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NewCity Orlando Sermons
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NewCity Orlando Sermons
Hebrews: Unshakeable | Hebrews 8:1-13
In this sermon from Hebrews 8, Pastor Benjamin Kandt explores the profound truth that God doesn't just manage the gap between heaven and earth—He closes it through Jesus. Drawing from the imagery of the tabernacle, Pastor Ben shows how God's desire has always been to dwell with His people. Just as Moses was commanded to build a tent patterned after heaven, we too are called to “heavenize” earth by following Jesus and forming communities of disciples who embody God’s presence. The church, made up of living stones, becomes the spiritual house where heaven meets earth—not through bricks and rituals, but through Spirit-formed lives.
The sermon also unpacks the better promises of the new covenant: new hearts, new belonging, new intimacy, and new mercy. Unlike the old covenant, which revealed the gap but couldn’t bridge it, the new covenant transforms us from the inside out by the Holy Spirit. This indwelling presence of God is the ultimate gift, empowering us to reflect heaven in our workplaces, relationships, and communities. Pastor Ben reminds us that we’re not just attending church—we are the church, the dwelling place of God Himself, being formed into a palace where He desires to live.
Hello everyone, this is Pastor.
Speaker 2:Damian, you're listening to Sermon Audio from New City, orlando. At New City, we believe all of us need all of Jesus for all of life.
Speaker 1:For more resources, visit our website at newcityorlandocom. Thanks for listening. Please pray this prayer of illumination with me. Please pray this prayer of illumination with me, Eternal God. In the reading of Scripture, may your word be heard. In the meditation of our hearts may your word be known, and in the faithfulness of our lives may your word be displayed Through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen. Today's Scripture reading comes from Hebrews 8, 1 through 13.
Speaker 1:Now the point in which we are saying is this we have such a high priest, one who is seated at the right hand of the throne of the majesty in heaven, a minister in the holy places, in the true tent that the Lord set up, not man, For every high priest is appointed to offer gifts and sacrifices. Thus, it is necessary for this priest also to have something to offer. Now, if he were on earth, he would not be a priest at all, since there are priests who offer gifts. According to the law, they serve a copy and a shadow of the heavenly things. For when Moses was about to erect the tent, he was instructed by God saying See that you make everything according to the pattern that was shown you on the mountain, but as it is. Christ has obtained a ministry that is as much more excellent than the old, as the covenant he mediates is better, since it is enact on better promises, For if that first covenant had been faultless, there would have been no occasion to look for a second.
Speaker 1:For he finds fault with them when he says Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will establish a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, For they did not continue in my covenant and so I show no concern for them, declares the Lord.
Speaker 1:For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel. After those days, declares the Lord, I 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. And they shall not teach. And they shall not teach each one of 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, For I will be merciful towards their iniquities and I will remember their sins no more. In speaking of a new covenant, he makes the first one obsolete, and what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away. This is God's word.
Speaker 2:Thanks be to God.
Speaker 1:You may be seated.
Speaker 2:We all have a problem and we're keenly aware of it, and I'm going to summarize that problem in one simple three-letter word the gap. We have the gap, and this is what psychologists call it. The psychologists talk about this gap between expectations and experience. Marketers highlight the gap between what we want and what we've got, and most of marketing is showing you how their product bridges the gap for you. Philosophers wrestle with the gap between the ideal and the real, coaches address the gap between who you are and who you want to be, and leaders are obsessed with closing the gap between the present and the preferred future. You see, the gap is the problem, and your strategy is always whatever you're going to do to shrink the gap. Or, as the London Underground famously advises, we all must mind the gap. Now, religions do this too. Across the world, you see, religions have language of the gap between heaven and earth, the divine and the human, and that's why so many religions have temples and sanctuaries and priests and sacrifices ways to mind the gap, if you will. But every religion simply manages the gap. But what if God himself permanently closed the gap? That's what Hebrews 8 is about this morning, and so I want to look at this together. I want to look at how God bridges the gap between heaven and earth, between the divine and the human, under two points. The first one is the pattern of heaven on earth and the second one is the promise of heaven on earth. So if you have a Bible or a device, go ahead and get Hebrews 8 out in front of you and we're going to look at this together.
Speaker 2:Look at Hebrews 8, verse 1. It says this. Now, the point in what we are saying is this Pause for a moment. Isn't it nice when a preacher tells you what they're going to say ahead of time. This is just biblical, it's right here. Now the point in what we're saying is this we have such a high priest, one who is seated at the right hand.
Speaker 2:The author of Hebrews is saying Jesus ascended into the true tent. Now what is this true tent? Well, you've got to hear this. All of this talk about tent and sanctuary and priests and sacrifices, all this talk is about really one thing God wants to dwell with his people. He longs to close the gap. That's what's going on here, and so you've got to go back into the book of Exodus to really track with what the author of Hebrews is saying you see, in Exodus, the famous moment when Moses at Mount Sinai gets the Ten Commandments right and brings them down to the people. Well, something maybe a little less famous part of that story is that Moses and 40 elders actually go up on the mountain and they meet with God. It says that they saw God and they ate and drank with him. And the language if you pay close attention, it is actually the same language that the book of Revelation uses to describe the throne room of God. Let me make that plain.
Speaker 2:Moses went to heaven Because heaven isn't some distant, far off thing. It's actually an overlapping and interlocking reality with earth. And Moses at the top of Mount Sinai caught a hyperlink between heaven and earth. Why, for what purpose? Well, because in Exodus 25, 40, it says the Lord commands Moses and says make everything according to the pattern that was shown you on the mountain. This is a big deal. Moses had a task to build a tent. And five times, as far as I could count, in the book of Exodus and then in Numbers, the Lord emphatically insists that the tent on earth has to be made according to the pattern in heaven. So Moses gets called up, caught up, into the throne room of God and, as Moses is there, the Lord is showing Moses what it's like to be in the very presence of God and then saying hey, now you go back down on earth and recreate this. Why? Because God wants to dwell with his people. He wants to bridge the gap, and so Moses' role was to faithfully replicate heaven's design on earth for the sake of God's presence dwelling among God's people. That's what Moses is doing. But Moses did not build the true tent. In fact, verse 5 calls it a copy and a shadow of the heavenly things.
Speaker 2:Now, I was a high school teacher when I first got to New City and I was broke and I needed to decorate my classroom, and so I found this website that gave me three posters for $20. It was a deal, and I chose three different Van Gogh paintings. They were Starry Night, almond Blossoms and Cafe Terrace at Night, if that means anything to you. But here's the thing they were beautiful, but they were posters and I hang them on the wall. And if you, apparently, if you look at the real Van Gogh paintings, if you look up close, you actually see brush strokes and textures and patterns, and all of those things are missed in a $7 poster. Remember, I got three of them for $20. It was a good deal.
Speaker 2:Now, that's the difference between a copy and a reality. You see, a copy of a great masterwork of art is not the real thing, but it gives some idea of what the original is like. The tabernacle really was a legitimate copy of the heavenly throne room, but you don't really notice how incomplete it is until you get up close to the real thing. And when you get up close to the real thing you realize, as is the case with the Van Gogh painting and Moses' tabernacle, that this is simply a copy, a shadow, as the author of Hebrews says, of the heavenly reality. So why does this matter? What's the big deal? Reality? So why does this matter? What's the big deal?
Speaker 2:Well, in verse 2, it says Jesus is a minister in the holy place, in the true tent that the Lord set up, not man. Just as Moses went up to heaven and was told to replicate the pattern on earth, jesus came down from heaven and told his disciples to replicate the pattern of his life on earth. You see, this is significant because in the new covenant we are not building tabernacles of stone, we're forming a people into a temple, a place for God to dwell. This is the way that Peter in 1 Peter 2, 4 says it. He says as you come to Jesus. That's a continuous, ongoing reality for all of us that belong to him. As you come and keep on coming to Jesus, peter says you yourselves, like living stones, are being built up as a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. Or the Apostle Paul tells Timothy in 2 Timothy 1.13,. He says this follow the pattern, follow the pattern of the sound words that you have heard from me, in the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. You see, just as Moses was to pattern earth after heaven by making the tabernacle, so we are to pattern earth after heaven by making disciples. Jesus' great commission in Matthew 28 was a continuity of God's mission in the world, what he's been up to for thousands of years. It's not a new thing, you see, because discipleship is the lifelong process of learning to do God's heavenly will in our earthly lives.
Speaker 2:If you were to ask a friend, or if you were to talk to some friends and say, hey, what does it look like for God's will to be done in your workplace as it is in heaven. I'd be curious to hear what they'd say. I'd be curious to what some of you would say. I texted a couple friends this week and one of them I asked her that question and she said she's a project manager. She said this you know, doing God's will in my workplace, as it is in heaven, looks like being kind, attentive, loyal, helpful rather than merely being a boss. She goes on to say that she holds this tension of grace and truth. She forgives but holds people accountable for their actions. She also said that when she's working on a project, something that she really values is that everyone on the project feels seen and heard and valued, because she's a strong believer that diversity actually leads to a better outcome.
Speaker 2:Now, in some ways, valuing diversity is almost a cliche in our society, but what we don't realize is that that is just the vestiges of a Christian culture, that diversity is something that matters to us as disciples of Jesus. Why? Because it's patterning earth after heaven. Another person besides Moses that went up into heaven was the Apostle John in Revelation 7-9. And this is what he says he gets up to heaven. He's caught up there and he looks around. And this is what he says he gets up to heaven, he's caught up there and he looks around and this is what he sees A great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages standing before the throne. Why does diversity matter so much? Because diversity matters in heaven and so it must matter on earth. It must be part of the pattern that we're supposed to work out here and now in our lives. But notice, heaven is a place of great diversity, unified diversity around the throne of God, the ultimate reference point to reality. This is what it looks like to pattern earth after heaven. We get caught up into the heavenly place and we, what is it like up there after heaven? We get caught up into the heavenly place and we, what is it like up there? But if you think you need to go up to heaven to figure that out, you're okay, don't worry. Heaven came down. His name is Jesus.
Speaker 2:We look at the life of Jesus, and this is why our vision here at New City is to see our Father answer the Lord's prayer. And the reason why we believe that our mission is going to help us move in that direction is because we call and form and send disciples who make disciples. Let me say that, differently, jesus taught his disciples to pray in the very center of the Lord's prayer your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. You see, this is not some marginal, outlier theme in scripture. This is the core of God's task for humanity Heavenize earth. And so we pray God. We want your will to be done in our lives, in our hearts, in our homes, in our families, in our workplaces, in our neighborhoods, in our city, in our church, on earth as it is in heaven. So we call and form and send disciples who make disciples, who can do that, and we believe we will see the Father answer the Lord's prayer in fresh and exciting expressions in our generation.
Speaker 2:And we get that from Hebrews 8. We get that from Exodus 25. We get that from Matthew 6, all these places about heavenizing earth. And so if you, I hope you see this congruence, that heavenizing earth. And so if you, I hope you see this congruence Old Testament, new Testament because as we make disciples, jesus promised I will build my church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it. That's a promise. You're not building the church, you're making disciples. Jesus is building the church. And so why that matters is because the blueprint is Jesus. Why that matters is because the blueprint is Jesus. The building is not made of bricks but living stones.
Speaker 2:God's pattern of heaven on earth is the church. Not a place, not an event, but a people where the presence of God fills them and fills the earth as it is in heaven. That's God's plan for the world. Now, if you ask some of your friends who are not yet disciples of Jesus hey, where do you think you can find God on earth? How many of them do you think would say, oh, the church. Our PR's not great right now, and so my guess is they wouldn't say that. But the church filled with the spirit of Jesus is the new locus and focus of the presence of God on earth.
Speaker 2:This is the way Paul says it in 1 Corinthians 14, 24. He says if an unbeliever or an outsider enters talking about this gathered worship space, enters, he may declare that God is really among you. That's God's plan. That's what he's up to when we gather here on Sundays. New City, that's God's genius for you. What a calling, what a privilege.
Speaker 2:This is why I've catechized my son, augie, named after Augustine of Hippo, the great theologian. I say, augie, do we go to church? He says no, we don't go to church, we are the church. That's Augustine of Orlando right there, just like getting that ecclesiology on lock, baby. That's what that is so proud of him. When he says that, you see, because we don't go to church, we are the church, we're the locus and the focus of the presence of God on planet earth. Locus and the focus of the presence of God on planet earth. What a privilege, what a time to be alive in this generation.
Speaker 2:That's the pattern of heaven on earth. That's God's design, that's his intention. That's what we get to be caught up into, yeah, but how? But how Do we have to get really strict and disciplined and morally reform our lives and then God will be with us. Is that what it is? Is God like the prima donna on every home makeover show, where all that happens is they complain the whole time until the home reno is done? Is that God? Absolutely not.
Speaker 2:But let me show you in the point number two, the promise of heaven on earth. Look with me at verse six, the promise of heaven on earth. But as it is, christ has obtained a ministry that is, as here. This is important language as much more excellent than the old, as the covenant he mediates is better, since it is enacted on better promises. For if that first covenant had been faultless, there would have been no occasion to look for a second.
Speaker 2:Now, in our text, verses 1 through 13,. There's this contrast here. That's happening. Here's the contrast. There's a bunch of them. Between the second covenant and the first covenant, that's verse 7. Between Christ and Moses, that's verses 5 and 6. Between the true tent and the copy or the shadow Verses 2 and verses 5. Between God made and man made verse 2. Between heavenly and earthly verse 5. Between new covenant versus the absolute, growing old and vanishing away covenant, verse 13. What is going on here?
Speaker 2:Well, we want to ask the question what is so much better about this new covenant? Or to invert that, because contrast is the mother of clarity. What was so much worse about the old covenant? Well, look with me at verse 8. It says this for he, that is, god, finds fault with them. That's important.
Speaker 2:The problem was not the law. The problem was not the old covenant or the Old, not the Old Covenant or the Old Testament, the first two-thirds of your Bible. That was not the problem. It's you and me. We're the problem.
Speaker 2:You see, the Old Testament, the Old Covenant, showed the gap but couldn't close the gap because it couldn't change human hearts. That was what was faulty, that was what was needed to go obsolete. That was what was growing old about the Old Covenant. God's purpose has always been to marry heaven and earth through his people, but God's people became the single point of failure for his plan to heavenize earth. That's why it seems like it's all for loss until we get a new covenant. You see, because the new covenant is not a new plan, it's not a new people and it's not a new purpose of God on earth. It's none of those things. It's the same plan, the same people, the same purposes, but it is enacted with better promises, verse 6. This is really important for understanding how to read your Bible, but I don't have time to get into that, which makes me sad. The new covenant closes the gap permanently because of these better promises. So I want to spend the remainder of our time looking at these better promises.
Speaker 2:Look with me at Hebrews 8, verse 8. Verses 8 through 12, this is the longest quotation of the Old Testament in the New Testament. This is significant. And what is the author of Hebrews' quote Jeremiah 31. Now, jeremiah 31 is the only place in the Hebrew Bible that refers to the new covenant uses that language.
Speaker 2:Now, I know this is getting heady and nerdy, so let's dig in and look at these promises together. There's four of them, four promises that make the new covenant better than the old in this text, and I'm calling them a new heart, new belonging, new intimacy and new mercy. Look with me at verse 10. It says this, for this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel. After those days, declares the Lord, I will put my laws into their minds and write them on their hearts.
Speaker 2:The new covenant promise comes with the promise of a new heart. You see, god doesn't just command from the outside, he changes us from the inside. This is a heart-level transformation that he has on offer. The law is no longer just this external standard. It actually becomes an internal desire for those of us in the new covenant, because external religion cannot change the human heart. And so God reprograms our instincts so that we love what he loves. How does he do this? Well, an old hymn put it like this to see the law by Christ fulfilled and hear his pardoning voice changes a slave into a child and duty into choice.
Speaker 2:You see, our staff prayed through Psalm 119, which is long, in one sitting on Monday of this past week, and we got to verse 97, and it says this oh, how I love your law. Anybody else, anybody else like? Laying on their bed at night just going, oh, I just dream about your commandments? Jesus David did. He was a little bit weird, to be honest. Read Psalm 1, psalm 19, psalm 119.
Speaker 2:This is the way that people talk about the law of God. Why? Because these aren't mere abstracted laws like speed limits. These are the personal laws of a personal God that reflect his character, who he really is. And so, because we love the Lord, we love the law of the Lord. That's what the Spirit does in our hearts in the new covenant.
Speaker 2:The second thing, verse 10, gives us new belonging. Look at this with me. It says and I will be their God and they shall be my people, no longer just servants but sons and daughters. God binds himself to us with the language of deep, personal, covenantal commitment. He gives himself to us and claims us as his own, just in practice. This is what this looks like for me If I have a day or a week or something like that. That is just. I feel anxious or guilty. I'll put my hand on my heart like this and I'll walk and I'll just say, lord, I am your beloved and my beloved is mine. Jesus, you bought this mess. I'm your mess and you're not gonna give up on me now because you promise I will be your God and they will be my people. I lay claim to this promise and I just bring it before him like you've kind of thrown in with me. Jesus, you're stuck with me. That was your doing. But here we are, come through on this new belonging that we share. But not only a new belonging, but a new intimacy. A new intimacy. Look at verse 11. And 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.
Speaker 2:In the new covenant there are no spiritual elites. There's no upper class in the kingdom of God. There's no special access to hidden knowledge that some people have and other people don't, no insider access to God. That's not the way it works. Every believer, from the forgotten to the powerful, has direct personal knowledge of God. In the new covenant. You don't just know about God, you actually know God. It's true, personal, experiential knowledge of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, the transcendent sustainer of all things. That's the invitation of the new covenant. It's personal knowledge, it's not secondhand religion. Let me ask you this John Owen says it like this in his commentary on this text he says the new covenant is an expressed promise of an internal, effectual teaching by the Spirit of God.
Speaker 2:Do you know that teaching? Do you know the Spirit of God teaching you who God is, what God's like? That's the invitation of the new covenant. Fourth and finally, there's a new mercy. Look at verse 12 with me. It says this for I will be merciful toward their iniquities and I will remember their sins no more. This is a new mercy where our record is wiped clean no guilt, no shame, no divine cold shoulder. This is a total pardon, full and free, so much so that God doesn't just forgive, he actually chooses never to bring our sins up again. The new covenant brings this commitment not only just to forgiveness on God's part, but forgetting even on God's part. I'll remember their sins no more.
Speaker 2:So in the new covenant we get new hearts, new belonging, new intimacy and new mercy, and it's all summarized in a poem by a guy named John Barrett. He says it like this the new covenant and the old covenant relate like this Run John, run. The law commands, but gives us neither feet nor hands. Better news the gospel brings. It bids us fly, but gives us wings. You better believe. Red Bull stole that from this dude. I'm telling you like there's copyright infringement or something. The gospel gives you wings, not Red Bull. That's what? If you get a sound bite today, that's it right there. But what are these new wings? Well, I want to submit to you that the new wings are the new wings. Is the Holy Spirit dwelling within us.
Speaker 2:Let me close here. Look at verse one again with me, if you would Look at the text. It says this Now, the point in what we're saying is this Okay, here's the point. This is what it's all about, if you've noticed this so far. It says this we have such a high priest, one who is seated at the right hand of the throne of the majesty in heaven.
Speaker 2:For some reason, the author of Hebrews is so captivated by this idea of the ascension of Jesus, far more captivated by it than I am. It's actually been instructive to me. Wow, I don't make enough of a big deal about the ascension of Jesus, because Hebrews does. What's going on here? Well, according to Acts 2, 32, the risen and ascended Jesus received from the Father the promised Holy Spirit and then poured out the Spirit on the church. If Jesus is not ascended, the Spirit will not have descended. That's essential. That's why the ascension matters so much.
Speaker 2:I wanna go as far as to to say the promise of the new covenant is the giving of the Holy Spirit to dwell in you. That's the definitive promise of the new covenant. They're all wrapped up in that one thing. If you don't believe me, let's just walk through this again. The new hearts the Spirit takes out our hearts of stone and gives us a tender heart, according to Ezekiel 36. The true belonging the Spirit bears witness with our spirit that we are sons and daughters of God. That's Romans 8. The deep intimacy the Spirit is the one who leads us into all truth. Jesus says I got a lot more to tell you than I can tell you right now. I'm going to send the Spirit and he's going to lead you deeper into the knowledge of God than I ever could. I'm going to send the Spirit, and he's going to lead you deeper into the knowledge of God than I ever could. And fourth and finally, total mercy.
Speaker 2:The Spirit of God according to Romans 5, pours out the love of the Father into our hearts, so that we respond by saying Abba, father, it's the Spirit of adoption dwelling in us. You see, the Holy Spirit is the gift of the new covenant. How do we go about bringing the pattern of heaven on earth? Only according to the promise of heaven on earth, which is the Holy Spirit. That's the summary of what I'm trying to get across, and so let's settle this once and for all as a deeply held conviction, what I like to call a heart axiom upon which your entire life revolves around, and that is this God wants to be with you, he desires to dwell with you, so much so that he sent his son from heaven to earth to live and die and resurrect and ascend. He sent his spirit from heaven to earth to dwell in you, to give you a new heart, new belonging, new intimacy and new mercy. This is God's plan for the world.
Speaker 2:Now here's a little preacher hack. When in doubt, pull CS Lewis out. So here we go In mere Christianity. He says this. Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house.
Speaker 2:At first, perhaps you can understand what he's doing. He's getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof, and so on. You knew that those jobs needed doing, and so you're not that surprised. But presently he starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make any sense. What on earth is he up to? Pause for a moment. That's a great question to ask the Lord often. Lord, what on earth are you up to? What on earth are you up to? What are you doing in my life and my family? What on earth are you up to? That's what CS Lewis asked. The explanation is that he is building quite a different house from the one you thought of. Throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards. You thought you were being made into a decent little cottage, but he is building a palace. He intends to come and live in it himself. That's the good news of the new covenant. That's what we have.
Speaker 2:The gap between heaven and earth is not closed by our own efforts. It's closed by the sending of the sun and the spirit. And so you are not just a copy or a shadow. You are the real deal. You're the living temple of God, most high New city, the people of Jesus. And so Ephesians 2.22 says in Christ, you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit. God's presence lives in you. Let him reshape your life to reflect heaven here and now, because this is the pattern and the promise of heaven on earth. Let's pray Come, holy Spirit. We take that ancient prayer on our lips. We ask you to come and be with us, fill us afresh. This morning, we refuse to be about the task of heavenizing earth without the promise of heaven on earth dwelling in us by the Spirit. Spirit of God, come, exalt Jesus, bear witness to him in all of his grandeur and glory. We pray for his matchless namesake, amen.