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This is The Gathering Surf City’s podcast for weekly messages.
The Gathering is a passionate worship community in Surf City, North Carolina that strives to Love God, Live Jesus, and Walk together in the Holy Spirit. We hope you enjoy worshipping and drawing closer to Jesus with us!
We continue in Hebrews this morning,
but I also want to just say
happy Mother's Day.
And just really sort of,
kind of the way I've sort
of gone at it from time,
just celebrating motherhood.
God made the design.
God created it.
God's given us an opportunity to celebrate
the family the way he purposed
it to be.
Right. And so we look back
into scripture and see,
you know,
the mom and dad and kids and
family which builds,
you know,
our society and our culture.
And the more it gets attacked,
guess what,
the worse off we are.
So happy Mother's Day,
y'all. I know that's a negative
way to look at it,
but I'm just grateful,
not just for my mom,
who can't watch this morning,
because, yes,
we have some technical difficulties.
Whatever lightning strike sort of
sent our router down the road,
we're not broadcasting this morning.
But anyway,
I'm thankful for all
the moms I've had,
because I've had a bunch.
Everywhere I've lived,
somebody has undertaken
to mother me,
and I have some here in
surf city as well.
So thank you,
moms. Alrighty.
Let me ask you a question.
You ready?
This is a preference question,
and I want you to boldly raise
your hand when I ask it.
All right.
Who here prefers Lowe's
to Home Depot?
Raise your hand.
Thank you,
Pete. See that?
Yes. Uh huh.
All right,
put them down.
Who prefers Home Depot to Lowe's?
Raise your hand.
Okay.
And I'm not supposed to do this because
my son has forbid me to,
but I'm going to do it anyway.
My son likes Home Depot.
You know why?
He likes Milwaukee?
Not the town,
but the tools,
right?
And so we were driving yesterday and
he makes this case in the car,
not vehemently,
for Home Depot.
And I said,
well, no,
I'm looking.
I was on my Lowe's app.
I'm looking at Lowe's,
right? I said,
well, I like Lowe's.
He said,
well, I like Milwaukee.
I said,
well, I'm good with craftsman,
you see?
So you make the case
for your choices,
right? You make the case.
The why?
Why would I do this versus that,
right? So we've been looking
at the book of Hebrews,
and the title for this year's messages
is the object of our faith and the
idea that the book of Hebrews
is all about Jesus.
But the truth is,
is that all of scriptures about Jesus
and what the Old Testament does is
point to Jesus,
everything to do with the covenant and
the prophets and the priests and
the sacrificial system and
the levitical law.
And all of it points to Jesus.
And what we see in the New Testament
is the fulfillment of what God has
promised and pointed to.
And we see the gospels and Jesus,
and then we see the letters and the body
of Christ and how it all moves
forward. And then the book of Hebrews
comes and just sort of brings out
the details of both the Old Testament
promise and the New Testament
fulfillment. And we see
it over and over.
And I said this in the
very beginning.
The book of Hebrews
is all about Jesus.
And so what the writer of Hebrews has
undertaken to do is to make the
case right,
to pull all of evidence from the Old
Testament and to pull all of the
fulfillment from the New Testament and
bind it together in this book,
these 13 chapters,
to give us this,
this case.
But this undeniable realization that
God has accomplished something,
going all the way back to creation and
the promise of the seed of woman
who would defeat Satan,
you see,
and bringing that case all the way
through the text of the Bible.
And today we're gonna spend a
few minutes in a prophet.
We're gonna look at Jeremiah
a little bit today,
because it's the text that is quoted
in our section this morning.
So I am reading from Hebrews,
chapter eight,
verses 713.
Here we go.
For if that first covenant
had been faultless,
there would have been no occasion
for a second one.
But finding fault with his people,
he says,
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 that I made with
their ancestors on the day I took
them by the hand and led them
out of the land of Egypt,
I showed no concern for them,
says the Lord,
because they did not continue
in my covenant.
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 into their minds
and write them on their hearts.
I will be their God and they
will be my people.
And each person will not teach his fellow
citizen and each his brother or
sister, saying,
know the Lord,
because they will all know me,
from the least to the
greatest of them,
for I will forgive their wrongdoing,
and I will never again
remember their sins.
By saying,
a new covenant,
he has declared that the
first is obsolete,
and what is obsolete and growing
old is about to pass away.
Let's pray.
Father, this morning we thank
you first for speaking to us.
Now, that's what we first learned
in the book of Hebrews,
was that in these last days,
your superior.
The best communication that we
have from you is your son,
Jesus Christ.
So God,
we thank you for that.
But God,
we want to always long for desire
better understanding.
Not simply because of
what you've done,
but because God,
what you want and desire for us,
in us,
through us,
for your kingdom's sake,
not for something called church,
not for something called
studies and stuff,
but for your kingdom.
That God,
we get to proclaim a truth,
a truth of salvation and redemption.
And so,
God, help us to hear,
pay attention and understand.
We pray it in Jesus name.
Amen. So I've tried to
convey this over.
And can I just tell you,
I mean,
I've been.
I'm writing devotionals for each
Sunday and I'm five weeks out.
So this week we recorded
the devotionals.
That'll be for the 1 June.
So when I do that and we record that
and then I get ready to preach on
Sunday, I am confused.
Cause I'm way ahead and
then I gotta back,
way back up.
So I don't know if what I'm
saying sometimes in,
in this,
from what I recorded four weeks ago
for this week and then what I
recorded this week for
four weeks from now,
where am I?
Here's where I am.
The book of Hebrews is the
case for the uniqueness,
the only begotten son of God,
Jesus Christ,
as the absolute superior
communication,
provision, redemption of God.
And the book of Hebrews makes that
case by drawing in all of the Old
Testament prophecies,
facts, the levitical system,
the law,
the sacrificial things.
And the writer of Hebrews and God by
inspiration just brings it all
together in this book.
And we started last week with that first
line of chapter eight that says,
the main point of what is
being said is this,
Jesus is our high priest.
Cause we need a high priest,
you see.
And so he's referring to the Old
Testament covenant here,
the first covenant.
So here are the themes.
First of all,
it's pointed out that Jesus
is the son of God,
the unique son of God,
the superior communication of God.
He is the pre existent
eternal son of God,
which is a statement of his deity,
and that he is God,
the son before he was ever
born in a manger.
You've got the incarnate
earthly Jesus,
who lived these 33 years and was born
in a manger and lived and he died
and he was buried and he rose again.
And that's the incarnate Christ.
And then we get the
expression of God,
of the exalted son of God,
that he left after having
completed his work.
Here and sat down at the right hand
of the throne of majesty on high.
He is our high priest.
And so what the book of Hebrews is doing
is it's bringing us from the
first covenant,
the Old Testament,
the first covenant,
the first Testament,
all of those things that we refer to
the Old Testament as from shadow to
substance. Because remember
last week,
that was one of the lines in there
that says the first tabernacle,
the earthly tabernacle,
was a shadow of.
Right, the heavenly tabernacle.
So what we're doing is theme wise,
the thematic sort of outline of
this is the case for Christ,
his priesthood,
the holiest place where Christ passed
into to offer the sacrifice for our
sin. So in this text,
we see some interesting stuff here.
How many of you are really comfortable
calling the first covenant faulty,
obsolete, old,
passing away?
Well, look,
God by inspiration gives it to the
writer of Hebrews to do that,
for the first Covenant
had been faultless.
See, that's a nice way to say that
the first covenant was faulty.
Why was it faulty?
Let's look.
There would have been no occasion
for a second one.
So what God's promise is in
the book of Jeremiah,
Jeremiah, chapter 31,
starting in about verse 31,
is this promise of a new covenant,
because the first covenant,
the old covenant,
was faulty.
And then at the end it says
by saying a new covenant,
he's declared,
this is verse 13,
that the first is obsolete and what
is obsolete is growing old.
That's not a reference to Scott.
I just love it,
man. But it says it's
about to pass away.
That's why it's not a
reference to Scott.
All right,
but you see the point he's making,
that the new covenant is
a different covenant.
It's not a continuation covenant.
It's new.
It's going to be a different kind of
covenant because the old covenant,
the first covenant,
is passing away.
Now. Why is it passing away?
It says,
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 Jacob,
not like the covenant that I
made with their ancestors.
So not a continuation,
not a renewal.
You know,
I get asked from time to time to
do like marriage vow renewals.
Do you know what we don't do
in a marriage vow renewal?
We don't change the agreement.
Right? So if it's just a renewal,
then everything of the first
vow remains the same.
We're just renewing the first vow.
The new covenant is not about
renewing the old covenant.
It's a new and different covenant,
not like the one that I made
with their ancestors on the.
On the day I took them by the hand.
Now, I love that.
I love that expression.
Took them by the hand.
That was God the father,
taking his people by the hand
to lead them out of slavery,
out of bondage,
through miraculous signs
that the people saw.
The people saw the flies and
the frogs and the yuck,
bloody river water,
all of that stuff.
You see,
they saw God work.
They saw God take them by the hand
and lead them out of the land of
Egypt. But then God says this.
Now here's the interesting thing,
all right?
So in the Old Testament,
the old covenant,
the first covenant,
we know from the first two chapters
of Hebrews that God spoke through
angels and prophets,
okay? That's what it says.
The first covenant was
delivered by angel.
And the prophets were
the one who spoke.
The prophets were the ones who spoke
on behalf of God to the people.
So when a prophet spoke and said,
thus saith the Lord,
did y'all know?
The prophets were all.
King James didn't know.
Okay? Thus saith the Lord,
right?
When a prophet would
deliver God's word,
it was unquestionable.
He didn't challenge the prophet.
And the prophets of God,
though they were unpopular.
And Jeremiah in particular gets
buried up to his neck in mud,
right? Because they didn't
like what he had to say.
He was the prophet of warning
for the exile.
He was the one telling them that you
have broken the covenant with God
and God is going to punish you
and destroy this city.
They didn't like that,
right? How many of you know,
people love to be challenged
and given bad news,
right? That's why we don't practice
a lot of church discipline these
days, isn't it?
You're in sin.
We don't like that.
Well, that's what the
prophet would do.
And so his word was not questioned.
And so it comes down in verse nine.
It says,
I showed no concern for them,
says the Lord,
because they did not continue
in my covenant.
So what was faulty?
Faulty? It's faulty,
it's obsolete,
it's old,
it's passing away because there was
a dependence on the people to keep
the covenant,
to do their part.
So this new covenant's
different from that.
It's different from that.
You can't earn this one,
you can't work for this one,
you can't accomplish
this on your own.
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 into their minds
and write them on their hearts.
How is that different?
This is the promised covenant of God.
You ready?
How is that statement different from
the law and the covenant that God
made with his people in Egypt?
He chiseled that one on stone,
didn't he?
Guess what he's doing now.
He's chiseling on our hearts.
He's writing on our hearts.
See, that's why in the
New Testament,
when you see him say,
I will create in you a new heart,
you see,
there is this new creation
that God's working on.
That's why the rest of this text from
Jeremiah falls hand in hand with
each part of it.
He says,
I will put my laws into their minds
and write them on their hearts.
What does he mean by that?
Do you know that the.
The expectation of God doesn't
actually change?
Jesus confirms it.
He says,
love the Lord your God
with all your heart,
soul, mind,
strength. Right?
And love your neighbor as yourself.
The second great command,
it's the same.
And that's why Jesus says,
all of the law and the prophets
hang on these two commands.
So what you're doing
is you're saying,
I love God.
Do you?
Act like it,
right? Does it show?
You know,
I've often said,
you know what?
There's no husband walking into his
house at the end of a workday and
says to his wife,
I love you.
And it smacks her.
Cause that's not love,
okay? It's not.
So it's not like we can say,
hey, God,
I love you,
and then smack him in the face.
All right?
So when we look at this thing,
we see it says,
I will.
And then he finishes it with this,
I will be their God,
and they will be my people.
Then we see that sentence in several
places throughout scripture.
So what's it talking about?
The promised covenant.
The new covenant is a
relational covenant.
It was a relational covenant when God
offered it to his people in the Old
Testament. But they,
what did they do?
They made it all about the
613 laws to follow.
Oh, look,
I keep more than you do,
so that makes me better than you.
That's what they were trying to do.
It became this achievement system.
And yesterday we had a great men.
If you missed yesterday's
men's breakfast,
you should have been there.
But anyway,
it was one of the things that we were
talking about yesterday was kind of
this idea that God has called us to
genuinely and sincerely love him
back. You see,
he loved us first.
And I appreciate Scott's
song and everything,
but mama doesn't even know
how to love you,
except that God loved us first.
Okay, we love.
That's one john four.
We love because he first loved us.
That's how we know it.
See, so when we look at the laws,
it's not about the fact that we can delineate
613 laws and have sort of a
performance review once a year and have
a high priest walk into the holy
of holies with some blood
for his own sin,
some blood for my sin,
and say,
yes, you know,
Bobby broke 612 of them.
So we're going to accomplish and achieve
forgiveness on the day of
atonement? No.
What is it?
The command of God,
the expectation of God,
the desire of God is that we obey a
heart that has been renewed and
reconstructed and carved
our love for him.
Do we act as if we love God?
See, I'm not gonna,
you know,
I always say this.
I'm not gonna follow you around
and tell you when you're not.
The spirit does that with you.
The spirit lives inside of you to
inform you when you're not.
Each person will not teach his fellow
citizen and each his brother or
sister saying,
know the Lord.
Cause they'll all know me from
the least to the great.
You know what I think
in the world today?
I happen to be one of those folks that
believes ecclesiastes when it says
that a knowledge of something greater
than ourselves is innate.
I think everybody knows
there's a God.
I think that's why we see so many
godless people fight that innate
knowledge that they have.
I think we see people in the world that
want to deny the existence of God
because they know.
They know there's something
larger than themselves.
Right? There's a book out there
somewhere that says,
talks about the clockmaker.
Because clockmaking used to be a really
intricate and detailed thing.
And all the little pieces had to work
together to keep perfect time,
you know?
And we look at the world around us,
and we see the detail,
and we see the intricacy of
the way it works together.
And then even in our own bodies,
that prior to the aging process,
it works.
Right? There's a point in time.
I don't know whether it's 40 or 75,
Mike, but somewhere it just gets to the
point where it just doesn't work
like it used to.
Right?
But the designer,
now, remember,
remember we said this last year,
because the creation,
the garden,
was the sanctuary of God's creation.
It was perfect when God made it,
right?
We were perfect in humanity
when we were made.
But sin corrupted not only us,
but God's creation.
And God's creation groans under
the weight of the fall.
You see?
So I look at this and I go,
wow, we're not going to have to
tell our fellow citizens,
see, that's why it's really funny.
And they get mad at me.
You know,
people who don't believe in God,
and I go,
yeah, you do.
I turn around and walk off.
Because the covenant is relational.
I will be their God.
They will be my people.
And we won't have to tell other
people to know the Lord,
because they'll all know me,
from the least to the greatest.
And then here's the superior
covenant statement.
You ready for I will forgive their
wrongdoing and I will never again
remember their sins.
God's the one doing the work.
God's the one who's done the work.
When Jesus on his cross said,
it's finished,
you know,
I've studied,
I've heard,
I've read other writers and heard other
people talk about it and all that
sort of thing.
But the Tetelestai is like,
is like that paid stamp on a contract
that Jesus paid the debt for our
sin. God did it.
You didn't earn it.
You don't deserve it.
I don't deserve,
none of us do.
God made it.
God did the work.
Nick shared with me,
and I'll go ahead and tell you.
Nick shared with me a
cool illustration.
Cause he studies for this in
case I get hit by a bus.
Nick studied this.
He said,
you know what this is like?
And this is contemporary
modern illustration.
Get ready.
Here we go.
Jesus got the carfax on you.
And the carfax told
him all our flaws,
all our shortcomings and
all our failures,
and he still paid full price.
I was like,
that's pretty cool illustration
right there,
right? Listen to this last.
By saying a new covenant,
he's declared that the
first is obsolete.
What is obsolete and growing
old is about to pass away.
God planned,
prepared, inaugurated and completed
the new covenant.
It is finished now.
Love him back because that's the law
that he's written on our hearts,
that we love him back.
If you don't know Jesus
this morning,
you need Jesus because he
is our high priest.
He's the one that did the work.
Let's pray.
Father, thank you for today and for
all that you're accomplishing and
doing. And God help us.
God help us just to love
you and act like it.
God, let our lives be a testimony
to what you've accomplished.
God, that indeed we
have a new heart,
that God,
you have made us new creations.
That God is not about some sort of earning
or some sort of point system.
God, you loved us.
You died for us so that
we might have life.
So, God,
this morning I lift up.
If there's even one person here
that doesn't know Jesus,
God, we want them to know Jesus.
God, if there are those who know Jesus
and have at least established that
relationship. But still,
there's a performance model
in there somewhere where,
God, we tend to find fault
with ourselves.
And we're going to look at
Romans in the next year,
and so we're going to find out
what the contract looks like.
So, God,
I pray that we would recognize this morning
that you've done the work for
us, help us respond to you in love.
We pray it in Jesus name.
Amen.