Questions

1. Fill in the blanks below from Hebrews 8:6-7. But as it is, Christ has obtained a ____________ that is as much more excellent than the old as the _________ he mediates is better, since it is enacted on better __________. 7 For if that first covenant had been faultless, there would have been no occasion to look for a second.
2. TRUE or FALSE: The New Covenant eliminates the law of God.
3. According to Hebrews 8:10, what does God promise to do in the New Covenant?
4. Abolish His law
5. Replace His law with grace only
6. Write His law on the hearts of His people
7. Remove all commandments
8. “Christ redeemed us from the ______ of the law by becoming a ______ for us.”
9. TRUE or FALSE:  The Spirit’s role is only to convict, not to empower obedience.
10. At Mount Sinai, the people responded to God’s presence by:
11. Running toward Him in joy
12. Asking Moses to mediate because they feared death
13. Entering freely into the cloud
14. Ignoring His voice
15. In Hebrews 8:12, what is one of the greatest promises of the New Covenant?
16. National restoration
17. Political peace
18. Perfect earthly obedience
19. Complete forgiveness of sins
20. TRUE or FALSE:  The New Covenant relationship with God is secured by Christ’s finished work, not our performance.
21. Under the Old Covenant, when discipline escalated fully, God would turn His ______ away.

Discussion

1. To prepare to answer this series of questions you can review this section of the message in this link to the video:  Growing up (To timestamp 6:22)
2. Pastor Winans asks, “What is so great about the new covenant?”
3. What associations do you have with old covenant? And what associations do you have with the new covenant?
4. Read Ezek 36:22-36, Heb 10:11-17 and discuss how these passages of Scripture connect with Heb 8:6-13.
5. Discuss the following questions in this link to the video: Greater Power (Timestamp 6:23 to 16:14)
6. Why is it important that the New Covenant does not remove God’s law but writes it on our hearts?
7. What does the “heart of stone” imagery teach us about human inability?
8. The sermon says transformation happens “from one degree of glory to another.” How does that guard us from discouragement?
9. Discuss where in your life do you see evidence of Spirit-produced change?
10. To prepare to answer this series of questions you can review this section of the message in this link: Greater Presence (Timestamp 16:15 to 21:57)
11. What marked Israel’s experience of God at Mount Sinai as Pastor describes?
12. What is different about access to God in the New Covenant? What does it mean that “they shall all know me”?
13. Do you tend to relate to God more with fear or with confidence? Why?
14. Discuss how the gospel removes the need to fear God and in place how we can approach God as “Abba, Father”.
15. Are you trying to live the Christian life like it’s Old Covenant — striving without resting in Christ?
16. To prepare to answer this series of questions you can review this section of the message in this link: Greater Promise (Timestamp 21:58 to end)
17. In what way was the Old Covenant relationship “fragile”?
18. What happened when Israel’s unfaithfulness reached its peak?
19. How does the cross change that reality under the New Covenant?
20. How does knowing your relationship with God is secure affect the way you fight sin?
21. If someone asked you, “What makes Christianity different from moral self-improvement?” how would this sermon help you answer?

Sermon Outline

 

Growing up (To timestamp 6:22) in the ’80s and early ’90s, one of the things I loved most was playing video games. One of my favorites was King’s Quest. I had a blast with those games, and at the time they felt incredible. Then, when I reached middle school, a new game came out with graphics that absolutely blew me away. I couldn’t believe how realistic and impressive it looked. Looking back now, it’s amazing to see how far video games have advanced over the last forty-plus years. That sense of progress—of something good giving way to something even greater—helps frame what we’re going to see in God’s Word today. As we compare the old covenant with the new covenant, we’re not saying the old covenant was bad. It was filled with blessings and mercy from God. But Scripture calls us to see just how much better, how much greater the new covenant is made possible through Christ. That leads us to the question before us this morning: what is so great about the new covenant? Our text answers that question in Hebrews chapter 8, beginning in verse 6. Much of what we’ll read is actually a quotation from the prophet Jeremiah, the longest Old Testament quotation found anywhere in the New Testament. So while our passage is in Hebrews, we are in many ways listening directly to Jeremiah as God reveals the glory of the new covenant.

The New Covenant is greater and better—but how is it greater? We’ll look at three things, focusing closely on this quotation from the prophet Jeremiah. Through his words, we see the greatness of the New Covenant revealed in this way: it brings greater power, it grants a greater presence, and it is founded on greater promises.

Greater Power (Timestamp 6:23 to 16:14)

As the author of Hebrews quotes from Jeremiah, he starts to unpack what this greater power looks like by focusing on the work God does in the human heart.

Hebrews 8:10 – ¹⁰I will put my laws into their minds, and write them on their hearts, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.

This is one of the great blessings of the New Covenant, and it raises an important question: is the New Covenant opposed to God’s law? If it were, we would expect Scripture to say, “I will remove my law from their minds and take it out of their hearts.” But that is not what we read. The New Covenant does not set aside the law of God. Jesus Himself said, “I did not come to abolish the law, but to fulfill it”—to fill it up, to bring it to its full meaning. The law is not dismissed; rather, it is driven deeper. God declares, “I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts.” In both the Old and New Covenants, one of God’s gracious gifts to His people is wisdom—the way of righteousness revealed through His law. The law itself is a gift, as Psalm 1 reminds us: blessed is the one who delights in the law of the Lord and meditates on it day and night. The difference in the New Covenant is not the removal of the law, but its location. It is written on our very hearts. And to understand the power of this gift—why it truly is greater—we need to turn to a parallel New Covenant promise found in the prophet Ezekiel.

Ezekiel 36:26-27 – ²⁶And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. ²⁷And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.

Our text earlier tells us that there was a fault associated with the Old Covenant—but the fault was not with the law. The fault was with us. The problem was the human heart. Scripture describes it as a heart of stone. And what happens when the law of God encounters a heart of stone? It does not produce obedience. As Romans 8 explains, those who live according to the flesh—apart from the renewing work of God—do not submit to God’s law. In fact, they cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God. When the law meets a heart of stone, it is met with resistance. That is why Jeremiah says…

Jeremiah 17:9 – ⁹The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?

Within the context of the Old Covenant, when the law encountered humanity’s sinful nature—a heart of stone—it exposed a heart that is deceitful and desperately sick, beyond understanding. The blessing of the New Covenant is not that the law disappears, the blessing is that God supplies a new power: a new heart. As Ezekiel declares, “I will remove the heart of stone and give a heart of flesh.” And then he goes on to say…

Ezekiel 36:26-27 – ²⁶And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. ²⁷And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.

When the Holy Spirit comes to dwell within us and God gives us a new heart, the result is a new power—power that enables us to walk in His statutes and obey His commands. In the New Covenant, we are given both a new heart and a new power. God’s law is no longer etched on tablets of stone but written on the tablets of our hearts. And written there is the power to be faithful. Through the transforming work of the Holy Spirit, those who are brought into the New Covenant are truly changed.

2 Corinthians 3:18 – ¹⁸And we all... are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.

Scripture tells us that we are being transformed into the image of Christ from one degree of glory to another—slowly, steadily, bit by bit. And that raises an important question: what is the power that accomplishes this transformation? Is it our own willpower? Is it simply trying harder? No. This transformation comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit. That is the great blessing of the New Covenant: we are given a new heart, and the Spirit now dwells within us, actively transforming us into the image of Christ.

A few months ago, I shared an illustration about my snowblower. It would start easily and run fine—until it actually hit snow. The moment it encountered resistance, it shut down. That’s a picture of the human heart apart from God’s renewing work. It looks alive. Everything seems fine—until it meets trial, temptation, or obedience. Then it fails. As Romans 7 puts it, “I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out.”

I was ready to throw that snowblower away, but a kind member of our church took it apart and discovered the problem: a gummed-up carburetor. Once it was replaced, the machine did exactly what it was designed to do. In the same way, we were created in the image of God to walk in His ways. But sin gums up the heart. We may look functional on the outside, but the moment we press up against obedience, we stop.

But praise God for the New Covenant. In Christ, God doesn’t just clean us up—He gives us something new. He gives us a new heart. And by the power of the Holy Spirit now at work within us, we are finally enabled to do what we were created to do: to live faithfully in the image of our God.

Greater Presence (Timestamp 16:15 to 21:57)

At this point, we look to Jeremiah, where the prophet speaks and says…

Hebrews 8:11 – ¹¹And they shall not teach, each one his neighbor and each one his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest.

What this does not mean is that, in the New Covenant, we suddenly possess complete knowledge of God—as if everyone now knows Him perfectly. Does anyone know God perfectly? That’s not the point. The emphasis here is on knowing the Lord. In this context, “to know” is relational. In the New Covenant, all of God’s people will know Him—not exhaustively, but intimately. From the least to the greatest, we all share the same access to God and the same relational closeness to Him.

To highlight that difference, the author of Hebrews draws a contrast with the Old Covenant. When the Israelites were delivered from Egypt—freed from Pharaoh’s bondage—they witnessed mighty acts of God. They passed through the Red Sea, received water from the rock, were fed with manna, and eventually came to Mount Sinai. There, as the Spirit of the Lord descended upon the mountain, the scene was terrifying. Exodus 19, and 20 describe thunder, loud trumpet blasts, thick darkness, and trembling. The people were so overwhelmed that they begged Moses to speak to God on their behalf rather than approaching Him themselves.

Exodus 20:18-21 – The people stood far off and said to Moses, “You speak to us, and we will listen; but do not let God speak to us, lest we die.” ... So the people stood far off, while Moses drew near... where God was.

When God would descend upon the tent and Moses entered it, the people would remain at the entrances of their own tents, watching from a distance. Moses would come back out and relay the words of God to them. There was a clear sense that access was not equal—something shaped by the context of the Old Covenant.

It’s a bit like The Wizard of Oz. Not everyone could simply walk in and see the wizard. When the curtain was drawn back, the scene was frightening and overwhelming. That sense of fear and distance captures something of the Old Covenant experience.

But the greatness of the New Covenant is that fear no longer defines our relationship with God. As Paul says in Romans 8, “You did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, ‘Abba, Father.’” In Hebrews 12, the author picks up this same contrast—the “Moses, you go talk to God for us” reality—and then he says…

Hebrews 12:18-24 – For you have not come to... a voice whose words made the hearers beg that no further messages be spoken to them. But you have come to Mount Zion... and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant.

Under Moses, the response of the people was, “You go talk to Him. We’ll stay back.” They cowered in fear. That is not the posture of the New Covenant. We have now come to Mount Zion—to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant.

Consider how Scripture traces the descent of God’s presence. At Mount Sinai, the Spirit of God descends upon the mountain, and the people stand at a distance. Later, God’s presence descends upon the tabernacle, and even Moses cannot enter. Then His glory fills the temple, and the priests—Solomon included—must remain outside. Each time God is present in there, the people are outside.

So when is the next time the Spirit of God descends? At Pentecost. And this time, He comes not to dwell behind a veil, not in a place marked by fear— “You go speak to Him, lest we die.” No, in the New Covenant the veil is torn. God is no longer shut away in a room we dare not enter. His Spirit descends in flames of fire and comes to dwell within His people. He is nearer to you than your own breath.

That is why, in the New Covenant, we do not need to tell one another, “Know the Lord.” We all have access to Him. This is the astonishing blessing—and the true greatness—of the New Covenant.

Greater Promise (Timestamp 21:58 to end)

The New Covenant is built on greater promises than the Old Covenant—blessed as the Old Covenant truly was. In both covenants, entry into relationship with God begins the same way: by God’s mercy. Consider Israel’s deliverance from Egypt. Were the Israelites required to perfectly obey the law before they could be brought into relationship with God? Clearly not. When God delivered them from Egypt, they were not obeying the law at all—because the law had not yet been given. God did not say, “I’ll come back later and see how you’re doing.” Instead, He acted out of His own mercy and compassion, remembering His covenant and seeing the affliction of His people. He delivered them, brought them through the Red Sea, and then said, “Will you be my people?” And they said yes. That was the beginning of the relationship.

In that sense, it is the same today. When you say yes to God, you are brought into relationship with Him. But here is the crucial difference in the Old Covenant. Once that relationship was established, it was sustained by continued faithfulness. Unfaithfulness—both personal and communal—threatened the enjoyment of that relationship. As Deuteronomy makes clear, Israel was called to remain faithful, and if they did, they would experience the blessings of God’s presence and favor. The relationship was real, but it was fragile, conditioned on ongoing obedience.

Deuteronomy 28:1-2 – If you faithfully obey the voice of the Lord your God, being careful to do all his commandments... all these blessings shall come upon you and overtake you.

Under the Old Covenant, obedience was required—but not perfection. How do we know that perfection was not the expectation? Because in Leviticus chapters 1 through 7, God provides sacrifices for the atonement of sin. If the expectation were sinless obedience, there would be no need for sacrifices at all. What God required was faithfulness.

Faithfulness meant loyalty to Him alone—no turning to other gods, no persistent rebellion expressed through immorality, violence, or idolatry. God knew His people would fail at times, and He made provision for that. But persistent unfaithfulness brought consequences. To abandon faithfulness was to come under the curses of the law.

When you read Leviticus and Deuteronomy, you notice that these consequences escalate over time. They don’t fall all at once at the first failure, especially at a national level. In that way, God’s discipline is very much like parenting. When a child disobeys, you correct them. If it happens again, the discipline increases. If it continues, it escalates further. It keeps building toward a serious consequence.

In the Old Covenant, that escalation eventually reaches its most severe point. God says, in effect, “I will turn my face away.” We see this reflected later in Israel’s history, as recorded in 2 Chronicles, where persistent unfaithfulness leads to exile. The relationship was real, but under the Old Covenant it could be strained—and even broken—by ongoing unfaithfulness.

2 Chronicles 36:14-17 – ¹⁴All the officers of the priests and the people likewise were exceedingly unfaithful... they kept mocking the messengers of God, despising his words and scoffing at his prophets, until the wrath of the Lord rose against his people, until there was no remedy.

We’re talking about unfaithfulness repeated generation after generation. Eventually, the discipline reaches its most severe point. God turns His face away from His people. That is why Jeremiah is told not to pray for them; the situation has become too far gone. This is why Isaiah records God saying, “I have no regard for your sacrifices. I have no delight in your festivals.” They have become a burden to Him—something He cannot endure—because their worship is empty and their unfaithfulness persistent.

At that point, God says, “Enough.” He turns against His own people. He becomes their adversary and unsheathes His sword against them. And it is in that devastating context that Jeremiah, in our text, says…

Hebrews 8:9 – ⁹For they did not continue in my covenant, and so I showed no concern for them, declares the Lord.

“You are not my people”—which is why we need a New Covenant built on greater promises.

Jerimiah 32:40 – ⁴⁰I will make with them an everlasting covenant, that I will not turn away from doing good to them. And I will put the fear of me in their hearts, that they may not turn from me.

Under the Old Covenant, the structure was clear: persistent unfaithfulness would eventually lead to God turning away from His people. In the New Covenant—the everlasting covenant—that will never happen again. God declares, “I will not turn away from doing good to them.” How is that possible? Because we now have a greater mediator: Jesus of Nazareth.

On the cross, Jesus bears the curse of the law on our behalf. Earlier, we said that when discipline reaches its most severe point, two things happen: God turns His face away, and His wrath is poured out. That is exactly what we see at the cross. Jesus cries out, “My God, my God, why have You forsaken me?” In that moment, the curse of the law falls upon the Son of God. God turns His face away, and the sword of judgment falls—not on us, but on Christ.

And because we have now been justified by His blood, Scripture tells us that we will be saved from the wrath of God through Him. What Jesus endured on the cross, secures for us the unbreakable promises of the New Covenant.

Galatians 3:13 – ¹³Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us.

Jesus bore the curse of the law. But He also fulfilled the law, perfectly. And so, as our curse is placed on Him, the blessings of the law are then given to us. And one of the premier graces that we have is the forgiveness of our sins.

Hebrews 8:12 – ¹²For I will be merciful toward their iniquities, and I will remember their sins no more.

The greater promise of the New Covenant is this: our continued relationship with God is no longer threatened by our imperfect obedience. Under the Old Covenant, assurance was fragile. But in the New Covenant, even when we stumble, the response is repentance—turning back to the Lord with His law written on our hearts. And when we fail, we no longer look inward to measure our obedience in order to find assurance. We no longer look to ourselves to determine whether we are right with God. Instead, we look to the perfect righteousness of Christ. We rest in His finished work. We plead the blood of Jesus. And as we receive the Holy Spirit, Scripture tells us that He is given as a seal—a guarantee of our standing with God and of the unbreakable promises of the New Covenant.

Ephesians 1:13-14 – ¹³In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, ¹⁴who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory.

The Holy Spirit is both a seal and a guarantee of our inheritance. In the New Covenant, God gives us a new heart and places His Spirit within us—a Spirit who empowers obedience. But that same Spirit is also God’s pledge that we will persevere. He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Christ Jesus. This is not something you accomplish by your own effort; it is something Christ accomplishes in you by His Spirit as you are being transformed into His image.

Because of this, we have a sure and unshakable hope. We know—beyond any doubt—that we will be with Christ forever, not because of what we have done, but because of what He has done. You need not fear. Jesus is our great High Priest, and His perfect sacrifice has secured the way for us. The New Covenant truly is greater.