Passage: Ezekiel 36:26-27

The Big Idea

The Holy Spirit is God’s answer to the question, “How will I ever keep God’s commands?” In the New Covenant, God promised a new heart and His own Spirit within us, causing us to walk in His ways. Obedience in the Old Covenant came from self, the flesh. Obedience in the New Covenant comes from the Spirit. We received the Spirit by faith, and we keep walking in the Spirit the same way. Jesus Himself lived His human life by the Spirit’s power. God gives the Spirit freely to those who ask, and we’re called to keep being filled.

The New Covenant Promise (Ezekiel 36:26-27)

“I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you. I will take out your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes.”

This is a New Covenant prophecy in the Old Testament.
It’s a new heart and a new spirit, not a reformed version of the old ones.
God promises to do this work: “I will…”
The Holy Spirit is God’s answer to the question, “How will I keep the Ten Commandments?”
God places His Spirit within us, and the Spirit causes new behavior in sinners. We’re changed, enabled to keep God’s law by nature, not by outward command.

Obedience in the Old Covenant comes from self (the flesh). Obedience in the New Covenant comes from the Spirit.

The Spirit Gives Life

“Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you… It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing. The words I speak to you are spirit, and they are life” (John 6:53, 63).

Jesus Himself is the source of life for a believer. Receiving His life is like eating and drinking, but it’s a spiritual reality.
The flesh profits nothing. Anything we attempt apart from the Spirit’s life will fail, leaving us empty, tired and burnt out.
Believing the words of Jesus is how we share in His life. As we accept His words as true, the Spirit pours His life into our dead hearts.

Now we’ve been delivered from the law, having died to what held us, so that we serve in the newness of the Spirit and not in the oldness of the letter (Romans 7:6).

The law isn’t something to fall in love with; it’s something to be delivered from!
When people serve God because they “have to,” it grows old and tiresome.
When we serve in the newness of the Spirit, ministry is fresh and flows from the heart.
The Spirit is the very life of Jesus, so ministry is spreading the life of Jesus, not adding rules no one can keep.
Ministry focused on the Spirit’s power is restful for the one serving.
Our part in receiving the Spirit’s power is simply humility and faith, as opposed to the self-confident, self-sourced life of law-keeping.

God made us sufficient as ministers of the new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life (2 Corinthians 3:6).

In the flesh, our ability to produce ministry doesn’t exist. In the New Covenant we’re made sufficient. It’s a gift.
The flesh and the Spirit are two opposing sources of life. The flesh can only try to keep the letter, and it always fails. The Spirit gives life.

Starting and Continuing in the Spirit

Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law, or by hearing with faith? Are you so foolish? Having begun in the Spirit, are you now being made perfect by the flesh? (Galatians 3:2-3).

Receiving the Spirit happened when we were born again. We heard the gospel and believed it, and God gave us His Spirit.
But then what? How do we grow, do good works and gain victory over sin? By the flesh?
Paul calls that “foolish.” But that’s what the Galatians were doing: trying to produce the life of the Spirit.
The right answer: the same way we first received the Spirit. Ask in humble, dependent faith. It’s by grace alone.
Bring all your weakness and sin to God without holding back, and by faith Jesus will meet those needs through His Spirit: His own life given to you.

Walk in the Spirit, and you won’t fulfill the lust of the flesh. If you’re led by the Spirit, you’re not under the law. The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness… If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit (Galatians 5:16, 18, 22, 25).

Walk in the Spirit: a daily relationship with the Spirit, as opposed to walking in self-sufficiency. It takes humility and faith.
Led by the Spirit: daily surrender to His guidance, as opposed to walking by the law. We simply can’t be led by the law and succeed. It looks like a great way to live, but it provides no help to keep any of it. The Spirit’s ways are the ways of Jesus, since He is Jesus’ Spirit.
Fruit of the Spirit: fruit grows by abiding in the vine. Our life source isn’t ourselves; it’s Jesus. The Spirit produces this fruit, not us. We produce the works of the flesh when we live on the flesh’s resources.
Live and walk: new life came by the Spirit, so our daily walk is by that same Spirit. Many believers search for years for the secret of the victorious Christian life, when it’s the same Spirit they received at the beginning, still given daily as the resource a child of God lives by.

God chose you for salvation through sanctification by the Spirit and belief in the truth (2 Thessalonians 2:13).

The Spirit’s daily work of changing a believer is called sanctification.
God uses the Spirit of His Son to form the image of His Son in us. What a plan!

The righteous requirement of the law is fulfilled in us who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit (Romans 8:4).

So do we believe in Jesus and then sin all we want? No. Walking in the Spirit produces a life that fulfills every requirement of God’s holy law.
But it does so apart from the law. It’s completely a supernatural work of the Spirit, a gift.
When we sin:
We repent, agreeing with God that we were wrong.
We ask in humble dependence for the Spirit to supply the life we should have been walking in.
We step forward in faith that God has answered that prayer.

Jesus and the Holy Spirit

Jesus’ human life was lived in dependence on the Spirit:

His birth: what was conceived in Mary was of the Holy Spirit (Matthew 1:20).
His commissioning: at His baptism, the Spirit descended on Him like a dove (Matthew 3:16). He waited until the time was right.
His testing: He was led by the Spirit into the wilderness (Matthew 4:1), waiting on the Lord with no trust in His own flesh.

The prophets foretold it:

The Spirit of the Lord shall rest on Him: the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, counsel and might, knowledge and the fear of the Lord (Isaiah 11:1-2). Jesus did ministry in this very power.
“The Spirit of the Lord God is upon Me, because the Lord has anointed Me to preach good news to the poor, to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives” (Isaiah 61:1-2). The Spirit works according to God’s character: gentle, compassionate, freeing, good news and supply for sinners.

The Fullness of the Spirit

Ask, seek, knock… If you, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him! (Luke 11:9-13).

As a child depends on a father, we depend on God for His Spirit to supply every need.
Asking is a humble attitude. Ask in faith, trusting His goodness. He’s far better than any earthly father.

“If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink. Whoever believes in Me, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.” He said this about the Spirit (John 7:37-39).

Come to Me: the Spirit flows as we come to Jesus in humble faith.
Thirst: you won’t ask for the Spirit unless you feel your need. What makes us thirsty? Often, the law.
Promise: dependent faith is met with overflowing supply.

You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and you will be My witnesses (Acts 1:8).

The Spirit gives the power for ministry. There’s only one engine.
We receive this gift whenever we ask in humility and faith when facing a need or challenge.

When they were filled with the Holy Spirit, they spoke so people could understand (Acts 2:4), and after they prayed, they spoke the word of God with boldness (Acts 4:31).

Communicating God’s message is a spiritual work, not a matter of presentation or knowledge.
The message that follows a true filling of the Spirit is the Word of God: truth about our weakness, and grace to meet every need, spoken with the confidence of someone who has tasted that the Lord is good.

Don’t be drunk with wine, but be filled with the Spirit (Ephesians 5:18).

This is a command for every child of God.
The sense is “keep on being filled.” A life of moment-by-moment dependence on God is His will, and He provides it through the Spirit.
You can never be too filled with the Spirit.

Paul prays that God would strengthen you with power through His Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, and that you, rooted and grounded in love, may grasp the width, length, depth and height of the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge (Ephesians 3:16-19).

The Spirit strengthens the inner person. God builds and heals us from the inside out.
The Spirit is always, in every circumstance, working to help us know Jesus’ real love for us.

Three Warnings

The Spirit can be resisted (Acts 7:51): through unbelief.
The Spirit can be grieved (Ephesians 4:30): He is a Person, not an uncaring force.
The Spirit can be quenched (1 Thessalonians 5:19): an atmosphere of pride and doubt kills Spirit-filled life and ministry.

Grace Takeaway

You don’t have to manufacture the Christian life. God has put His own Spirit in you to cause you to walk in His ways. You began by the Spirit through faith; keep going the same way. When you’re thirsty, come to Jesus and drink. Ask your Father for His Spirit; He loves to give.

For Discussion

How is the Holy Spirit part of the New Covenant?

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Grace Discipleship 5: The Holy Spirit