Faithful: Week 6

Introduction

We’re finally here! Week 6 of our 6 week study on God’s faithfulness and covenants with His people from Genesis to Revelation. This has been such a beneficial study for me and I pray that it has been fruitful for you as well! We’ve seen that our God is not reactionary but that He is purposeful as He makes a promise to not only help His people but to save His children even whenever we fall short. In this study we’ve looked at God’s covenants with Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, David, and tonight we’ll study how Jesus brings about the New Covenant and promises to save and sustain His children.

As we get started by looking at what Scripture tells us about this new covenant and Christ’s faithfulness, I want you to think about a time in your life where you experienced Jesus’ faithfulness. Maybe there was a situation where you sinned and deserved a consequence and felt like God was going to kick you to the curb but instead you experienced God’s grace in the midst of that difficult time. That is His faithfulness and promise to never leave or forsake you! If you’re a Christian, you’ve experienced Christ’s faithfulness to you as you’ve made a mistake and you’ve felt conviction from the Holy Spirit. This is God’s faithfulness. We’ve experienced His love, grace, mercy, presence, patience, and peace… All of these things are wonderful truths and it is all due to what Jesus Christ did for us as He saved us and brought about the new covenant that was not based upon our works but on His work in our place!

We don’t always like new things. The Israelites were the same way as they liked the old ways of doing things and not everyone was sold on this new covenant - especially in the book of Hebrews. They wandered if Jesus’ blood and sacrifice could really save them or if they needed extra help and more sacrifices. This new covenant was anticipated in the Old Testament as we looked at last week in Jeremiah 31:31 as the Bible tells us this

Jeremiah 31:31 CSB

31 “Look, the days are coming”—this is the Lord’s declaration—“when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah.

What is different about this new covenant than the older ones?

The Mosaic Covenant was written on tablets of stone on Mt. Sinai. It was given to Moses to share with God’s people. It required the people to keep the law perfectly. The Davidic Covenant promised a son who would rule with righteousness and for all eternity. The Abrahamic Covenant promised God’s people a land and a rest. The Noahic Covenant promised that God would deliver His people from His judgment and wrath. These are all pieces to the formation of the New Covenant which builds on all of these fragments in the Old Testament as Jesus Christ fulfills all of these things and even more!

Jesus Starts the New Covenant

Something had to change as the blood of bulls and goats couldn’t forgive sins - the people needed a better sacrifice. They needed a better priest, one who wasn’t corrupt and a sinner himself. They needed a better messenger from God instead of the prophets or the angelic messengers. They needed a better king, one who wouldn’t give into sin and worship false gods. Enter Jesus - as we’ve been studying in Hebrews, the better messenger, sacrifice, priest, and king!

In Luke 22, before His death burial and resurrection, Jesus has the last supper with His disciples during the passover celebration. Think back to passover in the Old Testament - what did this celebration commemorate?

The people of Israel being spared from the 10th plague in Egypt because they placed the blood of the sacrificial lamb on their doorpost. This substitute would take God’s wrath in their place… but the people of Israel in the promised land would have to continue to offer these types of sacrifices.

Do you see how passover points us to Jesus?

He is the greater sacrificial lamb who bears our sin and takes God’s wrath upon Himself so that we experience God’s grace

How does Jesus accomplish this? How can Jesus serve as this sacrificial lamb? Through Dying. This is what Luke 22 tells us at the Lord’s Supper as we observed it back at the beginning of November. His body and His blood is given for us and is poured out to bring about the new covenant at His death. He takes the penalty of our sins and dies in our place. He drinks the cup of God’s wrath against our sin. See, this is the bad news of the Gospel. Everyone talks about how the Gospel is good news - which it absolutely is… but before you get the good news, you have to look at the bad news and be honest about how bad it truly is.

What is the bad news in the Gospel?

We are in need of a Savior because we are sinners and we cannot save ourselves. We can’t just try harder and make ourselves better. We’re sinners with a sinful nature. We’re separated from God because of our sin! This is bad news.

What is the good news in the Gospel?

Jesus Christ saves sinners. He came to seek and save the lost!

Our book shares on page 136 that even though Jesus knew that His disciples would tuck tail and run and abandon Him, He still ate with them. He still died for them. This demonstrates the amazing love of our Savior. Even whenever we fail Him, He still desires restoration with His covenant people. He still dines with us. He still accepts us. He still forgives us. He loves us and remains faithful even whenever we are faithless to Him.

Jesus Seals the New Covenant

So, Jesus dies on the cross for sinners and in dying, He forgives those who place their faith in Him as Lord and Savior - this is permanent. His blood has been shed, it cannot be reversed. What does this mean for us today, though? Sure, Jesus died for our sins. He bore our curse as Galatians 3:13 tells us. But what happens on the cross?

If Jesus just died, you and I would be forgiven but the Bible shares that something remarkable happens… We see this great reverse in 2 Corinthians 5 as the Bible shares this

2 Corinthians 5:21 CSB

21 He made the one who did not know sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

Not only did Jesus die but those who are in Him become the righteousness of God - what does this mean? It means that not only are you forgiven, but you are adopted. You are not an alien any longer - you are a family member. You can rest securely in the love of Jesus Christ. He has paid your penalty and He provides a change of status unlike anything you’ve ever experienced. Instead of God being against you as a sinner, God becomes for you. He loves you as He loves His own Son because you receive His perfect righteousness. This is good news, friends!

Romans 8:31 CSB

31 What, then, are we to say about these things? If God is for us, who is against us?

Romans 8:38–39 CSB

38 For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Not only does Jesus die and give us these benefits, though, He also raises from the grave and in doing this He promises that His people will have this same hope of resurrection and eternal life with Him in glory. He shares that He goes to prepare a place for us and we know that one day there will be a new heaven and a new earth as God will reign over His covenant people and we will see Him in the flesh. This is the hope for all who call upon the name of the Lord in repentance and faith. Not just for the ethnic Jewish people. Remember God’s promise with Abraham was to bless all the nations of the earth through his offspring. This is fulfilled in Jesus as all the people of the earth are blessed as we can be grafted into this promise by grace through faith in Christ

Revelation 7:9 CSB

9 After this I looked, and there was a vast multitude from every nation, tribe, people, and language, which no one could number, standing before the throne and before the Lamb. They were clothed in white robes with palm branches in their hands.

If you’re a Christian, because of the death and resurrection of Jesus, you can have this assurance that you are sealed with the Holy Spirit and going to spend eternity with Jesus! You’re sealed with Christ. You’re forgiven because of Christ. You are loved and adopted because of the work of Jesus Christ. This is good news! But what do we do while we wait? This is our daily problem.

Jesus, Our Covenant-Keeper, Will Return

This is one of the greatest promises that we see in Scripture - Jesus promises to return. It won’t be a secretive return where only some people are aware of it. It won’t be as a lowly baby in Bethlehem… No, His return will be the Return of the King and we all will be aware of what is happening. Every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is the Lord. This is good news and it is exciting to remember - but how does it impact us today? Should it impact us today? The return of Jesus should impact everything that we do in this life individually and as a church body.

Because Jesus is coming back, we can endure suffering well

Because Jesus is coming back, we should share the Gospel urgently

Because Jesus is coming back, we can rejoice because this world is not our home

As Christians, we’re members of Christ’s eternal Kingdom. Think about His Kingdom for a minute this evening - is His Kingdom already in existence or something that will only happen later? Are we waiting on His Kingdom, or can we already be members of His Kingdom?

Oops, I might’ve given that away… but it’s important to remember that Jesus’ kingdom isn’t just a future thing… It’s also a present reality for us to be a part of today! How do we know this? How do we know that Jesus Kingdom is already established at least in some form?

Mark 1:15 ESV

15 and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.”

Isaiah 9:6–7 CSB

6 For a child will be born for us, a son will be given to us, and the government will be on his shoulders. He will be named Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace. 7 The dominion will be vast, and its prosperity will never end. He will reign on the throne of David and over his kingdom, to establish and sustain it with justice and righteousness from now on and forever. The zeal of the Lord of Armies will accomplish this.

Day 4 of our final week did a great job of highlighting this distinction here. So often we think that God’s Kingdom is something that we’re all waiting for… and it is to an extent… but it is also something that Jesus brought during His earthly ministry. He established His Kingdom and we can become members of it by grace through faith in Christ. We are filled with His Holy Spirit and we have this hope of belonging to Him! This was Jesus’ promise in Acts 1:8

Acts 1:8 CSB

8 But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come on you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”

So we are filled with His presence as Christians and members of His Kingdom by grace through faith - this is good news… but we also know that something still isn’t exactly right. There is still sin. There is still heartbreak. There is still rebellion. We still have a fallen nature. The New covenant shares with us that we are in a time of tension: The Already, but Not Yet. We’re already saved but we’re not yet perfected. We’re already in God’s family but we’re not yet in His physical presence. We have already been justified and forgiven, but we haven’t been glorified yet. We’re in this in-between period. The Bible calls our Christian walk one of sanctification. Growing to be more like Jesus Christ. We’re in His Kingdom - He is our Lord - but we’re not yet where we one day will be.

John Newton once put it like this, “I am not what I ought to be, I am not what I want to be, I am not what I hope to be in another world; but still I am not what I once used to be, and by the grace of God I am what I am.” This is God’s grace working on us today and this is sanctification.

How can we live a Christlike life in the middle of this tension? We know that we’re saved but we still fall short. We know that Jesus forgives us and loves us, but we’re longing for His presence and return.

Hebrews 12:2 tells us this

Hebrews 12:2 CSB

2 keeping our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of our faith. For the joy that lay before him, he endured the cross, despising the shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

This is how we live a Christlike life in this world. By turning away from our sin and temptation and keeping our eyes fixed on Jesus! By remembering what He has done for us. This has been the first 3 chapters of Hebrews so far. Who is Jesus, What has Jesus done, Pay attention to Jesus, Consider Jesus, Jesus is greater. Why is it all about Jesus? Because He is our only hope in this life and as the Heidelberg catechism reminds us, He is also our hope in death. Through Jesus’ death and resurrection, we have hope that we will raise too and that Christ will return and make things right and new.

It’s All About Jesus

How fitting that we’ve been studying this very theme in Hebrews? 2 Corinthians 1:20 tells us that

2 Corinthians 1:20 CSB

20 For every one of God’s promises is “Yes” in him. Therefore, through him we also say “Amen” to the glory of God.

Jesus Christ is the fulfillment of all of God’s promises. He fulfills each covenant in its entirety. While other people might have fulfilled a portion of it, just like Solomon fulfilled part of God’s covenant with David (building God a house), Jesus fulfills all of it. Why is the Bible all about Jesus?

Because from the very beginning, Jesus was always God’s plan!

How does Jesus fulfill these covenants?

Jesus is the True and Better Adam - He doesn’t give into sinful temptation in the Garden. He is the seed of the woman who serves humanity as our snake crushing Savior. He obeys where Adam failed. He bore our curse and gives us His life.

Jesus is the True and Better Noah - He preserves God’s people just as Noah was preserved on the Ark. Jesus, on the cross, saves people from God’s wrath. His Ark isn’t just for 8 people, though, it is good news of salvation for the nations!

Jesus is the True and Better Abraham - He fulfills God’s promise of a people and a land to Abraham. Abraham lied while Jesus loves and leads His people into eternal salvation and relationship with their heavenly Father. He gives His people a promised eternal land.

Jesus is the True and Better Isaac - Like Isaac, Jesus was taken onto the mountain to be sacrificed. Unlike Isaac, a ram didn’t appear at the 11th hour and Jesus actually was sacrificed in the place of sinners. God brought Him back to life, just as Abraham believed God would bring Isaac back to life.

Jesus is the True and Better Moses - He brings God’s message to God’s people and delivers them from their oppressor. Unlike Moses, Jesus leads us into God’s promised rest and Jesus accomplishes the work for us perfectly. He has a perfect conversion rate.

Jesus is the True and Better David - He is the perfect King. In fact, He is the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. He reigns with righteousness and justice. He reigns for all eternity on His throne. He doesn’t run astray in the face of temptation, He succeeds at His God-given mission.

See, it’s always been about Jesus and it will always be about Jesus! He brings life where there was death. He brings truth where there was deceit. He brings substance where there was just a shadow. He makes all things new. He keeps His promises. He fulfills each and every covenant that God has made.

Today, He is still faithful and true! He didn’t leave us in our state of separation from God. He came to this earth and lived a sinless life and died a sinners death so that you and I could experience the peace and love of God in a way that we never could on our own power. We are all called to respond to what Jesus has done and the Bible demands 2 things

Acts 2:38 CSB

38 Peter replied, “Repent and be baptized, each of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.

Repent of your sins. Trust in Jesus. Die to your sinful desires. Live for Him as a new creation.

Our God is faithful! As we continue with this year and look to begin a new one in just a few short weeks, let’s keep our eyes on Jesus and remember that it’s always been about Jesus and it will always be about Jesus - He is the Hero!