A Greater Covenant
Jesus is Greater: An Exposition of Hebrews

Transcript

Good morning, church. It's good to be back together with you. We are continuing our series through the book of Hebrews. We're in chapter eight today. We're in a series we've entitled, “Jesus Is Greater.”

That's what this book is about. It's about showing us how Jesus is greater than anything you're facing today. Any problem, any trouble, anything that has you concerned today, Jesus is greater. The key to this passage, or to this whole book rather, is found in Hebrews, chapter one, as we've been studying every week. It says this, Hebrews 1:4 (NLT) “This shows that the Son is far greater than the angels, just as the name God gave him is greater than their names.”

And so that's what this book is about. It was written to Hebrew background believers, showing them how Jesus is greater, that He is greater. Over these past few weeks, we've had these message titles, if you will,

He has a greater goal for us. He offers a greater hope for the future, a greater priesthood, to intercede for us with the Father. Last week, we talked about how He offers a greater guarantee of eternal life. Now today, we're in chapter eight. We've entitled this message, “A Greater Covenant.”

It's greater because the old covenant has become obsolete. Now, this is what we have read in the scripture, or we will read in chapter eight, that the Old Testament has been fulfilled and replaced by the new. Now, have you ever heard of this phrase, “Planned Obsolescence?” Have you heard of this? “Planned obsolescence.”

It's something that many manufacturers have been accused of, that they make a product, maybe an automobile, a smartphone or something like that, and they make it in such a fashion that it's planned to go out of date. Now, they might do this by making it hard to work on. It's hard to repair, so it's hard to get under the hood or hard to get at it.

It might be because they continually offer upgrades that make you want to buy the next version of it every year. It might be for other reasons, like maybe you can't buy the parts for it anymore. Planned obsolescence is basically a manufacturing idea of how to get you to keep buying new products from them. Now, Apple has been accused of this.

The Apple corporation has been accused of this with the iPhone, that if you had an iPhone, when the next upgrade would come out, maybe you had one that was two years old, a new upgrade comes out and all of a sudden, your phone slows down. Well, customers started complaining about that, I don't want to take and do the new upgrade because my phone keeps slowing down. Apple was accused of doing this on purpose. They finally admitted it and said, "Well, actually we did, because we recognized that the older phones' batteries were getting bad. We actually did slow those phones down so that they would last longer.”

Well, many people suspected that they had different motivations for that. Regardless, the term is meaningful to us today as we look at our text .What if God had always had “planned obsolescence” for the old covenant, that the mosaic law was good, but it was always designed to be temporary, that it would be replaced with a superior upgrade? That's what we are going to be looking at in chapter eight today. Now, here's the thing about us.

In the book of Ecclesiastes. Solomon says that God has set eternity in our hearts, and so we want something permanent. It's in this world where everything's running down, everything's getting old, things break down. You look in the mirror and you see that things are running down,

right? We long for something that would be lasting, something permanent, something that wouldn't become obsolete. And so that's what we read in the book of Hebrews, chapter eight, that God offers a greater covenant, a better covenant. Through Jesus, when everything seems to be running down, He offers us something permanent and empowering, a blessing that would last for eternity.

It's called “Hebrews” because he's writing to Jewish background believers, helping them understand how the Old Testament fits in with the New Testament, how the old covenant is undergirding the foundation for the fulfillment in Christ. As we look at the text today, I think we'll see three reasons why the new covenant is greater than the old. So let's read. We'll be reading these 13 verses, and then we'll “unpack” them together. Hebrews 8:1-13 (ESV) 1 “Now the point in what we are saying is this: we have such a high priest, one who is seated at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in heaven, 2 a minister in the holy places, in the true tent that the Lord set up, not man.

3 For every high priest is appointed to offer gifts and sacrifices; thus it is necessary for this priest also to have something to offer. 4 Now if he were on earth, he would not be a priest at all, since there are priests who offer gifts according to the law. 5 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.”

6 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 is enacted on better promises. 7 For if that first covenant had been faultless, there would have been no occasion to look for a second. 8 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, 9 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 did not continue in my covenant, and so I showed no concern for them, declares the Lord. 10 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. 11 And they shall not teach, each one his neighbor and each one his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest. 12 For I will be merciful toward their iniquities, and I will remember their sins no more.” 13 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.” This is God's word.

Amen. We're looking for three reasons that the new covenant in Christ is greater. Here's the first:

1. It is obtained by a better ministry.

Now we're going to look at verse six as the lever, if you will, to lift this whole chapter. It's the key to the chapter. And we'll find all three reasons in verse six. We'll look at that as a way of understanding all 13 verses. So first look at verse six, and then take note of this idea of ministry. We see in verse six.

It says, 6 “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 is enacted on better promises.” So he says here that this ministry that he has is much more excellent than the old. Now the old covenant was excellent, but the new covenant that he ministers according to is much more excellent. It's greater. This is what we're pointing out.

Now, that word, “covenant,” you'll notice that it's in the text seven times. Four of the times it refers to the new covenant. Three of the times it refers to the old covenant. It's important when you're reading to tell the difference as we work through it together. The word, “covenant,” could be translated, “testament.”

And so, we have the Old Testament and the New Testament, the old covenant and the new covenant. The idea of a covenant is an agreement between two parties. And so, you'll often refer to a covenant at a wedding, that there's a wedding or a marriage covenant between a husband and a wife. And so here, we have this word, “covenant,” that we're working on. Sometimes when someone's getting older, they'll go to an attorney and they'll make their “Last Will and Testament;”that's a covenant of an inheritance that they're going to offer and that they'll name.

And so we see the word, “covenant,” in here seven times now as we look at verse one, as we begin to “unpack” it together, he starts like this. He says, now, the point in what we are saying is this. He's picking up an earlier point. In chapter seven, he introduced the idea of a better covenant, but then he didn't talk about it yet. He kept on talking about how Christ had a forever eternal priesthood and how he was a better guarantor.

Remember how he said this back in chapter seven, verse 22? This makes Jesus the guarantor of a better covenant. This is kind of his habit. The author of Hebrews, he'll introduce an idea, but then he'll finish the idea he was already working on and then pick it up in the next chapter. Well, that's what's going on here.

Now. The point is this. And now he's going to talk a whole lot about how we have a better covenant in Jesus. Many have called the book of Hebrews the book of betters. It's filled with betters.

There's so many “betters” in the book of Hebrews. And this new covenant is better than the old. He keeps working on this. He says that we have such a high priest, one who is seated at the right hand of the throne of the majesty in heaven. He seems to be referring once again, as he did in previous chapters, to one of his favorite psalms, and that's psalm 110.

He preached on that a whole lot. In chapter seven, he introduced to us that mysterious figure, Melchizedek. He talked about that preaching from psalm 110, verse four. Here he alludes to psalm 110, verse one, which we read, Psalm 110:1 (ESV) “The LORD says to my Lord: “Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool.” And so here he's mentioning that this high priest that will come will be seated at the right hand of the throne of the majesty in heaven.

Then he calls him a minister. See that in verse two? We'd already seen that in verse six. So we see that word twice. He's a servant.

The word,
“minister,” could be translated, “servant.” What's his ministry? He's serving in the holy places, in the
“true tent” that the Lord set up, not man. Now, what's that? The “true tent” rightfully should be translated, probably in a way that we would understand it better from the Old Testament.

The true tabernacle, which is speaking of that which Moses built in the wilderness, was a portable tent that they would break down and move to the next campsite where they could worship the Lord. But he's saying that this Messiah that would come would serve in the true tabernacle. So there is one in the heavenly places, even now, that is the true one, the genuine one. It doesn't mean that the one that Moses had was false’ it means something else.

As we read here, it means that it was a copy and a shadow of the true one. Okay, this is what he's teaching. He's teaching the Old Testament Hebrew believers that have come to Christ how this all fits together. He's also teaching us, as modern day believers, why we have the Old Testament and what it accomplished and how it sets the foundation for the New Testament. He says that He's a minister in the holy places, in the true tent that the Lord set up, not man.

In other words, He sits on a superior seat, and He serves in a superior sanctuary. That's this minister called Jesus. And then it says, in verse three, 3 “For every high priest is appointed to offer gifts and sacrifices; thus it is necessary for this priest also to have something to offer.” What does he offer?

What is this priest that is to come? What does He offer? He offers His own body and blood as a sacrifice. He offers a superior sacrifice. He sits in a superior seat, and He serves in a superior sanctuary.

He's “more better;” He's much more excellent than that which came before Him. Now, verse four gives us kind of an aside here. It says, 4 “Now if he were on earth, he would not be a priest at all, since there are priests who offer gifts according to the law.” And what's this a reference to? He's already explained that in chapter seven.

And it's this idea that Jesus didn't qualify for the Levitical priesthood because He was not from the tribe of Levi. He was, instead, from the tribe of Judah. That qualifies Him to sit on the throne of David, but it does not qualify Him to be a Levitical priest, which was the point he made back in chapter seven. He didn't come in the order of the priests of Levi. He came, instead, in the order of Melchizedek, which predates the Mosaic law. This is the point he was making back in chapter seven. Now, if you haven't been with us on this journey, I would encourage you to go back and study those chapters.

Going through the book of Hebrews is kind of like going through math in school. They teach you addition and subtraction, and then they teach you multiplication and division. Then, they teach you algebra, trigonometry and calculus. By the time you get to calculus, if you're still working on addition and subtraction, you're in big trouble. The book of Hebrews, as we learned back in chapter six, if you're slow of hearing, if you've been lazy in your studies of following the word of God, he basically said that you're going to have a hard time understanding what I'm trying to teach you.

That's what the book of Hebrews is like. It's really trying to help us “unpack” how the Old Testament lays the foundation for its fulfillment in Christ through the New Testament, the new covenant. Well, this is what's going on here, he says, ‘Now, remember, he couldn't qualify for that. But that's not really that important because guess what? Verse five says it was always a copy anyway.

It was always a shadow anyway, of the real thing that Moses and Aaron and none of the priests could have ever attained to anyway.’ We needed one who could actually step into the heavenly place and bring His own perfect offering once for all. And they couldn't do it. He says they were a copy and a shadow of the heavenly things. For when Moses was about to erect the tabernacle, the tent, he was instructed by God, see that you make everything according to the pattern that was shown you on the mountain.

What's he talking about? Remember when Moses went up on the mountain for 40 days and 40 nights and how God gave him the Ten Commandments? Well, He also showed him how to build the tabernacle. How did He show him? By showing him the real thing.

Now, we have a record in the book of Isaiah, chapter six. We have a record in the book of Revelation. Isaiah got to see the real thing. He had a vision. John got caught up and saw the real thing.

Moses must have, too. We don't have a record other than the record of the blueprints that he turned out in the book of Leviticus. He says to them, ‘Okay, now, here's how we're going to make the tabernacle.’ If you're reading through the Bible with me, I do the one year Bible every year with you. If you're on the “Bible bus,” a lot of you

get in there where this is that many cubits and that is this many cubits and you get all worn out. Moses is bringing the pattern, the blueprint, of building it to heavenly instruction. That's what he's talking about here in verse five. He says in verse 5, 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.” The one that Moses built was a good copy, but it was always a foreshadowing of the real thing that would come in a greater ministry, Who would have a greater seat, Who would serve in a greater sanctuary and offer a greater sacrifice.

I could stop right there. That's a good three-point sermon, you have to admit. But I have to keep going. I have more verses here. This is what we're looking at together.

It says in the book of John, John 1:17-18 (NKJV) “For the law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.” Moses brought the law. He was a good minister. It was a good ministry. It was a good word, but it had no power for us to keep it.

And so, grace and truth was brought through Jesus, and He brings a greater sacrifice. It says in Hebrews 9:12 (HCSB) “He entered the most holy place once for all, not by the blood of goats and calves, but by His own blood, having obtained eternal redemption.” What does Jesus offer? He offers His own body and His own blood.

It's the perfect sacrifice. Now, have you ever heard the phrase, “you get what you pay for?” “You get what you pay for.” Now, last week, I told you a story about how my dad always bought craftsman tools because they have a lifetime guarantee, and they did cost a little more than the kind of tools you could just pick up anywhere.

But he had another philosophy. This is another one of my daddy's sayings that he taught little Gary when I was growing up, and that was, “Boy, you get what you pay for.” If you pay a little bit more for something, you get something that'll last and actually do the job you expected it to do, right? Good advice. “You get what you pay for.”

Well, the truth is that the blood of Jesus was superior. The body of Christ was superior. It was perfect. All those goats, all those rams, all of those lambs, all of those bulls, they were all foreshadowings. They were all copies of that which foreshadowed the perfect payment.

You get what you pay for. None of those were substantial enough, but the blood of Jesus was substantial enough. Now, my dad, he always drove Buicks. He would say this, “I'm a GM man.”

He liked General Motors vehicles. In those days, the Cadillac was the prestige premier; the top of the line. But if you got a Buick, he would say, ‘It's basically a Cadillac that costs a little less, but it was just a better car.” I have photos of him when he was a single man standing next to his Buicks,

these 1940 something Buicks and 1950s. The last Buick he bought was a 1964 Buick Electra. This was a big vehicle; this was like a boat.

This was a huge vehicle. My father passed away in 1966. He was only 39 years old. He left my mom and all of us little kids.

I'm the oldest. That Buick became like our connection to my dad. This thing just kept running. It was a great car. And my mom didn't want to replace it.

It was the last vehicle my dad bought. My mom finally got another car, so I took the Buick to college, this 1964 Buick Electra. I took it to college, and my wife, she can confirm it. We could get four people in the front and four people in the back. We could put eight people in this car, plus their luggage in the trunk. This thing was awesome.

We used this Buick. It was true what my dad said, “You get what you pay for.” This old Buick just kept on running. This is what we have in Jesus.

It will never be obsolete. It's perfect. His ministry is perfect. Even now, He's in the heavenly place, interceding for me and you.

When you don't know how to pray, when you don't know what to ask for, He intercedes for you. His ministry is superior, and it's unconditional. Whereas the Old Covenant was conditional, the Old Covenant was to obey and be blessed; to disobey and come under God's curse. That was the old covenant. And all you have to do is read the Old Testament, and you can see it.

But the new covenant is about grace and truth in Jesus. It's not about obedience. It's about faith in the One who was obedient in my place and in your place. He kept the whole law and then took my death so that I might have His eternal life. He offers a better ministry. Here's the second reason why the new covenant is better than the old.

The first is because he obtained it by a better ministry. The second is:

2. It is enabled by a better Mediator.

We're back at verse six again, and we're going to read the second part of verse six. It says, “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 is enacted on better promises.” So we're on that part that he's a better mediator. In fact, if you read in the King James, instead of saying he mediates, it says he is the mediator of a better covenant. Christ is a better mediator.

Last week in chapter seven, we were studying this, and this is from the New Living Version, it says, Hebrews 7:18-19 (NLV) 18 “God put the Law of Moses aside. It was weak and could not be used. 19 For the Law of Moses could not make men right with God. Now there is a better hope through which we can come near to God.” Now he's saying that this mediator is superior, so his ministry is better, his mediation is better.

Now, what is a mediator? Literally, it's a go between; someone who goes between two parties in order to make them unified and agree with one another. He's the go between. He goes back and forth between the two to make them at one with something.

He's the medium of communication, so he communicates to this party and then back to the first party. He's carrying this communication back and forth. He's the arbiter, the reconciler and the intercessor. That's who Jesus is. He's the one who helps ratify the covenant we have between us and God.

As we've said, he serves from a better seat, a better sanctuary and offers a better sacrifice. Not only that, He's a better mediator. Moses was a mediator of the old covenant. Jesus is the mediator of the new covenant. He's a better mediator.

Now, if you're going to make a claim like this, it's important to talk about what you will do with the old one. And that's where “planned obsolescence” comes in. It was always a temporary covenant. It was always meant to be upgraded with a new and greater covenant. And so, if you're going to make these kinds of claims and you're talking to a Hebrew audience,

you're telling me that the Old Testament has been replaced? They're going to be mad when they hear this. And so the author of Hebrews, guess what he does for the next few verses. He's quoting directly from Jeremiah, chapter 31. In fact, from verse eight through verse twelve.

He's doing almost verbatim, Jeremiah 31:31-34 in verses 8-12. Why is he doing this? Here's what he's doing. He's going to say that

seven hundred years ago, God was already telling them, through the prophet Jeremiah, that the old covenant was going to be replaced by a new covenant. This should not come as a surprise to them because the old testament already told them that it was going to be replaced by a new one. See, this is the point he's making. If you're a Hebrew believer, if you're a believer in Jesus, but now you're still struggling with what to do with the Old Testament, you don't have to be a Hebrew believer to struggle.

A lot of us struggle with the Old Testament. I have people come to me all the time and say, ‘Pastor, I've been reading through the Bible like you told me to, but man, that Old Testament scared me a little bit.’ It's because you haven't understood how to read the Old Testament through the “lens” of the New Testament, because we have a whole book. And so they were trying to figure this out. He tells them, ‘Go back and read your Bible, Hebrew believers.

Go back and read the Hebrew Bible, Jeremiah, chapter 31.’ He begins to work this out with them and see how He's a better mediator. This is what he's talking to them about. Look at what it says here in verse seven, “For if that first covenant had been faultless, there would have been no occasion to look for a second.”
What is the “first covenant?”

It’s the old covenant. if the Old Testament had been thoughtless, there would have been no occasion to look for a second. What's the second? It’s the New Testament. If the old covenant had been without fault, there would be no reason to replace it.

Now, that would really make a Jewish person upset. You can understand why you'd be saying that there are faults in the Old Testament. What does that mean? Don't we say that all of God's word is perfect? Yes, we do.

How can it have a fault? Here's what it means and here's what it doesn't mean. First of all, that it has a fault doesn't mean it has an error. It doesn't mean that it's sinful. It means that it's insufficient.

The fault that it has actually is not even in itself, but it's in those who try to follow it. Well, Gary, where are you making that point? I need to hear some scripture on that. Well, good.

Let's read the next verse, 8 “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,”
Who is “them?” Well, it's not the old covenant. The old covenant is good. The problem is with the people trying to follow it; they couldn't.

In fact, the minute the flesh sees a law, it wants to break it. It's the old sin nature. All you have to do is tell a little toddler, “Don't touch that now.” The child must touch it. The child must touch it because there's something in them called the sin nature that says, I have to touch it.

Now I have to touch it. Many of you have been coming to our church for a while. You've heard the stories of my family, my three little kids. My middle child, Jonathan, loved to mess with the VCR. Older people, tell the younger people what I'm talking about.

They don't know what a VCR is, but it had a door in it where you'd put a tape in. He loved to stick things in there that didn't go in there. One time, he comes in with this old floppy peanut butter and jelly sandwich that he'd already been biting on. He toddles in and he looks at me. I'm sitting watching tv, and he looks at me because he knows he's not supposed to touch the VCR.

He goes up to the VCR and he starts closing one eye and batting the other like, I know I'm in trouble, but I have to do it. He put that peanut butter and jelly sandwich right in that door. Do you know how hard that is to get this cleaned out? It’s hard.

And the whole time he knows, I know I'm getting a spanking, but I gotta do it. I've told him so many times, “Do not touch the VCR.” It's human nature. The “them” refers to the Israelites. He says, 8 “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,9 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 did not continue in my covenant, and so I showed no concern for them, declares the Lord.” The “them” was the Israelites.

The problem wasn't the law. It was that the law was insufficient to help them keep it. That was the problem with it. It wasn't that it was bad. It was that it could not empower them to do it.

And this is what it speaks of now as we look here, it says that this new covenant that's coming will be for Israel and for Judah. And I would remind all of you that we, as Gentiles that don't have a Jewish background, were grafted into the tree to this Abrahamic covenant. We've all become part of this new covenant; we've been grafted in through Jesus. Well, as we continue here looking at the book of Romans, it really explains this tension between why the old law, the old covenant, did not work, and why the new covenant does. It says in Romans 8:1-4 (ESV) 1 “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. 2 For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death.

3 For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, 4 in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.” Praise the Lord.

Thank you, Jesus, for that, that You came and You kept the old covenant. You're the only one who ever did. And because we've placed our faith in You now, because You kept it, and then you offered Your life, a perfect, sinless life as a sacrifice for our sins by faith. Now You have fulfilled the law for us so that we are made complete through You and You're a better mediator.

This is why Paul writes to Timothy, 1 Timothy 2:5 (ESV) “For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.” He is a superior mediator and this is why the new covenant is greater than the old. Now, I've been on a lot of mission trips.

I've been going on mission trips since 1995, and I've had the privilege to serve in many countries. Whenever I go, I almost always have to preach through an interpreter, through a mediator, someone who understands English and also the local language. You want a good one; you want one that can accurately translate what you're saying, but also translate your tone, if it's humor, if it's serious or whatever.

You want them to translate all of that accurately. My first trip in 1995 was to Indonesia. We were visiting several islands, and I'd only been there for like 24 hours. I was seriously jet lagged when I was asked to preach at a house church. This house church was on the island of Bali and there were people there that spoke different languages.

Some of them spoke the national language of Indonesian. Some of them spoke Javanese because they were from the island of Java, but many of them spoke Balinese because they were from Bali. Here's what happened. I was told I had to preach through three interpreters. I asked, “Well, so what's that going to look like?”

I'd never preached through an interpreter ever. I was told, ‘First, you'll say what you're going to say, and then one will say it in Indonesian, and then this one will say it in Javanese and this one will say it in Balinese. Then, you'll be back up again.’ Oh, my goodness. I would forget what I said by the time the third guy went. They would talk longer than me and I'd think, I think they're saying stuff I didn't say.

I got to one part that was really serious; this is going to move the people. I had planned what I was going to say right here; I really felt the Holy Spirit working. I said something really serious, and the interpreter said something, and then the next guy said something, then the guy with Balinese said something, and everybody started laughing. I turned to the guy next to me and I asked, “What did he say?”

He asked the guy something, and this guy asked him something and then they came back to me. He said the people were getting sleepy, and he told them a joke. Okay, I need a better mediator. I need a better translator.

Now, one of the countries I go to regularly is Uganda, and I have found two translators there that are perfect translators for me. It's like I feel like I'm preaching through them. One of those is Pastor George Mybonye, who I love dearly. When I preach to his congregation, I am not even looking at them. I preach to George. I turn myself and there's George. He'll be looking at me and he'll start getting his eyes this big.

He starts vibrating all over. I need to slow down because he’s got to preach now. I have my hand on his shoulder and I'll be preaching to him and it'll get so good. When I take my hand off, it's like releasing someone that you threw gasoline on a fire.

He blasts off. He always starts off with the same word, “Now!” He starts preaching in the local Rufimbira dialect there in Uganda. When I want to come back in, because now look, if I say a sentence, he's going to say a paragraph and sometimes I want to come back in. We've worked it out, I'll put my hand back on his shoulder and he'll look at me and it means, I'm back.

I'm back in. But he matches me perfectly. My tone; everything. It's so much of a joy to have someone who's a great mediator, a great translator, who perfectly matches what you want to say and your tone. And so we have this Jesus who mediates to the Father for us.

And as the word of God says that the spirit of Christ speaks in groanings too deep for words, when we don't even know how to pray. Wow, we've got a better mediator. We have it in Jesus. Here is the third reason that the book of Hebrews gives us that the new covenant is greater:

3. It is enacted on better promises.

It's enacted on better promises. We're still using verse six as our pivot point, but now we're “unpacking” verses ten through 13. Let's look at six again. We had one little sentence we hadn't completed there in verse six.
6 “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 is enacted on better promises.”

He mediates is better since what? Since it is enacted on better promises. This is our third reason - better promises. This new covenant has better promises. There are four promises I see in the text here.

There are four ways that it's better. And they all come from the book of Jeremiah, chapter 31. That's the text of the preacher in Hebrews. He's preaching this text from Jeremiah 31, and he goes on like this. We'll pick it up at verse ten.10 “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.”

“For this is the covenant that I will make.” So now, we're talking about the new covenant, aren't we? “This is the new covenant I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord.” Now, listen, he says, “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.” He didn't do that with the old covenant.

The old covenant couldn't do that. It was external. It was written on stone tablets. But this new covenant will be written in our minds so that it transforms our thinking and will be written in our hearts so that we have a new heart. This is what he's saying here.

The new covenant will transform us. The old covenant couldn't do that. Here's what he goes on to say in verse ten. He says, “I will be their God and they shall be my people.” In other words, now we'll be adopted into the family as His children.

This is a change of status, that we will be His. He will be ours and we will be His. And then, in verse eleven, it says, “And they shall not teach, each one his neighbor and each one his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest.” So now he's saying, ‘I'm going to give them the Holy Spirit to teach them.’ Well, Gary, how did you see that?

How did you get that? Well, in the book of John. Jesus says after I'm gone, the Father will send another comforter and He's going to remind you of everything I have taught. He's going to teach you. The book of John talks about how the spirit will teach us.

It doesn't mean that we won't need human teachers, but we'll have the Holy Spirit living within us to discern what's true and what's right to teach us. It transforms our minds and hearts. It changes our relationship to God.

It gives us the spirit within us so that we can know God personally. And then, finally, verse twelve says this, . 12 For I will be merciful toward their iniquities, and I will remember their sins no more.” This new covenant will bring forgiveness. The old covenant brought law, but the new covenant will bring forgiveness and mercy.

That's the new covenant and that's the superiority of this new covenant. “I will remember their sins no more.” The scripture says, ‘I will separate their sins as far as the east is from the west. And so I will plunge it into the deepest ocean and I will remember it no more.’ And then we come to verse 13.

It would be startling to read verse 13 if we had not read the previous twelve. But here he summarizes, 13 “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.” Remember we were talking about “planned obsolescence.” God had always planned for this new covenant to come. He actually revealed it to Abraham when he said, ‘Through your seed (singular) all nations will be blessed.’

That Abrahamic covenant was unconditional, and it preceded the Mosaic covenant. And so, the Mosaic covenant is like a “parentheses” in the timeline of the Bible. It was always planned to be obsolete. It was only there to guide the Israelites for a season until the Messiah came. It provided a mirror so they could see their own sinfulness.

It provided a “guardrail” to restrain them from sin, and it provided a guardian to teach them, but it could not save them. That's why the new covenant comes. And so he says it very boldly here. He's able to now, because he's explained how he got here. And speaking of a new covenant, he makes the first one obsolete.

And what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away. There'll be no further need now, because of Jesus, of the sacrificial system. And indeed, we believe that the book of Hebrews was probably written around 64, 65 AD. We think it was written before the fall of the temple of Jerusalem because of all the temple references. But we know in a short time after its writing that in 70 AD, the Romans destroyed the temple.

And there has never been temple sacrifice since. It has faded away. It has been replaced by a permanent and superior ministry mediator built on better promises named Jesus. And so we see the author of Hebrews helping us understand the placement and importance of the Old Testament, but also that the time for following it has been replaced by the new. Jeremiah is not the only one who talked about this.

The prophet Ezekiel did. He says in Ezekiel 36:26-27 (ESV) 26 “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. 27 And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws.” So we see the prophets talking about what God is going to do, but the Jews seem to miss it.

This is why Jesus says to them, ‘You say you believe in Moses. You say you believe in the prophets. If you believed in them, you should believe in me. ’ The better promise of the new covenant is in Christ. 2 Corinthians 5:17 (ESV) “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.

The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.” He gives us a better covenant built on better promises. The book of Hebrews is the book of “betters” because it's about Jesus. Now, in the early days of our church, we were portable. We didn't have a home of our own.

We used to rent schools, other churches and all kinds of buildings around town for our church. Because we were portable, we had to have something to carry our sound equipment,nursery equipment and other items in. When we first planted the church, we didn't have a lot of money. The church didn't have a lot of money. I didn't have a lot of money, but I had a boat.

So I sold my boat for $3,400, and I found a van for $3,400. God matched it perfectly. I sold my boat, and I bought a 1984 Chevy Beauville. What color was it, you ask? Rust.

Not the color. That's just what the body was. It was rusty, but it ran pretty well, and it had a lot of room in it. We named it “Bertha.” It was an affectionate name for our big church van, if you will.

And we would fill it up with all the equipment and back it up to Forest Hills Middle school back in those days and unload it and have church. And then, because it was my personal vehicle, during the week, we would unload all that stuff, when we got home, back into the garage. It was an interesting van, old Bertha was. It had a problem with the starter, and I couldn't afford to fix it.

But I found out if I hit it with a hammer, it would start and so, I would get up in the mornings and I would already have my clothes on that I was going to wear and I didn't want to get them dirty. I figured out how I could sling my body under Bertha, hang on to the bottom step of the driver's door, and I could hit that starter with a hammer,have nine year old Stephen crank it and it would start. And so that's how we started it every day that it wouldn't start. I kept a hammer right there next to me to start.

Bertha had problems. It would backfire on call. Sometimes it would backfire when you didn't want it to.

If I goosed it and let off and hit it again, it would definitely backfire. My daughter loved Bertha (not); I would take her to school. She would say to her mama, “Mama, is daddy taking me to school today?” And Robin would say, “Well, yeah, honey, I've got to do…” She'd say, “Please, mama, don't let daddy take me to school today.”

She was ashamed of Bertha. Everyone loved Bertha, except Robin and Erin. The boys and I loved Bertha. We would pull up at her school and she would.

jump out like she was a spy leaving some kind of plane. Like she would parachute out and run up towards her school with her little backpack on. And I would roll the window down and say, “Hey, Erin, I love you!”.

Now everybody's going to know what vehicle she pulled up in. And then I would goose it and backfire out of the parking lot. That's the kind of daddy she had.

In fact, one time we were driving down the road and the tailpipe blew off. It was hanging on by something and we were dragging it down the road, throwing sparks for 20 yards behind us. Some car pulled up beside us, motioning about it. Why is Gary telling us this story about Bertha?

It was a temporary fix. It got us from A to B. It got us here. But you know what's better? Not having Bertha. Being in a place where we're not setting up and tearing down anymore. Where we have a home.

It's not your normal church building, but we love it. We've been having church here for the past 12 to 13 years.

A lot of people are getting saved here and baptized here. Kids growing up and following Jesus. It's better. It's greater. It's better than Bertha. And that's what the old covenant is.

We needed it. It got us from A to B, but it was temporary. Now we have a greater covenant in Jesus, Amen. That's what we have today.

It's obtained by a better ministry in Jesus, and it's enabled by a better mediator in Christ. And it has better promises because He's the one who said “yes” and kept all those promises for us. Let's pray. Lord, thank You for Your word. But most of all, thank You for Jesus.

Lord, I pray for that one that's here today that's never given their life to you. Is it you, my friend? You've never repented of your sin and said, ‘Lord, I'm sorry. I'm sorry for my sin. I believe You died on the cross for me. I believe You were raised from the grave and that You live today.

Would You come and live in me?’ You can pray like that right now, right where you're at. Maybe you're watching online or you're seated here listening with us this morning, but right where you are, He's listening. ‘Would you come into my life, forgive me of my sins and make me a child of God. I want to follow You all the days of my life.’

If you're praying like that, believing, the Bible says He'll save you. He'll make you a child of God. Others are here, and you're a Christ follower. You're a follower of Jesus. But you needed the reminder today. Would you just say, ‘Lord, thank You.

Thank You that You offer eternal life. Thank You that You offer something permanent. Thank You that You intercede for me, Lord Jesus, when I don't know how to pray.’

Thank You, Lord. In Jesus’ name, Amen.