220424 Communion: Covenant

As we come to our time of Communion, I want to invite you to open your Bibles to the Book of Jeremiah.

Please turn to Jeremiah 33, and as you are turning there I would just like to recall to our mind some of Jesus’ final words that are quoted by Paul. Paul says that Christ on that night before He went to the cross in instituting the ordinance of Communion said that, “This cup is the New Covenant in My blood.”

That reference to the “New Covenant” was very intentional. Jesus was recalling to His disciple’s minds the prophetic word of God as revealed by Jeremiah in Chapter 31. Let’s pick it up in verse 31 where the Lord is going to institute a New Covenant with Israel and Judah.

Jeremiah 31:31 “Behold, days are coming,” declares Yahweh, “when I will cut a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah,

32 not like the covenant which I cut with their fathers in the day I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, but I was a husband to them,” declares Yahweh.

We looked at the Exodus of Israel a couple of weeks ago and we saw how God miraculously saved Israel out of Egypt by many signs and wonders. Afterward God brought Israel through the Red Sea and led them through the wilderness providing them with manna and water and then He instituted His Covenant with them at Mount Sinai - we are going to look at that this morning. But listen to what the Lord says through Jeremiah - they broke My Covenant. They were faithless, they had agreed to the stipulations of this two way Covenant but they broke the agreement… I was bonded to them and they abandoned Me…

Verse 33

33 “But this is the covenant which I will cut with the house of Israel after those days,” declares Yahweh: “I will put My law within them, and on their heart I will write it; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people.

34 And they will not teach again, each man his neighbor and each man his brother, saying, ‘Know Yahweh,’ for they will all know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them,” declares Yahweh, “for I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more.”

The New Covenant which the Lord is going to create with Israel was fulfilled by Christ. This New Covenant would not be a two way agreement… but a one way agreement where God puts all the responsibility for fulfilling it upon Himself.

Ephesians 2:8-9 “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; 9 not of works, so that no one may boast.”

No longer will those brought into the New Covenant be told to know God… those brought into the Covenant will all know the Lord, those who are saved will be made to be faithful by God and they will be God’s people and He will forgive their iniquity - they will be brought into right relationship, into communion with God Himself because He will make it happen.

This prophecy was given to Israel and Judah, there is no reference to salvation for Gentiles in the surrounding context. But if we open our eyes we see the rebelliousness of Israel even to this day. Romans 11:25 tells us that a partial hardening has taken place in Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in.

We who are Gentile believers get to experience a partial fulfillment of the New Covenant - we get to savor relationship with God, established by God and kept by Him. We get to experience the forgiveness that was promised to Israel through the New Covenant. We can rejoice because Christ cut this New Covenant with His own shed blood. We are saved into relationship with God and now we have Communion with God and with each other because of what Christ has done on our behalf.

Let us take a minute now… One minute to repent of the sins that have been committed knowing that God desires free and uninhibited communion with us. Let’s pray.

WAIT FOR ONE WHOLE MINUTE.

Close in prayer.

Invitation for Communion Ushers

If I could have the communion ushers come up, we will distribute the elements and then ask the blessing over the elements.

George will you ask for the blessing on the bread?

(1 Co 11:23–26)

23 ...the Lord Jesus in the night in which He was being betrayed took bread, 24 and when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, “This is My body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of Me.”

Dan O will you ask for the blessing on the cup?

25 In the same way He took the cup also after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in My blood; do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me.”

PAUSE

26 For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the death of the Lord until He comes.

LET’S PRAY