Sunday Morning, September 1, 2019 AM

Father, I thank you that we have this assurance.

Great is your faithfulness.

Your compassions, they fail not.

Your mercies are new every morning.

You are our portion.

Lord, we come together this morning to this place to

hear from you, to having come together to confess

our hope in Christ.

Together, we listen for your word.

We listen for your truth from your word today.

And I pray that you would, yes, incline our ears to your word.

But also, Father, we ask that you would incline our hearts,

that you would make us fit and ready vessels to be

filled with your truth and molded, changed, transformed by your truth.

Lord, we come here because we need this, because we are needy.

You have made us in your image, so you have made us for your word.

Fill us, we pray, with your truth that we might bring glory to you.

We may praise you as you ought to be praised, that we may speak your truth as it ought to be spoken.

Please pour out your grace upon us.

Fill us with your spirit that we would be, as you have called us to be, the pillar and ground of the truth,

the salt of the earth and the light of the world as we cling to Christ.

And we pray that you would help us to rejoice.

We ask for joy.

We ask for joy today.

We pray these things for the sake of Christ, the one with whom you are well -pleased.

Amen.

So I invite you to open your Bibles and turn with me to Jeremiah 31.

Jeremiah 31, we will be, I'll be reading for us verses 31 through

40.

We've been talking about the transition from old covenant to new covenant.

One helpful way to think about that is that in the old covenant, like real estate,

location is what matters.

Where was the law of God located?

Where was forgiveness to be found?

Where were you supposed to go?

And everywhere we find in the old covenant, the location being emphasized.

In the new covenant, we find the incarnation being emphasized.

That where the temple is emphasized in the old covenant, Christ, who calls himself the temple, is

emphasized.

And we've looked at that.

I think it's been a helpful thing to think about.

We've also been talking about the ingredients of a covenant.

When God makes a covenant, an agreement with people, he

does so with three ingredients in his covenant.

And it has to do with people and place and rule.

So it's about God's people living in God's place blessed

is Adam and then afterwards in the refreshed earth or reading about Abraham or

Israel or David or in the new covenant and thinking about the

language concerning the church.

And so it's important to remember that we have the same ingredients from old covenant to new covenant.

Same ingredients.

This has a lot to do with the fact that it's the same God and his word never fails and he never goes back on

any of his promises.

And so we have the same ingredients about God's people being in God's place, blessed under his rule, but

there's a new recipe.

And we're reading about that here in Jeremiah 31, 31 through 40.

So I invite you to stand with me as I read this word from our Lord and Savior, our King, Jesus Christ.

This is the word of the Lord.

Behold, days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house

of Israel and with the house of Judah, not like the covenant which I made with their fathers in the day

I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant, which they broke, although I was

a husband to them, declares the Lord.

But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord.

I will put my law within them and on their heart I will write it.

And I will be their God and they shall be my people.

They will not teach again, each man his neighbor and each man his brother, saying, know the Lord,

for they will all know me from the least of them to the greatest of them, declares the Lord, for I

will forgive their iniquity and their sin I will remember no more.

Thus says the Lord, who gives the sun for light by day and the fixed order of the moon and the

stars for light by night, who stirs up the sea so that its waves roar,

the Lord of hosts is his name.

If this fixed order departs from before me, declares the Lord,

then the offspring of Israel also will cease from being a nation before me forever.

Thus says the Lord, if the heavens above can be measured and the

foundations of the earth searched out below, then I will also cast off all the

offspring of Israel for all that they have done, declares the Lord.

Behold, days are coming, declares the Lord, when the city will be rebuilt for the Lord from the tower of

Hananel to the corner gate.

The measuring line will go out farther straight ahead to the hill Gerab, then it will turn to Goa

and the whole valley of the dead bodies and of the ashes and all the fields as far as the brook of Kidron to

the corner of the horse gate toward the east shall be holy to the Lord.

It will not be plucked up or overthrown anymore forever.

And this is the word of the Lord.

You may be seated.

Legend is told of a gambling addict, of noble

birth.

He was too consumed with his cards to be bothered with

the formality of eating a formal dinner to sit and eat

a meal.

And so when enticed by hunger pains, he gave some consideration to his plight and suddenly there burst

upon his consciousness what has now come to be realized as brilliance.

Rather than sit with fork and knife and sup on bread and salad and meat, they

could all be combined into a single handheld feast.

The meat and the veggies within the bread could be eaten with one hand while

still playing poker with the other hand.

And such was the genius found in John Montagu, the first Earl

of Sandwich.

And so we have his name with us today.

Same ingredients, revolutionary new recipe.

It was what was there for dinner, but now he can eat it on the go.

And the world has never been the same since.

The actual story behind it is that he went abroad and discovered meat between bread

in other cultures and decided to bring it home and told his chef he'd better cook it.

But he did want it so that he could eat the sandwich with one hand and play poker with the other because he was too busy to

eat a normal meal.

Same ingredients, same ingredients, new recipe.

When we go from Old Covenant to New Covenant, we're talking about same ingredients and a new recipe.

And it's about God's people being in God's place

blessed under his rule.

So I want us to look at these themes as they come to us in Jeremiah 31.

In verses 31 through 34, it is the people being ruled

by God that is stressed.

In verses 35 through 37, it is the people, God's people remaining that is

being stressed.

Yes, a new covenant, but God still has his people.

And then in verses 38 through 40, it's the place that is

being stressed.

They will be gathered to a place rebuilt.

And so that's gonna be the three themes here in Jeremiah 31 through 40.

It's about a people ruled, a people remaining and a place rebuilt.

Same three ingredients, New Covenant.

I think it's important for us to remember that Jeremiah is writing in the dark days of Jerusalem right before

they're going to be destroyed.

Things are very bad.

People are starving to death.

There's violence in the streets.

Doom is on the horizon.

He's writing to a people that are in exile.

They have been torn away from their land.

They no longer live in the land of their birth.

They live in a land filled with pagans who do not speak their language.

Either place, exile in Babylon or still hanging on in Jerusalem.

These are sad places.

These are sad places.

And what Jeremiah writes is good news that should establish joy

as an impregnable fortress in their hearts.

And no matter what's going on in exile in Babylon or what's going on in

Jerusalem under siege, if they have this word from God, if they have

the good promises of this New Covenant fortified by faith in their lives, they

have a fortress of joy that cannot be taken down.

And I want that for us as well.

I want that for us as well.

And so I want us to look at this passage carefully.

I wanna just look at verses 31 through 34 and really focusing in on verses 33

through 34, looking at the people and how they are ruled by God.

How is it that we are ruled by God?

The theme, I just thought of Joel.

I know that there's a passage in Joel chapter two beginning in verse 23 and the

following.

Peter preaches it at Pentecost, but it's a New Covenant passage and it starts off this way.

It starts off this way.

Rejoice, O sons of Zion.

Be glad in the Lord your God.

That's a great way to start off the message of the New Covenant.

And that's what we need to take to heart today.

That should be our theme.

Rejoice, O sons of Zion.

Be glad in the Lord your God.

We have good news with which to rejoice today.

So let's talk about being blessed under God's rule in the New Covenant.

Now notice in the text how this works.

I'll read again beginning in verse 31 through verse 34.

Behold, days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and

with the house of Judah, not like the covenant which I made with their fathers

in the day I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt.

My covenant which they broke, although I was a husband to them, declares the Lord.

Now when he brought them up out of Egypt, where did he take them?

Before he led them in circles around the wilderness, where did he take them?

He took them to Sinai, didn't he?

He took them to Sinai where he made covenant with them and he gave them

his law.

And in fact, God wrote the Ten

Commandments on the stone tablet.

It's one of those places in the scriptures where it's not Moses who wrote it on, it

says that God wrote it on the stone tablets.

And then he ordered that those stone tablets be put into the Ark

of the Covenant, right?

The covenant.

So here's the box of the covenant that carries the artifacts of the covenant and in the

covenant is the law, right?

So he says, it's not gonna be like that covenant that I made with Israel when I brought, it's gonna be different.

Now let's look how different this is.

We're not changing ingredients, but we are changing recipes.

Verse 33, but this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the

Lord.

I will put my law within them and on

their heart, I will write it.

And I will be their God and they shall be my people.

They will not teach again, each man his neighbor and each man his brother saying, know the Lord for they will

all know me from the least of them to the greatest of them declares the Lord for I will forgive their iniquity

and their sin I will remember no more.

So where does God put his law?

He does not toss out his law as bad,

but he puts it somewhere else.

Instead of writing it on stone tablets and putting it in the Ark of the Covenant, he puts it within his

people, every single last one of them writing it on their hearts.

So we already hear there's a difference.

We already hear that there is a difference.

And we need to talk about that difference.

A people who are ruled, there's something different about us.

Now there's three basic promises here in verses 33 through 34 which in which

God explains to us how his people are blessed to live under his rule.

And the first thing is that we're branded.

That's what it means to have something written on you.

Okay, we are branded by God.

He has written his law on the hearts of his people.

Not only are we branded, but we are also beloved.

When he says, I will be their God and they will be my people.

Every single last one of them will know me.

We are beloved and we're also bought.

We're also bought.

We are branded, beloved and bought.

When he says, I will forgive their iniquity and their sin, I will remember no more.

We'll talk about how that relates to being bought.

Let's talk about being branded, rules.

God is putting his law within us.

I'm saying this because we have already established the fact that Jesus speaks to his disciples

on the night that he was betrayed, that they had a meal together, Passover meal.

And he says to his disciples, as he shares with them the bread and the wine, he says to them,

this is my blood of the new covenant.

Take, drink.

So he is forging, he is establishing the new covenant with his disciples.

And then thereafter, after he dies upon the cross and he is raised from the dead, just as he said he would be, he then tells

his disciples to go out to all the nations, baptizing

all of them in the name of the father, the son and the Holy Spirit, teaching all the nations to observe all that Jesus Christ

has commended.

Right?

So he says, I forge a new covenant with you.

Now you go out to the nations and tell them they better obey me, right?

So that's what we're talking about.

But here in Jeremiah 31, here is one of the early prophecies about that event.

So when we look at the people of the new covenant, they have the law written within them and they are branded.

So when God wrote the 10 commandments on the stone tablets and then had Moses put them into the ark of the

covenant, he was locating his rule over his people.

He wrote down the commandments and then put it in the ark of the covenant, which was inside the Holy of Holies, which was inside the

tabernacle.

He was locating his rule.

Now, when he put the 10 commandments into the ark, the cover of the

ark, what was it?

The cherubim on either side, but in the middle was this empty space called the mercy

seat.

The mercy seat in the Old Testament repeatedly says that God is

enthroned above the cherubim.

It's a seat because it's a throne.

It was the place from which he ruled and it was there that he had placed his law.

Okay, so God is ruling from this location.

He has deposited his law in this location.

He was locating his rule with his people.

He is enthroned above the cherubim.

His rule is established upon his law.

So God's promise in our passage here in Jeremiah 31 is to take the same two actions that he did at Sinai.

It says that he was going to write his law upon our hearts.

It's the same exact word in the Hebrew that we have when Moses, when he tells Moses,

take the commandments I have written.

It's the same exact Hebrew word.

And then he says, put it into the ark of the covenant, Exodus 40 verse 20, and it's the same word here.

I will put it into their hearts.

It's the exact same words.

So it's the same ingredients.

It's a new recipe.

God's rule will not be manifested on display from a brick and

mortar structure, but from a beloved purchased people.

His rule, his law will be placed within them, deposited, established

in their most inward thoughts.

His rule, his law will be inscribed on their minds, tattooed in

their hearts, engraved in their wills.

Revelation says, God's name will be written upon their foreheads, they're

branded.

This is the new covenant good news.

So God promises to brand his people.

And in this way, God will be the God of his people and they shall have him as their

God.

Every single last one of them branded by his law.

What does that mean?

It means that they are defined by his character for it is God's character that is revealed in

the law.

They are defined by his character.

They are captivated by his rule.

There will not be those who live in the new covenant, new covenant members.

They're not going to live far off from his throne.

They are not going to be distant from his law.

They're not going to have a hard time traveling to Zion.

They're not going to have a hard time hunting up a Levite because God's law will be written

on their hearts.

He will place his law within them.

He will be enthroned.

He is still enthroned above the cherubim.

He is still enthroned in every heart of every

member of the covenant.

And that's new.

That wasn't there in the old covenant, but it is in the new that

God is enthroned in each member of the new covenant.

Now, we'll continue on.

We'll come back to these themes.

Now, we're also beloved, not only branded, but beloved.

Notice the language.

I will be their God and they will be my people.

I will be their God, they will be my people.

That is the covenant language you find again and again.

God promises that in the new covenant, there will no longer be any need for the

members of this covenant to introduce God to each other,

right?

In the old covenant, you could run into people who didn't know the Lord.

Full -fledged member of the old covenant,

circumcised Israelite from the tribe of Zebulun, but he didn't know God.

Oh, he's in the old covenant, but he didn't know God.

He was raised by parents who were all into that, that Baal and that Asherah.

He didn't know the Lord,.

But he's a part of the old covenant.

And you have to say, you need to know the Lord.

Don't you know who you are?

Don't you know who God is?

In the new covenant, there will be no need, there will be no need to introduce members of the new

covenant to God, because with God reigning in every heart, each one of them will already know the Lord.

They're already going to know the Lord because his character revealing authority is being exercised in their

lives.

God promises not a single one will be left out of this special relationship.

He says, notice, from the least of

them to the greatest of them, all of them will know me, he says.

From the least of them to the greatest of them, all of them will know me.

So it won't simply be that the great ones know God in the new covenant,

and then the lesser ones, they just don't know him.

And they depend on the greater ones to know God.

And then the lesser members of the covenant access God through perhaps a

treasury of merit or treasury of grace.

It's not that in the new covenant, only the great ones know God, and the lesser ones have to go through them to get there,

the mediation of many saints and popes and priests.

That's not what the new covenant is about.

From the greatest of them to the least of them, they're all going to know God.

It will not only be the least of the covenant.

It will not just be the least of them that know God truly and really.

It will not be those with special knowledge of oppression and that special knowledge in

favor from God who truly know God, and the greater ones have to go through the lesser ones to

truly know who God is, no.

What does it say?

From the least of them to the greatest of them, they will all know me.

Every single last one of them will know the Lord.

If you're in the new covenant, you know the Lord.

If you know the Lord, you're in the new covenant.

That's the promise.

By knowing the Lord, I don't want us to simply relegate that term know to

intellectual accruements, getting more

facts about God, that's important, but it's really truly

also about relational commitment.

Think of the way that God spoke of Israel in the book of Amos, Amos chapter three, verses one through three.

I'm reading from the King James because it renders it so well.

Hear this word that the Lord hath spoken against you, O children of Israel, against the

whole family which I brought up from the land of Egypt, saying, this is

what God says about Israel, you only have I known of all

the families of the earth.

That's why I wrote it right out of the King James.

And other translations, they try to smooth it out, try to help you understand what that Hebrew word no means.

And the newer translations will say, you only have I chosen of all the families

of the earth.

But it's the word for no.

And that's why the King James says, you only have I known of all the families of the earth.

And says, therefore, I will punish you for all your iniquities.

Can two walk together except they be agreed?

So he's talking about the fact he made a covenant with them and he had standards set before them and they broke them.

And now he has to bring the promised punishment against them.

When God says, you only have I known among all the nations, it doesn't mean that God was ignorant of the Chinese.

Oh, I didn't know they were out there.

He obviously knew about all the different nations in the world.

Paul says, he put all the nations where they are.

So he knew about all the nations, but this means you only have I known in a real,

true, close relationship.

Now think about that.

God promises all the members of the new covenant

will know him.

They will know him.

They won't just know about God, have a dim conception of

God, but they will know him.

Those he knows and loves will know and love him.

This is good news.

Every single last one of them will know God in this way.

How's that going to work?

Sin's always getting in the way.

Sin is always getting away.

Sin is always the problem.

Sin is what makes a separation between us and our God.

Well, that's why we have to have forgiveness.

We have to be bought.

We're branded by his law and we're beloved by God because we know him and he knows us.

But how is it that we are with God in good relationship?

It's because we have been bought.

He says at the end of verse 34, for I will forgive their iniquity and their sin.

I will remember no more.

See the Lord promises that these people branded by his law, beloved as his own, he will forgive their

iniquity.

He will not remember their sins anymore.

And how is it that forgiveness comes?

How is it that forgiveness comes?

Atonement, propitiation.

This is stated no less than nine times in Leviticus four through five.

I know Leviticus is hard to read.

In Leviticus four through five, nine times it is said, atonement is made, therefore forgiveness

comes.

Atonement is made, therefore they are forgiven.

Atonement is made, therefore there is forgiveness.

This is how God forgives.

God will not pardon without propitiation, without a satisfying sacrifice

meeting his measure of justice.

God will not forget without expiation, without the just

taking away of our guilt to be no more.

You know, some people think that forgiveness, that true forgiveness means

an unending process of penance and the best we can do

in this life is to go on and on walking on our knees up and down stairs,

pleading to the saints for crumbs of grace.

Some people think that there's no true forgiveness or reconciliation without unending acts of penance,

constantly walking around and with self -flagellation

and calling ourselves all sorts of things that God does not call us and saying to

everybody, I am wicked, I'm awful, I'm terrible.

No, that's not how forgiveness comes.

Not by how well we condemn ourselves in public because we can

virtue signal with the best of them.

Not how good we can access the system set up by Rome.

Some people think that forgiveness means that God throws justice in the trash

and says, oh, well, since you asked, who cares?

I forgive you.

No biggie.

No, actually, forgiveness, forgiveness comes by clinging

to the cross of Jesus Christ.

Where in the grace of God and the wrath of God, where in the

mercy of God and the justice of God meet in everlasting

harmony.

Now, this is good news about the new covenant.

Every single last one of them is gonna have the law branded on them, he says.

Every single last one of them is going to know God and God's gonna know them.

Every single last one of them is gonna be fully forgiven, free from all guilt.

This is who belongs in the new covenant.

This is really good news.

Now, when we think about the old covenant, say, well, is

it that the law in the heart or God's truth in the heart didn't exist

in the old covenant?

Is the newness that nobody in the old covenant was ever

beloved by God?

Was it that in the old covenant that there was no one who knew forgiveness?

No, that's not the contrast.

That's not the difference.

It's the same ingredients, new recipe.

You see, in the old covenant, in the old covenant, there were

believers who loved and memorized the scriptures and were led by the spirit.

Old covenant believers identified as God's beloved and he called them his children.

He called them his sheep.

He called them his bride.

In old covenant believers, they knew forgiveness and they rejoiced in it.

I mean, think about this.

Here's an old covenant believer rejoicing in God.

You ready to hear this?

Psalm 103 verses seven through 13.

He made known his ways to Moses, his acts to the sons of Israel.

Ah, that's old covenant.

Now listen, verse eight.

The Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger and

abounding in loving kindness.

He will not always strive with us, nor will he keep his anger forever.

He has not dealt with us according to our sins nor rewarded us according to our iniquities.

For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his loving kindness toward those

who fear him.

As far as the East is from the West, so far has he removed our transgressions from us.

For as a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those

who fear him.

So why do we need a new covenant?

That sounds really good.

And in fact, we quote that all the time and rejoice in it.

We even sing songs about it.

So what is the difference?

In the new covenant, every single last member of the new

covenant has God's law written on their hearts, put within them.

In the old covenant, the law was indeed in the midst of Israel, quite practically and

literally.

There it was in the Ark of the Covenant, in the Holy of Holies, in the temple, in the middle of Israel.

There it was, the law of God in the middle of the nation.

And the law was in the midst of some of their hearts.

There were some old covenant members who were truly saved.

They greatly valued God's word.

They hid it in their hearts that they may not sin against God, right?

Here's a description of a righteous man.

Psalm 37, 30 through 31.

The mouth of the righteous utters wisdom and his tongue speaks justice.

The law of his God is in his heart.

His steps do not slip.

And there are many other passages that say something similar.

And it's a fact that being born again is not exclusive to the

new covenant.

People were born again in the old covenant.

It's precisely what Jesus is rebuking Nicodemus for.

As Nicodemus is sitting with him and Jesus is explaining the new birth and he says, wait, aren't you the teacher of Israel?

Jesus is quoting and alluding to Old Testament passages telling Nicodemus,

I thought you were the teacher of Israel.

Don't you understand these things?

Being born again, being regenerated by the Holy Spirit is not exclusive to

the new covenant.

In the old covenant, it was not called being born again.

They use different language closer to home and they called it being circumcised of what?

Heart, there it is.

Because you could be circumcised in the flesh, be a part of the old covenant in form and in public,

but were you a real believer?

Are you truly of the Lord?

Well, for that, you have to be circumcised of heart.

Deuteronomy 10, 12 through 16.

Yet on your fathers did the Lord set his affection to love them.

And he chose their descendants after them, even you above all peoples as it is this day.

See, God loves and has chosen the whole nation.

He's working with the whole nation in this covenant.

Does that mean that every single last one of them in that old covenant was born again, saved, circumcised of heart,

true believer?

No, the instructions in verse 16 are this, circumcise your heart, stiffen your

neck no longer.

Be born again, repent and believe.

So the difference between the new covenant and the old covenant, in the old covenant, you could have uncircumcised heart,

not have the word of God in you and not know God and be a part of the old covenant because you are a part of Israel.

In the new covenant, every single last one of the new covenant are born again.

They have the word of God written on their heart,.

Not a one lacking.

Also, we think of the way that God talks about his beloved people.

He says, they are my children.

He says, they are my bride.

He calls Israel his son.

When he sent message by Moses to Pharaoh, what did Moses tell Pharaoh?

Israel is my son, my firstborn, let him go.

If you don't, I'm going to kill your firstborn.

That's what he told Pharaoh, let my son go.

And even though he called them his children, it was rejected by many.

Isaiah starts off this way and Isaiah is a long, a long descriptor of

this particular problem cited in verses two and three of Isaiah one.

Listen, oh heavens and hear, oh earth, for the Lord speaks, sons I have reared and brought up, but they have revolted

against me.

An ox knows its owner and a donkey its master's manger, but Israel doesn't know, my people do

not understand.

I mean, an ox gets it, but my people don't.

They're supposed to be my children, but they're acting like my enemies.

And in fact, he says, I will act as their enemies, Isaiah 63, eight through 10.

And he says of them in Hosea, not my people and no mercy.

And yet sonship, being beloved and known by God is rejoiced in by others who are in the old covenant, but

they rejoice in the fact that they are God's children.

Isaiah 63 verse 16 is a good example, where they say, the true believers say to God, for

you are our father.

They rejoice, they rejoice in that.

You are our father.

Listen, though Abraham does not know us and Israel does not recognize

us.

What did they figure out?

They figured out that being God's child was not

dependent on Abraham,

that being God's child was bigger and transcendent to being a member of Israel.

More important, he said, Israel doesn't know who we are.

Abraham doesn't even recognize us, but you are Lord.

It says you, oh Lord, are our father.

Our redeemer from old is your name.

What they are recognizing is by faith, they have God as father because they confess him as their redeemer.

That wasn't true of all the people in the old covenant, but it was true of some.

And then the sacrifices that were offered.

In one sense, God bought the whole lot of them when he provided the substitute sacrifice on Mount Moriah.

There was Isaac, the promised seed that through Isaac came all of the children of

Israel.

And he was about to die on the altar, but then God provides a substitute sacrifice.

And so basically he redeemed them all as a nation.

Through that act.

But then also God provided all the lambs during Passover as substitute sacrifices for his people.

And it says time and again in the Old Testament, he redeemed them, God redeemed his people up

out of Egypt.

And the sacrificial system, he gave the whole nation a thoroughgoing system of sacrifices, which traced the shape of Christ

in shadow.

And so when the people, and we see this time and again in the Old Testament, when people engaged in these

sacrifices as mere duty, how'd they do it?

They're kind of like Cain.

They did it wrong and they did it.

With the wrong type of heart.

They came with unrepentant, unbelieving hearts.

What did they do when they, oh, I gotta go sacrifice again.

I better go grab something out of the flock.

What did they go grab?

The lame, the blind, the diseased.

Malachi even says they were stealing sheep from other people and offering it to God.

Why was it so shallow to them?

Because, oh, we just gotta go do this duty again.

But they utterly missed the point.

And so they missed out on forgiveness of God through faith in the shadow of Christ and God's lamb.

Now others knew the offerings were not the point and they rejoiced in the reality behind it.

They rejoiced in the reality behind the death rattles of their sheep bleeding out on the ground.

They knew what it was about.

Psalm 40, four through six.

Here's David.

How blessed is the man who has made the Lord his trust and not turned to the proud nor to those who lapse into

falsehood.

Many, oh Lord, my God, are the wonders which you have done and your thoughts toward us.

There is none to compare with you.

If I would declare and speak of them, they would be too numerous to count.

Now listen to what David says.

Verse six.

Sacrifice and meal offering you have not desired.

My ears you have opened.

Burnt offering and sin offering you have not required.

Well, when you read Leviticus, David, I'm pretty sure he required it.

He required it a lot.

It's pretty specific too.

And when it was done wrong, people died.

And I'm pretty sure he desired it.

I don't think he said, well, I don't really wanna do this, but here's how we're gonna handle the sacrifices.

What does David mean by that?

What does David mean when he says you have not desired sacrifice and meal offering.

You have not required burnt offering and sin offering.

In the middle there, he says, my ears you have opened, which is the way of him saying, you have told me,

you have revealed to me what this is all about.

It's about something beyond the mere sacrifices that I'm

offering up on the altar.

There's something behind it all.

There's something truer.

There's something ahead of us that this is all pointing towards.

Therefore, how happy, how blessed, how joyful is a man who has made the Lord his trust because it's the Lord who

saves, not the blood of my sheep.

It's the Lord who saves.

And so in the old covenant, we find that there are those who are forgiven and rejoice in

being forgiven.

We find that there are those who are born again and rejoice in knowing the Lord.

And we find those in the old covenant who are branded by the law of God.

Okay, but what is the difference between old covenant and new covenant?

Well, notice the stress in the text.

God says, I'm making a covenant, not like the one I made before.

Verse 33, but this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord.

I will put my law within them and on their heart, I will write it.

I will be their God and they shall be my people.

In other words, they're not gonna be distant from my law.

They won't be able to ignore it.

They're not gonna be able to skitter away when a Levite comes down the street.

My law will be on their hearts and I will be their God and they will be my people.

Every single last one of them.

Verse 34, they will not teach again each man his neighbor and each man his brother saying, know the Lord for they will all

know me from the least of them to the greatest of them, declares the Lord.

There are no new covenant members who don't know God.

None.

None.

All new covenant members know God.

And he says, I will forgive their iniquity and their sin.

I'll remember no more.

All of them are forgiven.

All of them redeemed.

All of them justified by the blood of Christ.

New covenant.

That's the main difference.

All the same ingredients are here, but in Christ, they exist in a new recipe.

Whereas in the old covenant, you could have lawless, loveless, unforgiven members

polluting the effectiveness of Israel serving as God's temporary

mediator.

As they were just caretaking the whole process of being a mediator until Christ came.

You could have lawless, loveless, unforgiven members of the old covenant, but in the new covenant, the perfect fulfilling

mediator has come and all who are members of him are ruled by God, received by

God, redeemed by God.

Every single last one of them.

So there's a profound difference here in both purity and clarity.

John says it simply, John 1 17.

The law was given through Moses, grace and truth were realized through Jesus Christ.

The law was given through Moses.

Here, oh Israel, here's how you live.

Prophets, here's what you do.

Priests, here's what you do.

Kings, here's what you do.

Here's how you function as a nation that points people to God, that shows that there is forgiveness for sinners on earth.

Here's what you do, Israel.

Here's how you live as a mediator, follow the law and you will be an effective mediator in the world.

Well, Christ came and fulfilled the law.

He's the end of the law for righteousness to all who believe, Romans 10 four.

And that's why in Christ, we know the new covenant and live in the new covenant as one that

is full of grace and truth.

Consider the preeminence of the new covenant.

Everybody is obedient to God in Christ.

Everybody.

The character of God revealed in the law fulfilled by Jesus Christ is manifest in us as Christ

rules us.

Christ rules us.

He's our King.

He rules us through his word and his word is made alive and pactful and transforming by the Holy Spirit.

Every last one of us in the new covenant, not some, not most, every single last one of us

are God's people and have him as our God through Christ and he has given us,

he has given us the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit who, 2 Corinthians three, two through four, the Holy Spirit who writes the letter

of Christ upon our hearts, okay?

He writes the letter of Christ on our hearts.

He's the one who teaches us and brings to mind all the things that Christ has taught, John 14, 26.

We have the law of God written on our hearts.

We have the law of God put within us.

The Holy Spirit has brought us, brought Christ's rule to us and

each of us knows God through Christ.

Christ makes the new covenant through his person and work, through his death and resurrection.

That's how he makes the new covenant and so, although many knew God in the old covenant

through many portions and in many ways, in these last days, in the

new covenant, God has spoken to us in his son whom he appointed heir of all things.

This is Hebrews one.

So our sonship is through the son.

Our betrothment is to the son.

There's not one lacking in Christ's flock.

Not one child missing from the father's table.

Not one hair missing from the bride's head.

Every one of us, each one of us in the new covenant knows God.

If you don't know God, you're not in the new covenant.

If you're not forgiven in Christ, you're not in the new covenant.

If you are forgiven of Christ, you are in the new covenant.

If you don't know God, you are in the new covenant.

That's the distinction between old and new.

In the old covenant, you can be a part of the old covenant because you were born of Abraham, circumcised part of the tribal life of Israel

and not know God and be unforgiven and so on and so forth.

But in the new covenant, in the new covenant, no.

No, all of them, all of us forgiven.

At this point, we should read Hebrews eight through 10, but we're not going to.

I hope you do.

I mean, we're not coming back tonight.

Remember that Hebrews at the end of Hebrews, the preacher says something about this being a brief message

13 chapters long.

Read it out loud.

It takes you 50 minutes, which would be slightly longer than I'm preaching today.

But Hebrews eight through 10, read it.

You'll be blessed.

I want us to think about three basic principles for new creations.

I want to talk about it in terms of joy.

I want you to have joy.

The devil likes nothing more than to rob God's people of their joy.

We've got to have joy if we're going to fight and win.

You gotta have joy.

Do you know your standing?

Do you know your standing?

Rejoice, O sons of Zion.

Be glad in the Lord, your God.

Do you know your standing?

In the new covenant, your standing is in Christ.

You're with him at the right hand of the father, with him and the holy of holies beyond

the veil.

That's where you stand in the new covenant.

In the firstborn of the resurrection, Jesus Christ, we are the born again.

In the beginning of God's new creation, we are the new creations.

Second Corinthians 5 .17.

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature.

The old things passed away.

Behold, new things have come.

Galatians 6 .15.

For neither is circumcision anything or uncircumcision, but a new creation.

Do we know our standing in Christ?

And do we know God through Christ?

Do we love God through Christ?

Listen, God is not standing with

a list and has checked off maybe a couple of things and has

about 85 other things that he's waiting on you to figure out before he'll ever smile on you.

Christ has fulfilled it.

He's fulfilled it.

Do you know your standing and do you stand in your knowing?

We must stand in our knowing and know our standing in Christ.

Every single last one of us forgiven.

Our sin, God remembers no more.

We know the Lord.

He has put his law within us.

On our hearts, he has written it.

It is from our standing and our knowing that our obedience

proceeds, that our obedience proceeds.

Our obedience is spirit -led, spirit -led.

We need to remember that as the people of the new covenant, we are ruled by God.

We are ruled by the law giver, the law keeper, and the law ender.

And the one who met Moses and through the burning bush still meets us as Christ incarnate, instructing us and

leading us through his scriptures.

To be spirit -led means to be scripture -fed.

People say, I'm spirit -led.

That must mean that you are scripture -fed, that you are feasting on

the word of God breathed out by the Holy Spirit, following Christ.

So in the new covenant, it doesn't mean that there's no more rules.

It doesn't mean there's no more rules in the new covenant.

The law is not meaningless to us.

The law is meaning full, meaning full to us

in Christ, in Christ.

I think that we live in a time where increasingly you might be being told, you

might be one of those being told that your obedience determines your standing.

There's many ways that this can happen, but you might be being told that your obedience determines

your standing.

And what we, and that will rob your joy instantly.

Remember this, it is your standing, from your standing that flows your obedience.

Galatians 6 .15, for neither a circumcision, anything or uncircumcision, but a new

creation.

And those who will walk by this rule, peace and mercy be upon them

and upon the Israel of God.

Let's close.

Father, I thank you for the time you've given us in your word, I pray that these truths, that we

would meditate on them and that we would have it central to our

worship to you, in our prayers to you, in our love for one another.

That we are in the new covenant and that the good news is that you have

forgiven us in Christ, that we are not guilty in your sight.

Welcome to you on the basis of your son and that you have instilled in us

your authority by your spirit, through your word to guide us.

You have things for us to do and they are joyful, good things for us to do.

Lord, I thank you for this word, a joyful word to those who were in

mourning and sorrow and may it bring joy to us as well.

We pray these things for Christ's sake, amen.