Jeremiah 31; Luke 22:7-23
You can be seated. Please turn
in your copy of the scriptures to Luke 22. Our reading will be 7 to 23.
This is the Lord Jesus taking with his disciples for the last
time the Passover meal. And as they are completing the
Passover meal, he ends its regular use in the life of the ministry
of God’s people. The shadow now ending and the
substance being revealed on the next day, the Lord Jesus would
die the death of deaths to give us everlasting life. And so the
Passover lamb would no longer be sacrificed because on the
next day, the true and eternal Passover lamb who was slain before
the foundations of the world would indeed die in our place. And there would be no more need
for the blood of bulls and goats, for he was the once and for all
sacrifice for our sins. So here now God’s word, Luke
chapter 22, beginning at verse seven. Then came the day of unleavened
bread on which the Passover lamb had to be sacrificed. So Jesus
sent Peter and John saying, go and prepare the Passover for
us that we may eat it. They said to him, where will
you have us prepare it? And he said to them, behold,
when you have entered the city, a man carrying a jar of water
will meet you. Follow him into the house that
he enters and tell the master of the house, the teacher says
to you, where is the guest room where I may eat the Passover
with my disciples? and he will show you a large
upper room furnished. Prepare it there.’ And they went
and found it just as he had told them, and they prepared the Passover.
And when the hour came, he reclined at table and the apostles with
him. And he said to them, I have earnestly desired to eat this
Passover with you before I suffer. For I tell you, I will not eat
it until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God. And he took a
cup and when he had given thanks, he said, take this and divide
it among yourselves. For I tell you that from now
on, I will not drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom
of God comes. And he took bread and he gave
it to them saying, this is my body, which is given for you.
Do this in remembrance of me. And likewise, the cup after they
had eaten saying, this cup that is poured out for you is the
new covenant in my blood. But behold, the hand of him who
betrays me is with me on the table. For the son of man goes
as it has been determined, but woe to that man by whom he is
betrayed. And they began to question one
another, which of them it could be who was going to do this. Amen. God’s word. Let’s pray
together. Lord, you promised that your
word will comfort and build up your saints in our most holy
faith. So we ask for that. Keep your
promise. Keep your word. We also know
that your holy scriptures seek and save the lost. They rescue
and they redeem. So show us our sin. Show us our need of a savior
and show us that savior in Jesus that our eyes may behold him. Our heart may bow to him and
we may have a faith in him. Into eternity help us and bless
us now. We pray in Christ’s mighty name. Amen You probably know
the age-old question the proverbial question. How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. I don’t know
why you would want to do that. But that’s the question. That’s
the answer you could ask the same question about the the monumental
task of reading the scriptures. How do you read the Bible? You
read it one verse at a time. The Bible is a massive book of
books, and in it we find 66 books. We find 1,200 chapters. We find
31,000 verses. We find 45 human authors. It took 1,500 years to put it
together. It took 40 generations from Genesis
to Revelation to be fulfilled. And in this book of books with
all these chapters and verses and all this generation of writing,
we find poetry and wisdom. We find history. We find prophecy,
epistles or letters. We find gospels and we find apocalypse
or revelations, revealings. Remember when Paul was writing
his last letter, he wrote two letters to Timothy and one letter
to Titus, and his last letter to Timothy, 2 Timothy 3, he’s
reminding his son in the faith, his young minister under his
watch before his death, he’s reminding him of the importance
of scripture. And he says in chapter 3, to Timothy, you’ve
learned in the scriptures from your mother and from your grandmother,
the way of salvation. He’s basically saying this, you
can find Jesus in the Old Testament. That’s all Timothy’s family had
and it was sufficient to save. And he’s reminding him of that
great salvation. Then he says the verse that we know so well,
all scripture is breathed out or inspired by God and is useful
for teaching and for correcting and for training in righteousness.
It’s for putting back up what has been knocked over, for rearranging
what has gotten out of order. And it’s so that the man of God
may be fully furnished to live. all of life by the will of God
and for the glory of God. And all through the history of
these scriptures, we have found them written on stones. We found them etched into clay
tablets and pieces of pottery and papyrus. And on the animal
skins of animals, we saw the printing press in the 1400s pop
up. And in our own age, since the
age of printing and books, we’ve seen the rise of computers and
programs and apps. And imagine every one of us can
access the Bible on the computer, on the phone app or the tablet
app. We have copies of it, probably
many copies of it. in our possession. And the most
important thing is that the Bible should be etched into our hearts. That’s the promise, isn’t it,
of the new covenant. I will write my word. I will write my law on the hearts
of the people. So how do you read the Bible?
Yes, one verse at a time, but we also read it the way that
God intended. God is the author. You know,
you go to these schools today, these universities, and they
have an approach of how they read an author. They read it
through maybe the feminist lens or through the LGBTQ lens. They read it through the revisionist
lens, whatever, and it’s really an assault on these authors,
isn’t it? That’s not what they wrote. That’s not what they intended.
That’s not the meaning that they gave. And so we impose all sorts
of things on writings. It’s even done to the Bibles.
And we don’t get out of these writings, much less or much more
the scriptures do we get out of it when we impose things on
it. And so we should read the Bible one verse at a time, but
also as God intended. In the scriptures, He intends
to give us a world and life view. He tells us who He is. He tells
us that He is forever. He tells us that He made us,
that we’re made in His image and we have a goal, a mission
in life. He tells us what happens if we
sin, what happens when we die. He tells us right and He tells
us wrong. He tells us, what the meaning and purpose of everything
is. We get that in Genesis. We get that in Exodus and we
get it in Leviticus. And just as God gave Moses the
worldview of the ancient Israelites, it’s our worldview today as Christians. But that was over and against
the Canaanite worldviews or the Egyptian worldviews or the Assyrian
or Babylonian or Sumerian worldviews. God was saying to Israel, you
are a unique people. I’m your God. This is why I made
you. But we also read the Bible to
know God’s will, His works, His words, His ways. We read the
Bible also to grow, to grow in the grace and in the knowledge
of God our Father. We grow in the knowledge of obedience,
what pleases Him. We grow in joy and thanksgiving
and in worship. So how do we read the Bible?
One verse at a time. How do we read it? The way God intended
it to be read. And the most important thing
God intended is that we see Jesus. Jesus is the scarlet thread throughout
the whole of the scripture. And just say you begin to read
the scriptures at the beginning and make your way through, you
will see the need for Jesus very quickly. God gives his law in
the second chapter of Genesis to Adam and Eve. Obey and live,
disobey and die. And we know that they disobeyed
in chapter three. And by the end of chapter three,
God has promised a savior. God has shown us the need for
a Savior, and He’s shown us what won’t save us. That’s man-made
religion. That’s hand-sewn fig leaves. They cannot cover our sin and
our shame and our nakedness. And so God shows us our need
very early in the Scripture, and then He prepares us for the
coming of Jesus. And the whole of Scripture is
a march towards the cradle. It’s a march towards the cattle
stall. It’s a march towards the story
of Mary and Joseph. It’s a march towards the Christ
child, the second Adam who would live and obey and suffer and
die in our place because our first parent, our first Adam
died, but our second Adam would live forever, and so we through
him. And so you bounce on through the scriptures, and we’re shown
the need of a Savior, we’re shown to prepare for the Savior, but
then we’re given promises, bigger and bigger promises. That’s what
the prophecies do. They tell us over and over, a
time is coming, you’re in darkness. but soon there will be light.
You’re in hardship, but soon there will be a yoke that is
easy, a burden that is light. And then you come to the gospels
and there’s the arrival of Jesus. There’s the arrival of the son.
We see his life and his ministry. And then he pulls together the
apostles in the upper room and says, I’m leaving, but you’re
still here. I’m headed out, but you will
be my witnesses on this earth. And so the ministry of Jesus,
the ministry of the church continues on until the second coming of
Christ. and until the second coming of
the Lord Jesus, where all things will be made new and we will
dwell with God forever and ever in heaven. So how do we read
the Bible? One verse at a time. How do we
read the Bible? The way the author intended. What are we to see? A world and
life view or to see or to know things about ourselves and about
God. We’re to grow. But most importantly, we’re to
see Jesus. And that is shown clearly to
us in the creation, in the fall and in the flood, in the promises,
in the promised land, the promise of offspring and children. It
comes to us through glimpses and kings like David and Solomon.
It comes in the promises and the words of prophets. It comes
to us in the law as God shows us what he is like and what we
are to be like. But all of those shadows, All
of those Old Testament shadows only make sense when we look
at the Lord Jesus Christ, when we see that in his life and in
his ministry, these things are fulfilled. And so we, the church,
we, the people of God, are to continue the ministry of Jesus
as he is fully shown to us in his life, but also in the written
word. And then one day, the great promise
of the covenant will be fulfilled when God comes down to earth
in the new Jerusalem and says, now the dwelling place of God
is with man. I will be their God and they
will be my people. No more will there be tears and
suffering and sorrow. Death is no more. And we live
forever in the glorious presence of almighty God. It’s been said
before that a great title for the Bible, I don’t think mine
even has a title on it. Maybe some of y’all says the
Bible or the Holy Bible, but a good title for the Bible would
be this, the science of living blessedly forever. That’s what
the Puritans said of the life of the believer. It is the science.
It is the religion. It is the science of living blessedly
forever. And so you read the Bible through
and through, and you see this golden thread where God wants
to bless righteousness and he wants to curse unrighteousness. And yes, we’re stuck in unrighteousness
because of sin, but he makes a way through his son. to make
us righteous, that we might live with Him forever. And so we see
in the golden thread of Scripture, Jesus is told through the story
of God and man and sin and sacrifice and salvation. So how do we read
the Bible? Well, one verse at a time, we
read it as God intended. But as we’ve been thinking of
the last several weeks, we also read it covenantally. And remember
the word covenant simply means a relationship. It’s a relationship
that God establishes with us. There’s promises to us. There’s
obligations of us. And he guarantees his side by
his word and by his son. Remember in the covenant of works,
Adam was offered life if he obeyed, but he was promised death if
he disobeyed. And that’s what happened very
soon after creation. But God has promised us everlasting
life through faith in Jesus, the second Adam. And so as Jesus
does what Adam failed to do, our faith in Jesus gives us that
obedience, gives us that forgiveness, gives us that righteousness.
You know, there’s several scriptures that ought to trouble us. And
maybe you’re reading through your Bible in the new year and
you’re in some of those Old Testament passages where it says something
like, God will by no means clear the guilty. And you scratch your
head and say, well, how is it that I’m forgiven? Or you read
a proverb like Proverbs 17, 15, that says, he who justifies the
wicked and condemns the righteous are both alike an abomination
to Yahweh. You know, I don’t want to get
political here, but, you know, we’ve kind of seen some pardons, right? How do you clear an unrighteous
person? Can you just write away their
sin? No, God says, I condemn that. Can you condemn the righteous
and say, you gotta go to prison, you gotta go to jail for the
rest of your life? No, that’s an abomination to the Lord also. So how is it that God can justify
the wicked? How is it that God can clear
the name of the guilty? Well, it’s through the sacrifice
of his son. All the blood of bulls and goats
and beasts could not take away the sins of the people, nor could
they clear or clean a dead conscience. And so God lays our sins on Jesus. He who knew no sin becomes sin
for us in order that we might be the righteousness of God.
So how does God clear the name of the wicked? He takes our sin
and he lays it on the sacrificial lamb, the righteous spotless
lamb. And so when Jesus lives and obeys and dies in our place
and we come to him by faith, God grants us justification. What do we like to say? That’s
a two sided coin. It’s just as if I’ve never sinned.
And it’s also just as if I have obeyed. That is how God does
it. Sin is paid for. Forgiveness is granted and righteousness
is bestowed on us. And we see all of that through
the scriptures as we see God’s covenant with Abraham. He believed
God and it was counted to him as righteousness. We see it through
the life of Noah, who was warned of a coming flood and told to
build an ark. And for a hundred years he hammered.
nailed and built because he believed that if he and his family entered
that arc of safety, that arc of salvation, that they would
indeed be saved from the judgment of God. And David, the same. And we now read of it in the
new covenant. God will forgive our iniquity. It’s all based on the life and
the work and the ministry and the gift. of Jesus. So how is this covenant new? Does it mean the old covenant
didn’t work and God had to come up with plan B? Well, think of
it this way, you know, this coming Saturday, I think it is, it’s
better than the Superbowl. It’s the Duke Carolina game,
right? Who cares about the Superbowl? And some of you will watch it
on a flat screen TV and maybe 50 inches, 50, you know, 60,
65, whatever it is you got. Now, I would bet that none of
you have gone back into the closet and dug out your 13-inch black
and white from many moons ago, right? And you think about the
TVs now and the ones back. It was pretty neat to have a
black and white TV that was 13 inches, and the whole family
would get up to it like this. Had the rabbit ears, the tinfoil,
and all the rest. And now we can sit back, because
you can’t get so close. These TVs have a rise over run.
They’ve got to be for the room. And you can’t get too close,
or you’ll feel the, I don’t know, the LED shock or something. But you think about how TVs have
progressed. A 13 inch was pretty neat. You could watch the man
on the moon. And then, boy, a 19-inch TV. I remember when that was
big. And I remember getting a black and white or a color TV. That
was even bigger. And then a 25-inch TV. Boy, that
was something. I remember how big and heavy
they were. And you about broke your toe trying to move the thing. And then it was a 30-some-inch
TV. Now 80 inches, whatever. And
the picture. was always there, right? The
thing that the camera was looking at was always there. But as we
got a different display, as time passed, we could see it bigger,
better, brighter. And now we can see in high definition.
And I’m sure over time, TVs will get greater and greater. Maybe
to our everlasting, not everlasting, but maybe our personal destruction
in this life, the household idol they certainly have become. But
we see better and brighter and it’s only going to get that way.
And that’s how we look at the old covenant. We were looking
in darkness and as time went on, it was brighter and brighter.
The picture got clearer. And then in Jesus, we see in
high definition. But guess what? When we get to
heaven, we’re going to see the studio. When we get to heaven,
we will see God himself. We will not see in pictures.
We will not see through the medium of faith. We will not see darkly.
We will see face to face, clear and as bright as God Almighty
is. And that’s what’s promised to
us in the new covenant. We are promised that the shadows
are over and the fullness and brightness of the new covenant
comes brighter and brighter by day. I think of the passage,
at the end of I think Luke chapter one, where it says about the
expectation of Jesus, he will be the day spring from on high. He will be the bright sun on
the horizon, shining brightly. And just as for Abraham, There
were now or present blessings in covenant with God. There were
also future and not yet. He was promised a son. Well,
it took a little while. He was promised grapes, the promised
land. He was promised grandkids, offspring
that outnumbered the sand of the seashore. There was a now
aspect to the promise where he had the promise, but not the
goods. And of course, now we know that Abraham is in heaven.
Heaven sometimes is referred to as Abraham’s bosom. And we’re told that Abraham’s
offspring gather in heaven with him and before the almighty throne
of God. But the promises were now, but
also not yet for Abraham, the same for Moses and Israel and
for David and the same for the exiled believers who would return
to the promised land. But how about for us? We have
some now. We have Jesus, but we have some not yet. We’re not
yet in heaven. We’re not yet before the face of God and before
the holiness of God. And so we come to a passage like
Jeremiah 31, where in the context of old covenant living, the new
covenant is promised. And it’s under the burden of
judgment. It’s under the burden of daily sacrifices. It’s under
the burden of you are a sinner and you need to kill something,
burn something, offer something. And by the way, it won’t do.
It’s just a placeholder until Jesus comes on the scene. But
what did God promise in Jeremiah 31? He said, I’ll write the law
on your hearts. He said, I will be their God
and they will be my people and I will forgive their iniquity.
There’s three great promises. I’ll write the law on their hearts.
It will no longer be etched on stone, stuck in a box and in
the tabernacle. It will be etched on the human
hearts. We’ll call it to mind because the Holy Spirit reminds
us of these things. Each of us is a temple. And in
us, in our temple, we contain the scriptures written on our
hearts. God promises also to be our God. He promises His presence,
His friendship, His peace. One of the things we do at the
very beginning of our service is have a Trinitarian salutation. Today it was Revelation 1.7,
grace to you and peace. And it was from God, the Father,
him who is, was, and is to come. It was from the Holy Spirit,
the sevenfold or complete spirit that ministers before God’s throne.
And then it was from Christ Jesus, the firstborn from among the
dead, the ruler of all the kings of the earth and the firstborn
from among the dead. And so we have God speaking peace
to us. I will be their God that’s unhindered
even in this life. And then I will forgive their
iniquity. No longer blood, no longer bulls. no longer goats, no longer grain
offerings and peace offerings and all the rest for the once
and for all sacrifice of Jesus has been made. And so how does
this work out? We read the Bible, we read it
verse by verse, we read the Bible as God intended, we get our worldview,
we get our view of God, his word, his works, his ways, his will,
we grow in the grace and the knowledge of Jesus. And what
does that bring to us? A couple of things for New Covenant
living. It gives us faith. And think
of faith in two ways. One would be like our Westminster
confession of faith. It’s a body of belief. Jude,
the half-brother of Jesus, says to the New Testament Christians,
I’m writing to you to contend for the faith. It’s the body
of beliefs. But also each of us. has the gift of faith. And that’s not the content of
what we believe. It’s the instrument through which we put our faith
in an object. And that object is God. And it’s
through his son, the Lord Jesus. And so new covenant living is
a life of faith, beliefs, but also Christ. It’s a life of repentance. Every day we struggle with the
flesh remaining sin. Every day we struggle with the
world and its ways. Every day we struggle with the
voice or the hissing of Satan in our ears. And we have to remember
to live by the spirit and not the flesh. We have to remember
to live by the word and not the world. We have to remember to
live by the voice of Christ and not the hissing of the devil.
But it’s also a life of obedience. God has obligated himself to
us. I will be your God. You will
be my people. He writes his law on our hearts. And by the Spirit’s
power, we are fruit-producing, obedient people. Remember our
first question from the Heidelberg Catechism, what is my only comfort
in life and in death? It’s that I belong to my faithful
Savior, Jesus Christ. He’s bought me with his precious
blood. Not a hair can fall from my head without it being His
will. And on it goes. And then the second question, what three
things must I know to live and die in this comfort? And it’s
basically the three G’s, guilt, grace and gratitude. I was guilty.
God showed me grace. And so the gratitude is I get
to live a life of obedience to Jesus. And so the law written
in our hearts becomes a guide. It becomes a way, a roadmap to
live for the glory of God and the good of others. And then
we persevere in the faith. We run the race that is set before
us. We keep our feet on the path. We long for heaven. We look to
Jesus. And so a life of faith, a life
of repentance, a life of obedience, and a life of perseverance ultimately
ends in getting safely home. Sometimes we say around here,
our chief job as a church is to get you safely home. It’s
not to entertain you. It’s not to give you a thousand
activities and if you pick a few you’ll have a good life and can
Facebook about it. You know, it’s not for church
bingo and this and that. You know, sometimes it’s good
to get together and have fun like those things. But our chief
job is to get you safely home where you will behold the face
of God forever and ever. And that’s why the title of the
Bible could easily be what the Puritans said. It’s the science
of living blessedly forever. And it is now. And it is not
yet. It is now through the merits
of Christ. It is now through the power of the spirit, is now
through the word and the sacraments and the prayers. It is now through
covenant life on this earth. But it is also not yet. And so how do we read the Bible?
Well, verse by verse, we read it the way God wrote it. We know
of him. We find out how to grow. We find out what the meaning
of life is, all those things. But we can also read it geographically.
And you can read it from the beginning, Eden, to the very
end, the New Jerusalem. And the New Jerusalem is our
home. It’s our future home. It’s where
we want to be and where we want to live and dwell forever, where
the triune God is, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. It’s where the
beauty and the grace and the glory and the love and the majesty
of God will be. And we see over and over in between
Eden and New Jerusalem, we see failure after failure after failure. Yes, in Adam. Yes, in Moses. Yes, in David. Yes, in Solomon. And most especially in ourselves. Remember the saying, if you’re
reading through the Bible and there’s a good character, it’s
not you. But if you’re reading through the Bible and there’s
a bad character, guess what? That’s you. We are covenant breakers. Only Jesus is the hero. Only
Jesus is the covenant keeper. And Jesus has made a way. He
has opened up the way of salvation for us. And so as we read and
get the glimpses of Jesus in the old covenant, we see the
fullness of Jesus in the new covenant. That’s all to get us
safely home to heaven, where we will see the fullness, the
vision of God almighty. Remember the disciples. Was it Thomas who said to Jesus,
show us the father and that will be sufficient. And that is going
to be the great goal and end of the Christian life. It is
to see the father and it will be mind blowing. It will be soul
filling. It will be joy promoting. And we will sing of the glory
of the covenant making covenant, keeping God forever and ever. Let’s go to him now in prayer. Our Lord, we do need to learn
today the science of living blessedly forever. We’re pretty good at
the science of living here on earth. We know how to drive in
our tent pegs really deep. We know how to build really tall. We know how to make a name for
ourselves. We even know how to cover our sin and shame. At least
we think so, but there is no other name under heaven and earth
by which we can be saved. And that’s Jesus. So we look
to him, the scarlet thread of the scriptures. And we long to
behold him, the lamb slain before the foundation of the world,
standing there at the throne with those five wounds, those
five scars. He kept the covenant. His mission
was accomplished. And when we get there, he will
receive his inheritance. for completing the mission of
salvation. Lord, we look for that day, but strengthen us now
for the journey, we pray in Christ’s mighty and precious name, amen.
We want to respond to God’s goodness and grace. We’ll sing number
470, How Vast the Benefits Divine. Let’s stand to sing.