To Guarantee the Ultimate Promise, Part 3

Welcome to Delight in Grace, the teaching ministry of Rich Powell, Pastor of Grace Bible Church in Winston-Salem. Hebrews 8 speaks of the new covenant that has been forged through Christ's blood payment. How is this covenant different from the first covenant that God made with His people? Hebrews 8 says this new covenant has better promises than the first. Just what are those promises? Today Pastor Rich unpacks the promise God gives in this new covenant, promises that are guaranteed through our High Priest Jesus.

Let's listen in. This is the third segment of a message titled, To Guarantee the Ultimate Promise. It's from a sub-series in Hebrews titled, What Our High Priest Does. It was first preached on September 2, 2012. God, as Peter says in 2 Peter, has made me a partaker of His divine nature.

That's wow. Me, a sinful being, a rebel, necessarily separated from God in His absolute holiness, this God who is a consuming fire, has now reconciled me to Himself. Not only has He reconciled me to Himself, He has taken up residence in me. As God is saying, I will be among my people. As Jesus said in John 14 and John 16, He promised the comforter that will come, the spirit of truth. He says, He will be in you. Wonderful truths. God's presence in you. Listen, I'm going to challenge you with something this morning because there's something that I think that we need to understand.

First of all, let me say this. There is no place on earth. There is no place on earth where you enter the presence of God.

Now, I know that challenges some of you in your thinking of when you come to church, that you think when you come into these doors, you're coming into the presence of God. There is no place on earth where you enter the presence of God. The sanctuary in the temple, in the tabernacle, the sanctuary simply meant that. The holy place, the set apart place because that's where God was. And in that sanctuary, the holiest place of all, the high priest could go once a year and he dare not go in there without blood sacrificed, a life forfeited. God said, it is there that I will meet with you.

Folks, that sanctuary doesn't exist on this earth. Hebrews makes it very clear to us that that sanctuary is where Christ is seated next to the throne and we are with Him. There is no place on earth where you enter the presence of God because now that Christ is seated at the right hand of the throne of majesty, if you are in Christ, you are in His presence. That being the case, those who are Christ's have a whole new dimension of God's presence.

He has taken up residence in you. The believer individually, the church corporately are now the temple of God. The church corporately, not the building, the body of Christ, the people of God in whom He has taken up residence. That is the place of God's manifest presence. It's exactly what was sung about in that song, that Christ lives through me. Christ comes alive in me by virtue of the presence of the Holy Spirit.

That is God's powerful presence as God prophesied to the prophet Ezekiel, I will put my spirit in them. Peter says, we have become partakers of the divine nature. Well, here's the fourth part then to the ultimate promise, the new covenant.

The fourth part is life change, life transformation. Because you're thinking, how can I, a sinful by nature, a sinful rebel, how on earth can I in any way be okay to be in the presence of an infinitely holy God whose holiness is a consuming fire? Well, God has taken care of that because we are in Christ. He grants us that forgiveness. He grants us His powerful presence. He grants us that personal relationship. But He also promises us life change. He promises us transformation. You see, the problem with the people, the problem with created human beings is that we are sinful and we sin because we are sinners. God has taken care of that for us.

He has put His nature within us. But does that mean that you are sinlessly perfect? Let me answer that for you. No. And I know I'm not.

Just ask my kids and my wife. They know I'm not. I'm not sinlessly perfect. So how can I still, battling the flesh, how can I commune with an infinitely holy God? It is the profound truth that He has forgiven us that Christ intercedes for me every day next to the throne of God. But part of this new covenant, part of this promise is God says, I am going to be in the process of transforming your life, of molding your life. And it is the change that comes from the inside out. He says, I will put my laws into their minds and write them on their hearts.

This is the development. God says, God promises, I will develop the character and the purpose of God in you. In you.

That preposition is so key. And as He develops the character and purpose of God, that progressively replaces the things in me that are contrary to His character and purpose. And so God is in the process of making me like Christ from the inside out. God came to establish righteousness, not just positional righteousness, but practical day-to-day righteousness. And our chief example of that is Jesus Christ. Our chief model, our standard of that is Jesus Christ, which God says, my objective for you is to make you just like my son, the standard of righteousness. What if God chose a different way to make us righteous? Instead of transforming us from the inside out at the level of desire and thought. What if He chose a different way to make us behave right? What if, for ridding the world of evil, God announces that next Monday He will step in and stop all evil caused by people? Let's say that God decides to use a tool carried by many police officers, a taser gun.

I am going to make you behave. A taser gun shoots an individual with a temporary high voltage current of electricity. The makers of the taser guns claims that a shock lasting half a second will cause intense pain and muscle contraction. Two to three seconds will cause a person to become dazed and drop to the ground.

Anything longer than three seconds will drop an attacker for up to 15 minutes. The makers of taser guns boast of a 95 percent compliance rate. That's pretty good, isn't it? 95 percent compliance. And God will just, you know, a little more than that and everyone will comply. In other words, hit a person with enough electricity and you can get them to do anything you want to do. When the deadline for stopping evil comes, God gets us to comply with His wishes by shocking us. Start to tell a lie and you're hit with a half second zap. Try to rob a person and you get two seconds of shock.

A would-be murderer would be incapacitated. However, knowing that evil thoughts often lead to evil actions, God also zaps us for sinister thoughts. Now, here's where it gets troubling because God knows your thoughts. And sin isn't something that you just do outwardly, is it? What is sin?

Sin is any thought or behavior that is contrary to the character and purpose of God. Okay, so now that God knows your thoughts, any time there's an evil thought, there you go, you get zapped. But God's still not finished since it's evil to fail to do good when given the opportunity. God zaps us for failing to show mercy, kindness and justice. As a result, people are zapped for doing evil acts, thinking evil thoughts and failing to do what is right.

What would be the result of this? A world of twitchy people who obey God like cowering, beaten dogs. He may not use a tasered gun, but could God do that?

You know what's so unfortunate today, folks? There are some people that think of God like this. There are people today, Christians, who think of God like this. That whenever they do something wrong, God's going to zap them.

I know some of you have grown up that way. But when Jesus said, this is the new covenant in my blood, what was he promising us? He was promising us forgiveness.

I will remember their sins no more. He was promising us personal relationship. He was promising us his powerful presence. And he was promising us life transformation. That he would transform us from the inside out, beginning at the level of thought and desire.

And that would manifest itself outwardly. So instead of this, enter God's promise of the new covenant. And God says, I will change your life by transforming you at the level of thought and desire. And he's making a masterpiece out of me and you, patterned after his son, Jesus Christ.

The greatest force for good, listen to this, the greatest force for good and God's righteousness, is his transforming grace that anyone can know through forgiveness, personal relationship with him, and the powerful presence of his Holy Spirit. Folks, that's the new covenant. That is the ultimate promise that Christ guarantees for us as he intercedes for us. Christ's high priestly ministry guarantees this. How do we know that? Because he stakes his life on it.

And that's what we're studying next time. Praise God for his unspeakable gift. We're so glad you've joined us for Delight in Grace, the teaching ministry of Rich Powell, Pastor of Grace Bible Church in Winston-Salem. You can hear this message and others anytime by visiting our website, www.delightingrace.com. You can also check out Pastor Rich's book, 7 Words That Can Change Your Life, where he unpacks from God's Word the very purpose for which you were designed. 7 Words That Can Change Your Life is available wherever books are sold. As always, tune in to Delight in Grace, weekdays at 10 a.m.