"A Better Covenant" - Hebrews 8

All right, if you've got a Bible, we're going to be in Hebrews 8.

We're going to do something extremely rare this morning.

We're going to get through a whole chapter in less than three hours.

I promise we're going to do it. Thank you. Thank you.

It's the little things that I do for you guys that I hope you don't miss.

Well, last week we talked a little more about Jesus and his priesthood.

And this week, the author has been making this point for about three chapters.

The importance of Jesus' priesthood, and he's dug into Melchizedek and why that matters,

why Jesus being a priesthood and the order of Melchizedek matters,

and how the Aaronic priesthood or the Levitical priesthood is not as good as

that one, that the new priesthood is better in so many ways.

And he gets into chapter eight and he begins by saying, now the point and what we are saying is this.

So he's saying, listen, everything I've told you in the last three chapters, this is the point.

This is what I've been trying to get you to see.

Just as a quick reminder, we made it clear last week again, but we'll double down this week,

that the reason he takes so much time on this subject is because he knows he's

not asking them to change their plans on Sundays from 10 to 12, right?

He's asking them to change every single part of their life.

He's asking them to change how they spend their money and how they spend their

time and how they raise their kids and how they talk to people and how they

treat people, where they work and how they work.

He knows that if this is true, if what he's saying is true and they believe

this, then every single thing about their lives will change.

That's number one. Number two, we said again last week that their lives will

be in danger from here on out, especially where they live at this point in this time.

Christianity was not something that people looked at and thought was a positive.

They were putting their lives at risk. They were putting their families at risk.

They were putting their jobs at risk.

The writer of Hebrews knows that if the people that I'm writing to actually

believe this, it will cost them everything.

And so when you read something like this and he says, man, why did this guy

take three chapters to tell us one thing?

Because the one thing he needs to tell them will change everything about their lives.

Again, not just where they go to church on Sundays or what kind of Bible they

read, that it'll change everything about what he's doing.

And that's one reason we're so adamant about walking through the scriptures

the way that we do here, because we believe that if you believe this,

it'll change every single thing about you,

that over time, God will still work in you, that you'll look back 10 years from

now and go, man, I'm a completely different person than I was 10 years ago.

God has done a mighty work in my life. That's what we want to do this morning.

So as we always do, let's just begin in verse one.

Again, he says, now the point and what we are saying is this,

we have such a high priest, one who is seated at the right hand of the throne

of the majesty in heaven,

a minister in the holy places in the true tent that the Lord set up, not man.

So again, we've talked about all these theological concepts,

and I think at times we can get lost in that.

I love reading theology books. It's one of my favorite things in the world to do.

I can almost get lost in it and figuring out what all the terms mean and going

down these rabbit holes.

And what did they think about that in the second century? And what did they think about that?

And why are people fighting over it? Maybe I should get on Facebook and fight

over it too. I don't know, but it's neither here nor there.

But if you get into those theological concepts, like the priesthood of Aaron

and Levi or Melchizedek or why Jesus is more qualified,

we often get lost in the fact that there's got to be a practical on the ground

day-to-day reason that these things exist.

We don't read our Bibles simply to argue about them. Maybe you do.

I don't know. It's your thing. My dad used to tell this story all the time.

His dad was a pastor growing up, and his grandpa was also a pastor.

And those two people, my great, would have been my great, great grandpa,

and my great grandpa would show up at each other's house.

They would know they were coming, and they would have on the back patio a table

with two glasses of tea and a Bible.

My dad would say, what we knew when we rolled up is what was about to happen

was his mom and the two kids would walk inside with his brother and they would

hang out with grandma and that grandpa and his dad were about to argue and they

would sit on the back patio.

They would argue for hours and hours and hours.

And as far as I could tell, there was no resolution in that.

One of them just died before the other one. So the argument ended.

I guess that's how arguments end in church is either somebody leaves or dies or something like that.

And I'm sure those conversations were awesome to be in. I'm sure that they all

felt really joyous and calm on the way out.

And certainly some things are worth arguing about, but the point I wanna make

is you don't read your Bible just to learn things.

Don't read your Bible just to have memory verses in your brain.

You don't read your Bible just so you can answer theological questions to your

neighbors and unbelieving friends.

You read your Bible first and foremost to get to know who God is,

to get to see who Jesus Christ is, and from that, be a new creature, a new creation,

that you are to be changing, you are to be growing, you are to be moving towards something.

And maybe the quickest way for you to understand whether or not you're in a

healthy relationship with the one true God of the universe is,

are you growing? Are you changing?

Can you see God working in you? No matter how spiritually mature you've gotten,

I promise you, you haven't matured past who Christ is, there's always somewhere for you to grow into.

That's the point. And so that's what he's trying to say here is, hey, here's the point.

Here's the point. He said, what's the point? We have a high priest and he's

seated at the right hand of God.

Again, he's writing to Hebrews. And so these Hebrew Christians have non-Christian Hebrew friends,

and they were probably getting in these conversations, maybe over some glasses

of tea on the back patio about Christianity versus Judaism and these Hebrews

are trying to bring these Jewish believers back from Christianity.

And they're even saying things like, listen, we don't mind if you believe in Jesus.

We just want you to still be Jewish. We still want you to go to the temple and

we still want you to do all the things that God has asked for you to do.

And so let's just come up with like a hybrid system here.

And I would imagine one of the major sticking points is whenever they would

look at them and go, well, you in

Christianity, you don't even have a high priest. You don't have a temple.

You don't have any way to get your sins forgiven. You don't have anybody to

go talk to God on your behalf.

They're sitting on the back patio and they're going, where's your high priest?

Who's atoning for your sins? What do you mean you don't have that?

What do you mean there's no temple? What do you mean that those things don't exist?

And the writer of Hebrews gets straight to the point. He says,

no, you have a high priest and he is seated at the right hand of God.

That's the rebuttal. That's the rebuttal.

He says something really interesting. He says that he's seated.

Again, this doesn't really stick out to us, but to them, that would have mattered.

If you go read Exodus and you read how God set up the tabernacle and ultimately

how God set up the temple, he gives very explicit instructions about what size

it's supposed to be and what's it supposed to look like and what's supposed to be inside of it.

And there's a lot of things in that tabernacle and in that temple and in the Holy of Holies.

But what's not in any of those places is a seat.

There's nowhere to sit down in the tabernacle or in the temple in the Old Testament.

And that's very symbolic because what that means is, listen,

if you're a priest, your work is never done.

You don't go into God's presence to sit down.

If you go into God's presence, you go into God's presence to offer a sacrifice,

to offer atonement, to do something for people because your work is never finished.

There's always another sin to atone for.

There's always another sacrifice to do. There's always another work to accomplish.

There's no reason for you to ever sit down next to God, but not so with Jesus.

His sacrifice offered up was a sacrifice that God accepted once and for all.

There's no need for another sacrifice.

There's no need for more work to be done. He famously says on the cross,

it is finished. And this is what he means. My work is complete.

And he goes to the right hand of the father and he does what he sits down.

Something that no high priest has ever been able to say that they walked into

God's presence and sat down and rested next to the father.

Jesus is a greater high priest. He says this earlier in Hebrews, Hebrews 7, 27.

Jesus has no need like those high priests,

in other words, every other human high priest that ever existed to offer sacrifices

daily, first for his own sins and then for those of the people,

since he did this once for all when he offered himself up.

Jesus sits down. He is a greater high priest. Verse 2 draws our attention to

this, again, the tabernacle.

It says that he's in a true tent or a tabernacle. Let me read that one more time.

Verse 2, it says he's a minister in the holy places in the true tent,

depending on which Bible translation you have.

And I actually like this a little better than mine. Mine says tent,

yours may say tabernacle.

And I think that's a better word because it really does flesh out what the writer is trying to say.

He's trying to say that Jesus' ministry that he currently executes on his people's

behalf as a high priest takes place not in a temporary tent or a temple that

will one day be torn down,

that his ministry takes place at the right hand of the Father.

The place where Jesus sits is not made by human hands.

The tabernacle was God's temporary solution to a permanent problem,

and Jesus is the permanent solution.

Again, some of these words and some of these concepts don't mean as much to

us as it would to them, but I hope

you're at least hearing in my voice the importance of what he's saying,

the importance of what he's trying to get them to see, that Jesus,

God's permanent solution to sin takes his permanent place in the eternal tabernacle

where God dwells to constantly make intercession for his people.

No more temples, no more tabernacles, no more goats, no more sheep, no more atoning.

Jesus accomplishes it all. He goes on in verse three, for every high priest

is appointed to offer gifts and sacrifices.

Thus it is necessary for this priest also to have something to offer.

This is really simple logic. This is really simple logic. Listen,

what is the point of a priest?

It's to bring sacrifices to God. So a sacrificer requires a sacrifice.

What does Jesus bring as a sacrifice? He tells us in John 10,

18, he says, no one takes my life from me, but I lay it down of my own accord.

I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again.

This charge I have received from my father, he brings his own life.

He knows that no sacrifice that he could ever bring would fully forgive his people from their sins.

And so he brings his own life. He goes on in verse four.

Now, if he were on earth, he would not be a priest at all.

Since there are priests who offer gifts according to the law,

they serve a copy and a shadow of heavenly things.

For when Moses was about to erect the tent, the tabernacle, he was instructed

by God saying, see that you make everything according to the pattern that was

shown you in the mountain.

What's the first thing he wants you to know in verse four? Jesus doesn't even

qualify as a high priest on earth.

If Jesus, while he was walking around, no matter how many miracles he did,

no matter how many wonderful things he accomplished, would have walked in to

the temple and said, hey, I'm your new high priest.

I'm here to do some sacrifices. They would have laughed him out of it.

That would have been crazy. and for Jesus to call himself a teacher of the law

and to think that he could have

done that would have completely undermined everything that he had done.

So again, he reiterates, Jesus doesn't make his sacrifice in the temple,

but directly to God. And how does he do that?

Verse five tells us that that original tabernacle was, it says a copy and a

shadow of heavenly things.

This is where it gets a little hard to just tell you what's going on,

and you kind of have to read the text and just trust the text.

Verse 5 tells us that if you go read Exodus 25, verses 9 and verse 40 tell us

Exodus 25:9

that when Moses was given the original blueprints for the tabernacle,

they were deemed after a pattern, that there was a pattern that God was basing

the tabernacle on. So what does that mean?

You take Hebrews, you take Exodus, copies and shadows of heavenly things, that there's a pattern.

Well, the implication is that there is a temple, that there is a tabernacle in heaven.

What does that exactly look like? I do not know. But I know it looks a lot like

what he says the tabernacle looked like in Exodus 25, that he makes it clear

that those things exist in heaven.

This is a good place to stop and just say, when we think about heaven,

we think about clouds and streets and mansions.

Heaven is a real place.

There's real beings there.

There's really things happening.

There's work being done. It's not this ethereal, spiritual realm that we pass

over into and then everything changes.

You won't be in heaven forever. You'll be on the new heavens and the new earth,

and there will be jobs to do.

There will be places to go. There will be things that God has intended for us to do.

And in the same way, from Exodus 25, we see that this tabernacle that God gives

to Moses wasn't just thought up out of thin air.

It wasn't just God in heaven going, well, you know, I think the walls would

look good in this color, right? He wasn't remodeling a bathroom.

He wasn't trying to figure out what the tile was supposed to be.

He wasn't like tapping on the Archangel Michael's shoulder and being like,

what do you think about beige?

You know, like what, how do you feel about that?

No, there was a temple. There is a place in heaven where God dwells and he models

his earthly tabernacle after that.

The implication that the writer of Hebrews wants us to see is that that model

and that shadow is where every high priest that ever existed made their sacrifice.

This copy of the original is where they did their work. And what does Jesus do?

Jesus does his work in the original, in the perfect one, in the permanent one.

His sacrifice is done, not as a copy or a shadow, but as its perfect,

eternal, intended thing that he has done in front of the Lord.

This is where Jesus lays his sacrifice. Again, for the Jews,

the temple was the center of their life.

And for you to say what he's saying, hey, you don't really need that anymore.

You don't need those things. You don't have to go there. You don't need that

high priest. Those things are gone.

They would have thought that cannot be true.

That cannot be true. This is the only way we know how to come to God.

And the writer of Hebrews is saying, well, that's a really terrible way to do it.

Yes, you have a temple. You have a copy of what is the original.

Yeah, you have a high priest, but he's not perfect. He's corrupt.

And he wants these Christians to know when they come to you and they say,

where are all these things? You can say, oh, our temple is in heaven.

Our high priest is perfect. And he sits down at the right hand of God.

And the sacrifice for our sins was not a goat or a sheep.

It was God's own son who said, even at the last supper, this is my blood of the new covenant.

What are the implications for us in that? Well, listen, people will always beg

you to accept cheap copies of what Christ offers you. Always.

Every false Christian religion is a cheap copy. It's a cheap knockoff.

I used to have a professor who used to always say, they're always trying to offer you Dr.

Thunder while keeping Dr. Pepper away from you.

Now, full disclosure, and I

can say this in honesty because I know you all love me and won't judge me.

I hate Dr. Pepper. I don't think it's any good, but that example always stuck

with me because when we would talk about different religions,

we would talk about different Christian quote unquote cults.

It was amazing the things that they tried to keep in it while always denying this.

This is what they would always deny, that all you need to do is put your faith

and trust in Jesus Christ and you will be saved. Your sins will be forgiven.

He is your high priest. He is in the temple and he will pray for you.

There's always something else. There's always some more work to do.

It's never Jesus has done the work for you. It's always, well,

yeah, Jesus loves you, but you've got some more sacrifices to make if you really want to be saved.

Not Jesus has been the perfect sacrifice given for you.

Or maybe the most popular thing, especially today, is you can come to God on your own terms.

You know, God loves you and he wants you to be happy and he wants you to be

all the things that you feel like you're supposed to be.

So whatever you think you're supposed to be and wherever you think you're supposed

to go and whatever you think you're supposed to do, you just grab Jesus' hand

and take him wherever you want to go.

None of those things are true. They're all cheap knockoffs. For the Jews,

it was the temple and the priesthood.

It wasn't really a knockoff. It had just become obsolete. It didn't matter anymore.

For us in the room, I don't know what yours is. I don't know what the temptation

is, but I promise you it's a knockoff. It's a knockoff of what God offers you.

Satan doesn't create anything new. He corrupts what is.

That's what he's done. Verses six and seven, let's keep going.

He says, but as it is, Christ has obtained a ministry that is much more excellent than the old.

Again, I wish I could help you understand better what kind of fighting words these were.

It's like he's standing up in front of the church like, I dare you to say I'm wrong.

I will fight anyone about this because you know there's people in the congregation

that are saying, wait, you're saying that my grandpa was wrong and my great grandpa was wrong.

And you're saying Abraham was wrong. You're saying Moses was wrong.

And he's saying, no, I'm not saying they're wrong.

I'm saying it doesn't matter anymore. That as great as those things were,

they're obsolete, right?

The Jesus is much more excellent than the old.

He says in the middle of verse six, as the covenant, I keep forgetting to have

that on the screen for you, right?

As the covenant, he mediates is better since it is enacted on better promises.

Says in verse seven, for if that first covenant had been faultless,

there would have been no occasion to look for a second.

It's really simple. Again, the new and better covenant has come.

Why are you still looking at the old one?

That old tabernacle and the old priesthood was a mediator between God and man,

but it was an insufficient mediator.

It was a system temporarily put in place to offer God's people away to him,

but it was always meant to be temporary.

Jesus offers you a new and better covenant. I quoted earlier from Luke 22,

when Jesus at the Last Supper says, this cup that is poured out for you is the

new covenant in my blood.

Jesus says, my death will be what ushers in this new covenant for you.

We get a covenant is simply the way that God relates to his people.

God makes a covenant with his people. He says, this is how we're going to have

a relationship. This is how we're going to interact with each other.

Again, this is where it gets very practical is there are so many Christians,

and I think people who genuinely love God and want to follow him and want to

do what God has said, but for whatever reason, they still live in an old covenant mindset.

Before we read this quoted Old Testament passage here, I just want you to answer

this question in your mind.

It says that this new covenant is based on better promises.

That's the question. Whose promise matters?

Do you want to know whether or not you live in an Old Testament way of thinking

about God and his covenant or a New Testament way about thinking about God and his covenant?

Answer that question. Whose promise matters?

Yours or God's? Yours or God's?

In Exodus 19, we see that God making this old covenant with his people.

Moses has gone up to Mount Sinai. He's received the Ten Commandments. He's received the law.

He comes down to tell the people what has happened. And this is what we see.

Again, Exodus 19, starting in verse 3, he says, While Moses went up to God,

the Lord called to him out of the mountain, saying, Thus you shall say to the

house of Jacob and tell the people of Israel,

You yourselves have seen what I did to the Egyptians and how before you on eagles

wings I brought you to myself,

Now therefore If you will indeed obey my voice If you will keep my covenant,

you shall be my treasured possession among all peoples for all the earth is mine,

You shall be to me a kingdom of priest And a holy nation,

These are the words that you shall speak to the people of Israel.

So Moses comes down and calls the elders to the people and sets before them

all these words that the Lord commanded.

What do the people say? What do you think the people say?

All that the Lord has spoken, we will do.

Moses reported the words of the people to the Lord. All that the Lord has spoken, we will do.

Now, you do not have to read the Old Testament very much to know that was a lie.

That was a lie with probably within the first day they said it.

And imagine all the things that they had seen, right? God makes it clear right

there that they saw all the plagues in Egypt.

They saw God do all of those things. They saw as they're walking out of Egypt,

they're plundering Egypt.

They're taking all this money and all this stuff with them. They saw God do that.

They saw God part the sea and they saw him swallow up Pharaoh's army.

They saw God come down on Mount Sinai.

They saw all of these wonderful things.

And so you're thinking, surely these are the people that when God tells them

to do something, they're going to do something.

They don't. They don't.

I like to think maybe like you like to think if I would have seen something

like that, if I would have experienced that, man, I would never do anything

that God didn't want me to do.

I would always keep my promises to God. I would always be where God wanted me to be.

But if you're honest with yourself, you know that that's not true of you either.

And we assume at times that the reason we don't obey is because we don't know.

You've probably heard that phrase before. Well, if you know better, you do better.

They knew everything. They did know better.

Many of us in here have grown up in church. We know better.

We know what we're supposed to do. We know how we're supposed to act.

We know how we're supposed to do things.

Has that, look back at your life. Has that made you do everything right?

Again, this is the problem with the old covenant. The problem with the old covenant

is not that it's a covenant made with God. It's not that it's got rules and regulations.

It's not that the law is hard to keep. The problem with the old covenant is

that it's based on your promise.

It's based on what you do. It's based on what the people said at the base of that mountain.

We will do everything that you said, knowing they can.

That's the problem with the old covenant. Whose promise matters in the old covenant? Theirs does.

God's gonna keep up his end. Go read your Old Testament.

I encourage it, obviously. Read kings, read judges, read the prophets,

read what happens to God's people because they don't hold up their end of the covenant.

He does exactly what he says he's going to do.

And they find themselves outside of the promised land, dispersed into Assyria,

dispersed all over the place as slaves.

They no longer have a place to call their home.

And you find them even in the first century as they're writing Hebrews,

pretty much slaves to Rome, doing whatever Rome tells them to do,

how Rome tells them to do it, with corrupt priests and corrupt temples and.

All because that covenant depended on those promises that they mattered.

But what makes the new covenant better?

What makes the new covenant better? He says this, if you get into verse eight,

he's going to quote Jeremiah 31.

If you want to write that down and go read that later, I encourage you to.

You quote Jeremiah 31, he says, for he finds fault with them when he says,

now what does he find fault with?

He says he finds fault with them. Well, he finds fault with the old covenant.

God finds fault with the old covenant, ultimately because the old covenant depends

on people and he always finds fault with people. But this is what he says.

Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, but I will establish a new covenant

with the house of Israel, with the house of Judah.

Not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took

them by the hand out of Egypt to bring them,

for they did not continue in my covenant And so I showed no concern for them, declares the Lord.

Doesn't sound like the nice God that I got to know, right?

Doesn't sound like flannel graph, veggie tells Jesus. He showed no concern for them.

He showed concern for them in the sense that he kept his end of the covenant.

He did exactly what he said he would do, but they didn't, right?

They didn't. Again, the issue is not the covenant. It's me.

I'm the problem with the old covenant. It's my lack of trust and my lack of

obedience, my lack of ability to keep the law, my lack of desire to keep the

law is the problem with the old covenant.

So what does God do? We've done this before, but I'm going to read through this

again, and I want you to do the eye test. Look at the eyes.

Who's doing the work? Who's doing the work?

I'm going to read it one more time. God speaking through his prophet Jeremiah

says this, behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will establish

a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah.

Not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took

them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, for they did not continue in my covenant.

So I showed no concern for them, declares the Lord. Now here you go.

Here's your eye test. Be looking here.

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 into their minds and

write it on their hearts.

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

They shall not teach each one his neighbor and each one his brother saying, know the Lord,

for they shall all know me from the least of them to the greatest,

for I will be merciful toward their iniquities and I will remember their sins

no more. Who's doing the work?

Who's doing the work when you read that passage?

Remember in Exodus, after God gives the covenant, what do you see happen?

The people of God look at God and they say, we will do all that you command. And they don't.

What is the new covenant? The new covenant is God says, I will give you a new

heart to keep those commands.

I will give you new eyes to see.

I will give you a new heart that understands and loves who I am.

I will be merciful towards your iniquities.

I will remember your sins no more. He will do it.

He is the one that does the work in the new covenant. He is the one that accomplishes

everything in the new covenant.

He is the one that comes to his people and says, I know you cannot do this.

I will do this. And I will do this by sending my one and only son who will live

a perfect life, die a perfect death, and his life will be the culmination of the old covenant.

Remember, Jesus says, I don't come to abolish the law. I come to fulfill it.

Jesus keeps the law. Jesus does everything God asked him to do.

Jesus is what we would say true Israel should be.

It's as if Jesus stood at the base of Mount Sinai and heard all the commands

and all of the law that God gave to him.

And he says to his father, all that you have said, I will do.

And he's the only one that ever did it.

And yet he is treated like every single person that didn't keep it.

So that every single person that God calls that didn't keep it could be treated like him.

That's the new covenant. And yet so many of us live in the old covenant where

we look at God and we go, all right, God, what do I need to do?

Tell me, just tell me what to do. How much money do I need to get?

How much do I need to go really? How awake do I need to stay?

How loud do I need to sing? How many aisles do I need to walk?

How many baptisms do I need to get?

How many church camps do I have to suffer through if you like church camp? No offense.

How many of those things do I have to do for you to bless me,

for you to give me what I want?

That's the old covenant way of

thinking. You would say, I don't really do that. I don't think that way.

Let something go wrong and see how you think.

When things start going wrong is your first thought, and I wonder what I did wrong.

I wonder why God's doing this to me, right?

And if you lived in the old covenant, that would be a right way of thinking,

but you don't live in that covenant.

Flip side is also true. What happens when everything's going right?

You look at your life and go, look at all that I've done. Do you sound like

King Nebuchadnezzar in the Old Testament? Look at my kingdom.

Look at all these wonderful things that I've built.

When you live in old covenant ways of thinking, you will find yourself in one

of two places, self-loathing or self- righteousness.

That's the only places you'll find yourself, where you will constantly feel

like God has his thumb on you,

that nothing is ever right, that he's always angry with you,

that every time you pop a tire or your fridge goes out or there's a leaky roof,

that you've done something to deserve that punishment from heaven and you just

need to accept it and get over with yourself until you die, you dirty worm.

That's one way of going about it. The flip side of that is you don't do anything

wrong. It's all these other dummies.

When you get a pop tire, it's always what kind of idiot would leave that in the road.

When your fridge breaks, it's always, well, if Frigidaire would get their act

together and make a fridge that would last more than five years,

it's just everything is about you.

And if they would let you build the fridge and you design the tires and you

make the roads and you run the country, everything would be right because you're always right.

Because God's blessed you. And that means, man, I must be doing the right things.

Both of those are terrible places to be.

The right place to be is exactly where the new covenant puts us,

which is I am blessed by God, not because of what I have or don't have.

I am blessed by God because I have access to him through the perfect work of

my perfect high priest, Jesus Christ,

that I never have to make another sacrifice for my sins, that God has done that

for me by sending his son to do it on my behalf, right?

Whose promises do you live by?

Your promises that you make to God or his promises that he makes to you?

He finishes this chapter in verse 13. He says, in speaking of a new covenant.

Remember one of these days, right? And speaking of a new covenant,

he makes the first one obsolete.

What is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away.

How does he close verse 13?

Give up this old way of thinking.

Stop thinking that way. Stop depending on those things.

Stop looking for sacrifices you can make or things you can do that you might

think God will be happy with and so he'll bless you.

Stop thinking that you've done enough, that you've sacrificed the most,

that you've given the most, that you've given enough of yourself where God should

bless you and he owes you something.

Both of those are old covenant ways of thinking. The new covenant is God has loved me in Christ.

And whether I have nothing or I have everything does not matter.

I know that God's favor and blessing is on me not because of a promise I made

to him but because of a promise he made to me let's pray.

As always again thank you for this morning thank you for your word thank you

that we can open it freely where we live we can read it we can study it God I pray that we would take,

the words of the writer of Hebrews to heart first and foremost that we would

be reminded that this Bible is not meant to change parts of our schedule or parts of our lives,

that it's made to introduce us to the King of kings and the Lord of lords, Jesus Christ.

Who is truly the sovereign Lord over all things.

Every breath we take, every dollar we have, every bit of time that we're given belongs to Him.

And God, we want to give that to Him. We want to do that in the way that we

can do that in a right way to bring him glory and praise.

But God, we don't want to fall into thinking that the way to bring Jesus Christ

glory is to try and keep the law.

Way to bring Jesus Christ's glory is to try and do what only he can do.

God, obviously we want to love you. We want to be obedient to what you call us to.

We want to do the things that you've asked us to do and live our lives in a way that honors you.

But God, the way that we show that you are deserving of all glory,

honor, and praise is not to look at what we've promised you,

but to praise you for the promises you've made to us.

That you have written your law in our hearts. That you've given us new eyes

and new ears, that you have forgiven our iniquities, and you have forgiven our sins.

God, we thank you for that. Be with us as we go. In your name I pray. Amen.

We're going to take like a two-minute break, and then we'll go right into the

business meeting. It won't take too long.

Again, everyone is more than welcome to stay. We just ask that if there's a

vote, that only members vote for obvious reasons.

We got to meet real quick. We got to do our job.

Wake up, dude. Get hype. Get hype for the business meeting.

Hey, where are you going? Whoa, whoa, whoa. Hey, hey, hey, hey.

Hey, hey, hey, look at me. Relax. Look at me. Relax. Relax.

Oh, please. I don't think so. Why don't you spend some stuff at the city?

Hey, you got to be in there for the business meeting, bro. You're a member. Yes.

The business meeting and offer your thoughts. Well, okay. Don't do that. Just be in there.

All right. So financial report, I put both on there.

I don't know if we need to, but this was basically just this year, snapshot of this year.

This is everything. So these are our grand totals, everything that's come in,

everything that's come out the whole time we've had an account.

This is just the first five months. Does that make sense?

I figured that'd give people an idea kind of what we've done this year versus

what we've done last year, where we're at.

If we just look at these five months versus where we're at, Hey, what's up, dude?

Yes. Yes. Yes. Sorry. Sorry. Yeah. That's how she broke it out.

And I thought that's probably fine.

Easier for people to understand. I didn't understand how the dates worked up.

It should say, I think the reason it looks weird is this should be one, one 24.

In other words, this is from 24, anything that happened in 24 through 25 this

one is just 2025 but it makes the way they get printed make it look a little

weird okay so we brought in 87 totals yes we've only spent 13 6 correct,

it's uh like if you look at this one even just this yeah what

do we have in the bank today

that's what's left at the bottom we got

73 in the bank yes yeah so it's

the 87 minus the 13 you've

spent yeah and then this one is

just this year just yeah so basically after

all the initial giving we had last year what this looks like

we've brought in 33 spent 12

20 yeah so this

year we're 21 in the black is basically what that means

okay on the front does anybody

want to take specific things i don't mind taking i can

do the financial okay use the financial i'll do this i'll do these two it's

fine do you want to do anything well i thought we might give a little update

on like the back patio thing just to make sure people understand where we're

at that's still on the board we just need to kind of other things you need to

be open you're like listen yeah,

Stuff called real money. That's right. That's right.

Yeah. Aaron and me don't need to. Yeah.

Exactly. Yeah. These are real issues. Yeah. God is providing. That's right.

We started, we said we were going to start Bible study. I left my phone up there

the week after. So September. Is that?

July. July, sorry. The week, the Sunday after July 4th. That's right.

After the fourth weekend, yes. Sorry.

I'm thinking school in my head. That's not what I meant to say.

It's the Sunday after July. July 4th is Friday. Did you get it?

We tried to get it the whole time we were in here. 6 or 7, July 13th.

I'll look when I get in there on my phone. I have it written on my phone.

I just forgot to bring it in. All right. End break.

Good. Travis can watch them. That's fine. That's it. That can be his.

Before we get started, does everybody have Agenda? No? Yes, maybe?

Wonderful. Aw, thanks, man.

Kara said she passed them out, so if they don't have them, they can yell at

her. I'm kidding. Don't do that.

Yeah. Alright, let me pray, and we'll get started.

Father, thank you for this church. God, we haven't been around for very long,

but we've seen already so many incredible blessings, and not the least of which

is every single person in this room.

God, like I said before, I know we've got some out with sickness or that are

traveling. I just pray that you'd continue to be with them.

God, we're thankful that you've given us the opportunity to do this,

that you've given us the opportunity to plant what we hope is a healthy church

that's based solely on your word and what it is you've called us to do.

God, that we wouldn't get lost in trying to be something we're not or trying

to fit ourselves into tradition or what we think people will like.

But God, that we would just be what it is you've called us to be.

That's lights in the world. May I pray. Amen.