The New Covenant

Would you take your Bibles, please, and turn to the Old Testament to Jeremiah, the prophet Jeremiah chapter 31 as we look tonight at what would have been the final message of our sermon series last year on the Covenants of Life and we look here at the Covenant of Grace or what's called the New Covenant? We began two months ago by saying that all of life is covenantal that has been our thesis or our Statement that we've been trying to prove in this series as we preach through the different facets of God's covenants with us. This is the The theme of the Old Testament. It's what ties the Old Testament together and what makes the the lives and the ministries and the stories and the gospel of the Old Testament connect with the lives and the ministries and the message of the gospel in a new testament begins with a covenant of redemption made between God the Father and God the Son sometime in eternity past where the Father promised to give a people to his Son as his own possession if he would save them from their sins and he entered into that covenant Promise and with his Father's blessing and with the power of the Holy Spirit he came and began through His spoken word to the prophets and then his His life and ministry himself to unfold this covenant of grace to bring us to the point where we are today And what I want to do tonight is kind of Survey all these covenants bring you up to speed again tie them all together and show how they have their climax and their application Most fully in the covenant of Grace that we're living under called the covenant of consummation or the covenant of the end or the covenant of the Spirit or What's called simply the new covenant by Jeremiah we began with the covenant of creation between God and Adam We're God pre-supposed that obedience to his Covenant to his dictates would lead to eternal life and disobedience would lead to death we find this in Genesis chapter two where God said you may surely eat of every tree of the garden But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat from the day that you eat of it you shall surely die That doesn't say there that that's a covenant but later on God spoke through Hosea the prophet said but like Adam They transgress the covenant and they dealt falsely with me so there was an Explicit covenant here an agreement between God and Adam and Adam broke that agreement that covenant was abrogated it's dead no longer applies and The sign of that covenant which is the tree of life and Three of the knowledge of good and evil are no longer available to us We have been kept from that tree of life through a guardianship of angels to keep our Ancestors from returning to the garden of Eden and we have Now need of a new covenant We can no longer establish eternal life with God through obedience. That's why Paul says time and again that That we know that justification or salvation comes not by the works of the law But through faith in Jesus Christ from by the works of the law no flesh will be justified in his sight nonetheless In that covenant of creation there were certain parameters of life The kind of boxed us into a certain way of living and those parameters still remain the parameters of marriage The parameters of our gender male and female he made them and told them to be fruitful in multiplying fill the earth There's the parameter of work that we are called to do something in the creation to to improve the creation to add to and to develop what God has already given to us And there is the necessity of a rhythm of work and rest because the Sabbath was established by God We find all of this in the cultural mandate be fruitful and Multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves upon the earth Now following that covenant of creation and it's it's failure this covenant of works. We often call it God instituted a new covenant that he would slowly but surely mature us into and that is the covenant of grace It's first phase was the covenant of preservation with a man named Noah and his family Phase one of this new covenant of grace was the promise that God would not destroy life anymore Because of disobedience, but would preserve life in order that men might be saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ Bible says in Genesis 6 that the Lord God looked down upon the wickedness of the earth and said that he would destroy mankind But it says Noah found grace with God and He said Behold I will bring a flood of waters upon the earth to destroy all flesh Which is the breath of life under heaven? Everything that is on the earth shall die But I will establish my covenant with you and you shall come into the ark you and your sons your wife and your sons wives with you and every living thing of all flesh You shall bring two of every sort into the ark to keep them alive with you They shall be male and female Says that after a long time of the flood God remembered Noah and he said his breath upon the earth to make the water He gave Noah's this great promise I will never again curse the ground because of man for the intention of man's heart is evil from his soul Neither will I ever again strike down every living thing that I have made and as I have done While the earth remains seed time and harvest cold and heat summer and winter day and night shall not cease God bless Noah and his sons and said to them be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth So here's this covenant of preservation Noah is like a second Adam given this cultural mandate again to be fruitful and Multiply and fill the earth into the four parameters of life given to Adam for more added the covenant nature of families God will deal redemptively through Federal Husbands and fathers who represent their families. He will deal with families in his Redemptive mercies. We are told that the state has established in this story to preserve life and to protect the sanctity of life We are given the duty to care for the creation and to seek the common good and we know in this story that there's a sign a symbol of this covenant to Remind us of God's covenant promises and that's the rainbow that in Genesis 9 God says he will set in the sky This is the sign of the covenant that I've established between me and all flesh that is on the earth when I set my bow in the sky Then we come to the covenant of promise a covenant with Abraham and it's called the covenant of promise because men are now guaranteed eternal life through a promise That God will send the seed of Abraham To atone for sins and to save God's people It's a promise and word for the fact in the Old Testament as well as in the New the word promise and covenant are used interchangeably And the promise is that God will be a God to Abraham and who is offspring after him for a thousand generations if Abraham believes God It will be reckoned to him as righteousness The Bible says now the Lord called Abraham and said go for your country and you're kindred in your father's house to a land That I will show you and I will make you a great nation and I will bless you and make your name great So that you will be a blessing and I will bless those who bless you and curse those who curse you and And in you all the families of the year shall be blessed and on that day the Lord made a covenant with Abraham saying to your offspring I give this land from the river of the river of Egypt the great rivers of all and I will establish my covenant between me and you and your offspring after you the out all their generations for an everlasting Covenant to be a God to you and to your offspring after you and I will give you and your offspring after you the land of your Sojournings all the land of Canaan for an everlasting possession and I will be their God God said to Abraham as for you you shall keep my covenant you and your offspring after you throughout their generations This is my covenant which you shall keep between me and you and your offspring after you Every male among you shall be circumcised you shall be circumcised in the flesh of your foreskin For this shall be the sign of the covenant between me and you So here is the sign of a new covenant circumcision which Colossians tells us has now become baptism in him You also were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands by putting off the body of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ Having been buried with him in baptism and also raised with him through faith by the powerful working of God So we have a a spiritual Circumcision a circumcision made without human hands in our baptism that unites us to the God of promise In fact, we'll find out later on in the message that Paul actually says that God preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham so that the promise of God Holds sway over even the law of God as his covenant promise and with Abraham's Covenant of promise the promise that if we believe in the promises of the gospel We believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. We shall be justified Come for more parameters of light the necessity of Justification by faith in order to be saved a baptism that is a personal Dedication to God a cutting off of that which is old and fleshly and dirty and dead and putting on of the person of Jesus Christ It's a generational covenant the first time that God explicitly repeats again and again That I will be God to you and to your offspring after you to a thousand generations And it is the beginnings of the church of God the people of the gospel the people of the promise and that sign of the covenant of course His baptism doesn't save us, but it reminds us that God has made a covenant with us so that on Pentecost Sunday when people said to Peter what shall we do to be saved be to said well repent and be baptized for this Promise is for you and for your children and all who are far off as many as the Lord our God shall call to himself This is the promise that you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit So that is the covenant of promise following it is the covenant we struggle with the most The covenant with Moses known as the covenant of law Because we want to make law Away to be saved when in fact the law has never been given to us to be saved It is the promise of God It is the covenant of God's grace. It is the gospel that saves Jesus saves None of these covenants to save But the one who stands behind these covenants who guarantees them and who signifies himself in these symbols Whether it's a rainbow or circumcision or here the tablets of the law in the Sabbath day that is the one who saves and Yet the law with Moses is explicitly called a covenant in Exodus chapter 34 and in 31 The Lord said to Moses cut for yourself two tablets of stone like the first and I will write on these tablets The words that you were given on the first tablets which you broke Be ready by the morning to come up to the mountain of Mount Sinai and present yourself there to me on the top of the mountains Behold I am making a covenant before all your people I will do marbles such as have not been created in all the earth or in any nation and to all the people Among whom you are shall see the work of the Lord for it is an awesome thing that I'm about to do with you And the Lord said to Moses you are to speak to the people of Israel and say above all you shall keep my Sabbath For this is a sign between me and you throughout your generations that you may know that I the Lord emsanctifying you Therefore the people to visit us shall keep the Sabbath observing the Sabbath day throughout their generations as a covenant with me forever So this covenant of law is not contrary to the law of grace But actually gives structure to our part of the covenant of grace The essence of the covenant is this God says I will be a God to you and to your children after you and you will be my people How are we to be God's people or we can put the covenant in these simple terms I will love you and your children to a thousand generations and you will love me as you're only God How do we do that when we know that the ten commandments according to Jesus Christ or nothing but a An extrapolation of these two great covenant commandments You shall love the Lord God with all your hearts on mind and strength and love your neighbor is yourself in fact when Moses begins to explain this covenant of law with the people in Deuteronomy says Hero Israel the Lord our God Is the Lord and he is one and you shall love the Lord God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might And these words that I command you shall be in your heart and you shall teach them diligent to your children And she'll talk about them all through your life So here this covenant of law is really a covenant of love It's how we love God and how we love other people it also adds to our life of Covenantal keeping for more parameters the keeping of the Sabbath day to show that we belong to God and we are different than other people in the world The the teaching of ourselves and our children the law of God the ten commandments the moral mandates of a life with God the shaping of the church Through this work of sanctification and the learning to love God in tangible ways as Jesus said if you love me You will keep my commandments following that is the covenant of the kingdom The covenant with David the promise that God would establish a spiritual kingdom that would last forever And put on the throne his own offspring to be the king of that that kingdom and that covenant Now therefore you shall say to my servant David Thus says the Lord of hosts I took you from the pasture from following the sheep that you should be Prince over my people Israel And I have been with you wherever you went and cut off all your enemies from before you And I will make you a great name like the name of the great ones of the earth I will appoint a place for my people Israel We'll plant them so that they may dwell in their own place and be disturbed no more Violent men shall afflict them no more as formerly from the time that I appointed judges of The people of Israel I will give you rest from all your enemies more over the Lord declares to you that the Lord will make you a house When your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your fathers You will see that I have made a house for you and this house will be a House upon which one of your sons shall never lack the throne So here is a great promise of a spiritual house that God's gonna make He never does say that he's going to make a covenant with David those words are not here in that text but the promise of a covenant is Is inferred and actually stated in many other places in scripture especially in the Psalms where David celebrates again And again this covenant that God made with him to build in the kingdom a throne and a house that would last forever And your house and your kingdom shall be made sure forever before me Your throne shall be established forever We understand this to be The principle of God's kingdom that's come in Jesus Christ and it brings to us for more parameters of life The what theologians call the Emmanuel principle that God will be with us. We will never lack a descendant of David to be among the people of Israel in fact We are looking for the one who is the son of David to sit on this throne forever It's establishment of the kingdom of the gospel those are the opening lines of Jesus Christ ministry The time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God is at hand repent and believe in the gospel and It speaks of a special favor upon this place called Zion the city of David city of God Which we understand to be the church And it gives us the hope of the kingdom of God fact palm of Robertson says God's coming to a David centers on the coming of the Kingdom the covenant serves as a formalized bond of which God's kingdom comes among his people and the interconnection between David's throne and God's throne between David's son and God's son finds an appropriate framework in his historical context now Wake up because I just board you to death for 15 minutes, but Here's the problem with the New Testament church. We don't understand these things And we live such disconnected lives from the people in the Old Testament Do we actually look at David and Moses and And Abraham and Noah and Adam as they were people who lived in a completely different world with a completely different God And came to God in salvation a completely different way and that is wrong We live in the same world Adam's world Noah's world We live under the same promise Abraham's promise We have the same law that governs and guides as perhaps not to them to the ceremonial and liturgical minutia, but the same moral law of Moses Governs and guards your life and mind and we'll stand up as a witness against us unless we surrender to Christ We have now been transferred from the domain of darkness Into the kingdom of Christ in whom we find redemption and the forgiveness of sins. We are part of David's kingdom all these things Have been unfolding over millennia Until we get to the point where we have gone through spiritual kindergarten and spiritual elementary school and Spiritual junior high with Moses and our spiritual high school years with David and we are ready now to enter in to the fullness of the kingdom We are able now to commence a life under the gospel in its fullness So we come to the last covenant the last one in a series The apex and climax and crescendo of them all the one that takes all of the ones before it and sums them up in one grand Comprehensive Consumant package this covenant of consummation Covenant of the end is better known to us as the new covenant and it's spoken about by Jeremiah Chapter 31 verses 31 through 34 Read with me Behold the days are coming declares the Lord when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and 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 My covenant that they broke the why was their husband declares the Lord? But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days declares the Lord I will put my law within them and I will write it on their hearts and I will be their God and they shall be my people and No longer shall each one teaches neighbor and each is brother saying know the Lord for they shall all know me For in the least of them to the greatest declares the Lord For I will forgive their iniquity and I will remember their sins know more This is quite frankly brothers the whole theme of the author of Hebrews that we have maturity into a new and better covenant a Covenant that has better promises That has a better and final mediator and And that summarizes all the on you know why? You know why people struggle with keeping the Sabbath day Because they don't understand their covenant relationship with God and they think that thing about the Sabbath With some old foggy idea that died with Israel and blood sacrifices and all that Levitical mosaic stuff and they are wrong That keeping the Sabbath is an everlasting covenant and a manifestation of God's grace in your life Because we don't understand this we say things like you know not all of the Ten Commandments applied to us today. Oh really They don't Isn't it interesting that we want to claim Noah's promise every time we have floods on the earth. We say we're looking for that rainbow and yet When there's a flood of sin in our soul We never want to go back to the Ten Commandments to stem that tide How come you want to be preserved from the curse and not preserved for the law? How come it is that we want to pick and choose what it is that we consider a covenant with God who came up with these Covenants God did who set the Rameters God did What part did you have nothing? These were sovereign acts of grace a bond and blood sovereignly administered by God This is the covenant I will make with you that phrase comes a hundred times in the Old Testament And it never says this is the agreement that we agreed upon No, this is the covenant that I will make with you and all of these things This is the this is the Copernican revolution the great shift I want in your mind look at me for a second I want you to begin to think tonight that all this stuff about law and Sabbath keeping and worship and obedience and Faith and promise and baptism and the cultural mandate all these things are manifestations of God's Promises of grace for your life and they all fit together When God adds the one last thing that was lacking in fullness before the gift of the Holy Spirit in the new covenant So here's what I want to do tonight I want to look at three dimensions of this new covenant What is new about it What is the nature of it and why it is necessary? It's newness. It's nature. It's necessity The newness of the covenant of consummation the covenant of grace look again at Jeremiah 31 Behold the days are coming declares the Lord when I will make a new covenant with house of Israel and the house of Judah Elsewhere in chapter 32 verse 40 Jeremiah says I will make with them an everlasting covenant That I will not turn away from doing good to them and I will put the fear of me in their hearts that they may not turn from me In chapter 33 verse 14 Jeremiah says behold the days are coming declares the Lord when I will fulfill the promise I made to the house of Israel and the house of Judah this new covenant Is an everlasting covenant that fulfills all the promises made to David Moses Abraham Noah and Adam before them to the house of God through all the generations Notice that Jeremiah's art says behold the days are coming declares the Lord that phrase repeats itself several times in Jeremiah in chapter 30 and in 31 and in 32 because it points to some grand day in the future where all of these covenant promises come to Completion and fulfillment in one person This promise by the way folks comes in the context of Jeremiah 30 and 31 which old Testament scholars called the grand hymn of Israel's deliverance It's it's not the only place where we find these promises we find these promises in Ezekiel and Ezekiel chapter 16 and Ezekiel chapter 37 and Ezekiel chapter 40 we find it in Isaiah 50 and Isaiah 61 all these promises that a new day is coming Where some mysterious person will arrive and say the spirit of the Lord is upon me to preach good news The promises of God are fulfilled and me behold the day is coming When the goodness of God shall be seen by all human flesh Behold the days are coming. They're pointing to the birth of Jesus Christ and to this new covenant What they also called the covenant of peace what they also called the everlasting covenant what they call the eternal promise What they call the promise to the fathers all these are synonyms for this great Covenant of consummation that is coming one day in a person known as the covenant keeper Now at this point we know three things about this covenant this covenant of hope in the reversal of God's judgment It comes in a in a in a context chapter 30 and 31 where God is saying these are all the judgments That you receive because you broke the covenants the covenants of David and Moses and Abraham and and Noah But I will restore all the things you lost in your covenant breaking with this covenant of peace This covenant of promise this covenant of grace this new covenant that I'm making with you God promised in the Old Testament And to the to the people of the Old Testament land and a seed into blessing to Abraham And you know what when they broke the covenants repeatedly Millennium after millennium God finally said enough is enough He took them away from their land to Babylon He stopped all of the blessings of the mosaic covenant with their sacrifices and the worship they could do it no more and He took away their kingdom Which threatened the seed the son of David from coming to the people of Israel to be the Redeemer but then he reverses that and He promises at the end of second kings and the midst of all of this Doacle and debasement and finally this destruction of Israel There's a unique ray of hope One of the Babylonian kings named evil meadowdok or evil marduk in secular history takes pity upon jack aniah The johaya kin the son the grandson of the last king of Israel and he takes him out of prison and restores him to favor Makes him a prince of his court and allows him to live in his palace and and receive all the blessings of the kingdom And in that is a promise That God is going to resurrect his people and indeed all these promises Through Abraham and Moses and David will come to pass The new covenant is a reversal of all of the curses of God's judgment And it brings with it three things return to the land Or restoration of the mosaic liturgy and worship and law and a revival of David's kingdom It's called in the history of the Old Testament the time of the restoration And it held out the hope that God was not yet finished With his covenant people and his great covenant of grace This is the central message of the new covenant listen carefully The God's promises never fail His covenants are always fulfilled Even when we are faithless and unfaithful God is faithful to his promise He keeps his covenant His grace and mercy always bring to pass his redemptive purposes which are simply this I will be a God to you and to your children after you and you will be my people Listen to how the writers of the Old Testament talk about this covenant keeping nature of God God is not a man that he should lie Know the Son of man that he should change his might as he said And will he not do it? Has he spoken and will he not bring it to pass My standfast love I will keep forever And my covenants will stand firm for him I will establish his offspring forever and just thrown as the days of the heavens If his children forsake my law and do not walk according to my rules If they violate my statutes and do not keep my commandments Then I will punish their transgression with a rod and their iniquity with stripes But I will not remove from him my standfast love or be false to my faithfulness I will not violate my covenant or alter the words that went forth from my mouth Thus sayeth the Lord He is the Lord our God His judgements aren't all the earth He remembers his covenant forever The word that he commanded for a thousand generations the covenant that he made with Abraham His sworn promise to Isaac which he confirmed to Jacob as a statute to Israel as an everlasting covenant Praise the Lord I will give thanks to the Lord of my whole heart In the company of the upright and the congregation greater the works of the Lord Studied by all who delight in them Full of splendor and majesty is his work and his righteousness endures forever He has caused his wonders to be works to be remembered The Lord is gracious and merciful He provides food for those who fear him He remembers his covenant forever He has shown to his people the power of his works In giving them the inheritance of the nations The works of his hands are faithful and just All his precepts are true They are trustworthy They are established forever and ever to be performed with faithfulness and uprightness He sends redemption to his people He has commanded his covenant forever Holy and awesome is his name But this I call to mind Therefore I have hope The standfast love of the Lord never fails His mercies never come to an end They are new every morning Great is your faithfulness The Lord is my portion says my soul Therefore I will ever hope in him

I could read on all night Statements out of God's own lips By the by the mouth of the Spirit spoken to the prophets in the scripture My covenant I will remember And I will establish forever Though you are faithless I remain faithful Perhaps the greatest statement of all Comes to us by the Apostle Paul In 2nd Corinthians chapter 1 Speaking of Jesus Christ For all the promises of God find their yes in him That is why it is through him That we utter our amen to God for his glory And it is God who establishes us and you in Christ And as anointed us And who has also put his seal on us And given us his spirit in our hearts As a guarantee of his love

God Always works with us within a triangle of three things Listen carefully You remember this every day of your life And you'll never lose hope The promises of God the Father The sufficiency of Jesus Christ to fulfill all those promises And the indwelling Holy Spirit to apply their benefits to you The promises of God the sufficiency of Christ the indwelling of the Spirit That is the whole nature of the covenant of grace Some of those things The people in the old covenant lacked They didn't know who Christ was His work hadn't been completed as far as we understand it They received the Holy Spirit but he did not indwell them in the Old Testament But now these things abide in us the promises of God The sufficiency of Christ the indwelling of the Holy Spirit That is the newness of this covenant of grace Now what is its nature The nature of the covenant of consummation lies in the reversal of God's judgments And in the giving of seven everlasting blessings You'll find them in this passage again Look one more time with me at Jeremiah 31 Behold the days are coming declares the Lord when I will make a new covenant With the house of Israel and the house of Judah Not like the covenant that I made with their fathers On the day when it took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt My covenant that they broke The why was their husband 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 law within them And I will write on their hearts And I will be their God And they shall be my people And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor And each one his brother saying No the Lord for they shall all know me From the least of them to the greatest declares the Lord For I will forgive their nicotine And I will remember their sin no more Seven things, seven great promises Great benefits that come in this covenant Here's the first one That the exiles are to be returned to the land of promise This is repeated by Jeremiah and Ezekiel and Daniel and all of the prophets That the days are coming declares the Lord When I will restore the fortunes of my people Israel and Judah And I will bring them back to the land that I gave to their fathers And they shall take possession of it We see in this the gathering of God's elect Into the church Into this land of promise called the kingdom of Christ Just as God says in this passage that he will unite Judah And Israel he will go out and find them in their captivity And bring them back so he will bring By the power of the Holy Spirit all of God's chosen people Into his redemptive kingdom You shall receive power When the Holy Spirit is upon you And you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem And Judean Samaria And to the uttermost parts of the earth Worthy is the land that was slain To break the seals And to open the message For you have ransomed with your blood People forgot from every tribe And language and people and nation And you have made them a kingdom A priest to our God And they shall reign on the earth forever and ever These bringing of all the people together Under this great promise in this great kingdom is happening We get folks listen to me We get so caught up With the minuscule Self-centered details of our life That we forget That we are part of the greatest movement of God in the world This universal worldwide Victorious church of Jesus Christ that he's building Why did God save you to bring you into this covenant people Into this grand gathering You will rejoice in this someday And it's fullness When you stand behind Christ at the judgment seat And you will see the billions before you left out of this kingdom Who were not gathered Refused to come Then this promise will mean something to you tonight That God is gathering his people And bringing them together in this new covenant second There's a full restoration of God's blessings on the land of promise We don't have time to night to read from Jeremiah 32 at length Or Zechal chapter 37 When God promises To bring all these people together Enter restore them to all the favor and the land Perhaps the greatest passage The talks about this Is this passage in Ezekiel 37 When Ezekiel is told to preach to a valley full of dead dry bones And he preaches in three times God says speak to the people and say to them and he does and each time They receive a fuller manifestation of the indwelling Holy Spirit Until their dead bones have come to life Had sinews on them Stand up in human healthy form What God calls an exceedingly great army It's the picture of God bringing back his people Into the fullness of revival And restoration and reformation Will you not revive us again That your people may rejoice in you Show us your steadfast love of God And grant us your salvation Let me hear what God the Lord will say For he will speak peace to his people to his saints Let them not turn back to folly Surely his salvation is near to those who fear him That glory may dwell in our land steadfast love and faithfulness meet Righteousness and peace kiss each other Faithfulness brings up from the ground And righteousness looks down from the sky Yes, the Lord will give what is good in our land Will yield its produce Righteousness will go before him And make his footsteps into a way All of these images of Bountiful harvest and And flocks that never cease to bear And the lion dwelling with the lamb And everything being perfect Are types of a great Reviving, renewing, restoring work of the Holy Spirit The regenerating of the individual lost soul That it might be born again The renewal of a faith That's worldly and flagging and weak The revival of a church that's become worldly The reformation of a religion that's become unbiblical The restoration of a whole nation To the favor of God that is turned away And I, if my people who are called by my name, humble themselves And pray and seek my face And turn from their wicked ways I will hear from heaven And forgive their sins and heal their land Hosea says come, let us return to the Lord For he has tornus that he may heal us He has struck us down that he will bind us up After two days he will revive us On the third day he will raise us up That we may live before him So let us press on to know the Lord His going forth as a certain is that on And he will come to us like the rain Like the spring rains that water the earth Here's this great promise Of the restoration and reformation And renewal and revival Regeneration of God's people From the individual to the whole nation Thirdly is the fulfillment of all the previous covenant promises When Jeremiah talks about this He talks about the house of Israel And the house of Judah pointing to David He says that the fathers will have their sons Have the law written on their hearts Not just on tablets of stone like Moses That there will again in those days Be a time of favor on the land As in the time of Abraham And all of your sons will know the Lord People won't have to go and say come on Let's know they'll all know him From the smallest of them to the greatest of them The law placed within their hearts The promises of Abraham's seed given to them The kingdom of Jesus Christ The kingdom of David restored And brought to them this kingdom of love and light Palmer Robertson says This covenant shall bring to fruition The redemptive intentions of God's Covenants displayed throughout the all the ages before Jeremiah Now fourth and this is this is the climax of it This is the greatest thing that happens in the new covenant Is the promise of the indwelling Holy Spirit In the heart and soul of the believer Jeremiah puts it this way That I will write the law on their hearts In other places as I will make them an everlasting covenant And I will put the fear be in their hearts That they may not turn away from me As Zekeol puts it this way I will put a new spirit within them And turn their heart of stone into a heart of flesh I will put my spirit within them And they will live And I will place you on your land And you shall know that I am the Lord That I have spoken And I will do it Declares the Lord This is the defining mark If there's a sign to the new covenant This is it The Holy Spirit That he comes to seal the believer To live within us So that all of the external things of the covenant before us Become internalized promises that we grasp This power to transform our lives This gift of the spirit that Jesus spoke about What Paul says was the sealing And guarantee of our inheritance in Christ This sign of the Holy Spirit's indwelling Makes us the covenant of the Spirit For you did not receive a spirit of slavery To fall back into fear But you will receive the spirit of adoption Of sons by which we cry out Of the Father The Spirit himself Bear is in our spirit That we are the children of God There is the climax The apex of this covenant That we receive the Holy Spirit Fifthly, there's a union of Israel and Judah Which we understand to be A union again of two peoples That were once at odds Paul takes that imagery And brings it up to speed And the New Testament says This is Jew and Gentile Coming together And what he calls in Ephesians chapter 3 The mystery of God of the ages That the Jews and Gentiles Of fellow heirs and members of the same body And partakers of the same promise in Christ Through the gospel Sixth There's the promise of the full forgiveness of sins Look at verse 34 For I will forgive their inequity And I will remember their sin no more There's therefore now no condemnation For those who are in Christ Jesus Why? Because Christ died for all Once for all The just for the unjust To bring us to God The author, Hebrews says Priest went before us Offering sacrifices every day Over and over And over the blood of billions of animals That never could wash away sins But the blood of the new covenant Cleanses us from all that is unrighteous, John says And this one who comes to cleanse us The apostle says is not only The depreciation for our sins But for the sins of the whole world Seventhly and finally The nature of this covenant is That it's an everlasting covenant In the sense that there was none to follow it Jeremiah says and Jeremiah 50 verse 5 They shall ask the way to Zion With faces turned toward it saying Come let us join ourselves to Lord In an everlasting covenant That will never be forgotten In all the other covenants With Adam With Noah With Abraham With Moses With David There's always something more to come No more No more There's nothing that follows this It is the consummation because it's the end And it's the end because the one who comes to be The keeper of this covenant The mediator between us and God Who brings us in the covenant Is the everlasting Risen and eternal Jesus Christ That brings us to our third and last point The necessity of this covenant of consummation Simply put The new covenant is God's only way of salvation Through the person and work of Jesus Christ Now remember all through the last two months Every time we preached The pastors and I said to you Here's the essence of a covenant This is what makes a covenant a covenant When God says in one form or another I will be your God And you will be my people It means that God intends To bring us to be one with him Paul Moravitson in this great book called The Christ of the Covenant says God's intention and every covenant Is the unity, the oneness between God And his favored people If there is no unity, the covenant has failed We see that in Adam and Eve When they sinned, they broke Oneness, fellowship, union with God And life began to be miserable So God went after them with a gracious vengeance To bring them back And to make them Inextricably and eternally One with him Now I want you to notice in Jeremiah 31 verse 34 A little phrase that slips flat But is the most important thing he says in this new covenant Look at verse 34 And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor And teach his brother saying no the Lord For they shall all know me From the least of them To the greatest declares the Lord What does God saying there? There will no longer be human teachers Abraham's Moses's David's who will come and say Let me teach you how the Lord you won't need that anymore The Holy Spirit will bring you to me You and your offspring will all know me From the youngest to the greatest Turn to Galatians chapter three Because this is where Paul explains what Jeremiah is saying Galatians chapter three when he's talking about The law of Moses And the promises of Abraham and how they come to fruition In the person and work of Jesus Christ Galatians chapter three verse 15 We'll look at this and we'll be done To give a human example Even the man made covenant No one annuls it or adds to it once it has been ratified Now the promises remain to Abraham into his offspring If this not say to his offspring's Referring to many but referring to one And to your offspring who is Christ This is what I mean The law which came four hundred and thirty years afterward Does not an all of covenant previously ratified by God So as to make the promise void Frifty inheritance comes by law in no longer comes by promise But God gave it to Abraham by a promise Why then the law It was added because of transgressions until the offspring Should come to whom the promise had been made And it was put in place through angels by an intermediary Now an intermediary implies more than one Listen but God is one Is the law then contrary to the promise of God? Certainly not For if a law had been given that could give life Then righteousness would indeed be by the law Scripture imprisoned everyone under everything under sin So that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ Might be given to those who believe Now before faith came We were held captive under the law In prison until the coming faith would be revealed So then the law was our guarding until Christ came In order that we might be justified by faith But now the faith has come We are no longer under guardian for in Christ Jesus You're all sons of God through faith For as many as you were baptized into Christ have put on Christ There is neither June or Greek There is neither slave nor free There is neither male nor female For you are all one in Christ Jesus And if you are Christ then you are Abraham's offspring Heirs according to the promise

Paul begins with Abraham and comes full cycle through Christ And closes the loop on Abraham through Jesus Christ His statement that troubles us That is confusing is this little statement Now a mediator implies more than one But God is one What does he mean? He means that the one who gives the covenant God And the one who receives the covenant and keeps it Man Or found in one person The God man Jesus Christ There is no need for another covenant keeper Or as the old king James said a testator The one who makes the covenant work Because Christ makes it work both as God and as man It is Christ who gives the promise to Abraham And Christ who is the seed that Abraham looked for It is Christ who wrote the tablets with the finger of God and gave them to Moses And Christ who keeps the law for you and me For the end of law is Jesus Christ or those who believe Paul says in Romans It is Christ who is the promise The hope of salvation Christ who is the son of David who sits on the throne Christ who is the giver of the Holy Spirit The bringer of this new covenant This grace that will never end That's why in him all the covenant promises of God are yes Because he is both God and man one person To keep this covenant Every time there was someone other than God who was the go between between God and man the covenant never quite works Never with Abraham Never with with Moses and never with David But in Jesus Christ they all come together It is interesting as you keep this in mind and you read about Jesus Christ in the New Testament All the New Testament writers Talk about Jesus Christ in the context of these covenants Peter Talks about Christ And being baptized in him and says that Jesus Christ is like an ark of Noah That carries us through the flood Into life and so is Jesus Christ who cleanses us from a filthy conscience to love and serve the living God We are told that Jesus Christ is the one who makes us all children of Abraham He is the child of promise Galatians 3 said to whom the covenant was promised to make not to your offspring But to one to the offspring Abraham's boy the son of Abraham Jesus Christ He is the keeper of the law Christ is a fulfillment of the law He says if you love me you will keep my commandments And I have kept the law for you abide in my law and abide in me He is obviously the son of David He's the one who Transures us from the domain of darkness into the kingdom of his love and light Those are the words on his lips from the very beginning The time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God is at hand come to me Believe in me He's all these promises all of them wrapped up in one So that there are no longer many people who will teach us know the Lord I'm not here to teach you to know the Lord I'm here to point you to Jesus Christ And when you know Jesus Christ you will know the Lord from the smallest of you to the oldest of you From the most humble here to the greatest of all men and women in this room You will all know the Lord through Jesus Christ And therefore the necessity of this covenant of grace This covenant of consummation cannot be denied unless we have union with Christ We do not have Grace with God I have been crucified with Christ And it is no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me The life that I now live in the body I live my faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself up for me For in him all these promises of God are yes Now what do we do with all this? Believe it or not folks all through these last Seven or eight messages in these last two months We really have one application. We want you to make we've said it every week We'll say it again and here it is That all of life is covenantal That means that all of life is structured around a relationship with God through Jesus Christ And the giving of promises and the receiving of vows

When we keep our vows We abide in the covenant of grace when we don't We forfeit oftentimes Some of the blessings of Jesus Christ The vows of Of joining a church The vows of baptism The vows of Of your office as an elder deacon or pastor There are vows and marriage that we need to keep Oathson vows we take in our professions They're even implicit for natural born citizens and explicit for naturalized citizens who come from another country To keep the vows that join them to the covenant community called America And when we break these vows Life gets rough but Jesus Christ Is the vow keeper He goes after us to renew our marriages To reclaim the children we gave to him in baptism To renew our faith Revitalize our churches To meet us in our common daily life To be enabled to keep the promises We've made to people as part of some covenant community something larger the life and greater than self and lasting forever This thing called the kingdom of God He even promises to come And to bring our nation back to favor if we will turn to him And acknowledge that we Like Adam Have broken the covenant And dealt unfaithfully with him But he will be faithful to us And the proof of that is He has given us in this new covenant one grand special gift That he will never take from us This silent one Called the Holy Spirit Who does renew and revive And regenerate and reform and restore All of the covenant blessings To those who return to God through Jesus Christ and seek His favor We live in a culture of entitlement that says I can do whatever I want And life can be whatever I make it And I'm here to be the Grinch that stole the new year And tell you that that's not true So Life is never what you make it Despite the love songs Did say that life is what God makes it And life is covenantal So all about his commitment to us And our commitment to him and one another And it's only by the promises of God and the sufficiency of Christ By the power of the Holy Spirit and by keeping vows to God and to each other And to the creation at large That we will know the blessings of God So May this coming year be a year where you and I experience a greater oneness with God A greater union with Christ A greater fellowship with the Spirit And a more happy and productive union with one another Because we decide to work on our marriage vows Through a marriage conference family conference We decide to Get out and read again the vows We took when we joined the church We recommit ourselves to the Sabbath day To the sacred calling of our work This community called the church City of God the kingdom of Jesus Christ And we say, Father, I can't do all these things But you have placed within me one who can power me to do that And I want to return to you by returning to Christ Be renewed in my covenant vows So that I'm a blessing to you Blessing to other people And that you favor me I want you to be my God and my children's God after me To a thousand generations And we We will be your people And the Holy Spirit will help us Keep our vows Because life with you Is a covenant of grace Amen Let's pray, Father We've just surveyed the whole Old Testament in the last few weeks We've looked at how you put together Your plan of salvation, your dealings with men through Jesus Christ This work, this gift, this coming of the Holy Spirit And the nature of Christianity and the church And what it means to be in Christ We know the grace comes by covenant And covenant just kept my vows Therefore the keeping of our promises to you Through the gift of the Holy Spirit And through the work of Jesus Christ And His presence in our life Is not something to be taken lightly It is the measure of grace It's how we love you And we love other people And how you and others show their love for us We thank you that you will not Violate your covenant But we'll keep it To a million generations And as we abide in you and in your spirit We trust that you will strengthen us As individuals, as families, as a community here as a church As Americans in our culture to be covenant people Val keeping promise keeping people Not because of the efforts we give But because of the Holy Spirit who works in us And has given us a heart to flesh rather than a heart of stone So that we all know you From the least to the greatest And we've all abide in this presence of Christ And His covenant promises for us in the gospel Help us with this And help us grow in the grace And in the knowledge of our covenant with you And with Jesus Christ Help us to abide in these things And show us your favor Your favor to us and to our children To all their generations For indeed By your saving mercies You are our God And we as pitiful as we are Are your people And we want to love you more To love you better As we know You love us with that love in Christ That is incorruptible And give us all this we ask and pray And the name that is the one giver and keeper of the covenant The Lord Jesus Christ By which we pray Amen