Tuesday, October 16, 2012

New Heart, New Engine

     Hearing an excellent message at our recent District Conference by Jonathan Shively, director of Congregational Life Ministries for our denomination, got me thinking. His message was on Pentecost (the theme for our Conference), but it was his sharing of background that caused me to store some thoughts in my head even as I enjoyed the remainder of his message.
     Jonathan reminded me (and us) that Pentecost (or the Feast of Weeks, as it was known to the Jews) was not only a celebration of harvest, but a time to remember the giving of the Law. What, then, would be the connection between the Law of Moses given on Mount Sinai and the gift of the Holy Spirit to God's church?
     The promise of the coming New Covenant, found in Jeremiah 31:33 and following, gives us the first clue, when the prophet writes: "This is the covenant I will make with the people of Israel after that time," declares the LORD. "I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people." So the motivation to please God will now come from within.
     Ezekiel weighs in on this in Chapter 36, verses 25-27. This is God speaking through His prophet. "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. 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. And I will put My Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep My laws."
     We each need a new heart, in order to truly obey God's Law. Why? The Bible says that we have a fundamental glitch in our system (we call it sin, the natural born instinct to reject God and all of His ways, and to seek to run our own lives). It's like a car being out of alignment. You can stay on the road if you grip the wheel, but the natural bent is to drift toward the ditch. Society exhorts us to drive straight and curb our endless struggles, but it's a losing battle - until we come to Christ. This is somewhat like getting a front-end alignment The pull toward the ditch is corrected from the inside. Sure, there will still be bumps and potholes that will try to jar us off the road. Temptations and challenges will always call us to be alert to steer a straight course - and we dare not fall asleep at the wheel. But the basic skew in the moral mechanism has been repaired. We have been born again and given a new heart. Indeed, we cannot obey God's laws from the heart until the heart is made new.
     So when Jesus spoke that night to Nicodemus, He told him of the need for a new birth, an alignment, if you will. When Nicodemus missed the point and took Jesus literally (as so many did), Jesus said, "You are Israel's teacher and do not understand these things?" (John 3:10) And I believe that in the back of Jesus'mind were Jeremiah 31 and Ezekiel 36. "Don't you understand, Nicodemus, that you need a new heart with God's law written on it, before you can truly love the Lord your God with all heart, soul, mind, and strength? And that's what I have come to give you, if you will receive the gift, bought through my blood that will be shed on the cross and validated by my resurrection that will follow."
     Therefore, it was the most natural thing in the world for God to send the Holy Spirit during the Feast of the Celebration of the Law, because now the Spirit would write that Law on new hearts, which would be careful to and would desire to follow it. So how does this work?
     One more car analogy. Some years ago, when I pastored in Indiana, PA, I had the privilege of hearing Juan Carlos Ortiz speak at the nearby Graystone Presbyterian Church. He gave an illustration that night which I still remember, using as his text - guess what? - Ezekiel 36.
     He pointed out that under the hood of the car is a powerful engine. You can get into the driver's seat, buckle your seat belt, turn the ignition on and gun the engine - but you're still not going anywhere until you put the car into gear and put your foot on the gas pedal, at which point all the power under the hood becomes available to you to move forward.
     Do you want to follow Christ? Do you want to please Him? Then decide to obey and step out in faith. When you do, all the resident power of the Holy Spirit within you will be available to help you to do what you want to do. Real freedom is not the freedom to do whatever we want. Real freedom is the freedom to do what we know pleases the Lord. We did not have that freedom until we received a new heart through the new birth. Now with our alignment repaired, we can put on the gas and trust the power of the Holy Spirit to propel us forward in our walk with Christ.
     "He is the head of the body, the church; He is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything He might have the supremacy. For God was pleased to have all His fullness dwell in Him ...in Him are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge." (Colossians 1:19-19; 2:3). So let's drive on like this is true.