God is pleased to give you new life.

 Sermon for Trinity Sunday, June 12, 2022

Grace to you and peace from God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

Ezekiel 18:30-32  30 Therefore, I will judge each one of you according to his ways, O house of Israel, declares the Lord God.  Repent and turn away from all your rebellious acts, so that you will not set out a stumbling block that makes you guilty.  31 Throw off from yourselves all your rebellious actions by which you have rebelled, and obtain a new heart and a new spirit for yourselves.  Why should you die, O house of Israel?  32 For I take no pleasure in the death of anyone who dies, declares the Lord God.  So repent and live! (EHV)

God is pleased to give you new life.

Dear fellow redeemed,

How do you picture God?  Along with that question, how do you see yourself in relation to God?  People have different ways of thinking about who God is.  For some, He’s a nice guy who wouldn’t hurt anyone.  Some think He’s asleep or doesn’t pay attention to what happens on earth.  On the other hand, many people view God is a fearsome judge or as a vindictive tyrant intent on causing them harm.  Yet perhaps the most common view is that God is unpredictable, or unreliable.  

Now, I pray that we don’t think God is unfair.  However, it is certain that most people consider themselves good.  Therefore, most people likely expect that everything should always go well for them, because it feels like they deserve it.  Consequently, when troubles come or things cause us pain, we are tempted to look for someone to blame, and often, that someone we blame is God.

At the time Ezekiel lived, the Children of Israel, were blaming God for their troubles.  They accused God of punishing them, unfairly, with exile in Babylon, because of the sins of their forefathers.  They claimed to have done nothing wrong, themselves, but God was punishing them on account of their parents’ godlessness.  God, however, makes it clear that He punishes no one for anyone else’s sin.  Each sinner will suffer God’s judgment only for his own life.  At the same time, God here shows His mercy as He calls Israel away from their path of death, so that He could give them life.  My friends, this bit of Scripture tells us that God is pleased to give you new life.

After hearing Israel’s complaints, God announced to them, “Therefore I will judge you, O house of Israel, every one according to his ways.”  The Israelites thought they were already suffering God’s judgment, but the truth is that God was using this captivity to call them to repentance.  His true judgment was yet to come.  It’s a common misunderstanding.  We experience some serious trouble, and we wonder, “What did I do to deserve God allowing this bad thing to happen to me?”  Usually, what we’re really doing is blaming God for our pain.

We know, of course, that blaming God is nothing new.  Adam and Eve tried it after they disobeyed God’s command not to eat of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.  With his misleading lies, the devil had accused God of not treating us fair.  He convinced Eve that God was withholding something good from her and her husband.  If they would only eat from the tree, the devil assured them, they would then become like God.  But by listening to the devil, Adam and Eve went from being the image of God, to reflecting the image of the liar who led them to death.

Sadly, when we try to judge God’s providence, we also make idols of ourselves.  Does that sound harsh?  Did you ever cry out “Why God, why me?” when some great trouble came into your life?  When we are afflicted with cancer or some other serious illness, it’s very easy to wonder if God is really taking care of us.  When a loved one is called out of this world, it’s very tempting to accuse God of stealing away the blessing He has given us in that person.  When people treat us poorly or cause us harm, we are tempted to wonder, why does God allow their evil?  When we see unjust wars, school shootings, racial attacks, and a hundred other painful crimes, it is very tempting to ask why does God continue to allow evil to afflict our world?  But if we would be truly honest, doesn’t that mean we are actually asking God to destroy us right along with the other sinful people?

It is foolish and sinful to blame the Lord God for the evil, troubles, and sorrows of this world.  Those who do so merely show that they are placing themselves above God.  Yet, even though we sometimes fall into this evil way of thinking, God calls to us, “Repent and turn away from all your rebellious acts, so that you will not set out a stumbling block that makes you guilty.”  Rather than being determined to destroy us for our sins, our Lord wants us to have every good blessing He can give.  Especially, He wants us to enjoy eternity with Him in heaven.  St. John tells us how much God wants us to live when he says, “God so loved the world that He gave His only-begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.” (John 3:16)

For some who read the words of our sermon text, it is tempting to make it law, “Thou shalt repent!”  But remember what Paul wrote to Timothy: “God our Savior… wants all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth.” (1 Timothy 2:3-4)  In this text from Ezekiel, God is calling us to turn away from our own foolish desires as He invites us back into His loving arms.  Three times God pleads with us: turn away from your sin, throw off your sin, and return to the LORD.  

God pleads with His people, “Why should you die, O house of Israel?  Though God allows the consequences of sin to afflict us, He doesn’t punish our individual sins here on earth, and He certainly doesn’t want to punish us with eternal death in hell.  God never causes sin, but His holiness requires punishment for sin.  At the same time, in His never-ending love for us, Jesus became our substitute, and God poured out all His wrath for the sin of the world on His own Son on that cross outside of Jerusalem, and because He punished Jesus for all of our sins, God doesn’t want us to suffer eternal death; He wants us to live.  Furthermore, so that we can be sure that the payment Jesus made for us is enough, Jesus rose from the grave triumphant over sin and death, ready to welcome us into His heavenly home at the appropriate hour.

Today, we are entering the Trinity season of the Church year.  During the festival half of the church year, we heard of all Jesus did in His life and death to heal the rift between God and the human race.  Now, in the Trinity season, we will focus a little more on how we are to live in response to Jesus’ salvation, but before we can start living for Jesus, we must be turned away from living for our sinful flesh.  So, God sends His Holy Spirit through His Word to call us to repentance, and through that same Word, God is pleased to give you new life.

Ezekiel wrote down God’s words, “Throw off from yourselves all your rebellious actions by which you have rebelled, and obtain a new heart and a new spirit for yourselves.”  Those who are willing to carry the burden of their sins can do that, but they will carry them into eternal punishment in hell.  However, God is telling us that there is no need for us to do that.  All of your sins were paid for by His Son on the cross.  God tells His people to throw their sins off themselves and onto their Savior, because God wants us to live, forever.  He made that possible through Christ Jesus.

In our sermon text we read, “I take no pleasure in the death of anyone who dies, declares the Lord God.”  God wants nothing more than to give you and me and every other person who ever walks on this planet, a new and holy life.  Through Jesus’ life and death, God reversed the curse of sin so that He could share His home in heaven with us.  There’s only one thing that stops that, and that is rejection of His mercy and grace.

In Ezekiel’s writing, God told Israel how He planned to give us life for the sake of His holy name.  He said, “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.” (Ezekiel 36:25-27)  By nature, our hearts were as dead as stone.  You can judge for yourself whether anyone can do his own heart transplant, but we were born with no ability to come to God, no willingness to believe in Him, and no desire to serve Him.  Therefore, God comes to us through each person of the Trinity, to do everything necessary so that He can give you new life. 

“I take no pleasure in the death of anyone who dies, declares the Lord God.  So repent and live!”  As we live our lives here on earth, we like to think that we make good choices.  In reality though, on our own we always chose wrong.  God doesn’t want us to make the wrong choice.  That’s why He sends out His messengers with the words that can change stone dead heats into living hearts that believe in the salvation He offers.  That’s why God puts the power of His word in the water of Baptism through which He brings you to faith and cleanses you of your sin.  That’s why He puts His flesh and blood in the bread and wine of the Sacrament through which He strengthens your faith and assures you of the salvation won for you by Jesus. 

As believing Christians given life through faith in Jesus, we will have a choice each day going forward.  We can continue to believe the God who redeemed us through the death of His Son and trust the God who brought faith and life to us through Baptism and the preaching of His Word, or we can trust in ourselves and suffer forever in the pit of hell.  It doesn’t sound like much of a choice to me.  So, hear the Lord as He cries out to you, “Throw off from yourselves all your rebellious actions by which you have rebelled, and obtain a new heart and a new spirit for yourselves.”  

Dear friends, the Lord God is calling you to spend your life letting Him give you that new heart and new life through the use of His Word.  Living in a world so afflicted with the curse of sin, there may be difficult times or sad days that come your way.  There may be times when you may feel like questioning God, but it is far better, simply, to turn away from rebellion and trust in Him alone.  

Through the apostle Paul, the Holy Spirit assures us that God works all things for our eternal good, even those things that seem so hard for us to bear. (Romans 8:28)  Through good days and bad, God continues to provide all the good things we need for our lives.  True, sometimes He allows us to experience difficulties, even some tragedies, but even in those, God is calling us to turn again to Him—for help in any trouble, for forgiveness of every sin, to let Him be our salvation, to let Him give us new life.

God didn’t create the world to cause us pain or death, and He certainly doesn’t want you to suffer death in eternity.  He wants you to give you life.  He wants you to enjoy the heavenly home He is preparing for you.  Therefore, He calls you through His Word, enlivens you and strengthens you through His Gospel in Word and Sacraments.  In His love for you, God is pleased to use those things to give you new life.  God grant that you always hear Him as He calls.  Amen. 

The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus unto life everlasting.  Amen.