Well, good morning. Thank you for joining us on this Christ the King Sunday. I am Pastor Denton Bennett and I am the new associate pastor here. If I haven’t had a chance to meet you and introduce myself, I apologize, but I plan on trying to learn every one of your names. I cannot lie in church. That probably won’t happen, but I am grateful that we’ve come to the end of this timeless call series. And today we’re going to look at this passage from Jeremiah. Um, where God is going to declare the new covenant, it’s a timeless call, the same timeless call we’ve been hearing already. But this call of redemption to the people of Israel, extending all to today, to us and to our children and our children’s children. But this covenant will be new in that God plans to bring this redemption directly into our hearts, leaving behind the old law system of the old covenant and the legalized, legalistic lifestyle that it brings. So I invite you to turn with me in your Bibles or your devices to Jeremiah chapter 31, verses 31 through 34. And as you’re doing that, I want to share something as I was considering this timeless call series and how this never expires. I was in the grocery store the other day buying some stuff for the kids and of course mac and cheese was on the list. And have you ever noticed in the grocery store, they have those coupon dispensers near things they want you to buy, you know? And, and I, and I saw one and I thought, well, maybe there’s a coupon here worth getting. I, I pulled it out and it was like a dollar off for mac and cheese, right? Who could resist that? And I thought, well, this is great. So I get to the cash register and I proudly hand my coupon to the, to the, uh, uh, lady taking my, my money and she says, no, sir, I can’t accept that.

I said, well, it came out of the machine right there by, by the product. She goes, no, sir, you don’t understand. It expired last year, but we are thankful. God’s call never expires. So let us take a look at the text for today. Behold, the days are coming declares the Lord when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by their hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt. My covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the Lord. For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord. I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each brother, saying, Know the Lord, for they shall all know me. From the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity. And I will remember their sin no more. Join me as we pray. Gracious and loving father, you come to us over and over again, offering us your grace and mercy. And so often we find ourselves examining our hearts in light of the standards that you’ve set forth. And we frequently see that we come up short and we stop there thinking the worst. Yet Jeremiah reminds us today that you have made yourself our God. You have made us your people. And as we look at this final chapter in this timeless call series, remind us that this call of yours never ends. And that it’s wonderful that you have planted yourself in our hearts.

Come Holy Spirit, be with us. Speak to your children through my words. In Jesus name. Amen. Well, you think Pastor Todd and the other pastors that have been preaching have done a wonderful job showing how God uses broken people, just like you and me, to deliver his message of hope and grace and mercy. But today we’re going to learn something a little different, and that is that His call, His reminder that He loves us, and His way to a future of everlasting salvation comes to us often at the worst times. Worst meaning worst in our lives. You see, for the people of Israel, things had gotten as bad as they ever would be. They had turned from God over and over again, and they were about to face a captivity. They had never seen before. So Jeremiah begins this passage when he starts talking about these two covenants. And covenant’s a word that our society doesn’t really use that often. We often use words like agreement or contracts. Covenant seems to have a stronger, more personal flavor to it. After all, a contract is something you sign when you buy furniture, right? And an agreement, well, most time today we say agreement is We agree to disagree. So that doesn’t hold a lot of weight either. The most personal agreement we can have today then, is the marriage bond. You might say, well today people downplay the marriage bond, but calling it only a piece of paper. But I’ll ask you then, if it’s only a piece of paper, why don’t they just sign it instead of living together? You know, speaking of that, to kind of illustrate the seriousness of marriage, I have to tell you this story. Whether it’s true or not, I’ll let you decide for yourself. But there was a young couple that had been dating for some time. Tragically, they killed in a car accident. As they approached the gates of paradise and they meet St. Peter, the young man had a question before he wanted to decide to go into the pearly gates. He said to St. Peter, he said, Is there any way that we can still get married in paradise? And St. Peter replied, Well, I don’t know offhand. Let me check. Why don’t you go have a seat over there, and I’ll go find out.

Well, the young couple took a seat, and five months later, St. Peter returns. Good news! You can get married in Paradise. Come on in. And the guy said, Wait a minute. Hang on. I have another question for you, and I really don’t mean to tax your patience, but by chance, can we get divorced in Paradise? St. Peter’s friend said, It’s kind of bows up at him. He goes, now, wait a minute. It took me five months to find a pastor in heaven. How long do you think it’s going to find from take for me to find an attorney? Okay. Obviously that was not true, but it does illustrate the fact that marriage is the strongest bond that we have in our lifetimes. So I just point that out because it’s appropriate that God uses this marriage bond as an example of his relationship with the early Israelites. And he even calls them, he calls himself a husband to them. And he takes on this role of provider and protector. Listen to what God tells them in Exodus chapter 6. He says, I will take you to be my people, and I will be your God, and you shall know that I am the Lord your God, who has brought you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians. I will bring you into the land that I swore to give Abraham to Isaac and to Jacob. And I will give it to you as a possession. I am the Lord. What a beautiful promise from God. He provides a way and a place. He provides all they need as their loving husband. But this covenant, this covenant was detailed and very difficult. You see, not too long after this moment, God leads the Israelites over to Mount Sinai where Moses goes up and he receives the Ten Commandments and the ceremonial and the civil laws that they were to submit to.

You see, part of their agreement to the covenant was that they had to agree to follow his laws. To do exactly what God said. This isn’t an easy agreement to make. I, I just wanna show you how difficult this was. If you look with me in a passage from Deuteronomy, you’ll see how micromanaged their lives really were. In chapter 22, we find this, you shall not sow your vineyard with two kinds of seed, lest the whole yield be forfeited the crop that you have sown in the yield of the vineyard. You shall not plow with an ox and a donkey together. You shall not wear cloth of wool and linen mixed together. You shall make yourself tassels on the four corners of the garment for which you covered yourself with. Now, could you imagine going through Walmart, the clothing section and seeing people looking at the tags like they’re looking at the ingredient list? Well, this one’s got 2 percent wool in it. I can’t use this. These were detailed rules, laws, and they were meant to separate the people as special people of God. But there was more. The laws were meant to continually bring the people back to God so that they could see that it was God that provided for them. And it was for them to learn to depend upon God and not go astray. Ultimately, these laws were made to show the Israelites how sinful they were. God knew that the law would do that.

He knew it would bring immeasurable guilt upon the people of Israel and as it does to us today. So within the law, he provided a way to relieve their guilt. with sacrifices to pay for their sins. Those sacrifices point the way to Christ. And if any of the Israelites of the Old Testament could live under this covenant, if they could study the law and live by it, God promised wonderful things. For instance, listen to this in Exodus 23. I’m just going to take a brief part of this passage and say, if you listen carefully to what he says and do all that I say, I will be an enemy to your enemies, and I will oppose. Those who oppose you. He says, I’ll wipe them out. Don’t bow down before their gods and worship them. Worship me and I will be a blessing upon your food and water. I will take sickness from among you. None will be miscarried. Your land will not be barren. What a wonderful set of gifts. All they had to do was adhere to this detailed list of laws. But this was the covenantal relationship. God promised them incredible success and prosperity. If they would follow his instructions. He gave them, like my old baseball player, or baseball coach used to say in Little League, he gave them 110 percent and he expected 110 percent back. Of course, before the ink was dry on this covenant though, there, here are the Israelites at the bottom of Mount Sinai, and they were doing the one thing that was the first thing on the list of the covenant agreement. Do not worship other gods before me. And here they were, worshiping a cow. Obviously, this was going to be difficult, right? Even so much that Joshua warned them. He says, you’re not able to serve the Lord, for He’s a holy God. He’s a jealous God, and He will not forgive your transgressions or your sins if you forsake Him and worship other gods. And the Israelites, in verse, in Joshua 24, verse 21, they say back to Joshua, they say, no, we will serve the Lord.

Now, I ask you a question. How many of you have ever made New Year’s resolutions? How many of you have ever stuck to them? We’re in church now. It’s a whole lot easier to say it than to do it, right? So much so that there was a principal that, uh, at the beginning of the new year decided to post his teacher’s resolutions on a bulletin board as an inspiration to the children. Well, as the teachers gathered around the bulletin board one morning before the kids arrived, there was a large commotion broke out. One lady was not happy. She was yelling at the top of her lungs. When the principal got over there to see what was going on, she says, Why are my resolutions posted? Red faced, the principal said, Hey, I must have made a mistake. I’m sorry, let me go check and see if I misplaced them on my desk. He returns to his office. Sure enough, he finds them laying on his desk and he picks them up and he starts to read them. And the first one there says, I will not let the little things upset me in the new year. I say all that to say it’s a difficult agreement to stay. The Israelites, of course, went astray. If you want to take some time and read through Judges and Kings, you can see how things went from bad to worse for the Israelites. Not only did they go astray, but life got worse. So it’s in this moment, this terrible moment, that Jeremiah comes to them in verse 32, and God says, you know what? My covenant they broke, though I was their husband. God had done everything that he had promised to do. They had broken the agreement. This, of course, would lead to the Babylonian captivity, which They precisely got for what they had done. But all this covenant talk of Old Testament laws makes us think, what does this really matter to me today? Well, I invite you to consider the Sermon on the Mount as Jesus talked about in great detail, how we are still affected by these laws today. How even just a bad thought of somebody would be the same as killing them. And that’s heavy weight to carry around. There’s a lot of guilt that falls on us when we think about that. I mean, when Jesus talks about lusting and hating and turning the other cheek, we blush as if we’d been caught flirting with someone who wasn’t our spouse, right? And so it’s hard to be excited when we hear promises of prosperity from God, knowing that it’s difficult for us to hold up to our end of the deal. And here in this moment is where God does the unthinkable. The unpredictable Jeremiah says I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah You say instead of breaking away from his people God turns back to them He grabs them and pulls them closer.

He enters into a deeper level a deeper relationship and even firmer relationship with his unfaithful bride. And the first thing God does is He changes how they know the laws. Instead of leaving the knowledge and obedience of the law as dependent on the actions of the Israelites, God said He would put the law on their heart, that they would know it in their hearts, revealing it as a natural knowledge of Him. This, this really is a new covenant. Whoever knew that you could learn something in your heart without actually studying it, My high school math teacher would be appalled. I tried to convince her of this when I was in school. She didn’t agree with me. But God declares, they will be my people and I will be their God. He makes these declarations to remind us that we have no choice in the matter. This is how it’s going to be. This is very offensive to most people, especially today. We want free choice in the matter. But here it seems as if God is forcing himself upon us like the caveman beating his wife over the head and dragging her back to the cave. But that’s not what God is doing. Here, listen to Jeremiah here, as he heads off those accusations by describing how God establishes this new covenant. He says, For I will forgive their inequity, and I will remember their sin no more. There’s a very important word in here that I want to share with you this morning. No, we’re not in English class or in this case Hebrew class, but I want to share this with you. Well, technically Greek, but we’ll get in the weeds. Anyways, the word that he uses there for forgive is sola. It’s a word that is used only by God and for God. The word for forgiveness means that God will completely forgive and forget Everything you’ve ever done.

Now, if you happen to be married, do you know how those two things go together, forgive and forget? It seems forgive and forget don’t normally go together. Um, I’m sure my wife can tell you plenty of things that I’ve done that she’s forgiven me for but she hasn’t forgot them. So this is an impossible kind of forgiveness that we can think about or imagine. Right? But this is the incredible thing of the new covenant of God. It’s His grace and mercy, and He promises that I’m simply going to forgive and forget what you’ve done. All the ways that you’ve been unfaithful to me. You know, those sins that you can’t stand to forget. Those times when you were unfaithful to God. You didn’t depend upon Him. Maybe you broke the laws that you knew were wrong. Maybe you lived with somebody before you should have. Maybe you, you did something terrible to another person. We’ve been there. We’ve all carried that guilt and God says, no, don’t carry it anymore. I’m going to fix it. How can this be? How can God look at your life or my life and honestly see a perfect life and know better? Well, let’s look at Hebrews 10 for just a moment, okay? In verse 8, When he said above, you have neither desired nor taken pleasure in sacrifices and offerings and burnt offerings and sin offerings. For these are offered according to the law.

Then he said, Behold, I have come to do your will. He does away with the first in order to establish the second. And by that we will have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. He does away with the old for the new. The old covenant, the old laws, the old laws are still there. The old covenant doesn’t matter anymore because Jesus has made the perfect sacrifice for us. You see, those sacrifices were never meant to save you. Those laws weren’t meant to be kept to make you perfect. Jesus does that. This forgiveness we receive, the Salah, is complete in Christ. But God knew we would live, we would struggle to live up to our end of the bargain. But because God is foremost a loving Father, He decided He would make a bargain with Himself. And He took our sin on His shoulders. He lifted them up on the cross. And he forgot about them. Yet God’s not a caveman. He’s not forcing himself upon us with a club. Let’s look a little further here in Hebrews 10. If we drop down to verse 19, Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is through his flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart, in full assurance of faith, With our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.

God in his grace showers us with his mercy by pouring Christ and his love into our hearts in the baptism of faith. His words delivered to you that you are forgiven builds faith in your heart and how can you turn away from that? God reveals himself as the faithful and loving God who sticks with us, his unfaithful bride and makes us clean. This one, this new covenant is radically different. You see, since the beginning, God’s plan with Israel was for them to be a blessing to all people. But before that, there was a curse in the garden and the curse had to be overcome. You see, from the beginning, God’s judgment and even the curse are a reaction to the community of sins that we live in. But God switches directions from judgment to grace and healing and redemption. Because the very heart of God is first moved by pain and suffering, by the plight of the mocked and the ridiculed. He is for the lonely and the desolate, the besieged and the afflicted. The grace of God triumphs over all things, including the judgment of God. This is hard for us to remember every day. This is why Luther said, We need the grace of God every day because we forget it every day. But this is awesome. Think about how timeless of a call this is. This is the same message that Jeremiah gave the Israelites before Christ. It’s the message that Luther preached 500 years ago. It’ll be the message of grace that we preach a thousand years from now. That in Christ, you’ve been made new again. You see, God doesn’t look at you or me and see our sins anymore. He sees us the same. He sees you, No, he sees Christ in you. He doesn’t see me. He sees Christ in me.

See, when a man and a woman get married, they promise to spend their entire life together in every way. But if you look at the divorce statistics, you know that’s difficult. When out every two marriages end in divorce, that’s a 50 percent chance that that marriage relationship won’t last. And with financial problems, worldly problems, temptations, moral ambiguity, there’s so much going against marriage these days. that it makes it difficult to understand how anybody makes it. But our marriage with God, this new covenant, has much greater odds because of Him, not because of us. We commit these crimes against God as His unfaithful bride, and He continually pulls us close and gives us forgiveness in Christ. This is why the writer of Hebrews says that God tells us, Never will I leave you, never will I forsake you. This is the new covenant. It’s God’s covenant with himself to be your husband in spite of who you are. Forgiven and forgotten all that you’ve ever done. You can divorce him, but would you want to? After seeing all the love that Christ has given you, would you want to? If you were able to, guess what? He won’t divorce you. This is the timeless call in Christ. Let us pray. Holy Father, we give you many, many thanks for the way that you come to us time and time again. Amen. As we struggle through life. Father, your blood of Jesus is so special to us. We thank you for your willingness to carry our sins to the cross. We thank you for this day in which we celebrate you as our King, Father. And as we go about our business from day to day, remind us of your grace over and over again. Father, be with our people this week. Carry them about their business and bring them back to the house of the Lord next Sunday. In Jesus name. Amen.