CHRIST IS OUR COVENANT

#462a                                    CHRIST IS OUR COVENANT

Scripture  Hebrews 8:1-13, NIV                                                                            Orig. 8/23/1976

Passage: 1 Now the main point of what we are saying is this: We do have such a high priest, who sat down at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in heaven, 2 and who serves in the sanctuary, the true tabernacle set up by the Lord, not by a mere human being.

3 Every high priest is appointed to offer both gifts and sacrifices, and so it was necessary for this one also to have something to offer. 4 If he were on earth, he would not be a priest, for there are already priests who offer the gifts prescribed by the law. 5 They serve at a sanctuary that is a copy and shadow of what is in heaven. This is why Moses was warned when he was about to build the tabernacle: “See to it that you make everything according to the pattern shown you on the mountain.”[a] 6 But in fact the ministry Jesus has received is as superior to theirs as the covenant of which he is mediator is superior to the old one, since the new covenant is established on better promises.

7 For if there had been nothing wrong with that first covenant, no place would have been sought for another. 8 But God found fault with the people and said[b]:

“The days are coming, declares the Lord,
    when I will make a new covenant
with the people of Israel
    and with the people of Judah.
9 It will not be like the covenant
    I made with their ancestors
when I took them by the hand
    to lead them out of Egypt,
because they did not remain faithful to my covenant,
    and I turned away from them,
declares the Lord.
10 This is the covenant I will establish with the people of Israel
    after that time, declares the Lord.
I will put my laws in their minds
    and write them on their hearts.
I will be their God,
    and they will be my people.
11 No longer will they teach their neighbor,
    or say to one another, ‘Know the Lord,’
because they will all know me,
    from the least of them to the greatest.
12 For I will forgive their wickedness
    and will remember their sins no more.”[c]

13 By calling this covenant “new,” he has made the first one obsolete; and what is obsolete and outdated will soon disappear.

Introduction

            Anyone vitally interested in the activities of our nation today is aware of the disorders in the American society.  Of all of our present dangers, there is one totally disruptive danger that could prove to be our national undoing.  It is a threat that is so all encompassing that it could rob us of the resiliency of recovery that  has been America’s grace.

            It is not the danger of a particular man, or party, being the victor in the 1976 elections.  While unscrupulous politicians are certainly an annoyance, they are not a threat.  Our real problem is not that of continued malcontent in the Mid-East.  As long as the world stands, the threat of decimation is going to hang off the land of Armageddon,  While we have not yet caught our breath in the aftermath of troubles in the Far-East, we need not look upon China’s thread to Southeast Asia as our all-pervading problem.

            Nor are the internal things that toy with America’s heartstrings going to cause us to panic.  Immorality in America today is a cancer and it is malignant, but it is not too late for revival to offer surgical purging. The pseudo-religious perversions in the form of cults have always been present.  They probably will be a viable force until Jesus comes, “and men will know the truth.”  These activities just enjoy the public relations quotient of curiosities.

            All of these things and more are simply the things which divide us.  Our real, all-pervading danger is the division itself.  As long as we address our deepest convictions with the certitude of integrity, and allow all other persons the same prerogative, we have no reason to fear an American wasteland.

            This is to be acknowledged as true in our church life as well.  Real danger to our church unity is not in holding separate opinions, but believing that our opinions make us right, and those who agree, our friends; and those who disagree, our acknowledged enemies, who deserve our total malignment.

I.          Christ is Our Covenant of Forgiveness.

Jesus taught his disciples to pray

            in order to be forgiven.

            we must have already experienced forgivingness.

What is the worst thing that someone else has done?

            stolen some treasure

                  lied against your character

                        or perhaps told the truth

                              insulted a loved one

                                    wrongly accused you

                                          re-kindled some nearly forgotten deed             

Jesus says you have to understand forgivingness

            in order for its full power to embrace you.

It isn’t that easy to forgive—we must first be willing

            and it isn’t to be just so that we can be forgiven

            If we are ever able to make any headway at all in regard to sin, it will be only after we have seen it in the context if God’s forgiveness.  We must discover what our sin cost God personally.

II.         Christ is Our Covenant of New Life.

            The new life comes through faith in Christ.

            Baptism is merely the demonstration of that life.  Romans 6:3, “Know ye that so many of us as were baptized in Jesus Christ were baptized into His death.”

            Death to sin’s condemnation

                  Death to life’s confusion

                        Death to death’s conquest

            Baptism is used in the sense of putting something beneath the waters and leaving it there.  Romans 6:4, “Just as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of God the father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.  There is precluded then, a newness in the life of that one drawn from the baptismal waters.

            We live in a day when this newness is difficult to fathom when we are more comfortable with that which we understand.  Someone has suggested that the confusion of our age is seen in the family seated in [an expensive] house, looking at the Waltons on a $1,000 TV set [and] wishing for the depression.

            GNMN Romans 6:4, “For if we become one with Him in dying, we shall become one with Him in living.”

III.       Christ is Our Covenant of Assurance.

            Have you ever found yourself where you didn’t mean to be?  Soldier on a train but not THE train.  Get off elevator on a floor but not THE floor.  Dr. So and So was my salvation but not THE salvation.

            We need to work with and walk with those who are our brothers and sisters in Christ.  Pastor speaking at State convention warming up to his subject, he overstressed the need “to all stand together and join hands” in commitment to Christ.  From different sections of the arena people began to stand to their feet.

Closing

            At one point in his life, Roger Bannister did what no other man had ever been able to do.  Following a life-style committed to the regimen of becoming a world class runner, he became the first man in history to ever run a sub-four-minute mile.

            Not long after, he shocked the sports world by announcing his retirement.  He no longer had the incentive of a goal to keep him at the rigors of training.  Many men have run faster since, in part because Roger Bannister gave them his goal to pursue.