Friends, it's a great delight for me this morning to have been asked by the pastoral team to preach from Hebrews chapter 8.
I've come to Trinity on and off now for the last seven years. Whenever I'm in town, I come here to church.
It's my spiritual home in the US, so to preach this morning is a great gift to me, and I pray for you as well.
We're reading from Hebrews chapter 8, and I'll read from verse 1 to give us some context, though the sermon will be on the second half.
So from Hebrews chapter 8, verse 1.
Now the point in what we are saying is this.
We do have such a high priest.
Now if he were on earth, he wouldn't be a priest at all.
Since there are priests who offer gifts according to the law, they serve a copy and shadow of the heavenly things.
For when Moses was about to erect the tent, he was instructed by God, saying,
See that you make everything according to the pattern that was shown you on the mountain.
But as it is, Christ has obtained a ministry that is as much more excellent than the old as the covenant he mediates is better,
since it's enacted on better promises.
For if that first covenant had been faultless, there wouldn't have been occasion to look for a second.
For he finds fault with them when he says,
Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will establish a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah.
Not like the covenant that I made with their fathers, 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.
For they didn't continue in my covenant, and so I showed no concern for them, 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 laws into their minds and write them on their hearts, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.
And they shall not teach, each one his neighbour and each one his brother, saying, Know the Lord.
For they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest.
For I will be merciful towards their iniquities, and I will remember their sins no more.
In speaking of a new covenant, he makes the first one obsolete.
And what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away.
So let me pray.
Our gracious God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, please this morning wing these words to the deepest places of our lives.
Please give us gifts that we're not expecting.
Please surprise us with thoughts which are from you.
Please may we learn this morning how to be your people in this world.
For Jesus' sake.
Amen.
We all yearn for something bigger.
We all try to connect to something bigger than ourselves.
It's like the cinema in Melbourne where I live, which has been shaped like an Egyptian temple.
Now, I think it's probably not like an Egyptian temple, actually, but there was an architect who was probably cheap on the day,
and he made a movie house that is as good as he thought an Egyptian temple should be.
You arrive and there are carvings of gods above the door.
You walk through the long passageway and there are icons of movie stars leading you to the actual cinema.
And, of course, when you get into the cinema, it goes dark and you're connected into a story much bigger than yourself.
If it's not movies for you, perhaps it's that you like buying your coffee at Blue State and getting those wooden tokens and putting them in the jar afterwards and supporting some local cause.
Or perhaps you think if you drink enough coffee you'll be able to alleviate world poverty.
At least they know, selling us the coffee, that you want to buy into something bigger.
Or you can buy pairs of glasses, which the companies give half of what you're spending to some worthy cause.
The glasses are probably overpriced in the first place, but at least they know you want to buy into something big.
Or it might be sporting fixtures, attending a football game with thousands and thousands of others screaming around you.
The closest I get to that is turning up to a cricket match with 100,000 others each summer and turning up five days in a row with nothing happening.
It's just brilliant.
We want to connect into something bigger.
It's part of the way we are as human beings.
And I know as we've been reading through the book of Hebrews, the language is foreign.
The details are odd.
We've learned of priests and sacrifices, sabbaths, angels, blood, covenants.
But effectively, in the end, though, this isn't the vocabulary we might choose to use day by day.
The big theme of the book of Hebrews is this is the way you connect into something bigger.
This is how you ought to worship.
This is the way we're introduced to the transcendent, the eternal, the universal, the perfect, the things that make life worth living.
The book of Hebrews is teaching us how to connect into something big.
And as we heard last week, we have a great high priest seated at the right hand of God, ministering in the holy places.
Even today, we are connected into the heartbeat of the universe at this very moment because, friends, we have a great high priest.
We all need a great high priest.
Everyone in the room today needs a great high priest.
And the wonderful, bold claim of Christian faith is that we have been given a great high priest in the person of Christ.
But not everyone hearing these words from Hebrews 8 first read would have been entirely happy.
For the first Hebrews who read this letter or who had it read to them loved their covenant.
They had a God who had made a deal with them, who had handed down his law to his people, who gave order to the life of the nation, who gave them a constitution.
And not only was this God giving to his people a gift of the law, God himself was committing to live by it himself.
To be predictable.
If you obey me, this will be the blessing.
If you disobey me, this will be the curse.
So when the first hearers were presented with this text, which reminds them from the prophet Jeremiah that God will establish a new covenant.
Indeed, has established a new covenant through the Lord Jesus.
You can imagine there's some muttering in church.
What's been wrong with the way we've been living?
Don't we have a special relationship with God anymore?
Has God changed his mind about what he wants to do in the world?
We're God's chosen nation.
Surely we're God's treasured possession.
We're the apple of his eye.
How can he do this to us, pulling the rug out from under our feet?
This new covenant that the writer to the Hebrews in chapter 8 describes wouldn't necessarily have been heard with overwhelming joy by many of its first hearers.
But the writer points out that we've needed, or the people of God needed a new covenant because the first covenant had been faulty.
There was something about it that didn't yet achieve God's purposes, according to verse 7.
Indeed, verse 8, he finds that his God finds fault with them when he says.
The old covenant wasn't perfect because it couldn't make people perfect.
It gave those who were following no power.
It gave them a path for living, but not yet the power to live it out.
Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I'll establish a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah.
Not like the covenant I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt.
God had certainly taken the initiative.
God had certainly reached out compassionately his hand.
God had certainly taken them out of the grip of Pharaoh and brought them through the Red Sea into the promised land.
Certainly God had shown his great love and compassion.
But we read on in verse 9.
But they didn't continue in my covenant, so I showed no concern for them, declares the Lord.
Though God gave the lead, the people didn't follow.
And so they were punished, as we heard would be the condition in Jeremiah 7.
Indeed, in verse 13, more explicitly, the writer says, in speaking of a new covenant,
God makes the first one obsolete.
And what's becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away.
There's no clearer verse describing the relationship between the old and the new.
But please, please recognise that it's not because the first covenant was bad workmanship or a wrong plan.
It was the right plan, but just the first phase of production.
The old covenant wasn't God's mistake.
It was God's beginning to renovate the world.
A few years ago, there was a Rembrandt exhibit in Melbourne, where I live.
And as you walked in the door of the gallery, there were some Rembrandt charcoal sketches.
Glorious in themselves.
The figure of Jeremiah, or the figure of Peter, or the figure of Paul.
And looking as you came in the door at these wonderful outlines,
you were already taken by the expression on the face or the posture,
the mood of the person being depicted.
But so cleverly, the curators of the exhibit,
after you walked past the charcoal sketches,
you saw the actual portraits in full colour,
three times larger, hanging on the wall.
Rembrandt wasn't mistaken by first sketching a charcoal outline of his painting of Jeremiah.
It wasn't in error that he did that.
In fact, he had to do that first,
in order that he had a better sense of how he might then construct
the full-blown, full colour, large portrait with all its detail.
You see, the covenant has built-in obsolescence.
The old covenant is the sketch.
The new covenant is what was planned from the outset.
The full-blown, three-dimensional, glorious gift
that the old covenant just in some small way pointed to.
And we get, living in a consumer society,
that built-in obsolescence is part of the way marketers do their work.
I'm told, though you might be able to correct me,
that Apple computers, the icon of our age,
actually are designed with built-in obsolescence.
Because we want to choose cheap and light,
they make the circuitry in a way that responds to our demands,
though, of course, we know that if you get five years out of your laptop,
you're doing well.
Light bulbs have built-in obsolescence,
so they could design them to last forever,
or at least for a longer time.
No, they're built in such a way that we will buy a new one when it blows.
The pair of shoes I'm wearing I bought just three months ago in the US,
and already the soles are worn down.
The leather uppers are fine,
but the shoe manufacturers know that they don't want me to have these shoes too long,
or at least they want me to buy another pair.
They all have built-in obsolescence.
They're designed to last a certain time
and then to give over to the better model.
But lots of Christians find this very difficult to believe.
I was on a committee a few years ago with a Roman Catholic nun,
and she placed the argument in the room
that all religions are basically the same,
that really Jews are Christians,
though they don't know they're really Christians.
Muslims are Christians,
though they don't really know they're Christians.
Christians.
I was horrified by her call,
the argument she was mounting.
One, it's pretty arrogant to tell to a Jewish neighbour,
a Muslim neighbour,
that they're really ignorant
and they don't know that they're worshipping Jesus.
I think that's just pure imperialism.
But more than that,
she hadn't recognised from Hebrews chapter 8
that it's the Jewish prophet Jeremiah himself
who says that the covenant will one day be obsolete.
It's not like it's a Christian saying to a Jew
that the covenant is inadequate.
No, it's one of the greatest Jewish prophets of all time
who's making this call.
And, of course, you could turn to Ezekiel 36
for the same kind of argument,
that God one day will put a new heart within the people,
a new heart that wasn't achieved under the old law.
The Old Testament has within it built in obsolescence.
It came home to me starkly a few years ago
when I did a tour of the Holy Land of Israel and Palestine.
Our tour leader, whose name was Anani,
had been a Jew but was converted to Christ.
He was a Messianic Jew.
This is his story.
It's quite remarkable.
He was reading the law, Exodus and Deuteronomy,
which describes how a servant could choose to live
in the household of his master,
even after his freedom has been granted,
by allowing an awl, a sharp metal object,
to be pierced through the lobe of his ear
against the frame of the door.
And Anani was reading these texts in the law
and had no idea what it could mean
that a servant's ear might be pierced with an awl.
So he decided he had to read on
and he read beyond the law
and got to the end of the Old Testament scriptures
and he was still frustrated.
He still hadn't found what the point of this law was.
And so in a moment that could only be described
as inspired by God,
he decided that he had to read the Christian scriptures as well
and see if they provided some resolution to his question.
And he did.
And he became a Christian.
He read on and discovered the climax of the story.
Indeed, from Hebrews in the early chapters,
I think it's chapter two,
that Christ was a servant over all the household of God,
unlike Moses,
finding their understanding of what it might mean
that the awl pierced the servant's ear.
Friends, we ought to be praying
for our Jewish friends and neighbours
to read on in the story
and discover its climax.
But it's not just that God has big plans for the world
and the language of covenant,
the conceptuality of covenant,
is part of that package describing God's great purposes.
It's not just that God has a great plan,
a big plan,
it's that God's big plan
is also about the depths of my heart.
It's not just that God's plan is big for the whole world,
it's that God's big plan for the whole world
is anchored in me.
For this is the covenant I will make
with the house of Israel after those days,
declares the Lord.
I will put my laws into their minds,
I will write them on their hearts
and I will be their God
and they shall be my people.
It's not merely that God wants to work in history,
he wants to work in you.
In our hearts, in our minds,
writing our law there,
living there,
just like God lived in the Holy of Holies
above the tablets of the law.
God wants to get in,
God wants to get close,
God wants to get intimate,
God wants to get personal with me.
I will be their God
and they shall be my people,
he says,
drawing on some phrases
which are scattered throughout the Old Testament.
There's only really one covenant,
a relationship with the Lord.
But this new phase of the covenant
sees God getting really, really close.
And they shall not teach,
each one his neighbour
and each one his brother,
saying,
know the Lord,
for they shall all know me
from the least of them to the greatest.
And this new heart knowledge of God
is not merely an understanding of law.
This new heart understanding of God
is not something academic presented to our ears,
but it's personal experience of God
in our hearts for everyone
from the least to the greatest,
such that there'll be no need
of an elite class of people
to do the teaching.
Indeed,
the book of Hebrews
is itself teaching us.
The writer to the Hebrews
is himself
explaining and teaching.
He doesn't think that
there's going to become a day
when you don't need people
giving sermons
or leading discussions.
It's just that
in that day,
everyone has a responsibility
together
of making sure
that God's word
is heard and obeyed.
there's no elite priesthood
anymore.
Everyone can know God.
And in a sense,
in our age,
we hear this language
of intimacy
and closeness
and most of us
feel encouraged.
We live in a world
where close connections
are desired.
But just remember
that for those
hearing Jeremiah
speak these words
for the first time
or the writer to the Hebrews
speaking them later,
they felt differently
about closeness
than we might.
We kind of like
the thought of intimacy.
But in the Old Testament,
intimacy with God,
closeness with God
was very,
very dangerous.
They'd remember Uzzah
who touched the ark
of the covenant
when he stumbled
and died.
Or they might remember
Nadab and Abihu
who offered
unauthorized fire
in the temple,
in the tabernacle,
I beg your pardon,
in Leviticus 10
and were consumed.
No, you can't get
too close to God.
Getting close to God
is dangerous.
Our God
is a consuming fire.
Yet the promise
is closeness.
How can we have
closeness
and safety?
Well, the prophet
explains it in verse 12.
For I will be merciful
towards their iniquities
and I will remember
their sins
no more.
I will be merciful
towards their iniquities.
I will remember
their sins
no more,
says the Lord.
God
comes close
and it's safe
for God
to come close
because he's made
a promise
under the new covenant
that when he comes close,
he will always
forgive our sins.
He will always
show his mercy
towards our iniquity.
He will never
remember our sins
and hold them
against us.
Our conscience
is cleansed
as the writer
of the Hebrews
says in a number
of other places.
We're washed.
Sin's not remembered.
It's wiped.
When Christ
died on the cross,
he called out,
it is finished.
Tetelestai.
Tetelestai
being the word
that you stamped
on contracts
in the ancient world
meaning paid
in full.
Sin has gone.
It's been dealt
with.
It will not be
remembered
by the Lord.
God.
Now this
imagery
of being
washed,
cleansed
in our conscience
in the deepest
part of our life
is for me
such an important
and passionately
held belief.
I didn't grow up
in a Christian home.
My parents
were God
fearers
but they
weren't
Jesus
believers.
It was first
at high school
I was 13
I think
13 or 14
when I was
introduced
to Christ.
It was a
lunchtime
Bible discussion
and a video
was being played.
In fact
it wasn't a video
because we didn't
have videos then
but it was a
reel-to-reel
Super 8 movie
if that means
anything to anyone.
And a magician
took
a dirty
cylinder
and placed
over the top
of it
a scarlet
blood-coloured
cylinder
and then
removed
the outer
cylinder
and the
internal
cylinder
was
white as
snow.
And he
explained
that's what
happened
when Christ
died.
You were
made
white.
You were
made clean
on the
inside.
Now no one
had ever
explained that
to me.
Why had no
one ever
explained that?
I knew that
Christ had
died because
I'd seen
people wearing
crosses around
their neck
with a man
on it.
But no one
had ever
explained to
me why
Christ
died.
To make
me clean
in the
deepest
parts of
my life.
So I
went home
that night
and knelt
by my
bedside
and prayed
that Christ
would wash
me on the
inside.
And I
became a
Christian.
Oh happy
day, oh
happy day,
you washed
my sin
away.
Oh happy
day, I
will never
be the same
forever I
am changed.
When I
stand in
that place
free at
last, meeting
face to
face, I
am yours,
Jesus, you
are mine.
What a
glorious day,
what a
glorious way,
what a
glorious name.
Oh happy
day.
It's why I
describe myself
as an
evangelical
Christian.
For
evangelical
Christians in
the last few
hundred years
have worked
really hard to
keep reminding
the church
that the
internal life,
the life of
our heart,
must be
addressed and
protected.
We aspire to
godliness with
power,
not merely
trusting in
outward forms
or outward
religion.
We have
been washed
and forgiven
so that we
are no longer
merely observers
at a cricket
match or
observers at
the movies.
Friends, we
are no longer
observers, we
are participants.
We are
deeply connected
to the life of
God now and
forever.
But too
often, you
and I and
people we
meet are
content with
just watching
the world,
observing life
go by.
But we've
actually not
been invited
just to stay
on the
sidelines
watching the
game.
We've been
invited down
onto the
victory lap
with the
team that
we've been
supporting.
We might
not have
ourselves
contributed to
the victory,
but the
victory having
been won.
We're
invited to
participate
with the
team and
enjoy the
great glory
that comes
with being
connected to
Christ.
God's big
plan for the
universe will
succeed, but
God's big
plan for the
universe involves
your heart.
Intimately,
gently,
deeply,
satisfyingly,
wholly.
decide today
to be a
new covenant
believer.
Decide
today to
be a new
covenant
believer.
For it's a
glorious life.
It's a
glorious life
living in
this way.
for if you
belong to
the new
covenant,
if you
have placed
your trust
in that
great high
priest,
if that
great high
priest has
written his
law in
your mind
and in
your heart,
you are
free.
It's quite
extraordinary
that when
Paul describes
the new
covenant in
2 Corinthians
3,
it's the
freedom
language he
turns to.
I think
I should
read it.
Paul writes
in 2
Corinthians
3,
6,
God has
made us
sufficient to
be ministers
of a new
covenant,
not of the
letter of
the spirit,
for the
letter kills,
but the
spirit gives
life.
Reading on
from verse
7,
now if the
ministry of
death carved
in letters
on stone came
with such
glory that the
Israelites
couldn't gaze
at Moses'
face,
because of
its glory
which was
being brought
to an end,
will not the
ministry of
the spirit
have even
more glory?
For if there
was glory in
the ministry
of condemnation,
the ministry
of righteousness
must far
exceed it in
glory.
Indeed,
in this case,
what once had
glory has come
to have no
glory at all
because of the
glory that
surpasses it.
For if what
was being brought
to an end
came with glory,
how much more
will what is
permanent have
glory?
glory.
And from
verse 17,
now the
Lord is the
spirit,
and where the
spirit of the
Lord is,
there is
freedom.
Important,
isn't it,
that Paul,
when describing
the ministry
of the new
covenant,
has to conclude
with a description
of the freedom
that we enjoy
belonging to
the new
covenant.
And Paul,
as well,
if you go to
Romans 8,
describes our
life,
no condemnation
for those in
Christ because
we've been set
free from the
law of sin
and death,
free from
external temples,
for we are the
temple,
free from an
elite priesthood
because we have
a great high
priest,
free from sin
because we have
a sacrifice who
has been enough.
friends,
we are free.
Of course,
the alternative
is slavery
and despair.
But the new
covenant wants
to spare us
that great
evil.
But we're not
just free,
we're also
therefore
bold.
We're bold
because we're
free.
We're bold
to approach
the throne
of grace.
We're bold
to come to
God.
We're bold
to come even
to God's
table this
morning.
We're bold
because look
at all the
things that
God has done.
He says in
this passage,
I will make
this covenant.
I will engrave
my laws.
I will be
their God.
I will teach
them all.
I will make
myself known
to the least
and to the
greatest.
I will be
merciful.
I will forget
their sins.
If God has
done all that,
what is
holding us
back?
For if one
of the great
distractions of
the Christian
life is
despair
because of
slavery,
another great
distraction in
the Christian
life is
panic
because of
timidity.
humility.
When we
panic, we
stumble.
When we
panic, we
don't keep
our eye on
the goal.
When we
panic, we
express our
fear that
there's something
bigger than
God in this
world.
Please,
friends, don't
pretend that
your timidity,
sorry, don't
pretend that
your humility,
no, I've got it
right the first
time.
Please don't
pretend that your
timidity is
really just
humility.
humility is
one thing, but
being fearful
and timid is
quite another.
We are
free, we're
free to be
bold, confident
to come to
God in full
assurance of
faith without
wavering to
find the life
that's worth
living.
And
indeed, by
taking the
bread and the
wine this
morning, you
can enjoy
the closeness
of God.
For Christ
said, this
cup that is
poured out for
you is the
new covenant
in my
blood.
Bold by
the blood.
Bold by
the blood.
Bold by
the blood.
blood.
This is
the message
of Hebrews
8.
Amen.