No longer will they teach their neighbor, or say to one another, ‘Know the Lord,’ because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest. For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more.” By calling this covenant “new,” he has made the first one obsolete; and what is obsolete and outdated will soon disappear.
Hebrews 8:11-13
In 1969, a lot of gears changed in my life. I got my drivers license and got my first real job. Don’t laugh, but I was a lifeguard at Baltimore Country Club. And since we didn’t belong or live near it, I needed a way to get there.
Enter a 1964 Plymouth Valent with a slant-6 engine. If it was pointed downhill with the wind at your back, and you were lucky, you could go from zero to 60 in about half a minute.
It had been my dad’s work car that Otis Elevator gave him to drive all over Baltimore to repair elevators. He got a new car every few years and it was time for a trade-in. Since I knew the car and its owner, I asked about buying it. Otis Elevator, this giant company, wanted the outrageous price of $600. I took the money out of my savings, and it was mine!
Other than the fact that this was my very first car, what made it special was how you changed gears. No gearshift on the steering column, or even on the floor. No, this extravagant vehicle was too modern and futuristic for anything so boring. My car had pushbuttons. Star Trek, eat your heart out.
I know that this was a well-made car because what I did to it would be considered vehicular abuse. Even though it was an automatic transmission, I’d push the “1” button to start out until the engine screamed. Then, I’d push the “2” button and the car would jump as the gears changed. Finally, I’d push the “D” button and drive off into the sunset.
And while changing gears in my car was different, it was nothing compared to how God was changing gears with his people. Gone were the days of all the lists of rules and laws. No more regulations about what you could or couldn’t touch. What they could or couldn’t eat. Who they could or couldn’t be with.
God was changing gears from something on the outside to something on the inside. Instead of lists and laws that they read, everything about wanting to follow God’s loving leading was going to be written on their hearts.
But the biggest gear shift was something even more important. Instead of the world being separated into two groups, everyone was going to be united. On the same team. No more believers and non-believers.
This meant that there wasn’t going to be that uncomfortable tension between people that know God and those who hadn’t yet come to that place. No more separation caused because of different beliefs. Different ways of looking at the most important person in the universe.
And how was this accomplished? With every great thing that happens in this world, someone wins and someone loses. So, who won and who lost? Who gave up the most? What great peace treaty was negotiated by the United Nations?
It was like that, and then again, it wasn’t. We should have been the losers. We had done all the wrong and hateful things against God. We deserved all the punishment and pain. His anger should have landed on us. We needed to pay back God for how we turned our backs on him and his loving kindness.
But instead, God turns everything on its head. Instead of us paying, God does the paying. What did the writer tell the Hebrews? Look carefully at what God says, I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more.
The “I” belongs to God himself. He will do all the forgiving. He will do all the forgetting. More than us, God knows that there ain’t no way that we could do anything to earn his forgiveness. There’s nothing we could say to erase his memory.
God picks up all our sin and picks up the cross. We had crowned ourselves as kings and he takes our crown of thorns. We had earned punishment for all our words, thoughts, actions, and attitudes. And instead, he took our punishment and healed us[1].
Of all the changing of gears that have happened in the history of the world, nothing even comes close. God himself took our place. The righteous for the unrighteous. And why? To bring us back to God[2].
Now, since God did all this to change the eternal gears and bring us back to himself, what’s the right thing to do? What’s the only thing that makes sense for us to do? Since there’s nothing that we can do to earn it back, it’s time for us to change gears. It’s time to fall down in thankful worship and praise. To give him every part of our lives. To let him be the loving and gracious God that he is. Do want to do all the things that please him. To follow the one who loves us with every breath we have. Every choice. Every minute. Now, that’s changing gears that changes everything.
Noodling Questions
Describe a time when God was changing the gears in your life.
Do you like to have the gears of your life changed? Explain.
What gears do you think God wants to change in your life now?
[1] Isaiah 53:5
[2] 1 Peter 3:18
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