Andy Stanley - Ninety Part 8 The New Covenant

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Here are two words that always make me a little
bit suspicious, and I bet perhaps they make you suspicious
as well. Unlimited unconditional, unlimited unconditional, unlimited coverage. Are you
sure you know once they get off the highway? Is
that where the limit ends? You know? Is unreally unconditional guarantee?

Speaker 2 (00:21):
Yeah? I'm so sure. Where's the fine print?

Speaker 1 (00:23):
Doesn't doesn't she always get nervous when somebody says unlimited unconditional.
A few years ago, I was at a college orientation
with one of my kids, and they were talking about
the school and we had already enrolled and we're about
to start in two weeks and they're giving us all
the deal. And so the food services guy came in
and he was gonna explain how the food services food
services works and if you you may remember this from college,

(00:43):
or maybe you're in college, and you get a card
the cards free, and then you load it up with
a bunch of money, and you get a certain number
of swipes, and then once you eat up all that food,
you loaded up with some more money.

Speaker 2 (00:52):
And they were talking about the different packages.

Speaker 1 (00:54):
If your kid eats a little bit, if they're gonna
eat two meals, three meals, and then they had unlimited.
You could put a certain amount of money on that
card and your son or daughter could live in the
cafeteria and just eat all day long unlimited. So anyway,
he's telling us this, and he said, you know, one
time he was doing this spiel and a lady raised
her hands. She said, well, you need to understand my

(01:15):
son eats a lot. He eats a lot. And he said, well, ma'am,
you probably need to get the unlimited plan. She said, no, no, no,
he eats a lot. He said, I understand, so you
should probably get in it. She said, no, no, no, no,
you don't understand. And she just couldn't quite grasp the fact.
What unmant unmant like not limited? And she he said,

(01:36):
by the time we finished going back and forth, she
still wasn't satisfied that unlimited would be enough food for
her son, because there always seems to be a catch
when it comes to unlimited. Now, the interesting thing about this,
I would imagine that some of you may have had
a similar conversation with God. You know, you hear about unlimited.
You know, God's unconditional love and God's unlimited forgiveness or

(01:58):
his unconditional love and his unlimited forgiveness. And you're thinking, Okay,
I know I heard about that in church and Sunday School,
but have you checked my record. I don't think your
un is big enough for me. And if you think
perhaps God's unlimited and unconditional isn't big enough for you
because of your record, I cannot tell you how happy
I am today that you're gonna hear what we have

(02:20):
to talk about. So let's just jump right back into
the story where we left off last time. Jesus is
on his way to Jerusalem to celebrate Passover with his guides.
And Passover is a big deal because Passover is an
annual celebration where Jewish people would get together and celebrate
the fact that God had delivered their ancestors from Egypt

(02:40):
and Egyptian slavery. But it was a little bittersweet in
the first century because Israel was an occupied territory. Israel
was occupied by Rome, so the Jewish people were celebrating
God's liberty and God's liberating activity in the past, but
it didn't seem like God was going to answer their
prayers in the present. But in spite of that, Passover

(03:00):
was a big deal, and Jerusalem was the place to be.

Speaker 2 (03:03):
So get the picture.

Speaker 1 (03:04):
Thousands and thousands and thousands of Jewish pilgrims are pouring
into this even large by ancient standards, this large city, Jerusalem.
Every road is packed, everybody's moving in the same direction.
The city is crowded, the hotels are full. And Jesus
and his guys and the people who follow him constantly
have joined that crowd of people moving in towards the city.

(03:26):
And the chief Priest and the Pharisees and the keeper
of the temple, the keepers of the temple, they've heard
that Jesus is coming to Jerusalem, and they're thinking this
is the opportunity they've been waiting for, if only they
can find him.

Speaker 2 (03:40):
In all the crowd.

Speaker 1 (03:42):
The chief priest, the text tells us the chief Priest
and the Pharisees had given orders that anyone who found
out where Jesus was should report it so that they
might arrest him. But there was a caveat because they
were smart. But they weren't going to arrest him during
the festival, they said, or there might be a riot
because Jesus was dreamly popular. So hey, he's somewhere in

(04:03):
the city. Surely we'll be able to spot him. We'll
put a few people on, you know, to tail him.
And then once the celebration's over and people start leaving
the city, we move in, we separate him from the crowd,
we arrest him, we'll have him put to death, and
then we're going to send a group to find a
Lazarus or we're gonna put Lazarus to dead two to
death as well, and then maybe this whole thing will
be over with and behind us. The text says that

(04:26):
the next day, the next day, being about five days
from the actual Passover celebration, there are spies on the
lookout for Jesus fans eagerly expecting his arrival. The text
tells us that about five days from Passover, the great
crowd that had come for the festival that's Passover heard
that Jesus was on his way to Jerusalem. Now, he'd

(04:47):
been kind of traveling around these other little villages and towns,
and all of a sudden, there's this rumor he's coming
into the city. He's coming into the city. Which gate
will he come through? From Which direction will he come?
They weren't sure, And there's this buzz everywhere. The whole
city is expecting Jesus. And the reason they're so excited
is they're thinking, maybe this will be the moment, this
will be the passover that we finally not only celebrate

(05:07):
Israel's freedom and being set free from Egyptian bondage, but
maybe this is the passover where we celebrate liberty from
Roman bondage as well. Maybe Jesus will proclaim himself king
and the.

Speaker 2 (05:21):
City will be full of patriots.

Speaker 1 (05:24):
So Rome is nervous, Pilot is nervous, the Pharisees are nervous.
Everybody is on the lookout for Jesus, and they spot
him coming. And when they see him from a distance,
word travels quickly and people line up on both sides
of the road, and they took out branches and they
went out to meet him, and they begin to wave
them in the air and to blay them on the streets,

(05:46):
and they begin shouting Hosanna, Hosanna, hosanna, which meant save us, now,
save us, now, save us now. This was a cry,
This was a prayer that the Jews prayed to God.
And suddenly they're focusing this prayer on a person, Jesus,
as he rides in to town. But then it escalates,

(06:08):
blessed is he. They begin to say, blessed is he
who comes in the name or who comes with the
authority of God.

Speaker 2 (06:17):
And then it turned political, blessed is the king of Israel.

Speaker 1 (06:23):
And they had assumed that Jesus had come to Jerusalem
to do something for the nation, But in fact, Jesus
had come to Jerusalem to do something for you, to
do something for the entire world that in the next

(06:45):
few days unbeknownst to them, and in the next few
days this will take everyone by surprise.

Speaker 2 (06:51):
In the next few days, what Jesus would do would be.

Speaker 1 (06:53):
So confusing that they wouldn't understand it until after it
had all been completed. In the next few days, Jesus
would fulfill God's promise to Abraham, and he would replace
God's covenant with Israel. Because many centuries before this first
century event, God had promised Abraham that he would become

(07:16):
a nation, and through that nation, the entire world would
be blessed. And Jesus is about to fulfill that promise.
And in fulfilling that promise, he would replace God's covenant
with Israel. So for the next few days Jesus is
in the temple, and he's laying low, and he's moving
around at night, and there's Jesus siding here, and there's

(07:37):
a Jesus siding there. But by the time they get there,
Jesus and his guys are already gone. He even goes
to the temple and teaches a little bit, but exits
before they.

Speaker 2 (07:45):
Can arrest him.

Speaker 1 (07:46):
And then two days out from passover, two days out
from Passover, something that would have seemed miraculous took place.
The Pharisees and the Sadducees and the teachers of the
law finally got a break. They finally had an answer
to prayer. One of Jesus's closest followers breaks rank. The
text says in Judas, and Judas went to the chief

(08:09):
priest and the officers of the temple guard and discuss
with them how he might betray Jesus, And the text
says Luke says that they were delighted. And the reason
they were delighted is because actually they were afraid. They
were afraid that if Jesus became king, and if Jesus
declared himself Messiah, that they would lose everything that Jesus

(08:31):
becoming king meant they would lose everything that was valuable
to them, that he would take things away. And perhaps
that's the reason you were afraid for Jesus to be
the king of your life, because of what he might
take away. But as they were about to discover, Jesus.

Speaker 2 (08:45):
Did not come to take anything. Jesus came to give something.

Speaker 1 (08:51):
So the teachers of the Law and the Pharisees and
the Sadducees agreed with Judas, and they were delighted, and
they agreed to give him money, and he consented and
wants for an opportunity to hand Jesus over to them
with no crowd was present.

Speaker 2 (09:03):
And so the stage is set.

Speaker 1 (09:05):
The kingdom of this world versus the Kingdom of Heaven.
The kingdoms of this world with their top down arrangement,
with their violence oriented arrangement, with there we can handle things,
we control things, arrangement with their imperial system, the kingdoms
of this world versus the Kingdom and the plan of God,

(09:27):
and their plan would actually succeed, but their objective would
not be met because unlike them, Jesus did not cling
to his life. It was his intention all along to
give his life away. But before he did that, there
were two loose ends that he had to tie up

(09:51):
and passover, and the Passover meal was the perfect opportunity
to do just that. So we send some friends out
into the city to find a place that he and
his disciples, the twelve can celebrate Passover meal together.

Speaker 2 (10:05):
It's a place that's off.

Speaker 1 (10:06):
The beaten path, where they won't be interrupted, where they
won't be arrested, somewhere where no one will be able
to find them, that they can have peace and have
these final conversations. Because Jesus knew his time was drawing
to a close. And as they began the Passover meal,
something happened that was so disruptive that I'm absolutely convinced
that the disciples were never able to put all of

(10:26):
this together until after the resurrection.

Speaker 2 (10:28):
But here's what happened while they were having the meal.

Speaker 1 (10:31):
While they were eating, Jesus took bread, unleavened bread, more
like crackers. Jesus took bread, and when he had given thanks,
he snapped it in half, he broke it, and he
gave it to his disciples, saying, take and eat.

Speaker 2 (10:44):
This is my body.

Speaker 1 (10:48):
Luke's version, this is my body given for you and
Just before they were about to take their first bite,
they stopped and looked at each other and thought, did
he just say what we think said, wait, wait, wait,
this is your body.

Speaker 2 (11:04):
But he wasn't finished. It got even more offensive. Do this.

Speaker 1 (11:07):
He said, do this in remembrance of to which they
could have said, well, you don't have to tell us
what to do this in remembrance of We've been doing
this in remembrance of something since we were little boys,
since we were little boys, since we were children with
our fathers and our grandfathers. We did this in remembrance
of God coming to Egypt and taking his people out
and punishing the nation of Egypt and punishing Pharaoh. We

(11:30):
know exactly what we're doing this in remembrance of Jesus
smiled and said, that's all changing. From now on, when
you celebrate Passover, you will do this in remembrance of me. Now, gentiles,
that we're all gentiles, most of usunless you're Jewish, and

(11:50):
you're way ahead of me if you're Jewish. But gentiles,
let me explain something to you. At this point, everybody
should have gotten up and left the room. This should
have been the end. I mean, okay, Jesuz, you've contradicted Moses.
You've set yourself up and above and apart from Moses,
and you can mess with Moses, even though that's gotten
us in a lot of trouble. And you're not very
popular with the religious leaders because you kind of diss

(12:10):
Moses over and over and over. But Jesus, look at us.
You don't mess with Passover. You can't replace Passover. You
can't make Passover all about you. I mean, let me
try to illustrate it this way. Imagine this coming December.
I show up on the first weekend of December and say, hey,
you know, churches, is hey about to you know, move
into this holiday season. And you know, normally on throughout

(12:31):
December we celebrate the birth of Jesus. But this December,
we're gonna celebrate my birth. Every single weekend we get together.
We have some new songs that.

Speaker 2 (12:40):
Have been written.

Speaker 1 (12:41):
They're all about me. This whole thing will crescendo. We're
gonna have an andy Eve service, you know, with candle lights.
Then on Sunday morning, we're all gonna gather and I'm
gonna put a big chair out here and sit here,
and you're all just gonna talk about how great I am,
and we're just you know this December it's all about
me and all of you would leave the church and
you should. In fact, if I ever do that, you

(13:01):
have my permission ahead of time. Leave the church. Something
bad has happened. Right now, here's my point.

Speaker 2 (13:07):
Look up here. This was way worse than that. This
was way more disruptive than that.

Speaker 1 (13:13):
Jesus, Okay, you're great in all you know, but you
can't make passover about you. That was the beginning of
the meal. Jesus just goes back to the meal.

Speaker 2 (13:25):
You're looking at each other and like, did you maybe
we misunderstood.

Speaker 1 (13:29):
Maybe this whole you know, triumfle entry thing kind of
went to his head. I mean so, but he wasn't done.
So to eat their meal, have a conversation. Who knows
what's runing through their minds, and then we're told this
in the same way, in the same way after supper.

Speaker 2 (13:44):
So they eat the whole meal.

Speaker 1 (13:45):
After supper, Jesus took the cup and he said this
this cup is, to which they could have said, hang on, whoa, whoa, woa,
we know what this cup is. This cup represents the
blood that was shed by animals. The night that our
ancestors left Egypt and went to the Promised Land, and
they had to slaughter and a lamb of you know,
a spotless lamb, and put the blood over the door,

(14:07):
down the sides of the door, and the death Angel
passed through Egypt, and we all left under the blood
of the lamb, and you know, went to Mount Sinai,
and God established us as a new nation. I mean,
we know, we know exactly what this represents to Jesus.
If we could, could we please stick with the fifteen
hundred year old script that we all learned as children.

(14:29):
I want you to understand how extraordinarily disruptive this was.
And the same way, after the Supper he took the cup,
and here's what he said. This cup is the new covenant,
not a new covenant, the new covenant. This cup has

(14:53):
always represented a celebration of God's covenant with the nation.
Up until this night, every time you got together, it
was the celebration of the fact that God established a
brand new relationship with the nation at Israel. But from
now on, when you take this cup, you are going
to celebrate a brand new covenant that begins tonight.

Speaker 2 (15:16):
And if they'd been paying attention in Sunday school. These
Jewish boys knew that.

Speaker 1 (15:19):
The prophet Jeremiah had predicted the day would come when
God would establish a new covenant that would replace the
current covenant. In fact, this was six hundred and fifty
years before this moment with Jesus and the disciples. The
prophet Jeremiah said this. He said, the days are coming,
so pay attention and get ready. Somebody take notes. The
days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make

(15:40):
a new covenant with the people of Israel and with the.

Speaker 2 (15:43):
People of Judah. And it will not be like the covenant.

Speaker 1 (15:46):
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, that covenant that God established
with Moses, when Moses came down with the ten Commandments
and all the rituals and the rules and all the
stipulations and all the I will and you have to,
and if you don't, I won't. He said, It's not
going to be like that one. But there will be
a replacement covenant. But the question that they should have asked,

(16:09):
if they've been thinking straight, and we find out next
week they weren't thinking straight because everything was moving so fast.
The question they would have to think is, well, if
you're establishing a new covenant, is it going to be
like the old one?

Speaker 2 (16:19):
How will it be different?

Speaker 1 (16:20):
And the prophet Jeremiah six hundred and fifty years earlier
answered that question. He said, I will put my law.
Here's the difference between the two covenants. I will put
my law, the law that was written on some stone,
the law that God brought, that Moses brought down from
the mountain.

Speaker 2 (16:34):
He said, in the new Covenant, there's going to be
a new law.

Speaker 1 (16:37):
And I'm gonna put my law in their minds, and
I will write it on their hearts. They will not
have to memorize the laws and the stipulations for the
new covenant. It will be a covenant of conscience. And
this had been promised hundreds of years before the night
that Jesus said, I am inaugurating, I am unleashing. I
am establishing not a new covenant, the one you should

(17:00):
have been waiting.

Speaker 2 (17:01):
For all along, back to pass Over.

Speaker 1 (17:06):
He says, this cup is the new covenant, the one
that was promised long ago, the one that you should
have been looking for. The one that it's about to
begin now, a new kind and this new covenant represents
a new kind of relationship, because that's what a covenant is.
A covenant is an arrangement or an agreement or a
contract between two parties. And this new covenant would represent
a new kind of relationship. Not between God and a nation,

(17:30):
but between God and the nations, Not between God and
a group of people, but between God and individual people.
But the question they should have asked, the one they
should have wrestled to the ground, the one that should
have disturbed them if they had.

Speaker 2 (17:44):
Been thinking straight.

Speaker 1 (17:45):
This is okay, But what kind of covenant is it?
Would it be like the old one with so many
rules and conditions and punishments and blessings and we can't
even keep up with most of that.

Speaker 2 (17:55):
Or is this new.

Speaker 1 (17:56):
Covenant going to be more like the one with our
father Abraham. There's more of an unconditional covenant, because God
said to Abraham, look at me, Abraham, I'm gonna make
you a great nation, and I'm gonna bless the world
through you. And you can work with me or you
can work against me. But Abraham, when all is said
and done, you are gonna be a great nation, and
I am gonna bless the world through you.

Speaker 2 (18:13):
I'm making you a promise. I hope you'll work with me.

Speaker 1 (18:16):
But at the end, Abraham, I'm gonna make you a
great nation, and through that great nation, I am gonna
bless the world. So this new covenant, what kind of
covenant would it be? Now let's hit pause on Jesus
and the Disciples. Hit pause, and now I want to
talk to you just a little bit about ancient covenants
that we're gonna come back to the story so you
can understand the significance of what's happening in the room
that night.

Speaker 2 (18:36):
There were essentially three.

Speaker 1 (18:37):
Kind of covenants that dominated the ancient landscape. The first
kind of covenant is what's called bilateral parity treaty. Now
there's not gonna be a test, but you should pay attention. Okay,
it's called a bilateral parity treaty. And this is a
covenant or an agreement between two equals. It's an I
will if you will, and you will if I will,
and if you don't, I'm gonna stop. And if I

(18:59):
don't do it, you you expect me to do. You
don't have to do what I'm expecting you to do.
Just think business contract. That's what this kind of treaty was,
or a treaty was. It's two groups get together, they're equals,
and they come up with a contract. They both sign,
or they both agree, or they cut their wrists or
share blood, or kiss or hug. They were all kinds
of things they would do, or trade daughters, you know,
those all kinds of weird stuff. So this was between

(19:19):
two equals. Then there was the bile what was called
the bilateral suzerainty treaty. Now, a suzarin is like a
king or a leader or a powerful person, and the
way that this worked is that the suzarin or the
king would dictate terms and conditions to a lesser power,
a vassal who didn't have much choice in the matter.

(19:40):
The best way to understand this is to think curfew. Okay, son,
it's my car, these are my keys. I'm gonna let
you drive my car, and I expect you to be
home at ten o'clock.

Speaker 2 (19:52):
What time? Say it out loud, ten o'clock. So here's
the keys.

Speaker 1 (19:55):
Now, if you don't get home by ten, you don't
get to drive this next time. Okay, And for every
ten minutes. You're late, I'm adding twenty minute. You know,
this goes on and on and on, and so the vassal,
which is the child, it's like, thank you, Father, and
I'm going to try to obey your rules. And I
don't get to give you rules. You give me the
rules because you're the suzerin and I'm the vassal. Okay,
you got it. That's how it worked. Now, here's the

(20:15):
most important thing about that. God's relationship with the nation
of Israel was a suzerin that was a bilateral Suzarin treaty.

Speaker 2 (20:24):
It was like curfew.

Speaker 1 (20:25):
God said to the nation, here are the rules, and
God dictated all the terms when Moses came down from
the mountain of Mount Sinai, hundreds and hundreds of years
before this passover. When he came down from Mount Sinai,
he had all the rules and all the conditions and
all the punishments. If you'd like to read them, they're
outlined at the end of the Book of Exodus, all
of Levitigus, and most of Deuteronomy. It's the parts of

(20:47):
the Bible that puts you to sleep. Now, they're really important,
but they're not for us because we're not part of
ancient Israel. That's why when you read them, you're like,
who in the world could do all this stuff? It
is so complicated, But God, this is so important. God
was founding a nation, he was founding a civilization. He
was founding a people that had to have rules and laws.

(21:09):
He was establishing a brand new society. So he established
a I will if you will, covenant, but if you don't,
I won't.

Speaker 2 (21:16):
So here's how it went. He said to the nation.
You can read it for yourself.

Speaker 1 (21:19):
He said to the nation, obey me, don't worship any
other gods. Keep my rules and I'll keep you safe.
Your crops will grow. I'll make sure that you're victorious
in war. But if you don't keep my rules, if
you worship other gods, I'm not going to protect you,
and your crops aren't going to grow, and I'm not
going to be for you anymore. In Israel's entire ancient
history was faithful to God, unfaithful to God, faithful to God,

(21:40):
unfaithful to God. And one time, this is amazing. At
one point God actually put the whole nation. Parents, you
should appreciate this. God put the whole nation in time
out that's where time out started. They finally abandoned God
and they worshiped idols, and God said, okay, I have
warned you.

Speaker 2 (21:55):
We had an agreement. You broke your endo.

Speaker 1 (21:57):
The agreement took all the leaders of the nation of
Israel and put him in Babylon for a seventy year
time out, and then when they learned their lesson, he
allowed them to come back into the land. So this
was a suzeranty vassal treatment treaty.

Speaker 2 (22:12):
I am the king. You are the.

Speaker 1 (22:14):
Subjects here in my demands. If you don't obey, you
will be punished. If you do obey, you will be blessed. Now,
there's a third type of treaty that was common in
ancient times. It was called a promisary covenant or a
patron covenant. In this particular covenant, this is so important.
One party, just one party binds itself to an obligation

(22:36):
for the benefit of the other party. One party binds
itself to an obligation, It makes a promise to the
other party that's for the benefit of the other party.
It is not bilateral. It's not I will if you will,
and if you don't, I won't. It's unilateral. And it's unconditional.
The best way to understand this one is to think
middle school crush. Okay, you either wrote the note, read

(22:59):
the note, or a friend of got the note and
let you read the note. And the note went something
like this, I promise to love you forever. I'm your
friend forever. Even though your family's moving to San Antonio,
I'm still gonna be I'm still gonna love you. And
you know distances. You know, it was just unconditional, unconditional.
It was all one sided.

Speaker 2 (23:16):
It.

Speaker 1 (23:16):
It was the promise of unwavering love. I don't expect
you to do anything for me. It's all about you now. Fortunately,
if you had a middle school crush, you did not
ratify that covenant by taking the neighbor's cat and slicing
it in half and sacrificing it. Which brings me to
a really important part of understanding ancient covenants. And ancient covenants,

(23:36):
they were all pretty much ratified the same way. Something
had to die on all of them, and what generally
they would do is take an animal, depending on how
wealthy the parties were, and sometimes multiple animals, and they
would literally split them right down the middle and they
would lay them open, and then each party that was
making the covenant together would literally walk through the halves
of the dead animal. In fact, we talk about cutting deep.

(24:00):
That language we're gonna cut a deal came from this
ancient idea of cutting a covenant.

Speaker 2 (24:04):
That's what they would call it.

Speaker 1 (24:05):
That's what the Hebrew word means, We're gonna cut a covenant.
And as they walk through these dead animal parts together,
here's what they were essentially saying to each other.

Speaker 2 (24:14):
Both parties were saying, this.

Speaker 1 (24:15):
May it be unto me as it is this most
unfortunate animal. If I violate the terms of this covenant exactly,
whoe is the right response to this kind of covenant?

Speaker 2 (24:27):
WHOA In other words, I am pledging.

Speaker 1 (24:30):
I am pledging my life if I violate this con
If I violate this covenant, this is a blood covenant
between both parties. So back to the three covenants, So
the promisory covenant, this is super important, the promissory covenant
and the promisory covenant.

Speaker 2 (24:46):
Only one person is making a promise.

Speaker 1 (24:48):
Right, So when you when a group, when a person
made a promisory covenant, they would slice the animals open,
cut them in half. But instead of both parties walking between.
Only one party would walk between. Why because only one
party in the covenant was making a promise. It's all
on them. Now here's the most fascinating thing of all.

(25:09):
And if you're Jewish, oh, you're so lucky. Okay, this
is so amazing. When God appeared to Abraham and he said, Abraham,
I'm gonna make you a great nation, and then I'm
gonna bless the entire world through that nation. They ratified
that agreement with the sacrifice of an animal, and you
can read about this in Genesis. And they cut open
several animals and they have them up and there was

(25:31):
space in between, and Abraham did not pass between.

Speaker 2 (25:35):
The pieces because this was all on God. Now Here
was the question that night.

Speaker 1 (25:44):
It passover. God's establishing a new covenant. God's establishing a
new covenant with the world. As they would find out,
what kind of covenant is it? Jesus answers that in
the way he explains the new covenant. Here's what he
said back to Jesus and his guys up in the
upper room. This cup is the new covenant. And the

(26:05):
next statement clarified what kind of covenant it was going
to be. This cup is the new covenant in my blood.
I will play the role Jesus was saying, I will
play the role of the animal that is sacrificed to
inaugurate and to launch this new covenant, to which, if

(26:27):
they were thinking straight, they would have thought, Okay, that's
your part.

Speaker 2 (26:30):
What's our part?

Speaker 1 (26:31):
Which is poured out for you, guys, he would say,
And those guys would later say to the Gentiles and
Jews that they preached and reached and eventually to the
whole world. He would say, you, you are on the
receiving side. I as a representative God who have come
to establish his covenant. I'm on the giving side. You

(26:53):
are on the receiving side. Or to say it another way,
it's this way. It's for you, it's on me. It's
one hundred percent for you, It's one hundred percent on.

Speaker 2 (27:07):
Me.

Speaker 1 (27:08):
Matthew's account adds a few words, this cup, it's a
new covenant, my blood, which is poured out for you
for the forgiveness of sense. So, Jesus, this is all
going so fast. This is not what we were expecting.
So wait, So you are establishing the new covenant that
Jeremiah prophesied. You're establishing the new Covenant. And in this covenant, Jesus,

(27:33):
you are representing God's interest in establishing the covenant. And
from now on, when we gather, we're no longer going
to celebrate God. You're our father delivering our people from Egypt.
From now on, we're going to celebrate the establishment of
this new covenant. But the blood parts thrown us because remember,
most of what Jesus said doesn't make any sense until
after the resurrection. What do you mean this covenant is

(27:55):
going to be in your blood?

Speaker 2 (27:56):
Are you kidding?

Speaker 1 (27:57):
You are the most popular person in this city. I
mean people are waiting for you to step out during
Passover and proclaim yourself king. What do you mean this
covenant that you're beginning, that you're ratifying, is going to
be and you're blood for the forgiveness of sin. Wait
a minute, blood for the forgiveness of sin. That's the
temple equation. That's the temple equation. That's what we've experienced

(28:19):
our whole life. We go to temple, we take an animal,
they sacrifice the animal, we get forgiveness of sins. And
now you're talking is if you are the animal that
results in forgiveness of sins. But Jesus, you're going so fast.
Even if this was true, even if this was is literal,
you you can only spill your blood once. And they

(28:41):
should have seen this coming, because on day one when
Jesus stepped onto the pages of history as an adult,
John the Baptist, looking to this very moment three years
or so earlier, said to the crowd gathered.

Speaker 2 (28:58):
There on the banks of the Jordan River, Look, look,
look the lamb of God.

Speaker 1 (29:08):
Who single handedly, all by himself, gonna take it all
on him, who has come to take away the sin
of the entire.

Speaker 2 (29:21):
World.

Speaker 1 (29:23):
And the next day, this new covenant and his blood
for the forgiveness of your sin would be officially ratified
with Roman nails and Roman steel. The empire that best
represented the kingdoms of this world was victorious for a moment,

(29:51):
but God was up to something bigger. The new Covenant,
the new Covenant, a new arrangement, a new agreement between
God and this entire image bearing rebel race, a new
covenant for every nation in every generation. This was the

(30:15):
big one. This was the final one. This was the
everlasting one. This was the one that would fulfill God's
promise to Abraham and replace God's arrangement with the nation
of Israel. It was the unconditional covenant. It was a

(30:35):
promissary covenant. Only one half of the relationship. Only one
party in the relationship would act on and inaugurate this covenant,
and it would be Jesus, God's son. It was unilateral,
one sided, unlimited coverage. And would there be terms and
conditions like God's relationship with Abraham, with Moses and the

(30:58):
people of Israel. Would there be conditions The answers, yes,
but they would be nothing. They would be nothing like
the terms and conditions. They would be nothing like the
terms and conditions, the laws, the ceremonies, the stipulations that
God rolled out and laid out for the nation when
he established that covenant at Mount Sinai. In fact, I

(31:21):
think if we were to say to John Matthew, Mark Luke,
John the Apostle John, if we were say to John John,
I mean, this is this is this is really too
good to be true, but it's so good. I hope
it's true that God established a relationship or the potential
of a relationship with me through Jesus, the Son that
he forgave.

Speaker 2 (31:37):
All of my sins.

Speaker 1 (31:38):
That it was unilateral that he did the whole thing,
that it was really for me and on him.

Speaker 2 (31:43):
I mean, what do I do?

Speaker 1 (31:46):
And I think John who sat there that night and
was as confused as everybody, John who watched Jesus die,
John who put his arm around Jesus' mother to take
care of her, John who peered into an empty tomb,
and John who had breakfast with Jesus on the beach,
And John who gave his life so that the world
would know that God had done something for the world.

(32:07):
If we were to say to John, John, how do
I get in on that? How do I respond? If
it's for me, how do I make it mine? I
think John would say the best words I know are
these words that whoever just trust in that, whoever just

(32:29):
says yes, that whoever believes it happened and believes it's
for them, you won't perish. You won't be left out
of that covenant. You will have eternal new covenant life.
Come on, who wouldn't say yes to that? If we

(32:50):
were to say, Peter, Peter, it's too good to be true,
It's too good not to be true, Peter, how do
I get And I think Peter would have an.

Speaker 2 (32:57):
Even more even simpler answer than John.

Speaker 1 (33:00):
I think Peter would take us back to day one
when he met Jesus. Jesus said, let's go fishing. Peter's like,
you don't know anything about fishing. We've been fishing, okay,
your carpenter, you know that's good, but we're fishermen. And
then they caused so many fish they didn't know what
to do with them. And Peter falls at Jesus feet
and he recognizes, Okay, I don't know who you are,
but you are in a different category than me. I'm
not worthy to be on the same boat as you.

(33:24):
Peter looks up at Jesus, and Jesus smiles and he said, Peter,
I know all about you, but here's what I want
you to do. I just want you to follow me
and my friends. That is the invitation to the new Covenant.
It's simply followed me. It's followed me with this caveat.

(33:45):
I know all about you. I know what you did,
I know what you didn't do, I know what you
promised to do. I know you can't even keep your
own rules. I know you've broken all of mine. But
all of that is covered under my unlimited, unconditional Covenant.
That I established in my blood for you. It's on me,

(34:11):
it's for you. It's on me, it's for you. It's
on me, but it's for you.

Speaker 2 (34:18):
So just come follow me, you say, Andy, it can't
be that simple. It's that simple, Andy, but there's got a.

Speaker 1 (34:36):
You're just used to how you've been treated by the
people that you know.

Speaker 2 (34:40):
This is why Jesus said he's your perfect heavenly father.

Speaker 1 (34:45):
This is why Jesus said it's as simple as trusting
that it's true, and then it becomes all for you,
assass