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Advent HOPE Sabbath School

Jevede Harris

The New Covenant

It's a wonderful pleasure to be here this Sabbath and a pleasure to see you all as well.

This morning we will be contemplating briefly the topic, a new covenant.

I'd like to share with you briefly why I chose this topic.

Last year in November, we had a Bible boot camp And 1 of the prevailing questions that has lingered, I thought, was what is the new covenant, and How do I teach this truth to others?

So this morning, we're going to take a brief look at what I consider the most precious promise in the word of God.

Please bow your heads with me while we pray.

Our dear Father who art in heaven, thank you so much, Lord, for this wonderful Sabbath.

We pray, Lord, that you will do but 1 thing, that you will speak to each of our hearts, and that Jesus will be lifted up and be glorified.

Jamaicans are in the habit of saying, usually when a promise is broken, a promise is a comfort to a fool.

However discouraging this may sound, it does highlight 1 reality, 1 solemn reality in the human experience.

Human promises, whether made to others, to God, or to self, are as fickle and unreliable as human nature.

You know individuals whose promises you meet with much incredulity and skepticism.

Because you know that they are as prolific in promise-making as they are in promise-breaking.

You must actually see them fulfill these promises before you opt to believe.

There are others, though, who have distinguished themselves as men and women of their word.

You meet their promises not with incredulity and suspicion, but with anticipation.

The character of the person behind the promise and the pattern of faithfulness that he or she has demonstrated.

In reading the Bible from Genesis to Revelation, it becomes evident to the reader as early as Genesis 3, verse 15, that God just loves to make promises.

Immediately after the fall, as Eve wallowed in shame, guilt, and condemnation, a loving God spoke words of hope to her dying and aching heart when he addressed that old serpent called the devil.

I will put enmity between you and the woman, between your seed or offspring and her seed, which of course is Jesus.

He, Jesus, shall bruise or strike the serpent's head, and Satan shall bruise his heel.

Herein was promised Jesus' death in place of sinners, his triumph over the grave, and Satan's final eradication.

You see, when Satan succeeded in leading Eve and then Adam to disobey God.

He thought he had the battle eternally won.

For the first time, they felt a void in their hearts.

Unfulfilled desires, painful yearnings, and a heart hunger for what they had lost were to follow, symptoms of a loneliness for God, the plight of sin.

What none of them knew at that time was that God's love, that God loved them too much to let them go.

Now the enmity that existed between Jesus and Satan is the same that is promised to us.

This enmity leads to deliverance from the power of sin.

Now I want you to understand that from a human point of view, this promise made little or no sense.

How can enmity exist between sin and a fallen man who has a sinful nature?

It's like a leopard who wants to change its spots.

Like an Ethiopian who cannot change his skin.

The answer to this dilemma can be given in but 1 word, and that's Jesus.

I think I remember in Matthew chapter 1, the angel Gabriel came to Joseph and he said, thou shalt call his name Jesus, meaning Jehovah is my salvation.

For he shall save his people from their sins.

We see evidence of the power of God's promise in the life of Enoch, who eagerly looked forward to the coming of the Savior, trusting in the promise.

In an age when sin began to multiply and the character of men was becoming increasingly depraved, Enoch walked with God.

He had a close relationship with God throughout his life and the inspired testimony concerning him was that he pleased God.

We see the power of the promise in the life of Job.

The Lord, the 1 whose name is holy, said concerning Job, he is perfect and upright, 1 who fears God and turns away from evil.

Upon giving earnest consideration of the numerous promises of God, the apostle Peter in 2 Peter chapter 1 exclaimed, whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises, that by these promises ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.

Today, we're going to look, as I said, at 1 of such promises, the granddaddy of all promises, the new covenant.

The new covenant promise is for men and women who are at every stage of their Christian development.

Men and women who struggle with sinful appetites and practices, who seek to live a godly life but are encumbered by their inconsistencies.

For whom victory ebbs but does not always flow.

It's for men and women who yearn to be transformed by the renewing of the mind and to be resplendent with the redounding glory of God.

It is for the Christian for whom perfection seems like fallacious fantasy.

It is for those too who have experienced revival and reformation in their lives and who desire to continue growing in this experience.

As beautiful as the new covenant promise is, it is also among the least understood in the Christian world at large.

And so I invite you to consider carefully this promise as we study.

When you're there let me know by saying amen.

Now, the first 5 verses of Hebrews chapter 8 can be summarized as follows.

There is a sanctuary in heaven made by God where the resurrected Christ ascended and began his role as our mediator.

As our mediator, Jesus' role is to reconcile us to God, to bring sinful man into harmony with the Holy God, that we may be 1 with him, having his mind, thinking his thoughts, willing and doing according to his good pleasure.

So Complete is this victory that Jesus, our high priest, gives us that the Bible says that he is able to save to the uttermost all that come to God through him.

Jesus' heavenly ministry eclipsed and made completely ineffective and unnecessary, the ministry of earthly priests.

Those earthly priests, we're told, served unto the example and shadow of the ministry of Jesus, which is the real substance.

Now turn with me to verse 6 of Hebrews chapter 8.

The Bible says, but now He has obtained, speaking of Jesus, a more excellent ministry or a superior ministry by how much also he is the mediator of a better covenant which was established upon better promises.

It becomes evident even after cursory reading of the book of Hebrews that the new covenant has its basis in Jesus's priestly ministry in the heavenly sanctuary.

Chapter 7 verse 22 in the New International Version reads, it tells us that Jesus became a priest with an oath when God said to him, the Lord has sworn and will not change his mind.

You are a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.

Because of this oath, Jesus has become the guarantee of a better covenant.

Now, some good questions to ask at this point would be, what exactly was the old covenant?

What then is the new and how is the new superior?

Now, for starters, we already read in Hebrews chapter 8, verse 6, that the new covenant is better than the old precisely because it was founded on better promises.

We know that a covenant is a binding agreement between 2 parties.

Let's go back to the old covenant and see what we can unravel from Exodus chapter 19.

Now though I'd like to read these few verses, I will invite you to follow along in your Bibles and read with me the response of the congregation.

So we'll have a congregational reading when the congregation of Israel responds.

Starting at verse 1 in Exodus chapter 19.

In the third month, when the children of Israel were gone forth out of the land of Egypt, the same day came they into the wilderness of Sinai.

Verse 3, and Moses went up unto God, and the Lord called unto him out of the mountain, saying, thus shalt thou say to the house of Jacob, and tell the children of Israel, ye have seen what I did unto the Egyptians, and how I bear you on eagle's wings and brought you unto myself.

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The New Covenant

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