Hebrews 10:1

And as they were eating, Jesus took bread and blessed and broke it and gave it to his disciples and said, Take, eat, this is my body. And then he took the cup and he gave thanks and he 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.

Two covenants, one story: how the law of Moses was only a trailer for the good things to come in Christ.

The Most Anticipated Sequel

It has been said that it was the most anticipated sequel in box office history. The film itself was huge, but it was so anticipated that some eleven months before it hit theaters, when the first trailer dropped online, people stayed up until midnight to watch it, and it instantly racked up millions of views on YouTube. The amazing thing is that this sequel, decades in the making, was anticipated not only by people in their thirties, forties, and fifties, but even by small kids like my son Ethan, who was about six at the time.

So it was no wonder there were lines out the door when The Force Awakens opened on December 14, 2015. Within twelve days it had made $1.1 billion, and to date that single movie has made almost $3 billion. Disney paid $4 billion for the franchise—and you can be certain they'll get it back and then some. People were excited to see the same plot line, the same universe, and the same characters continue.

Two Covenants, One Story

The important thing about a sequel is that it is just that—the same story carried forward. And when we come to the Bible, we need to remember that there is a consistent story. Even though there are different books, it's ultimately one story. There are 66 books, but they all point to the same end.

The Bible has two sections: the Old Testament—the first 39 books, the first two-thirds—and the New Testament, the last 27 books. That word testament is actually a King James word; every time you come across the word covenant, the King James uses testament. So you have the old covenant and the new covenant. Though there are two covenants, there's one story.

Sometimes we lose sight of that. Here at Cross Connection, we've spent most of our time over the years in the New Testament, so we forget that the old covenant has great importance to the story. Without it, the stage is not set. Many Christians never read the old covenant, saying, "I don't have any Jewish heritage; I'm a New Testament Christian." But we cannot fail to recognize the cohesive nature of the story from Genesis to Revelation. As we come this year to the book of Hebrews, we're reminded that though there are two covenants, there's one story. (Next week, for you Bible nerds, we'll tackle the mystery of who wrote Hebrews—and some of you will tell me I'm wrong, but that's okay.)

The Call of Abram

The rest of the story—those thirty-nine books—is really important. It set the groundwork for the new covenant. The story began about 4,000 years ago with a man named Abram, who lived in what is now Iraq, in Ur of the Chaldees. When Abram was 75 years old, God began to speak to him, probably through a vision, in a language he could understand—what we call special revelation.

The account in Genesis 12 reads in an interesting way, because it says, "Now the Lord had said to Abram." The message apparently began before the text of chapter 12, perhaps even before Abram was 75.

Now the Lord had said to Abram, Get out of your country, from your family and from your father's house, to a land that I will show you.

God said, in effect, "Leave everything common, everything familiar, everything secure." In that day, to leave your family and people was a dangerous proposition.

A Childless Man Named "Father of Many"

The plot thickens, because at 75 Abram had no child—which is ironic, since his name means father of many. Imagine the twist of the knife every time someone called his name. His wife Sarah was ten years younger, 65, and they were well beyond any hope of starting a family. (How would you like that—75 to be middle-aged? He lived a long time.)

I've known families who struggled with fertility, and the pain and frustration is real. But in Abram and Sarah's world, 4,000 years ago in the Middle East, childlessness wasn't just painful—it was a shame and humiliation. They would have been looked down upon, especially Sarah.

Yet God came to Abram and said, "Leave everything and follow me out west to a land I will show you. I'm not even going to tell you yet where you're going." Some of you left what was familiar to come to California for school or a job or the military—but you knew where you were going and had a way back. God says to Abram, "I'm just going to point you in a direction and say, go west, old man."

Why would he do it? Because of God's word to him:

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 all the families of the earth shall be blessed.

Amazingly, Abram completely trusted God. He left his family, his country, his father's house—everything secure—taking his wife Sarah, his nephew Lot, his servants, and all his goods. They traveled about 400 miles west to the land of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, and all the other "-ites"—the place we today call Israel. Along the way he experienced pain, difficulty, famine, and fear, but he followed God because he was looking forward to the fulfillment of the promise.

God Works Through Impossible Circumstances

As you follow the story through Genesis 13 and 14, turning a page often means turning many years. By Genesis 15, about ten years have passed. Abram is now 85, still childless. He did his part—he went where God told him—and now he had even picked a fight with the nations around him while defending his nephew Lot. That little conflict in the Middle East is nothing new; it's been going on for 4,000 years, and no president will ever fix it. Only one will—the true Messiah, the Prince of Peace, who is already King of Kings and Lord of Lords, and when He returns He'll bring peace.

Surrounded by enemies and afraid, Abram heard God again:

After these things the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision, saying, Do not be afraid, Abram. I am your shield, your exceedingly great reward.

You only tell someone not to be afraid when they're afraid. Notice how honestly Abram responds: "Look, God, what will you give me, seeing I go childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?" I appreciate Abram's honesty, and I think God did too.

This one shall not be your heir, but one who will come from your own body shall be your heir. Look now toward heaven, and count the stars if you are able to number them... So shall your descendants be.

And then comes the word Abram is famous for: "And he believed the Lord, and He accounted it to him for righteousness." There God established a covenant with Abram—a contract, a league, a testament between the two of them.

Another fourteen or fifteen years pass. By Genesis 17, Abram is 99 and Sarah is 89—still no children. Along the way they tried to help God out, having Abram father a child through the servant Hagar. Anybody ever try to fix the fix you're in? When you do, God has to introduce another fix to fix the fix—and the world has lived with the fallout of that one for 4,000 years.

Then God meets Abram again and changes his name to Abraham, father of many nations, and Sarai to Sarah, promising that within a year she will bear a son. Abraham laughs—so God says, "That's what we'll name the boy: Isaac, laughter." At 100 years old, Abraham becomes the father of Isaac by 90-year-old Sarah.

Point one: God enjoys working through impossible circumstances. Why? First, because in impossible circumstances we're forced to trust—we can't fix it ourselves. Second, because there He gets the glory. If you could fix it, you'd say, "Look what I did," and so would I. But God will have none of that. That's why Abraham's attempt was called the child of the flesh, while Isaac was the child of the promise.

God Always Keeps His Promises

The covenant passed from Abraham to Isaac, from Isaac to Jacob—whose name God changed to Israel, and who had twelve sons who became the twelve tribes. Through many twists and turns, this family ends up in Egypt, where the book of Exodus begins. Turn the page from Genesis 50 to Exodus 1 and 400 years pass. That one man's descendants now number hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions—but they have become slaves under severe taskmasters.

So God heard their groaning, and God remembered His covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob. And God looked upon the children of Israel, and God acknowledged them.

God sent a deliverer, Moses, to tell Pharaoh, "Let my people go," and through many plagues He brought His people out of Egypt by His power.

Point two: God always makes good on His promises. For some of you this is an important reminder. Sometimes there's a decade or two, or forty years, but God always makes good on His promises.

A Fatal Flaw the Law Cannot Fix

God brought them to Mount Sinai and established a covenant—not just with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, but now with their descendants. Moses received the conditions of the covenant, the law of God, and brought them down. The people responded, "All that the Lord has said we will do and be obedient" (Exodus 19). But while God always keeps His promises, we don't.

God brought them into the promised land to be His covenanted people, and they built a temple to worship Him. Yet almost as soon as they entered the covenant, they broke it. Some people conclude, "Those Israelites just weren't good at it—I would have kept the covenant." But you know your own heart.

Point three: Humanity has a fatal flaw that God's law cannot fix. The story of the old covenant—Genesis through Malachi—is the story of people doing their best to keep God's law and failing every time, because of sin. From Moses to Joshua, through judges like Gideon, Barak, Samson, and Ehud, to Samuel, and the kings Saul, David, Solomon, Rehoboam, and Jeroboam—every one of them failed. The nation succumbed to idolatry, gluttony, greed, drunkenness, and immorality.

God sent prophets—Jeremiah, Isaiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, Obadiah—to call them back, but they kept failing. After 800 years of failure and repentance, the Babylonian Empire rose in the 6th century BC, wiped out the nation, destroyed the temple, and carried the people into captivity.

The Promise of a New Covenant

As the nation was being dismantled, God spoke through Jeremiah:

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 according to the covenant that I made with their fathers... My covenant which they broke... I will put My law in their minds, and write it on their hearts... For I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more.

What is God saying? The old covenant required you to bring your sacrifices 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." Then He can completely pardon it and remember it no more.

Point four: God's law under the old covenant exposes our need for Christ and the new covenant. There are two covenants, but one story. When we study from Matthew to Revelation, we're looking at the sequel—but it's still one consistent story. The old covenant shows that there's nothing we can do in ourselves to fix the fix of sin. All our sacrifices will always be insufficient. But Jesus comes and offers the one sacrifice that deals with it all.

A Dim Preview of the Good Things to Come

That brings us to Hebrews 10. Let me read verses 1 through 10 from the New Living Translation:

The old system under the law of Moses was only a shadow, a dim preview of the good things to come, not the good things themselves. The sacrifices under that system were repeated again and again, year after year, but they were never able to provide a perfect cleansing for those who came to worship... But instead, those sacrifices actually reminded them of their sins year after year. For it is not possible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins. > > That is why, 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... Look, I have come to do your will, O God—as it is written about me in the Scriptures." ... 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.

That is the rest of the story. The old covenant was only a trailer—a dim preview. It never could take away sin. The first covenant points to the second; it is the prequel.

This Is My Blood of the New Covenant

On the night He would be betrayed, the night before He would be crucified, the Lamb of God was with His disciples observing the Feast of Passover—the remembrance of the first covenant, the leaving of Egypt. As they partook, Jesus took bread, blessed it, broke it, and gave it to them:

Take it; this is my body, which is given for you. ... Drink from it, all of you, for this is the blood of the new covenant, which is shed for many for the remission of sins.

So today, as we do every seventh Sunday, we'll partake of communion—the remembrance that the old covenant couldn't do it. This is the theme of the book of Hebrews: the old covenant was insufficient. But Jesus came and offered one sacrifice once for all, so that 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 gospel. Amen.