God Made a Perfect Covenant

Marriage is a gift from God

When it is right – it is incredibly exhilarating and impossible to describe.  But when it is wrong – it is excruciatingly painful and hopelessly beyond endurance.  When it is right – marriage is a kind of heaven on earth and when it is wrong – it can feel very much like a personal hell.  So why would you get involved with something that can deliver so much pain directly to your heart?  The answer is simple – we are born, hard wired, - every one of us – with the need for companionship and love.

Marriage is God’s answer to that need while we are caught in this temporal world of flesh and earth.  But – and this is the important piece – marriage is really just an illustration.  Marriage is a metaphor for the kind of relationship God wants with you – where two become one – for all of time and eternity.  God wants to show his commitment toward us so much that He established a covenant with a nation of people through a leader named Moses some 4000 years ago. 

But the covenant did not go well.  His chosen people broke the covenant – not just once, but repeatedly – and after centuries of putting up with rebellious and unloving people God divorced Israel and Judah (Jeremiah 8). 

Today God has established a new and better covenant with his children.  It is new and better because it is a perfect covenant made through a new and perfect savior – Jesus.   He is the perfect sacrifice, the perfect mediator, and the perfect king of glory.  And He has come to claim us as his own!  Wow!

The image of marriage is all through the New Testament with God as the Groom and you and I – the church – as the bride.  It is through this image of marriage that we learn what it means to be in love – really! 

And we learn what God really wants from us.  Today we look at Hebrews 10 and learn three valuable and important things about what God wants from us – and one thing he gives to us.

God wants a real relationship – not pretense

The law is only a shadow of the good things that are coming—not the realities themselves. For this reason it can never, by the same sacrifices repeated endlessly year after year, make perfect those who draw near to worship. 2 If it could, would they not have stopped being offered? For the worshipers would have been cleansed once for all, and would no longer have felt guilty for their sins. 3 But those sacrifices are an annual reminder of sins, 4 because it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.

Hebrews 10:1-4

Do you remember playing “house” when you were a child?  It was an innocent game with a mommy, a daddy and children.  Daddy would go to work and mommy would stay home to wash the dishes and send the kids off to school – at least that’s the way I remember the game – but I’m getting older every year.  Your version may be different than mine – mommy and daddy go to work and the kids go to school on the bus.

The Old Covenant was a relationship of law and obligation.  It was a poor grainy, yellowed tin type image of the reality that God really wants with us. 

We usually think of the law being the 10 commandments.  The first four focused on our relationship with God – no other Gods, no graven images, no using his name in vain, keeping the Sabbath holy.  The latter six having to do with our relationship with one another, honoring our parents, not lying, stealing, killing, being adulterous, or coveting or neighbors possessions.  But the foundation of the old covenant is the same as the foundation of the new covenant. 

When Jesus was asked “which was the greatest commandment” he gave an answer that stands to this day.  We are to Love God with all our heart, soul, strength, and mind.  And the second is like the first, we are to love our neighbors like we love our selves. 

Marriage is about so much more than the words…  It’s about the reality.  No marriage will prosper when the only relationship that exists is merely one of appearance. 

No woman wants to be a “Trophy wife”.   According to wikipaedia a trophy wife is “A trophy wife is commonly used to describe any wife of an (usually) older man; and who is considered a status symbol.  The term trophy wife was coined by Julie Connelly, a senior editor of Fortune magazine, in a cover story in the issue of Aug. 28, 1989[1] and immediately entered the language.

The problem with a trophy wife marriage is that it’s not about the relationship – it’s about the appearance of a relationship.  It says, “Look at what I possess!”  It’s all about pretense – not reality.

God doesn’t want pretense in our relationship with him – he wants us to really be in love with him! 

Queen Victoria once told a confidant that she hope Jesus would come while she lived.  When her friend asked why she said so “I can cast my crown at his feet.”  That’s not pretense that is a real love. 

Which of your crowns would you cast at his feet?  What would you give to him as an expression of your love.

Ten Commandments Image

God wants real communion – not lip service

5 Therefore, when Christ came into the world, he said:  “Sacrifice and offering you did not desire, but a body you prepared for me; 6 with burnt offerings and sin offerings you were not pleased. 7 Then I said, ‘Here I am—it is written about me in the scroll— I have come to do your will, O God.’”

Hebrews 10:5-7

A body you prepared for me… literally “dug out the ears”.  This phrase is a figure of speech.  Literally it speaks of a person whose ears are blocked by wax and that have been dug out so that they can hear again.    It has been translated, “a body prepared for me” which is fairly accurate.  What it means is that what God wants from us is not merely for us to go through the motions of communication and communion with him – but for us to really be engaged and connected to him.  God wants us to prepare our bodies, dig out our ears, and to really be ready to connected with him. 

Recently, I watched a movie called “Click” with Adam Sandler in it.  Adam Sandler is no Clark Gable but he did a credible job playing the part of a man who was given the “gift” of a remote control that allowed him to fast-forward through the parts of his life that were boring or painful.  During the time he fast-forwarded he was still present but “autopilot.” 

Here is the problem: a relationship that is on autopilot isn’t much of a relationship.  When your kids come home from school and you are buried in your laptop and they ask you a question which you barely answer – you are on autopilot. 

When you wife asks you a question, or tells you a story that you acknowledge with a grunt because you are focused on who is going to make the sweet sixteen – you are on autopilot. 

When your husband wants to give you a big sloppy kiss and you are thinking about making the kids lunches for school the next day – you are on autopilot. 

When God wants you to enjoy his presence in worship and communion but you are worried about the bills, the kids, or the competition at work – you are on autopilot.

God wants for you to be really and totally invested in your relationship with Him.  God wants nothing more than to be connected to and in communion with you. 

There was a young man once like that who lost his wife and children then lost his job, and growing somewhat desperate about his plight, went to see an old preacher that he knew. As he poured out his heart to the preacher he angrily declared "I’ve begged and begged God to say something to help me, preacher. Why doesn’t God answer?"

The old preacher, who was sitting across the room, spoke a reply so quiet the young man was unable to make it out. The young man stepped across the room. "What did you say?" he asked. The preacher repeated himself, again in a soft tone. So the young man moved closer until he was leaning on the preacher’s chair. "Sorry," he said. "I still didn’t hear you." With their heads bent together, the old preacher spoke once more. "God sometimes whispers," he said, "So we will move closer to hear him." Source: oz sermon illustrations

You are his favorite kid!   You say, “How can he do that?”  We can’t all be his favorite? 

Oh, Yes, he can!  He can do it the same way I can love my kids as my favorites.   Shannon is my favorite strong-willed child.  Sandi is my favorite bouncy daughter.  And Susan is my favorite sweet child. 

You are God’s favorite child…  There is no one in the world quite like you and God wants to be connected to you – for real!

God wants real sacrifice – not stuff

8 First he said, “Sacrifices and offerings, burnt offerings and sin offerings you did not desire, nor were you pleased with them” (although the law required them to be made). 9 Then he said, “Here I am, I have come to do your will.”…

Hebrews 10:8-9

Marriage requires the sacrifice of your very self.  Anyone that thinks otherwise hasn’t been married for very long.

Flowers, gold jewelry, diamond necklaces, expensive clothing, and country villa’s are all very nice – VERY nice – but they mean nothing if it costs you nothing to give them. 

A gift is made meaningful through its value – not its cost.

Let me take a little time to tell you a little known story of David and his love for God.  It goes back to the time in David’s life when he grew proud of what he had accomplished as a great king. 

In 2 Samuel 24 David made a terrible mistake.  He counted his army.  The problem was that in making this count – which to us sounds like a normal and reasonable activity – was that he was displaying his dependence on his own strength rather than on God’s presence. 

God sent a prophet named Gad to David and told him that he would suffer one of three penalties – David choice.  He could choose from three years of famine; three months of losing battles; or three days of plague.   David chose three days of plague because it was shorter and he knew it was better to fall into the hands of God than the hands of men. 

For the greater part of three days a great sickness came on the people and 70,000 died, from Dan to Beersheba, when God, in mercy, relented.  Gad told David to build an altar and make a sacrifice on the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite – for this is the place that the angel of Lord had stopped striking down the people.

This threshing floor would become site where Solomon would build his temple but this day it was part of man’s farm.  When David went to Araunah, the owner of the land this is what he said:

David – A Man after God’s Heart

22 Araunah said to David, “Let my lord the king take whatever pleases him and offer it up. Here are oxen for the burnt offering, and here are threshing sledges and ox yokes for the wood. 23 O king, Araunah gives all this to the king.”…

You can almost see Araunah bowing before the king as he gives him all of oxen, the wood and everything else he needs to make an offering to the Lord.

But look at what David says…

Real Sacrifice Involves Real Giving

24 But the king replied to Araunah, “No, I insist on paying you for it. I will not sacrifice to the Lord my God burnt offerings that cost me nothing.

2 Samuel 24:22-24

I will not give a gift to God that costs me nothing.  The value of a gift does not reside in the amount of a gift.  It’s value is determined by its cost.  This is one of the reasons it is so hard for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of heaven.  When they give a large sum – the world says look at this great gift!  But God, says, What did it cost?” 

Herein is the secret of the importance of the tithe.  The return of the tithe to God involves us giving to God 1/10 – the first and the best.  This is why Abel’s gift was regarded by God to valuable and Cain’s was not! 

I remember early in my ministry having a conversation with a young couple who had just made the decision to follow Jesus.  I baptized them into Christ and a few weeks later while in their home the husband asked me a question.  He said, What is this tithing thing all about.

I gulped, thought to myself, this is not good, and then explained that God wanted us to return to him a portion of our income as an act of honoring him and that the support of his church was part of our worship.  He said, Sure we know all that!  But how much is a tithe?  I gulped again, and said that it is 1/10th of your income.  He stared at me for a second and they both said, “Is that all?”  So I told them that they could give more if they wanted – as an offering of love!

It’s not about the money – it’s about you.  Money, gold, silver, gemstones, treasure – all of it is just a way of storing, saving, and transferring to someone else a part of our life.  You see we trade our skills, our knowledge, and our work for treasure.  We give it as a measure of giving a part of our selves.   And this is the value!

What have you given to God?  What does it cost?  

Whatever the cost it is nothing compared with what we receive from God.  God gives us real love that forgives every offense.

God gives real love that forgives every offense

15 The Holy Spirit also testifies to us about this. First he says: 16 “This is the covenant I will make with them after that time, says the Lord. I will put my laws in their hearts, and I will write them on their minds.”  17 Then he adds: “Their sins and lawless acts I will remember no more.” 18 And where these have been forgiven, there is no longer any sacrifice for sin.

Hebrews 10:15-18

Up to this point in Hebrews 10 the emphasis has been on what God wants from us.  Here the author pivots and speaks of what God wants to give to us.

He offers us a covenant that is embedded in the heart and engraved upon the mind.  This is no set of rules chiseled in granite.  That isn’t much more than a headstone on a grave.

No, God has taken this new covenant to a whole new level.  It isn’t a set of dead and cold regulations.  This new covenant is built on the person of Jesus Christ.  And it offers us complete redemption in two powerful truths:

First our sins and lawless acts will be remembered no more!

Now, how cool is that!  Our sins are gone and forgotten – forever.  That’s just plain amazing. 

Pastor Lee Strobel shares this account:  We were doing a baptism service. We told people before they came up to the platform to be baptized to take a piece of paper, write down a few of the sins they’ve committed, and fold the paper. When they come up to the platform, there was a large wooden cross on the stage. Take that piece of paper, take a pin, and pin it to the cross, because the Bible says our sins are nailed to the cross with Jesus Christ, and fully paid for by his death. Then turn and come to the pastor to be baptized.  I want to read you a letter a woman wrote who was baptized in one of those services. She said:

I remember my fear. In fact, it was the most fear I remember in my life. I wrote as tiny as I could on that piece of paper the word abortion. I was so scared someone would open the paper and read it and find out it was me. I wanted to get up and walk out of the auditorium during the service, the guilt and fear were that strong. 

When my turn came, I walked toward the cross, and I pinned the paper there. I was directed to a pastor to be baptized. He looked me straight in the eyes, and I thought for sure that he was going to read this terrible secret I kept from everybody for so long. But instead, I felt like God was telling me, I love you. It’s okay. You’ve been forgiven. I felt so much love for me, a terrible sinner. It’s the first time I ever really felt forgiveness and unconditional love. It was unbelievable, indescribable.

Do you have inside of you a secret sin that you wouldn’t even want to write down on a piece of paper out of fear somebody might open it up and find out? Let me tell you something about the Jesus I know. Not only does he want to adopt you as his child, he wants to lift the weight of guilt off your shoulders.

[Abortion Guilt Removed, Citation: Lee Strobel, "Meet the Jesus I Know," Preaching Today tape no. 211]

Second, there is no more need for sacrifice for sin!

What God wants from you… is You

There is no more need to kill an animal and shed its blood to atone for sin.  No more do we need to offer up Jesus on the cross.  He died – once, for all time. 

Crucifix or Cross…  Neither is right or wrong.  I prefer the empty cross because it reminds me of what he did without keeping him on the cross.  It’s done.  It’s complete.  It’s over.  As Jesus said just before he died, “It is finished.” 

You can add nothing to it… but yourself