Pastor Allan Kircher
Shell Point Baptist Church
6 April 2014
THE NEW COVENANT AND THE CROSS
Hebrews 12:18–27
Goal/message/Hope/Cross for Today
• Find ultimate stability/cross/Christ and/New Covenant He established, in the midst of an unstable world.
• Help you trust/stability/New Covenant when/world around us crumbles.
• Outline five aspects of New Covenant living
• Will help us detach from worldly things and attach to the cross.
INTRODUCTION: “What’s going on segment”
• Many years ago, Marvin Gaye penned/lyrics/song
• summarizing a number/negative realities/world
• Asking the question, “What’s going on?”
• He knew/something/amiss
• Bringing havoc on many dimensions within our world and society.
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Similar question/asked by Christians
• They wonder, “What’s going on? What is happening?”
• As we /look/landscape/society/which we live
• Day doesn’t go by where there doesn’t seem to be more calamity, more chaos, more confusion, and even more uncertainty.
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This uncertainty doesn’t just occur in our society, though.
• Countless/people who/looking/own personal lives/struggles
• Raising/question “What/going on/me? What/happening/my life?”
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Heb. 12 author/writing/Jewish Christians who/raising/very same question
• They/about/enter into/most climactic time their generation has ever experienced
• Jerusalem is about to be besieged by Titus and his army.
• Temple will soon be destroyed
• The dark clouds of despair have already gathered/horizon.
• Later/book/Heb. we even learn some have been imprisoned
• Others have had their property confiscated.
As you might imagine:
• Midst/pain/turmoil/disruption/uncertainty
• question that emerges is
• How is a person to respond to the chaos ensuing all around?
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1. LIFE BEFORE THE CROSS
Remember the Old Covenant Hebrews 12:18-21
• At Mt. Sinai, God established the old, Mosaic Covenant
• On Mt. Sinai, God spoke to Israel/OT Ex 19.
• Animals ratified the old covenant.
When God/come down/spoken prior/giving/Ten Commandments
• sight to behold/mountain began/smoke and quake
• thunder and lighting
• Loud trumpet blasts.
All/environmental aspects happened in order to let the people know how serious a moment it was.
• God’s presence/mountain shook/entire mountain
• Smoke billowed up from it like smoke from a furnace.
• so much/people ran away/did not want to listen
• Even Moses himself trembled.”
God’s holiness/prevented/Israelites/approaching Mt. Sinai
• Any man or beast who touched/mountain would be stoned
• Even Moses was afraid to climb the mountain
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God’s goal is not simply to announce His presence
• To Lead you to fear, awe and trembling
• To such a degree you beg Him/leave because you cannot bear it.
• No/it is to announce His presence/to draw you close to Him
• He has something He wants to not only tell you
• but also to do in you
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• An enormous thunderstorm would develop outside
• turn off the television or the radio because
• “God is talking.
• Sit there in the silence as “God talks.”
• It is just thunder, but the principle holds true when things become shaky in your life.
• God is talking and He wants you to listen.
• While things around you may become shaky
When you fix your eyes on Jesus you will remember the promise of His covenant and that you belong to an unshakeable kingdom.”
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2. LIFE AFTER THE CROSS
Thank God/New Covenant Heb. 12:22-24
• Blood/Jesus ratified/New Covenant
• Because/cross, we no longer live under/Old Covenant
MT. ZION: Old Testament
• Seems equated/Jerusalem (2 Kings 19:31).
• King David calls Zion both/mountain of God/city of God
• Isaiah refers to Mt. Zion as the mountain in Jerusalem from which God would one day reign (Isaiah 24:23).
• Rev. 21:10/heavenly Jerusalem
• Mt. Zion will descend and God’s dwelling will be/earth/Heb 12:22
On Mt. Zion, we/introduced/New Covenant given to us by the blood of Jesus Christ shed on the cross.
It is under the tenants and truths of Mt. Zion that Christians live today
• Precisely because/cross/Christ we no longer live/light of Mt. Sinai
• Realize/display/God’s holiness on the cross Heb. 12:22-24
• God proved His holiness by pouring out His wrath on Jesus
Now we can approach God the Father with confidence because of Jesus Christ’s death on the cross
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NEW COVENANT: In Jeremiah 31:31-34
• God promised to institute a New Covenant
• He would write His law on His peoples’ hearts
• Forgive all their sins.
• Through/cross of Christ/New Covenant/been established.
• Jesus serves/only mediator/New Covenant between humans/God.
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You are not living at Mt. Sinai where:
• There is terror, trembling, insecurity
• You are being uprooted.
That/not your home/believer in Christ because of what Jesus accomplished at the cross.
• Why?
• Because Blood/Christ has orchestrated a New Covenant
• You are functioning underneath/umbrella/whole new realm
• Whole new way of life/thru Christ’s atoning blood
• God has set up a brand new arrangement
• He is covenantally committed to you.
“The trials in your life are there to reveal/treasure of the new covenant
• The stability/permanence/comes with alignment under God.”
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3. NEW ENVIRONMENT OF THE CROSS
Start living in your new environment
Before the cross, people lived with terror, trembling, and insecurity
• cross moved us to a new city, a new realm
• a new relationship with God through Jesus
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Understand what Jesus Christ’s blood accomplished
• In Genesis, after Cain murdered his brother
• Abel’s blood cried out from/ground/God’s justice Gen 4:10
In/New Covenant, Jesus Christ’s blood satisfied God’s justice and is therefore better than Abel’s blood Heb 12:24
What/blood of Christ did/cross/mediate a new arrangement
• A new realm
• that God has with every believer/His church.
• That new arrangement is called the New Covenant
• in order/New Covenant to manifest itself in your life
God needs to first disconnect you from the illegitimate blockages in the arteries of your spirit.
• He needs to remove your attachment
• Your dependency on that which is not Him
• God has to remove that attachment
• Because it is standing in the way of your relationship to Him.
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When things in your life seem messed up, shaken or are uncertain
• You need to view God/His relationship with you through the lens of this new arrangement—the cross—or you will get it all wrong.
4. STABILITY OF THE CROSS
Don’t trust in relationships, money, or your own good works
• Frequently, when God is ready to do something new in our lives
• He knows we are not ready for it. . .
• Because we are not ready, He makes us ready.
• We must separate/previously depended on....
• so that we will not only look to Him but be able to see Him
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Our world is unstable and can’t provide ultimate security
If your world has been shaken up, you’re not alone
• When God creates discontinuity in your life, He is speaking. .
• What He is saying/He wants to disconnect you
• From/things, thoughts, or people of this world order
• So He can reveal to you eternal things
As long as you are too attached, or too dependent, on anything other than God and His relationship with you
• You are not hearing Him
• which means He must continue to turn up the heat/your life
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Trust in the cross
Heb. 12:22 “You have come to thousands upon thousands of angels in joyful assembly”
• Only through faith/cross can we find ultimate security
• Remember you are part/New Covenant community
• God has a purpose in allowing your life to get shaken up
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Wake up/morning/need/wear a nice outfit to work or to church
• Often want to iron/clothes before putting them on
• Don’t want wrinkled clothing/reflect/poorly/those around you.
• So you take out your iron, plug it in/let it get hot/touch
• Slowly move it back and forth over/wrinkles in your clothes.
• clothes feel/heat/pressure/sting of the iron
You aren’t putting/hot iron/your clothes because you want to burn them.
• You are not trying to be mean
• simply trying to improve them
• Return them to their intended look.
• Your iron becomes a consuming fire.
• It doesn’t consume the clothes/consumes/wrinkles in the clothes.
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5. ATTACH YOURSELF TO THE CROSS
Allow God to detach you from worldly things
When life gets shaky, God’s goal is to detach you from trust in the things that don’t provide security Heb. 12:25
God speaks through the instability:
• In your personal life – finances, relationships, etc.
• Of our world – politics, weather, etc.
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Friend/only looking/stock-market pages/banking system, your job, co-workers, family members, health, relationships
• Only that which you can see
You/looking/things which can be affected by what goes on around them
• If that is all you can see, you will be shaken
Allow God to attach you to the cross
• Accept/painful process of detachment from the world
• knowing it will lead to attachment/cross (Hebrews 12:27)
The Israelites faced an uncertain situation when the Egyptian army and the Red Sea blocked them in (Exodus 14)
Like the Israelites, we need God to erode our trust in earthly things so we can see our need for heavenly things (Haggai 2:6-7)
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Writer/Heb quotes the prophet Haggai where God references that He is going to shake things up in order to transfer things over.
• Easy way/get a picture/comparing/child’s piggy bank
Child’s piggy bank/need/shaken/shaken
• In order to get out the valuable items from within it.
God says He is going to “shake” things up
• In order to shake something loose from one realm
• Deliver it to another, His own.
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Our God is a consuming fire.
• He renders discipline on that/does not belong in our lives
• to remove that which can be shaken
• so we can fully experience the unshakeable stability of Him
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• Fix your eyes/stability of the cross
When/walls/Jericho crumbled
• Rahab’s house didn’t because she trusted/God/Israelites
When your life crumbles
• Trust/promise/New Covenant/you won’t crumble
Allow God/continually remove unstable things from your life
Remember God will continue to “shake” your life so that you put your trust in Him, not in money, careers, relationships, etc.
God will always prove Himself/most stable foundation—for eternity
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You probably own different appliances.
• Each appliance has a unique responsibility.
• refrigerator keeps things cold
• stove makes things hot
• toaster toasts things
• Can openers open things, and so on.
But there is one thing that each appli¬ance holds in common – none of them function for themselves.
• Refrigerator does not keep/food cold so that it can eat the food
• stove does not heat/food so it can eat the food either
• toaster doesn’t toast it for itself
• Can opener doesn’t open it in order to consume it
Each appliance that you have purchased exists to serve you.
• If it didn’t/you would no longer have it in your home.
• reason why/appliances were bought and paid for
• was/one who bought them/paid for them would benefit from them.
The purpose for/purchase was/thing purchased might benefit/purchaser
Friend, you were bought with a price – the shed blood of Jesus Christ. You exist for the Purchaser, not for yourself
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• Friend, no matter how hard you try
• no matter how hard you work
You will have only wasted your time and your life if you do not live connected to the power of the cross in Jesus Christ.
