"A Heart Transplant!" Ezekiel 36:22-28

May 29, 2022
Rev. Nathan J. Rusert

"Create in me a clean heart, O God!" David the adulterer, liar, and murderer teaches us to pray for our King Jesus is Mercy. Our world and its culture of death doesn't need more laws - it need a new heart. Sermon Text: Ezekiel 36:22-28. Sermon Theme: "A Heart Transplant!" Preached for Exaudi, The Sunday After The Ascension (Easter 7) 29-May-2022, at Emmanuel Lutheran Church, Tell City, Indiana by Rev. Nathan J. Rusert.

Episode Notes

Exaudi, The Seventh Sunday After Easter           29-May-2022
Sermon Text: Ezekiel 36:22-28
Sermon Theme: “A Heart Transplant!” by Rev. Nathan J. Rusert

I.N.R.I. 1Pe 4:7 But the end of all things is at hand...... We live in the end times. 40 days after Jesus physically rose from the dead the end times began. His ascension into heaven filling all the universe as True God and True Man marked the beginning of history’s end. On the night He was betrayed He comforts His followers with His promise Joh 14:1-4 "Let not your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in Me. (2) In My Father's house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. (3) And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also. (4) And where I go you know, and the way you know."   Living in the last days of world history fill us with hope. Rev 22:20 He who testifies to these things says, "Surely I am coming quickly." Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus!”  
      1Pe 4:7 But the end of all things is at hand; therefore be serious and watchful in your prayers. Living in the last days of world history Peter calls us to be ‘serious and watchful in our prayers.” Echoing Jesus preaching on Tuesday of Holy Week, Mat 24:11-13 Then many false prophets will rise up and deceive many. (12) And because lawlessness will abound, the love of many will grow cold. (13) But he who endures to the end shall be saved.” God the Holy Spirit warns us through the pen of St. Paul, “2Ti 3:1-5 But know this, that in the last days perilous times will come: (2) For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, (3) unloving, unforgiving, slanderers, without self-control, brutal, despisers of good, (4) traitors, headstrong, haughty, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, (5) having a form of godliness but denying its power. And from such people turn away!” Facing evil times with evil men whose hearts are stone cold we are called to on guard by being in Christ’s Word, fervent in prayer, never forsaking physically gathering together as the body of Christ - His Church.
    Stone cold loveless hearts turned only in on self flashed across our headlines again this past week. The most dangerous place for a child in our nation isn’t a school building, but within the womb. Women rallied for the right to murder their unborn babies fearing the overturning of Roe Vs. Wade. Tuesday an evil wicked man entered Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas murdering 19 4th graders and two teachers. While law enforcement officers stood in the school building doing nothing for 45 minutes. Precious time when lives might have been saved. Stone cold hearts. The devil is a murderer and liar from the beginning, Jesus warns. A culture who has been taken captive by Satan’s Lie - no matter how progressive and tolerant we label it - is a culture that reeks of death - a dead culture with stone cold hearts. Our nation doesn’t need more laws to curb violence it needs “A Heart Transplant”
    Death and tragedy gripped the headlines in the days of Jesus’ earthly ministry. St. Luke records, Luk 13:1-5 There were present at that season some who told Him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. (2) And Jesus answered and said to them, "Do you suppose that these Galileans were worse sinners than all other Galileans, because they suffered such things? (3) I tell you, no; but unless you repent you will all likewise perish. (4) Or those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them, do you think that they were worse sinners than all other men who dwelt in Jerusalem? (5) I tell you, no; but unless you repent you will all likewise perish." Repentance is what our nation is lacking. Dead stone cold hearts are not willing to confess their sin and receive forgiveness from the living nail scarred hands of King Jesus.
    The nation of Judah was crumbling. Soon Babylon would crush Jerusalem’s defenses, level the city, burn down the Temple, and take its citizens captive for seven decades. They had turned their back on the Lord and His Word self-destructing their nation - but He would not turn His back on them. (Vs.22-23) The Triune God had blessed them with His Name - placing it upon them in the Aaronic benediction we hear at the end of every divine service. They had profaned His Name. False prophets preached lies telling the people what they wanted to hear. Loving deception rather than the truth, they lived profane lives - lives of rebellion contrary to God’s Holy Ten Commandments. They trusted in the Temple building more than the Lord God. They trusted their going through the motions of sacrifice, rather than God’s promise of the once for all sacrifice of His only begotten Son. They trusted in their plans, plotting, military strength, and alliances - rather than trusting in the Lord. They trusted in the fertility idols who promised favorable climates to raise crops if they gave into sexual perversion. They trusted in their oppression of the poor, the widowed, the fatherless - rather than in God’s mercy.
      Now the Lord God would act for His Holy Name’s sake. His name is Mercy. He is Yahweh - the Lord of the Unbroken Promise of saving grace in Christ Jesus. He is Elohim - the Almighty God who orders all history for the sake of saving sinners through the flesh and blood of His Son sacrificed on a Tree. The Lord God would hallow His Name before their eyes - in the Innocent Man - The King of the Jews - nailed to the cross on Calvary. He hallows His Name - Mercy- taking our sin, our debt, our hell into His own flesh sacrificing Himself to reconcile us to God the Father. He hallows His Name - Love - laying down His life into our grave - that He might take it up again to seal us His victory in baptism. He hallows His Name - Life - by dying and rising never to die again. Christ has died. Christ has risen. Christ will come again! His name is hallowed - Jesus - the only Name that saves sinners - the Name that all knees will bow before.
    December 2nd - 3rd, 1967 Dr. Christian Barnard and a team of surgeons performed the world’s first human to human heart transplant in South Africa. The heart’s recipient was 55-year-old Louis Washkansky, who had diabetes and incurable heart disease. He lived 18 days after receiving a new heart. The donor heart came from Denise Darvall, a woman in her mid-20s, who had been fatally injured in an automobile accident. Transplants have become very common in modern medicine. You may know someone who donated bone marrow, a kidney, or a lobe of their liver to help another in dire need. They can donate and still live - a heart donor dies in the very act of giving up that vital organ to bring life to another.
  The day Adam rebelled all our hearts were conceived and born stone cold dead in sin. We need a new heart - a heart transplant. We need a Donor - a New Adam - willing to die and have His side split open to give us a new living beating heart of flesh and blood. We need Jesus! (Vs.24-27) Through His sacrifice on Golgotha Jesus gathers us to Himself. Remember when the Greeks came to Philip in the Temple during Holy Week wishing to see Jesus? Philip and Andrew came to Jesus -Joh 12:23-25 But Jesus answered them, saying, "The hour has come that the Son of Man should be glorified. (24) Most assuredly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it produces much grain. (25) He who loves his life will lose it, and he who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life... Then He adds, Joh 12:31-32 Now is the judgment of this world; now the ruler of this world will be cast out. (32) And I, if I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all peoples to Myself.". Jesus draws all sinners to Himself as He takes their place under God’s just judgment on Calvary. Even there we see the one death bed conversion recorded in Scripture. A thief hears Jesus’ few words of praying and preaching from the cross. His eyes are turned toward the King of Salvation and he begs only to be graciously remembered by King Jesus. “Today,” King Jesus assured this guilty dying sinner, “you shall be with Me in Paradise!”   Guilty, poor, miserable sinners - look to the Crucified King - His flesh and blood opens Paradise for real sinners - He draws you to Himself - He remembers you!
    Do you doubt that His living fleshly heart is for you? (Vs.25-26) Remember His Word that He has spoken! “I baptize you in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit!” Risen King Jesus commanded your baptism through His Church before His ascension. Now ruling from the Father’s right hand - He fills all the universe - His Human and Divine Nature are beyond all space and time - they fill all space and time. King Jesus baptized you - He used the hands and voice of the called and ordained servant of the Word He sent - but it is King Jesus who recreated you by water and His Word. There the Spirit of Truth cleansed you from all your sins - still today - richly - He forgives you all your sins within Christ’s Church. Forgiving all who trust only in His sacrifice - the blood and water that pour for His side - bringing life to dead sinners like me. The flood of baptismal grace is active and living - working forgiveness of sins, rescuing from death and the devil, and giving eternal salvation daily and richly as God the Holy Spirit keeps us in Christ’s Word and faith that He is our Lord.
    Now you have a new heart - Christ’s heart beats within your chest - it is the blessing of His ascension to draw your into Himself. Confess with St. Paul, Gal 2:19-21 For I through the law died to the law that I might live to God. (20) I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me. (21) I do not set aside the grace of God; for if righteousness comes through the law, then Christ died in vain."
    Daily my baptism removes my stone cold heart from the first Adam and replaces with the beating living heart of the Second Adam - the heart of Christ Jesus. (Vs.27-28) Freed by God the Holy Spirit from the prison of Satan’s lies, death’s fear, and chains of stone cold selfishness - I now run freely in the way of God’s Ten Commandments. They are the path of love - no longer a burden - Jesus, my Brother fulfilled them all for me - now by His Holy Spirit frees me to live. As Peter preached, 1Pe 4:8 And above all things have fervent love for one another, for "LOVE WILL COVER A MULTITUDE OF SINS." God’s love for me the sinner covered all my sins with Christ’s perfect life and His holy precious blood. The Spirit of Truth frees me through cross won forgiveness to cover even the sins of my enemies through Christ’s love.
      Memorial Day is to remember. Many soldiers, sailors, marines, and airmen never made it home from the battlefields. Out of love they laid down their lives so we could dwell in this land. King Jesus laid down His life and took it up again - that we might dwell in the Land of true liberty, life, and freedom - the Life of the World to come. He has brought us into His Kingdom - the Church - He is our God, we are His people. He is coming again soon - now come to the homecoming feast of victory. Amen.

Content Copyright Belongs to Emmanuel Lutheran Church
5761