From Rules to Relationship: God's New Covenant in Jesus

See, all the rules still matter, and we cannot ignore them, and we have to pray that our motives change and our hearts change, so we want what God wants. But when we fail, and I fail all the time, the new covenant says that Jesus will make things right. He will forgive us, Jeremiah says. Take away your sins for everything that you've done wrong. And so trusting in Jesus, boys and girls and senior citizens and everybody in between, trusting Jesus as the mediator of a new covenant is the most important thing you could ever ever do. [01:14:29] (42 seconds)  #GraceThroughNewCovenant

See, what Jesus is saying is not that God's rules are unimportant. He's saying they're so important that I will obey and fulfill all of them for my people because they cannot. So you remember that in a covenant, everybody has to live up to their end of the bargain or it doesn't work. And God still expects that human beings will be righteous and follow these rules For the covenant between God and the people to work, human beings have to get it right. [01:12:23] (41 seconds)  #RighteousnessRequired

But if that's all you believe about Jesus, then you will forever be feeling guilty because you could not carry out what Jesus tells you to do. But because he's the mediator, Jesus also turns and speaks to God on behalf of all the people of the world. He intercedes for us. He says, heavenly father, I know they failed. [01:13:38] (28 seconds)  #JesusIntercedesForUs

But eventually, check this out, everything that Jeremiah was warning the people about came true. And things got even worse for the people because within a few years, Jerusalem was attacked by the armies of Babylon, led by the archvillain king called Nebuchadnezzar. And in this terrible war around May, many of the people were taken prisoner to Babylon, many more were injured, and, of course, scores lost their lives in the conflict. [00:53:43] (38 seconds)  #FallOfJerusalem

Well, here's the amazing twist in all this, Ellenbrook. If you know Jesus and love him and follow him, you actually don't have to choose between the relationship and the rules. Think about this. We said earlier that each covenant includes all of God's promises and expectations in the previous one. [01:10:46] (31 seconds)  #RelationshipAndRules

And each of these covenants actually expressed and revealed another dimension of God's love and character to his people. So that every time there was a new covenant made, it included everything in the covenants before. It pulled those all forward and added some new dimension, some new picture, some new revelation of who God was for his people. [00:56:49] (27 seconds)  #CovenantsRevealGod

God made covenants with folks that you have heard of. He made a covenant with Noah after the flood. He made a a covenant with Abraham to give him children even though he was older than well, he was old. And he made a covenant with David to always have a descendant on the throne even though David didn't do things perfectly. [00:56:29] (20 seconds)  #CovenantsWithThePatriarchs

Eat from that tree. That's right. And the world started to suffer as a result. So God said, you look at your Bible, okay, plan b, we're gonna have to make more rules. So God made a few more rules, and people broke those ones. So God added more rules after that, and people started breaking all kinds of rules. [01:05:40] (17 seconds)  #RulesAlwaysBroken