You are welcome to join our in person services each week, but here are some resources for those who would rather stay at home for now.
You can download a Children’s Sunday Sheet to accompany this service here.
Preparation
"Hide your face from my sins and blot out all my iniquity.
Create in me a pure heart, O God," (Psalm 51:9–10)
Heavenly Father, as we gather today help us to sing your praise, confess our sins, hear your word and bring our prayer for others to you, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Hymn
Summary of the Law
Our Lord Jesus Christ said: the first commandment is this: ‘Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is the only Lord. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbour as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.
We have not loved you with our whole heart. Lord, have mercy.
We have not loved our neighbours as ourselves. Christ, have mercy.
We have not kept your good and righteous commands to us. Lord, have mercy.
"There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life has set you free from the law of sin and death." (Romans 8:1–2)
Word of God
Please read Jeremiah 31:31-34 and John 12:20-33.
Reflection: The Prophesied Kingdom
“I am not what I ought to be, I am not what I want to be, I am not what I hope to be in another world; but still I am not what I once used to be, and by the grace of God I am what I am” ― John Newton
The Christian journey is about change. By God’s grace, I know ways that I am not what I used to be like. What we do, what we say, what we think, even what we want changes by God’s work in us. How does that change happen? When we’re in the trenches of life, progress can feel impossible. It can seem beyond us to respond well to the daily challenges and temptations. Often, we’re not sure what is wise and good to do. I find it so easy to despair unless I remember that real change is promised by God for us.
This lent we are journeying through the Old Testament to trace the promises of God’s kingdom. Today we’re thinking about the prophets, and particularly Jeremiah 31. But first we need to remind ourselves where we are in the story.
Where are we in the story?
After the fall of Adam and Eve, God promised that he would re-gather his people in his glorious and perfect place under his good rule and blessing. Those promises had a partial fulfilment when the nation of Israel lived as his people in the promised land, under the blessing of his king and covenant. The high point of this was the reigns of David and his son Solomon.
But from here things dramatically declined. On Solomon’s death the kingdom split in two. Many of their kings led the people away from God to idolatry, most were not wholehearted for the Lord and their history was marred by corruption and compromise. God’s promises looked in tatters. Even though God had done so much for them, they had turned away from him: “I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt … they broke my covenant, though I was a husband to them,” declares the LORD.” (Jeremiah 31:32)
The prophets speak throughout this history. The prophets spoke God’s words to the people and enforced the covenant: calling them back to true worship of God and warning them of turning away. They show how God’s promises have not failed but they point to a greater and lasting fulfilment of his promise: his people, in his place, under his rule and blessing.
We need to hear this message of hope, that we might trust God’s powerful work in us to change us.
God’s New Covenant
Jeremiah speaks of a new covenant that would not be like the first covenant. It would tackle the heart of their problem forever.
A renewed heart forever:
We know our hearts are often wayward. Even when we know what is right, we can find it hard to do. None of us have perfectly kept God’s law even though his commands are clear. The desires of our hearts continually wander from God’s good ways. When we feel like that, we are experiencing the problem of the first covenant: external rules don’t change my heart.
God’s solution is to write his law inside us: “I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts.” (Jeremiah 31:33). That doesn’t just mean that we know his law but that our hearts are shaped to want his ways.
Some in our culture claim that our desires shape who we are: that what I love and want is an essential part of me. When God’s law is written on our hearts, his ways shape who we are: he works to change what we want and love. He changes our anger and fears, our selfishness and our boasts so that we become more like him in every way.
A renewed relationship forever:
Throughout the Old Testament, God’s people had been offered relationship with God as he says, “I will be their God, and they will be my people.” (Jeremiah 31:33)
Yet that relationship was fragile (needing perpetual sacrifices to deal with ongoing sin), distant (through the mediation of priest and regular sacrifices) and ultimately failed in exile for their covenant unfaithfulness.
Yet Jeremiah looks forward to what we enjoy by Christ and will experience in full in the new Creation. Everyone personally knows God: secure, unmediated, “‘they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest,’ declares the Lord.” (Jeremiah 31:34)
A renewed start forever:
Finally, God promises the fresh start of total forgiveness. Not the partial and temporary forgiveness of the Old Testament sacrifices but a forever forgiveness. “For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more.” (Jeremiah 31:34)
When God says he won’t remember our sins, he’s not forgetful, but he’s promising never to bring it up against us. When we forgive someone, we don’t need to pretend that it didn’t happen but we do make a commitment not to bring it up again. Not bring it up with them in accusation, not with others in gossip or with ourselves in grumbling and bitterness. Also with God: he offers us complete forgiveness. Our sins and wickedness will never be brought up against us.
A renewed heart, a renewed relationship and a renewed start forever. Jeremiah’s readers, like us sometimes, may have been very aware of their own weak and wavering hearts. But hope and change come from God. He promises “I will be their God, and they will be my people.” (Jeremiah 31:33). With Newton we can say “I am not what I once used to be, and by the grace of God I am what I am.”
Prayers
Most merciful God, who by the death and resurrection of your Son Jesus Christ delivered and saved the world: grant that by faith in him who suffered on the cross we may triumph in the power of his victory; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who is alive and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
You may like to continue with your own prayers and the Lord’s Prayer. You may wish to pray for one or two from our church family by name, and for mercy for our world facing Covid-19.
Conclusion
May Christ give you grace to grow in holiness, to deny yourselves, take up your cross, and follow him; and the blessing of God Almighty, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, be among us and remain with us always. Amen.