Better Promises // 613 Ghosts // Read
Brace yourself for an unsettling, terrifying truth: You’re being haunted. I know. You’ve never seen a ghost, and you aren’t even sure they exist. But they do. In fact, you’re being followed by 613 ghosts at this very moment. Don’t be scared! You’re in good company. In fact, every Christian who has ever lived—including Jesus’ disciples—has been haunted by these same 613 specters. Who are they? What do they want with us? Why do they single out Christians to haunt? And how can we deal with them so we don’t have to be haunted anymore?
This may shock you, but it’s the truth: the Bible—God’s word—specifically calls another part of the Bible “obsolete.” In fact, it says that it is “...outdated and will soon disappear.” You see, Christians have been living haunted lives for no reason. The ghosts of the old covenant don’t get to haunt us anymore—unless we allow them to. And that’s because we’ve been given something better. God has replaced the death of the Law with something better—new life in Christ!
So today we are in part two of "613 Ghosts". I have been looking forward to this sermon. In particular, ever since we knew we were going to be doing this series, this is one that really stood out to me today. If you have your Bible you want to follow along, we're going to be in the book of Hebrews. Hebrews chapter 8. All of chapter 8 - we're gonna be looking at the whole chapter. It's only 13 verses, so it's not too bad. I've got to do it. Since we're talking about Hebrews, I got to throw in a pastor joke because you just have to do it. It's a thing. I don't have my pastor card revoked. So I have to do this. Did y'all know that God loves coffee? Did you know that God loves coffee? Of course he does. There's a book called Hebrews. In the Bible. Can somebody say amen? Give glory to God today? You can't. You can't I'm not kidding. Every sermon ever preached on the book of Hebrews has that joke in it? I guess it's, it's in the Bible. We have to do it. It's part of just part of the gig.
No, but the book of Hebrews, I love it. It's a fantastic book of Scripture. It's a unique book of Scripture, because we actually don't know who wrote it. There's a lot of theories going around, theologians, scholars debate on who actually wrote this. It doesn't follow the style of the Apostle Paul, some people think maybe it's a puzzle we don't know of. Maybe it was Phoebe, we don't know who it was. But it's an unknown author. But it's an incredible book, an incredible book of Scripture, talking about how Jesus is the fulfillment of the Jewish Messiah, this idea that they had of this Jewish Messiah, the Savior, this, the Son of God, the Son of Man, coming to rescue the nation of Israel and redeem them and usher in this new covenant. That's what the entire book is about. And essentially, it is the thesis book for 613 Ghosts. This entire series is kind of based around what we see in Hebrew.
This idea that we talked about last week, where Jesus, he's got his foot in two covenants. He's landing the Old Covenant, he's landing this plane, while at the same time he's taking off the plane of the New Covenant. He's putting down the old iPhone while picking up the new one, right? We are living in a new time, we are living in a new age, the age of the New Covenant. And you'll remember last week, Pastor Donnie alluded to it in the Pre, that I made a pretty bold claim, a pretty audacious claim about the Bible, calling another part of the Bible obsolete. Right? Do you remember that if you were here - who was with us last week? I want to see those hands, put the hands up in the chat. If you're here, you guys get extra credit today, you get extra credit points, extra crown, or extra jewel in your crown when you get to heaven for that, all right. But last week, we were talking about this idea that part of the Bible actually calls another part of the Bible obsolete, and that it's going to be outdated. And then it's going to soon disappear. Now I told you I wasn't just making that claim on my own, because you guys aren't here to hear pastor Jacobs opinion. Who cares about my opinion, this is something that is backed up, that is supported by scripture, and we're going to be reading about it today.
Now I just want to give a little bit of an introduction before we jump into Hebrews 8, what the writer is talking about here, they're talking about how Jesus is the fulfillment of everything that the Old Testament was pointing to. How Jesus is the fulfillment, he is the true and better version of everything we read about in the Old Testament. He's the true and better Adam. He's the true and better Abraham. He's the true and better sanctuary. He's the true and better tabernacle, Jesus is the true and better high priest. And that's where we leap into with Hebrews chapter 8, starting in verse one, this is what the author says. "Now, the main point of what we're saying is this. We do have such a high priest who sat down at the right hand of the throne of the majesty in heaven, and who serves in the sanctuary, the true tabernacle set up by the Lord, not by a mere human being, every high priest is appointed to offer both gifts and sacrifices. And so it was necessary for this one, Jesus also to have something to offer. If he were on Earth, he would not be a priest, for there are already priests who offer the gifts prescribed by the law." Verse 5, "They serve at a sanctuary that is a copy and shadow of what is in heaven." So a lesser version of what we see happening in heaven, right? Again, Jesus, the true and better version of all of these things. "This is why Moses was warned when he was about to build the tabernacle. 'See to it that you make everything according to the pattern shown you on the mountain.'"
Verse 6, "But in fact, the ministry Jesus has received is as -" what what's that word? You can say it. Superior? Yeah, superior, superior. Pay attention to some of these words you're about to hear. "But in fact, the ministry Jesus has received is as superior to theirs, as the covenant of which he is the mediator is superior to the old one, since the new covenant is established on" - and let's say this all together - "better promises." The new covenant, this new way, is established on better promises. "For if there had been nothing wrong with that first covenant, no place would have been sought for another. But God found fault with the people and said- " and what we're about to read, the writer of Hebrews he is quoting a book from the Old Testament. He is quoting the prophet Jeremiah, the prophet, who is someone who is God's spokesman, the prophet Jeremiah, God gave him this vision of a coming day when the Old Covenant, that plane would land and a new covenant would take off. And this is what Jeremiah says, and the Hebrews writer is using this set of verses. "'The days are coming,' declares the Lord, 'when I will make a new covenant with the people of Israel and with the people of Judah. It will not be like the covenant I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt, because they did not remain faithful to my covenant and I turned away from them.' declares the Lord. 'This is the covenant I will establish with the people of Israel. After that time,' declares the Lord, 'I will put my laws in their minds and write them on their hearts.'" This must have been mind blowing. Again, the writer of Hebrews, he's quoting Jeremiah and Old Testament prophet, the people in the Old Testament times the people in the times of the Old Covenant. This must have been mind blowing to them, having God's law written on their hearts and on their minds, because again, how many laws: 613. That's a lot. Anyone in here, anyone online think they could do that? Memorize 613 commandments? No, we have a hard time remembering people's cell phone numbers anymore since we have them in our contact book. My wife, my wife does not know my cell phone number. She can't tell anybody my cell phone number. She can't remember it right?Who the world's gonna remember 613 commandments.
But God says, man, I'm going to write my laws in their minds. I'm going to write them on their hearts. I will be their God and they will be my people. Verse 11, "No longer will they teach their neighbors say to one another. 'Know, the Lord,' because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest. For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more." Then verse 13 "By calling this covenant 'new', he has made the first one obsolete. And what is obsolete; and outdated will soon disappear." It is obsolete, and outdated and will soon disappear. If you're with us last week, we talked about this idea of resisting the resurrection, Not the resurrection of Jesus right? I had some people, whenever I posted the sermon, post my comments saying, I'm not resisting the resurrection of Jesus, what kind of church is this? We're not talking about the resurrection of Jesus. No, we need to resist our resurrection. The things that we try to resurrect in life, namely, the law, namely, the 613 ghosts.
We try to bring this thing back to life, we use the illustration of mixing drinks. Whenever you're a kid, you go to Taco Bell, you're going to McDonald's, they have all the different drinks, and you make your own little cocktail. A little bit of Coke, a little bit of Sunkist, a little bit of lemonade. And by doing so, you get the worst of all of it. And the best of none of it. By doing that, your drink tastes awful, right? It's fun in the moment mixing the drink. But whenever you try to get it down, you can't do it. Because you're getting the tartness of the lemonade. You're getting the the the caffeination and the syrup of the Coke. And it's just it's not good. And the same is true when we try to mix Old Covenant New Covenant living, we get the worst of both, and we get the best of neither. And the fact is, we are dead to the law. In effect, in relationship with us, the law has no more power it is 613 ghosts in our life anymore. It has no power. Romans 6 specifically says we have died to the law. Paul makes no bones about it. He reiterates this again in Galatians chapter 2. And in Galatians chapter 2, he makes the point of saying not only are you dead to the law, don't you dare try to build it backup. Galatians 2:18, "If I tried to rebuild what has been destroyed, then I become a law breaker," then I get in trouble, then I'm you know, I'm in danger of sinning. If I tried to build back up this thing that God has put down - don't pick up what God's put down. Don't pick up what God's put down, not just in relation to the law, in your own life. That's just the lesson for our lives. Don't pick up the relationship that God's told you to move on from. Don't pick up that old way of living that God told you to move on. Don't pick up that old way of thinking about yourself that God has told you to move on from if God has put it down. What business do you have tried to pick it back up? Do not resurrect, do not desuscitate. Leave it. Leave it dead.
Now we kind of briefly hit on the idea of why we love to resurrect the 613 ghosts, why we love to resurrect this old covenant way of living. Me and Pastor Brenda were just talking about it before service like why in the world do we do this? Why do we try to resurrect this old way of living that people who lived under it called a yoke and a burden? And they were obviously ecstatic at this new life that Jesus ushered in. So why are we so often finding ourselves trying to resurrect this old way of living? And we touched on this just a little bit, just briefly last week that we tend to do this, we tend to bring up the 613 ghosts, because we have become people of the Book. We've become people of the Book, you even hear Christians, maybe you yourself have said, Well, I'm, I'm a person of the book, I follow the Bible, is my authority in life. I'm a person of the book. And when we do that, whenever we become a person of the book, we tend to become people who resurrect things that have no business coming back to life.
Christians, we are not people of the book, we're people of the event. We are people of the person, we are people of Jesus. But no, we are not people of a book. If we are people of a book, we have no difference between us and any other religious system out there. If we are simply people of a book, there's no difference then. The good news is we're not. We have something better, we have something better, we are people of Jesus. So we're going to dive into this today, this idea that this is why we resurrect the 613 ghosts, because we have become People of the Book.
Today, if you're taking notes, the title for today's sermon is "Better Promises." Now, any pandemic OGs out there who are with us back in May of last year watching online? Alright, my people, there you are. See last May, whenever this thing first broke out, and we were still getting our sea legs under us, we had a series called "Better than the Bible." Today is kind of like a cousin of that. Alright? It's like a sequel to that series, "Better Promises." So I want to start off by telling you guys a little story about my brother, Zach.
So my brother, he was in high school, he played a bunch of different sports. He played basketball a few years, baseball a few years, but football he played all throughout high school. He went to Coventry, but whenever he played basketball, and I can't remember the exact years, would have been the late 90s, but he was playing basketball. It was early in the season, they were still just doing scrimmages against other schools in the area. And so Zack, one day after school, him and his buddy, they go to wendy's right there by where we used to meet, Coventry Elementary. It used to be the high school, there's that wendy's right there, Zack and his buddy went to that Wendy's. They're standing there in line and they're getting ready to eat and you know, Zack kind of looks over because somebody walks in the door and he double takes and then he's like woah.. woah. And his buddy's looking at him like what what do you know them or something? And Zack's like yeah, that's that kid who just walked in, he's a freshman. Dude, he plays basketball, he's legit. He's Lebron James. His buddy's like Lebron James? Who's Lebron James? Like you're you're getting all flustered over a freshman? Come on, dude, like what are you doing? Zack's like no i'm not kidding we scrimmaged at St. Vincent St. Mary, this guy is insane, like he's he's out of this world good. Like they're talking about him going to the NBA one day, like he's gonna be insane. His buddy's like geez dude, you're like getting all crazy over a freshman, I don't see what this about, but Zack didn't have anything on him, but didn't want to like miss this moment because he just knew he's like, okay this guy, there's good then there's other good and this guy's other good. He's like a freshman, but he's a man above and boys out here, whenever we're playing. So Zack grabs a napkin real quick and says like hey this might be kind of weird, we played you guys a little ways back, I'm from Coventry. Do you mind if I get your autograph? And Lebron did. Lebron signed it for him. Zack, I believe still to this day, hopefully still to this day, has a Wendy's napkin with Lebron James, his autograph on it. Right? Pretty crazy, pretty crazy.
Now I want to ask you guys a question. This isn't a hypothetical, you can respond, online I'm asking this to you too, put it in the chat. Let's say this exact same story happened today right? Lebron hasn't been Lebron yet or anything like that. He's still young, and this exact same thing plays out. Zack's in line, Lebron walks in Zack's like oh man this guy's amazing. Does zack still ask for an autograph? Do you think? Some people, yes, some people, no, okay. For the people who said no, why wouldn't he ask for an autograph? What would he ask for? A selfie, of course! Of course, like of course he would ask for a selfie. Did you guys know that actually the autograph market is like in severe decline? Nobody's asking for autographs anymore, it's just not happening. Like it's it's really tanking in the memorabilia area because everyone could care less about an autograph anymore. They were amazing, they served an awesome purpose, some people still collect them they were fantastic, but now that everyone has like a 4k high definition camera in their pocket they're like, no, I don't want like a handwriting that says I was by somebody, I want a picture, I want something better. I want a video with this person, I want something better. Please tell me you're tracking with me. Something better has come along, there is nothing wrong with my brother's autograph of Lebron, nothing at all wrong with it, he still has it, he still treasures that. It's still fantastic, but let me tell you, if Zack had the option of having that napkin or a selfie or a video with Lebron, their arms around each other hanging out, Zack's taking the selfie, Zack's taking the video because it's better. It's better. It doesn't mean the autograph is bad, but something better has come along.
And I want to tell you today the old covenant, there is nothing wrong with it, it was great, it was purposive, it served its purpose in its time, place and setting to specific people. But it's been replaced. Something better has come along, we have no business going back trying to get the autograph anymore, we have something far better that we have access to. We have something better, so please hear me on the outset of today as we're talking about scripture today. We are in no mean downplaying its significance, downplaying how great it is, downplaying the Word of God, none of that is happening today. None of that is happening today, but what we are doing is, we are recognizing that in Jesus we have something better. That in Jesus we have something that's established on a better promise.
You see the old covenant, i just want to hit this real quick, the old covenant, the old way of doing things, the old way of relating to God - it was good. It was ahead of its time, it did serve a purpose, but it was imperfect. It wasn't perfect, we just heard the writer of Hebrews say this very thing, verse 7 of chapter 8, "For if there had been nothing wrong with that first covenant no place would have been sought for another." If it had been perfect, we wouldn't have needed anything else. If there was nothing wrong with it, we would have never needed a new covenant. But we did need one because the old one, as good as it was, it wasn't perfect under the old system. This might even be something that's new to you, this might be the first time you've ever heard it. Did you know whenever in these times, under the old covenant, when people make a sacrifice for their sins, whenever they would bring an offering of a lamb or a goat or a dove, that animal the blood from the animal this sacrifice, did you know that didn't actually take their sin away? A lot of us think that, we think, oh yeah, that took their sin away in that moment. That never took their sin away. And the Bible is pretty clear about it. And as you read it, I would tell you, in your spare time, read the book of Hebrews, Hebrews clearly elaborates sacrifices never took away sin. The blood of bulls and goats never took away anyone sin what it did, it was a momentary band aid. Scripture is very clear that what those animal sacrifices did was they were a covering, they were a covering. Faith in God, that's always been what saves people's soul. Faith in God, we read that Abraham had, he was credited righteousness from God, because of his faith in God. King David, whenever he sinned in a great way, by having a man killed so he could steal his wife, we find out that you know what David said, there's no sacrifice I can even make. There's not even a sacrifice I can make that could get me good with God. God, all I'm asking for is your grace, and your forgiveness, please, I'm a broken man. And God forgave him. It's always been faith, these animal sacrifices were never perfect on their own. Then Jesus enters the picture. Then Jesus enters the picture.
This is what we read in Hebrews 10. And man, I love this, this gets me so pumped up, it makes me want to like, I don't know, charge hell with a water pistol. This is so good. So maybe you've heard maybe you've heard this phrase before. Jesus, and Scripture talks about him sitting down at the right hand of the throne of God. Right, Jesus, he sat down at the right hand of the throne. And God, we see it over and over and over in Scripture, this idea of him sitting down. And in Hebrews chapter 10, we actually get the idea behind this and what it means for Jesus, to sit down at the right hand of the throne of God.
Last week, I was talking with a guy in our church, and we were talking about the animal sacrifices. And he said, man, you gotta wonder how some animals didn't just go extinct back then. I mean, I think about how much my life I've sinned. I think about how many times I've screwed up and fallen short, I think about how many sacrifices I would have to bring. And I think, man, if you have that multiplied around a bunch of people, how were any animals left back then? I told him, I said, you want to know something you're actually not too far off. We know from Scripture, and we know from extra biblical sources, that the high priest whenever they were offering the sacrifices on the behalf of the people, they would not sit. They couldn't.They didn't have time. The sin was so great that people were so many and the sin was so great among the people, that they had to stand the entire time. As people were coming off of the sacrifice, people coming off of the sacrifice, people are coming off the sacrifice. They couldn't sit because people continually sinned, and the sacrifices they were making, were just temporary band aids, they couldn't cover it.
That brings me to what I want to read you today. This is so good. This is from Hebrews, chapter 10. Starting in verse 11, "Day after day, every priest stands and prefer performs his religious duties again and again. He offers the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. 12 But when this priest, Jesus Christ, had offered for all time, one sacrifice for sins, He sat down at the right hand of God, 13 and since that time, he waits for his enemies to be made his footstool. 14 For by one sacrifice, he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy." Do you understand what that means? That means we have a true and better high priest. The high priest down here is just continually offering sacrifices because it's never going to be enough and our sins are never going to stop. It's never going to reach this conclusion. But in Jesus, we have a high priest who offered one sacrifice for once in all time. And after it was over, He didn't have to stand anymore. He could go and take a seat, because he was perfect and it was finished and it was over and that one sacrifice is still making us holy today. That one sacrifice today is still imputing His righteousness on us to this day. That's something to say amen about. That's something to get pumped up about.That Jesus, His sacrifice, it was good enough for you, even to this day, even into your future. It's still good enough and it still covers. We have something better. Why are we running back to the autograph? We have something better. Why are we running back and trying to resurrect this old way of living? This works based way of living, these 613 ghosts, we can't do it, we've been given a new covenant that is established with better promises. It's established on better promises. And because it's established on better promises, that means it comes with a better law. That's what we're going to be focusing on next week, this better law that comes with this new covenant.
But not only do we get a better law, with this new covenant, we get a person with it. We get a person. We get a better way of relating to God. You see, we are people of a person. We are people of Jesus, we are not people of a book, and my word church, do we need this reminder, every church needs this reminder. We are people of Jesus, we are not people of a book, we have become a text centric faith. And we were never intended to be that way. We have always been, Christianity has always supposed to have been a person centered faith. But we've taken the Scripture and again, the Scripture is good. The Scripture is great. But what we've taken is we've taken the Scripture and in essence, we have elevated it to the place of a deity. Think about the language we use when we talk about the Bible.
In essence, what we've done is we've turned the Trinity into a quartet, the Father, Son, the Holy Spirit, and the Word, right? Think about the language we use to describe God's word. What do we call it? Oh, it's, you know, God's word. It's, it's generic. And it's perfect. And there's no fault in it. We talk about it like we should talk about Jesus. Jesus is spotless. Jesus is perfect. Jesus is the blameless, blemishlessness, son of God, He is the perfect one. Think about what we say about the Bible. Well, I follow the Bible. I'm a Bible follower. Not I follow Jesus. And I'm a Jesus follower. Guys, I've used the same phrases too, and it is not just semantics. If you're thinking right now, well, isn't this just wordplay? No, it is not. We're about to read exactly how it's not.
Another thing we talked about with Scripture, we talked about, well the Bible, that's my authority. Scripture is my authority. My authority is God's word. God's word settles it, the Bible says it, that settles it. Because the Bible is my authority. You want to know the word that is used commonly all throughout the New Testament, the time that Jesus lived the time when the New Covenant was instituted, the word that we see time and time again, to refer to authority is a let's see exousia, exousia, it's this Greek word. And it means exactly that - authority. I have all authority, I have command over this situation.
Jesus uses this word exousia, whenever he gets ready to ascend back into heaven in Matthew 28, right before Jesus gives the Great Commission, he starts it off by saying, "All authority, all exousia, on heaven and earth has been given to who, to me," everything. Everything is under my authority. Everything is under my authority. And again, we see that exact word exousia, use time and time again, in the New Testament, but every time it is used, it's never used in reference to say, this is our authority. This is our final authority. That's never how it was intended to be. I mean, just logically think about that. There are people around the world who aren't literate. There are people around the world who literally will never have access to a Bible ever in their life. How is this supposed to be their final authority? It's actually impossible. It's actually impossible. That is never how it was intended. We are people of Jesus, not people of a book, but our person centric faith has become tech centric. We started to deify the word and again, I know you might be thinking, because if there's people in here and you're tracking in the right direction, you're thinking, okay, but look, let's logically work this out. Jesus is God. Right? The Trinity - Jesus is God. And the Bible is God's word. So everything in here is Jesus. Right? Everything. Everything that was said, should be Jesus, then if it's God's word, and God in Jesus are one. So isn't this just semantics? Isn't this just semantics? Aren't we just chasing our tail by saying that our authority is Jesus? Not the word. Isn't this just semantics and wordplay? It is not. Jesus makes a very clear a very stark difference between him and scripture, a very clear difference. We're going to read this here in just a second. Jesus is talking with the religious leaders of his day with the theologians of his day people who did have all 613 commands, memorized, knew them by heart, and this is what he says to them. This is from the book of John chapter five. He's having this confrontation with a man, Jesus says this starting in verse 37. "And the Father who sent me has himself testified concerning me. You have never heard his voice nor seen his form, nor does his word dwell in you. For you do not believe the one that he sent."
39 "You study the Scriptures diligently. Because you think that in them, you have eternal life." How many of us is that true about? We study them diligently and you know, Jesus, yeah, he's great. But he's just one part of this. And, and we just read, study the whole thing. We study it diligently thinking that in this, we have eternal life. "These are the various scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life." Jesus, not Pastor Jacob, Jesus makes a very clear separation here. A very stark difference, that if you are searching the scriptures and studying them for life, you will only find life in me. There is a difference. So if you think this is semantics and wordplay, it's not. There is a difference between being people of a book, and people of a person. And we are people of a person. Jesus commanded it. And in fact, he said, the only way you will have eternal life is if you stop becoming people have a book. People have a scripture, people have a holy way. No, follow me. Follow me, I am the only way to eternal life.
So the Bible, the Bible, we love it. We love it here at Cornerstone, we preach it, all of it. If you want to, you know, push back on me and say, well, you know, you're trying to say only new covenant and only New Testament - man, I've just within this last couple months, I've preached on Elijah, I preach on Abraham, I've preached on Moses, we preach Old Testament here, we preach everything. We value, the Word of God, we value the Bible, but we do it for a reason. Because here at Cornerstone, and we fully believe this, the Bible has authority, but it's a derived authority. The Bible has authority, because of who vouches for it. That's literally what it means for something to have derived authority.
You see this right here? $10 bill, $10 bill, this is just a piece of paper. It's like a weird piece of paper, right? It's not like a normal kind that if it goes through the wash it, you know, just disintegrates. Essentially. It, you know, kind of fibers up, but essentially, it's just a piece of paper. It's really nothing special. But I can take this and get some gas, I can take this and get well, I might be able to get a meal at a cheap place I guess. $10 doesn't get you what it used to anymore, right? But I can get a meal. I can get food, I can buy something. I can I can get some merch out here at the Cornerstone merch shop, I can get some stickers and get a mug out there. I can do all these things with that. But here's the thing. It's it's just paper. Why can I do that? Why can I trade this for one of those Cornerstone mugs? Why can I trade this for gas? The reason I can do that is because we as a society, and the United States federal government have vouched for this, this piece of paper has a derived authority on its own. It's just a piece of paper, but because of who is vouching for this, it has value and it has worth in the same way.
The Bible, the scriptures that we read, you want to know why we put our faith in what Scripture says? Because a guy called his shot, said he was going to die and came back from the grave again and he vouches for it. You do that? We just listen to you. You do that, you pull it off. We follow what you say. And so I don't have to understand all this. I don't have to get all of this. But all I know is that my Savior, my king, my Lord, he vouches for it. He believes it. He believed, he said he was the fulfillment of all the law and the prophets. So if he backs this thing up, I go with him, I go with him. And that's why I read it. And that's why I study it. And that's why there is some authority because it is derived authority from Jesus, we are a person centric faith, we have something better than an autograph, we've got something way better. We've got a new way of living, a new covenant that's established on better promises.
Scripture is good, but Jesus must be the center. He has to, he has to. And here's the thing, I'm fully aware of this sermon I preached so far, up to this point, if we just kind of cut this off or at different parts, if we you know, cut and splice different parts up to this point, people would go oh, okay. And this is not all people but a certain select group of Christians would see this and go, whoa, Cornerstone's one of those churches, plays real loosey goosey with Scripture. Doesn't believe it's authoritative. Right? You know, I bet they just allow all kinds of sin to run rampant. They don't call people out. Yeah, Jesus was grace but truth pastor, but truth as well, and oh, man, you know, I bet I bet if you dug far enough, you probably see they even had a woman leader at some point. They probably had a woman pastor in there at some point I bet. Going to hell in a handbasket over here.
But that would happen because there's a certain group of people and it's actually the the sad thing is it's a growing group of people who would say what I've said so far, they would label this as progressive christianity. Whoa the authority of scripture you're stepping away from it. I would argue, anyone who thinks along that line is truly the progressive christian because they have progressed in their mind past Jesus. They have progressed to nope this is it. Just this. Just this. And they have moved Jesus away from the center. They've dislodged him and in his place they have put this. And they've equalized his teachings, his new command with everything else and they've resurrected the 613 ghosts and they're going to hold you to them and you're going to be accountable to them. And if you don't live those out well I don't know how your faith is but I wouldn't want to be in your shoes on judgement day. Sound familiar? If it doesn't, just sign onto Facebook or Instagram for five minutes, I promise you it'll sound familiar. All of a sudden you'll see it, just watch some YouTube reviews, you'll see some stuff, you'll see some stuff that will shock you. You go what are they reading? Like is this the same? What version are they in?
There is nothing progressive about putting Jesus back at the center of christianity. That is scriptural and I would say anyone who argues anything else, they are perverting the gospel. If a gospel does not have Jesus Christ at the center of it and instead has a book it's a perversion. It's a perversion - that is not the gospel. It's something else. It's a mixture of both. It's someone trying to resurrect 613 ghosts. It's not the way things were intended. Jesus, if he is not at the center of our faith, we're in danger. If he's not in the center of our faith, we are in danger.
And I want to tell you, this is not always the way it's been. The early church got this right, they had a person centered faith. The early church understood this. That's how they preached, that's how they talked to new people about Jesus, everything started with him and then scripture flowed from that. Everything was seen through the lens of Jesus. Without him we're seeing it all askew, we're not seeing it the way we're supposed to. Everything has to be filtered through the eyes of Jesus, through the eyes of the gospel. The Jesus centered version of our faith is the version of our faith. Anything else is not our faith.
You see, there's kind of like a bull's eye, so how it should be is in the middle. The middle should be a person, Jesus. Then text scripture that supports that, and then outside of that, tradition - things that we do as a church and church tradition throughout the years. Unfortunately, what has happened, the early church got it right, they had Jesus in the middle, but christianity has fallen all the way out to where we put tradition over just about everything else. Well this is what the church fathers said, well this is what this person said, well this is what this person says is how we've always done it, this is what the catholic church has always done, that's how we got things so screwed up before the protestant reformation. All these indulgences and going to the pope and going to confession to be able to get right with God. All this tradition is just not where it was supposed to be.
Luckily, thank God for someone like Martin Luther. Thank God for the 95 theses and for pushing us back towards, no we can't just rely on tradition we have got to get back to the text, sola scriptura. We have to get back into the word and see what God says for ourselves, not just through some other person, we need to see it for ourselves and focus on this and not tradition. The sad thing is, Martin Luther pushed the ball back towards the center and we've let it stop. We've just stopped at a text centric faith, and we have not pushed it any farther back towards the person. That it's supposed to be focusing on this entire time. It's all about Jesus. Anything other than that is not truly the word.
Now why does this matter so much? Why does this matter so much? We kind of touched on it last week that whenever we do this, whenever we try to resurrect the old, whenever we try to mix old covenant new covenant, whenever we try to live on the old promises rather than the new better promises of Jesus, we screw up all kinds of things. That's how we get the prosperity gospel, and there are some fantastic preachers who are just good people who preach that stuff, but it's not true. It's not new covenant, it's not the way of doing things, but that's what we get. We get this prosperity gospel from this mix and match. And we get this idea of generational curses. Well I was a drunk and my dad was a drunk, and my dad's dad was drunk, so my kid's gonna be a drunk he has no choice in it. We get these ideas when we mix and match. And probably worst of all is we get this idea of a works based salvation when we mix and match. And we try to resurrect the 613 ghosts and bring into New Covenant living.
All of these things are bad. But I want to bring up a new issue for why it is so wrong for us try to resurrect what God has put down. Why it's so devastating for our life, whenever we try to live on the old way of doing things. Whenever we try to live on anything other than the better promise that is established in Jesus Christ, what we are doing is we are putting at the center of our faith, a shadow and a copy of what was intended. We're putting at the center of our faith, what the writer in Hebrews says earlier about a shadow and a copy of what is in heaven. We, whenever we put this in here, it's great. It's a great thing. It's awesome whenever this is a part of our life and a part of our faith. But whenever we put this in the middle of our faith, instead of Jesus, we are putting a shadow in a copy of what was intended to be there. We are putting the Word in the place of the word. In john chapter one, when John is talking about the Word was with God, the Word was God that's not talking about this. It's talking about a person. That's why John specifically says the word put on flesh and dwelt among us. He's literally talking about Jesus, not not in some theoretical way. No, the guy who was with God at creation of everything, sat around a campfire and ate fish with us. Like that's the word I'm talking about. Not not this. Him. That word. If that is not the center of our faith in this is we have put a shadow in a copy of what should be in the middle of our faith. And I tell you, if you do that, if you have a life that is established and founded on something lesser than Jesus, you are going to have a lesser life. You are going to have a lesser life, if you found your life and your life, if you're a while I'm a Bible follower. Well, this is my only authority. If you live that way, you may have a good life. It won't be what God intended for you. Because nothing should be the center of your life except Jesus. Nothing. And no, it's not semantics. And no, it's not wordplay.
Jesus again, himself said, You have searched this looking for eternal life. And you've missed it because this was pointing to me. You missed it. I'm supposed to be the center. I'm supposed to be the center. You have something that God has given you. And it's better. It's better. Why are you putting an autograph in the middle of all this, I can take a picture with you, you have access to something so much better than you used to. Don't resurrect the old way of doing things.
I love this. This is what the writer says in Hebrews eight. I want to just jump back up to this again, in our closing moments today. Whenever he's quoting the prophet Jeremiah, in verse eight, he says, "The days are coming declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the people of Israel with the people of Judah. 9 They will not be like the covenant I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt, because they did not remain faithful to my covenant, and I turned away from them declares the Lord. 10 This is the covenant I will establish with the people of Israel after that time" that is us, "declares the Lord, I will put my laws in their minds, in write them on their hearts." I will put my law in their minds and write my law in their hearts.
You see the old way that the law came to us, written on scrolls, the 10 commandments written on tablets of stone, all of these external things to contain the truth in the law of God. But God says no, this new covenant is going to be something different, it's not going to be written on tablets of stone, I'm going to embed it and inscribe on the heart of the people that I love. It's going to be a part of who they are. And what God is doing in this moment, when he's drawing this line between old covenant and new covenant, He's saying, I'm not going to relate to people legally, but relationally. I'm not going to relate to them distant, I'm going to be close, I'm going to be intimate, I'm going to be in their very hearts in their minds. I'm not gonna give them an autograph, I'm gonna take a selfie with them. I'm not going to give them this the shadow and this copy, I am going to put on flesh and dwell among them. I'm bringing something better. I'm bringing in something better. And church, we have something better. We have someone better.
And this is the thing. And this is what's just so amazing about Jesus, when we start following him, when we put that someone better in the middle rather than at some thing in the middle. We find out that life gets better. Our relationships get better, the way we live gets better, our relationship with God gets better whenever we take the book out of the center and put Jesus back into the center. Everything changes. Again, the Bible is good, it's valuable. It's wonderful. And it's also not supposed to be the center of our faith. It's Jesus, we have something better. We have something better and when we put our faith and our hope in Him, He gives us something better. And we're talking about that next week.
Would you bow your heads and pray with me real quick?
Father, God, thank you for the better promise. Thank you for the better covenant. Thank you for the better way of Jesus, thank you for the true and better, that Jesus is the true and better version of everything we see in Scripture. He's the true and better high priest, who offered one sacrifice once and for all time, and God today, it is still taking away our sins, still taking away sins we haven't even committed yet. Thank you for that God. Man, you have established a life that can be founded upon such a better promise, the promise of Jesus and who he is and what he can do in our life. God, forgive us for the times we've tried to resurrect the old way of doing things. God, forgive us for the times we've tried to resuscitate the 613 ghosts and try to mix and match and morph it with your new way of living. Forgive us, God. That is a perversion of the gospel. That's a perversion of what you've done. Help us to realize the truth that our faith is not founded in a book. It's not founded in a certain set of rules. It is founded in the person of Jesus and on nothing else. And he's good enough. It's not Jesus, and. It's not Jesus plus. It's just Jesus. And he is more than enough. All of your promises through Jesus are yes, and amen. We believe that and we claim that today, Father. Help us to course correct quickly, anytime we find ourselves trying to drift back into an Old Covenant way of living. Anytime we try to drift back into bringing that yoke of burden, putting it on other people and trying to condemn other people. Help us to remember your way, the way of grace and truth, the way of Jesus. Help us to get back to having him at the center of our faith, because we know if we do that, life will get better, and we will get better at life. We love you so much. Father, thank You for Your gift. Thank you for your promise. We love you so much. We pray all this in your name. Amen.
You can now stand and receive the blessing of the Lord. May Jesus Christ, our God and our King forever, be with you this day and every day. Amen.
