TYPE: Expository, Deductive
SCRIPTURE READING: 2 Corinthians 3:4-6
DOMINANT THOUGHT: The offer of peace with God that we have through Christ trumps anything the world can ever offer us.
PURPOSE:
- Head: The people will know the nature of covenants and Christ’s covenant offer to us.
- Heart: The people will appreciate the great love of God for them.
- Hands: The people will accept Christ’s offer and share it with others.
MANUSCRIPT:
Throughout the course of its relatively short history, America has been a place where people have flocked in search of a better deal.
When the New World was supposedly discovered, several European nationals embarked on the dangerous voyage across the Atlantic to America, citizens from Spain, Portugal, France, Great Britain, and elsewhere. Everyone had the hope of finding something better.
Later started as early back as the 1600’s, when the Pilgrims headed this way, in search of a better place to live, a place free of religious persecution, a place of opportunity, a place of blessing.
A couple of centuries later, the Irish began pouring in, escaping both the Great Potato Famine and religious persecution alike. Chinese immigrants came across the Pacific; many of them helped connect the West with railroads. Later came the Catholic and Lutheran Germans, many of whom settled here in the Midwest in search of a place where they could freely practice their faith. On their heels were the Italian immigrants, escaping economic crisis for the Promised Land of America. Jews from Russia and other areas of ethnic oppression followed. And more and more people from Mexico came across our southern borders looking for a better living. Then there were the Koreans and Vietnamese, fleeing the harsh political regimes of their homelands. And who could forget the rickety boatloads of Haitians making the hazardous trek across the Caribbean in search of relief from some of the harshest living conditions known?
Amercia can truly said to be the “Melting Pot” of the world. And all of these people can for one reason—they wanted a better deal. Whether it was opportunity to succeed financially, or be free to worship God as they saw fit, or to flee political oppression, they have come to America where they have the access to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. And I’ve got to agree with them; there is no other place I would rather live today than right here in the United States. We’ve got the best deal of the modern world, and it’s been that way for 233 years now.
But as great as we have it here in America, I’d like to talk with you this morning about a better deal. You see, as great as we have it here in America, all of this is just temporal. It’s not going to last forever. The deal I want to offer to you today is permanent. It will last forever. And it has way more blessing than anything we could ever obtain here and now. This morning I want to talk about the deal that Jesus offers us, a deal that makes us right with God.
Our text comes from the eighth chapter of Hebrews. We’ve been bouncing through the book of Hebrews this summer to see what the better life—the Christian life—looks like. And today we come to the pinnacle of the letter—chapter 8. Everything in chapters one through seven has been leading to this point, and everything in chapters nine through thirteen will be leading away from this point. Let’s read the whole chapter, shall we? Hear the Word of God:
The point of what we are saying is this: We do have such a high priest, who sat down at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in heaven, 2 and who serves in the sanctuary, the true tabernacle set up by the Lord, not by man.
3 Every high priest is appointed to offer both gifts and sacrifices, and so it was necessary for this one also to have something to offer. 4 If he were on earth, he would not be a priest, for there are already men who offer the gifts prescribed by the law. 5 They serve at a sanctuary that is a copy and shadow of what is in heaven. This is why Moses was warned when he was about to build the tabernacle: "See to it that you make everything according to the pattern shown you on the mountain." 6 But the ministry Jesus has received is as superior to theirs as the covenant of which he is mediator is superior to the old one, and it is founded on better promises.
7 For if there had been nothing wrong with that first covenant, no place would have been sought for another. 8 But God found fault with the people and said:
"The time is coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. 9 It will not be like the covenant I made with their forefathers when I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt, because they did not remain faithful to my covenant, and I turned away from them, declares the Lord.
10 This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after that time, declares the Lord. I will put my laws in their minds and write them on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people. 11 No longer will a man teach his neighbor, or a man his brother, saying, `Know the Lord,’ because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest. 12 For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more."
13 By calling this covenant "new," he has made the first one obsolete; and what is obsolete and aging will soon disappear.
I believe our text reveals at least four aspects of Christ’s offer of a superior covenant to us.
But before we go there, we probably need to pause and reflect on this thing called a covenant. It is a word we find frequently in the Bible. The simplest answer is that a covenant is an agreement between two parties. For example, I could say to Jake here, “Jake, if you come wash my dishes, I’ll pay you five bucks.” If Jake agrees to my terms, we have a covenant; we’ve made a deal. Now he’s got to wash my dishes and I’ve got to pay him five bucks. Covenant also involved blessings and curses. If the agreed-to terms were fulfilled, blessings would occur—I’d have clean dishes and Jake would have five bucks. If the terms weren’t fulfilled, maybe I’d stack my dirty dishes on Jake’s front porch, or if I didn’t pay up, maybe Jake would put an ad in the paper telling everyone what a skinflint and cheat I was. When the people of Israel were about to enter the Promised Land, they divided up, some on Mt. Gerizim, some on Mt. Ebal. One group pronounced the blessings of following God’s covenant; the other pronounced the curses that came with breaking that covenant.
These covenants were dependent upon faithfulness to the terms. Many times in the King James Version you’ll come across the word “lovingkindness” in the Old Testament. That word is usually translated as simply “love” in the New International Version. It’s the Hebrew word hesed, and it does not mean a warm, fuzzy, conditional, or sappy love. It’s probably the closest concept to agape love, the noble love, that we have. A better translation is “covenant faithfulness.” It refers to the fact that God operates out of faithfulness to the terms he has agreed to. His grace, compassion, mercy, are the products of his faithfulness to his word. If Jake’s going to wash my dishes, it’s because he trusts that I’ll pay him five bucks.
Now there are basically two kinds of covenants in the Bible. There are covenants between equal parties, like the agreement between Jake and me. In such a deal, the terms are negotiable. Maybe Jake says, “Well, I’ll wash your dishes, but I need fifty bucks to do it.” “Hmm,” I respond, “How about $5.50?” You see, we’re negotiating.
But when God offers us a deal, there is no negotiating. It’s what we call a suzerain covenant. You knew I’d throw a big word at you—there it is. A suzerain covenant is an agreement between the greater and the lesser. In such an agreement, the greater sets the terms, and the lesser can either take it or leave it. There is no negotiating.
The great thing about God is that he is good, and the deals he offers us are always to our benefit. And that’s exactly how the history of human salvation has played out. God’s made deals with Noah, with Abraham, with Moses, and with David. And now God offers a deal to us through the person of Jesus Christ. And there are at least four conditions of this deal that make it far superior than anything God has ever offered before.
First of all, We Can Experience Inner Transformation. The writer quotes Jeremiah 31 in his argument here. By the way, this is the largest Old Testament quotation in the New Testament. The quotation reveals to us right off that the old covenant was not sufficient to change the people. They did not live up to its terms. Therefore, God was going to offer us a new deal, a better deal. And the first improvement in this better deal is that you and I and be changed from the inside out.
The former deal that God’s people had with him was only a veneer job. It was deal with external observances that never led to true change. As a result, the most holy people of Jesus’ day, the Pharisees and the Teachers of the Law, looked really good on the outside. They followed all the rules and regulations and then some. But Jesus was quick to note that on the inside, they were full of dead men’s bones and everything unclean. It was only until Jesus gave his life for us that people could truly begin to be transformed. God is going to write his laws on our minds, carve them on our hearts. It will simply be natural for us to act like God would act.
For when we come to Christ, we receive the Holy Spirit, who lives within, who works alongside our spirits to make us more and more like Jesus. No longer do we approach our relationship with God through a burdensome list of do’s and don’ts. Instead we can approach God on the basis of Christ’s blood, with the seal of the Holy Spirit as a guarantee that we’ve shaken on it. And slowly, but surely, you and I will become more and more like Jesus. And we will no longer be forced to act like God. We will want to act like God, and we will empowered by him to do so. That was something none of the former deals between God and man had. But we have it now, thanks be to God.
We Can also Be God’s People, and He Can Be Our God. Yesterday I visited some good friends over in New Berlin for the Fourth. New Berlin does not have fireworks, but the nearby town of Loami does. So we went down to Loami and tried to watch fireworks through the low-lying clouds and rian. Now I’ve got to be honest with you: I don’t know why anyone would ever name their town Loami. It is a biblical name, but not a very encouraging one. It comes from the book of Hosea. I’m glad God doesn’t deal with preachers the way he used to. Hosea was told by God to go out and marry a prostitute. And this prostitute wife of his ran all over town and slept with every man in sight. All the while, Hosea would follow after her, providing for her needs. It was a too-graphic illustration of God’s love and care for Israel, and Israel’s complete unfaithfulness to God. She and Hosea managed to have children, though we don’t know if they were Hosea’s or not. God told Hosea what to name the children. One was named Lo-Ammi, which means “Not my People.” Again, it was another graphic illustration. If God’s chosen people did not follow the terms of the covenant, God would break that covenant and walk away. No longer would they be his people.
But you and I, through the new covenant, through a better deal, have the opportunity to be God’s people. We have the opportunity to be in community with God once more, to belong to him, to be the apple of his eye, to be his valued possession. The offer was once exclusive to the people of Israel, but when they turned their back on the God who rescued them from Egypt, God opened the doors for all of mankind to respond to his love. “Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God-- 13 children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God” (John 1:12-13). Through Christ, you and I can be the people of God.
Through this better deal, We Can also Draw Near to God. No longer, says God through the prophet Jeremiah, will people have to teach other about God, or about how to know him. In the past, access to God was limited. The place to worship God was the Temple, where his presence dwelt above the cherubim whose arm outstretched over the Ark of the...yeah, that’s right, Ark of the Covenant. But the high priest was the only person who could actually enter into the Holy of Holies, the place where the Ark was kept, and that only once a year on the Day of Atonement. Next came the other priests, but they could only go so far as the Holy Place, and that was usually a once or twice in a lifetime deal. Outside the temple was the court of men, the closest the rest of the Jewish male population could get to God. Outside of the court of men was the court of women, the closest—you guessed it—the Jewish women could get to God. And after that was the court of Gentiles, the closest we—non-Jewish people—could get to God.
That’s why Jesus got so irate when he saw all the moneychangers and animal sellers crowding the outer court of the Temple. Not only had they turned the worship of God into a business; they were also denying people the closest access to God they had. No wonder he made a whip out of ropes and cleaned house!
But now through the death and resurrection of Jesus, you and I no longer have such limited access to God. For God walks among us, lives within us. We don’t have to travel across the world to get within three stone’s throws of a stone building to experience the presence of God. We don’t have to wonder what God is like, for all of us who have accept Christ know God personally. We can worship him in spirit and in truth.
Last but not least, this quotation from Jeremiah tell us that We Can Be Forgiven. This aspect of the offer that Christ makes to us is what makes all the other aspects flow. For without forgiveness we can have no part with God. Our rebellion, our waywardness, our willful defiance make us unclean, unapproachable. Our sin separates us from God, and it is only through forgiveness that we can be reconciled and become his children once more.
And what a price was paid for that forgiveness! Our pardon cost nothing less than the lifeblood of God’s one and only Son, Jesus Christ.
God will remember our sin no more. We need to understand that it is not as if God has a poor memory, or that he somehow lobotomzied himself or suffers from amnesia. This is the Hebrew concept of remembering, which means to take action. Just like in Genesis 8:1 where the text says “God remembered Noah.” It wasn’t as if God had forgotten that Noah was out there bobbing on the water. But by “remembering” him, God took action on his behalf—he dried the water up so Noah could get out of the ark.
In the same way, God will remember our sins no more—he will not take action against our sins. Why? Because he already took action against our sins when Jesus went to the cross. “He made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:21). By the wounds of Jesus you and I, and all those who accept his gracious offer, have been made whole, have been made righteous, have been forgiven. And because we have been forgiven, we can be transformed into the likeness of Jesus, we can be God’s children, and we can draw near to him. We can finally be what we were created to be—people in fellowship with God and with one another for his glory. Who offers us a better deal than that?
And with these words the writer of Hebrews tries to persuade his readers to keep the faith. Remember, they were facing extreme pressure to give up on Jesus. Their friends and families were kicking them out of the synagogues and disowning them. The Roman government was persecuting them for adhering to an outlawed religion. It would be much easier to go back to Judaism, to the faith of their fathers, to a religion officially sanctioned by the ruling authorities. But if they did, they would turn their backs on a much better deal.
Helping Jewish Christians understand that Jesus offers them something better than the old deal is not a pressing issue for us here in Edinburg, IL. So how does this translate to us in our particular time and setting? Well, let’s look at the terms of the deal our culture offers those around us.
Our culture is based on the premise that the natural world is all there, that everything happens because of a set of immutable laws (what we call naturalism). There is nothing supernatural. Matters of faith are nice, but don’t confuse them with the facts. Thus an evolutionary explanation of origins holds sway. What we see is all there is, and there is nothing beyond this material world.
Taken to its inevitable conclusion, this philosophy leads to the conviction that life is without purpose, meaning, or any intrinsic value (what we call nihilism). If we’re just the accidental byproducts of time and chance, and there is nothing beyond this life, then what’s the point? Exactly! There is no point.
Now not many people can live at this level of reflection. It inevitably leads to despair and, ultimately, to suicide. Therefore our culture grasps for some kind of meaning or purpose or value in life. And what it comes up with for the meaning of life is the unrelenting pursuit of pleasure (what we call hedonism). The chief end of man is to glorify one’s passions and enjoy them forever, or at least until we become worm food. Let’s all join The Lion King and sing a chorus of “The Circle of Life,” shall we?
It can be sex, money, work, recreation, possessions, even seemingly innocent things like family or patriotism. We grasp at whatever we can find that provides us with stimulation, gratification, pleasure, or distraction.
And our culture dictates to us which pleasures to pursue. We can have anything we want...for a price (what we call commercialism). Driven by our self-centeredness (narcissism), sense of entitlement, and discontent with what we already have, the culture around us continuously bombards us with the temptation of bigger and better pleasures out there. All they need is our credit card number, or our time, or our family...or our faith. You can have anything you want...for a price.
But the reality is such a lifestyle only offers people a temporary anesthesia to dull the pain of an otherwise empty existence.
I know. I’ve been there. Up until almost fourteen years ago I lived that life. I chased after every pleasure I could find. I got everything I could get my hands on. And I’d feel good. And I’d forget about the emptiness...for a while. Then I would wake up the next day with the same black emptiness, and I’d have to start trying to fill it up once more.
It was only until I encountered the risen Christ that I realized I had been looking for a better deal in all the wrong places.
There are a lot of people out there living the same kind of life I used to live. They’re desperately seeking for something more, for something lasting, something substantial, something that will provide them with more than a temporary fix from emptiness and pain. They’re looking for a better deal.
And all they have to do to accept that deal is to trust in Jesus as their Savior and obey him as their Lord.
As I thought about the countless floods of immigrants who’ve come to America this past week, I also reflected on how they were treated. Almost without exception, each and every wave was treated with disdain by those who were here before them. Early settlers faced hostile natives. The Irish weren’t wanted; nor were the Italians. The Chinese were exploited. The Jews were envied and hated. The Haitians were turned back.
It reminds me of a story Jesus tells, recorded in Matthew 20. You know the story. A vineyard owners goes out to the town square. He sees some men lounging about, so he hires them to work his vineyard. He came back later and hired more. And again. And again. The last lot he hired worked only an hour before the day was done. When it came time for paychecks, the owner paid the one-hour workers first, and he paid them a denarius. This made the men who were there all day long pretty happy—surely they were going to get more. But no, they got a denarius, too. This made them mad. They were there before these other guys; they deserved more.
The point Jesus was making is this: his offer of a better deal is not based on who gets to it first. The offer extends to everyone, and all of us can enjoy the same terms and the same blessings. It doesn’t matter where we come from, what our pedigree is, what we have done, or what we haven’t done. The offer is for everyone to accept or reject.
I don’t know how you feel about immigration to America. I know it’s a complex matter involving laws, resources, jobs, and so on. But you can rest assured of this: heaven will never run out of room or resources.
Jesus has offered us the best deal the world has ever seen. Let’s shake on it with him and share it with others.
