My least of the least favorite things is shopping and buying a car.
In fact, I dislike car shopping so much that at one time, Beth can attest for this,
I actually calculated how many more times I would have to do it in the rest of my life.
You know, because if a car lasts only so long and human beings only last so long,
well, there you have it.
I've only got to go through this ordeal so many more times and then I'm done.
And the thing I think I like, I dislike about car buying so much is the negotiation.
The back and forth, the wheeling and dealing, the proposal and counterproposal,
the let me talk to my manager and see what I can do.
Are they really talking to their manager to see what they can do?
Now, I understand that negotiation is part of the business.
I don't blame dealerships.
I don't blame car salesmen.
In fact, I kind of admire people that can do this well.
But personally, I just wish there was a price and I'd pay it.
I could drive off the lot and we'd be done.
Now, of course, people have been negotiating for a long time, right?
That's nothing new.
As long as people have been buying and selling things, I'm sure there's been negotiation.
Just like we negotiate over cars, I'm sure they were negotiating over camels back in the day.
But have you noticed how recently, today, in our sort of time, it seems like everything is negotiated?
Every interaction, every relationship we have seems to be push and pull, a bargaining process, a drawing up of contracts.
You do your part.
I do mine.
We seem to approach all of life as consumers trying to get the best deal that we can.
Even our friendships have at times been swallowed up by this mentality.
I mean, doesn't social media invite us to present a version or image of ourselves that will then convince others to befriend us or accept us?
We, as it is, we enter into the field of relationships ready to negotiate, to bargain, to try to do what it takes to get other people to buy in.
We're trying to take what we're selling.
And if it's true of our friendships, it's true of our love lives as well.
Sadly, how many marriages seem to end because people think that this wasn't what they bargained for?
That the relationship doesn't serve them anymore, it doesn't give them the desired outcome.
So it would be best if we just renegotiated and looked for someone different.
And if it's true of our friendships, and if it's true of our love lives, then friends, hasn't it become true of our spiritual lives as well?
That in our relationship to God, we often come as negotiators.
Of course, this takes different forms.
One way it comes about is, well, God, if you do this for me, fill in the blank, a job, a spouse, a child, an acceptance letter, then I'll promise to always do this for you.
It's a way of bargaining with God.
Or there's the reverse of that.
God, I've always served you, and I've always done my best to obey you.
So how could you allow this to happen?
What kind of deal is that, God?
You see, we come as negotiators.
Or another way it happens is like this.
God, you could never accept me.
Not after all I've done.
Not after all the ways I've ignored you and gone against you.
You could never take me.
But even this is a negotiating mindset, isn't it?
We've just decided in advance that the deal will never go through.
But friends, what if God isn't in the business of making deals?
What if God isn't a negotiator?
What if relating to him isn't a matter of hammering out a contract, but of submitting to his grace?
Our passage this morning is about just that.
It's about what God has done to set the terms of our relationship.
So that we can stop bargaining and stop negotiating and start submitting to him.
And start loving him.
And even to start enjoying him.
Our passage this morning is Hebrews chapter 9, verses 15 through 22.
It's page 1006 in the Pew Bible.
Let me invite you to turn there with me.
We've been walking through the book of Hebrews for a number of months now.
And in these weeks leading up to Easter, it sort of worked out that we've come to the central chapters of the book.
Chapters 9 and 10, where the focus is on the cross of Christ and his sacrifice for sin.
And each week, as we move through this part of the book, we'll see something important and essential about what Christ has achieved through his death for us.
So let's read our text this morning.
Hebrews 9, starting with verse 15.
Therefore, he, that is Jesus, is the mediator of a new covenant.
So that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance.
Since a death has occurred that redeems them from the transgressions committed under the first covenant.
For where a will is involved, the death of the one who made it must be established.
For a will takes effect only at death, since it is not in force as long as the one who made it is alive.
Therefore, not even the first covenant was inaugurated without blood.
For when every commandment of the law had been declared by Moses to all the people, he took the blood of calves and goats with water and scarlet wool and hyssop.
And sprinkled both the book itself and all the people saying, this is the blood of the covenant that God commanded for you.
And in the same way, he sprinkled with the blood both the tent and all the vessels used in worship.
Indeed, under the law, almost everything is purified with blood.
And without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness of sins.
Well, friends, here's the main point of our text this morning.
And it's what we have right at the beginning of verse 15.
Jesus Christ, through his sacrifice, is the mediator of a new covenant between us and God.
The word therefore, at the beginning of verse 15, points us back to verses 11 through 14 that we considered last week.
And there we saw two things about Christ's death on the cross.
In verse 12, we saw that it secures an eternal redemption.
That is, at the center of God's eternal plan of redemption, his plan to glorify himself through the recreation of his fallen world.
And through the rescue of a new humanity from every nation, at the center of that cosmic, eternal plan, stands the cross.
But even though the cross is as big as the world, at the same time, it's as deep and as personal as your own soul.
In verse 14, we read that through the cross, Christ doesn't just execute the great plan of God, but he also purifies our conscience.
The troubled soul can find rest in him.
And the ones who feel dirty and guilty before God can finally be made clean.
And because of all that, verse 15 says, Jesus is the mediator of a new covenant.
And I want us to simply look at three things concerning this new covenant that we see in the text of Hebrews.
First, what it is.
Second, where it's taking us.
And third, how it came to be.
Three very simple points.
So first, what is this new covenant?
Covenant language might be totally foreign to some of you, and that's completely understandable.
But, you know, when you take a step back and look at the whole Bible, what you see is that the Bible is not primarily a book of rules to follow.
Or a book of heroes to emulate.
It's actually a sweeping narrative.
It's really the story of God, who is the one true king.
And how God, in love, creates a world to display the beauty of his reign, of his kingdom.
You see, the Bible is the story of the kingdom of God.
But quickly we see that this kingdom God is bringing about is administered through covenants.
And covenants are binding commitments that God makes with his people, whereby he enters into a relationship with them.
Today we still speak of marriage sometimes as a covenant, right?
As a binding promise and commitment to another.
But that's a horizontal covenant between two humans.
Those are two mutual parties coming together.
You see, it's a bit different with God's covenants.
When God makes a covenant, it's vertical.
He sets the terms.
So when God made a covenant with the first humans, with Adam and Eve in the garden, the terms were basically this.
Eat from every tree that you see.
Enjoy my presence.
Know fullness of life.
Be my image bearer in creation.
But don't eat from that tree.
Eat from that one.
And the penalty will be death.
Death.
Those were the stipulations.
That was the arrangement.
The binding commitment.
The covenant that God made with humanity.
Life.
Death.
And of course, Adam failed.
And he fell.
And we all fell with him.
And sin and death have plagued humanity and the world ever since.
But here's a surprising thing about the biblical narrative and about the kingdom of God.
You see, Adam's fall doesn't stop our king from making covenants.
It could have.
He could have let the penalty of eternal death fall right there and then.
And our Bible would be about three chapters long.
But in his grace, God continued to make covenants with his people.
With Noah and with Abraham and with Israel and with David.
And he moves his kingdom forward.
And as it unfolds, we find that the story is not a pretty one.
Because it seems like the people will never stop turning away from God and choosing death.
But then, the prophets start to speak of a new covenant.
Of a whole new arrangement between God and his people.
And in Hebrews 8, just back one page, the author quotes Jeremiah 31, 31-34.
The passage that Ivor read for us earlier in the service.
And if you turn back there, just turn back one page to Hebrews 8.
You see that the terms of this covenant are cast completely in the form of a promise.
God says over and over again, not you must, but I will.
And we see that this covenant involves three things.
First, it involves a new heart for God.
If you're looking at Hebrews 8, verse 10, in the middle.
I will write my law on their hearts.
This means that an interchange takes place.
No longer are our hearts cold and hard toward God, but soft and open.
Our hearts become like flowers opening up to the rays of the sun.
I'm no longer shut closed in the darkness, but responsive to the light and reflecting his glory to the world.
This new heart for God means we have a new relish for God's word.
And we actually begin to want to follow him.
And to trust him.
And to obey him.
But the new covenant isn't just about a new heart for God.
It's also a new intimacy with God.
I will be their God and they shall be my people.
And then he goes on in verse 11 to show that it's not just some people, but all of them.
Everyone who enters into this covenant will be intimately connected and related to me.
From the least of them to the greatest.
There are no second class citizens in the new covenant.
And this is the essence of the whole covenant idea in the Bible.
That we would be in relationship with God.
That he would be our God and we would be his people.
And this relationship would be one where we belong to him in love.
Friends, how humbling it is that the king and God of the universe would stoop to relate to us in such an intimate way.
And not just as creatures, but as creatures who've rebelled against him.
And gone our own way.
The new covenant means that rebels are now drawn into intimacy with God.
But third, it's not just a new heart for God or a new intimacy with God.
It's also a new record before God.
Look at verse 12.
I will remember their sins no more.
Friends, here's the greatest surprise and privilege of the new covenant.
That our sins are forgiven and they are forgotten.
That the slate is wiped clean.
Not just of past sins, but of past and present and even future sins.
That a total forgiveness is granted.
That rebels of the king are given complete and total pardon.
Now friends, as we review this new covenant.
Stop and consider.
Who could mediate such a thing?
Can you imagine?
Where rebels deserving death because of their treason are freely granted a new record before their king?
A new intimacy with their king?
A new heart for their king?
Who could broker such an arrangement like that?
Who could mediate between these estranged parties in such a way that the king would grant us such rich and lavish privileges and gifts?
Who could stand between them and change the heart of the king in such a way that enemies would not just be granted amnesty from punishment,
but an inheritance in the kingdom?
Friends, who else but Jesus Christ?
This is what our text is telling us today.
He is the mediator of the new covenant.
The one who is fully God and fully man.
The son sent by the father in love.
Who shared our flesh and blood to bring us to God.
The Lord Jesus Christ.
Now before we consider just how Christ brings this about.
How he inaugurates and mediates and what he does to bring the new covenant into being.
Look at the next line of verse 15 in chapter 9.
This tells us where this new covenant is taking us.
What its purpose is.
What its goal is.
The verse continues.
He's the mediator of the new covenant so that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance.
Why does Christ mediate this covenant for us, friends?
So that when you begin, you will persevere to the end.
So that when you begin, you'll persevere to the end.
The twin poles of Christian experience are right here in this little phrase you see.
Calling and inheritance.
The beginning of our life in Christ.
Our call and our glorious destination.
The goal.
Our inheritance.
We begin when God effectually calls us through his spirit by the preaching of the gospel.
And we respond to Christ in repentance and faith.
This is what it means to be called, biblically speaking.
For some of us, God called us through the public preaching of the word.
For others, it happened through a friend who patiently shared the gospel with you over time.
And for others, it happened through parents who faithfully spoke to you of Christ as you grew up.
But whenever God did it, and whoever God used,
Hebrews wants us to see that because of the new covenant,
those who are genuinely called by God will receive the promised eternal inheritance.
He will finish what he started, friends.
I wonder if you sometimes wonder how things will end for you.
Do you doubt at times whether God will carry you through to the end?
Perhaps even now in your life, you're experiencing some hardship or some trial or some hurt or some disappointment.
And you're doubting God's care for you.
And in that disappointment, in that doubt, you want to come back to the table
and start negotiating with God and start re-bargaining the terms.
But friends, if you've placed your trust in Christ,
if God has called you to himself,
then your inheritance is secure.
Now, Hebrews talks about the Christian hope in multiple ways.
Here he calls it an eternal inheritance.
An inheritance that doesn't run out and doesn't grow old and doesn't depreciate because of inflation.
Elsewhere, he calls it the city to come.
In another place, he describes it as a festival of Sabbath rest.
And friend, no matter what image you look through or if you take them all together,
you begin to see that what God has in store for believers,
what he's guaranteed for us in the new covenant,
will far outstrip any hardship of this life.
As Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5,
this light and momentary affliction is preparing for us
an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison.
God will finish what he started.
And the goal towards which he is taking you,
the internal inheritance will make any hardship,
any trial, any difficulty that we face,
supremely worth it in the end.
Indeed, as Paul says,
they will seem light and momentary
in comparison to that eternal weight of glory,
our internal inheritance.
And friends, if that is the case,
why would we ever bargain with God?
Why not trust him instead?
Why not rest in his hands?
Why not trust the one who's made you a rebel, an heir?
Why not trust the one who will preserve you to the end?
Why not trust the one who's given you a new heart
and a new intimacy and a new record
through a new covenant
mediated by Jesus Christ himself?
Friends, why not stop bargaining
and begin trusting this one
who's lavished such things upon you?
And this brings us to our third and last point this morning,
which is how Christ establishes this new covenant.
How does Jesus bring it about?
How has he mediated such terms for us?
Look with me at the rest of verse 15.
He says that all this is true
since a death has occurred
that redeems them from the transgressions
committed under the first covenant.
Of course, it goes without saying
that a new covenant presupposes an old one, right?
And the first covenant that Hebrews is talking about here
is the covenant that God made with Israel at Sinai,
the Mosaic covenant.
And like the covenant with Adam in the garden,
the terms of the Mosaic covenant
were basically the same.
Do this and you'll live.
Don't do this and you'll die.
The first covenant,
the covenant at Sinai promised death
to covenant breakers.
It was a covenant with conditions.
And as we read on in the Old Testament,
again, just like Adam in the garden,
Israel in the promised land
breaks the covenant.
And the penalty for such transgressions was death.
And they were expelled from the land,
just like Adam was expelled from the garden.
And so you see,
what is God teaching us?
What was Israel teaching us?
As we see in Israel the story of all of us.
Teaching us that we humans
need more than just a second chance.
We need a redeemer.
Our sins have accrued the just penalty of death.
And under the first covenant,
those sins pile higher and higher and higher
until the penalty of death
is like a great, unstoppable wave
ready to crash down at any moment.
And so we need someone to liberate us
from that awful fate
by paying the penalty for us.
That's what the word redeem means.
To purchase another's freedom.
To pay the price for their liberty.
And that is exactly what Christ has done.
His death redeems us.
Though Christ knew no sin,
on the cross he stood in the place of sinners,
bearing the penalty of death that sin deserves.
And after dying on the cross,
three days later,
God raises him from the dead,
demonstrating that the sacrifice was complete
and accepted,
and raising him from the dead,
God enthrones Christ as king over all,
such that everyone,
even now,
who repent of their sin
and believe in him
can be set free
from the penalty
of sin and death
and know the blessings
of the new covenant.
Friends, this is the gospel.
Whereas the old covenant said,
do this and live.
The new covenant,
the gospel says,
trust in the one
who's done it for you.
But a question remains,
doesn't it?
Isn't there a question lingering
under all of this,
for all of us?
And the question is,
why should his death
redeem me?
How can one man's death
2,000 years ago
have any impact on me today?
And to answer that,
Hebrews gives us
a threefold answer
in verses 16 through 22.
And the first point he makes
is an illustration
from everyday life.
In verses 16 through 17,
he talks about a will.
And what we don't immediately see
in our English translations
is that the word for will
and the word for covenant
are the same word in Greek.
I think your ESV
probably gives you
a little footnote
telling you that.
So our author is engaging
in a bit of wordplay.
He says,
think of a last will
and testament.
When the person
who sets up their will
dies,
the will goes into effect
and lots of people benefit.
The will is read
and the inheritance
is distributed.
And it's not like
you do anything beforehand
to merit the inheritance.
You simply receive it.
It's granted to you.
And Hebrews is telling us,
friends,
it's just like that
with Christ.
When he dies,
the blessings
of the new covenant
or the new testament,
if you will,
come issuing forth.
And like in everyday will,
these benefits
are unleashed
and come to us
by sheer grace.
So we can see
in our everyday experience
how one person's death
ends up benefiting many
by way of illustration,
by analogy.
But then he pushes us
a little deeper.
And the second point
in verses 18 through 22
points us not to an everyday
illustration or analogy,
but to a deep
biblical pattern,
to something that God
has written into the pages
of redemptive history.
And in these verses,
verses 18 through 22,
Hebrews is referring
to an episode
in Exodus 24,
3 through 8.
This is when God
through Moses
first ratified
the covenant
with Israel at Sinai.
And Moses read the law
to the people.
And the people said,
we'll do the whole thing.
We'll keep it.
We'll obey.
And then Moses
made sacrifices
and sprinkled the altar
and sprinkled the people
with blood.
And of course,
that seems incredibly
strange to us.
If that doesn't seem
a little strange to you,
you've probably been
hanging out in church
too long.
Sprinkling people
with blood.
And a lot of it.
And of course,
even though this
strikes us as odd,
or as we sort of
condescendingly look
at the past as primitive,
you know,
in the ancient world
it would have made
complete sense.
Because whenever a king
made a covenant
with a lesser people
or a lesser king,
they would set up
an agreement
and make a sacrifice.
And the sacrifice
was essentially
a way of saying,
if either one of us
breaks this agreement,
may I be like that animal.
May I be put to death.
It made a treaty
or a covenant
a binding oath.
You see,
so the ritual happening
in Exodus 24
wasn't really
a mystical one.
It wasn't even
a very religious one.
In fact,
what God's doing here
is actually more at home
in the sphere of politics
and treaties.
God's saying,
I'm the king
and you're my people
and here's the deal.
The great king
was cutting a covenant
with his people
and they were agreeing
that if they didn't
uphold their part
of the bargain,
they'd be just like
the animals.
But of course,
the thing is,
Israel was already sinful.
They already deserve death.
So the sprinkling
of the blood
wasn't just a sign
of what might happen
if they broke the law.
Friends,
it was a sign
that these animals
were already dying
instead of them.
You see,
for a sinful people
to enter into a relationship
with a holy God,
something has to be done
about sin.
sin deserves death.
And the animal sacrifices
were a gracious provision
of a substitute
from God.
The animals represented
the people
and died in their place.
The whole scene
is reminiscent
of the first Passover
in Egypt,
isn't it?
When the people
sprinkled the blood
of the lamb
on their doorposts.
The lamb,
you see,
functions as a substitute
for the Israelites'
firstborn son.
The lamb dies
so that when God's judgment
comes,
the firstborn doesn't have to.
He passes over them.
So God was teaching
his people
an important lesson
and pattern
from the very start
that he would provide
a substitute
to bear the penalty
of their sins.
And of course,
the animal sacrifices
were simply
a foreshadowing
of something greater
to come.
Just a pointer
and a picture
of the true
sin-bearing substitute
who is ultimately
God himself
in the person
of Jesus Christ.
Because Jesus
is fully human,
he can represent humanity.
He can represent
you and I
because he's one of us.
And because he's
fully God,
his death
is of infinite value
to cover
worlds
upon worlds
of sin.
And it is for us
as our God-appointed
substitute,
sufficient for all
who take him
in faith.
But often it's
at this point
that
some people ask,
and I think
it makes sense.
all this talk
of death
and blood
and penalty
and sacrifice,
why can't God
just forgive?
I wonder if you've
ever asked a question
like that.
I know I have.
And to answer
that question,
our passage
ends
his sort of
three-fold answer
by pointing us
to perhaps
the deepest reality
you all.
He says,
without the shedding
of blood,
there is no
forgiveness of sins.
Now, of course,
legally and ritually
that was the case
under the Mosaic law.
That's how God
set it up.
But the law,
you see,
was expressing
an even deeper
principle.
That forgiveness
is always costly.
The answer
to the question,
why can't God
just forgive,
is twofold.
First,
God is utterly
and completely
good and just
in his perfect
righteousness.
God cannot simply
overlook or ignore
sin.
That would be
to contradict
his character.
And it's simply
the one thing
that God cannot do
is not be himself.
But second,
when we ask,
why can't God
just forgive?
We forget
that no one
just forgives.
We seem to be
forgetting that
forgiveness is
always costly.
Think of it
on a small scale.
If I throw a rock
through your window
because I'm angry,
you have one
of two options.
You can either
make me pay
or you can
absorb the cost
yourself by
choosing to forgive.
The damage
is done
and someone's
going to bear
the cost.
Of course,
for more serious
offenses,
the cost of
forgiveness is
greater and
harder to bear.
If someone
mars your
character in
public,
if someone
does you
physical harm,
the path of
forgiveness means
to bear the
suffering of that
wrongdoing in
yourself and
refuse to harm
the other person
in return,
even though you
have every right
to do so.
So you see,
no one just
forgives.
There's always
a cost.
And when
Christ died
on the cross,
he was
satisfying the
divine justice
against sin
and bearing
the suffering
of wrongdoing
in order to
forgive.
As we sang
just a moment
ago,
what a love,
what a cost.
we stand
forgiven at
the cross.
And this
brings us
full circle.
Christ's death
redeems us,
frees us,
liberates us
from the
transgressions
committed under
the first
covenant.
Because his
blood was
shed,
forgiveness
has been
issued.
Like a
will being
read,
the blessings
flow forth.
death.
And this
is how
and why
Christ is
the mediator
of the
new covenant.
His death
does exactly
what the
new covenant
promises.
It does
away with
sin.
It pays
their penalty.
Because of
the cross,
those who
trust in
him have
a whole
new record
before God.
And thus
a whole
new intimacy
with God.
And thus
a brand
new heart
for God.
So friends,
the God
of the
universe
doesn't
stoop
to bargain
with us.
He doesn't
negotiate.
And I
hope now
you see
that this
is good
news.
Because the
terms that
God has
established
in Christ
are better
than any
we could
have ever
dreamed of
asking for.
And when we
stand in the
new covenant
through faith
in Christ,
do you see
how that
begins to
change how
you negotiate
your other
relationships?
For a
new covenant
believer,
friends are
no longer
people we
have to
win through
effective social
media marketing
and self-imaging.
In fact,
we no longer
need the
approval and
buy-in of
our peers
to feel
secure.
We don't
need to
posture
anymore.
Not only
do we have
the favor
of the
king of
the universe
and the
assurance
that we
are his
heirs and
that he'll
preserve us
to the
end,
but friends,
we have a
place in
the people
of the
king.
because this
new covenant
creates a
new community
of people
who love
one another
because of
the love
that they've
been shown
at the
cross.
And friends,
this means
that in the
church,
in the
local
church,
in our
church,
people who
would never
be real
friends,
people who
would never
even be
Facebook
friends,
suddenly find
themselves in
meaningful
relationships,
loving one
another,
serving one
another,
getting involved
in each
other's lives,
taking interest
in their
stories,
rejoicing with
them,
bearing
burdens with
them.
The new
covenant
creates a
whole new
dynamic in
our relationships,
you see.
And what's
more, the new
covenant creates
a community not
only where people
love one another
and sacrificially
and inconveniently
so,
but it
creates a
community where
people forgive
one another.
Because we've
all been
forgiven through
the work of
Christ,
because all of
us stand
equal before
the cross,
equally condemned,
equally forgiven.
Friends, the
local church,
this assembly of
believers,
bound together in
membership, is to
be the place
above all
where forgiveness
is extended and
received.
where we keep
short accounts,
where we delight
to forbear with
one another's
faults.
Friends, in our
world of
negotiations, I
don't think people
would know what
to do with us if
they saw a
community like
that, of love
and of
forgiveness.
Where the
bargaining has
ceased.
Where the
negotiations have
ended.
So how about it,
friends?
In light of the
new covenant and
Jesus, our
mediator, how
will you love?
How will you
forgive?
How will you
forgive?
May it be so by
his spirit.
Let's pray.
God, in your
covenant, we are
secure because we
have an utterly
perfect mediator.
Lord, I pray for
us as a church
that we would
grasp the hope
that we have in
deep and real
ways.
us.
And Lord, as
we come to
enjoy the new
covenant that we
have, that you
have given to us,
God, would you
make us loving and
would you make us
forgiving?
And God, for
those who are
here, who don't
yet know Christ,
who don't yet
know the glory of
being a part of
this new covenant,
God, I pray that
you would begin to
call them, that
you would call
them forth to
repentance and
faith in your
son.
God, we ask all
this in Christ's
name.
Amen.