New Covenant Series

New Covenant

Jeffery Anselmi / General

Core 52 / God Promises to Make a New Covenant With the People of Israel / Jeremiah 31:31–34

God promised a new, better covenant with humanity!

INTRODUCTION

- How many times have you been using a product, and then suddenly, the reliable product you have been using has now come out with a "new and improved" version?

- Today, as we enter week 16 of Core 52 and week three of our Hidden Hope mini-series, we will transition to the New Testament.

- Next week will be our final message based on the Old Testament.

- Today, our focus will be on a passage from the book of Jeremiah, a passage of hope.

- A brief account of the historical situation in Jeremiah's day may help us appreciate God's prediction through Jeremiah.

- Jeremiah lived from about 650 BC to 580 BC.

- There was turmoil internationally as three kingdoms vied for world supremacy.

- Assyria had ruled the world for about 300 years (during which time the Northern Kingdom of Israel was taken into captivity) but was growing weak.

- Babylon was becoming a world power.

- Egypt, which a thousand years before had been a world power and declined, was again becoming ambitious.

- Babylon became a world power after defeating Assyria at about 610 BC and Egypt at Carchemish in 605 BC.

- From the start of his ministry, twenty years before the political situation became clear, Jeremiah insisted that Babylon would be the victor.

- It was during the reign of Josiah that Jeremiah began his ministry, and he witnessed the revival that occurred when the Law was rediscovered in Josiah's eighteenth year (2 Kings 22:3-8).

- But he saw the spiritual awakening that occurred would not be permanent. It was just a matter of time before the southern kingdom would be punished by being taken captive for 70 years by Baby­lon.

- It was during the early days of the Babylonian captivity that Jeremiah received the prophecy of the New Covenant, recorded in Jeremiah 31:31ff.

- Speaking through the Prophet, God said that Israel and Judah would return from their captivities.

- Then God would give the suffering nation a New Covenant in which there would be an accomplishment of those things which the Mosaic Covenant was never able to do. (Gareth Reese Hebrews Commentary)

- Here is what Jeremiah began the text with.

Jeremiah 31:31–32 (NET 2nd ed.)

31 “Indeed, a time is coming,” says the LORD, “when I will make a new covenant with the people of Israel and Judah.

32 It will not be like the old covenant that I made with their ancestors when I delivered them from Egypt. For they violated that covenant, even though I was like a faithful husband to them,” says the LORD.

- Today, we will see how this New Covenant is much better than the old one!

- Let's begin with verse 33.

Jeremiah 31:33 (NET 2nd ed.)

33 “But I will make a new covenant with the whole nation of Israel after I plant them back in the land,” says the LORD. “I will put my law within them and write it on their hearts and minds. I will be their God and they will be my people.

SERMON

- When something is new, we expect it to be better.

- God made a promise through the Prophet Jeremiah that He was going to make a New Covenant.

- Our message will examine the four ways the New Covenant is better than the Old.

- In verse 33, we see the first way that the New is better than the old!

- The New Covenant allows one to have…

I. A deeper heart for God.

- The language of Jeremiah 31 makes it clear that the Covenant God was replacing was the Old Covenant given through Moses on Mt. Sini.

- Even though generation after generation of people make promises to keep and live by the Old Covenant, neither those who made the promises nor their children did a good job keeping the Covenant.

- I have been reading through the Books of the First and Second Kings and through Judges.

- What a mess!

- From the moment Moses ascended to the top of Mt. Sinai when the people worshiped the golden calf, people have struggled to keep the Law of Moses.

- Why was God going to bring in a New Covenant?

- For over 800 years, the people were constantly guilty of breaking into one in place at the time of Jeremiah.

- Verse 32 bears this thought out.

- In the New Testament book of Hebrews, the Hebrew writer quotes Jeremiah 31:33-34 close to verbatim, in Hebrews 8:8-12.

- I want you to see verses 7-8 from Hebrews 8.