A New Covenant

A New Covenant Hebrews 8: 5-13 We’re always looking for a better way to do things, aren’t we? Faster computers, better TV’s, more efficient cars. It seems each new year brings with it new and improved inventions. But new and improved doesn't benefit everybody. Faster computers, better TV’s, and more efficient cars all sound great to me, but they don’t benefit me because I can’t afford them. When it comes to technology, just think how far we’ve come in the past 50 years, the past 20 years, the past 10 years. People are never satisfied and always looking for something better. But God is the Originator of the better way. And not just a better way, but a universal way. This better way is not an idea, invention, or object, but Jesus Christ. The New Covenant. Today is what many like to call a Covenant Renewal Service. Although any church can have this covenant service on any Sunday, I find that the first Sunday of the new year is appropriate. After all, last Sunday we looked at A New Year, A New You, so it’s only fitting to continue that motivation as a means to grow closer to Christ in a covenant relationship. Plus, the last time you heard a sermon in church was last year! In today’s verses, the Bible emphasizes the superiority of the New Covenant that Christ established over the Old Covenant. Now a Covenant is a special agreement that God makes with His people. It’s a divinely created, relational bond, whereby God both reveals Himself and administers His Kingdom program. Through God’s covenants, God exercises His kingdom rule on earth and blesses His people. The Old Covenant that was made with Israel was good, but it was also temporary and limited because God had something better in store. The first part of verse 7 says, “For if there had been nothing wrong with that 1st Covenant, no place would have been sought for another.” But what was wrong with the 1st Covenant? I mean, if you study the Bible and examine the 1st or the Old Covenant, you’ll discover that there was divine forgiveness and patience. Exodus 34:6-7 says, “The Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin.” There was a call to faith. God said to Moses in Numbers 14:11, “How long will these people treat Me with contempt? How long will they refuse to believe in Me, in spite of all the signs I have performed among them?” In the Old Covenant there were also promises of God’s love. As Exodus 34:6-7 said, God “abounds in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion, and sin.” Since the Old Covenant promised love and the forgiveness of sin, what was so wrong with it that God deemed it necessary to have a New Covenant? To answer that, let’s read the rest of Verse 7: “But God found fault with the people.” The faultiness of the 1st Covenant – the Mosaic Law – was not that God gave bad commands, but that the people had bad hearts. For most people, the love and forgiveness God offered never entered the people’s hearts. It was mainly external instead of internal. The Israelites attempted obedience by will-power rather than reliance upon the Spirit. They were more ritualistic rather than personal. In the Old Covenant, the Israelites were required to obey and keep God’s Law. In return, God protected and blessed them. But even a short reading of the Gospels will reveal how focusing on keeping the Law can quickly harden one’s heart. The Pharisees of the NT were always accusing Jesus of breaking the Law because Jesus taught grace, not legalism. If the 1st Covenant had been faultless, we’d have no need for a second one. So now, in verses 8-12, the author quotes from Jeremiah 31:31-34 to support his argument. Through the prophet Jeremiah, God had explained that the law wasn’t able to change a heart. The old system is annulled because the law perfected nothing. Hebrews 7:18-19 says, “The former regulation is set aside because it was weak and useless (for the law made nothing perfect), and a better hope is introduced, by which we draw near to God.” In other words, the law couldn’t make you better. The 10 Commandments are good and righteous, and they inform us of God’s Holy Standards, but they can’t change you. They can just show you how much you need to change. Think of the Mosaic Law – the 10 Commandments – like a mirror. When you look into a mirror, it doesn’t lie. It shows the truth. It reveals everything, including your imperfections. But it can’t also wash your face, brush your teeth, or comb your hair. The Law highlights your imperfections; it can’t correct them. To draw near to God as Hebrews 7:19 says, we needed something better than the Law. But I’ve heard people say, “Well, since God needed something new, something better than the Law, that proves that God makes mistakes because His first covenant didn’t work.” On the surface, that sounds like a logical conclusion. I mean after all, when we do something and it doesn’t work, we try something else. So this must be God’s backup plan. His Plan B. But to say the 1st Covenant didn’t work is far from the truth. Jesus is not Plan B. The 1st Covenant accomplished exactly what God designed it to do. I want you to look at verse 13 with me. It says, “By calling this covenant ‘new,’ He has made the 1st one obsolete; and what is obsolete and outdated will soon disappear.” Notice the language used: “Obsolete, outdated, will soon disappear.” Outdated, not destroyed. Yes, the New Covenant replaced the Old, but the Old has not disappeared yet. For example, think of all the video game systems on the market. Today we have PS 4. But PS 3 is still out there. So is PS 2. But PS 4 is “New,” because it’s improved over PS 3. PS 2 and 3 show us why PS 4 is “New.” What the Old PS couldn’t do, the New PS can. That’s the same with the Old and the New Covenants. Remember how looking into a mirror shows you your true self. The Old Covenant, the Mosaic Law, could only show you how sinful you are. The Law couldn’t save you. God’s intention with the 1st Covenant was to reveal just how sinful people are compared to a Perfect and Holy God. Matthew Henry said, “The law not only made all subject to it, liable to be condemned for the guilt of sin, but also was unable to remove that guilt, and clear the conscience from the sense and terror of it. Whereas, by the blood of Christ, a full remission of sins was provided, so that God would remember them no more. God once wrote His laws to his people, now He will write His laws in them; He will give them understanding to know and to believe His laws; He will give them memories to retain them; He will give them hearts to love them, courage to profess them, and power to put them in practice.” The Old Covenant was the Covenant of Law between God and Israel. The New and better way is the Covenant of grace – Christ’s offer to forgive our sins and bring us to God through His sacrificial death. This New Covenant goes beyond Israel and Judah to include all the Gentile nations. And if we’re going to be free from rituals, traditions, and legalism as our only means to know God better, then we needed something radically different. We needed something personal, intimate, and spiritual. This is found in the New Covenant. In Jesus Christ! You know, one of Satan’s biggest goals is to diminish the supremacy and all-sufficiency of Jesus Christ. Keep this in mind: You can evaluate any teaching because if it diminishes the glory of Christ, it’s not from God. Legalism and traditions are wrongly being used to try to get us to focus on rules rather than on grace. If Satan can get people into thinking that by keeping a set of rules they’re good people, the need for Christ is diminished. But quoting Jeremiah, Hebrews 8:10 says, “I will put My Laws in their minds and write them on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be My people. No longer will they teach their neighbor, or say to one another, ‘Know the Lord,’ because they will all know Me, from the least of them to the greatest.” No more animal sacrifice was needed because faith in Christ’s blood sacrificed for the forgiveness of our sins was final. The Old Covenant covered sin; the New Covenant cleanses it. Put it this way: You’re the guest speaker at a huge dinner event. But before you go on stage, you spill tomato juice all down your front. You have 2 choices: You can either wear a jacket to cover up the stain, or you can put on another shirt. The blood of bulls and goats that was such a prominent feature in the Old Covenant could never do anything except cover up the stain of sin. But the blood of Christ cleanses the stain completely! There’s 3 things I want you to take away from today. 1. God’s will won’t be written just on stone tablets or Bible paper, but in our minds and on our hearts. 2. God established a relationship of ownership with us by saying, “I will be their God and they will be My people.” 3. The New Covenant is personal and intimate. God placed His Laws on our minds and hearts. That means everyone inwardly knows there’s a God, and their conscience bears a silent witness when they sin. “From the least to the greatest” as Hebrews 8:11 says, everyone will know God. Through Jesus Christ, God has established this New Covenant. We no longer need to jump through hoops of the old system and regulations because the heart of the New Covenant is the promise, “I will never again remember their sins.” God doesn’t remember, but if you’re like me, you do. You still remember. Even in the excitement of your new life in Christ, those sins of yesterday, the sins you committed before becoming a Christian, and those sins you’ve committed as a Christian, still haunt you. You’ve confessed, repented, and attempted to fix the damage done. You’re a different person, but certain sins still haunt the deep areas of your heart. Like a dark basement, you stash your sins away, but every time you open the basement door, their there, robbing you of joy, peace, and security. And in the back of your mind you wonder, “Am I really forgiven? Does God really cast out my sin as far as the east is from the west?” Let me tell you, do you really think that in verse 12 when God says, “I’ll remember your sin no more,” that He’d say that just to rub your nose in it? God is perfect and doesn’t hold grudges, because if He did, He wouldn’t be perfect. God is either the God of perfect love and Grace, or He isn’t. Christ’s cross tells me He is! It’s an unspeakable joy knowing your sins are forgiven; knowing that something I could never have done has been done for me. Christ’s shed blood on the cross tells us we’re forgiven. Jesus tells us, “Do this in remembrance of Me,” so He can remember our sins no more. AMEN O God, Searcher of all our hearts, You have formed us as a people and claimed us for Your own. As we come to acknowledge Your sovereignty and grace, and to enter anew into covenant with You, reveal any reluctance or falsehood within us. Let Your Spirit impress Your truth on our inmost being, and receive us in mercy, for the sake of our Mediator, Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with You in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, forever. Father, as David cried out in Psalm 25, “Free me from my distress. Look on my affliction and my pain, And forgive all my sins.” So God, as we come together today to partake of communion, forgive us for our sins. Let us approach Your table with a clean heart and the assurance of salvation. Lord, Thank You for Your grace. Help us move beyond any Hurdles that may trip us up. Give us the strength and wisdom to look up and see the Hope we run to in Christ Jesus. And it’s in His Name we pray the prayer He taught us: Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name; thy kingdom come; thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread; and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us; And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For Thine is the kingdom the power, and the glory, forever Amen.