The Wisdom of God: Relationship

It is challenging to find your way in life if you don’t know where you are going. Do you remember the scene in the Wizard of Oz where Dorothy and Toto come to a fork in the yellow brick road? They notice a scarecrow who is pointing one way and hear a voice saying some people go that way. Then, he points another direction and says, and some people go that way. Then, he says, and some people go both ways.

It is challenging to find your way in life if you don’t know where you are going. Thankfully, God in His grace and wisdom has given us way finder. He calls it a covenant. A covenant is a special agreement between God and His people. The covenant guides and defines the relationship. Our author in this week’s core 52 chapter 16 calls the new covenant a compass. A compass can help you find your way if you know where you want to go.

God has given us a compass for our relationship with Him. He calls it the new covenant. The new covenant compares with a compass in at least three ways.

First, a compass leads with authority. A compass works with the magnetic poles of the earth. The magnetic field around our earth attracts or repels based on the magnetic poles. Opposites attract whereas the same poles repel. The compass functions with an invisible power of magnetism. The covenant of God will attract us to Him and his heart and repel attitudes and actions that will lead us away from Him.

The covenant is the the authority for the relationship with God and His people. God made a series of covenants with His people. The two that stand out for us are the Old Covenant and the New Covenant. The Old Covenant was founded on the 10 commandments that carried blessings and curses depending on how the people responded to the covenant.

In the time of Jeremiah, the people had broken the covenant for several generations. God was about to send them away. In some ways, their wicked behavior had repelled their relationship with God and God was going send His people to exile in Babylon.

Now, in Jeremiah 31.31, God declares that he will make a new covenant. This covenant or relationship would be different, though not totally. Since God is making the covenant, he plans to be faithful and will ask us to be faithful to Him. What’s different about this covenant is that Jesus is the one who will fulfill it completely and be the payment for sins once and for all. Jesus describes the New Covenant in Luke 22 during his final supper with His disciples prior to the cross.

Luke 22:20 NIV

In the same way, after the supper he took the cup, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you.

Let’s think through our actions and attitudes. Are we living in ways that attract us to God’s heart or are we investing in our time an energy in things that are repelled by God’s holy covenant?

Second, a compass eliminates any confusion. What’s beautiful about the compass is that it is also eliminates confusion. When the arrow points to the N, that is the direction of north. Since the compass is based on set standards of magnetic fields, the debates end on who’s thinks they are going the right direction. The compass points the way and defines reality. God’s covenant clarifies truth.

Jeremiah 31.33-34 highlights three ways that God’s covenant relationship eliminates confusion: 1) God puts His law inside of His people. 2) God will be with His people. 3) God’s people will be changed.

The first way God eliminates confusion, He will put His law inside of His people. Jeremiah 31.33 says, “I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts.” The word for minds in this context could actually mean intestines or internal organs. When used with “heart” in our passage, the idea is the inward attitudes or our will.

Jeremiah knew that people’s hearts would get them into trouble.

Jeremiah 17:9–10 ESV

The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it? “I the Lord search the heart and test the mind, to give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his deeds.”

The second way God eliminates confusion is that He will be with His people. In Jeremiah 31.33, God says, “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.” Oh, we long for that day.

Blaise Pascal, a French mathematician, experienced Christ and maybe what God describes as writing his law on his mind and heart.

131 Christians Everyone Should Know “Night of Fire”

Then on November 23, 1654, Pascal experienced a “definitive conversion” during a vision of the crucifixion:

“From about half-past ten in the evening until about half-past twelve … FIRE … God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob, and not of the philosophers and savants. Certitude. Certitude. Feeling. Joy. Peace.”

He recorded the experience (called the “Mémorial”) on a piece of parchment, which he carried with him the rest of his life, sewed inside his coat.

The third way, God eliminates confusion is that God’s people will be changed. In Jeremiah 31.33, we read “they will all know me from the least of them to the greatest.” When Jeremiah uses this term least to the greatest, he is not complimenting the people. He uses it to show how all people from least to the greatest have hurt one another.

Jeremiah 6:13 NIV

“From the least to the greatest, all are greedy for gain; prophets and priests alike, all practice deceit.

That is the refrain, until you get to Jeremiah 31 when we find out that people are changing. Christopher Wright reminds us that every person from the least to the greatest will be transformed by the knowledge of God and reflect the character of God (Christopher Wright, The Message of Jeremiah: Grace in the End). People will reflect God’s values, His mind and His heart.

This New Covenant that would be fulfilled in Christ would create a new people transformed by the love and grace of Jesus. The people of God would treat people with love and respect. The people of God would feed the hungry. Can I give a shout out to our American Heritage Girls who have contacted Inner City Mission to find out their needs as they care for the homeless in our community. That’s what this New Covenant looks like.

1 John 3:16–17 NIV

This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters. If anyone has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need but has no pity on them, how can the love of God be in that person?

Third, a compass directs our steps. A compass is pretty useless unless you are going somewhere. Whether you are hiking or sailing, or traveling by car, a compass will help you stay on the right path and direct your steps. God’s New Covenant directs our steps. Jeremiah 31.34 concludes, “For I will forgive their wickedness and remember their sins no more.”

Dominant Thought: Christ forgives our past and forges our future. Michael Hinnen helped me think through this sentence when we were studying this text in our staff meeting on Monday.

The cool thing about this word for forgiveness is that this word is only used of God. He is the only one who provides this kind of forgiveness. The first time this word forgive or pardon is used in the Bible is in Exodus 34 after the people had made the golden calf because they were tired of waiting on Moses to come down from the mountain. Moses chiseled out two new stone tablets to replace the ones he smashed. He goes back up the mountain to God with the following request.

Exodus 34:9 NIV

“Lord,” he said, “if I have found favor in your eyes, then let the Lord go with us. Although this is a stiff-necked people, forgive our wickedness and our sin, and take us as your inheritance.”

Moses understood that forgiveness comes from God.

The forgiveness of sins is affirmed near the end of the Apostle’s Creed where we read:

I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy catholic Church*, (catholic means universal Christian church—all believers in Jesus) the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting. Amen.

I’ve been reading a book, Prayer by Tim Keller. In that book, he quotes from John Owen who wrote, The Mortification of Sin. Mortification is an old word for killing something. Owen never says, “I must stop this [sin] or I’m going to be punished.” Instead, he says things like “How Can I treat Jesus like this—who died so I would never be punished? Is this how I treat the one who has brought me into this unconditionally loved state? Is this how I treat him after all he’s done? Will I fail to forgive when he died to forgive me?” (Keller, p. 216, quoting Owen, p. 58).

The writer of Hebrews in the New Testament draws on Jeremiah 31 a couple of different times. The writer circles back around to the new covenant in Hebrews 10 describing the sacrifice of Jesus. Listen to Hebrews 10.14-18.

Hebrews 10:14–18 NIV

For by one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy. The Holy Spirit also testifies to us about this. First he says: “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.” Then he adds: “Their sins and lawless acts I will remember no more.” And where these have been forgiven, sacrifice for sin is no longer necessary.

Our core 52 action step this week is to read through Hebrews and list the advantages the new covenant offers Christians. Here in Hebrews 10, we have a couple of benefits, 1) Jesus has made perfect forever those who are being made holy, and 2) Sacrifice for sin is no longer necessary.

Macbeth (Act 5, Scene 1):

Lady Macbeth: Out, damned spot! Out, I say!—One, two. Why, then, ’tis time to do ’t. Hell is murky!—Fie, my lord, fie! A soldier, and afeard? What need we fear who knows it, when none can call our power to account?—Yet who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him....—What, will these hands ne'er be clean?—No more o' that, my lord, no more o' that. You mar all with this starting.

Doctor about Lady Macbeth: More needs she the divine than the physician. God, God forgive us all! Look after her, Remove from her the means of all annoyance,

We have a compass to lead us through life called the New Covenant that Christ purchased with His own blood. Will you take up this compass and follow God wherever He leads you?

Dominant Thought: Christ forgives our past and forges our future.

Week 16 in Core 52 by Mark Moore

(These daily guides accompany the book, Core 52 by Mark Moore.)

Day 1: Read the essay.

Day 2: Memorize Jeremiah 31.33-34.

Day 3: Read Matthew 3; Luke 4.

Day 4: Meditate on Luke 22.20; 1 Corinthians 6.19-20; Hebrews 9.14-15.

Day 5: Read through Hebrews, making a list of advantages the new covenant offers Christians.

Overachiever Challenge: Memorize 1 Corinthians 6.19-20.

Bonus Read: Watchman Nee and Witness Lee, The New Covenant.

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