"A Better Deal" Series

TYPE: Expository, Deductive

SCRIPTURE READING: 2 Corinthians 3:4-6

DOMINANT THOUGHT: The offer of peace with God that we have through Christ trumps anything the world can ever offer us.

PURPOSE:

- Head: The people will know the nature of covenants and Christ’s covenant offer to us.

- Heart: The people will appreciate the great love of God for them.

- Hands: The people will accept Christ’s offer and share it with others.

MANUSCRIPT:

Throughout the course of its relatively short history, America has been a place where people have flocked in search of a better deal.

When the New World was supposedly discovered, several European nationals embarked on the dangerous voyage across the Atlantic to America, citizens from Spain, Portugal, France, Great Britain, and elsewhere. Everyone had the hope of finding something better.

Later started as early back as the 1600’s, when the Pilgrims headed this way, in search of a better place to live, a place free of religious persecution, a place of opportunity, a place of blessing.

A couple of centuries later, the Irish began pouring in, escaping both the Great Potato Famine and religious persecution alike. Chinese immigrants came across the Pacific; many of them helped connect the West with railroads. Later came the Catholic and Lutheran Germans, many of whom settled here in the Midwest in search of a place where they could freely practice their faith. On their heels were the Italian immigrants, escaping economic crisis for the Promised Land of America. Jews from Russia and other areas of ethnic oppression followed. And more and more people from Mexico came across our southern borders looking for a better living. Then there were the Koreans and Vietnamese, fleeing the harsh political regimes of their homelands. And who could forget the rickety boatloads of Haitians making the hazardous trek across the Caribbean in search of relief from some of the harshest living conditions known?

Amercia can truly said to be the “Melting Pot” of the world. And all of these people can for one reason—they wanted a better deal. Whether it was opportunity to succeed financially, or be free to worship God as they saw fit, or to flee political oppression, they have come to America where they have the access to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. And I’ve got to agree with them; there is no other place I would rather live today than right here in the United States. We’ve got the best deal of the modern world, and it’s been that way for 233 years now.

But as great as we have it here in America, I’d like to talk with you this morning about a better deal. You see, as great as we have it here in America, all of this is just temporal. It’s not going to last forever. The deal I want to offer to you today is permanent. It will last forever. And it has way more blessing than anything we could ever obtain here and now. This morning I want to talk about the deal that Jesus offers us, a deal that makes us right with God.

Our text comes from the eighth chapter of Hebrews. We’ve been bouncing through the book of Hebrews this summer to see what the better life—the Christian life—looks like. And today we come to the pinnacle of the letter—chapter 8. Everything in chapters one through seven has been leading to this point, and everything in chapters nine through thirteen will be leading away from this point. Let’s read the whole chapter, shall we? Hear the Word of God:

The point of what we are saying is this: We do have such a high priest, who sat down at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in heaven, 2 and who serves in the sanctuary, the true tabernacle set up by the Lord, not by man.

3 Every high priest is appointed to offer both gifts and sacrifices, and so it was necessary for this one also to have something to offer. 4 If he were on earth, he would not be a priest, for there are already men who offer the gifts prescribed by the law. 5 They serve at a sanctuary that is a copy and shadow of what is in heaven. This is why Moses was warned when he was about to build the tabernacle: "See to it that you make everything according to the pattern shown you on the mountain." 6 But the ministry Jesus has received is as superior to theirs as the covenant of which he is mediator is superior to the old one, and it is founded on better promises.

7 For if there had been nothing wrong with that first covenant, no place would have been sought for another. 8 But God found fault with the people and said: