Title: With One Heart God-Gived
Contents
Title: With one heart God has given
Bible: Ezekiel 11:14-21
Starting Point of the Word>>
Today, I would like to share the sermon with the title of “With one heart that God has given me” through the words of this text.
Example>>
During the war, a woman followed her military husband to the ends of the California desert.
Her husband stopped her from coming, but she wanted to share her difficulties with her husband.
They found a crumbling hut near an Indian village and decided to live.
Life there was a lot harder than I thought. Due to the desert environment, the temperature continued to rise to 40 degrees Celsius, and the wind blew non-stop, causing sand to accumulate.
Also, she did not speak English with the Indians, and there were no neighbors nearby, so her daily life was boring.
On one occasion, my husband received an operational order and was forced to go deep into the desert for two weeks.
Her loneliness and fear reached a climax.
Eventually, I couldn't bear it and sent a letter to my husband saying that he would go back to his mother's house.
After a while she got two short lines of reply.
“Two men were looking out through the prison bars. One saw the earth, the other saw the stars.”
She read and reread the letter.
Finally, she came to feel ashamed of herself.
I decided to change my mind.
He decided to look at the stars in the sky without looking at the earth.
He began to associate with the Indians, and from them he learned to weave and make pottery.
She began to become acquainted with their culture and history and became acquainted with them.
For her, the desert was no longer a desolate and lonely place.
It has become a beautiful and bizarre place day by day.
There is something we need to realize from this illustration.
Now the desert before her has not changed, and the Indians have not.
It's just that she changed her mind and the world has changed.
Life begins to change depending on what kind of heart you have.
If you have an evil heart, you become an evil person, and if you have a proud heart, you become a proud person.
Conversely, if you have a loving heart, you will become a loving person.
Compared to the past, modern people have developed a sense of civilization and live a convenient life.
But the problem is happening more often than in the past.
The reason is that the heart is sick.
According to Proverbs 18:14,
“A man’s spirit is able to overcome his sickness, but if the spirit is broken, who can bring it up?”
Says.
It means that you can get sick or get better depending on how you make up your mind.
A person who is afflicted with a mortal disease can live or die according to his heart.
That is why the heart is so important.
Looking at today's text,
This is God's promise to the people of Judah who were taken captive by Babylon.
The prophets cried out to the people who had sinned before God and worshiped idols to repent, but they did not listen at all.
Rather, they believed only the false prophets that they were safe, and eventually became a Babylonian captive.
Jerusalem is in ruins, and the prophet Ezekiel prophesies of God's plan to the captives of Judah with a weeping heart by the river Gebar.
And we declare that God will give us a new heart, and that the people of Judah must live with the heart that God has given us.
It was a precious message of hope for the Jewish people who were captivated by despair and frustration.
I hope that the prophecy of Ezekiel, which is being proclaimed to the people of Judah at this time today, will come to you and me as the Word of God.
Go to Word>>
What kind of heart is God giving to the people of Judah today through Ezekiel?
First, it is a mind that is united with one heart and one will.
Looking at the first half of verse 19,
“I give them one heart”
Says.
One heart means an undivided heart, and a united heart.
But different people. It is not easy for different thoughts and different minds to come together.
Because in order to be of unity, there must be a sacrifice that suits others.
Therefore, when you make sacrifices for yourself and want to become one with others, you can create a sense of unity.
In order to become a church that does God's work, and a church that does God's work, one heart is needed.
When we have one heart and one heart, God works.
There is a Korean saying, “If there are many sailors, the boat goes to the mountains.”
If there are many different opinions and many arguments, it cannot be agreed upon.
No matter how hard we try, God does not work where there is division, hatred, envy, and contention.
The Bible testifies that the early church tried to gather together with one mind.
Being of the same mind is evidence of being united in one mind.
Even now, the heart that God wants is one heart that becomes one.
We must pray for unity, and we must seek the help of the Holy Spirit to make it possible for us to be united.
In the name of the Lord, I pray that our prayers that we pray together at this time will become prayers of one heart and one will, which please God, and that the wonderful grace of God will be experienced within us.
Second, a soft heart
Looking at the second half of verse 19,
“Give him a new spirit, and remove the heart of stone from his body, and give him a heart of tenderness”
Says.
Here, the word for 'a heart of stone' is 'Reb Haeben' in the original language.
'Haaven' means 'stone'.
In other words, a heart like a stone means a heart hardened like a stone.
Conversely, 'soft heart' is called 'Reb Basal' in the original language.
'Basal' means 'skin and flesh'.
It means that the Holy Spirit removes the heart that is hard as stone and gives you a heart that is soft as flesh.
A gentle person is a gentle person.
A person with the personality of a well-planned wooden surface.
A person with a soft heart does not hurt the other person, but embraces the other person.
There are no thorns in the words and actions of a gentle man.
A gentle-hearted person is a person with a warm, forgiving heart.
He is a person with a wide heart.
I try to understand and accept the other person's different views, behaviors, and thoughts that are different from mine.
A person with a soft heart does not forcefully impose my thoughts or values.
It teaches and guides you to understand naturally.
Therefore, it is a happy thing to be yoked with a soft-hearted person.
As saints, we must have a tender heart.
David said in Psalm 51:10,
“Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew in me an upright spirit.”
This means that he prayed for his heart to be transformed into an honest spirit with a pure heart of God.
I ask in the name of the Lord that we may have such tender hearts today and become believers who comfort and embrace the hearts that are hardened like stones on this earth.
Finally, the third is obedience
This is verse 20 of the text.
“Follow my statutes and keep my ordinances so that they may be done.”
Here, 'follow' and 'will do' mean acts of an obedient heart.
The reason why the people of Judah are being held captive in Babylon is the result of not obeying God's word.
God gave the people of Judah into the hands of Babylon because they did not live according to the Word.
But God promises to give us freedom again when we have an obedient heart.
Please believe that God's promises will come true when we live in obedience to God's Word.
In the Gospels, Jesus went to the Sea of Galilee to call his disciples.
At that time, Simon said, "We have toiled all night, and have obtained nothing, but at the word we will lower our nets."
In this obedience, the fish caught were so great that they filled their stomachs and were submerged. It is through obedience to the Word that we have been filled with blessings.
Old Testament scholar Baker makes the following confession of faith:
“If God tells me to jump over the stone wall, I will obey.
Because it is my job to run, and it is God’s work to go beyond it.”
If obedience to cross the Red Sea was Moses' duty, salvation was the power of God.
The Reformer Luther said he wanted to be an obedient man rather than a miracle worker.
In the name of Jesus, I ask that you become believers who gain the heart to obey God's word first during this time.
At the end of the speech>>
Organize your words.
God wants us to hear the word of God and live by doing it with one heart.
Churches today are facing many crises.
The reason is not that we are in another place, but that we, the saints, and the church, the body of God, are looking at the work of God with different minds.
God has given us one heart, and He wants us to work with that heart.
In the name of the Lord, I bless you in the name of the Lord that it will be a day when all of our saints can please God with one heart and one will at the house of God on this Holy Sunday.