God's Good Gifts: God's Covenantal Promises

Introduction

How soon we forget. The Literary Digest of 1923 said that, "History knows no disasters which parallels the earthquake and fire that visited Japan this month and laid waste the capital city and the chief seaport." The New York Tribune called this earthquake “undoubtedly the greatest disaster in recorded time.” The New York Times described the havoc as covering about 45,000 square miles which contained five big cities and a population of 7,000,000. Other dispatches reported that virtually every building in Yokohama was destroyed. Perhaps three-fourths of Tokyo was burned and the entire city with its 5,000,000 inhabitants was shattered by the earthquake. A joint survey made by Herbert Hoover and the Red Cross estimated the dead at almost 300,000 with 2,500,000 people homeless. Disease and despair rode throughout the island empire. Then help came! Help from America for helpless Japan! Food, clothing, medical supplies, and volunteer workers came by the shipload. The American Red Cross collected ten million dollars from people of the United States for the suffering and homeless Nipponese. Those who lived through the awful earth tremors, the gigantic waves, and the tongues of fire must perish, it seemed, from starvation or disease. But they didn’t. Why? Because America remembered—remembered their need, their suffering, their hunger. The Nipponese were grateful. They even put their appreciation in writing. Walter Kiernan, correspondent for the International News Service, recalls their words: “Japan will never forget!” Less than 200 years later, the land of the Rising Sun sent waves of airplanes to attack the American naval base at Pearl Harbor, pulling America into World War 2. How soon we forget.

I recently visited a friend for a few days. As our time together finished up, I went through the usual packing routine. You know how it goes. You pack everything into your suitcase, then you scour every part of the room you stayed in. Then you double check. Then you go outside that room to check the living area, the kitchen, the bathroom. And then you leave. 15 minutes go by. An hour goes by. Then you get the call. In my case, Corey called saying that his kids thinks I left my laptop there, which is quickly corrected to my iPad. It turns out that despite all the searching and double checking, I missed the item that was sitting in the middle of the kitchen table charging. How easy it is to forget.

Today we begin a new, brief series on the sacraments. Our Westminster Confession of Faith describes sacraments as “holy signs and seals of the covenant of grace. They were instituted by God along with that covenant to represent Christ and his benefits, to confirm our position with and in him, to demonstrate a visible difference between those who belong to the church and the rest of the world, and solemnly to engage believers in the service of God in Christ according to his word.” We believe that there are two sacraments, baptism and the Lord’s Supper. Over the next three Sundays, not counting next week when I’m not here, we are looking at what the sacraments mean for us.

Christ’s death on the Cross ushered in the New Covenant, symbolized for us in the sacraments. the most common time that we hear of the New Covenant is probably in communion. Near the end of communion, we remember that in the same way that he broke bread, Jesus took the cup, saying “This cup is the new covenant sealed in my blood, shed for you for the forgiveness of sins. Do this in remembrance of me.” While communion is a reminder of what Christ did for us, it is much more than simply that. The sacraments declare the promises of God, sealed in the covenant. So what exactly do the sacraments declare about Christ? The author of Hebrews teaches us the importance of the sacraments, not simply for our times of worship, but for the whole of the Christian life.

The law was but a shadow of something better to come.

The author of Hebrews writes in verse 1 “For since the law has but a shadow of the good things to come instead of the true form of these realities, it can never, by the same sacrifices that are continually offered every year, make perfect those who draw near.” When we talk about the law, we’re not talking about law as we might think of it today. We’re not talking about speeding or tax law or jay-walking. Instead, this refers to the law of the Old Testament. In the second book of the Bible, Exodus, God gave Moses the law. This is found in the second of Exodus and the book of Leviticus. The law that was given has three parts to it, the moral, ceremonial, and civil law. In the moral law, such as in the Ten Commandments, God teaches us morality. The ceremonial law organized worship and other aspects of religious life. This includes the system of sacrifices, feast days, and ritual cleanliness. Finally, the civil law was given by God for providing order for the Israelites. All of this is foreshadowing of what was to come, as the Christ would come to fulfill the law.

Paul writes in Galatians 3:11-13, “Now it is evident that no one is justified before God by the law, for “The righteous shall live by faith.” But the law is not of faith, rather “The one who does them shall live by them.” Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree”—”

So, whereas in the Old Testament we have an entire book of the Bible full of law, in the New Testament says that he has come to fulfill that law. He says that all of the law can be summed in two commandments. Love God and love your neighbor as yourself.

But as we think about this, I remember back to junior high school. We were required to take a keyboarding class to help us type quickly. But you see, I had been using a keyboard for years, so I didn’t think I needed to learn this. Instead of learning how to type quickly, I stubbornly insisted on using two fingers to type. As hard as the teacher attempted to get us to type with the appropriate position with our hands on the keyboard, I pushed back and refused. After all, what I had been doing worked okay. What I had been doing was but a shadow of the typing speed and success that I could achieve if I had taken advantage of learning the right way to type. Instead, I stubbornly refused to do what she was trying to teach us.

We do that in our faith as well, don’t we? Instead of believing that Christ’s death on the Cross is sufficient, we go back to trying to do it our own way. We guilt ourselves over our sin. We try to be holy enough, to do enough good to make up for our mistakes. But we are free from the law. We do not need to focus on confessing every single sin we commit, rather we need to simply live a humble life of repentance. We do not need to observe the Levitical food codes of the Old Testament. The Old covenant had its own set of sacraments, circumcision and Passover. They had specific procedures for when to do the circumcision and how to observe the passover. But now, the New Covenant that Christ has instituted has come with a new set of sacraments. Circumcision has become a thing of the past, replaced with baptism. The Passover has been replaced with the Lord’s Supper. As Paul writes in Galatians 5:1, “For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.” Christ instituted the New Covenant and freed us from the ceremonial and civil Old Testament law. Therefore, let us never again submit to the yoke of slavery of that law.

Christ’s sacrifice was once for all time.

Verses 11-13 tell us, “Every priest stands daily at his service, offering repeatedly the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God, waiting from that time until his enemies should be made a footstool for his feet.” Before Christ, there was a system of five different sacrifices that had to be completed regularly. Every day, the priest would offer the sacrifices that the people brought. This would be a constant reminder of our sin. It would also be tiring. But Hebrews here teaches us that the system of sacrifices, feast days, ritual cleansing, and the list goes on and on, is no more. Christ has fulfilled the law once, for all time, at the Cross. “When Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God, waiting from that time until his enemies should be made a footstool for his feet.”

I recently learned that I’m not the only who forgets things. Sometimes it feels like it’s just about everything. Our Daily Bread reported that according to Karen Bolla, a Johns Hopkins researcher, these are the things people most often forget:

1. Names 83%

2. Where something is 60%

3. Telephone numbers 57%

4. Words 53%

5. What was said 49%

6. Faces 42%

And if you can't remember whether you’ve just done something, you join 38 percent of the population.

Just as we forget normal facts in life, like names, telephone numbers, and faces,it’s easy to forget the promises of Christ, especially when life goes sideways. This is why Christ has given us the sacraments. Referring to communion, 1 Corinthians 11:26 says, “For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.” Our Westminster Confession of Faith reminds us that in communion, “Worthy receivers, physically partaking of the visible substances of this sacrament, do then also by faith actually and in fact...spiritually receive and feed on Christ crucified and on all the benefits of his death.” Communion is spiritual nourishment for our hungry souls. Meanwhile, baptism is the sign and seal of the New Covenant as Christ claims us as his own.

The New Covenant

In verse 16, Hebrews refers to Jeremiah 31:33, which says, “For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people.”

From the beginning of time, God has revealed himself to his people. This is a concept called progressively revelation. As we move through Bible, we slowly, progressively, learn more and more about who God and how he interacts with us, his people. As he does, he makes a series of agreements with his people. Think of these are contracts on steroids, called covenants. There’s the covenant with Noah in the covenant with Abraham in Genesis. There’s the covenant with Moses in Exodus. There’s the covenant with David in 2 Samuel 7. In each of these agreement, God makes a promise. In the covenant with Noah, he promises to never again destroy the earth. With Abraham, he promises to make Abraham a great nation. But then, we get to Jeremiah 33, which is repeatedly referred to throughout the New Testament. Jeremiah 33 tells us that a New Covenant would be coming. A New Covenant, which would be ushered in by the blood of Jesus Christ.

Jeremiah says, “I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people.” We are now free from the law and sacrifice. We are forgiven under the New Covenant. And how do we remember the promises of God? How does God mark us as his own? Through the sacraments, through baptism and communion.

Conclusion

How soon we forget. The Japanese quickly forgot how America aided them after the fire and earthquake of 1923. I forgot so quickly that I had left my iPad in the middle of the kitchen for everyone to see and to remember as I rushed out the door to get home. How very quickly we forget the promises of God through his covenant, which were instituted at the Cross of Jesus Christ. Fortunately, we have the sacraments as his good gifts, sealing us as his own and nourishing us spiritually.

Richard Baxter, known for his book called the Reformed Pastor writes, “Nowhere is God so near to man as in Jesus Christ, and nowhere is Christ so familiarly represented to us as in this holy sacrament. Here we are called to sit with him at his table, as his invited welcome guests; to commemorate his sacrifice, to feed upon his very flesh and blood; that is, with our mouths upon his representative flesh and blood, and with our applying faith upon his real flesh and blood, by such a feeding as belongs to faith.” When life gets us down. When we’re tired from everything the world throws our way, the sacraments stand as a testimony to write, as visible words proclaimed who Christ is, what he has done, and what we means for our lives. So each time we celebrate the Lord’s Supper or each time we celebrate a baptism, let us remember that the sacraments remind us of the promises of God.