Praise the Lord. I greet you all in the name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. And it's a joy for me to be here to bring you God's word. I'd like to invite you to open your Bibles to the book of Ezekiel. The book of Ezekiel chapter 36, a familiar portion, but I have the word of God for you this morning. But before we read the text, let's begin with a word of prayer. Our Father in heaven, we give you praise, we give you thanks because of your goodness, because of your grace and mercy that are new every morning. And as we come before you this day, we ask that you would open our hearts and our minds by your spirit. and that you may help us to enjoy the word of God and to enjoy God himself as we reflect on his word. So we ask for the guidance and for the leadership of the Holy Spirit, without whom we cannot even pretend to understand the word of God. So help us, we ask, through Christ our Lord, we pray. Amen. We are reading Ezekiel 36, beginning to read at verse 22. That's Ezekiel 36, beginning to read at verse 22. Let me commence the reading of God's Word. Therefore say to the house of Israel, thus says the Lord God, it's not for your sake, O house of Israel, that I'm about to act, but for my holy name, which you have profaned among the nations where you went. I will vindicate the holiness of my great name, which has been profaned among the nations, which you have profaned in their midst. Then the nations will know that I am the Lord, declares the Lord God, when I prove myself holy among you in their sight. For I will take you from the nations, gather you from all the lands, and bring you into your own land. Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean, and I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols. Moreover, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you, and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes, and you will be careful to observe my ordinances. You will live in the land that I gave to your forefathers. You will be my people, and I will be your God. This is the word of the Lord. Amen. My theme for my preaching today is this. God saves us for his glory. God saves us for his glory. Now I want to begin by clarifying something on that theme itself. You see, there is a lot of confusion whereby some people think that for you to be saved, somehow you have to cooperate with God. But I want you to know that God saves us single-handedly without your help or mine, and he serves us for his glory. In other words, God serves us, in what theologians like to say, monogistically. Him alone he serves us, other than serving us synergistically, whereby we are cooperating with him. To borrow the words of one pastor called Buck Parsons, he's a pastor of St. Andrew's Chapel in the U.S., in what he calls soteriology simplified. Soteriology, that doctrine of salvation simplifies. He said this, God serves us by himself, from himself, unto himself, for himself. God serves us for Now, having said that, let me also provide a contextual background to this text. First of all, Ezekiel's prophecy comes to God's people when they were in the Babylonian captivity. And why were they in that captivity? It's because of their own sin. So Ezekiel brings to them gospel words, or words of hope, that God was intending to restore and rescue them from that bondage in Babylon. But we must also be reminded that Ezekiel is one of those prophets who does not miss his words when it comes to God's judgment about sin. For instance, in Ezekiel 18, verse 20, we read these words, the person who sins will die. The son will not bear the punishment of the father's iniquity. The righteousness of the righteous will be upon himself, and the wickedness of the wicked will be upon himself. This is another way of saying it in the New Testament is this, for the wages of sin is death. the soul who sins shall die." Thankfully, Ezekiel prophesies and speaks of the gospel times in which God would restore, rescue, and redeem His people. So as we focus our attention on the theme, God saves for His glory, I want us to consider answering the following questions. The first one, do you appreciate the grace of God lavished upon you in the gospel? Do you appreciate that grace? Number two, do you understand the meaning and the significance of having a new heart and a new spirit? And number three, do you know for sure that you possess a new heart and a new spirit? So in our reflection on this text this morning, we shall seek to answer these questions cooperatively, but mainly individually by looking at the following points. Number one, that God was going to save a people for himself, but he was going to save them because of, number one, the holiness of God's great name. Look with me in verse 22 and following, it says, Therefore say to the house of Israel, Thus says the Lord God, It is not for your sake, O house of Israel, that I am about to act, but for my holy name, which you have profaned among the nations where you went. And then verse 23 says, I will vindicate the holiness of my great name, which you have profaned among the nations, which you have profaned in their midst. Then the nations will know that I am the Lord, declares the Lord God. when I prove myself holy among you in their sight." So God was going to redeem these people, but he was going to do it because of the holiness of his great name. This is why I said God saves us for his glory primarily. Of course, we become beneficiaries of that redemption, but ultimately and finally, God redeems us for his own glory. And so speaking about the holiness of God, you see, when we speak about the holiness of God, we are talking about his apartness, his sacredness, his separateness, his, or you would call it the otherness of God. God is separate from the profane and from what is evil and from what is impure. And someone has said holiness is not one attribute among many. It is not like grace or power or knowledge or wrath. Everything about God is holy. Each attribute protects of divine holiness. So when you talk about God's love, God's love is holy. When you talk about God's faithfulness, God's faithfulness is holy. Everything about God is holy. And yet, the people, the Bible says, had profaned in their sins the holiness of God's great name. And God was going to rise and vindicate the holiness of His great name. Notice that these people, they had profaned the name of God. First of all, the Bible says here in this text that they had shed blood, but also they had involved themselves in worship of idols, which is something we read even in the questions of the Catechism, that we are to give worship to God and to God alone. But these people were involved in idol worship. And also, number two, because they had been taken into captivity in Babylon, now the nations, the Babylonians and other nations around were saying, They were saying God was not able to keep His people. He was not able to keep them in their land, so He sent them into bondage. So the name of God then was profaned, but God was going to rise, and He was going to vindicate His holy name. And so God will act, and He will act graciously. It says, therefore said the house of Israel, thus says the Lord God, this is in verse 22, it is not for your sake, O house of Israel, that I am about to act. God was about to act, and he was about to act graciously. He was about to act in grace. By the way, there is an implication here of God's grace and God's mercy. Let me just explain briefly those two concepts. You see, when we talk of God's mercy, we are talking about God withholding that which we deserve. Like these people deserved destruction, deserved condemnation, yet God withheld that and he did not consume them. Even when they are in Babylon, there is still the mercy of God upon them. Dr. Robertson used to tell us that God's people, even when they are in captivity, they are still legitimate children and they are not bastards. That is the mercy of God. But also we see also the grace of God whereby they receive something which they don't deserve. I don't know whether you appreciate the grace of God lavished upon you in the gospel. Do you appreciate it really? You see, one illustration that I can give you is this. Imagine somebody, for instance, steals your smartphone. Some of you love your smartphones. and he steals it, you look for it, you look for him, you even go to police, you invest money in looking for your smartphone and you don't get it. Finally, you get this thief, and you say, I have forgiven you. Just give me my phone. I'm not taking you to police. I'm not taking you to prison. Give me my phone. That's mercy. You have shown that guy mercy. But grace would be something like this. After you have arrested him, he has given you your phone. You say, by the way, I want to take you for lunch. That is grace. Do you appreciate the grace? that Christ has not only has withheld that which we deserve, like being destroyed, condemned, but he has also given us that which we do not deserve, which is forgiveness and blessing after blessing. Do you appreciate that? So God was going to redeem our people for himself and he was going to vindicate, first of all, the holiness of his great name. He was going to vindicate His name by redeeming, by rescuing, by restoring His people from bondage, by bringing them back to their homeland. But you may wonder, how was God going to do this? Was He going to compromise and ignore sin? No. This is how God was going to do it. He was going to do it, number two, he was going to do it by giving his people a new heart. Notice what it says in our passage beginning from He says, for I will take you from the nations, gather you from all the lands, and bring you into your own land. Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean. And I will cleanse you from all your filthiness. And from all your idols, verse 26, moreover, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. So God was going to rescue these people by giving them a new heart. so that those who were rebellious can have the desire to honor him and to worship him and to depend on him and to trust him. He was going to give them a new heart. So, do you, have you received that new heart? God was going to give them, so in order to understand this new heart, you have to understand it by comparing it with the old stone heart. The stone heart is that heart of rebellion. The stone heart is that heart which hates God and everything about God. The stone heart is that which is not responsive or even sensitive to the things of God. As we read in 2 Corinthians, it says this, But when you are given a new heart, then you are given that heart that is sensitive and responsive and have the desire to love God and to come God and to see the beauty that is in Christ our Lord and our Savior. So you have to know that God was going to rescue his people, but he was going to do it not by compromising with sin, but he was going to do it by giving his people a new heart. He was going to give them a new heart. So I just want you to see this, this idea that is really in this text. that God was the one who was going to give a people a new heart. Remember what I said at the beginning, that some people think that you have somehow to work to cooperate with God. But here in this text it says God was the one who was going to give them a new heart. I want you to think with me about these first person pronouns. See in English they used to teach us about first person pronouns like I, my, and then of course like the third person pronoun. Here we have God alone has the authority and the power to use the first pronoun, which is I or my. Read with me here what it says. I will vindicate, from verse 23, I will vindicate the holiness of my great name, which has been profaned among the nations, which you have profaned in their midst. Then it says, for I will take you from the nations. Then it says, I will spring Sprinkle clean water on you. Then he says, I will give you a new heart. I will give you a new spirit. It's all about I, I, I. God alone is going to do it. So God alone has the power and the authority to use the first pronoun, I. For us, the rest of us, we can only use the third person pronoun. He elects me. He cleanses me. He gives me a new heart. He gives me a new spirit. He helps me to obey. He helps me to see the beauty of the gospel. Only we can use the third person pronoun. By the way, one of these days, if you make it to the gate of heaven, And they ask you, by the way, why should you be let into God's heaven? Do not use the first pronoun. I was a professor. I was so and so. You say, he, Christ, he alone redeemed me. He alone died on the cross for me. He alone resurrected for my justification. He alone can welcome me into heaven. Hallelujah. And so God was going to, first of all, was going to redeem a people because of the holiness of his great name. Number two, he was going to do it by giving people a new heart. But number three, he was also going to give them a new spirit. It's not a new heart. Because when you are given a new heart, by the way, this is the New Testament idea of you are being born again. Like Jesus told Nicodemus and he said, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. So once you are given a new heart, you are born again. The theological term there is you are regenerated. There is that regeneration, you are born again. But how many of you know that when a child is born, when a woman gives birth to a child, she cannot say, OK, see you in 14 years. No, instead, the mother has to care, to nurture. So when we are born again, we need to grow. We need to be fed on God's word. We need to be nurtured, to mature, to grow. And so that spirit brings about the new spirit we are given, brings that growth. Moreover, in this, the language of the New Testament about this regeneration or about this being born again, about being given a new heart, the image, the language used is like the new birth. Like Jesus answered Nicodemus like I've already said unless one is born Again, he cannot see the kingdom of God then creation. Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature The old things have passed away behold new things have come then also the resurrection Even when we were dead in our transgressions, He made us alive together with Christ Jesus. By grace, you have been saved. And as you can see, only God can do that. You cannot give a new heart. You cannot create a new person. You cannot resurrect anyone from the dead. Only God can do that. But I want us to conclude by asking this question, do you really for sure know that you have a new heart. Of course, you can say yes, because doctrinally I know if you believe in Jesus Christ, then you have a new heart. But the new heart, like I said, is that heart which is sensitive and responsive and have the desire to see the beauty of the gospel, to see the beauty that is in Christ our Savior. Do you have that heart? Okay, let me help you with this, how you may know whether you have that heart or not. You see, when you have that heart, you need to be growing, but you need to have passion for the things of God. The things of God should make sense to you. Let me give you an illustration as I plan to close this. You see, if you are living in Kampara, probably not here at ABU. ABU is a little secluded, But if you are living there, in those suburbs where we live, and it is a football season, you can even suffer a heart attack. Because sometimes I'm there reading my Bible, trying to reflect on on a theological concept, and then I hear the whole community go wild. And when I ask what is the problem, they said, you know, Manu has scored. What? Manu has scored? And Manu has scored, and the whole city, the whole town has gone wild. But when you talk about the things of God, people are not affected at all. It's not when you say Jesus came and he died on the cross, he rose again for our justification, you say everybody is still. But when Manu, by the way, do you know the other name of Manu? They are called the red devils. When the red devils score, then the whole thing. But when we talk about Christ, so I just want you to think with me. This new heart should be the heart that is responsive to the things of God and passionate about the things of God and is excited when the gospel is spoken about. And after the football match has ended, you cannot imagine the conversation that goes on and on. Did you see how so-and-so scored? Some of these Africans, they even know how to say, we have bought another player, as if they also contributed. But I think the new heart, really, do you possess that new heart? In the revival time, the time of the East African revival, we used to have those old people. They have now really, most of them are no longer living. But those who are living as we are growing, those old men and old women from the revival, When you met them, they would begin by Tuktendereze, which is the song of praising God. And then afterwards, they would be speaking about the goodness of God, about the work that God is doing in the lives of the people. They would be preoccupied with the things of God. For us, we are preoccupied with Manu and probably other things, Facebook and WhatsApp. There is no conversation. You cannot find a colleague saying, let's take a walk and talk theology and talk about Christ. There is no conversation like that. But the prayers, the musicians, those ones we know. I think we need to ask God to give us the spirit of revival so that the things of God can once again begin to excite us. And then we need also to know that God has saved us, and He is saving us for His glory. Amen? Let us pray. Our Father in Heaven, we thank You so much for Your goodness, for Your grace, for Your redemption. Thank You for rescuing us, for redeeming us, for restoring us in Christ Jesus. And now, Lord God, we pray that You continue to work within us by Your grace, and above all, help us to honor You, to lift Your name high, and to appreciate the grace and the mercy that You have lavished upon us, in Christ Your Son and our Savior. And it is in His name that we pray these things. Amen.