Messages of Hope - Part 5

Well, as this is the last morning, I do want to say what a very great privilege it's been to be able to look with you in these mornings into the book of Jeremiah. I'm very grateful to the Council for inviting me to undertake this, and there's been a very real sense of appetite, which has made it so easy to speak in the sense that there's been such a receptivity, and that is wonderful to sense. Now in this last morning, I want you to turn to chapter 29, chapter 30, and chapter 31, though in particular we will be looking in chapter 31, and I've called this morning Messages of Hope. Now, of course, there is so much in this book we haven't had any time to begin to look at. Somebody took me a little by surprise yesterday when he said to me, I'm surprised you can get so much out of so little. Well, I think he probably meant the reverse, that you can find so little in so much, because there's so much in this prophecy of Jeremiah. We, of course, have basically only taken five snapshots, and I suppose anybody else who was doing the same thing with Jeremiah this week would have given us five completely different messages, because there's so much here, of course, but I don't think we can leave this book without looking at these messages of hope that come towards the end of the book, in particular this section that we'll look at. In chapter 29, it's a message to the people in exile, and we won't talk about this, but chapter 29 is in the main the text of a letter which Jeremiah wrote to the surviving elders and priests and prophets and other exiles after Nebuchadnezzar had invaded the land and taken the people into captivity. And basically, you can read it for yourself later, basically the message is this. Settle down in Babylon, build houses, plant gardens, get married, have children, seek the peace and prosperity of Babylon, because although you are in exile and it is the expression of God's wrath on you, He's not abandoned you, and after 70 years, He's going to bring you back home, and it's in this section that we have that often quoted verse in verse 11, I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord. Plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future, and He's saying it's 70 years before you'll come back, two generations time, most of you will have gone and died and passed away, it's your grandchildren who'll come back, but God says, I've not forgotten you even in this time of exile. Well, if that's 29, the message to the people in exile, in chapter 30, it's a message about the restoration of the people to the land, verse 1, this is the word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord, this is what the Lord, the God of Israel says, write in the book all the words I've spoken to you, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I'll bring my people, Israel and Judah, back from captivity and restore them to the land I gave their forefathers to possess, and of course, all the blessing God had promised their forefathers was tied into their occupation of the land, the right people in the wrong place would not fulfill the promise, the right people had to be brought back into the right place and from there the promise would find its fulfillment, so that's the restoration of the people to the land, but chapter 31, which is going to be our concern this morning, is a message about the restoration of the people to God, and he addresses them, then verse 1, as my people at that time declares the Lord, I'll be the God of all the clans of Israel and they will be my people, and that term is used to speak of the intimacy of the union which God will enjoy again with his people, and of course, this comes to its climax in chapter 31, sorry, verse 31, and I'm going to read verse 31 down to verse 34, and this will be our text really for this morning, the time is coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, it will not be like the covenant I made with their forefathers when I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt, because they broke my covenant, though I was a husband to them, declares the Lord, this is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after that time, declares the Lord, I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts, I will be their God, they will be my people, no longer will a man teach his neighbor or a man his brother saying, know the Lord, because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord, for I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sin no more. This, of course, is the new covenant, the great climax really of the book of Jeremiah, and to understand Jeremiah's message, we of course have to understand this new covenant, which is going to replace the covenant he says that my people had broken. Now a covenant is an agreement made between at least two parties, not of course necessarily equal parties, and certainly the covenants God made with his people, not equal parties, and there were two primary covenants God had made with Israel. He made a covenant with Abraham, you remember, when he called him after leading him from Ur of the Chaldees, and he said in Genesis 17, verse 7, I'll just quote this to you, I will establish my covenant as an everlasting covenant between me and you and your descendants after you for the generations to come, to be your God and the God of your descendants after you. That's the covenant he made with Abraham, which lies at the base of course of the whole identity of the people of Israel, and we won't talk about that this morning, but then the second covenant he made was the covenant he made with Moses on Mount Sinai. Based on an agreement to keep the law that God gave on Mount Sinai, in Exodus 24 and verse 7, it says then Moses took the book of the covenant and read it to the people. They responded, we will do everything the Lord has said. We will obey. And there are various times, as at the end of the book of Joshua for an example, when they took that covenant again, and they renewed it again, and Deuteronomy chapter 4 and verse 13 says, he declared to you his covenant, the ten commandments, which he commanded you to follow, and then wrote them on two stone tablets. Israel agreed to observe the law that God had given to them, the ten commandments in particular, as it specifies there in Deuteronomy chapter 4, but as God says here in verse 32, they broke my covenant. And now as a consequence says God, instead of going through the cycle of the Israelites promising God they would live in accordance with his law, and then violating it and breaking it and getting themselves into trouble, and God having to punish them, and then to draw them back, and then reaffirm it again, and then go through the process. If you read the book of Judges, there are about six or seven cycles of that. And right through their history, this of course is the big punishment for their neglect, God sending them out into exile. But instead of that he says, I'm going to make a new covenant, and this new covenant has a crucially important distinction. It's this, the new covenant is all about what God does for the people. I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God. I will forgive their wickedness. I want to talk about this this morning because you and I as believers in the Lord Jesus participate in the new covenant, and it's important we understand this. It divides as it's given here quite naturally into three sections. There's a new righteousness first of all, I'll put my law in their minds. We'll talk about what that means. There's a new relationship secondly, I will be their God, and they will be my people, and no longer will a man teach his neighbor a man his brother, saying, know the Lord. They'll all know me. New relationship. And then thirdly, there's a new redemption. I will forgive their wickedness, and remember their sin no more. Now first of all then a new righteousness, he says, I'll put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. Now Vaughan talked to us last night about a hunger and a thirst for righteousness. And of course that lies, as we heard last night, at the heart of the ambition of every genuine Christian. And this righteousness is going to involve the law of God previously written on stone, written in their minds and on their hearts. Now the big question of course is what does this mean? Let me take a few moments to talk about the law in this respect. There are 11 references to the law in the book of Jeremiah, and they're all negative except this one here in chapter 31 verse 33. They're negative because the people of God were completely unable to keep the law of God that he'd given to them on Mount Sinai. If you want to write one word across the whole history of the Old Testament, it could be the word failure. The historical books record the details of their failure. The poetic books weep and mourn about their failure. The prophetic books preach about their failure. And ever since Sinai, that one word at every generation sums up the people's ability to fulfill what God required of them, failure. Now that of course raises a very important question. Why did God give the law in the first place? Because he knew that it was a law that no one could keep. As for everyone in this tent this morning, the law of God is something that all of us are unable to keep. Without knowing anything else about you, I'd be quite prepared to look you in the eye as a complete stranger and say, you have broken the law of God. And you wouldn't get upset and hot under the collar and say, how dare you suggest such a thing. You don't even know me. You wouldn't even blink. You'd look me back in the eye and say, and so have you. Because you know and I know that nobody here is able to keep the law of God. That raises a very crucial question. Why did God give a law no one could keep? Doesn't sound very fair, does it? If you're involved in making rules, a basic principle in making rules is that any rule people can't keep is a bad rule. And yet God in giving the ten commandments gave a set of laws that are so high, so demanding, humanly speaking so unreasonable that no man, no woman, no boy, no girl has ever kept them. Why then did God give the law? What was the criteria, if I may put it that way, that determined what the law should be? I mean, were these commandments simply, so to speak, pulled out of a hat as a sort of set of guidelines? Or is there some more fundamental criteria that determine the substance of the law? Well, I believe there is. There are one or two of you here this morning. You've heard me talk about the law in this respect, in a different context. And one of the books that I've written has a whole section looking at why did God give the law? And some of what I'm going to say this morning is in that section. But it's a very important question. Well, to discover what the criteria is that determined what the law should be, I want to point out to you two verses in the New Testament, both of which define what all sin is. The first is in 1 John chapter 3 and verse 4. And while you're turning to that, let me just remind you of something we said on Sunday night. The word sin literally means to miss the mark. I understand it was used in archery. It's difficult, I find difficult to confirm this, but I understand it was used in archery. If you took an arrow and you fired it at a target and you missed the target, it was called sin. If you missed by half an inch, it was called sin. If you missed by half a foot, it was called sin. If you missed by half a yard, it was called sin. If you missed by half a mile, it was called sin. If you shot in the opposite direction, it was called sin. Why? I'll tell you why. Because sin is not a measurement of how bad we are. Sin is a measurement of how good we're not, if you appreciate the difference. You see, if you miss a bus by a minute, you've missed it. If you miss it by an hour, you've missed it. You don't congratulate yourself on missing it by a minute. So that was fantastic, you only missed it by ten seconds today. Phew, that's wonderful. You see, there is a sense in which God is not actually particularly concerned with how bad we are. He is concerned with how good we're not. We've missed the mark. Now if sin means to miss a mark, sin isn't absolute. What is absolute is the mark that we have missed. Now 1 John 3 verse 4 says, everyone who sins breaks the law. In fact, sin is lawlessness. Now John says there, any time anyone sins, no matter what the nature of the sin is, we know what they've done, they have broken the law of God. Because the law, he says, represent the target that we miss every time we sin. Now keep that verse in mind. That doesn't tell us why the law is what it is. It just says it's the target. Every time you sin, you break the law. But keep that verse in mind and compare it with the second verse, Romans 3 and verse 23. And in Romans 3, 23, Paul writes there, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. Now Paul says there, every time a person sins, no matter what the nature of the sin is, we know what they've done, they've come short of the glory of God. Whatever that is, we'll come to that in a moment. But put those two verses together. If John says the target we miss is the law of God, if my right hand here represents the law of God, and every time you sin, he says, you break the law of God, and Paul says to sin is to come short of the glory of God, my left hand here represents the glory of God, and every time we sin, we come short of it. If John says the target is the law of God, and Paul says the target we miss is the glory of God, that tells us that the law of God and the glory of God equal the same thing. Therefore, to answer the question, why is the law of God what it is, we have to ask another question. What is the glory of God? Now the word glory occurs with slight variation of meaning depending on its context in Scripture, but essentially the glory of God is the character of God. Vines' expository dictionary in New Testament words, you'll believe me if I quote it, it says the glory of God is the character of God, what he essentially is and does. It's God's moral character. It's the kind of thing that John had in mind when writing in his gospel, he said, the word became flesh and made his dwelling among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son who came from the Father, full of grace and truth. And John says there that when the word became flesh we saw his glory. What did he mean? Well he didn't mean we saw a bright light suspended six inches above his head in the shape of a polo mint, as artists sometimes portray. But he's saying we saw in Jesus Christ what God is like. So those of us, says John who were kids in Nazareth who kicked the ball up and down the road with Jesus as a boy, who went hunting in the hills with him or hiding in the woods, in the way he acted and the way he reacted, we saw what God was like. When he began to work in his father's carpenter shop, the way he went about his business, the way he paid his bills on time, the way he invoiced accurately for the work he had done, the way he put somebody's roof on in the morning that had blown off the night before, we saw what God was like. When he began his public ministry, the way he would cross the road and talk to a dirty woman everybody else was embarrassed to be seen with, we saw what God was like. When the man were leprosy seeking down the road ringing his bell saying, I'm clean, anybody come close, I have this dreaded contagious disease of leprosy, we saw Jesus cross the road, touch the man, nobody ever touched a leper, and say put your bell away, go home, you're clean. Hug your wife, there's nothing for her to catch, wrestle with your kids, you're safe. We saw, says John, what God was like. Because the glory of God is the character of God. Now if that was true for Jesus, it was true also, intended at least to be true for every human being when God created man. He created man in his image. Whatever else that involves, and there's debate as to exactly what the image involves, it involves his moral image. That is, if you and I were a fly on the wall in the Garden of Eden and we saw the way Adam treated Eve, we would have seen in his behavior exactly what God is like in his behavior. He would have been very loving, very kind, you saw the way Eve treated Adam, the way they handled the animals, patted the dog, stroked the cat, you would have seen what God was like. Because to be in his image means you look at the image and it reminds you of the real thing, but of course man sinned and came short of the glory of God, he no longer showed you what God was like. And so if the law equals the glory of God, the law was given in the first instance to show what God is like in order that human beings might understand what they are to be like having been created in God's image. So when in the law God said you shall not steal, it wasn't because stealing isn't nice, though of course it isn't, but there's a much more important reason, it's because God is not a thief. Man was made to be in his image, he did not steal. When he said you shall not commit adultery, it's because God is totally faithful, a man was made to be in his image, so don't ever commit adultery. You were created to be in his image. When he said you shall not covet, it's because God is not greedy, a man was made to be in his image, so do not covet. When he said you shall not bear false witness, it's because God never tells lies, a man was made to be in his image, so do not bear false witness. When he said six days shall you labor, on the seventh day do no work, it tells us why, it says because God rested on the seventh day, not because he was tired of course, the idea of the Sabbath is not you need the day off to get over six days of hard work, God rested not because he was tired, he rested because the work was finished, and we're to rest in the utter sufficiency of God, which is why for Adam of course the first day was the day of rest. It's a great day to have been created, on Friday afternoon, what's happening tomorrow? Day off. Why? Because he's tired? No. Because he's to rest in the fact that he is never indispensable to God, but God is always indispensable to him as a human being. Shall not honor your parents? Why? In the Trinity it says, the son says I always do those things that please the father, man was made to be in God's image, so children honor your parents. You see the law is not just an arbitrary set of rules, it's far more profound than that, the law is a revelation of what God is like, because you and I were created to be what God is like in our moral character, created to be in his image, and so the purpose of the law is to reveal the character of God. But if that is true, and it's important we understand that, it's important to understand the new covenant we understand that, as we'll see in a moment, but if the purpose of the law is to reveal the character of God, the effect of the law is to reveal the failure of man. And so when Moses came down the mountain, having been there for forty days, carrying the tablets of stone in his hand, the first command said, you shall have no other gods before me. One simple reason, there are no other gods. The second command said, you'll not make yourself any graven image and bow down and worship it. And having come down the mountain, Moses discovered to his shock, that the Israelites had pooled their gold, they'd melted it down, built a golden calf, were having some kind of orgy around this golden calf, and when Moses saw them worshipping the golden calf, he was shocked. So shocked, you remember, he took the tablets of stone, and he smashed them on the ground. And had to go back up the mountain to get some more. Moses was shocked, God wasn't, because God did not learn something new about man, man learned something new about himself. That he was incapable of being what God created him to be, by himself. It says in Romans 7, I would not have known what sin was, except through the law. I could be up to my neck in sin with a clear conscience, enduring every bit of it, and then the law came. The law doesn't make me sin, it just exposes me as a sinner, as a failure. Romans 3:20 says, through the law, we become conscious of sin. And right through the history of Israel, from the moment Moses stepped down Mount Sinai, all the law ever did for the nation was expose their failure. Which is why virtue on every page of the Old Testament, as I've already said, you can write across, failure, failure, failure. As far as man's ability to be what God is telling him to be. And of course, that is the function of the law, that's why we must preach the law. Because sin is not just an arbitrary notion, it's not just, you know, something that has bad consequences. Sin is that which violates the character of God. And one of the things God has to do in our lives, of course, is make us aware of our inability before we discover what the new covenant really is about. Because the new covenant is about the same law, but in a different location. Go to verse 33 of chapter 31, I know we've jumped out a long time then, but it's necessary to give that background and I'll show you why in a moment. This is the covenant I'll make with the house of Israel after that time, declares the Lord. I'll put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. You see, the new covenant is not going to involve a revising of the law in any way, it's going to involve a relocating of the law. Up until now it's been kept on tablets of stone, in the ark of the covenant, in the holy of holies, in the temple in Jerusalem. Now, says God, I'm going to take that same law, that same requirement, because the character of God is absolute, and I'm going to put that law, he says, in your hearts, in your minds. Now, what does that mean? How is the law of God going to be placed within our hearts? Or, to change the language without changing the meaning, how is the glory of God going to be restored into our experience? Because we've sinned and come short of the glory of God. And the law of God and the glory of God equal the same thing. How is the glory of God going to be restored into our experience? How is the law of God going to be put into our hearts? Let me read you two verses from other parts of scripture and then come back to this. In verse 25 to 27, let me read that section. Paul says, I've become a servant by the commission God gave me to present to you the word of God in its fullness. The mystery, he says, has been kept hidden for ages and generations, but is now disclosed to the saints. Let me pause there a moment. He says, I'm preaching to you the word of God in its fullness. That is now a full gospel. Nothing left out. And it involves what he describes as a mystery hidden for ages and generations. But at last, made known. Because up until now, he says, there's been a mystery in the revelation from God. Up until now, when a prophet has prophesied, he's gone back home, sat down, scratched his head and said, something's missing. There's a mystery here. Now he says the mystery's been made known. Verse 27, to them God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of what? Glory. That doesn't mean heaven, by the way. In evangelical slang, glory has become, has come to mean heaven. We say people die and go to glory. That isn't the biblical use of the word. Glory is what we have come short of. Glory is the character of God. All have sinned and come short of the glory of God. Now, says Paul, this is what is the full gospel. Christ in you is your hope of hitting the target. Your hope of the character of God being restored into your life once again. Let me read you the second verse before we go back to Jeremiah. It's in Ezekiel 36 and verse 27. Ezekiel 36 and verse 27, where God speaks to Ezekiel now about the new covenant he's going to make with Israel. He doesn't use that term here, but we know that he's speaking of the same thing. He says in verse 27, I will put my spirit in you. That, by the way, is going to be something new, remember? Jesus said to the disciples in John 14, 17 about the spirit he is with you and will be in you. That's the difference Pentecost was going to make. Now, looking ahead to that, he says, I'll put my spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws. I'll put my spirit in you and what is going to be the result? You'll follow my decrees and keep my laws. In other words, I'll put my spirit in you and what the Lord demands, I'll enable you to fulfill. Now think those two statements, Christ in you is your hope of hitting the target, the glory of God that you've sinned and come short of, and I'll put my spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees. The indwelling life of the spirit of God within us is what God is speaking about to Jeremiah when he says, I'll put my law, that which reveals my character, I'll put my law in your heart, in your mind, I'll be your God. You see the fundamental difference between the old covenant and the new covenant is the old covenant put the onus of responsibility on us. You shall not steal. You shall not commit adultery. You shall not covet, etc. The new covenant puts the onus of responsibility on God. It is by his grace, I will put my law in your minds. I will be your God. I will forgive their wickedness. And you see what that means is this. So what was a command under the old covenant becomes a promise under the new covenant. What is a command under the old covenant becomes a promise under the new covenant. Let me illustrate this. You probably need an illustration by now. I heard a story one day and it's a true story of a man who was converted to Christ in prison in the north of England. He was in prison for stealing. He was a thief and while he was serving his sentence a Christian had come to visit him and had witnessed to him and in the course of time had led him to Christ. When he left the prison one of the first things he wanted to do was visit a church. On his first Sunday of release he didn't know what church to go to. He picked a church at random, went in, sat down at the back, looked up to the front and there on the wall in the front of the church were written the ten commandments. Five down one side, five down the other side. And he thought to himself that is the last thing I want to see. I know my weakness. I know my failure. I know my history. The last thing I want to do is to read those laws which only condemn me. But as the service went on he began to read them. Maybe the service was a bit long or a bit tedious and he began to read them. And as he began to read them he suddenly realized he was reading them very differently. Previously when he read them they said things like this, you shall not steal. It was a command but this morning when he read it it said you shall not steal. It was a promise. And if I can put words into his mouth he might well have said thank you Lord. Why? Because I'll put my spirit in you and I'll move you to follow my decrees and keep my law. It used to say you shall not bear false witness. It was a command but this morning it said you shall not bear false witness. It was a promise. If I can put words into his mouth he might have said thank you Lord. Why? Because Christ in you now is your hope hitting the target. It used to say you shall not commit adultery. It was a command but this morning it said you shall not commit adultery. It was a promise. Thank you Lord. Why? Because I put my law in your hearts, in your mind. I'm your God. It used to say you shall not covet. It was a command but this morning it said you shall not covet. It was a promise. Why? Because God works in us. Philippians tells us both to will and to do of his pleasure. And the very things that have been commands which only ever condemned have become promises that liberate. Isn't that fantastic? That's the gospel. That's why you can go to any man, any woman, any boy, any girl from any background with any history who's in the grip of any sin and as God by his Holy Spirit works in their hearts and awakens them and Jesus Christ by his Holy Spirit comes to live in them, you can say you can live the Christian life. Because it's not you trying to live for God. It is allowing God by his Holy Spirit to live in you. And what was a command has become a promise. Vaughan last night stressed the point that righteousness is the fruit of the Spirit. And that fruit has its origin in life. As Paul said to the Philippians, I'm praying he says you'll be filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, the glory and praise of God. Now he says under this old covenant you see the commands which were absolutely true because they expressed the character of God. He says but you broke my covenant. Actually you have no capability of anything else. For there is none righteous, no not one. No one desires righteousness we're told in Romans. But now he says under the new covenant, that same law, those same commands are in your heart. For as a command on a tablet of stone is now a promise written by the Spirit in your heart. Anybody here this morning with a problem with stealing for example? Dear Christian in Jesus Christ by his Holy Spirit lives in you. I've got a promise for you. You find it next to chapter 20. It used to be a command written on tablets of stone. Now a promise written by the Spirit in your heart and it says you shall not steal. Anybody here facing sexual temptations you can hardly cope with. I've got a promise for you. It used to be a command written on tablets of stone. Now a promise written by the Spirit in your heart. You shall not commit adultery. No one living by the Spirit of God ever commits adultery because he's your life, he's your strength. I will put my law in your heart. Somebody here who's greedy? I've got a promise for you. It used to be a command written on tablets of stone. Now a promise written by the Spirit in your heart. You shall not covet. Anybody here find things become too important and dominate your life and you find yourself being pushed and shoved around all the time? Here's a promise for you. It used to be a command written on tablets of stone. Now a promise written by the Spirit in your heart. You shall have no other gods before me. And the exciting thing is that the new covenant is not a revision of God's law because to his acute embarrassment it was too high for the people. But the new covenant is a relocating of the same law by the Spirit of God in your heart. And the marvelous thing is it's the Spirit of God who works in us both to will, that is to give the appetite and to do the enabling of his good pleasure. And we heard that last night. Hunger and thirst is not a choice. It's a spontaneous consequence of something else, of life within. And as the Spirit of God comes to live within, no longer is it out there, a command. Oh dear, I'm trying. Inside there's a hunger, there's a thirst, there's a longing for godliness, the character of God to be restored and expressed within us. That doesn't mean of course you become perfect, in case anybody might think that's an implication of what I'm saying. Because the 2nd Corinthians chapter 3 verse 18 says, and it's important to read this verse, we with all unveiled faces all reflect the Lord's glory are being transformed into his likeness with ever increasing glory which comes from the Lord who is the Spirit. Notice the tense there. With unveiled faces, nothing between ourselves and the Lord Jesus, we reflect his glory. And he says we are being transformed in the present continuous tense into his likeness. Not past tense we have been transformed, or even future we will be. But in the present tense we are being transformed into his likeness with ever increasing glory. And of course that means that the mark of true spiritual growth is not that we know more of the Bible than we used to know, that's important. It's not that we engage in more service than we used to, that's important. But the mark of true spiritual growth is there's more evidence of the character of Jesus Christ than there used to be. The way as a husband I treat my wife should more quickly remind her of Christ than it used to. The way as a parent we treat our kids, give them the right in a confusing dirty world to come home, close the door, look into the face of mum and dad and say that's what's real. The way we talk to our neighbours, the way we talk about them when they're not listening, probably more importantly. The way we drive our cars down the road, the way we spend our money. Increasingly gives evidence of the character of Christ. Until one day of course we will be what the Bible calls glorified. To be glorified is to be fully restored into his image and that day will come but not until we're in heaven. But if the new covenant involves a new righteousness, firstly, the second two points are going to be very quick. It involves a new relationship as the cause of that new righteousness. Because he says I'll put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts, I will be their God. There towards the end of verse 33, they will be my people, no longer will a man teach his neighbour or a man his brother saying know the Lord. They will all know me from the least of them to the greatest. How is this new righteousness going to be evidenced within us? It's because of this new relationship. You see it's in knowing God, it's in our knowledge of God that everything else has its source. Peter in writing his second letter says in verse 2 and 3, grace and peace be yours in abundance through the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord. His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of God who called us by his own glory and goodness. And Peter says that everything we need is available to us, how? By our knowledge of God. But that knowledge of God is qualified very importantly in these verses. In verse 34 he says they will know me from the least of them to the greatest. Notice the progression there, it's from the least to the greatest. Because the knowledge of God is not on the basis of intellectual capacity, it's on the basis of a spiritual disposition. Knowledge of God is not attained, it is received from the least, characterized by humility and dependency. That's where we get to know God to the greatest. And spiritual truth is revealed and that revelation grows in response to that disposition of humility and childlike dependency. Remember we read on Monday morning from Jeremiah chapter 9, this is what the Lord says, let not the wise man boast of his wisdom or the strong man boast of his strength or the rich man boast of his riches, but let him who boasts boast about this, that he understands and knows me. That I am the Lord who exercises kindness, justice and righteousness on earth. From those I delight. Don't boast of your wisdom, don't boast of your strength, don't boast of your wisdom. Those are not the avenues by which you know God. They can become the stumbling blocks to knowing God. Because you can be too strong and too wise and too rich. But you can never be too simple, never be too poor, never be too weak. And out of weakness and out of poverty, we talked about poverty of spirit last Saturday night, blessed are the poor in spirit. Out of that disposition we have something to boast about, we know God. And as a result of knowing God, his law, his character is written into our hearts and we begin to behave in a way that expresses him. If that new righteousness has its source in a new relationship, that new relationship has its source in a new redemption. Because he then says, they will all know me in the middle of verse 34, from the least of them to the greatest declares the Lord, for I will forgive their wickedness and remember their sins no more. Did you know that was something new? I'll remember their sins no more. Under the old covenant, we're told, sin was never removed. It was only covered. Hebrews chapter 10 verse 11 tells us, day after day, every priest stands and performs his religious duties again and again. He offers the same sacrifices which can never take away sin. Now it can cover sin, the blood of bulls and goats and rams and lambs could cover it but not remove it. You say, what's the difference? I see it as being a bit like a post-dated check. You see, you might wish to make a purchase but don't have sufficient cash in the bank and so you come to an agreement with the person from whom you make the purchase. If I post-date my check to the end of the month when I've got some money, will you let me have the goods? If he agrees to that and you give him the post-dated check, now the debt is covered but it's not removed. The blood of bulls and goats of the Old Testament was not a fruitless exercise, it was the writing of post-dated checks, post-dated calvary. When Jesus cried on the cross, it is finished. Then we're told in a verse I don't fully understand but it says in 1 Peter he went to preach to the spirits in prison. What did he preach? I'll tell you what he preached. There's cash in the bank, the precious blood of Christ, the only currency that removes sin. And under the old covenant it was covered. Now he says this new redemption involves such a dealing with sin that I'll remember their sin no more. And when the writer of the Hebrews laments the fact that the priest stands day after day and sin is not taken away, not removed, he then says in answer to this dilemma, the Holy Spirit testifies, this is the covenant I'll make with them. And he quotes this new covenant from Jeremiah, their sins I will remember no more. This is a marvelous thing, none of us deserve this of course. But we come to the Lord Jesus Christ and not only does he forgive us but he removes our sin to the extent we are no longer accountable, there is no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus. And I think it was on Sunday night we talked about that in purity of heart. But you see the whole saving work of the Lord Jesus Christ is encompassed here in the new covenant. We come first to the cross, we might be forgiven, sin removed, and there is no reason in this tent this morning any man, any woman lives with a sense of outstanding sin and guilt. You can come in repentance. But then having come to the cross and found the forgiveness and cleansing, we then come to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. You see our cleansing is that we might know him, risen, alive. But then we go beyond the resurrection to Pentecost where the Holy Spirit writes the law of God into our hearts. And many of you know that during the intertestamental period, the celebration of Pentecost became a commemoration of the giving of the law to Moses on Mount Sinai. Whether historically those two can be tied together, I don't know, but certainly theologically they should be. Because the law given on Mount Sinai was simply in writing what the Holy Spirit would come to do in Pentecost in action to restore to us the very character and holiness of God. Well, time has gone but just one last thing very, very quickly. Remember the upper room where the Lord Jesus met with his disciples and he took bread, we're told, and he gave thanks. He broke it, he gave thanks, he said, take, eat, this is my body. Then he took the cap and then he did something which must have shocked those with him in the upper room. I'll tell you what must have shocked them. He said, this is my blood. This is my blood of the new covenant. Drink it. I'll tell you what that shocked them. No Jew ever drank blood. Why not? Well, it was forbidden. Why was it forbidden? Is it because there's something unhealthy about drinking blood? Well, Scots folks and people in Yorkshire drink, eat it in their black pudding. Doesn't seem to harm them. There's nothing intrinsically unhealthy about blood. When I lived in Africa, when I was in my late teens, on a farm where I was farming, working on a farm, we used to kill some of the odd animals and people would catch the blood in buckets, you see, a cow's blood. That would be a real treat. Take it home. Rich in iron and other qualities. Why did God forbid the eating of blood? Well, Deuteronomy 12, 23 tells us, be sure you do not eat the blood because the blood is the life. And you must not eat the life. Why? Because under the old covenant, and this is part of the ceremonial law, under the old covenant, there was no provision for life. But now, said Jesus, this is my blood. It's the blood of the new covenant. That which Jeremiah talked about, because new covenant is the term from his book. And at last, he says, you can drink the blood. You can receive the very life of God within you. We call it regeneration. You see, the gospel is not simply getting people to change their minds because our condition is we are dead and the gospel involves a supernatural work of resurrection from the dead in order that the life of God might be implanted within the human soul. We are partakers, said Peter, of the very divine nature. And this is the substance of the new covenant. You come to the cross, I'll forgive your sins, remember them no more. You come to the risen Christ who's now alive and you know him and you enjoy union with him and communion with him. That's why disciples were never called followers of Christ after Pentecost. We don't follow him anymore in the way they were told to before Pentecost. As they followed him, they only ever failed. But now we're in union with Christ. That's the description now. We're in him and he's in us. We're in union with him, in fellowship with him, we know him. And the result of knowing him is you come to Pentecost where the spirit of God is poured out in order that he might live the life of Jesus Christ in us. And living in us be our hope of glory. The very thing we come short of. Which means you can go back to your home and back to your place of work and back to your family and back to your church with a new capacity as we live in utter dependency upon the spirit of God. To live lives that are godly and Christ-like. As we were told last night, it doesn't mean you sit back of course and go into some neutral zombie mode. We're to live disciplined lives, but God works in you to will. He creates the whole appetite and the enabling as we obey him to be godly. Aren't you glad you're a Christian? Isn't that exciting? Is there ever a thing that God demands? God himself makes possible. He who calls you is faithful. He will do it. What a wonderful gospel. Let's pray together. We thank you so much Lord Jesus that your word is not designed to put our heads into the clouds, it's designed to put our feet firmly on the ground. Not to enable us to escape from all the pressures and temptations, but to equip us to live in the midst of them with all the resources that we could ever have. The Holy Spirit of God living in us, filling us with himself, reproducing the character that was once seen in the Lord Jesus as we grow from one degree of glory to another into his image and likeness. Take your word to our hearts. Make it make sense if you want to understand it. Then help us to live in the good of it. We pray it in Jesus name. Amen. Thank you Charles. Please now the session is finished, please pick up your children promptly and don't forget the seminars. Thank you for coming this morning.