Dennis Tuuri

# Sermon Transcript – Hebrews 8:7-13

I think the reading from Jeremiah 31 which will be repeated in the sermon text today. It is worth noting that this I think is the longest Old Testament citation in the New Testament. So it kind of bears some attention for that reason alone. Plus I think that Jeremiah 31 I’m not sure but I think it might be the only text in the Old Testament that explicitly refers to new covenant. And so it’ll be important for us to consider that in relationship to God’s word today.

The sermon text is Hebrews 8:7-13. Hebrews 8:7-13. If you have a handout that’s been made available, you could follow along in that and you’ll see how I’ve broken it up for at least my consideration. I think the text flows this way. If not, follow along in your own Bibles or just listen with your ears. Please stand and hear the reading of God’s word.

Hear the reading of God’s word. Hebrews 8:7-13: “For if that first covenant had been faultless then no place would have been sought for a second because finding fault with them he says behold the days are coming says the Lord which I will when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah not according to 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.

And I disregarded them, says the Lord. For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord. I will put my laws in their mind and write them on their hearts, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. None of them shall teach his neighbor, and none his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for all shall know me from the least of them to the greatest of them.

For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness and their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more. In that he says a new covenant. He has made the first obsolete. Now what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away.”

Let’s pray. Father, we desire to understand this text. More than that, we desire to be transformed by your Holy Spirit bringing Jesus to us. We pray that you would transform us, Lord God. May we indeed go from glory to glory today. May we mature in our image-bearing capacity for the Lord Jesus Christ. Give us, Lord God, his understanding, his character, his resurrection strength and power to take this text into how we conduct our lives from this point forward. We thank you, Lord God, for it and give you praise for it. Bless us as we consider it in Jesus name we ask it. Amen. Please be seated.

I’ve been out of the pulpit for a couple of weeks and as Doug H. mentioned at the beginning of the service, we’ve sort of prepared, we’ve reviewed already Hebrews because Hebrews begins with that wonderful introduction in the first four verses and then the next section of Hebrews deals with the kina a string of verses moving from Psalm 2 to Psalm 110 but then Hebrews essentially focuses on these major texts that we’ve sung today isn’t that great and recited responsibly the Jeremiah 31 text Jesus the son of man and son of God and in relationship to that the author of Hebrews quotes from Psalm 8 and what a wonderful psalm that is to sing to begin the day.

Yeah. with Jesus, mankind now has been exalted to reign and rule. And so Jesus is the son of man and he has exalted man in his coming. And then the text moved on for a couple of chapters to refer to Psalm 95 and the great promises of entering into the rest of God, but also the warnings. Hebrews is replete with warnings, which is important for today’s text as we understand it correctly and clear away maybe some misunderstanding that you might have about it. I know that’s what God did with me the last three weeks as I thought about this text cleared away some misunderstandings.

But Psalm 95 was then the next great section of scripture that God quoted from and executed for us in the book of Hebrews and great promises but tremendous warnings given to Christians given to the New Testament church drawing this connection between them and those that did not enter into the rest of God. Very important for correct understanding of our text today. And then we went through three or four chapters that really were an exposition primarily of Psalm 110, although there was reference back to Genesis, the meeting of Melchizedek and Abram, but Psalm 110 and the great depiction there that they should have known, you know, that a better high priest was coming.

God told them that in the Psalms, Levitical order was always tentative and provisional. And there’s a sense in which today’s text tells us that the covenant administration handed down from Sinai was provisional, always as intended to be. Wasn’t bad. Became worn out as they broke it. But it was provisional certainly. And so today’s text, you know, Hebrews the word better is used more often in the book of Hebrews than any other Bible book, a New Testament book at least, the Greek word for better.

And of course, it’s all because Jesus is the best. And he’s come, he’s a better mediator of the law. He’s a better than the prophets. He’s better than the angels. He’s better than the priests, the Old Testament Levitical order. He’s better than Abraham. He’s better than Melchizedek. He’s the best. And this covenant administration brought in through his work in the heavenly sanctuary is the best.

It’s the better covenant, we could say. And we’ll see as we go on through Hebrews. This remains a refrain. Better promises, better still in the future for us as pointed to in today’s text. We’ll talk about that in a couple of minutes. So we reviewed that. And then Jeremiah 31 now becomes at as we move to the very center of this book, Jeremiah 31 and the description of this new covenant, whatever that might mean, becomes very important at the heart of Hebrews is this consideration of this new covenant.

So we’ve kind of reviewed the text. I’ve been gone for three weeks. Thought it’d be good to do that, to review the text. And I thought, what a wonderful way to do it through singing these passages of scripture and reciting them. And that’s what we’ve done in that three weeks. It’s been a rather important time the last couple of weeks as I’ve been out of the pulpit. You know, I was thinking that it’s important, you know, we sing about the Lord God of Sabaoth.

That doesn’t that’s not Sabbath. That’s Sabaoth hosts. And originally that refers to the angelic hosts that do God’s command. But it has this military aspect to it. You’re a host. I mean, you’re not a host in the technical sense, the term like angels, but you are the army of God. The benediction that we use at the end of our worship service is the Aaronic benediction. And then after our announcements, we do a New Testament benediction.

But it’s not as if the Aaronic benediction is not a New Testament benediction. It’s the blessing of God upon his people, but it’s a blessing upon them as they’re his army. That’s the context in the book of Numbers from which it’s taken. You’re gathered to be sent out as an army. And we’ve seen the Christian church across this country and the impact of that church in our culture move a mighty army for God in the last two weeks.

You know, I know there’s all kinds of blame gaming and all this stuff going on. And you know, men are men. They’re like you. They make mistakes and they’re also like you and that they sin sometimes. Have you sinned this last week? I have. But that’s not the story of the last two weeks from my perspective. From my perspective, the story is the incredible pouring forth of compassion, concern, and care for the victims of Katrina.

That is an astonishing story and that is not a story that is necessarily repeated in other countries where these sorts of disasters occur. It is a direct result of the newness of the covenant that Jesus ushered in the day of Pentecost that all things would be affected now by the gospel in a very significant way. And so what we see around us, you know, we want to pray for the victims and pray for those that are helping them, but we want to bathe that prayer in praise, in thanksgiving to God that his spirit is moving a mighty army through deeds of love and kindness. The heavenly kingdom comes to reach out to people in their need and hopefully overtly in the name of Jesus Christ. I watched the concert hour-long thing Friday night. Boy, a lot of singing about Jesus all of a sudden. That’s great. My son Ben said something about how there’s this rapper named 50 Cent, 50 Cent, whatever it is, and if you make him bleed the rapper they all start talking about Jesus.

I think he says it in a derogatory way. I don’t know. But you know what? That’s the way we are. And that’s not bad. The black culture is steeped in the gospel of Jesus Christ. They had to cling to that as they went through the horrific condition of slavery in this country. And many times it was horrific. God’s penalty for kidnapping is death. That’s how these slaves got here for the most part. But anyway, the black experience is rooted in the gospel of Jesus Christ and it does come out when times get tough and it’s coming out now.

Praise God for that. That’s not a bad thing. You know what Katrina means? Katrina is a shortened form of Katherine and Katherine Erland knows what that name means. And my daughter happened to know what Katherine meant because she’d heard Katherine Erland say it. It means pure. We have an English word catharsis that’s kind of like Catherine from which Katrina is taken. It’s a purifying thing. Catharsis is a purifying a purgative on the body or a experience you go through that purifies you and Katrina you know I think from the providence of God this name I mean men named it’s not a revelation it’s not the inspired word of God but he controls these details right and it’s storm comes through and devastates an area where great sinfulness had been New Orleans the cultural center of voodooism and all kinds of bad things good things too but all kinds of bad things and this purgative changing comes through and it comes through to purify.

That city is going to be built more beautiful and hopefully some people will repent. They’ll have made vows to God in the context of this difficult time. I’m not saying it was a direct relationship to their sin. God wiped out, you know, places in Mississippi and Alabama that had nothing to do with voodoo worship, but I’m just saying whatever God does in terms of these natural disasters so-called, they’re Katrinas.

They’re purifying effects. I saw rich people from Mississippi, Biloxi and these wonderful old expensive homes that were destroyed and I saw one of them talking on the radio or on the television. She said, “You know, we’re a proud people. We don’t take help. Never have taken help. But you know what?” She said, “This last week, we’ve had to beg for food and water.” Purifying. Purifying. We don’t want bad times to come and we want to pray that they stop quickly, but we don’t want to miss what God is doing in all of this.

This he’s purifying things. There’s tremendous things to give praise and thanksgiving to God for to follow up with prayers rather that people would see this as a purifying agent in their lives. Katrina, what a what an event and what a wonderful thing. Today and next Sunday, the offerings in relationship to the communion table, the benevolence baskets are up here at the front because you’re supposed to as you come to communion table, think of those that we’re bound together with in Christ.

Think of the grace shown to you at the table and want to pass that grace out to others. And so the benevolence offerings are in relationship to the table, you see. And the this week and next week, these two offerings or special offerings are dedicated to hurricane relief. And we’ll be funneling that money through a CRC church in a suburb of Houston that’s very involved and needs help. Money help and other kinds of help to continue to minister in the name of Jesus Christ.

And so that’s what we’ll be doing is we’ll be funneling this through a local church that we know we’re connected with and we can trust to use these funds correctly. You know, there’s a movement in our mission work to funnel mission giving through local churches in these countries. A movement in our benevolence is we want to funnel as much as we can through local churches, people we know and trust.

And we know that in this specific area, people are ministering and so that’s what the offering is for today. So many saints have stepped up and as I said that’s sort of the there’s a relationship of that great blessing to what happens here in this text before us with this new covenant. We come to this text a little confused. And one of the reasons why we come to this text a little confused sometimes and we get it a little bit wrong This text in Hebrews is because of something that happened in the 2nd century AD.

In the 2nd century AD, somebody decided to put a page in the middle of the Bible that said New Testament and a page at the beginning of the Bible that said Old Testament. Now, Old Covenant, New Covenant, that was not in the inspired text of scripture. Still isn’t. Probably ought to just take that page out of your Bibles, literally. I’m serious. It messes us up. It doesn’t. It can confuse us. Now, this relationship between testament and covenant, what’s that all about?

Well, here in Hebrews, this word translated covenant, there’s a word in Greek that is used for an agreement between two parties. This isn’t it. This is a word that was used among other things of at last will and testament. Testament is the Latin translation for covenant or the Greek that was covenant. So, that’s why we have covenant, testament sort of in our minds together. Old covenant, new covenant, old testament, new testament.

The matching section that you’ll see in your outline today to this section when we get down to it in a few weeks. We’ll talk about the death of the testator. You know, the old covenant is going to be replaced by the new covenant. Old testament, new testament, and a testament is something that stresses more the initiative of one person. You leave a last will in testament, it’s not an agreement you’ve entered into with your heirs.

It is your sovereign disposition of your inheritance of your of your goods to those that would inherit it. And so in the Bible covenant and certainly here in Hebrews, it’s this word that has this connotation of the sovereign God bestowing these gifts upon us. It’s not an agreement or a bargain really, you see. And well, in any event, so we’ve got New Testament and Old Testament that sort of gets us a little confused as we come to this text.

And you know, if we remember some of these things that I just mentioned in the overview, I think we’ll do good a little better at understanding the text before us. You know, I’m also just mentioning Katrina again. You know, it’s interesting that the sovereignty of God the last couple of sermons here at RCC have focused on evangelism. And while it’s the two that John gave were both on household evangelism, one of the things the elders of your church are talking about is moving beyond household evangelism to neighborhood evangelism, planting other churches, and what we’re doing along those lines.

And certainly, Katrina, this purifying storm from God is a tremendous opportunity for evangelism. Right? So, it’s interesting how God turned our hearts and minds there and then this storm comes along to really reinforce that this is a tremendous opportunity for this evangelism. not the only thing that happened this last week. This last week also saw the beginning of King’s Academy and I was very excited Thursday morning.

I mentioned it here because the chapel service at 8:00 8 to 8:15. 15 minutes we praise God and thank him for the day. We have it right here in the sanctuary. That’s open to anybody that wants to come. Then there’s a 5 minute break. And at 8:20 I’m teaching Bible till 9:05. And again to members of RCC that’s free. If you want your kids to come to that Bible class, feel free to do it. We got to get a bigger room.

We’ll get a bigger room. I’m going to be teaching a survey of the Old Testament. My notes are primarily coming from Peter Leithart’s book, A House for My Name. But it was exciting, you see, to have King’s Academy start up this last week as a way to help parents who are trying to mature these young men and women into the kind of mighty army, a host for Jesus Christ, to do deeds of good and of kindness, right?

And to have expertise to be able to set up emergency shelters the way things are going down there. I mean, you know, you need engineers to minister the benevolence of God to Katrina flood victims. You need people that are good at what they do. You need people of renown who understand the world and use our understanding of the world that God gave us to serve people in the name of Jesus Christ. And our home schools are geared at doing that.

And our school that we started here, our junior high, you know, the kids are learning from the very first days of this school that the purpose of our school is homoousios. Man is worshiping man and that affects every area of his life. And so that was exciting to get that started this past week. One other thing I’d just have you another thing that’s going out is John S. is over there in Russia and I think we’ve communicated this but I wanted to take this opportunity to do this that you know our we’re trying to assist the churches in Russia to enter into relationship here with the CRC and become part of our group.

John is there doing an evaluation of these churches. That’s the big reason he’s not over there to teach primarily. He’ll do some of that but the reason John is there is to evaluate these Russian churches so that we might sponsor them as members in our denomination. We’ve decided not to do that this year to postpone it for a year to give us more time to evaluate what’s happening there with those churches.

And so that’s why John is there. Please pray about that. You know that God would use John in that way. Pray about the CRC thing coming up in the next month. Preparations for that are going a pace. There’ll be a worship service here Wednesday night of CRC week. I think that’s October 12th. Open to the public. It’s an RCC worship service. It’s Wednesday instead of Sunday, but it will be full covenant renewal worship with communion.

It’s not restricted to the presbyters. We have no part of that. It’s a worship service of this local church. And I think it’s a wonderful thing because as we do the sort of work we’re going to do at presbytery. We wanted to begin that with an update of reports from the churches on Wednesday during the day and then worshiping together with the people of God that God would bless the next two days of work we have at our presbytery.

So, again there working out the implications of our worship into our work in terms of that as well. One other thing I’d ask for you to pray about is and again most of you know about this but again today elder deacon Payne and myself will be going to Dan Drinkwater’s house where Chris Hack is a roommate of Dan and we’ll be doing a worship service with Chris. He’s prohibited from the conditions of his parole from attending the worship services of this church but see We want to minister in the name of Jesus Christ to Chris who makes a strong and sincere commitment to Jesus Christ confession of faith studies his Bible knows it well.

And just pray about that. We’re trying every couple of weeks to have a worship service in Dan’s house with Chris and Dan, whoever else wants to come to that. Got to be above 18, no kids. But, you know, if you wanted to join the elder and deacon doing that worship service and encouraging Chris Hack to walk in Christ based on this worship of God on the Lord’s day, Okay, understand that’s happening every couple of weeks.

Just asking me when the next one will be and who you want to go with. So, please be praying about that. It’s the implications again of the new covenant. We’re here in large part with relief efforts, worldwide view of the church, ministering to people here in America because of this new covenant, the newness of the new covenant, which we’ll talk about in a couple of minutes.

All right. On the first page of your handout, I’ve got the review. Again, we’re at the heart of this book or at the fourth of seven sections, Christ the high priest of good things to come. And then in that first page, we got a little expansion of what that’s been about. And very important to recognize here that both at the beginning and end of this section. this fourth section is exhortation, right? 5:1-6:20. Long exhortation. Shema, have big ears. Listen. Great promises contained in this book, but tremendous responsibilities to respond and that’s critical to understanding today’s message.

Same thing at the end concluding exhortations from chapter 10:19 to 39. Live by faith assembling and encouraging one another. That’s the end of the central section. And right at the heart of this book then is where we’re moving toward now. And that is this consideration of the work of Jesus Christ at the establishment of the new covenant. And today 8:7-13 is bolded on your outline. The old covenant was provisional imperfect in the sense that it was provisional and was flawed somehow.

We’ll see in today’s text. What does that mean? We’ll see. And then so at the very heart of Hebrews, the way I understand the book to be structured is this consideration of the covenant and the newness of this covenant and what that means. And so we’ll begin to discuss that today from the sermon text that God has given to us. When we get to chapter 9:15 to 23, which is the matching section. I mentioned it earlier.

It’s where there’s the death of the testator. It sort of draws analogies between the old covenant and the new covenant. Both things purified by blood, but better blood, right? Both the testament sovereignty of God, but better promises. This text, you know, introduces this subject of the newness of this covenant and we’ll be taking that up now. Then, so what we’re going to do is we’ll talk about what is the new covenant and to understand what this text means about this new covenant.

We’re going to look at the content of Jeremiah 31:31-34, the quoted text here. What are the specific elements? God tells us what it is. Then we’re going to look at the context of this in both the book of Jeremiah and also in the book of Hebrews to understand what this is all about. Then we’ll talk about we’ll draw some conclusions about what’s new and what isn’t and what is still going to be new in the future.

And then we’ll talk about the value of a correct understanding of this text. And I think that if we understand this text correctly, it’ll answer some questions for us. It’ll answer maybe for some of you, it’ll answer the question, why you’re not as good as you think you ought to be. What’s wrong with me? Some of you are thinking, this text may help you today to answer that. And it’ll help us to think correctly about what’s wrong and right with the world.

What is God doing with Katrina? If we understand the newness of the new covenant, and it will restore I think what is a continuing theme in this book and we’ll talk about that at the end. So here we go. What’s the new covenant? Bruce Waltke modern theologian involved in Bible translation. I’ve interacted a little with him when I was doing my original preparations for my classes in Proverbs for junior high kids.

He has a new commentary on Proverbs. I don’t have it yet, but David Dorsey says it’s quite good. He’s a you know he’s solidly committed to Jesus Christ in a very knowledgeable man. He was at a conference several years ago and somebody asked him the question, “What is it that’s new about the new covenant in relationship to the old covenant?” And Waltke, he’s a very candid sort of guy. And he said, you know, I’m not really sure.

I don’t know. It seems like that the newness of the new covenant means that we ought to have deeper, better spiritual lives than people in the old covenant. But he said, you know, I just don’t see it. Doesn’t seem to be the case. So, I don’t know what it means to tell you the truth is what I mean. He could give you some technical answers, of course. But he said, “At the very heart of it, it seems like the point of it is a deeper spiritual life.” You’ve heard this, I’m sure they take the text today, and what it’s all about is, well, now we’ve got internalization of the law, and we got more law, and we got more spirit, more blessing.

We’re supposed to be better people. And Waltke says, “Well, I think That’s what it’s supposed to be. But, you know, as I studied the Old Testament, these guys are pretty good. They’re pretty committed to Jesus compared to me. They’re pretty filled with the spirit. So, he was confused about it. Well, let’s look a little bit about what this is all about and what it isn’t about. Look at the text. And as I said, this is the text Jeremiah 31 quoted in Hebrews that talks about the new covenant.

So this is sort of important. This is a text. What does it say? Well, it says, “I’ll make a new covenant.” In verse 10, this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days. Right? So, here it is. And I’ve got it kind of blocked off for you. I’ll put my laws in their mind and write them on their hearts. I will be their God, and they shall be my people. In a way, that’s a summary statement.

You could take this as meaning two different things. You know, an internalization of the law and this relationship is God’s people or I sort of think they’re two halves of the same thing. They’re his people because his law is in their heart. Either way, one or two things there. That’s certainly how God identifies the new covenant. And then in verse 11, none of them shall teach his neighbor and none his brothers, saying, “Know the Lord. They shall all know me from the least of them to the greatest of them.” Oh, okay. So, the new covenant is about the time when everybody’s going to know Jesus. Now, it doesn’t mean you won’t have any teaching going on necessarily. It just means that in terms of knowledge of the Lord. So, there’ll be a knowledge of the Lord that is so widespread that you won’t have to tell your brother or sister, your neighbor, know the Lord.

And it’s interesting because he says they’ll know me from the greatest to the least. And you can’t help but think about Katrina. I can’t with believe the greatest and Eastern New Orleans. the least in terms of financial resources, money, etc. There’s a comprehensiveness to them knowing the Lord that is identified with this new covenant from this quote in Jeremiah. And then I’ll be merciful to their right to their unrighteousness.

Right? So I’ll forgive their sins. He says their sins and their laws lawless deeds I’ll remember no more. And you hear commentators talk about this a lot and they say things like, let’s see, let me read this as a One of the com I think it was the Bible knowledge commentary. One, there’s an inner inclination to obey God laws in their hearts. Two, there’s a firm relationship with God. I’ll be their God. Three, the knowledge of God was part of this new covenant.

And four, the forgiveness of sins. And so that’s what we have in the New Testament. You know, this side of that page that was inserted by somebody 1800 years ago, and that’s what they didn’t have prior to that. Well, if you know your Bibles at all, There’s a little problem with that, isn’t there? And if you know the culture you live in world history at all, there’s a little problem with that. The problem is that God always told his people in the Old Testament that he would put his laws in their hearts.

There’s nothing new about that. You know, we read for instance in Ezekiel 36, I’ll take you from among the nations. So Ezekiel 36 is talking about the restoration after the exile, right? Gather you out of all the countries, he says. So that’s the context. And then he says in verse 26, I’ll give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you. I’ll take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.

I’ll put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes. But Ezekiel’s telling that to Old Testament saints. And he’s telling them that about the time when he brings them out of the exile back into the land, which was going to happen a few years, you know, 70 years after or whatever it was. This isn’t new where God says he’s going to put his spirit inside of people and he’s going to put his law in their heart.

Verse 28 says, “Then you shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers.” That’s Israel. You shall be my people and I will be your God. That’s what God always said to the Jews. You’re my people. I’m your God. And so what Jeremiah says there quoted in Hebrews that doesn’t seem particularly new either. Same thing’s true in Ezekiel 11. I’ll gather you out of all the nations. Then I will give them one heart.

Verse 19 of Ezekiel 11. I’ll put a new spirit within them. Take the strong stony heart out of their in their out of their flesh and give them a heart of flesh. We read these passages and we think we know what they mean. We bring presuppositions largely based on those texts that were inserted in the Bible in the second century. Well, the Old Testament show they had a heart of stone and the New Testament they had a heart of flesh.

Well, there’s a little problem with that, isn’t there? They didn’t have hearts of stone. Look at David. You know, I tell young men, you know, to be careful in sexual activity. Have courtships overseen by dads. Don’t be alone with single young gals because unless you think you’re wiser than Solomon or stronger than Samson or more committed to God than David, don’t think you can’t fall. in this area because all those men did.

That argument falls flat if we assume that David, Samson, and Solomon weren’t like us. Spirit-filled God’s law in their hearts. Of course, they were. David’s the one who writes in the Psalms over and over again. I put your word in my heart. Psalm 37 says, “The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord.” Verse 23. He delights in his way. I want to read this because you can be tempted to think something different.

about the verse I want to get to. So, I’m going to read a little bit of the context of Psalm 37. He says, “I have not seen the righteous forsaken.” In verse 25, he’s talking about contemporary to himself. You know, sometimes some people want to read the Psalms to say they speak about Jesus and Jesus only. So, when I get to this verse, you’re going to be tempted to think that’s Jesus, nobody else. That is not true.

This psalm explicitly says, “I’ve seen the righteous.” He identifies the righteous as the people that are surrounding him. Now, ultimately, they’re true of Jesus Christ. You know, Before I read this text, let me just say that I think that one way to look at the Ezekiel text is not that the Old Testament folks had stony hearts and the New Testament now we get the law of God written on him. No, because he it can’t be that.

It can’t be that at least for the restoration community prior to the coming of Jesus because the promise was to them. I don’t think it’s of them at all. It is a prediction long term that will happen, but I don’t think that has something to do with the intrinsic nature of believers in the Old and New Testament. I think it has to do with the coming of Jesus Christ. He’s the heart, the beating center of our faith is the incarnated savior, not the stone tablets which the law was contained on.

Nothing wrong with those. They pictured the coming of Jesus. He’s not being derogatory about that. He’s just saying there’s a newer, greater thing happening when at the center, the beating heart of your life will be the incarnated Jesus Christ. He’s not separating it from the law. Our text today in from Jeremiah and in Hebrews, I mean, at the plain reading of it, it says that the essence of the new covenant is still in relationship to God’s law.

It’s not the vaporization of God’s law. If anything, it’s an internalization. And I don’t even think it’s that. I think this is just repeating what the promises of covenant always were to his people. Going on in Psalm 37, he’s ever merciful and lends people around him. verse 28, the Lord loves justice, does not forsake his saints. Verse 29, the righteous shall inherit the land and dwell in it forever. The mouth of the righteous speaks wisdom.

His tongue talks of justice. Here you go. The law that is God is in his heart. None of his steps shall slide. The psalmist said, “The people around me that are righteous, the law of God is in their heart.” God had already written it in their hearts. Folks, that’s not new here. There’s nothing new about the law of God being written in the hearts of his people. And there’s nothing new about God saying they’ll be my people and I’ll be their God.

That’s just what he told him in the Old Testament over and over and over again. Is there anything new about the forgiveness of sins? I don’t think so. God forgave sins upon the, you know, looking forward to the coming of Jesus. Now, there’s a change. the dealing with sin was not an abstract concept. Jesus literally took care of sin on that cross and his blood going into the heavenly tabernacle. So there was a time action event that established full redemption.

So I’m not saying there’s no difference. But in the Old Testament, God tells him again and again, I won’t remember your sins. I’ll as far as the east is from the west, I’ll put them away from you. There’s nothing new there either. So we’re stuck with one of three or four things here maybe being what’s new. And that is this verse. so you know looking back on your outlines or in the text you know the first uh chapter or verse 10 rather the law and the god people that’s old covenant as well as new verse 12 in terms of s old new verse 11 maybe that’s it none of them shall teach his neighbor none his brother saying know the lord for all shall know me that’s what’s new about the new testament now everybody knows Jesus and now we don’t have to tell anybody no know God.

Well, there’s a problem with that, isn’t there? We know that the church of Jesus Christ has false sons in her pale, so to speak, just like the Old Testament church did. We know there are people that say they know the Lord and don’t know the Lord. And beyond that, we know an awful lot of our neighbors and friends who won’t even say they know the Lord. That hasn’t happened yet, right? Hadn’t happened in the Old Testament, hasn’t happened now.

And in fact, this entire sermon to the Hebrews is shouting at them, know the Lord. We haven’t reached a place where nobody needs to tell each other that anymore. The author of the Hebrews, he’s saying that. He’s saying, you better watch it. Know the Lord. Yeah, he’s son of God, son of man. Great things. Man has dominion in the earth, but listen to him. There’s a responsibility that comes attached to that gospel that you must heed.

And what has he told them? If you don’t heed it, Psalm 95, you’re going to be just like the Old Testament church, right? He didn’t put radical discontinuity between the life of the believer in the Old Testament and the life of the believer in the New Testament. There is nothing like that in the in the book of Hebrews. No, it’s not there. And if that’s his point in this text, you sure think he would have said that, made it explicit for us.

And instead, you know, he doesn’t build on Jeremiah and then say, “Now this is what’s happened.” He says, you know, it’s a it’s a it’s a covenant with Israel and Judah. Means You know, the New Testament, we’re true Israel. That’s an implication of this. It’s important for us to know verses like this. This whole idea that the Israel and church are two separate things. That’s just all wrong. And here we’re identified as Israel and Israel and Judah.

We’re identified as those who love the law, right? So, you know, he draws continuity again at the very places where the church today so often draws discontinuity. Isn’t that odd? We don’t want the law. We don’t want to be Jewish and we think, you know, we want to be discontinuous with them. And we’re a lot better than they were. We’re more spiritual people than David. You know, as Lousy Kingman says, I say foo to that.

I just don’t see it in the Bible, folks. And it’s certainly not here. Something’s going on here. You know, we can’t say that there’s nothing new about this. There certainly is. But, you know, you can spend a lot of time studying what people say is new. about this and you just find out that where we make discontinuity there’s continuity. We have the same spirit indwelling us, the same law, same relationship to God, all that stuff.

And where the church draws continuity today, we draw discontinuity. And here is the newness. I think the newness is that in America when Katrina hits hundreds of thousands, millions of Christians and people affected by the Christian worldview pour out deeds of love and kindness. That’s the difference. You didn’t see that kind of response to relief efforts prior to the coming of Jesus Christ. Certainly not amongst, you know, the Native Americans that lived here.

They killed each other regularly. Wars were the were the common place. No, the newness, the day of Pentecost is about the gospel now going out to the uttermost parts of the earth. And the thing that’s particularly new. Hasn’t actually happened yet, but it’s in progress. We are moving toward what this text says. Every man and his neighbor will know the Lord from the greatest to the least. That’s the newness of it.

The expansion of the covenant community, those filled with the spirit, knowing God’s word, he’s their God and they’re his people. Their expansion and growth into all the world. That’s what the new covenant is. I think that’s the one thing here that makes it new. Now, it’s all new and a little different. different sense, you know, what is new and what is old. Well, he says at the very beginning of this t this text, verse 7, if that first covenant had been faultless, no place would have been sought for a second.

What is this fault of the new covenant or the old covenant? Well, part of it is, you know, he’s already said that the Levitical priesthood was sort of flawed. Not that it was flawed, but that it was going to be replaced, right? And that administration from Sinai is going to be replaced. So maybe that’s part of it. But he goes on to tell us what I think is his focus on the problem with the first covenant.

verse eight because finding fault with them he says what caused the covenant to get old to go old to have to be abolished and wiped away as at the end of our text says it’s going to be. What happened? How does it get old? Why does it need to be made new? It’s the sins of the people of God. That’s what it is. They were sinful. He goes on to tell us that right in this text, right? He says, “I’m going to make a new covenant.” Then right at the middle of this text, you know, I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt, but they didn’t continue in my covenant.

And I disregarded them. He dissed them. He disregard, you know, we have that wonderful verse of comfort. Cast all your cares upon God knowing that he carth for you. It’s same word, same basic word here. There comes a time in the life of the people when he doesn’t care for you, when he disregards you. That’s at the heart of this text. Heart of this text is not the greatness of the new covenant, how different spiritual we are from the old.

The heart of this text is warning that if we don’t continue in this covenant, he’s going to disregard us. We won’t be able to claim that promise. Cast all your care upon him knowing he cares for you. I mean, we will because that involves repentance. Another thing Katrina points out, of course, is the false gods of our culture. When as it’s a demonstration of goodness, there’s been some bad, too. A lot of carping about who caused the hurricane.

God did. And people look to the civil government for salvation. It’s not going to happen. Not going to happen ever. Well, this text tells us that at the heart of this section even is this idea that the old covenant became old because the people of God no longer continued in that covenant. So, you know, The new covenant is not the immediate analysis of what the new covenant is described as being here does not put it in diametric opposition to the life of the believer in the Old Testament.

Neither does the expanded context. If we took the time in Jeremiah, we’d find that just like Ezekiel, Jeremiah is speaking to the people in exile. And while we can see the author certainly draws correctly that ultimately he’s talking about the renewal of the covenant with Christ in the in the immediate context. He was talking just like Ezekiel was about them being reathered in the land. And so the context of the quote itself from Jeremiah says this isn’t all that different in terms of the spiritual life of the Old Testament saint because that’s the one Jeremiah was originally talking to even though he was seeing beyond to the coming of Christ.

And the context in Hebrews is the same thing. As I said, Hebrews has all these warnings and admonitions. This is where I think you know the structure of the text can help us a little bit. If you’ve got the handout, pick it up and look at it if you haven’t been looking at it to now. And I think that I I developed this little structure on my own. And then last night, I noticed something about it that was kind of interesting.

You know, we kind of have a back and forth talking about the badness of the Old Testament and then the goodness of the New Testament. And I’m having a hard time. Oh, here we go. Here we go. Here’s my page. Okay. And you see, so at the very beginning it talks about the need for a new covenant because the old one was bad. At the end it says there was a new covenant because the old one is vanishing away. That Jerusalem is going to be destroyed in AD 70.

All remnants will be gone. So it begins and ends with the description of the failure of the old covenant based on the people failing. And then in the in the next two section the long quotation and then the little verse beginning with behold at the top. The days are coming I’ll make a new covenant. So we’ve got things have gone bad with the old one. Things have gone bad at the old one. A new covenant, new covenant.

And then right at the beginning at the middle then the heart of this text is this description of their disregarding God, not continuing covenant and then he disregards them. So the heart of this passage is not ultimately promise. It’s ultim ely warning. He warns them. Now, I came up with this structure just by looking at what the things were talking about. Yeah. Well, this is talking about the old covenant.

This is new. This is the old again. This is the new and this is the old. And then I looked at it last night and recognize that, you know, there’s some structural things going on here, too. Look at the end of the section on verse seven. He says because finding fault with them, he says, and then at the end in that he says a new covenant. So, there’s there’s like markers there. There’s book ends of he says. And then in the in the three remaining sections, we have a repetition of the phrase says the Lord.

You see that days are coming says the Lord. And then at the very middle, I disregarded them says the Lord. And then in verse 10, this is the covenant says the Lord. So I think the structure is right. And I think that you know if we’re if we’re this text is not a text saying how great it is to be a Christian. Part of it is that redemption’s been a accomplished. The knowledge of God is spreading and maturing.

Eventually, Pentecost guarantees us that the whole world will be converted. So, we draw continuity where the new where many churches draw discontinuity, eschatology. And we think the scriptures teach continuity where the new testament churches say there are discontinuity. We think there’s continuity at the spiritual life of the believer in the old covenant, so to speak, and the new covenant. And actually the whole idea of old and new covenant has some justification based on today’s text.

But this is the only place in the Old Testament new covenant is used and it is used in its first application about the new covenant after the exile. Every time God renews the covenant, it can be said to be a new covenant. And God renewed the covenant definitively through Jesus Christ. And that’s what we have now. So both the analysis of the content of the new covenant and the context of both Hebrews and the book of and the book of or Jeremiah rather and the book of Hebrews.

The context of this description all tells us that there is basic continuity in the spiritual life of the believer in old in the old covenant and new testament. Same law, same basic reflection of the character of God, same spirit indwelling them, same promises about being their God and him being their people. What is new, as I said, is this idea that there’ll be a continuing expansion of people that know the Lord.

What difference does all this make? Well,, you know, it does make a lot of difference just for understanding of the Bible, if nothing else, but there’s some very practical differences. I think an awful lot of Christians walk around in churches today feeling kind of bad because they don’t match this description that’s given of this New Testament believer, they’re supposed to be better than David and Solomon and Samson and Abraham and all those guys.

They’re thinking maybe not consciously, but at least in their subconscious, and they’re we all kind of treat each other this way in the evangelical churches in our country. We sort of treat each other like, man, you better be better than them. You got the spirit of God empowering you. They didn’t have that. You got the law written on your heart. They had hearts of stone. And we think, what’s wrong with me?

Why don’t I feel like that? Why don’t I feel more committed than David and stronger in my faith, you know, than Samson. Why aren’t I wiser than Solomon? Because I got the spirit and they didn’t. So, I think it helps to put away false guilt. You know, we’re we’re men. This covenant is essentially reflected by the statement that God forgives sin. In Romans, that’s what he says. This is the covenant. I’m going to forgive their sins.

It’s kind of a short form of it. And here the very concluding this is Romans 11:27. This is my covenant with them when I take away their sins. That’s a simple statement. The covenant’s renewed when God definitively takes away the sins of his people. So, you see, you’re sinful. They were sinful. So, don’t feel like somehow you don’t match up. You’re not supposed to match up if the vision is a person who has a better Holy Spirit working with them and a better law and all this stuff.

That’s just not what the scriptures say. We have an odd view of this stuff. And secondly, it helps us because now we can look at David and Solomon and Samson and I can use them when I talk to young men without having to worry, well, you know, those were stonehearted guys. I don’t want to hear about them. No, we have a renewed appreciation for them because they’re just like us. It gives us a lot of rich material throughout the Old Testament for ourselves to model.

And you, of course, the author of the Hebrews has already done that. Imitate Abraham. Why would we want to imitate him Abraham if he had a stony heart and didn’t have the Holy Spirit dwelling in him? Why would we want to do that? we wouldn’t. So we it opens the whole Bible back up to us and it helps us to answer this question and not feel so guilty about what is wrong with me and it helps us to think correctly about what’s wrong and right about the world.

If you understand that this newness on Pentecost and this movement toward the eventual knowledge of God filling the whole world like the floods went into New Orleans, right? That’s what the Bible Old Testament says. The waters of God, the knowledge of God will flood the earth. Then we understand the purpose of Katrina. It’s to move along the world in its obedience to Christ. It’s a purifying event. Our job is to hope for, see, expect and work toward the gospel flowing out to every nation.

So, we want to go to Russia and Poland. We want to go to, you know, Gresham or wherever it is. And we want to increase the knowledge of Christ. It helps us to understand, think correctly about what’s wrong and right with the world. And then third, and very importantly, I think it restores the heart of the text which is warning you know there’s good news in terms of false guilt but on the other side God says that we’re like them and while God has renewed this covenant definitively in Christ and he renews it with us on the basis of the death of Christ at the Lord’s supper every Lord’s day he says be warned be warned because you can fall just like they fell if we misinterpret the text we’ve got the indwelling spirit and so we can never be lost and we don’t got to worry about it.

We’re not like them who got judged by God because we’re set. Jesus has done the work and we’re in the new covenant. No. Hebrews says no to that. Hebrews says be warned. It is gospel to you. It’s a wonderful truth that Jesus has renewed things, but be warned. Let me read Jeremiah 7:23-26. Young people turn to this port of the scriptures with me. Particularly adults too, but he Jeremiah 7:23-26. This is the last scripture we’ll read.

This is what I commanded them. Verse 23 of Jeremiah 7, saying, “Obey my voice and I’ll be your God and you shall be my people.” See, that’s the covenant in the old part of the Bible and in the new part. It’s the same thing to you. Walk in all the ways that I have commanded you that it may be well with you. know the word of God. Walk in that way. In Jeremiah, the word for law is not law and what we think of it’s Torah, which means a walk with God.

I’ll put my Torah, how to walk within their person. Well, that’s what’s supposed to be within you. Are you walking with Christ this week? Walk in all the ways that I’ve commanded you that it may be well with you. Yet, they did not obey or incline their ear, but followed the councils and the dictates of their evil hearts. went backwards, not forwards. What are we doing as a church? Backwards, forwards. What it will be 20 years from now, backwards, forwards?

Are we going to take false promises of what the new covenant supposedly is, not worry about working hard, not to follow the devices and councils of our own heart, which are always wicked, or are we going to cleave to the commandments of God that he has graciously given us through the work of Jesus Christ? Well, the beating heart of our lives. Whether we go to work, school, whatever it is, will the beating heart be the person and work of Jesus Christ who reflects the stone tablets, the law of God?

Will that be how we think about what we do when we write memos, make orders, buy things, sell things, be men of renown for our craftsmanlike abilities, teach children, learn things? Will it be that? Will we move forward? them or will we move backward? Since the day that your fathers came out of the land of Egypt till this day, I’ve even sent to you all my servants, the prophets, daily rising up early and sending them.

Yet they did not obey me or incline their ear, but stiffen their neck. They did worse than their fathers. Young people, will you do worse than your fathers? I know your fathers. They’ve set a high mark for you. They’re committed to Jesus Christ in a holistic sense. They believe they can change the world one little act of obedience at a time, doing the next thing for Jesus. Those are your fathers. Will you follow and do better than your fathers or and will you move this church and the work of this church and its various ministries forward or will you go retrograde?

This text properly understood takes away false assurances, restores the warning. It restores the assurance that at the end of the forgiveness of sins. I’m not trying to make you feel bad so you give up. I’m trying to say if you’ve sinned, young people, teenagers, by not wanting to be a better Christian than your folks, repent. Repent right now. Do not move this faith community backwards in the next 20 years.

Press forward the claims of Christ in education, politics, commerce, recreation. May God grant us faith faithfulness because he surely tells us in this text that warning is at the middle of it. Jesus has renewed the covenant definitively, definitively purged our sins. He’s now the beating heart. He reflects the law of God. He is the law of God in his character. Wonderful promises, but a warning. Heed him.

Follow him. Do better than your father. Set that as your mark or God will disregard you. You won’t be able to pray. You know, Lord God, I’m casting my care upon you because you care for me. God won’t be thinking of you positively. But we know better things about this group. We know that the teenagers of this church will take this to heart and set their goal as a high watermark above what we’ve accomplished at this church.

We want you to be more steadfast than us. And this is what this text calls you to do properly understood. Let’s pray. Father, we thank you for the next generation at this church. We thank you for the young adults. the newly married people, people starting to raise children up. Thank you for our teenagers, Lord God. We pray for them that they would do better than we did, that they, Lord God, would not have false assurances of their right standing with you based upon inclusion in the church or the marks of external rituals, if they would take these things as wonderful blessings from you, but blessings that encourage and strengthen them to build for the future that this church, that this work, and that your work of the Holy Spirit in this region might go forward.

and not backward. In Jesus name we ask it. Amen.