The Better Covenant (Hebrews 8:1-13)

take out your swords take out your bibles take out the truth take out god's word and as you do so turn to the book of hebrews chapter 8 and i'll shock you this morning we're going to cover an entire chapter it's also only 13 verses so we can do this amen a better covenant as you've noticed as we journey through hebrews the context is pretty clear it gets really clear in today's passage because we are actually told verbatim that what is going on here is now in view verse 1 says now this is the main point of the things we are saying that's pretty clear isn't it this is the main point we we've come to the real issue and the real issue for those who are believers who happen to also be jewish hebrews israelites those who were given the covenants by god the main issue is where did all that fit in their life and then how to get past the attachment that they had to religion and before we jump too harshly on to what one might say is this dependence that the jewish people had on religion can i tell you that there's virtually no people group on earth that isn't prone to exactly the same thing and in fact whether you've actually considered it or not if you look at roman catholicism you're going to find that it is very close to a christianized version of judaism it has a temple called the vatican it has a high priest called the pope it has cardinals and bishops and it has rules and regulations and a very very rigid liturgy that says church gets done exactly this way and while that's not meant to be so much a criticism as it is an acknowledgement people are inherently religious and so while this is written to the jewish people it's also written to us so that we can make sure that we're worshiping god in a way that is meaningful because we can worship god in ways that are not meaningful you can come to church and just do your religious obligation you can get up in the morning and just go we're going to make it because we should you should be coming to church because you want to amen you should be coming here because you want to meet the true and the living god you should want to know who he is and how much he loves you you see sometimes we can get religious too and so here we have in chapter 8 this beautiful picture of this better covenant the new covenant that was made for us and it's not like the old one it's in every way shape or form better would you pray with me father we are indebted to your great love for us and we pray now as we study your word that you would speak to your church lord encourage us this morning i pray if there's anyone here who is like i used to be when i was younger lord so concerned about doing my religious duty that often i went to church because i felt i had to because you'd be mad at me and lord i am just so grateful that i know now that you love me and you desire to be around me you want to walk with me through life and i pray that we would all understand that bless your word as we read it in jesus name amen and now this is the main point of the things we are saying we have such a high priest who is seated at the right hand of the throne of majesty in the heavens a minister of the sanctuary and of the true tabernacle which the lord erected and not of man again the tabernacle was designed by god it was ordained by god it was instituted by god the services the sacraments all of the things that were done by the jewish people god himself is the one who told them to do it that way they were never bad they were simply incomplete they couldn't finish the job as it were for every high priest is appointed to offer both gifts and sacrifices and therefore it is necessary that this one also have something to offer for if he were on earth he would not be a priest since there are priests who offer gifts according to the law who served the copy and the shadow of the heavenly things as moses was divinely instructed when he was about to make the tabernacle for he said see that you make all things according to the pattern that i show you on the mountain but now he has obtained a more excellent ministry and as much as he also is the mediator of a better covenant which has established better promises you're going to see this word over and over and over again it's just plain better it's better in every imaginable imaginable way it's not that judaism was bad it's that your salvation by grace through faith is infinitely better because it actually accomplishes the intended purpose you're now forgiven of your sin amen it's a beautiful picture now i want you to understand that what we're about to read is the longest quotation in any book of the new testament of an old testament passage this is it if you ever wanted to know where it is we're about to get to it and i want you to notice who the object is of this passage for if that the first covenant had been faultless there would then have been no place or had one been sought for a second because finding fault with them please underline or circle the them who is the them it becomes very clear in just a moment he says behold the days are coming says the lord when i will make a new covenant with the here it comes house of israel and with the house of judah it is very clear that the them that they and the their are the jewish people it's not the new testament church and so this is being spoken to people who had a dependence upon the old covenant to whom the writer of hebrews is now saying there's a better covenant there's a better way there's a better sanctuary there's a better mediator there's a better high priest there is a better sacrifice it's just plain better if you're found in jesus not according to the covenant that i made with their fathers you see how clear it becomes when you read this correctly the church has not replaced israel god still has a place for the jewish people he made a covenant with them it was unconditional it was based on his carrying out the conditions of the covenant called the covenant with abraham and he is still going to make good on that promise and so he gave them a system of religion whereby they could relate until messiah came but he still plans to make good the reason that paul writes in romans 11 that one day all israel will be saved is because one day all israel the jewish people will be saved and they're not going to be saved because they went to temple they're going to be saved because they saw the king of kings the lord of lords the great i am they have believed on the name of the lord jesus christ and thereby are saved but these believers were trying to blend these two things the old covenant and the new and they were trying to say that you needed to keep the law and keep the sacrifice and keep the feast days because it applied to everybody it doesn't apply to everybody in fact it only applied to the jewish people those things which god gave the jewish people to do he gave the jewish people to do they were never passed along to the church that's why jesus said when he came during matthew's gospel that i have come to fulfill all of the law and the prophets in other words now in me you can just count those things as taken care of the covenant that i made with their fathers in the day when i took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of egypt because they did not continue in my covenant a covenant in the old testament times required two people making the covenant it could be a government entity it could be a king it could be two people just individuals but the covenant was contingent upon the keeping of the covenant if either side broke the covenant the covenant was null and void so god in that sense made a covenant with israel israel broke the covenant but god said because of my character i'm not going to let go of my side you have broken your covenant so i'm going to give you a new covenant isaiah said it's going to be written in your hearts jeremiah said it will be written in your heart instead of the old covenant which was written in stone originally this new covenant is going to be one that's actually going to fix the real problem and disregarded them says the lord for this is the covenant that i will make with the house of israel after those days what days the age of grace which we are currently still in the time when people can simply believe on the name of the lord jesus christ and be saved a time that we call the time of the gentiles is what jesus called it says the lord for i will put my laws in their mind and write them on their hearts and i will be their god and notice that they that they are the them and they shall be my people and none of them shall teach his neighbor and none his brother saying know the lord for all shall know me this is the time that's being referred to by the apostle paul in romans chapter 11. that day when finally the light goes on the time that was prophesied of zechariah the prophet from the least of them to the greatest of them for i will be merciful to their unrighteousness and to their sins and their lawless deeds i will remember no more you see the only way anyone's unrighteousness is remembered no more is by being found in christ jesus as lord that's the only way that can happen it's not because of the law it's not because of feast days it's not because of you keeping this highly organized and structured system of religion called judaism or roman catholicism for that matter or any other form of religious activity if you have your sins erased that god erased by one substance it's the blood of jesus christ and you have believed on his name by faith and thereby that blood was applied to your account your sins have been esponged they're gone god remembers them no more the jewish people were still trying to figure out a way to keep the temple to keep the feast days to keep the sacrifices to keep the gifts to keep the offerings to keep all the other things and then add jesus to it let me say this very bluntly and very clearly jesus is not an additive he is the savior the one and only you don't add jesus to everything else jesus is the reason you're alive in christ jesus is the reason you have eternal life jesus is our everything he's not an additive so you don't need all the rest of the stuff you need jesus the jewish people are trying to figure out well let's just add jesus to jewishness and we'll kind of make this new religion that has the savior interjected into it but we're still going to keep relying on all of the feast days and we're going to keep celebrating passover and keep celebrating sukkot we're going to make sure that the feast of tabernacles is upheld and why all these things are good and they pointed towards messiah once messiah came those feast days didn't have a point anymore because they actually spoke of the coming one the one who would be a prophet like moses yet greater and so in that sense this very long quotation from jeremiah 31 that we see here in verses 8 to 12 pointed them back to the covenants that god had made and if you look through the old testament you're going to find that there are at least seven i believe there are seven or eight covenants that were made specifically with the jewish people and of those four of them were made very specifically with the nation israel and only the nation israel and they are the abrahamic covenant the one made with abraham the palestinian covenant that is the one for the land itself the mosaic covenant which is the one made with moses and the one made with david so those four were made with israel very specifically and all of them except for the palestinian covenant were unconditional so three of the four were completely unconditional it didn't matter whether israel kept their part of the bargain or not god said to them i will be your god and you will be my people abraham was promised that from him irrespective of the fact abraham was not always faithful you you can't read the book of genesis and go wow abraham was perfect abraham was not perfect he was not a perfect representative of the lord most high matter of fact he was very flawed as was moses as was david but god said i will keep my covenants with you because they are based in me not in your obedience but the palestinian covenant the one for the land was completely based on their obedience he said you shall inherit this land and you shall dwell in it as long as you obey me and so what happened for almost two thousand years they stopped obeying and god said i'm going to keep my word we know it as the diaspora the jewish people left the land they did not come back until may 14th of 1948 they were out of the land for almost 2 000 years now they're back in the land so we know god's up to something right now because he's still keeping the covenants that he made with them abraham moses and david as they're obedient in that land you see in that sense god designed into the old covenants made with abraham isaac and jacob those things that we would call the pa the people we would call the patriarchs he designed that system to be obsolete now probably some of you well many of you i'm looking around the room you understand that our automobile industry here in america designed in obsolescence to their cars amen the reason we know this is about every other year they change the body style they change the trim package now they change the technology why do they do that because they want you to buy a new car the same thing is true with your iphone amen it's amazing to me if you have an iphone 6 the iphone 6 still works but it doesn't have all the bells and whistles of the iphone 13. so we're like oh i got to have the 13 it's got to be better well if you're looking for a phone a phone is a phone it calls people in that sense judaism could call upon the name of the lord it could draw you into a relationship with the lord it could get you really close but it was made obsolete when jesus came by he was the iphone 13 okay he's he's got the 24k camera and you know he's the whole package the old one just dialed up heaven new ones got all the bells and whistles and so in that sense the old covenant wasn't bad it was just incomplete it was designed by god for a purpose and for a time just like the 1955-50 chevy nomad was for a time they're they're a rare thing now but you can only get them for a couple of years the same was true for judaism it was for a period of time and only until messiah came the one that was forecast the one that was spoken of and in that sense once the final high priest came jesus there was no need for the former line of high priest through aaron in the tribe of levi and so we've already seen that and so jesus steps into the scene and he becomes what we would call god's right hand man notice the quotation it's actually here it's from psalm 110 verse 1 the lord says to sit at my right hand that's the picture of a ruler someone who's absolutely comfortable in the presence of the king who sits as a co-regent on the throne and so here comes jesus because jesus is fully man and yet fully god he has the ability to sit in the presence of god you and i don't when we get to the presence of god we're going to be kneeling in the presence of god we might be standing and worshiping in the presence of god but we won't be sitting in the presence of god that is reserved for jesus and so this is a portrayal of the deity of christ that we have here so this right hand person this man who's sitting next to god if you remember in matthew 26 jesus actually refers to this very same thing when caiaphas is is grilling him the challenge that's given jesus said you will see the son of man sitting at the right hand of god the father he is saying at me he's saying i'm messiah very often people miss these little tiny points that when you look back on it's like oh the lord was actually reminding them it's like caiaphas you are the high priest but you're going to get replaced because you're actually going to see the son of man sitting at the right hand of god the father you're going to get the real thing not the high priestly thing which was good again god invented it it was good but it was also insufficient because it was attached to man sometimes people will ask me you know we teach in sunday school and i think it's appropriate in that environment you know that we teach that jesus resides he's your forever friend in your heart that's actually not totally accurate where does jesus actually live where is he right now he's not actually in your heart he's in heaven he's seated right now at the right hand of god the father but the holy spirit of god who bears witness of jesus christ is actually in you so in some ways both things are true but make no mistake jesus is in heaven right now that's where he actually dwells we accept him into our hearts by faith the holy spirit fills that role it is the holy spirit of god that's in you and because god the father god the son and god the spirit are three in one you can also say that jesus is in your heart but jesus himself in his resurrected body is currently in heaven and he's coming back amen he's coming back church he's not going to be in heaven forever one day he's going to put his feet on this earth again and he's not coming back to be crucified again he's not coming back to be sacrificed again he's coming back to rule and reign the next time he comes and so to that end we kind of see out with the old in with the new everybody wants the new model right isn't it weird how when you go to a car dealership and you go in the showroom they don't have any of the strippies in there do they there's not any of the ones with the crank up windows it's all the stuff with all the bells and whistles the most exciting trim packages it's got the wider tires you look at it you look at that car you go out on a lot and go i can't have one of those everybody wants the most upgraded model and the same should be true with your relationship with the lord you should not be settling for religion you should be settling for relationship you should want the upgraded model that comes through a genuine relationship by grace through faith to where you have believed on the name of the lord jesus christ you're not trusting in sacrifices you're not trusting in religion you're not trusting in your obligation you're not trusting in your performance you're trusting in christ alone amen you see the jewish people still wanted to trust in the old way and so god has to make it clear to them it's like look we got to get rid of this verse 2 reminds us the minister of the sanctuary in the end of the true tabernacle which the lord directed not man there's going to be one who will be the one that god actually appointed you see because you can't say caiaphas though he held the office of high priest was ever appointed by god he was appointed by man amen why because he was of the tribe of levi he got voted into office by people but was he righteous no anna's father-in-law also same situation they just fit the criteria and so because the lord is now our advocate because the lord is now our mediator because he is now sitting in heaven because he is the one way the one truth the one life and no one comes to the father but by him all those old testament priests finished their work they completed their task they did their job they had their time they had their purpose but they're the old way and you've got to bring in the new i'm so glad that jesus isn't still wandering around the earth looking for a way to finally give his life a ransom for many he already did it once and for all he's already paid the price for your sin it's already been done you just simply need to receive it and believe it and place your hope your faith your trust in him you should want to get rid of the old way the old religious things there's a completely new sanctuary now and we're not talking about this place which we call in a sanctuary but this is an earthly gathering place a place of true worship you see this and the old testament temple was just a picture it was a shadow and we're going to see this in a couple of weeks it's like that was a good thing god actually designed it one of the wonderful things about the old testament tabernacle was god himself actually designed it it showed people who he was so when they saw that table of the show bread they said look there's a loaf for every single tribe so every one of you matter they got to the altar of instance you need to come in by offering up prayers to the lord you need to get right with god before you go behind that curtain the light that was coming from the menorah shown on everyone who went in it's shown on the 12 tribes so it was all these beautiful pictures problem was none of them ever actually got freed from the one thing that would make that a permanent reality and that was their sin so in that sense the old had to go there needed to be a new sacrifice all the sacrifices were good in the sense that god designed them so when you offered up a sin offering when you brought your lamb into the court and it was slaughtered and thrown onto the altar god heard all of that he watched all of that it wasn't for naught it just simply wasn't complete you need to do that again the next year and the year after that and the year after that and you kept doing that until you finally died and you died in faith believing that all of those things would one day somehow be made right how were they made right through jesus christ your lord that's why we can know that abraham is going to be in heaven that's how we know david will be there what they waited for in faith we have now seen become a reality in jesus and so this new system of religion that now exists how does it exist it exists in our hearts it used to be a literal place and so now we have this direct access to god the father through christ the son we didn't have that before you had a very very strict and stringent principle whereby anybody could meet with god and now you can meet with them any moment of any day amen you can just dial up jesus i shared with you before leave the speaker phone on all the time you know you ever if you're this person can i just tell you turn your phone off you ever seen the people who have their phone on speakerphone and they're walking down the street talking to it it's like i don't know whether they're deaf or what but it's like we don't need to hear your conversation but if it's god you want to put that that guy on speaker phone it's like hello lord it's me but i don't need to know what you're having for dinner but god wants to talk to you 24 hours a day seven days if you're awake talk to god amen have a conversation with him jesus made that possible you don't have to wait for yom kippur every year to have the high priest do it for you you can dial him up yourself [Music] lord it's me i messed up today i said something i shouldn't have said thank you for forgiving me would you cleanse me from that unrighteousness you know what he does boom done amen it's over you don't store it up for a whole year and then go man i hope the high priest gets it right and so in that sense there's also a new pattern of our relationship the old pattern was based on everybody meticulously following all these steps moses was handed the world's most complex system of religion that's what he got if you read through the mosaic law if you read through all the sacrifices and these days it's like man it took you all year to get to the day of atonement every single sabbath every shabbat beautiful picture let's rest god rested on the seventh let's do that let's join him in that sabbath rest and then it turned into religion and before you know it people are worrying about whether they're carrying around you know got more than a day's worth of food in their hands that's what god wanted god wanted you to set that day apart for him that's how quickly we can take the pattern and mess it up you see in that sense the way of jesus is a better way in every way it's not just kind of sorta better notice verse six but now he has obtained who's the he that's jesus that's messiah that's the king has obtained a more excellent ministry in as much as he is also the mediator of a better covenant which was established on better promises that word this mediator can be advocate it can be go-between it can mean lots of things but the word advocate actually is the same exact word as we would use attorney or lawyer and here's why that's important because where is jesus he's in heaven where is he physically at the right hand of god the father what's he doing he's mediating he's your advocate so here's what happens the devil goes did you see what jeff did yesterday and your lawyer jesus goes uh father we took care of that a long time ago and i object to this accusation against jeff amen what he's doing he's just like he's sitting there as your advocate going uh satan get out of here you know you can't bring an accusation against the brethren i took care of that accusation i paid for that sin with my blood take a hike that's a whole lot better than the high priest goes in on yom kippur and you gave him a list of your sins i'm pretty sure he didn't read them all because he has the list of the entirety of the children of israel to deal with but jesus can take care of every accusation amen past present and oh yeah even the future ones that you haven't even done yet but you probably will he's better in every way you see you don't need me as a priest or as a pastor to go for you you have jesus there to do it for you amen you don't need me to go as a go-between between you and god you can go directly through christ jesus your savior amen that is way better because here's what's going to happen you're going to call me up and i'll just put this on me i'm not going to blame anyone else i'm not going to pick on any other priest let's just make jeff pastor jeff also priest jeff for the day and so you tell me about your sins then you know what happens i'm getting closer to 70 than 60. so after lunch i go into a coma then i'm trying to remember what i had for lunch then i'm trying to remember all your sins that you told me about i go to god oh yeah you know for uh bob and susie would you forgive their sins amen i'm not going to remember those i'm probably not going to be able to defend myself against those accusations if they were mine that's why i'm glad jesus is doing it for me amen he's not gonna forget he's not gonna oh i missed that one that's why the old testament priests were not sufficient to complete the job they were just people they had the same problems that you do they needed a mediator and so jesus took care of that and that sense that old testament system was flawed it was faulty it wasn't imperfect in what it was meant to do it was perfect for what it was meant to do but it was only meant to go so far so in that sense it was flawed because there was further to go you have to have real forgiveness of all of your sins not a putting away of most of your sins the ones that you committed prior to the day of atonement for that first covenant notice verse 7 if it had been faultless there'd be no place or none would be sought for a second in other words the new covenant would be completely unnecessary if the old covenant could have saved you but the old covenant couldn't save you in that sense it was not faultless not that it was imperfect as planned it was just simply not complete it was never intended to finish the work messiah was intended to finish the work and so what needed to be done could never have been done through the old testa the old covenant it could only be done through the new and so god says look we have to put that one away because finding fault with them verse 8 he says behold the days are coming but i'll make a new covenant who was the fault with them people not god people the problem was the old covenant was instituted for and kept by people who are imperfect you need to be perfect to get into heaven praise god jesus is amen so he gets us where we couldn't have gone before is the picture the blood of the bulls the blood of the goats the things that were done under the old testament the covenants that were given were sufficient to atone they kept god from instituting his wrath it put it away so that they at least for a time were were covered by what was done they were atoned for but god was simply saying well we'll have to deal with that later and in that sense you kind of see this process and if you ever have the opportunity if you get to pay off your mortgage you see your mortgage payments you make while you still owe the mortgage right but once you pay the house off it's absolutely yours amen until you pay the house off whose is it the banks and in the very same way the jewish people kept making payments until messiah came they made payment year after year after year after year they got to live in the house they got to have a relationship with the lord but the house wasn't theirs jesus came and made the final payment he said this is my blood shed for the remission the actual forgiveness the putting away of the sins the blood of the bulls and goats only made a deposit they made the monthly payment they got you square for the time being but jesus came and canceled the covenant of debt that was owed by you amen [Applause] and in that sense you can look at what was going on with the old testament and say that was good for them they just never got to that last payment until jesus came you know they they made it that whole 180 months or whatever it was you know they got all the way out to the end we got the payment 179. and then jesus came one of the most glorious things that will happen to you practically speaking in your married life is when you finally pay off your home it's like no more debt jesus made that a reality for us eternally no more debt it's over we will dwell in the house of the lord forever amen that's why it's a better way that's why the old way was flawed that's why it was faulty it wasn't bad it was just simply incomplete we find as we wrap this passage up for much better provisions so these things are not according to the covenant that i made with their fathers in the day which i took them by the hand and led them out of egypt it says they're in verse 9 because they did not continue in my covenant and i disregarded them says the lord they voided their part of the agreement they stopped making payments they said look because the payment wasn't just all the sacrifices it was obedience it was righteousness it was living for the lord it was you shall not make wives for yourself of foreigners there's all kinds of things attached to it you will not worship any god but me how about that one you see they kept kind of messing around with the covenant and god said look it's just simply not going to do the job i left it in your hands to keep that part of it you're not keeping that part of it and so we have these much better provisions that now have been made for us and the new covenant has four very distinct differences the new covenant notice what it says verse 10 i will put my laws in their mind and write them on their hearts amen the problem with the old covenant is it was scribbled on stone first it was actually a physical building it was a whole bunch of things that you had to do it was places you had to be it was things that you needed to engage in in other words because it relied on you it was never done you were always short and now jesus says no let's let's fix that the new covenant allows for all of those things that law to be inscribed in your heart and then god gives you the grace to carry it out the faith to believe the spirit of god to help you with those things before it was like man i missed ah i missed that sacrifice i was on a journey and i got caught away from a place that i could celebrate the sabbath and now and now i've got to go richly cleanse myself one of the ways and this is an interesting thing about israel today one of the ways that they know a specific settlement is a jewish settlement in the land of israel as they find mikveh those are ritual baths the jewish people were so inclined to make sure they were covered with the ceremony that they would build ritual if there were jewish people living in a jewish community with a jewish synagogue there was at least one mikveh one ritual bath why because every time you walked by somebody that was a gentile if you got too close you run clean if you touch something with blood on it you were unclean there was just infinite ways that you would be sullied by the world so there had to be a ritual for everything that's now in your heart you're clean because jesus made you clean amen you make it in the world but you're not of the world because jesus has made your home not of this earth a second thing this new covenant provides a much closer intimacy with god you see they had a very long distant relationship with god as a jewish person matter of fact most of them as close as they could get would be the actual court of sacrifice that was it you couldn't even actually get into the holy place so in the temple there was the holy place that was the outer sanctuary and then the inner sanctuary the holy of holies and only the high priest could go in there but they couldn't even get into the holy place i was like well you can be in the court of sacrifice but that's it and only if you were a man by the way you ladies sorry you can't get there you had your own court you had the court of women and it was basically just a little better than the court of gentiles which is where people who are not jewish could go and on that court of gentiles it actually says for you to go beyond this you will be killed that's how crazy it was nobody had access to god a high priest one day a year and now we have this close intimate relationship with god the father through christ the son amen one of the beauties of that relationship is when he comes back we're going to be ruling and reigning with the king of kings and lord of lords we're going to be wandering around the earth going lord what are we doing today give you a little secret in the garden that's what god wanted don't miss that that's what god wanted with you he never wanted religion he never wanted a long-distance relationship he wanted intimacy a third thing a new covenant provides a deeper knowledge of god you see the jewish people had a knowledge of god but it was partial and it was incomplete and it was focused on head knowledge it wasn't heart knowledge 20 years after this book was written john would echo that truth he would say in 1 john chapter 2 but you have been anointed by the holy one to have all knowledge and as for you that anointing that you receive from him abides in you you do not need anyone to teach you but you have his anointing and it teaches about him all things this is true it's not a lie and he has taught you to abide in him in other words if you live in him you abide in him you know god's heart that way do you have a relationship with the lord that's that deep you should a fourth thing and this is the one that was the critical thing the new covenant provides complete forgiveness of your sin total forgiveness amen you see part of the old covenant was i will forget your sense but it was incomplete it had to be repeated every single year in other words it was conditional on you keeping the covenant if you didn't keep it your sins weren't forgiven jesus said now in me your sins have been forgiven and are being forgiven sins impact which is death by the way the wages of sin is death amen you're not under the penalty of death anymore that's why jesus is speaking to mary and martha in john chapter 11 said i am the resurrection and the life and he who believes in me though he shall die oh shall live you're not going to pay for your own sins jesus paid for them they're paid in full by the way they're not there wasn't a deposit they weren't put on layaway you remember when we used to be able to put stuff on layaway you'd give like 40 cents and they would hang on to something for you and you'd make payments on it and what happened if you didn't make the final payment every bit of money that you gave them was wasted right they got to keep the item and the money you didn't get that back jesus paid the debt in full there's no payment due when it comes time for you to take your last breath you're going to see jesus amen and in that sense and we close with this god designed obsolescence notice verse 13 in that he says a new covenant he is made the first there it is obsolete now what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away not even needed anymore that's how much better the new covenant actually is so when god initiates the new one the old covenant is no longer even needed it's completely unnecessary and this was demonstrated to the jewish people in about as extreme a way as you could possibly imagine so the writing of the book of hebrews is believed to be someplace in the first 10 years after the resurrection of the lord so about 30 years after that titus and the roman army several legions lay siege to rome and they destroy herod's temple so that what jesus said at the end of matthew's gospel actually occurs not one stone would be left upon another so if you go to jerusalem today there's no jewish temple of any kind on the temple mount there are four mosques the rubble of the walls that used to keep that temple on the temple mount are at the base of the wall today so there wasn't even any temple for anyone to offer the sacrifices there was no place for them to go and take their offering for their family god designed obsolescence into the system itself so much so that he said you don't even have a temple to do it in and the temple was necessary just like the tabernacle in the wilderness was necessary it was an absolute fact you had to have it and so when jesus in matthew's gospel in chapter 5 said to them i have not come to abolish the law but to fulfill the law and the prophets it's exactly what he did everything that needed to be done according to the law and the prophets jesus did when he died on calvary's cross he fulfilled all things so that now as you believe in him you have a permanent grace relationship with god the father through christ the son god didn't change his mind he didn't say oops i didn't quite mean all of that he said that was for then and jesus is for now that was for the jewish people this by grace and through faith is for everyone why because all have sinned all have fallen short everyone turned unto his own way what isaiah the prophet said jesus took care of can i tell you that not everyone in the world was jewish at that time do you think god would have created a system whereby salvation would come to anyone and not offer it to everyone he didn't he just gave them a temporal way for them to be okay with god until jesus came and now through christ all who call upon his name will be saved amen much better covenant amen would you stand and we'll close in prayer [Applause] if you've never invited jesus into your life i'm going to encourage you after service to just simply go to the prayer room and say i want to know jesus i want to have that relationship with him you only have it if you ask for it you don't have it because you come to church you don't have it because your parents come to church you don't have it because your spouse comes to church you have a relationship with jesus because you ask him for it amen you admit you have to confess that you're a sinner and invite him to be your savior you can do that today don't miss that opportunity because he's given us a much better covenant that covenant is one by grace and through faith it's no longer bulls and goats that need to be sacrificed jesus shed his blood so that you can have access to god the father father we thank you for that truth and lord we pray now as we conclude this few minutes time really lord just a hour and a bit out of our day where we spend it with you studying your word god would you now help us to walk in the light of that truth that we are not to be just religious we're to be in relationship with you by grace and through faith and so i pray if there's anyone here anyone watching online that doesn't know you that they would invite you jesus right now to be their savior and lord that they would cry out to you to forgive that sin permanently and to write your name on their hearts and their name in the lamb's book of life lord we thank you for the new covenant which is so much better than the old one god thank you for saving us bless us lord we pray in jesus name amen you

Channel: Calvary Chapel South Bay

Views: 204

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: Bible, Calvary Chapel South Bay, God, Jeff Gill, Jesus, Jesus Christ, Lord, Pastor Jeff Gill, Scriptures, South Bay, ccsb, ccsouthbay

Id: 0A_mmDLL50M

Length: 52min 50sec (3170 seconds)

Published: Sun Sep 26 2021