The Wicket Gate

Introduction

Good morning we are back in Hebrews. Hebrews chapter 8, verses 6-13. This will finish off the 8th chapter of Hebrews as we finally get to the terms of this new and better covenant that I mentioned we would cover several weeks ago now. To set-up where we are going this morning, let me ask a rhetorical question this week. We, humanity, have a problem with long term commitment, don’t we?

This is a “did you know” and I am sure many of you do know but many people’s last names were connected with their family trade. You can go look up online lists of hundreds of surnames and the trades associated with them. Since we have a street in Rockdale named this, and to illustrate further, if your last name was Ackerman, you were an ox herder. That is a picture of generational commitment or you could say family vocational covenant. If you were a Saddler by name, you committed to be not just a Saddler by name only but also by vocation, you made saddles.

This seems almost foreign to us now because any sort of lasting generational or even contractual commitment is borderline offensive. The current average tenure for an employee , at a job, today is 3.9 years. On average, Americans are changing jobs every 3.9 years. It’s not just vocations either is it? Consider things like college athletics, specifically football, where there is scarcely any long term commitment and people hop around at will to chase more money and more playing time.

Far more serious that football or vocations, are marriages, where in America we see an average marriage lasting only 8 years. Why is this the case? Despite the fact that we have had glimpses in past generations of what real, long term commitment looks like, humanity always shows how quickly we can grow impatient, frustrated, and discontent. If that hits home personally to you this morning and perhaps you, like me and all others, have failed to take commitments seriously or failed to commit to anything at all but there is hope and a way forward for us this morning. This hope comes by way of a better commitment and a better promise. I certainly pray it pleases the Lord to press these truths upon our hearts this morning. Stand as we read:

Hebrews 8:6–13ESV

But as it is, Christ has obtained a ministry that is as much more excellent than the old as the covenant he mediates is better, since it is enacted on better promises. For if that first covenant had been faultless, there would have been no occasion to look for a second. For he finds fault with them when he says: “Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will establish a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt. For they did not continue in my covenant, and so I showed no concern for them, 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 laws into their minds, and write them on their hearts, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And they shall not teach, each one his neighbor and each one his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest. For I will be merciful toward their iniquities, and I will remember their sins no more.” In speaking of a new covenant, he makes the first one obsolete. And what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away.

The Better Promise

I know I keep saying this but I suppose it’s the point that the author of Hebrews keeps making so it’s OK but the purpose of this letter was to encourage Jewish Christians to stay with the new promises of Christ and not return again to the futile ways of the old religion. This section is reminding us again that the whole notion of a better promise in and through better terms of a better covenant has been a thing since way back in the old covenant. That is what we read this morning, a quotation from Jeremiah. There we see so clearly see that old covenant was going to give way to a new and better one. It wasn’t as though the old was going to be corrected in Christ or that somehow humanity was finally going to get it after Christ modeled for us perfection and having seen what faithfulness, commitment, and sacrifice look like we are suddenly just going to say, “Oh, OK now I get it, I can do that.”

Judaism and the Jewish religious system, focusing on works based salvation, is (and never really was) an acceptable way of salvation. Salvation has been and is presently by grace through faith in a promise and the promised one who is far better than the old ways. He is better because the new and better promise is actually effective unto salvation.

Let me be clear here that the reason why the old was and is ineffective has nothing to do with the covenant itself as though God first gave us a bad way to be reconciled to him. Verse 9 from our text this morning make clear to us why this first covenant was ineffective and why there was clearly a need for a new. “For they did not continue in my covenant, and so I showed no concern for them, declares the Lord.” This idea is even more explicitly given to us Jeremiah 3.

Jeremiah 3:2ESV

Lift up your eyes to the bare heights, and see! Where have you not been ravished? By the waysides you have sat awaiting lovers like an Arab in the wilderness. You have polluted the land with your vile whoredom.

The triune God, the peoples faithful husband, committed himself to us on the condition of our fidelity and we turned our backs and sought another. There have been a couple times in my life where I have had friends who I felt very close to and for one reason or another, perhaps even I was to blame, they moved on with their lives. If you have ever been hurt or even abandoned by someone you know what that pain and empty feeling is like, don’t you? The reason why the old covenant was made obsolete, why it was never going to work, was because we, you and me, we were the unfaithful ones. We abandoned our faithful God, we were unfaithful with another, we turned our back on him, in our discontentment and impatience we sought out something better for ourselves. That’s not me denying original sin or the effects of the fall that have placed us in a position of being dead in sin. I am not saying those things aren’t true but if I am faithful to the word I can’t and I won’t let you off that easy by saying you sinned and abandoned God because you couldn’t help it. It was your sin that held him there, it was your sin that nailed him to cross, it was your sin marred your relationship. Not anyone else’s, it was your sin and disregard for our Lord that caused you to seek another.

What is so tragic is that we continually do this because we desire freedom and autonomy. We think that admission of our personal guilt is too painful and that faithfulness to God is too restraining, too restricting. It’s my life, I should get to live it how I want? Jeremiah tells us what the outcome of such a decision is, “For they did not continue in my covenant, and so I showed no concern for them.” Further Romans 1 makes it clear where that road inevitably leads us. If you want your life wholly on your terms, never taking responsibility, always acting the way you think is best, then go ahead and have it. Our God is not a silly teenage girl who goes to his room and cries when he is rejected. He gives us over to our desires and lets us wallow in the pig pen.

In his infinite grace and mercy though, he has instituted a better promise. Not forever holding a grudge against us or forever casting us out, but rather promises an eternal, inward transformation for all who receive, by faith, another who would keep the covenant for us. He washes us clean of our filthy infidelity when we come to him alone to receive his cleansing blood. As Christ tells Peter in that upper room, “If I do not wash you, you have no share with me.” This is the better promise of the new, not that one would show us how to be faithful, though he does, but that one would be faithful for us because he loves us. Sadly it takes us getting to the pig pen before we realize we need something more than what we could ever offer. You were not faithful. You have a serious lack of commitment. You are impatient and discontent. Over and over you have turned your back on your bridegroom, but thanks be to God, he has some better promises for us.

The Spirit’s Work

The first of those better promises is that he has promised to us his spirit both to indwell us and to transform us.

Hebrews 8:10ESV

For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my laws into their minds, and write them on their hearts, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.

If I have heard it once I have heard it 100 times, “I want a religion of the heart, not a religion of the head.” Or maybe it’s said, “I want a relationship not a religion.” Or maybe even, “I want the gospel, not the law.” Church, how about both? “I will put my laws into their minds, and write them on their hearts.” I see it and I hear it so often that one who stakes their salvation on their inability to keep the law, surrendering wholly to the faithfulness and merits of Christ on their behalf. Then having received the spirit, been given a new heart and a renewed mind, been indwelled by the very presence of our God according to these blessed new covenant promises, still assumes they are totally depraved. This is the hyper grace movement that still exists within the reformed tradition, primarily among the stuffy wing of Presbyterianism, but it permeates our thoughts as well.

We feel as though we have to pour ashes on our heads every week and come in here pleading with Lord for mercy because we are such awful, wicked, wretched people who are still rotten to the core, evil and debased and hopeless to do anything good. We feel as though we are still under the old promise. In that we can’t preach the law or talk about obedience because we can’t keep the law anyway so every week the foundation of those elementary principals is laid again and again and we never move past total depravity and the grace of God to cover and deal with our inabilities and unfaithfulness.

I did put a bit of guilt on you this morning as we began to get your mind fixed upon the old covenant realities and so that you do see once again the truth of human weakness and sin apart from the salvation that is offered to us through Christ. I did that though so that I can now show you that in this new covenant, enacted on better promises, God has indeed made provisions for our weakness and for our unfaithfulness. One of those provisions is that he washed us from our total depravity, he actually wakes us up from the grave, and he gives us his spirit that writes his law on our minds and on our hearts.

If you are in Christ this morning you aren’t totally depraved anymore, I know you aren’t because the word says you are a new creation. You have been buried with Christ and raised again to walk in new life. You have been born again from above and indwelt by the very presence of God by his spirit who is empowering you and enabling you to be holy as he is holy. You were once unfaithful, disobedience, foolish, and unfaithful. You were once hopeless to do anything but grumble in your discontent and continually cheat on your faithful God.

Titus 3:4–8ESV

But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by his grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life. The saying is trustworthy, and I want you to insist on these things, so that those who have believed in God may be careful to devote themselves to good works. These things are excellent and profitable for people.

So, on the basis of Paul’s words to Titus, I am to insist to you that you know today that because of the appearance of God’s goodness and loving kindness, he has washed us of our sins and regenerated us, justified us by his grace, and given to us his promised spirit. Why do I insist that you know that? So that you are careful to devote yourself to good works. So that you walk by the same spirit who was promised and given. So that you put off the dead man you once were and put on the holiness of God. You actually can do that this morning. Because of this new covenant, because of these new promises you are no longer a slave to sin, and you can truly walk, by the power of the spirit, according to your new life in Christ.

Forgiveness of Sins

The second great promise of this new covenant is this: “For I will be merciful toward their iniquities, and I will remember their sins no more.” It seems like this promise would be logically before the promise of the spirit that we just talked about and that is true but many commentators will say that it appears at the end of the section in Jeremiah because this is the climatic promise of the new covenant, that was John Owen. The full and free pardon of our sins.

I wish I was able to forgive and forget. I confess to you church that often in my life when Amanda and I are in one of those voluminous discussions I pull out the “ya but remember when you did this.” card. Even with friends and co-workers, forgiveness is difficult enough but forgetting, man that’s really tough. If I am being honest I think we hold on to those things because consciously or subconsciously we desire to use that to gain or regain an upper hand but what a blessed truth it is that our God doesn’t need to gain the upper hand on us. For our God, forgiveness looks like scattering our sins as far as the east is from the west.

Imagine owing someone money and living under the constant reality of the debt hanging over your head. I don’t think we even have to imagine that. What if someone paid that debt for you clearing it all away completely and the one whom you owe calls you and says, the debt has been paid, I’m tearing up the papers, it’s all clear. What a weight that would be lifted. This is the promise. The precious blood of Christ has paid our debts in full. Our sins have been cleared. In the same way a creditor is no longer going to hold a paid debt over your head, our sins, all of them, having been satisfied by the infinite value and covering of Christ’s blood are not accounted against us anymore.

There is no lingering credit history. There is no more “ya but remember when you did this.” There is nothing against us, we have been forever cleared. There truly is therefore now no more condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. By the power of the blood and the grace of God in Christ, all your debts have been paid.

This amazing grace also empowers us to forgive as we have been forgiven. By the power of the spirit under these new covenant promises you actually can forgive as God forgives. How can our relationships be saved and redeemed? In the same way our relationship with God was saved and redeemed, by the blessed grace of forgiveness. By extending the same pardon to others that was shown to us. I am not saying it is easy, but I am saying such a grace was shown to us, and by the spirit working in us, such a grace is possible for us to extend to others.

Forever Our God

The final promise of this new covenant is as Andrew Murray says, “Person, direct fellowship with God.” “I will be their God, and they will be my people.” This brings us back full circle to where we started. We are so often uncommitted and unfaithful. We become discontent and impatient so in our restlessness we struggle against our present circumstances. What you need though, is the unwavering constancy of our God. What is promised to you in this new covenant is that the God of the universe has made a marriage vow with you as a member of his bride, the church, that he promises to be yours as long as you both shall live.

In this new covenant he promises to seal our marriage to him, not an account of our promise of faithfulness, but solely on account of his promise to be faithful and true to us. What a promise, that our God is keeping us forever. He is faithful to us despite our wandering, and he proves his faithfulness and his commitment to us by vowing that for all eternity, these will be mine. This bride whom he has prepared since the foundation of the world will be his people forevermore. He will not leave us, he will not forsake us, he will not cast us aside for another, or exchange our love for the love of another.

Romans 8:38–39ESV

For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

The beauty of the traditional marriage vow is that it attempts to frame the kind of commitment that God has for his church. What are those vows? “To have and to hold, from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death do us part” Perhaps the best part about those vows is that along with those vows he has also defeated the only thing that could ever break those vows. God in Christ, having defeated death, death itself is powerless to part us from the promise of God to be our God and we his people. So when Paul says that nothing will separate us, he really means nothing.

Conclusion

Let me say this in closing. All of us know quite well the amount of attention, effort and resources it takes to prepare a bride for her wedding. The hair has to done up just right. The make-up perfect. The shoes have to be the right ones. The flowers, the church, the presentation all have to be perfect. Not to mention the dress. There she will enter adorned in purity and splendor, having been meticulously made ready to be presented to her husband. We all see that and when we do, not only is there not a dry eye in the house but whatever efforts were put forth to get to that point make sense don’t they. We fuss over the details and efforts but when we see the bride in all her brilliance we say what a sight is this.

Church, do you know this morning that you are the betrothed of God. You are his promised bride and will one day be presented to him. Don’t we desire to be presented to him in the purity and splendor that is offered to us by his promises? The modern notion that we will come to Christ as a haggard and dirty sinner is not what our scripture teaches us. In him we have traded our rags for a brilliant robe of white. We have been washed clean of our filth and adorned with all the splendor that the new Jerusalem has to offer.

Revelation 21:2–3ESV

And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God.

This is our promised end, Church. An end in which the promised faithfulness and commitment of God will reach its final eternal day. Prepare yourself for that day church. Cloth yourself in his holiness, be washed in his forgiveness. By the power of the spirit be transformed into the same brilliance of your bridegroom who awaits you.

Despite your lack of commitment and infidelity toward your God. Despite your wandering and wavering he has promised to keep you and cleanse you until that day. He has promised to forgive and forget your sins and he has promised and given his spirit to seal and purify you for that day. These are the blessed promises of the new covenant. Please know those promises church and won’t you with everything that is in you strive to adorn yourself in holiness in anticipation of that blessed wedding day, and the eternal wedding feast to follow. Amen.