God's Glory and Our Joy

Reference

Ezekiel 36:16-27

Discussion Questions

Is it unsettling to hear that God works out of a concern for his own name and not for us? Why or why not?
In what ways are you glorifying God in your daily life? In what ways are you glorifying something at the expense of God’s glory?
Why is it important that God be the one to change our hearts rather than a combination of God’s work and our effort?
How have you seen God’s glory result in joy in your life?

Ezekiel 36:16-27

Introduction

Imagine with me a person who wants everyone to know when they have done something good. This person wants the credit for the work he has done.

He is not a ghost writer willing to let his work be credited to another author. He is not satisfied with being an important cog in an organization whose success is based on the wider team effort. Not only that, this person goes so far as to insist that you admire his work for how good it is and simply for how great of a person he is.

Is this the type of person you want to be close friends with, is it the person you want on your team, or in your class?

Would you be surprised to know this is how God acts? Have you ever stopped to think that everything God does is primarily aimed at his own glory?

C.S. Lewis struggled with this very same subject. After his conversion from atheism to Christianity, he had what you might call a crisis of faith over this topic.

He writes:

“We all despise the man who demands continued assurance of his own virtue, intelligence or delightfulness; we despise still more the crowd of people round every dictator, every millionaire, every celebrity, who gratify that demand. Thus a picture, at once ludicrous and horrible, both of God and His worshippers, threatened to appear in my mind. The Psalms were especially troublesome in this way – ‘Praise the Lord,' 'O praise the Lord with me,' 'Praise Him.'”

Most of us do not think twice about God telling us to praise him, to worship him. And that is probably a good thing. If you are a believer you intuitively know that God deserves all of our praise. We do not have to be skeptical that God is manipulating us or abusing his power. Yet, for some if not most of us, there is likely tension in our minds similar to what Lewis experienced.

We are about to read a passage today from the prophet Ezekiel which will more or less tell you that God is all about his glory – not man’s glory. And the outworking of his glory may not always make sense to us.

But my goal is for us to see that all things work out for His glory, and that is good news for us.

¹⁶ The word of the LORD came to me: ¹⁷ “Son of man, when the house of Israel lived in their own land, they defiled it by their ways and their deeds. Their ways before me were like the uncleanness of a woman in her menstrual impurity. ¹⁸ So I poured out my wrath upon them for the blood that they had shed in the land, for the idols with which they had defiled it. ¹⁹ I scattered them among the nations, and they were dispersed through the countries. In accordance with their ways and their deeds I judged them. ²⁰ But when they came to the nations, wherever they came, they profaned my holy name, in that people said of them, ‘These are the people of the LORD, and yet they had to go out of his land.’ ²¹ But I had concern for my holy name, which the house of Israel had profaned among the nations to which they came.

²² “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 the sake of my holy name, which you have profaned among the nations to which you came. ²³ And I will vindicate the holiness of my great name, which has been profaned among the nations, and which you have profaned among them. And the nations will know that I am the LORD, declares the Lord GOD, when through you I vindicate my holiness before their eyes. ²⁴ I will take you from the nations and gather you from all the countries and bring you into your own land. ²⁵ I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. ²⁶ And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. ²⁷ And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.

Ezekiel 36:16-27

Today we have 3 main points:

Glory in Wrath
Glory in Reputation
Glory in Regeneration

But before we get into point number 1, let’s get our bearings for where we are located in the biblical story. We are parachuting right into the deep end of the Old Testament.

Not long after Israel’s heyday with David as their king, the kingdom split into two different nations – the Northern Kingdom and the Southern Kingdom. The Southern Kingdom, Judah, contained Jerusalem and the great temple built by Soloman. Ezekiel’s most immediate audience is Judah. So when we hear the name Israel in our text today, know that the direct reference is Judah.

The history of both kingdoms is a sad cycle of God’s people rejecting the Creator and instead worshipping the creation. Which, on one level is shocking, because God’s faithfulness to his people over their history is unbelievable. It should blow our minds that God paved a dry road in the middle of a sea, or that he sent bread from the sky when his people were hungry.

But even after seeing God’s work so clearly, God’s people still chose creation over the creator. They desecrated the temple with idol worship, they pursued military alliances with enemies of God rather than trusting God’s provision. God gave his people a clear law for how to worship him and live the good life, but they chose the world over him.

So after generations of corruption, God gives up Judah to another nation. God uses Babylon to judge his people. Babylon is the signature, pagan enemy of God’s people. They take thousands of people from Israel into exile. Ezekiel is one of those taken into exile and that is where God uses him as a messenger to his people. By the time Ezekiel delivers this message from chapter 36, the Southern Kingdom is utterly destroyed by Babylon – including the temple in Jerusalem.

Now, is God giving up his people to destruction a sign that he has failed them? Or maybe a better question, is God surrendering his glory by letting His chosen people fall to a pagan nation? I believe the answer to this question is the key to understanding Ezekiel’s message to us. God’s concern for his own glory is what motivates him to act in wrath, for his reputation, and through regeneration.

Glory in Wrath – Point 1

So let us now begin with point number 1 – Glory in Wrath. Ezekiel 36 verse 17 reads:

¹⁷ “Son of man, when the house of Israel lived in their own land, they defiled it by their ways and their deeds. Their ways before me were like the uncleanness of a woman in her menstrual impurity. Ezekiel 36:17

Right away in this passage we are confronted with the idea of defilement. If you were to look up the definition of defilement, you’d see something to the effect of making something unclean, corrupting the purity of something, or pollution. The bible uses many different concepts to illustrate the effects of sin. It could be a crime deserving punishment, something dirty which needs to be cleaned, or a debt that must be paid. But here, God chooses the image of defilement or pollution of a land.

God uses some choice words in this passage, terms that probably make us feel uncomfortable reading in church next to friends. But God is not excessive in his word choice. He uses symbols so the listener does not miss that Israel has done something repulsive to God.

We are meant to see that Israel has spoiled the land. God’s people and their land were meant to reflect God’s holiness to the outside world. Not unlike how the church is called to look different than the world.

Contrast creates clarity. So, if in obedience to the Lord, you or me live in a way that is different than the world, we are magnifying God. We are glorifying him, because we are highlighting is holiness. But if we choose to live how the world lives, if we take shortcuts at work or in school, if we lie, if we respond to our kids or family out of frustration rather than out of love for them and for God, well then we are operating in the same way Israel did.

God is holy, so the defilement of Israel meant that the land was no longer fit for the presence of a holy God.

My wife and I just watched a Downton Abbey movie. If you asked Kinzie about this series, she would be quick to tell you that I fall asleep almost every time we watch something after 8pm. But for reasons even I cannot explain, I am able to stay up for Downton Abbey. This series is about a high-society family living in a castle in England in the early 20^th century.

But in this movie, they attend a party in London filled with only noble figures in society. A prince and princess from the royal family are even scheduled to attend. One of the main characters, Mary, is the oldest daughter of the main family. And she has just finalized a no-fault divorce with her husband, and the London news are reporting it.

As soon as the host of the party sees Mary, she was horrified. She immediately runs to her and tells her that she must leave. What is the reason? Well, the prince and princess are about to arrive, and they cannot attend a party with a divorced woman present. This party was not fit for a future king and queen.

Was that right? No, definitely not. The connection I want to make is that there is a high standard for being in the presence of our God. Thankfully we have an intercessor in Jesus Christ who paid the price for our sin so that we can live in union with God.

But before Christ came to earth and paid the penalty for our sin, his people were separated from the presence of God because of their sin. Access to God was made through obedience to his Law and with sacrifices.

Now, why does Ezekiel compare the people’s evil deeds to the uncleanness of a woman during menstrual impurity? Well this points to the Mosaic Law found in Leviticus which outlines how both women and men maintain purity in relation to blood and bodily fluids.

Is it because any of these conditions are inherently sinful? No, it is a symbol. Since blood represents life, the loss of blood was associated with death. So Ezekiel is highlighting the fact that Israel’s actions were desecrating the land. Instead of being a land filled with life it was now a land characterized by death.

Do not miss the severity of Israel’s actions. God chose Israel to be a reflection of Him. They should be a picture of what is good, true, and beautiful in God’s created world. Yet, they murdered, they oppressed the poor, they chose false gods over Yahweh. The normal response for the reader of this text should not be, “yea, Israel didn’t live up to God’s standard, but wow, God really punished them hard for it”.

No, you should read this and think Israel deserved even worse judgement. Think about how you feel when you read about a pastor or church leader who committed an egregious moral failure. Your initial concern is likely not that his institution will be too hard on him, your concern is that he won’t be disciplined enough. We don’t look at that person and want him as the poster boy of our church.

Let’s pick up in verse 18:

¹⁸ So I poured out my wrath upon them for the blood that they had shed in the land, for the idols with which they had defiled it. Ezekiel 36:18

God judges his people through exile because of their bloodshed and idol worship in the land. If you read through 1-2 Kings and 1-2 Chronicles, it will take you no time at all to see God’s people and even the kings of Israel commit heinous sin. The whole point of being God’s people was to be a people set apart, committed to the one true God. But his people continued to grievously disobey God and turn to the world.

So God gives up his people to a foreign nation. To come back to our earlier question, is this despite God’s glory, or does he give them up because of his glory?

It is because God is motivated by his own glory that he acts. God gives up his people because of his glory. He is too holy to allow a people associated with Him to continue living in sin in this way.

So on the one hand, God can punish his people by scattering them among the other nations because of His glory. Can he then restore them to their land also for his glory? Yes!

This leads us to our second point – Glory in reputation.

Glory in Reputation – Point 2

Let’s read verses 20 and 21 again:

²⁰ But when they came to the nations, wherever they came, they profaned my holy name, in that people said of them, ‘These are the people of the LORD, and yet they had to go out of his land.’ ²¹ But I had concern for my holy name, which the house of Israel had profaned among the nations to which they came. Ezekiel 36:20-21

The other nations knew that Israel worshipped a God called Yahweh. In ancient times, a nation attributed their political and military success to their god. So the natural conclusion for these nations to make is that Yahweh is weak and/or he has completely abandoned his people.

This is what the author means when he tells us that the foreign nations said of them, ‘These are the people of the LORD, and yet they had to go out of his land’. God does not just take this on the chin and continue to let his name be dragged through the mud.

Here is good news for Israel and for us: God had concern for his holy name. Church, take this in. God primarily acted because he was concerned about his name, about his glory. A commentator interprets this text as God taking pity on his holy name. He had compassion for his own honor.

Do these words sound off-putting to you? Is it offensive that God is so blatantly concerned for himself more than he is for Israel? I would guess even many believers in here today probably bristle at this statement to some degree.

We read a text like this and quickly want to justify and reiterate that God loves his people and wants what is best for them. True, but look at verse 22. Remember, these are words from God.

²² “It is not for your sake, O house of Israel, that I am about to act, but for the sake of my holy name.. Ezekiel 36:22

We can tend to think of ourselves as the main character of the story. But God does not act because of us.

We are not God. If you or me say that we are acting out of a concern for ourselves rather than others, it sounds arrogant, unloving, and even dangerous. But God is not like us in some very crucial ways:

He is our Creator. I’ve heard Mark Dever use the illustration of the solar system. God is the sun, we are the orbiting planets. We cannot take the place of the sun or the entire system falls into oblivion.

We are His creation, made for Hear this from Isaiah:

⁷ everyone who is called by my name,
whom I created for my glory,
whom I formed and made.” Isaiah 43:7

In most contexts, when someone with you is operating primarily out of their own self-interest, you are skeptical. If your boss goes on the record saying he or she is going to act only for the sake of the company and not for your sake, you may want to polish your resume.

But what if your professional goals are most achieved when the vision of your company is also achieved. Well in that case, the more the company succeeds, the more you succeed. So this boss acting primarily out of concern for the company will ultimately lead to your good.

This is true in a spiritual sense. The 18^th century puritan, Jonathan Edwards, has inspired many by highlighting this biblical truth: God is seeking our joy by seeking his own glory. That means that our good and God’s glory are not mutually exclusive. God is not glorified when we white knuckle our way through life. He is not some cruel father that finds pleasure in denying his children good gifts.

We are called by God to deny ourselves, yes. But this is a denial of our sinful desires for better and more satisfying desires. God tells us that he has come that we may have life, and have it to the full.

The person who sees Christianity as a life devoid of pleasure and fun is an inaccurate picture of the Christian life. God designed us with the primary goal of glorifying him. Do you think he is glorified more by the person who is grumpily coming to church, rarely talking to God in prayer unless he really needs something? Or by the one who is happily walking in obedience, who daily communes with God in the Word and prayer?

If God is good and loving, and he designed us to glorify him. Then he knows what will bring us the most joy and satisfaction is to glorify him.

By God’s grace, He has provided me a wife and boys to love. When I think about what brings me the greatest joy and satisfaction, it is not when I get some rare alone time to watch tv, work in the yard, or play games. It is when I get to see Shepard smile as he hustles on the soccer field as I coach his team, or getting to talk with Kinzie about what she is learning in the Bible through her studies, or getting to hear from you on home visits about what is both encouraging and hard in life.

God has given me certain roles in life that give me joy for his glory. And wherever you are at in life, he has given you certain roles. At the most basic level, we are all called to Love God and to love others for His glory.

We don’t need to look at God with suspicion that he is pursuing his own glory. We can rest in the fact that the God of this universe, who has the power to do anything, is working out this life for his glory and for your joy.

Now that we have seen how God is primarily concerned for his reputation, let’s see just see how good that news is for his people. What does God’s concern for his holy name mean for his people?

Let’s move to point 3 – God’s glory in regeneration.

Glory in Regeneration – Point 3

Out of the concern for his holy name, God tells the people through Ezekiel that he will bring them back into their land. He will be vindicated to the onlooking nations who mocked him. But there is a potential hole in this plan. If the people are brought back into the land without a drastic change, they will only continue to fail.

They will end up pursuing the same false gods, abusing the poor, they will seek their own way. The land would continue to be polluted. They do not just need a geographical change, they need a heart change.

And Ezekiel is here to tell us that this heart change will not happen from our own efforts. In the same way that a new planner and can-do attitude will not fix your besetting sin, Israel needs something beyond themselves. This is not a job for a Band-Aid. Our sin, just like Israel’s, requires open heart surgery.

So just how far will God go to pursue his glory in us? Let’s read verse 26

²⁶ And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. Ezekiel 36:26

This is nothing less than spiritual open heart surgery. And not just an ordinary operation, we need a brand new heart. In fact, the heart that we have isn’t even beating – it is a rock.

This is the same work Jesus describes to Nicodemus. Jesus tells him the only way to enter into the kingdom of God is to be born again. In the same way that an Israelite, or Nicodemus, or you, or me cannot change our heart, we cannot be born again in and of ourselves. God himself must do the work.

I spent much of my life implicitly believing that there was at least some small part of me that wanted to follow God. My parents faithfully brought me to church and taught me scripture. I read my bible, I went to youth group; I was doing the right things. Of course I thought God needed to do a saving work in me to get me over the finish line of conversion. But I thought I was responsible for at least some of the effort.

Maybe some of you believe that today. Maybe you have never heard of the doctrine of unconditional election. Maybe you have heard and are leery of it because of a heavy handed, bible thumping you have witnessed in others. If that has been your experience, I am sorry. This doctrine should actually be the source of unquestioned humility in a believer.

There is nothing in this passage that should make a person think their effort is the root cause for heart change. Look at verse 26: I will give, I will put, I will remove.. This is God speaking through Ezekiel. By my count, we see the phrase “I will” used 13 times in just the span of 10 verses here.

It’s as if the Lord is removing all doubt as to who is doing the work of regeneration. He is not saying I will give you a new heart and new Spirit once you have… attended church or once you have you have proven you’re completely past that sin struggle.

If the redemption of God’s people was dependent in any way on their actions, then he would not be telling them this incredible news right now – right when they are in the throes of their rejection of him. Friends, this is the good news of the gospel. God’s offer of free grace is not dependent on your works.

He loves to save sinners who are seemingly without hope. He is glorified in the redemption of broken sinners. It is just like our God to work in this way. If you could build a society from scratch, what kind of people would you choose. Probably impressive people, right? That’s not how God works. Look at 1 Corinthians 1 verse 27 with me:

²⁷ But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; ²⁸ God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, ²⁹ so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. 1 Corinthians 1:27-29

Hypothetically, what would take away God’s glory in redemption? The answer is human boasting. If we have a scale with condemnation on one side and salvation on the other, and our works made even a milligram of difference, then we would have some reason to boast. God is too holy but also too loving to make that the case. He is responsible for our redemption, not because he’s an egomaniac looking for praise. But because is the only person truly good and truly loving – in every angle of his existence.

It would be idolatry for God to glorify us over himself. Idolatry is when a created thing is put above the creator. Good things created by God can be idols. Your friends, your spouse, your kids can all be idols if they occupy a greater place in your heart than God. It is good to love the gifts God has given you; but your loves must be ordered rightly.

God must love himself more than he loves us, because we are not the creator – we’re the creatures. So to be the one true God, he must pursue his glory. But remember – this results in our joy!

As we were talking about this subject in our last elder’s meeting, Aaron brought up a great analog. He mentioned the notable quote that the best way to love your children is to love your spouse. And just a few weeks ago, Marc taught us that in order to love our kids well, we must love God first. It may sound counter-intuitive to some, but I think we can all acknowledge the truth in this sentiment.

God designed us to have ordered loves. Your called to love your neighbor, but if you love your neighbor more than your family, your family will not flourish. You are called to love the mess out of your kids. But if you love them more than your spouse, God’s design for a flourishing home is distorted. Your kids will actually be worse off. In a similar way, if God loves us more than himself, we are worse off.

I love how God does not stop here in the text. He’s just told us that he will give us a new heart. Not give us the tools or the resources for getting the new heart – he’s going to give it to us.

And he goes so far as to say in verse 27:

²⁷ And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules. Ezekiel 36:27

If we had no room to boast before, how much less room do we have now? God gave his law through Moses. Obeying that law would have resulted in joy for the people and presence with the Lord. But they disobeyed the law which led to suffering and even the separation from God through the exile.

God knows we cannot obey his law without his help. He wants to give us access to him. And he wants to give us joy – all for his glory. So he is making a way for us to be obedient, and it cannot be thwarted by the world, the flesh, or the devil. He will cause us to be faithful.

The story of the bible is a story looking for the hero. Ever since sin entered the world in Genesis 3, we have a promise from God that a child of the woman will crush the head of the serpent. God’s people are longing for this king, and with every passing generation we find no one worthy and able to fulfill this prophecy.

The promises we have just read, where you and me are made clean by the power of God, it is accomplished in that snake crusher. It is accomplished in Jesus’s death, burial, resurrection, and ascension. Because of his atoning work, we are made new – we are born again. God gives us a brand new heart and he puts his Holy Spirit in us so that we can faithfully follow him.

For those in here today who are not walking with the Lord, what I do not want you to take away from this is that you have zero agency in this redeeming relationship with God. We are not robots in a factory line with no choices until God updates our software. Even though God does the work of changing our hearts, he still created us in a way that demands our action.

In his sovereignty, not by accident, you walked into this church today. Know that the Lord is real and he is good. He was willing to send his son to the cross to die for you, so that you could experience the transforming power of his redemption. That offer of free grace is for you. Seek the Lord, look to Jesus who is the author and perfecter of our faith.

And for the believers listening today, God’s pursuit of his glory does not mean that we are just the background characters with no real part to play in the story.

Think on the story of Jesus’s disciples fishing all night with no return. Jesus tells them to let down their nets in the water even though they’d done this countless times in the same lake, on the same day, likely under the same weather conditions. Yet, they pull up so much fish they fill two boats that begin sinking because of the weight.

Charles Spurgeon highlights in his devotional how these nets were the means by which the fish were caught. He says:

“When God [works] without instruments, doubtless he is glorified; but he [has] himself selected the plan of [using instruments] as being that by which he is most magnified in the earth.”

God has called you to be faithful. He regenerated your soul not so that you can hit the minimum requirement for heaven and then coast. God does not need you to accomplish his purposes, yet he has chosen you to be an instrument for him. And he uses you as an instrument for his glory and for your joy.

As most know, C.S. Lewis did not lose his faith. He eventually discovered the beauty in praising and glorifying God. He writes:

But the most obvious fact about praise – whether of God or anything – strangely escaped me. I thought of it in terms of compliment, approval, or the giving of honour. I had never noticed that all enjoyment spontaneously overflows into praise… I think we delight to praise what we enjoy because the praise not merely expresses but completes the enjoyment; it is its appointed consummation. It is not out of compliment that lovers keep on telling one another how beautiful they are; the delight is incomplete till it is expressed… It is frustrating to have discovered a new author and not to be able to tell anyone how good he is; to come suddenly, at the turn of the road, upon some mountain valley of unexpected grandeur and then to have to keep silent because the people with you care for it no more than for a tin can in the ditch; to hear a good joke and find no one to share it with...

Let us leave here today knowing that God is glorious, not because he tells us he is, but because he is – take heart in it, be happy in that fact. Obey his commands and enjoy the good gifts he has given you and you will be the means by which his glory fills the world.

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