Chris Rata | #SWBTSChapel, November 10, 2026

Summary

Chris Rata’s sermon centers on Jeremiah 31:31–34 and the promise of a new covenant. Its central claim is that humanity’s deepest problem is not simply a lack of moral knowledge; it is the sinful, resistant heart. God’s answer is not merely to give people more instruction, but to transform them.

Main Ideas

• The heart is the root of the problem. Rata connects Jeremiah’s description of stubborn hearts with the Bible’s broader teaching about human sin. People may know what is good yet remain unable to live by it. The sermon presents this as a recurring biblical theme, not a modern discovery.

• Jeremiah’s ministry involved both judgment and hope.

  • God commissioned Jeremiah to “uproot,” “pull down,” “destroy,” and “overthrow,” as well as to “build” and “plant.”
  • Jeremiah’s warnings challenged the people’s false security in institutions such as the temple and the kingdom, which had become corrupted.
  • Despite opposition, personal anguish, and threats to his life, Jeremiah continued to speak God’s message. Rata portrays him as courageous and persistent because he loved his people and remained obedient to God.
  • The first part of Jeremiah largely announces judgment; chapters 30–33, often called the “Book of Comfort,” offer hope and restoration.

• The new covenant is God’s response to human failure.

  • Jeremiah promises a covenant that will not be like the covenant made when God led Israel out of Egypt. Rata emphasizes that the problem was not a flaw in God’s covenant, but the people’s repeated failure to keep it.
  • God promises to put his law within his people and write it on their hearts. Rata describes this as God rewriting the inner “script” that inclines people toward sin, giving them a new orientation toward obedience.
  • The covenant also promises a renewed relationship: “I will be their God, and they shall be my people.” Rata highlights this as a profound community formed in relationship with God.

• Knowing God involves both relationship and transformed life.

  • The promise that all will know the Lord points to a deepened knowledge of God among his people, evident in how they live—including just treatment of the poor and vulnerable.
  • Rata notes that Christians still have pastors and teachers, so the promise should not be read as meaning instruction has no present role. He suggests it has a fuller, future dimension in which God’s people know him completely.

• Forgiveness is central to the promise.

  • The covenant concludes with God’s promise to forgive iniquity and remember sin no more. Rata raises the question of how a just God can forgive sin.
  • He connects Jeremiah’s wording about “making” or “cutting” a covenant with the biblical imagery of covenant sacrifice and blood.
  • The New Testament answer, in the sermon’s account, is Jesus: he bears sin and establishes the new covenant through his blood. Hebrews presents this covenant as having a better mediator and a definitive sacrifice.

Key Lesson

The sermon contrasts human efforts to produce moral change with the Christian claim that God can change the heart. The new covenant offers forgiveness, inner transformation, and fellowship with God and his people—not merely external instruction.

Speakers and Sources Featured

• Speaker: Chris Rata
• People mentioned or quoted: Jacob Needleman (Why Can’t We Be Good?); Eugene Peterson; Rebecca Piper (the subtitles give this name; the cited book is Hope Has Its Reasons); Dr. Dockery; Dr. Williams; Professor Chris Osborne.
• Biblical sources and passages discussed: Jeremiah 31:31–34, with references to Jeremiah 1, 5, 11–13, 17, 20, 26, and 30–33; Genesis 6; Deuteronomy; Ezekiel; Isaiah; Hebrews 8; and biblical accounts involving Moses, Jonah, Nineveh, and Job.