Thank you. I feel the stain of darkness in my sin A hidden voice recounting all my shame I confess his work and glory The path to life seems like it has no end I live Lift my eyes, where does my help come from? Hear my cries, till the strife is done Till I reach the end, I trust you Lord And the promises of your sustainer of my days, worthy of, I trust you Lord.
I feel the sting of death throughout my pain The way it rates up for me The gospel story The truth that I still see But it's carried in a fragile jar It's my eyes, where does my help come from? He cries, until the strife is done Till I reach the end Sustainer of my days, worthy of my trust, you know. In the power with confidence I stand, into your place. Just you know, one day our fate will be decided. And every hope will be made right.
And I'll see you. Just you Lord, and the promises of your word, sustainer of my day, word is I will. I stand, surrender to your grace Hey, good morning, LifePoint Church. Man, we are so glad to see you.
So good to be in the house of the Lord together. Let's stand, welcome somebody around you, say good morning. And I need you guys to do me a favor.
I need you to slide as far as possible in towards the middle as you can so we can open up some seats on the aisles because we still have people coming in. We want to make sure that we can use every seat possible this morning. As we get started, we're here to worship the Lord together. Amen. And as we do that, I'm going to read in Psalm 62, verses 5 through 8. It says, Yes, my soul.
Find rest in God. My hope comes from Him. Truly, He is my rock and my salvation. He is my fortress. I will not be shaken.
My salvation and my honor depend on God. He is my mighty rock, my refuge. Trust in him at all times, you people, and pour out your hearts to him, for God is our refuge.
Let's pray together. God, we thank you so much for that promise that we find in your word, that you are our fortress and our refuge, and that our soul can find rest and hope only in you. And so many times we look for those things.
We look for rest and we look for hope in sources of the world and we just end up disappointed. So God, thank you for the reminder that you are the only source of rest, the only source of hope. We thank you for the comfort that we find in that promise today. And for that, we worship you. It's in your name we pray.
Amen. Let's worship the Lord together. Come to Him that never was dry, drink of the water, come and thirst no more. Come all you sinners, come find His mercy.
Come to the table, be with satisfied. Taste of His goodness, find what you're looking for. For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son to save us Who never believes in heaven will live forever All your failures, bring your addictions, come lay them down at the foot of the cross.
Jesus is waiting there with open arms. His open arms for God so loved The world that He gave us His one and only Sent to save us He never believes in it He lives forever I love the power of God, forever defeated, now it is well, I'm walking in freedom, for God so loved, God so loved me, Lord. Praise God, praise God, from whom all blessings flow. Praise Him, praise Him, for the wonders of His love.
Praise God, praise God, for the wonders of His love. You are all blessings for me. Praise Him. Praise Him. For the wonders of His love.
He's amazing. For God so loved the world that He gave us His one and only Son to save For God so loved the world that He gave us His one and only Son to save So to save us who never believed in it, we live forever. Our past forever defeated, now it is what I'm walking in. Free my soul and counsel of the world. Eve good?
Good, good. It is good to see you this morning. My name is Blake Pitts.
I'm one of the pastors here at LifePoint Church. If this is your first time here, we are glad that you are here. If you did not say hello to one of us on the way in, we'd love to get to know you on the way out. We have Connect Center right outside the back.
Also, you guys can have a seat. Take a load off. We're going to show you a video right quick.
For any college students in here who are looking to get involved in missions, I want to introduce you to a couple young ladies here that got involved in some missions. This is an opportunity for some of you to get involved too, so you guys watch this. Hi, I'm Lindsay.
And I'm Gracelynn, and we are currently serving as ambassadors for Heartfire Missions. Heartfire is a nonprofit missions organization based in Scottsdale, Arizona that serves on medical and humanitarian mission trips internationally both in the Americas and the Middle East. Heartfire was started by an EMT surgeon who sold his practice several years ago so that he could dedicate his life to missions. I met Dr. Dyer's daughter because she went to Clemson and so she told me all about Heartfire. and she got me to sign up for my first mission trip.
It was over my junior year, Clemson Spring Break, and I went to Viadolid, Yucatan. After that, they asked me to serve as an ambassador, so I spent my senior year recruiting students to go, and that's how I met Gracelyn. So I met Lindsay in one of our classes my senior year, and she was wearing a sweatshirt that I thought was really cool.
It had a Bible verse on it, and she told me that that's how she fundraised to go on her mission trip with Heartfire the year prior. And so I wanted to know more about it. She sat down with me and gave me all the information.
I signed up. I went on the trip and it was the best thing ever. And so when we got back, Dr. Dyer asked me to be an ambassador for this year. And so we teamed up, we're doing it together and we're recruiting more students.
I'd say it was like the best decision we ever did and we both got baptized. Heartfire's goal is to empower a new generation of world changers and so our trips are geared towards students but we need any adults, leaders, or medical personnel who would like to come on the trips. If you're interested in learning more about Heartfire you can check us out at our website at heartfiremissions.org where you can see all of our upcoming spring, summer, and fall trips.
Like Lindsay said, if you are interested in getting involved with that, you can go to that website or we can get you in contact with Gracelynn or Lindsay if you would like to get involved that way. Speaking of missions, we have, after this service, a mission trip meeting for anyone who's interested in going to Africa on a mission trip. So if you're interested in that, stick around and we're going to talk about some of our trips we're doing to Africa this year.
Any of our other things that we've got going on, you can... You can scan the code on the back of the chairs. You can check out the website at lifepointsc.com. Also, one of the things that we sent out on social media this week, I don't know if you saw it, we also sent out some emails about the amount of people that we have in our 1045 service. Out of the two, it's the most crowded.
And so we're constantly looking for ways to be able to make more seats for people so that they can sit under the Word of God and worship with us. And so... Um, uh, our nine o'clock, two ways you can do that, our nine o'clock service, uh, we can still, uh, see more people in our nine o'clock service.
So if you wouldn't mind, of course, this morning, it was like 14 degrees at nine o'clock. So I know why some of you are here at 1045, but, uh, but we'd love you to come to that. Um, also if you're tired of sitting in this line in front of the church.
Before we do a shuttle, we run a shuttle from Pizanos, which is right across the street, right down here. If you'd like to park there, you can zoom around all the traffic and come straight here and get dropped off right in front of the church. That gives us more parking. We really struggle with parking spaces and end up parking people up in the neighborhood. And so that's not a good thing.
We want to be able to have enough parking spaces for everybody. So that's some of the ways that you can help us with that. But we're super excited about what God's doing.
I want to read something to you guys. Hopefully you're trying to read through your Bible this year. That's one of the things I'm trying to do, read through the whole Bible in a year.
I've done it a couple of times and always super blessed when I do it. Psalm chapter 19 was in my Bible reading this weekend and I love this section of Psalm 19. I want to share it with you this morning. It says this, it says, The fear of the Lord is pure, enduring forever.
The ordinance of the Lord are reliable and altogether righteous. They are more desirable than gold, than an abundance of pure gold. and sweeter than honey dripping from a honeycomb. In addition, your servant is warned by them, and in keeping them there is an abundance of reward.
Who perceives his unintentional sins? Cleanse me from my hidden thoughts. Moreover, keep your servant from willful sins. Do not let them rule me, then I will be blameless and cleansed from blatant rebellion. May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable to you, Lord my rock.
and my Redeemer. And I think if we can come in here this morning with that attitude, Lord, do not let my blatant sins, the things that I struggle with, rule over me. Allow me to obey and to be righteous.
And the things that I don't even know that I'm doing when I'm sinning, Lord, keep me from unwillful sin and from willful sin. I think if we can come in here this morning with that attitude, Lord, whatever it takes this morning. for me to please you and to know you and to love you better. Let's do that. And I think we'll see great things happen in our hearts and minds this morning.
Let's pray together. Lord, we pray this morning that you will remove, remove the roadblocks in our heart, Lord, that leads the paths of righteousness for us. Things that we may have kind of piled up on our lives. so that it's hard to hear your voice.
Lord, because we know you're here, and we know you speak, and you speak through your word. Lord, you speak through the Holy Spirit. And the only reason, the only way we come in here this morning, and we're not spoken to in some way, is if we don't have ears to hear.
So Lord, give us ears to hear this morning. and use your word to refine us and remake us and to mold us into what you want us to be. In Jesus'precious name, amen.
Amen. Let's stand. Let's sing together.
Jacob, whose love endures through generations, I know that you will keep your covenant, calling on the God who knows them, the one who opened up the ocean. To do the same thing for you Standing on your faithfulness, on your faithfulness, God of faith. Whose favor rests upon the lowly?
I know with you all things are going to be alright. It's impossible, calling on the God of David Who made a shepherd boy courageous I may not face good life, but I've got my own time Oh God, my God, I need you. Oh God, my God, I need you now.
How I need you now. Oh rock, oh rock of ages, I'm standing on your faithfulness. On your faithfulness. Oh God, my God, I need you.
Oh God, my God, I need you now. How I need you now. Oh rock, oh rock of angels, I'm standing on your faithful hand.
Children, you hear your children now. You are the same God. You are the same God. You answered prayers before and you will answer them now. You are the same God.
You are the same God. You were provided. And you're dividing now You are the same God You are the same God You moved in power And God you You are the same God.
You are the same God. Oh God, my God, I need you. Oh God, my God, I need you now.
How I need you now. Oh rock, oh rock of angels. I'm standing on your faithfulness. You're faithful now. Oh God, my God, I need you.
Oh God, oh God, I need you. Stand in my... Give us hope, your hidden glory and creation, now revealed in you our Christ, what a beautiful name it is.
She goes to the Jesus I didn't want heaven without you, so Jesus you wrote heaven down. You sin was great, your love was greater, so what could separate us now? What a wonderful name it is. What a wonderful name it is, the name of Jesus Christ, my King. What a wonderful name it is, and nothing could compare to it.
Come on, pass it in. What a wonderful name it is, the name of Jesus. What a wonderful name it is, the name of Jesus. There's no hope, there's no hope Death could not hold you, the veil tore before you You silenced the bones of sin and death The heavens are roaring, praise of your glory, for you are raised to life again.
Come on, sing this out. Thank you. have no rival, and you have no equal. Now and forever God to reign.
Cause yours is the You kingdom, Yous is the glory, Yous is the name above all names. What a powerful name it is, what a powerful name it is, the name of Jesus Christ, my King. What a powerful name it is, and nothing can stand against it.
What a powerful name it is, the name of the Lord. Cause you have no rival, you have no equal. And now and forever God you reign. This is the kingdom, yours is the glory, yours is the name above all names.
What a powerful name it is, what a powerful name it is, the name of Jesus Christ. What a powerful name it is, they can't stand against. What a powerful name it is, the name of Jesus.
What a powerful name it is, the name of Jesus. What a powerful name it is. Pour it out, I want more, I want more, I want more, God, would you pour it out? I want more, I want more, I want more, I want more I want more, I want more, God, would you pour it out?
Set a fire down in my soul that I can't contain and I can't control I want more of you God, I want more of you God So set a fire down in my soul That I can't contain and I can't control I want more of you, God So set a fire Set a fire down in my soul that I can't contain and I can't control. I want more of you, God. I want more of you, God. Set a fire down in my soul that I can't contain and I can't control. I want more of you, God.
I want more. There's no place out. There's no place I would rather be There's no place I would rather be There's no place I would rather be There's no place I would rather be Than here in your love Right here in your love There's no place I would rather be There's no place I would rather be There's no place I would rather be No place I would rather be No place I would rather be Than here in your love I'm gonna fight it down with my soul, that I can't contain, that I can't control. I won't let it be mine, cause I won't let it be mine. I'm gonna fight it down with my soul, that I can't control, cause I won't let it be mine.
I can't control, I can't control, I won't stop here no more Father, God, I pray that that would be the cry of our hearts for every person in this room. God, that we would want more of you. I pray that you would set a fire in each and every one of us to want to know you more. To want to follow you, to choose you over the world, the temporary things this world has to offer that will not satisfy us.
God, remind us that you are better, that you are worth it, and give us a deep burning desire just to be with you. God, I pray for the person in here that has known you for a long time, God, that you would reignite a fire in them to continue pursuing you. Remind them of your goodness. Remind them that you are still there.
And God, to the person in here that maybe doesn't know you yet, God, I pray that you would set that fire today in them. to want to know you, to want to seek you out, because you are already chasing them down. God, stir in our hearts this morning.
Show us the idols in our life that we need to lay down at your feet. so that we can rest in you because you are better. God, work in us today.
Speak to us through your word. It's your name we pray. Amen. Whoo, that was good, yeah?
Yeah. I want you to give our band a hand, thank them for leading us this morning. I also want you to thank a group that does really a thankless job.
They were out here this morning at about 8.15, 8.30 in the freezing cold. Our parking team that gets us all in. I don't know if any of them are in here, but we thank you. Give them a hand.
If you have your Bibles, turn with me to the book of Hebrews chapter 8. If you're new here, last fall we started going chapter by chapter, verse by verse through the book of Hebrews. We took a short break for Christmas and then last week we started back in Hebrews chapter 7. And here is what we have discovered, okay, is that it is almost impossible for us to completely wring out... everything and every verse that we want to in these chapters in the time that we have each week.
All right, if we did, we would have to go back and reteach sermons. I don't think anybody wants us to sit in here while we reteach sermons because there's so much review and things that we need to know and things that we've already been told in a lot of verses in chapter 8 and in chapter 9. And so we can't just... Go through verse by verse and wring out everything. We'll be reteaching a lot of things that we already did. I don't think we want to sit in here while we do that.
And so what we've done is, and here's what we're going to do this week and next week, is we're going to go through all of chapter eight today and try to find the one thing that the author is trying to tell us. Because really he's just giving us one point. Because the whole point of this book is that Jesus is better, right? And we've been told ever since chapter four that...
Jesus is a better priest, that Jesus is a better sacrifice, that Jesus is a better tabernacle. All these things are components of what we call a covenant. And it's interesting because chapter 8 is almost completely about covenants. And so if you have your Bibles, turn with me to Hebrews chapter 8. Now, we are going to, this morning again, kind of wade into the theological waters of Hebrews.
And I know a lot of times we come to church and I don't know why you're here, right? You might be here because you're like, Blake, just give me, I just need something to get me through the next week. Like I just need a good antidote. I just need a good word in order to get me through the next week so that I can go on and I can live my life for the Lord.
Sometimes you don't come to church, you're not going to get that. Because we're just going to give you what the word says. We're going to give you what the word says because listen, it's important for us. to know what to think, to learn how to think. And when we learn, when we allow God's word to teach us how to think, and that's what we're gonna do this morning, we're gonna allow theology to teach us how to think.
And in our world, we need to know how to think rightly, correct? Because we have so many things that can lead us astray. And so it's certainly important for us to think the right way. And the only way for us to know to think the right way is to have the truth. And the only true source of truth is this word.
And so that's what we're gonna do. We're bogging through kind of this idea of covenants in Hebrews. I want you to keep that in mind. I mean, we need to think the right way.
This is allowing us to think the right way. So here we go. Chapter eight's all about covenants. There are many covenants in the Bible. You know, I think a lot of times in church, we only focus on two, and we're gonna talk about those two today.
But there are lots of covenants in the Bible. In fact, if you've ever heard us say that The Bible is made up of 66 different books, written by 40 different authors, but it all tells one story. The reason we say that it all tells one story is because these stories and these characters and these lessons are all linked together by covenants. So a covenant is simply an agreement between two people.
The covenant that we probably talk most about here, you know... and humans, right, is the marriage covenant, right? When two people come together, for better or for worse, sickness and in health, the death do us part.
Where you have a husband and a wife that choose to become husband and wife and become one and to get married. Now, in the Bible, covenants are typically made between God and man, God and man. In fact, there's eight major covenants in the Bible that God makes with.
Humanity, and if you want to do some research on those this week, I suggest you do that. It's pretty interesting. We may actually do a sermon series on covenants one day. But what's interesting is that the Hebrew word for covenant is the word cut. It means to cut.
Has anybody ever heard the term blood brothers before? Anybody? Okay. Mainly old people? That's okay.
Right? In fact, we have some college students in our teaching team, and we started talking about this idea of blood brothers, and they had no idea what I was talking about, right? We usually hear them in kind of old TV shows to talk about.
The idea is this, is that you have two guys come together that aren't brothers, who may be good friends and say, listen, we're going to have each other's back through thick and thin. I'm going to be there for you. You're going to be there for me. We're going to be like brothers. And what they would do is they would cut their hands and they would shake hands.
In other words, mingling their blood together, that the covenant was sealed through blood. And what's interesting is... that the covenants in the Bible usually consist of the shedding of blood, don't they? And you can't really shed blood without what? Without cutting something, all right?
And so this idea of covenants is the coming together of two or more parties to come together with an agreement to do something. You do this, I'll do this, and it's brought together, sealed by the shedding of blood. Now, there are two different types of covenants in the Bible.
So a little, you need a little background before we get into Hebrews 8. Two different types of covenants in the Bible. The first one is what we call a bilateral covenant. The prefix there is bi, which means what?
Two, right? Two, this is a conditional covenant between two people. This means I'll do my part if you do your part, that both parties have to keep up their end of the bargain.
And if both parties don't keep up their end of the bargain, then the covenant's broken. Let me give you an example of this. In fact. Probably the best example is the very first covenant that God makes with Adam and Eve in the Bible. Theologians call it the Edenic Covenant.
God promises Adam that he will give him dominion, that he will give him rulership of the earth, and ultimately that he would live forever. He would be able to go and eat from the tree of life and live forever. It's what God tells Adam if he will not eat from the tree that he tells him not to eat from, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
And we all know the story, right? Adam and Eve eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And therefore, because they did that, God did not bless him. He did not give him rulership.
We know that humanity struggles with dominion over this earth. And ultimately he cut off the path to the tree of life so that he could not go and live forever. And so because Adam didn't keep up his end of the bargain, God did not keep his end. But if Adam would have, God would have.
This is a bilateral covenant. The other type of covenant in the Bible is a unilateral covenant. Uni is what? One, right? This, a unilateral covenant is when God makes a promise and he is going to keep his side of the promise, whether someone else keeps theirs or not.
An example of a unilateral covenant in the Bible is the Noahic covenant. This is God's covenant with Noah. When God destroyed the earth by flood, he showed restraint and not wiping out all of humanity, but he preserved Noah and his family. And after the flood, he brings him out of the boat.
And what does God promise him? God promises to never destroy the earth by flood again. That's the covenant he made with Noah.
And God's kept that covenant, right? No matter how bad humanity gets, no matter what, because remember, that's why he destroyed humanity, because it had gotten so evil. So no matter how evil humanity is, no matter how bad it gets, I'll never destroy the earth by flood again. And God has kept his end of that covenant.
That is a unilateral covenant that is only conditioned on God, what we call an unconditional covenant. So today what we're gonna do in chapter eight, we're gonna focus on really probably the two major covenants in the Bible because chapter eight focuses on those and we actually have one of each. We have a bilateral covenant and a unilateral covenant.
So you look super excited, here we go. Chapter eight, verse one. Now the main point of what is being said is this. Now this makes me feel better about my sermons because this guy's taken eight chapters to get to the main point. And here we go.
We have this kind of high priest. Now remember we talked about Jesus being the great high priest yesterday. It's all what chapter seven's about. Yesterday, last week. We have this kind of high priest who sat down at the right hand of the throne of the majesty in the heavens, a minister of the sanctuary and the true tabernacle.
that was set up by the Lord and not by man. So we obviously see here, beginning chapter eight, he's contrasting two different things, the earthly priesthood and the heavenly priesthood, the earthly tabernacle and the true tabernacle in the heavens. Verse three, for every high priest is appointed to offer gifts and sacrifices.
Therefore, it was necessary for this priest, Jesus, also to have something to offer. If he were on earth, he wouldn't be a priest. Since there are those offerings, offering the gifts prescribed by the law.
So this is a subtle reminder here that Jesus, it was something we learned last week. Remember that Jesus, if he was on earth, he couldn't be a priest. Why? Because he's not from the tribe of what?
Levi, right? That there are only priests from the tribe of Levi. Jesus was from the tribe of Judah.
So if the great eternal priest walked this earth, and wanted to carry out his priestly duties. He couldn't because he wasn't from the right tribe. But that's okay because verse five tells us this.
These serve as a copy and a shadow of the heavenly things. As Moses was warned when he was about to complete the tabernacle, for God said, be careful that you make everything according to the pattern that was shown to you on the mountain. All the earthly priests, all the sacrifices, all the tabernacles, everything was simply an imitation of what Jesus did. did on an eternal scale. Look at verse six.
But Jesus has now obtained a superior ministry, and to that degree he is the mediator, the priest of a better covenant, which has been established on better promises. For if that first covenant had been faultless, there would have been no occasion for the second. So there we go.
Two different covenants he's talking about here. He's saying if the first covenant was faultless, then the second covenant, we wouldn't have needed it. So what is he implying here? He's implying that there's fault in the first covenant, right?
So what was the first covenant? Here's the first one. It's what we call the Mosaic Covenant.
This covenant is known by many names. The Old Covenant, the Law, Ordinances. These are all things that are wrapped up in the Mosaic Covenant. The Mosaic Covenant, the reason it's called that is because it was mediated by who?
Moses, right? It was mediated by Moses. And it's the covenant that God made with a small group of people called Israel. And what he did was he saw that Israel was held captive in Egypt for 400 years.
He miraculously saved them from Egypt and took them from slavery and gave them freedom. And after he gave them freedom, he goes to Moses, their leader, their mediator. And he says, okay, Moses, I brought you out of Egypt. You're free people now. So here's going to be the...
parameters, the terms of our relationship. Here's how we are going to relate to one another. And I'm going to give this information to you.
And because you're the mediator, I want you to go back to the Israelites and I want you to tell them what I said. And if they agree to the terms of this relationship, I want you to come back and I want you to let me know. And so you might say, well, what's the terms of the relationship?
Exodus chapter 19. This is God speaking to Moses. Here are the terms. Exodus 19 verse 3, so Moses went up on the mountain of God and the Lord called to him from the mountain.
This is what you must say to the house of Jacob and explain to the Israelites. You have seen what I did to the Egyptians and how I carried you on eagles wings and brought you out to myself. Now, if, keyword, keywords if, if that word right there tells us that this is what type of covenant?
A bilateral covenant. that if you do your part, I'll do my part. Now, if you carefully listen to me and keep my covenant, you will be my own possession out of all the peoples. Although the whole earth is mine, you will be my kingdom of priests and holy nation. What's he saying?
If you will keep my covenant, if you'll listen to my commands and if you'll obey my commands, then I will be your God out of all the people in the world. I would choose this little group of people to show my glory through. You will be blessed. You will have land.
You will be prosperous. But you have to obey my commands. And then God tells Moses this.
He says, these are the words you are to say to the Israelites. Pretty straightforward. If you do this, I'll do this.
Go back and tell them and see what they say. And so Moses, being the mediator of the covenant, goes back to the people and he tells them what God has said. And look at what they say back. This is verse 8 of Exodus 19. Then all the people responded together, we will do everything the Lord has spoken. Everything.
So Moses brought the people's words back to the Lord. He told them, done. God put the terms out. The Israelites said, we'll do it. We're going to do everything he said.
Let's sign the contract. Let's get on with it. And we might think, okay, great. God made the covenant. Therefore, it must be a good covenant, right?
But the writer of Hebrews acts like that covenant was faulty, that it was not good. So if God created the covenant, if God set out the terms for the covenant, then why isn't the covenant good? Why didn't it last?
Why is it faulty? The problem was not with God. The problem was with the Israelites.
Remember, this wasn't based on God fulfilling his promise. This was based on God fulfilling his promise if the Israelites fulfilled theirs. And do you remember what happened? This is Exodus chapter 19. Right before Moses goes up on the mountain to get the words of God, they say, we're going to do everything you say. We're going to do everything God says.
Put it in the bank. We're going to do it. Moses goes up on the mountain. They get tired of waiting on him, and they're like, forget him.
Forget him, forget his God. A couple of days later, they're worshiping a golden calf at the foot of the mountain that Moses is meeting a God with and disobeying God, breaking the covenant, not doing what God says. The problem with the old covenant was not God, it was the Israelites.
And you would think, man, you would think that if anybody could keep... the covenant of God and do what God says, it would be these Israelites. Because think of what they've seen. They saw the Red Sea split in two.
They saw fire come down from heaven and rest on the mountain. They saw water come out of the rock. They saw manna fall from the sky.
Think about everything spectacular that they've seen. If anybody could follow the covenant, it seems like they would, right? I mean, I think me and you think, I think this sometimes, maybe you don't. I think, you know what, if I lived back then, I'd follow all of God's commands. I wouldn't be like them.
If I saw all those miraculous things, I wouldn't be like them. If I saw manna come from the sky every single day, I'd follow God's commands. I wouldn't be like them. You know what? I would be like them.
I would sin just like them. You know why? Because we're human and we sin. Our flesh is weak. I don't sin because it's something I do.
I sin because I'm a sinner. And as humanity, we are all sinners. You know what I bet?
I bet if the Israelites could see through the generations and look at us in here in 2023 and go, you know what? If I could see the fulfillment of all these things, if I could see what Jesus had done to fulfill all the law, If they had the knowledge that we have, I bet they'd look through and see 2023 and go, you know what, if I knew everything that you guys do, there's no way I'd sin. There's no way I'd disobey God.
Because think about this, you and I, if we believe what we say we believe, we believe something way more spectacular than the things that they saw. Like if we believe this word, if you're a Christian here this morning and you believe in Jesus, do you understand what you are putting your faith in and how unreasonable it sounds? I mean, we put our faith in the fact that there is a God in heaven that created the heavens and earth that somehow became a human being. And that human being walked this earth for 33 years, gave his life.
shed his sacrificial blood because of his great love for his people, quit breathing for three days, it was raised back to life. That's much more extraordinary than splitting the Red Sea. And if we claim to believe that, then we go, hey, we should never sin, right? We should perfectly keep God's law and God's command, shouldn't we?
But do we? No. Why?
because we're human beings and we are unable, just like Israel. to keep the commands of God. Unable, helpless, and hopeless to do anything about our sin problem. There's nothing, there's no way we'll obey it. Which is, by the way, why they had priests.
We talked about this last week. Because they broke the laws and because they sinned, God gave them priests who would make sacrifices on their behalf in order to maintain their relationship with God and to cover their sin. Remember covenant means to cut and because people couldn't keep their end of the covenant in their sin That covenant had to be held up through the cutting and sacrificial blood of goats and lambs and bulls So the first covenant was faulty because we're faulty not because god didn't keep his promises and because we failed The first covenant because israel failed the first covenant God said, if we're going to make another covenant, we're going to call it the new covenant or the everlasting covenant.
You see, God, knowing that we couldn't keep the old covenant in our sinful flesh, used the old covenant in his goodness to point us to the new one. And the new covenant would not be a bilateral covenant. The new covenant is a unilateral covenant. It is a covenant that God says, this is what I'm going to do. This is what I'm going to do through my people.
And it will not be dependent on their goodness. It will not be dependent on their works. It will not be dependent on them at all. It's going to be completely dependent on the righteousness and the trustworthiness and the goodness of God. Period.
Look at verse 8. I'm sorry, look back at verse 1. Look at what it says. Now the main point of what is being said here is this. We have this kind of high priest who sat down at the right hand of the throne and majesty in heaven. The Bible says he sat down.
Now that's good. You may not know that's good, but that's good. He sat down. Do you know what they don't have in earthly tabernacles? There's not one of these in an earthly tabernacle.
A chair. Not one of them. You know why? Because priests never went into the most holy place in order to just hang out with God.
He never went in there to sit down. He was always doing something. He was always sacrificing.
He was always praying. And when he got done, he would get out of there. They didn't have chairs to sit around in the presence of God. They had a job to do. And the idea is that their job was never done.
And so they would go in year after year after year after year after year and make the same sacrifices over. and over and over and over again, and their work was never done. It was groundhog day over and over and over again. That's why it says in chapter 10 of the book of Hebrews, it says verse 11, it says, every priest stands day after day ministering and offering the same sacrifices time and time, which can never take away sins. It just simply put them off.
It never really took away sin. It just pointed to the thing that ultimately would take away their sin. And so Jesus, after he made his sacrifice, what did he do? He sat down.
Why? Because his work was finished. Verse three, for every high priest is appointed to offer gifts and sacrifices.
Therefore, it was necessary for this priest, Jesus, also to have something to offer. What did Jesus offer? He offered himself and he was the perfect sacrifice. that all the laws that the people couldn't obey and all the sacrifices that they made because they didn't obey, all of it was pointing to Jesus who did obey and who was sacrificed for us.
That's why it says in the beginning of verse five, these serve as a copy and a shadow of the heavenly things. Jesus offered himself as a sacrifice for our sin once and for all. That's why the last thing he said on the cross was what? It's finished.
It's done. No more sacrifices are needed. There's no more work to be accomplished.
He's finished it. He's accomplished our reconciliation with God. And when he did that, he sat down. Our priest sat down. He rested in order to show us that there's nothing else that needs to be accomplished.
So when we sin, I don't know if you ever feel like this, maybe this is just me. I know I'm your preacher and I know I'm not supposed to sin, but guess what, spoiler, I do. There's things that I do I'm not proud of.
There's times where I sin. And when I go to God in repentance, you know what I feel like I'm doing? I feel like I'm crucifying Jesus all over again. I feel like he's gonna have to make another sacrifice for me.
But you know what Jesus being seated means? Jesus being seated means that he does not have to make another sacrifice. That the eternal sacrifice that he made is sufficient, listen to this, for the sins you're gonna make, for the sins you're gonna commit.
Jesus died, sacrificed himself, sat down at the right hand of the Father, and his sacrifice stands and will stand for the sins you haven't even committed yet. And if he's resting, then we should follow him in that posture and rest in his finished work. Verse six, but Jesus has now obtained a superior ministry. And to that degree, he is the mediator of a better covenant, which he has established on better promises.
So what are those promises? What are those better promises? What we're going to read next is the writer of Hebrews quoting Jeremiah chapter 31. And Jeremiah chapter 31 is all about the new covenant that God is going to create.
Jeremiah, the prophet Jeremiah, saw through the ages, through the generations, and God gave him the ability to see that God was going to make a new covenant with his people. Let me tell you the context. This is good. The context of the book of Jeremiah in this particular prophecy is that, you may not know this, but the tablets that Moses got, that the law was written on, were lost, right? Through the years, over the generations, they were lost.
They didn't have an email backup copy of one digitally. All they had were those tablets. So through the wars and through the moods, all these, they were lost.
And so there came a time generations later where they found the law, which think about what this means for them, right? Their ancestors who knew the law had died, that would pass the law down. Like they had They had died, so they had no idea what it means to relate to their God.
And so they find the law, and there's like a revival. Like they get together, they get the whole nation of Israel together, and they read these tablets, and they read the law, and the people do the same thing they did in Exodus chapter 19. They said, we'll do everything it says. Everything. You know how long that lasted?
Not very long. Why? Because they're sinners.
And again, they can't keep the covenant, just like we couldn't keep the covenant. And so Jeremiah, after their failure, has this prophecy. Look at what it says. I'm going to read Hebrews, but again, he's quoting Jeremiah 31. But finding fault with his people, he says, here it is. See, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, not like the covenant I made with their ancestors on the day I took them by the hand and led them out of Egypt.
I show no concern for them, says the Lord, because they did not continue in my covenant. What's he saying? He said it was a bilateral covenant.
I showed no concern for them because they didn't show any concern for keeping the covenant. They broke it, so I broke it. Verse 10, for this is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord. I will put my hearts into their, sorry, I will put my law into their minds and write them on their heart.
Here's the first benefit of the new covenant. If you are in the new covenant, these are promises for us. The first promise, the first benefit of the new covenant is that he gives us a transformed heart.
Think about it. The law of the first covenant was written on tablets of stone. It was something external that they were trying to internalize.
And it's hard to just see rules on a page and try to internalize those rules and live by them. But this law, the law of the new covenant, is not written on tablets of stone. It's written on their minds and their hearts.
It is internal. And it makes its way from our minds and our hearts out into our actions. And the way this works is not through our goodness. It's not that all of a sudden we're going to be super righteous people when we put our faith in Jesus and enter into the new covenant. The way we're able to do this is through the power of what?
The Holy Spirit. Jesus says, I'm going to put my spirit in you, and my spirit is going to teach you, not from the outside in. My spirit is going to teach you from the inside out, and you're going to learn to follow my ways, and you're going to learn to be my people, not through stuff that you've learned on the outside, but through what I'm teaching you on the inside.
So now, not only do we have his word, we have his spirit inside of us that renews us from the inside out. A perfect example of this is when Saul... was converted to Christianity on the road to Damascus.
On the road to Damascus, he was going to kill Christians. You're talking about somebody who was a bad guy? This was a bad guy. He was zealous in his religion, but his religion was misaligned and he was going to kill Christians.
And Jesus met him supernaturally on the road to Damascus and blinded him and sent him on to Damascus. And when he got there, a guy named Ananias came to Saul and look at what happens, verse 17. Ananias went and entered the house. Saul was blinded, by the way.
He placed his hands on him and said, Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus who appeared to you on the road you were traveling has sent me so that you may regain your sight and be filled with what? The Holy Spirit, there it is. There's the promise of the new covenant. The promise of the new covenant is the Holy Spirit.
The regeneration of our hearts through the Holy Spirit. Now, did Saul do anything to deserve This new covenant. No, he was going to kill people.
But God chose Saul and God chose to change Saul. And God put his Holy Spirit in Saul because obviously the words on the tablets weren't working. And so he puts his spirit in him.
And verse 18 says this, at once something like scales fell from his eyes. This is what happens when the Holy Spirit, when we get the Holy Spirit. We begin to see life differently. Things that we thought were good, now all of a sudden we're like, maybe that's not what's best for me.
Things that I wouldn't do and I would never spend my time doing, now the Holy Spirit teaches me, this is the way God wants me to live. And so we got up and was baptized. He was transformed, the first benefit that you and I have through the new covenant is a transformed heart. The second one is this, it's a different relationship with God.
Look at the end of verse 10. I will be their God and they will be my people. And each person will not teach their fellow citizen and each his brother or sister saying, know the Lord. What's that mean?
It means that in the old covenant, they had to be taught by priests. They had to be taught by rabbis. They had to be taught the law because they didn't have any understanding on the inside of what it meant to be God.
With the new covenant, we now have the Holy Spirit. So yes, we have preachers and we have teachers that teach, but even if someone doesn't have a preacher and a teacher that teaches, What do we have in our hearts? The Holy Spirit can teach us how to live.
And each person will not teach his fellow citizen and each brother or sister saying, know the Lord, because they will all know me, from the least to the greatest of them. The context of this is intimate knowledge that through the new covenant, we get a transformed heart. And the reason our heart can be transformed is because we have a new relationship with God.
Because think about it, relationships change things, don't they? They change things. Like I used to teach school.
I was a school teacher. I taught middle school. How about that? Middle school.
That's great, isn't it? I taught middle school for three years. And middle schoolers like to push the boundaries of the rules, don't they?
Like they like to get right up to the edge. You go, how far can I push this? And so...
the first couple of days of school, you know, these are the rules. You kind of put it on the board. This is what it means when things need to be turned in.
These are the rules if we're gonna function properly in this room together for the next year. This is what needs to be done. Now, for a little while, those are just rules, right?
Those are just rules on the board. There was really no change in their behavior until we got a couple of weeks into the school year. And I begin to know the kids and they begin to know me.
And hopefully. Some of them even respected me, loved me. And because of that relationship, there was a much greater instance of them following the rules, doing what I asked them to do. Why?
Not because it's not rules on a board anymore. It's because they know me. I was that way. I was not the rule follower in school. There are rule followers and rule breakers, aren't there?
Who here's a rule follower? You're a rule follower? My wife's a rule follower? All right, are you just lazy or you're not paying attention? I know there's more rule followers.
Who in here is a rule follower? Okay, there we go. About half, usually like that.
Who's a rule breaker? Eve else? Yep, kindred spirits, I see you. I'm a rule breaker.
I always kind of like to push the line, right? I was much more likely to follow the rules with people I loved and respected, with teachers I love and respect. I was much more likely to follow the rules with them than ones that I... Didn't love.
I guess you could put it that way. But the question then becomes, how is this, if we get a transformed heart and we get a new relationship with God, how do we get this new relationship with God? Because I thought we had sin in our life, right?
This is the last promise. Verse 12. For I will forgive their wrongdoing and I will never again remember their sin. The first covenant was all about getting them to follow the rules, to look and act like God's people. In this covenant, it's not about how good they are.
It's not about how well they do their festivals and ceremonies and sacrifices. Because Jesus has already accomplished everything that it takes. to make them right with God through the shedding of his blood, through the shedding of the blood of Jesus, the perfect sacrifice.
We are forgiven of our sin. And it says that God chooses to remember them no more. It's not like he can't remember them, right? I mean, he's God.
Do you think God can remember our sin if he wants to remember our sin? Absolutely. But it says he chooses.
not to remember our sin anymore. The sovereign, holy God of the universe chooses to forgive us. And instead of holding our sins over us and lording them over us, he held them onto Jesus when Jesus was held on the cross.
So this covenant is a better covenant cut for us by the blood of Jesus. It is accomplished for us in the finished, completed work of our seated priest. Because he died for our sins and rose again, our sin has been forgiven.
We have a personal relationship with him. We have a transformed heart that leads us then to follow his commands. This is an inside-out change. That's what the new covenant is all about. And even when we fail, those promises are not dependent on you and I because this is not a bilateral covenant.
This is a unilateral covenant God has promised to accomplish. He has promised to see your salvation through. Do you understand that, church?
He has promised to see our salvation through. That's what he said last week, that he is able to save completely, not save partially, not kind of save, not wait for us to move 50%, he'll move 50%. No, God has saved completely those who are his. That's why this is a better promise, and this is a better covenant.
Look at verse 13. By saying this. Sorry, by saying a new covenant, he has declared that the first is obsolete. And what is obsolete is growing old and is about to pass away. So my question to you this morning is, which covenant are you living under?
Because some of us will come in here and we'll go, yeah, I believe in Jesus. I believe in the finished work of Christ. But yet you still live under shame and regret and fear. And I'm not saying that when we sin, we shouldn't feel those things.
Yes, we should feel godly sorrow that leads to repentance. But if you're anything like me, man, I've lived some of my life feeling like I had to, I had to, I had to please God. And I got to work hard. I got to read my Bible. I got to pray.
I got to get everything in line. I got to serve. I got to I gotta make sure I treat people the right way.
I gotta do this, do this. And it leads this life of imprisonment, imprisonment to doing all the right things. Listen, there's freedom.
I know this is gonna sound backward. There's freedom in understanding what this Bible says that you and I will never do good things. Apart from the Holy Spirit, you can't do good things.
The only chance we have is under the new covenant with the Holy Spirit. Every other good thing that we do, the Bible says, is rubbish, is filthy rags. Everything outside of what God accomplishes through us, through His Holy Spirit in us, it's the only chance we have of being good, of having purpose, of being right with God.
And so if you've come in here this morning... Depending on anything other than Jesus, you're wasting your time with religion. You hear me?
Anything other than Jesus, don't waste your time. Don't waste your time because you're playing a fool's game because outside of the Holy Spirit living inside of us and changing us from the inside out. any outside end changes temporary and will fade away.
That's why you can't keep doing good things outside of him. And you may have tried and tried and tried and tried and tried and tried. And you're just making useless sacrifices over and over again, because you're not trusting in the real sacrifice, which is Christ. He's the only thing that matters and our only way to the Father.
Let's pray. Father, we don't sit in silence much. We usually have something on TV, computer, phone.
Father, every time we have a spare moment in a waiting room. We're walking down the road, we usually take our phone out, we look at something just to fill our minds. Lord, I think we do it in order to fill our minds with something that we can control. Because when we sit in silence like this, it forces us to look at who we are and to come to the realization, if this Bible is true, then I'll never do enough good things in and of myself to make God happy, to have a fulfilled life, to be right with God, which is the definition of a fulfilled life.
Some of us in here are still trying to live under the old covenant, and we read the Bible every day looking for things to force ourselves to make the right decisions and do the right things. And Father, it is not until we let go of the desire to control everything around us, including my behavior, and allow you and your Holy Spirit to guide and lead us that we will find true purpose and true fulfillment and true relationship with you. It is only through this new covenant with the Holy Spirit that we can do that.
And so if we've come in here tonight like little priests trying to make sacrifices all over again, I'm sacrificing an hour so that I can go live life and repent, penance of what I've done. God, I pray that you would teach us that we're wasting our time if we're continually trying to do that. God, that we just need you. We need to sit because you've rested. and have peace and joy in you.
Teach us that today. In Jesus'name, amen. All right, so we're gonna sing.
And here's the cool thing about the Holy Spirit. You ready for this? There's probably 500 people in here. You've all heard the same word.
You've heard the same words. Hopefully I saw some of you drifting in and out of consciousness. That's okay. I'm just kidding.
We've all heard the same words. But we're all in different situations, different places in life, we're dealing with different things. And the beauty of the Holy Spirit is that He will take our situation and He will take the Word of God and He will mold us and He will teach us. We all heard the same thing, but it's applied in different ways through God's Spirit. And so I don't know what's going on in your life.
I don't know what you need praying for. I don't know. Maybe you need to repent of something.
This time is for us to allow the Holy Spirit as we sing and as maybe you sit or maybe you pray or whatever you might do during this time. As we respond, it's the time for the Holy Spirit to begin to work in us, that we have ears to hear what the Holy Spirit wants to say. So we're going to do that now as we stand and we sing.
In the darkness, we were without hope, without light, till from heaven you came running. There was mercy in your eyes, to fulfill the law and promise. To a virgin came the Word, from a throne of endless glory, to a cradle in the dark. Praise the Father, praise the Son, praise the Spirit, three in one. God of glory, majesty, praise forever to the King of kings.
Thank you. To live in the kingdom come, and to reckon solemn laws. To redeem the whole creation, you did not despise the cause. For even in your suffering, you saw to the other side.
Knowing this was our salvation, Jesus for our sake you died. Praise the Father, praise the Son, praise the Spirit, three in one. God of glory, majesty, praise forever to the King of kings.
All of heaven held its breath, till that stone was moved for good, for the Lamb had conquered death. And the death was from their tombs. And the angels stood in awe For the souls of all who come To the Father are restored And the church of Christ was born Then the Spirit and lit the flame now this gospel truth of all shall not fail shall not fail by His blood and in His name in His freedom I am free for the love of Jesus Christ who has resurrected me Praise the Father, praise the Son, praise the Spirit, the one God of glory, majesty, praise the Lord.
Praise forever to the King of King. Praise forever to the King of King. Amen, amen. Let's give God a hand this morning.
Listen, I want you to feel free. I know, like I said, we're kind of wading through some deep theological waters and I had somebody come up to me last week and said, Blake, I didn't really understand this. Could you explain it to me?
And so we talked, had a really good conversation. So please feel free. to come talk to myself, talk to Taylor, talk to one of our pastors. If you have any questions, because we won't, like I said, thinking the right way and knowing his word is the best way to guard us against some of the things in this world.
some of the heresies, some of the things that could easily kind of lead us astray, just barely get us off course. And after we go barely off course for a while, we end up way off course. And so this is our way as a church to stay theologically grounded and to know God's Word. That's when we study verse by verse.
We study God's Word together so we'll know it is the best guard against the attacks from the enemy in this world today. Love you guys. Love you guys.
Have a great week. We'll see you next week. Cause us to dwell on your true day and night. Plant us beside the waters that ever flow. Help us to know your word is our delight.
Scarfers surround, they mock our source of hope. Sowing doubt, thoughts too wicked to... be home. The seed of the proud, they find joy in robbing fruit that leads to life.
Rood of sound, Keep us grounded in the strength that you provide. Form us more and more into a people who love you. Cause us to dwell on your truth day and night.
Let's beside the waters that ever flow Help us to know You Word is our delight You hem us in, so here we stand, in righteousness. You know our way, you help us live, so here we stand, in righteousness, you know our way, we stand. So here we stand, I just missed