Covenant Present // Pastor Bobby

I want to share with you a couple things,

because there's some cool things happening.

And, you know,

I look back,

I get to look back now,

you know,

being where I am and with a lot of young guys on staff and all that sort

of thing.

I'm a little loud,

Chris, because it's going to get worse,

just so you know.

He didn't hear me.

I'm a little loud,

just so you know.

And it'll get worse,

I promise.

But anyway,

two of my mentors have retired in the last couple of years.

Don Wilton,

who was the pastor at first Baptist Spartanburg,

was my preaching professor in seminary,

and he was my evangelism professor in seminary.

And so if I can remember when I preached in class to an examination,

this was like our test for our preaching class,

right? And I did this several times during the message.

And so when he did my evaluation,

he said to me,

you ready?

He said,

don't do spider fingers.

That's like,

a long time ago.

And I remember that.

Right.

And then another of my mentors is the first pastor I served with at a

seminary, Doctor Tommy Green.

He's been the executive director in Florida for the last several years.

I mean,

long time now,

since 90.

I know.

I can't remember how long he's been.

Anyway, he retires this year and got an invitation to his retirement

party. So I just mentioned that because it's interesting to get things

like that in the mail and consider kind of what has given shape to our

lives. Right?

Because we're in the book of Hebrews,

and we're still talking about,

my drawing disappeared.

It's up here somewhere.

But we're still talking about the object of our faith.

We're talking about Jesus.

I mean,

the Book of Hebrews is all about Jesus.

It points out in scripture,

in the Old Testament,

what the old covenant,

the first covenant,

points to in the messiah and in Christ.

And then it takes the work of Jesus,

the person and work of Jesus throughout the New Testament and kind of

gives us the shape of what God planned,

what he intended,

what he provided for throughout scripture.

So when I look at the book of Hebrews,

and as we've taken it apart over the last five and a half months now,

we start to realize that the book of Hebrews kind of knits it all

together for us in a way that gives us the,

you know,

I like that phrase in that song,

a sure foundation.

We start to look at this and go,

wow. Well,

that makes sense.

And so we're in Hebrews,

chapter nine,

because here's what's happening,

y'all? The book of Hebrews just keeps repeating itself in establishing

who we are in Christ,

in establishing our identity in Christ and telling us what God has

accomplished and what he has provided for us.

All right,

so Hebrews,

chapter nine,

verses eleven through 22.

It's a long passage,

so you're going to just have to endure me reading it.

But here we go.

But Christ.

See, that is the start of it.

But Christ has appeared as a high priest of the good thing that have come

in the greater and more perfect tabernacle.

Not made with hands,

that is,

not of this creation.

He entered the most holy place once for all time,

not by the blood of goats and calves,

but by his own blood,

having obtained eternal redemption.

For if the blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a young cow

sprinkling those who are defiled sanctify for the purification of the

flesh, how much more with the blood of Christ,

who through the eternal spirit,

offered himself without blemish to God,

cleanse our consciences from dead works so that we can serve the living

God. Verse 15.

Therefore, he is the mediator of a new covenant,

so that those who are called might receive the promise of the eternal

inheritance. Because a death has taken place for redemption from the

transgressions committed under the first covenant,

where a will exists,

or that can be translated covenant,

testament, a number of things.

But where a will exists,

the death of the one who made it must be established.

For a will is valid only when people die,

so it is never in effect while the one who made it is living.

That's why even the first covenant was inaugurated with blood.

For when every command had been proclaimed by Moses to all the people

according to the law,

he took the blood of calves and goats,

along with scarlet wool and hyssop,

and sprinkled the scroll itself and all the people saying,

this is the blood of the covenant that God has ordained for you.

In the same way he sprinkled the tabernacle and all the articles of

worship with blood.

According to the law,

almost everything is purified with blood.

And without the shedding of blood,

there is no forgiveness.

All right.

Long passage.

Let's kind of consider it.

Pray with me.

Father, thank you for your word,

God. I just thank you that you've explained it all to us.

I thank you,

God, that you revealed yourself.

Genesis to revelation.

You have shown us yourself.

You've shown us what you planned,

desired, what you have accomplished.

And God,

even in this,

that little word,

those who are called God,

thank you for calling our names.

Thank you for adopting us and making us yours.

God. Now,

by your spirit,

by your strength,

by your power,

help us to live that calling,

that identity.

And we pray it in Jesus name.

Amen.

It's interesting when you consider scripture,

that there are a lot of different schools of thought in scripture.

A lot of people think a lot of different things about what the Bible

says. And one of the things schools of thought is a reference to covenant

or covenant theology and the various covenants that are established

throughout scripture.

And, you know,

I've always said,

you know,

when I start to put God's word and God in a system,

then I'm the one that's establishing the understanding,

and I am finite and God is infinite.

So there,

I'm going to tell you what essentially are six covenants that are

identified in scripture.

Some of them are between God and an individual,

but have an impact on a broader community.

Two of them specifically are what the book of Hebrews talks about.

So here you go.

You got the,

what is referred to as the adamic covenant,

where in the curse,

God said to Adam,

you know,

because of your sin,

you're gonna have to work.

You're gonna have to work all the rest of your days just to provide for

yourself.

Then you got the Noah covenant,

which God said to Noah,

guess what?

From here on out,

no more floods.

I will not destroy the word by the world by flood.

And here's my bow in the heavens,

which I,

years ago,

wanted to get me a bumper sticker even before the.

The more current craziness that's going on now.

But back in the nineties,

I wanted to have a bumper sticker made that just said,

redeem the rainbow.

Right? Because it seems like every little group,

and it's got a different idea,

wants to take the rainbow away from God.

Well, you can't.

It's his.

The abrahamic covenant,

which is the promise God made to Abraham and his descendants for a

nation, a name,

and a land.

Those three things are promised in Genesis twelve.

And then you got the mosaic covenant,

which is the reference to the law,

the obedience to the law,

and God's blessing based on obedience to the law.

You see also the outworking of that in Hebrews.

When God says about the covenant I made with them,

when I brought them out of the land of Egypt and they broke it,

God says that.

Then you got the davidic covenant,

which is the promise God made to David,

that he would have a descendant on the throne for all eternity.

Right? And then the new covenant,

which is the messianic covenant that God has established in Christ.

So when you see all those things,

you're like,

okay, wow.

There are a lot of agreements between God and people,

humanity.

But we look in Hebrews and we keep seeing this reference to first

covenant, new covenant.

We read in Hebrews chapter eight the passage from Jeremiah,

Jeremiah 31:31–34

chapter 31,

verses 31 to 34,

where he says,

see, the days are coming,

says the Lord,

when I will make a new covenant.

And then we see how God sort of breaks that out to establish the

messianic covenant which God has included us in.

And so when we talk about the new covenant,

what we're referring to is the present covenant,

which, which we enjoy our salvation as part of.

So what I've been looking at in the book of hebrews,

I'm trying to understand.

I'll just be honest.

I've already preached this.

I've preached it about three times already in the book of hebrews.

And so I started figuring out,

now, what is he doing?

So remember that the writer of Hebrews is writing to what is

predominantly a Jewish population who has recognized Christ as the

messiah and trusted in Christ,

the Messiah,

and the new covenant that Christ established in his death,

burial and resurrection,

and that he inaugurated in the upper room.

All right,

so you've got this JEwish population acknowledging Christ,

and then all the pressure that was put on them for acknowledging the

mesSiah. And some of them were going,

you know what?

We might as well just go back to the Lord.

And the writer of Hebrews is going,

why in the world would you go back to an old covenant,

an incomplete covenant?

He even calls it an obsolete covenant,

when what we've got is the new covenant,

the perfected covenant.

You see,

that's what this is all about.

So we've got the present covenant,

which God has completed.

And so I started looking at this thing like a,

like a spring.

Y'all know.

Do you know what a spring is if it's not wound up like that wire?

Y'all know that it just a piece of wire.

I got one right here in this pen.

I think I was going to take it out,

but then I wouldn't get it back together.

But what he does is he makes the argument,

or he makes the case for the messiah and he establishes that,

and he comes back and he makes it again in the book of Hebrews.

And he comes around and he makes it again.

And so what we're seeing is this doubling up,

this stacking of the argument for Jesus Christ,

Jesus the Christ,

the anointed,

the messiah,

as God's provision in and for the new covenant.

And I'm just like,

wow. All right,

so let's read it.

But Christ has appeared as a high priest of the good things that have

come in the greater and more perfect tabernacle,

not made with hands,

that is not of this creation.

So what we see there is,

is he's just repeating the fact that Christ went through the veil,

the heavens,

into heaven,

the presence of God,

to present the sacrifice once for all for the sins of the world.

So that's what he's establishing there.

And then in verse twelve,

he says he entered the most holy place once for all time.

That's just repeating what I've just said.

We've already seen that not by the blood of goats and calves,

because we saw in a chapter past that the blood of goats and calves can't

make anybody perfect,

you see?

And so he's just establishing this covenant,

this sacrifice that Jesus made,

but by his own blood having obtained eternal redemption.

He was perfected in that.

Now people say,

oh, well,

that just means Jesus wasn't perfect.

No, he,

that word perfected,

that we translate that way,

means he completed the work that God set before him to do.

You see,

Jesus knew why he was here.

I came to do.

What did he say?

Even as a kid,

I came to do the work of my father.

He wasn't talking about Joseph and carpentry,

you see?

And so Jesus came to accomplish what God had established,

I believe,

all the way back in creation,

at the fall in Genesis three,

when he said that,

son, Satan's head would be crushed,

God was foretelling,

or he was telling us that Satan would ultimately be defeated,

you see?

So he's just stacking it,

man.

He just keeps stacking this thing up.

So the covenant sacrifice that we get to enjoy is the sacrifice that

Jesus made for if the blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a young

cow sprinkling those who are defiled,

sanctify for the purification of the flesh.

Here you go.

Here's the good question.

I like it.

How much more will the blood of Christ,

who through the eternal spirit,

offered himself without blemish to God?

Christ's blood.

Not some old cow blood or goat blood or lamb's blood or even dove's blood

and all kind of sacrifices.

They were offering not just some animal out of your yard,

but the Son of God,

which in the early chapters of Hebrews,

the creator,

the sustainer of the universe,

the heir of all things.

You see,

the writer of Hebrews,

by God's inspiration,

is establishing the only begottenness.

Is that a word?

The uniqueness the once for all time work of Jesus Christ for us,

you see,

so that we.

How much more will the blood of Christ,

who, through the eternal spirit,

offered himself without blemish to God,

cleanse our consciences from dead works?

Now, what is that?

Talking about the dead works is not.

And we talked about this before.

It's not the works of the law.

Dead works is thinking you can earn it.

Dead works is thinking you deserve it.

Dead works is me believing.

And this is the way I like to put it.

You know what?

I was a little guy in school.

I was really short.

Still short,

but I was a little guy,

right?

And what's funny about that is,

is that I didn't typically get picked first on the playground.

Y'all know?

I was that one at the back.

And then finally they go,

okay, Bobby,

you come on our team,

but stay out of the way.

All right?

But I've always put it this way.

I always thought,

you know what?

We talked to God.

We say,

God, you did a good job getting me on your team.

Like we're something special,

but we're not.

God sees us in our sin and loves us anyway,

and redeems us,

buys us back.

By what?

By the shed blood of his own son.

So that.

And this is the last phrase of chapter of verse 14,

so that we can serve the living God.

Therefore, he is the mediator of a new covenant.

Talking about Jesus.

Jesus is the mediator of the new covenant,

so that those who are called might receive the promise of the eternal

inheritance because a death has taken place for the redemption from the

transgressions committed under the first covenant.

Now, you get into that word called,

and you.

You know what?

I went to Bible college and I went to seminary,

and I sat around tables and sat in the common room in the dormitory and

all that sort of thing.

Folks love to talk about words.

Y'all know that people really like to break things down and give you

their understanding of it.

And it's always funny to me that I never claimed to be smart.

And so I would sit there with people,

and they would just.

They deliver their understanding of the word of God in the Bible.

And they'd like,

you know,

I'm right and nobody else is.

And da da.

And I remember one guy in my dormitory.

I was sitting across from him,

and I said,

dude, you take yourself way too seriously,

right? Do you know what?

If you're a believer this morning in this place,

then God called you.

Okay?

I believe that God calls us.

He calls us by name.

I believe he wants for us to come after him in salvation.

But I do believe there is at least an element of human responsibility

whereby people have to receive the gift that God's offered.

There has to be a response.

Okay, that's not work.

That's just.

Thank you.

Okay. But,

boy, people like to debate this stuff.

So we've got the covenant sacrifice that we live under in the present,

and we've got the covenant cleansing by the shed blood of Jesus Christ,

which is this present cleansing that we enjoy.

And we're working in the direction of what he's,

what he's provided for us,

that we might receive the promise of the eternal inheritance because a

death has taken place for redemption from the transgressions committed

under the first covenant.

Then he breaks into this little explanation,

because where a will exists,

the death of the one who made it must be established.

For a will is valid only when people die,

since it is never in effect while the one who made it is living.

This is why even the first covenant was inaugurated with blood.

So what we're seeing here is that when God made this agreement,

it was as if a testament,

covenant, will,

whatever you want to call it,

God in the flesh,

God the Son died on the cross,

and he rose the third day.

You see?

Then he gets into this little story.

And I thought this was interesting because we just finished chapter

eight, which quotes for us Jeremiah 31 31 to 34 that talks about the day

is coming when I will make a new covenant with my people.

And then in the book of Hebrews,

he's explaining then we,

by adoption,

are God's people.

You see,

we become a part of that family through the shed blood of Christ and by

adoption of God's own word.

And so when we look at this,

and then he starts talking about Moses and all the people,

according to the law,

he took the blood of calves and goats along with water,

scarlet wool and hyssop.

This says he sprinkled the scroll itself and all the people.

So they're at the base of Sinai.

God's delivered the law.

Moses has written it down.

Moses takes blood of sacrifice.

And what would y'all do if I stepped up here and started slinging blood

at you?

Right? But that's the picture that's painted all the way back there.

In Exodus chapter 24,

Exodus 24 · chapter mention

Moses steps up and he sprinkles the people with blood,

and he sprinkles the law with blood,

and he sprinkles all the articles of the,

of the covenant with blood.

He sprinkles the articles of the tabernacle with blood.

He sprinkles it all with blood.

According to the law,

almost everything is purified with blood.

And then something that I've always mentioned as part of God's salvation

and redemption economy is that without the shedding of blood,

there is no forgiveness.

You see,

because there's sin.

Something has to die because of our sin.

We're supposed to die for the wages of sin is death,

but the gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord.

See, Christ died my death.

Christ died your death.

That substitution,

you see?

And it's in that substitution that my sins are forgiven.

Bible even says,

into the sea of forgetfulness,

you know who brings your sin up to you?

Satan. You know who likes to remind you that you're worthless?

Satan. You know what God tells you you are valuable,

precious. I'll go ahead and say it special.

You see?

See, that's what I like about this book of Hebrews and the case that God

is making through this author to keep layering this on for us to

understand that this new covenant that we looked at in Hebrews chapter

eight, that was promised in the book of Jeremiah,

that those days are coming when I will make a new covenant,

it says,

I will be their God.

They will be my people.

And you're not going to have to tell each other about it because I'll

write it on their hearts.

So when somebody in this room say,

you're getting together with somebody,

yesterday, it was real fun that we were friends.

Breakfast, men.

If you missed it,

well, sorry we ate all the bacon,

but there is some over there this morning because it's pancake breakfast

morning, y'all.

Camp fundraiser pancake breakfast morning.

Okay, so when you leave here,

go eat pancakes and put money in the bucket.

But anyway,

there's bacon,

too.

I'm just telling you.

But it's funny that yesterday Tom Burns got up and shared his testimony

yesterday. It's very cool.

Tom. Tom.

I always tell folks,

Tom got up,

said what he wanted to say,

and then sat down.

Right? He just said it and sat down.

And then people started asking questions.

But point was,

when he shared the fact that he had a conversation with God and God saved

him, every christian in the room understood what he was talking about.

We didn't have to say,

well, what do you mean?

What do you mean God saved you?

You know,

the only people you have to explain salvation to is the unsaved,

the people that don't know.

Because if you're a believer,

if you've trusted Jesus for salvation and received that gift of

salvation, when we talk to each other.

We understand what we're talking about.

See, and that's what he's referring to right there.

This covenant that God's made with us,

this new covenant,

this messianic covenant,

it is the present covenant of salvation.

And God paid the price for that covenant.

We celebrate it.

The book of Hebrews.

It just goes over and over and over.

And next week we're going to finish chapter nine.

And guess what?

It goes back into the explanation of the sacrifice that God's made,

that Christ accomplished on the cross.

And then we get to chapter ten.

And you know what my bible says?

The title of chapter ten is?

The perfect sacrifice.

So guess what?

You can count on the next two weeks being the same message because God

wants to anchor it in our hearts and minds,

in our very identity,

in our being.

You can't walk out into this world questioning who you are in Christ

because the world will attack you.

Satan wants to defeat you.

Do you know who you are?

You're God's kid.

Adopted through the shed blood of Jesus Christ.

Don't miss that.

Enjoy that.

Okay. If you don't know Jesus this morning,

guess what?

We'll introduce you to him.

We want you to know Jesus before you leave here this morning.

We want you to understand that God loved you that much,

all right?

And that Christ died on the cross.

And my mom told me.

I remember when.

When I prayed to receive Christ at eight years old.

I remember my mom.

If you'd been the only person alive,

Bobby, Jesus would have died for you.

That's how much God loved us.

All right,

let's pray.

God, thank you for the morning and the opportunity,

God, that you give us to gather in worship.

God, I thank you that you have explained it,

God, you've explained it and you've explained it and you've explained it

again. And yet,

God, sometimes we live our lives as if we don't understand.

And so,

God, my prayer this morning was that all of us who have been called to be

your kids,

God, that we'd understand who we are,

that we belong to you.

And that,

God, we'd go out into the world living that identity,

that people would see Jesus in us.

God, that's my prayer.

And if there's one here this morning that doesn't know Jesus,

God, we want him to know Jesus,

I'd love to be able to sit down right here on the front row and just

share the truth of the gospel,

the good news that Jesus died for them.

So, God,

help us to share that all the time.

God, as we sing,

we want to praise you for what you've done.

In Jesus name,

amen.