From Sorrow to Joy! From Jeremiah to Jesus!

Transcription

1 From Sorrow to Joy! From Jeremiah to Jesus! Sermon Transcript March 6, 2016 New Covenant Joy! The Promise of God Jeremiah 31:31-34 This message from the Bible was addressed originally to the people of Wethersfield Evangelical Free Church on March 6, 2016 at 511 Maple Street, Wethersfield, CT, by Dr. Scott W. Solberg. This is a transcription that bears the strength and weaknesses of oral delivery. It is not meant to be a polished essay. An audio copy of the sermon on CD is available by request at (860) An audio version of this sermon may also be found on the church website at 1

2 Sermon Text 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, 32 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, though I was their husband, declares the LORD. 33 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 it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. 34 And 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. 2

3 Introduction Our passage this morning is Jeremiah 31: Jeremiah writes, 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, though I 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 it 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 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. This is one of the most important passages in the Bible. This passage is going to be at the center of our conversation for the next four weeks. It is a good passage to ponder as we approach our Easter celebration at the end of the month. In fact, this passage is all about Easter. Though other prophets spoke about it, this is the only passage in the Old Testament where the phrase new covenant is mentioned. But when you get to the New Testament and you read about the life and the ministry of Jesus, and the work of the church, you discover that the entire New Testament is all about this new covenant. For example, when Jesus is celebrating the Passover the night before he goes to the cross, Luke 22 tells us, And he took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to them, saying, This is my body which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me. And likewise the cup after they had eaten, saying, This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood. Of course, it is here where Jesus is instituting the very meal we will participate in at the end of our service this morning called Communion. The instructions for celebrating this meal are given to the early church by Paul in 1 Corinthians 11. Here too, when you get to the instructions for the cup, Paul reminds us of the words of Jesus, This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me. For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes. So whatever we are doing at the end of our service this morning when we come to the Lord s table has everything to do with what Jeremiah is talking about in Jeremiah 31 regarding the new covenant. In Hebrews 8, this entire passage from Jeremiah is quoted. It is the largest quote of an Old Testament passage in the New Testament. And then two chapters later in Hebrews 3

4 10, portions of this passage from Jeremiah are quoted again. And of course, Hebrews 8-10 is all about Jesus being our priest who brings us to God and who has made final sacrifice for our sins by dying on the cross. And so quite clearly the early church made a connection between what Jeremiah was saying to the events we celebrate in a few weeks from now on Good Friday and Easter Sunday; the cross and the empty tomb. And finally, when Paul describes his ministry in 2 Corinthians 3 he declares that he is a minister of a new covenant. In his first letter to the Corinthians, he described his ministry this way, And I, when I came to you, brothers, did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom. For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. Therefore, the message of Jesus, the proclamation of the gospel, is really the ministry of the new covenant. In fact, everything we are doing this morning, and not just the Lord s table, but everything, is the outworking and the expression of the new covenant in our lives. So what this ancient Old Testament prophet is talking about has everything to do with you and me. Here is what I find curious. If the new covenant is so central to describing our relationship with God through Jesus Christ, why don t we talk about it more? Why is it not general knowledge? What would you say if someone came to you and asked you to tell them something about the new covenant? Perhaps you are wondering, is it really that important? You may be thinking that you have managed just fine without a good working understanding of the new covenant up to this point, so why would it be critical for you to work at understanding it now. Let me give you three reasons I think you should work at understanding the new covenant. First of all, if you can understand the covenants found in the Bible, you will be able to understand the story of the Bible. The covenants are like a string that hold the entire story of the Bible together. They take you from Adam to Noah to Abraham to Israel to David and then ultimately to the focus of the story, Jesus. They put the story together. Secondly, the covenants help us understand what a relationship with God looks like. It helps us understand the promises God makes to us and what it looks like for us to commit ourselves to God and to join God in the good work God is doing in the world. Finally, if you come to understand the new covenant, it will lead you to joyful worship of God, because it will show you how deeply God loves you. A Visual Presentation of the Covenants To help you understand the new covenant and the message of Jeremiah, I want to share 4

5 with you a video that gives an overview of the covenants. It is a visual presentation that will help you understand how it all fits together. This video is produced by The Bible Project. If you have been around Christians, you have probably heard of the idea of having a personal relationship with God; which could mean different things in the Bible, like having God as a friend, or your father, or maybe your teacher. But there is one particular way that the Bible talks about this relationship that you find all over, but strangely, we don t talk about it that much and that is the idea of a partnership with God; a partnership, like working alongside someone to accomplish a goal together. Right! And this is actually what you see at the beginning of the Bible. God creates this good world full of all of this potential and then God appoints these unique creatures, humans, as his partners in bringing more and more goodness out of all that potential. But, the humans don t want to partner with God. They rebel and try to create a world on their own terms. And so this broken partnership is the Bible s explanation for why we are stuck in a world of corruption, injustice, and the tragedy of death. It is not like that there is just one or two humans who have bailed on this relationship. In the story of the Bible, everyone has abandoned the partnership with God. So what God does is select a smaller group of people out of the many and makes a new partnership with them called a covenant. And in a covenant, God makes promises and then in exchange, asks his partner to fulfill certain commitments. The purpose of all of this is to somehow use this covenant relationship to renew his partnership with everybody else. Now there are actually four times in the Old Testament that we are told that God initiates a covenant relationship: with Noah, Abraham, the nation of Israel and King David. And it is through these that God is forming a covenant family into which all people will eventually be invited. So let s see how these work. The first one is with Noah. So in this story, God has just brought the flood to cleanse the world of humanity s corruption and Noah and his family are the only ones left. So God makes a covenant with Noah. Saying, Listen, I know that humans will continue to be evil, but despite that, I am not going to destroy it like this again. Instead, the earth will be this reliable place for us to work together. Great! So what does Noah have to do? Nothing! And that is what is so interesting about this first covenant is that God is promising to be faithful, even though he knows humans won t be. 5

6 The next time we see God make a covenant is with a man named Abraham. God chooses him, promises to bless him, give him a large family, lots of land where they can flourish. And in return, God asks Abraham to trust him and train up his family to do what is right and just. And the whole reason for this covenant is that God says that somehow he is going to bring his blessing to all families of the world through this one family. So that is Abraham. The next time we see God make a covenant is when Abraham s family grows into the tribe of Israel. This covenant is with the whole tribe. God asks them to obey a set of laws, which are these guidelines for living well as a community of God s partners. And if they do this, then God promises to bless them and that they will become a people who then represent him to the rest of humanity. That is the covenant with Israel. The last covenant is with King David. Yea, the tribe of Israel has become this large nation ruled by David. God asks David and his descendants to partner with him by leading Israel in obeying the laws and doing what is right and just. And God promises that one day, one of David s sons will come and extend God s kingdom of peace and blessing over all the nations. So those are the four covenants that God makes in order to restore his partnership with the whole world. But here is what happens. Israel breaks the covenant. They worship other gods and they allow horrible injustice, and so they lose their land and are forced off into exile. So it seems hopeless. But during this time, Israel s prophets talked about a day when God would restore these covenants in spite of Israel s failure, somehow. Yea, they called it the new covenant. And this is actually what is so interesting about Jesus is that he is introduced into this story as the one who fulfills all of these covenant relationships. We are told that he is from the family of Abraham and so he will bring the blessings of that family to the whole world. We are told that he is the faithful Israelite, who is able to truly obey the law. And we are told he is the king from the line of David and so he goes about extending God s kingdom of justice and peace to all. That is really remarkable for one guy. Yea, and what it highlights is perhaps the most surprising claim of all made about this man. That Jesus is no mere human, but rather God become human. And God did this in order to be that faithful covenant partner that we are all made to be, but have failed to be. And so through Jesus, God has opened up a way 6

7 for anyone to be in a renewed partnership with him. So Jesus calls people to follow him and become part of this new covenant family. And despite their failures, Jesus is committed to making them into partners who are becoming more and more faithful. The story of the Bible ends with a vision of a fully renewed world, full of goodness and peace. And there is this renewed humanity that are partnering together with God to expand the goodness of his creation. And so the end of the Bible story is really a new beginning. The New Covenant and the Story of the Bible Lets go back to our passage this morning in Jeremiah. When we are in the book of Jeremiah, where are we in this story we just heard about? Where are we in this grand story that unfolds for us in the Bible? We were just told about a series of covenants that God was using to restore our fractured relationship with God and to bring us back into partnership with God in this world. We heard about the covenants God made with Noah, Abraham, the people of Israel, King David and then we heard about a new covenant that strangely and perhaps surprisingly finds Jesus, the Son of God, as God s covenant partner. So when we are in Jeremiah, where are we in this string of covenants that puts the whole story of the Bible together? Well, first of all, in Jeremiah 31:31 we discover that when Jeremiah was writing this passage, the new covenant was still something that was out there in the distant future. He 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. Jeremiah speaks of the new covenant in the future tense. So we know that Jeremiah predates the establishment of this new covenant. Jeremiah is B.C.; predating Jesus. In fact, Jesus is still 550 years off into the distant future when Jeremiah writes of this new covenant that is yet to come. At the same time, these other covenants we just heard about predate Jeremiah. The covenants with Noah, Abraham, the people of Israel and King David are all in Jeremiah s rearview mirror. In verse 32, he speaks about the covenant that God made with the tribe of Israel when God had delivered them out of bondage in Egypt. When Jeremiah speaks of that covenant, he speaks in the past tense. Here he says that the new covenant that is yet to come is 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. And so clearly, this covenant that God had made with the nation of Israel at Mt. Sinai, where they received the ten commandments, was established long before Jeremiah s day. 7

8 So when you place Jeremiah on the timeline, he predates the coming of the new covenant and the time of Jesus, but he comes well after the covenants that God made with Noah, Abraham, the nation of Israel and King David. Now you need to remember the purpose of the covenants. The purpose of the covenants was to form a covenant family into which all peoples would eventually be invited. In other words, the purpose of the covenants was to provide a way for you and me to be brought into a relationship with God and to partner with God in what he is doing in this world he has made. So the covenant that God made with Noah was that God would not destroy this world again with a flood. In other words, this world we live in will be a reliable place where God will work out his purposes to rescue us and this broken world. God promised Noah in Genesis 8:22, While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night shall not cease. This is God s promise and covenant to the world he has made. This world was here before us and it will be here after us. Then God calls out a man by the name of Abraham. In this covenant, God promises to give Abraham a big family with lots of descendants. God also promises to give Abraham and his descendants a parcel of land where they can live and flourish and serve God. But the interesting thing about the covenant God makes with Abraham is that through his family, God is going to bless the world. When God makes this covenant with Abraham, we don t have a lot of detail as to how God will bring his blessing to the world through Abraham s family. We just know that God makes promise to bring you and me into relationship and partnership with God through Abraham s family. Abraham s family eventually grows into a large group of people known as the tribe of Israel. After rescuing Israel from a long time of slavery in the land of Egypt, God brings them to Mt. Sinai. It is here where God enters into covenant with the people of Israel. This covenant is often called the Mosaic Covenant. Here God promises to be with Israel and to bring them safely into the land he promised to Abraham. But in return, Israel was to obey God s commands. It was here where they received the ten commandments. It was here the people of Israel were made into a kingdom of priests. A priest is someone who brings people to God. And so by keeping the ten commandments they would become an example to the world around them of what God is like. In essence, they would represent God to the nations of the world. Remember, the purpose for forming the people of Israel was to bring God s blessing to the world. Eventually, the people of Israel would grow into a nation and would be firmly entrenched in the land God gave to them. It was during this time they established a king 8

9 to rule over them. God chose a king for the nation of Israel by the name of David. God made a covenant with David. God told David that he would have a descendant, a son of David, who would rule over God s kingdom forever and that through this king, God would bring justice and peace to all the nations. In other words, through this descendant of David, God would fulfill the covenant he made to Abraham. Remember, it was through Abraham s family that God would bless the world. Now, in order for this king to bring about the blessing of God s promise, he had to remain faithful to God and lead the people of Israel in obeying the laws that they agreed to under Moses. Of the covenant God makes with King David, he says in Psalm 132:12, If your sons keep my covenant and my testimonies that I shall teach them, their sons also forever shall sit on my throne. This covenant requires the descendant of David to be righteous. So that brings us to Jeremiah. What have we discovered in the book of Jeremiah? What have we witnessed the past three weeks as we spent time in this book? The whole thing seems to be crashing down right in front of our eyes. These kings of Judah, descendants of David through whom the blessing of God s kingdom is to come, are anything but faithful covenant partners. In fact, we just witnessed King Jehoiakim, a descendant of David, taking the word from God that was read to him and cutting the scroll with a knife and defiantly throwing it into the fire. And then of course, the people of Israel were anything but faithful covenant partners with God. They worshiped other gods and they failed to represent God to the nations around them. In fact, Jeremiah says of them in verse 32, that they broke the covenant God made with them. And so Jeremiah leaves you with the descendant of David removed from the throne and the people of Israel removed from the land and the city of Jerusalem is destroyed. In fact, right before Jeremiah begins talking about this new covenant, in Jeremiah 29 he writes a letter to the exiles who already were removed from Jerusalem and were now living in Babylon. Here is the tension you should feel as you watch this tragedy unfold in the book of Jeremiah. As you come to the last chapter of Jeremiah, Jeremiah 52, and you see the city of Jerusalem lying in ruins, you ought to ask the question, how will God bring his blessing to the world if his covenant partners are unfaithful? If the descendants of King David fail to lead the people of Israel in keeping God s law and if the people of Israel fail to love God and love others as they are commanded, how can they represent God to this broken world? And more personally, how can we be brought into relationship with God and partner with God in this world, if the children of Abraham have failed to be the people God has called them to be? Into this uncertainty, Jeremiah begins to talk about a new covenant. I have already 9

10 told you that the book of Jeremiah is a book of sorrow. The sorrow of this book is not just found in the fact that the city of Jerusalem was destroyed and the people of Judah were removed from the land. But more pointedly, one might wonder if the promised blessing of God for the world through the children of Abraham is in jeopardy. How is God going to bring his promised blessing to you and to me if Israel fails to be the covenant partner through whom God promised to bless the world? The answer is found in the new covenant. The answer is found in Jesus. It is no accident that Jesus is introduced to us in very first verse of the New Testament as the son of David, the son of Abraham. Jesus is that son of David who will bring the promise of God s kingdom to this world as he brings God s justice and peace to the world. Jesus is that son of Abraham who will bring God s blessing to the world and who bring you and me into relationship with God. Jesus is able to do this because he is the new Israel. In Matthew 4, when Jesus is tempted by the devil, unlike Israel, Jesus keeps the law of God and so Jesus becomes the faithful covenant partner with God who can bring God s blessing to you and to me. And so Jeremiah, along with Isaiah and Ezekiel, look forward to the day when God would keep his promise to bring blessing and hope to this broken world. That promise rests in Jesus and the new covenant. The New Covenant and our Relationship with God The covenants tell us what a relationship with God looks like. First of all, we discover the good nature of God in that God is a God of promise. God made us and loves us and moves towards us. One of the great things you hear God say over and over again in these covenant formulas is, I will. You find that all over our passage this morning. In these four brief verses in Jeremiah, you find God promising seven times, I will. But like we saw with the covenant God made with Adam and Eve, we have to live under the good rule of God. Blessing comes from trusting God and living in obedience to God. Herein lies our problem. Ever since Adam and Eve, man has not been able to be faithful covenant partners with God. Benjamin Franklin set out to live a perfect moral life. He identified thirteen virtuous and would concentrate on one of them each month. Here was his conclusion, It was about this time I conceived the bold and arduous project of arriving at moral perfection. I wished to live without committing any fault at any time... As I knew, or thought I knew, what was right or wrong; I did not see why I might not always do the one and avoid the other. But I soon found I had undertaken a task of more difficulty than I had imagined. While my care was employed in guarding against one fault, I was often surprised by another... I concluded at length, that the mere 10

11 speculative conviction that it was our interest to be completely virtuous, was not sufficient to prevent our slipping. In Romans 8:7 it says, For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God s law; indeed it cannot. This is why Israel and the descendants of David could not be the covenant partners who would bring the blessing of God to us. Like Benjamin Franklin discovered, all the good intentions in the world are not sufficient to prevent our slipping. The New Covenant and God s Love for Us This leads us to our final thought that brings us to the Lord s Table. God loves us so much that when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. Do you know what God does to keep his promise and to bring you and me into the covenant family of God? Jesus, the divine Son of God takes on human flesh. Jesus becomes, if you will, a covenant partner with God and he keeps our end of the covenant for us. In other words, God fulfills both sides of the covenant so that we can have a relationship with God. Jesus is the son of Abraham who is the source of blessing to all peoples. Jesus is the true Israelite who is obedient to the Father and empowers us to be the same. Jesus is the Son of David who brings about the kingdom of God through his life, death on the cross and his resurrection from the dead. And through the Holy Spirit we are given the power we need to love God and love people as we should, therefore representing God to this world as we invite others into partnership with God in this world through faith in Jesus. So what is the new covenant? It is a covenant of God s grace given to us on the basis of the life and the death of Jesus on the cross and his resurrection from the dead. Through this covenant, as we turn in faith to Jesus, we are forgiven of our sin, made into the people of God and through the Holy Spirit we are empowered to obey the law of God as we love God and love others. Through this partnership with God through faith in Jesus Christ, God is using us to bring others into God s covenant family by proclaiming Jesus Christ to the world and through the change that God is doing inside of our hearts. All of these promises are sealed by the blood of Jesus Christ. This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me. For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes. 1 J. Andrew Dearman The NIV Application Commentary: Jeremiah and Lamentations (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2002) 98 by Dr. Scott Solberg - All rights reserved 11

12 Sermon Title: New Covenant Joy! The Promise of God Sermon Text: Jeremiah 31:31-34 Sermon Date: March 6, 2016 Getting To Know Me Questions 1. Check out Genesis 8:22 and God s promise to Noah. God has guaranteed that warmer weather is coming! What are you looking forward to doing once the warmer weather comes? 2. Do you commonly think of your relationship with God as a covenantal partnership? Why or Why not? What promises has God made to you? What common and greater goals has God invited us to join with him and work towards? 3. Watch again the video we saw on Sunday - What did you learn about God and the story of the Bible from this video? Diving Into The Word 4. Read Genesis 8:18-21 and 9: Notice that God makes some big promises but asks for nothing in return. Why is this unique when it comes to covenants? What do you think this tells us about God s purposes to save all of creation? 5. Read Genesis 15 about God s covenant ceremony with Abraham. Notice that Abraham is asleep on the ground while God performs the ceremony by himself. Discuss why that is significant. What do you think it tells us about God s purposes and how they will be fulfilled? 6. Read Exodus 19:4-6. What do you think the implication is of Israel being a kingdom of priests and a holy nation? What does it mean for Israel to be a nation of priests to other nations? Look at 1 Peter 2:9-10 and see how Peter uses this same language for us in the new covenant family of Jesus disciples. What do you think it means for us to be a kingdom of priests? 7. Read Psalm 89: What do you learn about God s commitment to David from this psalm? What in this psalm would lead you to conclude that only Jesus could be the rightful heir of these promises made to David? 8. Read Luke 22: In this account of Jesus final Passover meal before his death, discuss how Jesus sees his impending death as fulfilling the covenants in the Old Testament. Taking It Home 9. What encouragement do you find in this study of the covenants of God and their connection to Jesus? 12