New Covenant Church Life

So, how are we doing as a church? How do you know? How do you know how we're doing? Are we fulfilling the purpose that God has for the church? Let's consider it. Because if I'm not fulfilling the purpose that God has assigned me for here, then I have a feeling that God will have his way and he will move things on to fulfill his purpose. So, let's review. I want us all to understand what we are working towards, our goal together, all right? So, if you want to follow me, we'll start in Ephesians chapter 4. Because God has a purpose and that purpose is for all of us to arrive at the same destination, to achieve the same goal. Let's see what that is this morning. Let's take a look. Ephesians chapter 4. Let's start with verse 7, just to get into the context. Ephesians 4, 7. But to each one of us, grace was given according to the measure of Christ's gift. Therefore, he says, when he ascended on high, he led captivity captive and he gave gifts to men. Now this, he ascended, what does it mean? But that he also first descended into the lower part of the earth. He who descended, speaking of our Lord Jesus, is also the one who ascended far above all the heavens that he might fill all things. And he himself, the Lord Jesus himself, gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers. And all of these were given for this purpose. Now follow me, whether you're an apostle, prophet, evangelist, pastor, or teacher, this is the purpose that Jesus has given these particular ministries for. For the equipping of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the building up of the body of Christ. And this building up is not a building up in numbers alone. It is a building up in spiritual life, spiritual quality, spiritual characteristic. It's a building up of righteousness and holiness and godliness. It's a building up in brotherly love. It's a building up of unity. It's a strengthening and building up of the church as a spiritual family. For the building up of the body of Christ until, notice this until, the church is to be built up until we all come to the unity of the faith. In other words, the same faith. Every single one of us is not looking to the pastor, but they're looking to Christ Jesus. Everyone, everywhere, every day, looking to the Lord Jesus. That's my job, to make sure you are not looking just at me, but that you are looking to the Lord Jesus. Every eye on him, every heart directed towards him. The unity of the faith and the knowledge of the Son of God. Epigonosto here, your own personal first-hand experience with Christ. When you know Christ, you're not being spoon-fed by a man here saying, here, know the Lord. We're going to get into that in a minute because that's the old covenant. Part of the new covenant is that every single one of you will know the Lord for yourself, from the least to the greatest, so that you no longer will need someone like me to be your teacher. That's where we're headed. That's the goal we are moving towards, where every single one of us realizes we are looking to Jesus Christ. Every single one of us knows Jesus Christ, and in him, we are growing up into the fullness of him, so that the full expression of Jesus Christ, his righteousness, his holiness, his goodness, his character, all the spiritual fruit that comes from Christ living in us, will be on a constant display everywhere we are, in our homes, on the job, everywhere we are. Christ is being manifest by his church in the world. That's the goal. We attain to this measure of the fullness of Christ, to where the goal is, as we've said, we've been talking about over the last several weeks. You and I are the saints in people's lives. If you're a wife, you are the saint to your husband. If you're a parent, you are the saint to your children. You are the saint at work. They consider you dynamically spiritual because they see godliness and righteousness on regular display at all times. Good times, bad times, easy times, difficult times. Christ Jesus being displayed by the power of the Holy Spirit in our life. That's the goal for the church. Then it goes on to say, then we'll no longer be like infants. See, this is not supposed to be a nursery. We're not supposed to be sitting in these pews with diapers. That takes an awful lot of work. You know, I mean, children are wonderful, but they cannot take care of themselves. And if we are still infants in spiritual diapers, the church is not doing her job. We need to grow up into all things into Christ, not an infant blown to and fro by every wind of doctrine, affected by things we hear, all kinds of teachings. Because this goes on a lot in Christendom. Fads. This becomes popular, and the church goes this way. And this other teaching becomes popular, and the church goes this way. And what the world sees is that we're unstable. We're supposed to manifest the fact that our eyes are never taken off the Lord Jesus Christ. We glory in Him. We look to Him. He is with us every single day. And in every situation we face, His grace is sufficient for us. And His power is just perfect for the areas we're weak. So that we stop saying the reason we keep messing up is because we're weak. And we start saying the reason I was able to do what's right is because His power was made available to me through the Holy Spirit. It's got a hold of my tongue. It's got a hold of my tone. It's got a hold of my countenance. I'm not looking like the old me. God is making in me an entirely new creation. The old things are passing away, and all things are becoming new. And they're looking less and less like great, great, great, great, great Grandpa Adam, and more and more like the Son of God, who we've been predestined to be conformed to His image. Just like Paul told the Corinthians, yes, all of us have borne the likeness of the earthly man. Great, great, great, great, great Grandpa Adam. But now, now let us bear the image of Jesus Christ. Now let the world see when they look at us, let them see what godliness and righteousness and goodness and meekness and lowliness, what they look like. Let's be the light of the world, where we look like Jesus. We talk like Jesus. And get this, and in everything that happens to us, we respond like Jesus. That's the key. That means it's gone so deep in the heart, that our first response is like His. Not our second or third. Not after we've blown it for three or four days, and gotten in the flesh, and gotten all out of whack. And then we say, oh, I somehow messed up. And yes, we can all ask forgiveness when we do that, and we should. But you know, my wife would rather me not blow up and be ugly and mean, and ask. She would rather me just be nice, and be under the control of the Holy Spirit, and be gentle, and be kind. Rather than not doing that, and having to say I'm sorry. I will say I'm sorry, if that happens. But I don't want to keep saying I'm sorry. When Christ can be there, you know what the scripture says. And you know this, so I'm not telling you something new. I'm just trying to say this is a goal for us, right? Maturity in Christ means that we believe this. We all agree. We are unified in this. Can we say we're unified in this? No temptation has taken us but such as common demand. Can we say we're all in agreement with that? That we're never tempted above what we're able to bear. Never. It will never happen because God doesn't allow it. Every single time we're tempted, our Heavenly Father limits it so that we can bear up under it. And not only does He limit it, He even provides a way of escape. He shows us how not to give in to the temptation. We all agree then that we do not have to sin, do we? Right? We can walk in the Holy Spirit. And like Paul said, and those who are led by the Holy Spirit, if you walk according to the Spirit, you do not fulfill the desires of the flesh. That's our goal. Isn't it the goal of the church to have spiritual people, spiritually empowered, that respond so differently from the world that they are set apart? They are holy ones. They are saints in conduct, in conversation, in their character. They have new hearts. They have new minds. And they have the Spirit of God dwelling in them. And I want us to see this clearly by contrasting the Old Covenant and the New Covenant. We have some new believers here. So, you know, most of you have a Bible. You have my Bible. Your Bible has two parts. The Old Testament from Genesis to Malachi and the New Testament from Matthew to Revelation. Two parts. Notice the word Old Testament, meaning it's old and new. Which part are we supposed to be living in then? The new. We're in the new. Now, it agrees with the old. But let's explain the Old Testament. And testament is merely another English word for covenant. So, you had the Old Covenant and the New Covenant. What was the Old Covenant? Sure, we are supposed to be living in the New Covenant. There is an Old Covenant that was a part of what God did with Israel. The Old Covenant was a covenant that God made with the 12 tribes of Israel. And this occurred after he took them, rescued them from slavery in the land of Egypt. And remember, he led them to Mount Sinai. And that's where the covenant, God made a covenant with the house of Israel. And you remember what that covenant was like? God knew that they did not know him well at all. They had had no personal relationship with him. They were like children who needed a guardian. And like a good parent at times, there are times we will tell a child, if you cross that sidewalk and get into the street, I'm going to wear your bottom out so long you won't be able to sit down for a week. We do that to instill in them a fear of the consequence that would happen if they subject themselves to danger. That in a way describes the First Covenant. It was so fearsome. God wanted this people to understand his power and his holiness. And so he manifested himself in the form of a cloud on fire and a mountain that continually trembled with earthquakes. And he told Moses, put limits around the base of the mountain. And if anybody goes beyond those limits to try to even touch the mountain, they're going to die. They're not even going to live. In other words, the people cannot even draw near me. Moses, you can come up to me. And what I'm going to do is I'm going to declare my worth in my own voice to the people so that they will learn to fear me. And the Lord himself declared what we call the Ten Commandments. Actually, in Hebrews, it's just the 10 sayings. He said 10 things. The thing is, he spoke so loud. It freaked the people out so badly that they begged Moses not to have God speak anymore lest they die. They were terrified. And so the Lord told Moses, it's a good thing. The people said, Moses, you go to God. Whatever he tells you, we'll do. And that was the first covenant. And in that first covenant, God gave instructions to Moses that the commandments that the people were to live by, not just the Ten Commandments, those God declared himself and those God himself inscribed on tablets of stone, those 10 sayings. But God also gave Moses an entire lengthy revelation about his will, about social laws, about the tabernacle, about the priesthood, very specific. That's called the Book of the Law that Moses wrote down as God revealed it to him. And in that Book of the Law, there are 618 commandments all together. And these were the commandments that the people were to live by, because God was actually treating them like children. You don't know any better. You do not realize how corrupt the nations are that I'm sending you in. See, in the promised land, there were nations there. And the practices, the religious practices, especially of those nations were so corrupt that they would ruin the lives of God's own people. So he gave them specific instructions. Live by these instructions. And he tried to instill in them the fear not to step beyond that boundary. Do not trespass. Stay within these boundaries and it will go well with you. He's not going to explain everything to them, but he would just tell them, stay within these boundaries and it will go well with you. And this is an aspect of this first covenant. You're familiar that there was a temple, but not everyone could go into the temple. Do you realize that? In that first covenant, there was one temple and only the actual priest could go near the temple. As a matter of fact, if you were not a priest from the tribe of Levi, you couldn't even go into the temple. And so if this were the temple, if you were not a Levi, you couldn't come in here. Only the priest could. But it's even more than that. In this temple toward the back area, similar to what we have like here, let's just imagine that there's a curtain across this back wall. There was a place called the Holy of Holies. They said the curtain was about as thick as a man's hand. And behind that curtain, the Lord had instructed Moses to build the Ark of the Covenant. And in the Ark of the Covenant was the tablets that God had inscribed the Ten Commandments on and a few other items. And the Lord told Moses, I will meet with the priest. I will appear in a cloud above the Ark of the Covenant. But you know how often that happened? Only one time a year and only to one man. No one else, not even the other priest could go inside. One day a year, the Day of Atonement, the high priest, he had to be the high priest, he could enter behind the veil into the presence of God to make atonement for the people. But you know what? He couldn't even enter on his own. He could not go in there just without two things. He had to have blood as a sacrifice to cleanse his own sin. And he had to have blood to cleanse the sin of the people. And so before he went in, he had this blood from the sacrifice so he could go into the presence of God. But even more than that, God didn't want him to even see all that was going on behind the curtain. So right before he went in, he had this blood. He was to take a censer. You know what a censer is? It's something like a lamp with coals, a little metal bowl with coals, and you pour incense on it. And when the priest would pour incense on these coals, it would billow with smoke. And the Lord told the priest, you come inside behind that tent with a billowing censer of incense, lest you see the atonement and die. This is the first covenant. Only the high priest can even enter into the presence of God. And this man wasn't even supposed to see. He was to take the blood back there. He was to sprinkle it seven times towards the ark of the covenant. And then he was to turn around and sprinkle it seven times on the back side of the curtain. And the sin of the people would be atoned for till the next year. That's the first covenant. Sounds very inviting, doesn't it? How does that compare to the new covenant? Think about it. Look where you're sitting. In the old covenant, there was a temple, and only the tribe of Levi could actually come to and inside the temple. And only the high priest could even come into the interior part, the holy of holies of the temple. And in the new covenant, we are the temple. Every single one of us. You don't even have to be a Jew. You don't have to be a priest. The new covenant is not like the old covenant. Let me read you from the book of Hebrews chapter 8, where the Lord says he's going to make a new covenant. And it's not going to be like the covenant that he made with the forefathers. This is in Hebrews chapter 8. I'm going to start with verse 8, Hebrews 8. Well, I'll start with verse 7. Hebrews 8, 7. For if that first covenant had been faultless, then no place would have been found for a second. But finding fault with the people, he says, behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when 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 when I took them by the hand to lead them up out of the land of Egypt, because they did not continue in my covenant. And I disregarded them. You know what that means? When the people continually trespassed and didn't live according to the commandments that God had given them, God just said, OK, you don't want me to be your God. He would hand the people over to enemies, their enemies, and make them serve foreign idols. And they were mistreated by their enemies. They were taken advantage of by their enemies. And God said, I don't care. Have it your way. You wouldn't live according to my laws. You wouldn't listen to my correction. Have your misery. You made your bed lying. That's literally what he said. They didn't remain in my covenant, and I disregarded them. But he goes on. This is the good news. For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel, the new one. After those days, says the Lord, I will put my laws in their minds. Now, why would the Lord begin with that? Because what how do you think the first the people of the first covenant, they were supposed to live by the laws of God, by the laws that God has spoken to Moses? But how would they learn those things? You would have to be taught those things. You'd have parents were supposed to teach the children. They were supposed to talk about them when they rose up in the morning, while they were at breakfast, throughout their works and their chores during the day, in the evening and the afternoon. They were the people were to make sure they learned, remembered and kept these laws. Do you think that happened? No. There were a generation after generation where they didn't even know what the law of God was. They lost the book of the law. No one was teaching anybody. They were just doing what was right in their own eyes. So God says the new covenant is not going to be like that. I'm not going to depend upon you being taught by someone else. I'm going to put my laws in your mind. I'm going to write my laws right on your heart. I'm going to make sure they get there because I'm going to do it myself. That's literally what he said. He goes on. And I will be their God and they shall be my people and none of them shall teach his neighbor saying, no, the Lord. That's what gets me right there. See, if you're depending upon men to show you how to live, are you really in the new covenant? You see, you see where we're supposed to be going as a church. God wants to be your God. The heavenly father wants to be your teacher. He does not want you getting all of his word from me or our Sunday school teachers. I love our Sunday school teachers, Brother Ken, Brother Tom, Brother Rudy, Sister Yolanda, Kelvin and Maricela. All of you are wonderful. But we're not supposed to be looking to men. They are given my ministry, their ministry and all of us together are to make sure we come to this place where our heavenly father through his son by the Holy Spirit is our own personal teacher. That's the new covenant. No longer shall a man. No longer shall they a neighbor teach his brother saying, no, the Lord, for they shall all know me from the least of the great for the least of them to the greatest, for I will be merciful to their unrighteousness and their sins and their lawless deeds. I will remember no more. So in the new covenant. This is this is when that transition happened. I want to take you back to when this happened so you can see that God put an example on the board for you. You know, teachers do that when you're in math class and the teacher's talking about a particular mathematic equation and you're kind of lost. So you need someone you need them to put it on the board so you can see it. So when did this happen? What did God do to make it clear to us? But you remember, Jesus is on the cross, right? And he's hanging there. He's dying there. He's there as a substitute. He is the lamb of God taking away the sin of the world. He is he is, by the grace of God, tasting death for us so that by looking to him, we can have forgiveness of sins and his blood allows the heavenly father to forgive and to cleanse us of our sin. And as that work is accomplished and he nears the finishing of that time on the cross. He says, father. Into thy hands, I commit my spirit. And then he cries out something. You remember what he cries out? It is finished. And you remember what happened when he said it finished? There was an earthquake. The ground shook and it shook so hard that inside the temple, this massive temple, the force on the walls began to spread. And it says that curtain that only the high priest could go in. No one else. And only once a year, that curtain ripped into from top to bottom so that you and I could know now you and I can come into the presence of God any day, any time from regardless of whether we are white, brown, red, black, purple, green, rich, poor. Every single one of us now have direct access to God. That's the new covenant. You don't need a man to go through. You don't need a priest. You don't need some other man to pray for you. Your father in heaven wants to hear your voice. He wants the relationship with you directly. And the fact that when Jesus rose from the dead, part of this new covenant, he told his disciples that they're going to have sorrow for a little while because it was a difficult transition. They were confused. They didn't understand all of this at first. That's why he had to tell them, look, you stay in Jerusalem. Don't leave there. Wait for the promise of the Holy Spirit because when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, that's when the new ability comes. That's when the new power to live like I instruct you, that's where it will come from. And he told them something that was difficult because towards that last, if you want to see it in John chapter 13 through John 17, he was trying to get them to understand about the Holy Spirit would come. He told them this, that it's better for you, told his disciples, it's better for you that I go away. Because if I don't go away, then the Holy Spirit, the comforter won't come. But when I go, I will send him. And this is what's beautiful. Jesus knew this, that when he was himself on the earth, the spirit of God was in him fully. He was full of the Holy Spirit. But all the spirit was from him touching people. The Holy Spirit was not inside the disciples. So he knew that it was not until he ascended back to heaven. There he becomes what Paul says, the life giving spirit. And now he's not in a body. He's not limited by being in a physical body. In a physical body, he cannot be in one city and another at the same time. He can't be in my house and your house at the same time. But as spirit, he can be with me and he can be with every one of you, every day, all day, everywhere, all the time. That's better. That's better. Some people, some people think, you know, that, well, we got to be careful. The pastor's coming over. How crazy is that? You have the spirit of God living with you. You have Jesus Christ with you. Don't say anything that you wouldn't say in front of Jesus ever. Don't do anything that you wouldn't do in front of Jesus ever. Jesus is with you. The Lord is with you. That's what he told the disciples. I will never leave you or forsake you. I'm with you always. This is the new covenant. So what's the job of the church? The job of the church is to teach you how to walk in the Holy Spirit, to teach you how to keep in step with the Holy Spirit, to make sure that you're not idolizing some man. You realize that God just has certain people using the gifts that he gives them, but that every single one of us is all zoned in, fixing our eyes on the Lord Jesus Christ, realizing that the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Jesus, the Spirit of the Father is in us, is with us. And here's what Jesus said in John 14. There's going to come a time, he told the disciples, when it's going to finally dawn on you. And this is what I'm looking for, for it to dawn on us. Here's what Jesus told his disciples was going to dawn on them. In that day, you're going to realize, I am in the Father, you are in me, and I am in you. Wow. Now I want you to picture the first covenant. There it is, that terrible mountain that's on fire and quaking and rumbling, and it's got limits that no one can even go near it. In the new covenant, Jesus is in the Father, we are in Jesus, and Jesus is in us. Amen. You realize how great that is, that the Spirit of God is with each one of us, and he wants to be your teacher. Our jobs, mine as a pastor, teacher, the job of our Sunday school teachers here, you know, even Ms. Rachel Nino, even to the children and Ruth, all of us, whether it's from the nursery, father, all of us, all of us have one goal, to remind each other and encourage each other to remember the covenant that we're a part of, to remind one another, look to the Lord, walk by the Spirit, be led by the Spirit, because those who are led by the Spirit, they're the sons of God. We don't want to be like that Samaritan woman at the well. I mean, it's wonderful what Jesus encountered with her. It's beautiful, because at that time, most of the Jews wouldn't have anything to do with Samaritans, but Jesus wasn't just any ordinary Jew, was he? He's the Son of God. He had an appointment with this woman, and he began to reveal to her that he knew her. You know, like, go call your husband. She said, you know, I don't have a husband. He goes, well, you spoke the truth of that. You've actually had five husbands, and the one you're with now is not your husband. Like, she knew, you must be a prophet. She figured that out right away. So she popped her question to him right away. Remember her question? Do you know, you Jews, you Jews say that you have to worship in Jerusalem, but you know, our fathers, we worship on this mountain. You remember what Jesus answered to her? He goes, look, a time is coming, and now is, when they're not going to worship on Jerusalem or this mountain, but the time where the Father seeks those who worship him in Spirit and truth. That's the time we're in right now. We worship our Father in Spirit and truth. And we all have access to our Heavenly Father by the Holy Spirit. And if my job as pastor is to point you continually to walking in the Holy Spirit, be led by the Spirit. Live in the Spirit. Be filled with the Spirit. Do not rest on your laurels and just be content to be fed by a man. We are here to help you learn to walk in the Spirit, to live in the power of the Lord Jesus, because if you and I grow into that, if we truly attain what Paul was describing there in Ephesians chapter 4, and we come to the full knowledge of the Lord Jesus into that measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, we will begin to clear up the bad testimony that the church has among people of the world. Because there are times that the people of the world, some people in our own families, are not Christians because they have not seen Christ in us. And you and I can have the personal goal of living in the Holy Spirit and allowing the Father to show His power in a common person like you or I. Isn't that something? Because if you had to be special, what would be special about that? The world already accepts the fact that there's some people, for a weird reason, they're just good. They're just a saint. They're just different. They can handle that as long as it's rare. But what if it's you? What if you're that one everywhere you are, every time your family gets together, every time you show up at work? What if you're the consistent, godly, loving saint? Because you're walking in the Holy Spirit. Healing will take place. They may test you. It may not make it easy for you. But the opportunity you will have to be a witness, and this is what it makes sense to me, when Jesus told His disciples, and you will be my witnesses when something happens. What has to happen for you and I really to become His witnesses? You will be my witnesses when the power of the Holy Spirit comes on you. See, when you're living in the power of the Holy Spirit, you don't live like the world. You don't respond like the world. You're guided. Your life is guided by the Holy Spirit living in you. And it may not be instantaneous. Let me tell you the good news about that. It's such good news to me. No, it doesn't happen all at once. It's kind of like the way the sun comes up in the morning. At first, you just see a little glow. That may be the first thing someone notices in your life. You're just suddenly glowing a little bit. You got some kind of glow on you. But the glow doesn't stop. You can't see very well. You can't make out things. If you've ever been deer hunting and it's glowing and you hear sounds out there, you just know the deer is out there. You can't see it. So you wait and it starts getting a little lighter, a little lighter, a little lighter, and you can see better and better and better. See, if you keep growing, the glow becomes broader. Things become more visible. Who God is and His righteousness and His goodness becomes clearer and clearer in your life. And the beautiful thing about it is that's not where you're at right now. Or if that's not how you've been. Yeah. Yeah. Every husband knows how his wife is. Every wife knows how her husband is. Yeah. My wife could anticipate what I would do on a bad day. She braces herself. She used to brace herself. See that? I don't want to make you think it's a common occurrence. I am not the same person I was 10 years ago. I'm a new creation. Old things have been passing away and all things are becoming new. My wife just wants the process to go on. She doesn't mind if I become perfect in it at all. Perfectly kind, perfectly humble, perfectly gentle. Ah, such a goal for me because I know it'll be such a blessing to her. And then, of course, that affects her. And see the testimony. So wherever we are today, wherever you've been now, it's just a setup for people to notice the difference. Let them see the difference. Grow. They'll notice. They'll notice. They'll see it. And it's called letting your light shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your father which is in heaven. That's our goal as a church. Literally, in a simplified form, is that every single one of us become saints. Live like saints. Holy, righteous, godly, gentle, kind. All the fruit of the Holy Spirit on regular display in our lives. And that will make a dynamic difference. And it makes a difference where you want it to make the most difference. All the people who know you best will be the first ones to notice. All those who have regular contact with you, they'll notice. They'll notice first. That's our goal as a church. Okay. Simply, that's our goal. We don't just have Sunday school so that we can enjoy talking about biblical information. No, it takes knowledge and teaching and help to grow. We want to grow. But it's not just to maintain a place where we get together and get to study some interesting experiences. No. It's to help one another live in the new covenant. You have the Holy Spirit in you. Walk by the Spirit. Keep in step with the Spirit. Be filled with the Holy Spirit. And manifest the fruit of the Holy Spirit in your life. Share love, joy, peace, kindness, faithfulness, goodness, meekness, self-control. Share that with everybody in your life. Share the grace that is at work in you. Share it with others. Let them see the transformation. That's where we need to be headed. That's our goal together. Got it? Okay.