Focal Point

Pastor Mike Fabarez: Bottom line, the atonement was all just a ceremonial covering before the coming of Christ. Now that he's actually paid the price, it's real now. And in the Old Testament, all he could say is, "One day God's going to have to pay for this." In the new covenant, he's already paid for it. That's why Jesus on the cross said, "Tetelestai," paid in full.

Dave Drew: And welcome to Focal Point with Pastor Mike Fabarez. I'm Dave Drew. You know, long ago, God made an agreement with his people, filled with both promises and punishments. The problem was we couldn't live up to our end of the bargain. It wasn't that God had failed, it was us.

Well, today we're in the book of Hebrew, which contains some great news. Because of Jesus, God has a new agreement with us. Pastor Mike calls the message, "Why did we need a new covenant anyway?"

Pastor Mike Fabarez: Let's continue our series on trying to figure out in this case how Christ changed everything and why it was we needed a new covenant to start with. Next time you read through the Old Testament, the first five books of the Old Testament, every time you see the instructions as to how to celebrate the Passover, for instance, notice there's always a footnote that shows up at the end of these instructions.

It's for the alien or the non-native-born person. They're what we often call in theology the proselyte who comes into Israel and he's not born of Israeli descent. He's not a son biologically of Abraham. It was interesting how even tucked away in the law, every time you turn around, God says, "You can celebrate the Passover. You just gotta go through these rules. You gotta get circumcised. You gotta have the sign of the covenant.

But you know what? If you're an outsider and you want to participate in the pictures of God's future grace, you can do it." The back door always seemed to be open to people like us that weren't a part of the family of the Israelites. And in the new covenant, he opens the door wide open. Wide open. As a matter of fact, if you know anything about the book of Acts, you can even start at the very beginning of the book of Acts, Acts 1:8.

Jesus says to his disciples, just before he leaves, he says, "I want all you Jewish boys and fishermen and tax collectors to go and be my witnesses, first in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and then to the ends of the earth." The first pastor of the church in Jerusalem, his name was Peter. Remember him? Senior pastor, if you will, of the first church in Jerusalem that grew from 1,000 to 2,000 to 3,000 to 5,000 in the early chapters of the book of Acts.

They were going full guns. They were winning Jews to Christ left and right. And people were becoming followers of the Messiah. And God said, "You know what? This is great. We got the first thing checked off. We're reaching Jerusalem big time. But I really wanted you guys to start reaching the ends of the earth," so he had to bring in persecution to scatter the church. Remember that?

By the 8th or 9th chapter, we've got the church scattering in every direction because Christ didn't just want this to be a Jerusalem-Jewish thing. And finally, we see in the 10th chapter of the book of Acts, the very first clear statement and testimony of a foreigner being won to Christ. And it's almost ironic. God uses the pastor of the church of Jerusalem, a Jewish boy, a Jewish fisherman turned preacher, to go and have an evangelistic encounter with a guy from Italy.

Do you remember the story? His name was, Sunday school grads, Cornelius. Acts chapter 10. Most of you know it and sure enough, that encounter in Cornelius becomes the first clear and obvious convert from Italy, from non-Jewish descent, that Peter, the pastor, a Jewish pastor of a Jewish congregation, leads to Christ. You and I, Gentile people I'm talking to now, most of you, we ought to be grateful.

We ought to be grateful that we get to participate in this. We're included in it. Be grateful that we're included because we are. Even from the Old Testament perspective, as God revealed his truths through the prophets of the Old Testament, he always had the Gentiles in view as well. Back to Hebrews in our minds. What is the covenant? Let's summarize it real quick. Verse number 9, Hebrews 8:9.

It's not going to be like the covenant I made with their forefathers, the forefathers of all the modern Israelites and people from the house of Judah, when I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt. Now, that's an important vision, metaphor, picture. It's like he's taking his people and he's dragging them out. And that's kind of what it was like. They were being dragged, were they not?

Moses was leading them, I recognize that. But they were sitting around complaining. They were dreaming of the leeks and onions by the Nile. You remember that, right? I led them by the hand. I led them out of Egypt because they did not remain faithful to my covenant. I turned away from them, declares the Lord. As a matter of fact, every adult who was there after they sent their 12 spies in and 10 came back and said, "We're scared, we can't do it," God says, "Fine, then you're all going to die in the desert."

And for that generation, they didn't receive the promise of the Promised Land. And God continued, even through the captivity in Babylon, you can go on and on and on. At every time, God had to discipline these people because they broke his promise. He says, "Choose life, choose death. You're choosing death. I'm gonna have to punish you." Verse 10. This is the covenant I'm going to make with the house of Israel after that time, declares the Lord.

I will put my laws in their mind and I will write them on their hearts. The first point we've got to distinguish here and make clear is that in the old covenant, these people were externally taken down a path. There was coercion, is a hard word, but they were certainly channeled down a path. They were led by the hand. They were taken, but it wasn't like having the law written on their minds and written in their hearts.

There was, as many of us have experienced before we became Christians because we were just good churchgoing non-Christians, we were led from the outside. There was a pressure. God's word would hit us and we'd go, "Yeah, that's right. I know I should do that. I'm going to try, I'm going to have to try to do the right thing." But then there's something that happens in the new covenant relationship with God where God says to the disciples, "The spirit will no longer be with you, but he's going to be in you."

There was something different there. It's the truth of 2 Corinthians 5:17. If any person's in Christ, he is a new creation. You want to maximize the new covenant, then here's what I'd like you to do. Live from the inside out. Live from the inside out. Because inside, God now puts his law in your mind. He impresses it in your heart. Or as Ezekiel, the parallel passage to the new covenant in Jeremiah 31, says, "He takes away your heart of stone and he gives you a heart of flesh."

Remember that? Here's a great phrase: "And he moves you by his spirit to keep his decrees so that you'll be careful to follow in his ways." It's the difference between being dragged into a path of righteousness and being driven into a path of righteousness. One is being pushed from the outside. One is being led and driven from the inside. See, but for those of us that are Christians, the software gets rewritten instantly at conversion.

We are now declared righteous before God and our hearts are really cleansed and our internal heart of stone is replaced with a heart of flesh. And now, all of a sudden, we're moved internally. The author of the Bible now is inside. The resonance of God's spirit and his word, there's something there whereas before we said, "Yeah, I know I need to do that." But now in our hearts as Christians, we go, "Yeah, we should do that."

The only barrier now in the Christian life is our flesh, our fallen flesh. And Jesus made the distinction often. Didn't he say that to his disciples? He says, "Your spirit is willing, but your flesh is weak." See? Unfortunately for the non-Christian, they're both all whacked out. That's why we're waiting for the redemption of the body. That's why the new Jerusalem, righteousness will not be a problem for you.

Why is that? Because not only will you have the right core desires, but you will have a hardware that is ready to go. It is wired to do what's right. And it is ready to follow the impulses of godliness. Right now, we have impulses of godliness that are encased in sin and weakness. And unfortunately, we still fall to temptation. Am I right? Now, here's the thing. That's why if you're a Christian and living in a new covenant relationship, in the throes of temptation, you can ask yourself this: "What do I really want to do?"

Ask a non-Christian that and they're going to go, "Whatever I can get away with." Right? But if you ask a Christian in the core of his heart, in the midst and throes of temptation, he's going to say, "What I really want to do is I really want to do the right thing here. Because really, I should be doing what's righteous and pleasing to God." That's why Christians in the throes of temptation have to constantly turn the noise, the white noise up, so that they don't listen to their own spirit, right?

Because their flesh is screaming and then they walk right into sin. And what you've got to recognize is that God wants you to live from the inside out, which means a lot of times, practically speaking, you just put life on pause. Every morning, you ought to be putting life on pause, right? And saying, "Now wait a minute. Let me connect again. Let me get straight. Let me figure out.

The software that God has made, the author of that software's living in my heart. I know I live encased in fallen hardware, but you know what? Today I want to live for Christ from the inside out." Does that mean we throw away the Bible? No, that's not what it means. We throw away the Bible, right? Is that what we do? No. It means every time the Bible encounters our life, we look for that inner resonance.

Our spirit and his spirit, they connect and they affirm with each other that not only are we children of God, as Romans 8 says, but that really, we're ready and committed to walking down the path in harmony. Non-Christians who are churchgoers who are doing the right thing are the most miserable people in the world. Really, they are. Christians, though, who are converted in their heart, it resonates with harmony in their hearts with the truth of God's word when they hear it.

And a lot of times, I can tell a lot from people when they're walking out the church and they've heard a hard-hitting message from the author of the scripture. If I've preached clearly, and sometimes I don't, but when I do, and here comes the word and it's just clear and it's plain, if they rebel in their hearts against that, see, there's an issue there. There's a lot more judgment of what's going on in your heart than there is oftentimes of a clear exposited message of the word.

And we've got to get back to saying, "God, is my heart right before you?" That's why I think David's prayer was so good. Psalm 139, "Search me, try me, know my heart. See if there's any wicked way in me." I know we're going to fall because we live in an encased fallen hardware, but man, we ought to be looking for that internal inside-out kind of Christian life. Look at verse number 10, second half of the verse.

You still there in Romans chapter 8? Bottom of verse 10. Okay, I'm gonna have the laws on my mind written on my heart. That's internal transformation. Now look at this. I will be their God, God says, and they will be my people. Now you're thinking, "Now isn't that the way it was in the old covenant anyway?" I mean, they were his people and he was their God. Yeah, but there's something different about this.

This is almost to a level of poetry here. It's kind of like the hymn writer who says, "I am his and he is mine." There's something sappy about this. There's something intimate about this. There's something more than just, "Yeah, we kind of go together." There's something profound about this. Keep reading. "No longer will a man teach his neighbor or a man his brother, 'Hey, know the Lord,' because they'll all know me from the least of them to the greatest."

There will be something that's not based on their knowledge or their insight, just humanly speaking, but there's gonna be a knowing the Lord that is so intimate it's the kind of thing that can be poetically expressed as, "I am his, he's mine." There's something more than just head knowledge. There's something here relationally. And the Bible often blurs those two words. Knowledge to know someone can be knowing them on a number of levels.

And I love what the Greek New Testament does. Gnosis is the Greek word. Well, a lot of the New Testament writers love to add a preposition that intensifies it: epi. And the word is epiginosko. And they love to say, "You know what? What we need to do is we need to like epiginosko God. We need to really know him. We need to know him intimately. We need to have a knowledge of him that's more than just head knowledge.

It's experiential knowledge." Let me show you one example of that in 2 Peter chapter 1. Peter uses it three times, I think it is, in this first chapter about how we ought to know, really know, epiginosko God and epiginosko Christ. And as we do, look at the advantages here. I mean, to know him, to really know him like he's mine and I'm his, is more than just kind of knowing a person. It's dating a person.

It's why the metaphors of marriage and betrothal are so rich in the New Testament and the Old, because God wants to have more than just, "Hey, we're kind of on the same team." He wants this intimacy to be deeply relational. 2 Peter chapter 1, "Simon Peter, servant, the apostle," I'm reading verse 1, "to those who through the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ have received a faith as precious as ours."

Okay, precious faith. Now, here it comes, verse 2. "Grace and peace be yours in abundance through the epiginosko," the knowledge, the intimate knowledge of God and the intimate knowledge of Jesus our Lord. Now, unpack that. Let's just understand the semantics here. What have we got going on? I want grace and peace to be mine in abundance through, it's contingent on something, me knowing, really knowing God and really knowing Christ.

Now, the fulcrum of that, that's important. That's big. If I can really know God, now what happens? I can experience grace and peace in abundance. Now, those are Bible words for Sunday school grads, I realize. But let's get it out of that frame. Grace, what is grace? The favor of God. This goodness of God, this relating to God, the blessing of God. If Deuteronomy 30 is all about life or death and I want life, I want the favor of God, I want his blessing in my life,

I want him to love me and I want to love him without the hindrance and opposition of sin. Then here's the thing. If you know him, if you really know him, relate to him and to the extent that you relate to him, man, the more grace, the more relationship, the more depth of that blessing you have. And what's the second word? We don't need to update that one. Peace. "Grace and peace be yours in abundance."

I mean, that just sounds good. That just sounds like it feels good. I'd just like to have that peace. The absence of anxiety, the absence of worry, the absence of the tension and the problem, and is there an issue between us? I want the grace and the peace to be mine in abundance through, man, I gotta know him. And that's exactly what Jesus said salvation and eternal life was all about. And that's in John 17, verse 3 when he says about what eternal life is.

Jesus says, "This is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God," as Jesus prays to the Father, "and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent." That's a big statement. Salvation and everything about eternal life is bound up in really knowing him. He goes on to say it in if you've still got 2 Peter open, "His divine power," verse 3, "has given us everything we need for life and godliness."

Again, here it comes. It is based and contingent on something: the knowledge, epiginosko, of him who's called us by his own glory and goodness. That's just an invitation. It's an invitation to really deepen our knowledge of God. Is that just book learning? No. It's the experience that comes with that. It's the relationship that comes with that. I mean, if you really want to maximize the new covenant, you and I ought to dig deeper or dive deeper, I think I put it.

Dive deeper into knowing God. It's actually getting into a relationship with God. And I know we say it all the time, Christianity is not a religion, it's a relationship. Great, I realize that. But make sure that that's real in that I relate to God not just with knowledge in my head about who he is, but that knowledge draws me close to him in a relationship with him. I want my relationship with God to be deeper.

I want it to be more intimate. I want it to be more sincere. I want it to be more honest. I want it to be more real. I was again encountering that passage in Nehemiah where he comes before the king and it says just before he answered, "I prayed to the Lord and then I answered." And I think, man, think about that. A guy in the midst and throes of his job when a question comes out, he is so relating to God that in the midst of his work task, he's praying to God.

Nobody even sees it as he writes about it in his own autobiography there. He says, "You know what? I was just throwing up a prayer to God." There was an intimacy, a relating. A lot of us check our book in the morning, we got our Bible study time, great, did our answers for small group and off we go and there's no relating there. I mean, we gotta make sure this leads us to know him.

He said to the Pharisees, "You search the scriptures because you think in them you have eternal life, but what you forget is that these words," he says, "they testify of me." And the point is God wants you to get not just into the book, but beyond the book into relating to the person. And if your Bible studies become checking a box or your churchgoings all about, you know, keeping an appointment, man, you gotta get past that.

So we ditch the Bible and we ditch church, right? That's what he's saying. No, no, no. We just capitalize on those and we make sure that those are building blocks to digging deeper into a relationship with God because the door's open and it wasn't there in the old covenant like it is now. The knowledge and relationship we can have is so much richer and more deep than the old covenant.

Last thing, verse 12. The bottom line and this is the most important thing because the atonement was all just a ceremonial covering and God looking over the sin, but look at verse 12. He's not just going to look over our sin, verse number 12. He's going to forgive our sin. Forgive their wickedness and remember their sins no more. Now, covering sin, God still had to deal with it.

He may cover David's sin, but he's still got to deal with it because he's a just God. The great thing about the new covenant is it's actually been paid for. That's why Jesus on the cross said, "Tetelestai," paid in full. And it was paid in full so that no longer did God have to say, "Well, I'll cover that up and I'll have to get back to it." He actually paid it in full and now all of a sudden, it's been done.

As a matter of fact, as the Old Testament could only dream of, our sins are separated from us as far as the east is from the west. That could only be done on paper before the coming of Christ. Now that he's actually paid the price, it's real now. It's the distinction between a debit card and a credit card. Just like when we're training our kids to work with money, we don't want them to get tied up with credit cards.

Why? Because credit cards, you can spend, spend, spend, but really it's paperwork. Bottom line is you don't have that money. If you don't have that money, you gotta pay it all back. You gotta worry about it. Debit card on the other hand, that's different. If there is a charge and you have to hit the account with that, at least we recognize this: it's already there. And the riches of the real atonement and forgiveness on the cross is already there.

And in the Old Testament, all he could say is, "Well, one day God's going to have to pay for this." In the new covenant, he's already paid for it. Number three on your outline, this is a good way to put it. We need to cherish, and I love this word, perfect forgiveness. Cherish it. Because it's not just forgiveness on paper. It's real forgiveness. It's a kind of forgiveness where God looks from heaven at me and he says, "Your sins, Mike, have been paid for. It's done."

Not, "One day I'm going to have to deal with that and one day I'll lay that on the lamb of God." He looks back on it now in time and space and says, "It's already been dealt with. My sins are completely forgiven." The Old Testament, old covenant, was a picture of something that the every real person who sought after Yahweh could only look to as a reflection and an image. The new covenant is the reality.

I was dating my later to be wife, Carlin, when we were in college, thousands of miles apart and a long-distance relationship. And in my dorm room, I had all the pictures up of my girlfriend at that time. See? And that's all I had when in this long-distance relationship when she was out in California and I was out in Chicago. But then when she'd get on a plane and fly out and visit me on campus, see, I didn't want to stay enamored with the pictures.

As a matter of fact, 19-year-old, I had the pictures of the person. I want the person, right? And so the picture's great. Those were great. But all that is is a flat piece of paper bearing an image, but it's not the real thing. I'll leave the pictures. That's fine. I want to walk downstairs. I want to see the person that I love, touch the person that I love. The real relationship is there.

That's exactly what it was for the old covenant person. It was a picture. It was a thought. It was an imagination. It was a, "One day this is going to be great." From a new covenant perspective, and though we're not arrived, we're not in the new Jerusalem, and I know we'll see him face to face one day, but when it comes to our forgiveness, our opportunity to relate to him, and when it comes to the inside movement and drawing of God and all that he does in my heart as opposed to just external pressure, man, it's already there.

It's the real thing. And we ought to maximize it. We've got a great thing called the new covenant. And I know the manual's kind of thick, but there's lots of aspects to it that you and I need to say, "Man, it's our commitment to make sure we maximize and fully plumb the depths of what it means to be a new covenant believer." So let's work on that this week. Pray with me, please.

God, how important this is for us to recognize what a great thing we have going for us that the old covenant believer could only dream of. That it wasn't just about a ceremony and an animal that was, you know, picturing the covering of sin and the replacement and the substitution. But we can look back and though it's a gruesome thought of Christ actually incurring the wrath, the death, the destruction that we deserved, at least we can say, because of your grace and your kindness,

that it's been done and that Jesus has said it himself, "It's paid in full." And that everything that stood as a barrier between you and between us has been removed. And God, because of faith and repentance of our sins, you are drawing us in. If we just respond to your drawing, God, every day can be a deeper and more intimate and real relationship with you.

God, please help us to do it. I know we're encased in some fallen hardware, but allow us to cooperate with your spirit this week to know what it is to experience a relationship with you in a way that we never have before. God, thanks for our gathering tonight. Thank you too, can't help but remember what a great thing it is that we'll be able to see more people reached with the preaching of your word and the gospel of Christ by moving to the mornings.

And we pray even in in reaching out to our community that you'd allow that to be an act of worship, an act of expressing a heart that you have impressed upon us in a daily time of relating with you to express and live that out in real flesh it out in real life here in this community. God, we thank you for your goodness to us. We want to celebrate it, we want to cherish our perfect forgiveness in Christ.

Give us something to sing about, something to talk about, something to be positive about this week as it relates to the new covenant. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.

Dave Drew: Because of Jesus, we enjoy the amazing benefits of a new agreement with God. This is Focal Point, and you're listening to a message from Pastor Mike Fabarez called "Why did we need a new covenant anyway?" Well, stay with us over the next few weeks as we work through the ways Christ changed everything. You can follow along by subscribing to the free daily podcast or grab the Focal Point app for your smartphone.

Just visit focalpointradio.org to learn more. While you're on the site, check out this month's featured resource from Pastor Mike. It's a book titled *The Unfolding Mystery: Discovering Christ in the Old Testament* by Edmund Clowney. From Genesis to Malachi, Clowney shows how every thread of scripture points forward to Jesus. It's the kind of book that sharpens your Bible reading and gives you a richer sense of how the whole of scripture holds together and stays with you long after you've finished it.

Request *The Unfolding Mystery* when you support Focal Point with a gift today. Call 888-320-5885 or donate online at focalpointradio.org. Now, Pastor Mike has something special to share with us.

Pastor Mike Fabarez: Thanks, Dave. I'd like to invite you to join me September 19th through the 26th, 2026, on a Christian cruise through New England and Canada. We'll sail Holland America's *Zuiderdam*, known for its elegance and exceptional hospitality, to historic cities like Boston, Halifax, and Quebec City. We'll gather for devotional times in God's word, followed by thought-provoking Bible teaching throughout our journey.

Grammy-winning musicians Keith and Kristyn Getty will lead us in worship. You'll enjoy the stunning autumn landscapes as we explore charming coastal villages, all while building friendships with like-minded believers. It's a unique opportunity to deepen your faith and see some of the most beautiful scenery on the Eastern Seaboard. Space is limited, so don't wait to sign up. Secure your cabin today at focalpointradio.org. Again, that's focalpointradio.org.

Dave Drew: I'm Dave Drew. Come back when we'll unpack the question, "Why don't we have to keep all those Old Testament ceremonies?" That's Wednesday on Focal Point with Mike Fabarez.

Pastor Mike Fabarez: Pastor Mike here. I pray today's message will help you live out your faith with truth and love. After all, that's the kind of biblical faith that changes lives and transforms a crooked culture. But if you haven't truly surrendered your life to Christ, then I'd like to invite you to get in touch. We'd love to pray with you and help you discover God's plan of salvation. Visit focalpointradio.org. Today's program was produced and sponsored by Focal Point Ministries.