavens, and your faithfulness unto the clouds.” God was going to bring them back to their own land and make of them a nation again. This meant that God was going to give them back their stuff. But these blessings that have to do with this body and life are nothing compared to the other things he would do for them.

He was going to sprinkle purifying water on them. He was going to cleanse them from their filthy idolatry. He was going to give them a new heart and put a new spirit in them. He was going to take out that nasty, self-flattering heart of theirs, and give them a heart of flesh. He would give them his own Holy Spirit, so that they would walk in God’s statutes and obey his commandments. He would be their God, and they would be his people.

Here we have a description of something that is hardly less than heaven itself. There is no gift that God can give us that is better or higher than the forgiveness of sins followed by our sanctification. This is literally what will happen with the resurrection from the dead and the life everlasting. Our stupid, cold hearts are going to be renewed in love. All things will be made new. But none of this came about because of mankind making a new beginning or turning over a new leaf. It solely happens by God’s grace, and even in spite of man’s actions getting in the way.

That God’s grace works in this way is very important for you to see for at least two reasons. First of all it is important so that you take God at his Word towards you and you are not waiting around to try to make yourself good enough. God causes his Word to be brought to you. He has caused it to be brought to you, if nowhere else, already in your baptism. That baptism works the forgiveness of sins, rescues from death and the devil, and gives eternal salvation to all who believe it. So believe it. Who cares if you are a turd? Who cares if you are soiled with sin? Where does God say that he will save those who save themselves? Nowhere! It’s quite the opposite, in fact. If we want to talk about the way you are, then we’re going to have to go by the descriptions that David and Paul have. Those are not very flattering depictions. The only one who can save and does save is God, and he does it through his promises in Christ.

The second reason why it is important to see how you are saved solely by God’s grace and despite yourself, is so that you can better understand your emotions as you live your Christian life. Those who believe in Christ do not lose their self-flattering Old Adam. He remains in place just as much as he ever did, but in Christians he must contend against the Holy Spirit who is to rule over him. When we become Christians it is inevitable that our self-flattery will continue. It will just put on a different dress. We’ll look at ourselves and say, “My, what progress you are making! Just look at yourself! You used to do this sin and that sin, and now look at you!” Or, perhaps what is more to the point: “Just look at how much better you are than everyone around you! They must not be as good of Christians as you are! Oh, if only everyone could pray like you, avoid sin like you, discipline themselves like you do!”

This kind of thinking is poison. It is an attempt to try to find something in here that makes me acceptable to the one up there, but there is only One who can do that. But here’s the thing—and it’s a really important lesson to learn—we like flattering ourselves in our own eyes, even, and especially, as Christians. We like feeling like we are on the way up. We like feeling like we are getting stronger and stronger, holier and holier. We like believing that since we have done so much polishing we aren’t a turd anymore.

And so when some abominable sin comes along that cuts our self-flattery short, that is very, very depressing. It feels terrible. We feel as though we must not be Christian anymore. Amazingly, the Gospel isn’t very attractive in such a state of mind. We preferred the old Gospel when we were feeling good about ourselves, and now when we feel terrible about ourselves, it doesn’t have that old zip and joy.

This, however, is a very subtle trick of the devil and our Old Adam. Christ does not lose his power to save when we are feeling bad about ourselves. In fact, we quite possibly might be in a better spot when we don’t want to look at ourselves and polish ourselves because we don’t like what we see there. Then we might look to our beautiful Savior. God does not wait around for us to take the first step or reform ourselves. He isn’t waiting for us to feel good about ourselves and the religious choices that we have made. He acts because of his own holy name, which we have profaned.

And so it may very well be that we do not feel forgiven or holy or strong or what-have-you. The Holy Spirit’s comfort is different from the world’s comfort. You can read what Luther has to say about that on the back of your bulletin later. The Holy Spirit’s comfort is such that when we are weak, then we are strong. It is not when we are gushing all over ourselves about how wonderful we are and how much progress we have made that we are strong. That’s what the world always thinks. Rather, it is when we are weak and He is strong, that is when we have no other choice than to rely on God’s grace. And blessed are you if you rely on God’s grace—even when you do not feel like it. You will find that he (as opposed to us) does all things well.