Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - What's In a Covenant | New Testament | Hebrews 8

Episode Date: March 10, 2023

What is so important about God's covenant? How do you see the impacts of covenants in your life? Are covenants more binding or freeing? In today's episode, Tanya talks on God's new covenant as discussed in Hebrews 8. Your support makes TMBT possible. Ten Minute Bible Talks is a crowd-funded project. Join the TMBTeam to reach more people with the Bible. Give now. Join the TMBT community in reading the entire New Testament in one year. Get your FREE reading plan here. Like this content? Make sure to leave us a rating and share it with others, so others can find it too. Use #asktmbt to connect with us, ask questions, and suggest topics. We'd love to hear from you! To learn more, visit our website and follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter@TenMinuteBibleTalks. Don't forget to subscribe to the TMBT Newsletter here. Passages: Hebrews 8

Welcome to 10-minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life. In the time it takes to get to work. I'm Tanya Wilmeth. Sometimes there's words that we use as Christians, as believers in Bible study and small groups that we just throw around and assume everybody knows what they mean. And sometimes we need to look at those words and just unpack what they mean in the Bible and what they mean for us as followers of Christ. So in Hebrews, one of the words we're looking at today in chapter 8 is the word covenant. So what is a covenant? What's in a covenant? Well, we do read a lot about them in the Bible, but what are they? Well, let's start in the Old Testament. So in the days of the law, God made a covenant with Israel,

and it was founded on His grace. When God was giving the law, he said, I am the Lord your God who rescued you from the land of Egypt, the place of your slavery. And then God set the terms of the covenant with Israel. He said, if you will in fact obey my voice and keep my covenant, then you shall be my own special possession and treasure from among all peoples of the world, for the earth is mine. Basically, God said, if you obey me, I will bless you, and if you disobey me, I will curse you. Well, of course, they did not obey. They were unfaithful over and over again, but God did not give up on them. The problem with the old covenant was that people were unfaithful. They were covenant breakers. But God did not give up on them. The problem with the old covenant covenant was that people were unfaithful.

but God's heart was to pursue unfaithful, sinful people. God then made a new covenant with them through the prophet Jeremiah. He said, I will put my instructions deep within them, and I will write them in their hearts. Now this points us forward to something that we now know in the New Testament about the Holy Spirit and how God sent the Holy Spirit after Jesus was ascended into heaven to be with us and counsel us. All right.

Now when Jesus came, he showed us how this new covenant would work, right? It would be fulfilled through Jesus because he perfectly kept the law on our behalf. And it would have more power because it would work within us instead of being conditional on the outside. Hebrews chapter 8 explains how the new covenant is superior in verse 6. It says now Jesus, our high priest, has been given a ministry that is far superior to the old priesthood. for he is the one who mediates for us a far better covenant with God based on better promises. In the new covenant, the legal conditions are fulfilled with the perfection of Christ. And while the new covenant doesn't just throw out the law, it internalizes the law by writing it on our hearts.

The believer's life is united with Christ and we have a new power to obey and trust. We have the Holy Spirit poured out from the inside. When we look at the Bible, we tend to either fall on the side of the law or on grace. But the Bible is telling a unified story. The law shows us how sinful we are and how much we need to be rescued. And because we've been rescued, we have a new reason and new power to pursue holy living. If you're a parent, is it easier to raise kids who are obedient or kids who are pursuing Christ? No, I ask that not meaning they're mutually exclusive.

That's kind of against the point of what I'm saying. But sometimes we make them mutually exclusive by highlighting obedience over the gospel. In the Old Testament, there were lots of externals, weren't there? Lots of laws and rituals and sacrifices. These things were meant to be an outward sign of what was happening on the inside. They were intended to reflect a life of repentance, a love for God. and a growing faith. However, much of Israel became consumed only with what was happening on the outside,

while inwardly chasing idols and false gods. And sometimes this is what we do too, especially when we're being parents. It's so much easier to have kids that look good on the outside. But in the New Testament, we see Jesus address the N-word. He asks questions, and he tells parables to get people to think about their hearts. Our role as parents is not primarily to lead our children to better behavior, but to lead them to Christ. It changes us from people who focus on behavior modification into people who long for heart change and renewal that comes from the inner working of the Holy Spirit. I think as a parent, this is a much harder way to parent.

It takes more time, it takes more patience, it takes prayer. It takes personal dependence on the Holy Spirit. It means our kids might not look good all the time on the outside. but hopefully it means the spirit is working from within, and one day we will see the evidence on the outside. We wonder, were the people in the Old Testament saved by grace if they didn't know Jesus? And do God's people today still have to keep the law?

Well, yes and yes. Again, the Bible is one unified story of the same salvation, the same faith, and the same saving work of Jesus. People of the Old Testament looked ahead in faith to Christ, and the rituals and sacrifices they performed were done as a shadow of Jesus, who was yet to come as the ultimate sacrifice. And people of the New Testament, including believers today, look back at the sacrificial system, knowing those things don't take away our sin, but seeing how they point to the one that does, Jesus Christ.

Hebrews chapter 8, well, it brings both of them together. The author calls Jesus our superior high priest. The real image is that Jesus as the one who not only offers the saccharacter, for sins, like an Old Testament priest would have done, but also the one who became the perfect sacrifice. He was the Lamb without blemish that died for the sins of the world. Hebrews is reminding Jewish Christians, hey, don't go back to finding your purification in the old system, the old laws, the sacrifices, the external. You have someone superior, Jesus Christ. And the author pulled on this thread of Jesus as the better high priest. It's an image that helps us understand his authority,

and superiority in a way that causes us to love him and want to submit more of our lives to him. Now, Jesus, our high priest, has been given a ministry that is far superior to the old priesthood, for he mediates for us a better covenant with God. With these promises, we don't live in fear of what happens if we disobey, but we live in the freedom of Christ's finish work that covers our sin. We don't have to strive to do something outside ourselves, but we have power from within to live in accordance with God's word. So three questions for our reflection.

One, how are you guilty of keeping some of God's commands only on the outside? Hint, you can ask the Holy Spirit to help you see it. Two, how does the new covenant actually make you a better lawkeeper? You can see Romans 5-5 and 1st Corinthians 1213. in them Paul explains how the Holy Spirit is poured out on new covenant believers in greater measure. It's the spirit that opens our eyes to the beauty of Christ, so we can finally see where the law was pointing us all along, not to better behavior, but to Christ.

Three, how are you encouraged by God's persistent pursuit of people who want to turn away from him? How has he pursued you? Maybe you've done something in the past, and even though the person forgave you the brokenness and the relationship remains. The new covenant brought in by Jesus eternally restores our relationship with our Father. It changes us from the inside. As the Spirit writes the beauty of God's law on our hearts, it awakens us to the wonder of Christ.

We live freely under the new covenant, which empowers us from the inside to live holy lives. Before you forget, sign up for the brand new TMBT newsletter. Hit the link in the show notes, and you'll get an email every Wednesday that will help you beat the midweek slump and go deeper in your walk with Jesus. Thanks for listening.