Father in heaven, we thank You, King of glory, we bless Your holy name, we thank You, oh Lord, because You reign forever, You reign in our situations, You reign in the affairs of our lives, You reign in the whole universe. Father, Lord God of heaven, we thank You for Your presence in our midst this morning, Lord God of heaven, we came here this morning because we knew that You will be here, thank You Lord for honoring us with Your presence, my God and my Father, Lord God of heaven, we ask that You will speak Your word to us, Lord, You will give us understanding in Your word and You will give us the grace and willpower to do the word in the name of Jesus.
My God and my Father, Lord God of heaven, even as we take an exposition into the new covenant, Father, reveal Yourself anew and let us bask in the glory of that covenant now and forever more in the mighty name of Jesus. Thank You heavenly Father, in Jesus wonderful name we prayed. Praise our living Jesus!
Good morning daddies and mommies, I’d like to start with an acknowledgement of the fact that I’m here today because God made it possible, thank You Jesus, and I believe it’s the same with you. I’d also like to thank our father in the Lord, daddy thank you for this privilege, it’s a special day for us in the province today, ordinarily I shouldn’t to be here but daddy, I thank you, God bless you in the mighty name of Jesus.
By the grace of God, tomorrow we’ll be having another session of the prayer chain at 6:30, and the theme for tomorrow is ‘Thy Kingdom Come’, Matthew 69-14.
Turn with me to the Book of Hebrews 8: 1-13 (NIV), this is a continuation from Hebrews 7 but we will fill it in; now the main point of what we are saying is this: we do have such a high priest, who sat down at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in heaven 2and who serves in the sanctuary, the true tabernacle set up by the Lord, not by a mere human being.3 Every high priest is appointed to offer both gifts and sacrifices, and so it was necessary for this one also to have something to offer. 4If he were on earth, he would not be a priest, for there are already priests who offer the gifts prescribed by the law.
5They serve at a sanctuary that is a copy and shadow of what is in heaven. This is why Moses was warned when he was about to build the tabernacle; “see to it that you make everything according to the pattern shown you on the mountain”. 6But in fact the ministry Jesus has received is as superior to theirs as the covenant of which he is mediator is superior to the old one, since the new covenant is established on better promises. 7For if there had been nothing wrong with that first covenant, no place would have been sought for another.
8But God found fault with it and with the people and said: “The days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the people of Israel and with the people of Judah. 9It will not be like the covenant I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt, because they did not remain faithful to my covenant and I turned away from them, declares the Lord.
10This is the covenant I will establish with the people of Israel after that time, declares the Lord. I will put my laws in their minds and write them on their hearts, I will be their God, and they will be my people. 11No longer will they teach their neighbor, or say to one another, ‘Know the Lord,’ because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest. 12For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more. 13By calling this covenant “new”, He has made the first one obsolete: and what is obsolete and outdated will soon disappear.
The message this morning is ‘Understanding and Living in the Reality of the New Covenant’; there are many big words there but many of those words we know, they are day-to-day use – understanding, living, reality, new, so I’ll just focus on the key word which is ‘covenant’.
So what is a covenant? The word covenant is used in different things particularly in legal world; ‘I covenant to do this’, and all that, but the covenant is also a very important word in spiritual matters. The term ‘covenant’ is of Latin origin and it means coming together; it presupposes that two or more parties who come together to make maybe a contract, agree on promises or privileges and responsibilities.
For example, the one that we know that we do every now and then, marriage is a covenant because two people come together and in the course of the marriage, the minister will lead them and the groom will say ‘I will do this’, the bride also will say ‘I will do this until death do us part’, it’s a covenant. The two of them are coming together bound by responsibilities that they both agree to.
When covenant takes place between humans, is usually like bilateral, I would explain that; that is each party is almost equal, having one or the other to do and often times when we need to sign it, before you sign you actually read – you want to buy a property or you want to rent, you say ‘I covenant to do as follows’, if they say that you covenant that you won’t sleep in your house on Saturday morning, you won’t come to sleep on Sunday, will you sign covenant? You will not, so often times you push it back and say I do not agree with this and then they will go and write it again and bring it back and then you sign the one that works well for you, that’s where it is among humans, is bilateral.
But when we talk about the covenant as in this case the covenant with God, is unilateral; when God gives you a contract, you sign it, it’s a take it or leave it contract, hallelujah! When God gives you a contract, but you know God means well, so when God gives that contract, in that contract is the goodness of love, in that contract is the love of God for us, just trust me as God, take it and walk with me. Praise the living Jesus!
So our topic today, if we are going to look at it, Understanding and Living in the Reality of the New Covenant, even the word ‘new’ now strikes us, it tells us that if there is a new covenant then there must be an old covenant and we will not be able to fully understand the new covenant if we do not have an understanding of the old covenant. So first let me take a bit of time and talk about the old covenant.
The old covenant was a conditional agreement between God and His people, the people of Israel; in Hebrews 8: 8 & 9 (NIV), the Bible says God made a covenant with the people of Israel on the day that He brought them out of Egypt, so that is the old covenant, He made a covenant with them, then the question you may want to ask is so if God made a covenant with them, what is in it? What does it say?
I want you to please follow me, is a teaching this morning, what does that covenant say? Hebrews 9: 1-10, I will quickly just bring out the key attributes of the old covenant: it is a rule-based covenant, a law-based covenant that expects that you do certain service to meet that rule. For example, just an example, before you come to worship in church, make sure you wash your clothes clean, make sure you have no sin and all that, it’s rule based. So, it’s a type of covenant that just ticks the rules and you can say to God that I have met this, but we all know that there’s no one who is perfect before God, nobody is justified, so that old covenant gives people the ability to say I have done what you say I should do and of course then you are saying please do what you say you will do but God is God. Hallelujah.
Another thing about that covenant is that it has a worldly sanctuary, a tabernacle. A tabernacle that was built with hand, it has three sections – the outer court, the inner court, and the innermost, but it was built by a man. And the Bible tells us that is a representation or a similitude of the real one, it’s a shadow of the real one. Praise our living Jesus! And in this tabernacle, then you have a priest who is the mediator of that covenant, so there’s a priest, everybody comes and you must go through a priest.
There is a portion called the inner of the innermost place, the holy of holies where the Ark of the Covenant is, and the Ark of the Covenant is the holiest place, a representation of where God sits in that old covenant, it is only the priest that can go there. And that also means you and I, given the old covenant, do not have access to the presence of God, the holy of holies, only the priest can go there, the priest only goes there once a year so you can imagine the relationship with God.
So what that means, you can quickly see that the old covenant has some limitations, one of the limitations is that it is rule-based, ‘I tick the box, God do Your part’, so they are demanding on God, God I have done my own, but God is God, He is sovereign, He will do what He will do at His time. Hallelujah!
Secondly is that because the Israelites had to go through the priest, they knew the priest more than they knew God. So they knew the priest, they will reverence – as many of us today, our pastor is like our God, they knew the priest more than they knew God, they knew God only by the miracles. That’s why Psalm 103:7 tells us that He made known to Moses His ways and to the children of Israel, His acts; they only see the miracles, they did not know the God of the miracles.
It was a sacrifice-based covenant. If I commit a sin and I have a goat, I’m covered, I just kill the goat and it goes, so somebody can commit that sin repeatedly so long as you have goats to give, but when God looked at it, one, the children of Israel were no longer faithful to this covenant, and secondly, because of the limitations, it was clear that there was a need for a Saviour and the advent of a Saviour gave birth to the new covenant, now we can talk about the new covenant.
According to our scripture, the new covenant was established through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, Matthew 5:17, the shedding of blood is required for the covenant, so the death and life of Jesus Christ was the foundation for that new covenant. In Hebrews 9: 16 – 22, the Bible tells us also that there’s a need for blood to be able to get that covenant; after the resurrection of Jesus Christ, it was no longer only for the Israelites, it opened the door also for Gentiles to be part of that new covenant, that’s why you and I today are part of that new covenant. Hallelujah!
Now, what are the attributes of this new covenant? So, let’s go back again to that book of Hebrews 8: 10-13, what is this new covenant about? One, God says He will put His laws into your mind, into our minds, and He will write them on our hearts. In the old covenant, they needed tablets, they needed stones, so the law was alien to them, they were learning the law, they were cramming the law, but in the New Testament, the law is a part of you. He says he will put the law in you. Praise the living Jesus!
Secondly, He said He will be their God and they shall be His people. So you don’t have to look for any god anywhere because not only is He in you, He’s your God and anywhere you go you have God, that’s why He said in Psalm 82:6 that ye are gods. Then He says He will be merciful and forgive our sins and unrighteousness and remember them no more; in the old testament it was an eye for an eye: commit a sin, you give sacrifice or you die, and there are some that you cannot give sacrifices for, but today, whatever sin it is, even the one that kills, a murderer, if he has a change of heart and goes to God and says, “I am sorry, Lord,” and genuinely is sorry, has forgiveness for sins, mercy was not there then.
So if you want to do a comparison, the old covenant or call it the first covenant and the new covenant [displays pictures], some of us know this Range Rover, I saw that one when I was growing up like 5 years old, you can see the new and you can see the old one, is anybody driving this one again today? If anybody buys this and brings it, even though you look at it and say it’s antique, yes, but if you see this one and say, ‘hey, you have arrived’, the old covenant has become obsolute, it has been deleted and the new covenant is now in operation.
So comparing the two of them: under the new covenant there will be no need for sacrifices anymore, if anybody is asking you ‘bring sacrifice to this place, to that place’, they are wasting your time, and if you are doing it you are also wasting your time, there’s no need for any sacrifice because the Bible tells us that once He became the propitiation for our sins, He died once and that’s it. Praise the living Jesus.
The old covenant was a shadow of what’s to come; Jesus Christ is the High Priest and the Mediator of the new covenant. Before the priest could enter the holy of holies, actually he also needed blood to be on him to say God please I clean myself, otherwise if he goes in there unclean they will pull him out dead. But Jesus Christ has paid it once is the mediator of the new covenant, thank You Jesus.
So now all of these so far is just laying the background, now what is the reality of this new covenant? What does it mean? The first reality of the new covenant is that you are a child of God, I am a child of God, we are sons and daughters of God, there are no grandsons, there are no granddaughters.
You know the meaning of grandson, in the old covenant they go to a priest, the father, and then priest now goes to God and say ‘Your children are saying’, but now I don’t need anybody to say ‘Your children are saying’, I go there and say I am here Daddy. Hallelujah!
So by reason of the new covenant and because salvation is free under the new covenant, we become His child, we become His sons and daughters. Romans 8:14 & 15, Bible says for as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God, you don’t need an intermediary between you and God anymore. Hebrews 8:11 says, “And I will teach,” they don’t need their neighbor to teach them, I will teach them my words and give them an understanding of the word, everybody from the least to the oldest will understand me. Praise the living Jesus!
Number two reality of the new covenant is that God lives in you, God lives in me. In 1 Corinthians 6:19, the Bible says, do you not know that your body, my body, our bodies are the temples of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have received from God? He no longer lives in tabernacles, He no longer lives on the mountains, He no longer lives on beach fronts, He lives in me.
So you don’t have to go about mountains in the southwest, southeast, north, outside Nigeria; they say there’s one mountain that God is there like fire, is a lie, the mountain where God is like fire is inside of you, so stop going to bar beach at all times, stop taking vacations to those mountains, let people stop wasting your time and resources.
In Hebrews 8: 10, it says, “For this is the covenant that I will establish with the people of Israel after that time, declares the Lord. I will put my laws in their minds and (I will) write it on their hearts. I will be their God and they will be my people.”
Number three, you are a son of God, God lives in you, you are a heir to His throne and a joint heir with Jesus Christ. Praise the living Jesus! If you are a son of God and Jesus Christ is the firstborn Son of God, you and Jesus Christ are brothers and sisters, He’s your brother, you are His sister, you are His brother. If you are His brother, if you are His sister, what He has access to, the Father’s inheritance, you also have access to it, that makes you a joint heir.
My father died not with so many assets, I would have said, “Oh, I inherited this from my father,” but ordinarily, if my father had had anything even if it was his clothes, I could lay claim to it. The same way God our Father in heaven, the Bible tells us in Psalm 24:1, the earth is the Lord and the fullness thereof, what is in the earth, name it, silver, gold, those things that we are running away from, you already have them – wellness, blessings, joy.
The Bible says in the presence of God there are pleasures forever more, there’s fullness of joy, you already have them, you are joint heir. Romans 8:14-17 says that, you are a joint heir, you now have the power, the ability to say, “Abba Father, praise the living Jesus!
The next one, you are His son, He lives in you, you are a joint heir, you have easier and direct access to God. Before there was a priest, if the priest didn’t like your face like the sons of Samuel who were taking people’s offering at the gate before they – they will actually say you will not enter the church today, there is no priest that can gate you, you know why? You don’t even have to sit in here, right in your car, right in your house, you call on God and He hears you express way, you have direct access to God.
Therefore, let us be ourselves, we have direct access to Him, so when we are with Him, let us not pretend. You know God has a huge sense of humor, I can actually go to Him now and say, “Father, I’m messed up again, please have mercy,” He understands that language, let’s come to Him as He is, let’s stop playing the rules, we should relate with God also therefore as our Father and as a friend.
John 15:13 & 15, Jesus Christ said servants do not know what his masters is doing, no longer are ye sevants, now you have become my friends because you know what I do. God is our Father, He’s also our friend, relate with Him as a friend, relate with Him as a Father. Praise the living Jesus!
Number five, reality of the new covenant, it then comes with the advent of grace. Here I’ll take a bit of time, what is grace? Grace is an enabler. Philippians 4:13, I can do all things through Christ that strengthens me; Christ enables me to do what ordinarily I would not be able to do, that is grace. Grace is an enabler that will make you do things that ordinarily you would not be able to do, we are not under the law anymore, we are under grace, we have ability to do all things with no limitation.
The only limitation that any one of us should have is the one that you place in there yourself, if you think something is not possible then it is not possible. I’ll give you an example, to the glory of God on Thursday night we had a meeting, planning for the family funday and there were concerns around the rain; in fact I said let us check what is the forecast, we saw forecast said rain all day, we said okay rain all day fine, if it rains we will move our activities inside but let us pray to God that we are Your children and we need that day, give us that day. Hallelujah!
You are a child of God and grace will enable you to do what ordinarily you will not be able to do. However brethren, grace is not a license to sin; you know some people will say we are under the dispensation of grace, I can do anything. Let me explain what grace is, grace enables you to do what you ordinarily cannot do, but grace also puts a burden of self-regulation on you.
In the Old Testament, the law, ‘thou shalt not this, thou shalt not that’, those things are checking you, there’s a policeman checking you every time, right? Grace puts a policeman inside of you and then you can do the self regulation, ‘I’m a child of God, I know I should not do this’, that’s the expectation of grace for us, so let none of us abuse grace anymore. Praise the living Jesus!
Grace is not an excuse for sin, rather it’s an empowerment for us to live above sin. You don’t need a spiritual policeman or LASTMA anymore because you have grace of God on you. Hallelujah.
Number six, which is linked to grace, unrighteousness has no place in this new kingdom under the new covenant. The order of the day is holiness, that’s the reality of the new covenant; in the old covenant, people will sin and say ‘please I need a goat’ and clear it and then move on to the next thing, but it’s no longer like that, holiness is the order of the day.
Hebrews 10: 26-28 (NIV), if we deliberately keep on sinning after we have received the knowledge of the truth, no sacrifice of sins is left, there’s no sacrifice again if deliberately you go into sin and you say, ‘I’m under grace’, is a lie of the devil; if you deliberately continue to sin because of grace, there’s no more sacrifice. Praise the living Jesus.
I read during the week, a General Superintendent of one of the churches and this caught my attention, spoke to one of these issues and it said that holiness is the order of the day in God’s kingdom, it does not accommodate immorality which we know, no idolatry, no corruption, the King will not tolerate deliberate sinfulness in His kingdom; and in 1 Corinthians 6:9-10, know ye not that unrighteousness shall not inherit the kingdom of God.
Summing it up, no amount of earthly strength, it doesn’t matter what your personal attributes are, if there’s no righteousness, forget it. Praise God.
Number seven, the Holy Spirit is now the police, is the LASTMA, is the law enforcement agent, is everything under this new dispensation. If you are a child of God, if you are operating under this new covenant and you commit sin and you continue life as if nothing has happened, check yourself again, you don’t have the Spirit in you. If you commit a sin and you know it’s sin and you are expecting people to tell you and nobody tells you or you don’t feel it, you don’t have the Spirit in you, if you have the Spirit in you, immediately the Holy Spirit, the alarm bell will ring, something is wrong here. Hallelujah.
There are some people who think that the God of the Old Testament was more (they say) ‘sharp sharp’, He will deal with you, and the God of these days is slow. God is not slack concerning His promises, God has given you everything, He makes it easy, but there are also consequences of the grace and the things being easy, it is that because you need to be self-regulated, there’s also a self warning in you.
It’s like driving a car that has speed limit, after you hit 120 and the thung is saying pim pim and you don’t hear and you continue, 150, 160, I’m enjoying this new car, something will happen. Praise the living Jesus. If you commit sin and you don’t feel it, please check it. 1 Timothy 4:1-3, the Bible says that some people’s hearts are seared with iron; it may be that your heart is seared with iron and you need repentance.
Number eight, sacrifices are no longer necessary. We know that, it’s obvious, sacrifices are no longer necessary, when our sins and unrighteousness have been forgiven once and all by Jesus Christ, when we now live in holiness and put an end to unrighteousness, when the Holy Spirit keeps you in check and you adhere to His checks, then what is there to sacrifice for? The only reason why anybody will need sacrifice is if you continue in the old ways.
This song came to me, Hebrews 10:18, and where we (these) have been forgiven, sacrifice for sin is no longer necessary.
[Music]
It’s just saying the sacrifice for sin, thank You; You took away my sin and made me a candidate for heaven. Praise the living Jesus. So the new sacrifice now if you must sacrifice, the Bible says the sacrifice that God will take now is obedience, 1st Samuel 15:22, He doesn’t have delight in sacrifices, His delight is in your obedience; Psalm 51:16 & 17, His new sacrifice is a contrite heart, a contrite heart is what God wants from us, no sacrifices.
Number nine, the new covenant brings to us the reality of that promise of an eternal end, it brings to us the reality of the eternal end, perhaps the greatest limitation of the old covenant is this; the blood of bulls and goats cannot wash away any sin, so as they continue to sin and they continue to kill goats, all they are just doing is like somebody who is dirty and smelling and is putting perfume, it doesn’t take away the dirt, but perfume for a minute will be there and then it goes again and then they put another one, it doesn’t wash away sins.
But under the new covenant, the blood of Jesus Christ atones for us and takes away our sins and makes us candidate for heaven. Hallelujah. Hebrews 10: 1-4, the law is only a shadow of the good things that are coming – not the realities themselves. For this reason it can never, by the same sacrifices repeated endlessly year after year, it can never make perfect, that’s the law in the old covenant. Hallelujah. Salvation under the new covenant paved the way for us to eternity.
Finally, number 10, (there are more), you become untouchable, you become indomitable, you become a terror to the enemies because of who you are under the new covenant and the devil knows it, but when you do not know your right, the devil deals with you because he knows you don’t know. If there’s a young boy that they give maybe a credit card that is loaded and the boy doesn’t know what it is, an adult who knows the password can come and give the boy biscuit and take away the credit card and the boy will be happy, that’s what the devil does. But if the child knows that this is credit card, he can buy two or how many biscuits, he will say no, he can’t take it.
Romans 8:31-33, now, what do we say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us? Because he says, “And I will be their God and they will be my people,” if God be for you, who can be against you, from today, tell them I’m a child of God, God lives in me, I’m a carrier of His presence, so who can be against us? Galatians 6:17, from henceforth let no man trouble me for I bear upon me the mark of the Lord Jesus Christ.
In closing, rounding up brethren, the old covenant at the best was meant to recreate the need for a Savior for people, so there are people who still do things in the old covenant, rituals, carry this, carry that, stop it. One truth that we must not miss is that we are no longer under that old covenant, unfortunately, many Christians that’s what they still do – ftetish things, ‘my father said, my mother said we should go there, the pastor says’. Now that we are saved and now that we have a good understanding and reality of the new covenant, let us live in this reality because therein by faith lies our success, therein by faith lies our victory, therein by faith lies our healings. Praise the living Jesus!
It is the key to true freedom for children of God, the understanding of the new covenant. Salvation is a free gift under the new covenant and salvation is here today; Jesus shed His blood so that we can enter into that covenant arrangement with Him, thank God it’s a free gift, no pastor can dispense it. You know some pastors will say you offended me yesterday bring my salvation, thank God it’s a free gift; those who are playing god over you cannot even dispense it, so you are free and once you get it, you have direct access to God.
So if you are here this morning, you know and you know that you don’t have a relationship with God, the Lord Jesus Christ and you know that the devil is the master, you are there in the old please, you need to accept Jesus Christ today.
[Altar call]
Brethren, let’s begin to give thanks to God, let us appreciate the King of kings and the Lord of lords; let us bless Him for the gift of the new covenant, let us bless Him for the reality of the new covenant that we now know and the understanding the grace that is given unto us. Father Lord we thank You, Father we bless Your holy name, glory be to Your name forever more, in Jesus mighty name we prayed.
The new covenant, like I told you covenant is about a bond and in this case the covenant with God I told you that is one-sided, is a give and take it and you can’t even leave it, covenant with God. Now that you’ve taken it, God has undertaken to do a number of things, we are going to cry to God, just one and ask Him, Father, everything that You have made available for me under the new covenant, Father Lord from today I enter into them, I receive it, I take it.
I enter into every good thing that You have positioned for me oh Lord under this new covenant in that I accept it in the name of Jesus, and I take what is due me under the new covenant in the mighty name of Jesus. Thank You heavenly Father, in Jesus mighty name we have prayed.
Then this other prayer point is outside of this but I got this, we are in September, the year is coming to an end and I see it’s something like somebody is on a flight and you are coming, it’s about time now to descend so that it can land safely and by the grace of God we will land safely in the mighty name of Jesus. But there are a few factors that affect whether the plane will land safely or not; wind, there can be a contrary wind which is a headwind and there can be a tailwind which is a supporting wind.
We are going to pray and say Father Lord, from now to the end of the year, Father please support me, support my efforts, support my ministry, support my life, support my family, support me in all ways in the mighty name of Jesus. Thank You heavenly Father, in Jesus wonderful name we prayed.
And we are going to pray, Father, every contrary wind, silence them; oh Lord, silence every contrary wind in the mighty name of Jesus. Thank You my God and my Father, in Jesus mighty name we have prayed.
Finally, the last one is the land, if the land is not good, landing will be bad, but the Bible tells us in Psalms 67:5-6, it says the land will yield its increase, in the name of Jesus, the land will yield its increase for you. You’re going to pray and say Father, please let the land yield an increase unto me in the mighty name of Jesus.
