A Better Covenant

["The Terry III Council emergency meeting"]

Good job.

Alright it's now time for children's church.

If anybody's wanting to go, I think we got a few that are excited.

Got some best friends there, praise the Lord, amen.

It's also been good to see a good choir these last few weeks.

Y'all been really filling it up up there, but I think there's probably some openings

if you want to sing in it.

Jennings could probably squeeze you in.

Alright we're going to be in Hebrews today, Hebrews chapter 8.

Hebrews 8 · chapter mention

We're going to start in verse 6 and finish the chapter.

Hebrews chapter 8 verse 6.

Hebrews 8:6

We looked at the first half of the chapter a few weeks ago, a couple of weeks ago I guess

it was.

And the author of Hebrews was telling us that the things that we see in this world that

we saw in the Old Testament, the tabernacle, the temple, the sacrificial system, these

were shadows, they were patterns of what was to come.

They were patterns of something that's more perfect and that more perfect thing is revealed

to us in Jesus Christ.

And so we saw those patterns in the Old Testament.

And the author of Hebrews is telling his audience the things that we see, the things that you

have read, the things that you knew that were pointing you forward to Jesus Christ.

It was a pattern, a shadow of something greater that was to come.

And that's what we see often in the Old Testament is these things are pointing us forward to

Jesus Christ.

And so with that in mind, the author is going to continue on here in Hebrews chapter 8 verse

Hebrews 8:6

6 this morning.

We'll read through the text then we'll pray.

But Jesus has now obtained a superior ministry.

And to that degree, he is the mediator of a better covenant, which has been legally

enacted on better promises.

For if that first covenant had been faultless, there would have been no occasion for a second

one.

But finding fault with his people, he says, look, the days are coming, says the Lord,

when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, not

like the covenant that I made with their ancestors on the day I took them by their hands to lead

them out of the land of Egypt.

I disregarded them, says the Lord, because they did not continue in my covenant.

But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days,

says the Lord.

I will put my laws into their minds and write them on their hearts.

I will be their God and they will be my people.

And each person will not teach his fellow citizen and each his brother, saying, know

the Lord, because they will all know me from the least to the greatest of them.

For I will be merciful to their wrongdoing and I will never again remember their sins.

By saying a new covenant, he has declared that the first is old and what is old and

aging is about to disappear.

Let's pray.

Father God, we come to you today with a lot to consider, a lot to think about, a lot to

learn today from your word.

And so I pray, dear Lord, that your Holy Spirit would be among us this morning.

I pray that your Holy Spirit would be on me, dear Lord, that you free my mind from the

distractions and the worries of this world.

I pray that you would be with each one in these pews, dear Lord, that you would help

us not to be distracted today, that you would help us to be able to keep our minds focused

today.

I pray that your Holy Spirit would move through the words that come from my mouth, God, that

they would be from you.

I pray that our hearts and our ears would hear these words, dear Lord.

I pray that Jesus is lifted up above all else, dear Lord.

I pray that we see the glory of this covenant that we have, this new covenant that you've

established through Jesus Christ, through His blood, through His death and resurrection.

So God, I pray that you would hide me behind the cross as I preach and teach today.

Take away any pride or any fear that I have this morning and let us all hear from you

today.

And I ask these things in Jesus' name, amen.

The things of the Old Testament were a pattern of what was to come, but now those things

have been revealed to us in Jesus Christ.

And we see beautiful language that we've seen here in the book of Hebrews, that Jesus is

our intercessor, that He intercedes for us.

And here we see that Jesus is our mediator.

That is, He's the one between us and God.

He's the one that bridges the gap.

Our relationship with God is torn because of sin.

And even though God had established the Old Testament system, it was never going to be

sufficient for the forgiveness of our sins because we could never live up to what God

called us to.

And so we needed a mediator.

We needed one who could intercede on our behalf, and God provided the mediator.

God provided His very own Son.

The perfect Son of God came to this world and He gave His life on a cross, and He was

crucified and resurrected for the forgiveness of our sins so that He could be the mediator

between God and man.

And because Jesus is our mediator, because of His death and resurrection, there is a

new covenant that has been established.

It is a better covenant, and it has been established on better promises.

Now don't forget, the whole book of Hebrews, the author is trying to get his audience to

not go back to the old ways, but to realize that a better way has come.

And he does that by quoting tons of Old Testament passages.

We look at most of them, some in detail, some not.

But in this particular passage today, we see that the author of Hebrews quotes from Jeremiah

Jeremiah 31:31–34

chapter 31 verses 31 through 34.

This is the longest Old Testament quotation in the New Testament, and this is an important

Old Testament quotation.

Because it is in this prophecy of Jeremiah that Jeremiah is telling God's people that

there is going to come a new covenant.

Now we see God made several covenants in the Old Testament.

A covenant, a good way to think about a covenant, a simple way, is it's a promise.

It's a promise that God made to His people.

And God always keeps His promises.

God's promises never fail.

We see a good example of that at the end of the book of Joshua.

Before Joshua dies, he's leaving his people with a few words.

And he says, look, okay, God's people, God made you promises.

He told you He was going to bring you into the land.

He made you promises of what He was going to do.

He said He was going to bless you if you were obedient to Him.

And Joshua says at the end of the book, he says, and all of God's promises have been

fulfilled.

Everything He promised you has been fulfilled.

All the land that God said He was going to give you, He's given to you.

Not one of God's promises has failed, Joshua told his people.

And so we see that in the Old Testament, that God made promises to His people and God kept

those promises.

And we see quite a few covenants in the Old Testament.

We won't talk about all of them in great detail today, but we'll talk about them just as a

refresher.

Now, there is some, there's not universal agreement as to how many covenants there are

in the Old Testament.

There are generally five that are agreed upon that almost everyone agrees these are covenants

of God.

There are some others that people say, well, I think this might have been a covenant of

God.

We won't talk about those today.

We'll talk about the five that are almost, almost 100% agreed upon that these are all

certainly covenants of God.

One of those, the first of those we see in the scripture is the Noahic covenant.

Now in the Old Testament, God flooded the whole earth.

But after the water went down, He made a covenant and He said, look, I'll never flood the earth

again.

And as a sign that I'm going to keep this, that I'm never going to do this again, I'm

going to put a rainbow in the sky.

So we still see rainbows today from time to time.

That's a reminder of God saying, hey, I'm a God who keeps my word.

I'm a God who keeps my promises.

I'm a God who keeps my covenant.

That's the first covenant we see in scripture.

Then we see the Abrahamic covenant.

God told Abraham, He said, look, I'm going to bless you.

I'm going to make you into a great nation.

You're going to have descendants that are as numerous as the stars and all nations are

going to be blessed through you.

And I'm going to establish your people in this particular spot of land that I've promised

to you.

That's the Abrahamic covenant.

Then as we continue on through scripture, we see the Mosaic covenant.

That's the most important for us today in context of this passage.

The Mosaic covenant was God giving His people instruction, giving them commands, saying,

look, I'm going to bless you.

I'm going to watch over you.

Here are my instructions.

Here are my commands.

This is where we see all those patterns and symbols we talked about a couple of weeks

ago about the tabernacle and the priesthood and the sacrifices and all of these things.

All of the commands that God gave to His people, what we see there in those early books of

the Bible, Exodus, Numbers, Leviticus, Deuteronomy, it covers all of these things.

These are all part of the Mosaic covenant that God told His people.

He said, look, I'm going to bless you if you are obedient to my covenant.

I'm going to bless you.

I'm going to give you this land.

It's yours.

You can be here.

You can live here.

I'll take care of everything you need.

But there's conditions.

There's conditions.

He also said, but if you are not obedient to me, he said, I'm going to remove you from

the land.

You're going to be gone from it forever.

You'll never find peace.

You'll be at odds against the nations, he says.

You'll never find a restful spot for the soles of your feet.

In Deuteronomy 28, he gives all these commands.

I'll destroy you.

You'll be nothing.

And so God gave these conditions in the Mosaic covenant.

So long as God's people were obedient to the covenant and follow what God said, there was

going to be blessing.

But God said, if you go after other gods, then curses are going to be on you.

Now the Mosaic covenant was very important for the people, in particular, the acts of

God that led them up to that point where He was going to give them these commands.

They were enslaved and God brought them out of that enslavement.

He delivered them into the promised land.

This was a wonderful act that we see referenced often in the scriptures.

Why?

Because it's very powerful.

What did God do there that was so powerful that most of us remember?

He parted the Red Sea.

This was a really big act.

This was a really memorable thing for God's people.

They celebrated the Passover when God delivered them from Israel, when God passed over and

spared His people.

God's people celebrated that Passover.

They celebrated that deliverance up until the time of Jesus and even Jesus with His

disciples celebrated that.

So they remembered those events and those commands and that God had delivered them through

the Red Sea and that God had given them instruction and that God had given them the land.

This is a super important covenant that we see and as we'll see in more detail here later

on.

We also see after that the Davidic covenant.

That's when God said, look, David, you're going to have a descendant who's going to

be a king forever.

Now keep in mind these covenants that we see, they're pointing us to something bigger than

that point in time.

When God told Abraham that all nations are going to be blessed through him, that's going

to come through Jesus Christ.

When Jesus Christ comes onto the scene and not just God's people, Israel would be saved,

but all those who would come to faith in Jesus Christ would be saved.

Even what we see in the Mosaic covenant is pointing us forward to Jesus who is to come.

And the Davidic covenant is pointing us forward to a king who is to come.

But then we get to the book of Jeremiah.

Now often in the prophets we see language, especially Jeremiah, Isaiah, Ezekiel, strong

language because God's people, guess what?

They did not keep up their end of the covenant.

They'd do good for a little while.

Some of them would do good.

But generally speaking, they were disobedient people who went after other gods.

So God allowed their enemies to come in and they were scattered from the land.

They were dispersed.

And that's what some of these prophetic books tell us.

Hey, you're going to be scattered from this land.

You're going to be driven out from this land.

And so we see the prophets speaking in this language, but even in this language there's

some promises of restoration.

But even in the language that promises restoration, it's also pointing us forward to not just

when God's people would come back to the land.

God said, I'm going to take you from the land.

You're going to be spread out, but I'm going to bring you back.

We see that time and time again in the prophecies in the Old Testament that God was going to

bring his people back to the land.

And he did.

We see that in Ezra and Nehemiah.

We see that God did bring them back.

They did rebuild the temple as the prophets had said, and God restored that faithful remnant

of his people.

So God was true to what he said for his people.

But even though God had fulfilled those promises that he would restore them back to their land,

there were still promises that were pointing us forward to something even greater, something

that would come in Jesus Christ.

Now we see this type of language in the passage we just read from Jeremiah 31, but even before

that we see this language.

Jeremiah chapter 16 verse 14 says this, however, take note, the days are coming, the Lord's

Jeremiah 16:14

declaration when it will no longer be said as the Lord lives who brought the Israelites

from the land of Egypt.

Okay, we just talked about this.

This was an important point in Israel's history.

Okay, that's something they remember.

Hey, God is the God who delivered us from Egypt.

God is the God who spared us.

We celebrate that deliverance.

God is the one who parted the Red Sea.

And so this was an extremely important event to God's people Israel.

And that was the most important event to them.

But Jeremiah says, look, there's a day coming when there's going to be something bigger

that's going to come.

Continuing on in verse 15, but rather as the Lord lives who brought the Israelites from

the land of the north and from all the other lands where he had banished them.

Now God certainly did that.

The people were overtaken, the northern tribes by the Assyrians, the southern tribes by the

Babylonians, and God's people were scattered all throughout.

When we read Ezra and Nehemiah, we read about Zerubbabel, we read about God's people began

to be gathered back in.

Okay, so there was going to be a gathering back in of God's people.

There was going to be something greater that was going to come after God had restored his

people.

There was something greater that was coming and that something greater that was coming

ultimately was going to be Jesus Christ.

It's pointing us forward to something greater than what was in the past.

That's the same thing the author of Hebrews is doing for us in this passage.

He's trying to get his people past living in the Mosaic covenant in the law in the Old

Testament sacrificial system and help them to realize that the things that these prophets

had talked about in the Old Testament talked about, they were pointing to something better

to come in Jesus Christ.

Moving on in Jeremiah chapter 16 verse 16, for I will return them to their land that

Jeremiah 16:16

I gave to their ancestors.

Now listen to verse 16, I am about to send, excuse me, I'm about to send for many fishermen.

This is the Lord's declaration and they will fish for them.

Now that's interesting language that we see here.

It's interesting and somewhat familiar to us because you may remember in the New Testament

when Jesus went to the disciples, what did he tell them?

He said, I'm going to make you fishers of men.

Same language that we see here in the book of Jeremiah.

Jeremiah says, look, the old way, the things of Egypt, the things of Moses, there's something

greater that's coming.

And God says, I'm going to establish people who are going to go out and bring people into

my kingdom.

And Jesus uses the same language.

Perhaps Jesus was alluding to this very passage where God says through Jeremiah, look, I'm

going to send out fishermen.

Well, they weren't fishing for fish.

They were fishing for the people of God.

And so we see this language in these Old Testament prophecies.

And what are they doing?

They are pointing us forward to who Jesus is.

And the author of Hebrews takes the time to quote a lot of this passage.

Now I'd encourage you to read Jeremiah 21 and read the rest of it.

He only quotes a few scriptures here.

Nonetheless, these are good scriptures.

And why does he choose these?

He chooses these passage for the very reason we've been talking about, because he's trying

to make the point.

Look, God delivered you from Egypt.

That was a big thing.

But now God's going to establish a new covenant.

Let's go back to Hebrews chapter eight, verse eight.

But finding fault with his people, he says, look, the days are coming, says the Lord,

when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah.

Now the first covenant was insufficient, but it wasn't the fault of the covenant.

It's not like there was something wrong with God's covenant.

It's not like there was anything wrong with God's side of the deal.

What does it say?

It says he found fault with his people or found fault with them, some of your translations

will say.

So the problem with the first covenant was not God.

It's not like, well, there was a fault.

Well, God come up with this plan and God said, I think I thought this was going to work.

But on second thought, I don't think this is going to work.

I think that, you know, I messed up.

I didn't come up with a good plan.

That's not it at all.

God's plan was perfect, but we failed because we could not live up to God's requirements.

We could not live up to what the law called us to.

And we still can't to this day.

Praise the Lord.

That's what the author of Hebrews is saying.

Don't try to live by the letter of the law.

You will never be good enough to earn God's grace.

You will never be good enough that God would look at you and say, you're so good, I'm going

to forgive your sins or you're so good.

You don't sin.

That's not the way it works.

All of our righteous acts are like filthy rags before the Lord, Isaiah 66 tells us.

And so we are a pitiful and wretched and evil, sinful people.

We don't like to use those terms to describe ourselves, but that's who we are.

And so God had established the system in which there could be sacrifice for God's people.

He'd established a law that if only the people would have lived by the law, that everything

would have been fine.

But we can't live by the law because that sin is ever before us.

That temptation is ever before us and we give in to that sin.

So God found fault, not with his end of the deal, but the fault was with us.

We're incapable of doing what we need to do.

And that's why it's so beautiful that God sent Jesus Christ as one and only son to be

our intercessor, to be our mediator, the mediator between us and God so that our sins are gone.

And our sins may be forgiven.

Continuing on, he says, but finding fault with his people, he says, look, the days are coming

when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, not

like the covenant that I made with their ancestors on the day I took them by the hands to leave

them out of the land of Egypt.

I disregarded them, says the Lord, because they did not continue in my covenant.

But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days,

says the Lord.

I will put my laws into their minds and write them on their hearts.

I will be their God and they will be my people.

So God says, look, I worked with you in a different way in the Old Testament, but now

there's a new way.

There's a better way.

There's a new covenant that's coming.

And so all the way back in the book of Jeremiah in the Old Testament, he's pointing us forward

to Jesus Christ.

And he says, look, I'm going to establish this new covenant.

And the old covenant, it was crazy because only the high priest could go in the holy

of holies and make atonement for the sins of the people.

And God would come down and dwell there on the ark of the covenant.

And yeah, God had some interaction with Moses and maybe some others that we see throughout

the Old Testament.

But God was kind of disconnected in a way from his people.

But there's something beautiful that's about to happen.

When the new covenant comes around, it's not going to be like the old covenant.

It's going to be much more beautiful because now, instead of there being stone tablets

on which the law is written, on which someone has to share with them, and on which they

have to look and read and see the word of God, what does God say is going to happen

in the new covenant?

I'm going to write my word in their heart.

And so in the old covenant, everything that took place was something that was external.

But when the new covenant comes, what's going to take place is going to be internal.

And that's what we see with Jesus Christ.

When Jesus Christ comes onto the scene, when Jesus Christ is crucified and resurrected,

we see in the book of Acts, we see that the Holy Spirit is poured down among the people

of God.

And now the Holy Spirit dwells in the hearts of all of those who have put their faith and

trust in Jesus Christ.

And now we speak to God.

We go directly to God.

We pray to God.

We have the Holy Spirit that convicts us and that leads us and that guides us.

It's a very personal experience.

We don't have to have someone else explain things to us.

We don't have to have someone else to offer an animal sacrifice for us because Jesus has

done everything that needs to be done because He gave Himself as a sacrifice.

And God has sent the Holy Spirit among us so that He may dwell in us.

It's a beautiful thing that God is with us, that God dwells with us, that we can speak

with God, that we can call on God, that God would forgive our sins.

And that was all made possible.

And it's only possible.

It's only possible today through Jesus Christ.

Is Jesus Christ your intercessor today?

Is He your mediator today?

Because there's no one to stand before God on your behalf if you've not put your faith

and trust in Jesus Christ.

Now we see beautiful language.

When we see the covenants in the Old Testament, there's something that we may miss in our

translations.

We see it here at the beginning of Jeremiah 31 where he talked about he's going to make

a new covenant.

We see that language a lot in our Bibles that God is going to make a covenant.

But the actual Hebrew language there, the word is korath berith.

And that word in the Hebrew means to cut a covenant.

Now most of the time when we see covenants in the Old Testament, at least in relation

to how we're talking about them today, we see those words that God is going to cut a

covenant.

What does it mean that God is going to cut a covenant?

Well there's some significance there that I think we kind of lose if we're not careful

when we read the text.

So here's a good example of what it means when it says that God is going to cut a covenant

with His people.

You may remember back in the book of Genesis when God made the covenant with Abraham.

And so to establish this covenant, God did something that sounds kind of crazy.

He tells Abraham to gather up some animals and to split these animals in half and to

separate them.

Now what in the world does this have to do with anything?

Well let's read the scripture here.

Genesis chapter 15 verses 7 through 12.

Genesis 15:7–12

He also said to him, I am Yahweh who brought you from Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this

land to possess.

But he said, Lord God, how can I know that I will possess it?

He said to him, bring me a three-year-old cow, a three-year-old female goat, a three-year-old

ram, a turtle dove, and a pigeon, a young pigeon.

So he brought all these to him, split them down the middle, and laid the pieces opposite

each other.

But he did not cut up the birds.

Birds of prey came down on the carcasses, but Abraham drove them away.

As the sun was setting, a deep sleep fell on Abraham, and suddenly great terror and

darkness descended on him.

Skip down a couple verses just for time's sake to verse 17.

When the sun had set, it was dark.

A smoking fire pot and a flaming torch appeared and passed between the divided animals.

On that day, the Lord made a covenant with Abraham, saying, I give this land to you,

to your offspring.

Now, what in the world is going on with this?

What in the world is the purpose of this whole ceremony that's taking place, that Abraham

is supposed to split these animals and spread them apart?

Well, Abraham does what God says.

And then we see this smoke and this flaming pot that pass through in between these animals.

What in the world does that symbolize?

Well, what that symbolizes in the Old Testament is it symbolizes making a covenant, cutting

a covenant, quite literally cutting those animals to say, this is our bond.

This is our handshake.

This is my promise.

This is my word to say that what I have committed to and told you will be done, will be done.

Now, today, we don't really do that.

Wouldn't it be something if you went to buy a car today and you were making the deal and

they said, okay, we'll come up with a deal.

Let's split these animals and walk through it and we'll agree that the deal is done.

Well, praise the Lord, today we just have to sign 100 papers and not do that.

Or today we give a handshake, which even that's kind of going by the wayside.

You used to, you could tell somebody something and shake their hand and that was good enough.

But there's something often that is done to say, okay, this agreement that we have made,

we will both do our part and stand by what we have said.

We're both entering into this promise, into this covenant, into this agreement.

And so God had made this promise with Abraham and the custom was that those entering into

an agreement would pass between these animals.

We see this explained to us in the book of Jeremiah, Jeremiah chapter 34 verse 18.

Jeremiah 34:18

As for those who disobeyed my covenant, not keeping the terms of the covenant they made

before me, I will treat them like the calf they cut in two in order to pass between its

pieces.

The officials of Judah and Jerusalem, the court officials, the priest and all the people

of the land who pass between the pieces of the calf will be handed over to their enemies,

to those who want to take their life.

Their corpses will become food for the birds of the sky and for the wild animals of the

land.

Okay, so we have some explanation here.

The splitting of animals would occur when people were going to make a deal, going to

enter into a covenant, going to enter into a promise.

And both parties would pass between these split animals saying, hey, look, I'm telling

you that if I go back on my covenant, if I go back on keeping my end of the deal, may

it be to me as it was to these animals.

This is a pretty gnarly thing we see here.

But nonetheless, when we read this, then we begin to understand when we see that language,

when God says, I'm going to cut a covenant with you, that God literally, when he spoke

to Abraham, he literally cut a covenant with Abraham.

But notice this in Genesis, Abraham never passed between the animals.

Why is that?

Because God made the covenant.

We see in the book of Hebrews that it says, God swore by himself because there was no

one greater for him to swear by.

So God says, it is beyond your power.

It is not dependent on you for me to do what I'm promising you I'm going to do.

And in the case of the Abrahamic covenant, it was unconditional.

There were no conditions there.

God says, I'm choosing your descendants to be my people and I will bring them to the

land and I will bless all nations through them.

That was not dependent on anything that Abraham was going to do.

And so to seal the deal, to say, I'm going to keep my word, God swore by himself.

And those symbolic things that we see, the smoke and the torch, certainly those are representative

of God and who God is.

And it was God who cut the covenant.

It was God who made the promise.

And God does not go back on his promises.

And so we see this language of God's covenants all throughout the Old Testament, some unconditional,

some conditional like that of the Mosaic covenant.

There were conditions.

You do right, I'll bless you, you can stay in the land.

You do wrong, I'm going to curse you, you'll be gone from the land.

There were conditions there and God's people could not meet those conditions.

And so even though we see several covenants in the Old Testament, Jeremiah says, but there's

coming a new covenant.

There's coming a better covenant.

There's coming a more personal covenant.

There's coming a covenant that God is going to cut with his people that is going to be

stronger and better than any covenant that is going to come before.

And there will be no covenant that will come after because the covenant that will be established

will be the better covenant.

And that is the book of Hebrews.

That's what the author of Hebrews has told us repeatedly, that Jesus is better in every

way.

And so by the time we get to the New Testament, we see Jesus and right before he goes to the

cross, he's eating this Passover meal with his apostles for the last time.

And listen to what he says, Luke chapter 22, verses 19 and 20.

Luke 22:19

And he took bread, gave thanks, broke it, gave it to them and said, this is my body

which is given for you.

Do this in remembrance of me.

Now before they had the Passover, they did it in remembrance of what God did in Egypt,

of what God did through Moses.

But the Old Testament has passed.

The author of Hebrews says, there's something new that's coming.

Jesus says, there's something new that is here.

There's something new that is here and it is me.

So Jesus says, do this, not in remembrance of the old covenant, but Jesus says, do this

in remembrance of me.

So when we come and eat the Lord's Supper, we come and we do it for what purpose?

To remember who Jesus is, to remember that we are sinners, to remember that we cannot

live up to God's commands, but to remember that Jesus was perfect and that he was beaten

and that he was mocked and that he died by being nailed to a cross because he loves you.

Now that's good news.

That's the gospel message.

And Jesus said, so from now on, when you eat the bread, when you drink the wine, you do

it in remembrance of me.

Continuing on in verse 20, in the same way, he also took the cup after supper and said,

this cup is the new covenant established by my blood.

It is shed for you.

Now if there's any question as to who the new covenant was going to come through, if

there's any question as to when the new covenant was going to be established, Jesus answers

the question there.

He says, this is my blood.

This establishes the new covenant.

And it wouldn't be long after that that Jesus would be nailed to the cross and he would

shed his blood for you and I.

And what a beautiful covenant God has made with us through Jesus Christ today.

And it's a covenant that we could never live up to.

It's a covenant that he did everything for us.

God doesn't say, I'm going to send Jesus, but there's still some things that you've

got to do.

What God says was, I'm going to send Jesus because he can do the things that you cannot

do.

I'm going to send Jesus to be the perfect sacrifice.

I'm going to send Jesus to be the one who will be obedient to me.

I'm going to send Jesus and I'm going to establish the covenant.

Praise God that he has done so today through Jesus Christ.

That the words that we see in the book of Jeremiah, that the prophecies we see in the

Old Testament that were pointing us to a better Messiah, they have come and it has

been established through the crucifixion and through the resurrection of Jesus Christ today.

But we have to make the choice whether we're going to enter into that covenant.

The covenant was quite literally cut for us through Jesus Christ as they began to mock

him and as they began to beat him and his body was no doubt torn and tattered and as

he was nailed to the cross, God cut a covenant for us through Jesus Christ.

There's nothing we can do to earn God's love and to earn God's grace today.

You cannot be good enough.

Now we want to strive to live by the word of God.

We want to strive to follow the commands of God and the examples of Jesus Christ, but

we will fail.

But we praise God today that in the new covenant that our salvation is not dependent on how

good we are.

It's not dependent on us.

It is dependent on Jesus Christ.

There's nothing you can do.

Jesus has paid it all, but you have to enter into that covenant relationship by coming

to faith in Jesus Christ.

That's what we're called to do.

That's it.

Jesus has done everything for us.

The old covenant is passing away.

We see that at the end of this passage in Hebrews, Hebrews chapter 8 verse 12, for I

Hebrews 8:12

will be merciful to their wrongdoing and I will never again remember their sins.

By saying a new covenant, he has declared that the first is old and what is old is aging

and about to disappear.

The author of Hebrews is telling his audience here, look, the old way will soon be gone.

It's disappearing before our very eyes.

This was written sometime after Jesus was crucified, but eventually not long after these

words were written, everything that the Jewish people who wanted to continue to follow the

ways of the law and the ways of Moses, everything they knew would be shattered because the very

temple that they wanted to offer their sacrifices in would soon be torn down, be impossible

for them to do the old way.

The author of Hebrews says, look, the old way is disappearing, but praise God that there

is a new way that has come, that there is a new covenant that has come, that there is

a new covenant that has been established today.

Do you know who Jesus Christ is?

Do you know him as your Lord and Savior?

Do you know that there is no forgiveness of your sins apart from Jesus Christ?

Do you know that there's something better than what the world has to offer, that there's

something better than our sin, that there's something better than our struggle, that there's

something better than our pain and better than our worry and that comes through Jesus

Christ who gives us peace, who promises us deliverance for all of eternity?

In the old covenant, the promise was, I'll give you the land and I'll bless you in the

land, but in the new covenant, we are promised an eternity with Jesus Christ and a new heaven

and a new earth.

And that has been established by Jesus when he gave his life on a cross so that our sins

could be forgiven.

Have you made Jesus Christ your Lord and Savior?

Have you asked him to forgive you of your sins?

Have you repented today?

Have you entered into that covenant relationship with God?

Now, I'm not asking you, do you go to church a lot?

I'm not asking you that.

I'm asking you, do you know who Jesus is?

We don't want to be those who play Christian.

We don't want to be those who go to church and do some good things every once in a while

and assume that'll be enough.

We don't want to be fake Christians.

We want to be those who genuinely know who Jesus is.

We genuinely want to trust him.

We want to live with him.

And I'm asking you this morning, do you really know him?

Have you really put your faith in him?

Is he really the Lord of your life?

I pray today that if you have not put your faith in Jesus Christ that you would.

Here at a moment, we're going to have a time of invitation.

What does that mean?

It means we invite you today.

That if you've repented, if you've put your faith in Jesus Christ, if you've turned to

him, we invite you.

I invite you to come forward as we sing.

We want to baptize you.

We want to rejoice with you.

We want to celebrate this day.

We want to celebrate every time someone enters into the new covenant that Jesus established.

We want to celebrate that.

So today I ask you, do you know who Jesus is?

If you don't, I pray today for you leave that you would.

Let's pray.

God, we come to you.

We thank you for your good word.

And we thank you for taking care of us, dear Lord.

We are so pitiful, God.

We are so pitiful at trying to live by your word.

We do good some days and other days, God, we just blow it.

Dear Lord, we see your commands.

We know your commands.

And some days, dear Lord, we just give in to the temptations.

I pray that you forgive us, God.

I pray that you'd be with any today that may be trying to earn your grace through their

life.

They may be trying to earn their salvation through their works, God.

We see time and again in the Old Testament that we are incapable.

God, you give us your command, you give us your way, and your way was perfect.

And time and time again, dear Lord, we see Israel fail to live up to what your word commands.

And dear Lord, if we had been back in those times, we'd have been no better because we're

no better today.

So God, we thank you for sending us a better way.

We thank you for cutting a better covenant for us through Jesus Christ.

We thank you for providing one that could do the things that we are incapable of.

But God, I pray today that if there are some that do not know Jesus Christ as their Savior

and Lord, I pray today that they would.

Even right now where they stand, dear Lord, I pray that you'd bless them.

I pray that you'd convict them.

I pray that if they don't know Jesus, that they would come to you and that they would

repent of their sins, dear Lord.

That they would put their faith in Jesus today to make him the King of their life.

I pray that they would ask you to forgive them of their sins, dear Lord.

And your word says, as we saw today, that for those who enter into the new covenant,

you'll remember their sins no more, dear Lord.

God, I pray that if there are any that do not know Jesus today, they would pray that

he'd be their Lord.

God, I pray that they would feel that peace that comes through the Holy Spirit to know

God that when we call on you, when we trust in you, that you are in us, dear Lord, that

you work in us.

God, I thank you for each one who's here.

I pray that you'd bless them.

I pray for those who are yours today, God.

I pray that if there's any struggle going on, any pain going on, any hardship going

on, that you would help them and heal them and give them peace today by being in your

house.

I pray that you bless the reading of your word.

And I ask these things in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Amen.

As we stand and sing, if God has spoken to you in some way today, now's your chance to

respond.

Amen.

Amen.

Thank y'all for coming this morning.

I hope everybody has been blessed by being in the house of God, and I hope to see you

all next week.

Brother Sidney, would you close us with a prayer, please?

Lord, you give me something for the meaning of death.