What's New [Part 1]

Pastor, author, and Bible teacher, Alan Wright. You need to eat your green beans. And he'd look up and you'd say, well, how many do I have to eat? This is what living by the law looks like.

Well, son, you got to eat seven. That's Pastor Alan Wright. Welcome to another message of good news that will help you see your life in a whole new light. I'm Daniel Brint, excited for you to hear the teaching today in the series, Remade, as presented at Reynolda Church in North Carolina. If you're not able to stay with us throughout the entire program today, I sure want to make sure you know how to get our special resource right now. It can be yours for your donation this month to Alan Wright Ministries. So as you listen to today's message, go deeper as we send you today's special offer.

Don't miss it. Contact us at PastorAlan.org, that's PastorAlan.org, or call 877-544-4860. We're going to be more on all this later in the program, but right now let's dig in and get started with today's teaching.

Here is Alan Wright. Okay, beloved, are you ready for some good news? The new covenant that has been made and kept in Christ is not a modified old covenant. It is a new covenant. It is categorically new. It is altogether new.

It is unlike the old, and when you see how new it is, it changes everything. We are in the final message of a long series from the prophet Jeremiah, and as is always the case, part of me just hates to move on because the power of these prophetic texts of restoration and God's promise to us in the midst of difficult times has been so nourishing to me, and I hope to you. And we come to what ends the pinnacle of these prophetic restorative promises in Jeremiah 31. Jeremiah 31 verse 31, behold, the days of the Lord 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, not like that covenant. He's speaking of the Mosaic covenant, not like that covenant. Say that with me, not like that covenant, because that's what we're going to be exploring today.

Why is it so different? The new covenant, not like that covenant I made with their fathers on the day that I took them by the 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'll make with the house of Israel after those days declares the Lord, I will put my law within them. I will write it on their hearts and I'll be their God and they shall be my people and no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother saying, no, 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. Wow. We had a little boy in the church that he got sick and I went to the doctor and they listened to his chest and took some chest x-rays. The doctor came back in the room, told the mom and the little boy was sitting there and said, well, he's got pneumonia. And little boy just burst into tears and they said, what's wrong? And he said, I don't want the new ammonia.

I just want the old ammonia. Have you ever thought about, it seems like in this world, so few things are actually new. Even pneumonia is not new. It's been around a long time. And sometimes, you know, we'll call something new and we really mean it's just new expression or new, new to me. When I buy a used car, I'll come in and say, I got a new car. Well, it's not new.

It's just new to me. And even sometimes we'll say I got a new lease on life. Well, we really mean that I've got a new perspective, but it's not something that's absolutely totally new. And yet in this world, there are a few things that are completely new. Like a little baby, like a little baby that never existed before and totally new, which gives me a wonderful opportunity in the midst of a lot of grief in our family and a little parentheses to say, I'm going to be a grandpa.

I'm going to be a grandpa. And I just, and I, I, I, our son, our son Bennett and Amy, they live in Charlotte now. They've been, they've been married for four, four and a half years. And they expect in October. And I just, we just need to go ahead and set this straight right now.

The number of grand baby sermon illustrations is going to be obnoxious. So just get used to that. That's right. That's right.

Yeah. I got to decide what I'm going to be called. I'm working on that.

I'm praying on that. I need a revelation about that. But we, we, we don't have many things in life that are just brand new. Like nobody's ever seen this before, but the new covenant is so new that nobody ever expected it. And I have spoken on the new covenant from time to time over the years. And I don't know of a theological revelation more important to me than seeing this. Perhaps it's a refresher for you or perhaps it is something that will open your eyes to what really the gospel is in a whole new way. We're talking about the new covenant and what's so new about it.

And we ought to start with this. What was wrong with the old covenant? The problem is the old covenant just didn't, it didn't work.

It's not God's fault. In fact, this is the, this is the, the premise, the story, the foundation behind all of these judgment articles in Jeremiah that the people of God had disobeyed. And because God is just, and he said there must be punishment for disobedience and he disciplined the people.

And that's what exile was about. That's why they went to Babylon because God had spoken through Moses. We won't look at it, but it's back in Exodus 19, right before he gave the law at Mount Sinai. And the Lord said, I'm going to give you, I'm going to give you all the must statues. And if you will obey, if you will obey, then you will be my treasured people and I will bless you.

And the people all said, yes, yes, we will obey everything that you've said. And so that's what the old covenant was. And it's sometimes called a covenant of works. It's, it's, it's really, it's still God's grace that he was revealing the proper way to live. It's still God's grace that he was revealing himself to the people. The problem with the old covenant was that it was outside of them.

It wasn't something, it was like, here are these commandments on stone tablets and you obey this external code and just didn't, it just didn't work. It's like if you can imagine someone being in a kind of debt that no matter how hard they try, they just can't pay it. It's kind of the thing we saw in the housing crisis where we became familiar with that term of a mortgage being underwater, you know, where you have a, a, a, a home mortgage that the loan, your debt is a larger amount than what your house is worth. So even if you wanted to just sell the house and get rid of your debt, you couldn't. So if you're in that situation and you've lost your job and you can't pay your mortgage payment, what do you do?

You can't, you can't do anything. You don't have a means by which you can somehow satisfy that debt. That's a, that's an underwater mortgage. Well, in a lot of ways that, that is the predicament that happened with the law. So God is holy and perfect and righteous and good and beautiful and gracious and he gives all this, this law and the people say yes. And so there's a covenant, there's an agreement that we must obey and, and God has given all this and yet they don't obey. And so there, the, the, the inward, innate sin and humanity is like that debt. And it's just, it's just like we're underwater and we can't, we, we, we don't have the capacity to keep all the law. Try as hard as you will.

You won't. Every single person has fallen into sin. Every single person is born in sin. Every single person still sins.

That's the problem. And this is why the writer of Hebrews just says it very plainly and Hebrews chapter eight verse six 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. So that's what we're looking for today. What are those better promises that are categorically different than the old covenant?

What are those? We're going to look at that verse seven of Hebrews eight for if that first covenant, the Mosaic covenant of the law, if that covenant had been faultless, there'd have been no occasion to look for a second. So there's something wrong with it. It's a system in which the people cannot obey and they cannot be righteous.

And so they cannot keep it. So something had to change. If we were ever going to fully fellowship with God and receive fully all the blessing that God has always wanted to pour out in our lives, there needed to be a different kind of covenant.

That's Alan Wright, and we'll have more teaching in a moment from today's important series. Maybe you're like many Christians in America today. You're stunned by how fast a nation's culture has turned away from God. The values of our country have changed. Suddenly, most people don't go to church or have a biblical worldview.

It can make you feel like an alien in your own culture. There's a lot to learn from Daniel when he was exiled to the pagan land of Babylon. Through our special offer this month, you can learn to live under the favor of God in an alien culture the way Daniel did. When you give before the end of the month, we'll send you Pastor Alan's audio series, Daniel, a favored foreigner.

You may feel like a stranger in this world, but as God showed favor to Daniel in his foreign land, God's grace is upon you as well. Your donation will not only help you navigate through these troubling times, but it will also help someone else. Thanks for your partnership with Alan Wright Ministries. We are happy to send this to you as our thanks. Now we are in our final days of offering this special product. Call us at 877-544-4860.

That's 877-544-4860. Or come to our website, PastorAlan.org. Today's teaching now continues. Here once again is Alan Wright. I want to talk to you about what's so new about the new covenant. And here's what Jeremiah first prophesies. All of this that he prophesies is going to come to pass in Christ Jesus, who at the Passover held up one of the Passover cups and said, this is the cup of the new covenant. My blood poured out for you. Well, what is he prophesied here?

This is amazing. All of this fulfilled in Jesus. And the first is that at verse 33, I will put my law within them and I will write it on their hearts. God says here that the code of conduct, the behaviors and thoughts of your life that I so want to be right and holy and pure and good and godly. All of that he's promising through Jeremiah that's external. Here it is outside of you and you got to try hard to obey it is going to come inside you. What does that mean? It means to have the law written on your heart means that now obedience to God is not an effort. Listen to this.

It is not an effort to keep a religious code. It is a transformed inward way of thinking, being and feeling. It's sort of like, like when I was a kid, I was such a picky eater. I was terrible picky eater.

And now that my mom's in heaven and not sitting in church, I can tell some things. And one of them is I just I never had the heart to tell her that I hated vegetables so bad as a little boy that when she turned her head, I would scoop my green beans down into a napkin and excuse myself to the bathroom and flush them down the toilet just to try to get out of the pressure of having to eat my vegetables. I hated them.

I hated them. And I remember when it was that I first realized a green bean wasn't that bad. I was a junior in college. I was a junior in college and we'd gone to church, some of us, and we went to the K&W in Chapel Hill down at that mall in Chapel Hill. We went to K&W and I said I was going to try some green beans. I got some green beans and some fried chicken or something on a Sunday afternoon at K&W. And I thought, these aren't that bad.

I don't know. My taste just changed. They're not that bad. And then I started eating more green beans. And now sometimes, you know, I just just give me a big bowl of green beans. And my wife cooks them the way Mama Bennett, her grandmother did, where you bring them down, boil all the water out until they slightly burn a little bit and then stir them around in there just a little bit. Anyway, I love green beans.

Well, when our little boy Bennett came along and he was even pickier than I was. Y'all, I mean, this I watched him and I see I knew what he was thinking and what he was feeling when Ann would be like, you need to eat your green beans. And he'd look up and you say, well, how many do I have to eat?

This is what living by the law looks like. Well, son, you got to eat seven. And he put those seven beans over on the side of the plate, count them out, try to find the smallest ones and sit there and work on it throughout the whole meal, dreading every bite. I remember one time she tried to get him to eat a brussel sprout or something. And I looked at the little guy. I feel so sorry. He about gagged.

He about threw up. I told my wife, I said, honey, we are not. I don't like I don't lay the law down about many things, but we are.

I'm going to this way. We are not going to fight about him eating his green beans or anything else. I said, there will be a day in which he's going to like vegetables. And we're just not we're not life's too stressful. We're not fighting over the kid eating the food. It will change.

I promise you. And then a lot of time went by and and I thought, boy, I hope I'm right about that because, you know, and somewhere, I don't know, around about the time he was a junior in college at Baylor. And I noticed he started eating some green beans.

And now Bennett kind of he kind of is a side thing. He kind of likes doing some gourmet chef stuff in the kitchen and he fixes everything and every kind of vegetable and he loves it all. It's all the difference in the world between how many green beans, mama, do I have to eat, which I hate eating and I don't want to eat, but I'll do it out of some kind of raw obedience just so I can have dessert versus I like green beans. I'll put my law inside of you means you're going to ever increasingly, by the presence of the Holy Spirit, love what I love, God says. You're going to have an appetite for what is best for you because you're going to be conformed increasingly to my design for your life such that you're not even going to be thinking about it. You're just going to be desiring it. And it's going to change all your behaviors. It's going to change all your thoughts. It's going to change everything in your life. We had a celebration for my father-in-law who died unexpectedly last week and I've grieved as hard as I've ever remember grieving.

I mean, as hard as I ever remember grieving and I'm grieving still, you know, sadness on top of sadness, my mom in January. And I said at the memorial service yesterday, I said, I've been, I've been preaching out of the book of Jeremiah all year. And I once heard Lloyd Ogilvy, the pastor at Hollywood press years ago.

And he said, I was at a conference with him. He said, you know, he said, it's amazing how whatever I preach, it seems like the Lord knows. And I, the things I need to grow in and experience. That's what I seem to be led to be preaching in my new sermon series. And now I experience it all. He said so much. I can just about tell you what's going to happen in my life by what it is I'm preaching.

And I said, I understand the same thing, you know? And so here I, I've been, I made a mistake of preaching the book of the prophet who was called the weeping prophet and I'd been weeping all year. So I just want you to know I'm searching out a sermon series for the summer on some happy topic, but the fact of the matter is that as we celebrated his life, I just made the statement and I really, you know, weigh my words carefully about, about my father-in-law who's been part of my life for two thirds of my life. This man that when I first was dating and she spoke so adoringly of that, I thought she was in denial.

No man can be that good. And then I spent the next 39 years finding out she was right. And, um, I weigh my words when I say this, but I do believe that if you put everything together, uh, of the nobility of a man's life and character, um, that is consistent day in, day out that, I mean, when you see it, you know, when he lives down the street from me, I mean, for most of the last 10 years, I've seen him every day and they part of our daily family, our daily life. That's why I'm grieving so hard, you know? And, um, but I've seen that and I think he's probably the best person I've ever known. I really, I really do.

I mean, there are people that are better at certain things, but in terms of just the whole picture, well, well, so what am I doing right there? I didn't even, you know, I was preparing this message. I wouldn't have thinking about that.

I was just thinking about mentioning that. And then I realized I'm not, I'm not honoring my father-in-law because that's what a son-in-law ought to do. I can't help myself. I just honored him.

I keep looking at this flower range because it was here yesterday and it's making me think of them, but I just, I, I, it's just spontaneous. I can't help but praise and honor Graham Lynch. I can't help it. I can't help it. And, and God said that we're to, to give him thanks. I don't, I don't get up in the morning and give God thanks because I just, he said to, and I don't feel like it and I don't ever want to give him, I can't help myself, but give him thanks when I think about what he's done for me.

I, I, when the Lord says to, to, to praise him and to rejoice in his name, I'm grieving, but we're in the prayer room this morning and we're having joy and we're having joy and I can't help myself. He's put his law inside of it. He puts, he puts what was once an external code down inside of you so that you like green beans now. I mean that metaphorically. Here's the second thing that's, that's new is he says, they shall all know me from the least to the greatest. No longer verse 34 shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother saying, no, the Lord, it's not going to be where people are going to have to go around, you know, and say, let me teach you his statutes and let me tell you about how you ought to do that. No, it's going to be different than that. It's going to be something more powerful than that. It's going to be, it's going to be a Holy Spirit who's poured out at Pentecost. Well, all of a sudden people of all walks of life and every nationality and young and old and boy and girl and men, women, all of them, he said from the least to the greatest, it's not just going to be for the priest or the high priest. This isn't going to be about a beloved celebrity that this is going to be about every single person and you're going to know the Lord. The definition of being a Christian is someone who knows God as his father, not knowing about him, but knowing him, that's the promise of the new covenant. Allen Wright and today's good news message. What's new?

It's from the series Remade and Pastor Alan is back with us in the studio sharing a parting good news thought for the day for you in just a moment. Maybe you're like many Christians in America today. You're stunned by how fast a nation's culture has turned away from God. The values of our country have changed. Suddenly most people don't go to church or have a biblical worldview.

It can make you feel like an alien in your own culture. There's a lot to learn from Daniel when he was exiled to the pagan land of Babylon. Through our special offer this month, you can learn to live under the favor of God in an alien culture the way Daniel did. When you give before the end of the month, we'll send you Pastor Alan's audio series, Daniel, a favored foreigner.

You may feel like a stranger in this world, but as God showed favor to Daniel in his foreign land, God's grace is upon you as well. Your donation will not only help you navigate through these troubling times, but it will also help someone else. Thanks for your partnership with Allen Wright Ministries. We are happy to send this to you as our thanks. Now we are in our final days of offering this special product. Call us at 877-544-4860.

That's 877-544-4860. Or come to our website, pastorallen.org. Back now here with Pastor Alan and we're coming down to the home stretch here. The final message here coming on our next broadcast of the entire series remade and this teaching is what's new.

So, you know, many of us have some kind of physical ailment and it's an easy one to look at. Say, oh, I can't wait till I get that new body and I don't have to suffer anymore. I'm gonna run faster.

I'm gonna jump higher. But there is truth for the today in this as well. Well, one thing that you can always rejoice in is that the new covenant is absolutely, totally new.

And that's what we're learning. And to me, Daniel, when I really understood the new covenant and I began to understand it's not a modified old covenant. It's new. It's something that the cosmos had never seen before.

It's something that no one had ever experienced. And so when you discover that it changes everything and we're gonna learn about everything that's new about this new covenant. But the sneak preview of next time is that it's not about you. There's one God and one mediator, Paul said in first Timothy between God and man, and that's Jesus Christ. In the old, the covenant was between God and the people, but in the new covenant, this is between the father and the son. So be sure and tune in next time to learn what that's all about. It will change not just your theology, it will change your life. Today's good news message is a listener supported production of Allen Wright Ministries.