Hebrews 10:1

And as they were eating, Jesus took bread, blessed it, broke it, and gave it to his disciples, saying, "Take, eat, this is my body." Then he took the cup, gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, "Drink from it, all of you, for this is my blood of the new covenant, which is shed for many for the remission of sins."

Father, as we open the Scriptures today, I pray that you would open our hearts and do a work in us by your Spirit. We trust that you have given and sent the Spirit to guide us into all truth, to teach us all things, and to bring to remembrance the things that you have spoken. I pray, God, that we would remember the things you have taught and spoken to us through the Scriptures, not just when we're gathered together in a place like this with Bibles open, but throughout the week. God, remind us of your word to us and for us.

So, Lord, I pray that this time would be a time of equipping, that we would be thoroughly equipped for every good work this week. Speak to us. We pray this in Jesus' name, and all those that agreed said, "Amen." You can be seated.

It has been said that it was the most anticipated sequel in box office history. In fact, the movie itself was huge, but it was so anticipated that about 10 or 11 months before it even hit the box office, when the first trailer showed up, people were waiting until midnight to watch it. When it dropped online, it instantly had millions and millions of views on YouTube. There were people, maybe even in this room, who were waiting up until midnight to watch the trailer drop just a couple and a half years ago. Thankfully, I wasn't one of them, but I did watch it the next morning when it came out.

The amazing thing is that this sequel, which was decades in the making, was anticipated by a great deal of people in their 30s, 40s, and 50s. But the remarkable thing is that even small kids, like my son Ethan, who at the time was about six, were looking forward to it too.

And so it was no wonder that there were lines out the door on the day that it opened on December 14th, 2015, when "The Force Awakens" came to theaters. Within 12 days, it had already made $1.1 billion. To date, that single movie has made almost $3 billion.

The sequel in the Star Wars trilogy, which began in the late 70s and early 80s, was highly anticipated. People were looking forward to this story, the same characters, and the same plotline returning to the screen. Fans were extremely excited about it. Most excited of all was Disney Pictures, who paid $4 billion for the franchise. They invested that amount with the certainty that they would recoup it and more, as they are already on track to release the third film in their series of Star Wars at the end of this year. They just released another film last year, and billions of dollars are at stake in this sequel.

People are eager for the story to continue. The important thing about a sequel is that it is just that: the same plotline, the same universe, and the same characters, or at least the story of those characters, continues from where you left off. It may also provide some background story as you move into the next phase.

When we come to the Bible, it is important for us to remember that there is a consistent story. Just like in that series of movies, there are different books in the Bible, but they all tell the same story. In fact, our Bible contains 66 books, and those books have a consistency that points to the same end.

Ultimately, there are, as you may know, two different sections of the Bible: the Old Testament, which consists of the first 39 books and makes up the first two-thirds of the Bible, and the New Testament, which contains the last 27 books and comprises the final third. However, they all point to the same basic story. The word "testament" is actually a term from the King James Bible. Does anyone still use a King James Bible or have one hanging around? You know, that's the one with the "V's" and "thou's," and so forth. In that book, every time you come across the word "covenant," the word "testament" is used. Thus, you have the Old Covenant and the New Covenant.

But though there are two covenants, there is one story. The problem is that sometimes we lose sight of that. Even here at Cross Connection, over the last many years, we have spent most of our time in the last third of the Bible, in the new covenant, in the New Testament. As a result, we sometimes forget that the old covenant, the first two-thirds of the Bible, is there and has great importance in the story. Without that, the stage is not set.

Unfortunately, there are a lot of Christians who never spend any time reading the old covenant because they say they don't really have any Jewish heritage and that it doesn't mean anything to them. They identify as New Testament Christians. However, we cannot fail to recognize the importance of the cohesive nature of the story from Genesis to Revelation.

As we come to the book of Hebrews this year, we are reminded that though there are two covenants, there is one story. This book that we are going to be studying has been introduced with some trailers, as we aren't even really going to get into it yet. We will delve into it fully in a couple of weeks. Next week, for you Bible nerds and Bible geeks, we will discuss who wrote the book of Hebrews. This is a mystery among Christians, and some of you may have your own theories. Some of you might tell me I'm wrong, but that's okay; we can have a little conflict.

When you come to the book of Hebrews, you immediately find that the rest of the story, those thirty-nine books, are actually really important. They set the groundwork for the new covenant. The story began about 4,000 years ago. It started before that, but it really began to pick up steam in a big way with a man named Abram. Abram lived in what is now the land of Iraq. At that time, it was called Ur, Ur of the Chaldees, or Babylon, near that area.

It began when this man Abram was 75 years old. As recorded in Genesis chapter 12, God began to speak to Abraham in some way, probably through a vision. In other passages, it says that through a vision, he received God speaking to him in a language that he could understand. We talked about this a couple of weeks ago; this is what we refer to as special revelation, where God speaks in a language that we can comprehend. Abram was 75 years old when God first began to speak to him.

As you read the story presented in Genesis 12, you can turn there if you'd like. It is the very first book of the Bible, and the twelfth chapter reads in an interesting manner. As God speaks to him, it says, "Now the Lord had said to Abram." Apparently, this message that Abram receives from God started before the text of Genesis chapter 12, and it seems as though it may have begun before Abraham was 75 years old. God began to speak to him, and He had a very specific word for him.

Genesis 12, verse 1, states, "Get out of your country, from your family, and from your father's house to a land that I will show you." God wanted Abram to leave everything that was common, everything that was familiar, and everything that was secure for him. In that day and age, leaving your family and your group of people was a dangerous proposition. But God comes to him and says, "I want you to leave everything that you had."

Here, the story thickens. Like with any story, there is even more tension than just the call to follow. Another tension-inducing part of this story is that Abram, at 75 years old, had no child. This is interesting because his name ironically means "father of many." I imagine that was probably a little bit of a twist of the knife every time someone called his name—Abram, father of many. Yet, he had no children. He was 75 years old, and his wife, Sarah, was 10 years younger than him at 65. They were well beyond the hope of starting a family, even though Abram was still considered middle-aged.

How would you like to be 75 and considered middle-aged? He lived a long time. I have known some families over the years that struggled with having children due to fertility problems. Perhaps you have been in that place, experiencing the devastation, frustration, and pain that comes with it. However, that pain and frustration pale in comparison to what Abram and Sarah faced in the 21st-century Western world we live in. The world they inhabited 4,000 years ago in the Middle East was not just painful and frustrating; it was a source of shame for both of them. It was a humiliation, and they would have been looked down upon in their society.

She especially would have been looked down upon for not having any children. But God comes to Abram at some point, and now again when he's 75, the Lord said, "I want you to do something. I want you to get out of your country, leave everything common, everything familiar, everything secure. And I want you to come follow me out west to a land that I will show you. I'm not even going to tell you yet where you're going. But I want you to come follow me."

Now, some of you in your life have left what was common and familiar. Maybe you came out here to California to go to school, to take a job, or to go into the military. But you came here for a purpose, and you knew where you were going. Perhaps you had mitigated the risk in some way; you had a way to go back to where you came from. But God says to Abram, "I want you to leave everything, and I'm not even going to tell you yet where you're going. I'm just going to point you in a direction and say, go west, old man."

Why would you even do that, though? There is something about God's word to Abram that got this childless man, whose name meant "father of many," interested in following this word that came to him in a vision. In Genesis 12, verse 2, God said, "I will make you a great nation. I will bless you and make your name great, and you shall be a blessing. I will bless him who blesses you and curse him who curses you. And in you, or through you, all the families of the earth shall be blessed."

At 75 years old, the father of many gets a message from God saying, "You come follow me. You want a family. You come follow me. But you're going to have to leave your family to do so." Amazingly, Abram completely trusted in God. He left his family, left his country, left his father's house, and left all that was secure, comfortable, and familiar. He took with him his wife, Sarah, and his nephew, Lot, because his brother had died, and now Lot was under his care. He took all of those things of his household, all of his goods, and his servants.

He left and began to follow God on this adventure, not knowing exactly where he was going. Ultimately, they traveled about 400 miles to the west and ended up in a place they at that time called the land of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, and all the other tribes. Today, we call it Israel. He followed God, and in the midst of it, he experienced pain, difficulty, famine, and fear.

But he followed God because he was looking forward to the fulfillment of this promise: "I'm going to make you a great nation, you father of many that has no children." You may wonder what happened. Well, I'll tell you what happened. If you follow the story from Genesis chapter 12 through Genesis chapters 13 and 14, you will see that in the Old Testament, a lot of times when you turn a page in the Bible, you're turning many, many years that passed during that period of time.

By the time you get to Genesis chapter 15, about ten years have passed. Abram is now about 85 years old, and he is still childless. He did his part; he went where God told him to go. He stepped away from everything and put himself in a difficult and insecure position. Now, his wife is ten years older; he is 85, and she is 75. Still, no children.

But the plot thickens a little bit more. In Genesis chapter 14 and the beginning of Genesis chapter 15, Abram, to defend one of his family members—his nephew Lot—picked a fight with a whole bunch of people around him. He didn't intend to, but now he becomes the enemy of all those around him. This little situation in the Middle East, with the land of Canaan and Israel surrounded by a whole bunch of enemies, is not new.

Let me tell you, though every president in modern history has come into office saying, "I'm going to fix it," they will never be able to fix it. It's been going on for 4,000 years, and there's only one who will be able to fix it: the true Messiah. He won't be voted into office because he is already King of Kings and Lord of Lords. When he, the Prince of Peace, returns, then he will bring peace. There won't be peace, although there will be peace accords, I guarantee you. But that's another story that has nothing to do with ours today.

There was Abram in this place, in the land of Canaan. He did what God told him to do, and now he was surrounded by his enemies. You can imagine he was fearful. In fact, we know he was fearful because of the word that came to him in Genesis 15:1. It says, "After these things, the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision, saying, 'Do not be afraid.'" Now, who do you encourage and tell not to be afraid? People who are afraid. So God comes and says, "Abram, do not be afraid. Why? Do not be afraid. I am your shield, your exceedingly great reward."

You have to read this in the right way to see it in the text.

Because it's not written like your text message that might be in all caps when you're saying something really sternly, notice the way that Abram responds to God here. Abram said, "Look, God, what will you give me, seeing I go childless, and the heir of my house is Eleazar of Damascus?" Then Abram continued, "Look, you have given me no child, no offspring. Indeed, the one born in my house is my heir."

There is some frustration in this, and I appreciate this about Abram. I think God did, too, because Abram was honest before God. He was afraid. He had left everything and was in a difficult position. God came to him and said, "I am your shield, your exceedingly great reward." Abram responded, "Wait a minute. Hold on. What about this little thing that we had going on? You said, 'Come follow me. You give me children,' and I have no children. The one who will inherit everything if I die is a servant who was born in my household. I go childless."

Behold, verse 4 states, "The word of the Lord came to him, saying, 'This one shall not be your heir, but one who will come from your own body shall be your heir.'" Then God brought him outside and said, "Look now toward the heaven. Look toward the stars if you're able to number them." He continued, "So shall your descendants be."

Notice this; this is the word over Abram's life that, in many respects, he is famous for. Abram believed the Lord, and God accounted it to him for righteousness. God reiterates His promise, saying, "Abram, you will have a child. It's not going to be this Eleazar in your household who will receive the inheritance. You will have a child. This child of the promise is going to come from you." Abram believed God, and the Lord accounted it to him for righteousness.

As you go through Genesis chapter 15, you see that God establishes a covenant. The way they would establish a covenant 4,000 years ago in the Middle East involved entering into a contract, a league, a treaty, an agreement, a testament between Abram and God. God assures him that he will have a child.

You know what happens? Another 15 years go by—14, 15 years. Things keep going on and on. Then you come to Genesis chapter 17, where you find that Abram is 99 years old.

His wife is 89 years old. They have no children and are way beyond the time when they would be having children, decorating the nursery with expectation. In the midst of all this, they thought, "Maybe we need to help God out. We need to try and fix this situation we're in." Has anyone ever tried to help God out before? So, they attempted to fix their predicament.

They had a servant in the household named Hagar. Abram's wife suggested, "Maybe you could go into her and have a child. This will be a surrogate, and that will be the child." It sounded like a good idea, so they decided to go through with it. However, as we know, when you try to fix the situation you're in, God often needs to introduce another solution to address the fix you attempted in the first place. For the last 4,000 years, the world has been experiencing the fallout of that decision.

But God comes back again in Genesis chapter 17. He once again meets with Abram and says, "Listen, it's been a while." Abram responds, "Yes, Lord, it has. It's been a quarter-century. I started following you 25 years ago. I left everything and came out here. I've been in this difficult situation, living in a tent in the middle of a barren wilderness, because you said you would make me a great nation."

God says to Abram, "I have something for you. I'm going to change your name. You will no longer be called the father of many." Abram thinks, "Wait, hold on. You're going back on your word here." But God continues, "No, no, no. I will name you Abraham, father of many nations." This seemed to rub salt in the wound.

He adds, "Your wife will no longer be called Sarai; she will be called Sarah. Because next year, about this time, your wife, who will be 90, is going to have a baby." You know what Abraham does? He laughs. So, God says, "Okay, that's what we're going to name that baby, that son: Laughter. Isaac."

At 100 years old, Abram becomes the father of Isaac by his wife, Sarah, who is 90. They have Isaac, bringing a little laughter into their old age. Through Abram, God passes the covenant and the relationship down to Isaac. This is point number one on your outline.

God enjoys working through impossible circumstances. Why does God enjoy working through impossible circumstances? Well, I can think of two immediate reasons.

First, it is in impossible circumstances that we are forced to trust. We can't do this on our own; we can't fix this. We've already tried to fix the fix. I know that every single one of us in this room has been in impossible circumstances before. We've tried to do it on our own, and God says, "No, I guess we're not there yet." We need to push a little bit further into the impossible situation. God loves to work through impossible situations because it is there that we trust Him.

Secondly, it is in these situations that He gets the glory. If you could fix it, you would say, "Look what I did," and I would too. We would all say, "Check this out that I did. I am so intelligent. I am so industrious. I am so entrepreneurial." But God says, "No, we will have none of that."

In fact, when Abraham tried to fix the scenario, it has been called ever since the child of the flesh, whereas the other was the child of the promise. Abraham begot Isaac, and the promise and the covenant went down to Isaac. Then Isaac begot Jacob, and the promise and the covenant went down to Jacob.

If you've been reading through the Bible this year from Genesis chapter 1 until now, you're probably around Genesis chapter 49 or 50. The entire story is there in the book of Genesis, this opening prequel to the larger story. Abraham begot Isaac, and Isaac begot Jacob. God changed Jacob's name to Israel, and Israel had 12 sons who became the 12 tribes of Israel.

Ultimately, through a number of twists and turns in the book of Genesis, this family of Isaac, Jacob, and Abram ends up down in Egypt. That is where the book of Exodus starts, with the children of Israel in Egypt. When you turn the page from Genesis chapter 50 to Exodus chapter 1, you fast forward 400 years. Four hundred years pass.

And that one man, Abram, with his descendant Isaac, Isaac's descendant Jacob, and Jacob's twelve sons, over 400 years later, had hundreds of thousands, potentially millions, of descendants living in Egypt. Not only were they living in Egypt, but they had also become the slaves and servants of the nation of Egypt. They were under severe taskmasters as refugees in a land that was not their own.

In their distress, they began to cry out to God. It is recorded in Exodus chapter 2, verse 24, that God heard their groaning and remembered His covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Four hundred years later, the great, great, great, great, great, great-grandchildren of Abraham were in Egypt, facing a difficult situation, and they cried out to God. God heard their cry, their prayer from heaven, and said, "I remember my covenant, my agreement with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob."

So what did He do? Exodus 2, verse 25 states that God looked upon the children of Israel and acknowledged them. God sent a deliverer, a man named Moses, to retrieve His people from Egypt and to tell Pharaoh, "Let my people go." Through a number of twists and turns and various plagues upon the Egyptians, the children of Israel, the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, came out of Egypt by God's power. He brought them forth out of Egypt.

This leads to point number two on your outline: God always makes good on His promises. For some of you this morning, this is a really important reminder. God always makes good on His promises. Sometimes it takes a decade or two or even forty years, but God always fulfills His promises. He brought them out of Egypt and led them to a place called Mount Sinai. There, God established a covenant—not just with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, but now with their descendants.

Moses went up on top of the mountain and received from God the conditions of the covenant, known as the law of God. He brought these conditions down to the people and said, "Here are the conditions of the covenant. If you fulfill these, you will be God's covenanted, promised people." God was going to bring them into the land that He promised to their great-great-great-great-grandfather, Abraham, and that is why it is called the Promised Land.

He is going to give that to you, but here are the conditions of the covenant. In Exodus 19, they said, "All that God has said we will do and be obedient. We're going to do it all." But what do we find? God always makes good on His promises, but we don't.

As part of this covenant they entered into, God brings them into the Promised Land. There, they were to be God's promised, covenanted people to serve Him. So, they built a temple to God where they would come and serve Him and worship as the covenanted, promised people of God. However, almost as soon as they entered into the covenant with God at Mount Sinai, they broke it. Though God makes good on His promises, we do not.

I've heard people sometimes conclude, "Well, you know, those children of Israel, they just weren't so good at it. I would have kept the covenant." But you know your own heart. They broke the covenant. As you follow the story from Exodus through Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy—the first five books of the Bible—it becomes more and more clear with every turn of the page that point number three is true: humanity has a fatal flaw that God's law cannot fix.

Yet, the story of the old covenant, from Genesis through Malachi, those first 39 books that center on the family of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and the children of Israel, focuses on these people under this covenant with God. It tells the story of man doing his best and working his hardest to maintain God's covenant by keeping God's law. However, the fatal flaw with us, with humanity, is exposed in the old covenant. The fatal flaw is that because of sin, it is an absolute impossibility for us to keep the covenant established under Moses. There is no way.

From Moses down to Joshua and through the judges, names like Gideon, Barak, Samson, and Ehud, on down to Samuel, who was a prophet and a judge, and ultimately the kings—Saul, David, Solomon, Rehoboam, Jeroboam, and all these other names that we don't remember—are scattered throughout the books of Kings and Chronicles. They are in the Old Testament. Every single one of these people failed. The nation of Israel failed every single time to fulfill the covenant of God. They succumbed to idolatry, gluttony, greed, drunkenness, and immorality.

In response, God sent prophets to them: Jeremiah, Isaiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, Obadiah, and many others, to call them back to repentance and to return to faithfulness to the covenant. However, every time they turned away from that faithfulness, they failed. Ultimately, they went astray and were devastated by their enemies.

Eight hundred years passed from the time they entered the promised land. Eight centuries went by filled with failure and repentance, subjugation by their enemies—the Philistines, Moabites, Ammonites, and various other nations that came against them. Finally, in the sixth century BC, the Babylonian Empire rose to power, coming in to wipe out the nation of Israel. They destroyed their temple and took them captive back to Babylon, removing them from their promised land because of the breaking of the covenant.

As this was happening, as the nation, city by city, was being dismantled by the Babylonian Empire, God spoke through a prophet named Jeremiah. God said, "Behold, the days are coming," says the Lord, "that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, not like the covenant that I made with their fathers the day that I took them by the hand out of the land of Egypt. My covenant which they broke, though I was a husband to them," says the Lord. "But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel in those days," says the Lord. "I will put my law in their minds and I will write it in their hearts. I will be their God and they shall be my people. No more shall every man teach his neighbor and every man his brother, saying, 'Know the Lord,' for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest of them," says the Lord.

For I will forgive their iniquities and their sin; I will remember no more. What does God say through Jeremiah? Simply this: the old covenant was a covenant whereby you would bring your sacrifices to God to deal with your sin, but you could never do it well enough. So God says, "I will bring my sacrifice to deal with your sin." God always keeps His promises where we don't. When God brings the sacrifice and offers the sacrifice, He can say, "Your sin and iniquity I will forgive, completely pardon, and remember it no more."

Point number four on your outline: God's law under the old covenant exposes our need for Christ and the new covenant. You see, there are two covenants, but there's one story. When we come to the New Testament and study through Matthew all the way up to Revelation, we're looking at the sequel, if you will, but it's still just one consistent story. The old covenant points us to the new covenant. It establishes our need for the new covenant and shows us that there's nothing we can do in and of ourselves to try and fix the problem of sin. We can't fix it. We can't deal with it. All of our sacrifices will always be insufficient.

But Jesus comes and offers the sacrifice for us, which deals with it all. This brings us quickly to Hebrews chapter 10. I told you we'd get there; it just took a little while. Turn your Bibles to the New Testament near the end, to Hebrews chapter 10. Normally, I read from the New King James Version, and many of you have that version, but I want to read Hebrews chapter 10, verses 1 through 10, in the New Living Translation. You'll still be able to follow along, and I think you'll see it. I love the way that this brings out the scripture.

Hebrews 10, verse 1 states that the old system, under the law of Moses, the first covenant, was only a shadow, or shall we say a trailer. It was merely a dim preview of the good things to come, not the good things themselves. The sacrifices under that system, the first covenant, were repeated again and again, year after year, but they were never able to provide a perfect cleansing for those who came to worship. If those sacrifices could have provided a perfect cleansing, they would have stopped, for the worshipers would have been purified once for all time, and their feelings of guilt would have disappeared.

Instead, those sacrifices actually reminded them of their sins year after year. Hebrews chapter 10, verse 4 tells us that it is not possible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sin. It never was possible. That is why, in verse 5, when Christ came into the world, he said to God, "You did not want animal sacrifices or sin offerings, but you have given me a body to offer. You were not pleased with burnt offerings or other offerings for sin."

Then he said, "Look, I have come to do your will, O God, as it is written about me in the scriptures." First, Christ stated that God did not want animal sacrifices or sin offerings or burnt offerings, nor was He pleased with them, though they are required by the law of Moses. Then he said, in verse 9, "Look, I have come to do your will." He cancels the first covenant in order to put the second into effect, for God's will was for us to be made holy by the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all time.

And that is the rest of the story. There are two covenants, but there is only one story. The first covenant points to the second; it is the prequel. It is like 1983's "Return of the Jedi" and "The Force Awakens," a new covenant.

Therefore, Jesus, on the night that he would be betrayed by Judas Iscariot, the night before he would be crucified on a Roman cross, the Lamb of God who comes to take away the sin of the world, was with his disciples.

They were observing the Feast of Passover, which is the remembrance of the first covenant, the leaving of Egypt under the first covenant. As they partook of that Passover, Jesus, with His disciples, took bread. In Matthew 26:26, it is written that He blessed it, broke it, and gave it to His disciples, saying, "Take it. This is my body, which is given for you, broken for you."

Then He took the cup, gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, "Drink from it, all of you, for this is the blood of the new covenant, which is shed for many for the removal of sins."

As we do every seventh Sunday here at Cross Connection, we are going to partake of communion today. This is a remembrance that the old covenant couldn't do it. This is the theme, the focus, and the point of the book of Hebrews that we will see as we go through this book. The old covenant was insufficient; it couldn't do it. But Jesus came and offered one sacrifice once for all.

As we, like Abraham, put our faith in Him, He accounts it to us as righteousness. That, my friends, is good news. That's why we call it the gospel. Amen.