1.
Please pray with
me. May the words of my mouth and the
meditation of our hearts be pleasing in Your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our
Redeemer. Amen. The message from God’s Word this 5th
Sunday in Lent is taken from Jeremiah 31:31-34, it’s entitled, “A New and Better
Covenant!” It’s better, because it won’t fail (vv. 31,
32). It’s better, because it is written
in our hearts (vv. 33, 34a), and the new covenant is better, because it offers
full and free forgiveness (v. 34b). Dear
brothers and sisters in Christ.
2.
A
Charlotte, North Carolina man, having purchased a case of rare, very expensive
cigars, insured them against—get this—FIRE! Within a month, having smoked his
entire stockpile of fabulous cigars, and having yet to make a single payment on
the policy, the man filed a claim against the insurance company. In his claim, the man stated that he lost his
cigars “in a series of small fires.” The insurance company refused to pay,
citing the obvious reason that the man had smoked the cigars in normal fashion.
The man sued and won! When delivering
his ruling, the judge stated that since the man held a policy from the company
in which it had warranted that cigars were insurable, and also guaranteed that
it would insure the cigars against fire, without defining what it considered “unacceptable fire,” it was obligated to
compensate the man for his loss. Rather than endure a lengthy appeals process,
the insurance company accepted the ruling and paid the man $15,000 for the rare
cigars he lost in “the fires.” After the man cashed the check, however, the
insurance company had him arrested on twenty-four counts of arson! With
testimony from the previous case being used against him, the man was convicted
of intentionally burning rare cigars and sentenced to twenty-four consecutive
one-year terms.
3.
The
covenant God made with us is far different from the covenant this man and his
insurance company made with each other, a contract in which both were, quite
obviously, looking only to their own interests. God made his covenant with us
solely for our benefit, not his, and he himself paid the premium to establish
it. Now we, too, know and love God and live for him. Jer 31:31–34 says, “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, 32not 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, though I was their husband, declares the
LORD. 33But 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.
34And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying,
‘Know the LORD,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the
greatest, declares the LORD. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will
remember their sin no more.”
4.
Jeremiah
says that from the ashes of the ruined city and temple would rise a new
Jerusalem. From the shattering of the old covenant would rise a new and more
glorious covenant. It is that covenant which lay at the heart of Israel’s hope.
It is that covenant about which Jeremiah now writes.
5.
The
way of salvation in both covenants, the old and the new, is the same. A person
is saved by faith in Christ. The believer under the old covenant looked ahead
to Christ as the fulfillment of all the types and pictures of the old covenant.
The believer under the new covenant looks back to the accomplished work of
Christ. Because the Lord understands human nature and its weakness for sinning,
the Lord provided many ways under the old covenant for the believer to receive
forgiveness. Through many offerings and various sacrifices, the repentant
sinner was assured he had been reconciled with God.
6.
The
old covenant pointed to Jesus as its fulfillment. By its very nature, then, it
was temporary. Many of its activities—the repeated animal sacrifices, for
example—emphasized its fleeting nature. The old covenant, announced at Mount
Sinai, also served to keep the Jewish people separate from the surrounding
heathen, a unique nation, preserved intact by the regulations laid upon them by
the old covenant. Their separation ensured that they would remain a people
until the promised Messiah would come.
7.
Paul
described this purpose of the old covenant in Galatians 3:23–25: “Before this faith came, we were held
prisoners by the law, locked up until faith should be revealed. So the law was
put in charge to lead us to Christ that we might be justified by faith. Now
that faith has come, we are no longer under the supervision of the law.”
8.
In
contrast, the new covenant is far different. “It will not be like the covenant I made with their forefathers.” It
contains no laws, rules, or regulations that have to be kept. It has no
external mark. It does not limit the priesthood and the right to approach God
to any one group. Peter wrote to all Christians, “You are … a royal priesthood” (1 Peter 2:9). It invites all,
regardless of nationality, to believe. It sets aside ethnic, racial, and other
boundaries. The invitation is to all the world.
The new covenant urges all to worship the Lord in spirit and in truth—“I will put my law in their minds and write
it on their hearts.” This is the miracle of conversion. Jesus told the
Samaritan woman, “A time is coming and
has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and
truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks” (John 4:23,
24).
9.
God’s
new covenant is new also because the one who mediates it is one greater than
Moses.
While
we were busy breaking our promises with God in the old covenant, he was making
one with us. God said in Jeremiah 31 he would forgive our wickedness and
remember our sins no more. That covenant was realized in the work of his Son
Jesus.
10.
Jesus is
the fulfillment of God’s promises of forgiveness and eternal life. He lived the
life we should have lived, died our death, and paid the ultimate price. There
was hell to pay for the promises we broke and the relationship we destroyed
with God, and Jesus Christ paid it. He suffered hell for us on the cross when
he cried out, “My God, my God, why have
you forsaken me?”
11.
God
didn’t stop there. Not only did he earn our forgiveness, but he promised to
bring it to us. He fulfilled that promise at our Baptism, when our sins were
forgiven and we were given the gift of faith. That baptismal promise is as
effective today as when it was first made. So often I hear Christians say, “I don’t feel forgiven. My sin is too big.”
God’s promises are sure. They aren’t dependent on us. The Bible constantly
reminds us of that. God promised the Israelites a way out of slavery in Egypt
and a new home. Even though they doubted God, cursed the hardship of the
wilderness, and built a golden idol, Joshua led them into the Promised Land and
proclaimed, “Not one word has failed of
all the good things that the Lord
your God promised concerning you” (Josh 23:14). God promised David that the
Messiah would be his descendant. Even when David committed adultery with
Bathsheba and tried to cover over his sin, God traced the line of Christ
through their offspring.
12.
Have you
come here today feeling guilty because you haven’t talked to your kids about
Christ? Do you regret doing something that hurt your marriage? Are you sorry
that worship and Bible study haven’t been a priority in your life? Well, I want
you to know that forgiveness is yours right now. Not after you do 14 good deeds
or get a warm fuzzy feeling inside that tells you you’re forgiven. God forgives
you, loves you, has a relationship with you because he has promised it to you
through His Son Jesus Christ who has given to us a new and better covenant.
13.
Now that
we live in the new covenant of God in Christ Jesus, our promises are our Christian
witness. We’re only able to say, “I
promise,” and keep it, because of a God who has done that very thing in our
lives. In an age when divorce is increasingly rampant, a happily married couple
points to Christ. When it’s easier for everyone to inhale dinner and let the
kids go play, a family that sets aside time for devotions shows their neighbors
that God is the priority. When society says putting your parents away at the
first sign of disease—or even killing them—is okay, children who provide for their
parents’ need, even at a great personal cost, show they believe something
different. This won’t be easy, and you’ll break your promises again. But when
you do, God will lead you to this place, this altar. You’ll kneel under the
weight of your broken promises, receive bread and wine and, attached to them,
the very words of Christ: “This is my body. This is my blood. You are forgiven.
Amen!
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