Merry Christmas to everyone. Merry Christmas season, that is. I've been thinking about the
Christmas season, I've been thinking about Santa Claus, which you might be surprised about,
but I've actually been thinking about him because, well, partly because my son went to the tree
lighting in the New Haven Green last Thursday, and he stood in line until he got to the door,
and then he said, I don't want to go in, I don't want to go in, I don't want to see him, he's scary,
which I don't get, but because I think most of us think, who is, you know, who is Santa Claus? Santa
Claus is this really nice guy who has a big white beard and a big red suit, and he gives us the
things that we want, right? Like, what a great cultural icon of Santa, you know, what better
could we have than that? But then I was listening this week to the song, Santa Claus is Coming to
Town. Do you remember the words to it? You better watch out, you better not cry, you better not pout,
I'm telling you why. Santa Claus is coming to town. It's actually a little creepy. He knows when you're
sleeping, he knows when you're awake, he knows if you've been bad or good, so be good for goodness
sake. And in the hearts of many kids, and indeed even maybe in some of our own families, we use this
as a motivation during the Christmas season. Be good, or you'll get a coal, lump of coal in your
stocking this year. So kids go to sleep every night. If they've actually listened to the song
and overcome the cultural picture that we paint of Santa Claus, they go to bed in fear. Have I done
enough? Have I been good enough? Have I been good enough this year to get what I want? Friends, I wonder
if we do the same thing with our God. I wonder if we live wondering whether we've been good enough
this year. Seriously, think back to your year of 2014. Can you think of something that you're pretty
sure puts you on the naughty instead of the nice list? A moment of cowardice when you weren't the person
you want to be. An ungracious word spoken from the ugliness of your heart. Maybe a missed opportunity
to bless or help someone else, missed because of selfish preoccupation.
Maybe a failure to invest your life in this past year in the things you say. We can all start with
our prayer life, and that'll pretty much just bury us, right? Maybe helping others, maybe love
your spouse or your children or your roommates, maybe just daily Bible reading. All of us can think
of the things that put us not on the nice list but on the naughty list. And what do we do with that?
Self-condemnation rises up in our hearts. You're not good enough. It can lead us to despair.
Okay, I'm not good enough. I never will be. And we own that. Leads us to performance. I'm going to try
better. Try harder. Do better. I'm going to overcome this. I can do this. And in the midst of it all, we live
with this insecurity. And it's an insecurity, I think, ultimately rooted in our relationship with God
and if God really accepts us. But it plays itself out in all of our other relationships too. And so we look
at our peers and we think, will you accept me into the cool crowd at school? We look at our professional
peers and we think, will you accept me? Am I good enough to have your respect? We look at our spouse
or our families and we think, will you love me or will you leave me? So we think about our naughty list,
we can be buried in shame. We live a life hiding those failures, afraid to let other people see them,
constantly putting on a face so that others will see, won't see who we really are.
And so we live this life of fear and insecurity like we're on probation.
Probation with God, probation with everyone, wondering whether the next step, misstep, is going to
actually blow it for us. Well friends, this brings us to our passage this morning. We're continuing in
our series about the new things that have come with the advent of Christmas. We're looking at Jeremiah
chapter 31. I failed to get the page number, but it's in your bulletin if you want to look there.
Jeremiah 31, 31 through 34. And as we're looking at this, this is going to be the second in our
four-week series on the advent of what is new. Last week, Nick talked about Jesus coming as our new
king and the joy and freedom that comes from that. Next week, Greg will talk about having a new heart
from Ezekiel. And finally, the week before Christmas, we will talk about the new creation that Jesus will
bring when he will make all things new. But today, Jeremiah talks about a new covenant,
a new covenant between God and his people. And in it, he proclaimed something that is good news.
Good news to the people in their context, good news to us today. So let's read that together. Jeremiah 31,
verses 31 through 34.
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. 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 will 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 iniquities and I will remember their sin
no more. Let's pray.
Lord, we thank you that your word is a book of hope. That, Lord, in the midst of the messiness
of our lives and the ugliness of our hearts, the ravages of sin, both in and out,
God, you speak words of hope. That you have not abandoned this world, but you are at work
redeeming this world for our good and for your glory. God, I pray that we would hear the hope of
the proclamation of Jeremiah this morning. God, speak it to our hearts and, Lord, may it enrich and
deepen our celebration of this Christmas season. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.
Jeremiah speaks a word of hope that God will secure for his people a certain and eternal relationship
with the coming of Jesus to earth. We're going to look at what Jeremiah predicted. We're going to look
at how Jesus accomplished it and what it means for us. So, let's do that together this morning.
Jeremiah, as he proclaims it, has kind of two points. He has the bad news and the good news of it.
The first thing that he says in verse 31, having announced, I will bring a new covenant,
as he says in verse 32, that the old covenant was insufficient. The old covenant was faulty.
He says, my people were unable to keep it, and that is why it is an old covenant that no longer will work.
And friends, to understand the significance of this, let me tell you a little bit about where
Jeremiah was speaking and to whom he was speaking. If you remember your Old Testament history,
going back to Abraham, God called a man and said, I will make your descendants a great nation.
And then through his descendants over many years, he raised them up to be a large nation. But remember,
they were in slavery in Egypt. So, God came and he rescued them with a mighty hand and doing great
things. And he delivered them out of Egypt and brought them through great trials and overcoming
insurmountable odds into a promised land where they were meant to be blessed and be a blessing to the
world. And God raised up David to be their king. And they were going to be a kingdom which displayed
the greatness of God. And yet they failed over and over and over again. The covenant, the old covenant
that was made with Moses and with the people, through Moses, with the people at Sinai as God delivered
them from Egypt, was the Old Testament law. It's what the book of Deuteronomy is all about and Leviticus
and all those things. And it was God's instructions on this is what it means for you to be my people.
I will be your God and you will be my people if you keep these laws and commandments and statutes that
I give you today. But the flaw in it is that they could not keep it. And nor could we.
And so God begins to bring judgment to his people.
And so if you remember in the nation of Israel, the northern kingdom in 722 was conquered by a pagan
nation. Assyria came in and those tribes no longer held that land.
For another, I got to do math here, about 130 years or so, the southern kingdom held on.
But with kings who over and over again would turn to other things rather than the Lord.
With people who over and over again, rather than worshiping the one true God,
would turn and worship the idols of their neighbors and their friends.
And if you read the first 30 chapters of Jeremiah, you see that it is a message of judgment.
My people have deserted me. They have turned away from me.
They have forsaken me and I will bring judgment on them.
And Jeremiah, if I understand the history right, spoke this word of hope to people between
the dates of 598 and 586.
Now, you may not remember what happens then.
598 is the first incursion of the Babylonian empire into Israel.
They came and they took away many of the people and many of the treasures as tribute.
Babylonians came and said, if you give us all these things, we won't completely wipe you out.
So their nation had already lost most of its glory, had become a vassal state under the Babylonian rule.
But there was still a puppet king in place and he rebelled.
And in 586, the Babylonians would come back and they would tear down the walls of the temple
and they would destroy the walls of the city and they would salt the fields
and they would make it an unlivable place.
The destruction was great.
And in the midst of it, the people must be thinking, God, where are you?
Have we blown it so badly that you have forsaken us forever?
Have we violated our probation in such a way that all we get is judgment?
Friends, I wonder if you ask the same question.
Have I blown it so badly?
There's no hope for me.
God has abandoned me.
There's no way that he can bring me back.
When you look deep at the heart of what drives you, what drives you to be a great student,
what drives you to be a great husband and father, what drives you to succeed in your career,
what drives you to please your friends in your high school,
is it this fear that maybe you're not good enough at all
and you're trying desperately to overcome it?
Friends, this is why what Jeremiah has to say to Israel in 590 B.C.
is also what he has to say to us today.
And he says, the old covenant is faulty,
but the good news is that I'm not done.
The good news is that there is a new covenant that will come.
And a covenant is the words that we don't use today,
but that God uses in his Bible to talk about what is the arrangement or what's the framework,
what are the stipulations on how God and his people relate?
How does that work?
And what God said is,
I know that you can't keep the old covenant.
I knew it when I gave it to you.
Go back and read Deuteronomy carefully.
He knew it.
He knew it when he gave it.
He said, I'm going to tell you how to do it,
and you're not going to be able to do it.
And that's why I've put in provisions for God,
for my gracious work to cover over your sin,
even in the law.
But as Galatians reminds us,
the law was given to point us to something greater than that.
And Jeremiah,
in the place of the deepest darkness and the greatest despair of the people of Israel,
spoke this word of hope.
Behold, the days are coming when I will make a new covenant.
I'm going to rework this relationship.
I'm going to reframe it in a different way.
What does he say that he does?
Let's look at it.
So, the new, he says,
I'm going to bring a new covenant that's better.
I'm going to bring a better plan for my people.
And look with me again,
verses 33 and 34.
Do you see what he says?
There are lots of things that he says here.
One thing he says is,
look, I'm going to change the place of the law.
Rather than it being something that's posted on the wall,
I'm going to write it on your heart.
Rather than being something that's simply held out for you to hold on to,
I'm going to actually put it inside of you so that you can actually do it.
Greg is going to preach on this next week,
so I'm not going to say a lot more about this.
Come back next week for the great heart transformation that God will work
to make his people not only able,
but wanting to please and honor and obey him.
He says it's not going to be an external ritualism anymore.
It's going to be this internal transformation
that produces the kind of people
who reflect the kind of God that he is.
He reminds them of the promise in Exodus 19.
Then I will be their God,
and they will be my people.
It's the exact same words
that he used when he established the Mosaic Covenant.
Here he repeats it again.
He says this new covenant is going to be
not simply overrunning the old one.
It's going to be fulfilling it.
It's going to be finally enabling this relationship to happen
where I will be a God to my people,
and they will be mine.
And it will give them an identity,
and it will give them a purpose in the world.
They will know that beyond anything else,
they are my people,
and that will be the most important thing about them.
And their purpose will be to live for my glory,
and that will be for their good in the world.
And they won't have to have other people speaking to them,
saying,
Know the Lord!
There will be no priests.
There will be no temple.
There will be no courtyards.
There will be no curtains.
But as you see in verse 34a,
they will all know the Lord
from the least to the greatest.
God opens up his doors.
That not only will his people be restored,
but he will open up the invitation
wide to the whole world.
And what good news that is for us,
because for most of us,
we aren't descendants of Abraham.
And yet he says to us,
Come, this new covenant is for all people,
for all tribes and tongues and nations.
But the most important thing,
I want you to look with me in verses 32 and 33.
I'm sorry, 33 and 34.
I want you to look at the subject and verb again.
This is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after these days.
I will put my law within them.
I will write it on their hearts.
And I will be their God.
And they shall be my people.
And then skipping down to the end of 34,
I will forgive their sins.
And I will remember their sin no more.
Friends, the most amazing and the most wonderful thing about the new covenant
is that God says, I will do this.
In the Mosaic covenant,
there was this amazing mix of conditionality and unconditionality
where God makes great promises,
but then there's always this,
if you keep my commandments,
if you will obey me,
if you will keep my laws.
And constantly throughout the Old Testament,
you see the people wrestling with these two things,
the unconditionalness and the conditionalness of what God has done.
In the new covenant, God says,
I will do this.
I have seen your weakness.
I have seen your sin.
I've seen your failure.
And I know you can't be good enough.
I know you will never be able to measure up
to what is necessary to be my people.
And I will accomplish this.
I will do it.
I will make a new covenant with my people.
This is the word of hope for us.
Isn't it?
Because like Israel,
we know we can't keep it.
We know that if there is a cosmic list of naughty and nice,
we are on the naughty side.
Maybe not in the balance.
Maybe some of you are really good people,
and there's only some over on the naughty side.
There's a lot on the good side.
I know when I look into my heart,
there's as much on the naughty side
as there is in the good.
Probably more.
I look at my life.
I see how little I live out what I hope
and what I want to be.
But like the nation of Israel,
our personal history can hear this word of hope.
Because when we see that all of our trying
and all of our efforts to be good enough,
to try to measure up,
to try to get out of probation,
can't ever do anything
but ultimately bring us to a point of despair.
I can't do it.
I give up.
Only condemnation.
God speaks this word of hope.
I will do this for you.
I will do for you what you can't do for yourself.
Friends, this is what Christmas is all about.
This is about God initiating His plan
of establishing this covenant,
not because people had earned it or deserved it,
but simply because out of God's eternal redemptive plan,
He had determined that He would do this,
that He would show the kind of God that He is
by redeeming a people for Himself,
that He would establish this final covenant
on His own terms
and by His own work.
Friends, this is what Jeremiah predicted,
and this is what we celebrate at Christmastime.
Because Jesus, as He comes,
establishes the new covenant.
Look at verse 34b.
This is at the very core of it, isn't it?
Because it was their sin and their iniquity,
their inability to obey the law
that condemned Israel.
And it is our sin and our inability
to live a life of goodness perfectly
that puts us in this same place
of failure before God.
And God comes and He says,
alright,
my beloved human beings who are unable,
I will send a human being to do for you
what you can't do for yourself.
At Christmas, we celebrate the incarnation,
God become flesh.
Jesus really was a human being,
and it was really, really important
that He was.
Because only a human being,
living out the life that He did,
could solve this conundrum.
Jesus came
to live the perfect life
that Israel was called to live.
Jesus came
to be the perfect good human
that we long to be,
but aren't.
And He couldn't have done this
if He wasn't actually human.
Hebrews reminds us
that the blood of bulls and goats
can't deal with the problem of sin.
Sometimes, I think,
we wonder,
can't God just wave His hand?
I don't know if you know
the movie,
The Prince of Egypt,
but there's this great scene
where Moses comes back
and he sees his brother
and he's like,
hey,
and Moses is feeling like,
I broke the laws.
And Pharaoh says,
I am the Pharaoh,
the morning star,
and the evening sun,
and I say that it is not so.
And it's,
we wish that God would do that.
Just wave His hand
and say,
ah,
don't worry about it.
But in fact,
God had a much better plan.
Because for God,
sin is just a terrible,
terrible thing.
It is evil in the world
and it is evil in our hearts.
And He's not willing to just say,
it's not as bad as you think it is.
He's actually going to say,
it's worse than you think it is.
It is.
But the good news is
that I will take care of it for you.
And so Jesus,
this God man comes
and He lives a life
of perfect obedience
for us.
He is the perfect human.
He is the Israel
that was not,
the Son who actually followed
all of the laws.
He was tempted in every way
as we were
because He was human,
yet without sin.
And so He lives
this perfect life
for us.
And then,
having done that,
He offers Himself up
as a substitute
to pay the penalty
for our
sin.
So having lived
the perfect life for us
that we could not live,
now He does,
in His flesh,
He receives upon His body
the punishment of sin
that we deserve.
The death that we deserve.
The wrath of God
against cosmic evil
that resides in our hearts
and plays itself out
in our petty
unkindnesses
every day.
Jesus went to the cross
in our place
to remove
that
stain of sin,
to take
the punishment
for that sin,
and He could only do it
as a human.
And friends,
there's one more stage
in this,
isn't there?
because the human
who came
and lived a perfect life,
the human
who then died
the most unjust death
in the world,
is a human
who rose again
from the dead.
He rose
not as a spirit,
but as a man
with a body.
And His disciples
could put their hands
and touch
the nails,
the holes in His hands.
They could feel
the scar in His side
where He was pierced.
Jesus rose
as a man
so that
in His victory
over sin
and death,
He might then
invite us
to join
with Him.
Nick,
Greg,
this is what you guys
get to unpack
for the next two weeks.
A new heart
and a new creation.
The outworking
of the human
who rose
from the dead.
That we get
caught up
in His train.
Caught up in Him
as He establishes
this new kingdom
for us.
By rising from the dead,
He reminds us
that the old covenant
doesn't have
the last word.
But by rising
from the dead,
we now have
this new covenant.
Because do you see
what Jesus has done
through His life
and death
and resurrection?
He has now
become the guarantor
of our relationship
with God.
He comes
and He says,
I have met
all the stipulations.
I have met
all the requirements.
What God requires
of His people,
I have done.
So there's no more
probation.
There's no more
fear of,
if I blow it
this time,
will He just
cast me off?
There's no more
wondering,
can I be good enough?
Because the answer is,
no, you can't.
But He has been
for you.
Friends,
this is the last covenant
that God makes
with His people.
This is the final covenant.
This is what
the writer of the Hebrews
reminds us
is the eternal covenant.
That before the beginning
of time,
God planned
that this would be
the pinnacle
of His work
of relating
to His creation.
And that's what
we celebrate
with Christmas.
Christmas is the
opening movement
of this final work
that accomplishes
this new covenant
with God.
We've sung
this song a lot
in the last
year and a half.
What reason
have I to doubt?
Why would I dwell
in fear?
All I have known
is grace.
My future
in Christ
is clear.
My sins
have been paid
in full.
There's no
condemnation here.
I live in the
good of this.
My Father
has brought me near.
I'm leaving
my fears
behind me now.
The old
is gone.
The new
has come.
What you
complete
is completely
done.
We're heirs
with Christ.
The victory won.
What you complete
is completely
done.
I don't know
what lies
ahead.
What if I
fail
again?
You are
my confidence.
You will
keep me
till the end.
The old
is gone.
The new
has come.
What you
complete
is completely
done.
Friends,
what we
celebrate
in the
coming of
Jesus
is the
establishing
of this
new covenant
between God
and his
people.
God is not
out to get
you.
He's not
watching you
when you
sleep and
when you
wake,
wondering
if you'll
be naughty
or nice
anymore.
God has
come not
to get
you,
but to
make you
his.
He has
come to
rescue you
from your
insecurity,
from your
fear,
from your
performance,
from your
ritual.
He has
come to
make you
his.
And he
has done
everything
necessary for
him to
make you
his in
Christ.
So if
you're here
this morning
and you're
wondering what
is this
Christianity
about,
this is
what God
calls you.
God calls
you to
look at
Jesus and
what he
has done
and consider
that he
alone has
done the
one thing
that you
need to
know God,
the one
thing that
you can't
do.
And he
calls you
to come
and humble
yourself
before him
and throw
yourself on
faith,
on Christ,
what he
has done,
forsaking all
your goodness
and all the
things you're
trying to do
in hopes that
God might
accept you.
He says,
come,
enter into
this new
covenant
relationship
that I
have established
and I
have sealed.
Come and
by faith
enter in.
Friends,
for those
of you
who have
already
entered into
that
relationship,
the new
covenant
reminds us
that we
are called
to live
as his
people now,
to be
freed from
the fear
and insecurity
that consume
us,
from the
performance
that so
easily
drives
our every,
to free
us from
the despair
in the face
of our
failure
that buries
us,
we are now
free to
love,
free to
serve,
free to
worship,
free to
rest,
free to
trust and
obey,
free to
sing of
a great
God who
has done
this great
thing for
me.
Celebrating
Christmas is
celebrating
this new
work.
As the
angel told
Joseph,
you shall
call his
name Jesus
for he will
save his
people from
their sin.
let's pray.
Lord, we
thank you.
We thank
you that you
have done
what we
could not
do.
God, what
a great
Savior we
have in
Jesus.
What a
great hope
and a great
joy we
celebrate
every Christmas
as we
remember your
initiative
that you
will do
this for
us.
God, I
pray, I
pray that in
the midst of
the busyness
of our
cultural
celebration
of this
holiday,
God, that
you would
work in
our hearts,
Lord, that
a deeper,
more rich
appreciation of
what we are
celebrating when
we talk about
comfort and
joy.
Lord, that
what would
spring from
our hearts
would be a
true worship
of knowing
that we are
yours because
of what you
have done
for us.
We pray this
in Jesus'
name.
Amen.
We're going
to stand and
sing,
Hark, the
herald angels
sing, and it
doesn't mean
that the
angel's name
is Harold.
It means
that he is
pronouncing
the good
work of
God, born
to raise
the sons
of earth,
born to
give them
second birth.
Hark, the
herald angels
sing, glory
to the
newborn king.
Hark, the
herald angels
sing, glory
to the
newborn king.
Wraith
to the