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A Promise you can depend on!

Jeremiah 31:31-34

Sunday April 2, 2006

Q: How can I trust anyone's promise to me?

Think of Bush#1's promise "Read my lips" ...and his successor who

said "I did not have sex with that woman..."

· On a more personal note, as a Dad, and as a son, I know the

disappointment and damage of unkept promises to children

· And from my own experience in the workplace, and in my capacity as

a pastor picking up the broken pieces of others lives, I can tell you

that absolutely the worst hurts, and the most difficult wounds to heal,

are those that come from broken promises and betrayals of trust.

· So how can I trust anyone's promise to me?

A: The Blood "Covenant"

· A person who will represent you...in whom you can stand--since the

covenant was often between tribes and peoples and nations, it was

impossible for each person to participate. So there was a representative

who acted on each side's behalf... Someone who summed up and stood for

the whole group, a person in whom the whole group said "this is Mr.

Israel, or Mr. Judah, and I am literally in him."

A sacrifice: Usually a bull, head cut off and back split, to symbolize that

keeping this promise was a matter of life and death; a visual reminder that

you were saying "If I don't keep this promise, may you do to me what we

have done to this animal, my life is forfeit--and I will do everything in

my power to keep this promise even if it kills me"--that's why you can

depend on it!

An exchange of places: both reps would walk around the sacrifice in the

middle of the field until they came to the place where the other had

stood--to take the place of the other person, to stand in their shoes so to

speak, and to make the promise for them to symbolize who completely

they were identifying with each other

The shedding of blood--Each representative would cut his right hand or

forearm just enough to allow the blood to flow, and then commingle their

blood with the other rep in order to symbolize the fact that they had

become ONE... eg Judah-Babylon and Babylon-Judah

Mutual performance of the promises-- all these things were signs of the

gravity and the dependability of the promise, but it still depended on each

party fulfilling their part of the bargain...and in the case of a covenant

with God, God could always be counted on to fulfill his part of the

bargain, so all that remained was for the people to fulfill theirs

· Someone to take the initiative: Often the covenants between nations

were imposed by a stronger nation upon a weaker; if you were the weaker

party, you just couldn't go to the stronger one and freely negotiate. You

had to wait for them to take the initiative. And in the case of God, you

and I had NO standing because of our sin--so in every covenant with

God, God makes it. he takes the initiative and our job is simply to

respond.

What a deal, right?! All we have to do is receive God's promise and do our

part...But the whole history of God's Covenant is littered with the failure of

people like you and me to keep up our end of the bargain:

· God makes a covenant with Adam and says--"I promise you

dominion over the whole earth--it's yours! Be fruitful and multiply

and receive your dominion--all you have to do is take care of it and

enjoy EVERY fruit except this one over here. That's ALL Adam has

to do! And God says "you will walk with me personally in the cool of

the day for the rest of your life" So what does Adam do? He caves to

the lies of a serpent, he trashes his friendship with God, eats the ONE

forbidden fruit and hands his inheritance over to the serpent.

· God makes a covenant with Moses and says "I promise to lead you

into the promised land, to give you an enduring home that's flowing

with milk and honey, and to bless you and your children with good

health and to meet all your physical needs--and all you have to do is

follow these 10 commandments." And before Moses has time to come

down the mountain and pass on the 10 Commandments, the people are

already violating the first commandment making an idol out of gold

and worshipping the golden calf instead of God!

· God makes a covenant with King David and says "I promise that your

descendants will ALWAYS sit on the throne of this kingdom. I will

give you rest from your enemies. All you have to do is trust me and

follow me." And what does David do? He tries to meet his needs

through an affair with Bathsheba, and then kills her husband to cover

his tracks and the unwanted pregnancy. And the rest of the history

Israel is of a divided kingdom, at war almost continuously with

themselves and enemies on every side, and with few exceptions Kings

who did not trust or follow God.

· In every case, God's Covenant promises were broken by people just

like you and me who could not, would not, and did not live up to their

obligations, and ours, under the covenant. The problem was NOT

with the covenant promises. The problem was NOT with God--he

was totally faithful...and if you read the Bible you'll see how much he

continued to deliver on his promises to them even when they failed.

The problem was with people who time and again insisted on living

their lives they way they wanted to, apart from God's promises.

· And like us, they just did what they wanted to do, and disregarded

their part of the covenant.

Q: And what is God's answer to our non-performance?

A: He will not give up on us, he will not scrap his promise, he

will not walk away and let us die...

"The time is coming," declares the LORD, "When I will make a new

covenant..." Jeremiah 31:31 NIV

A promise of new beginnings

We're no different than the people of Jeremiah's day. Our sense of failure,

our recognition of the ways we have fallen short of our own expectations

and those of others--and above all, the ways we have fallen short of God's

high hopes for us... We live with these feelings close to the surface. God

has given us the gift of a conscience, a sense of right and wrong. And you

don't have to scratch the surface of our conscience very deep to find those

feelings of deep regret and frustration. I find when I'm with people in a

crisis, when a loved one is sick or dying, when a marriage is breaking up,

our bluster crumbles and the recognition of failures and sins and hurts comes

right to the surface as we try to bargain with God... we says things like

"God I know I haven't been perfect. I know I've messed up my life. I know

I haven't lived up to my part of the bargain. But NOW I'm really going to

try God--if you'll just save the life of my loved one--if you'll just take me

instead of them-- if you'll just heal them, if you'll just save my marriage, or

my family or my job--I promise I will do my part.

And after years of failure, who are we fooling? Ourselves? God? God

isn't fooled, so he says

"...I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of

Judah. It will not be like the covenant I made with their forefathers..."

Jeremiah 31:31b-32 NIV

God says "I've got great news for you! I haven't given up on you, and I

haven't given up on the promise... But I'm going to do something different,

unlike any of the previous promises I made to you and your forefathers.

Here's the new thing I'm going to do: No longer are my promises going to

depend on your performance. There's nothing you can do to renegotiate the

terms, or to win the promise by good works. I'm going to anchor my

promise in the performance of someone other than you.

Therefore if anyone is in Christ he is a new creation; the old has gone, the

new has come. All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through

Christ..." 2 Corinthians 5:17-18 NIV Love the way The Message puts it--

"You have a fresh start". And isn't that exactly what we all want--A

fresh start in life?! Not being haunted by the past--by our failures, by the

things that others did to us, or did not do for us... Paul says you and I can

have a fresh start in life, we can start with a clean slate, when we are IN

CHRIST. Remember the example from last week...Christ who does all

the work, Christ who presents us to the Father hidden in himself. When

you and I are hid in Christ, our lives are so identified with his life that we

start living our lives just as he would live them

A promise of new life from the inside out

"This is the covenant I will make..." declares the LORD. "I will put my law

in their minds and write it on their hearts." Jeremiah 31:33 NIV

Up to this time, they had been living life from the outside-in. Like so many

of us, they were trying to conform themselves to God's hopes by building a

kind of scaffolding around their lives--a series of rules and regulations that

would prop them up and polish themselves on the outside, without changing

the death and disease on the inside of their hearts and minds. And because

of that, there was no enduring change in their behavior.

God knew that! He kept sending prophets, priests and godly Kings to

appeal to their hearts. God recognized that real life change starts with a

vision that you and I have in our minds that life can be different... a vision of

God's hopes and purposes for us, a vision for what our lives could be like if

we totally committed them to God! And so what is God's first move? He

says "Instead of having you build another scaffolding, I'm going to go right

into your mind and write my laws in your mind...I'm going to do a work in

your heart so that you beigin to live from the inside out..."

Illustrn on radio: Doctor--"You're sick and we need to operate right away."

Patient--"When?" Doc: "Opening tomorrow" P: "Tomorrow?! I've got to

lose 20 lbs...I've got to get in shape physically...I've got to get a haircut!"

Doc: This is a matter of life and death! See how ridiculous that guy's

response is to the Doctor's prescription--and yet isn't that exactly what we

do when God faces us with the life and death matter of our eternal destiny,

and whether we will live into his purposes, and deal with the sin that is

going to kill us... We make excuses and try instead to make ourselves better

from the outside in, when we need to have internal surgery NOW!

The Bible says our lives are made of spirit, mind, body and soul... Like a

series of concentric circles with the Spirit at the heart or bullseye, the mind

and feelings in the next outer ring, the body...the soul... And we are dead

and lifeless without Christ because in our spirit we have exchanged the

love of God for the love of self, the worship of God for the worship of self.

And from that innermost circle of spirit death spreads to the rest of our

lives--to our thoughts, our feelings, our bodies, our relationships.

But when we turn to Jesus Christ and ask him to forgive the things we

have done wrong, the ways we have enthroned ourselves and loved

ourselves instead of God--and when we ask HIM to take control of our

lives-- Then the Holy Spirit comes into our dead spirit and brings it to life!

Paul puts it this way:

For it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good

purpose. Philippians 2:13 NIV

Once the Holy Spirit brings our spirit to life, that life spreads to the rest of

our life--Christ's life in us spreads to our thinking, our feeling, the way we

treat our bodies, our relationships with others...And doing what is right, now

comes from the inside: Rather than being imposed from the outside, the law

becomes a force within us that shapes our conscience and our thinking and

bends our will to DO what is right, from the heart, from the inside out.

Jesus described it this way:

Jesus said, "If anyone is thirsty let him come to me and drink. Whoever

believes in me, as the scripture has said, streams of living water will flow

from within him." John 7:37-38 NIV

This new inside-out life begins with our seeking Christ and asking him for

his river of life to quench our restlessness and spiritual thirst. the river of the

Holy Spirit flows into our lifeless spirit and makes our spirit alive. The river

spreads to our thinking, feeling, willing, decision-making, the way we treat

our bodies, and then it pours back out from deep within us in the way we

treat others, in the way that we offer them the same river of life through

Jesus Christ that has brought us hope and power and purpose. And those

streams of living water carry us out into the world-- into our workplace, our

families, our neighborhoods-- to shape the world around us with same new

life and power and purpose we have found in Christ!

And you see, that's the promise of new freedom

"For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more."

Jeremiah 31:34 NIV

It's freedom from the past...Your failures and mine have no power to shape

the present or the future. The things that were done to us, the things that we

never received--have no power to enslave us any longer! Paul put it this

way:

Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus,

because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from

the law of sin and death!" Romans 8:1-2 NIV

And it's not just a freedom FROM the past, a freedom FROM sin and

condemnation... It's a freedom TO enter into a personal relationship with

God through Jesus Christ that is as deep, and real and genuine as any

relationship you have ever had--and much more! When you and I are IN

CHRIST and IN this new covenant, we have immediate access to God, the

right to come to him boldly, the assurance of answered prayer, and

CONFIDENCE in place of fear and doubt... let's read this promise together:

In [Christ Jesus our Lord] and through faith in him we may approach God

with freedom and confidence." Ephesians 3:12 NIV

A new beginning and a fresh start... Life and hope and purpose from

the inside out... Freedom from condemnation and shame, and freedom

to personally relate to God with confidence and expectation... Isn't that

the kind of promise you'd like to live into?! But it begs the question doesn't

it... in light of the failure of all the other covenants...

What makes this "New Covenant" a promise we can depend on?

Who will represent you and me...A person in whom we can stand?

What sacrifice can cover our failures once