1. "Your American duty is not simply to organize with those who agree with you to seize the levers of power, but to persuade neighbors who disagree with you to think and to vote differently. This is the harder work of democracy that is frequently misunderstood and misrepresented on Twitter."

2. "True religion, the religion of the Bible, has never been crowdsourced. It's never been a compilation of common thoughts and popular notions. It's always been the Creator God telling His lost people how they could find Him."

3. "The old covenant informed the people; it didn't transform them. Even knowing what is right doesn't give you the power to do it. Education is important, but we need more. We need God's Spirit to give us life and to recalibrate our loves."

4. "The old covenant drives us out of our own righteousness into the righteousness of Christ provided for us in the new covenant. Christ has kept the new covenant for us and provides us with its benefits by means of our faith in Him."

5. "Disagreeing with current Jewish rejections of Jesus as the Messiah is not antisemitism. Christianity is the belief that the Jewish Scriptures are true and that they truly point to Jesus Christ."

6. "The unworthiness of the one loved reflects the glory of the one loving. We're chosen not because we're so great—we're not. We're chosen because God will get glory to Himself by loving us and making us His very own."

7. "The new covenant is a covenant of mercy. It's not about our merit, it's about God's mercy. Our righteousness and goodness are not magnified, His is."

8. "Laws in form; God's law written by His Spirit on our hearts transforms. At that final hearing, we will each of us need one advocate. He will be our all in all—the high priest who can save to the uttermost, Jesus Christ."

9. "Only Jesus can undo your past and give you a new future. No other religion can do that."

10. "The Lord has come and tabernacled among us. He has come and lived among us in order that we might come and live with Him. He will accomplish that good purpose. That's what we're on the way toward."

Observation Questions

1. According to Hebrews 8:1-2, where is our high priest currently located, and what is he described as being a minister of?

2. In Hebrews 8:4-5, what does the author say the earthly priests serve, and what instruction did Moses receive when he was about to erect the tent?

3. What reason does Hebrews 8:7 give for why there was occasion to look for a second covenant?

4. According to the prophecy from Jeremiah quoted in Hebrews 8:9, what happened with the covenant God made with the fathers when He brought them out of Egypt?

5. In Hebrews 8:10, what four things does God promise to do under the new covenant with the house of Israel?

6. What does Hebrews 8:12-13 say God will do regarding iniquities and sins, and what effect does speaking of a "new covenant" have on the first covenant?

Interpretation Questions

1. Why is it significant that the earthly tabernacle and its priests are described as serving "a copy and shadow of the heavenly things" (v. 5)? What does this tell us about the purpose and limitations of Old Testament worship?

2. The sermon emphasized that the old covenant "informed but did not transform." How does the contrast between the old covenant written on stone and the new covenant written on hearts (v. 10) explain the difference between these two covenants?

3. What is the theological significance of God promising "I will be their God, and they shall be my people" (v. 10)? How does this phrase capture the essence of what the new covenant accomplishes?

4. Why does the author of Hebrews quote an Old Testament prophecy (Jeremiah 31:31-34) to demonstrate that the old covenant was always intended to be temporary? What does this reveal about how we should read the Old Testament?

5. How does the promise that God "will remember their sins no more" (v. 12) relate to Christ's role as the high priest who "offered up Himself" (Hebrews 7:27)? Why is this promise foundational to the new covenant?

Application Questions

1. The sermon described the old covenant as offering "information" while the new covenant offers "transformation." In what specific area of your life are you tempted to rely on merely knowing what is right rather than depending on the Spirit's power to actually change you?

2. If God has written His laws on your heart as part of the new covenant, how should this affect the way you approach obedience to Him this week—particularly in an area where you currently struggle?

3. The promise "I will be their God, and they shall be my people" speaks of intimate relationship with God. What practical steps could you take to cultivate deeper awareness of and gratitude for this relationship in your daily life?

4. The sermon challenged listeners to consider whether they are "awaiting people" who long for Christ's return and the new covenant's final fulfillment. How does (or should) this expectation shape your priorities, decisions, and use of time?

5. Knowing that God promises to "remember your sins no more" through Christ, how might this truth change the way you respond when guilt or shame over past failures resurfaces? Is there someone you need to share this good news with this week?

Additional Bible Reading

1. Jeremiah 31:31-40 — This is the full context of the prophecy quoted in Hebrews 8, showing God's comprehensive promises for restoration and the permanence of the new covenant.

2. Ezekiel 36:22-32 — This passage parallels Jeremiah 31 by describing God giving His people new hearts and putting His Spirit within them, which the sermon referenced as further illuminating the new covenant's transforming power.

3. Hebrews 9:11-28 — This passage continues the argument of Hebrews 8 by explaining how Christ entered the heavenly sanctuary with His own blood to secure eternal redemption.

4. 2 Corinthians 3:1-18 — Paul contrasts the ministry of the old covenant written on stone with the new covenant written on hearts by the Spirit, reinforcing the sermon's theme of transformation over mere information.

5. John 6:35-51 — Jesus identifies Himself as the bread of life and teaches that no one can come to Him unless the Father draws them, illustrating the effectual teaching and transformation that the new covenant promises.

Sermon Main Topics

I. The Dobbs Decision and the American Duty of Persuasion in Democracy

II. The Christian Perspective on Abortion and Eternity's Rebalancing of Priorities

III. The New Testament Offers a Better Religion (Hebrews 8:1-5)

IV. The New Testament Offers a Better Mediator (Hebrews 8:6-8)

V. The New Testament Offers Better Promises (Hebrews 8:8-13)

VI. The Covenant We Need: Christ as Our Only Advocate Before God's Eternal Law

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Detailed Sermon Outline

How do you accomplish a greatly desired end?

The airwaves are full this weekend of how the momentous Dobbs decision handed down by the Supreme Court on Friday was accomplished.

Said with thankful joy by many and with angry offense by others, many noted the long path to this point.

The decisions that had to happen by voters and elected officials, by lawyers and clients, by women and doctors, by reporters and judges and clerks.

It was a result many have dreamed of and others have dreaded.

As an American, I fear for the fragility of our court system.

When legislators are fearful of being primaried, And courageous compromises which move legislation into law are rare in days of divided popular opinion. Congress and state legislators increasingly leave the most difficult decisions to unelected officials like federal judges. From the safety of their lifetime appointments, Federal judges issue rulings on our rules that are supposed to reflect the laws of our land.

While change can and often has come by their rulings, the healthiest and most sustainable changes will come by our elected legislators.

When we as a nation can argue things out, and settle issues not by bullets, but by ballots, at least a measure of peace and prosperity can follow. This is the way injustices are best addressed, more slowly, but more solidly. We change the laws the courts use as the basis of their rulings. The laws reflect the legislators. The legislators reflect those who've voted for them.

Your American duty is not simply to organize with those who agree with you to seize the levers of power, but to persuade neighbors who disagree with you to think and to vote differently. This is the harder work of democracy that is frequently misunderstood and misrepresented on Twitter. It's the difference between blaming others and resolving to steward as best we can our own opportunities. It's the difference between shouting and listening. Between bullying and persuading.

With the rule of law, people must submit. The more willing the submission is, the more peaceful and prosperous society can be, as long as the laws themselves are just. When they're not, we must understand correctly and then lead others to do the same and then organize to enact better laws. This is the challenge of self-rule that Putin and the oligarchs and Chinese communists and monarchs and Iranian ayatollahs and powerful people throughout history have mocked. In a world as fallen as ours, there is much to mock.

But the experiment continues.

As a Christian, I rejoice at the prevention of untold and unjustified killings, dehumanize the baby as fully as Nazis attempted to dehumanize Jews, as too many racists have attempted to dehumanize those of another race. Friends, all human babies of whatever race, born into whatever social conditions, women or men, deserve to live.

The number of women killed by gender-selecting abortions in India and China staggers the imagination. The numbers are so much more than the Holocaust of aborted babies that our own land has allowed. The damage to our creation call to represent our Creator is incalculable, both to those who are killed and to those who choose and perform and champion the killings. To oppose all of this is part of following Christ.

As a Christian, even the most momentous of worldly freedoms and privileges, crimes and outrages are put in a different perspective by death.

The certainty of unending life beyond the grave. Matters of even greater weight than immediate physical or psychological pleasure or pain come before our minds. Eternity rebalances the Christian's priorities for ourselves and for others. The more we become aware of the absolutely unique responsibility we have to our Creator When upon our death He becomes our judge, the more aware we are of our own actions, our own shortcomings, our own sins and transgressions, even if some of us may quietly assess that we are less transgressors than the person sitting next to us. In the presence of an all-knowing, all-powerful, completely good God, thoughts of our own sins become overwhelming to us.

Once we understand that His justice is part of His love toward His creatures made in His image, and even part of His love toward Himself, our alarm increases. There can be no escape in sloppy thoughts of God's love, maybe preventing His justice. When we see His love is actually, His justice is actually an expression of His love. The most enfeebled consciences stir. We begin to feel around for justifications and then excuses and then anything that could help.

Despair, not until the next election cycle or judicial appointment, but despair stretching out forever as long as God's own goodness endures, stretches out before us. We consider, frankly, just a measure of our sins and just a measure of what we deserve from such a good God. And we wonder, how could a good God be merciful towards us? In our iniquities and our transgressions and remember our sins no more.

Two differing ways of accomplishing this stupendous goal, this eternal end seemed before them. The temple and its priests and sacrifices, religion, and faith in Christ and what He's already accomplished by offering Himself in His crucifixion and resurrection. Our chapter in Hebrews today leads us to consider that contrast. We're in Hebrews chapter 8. You'll find that on page 1005 in the Bibles provided.

And as you turn there, let me just remind you that as we've been studying the book of Hebrews this year, we've seen that these early Christians were, for whatever reason, thinking of leaving their Christian faith and going back to a before Jesus style of Judaism. Where compliances with food and cleanliness laws and offerings of annual sacrifices made up most of their religion. It was the common thinking of the day where they lived. It was uncontroversial. It must be easier, they would have thought.

At least at first. The writer here is trying to help them rebalance their estimations by showing how much better Jesus is than the religion that they were considering practicing. Everyone from angels to Moses, he's been reasoning, merely are merely servants of God. Jesus was Himself, is Himself, the Son of God, the very one whom these others were all serving. All the activities of the temple were all meaningless apart from what they pointed to.

That's what these chapters 8 and 9 and 10 are all about. Jesus is what they all pointed to. Chapter 8 begins the core of the book's comparison here between the old earthly covenant they're thinking about going back to, and the heavenly new covenant that has come in Christ. Let's listen to Hebrews chapter 8.

Now the point in what we're saying is this. We have such a High Priest, one who is seated at the right hand of the throne of the majesty in heaven, a minister in the holy places, in the true tent that the Lord set up, not man. For every High Priest is appointed to offer gifts and sacrifices. Thus it is necessary for this priest also to have something to offer. Now, if he were on earth, he would not be a priest at all, since there are priests who offer gifts according to the law.

They serve a copy and shadow of the heavenly things. For when Moses was about to erect the tent, he was instructed by God saying, See that you make everything according to the pattern that was shown you on the mountain. But as it is, Christ has obtained a ministry that is as much more excellent than the old, as the covenant he mediates is better, since it is enacted on better promises. For if the first covenant had been faultless, there would have been no occasion to look for a second. For he finds fault with them when he says, 'Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will establish a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt.

For they did not continue in my covenant. And so I showed no concern for them, declares the Lord. For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my laws into their minds and write them on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And they shall not teach, each one his neighbor and each one his brother, saying, 'Know the Lord, for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest.

For I will be merciful toward their iniquities, and I will remember their sins no more. And speaking of a new covenant, He makes the first one obsolete. And what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away.

Three theological points before we jump into this dense chapter. Number one, all Scripture is in God-breathed and profitable for teaching, for a proof, for correction, for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work. That's Paul in 2 Timothy 316-17 talking about the books of the Old Testament, and it is still true.

Number two, by old covenant here, He means basically the Old Testament, particularly the Mosaic covenant.

Number three, God's covenant of grace was administered during the days of the Old Testament, and yet that Testament looked forward to something more, something unbreakable, something effective eternally, something heavenly, and that's what this passage in Jeremiah 31 that the writer to the Hebrews here quotes is all about.

My outline is simple. Why is the New Testament better than the Old? Why is the New Testament better than the Old? It's not because it's shorter.

No, our writer gives us a number of reasons. It represents better religion, verses 1 to 5. A better mediator, verses 6 to 8, and better promises, verses 8 to 13. It offers better religion, verses 1 to 5. It has a better mediator, verses 6 to 8, and offers better promises, verses 8 to 13.

I pray that as we study this chapter together this morning, you'll see this and you'll believe it. So let's jump in. First, number one, the New Testament offers a better religion. The old covenant is represented, he says here, in visible shadows. Look again there in verse 3.

For every high priest is appointed to offer gifts and sacrifices. He's referring to what goes on in the Temple of Jerusalem. And he's said this before. Back in chapter 5, if you look at chapter 5, he says, For every high priest chosen from among men is appointed to act on behalf of men in relation to God to offer gifts and sacrifices for sins. So he's made this point.

He's just saying, Every high priest is appointed to offer gifts and sacrifices. Thus it is necessary for this priest also to have something to offer. This priest is referring to Jesus Christ, up from verses 1 and 2. And that which Christ has to offer is His own incarnate self. We saw this last time.

If you look up in chapter 7 at the end there, verse 27, Refrerring to Christ, He has no need like those high priests to offer sacrifices daily, first for His own sins and then for those of the people, since He did this once for all when He offered up Himself. Now we'll think about this more in the very central core of the book about His work next week, Lord willing, when we come to chapter 9. In verse 12 in chapter 9, He says, Christ entered once for all time into the holy places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves, but by means of His own blood. Thus securing an eternal redemption. And then later over in 1010 we read, and by that time, and by that rather, will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all time.

So here in chapter 8, verse 3, the writer is showing that Christ's offering is different than the offerings these Levitical priests over in the temple are bringing. These priests who themselves sin, and who therefore bring offerings and sacrifices for their own sins. That's different than what Jesus does. And the writer continues this contrast of the New Covenant with the Old, pointing out in verse 4, Now if He, that's Jesus Christ, were on earth, He would not be a priest at all. He's referring to the fact that Jesus Christ is resurrected and ascended.

He's in heaven in His glorious session there ruling and reigning. We thought of this last time in chapter 7 up in verse 13. Remember, Jesus was of the wrong tribe to be a priest on earth. He wasn't of the tribe of Levi. He wouldn't be of that order of priests anyway then.

He was of the tribe of Judah. So the religious space was being filled already, as we read here in chapter 8, verse 4, since there are priests who offer gifts according to the law. Jesus isn't needed. For more temple ministry. It was happening as our writer was writing, or perhaps as he was first speaking the words in the church.

That makes me think that this was probably written before the temple was destroyed. This is probably written before 70 AD. It's an earlier letter in that sense, before the Roman special military operation ended the temple in Jerusalem. Verse 5 gives us how we're to understand this existing form of the Jewish religion. These temple priests, verse 5, they serve a copy and shadow of the heavenly things.

A copy here, don't think of it so much platonically like there's the true form up in heaven and this is the imperfect earthly copy. Think of it more as a seed or a sketch of what's to come. This is a preview A foretaste faintly given, kind of like, you remember the way we can think of our own services here. I have been preaching at churches elsewhere the last two weeks, and my wife and I were away for our 40th anniversary, the first week of this month, so I've not been with you for four weeks now. So for me, it's a special little foretaste of heaven being back together.

And I think when we as a church as a whole felt that sharply, remember back in June of 2020, We hadn't met for the end of March and all of April and all of May, and then out at Franconia in the field there where we got to assemble again for the first time after months of not meeting. That had a sharp joy to it. It reminded us of the wonderful privilege of worshiping God together. And that's exactly the kind of experience, that foretaste. This isn't it, but there's something that's like it.

Well, that's what's going on in the temple worship in Jerusalem at this time. There's a forte. It's not the thing itself, but there are all these signs that God had placed in it pointing to the reality. We see here in verse 5 he says, For when Moses was about to erect the tent, he was instructed by God saying, See that you make everything according to the pattern that was shown you on the mountain. You find that phrase and phrases like it a number of times in Exodus 25 and 26 where the Lord is instructing them on how to build the form of religious devotion of the tabernacle that they were to have.

True religion, the religion of the Bible, has never been crowdsourced. It's never been a compilation of common thoughts and popular notions. It's always been the Creator God telling His lost people how they could find Him. When the Lord Jesus came, He sought His disciples and He said, I give you an example that you also should do just as I have done to you. Friends, our approach to God is not through our ingenuity, but it's through God's generous revelation of himself.

That's how we come to God. The New Covenant, though, has the true high priest. Look back up at the first two verses. Now, the point in what we're saying is this, verse 1, I love the fact that our author knows that he's been saying complicated things, and so he summarizes. He's been doing what he said he would back in chapter 6, moving on from the elementary matters to more mature matters.

So what do we need from our religion? What do we have in Jesus? He says here, We have such a high priest. What kind of high priest? Well, it's what He's just said, what He's just described immediately beforehand there in Hebrews 7.

You look at the end of chapter 7, verse 24, He holds His priesthood permanently because He continues forever. Consequently, He is able to save to the uttermost. Those who draw near to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for them. For it was indeed fitting that we should have such a High Priest, holy, innocent, unstained, separated from sinners, exalted above the heavens. He has no need like those High Priests to offer sacrifices daily, first for His own sins and then for those of the people, since He did this once for all when He offered up Himself.

For the Law appoints men in their weakness as High Priests, but the word of the oath, which came later than the Law, appoints a son who has been made perfect forever. This is the kind of high priest, friends, that we have. Such a high priest we have. In fact, this is the only high priest who can actually save. So if you're here today and you're looking into religion, whether deliberately you're seeking or accidentally you came with a friend and you're just being polite, the good news is that there is a way that you can come to know God not through your guilt and your working it off, but through God actually dealing with you honestly about what you've done that's wrong through His Son, Jesus Christ.

The one who lived a perfect life of love and trust in His Heavenly Father is the one who has lived so for all of us who'll turn from our sins and trust in Him. God accepted the sacrifice that He provided on the cross as an atoning sacrifice, a payment, a ransom, the Scriptures say, for all of us, for our sins, if we would believe in him. And he calls us now to do just that. If you wanna know more about what that would mean in your own life, talk to the person you came with. If you came by yourself, talk to one of us at the doors on the way out.

We would love to share with you more of what it would be like for you to live knowing God, not merely as your judge, but ultimately as your Father.

What kind of high priest? The kind of high priest who can bring us that good news. It says here in verse 1, one who is seated at the right hand of the throne of the majesty in heaven. He's using that language that we looked at back in chapter 1, verse 3 about the Son sitting down at the right hand of the majesty on high, the Son, that is, who had gone through the perfect life, had lived a life of humiliation, trusting God, his heavenly Father, through it all, including even death, death on a cross. And God raised him from the dead, and he ascended to heaven, and he presented his sacrifice of himself to his heavenly Father, and it was accepted.

And there he sat at the right hand of the majesty on high, the language the writer to the Hebrews uses. That is, he sat down in that place sitting on the throne, the throne of the Messiah, the one who was to be both son of David and son of God. A throne he could not have sat on as the eternal son of God had he not been incarnate. Had he not been the son of David. But he was a son of David.

He became incarnate. He became a man, as we confessed earlier together in the words of the Nicene Creed. This is the one who we understand began to rule and reign then when he ascended. He is the Messiah King. This is what the psalmist was talking about in Psalm 110 that our writer keeps alluding to.

So this one, this son, the writer calls him here in verse 2, a minister in the holy places, in the true tent that the Lord set up, not man. This true high priest brings the religion we need, not finally in the man-made tabernacle or its successor and so-called permanent temple in Jerusalem, but in the true tent of his body. This is where God tabernacled most fully among men. You remember back when King David wanted to build a house to the Lord, to live for the Lord to live in, the Lord replied, I have not lived in a house since the day I brought up the people of Israel from Egypt to this day. But I have been moving about in a tent for my dwelling.

When David's son Solomon finally builds a stone tabernacle in Jerusalem and dedicates it, He says in 1 Kings 8, Will God indeed dwell on the earth? Behold, heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain you. How much less this house I have built? When you think of the Lord's words from Isaiah 66 that Stephen quotes when he's about to be stoned to death in Acts 7, Yet the Most High does not dwell in houses made by hands, as the prophet says, Heaven is My throne and the earth is My footstool. What kind of house will you build for Me?

says the Lord. Or what is the place of My rest? Did not My hand make all these things? Stephen then went on to announce that the Lord had come among them in the Righteous One, by whom God dwelt truly among His people. He had come in Jesus Christ, and they had rejected Him.

That's exactly what we're taught in Scriptures. That's how God has come to dwell among us. John 1:14, the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. It's the word tabernacled among us. And we've seen His glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.

So this is the true Lord, the true tent that the Lord set up, not man, that He mentions here in chapter 8, verse 2. Jesus once, when asked for a sign in John 2, said as much. Do you remember that occasion? He's being asked for a sign, and He says, John 2:19, Jesus answered them, Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up. The Jews then said, It has taken 46 years to build this temple, and will you raise it up in three days?

But He was speaking about the temple of His body. When therefore He was raised from the dead, His disciples remembered that He had said this, and they believed the Scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken. So you see this new covenant that Jesus brings is offering a better religion than that represented by the old covenants, earthly priests and animal sacrifices. As copies and shadows, these other things at the temple were set up not to be kept permanently, but to be erected temporarily, kind of like we erect inaugural platforms down at the Capitol. It's for a certain event.

They're there for a time in order to accomplish a certain purpose. Well, that's what the temple sacrifices were for. They were a platform to display and prepare for the the truly righteous one, the heavenly high priest, after the order of Melchizedek, when he came offering a better religion. So instead of signs and menus, Jesus Christ offered them the true destination, the real meal. This is the new covenant that God had promised on the pages of the Scriptures themselves.

And it had now come in Christ as now is theirs in heaven, even now. So that's the better that we have here, the better religion, not the one down at the temple. Second, though, the New Testament offers a better mediator. You see, this is verses 6 to 8. The old covenant was faulty in its keeping.

You look there in chapter 8, verse 7, whatever else the old covenant given through Moses was, it was breakable. The people didn't trust God. You see, he says that in verse 7, if that first covenant had been faultless, there would have been no occasion to look for a second. Something was wrong with the old covenant. That's assumed here.

You understand what he's saying. In the old covenant, people could obey the sacrificial rules. They could obey God's commandments somewhat. Regulations about worshiping him. Paul himself says in Philippians 3 that he was faultless.

In terms of legalistic righteousness. But the very fact he says that his new covenant has come suggests that something was still lacking in the first one. The first covenant could establish Israel as the people of God. It could begin to teach God's people what holiness is. But that covenant alone would not lead God's people into his rest.

It would not make God's people truly blameless. And with the coming of Christ, all of the strengths and weaknesses of the old covenant were revealed. The preacher is about to take up the Lord's argument in Jeremiah 31, and his argument there is very straightforward. You wouldn't need a new covenant if the old one were okay. This is really the basic text for the core of the book.

So in some ways, you could say that Hebrews is a sermon on Jeremiah 31:31-34. And the middle of it is right here in chapters 8, 9, and 10. This is where he explains the work of Christ. The first seven chapters have been largely about the person of Christ. Who is Christ?

Now in chapter 8 and 9 and 10, he's turning to the work of Christ. And Christ performed work which Moses never did. The author frames the question very frankly in the beginning of verse 8, for he finds fault with them when he says. It's interesting that to show the limitations of Old Testament religion, the writer merely needs to quote the Old Testament itself. He doesn't have to go into some external critique.

He's done this already several times in the book, back in chapter 4. When he quoted Psalm 95 about the people's disobedience in the wilderness, or in chapter 7 when he had shown that Abraham's tithes to Melchizedek showed that there was an older and superior priesthood to that of Levi's. The old Mosaic covenant was clearly of God, but it was also clearly provisional. The Old Testament in itself contained so much in it which showed that it was partial and merely pointing forward to something more that was to come. In that sense, the Old Testament was like engagement, not marriage.

It was pointing forward with promises to something more that was to come. It was never meant to be the final state. Out in Los Angeles for the Southern Baptist Convention the other week, I had the opportunity to visit Melody Ranch, where I visited once with Danny Hays. The Motion Picture Studio. And hundreds of movies have been shot there.

And it's very strange. You'll walk on this outdoor set and there'll be all these buildings that look like you're in a street from the 1930s or a street from an old west town. And then you go inside for most of them and there's absolutely nothing. It's a facade. They look exactly right in detail.

But when you start to go through them, oh, that's all there was. Friends, that's a place that was never built to be lived in as a city, as a real town. It has a very limited function to point you on, to get a certain look when you have a certain photographic or motion picture shot, then that's it. That's all it's really meant to do. Friends, the Old Testament was not meant for us to be lived in.

The Old Testament was meant temporarily to point us on to Christ, to the real that is coming. That's exactly what we see here in Hebrews. The people's sins showed them their own faults and the fault of the covenant that they were in. You see, the Old Testament informed the people it didn't transform them. Jesus said it in John 6, that the flesh profits nothing.

It's only the Spirit that gives life. Even knowing what is right doesn't give you the power to do it. It's not that education is unimportant, education is important, but we need more. We need God's Spirit to give us life and to recalibrate our loves. So God's people in the Old Covenant read this passage in Jeremiah 31.

It's in the Old Testament. And they read Ezekiel 36 that we'll think of more tonight, Lord willing. They knew that there was more to come, and they were looking forward to it. God's people didn't imagine that they had all they needed. When we sing, O come, O come, Emmanuel, we capture that longing that the Old Testament people of God had when they were longing for the coming of the Messiah.

They knew that there was more to come. I think of dear Simeon standing there, you know, in Luke 2. To remember the old man, righteous and devout, waiting for the consolation of Israel, waiting for the Messiah to appear? Friends, God's people have always been awaiting people. We are awaiting people, aren't we?

We've sung this morning of life eternal calling to us at the cross. We read Jesus' own words from Mark 14, you, will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of power and coming with the clouds of heaven. We've sung of bright crowns waiting for me in the New Jerusalem. The people of the old covenant were waiting for the coming of the new covenant, and we are waiting for its final fulfillment. But the new covenant has a better minister, a better mediator who kept the terms of the covenant for us.

Look there in verse 6. Verse 6 in some ways acts as a nice summary of it all. As it is, Christ has obtained a ministry that is as much more excellent than the old. The promises of rest, the call to perfection had been left unfulfilled in the old covenant, but they've now been fulfilled in Christ. Those are just some of the ways that the new covenant excelled the old.

As he says here in verse 6, As the covenant he mediates is better. And here we have this term covenant. The writer had introduced the term just before this up in chapter 7, verse 22, when he had said, this makes Jesus the guarantor of a better covenant. That covenant, that's an agreement between two or more parties, like our own church covenant, you know, members, we have our church covenant that we have agreed between us before God. Well, the covenant that he's referring to here is the covenant that God made with his people.

And Jesus is the guarantor, the security, we read, of a better covenant. He guarantees the fulfillment of the new covenant's promises, already invisibly beginning now, but finally and fully in the future. And this better covenant is kept by a better minister, a better mediator. So back in chapter 3, he had already compared Jesus to Moses. And Moses had been found wanting.

Moses was merely a servant, whereas the Son is Christ. The better Mediator brought a better covenant. It's better, we read here in verse 6, since it is enacted on better promises. What are the better promises? Well, not the old covenant's promise of do this and live, says Moses, but the better promise of believe in Christ and have life eternal.

That's the better promise that the new covenant is founded upon. Brothers and sisters, it's because of this excellence of the new over the old that the old covenant of Moses was abrogated. Not because it failed to achieve its purposes, but because the booster rocket stage in God's salvation plan was completed. That's why this new covenant He's mentioned in here and up in 722 was called better. It came with an oath and a promise that was superior to what the old covenant was ever intended to do, to what the old covenant promised.

The old promised only do this and live like you see in Leviticus 18. Here we have promised forgiveness, a restored, renewed relationship with God and with Him all His blessings. That's what this quotation from Jeremiah 31 is all about. It's all those promises that we see finally fulfilled in Revelation 21 and 22, where the world's desertion is replaced by God's acceptance, sin's folly with God's wisdom, the need for grace fulfilled in prayers answered and glory come.

What a glorious privilege to be new covenant believers. We don't slide back into the go nowhere treadmill of self-righteousness based on self-effort and law-keeping. Praise God that the new and better covenant is unbreakable because all of its terms have been kept by Christ for us. He has died for our lack of righteousness and has given us His Spirit to make us increasingly, actually, righteous. As people have summed it up, Christ has saved us from the penalty of sin.

He is saving us from the power of sin. He will save us even from the very presence of sin. So powerful is the New Covenant and effective where the old was not. It wasn't doing that. In many ways, verse 6 is a wonderful summary, as I say, of what Hebrews has been telling us about.

The old covenant drives us out of our own righteousness into the righteousness of Christ provided for us in the new covenant. Christ has kept the new covenant for us and provides us with its benefits by means of our faith in Him. The New Testament offers a better mediator of a better covenant. Finally, number three, the New Testament offers better promises. The Old Testament is really vanishing.

He says in verse 13, look again, the last verse.

In speaking of a new covenant, He makes the first one obsolete. And what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away.

As we've seen even in the Old Covenant times, they knew something better was coming. So these Christians in the first century needed to realize that so they wouldn't turn back to pabulum as adults. So they wouldn't send back the meal and try to start munching on their menus. It made no sense to leave the Messiah to go back to the temple when everything in the temple is there to point to the Messiah.

Friends, let me make one point very clear here. Disagreeing with current Jewish rejections of Jesus as the Messiah is not antisemitism. Let me say that again. Disagreeing with current Jewish rejections of Jesus as the Messiah of Jesus as the Messiah is not antisemitism. To conclude that Jesus is the Messiah was made the dividing line in the synagogues of the first century as Jewish believers were excluded from the synagogues.

I remember some years ago reading a compendium of modern Jewish thinking on Jewishness and one of the essays began by reviewing all the contributions in the book and saying that there was so much variety included in the word Jewish that literally the only thing all the contributors could agree on is that Jesus was not the Jewish Messiah. But friends, Judaism was not always so. Remember Jesus was Jewish. In fact, Jesus' disciples were Jewish. But most of the first Christians were Jewish.

We've already noted earlier in this series that in Acts 6:7 we read, and the Word of God continued to increase and the number of disciples multiplied greatly in Jerusalem and a great many of the priests became obedient to the faith. In fact, when the Gentile Cornelius came to Christ in Acts chapter 10, it was controversial exactly because he wasn't Jewish. And the people were wondering, what on earth does a Gentile care about the Messiah for? They had to have a big council in Acts 15 just to figure out if Gentiles could even be Christians. So there's no doubt that early Christianity was Jewish.

So Christianity is the belief that the Jewish Scriptures are true and that they truly point to Jesus Christ. As the fulfillment of the messianic promise to David in 2 Samuel 714, and as the fulfillment of the promise like of a prophet like Moses who was to come in Deuteronomy 18, and to the promise of a coming Son of Man in Daniel 7, and to the coming suffering servant in Isaiah 52 and 53 who would be stricken for the transgression of my people.

We love our members who have Jewish heritage and other Jews, whether or not they've come to accept Christ, and we want everybody, Gentile or Jewish, to come to know and love the Lord Jesus Christ. But we do believe that a Judaism which has rejected its Messiah is incomplete and stunted and wrong. With the coming of Christ, the old Mosaic covenant has passed away as a way to come to God. Its sell-by date has come, predicted in the Jewish prophet Jeremiah as he gives out the words of the Lord Himself here in Jeremiah 31. So the people are valuable, made in the image of God, but the conclusion to ignore Jesus is religiously and spiritually fatal because, as we read here, the old covenant is vanishing.

So we continue to read and study our Old Testament, but we read it as part of the larger story that includes the new. We read the whole Bible. So we read 1 Samuel and we see in Hannah's longings last week exactly what will be fulfilled in the coming of Christ and the one who brings salvation for all will trust in Him.

So the old covenant is vanishing, but the new covenant, it's the new covenant that brings us into a relationship with God. Look here at the heart of the passage there in verses 8 to 12. So what the writer of the Hebrews is doing, he's beginning this section of chapters 8, 9, and 10 with this quotation from Jeremiah 31. And these chapters really comprise the most extensive consideration of the nature of the new covenant in the Bible, how it is better than the old, how Jesus is its high priest, the implications that it has for our worship here on earth, all these matters we'll continue to consider in the chapters coming up, Lord willing. But he starts out here in verse 8, For he finds fault with them when he says, Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will establish a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah.

And very interesting there, isn't it, that he says, the house of Israel, the house of Judah. If you know your Old Testament, you know that the people of God were divided after Solomon's day, the ten northern tribes Israel, the southern two tribes Judah. But now we see here they're going to be united in this new covenant. The amazing nature of the blessings that are coming in the new covenant begin to appear already in that. God's people will all be one.

And brothers and sisters, whatever congregation or families of congregations we may be a part of, all true Christians and all true Christian churches are part of the worldwide people of God. In that sense, this new covenant is a very inclusive covenant. So did you notice the way in my pastoral prayer, I was just sort of filing through mentally, alphabetically, Acts 29, Anglican, you know, Baptist, Bible Church, non-denominational Presbyterian. But I was just going, trying to find, what are churches around that are preaching the same gospel? They're all our sister congregations.

Our denomination has no spiritual value. Our spiritual value are those churches that are comprised of people who value this same gospel. They are our sister congregations. Yes, of our denomination, but also of others, because that gospel is what determines whether or not we're part of this new covenant. And we see here that in the beginning of saying that it's going to come, Jeremiah is already letting us know the Lord through Jeremiah how this is going to be an inclusive, united people of God.

He continues on in verse 9 distinguishing it from the old covenant. In verse 9, not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, for they did not continue in my covenant. The old covenant gave no power to obey its laws. As we've observed, it was more information than transformation. And so he says, I showed no concern for them, declares the Lord.

What he's saying there is God allowed the people to leave him. In this sense, the main thing you need to know about the old covenant is that it was breakable. And people like you and me are just the kind of people who could break it.

But now, for his promise through Jeremiah of another kind of covenant, verse 10, For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my laws into their minds and write them on their hearts. Oh, this is a sweet promise. We'll be thinking about this more. Again, I say, Lord willing tonight, with Ezekiel 36, where God says He will give His people a heart of flesh with His own Spirit and attendant holiness of life. But this is the description of the interior change that God promised to His people in this new covenant.

This is what Jesus called being born again. This is what Paul called the fruit of the Spirit. Such obedience becomes joy only with new hearts. And that's what God gives us. He gives us new hearts.

And then you have that last summarizing phrase of verse 10: and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. Brothers and sisters, consider all there is entailed in that simple promise: I will be their God. He gives Himself to us, and He takes us to Himself. Friends, this was the great privilege of the Jews even under the old covenant. That the nation of Israel had been selected not because they were the greatest of all nations, they were the least, He said, but He chose to set His love upon them because He loved them.

The unworthiness of the one loved reflects the glory of the one loving. And so it is with us. We're chosen not because we're so great, we're not. We're chosen because God will get glory to Himself by loving us and making us His very own. The language of desire that we see in God's love is amazing.

We see the kind of joy that He takes in His people. And you notice all of God's actions mentioned here in this verse: Matthew Henry, the preacher of old summarized it well, he says, It is God's covenant. His mercy, love, and grace moved for it. His wisdom devised it. His Son purchased it.

His Spirit brings souls into it and builds them up in it. Henry continued, He once wrote His laws to them; now He will write His laws in them. That is, He will give them understanding to know and to believe His law. He will give them memories to retain them. He will give them hearts to love them and consciences to recognize them.

He will give them courage to profess them and power to put them in practice. The whole habit and frame of their souls shall be a table and transcript of the law of God. This is the foundation of the covenant. And when this is laid, Duty will be done wisely, sincerely, readily, easily, resolutely, constantly and comfortably.

Friend, is this what you've been experiencing since you've become a Christian? Is this describing anything of your experience? Has God's law been written on your heart? Is there a knowledge of that which is good and right and pleasing to the Lord that seemed to have become more internalized to you, more real. Whatever struggles it may entails also have developed a kind of pleasingness to you that it didn't have before.

Is there something that's come alive in your own conscience and in your own loves? This is the effectual teaching that God does. Remember what Jesus taught in John 6. He says in John 6, beginning in verse 43, Do not grumble among yourselves. No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him, and I will raise him up on the last day.

It is written in the prophets, and they will all be taught by God. Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to Me. Not that anyone has seen the Father except He who is from God; He has seen the Father. Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes has eternal life. I am the bread of life.

Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness and they died. This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is My flesh.

The Lord continues to press into this fullness of the coming blessing in verse 11, and they shall not teach each one his neighbor and each one his brother, saying, 'Know the Lord, for they shall all know Me, from the least of them to the greatest.' Friends, one of the amazing things is after the fall in Genesis 3, throughout the whole Bible there's this broadening knowledge of God. The promises come at first few in staccata, to Noah, to Abram. And then in the Mosaic Law they come much more fully. And then there come the judges and kings and prophets, the earlier prophets and the later prophets, where God's Word is coming in more abundance. And then the incarnate Word comes.

And he sends God's Spirit. And people broadly then have God's own Spirit, and they're put into churches where there are teachers of God's Word who are gifted and called. Not that we read of that in the Old Testament, but as a part of the New Covenant blessing. And this teaching ministry is not merely from the pulpit, but it's what should be happening among all the elders like Steve Boyer, who's leading us, is one of the pastors of the church. He teaches us God's Word.

And not just among the elders, in fact, the New Testament is clear that we teach each other, we admonish one another. We're doing that regularly. And so in our church we talk about having a culture of discipling, how we all help each other come to know the Lord better and grow in Him. Every young person and woman and man and child who knows the Lord, we're all helping each other in that. And yet even that ministry is a part of this broadening stream that will one day vanish.

Because when we're with the Lord eternally, we will all know Him perfectly. We will not need to say to one another, Know the Lord, because we shall all know Him. Friends, this broadening of the presence of God and of His experience is what we as Christians are already experiencing in good measure. And in days to come, our hopes in heaven are for not even needing this, so immediate will our fellowship with Him be. So brothers and sisters, continue to seek the Lord, whether you feel like you're spiritually plateaued or doing well or going backwards.

Continue to seek the Lord. Think, what does it mean for you right now to fight, to grow spiritually?

The Lord has come and tabernacled among us. He has come and lived among us in order that we might come and live with Him. He will accomplish that good purpose. That's what we're on the way toward. We read in verse 12, For I will be merciful toward their iniquities.

And I will remember their sins no more. Brothers and sisters, this new covenant is a covenant of mercy. It's not about our merit, it's about God's mercy. Our righteousness and goodness are not magnified, His is. And we enact the sign of the forgiveness and the relationship we have with God each time we sit down at the Lord's table together, as we hope to do next Sunday morning.

This is the covenant that we celebrate at that table. As we recall Christ's words at that Last Supper, do you remember? This cup is what? The new covenant in my blood. He was recalling to their minds this prophecy from Jeremiah 31.

And he was saying, this is it. This is the new covenant in my blood, which is for you. The shedding of Christ's blood and its presentation to His heavenly Father established this new covenant promised in Jeremiah. And this is why we sing as we do of our ransom being paid at the cross. And we call Christ our Redeemer.

Brothers and sisters, we are awaiting people. We've tasted God's goodness already, but we we still are in this fallen world. And so we wait its fullness. Again, if you're here and you're not a Christian, come join us. Come get to know this one who made you, in whose image you are made.

The very structure of your personality, your thoughts and being were made to reflect him so that you can have personal relationships and be known and fulfilled. Come and learn about yourself. As you learn more about Him. Be forgiven of your sins, of your injustices. Come and find what He has done to make you right with Himself.

That's what we want to help you come to know. Friend, only Jesus can undo your past and give you a new future. No other religion can do that. Thank God for His mercy and grace toward each one of us in our sins. It's the height of the blessings of the New Covenant that we are brought into relationship with this God, that our sins are forgiven and that God our Judge has become God our Savior and our Redeemer.

These are just the beginning of the better promises of the New Covenant. The New Testament.

We should conclude, what covenant do we need?

What legal arrangements are most vital to us?

January 22, 1973, was a busy night for reporters of news here in the US. I was a young teenager at the time, a self-conscious agnostic, and I always watched the CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite.

The night was remarkable. Eight minutes into the broadcast on live TV, came a phone call informing Cronkite and through him the nation that former President Lyndon Johnson had just died. They literally show on air the phone with the cord as he's hearing from the reporter that Johnson had just died on the way to the hospital. The lead story that night, which began the broadcast eight minutes earlier, was the famous 72 decision of the Supreme Court in Roe v Wade. I don't recall much about it being reported, but with YouTube's help, I refreshed my memory while working on this message.

Cronkite reported that the decision overturned the laws of 46 states. There's the corrosion of the last half century. It overturned the laws of 46 states in which the legislators of those states had determined that abortions were illegal. It was then celebrated by the president of Planned Parenthood and decried by three different Roman Catholic officials. That Supreme Court decision shaped the next half century of American politics even more than LBJ's significant presidency had done.

Laws are important.

It is important that they are good, just laws, and that they are enforced well and justly.

This particular congregation exists unusually because of the business of making laws for our land here on Capitol Hill. Our community is filled with the men and women entrusted with various parts of that high privilege and responsibility.

And yet as important as that duty is, it pales in consideration of the eternal and unchanging law of God, before whose justice we will each one be arraigned. When we withdraw from this world and enter the next. And at that moment, there will be no question of the comparative importance of the laws written in our nation's legal code and the law the regenerating Spirit of God has put into our minds and written on our hearts. Laws in form, God's law written by His Spirit on our hearts, transforms. At that final hearing, we will each of us need one advocate.

He will be our all in all. The high priest who can save to the uttermost, Jesus Christ. This is why we love Him so. As each day passes and we approach our accounting, may our praises to the Lamb of God slain for us swell. To be born safely over that bitter river of death into the presence of God, to kneel forgiven before His throne, and join His saints forever praising Him.

And Him alone is our highest duty and our greatest desire. May God make it so for every person within the sound of my voice today. Let's pray together.

Lord, we have considered deep truths from youm Word, high and holy matters that are above us as sinners, and yet yout have revealed Yourself in youn Word. Thank youk for the privileges of youf loving us. Thank youk for the new covenant in Christ. Thank you for these superior promises that we dwell in the time to hear and believe. Lord, we pray that you would pour out your Spirit on us even now.

We ask in Jesus' name. Amen.