Tic Tac Toe and Jesus

INTRO:

Tic Tac Toe

Game variations date back to ancient Egypt in 1300 BCE

Game typically for children to play due to players learning the perfect plays

Game Rules

Arcade - $20 for 4 hours of unlimited play

All you could play was tic tac toe

different colors

variations of materials paper, blocks, digital

Who is going to this arcade?

- NO ONE

Why?

The games of today are vastly superior to tic tac toe

Jesus = The Games of Today

Hebrews 8:6 ESV

6 But as it is, Christ has obtained a ministry that is as much more excellent than the old as the covenant he mediates is better, since it is enacted on better promises.

Hebrews 8:6

What Jesus brings is superior to the old covenant; much like today’s arcade games are to tic tac toe

The basis of tic tac toe is to teach sportsmanship and strategic thinking

not meant to provide long term enjoyment

The old covenant wasn’t able to offer salvation, rather to reveal our brokenness and need for God

What is a covenant?

An agreement which brings about a relationship of commitment between and God and His people

If you do _____, I will do _____; If i do _____ you will do _______

Two parties meeting at an arrangement

Agreed upon by both

WAIT, WAIT, WAIT…I’ve asked God for things and promised that I would do x,y, or z and God didn’t give me anything

Romans 7:7–13 ESV

7 What then shall we say? That the law is sin? By no means! Yet if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin. For I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, “You shall not covet.” 8 But sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of covetousness. For apart from the law, sin lies dead. 9 I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin came alive and I died. 10 The very commandment that promised life proved to be death to me. 11 For sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me. 12 So the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good. 13 Did that which is good, then, bring death to me? By no means! It was sin, producing death in me through what is good, in order that sin might be shown to be sin, and through the commandment might become sinful beyond measure.

Romans 7:7

Old Covenant:

Continual Sacrifices for sins

Rituals and Motions took precedence over hearts changed to worship and follow God

Israel continued to abandon this covenant and follow false gods and rituals

An exhausting task to reveal our sinfullness

Psalm 51:16–17 ESV

16 For you will not delight in sacrifice, or I would give it; you will not be pleased with a burnt offering. 17 The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.

Psalm

God is not after exterior actions but rather the interior motives of the heart

David says if there was a sacrifice I would give it

a broken spirit, there is a devastation about sin

Hebrews 8:8–12 ESV

8 For he finds fault with them when he says: “Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will establish a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, 9 not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt. For they did not continue in my covenant, and so I showed no concern for them, declares the Lord. 10 For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my laws into their minds, and write them on their hearts, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. 11 And they shall not teach, each one his neighbor and each one his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest. 12 For I will be merciful toward their iniquities, and I will remember their sins no more.”

Hebrews 8:

Old Covenant could not be kept on our part

New Covenant Jesus sent and makes perfect atonement for our sins, Holy Spirit comes reveals to us God

John 14:26 ESV

But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.

Romans 8:3–4 ESV

For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.

Romans 8:3-