The Cost of the Covenant (Chester UMC)

All right. Before I get into today's

sermon, I just want to give a heads up about next week as

we're working through Genesis. We are, we are approaching and

we'll be there next week the story of the destruction of

Sodom and Gomorrah. And I'm going to be preaching

next week. I'm going to spend two weeks on

that particular topic. The first week is on the sin of

Sodom and the second week will be on how Abraham was pleading

for Sodom and God to have mercy on Sodom.

Next I'm going to do a kind of next week is the sin of Sodom.

And, and I'm going to just say today that it's if you know that

story and you think when I say the sin of Sodom that you, that

you know what I'm talking about, you probably don't because the

sin of Sodom is probably not what you've been taught or is is

not what you have probably been taught.

It was the Bible is very clear about what the sin of Sodom was

and why God destroyed Sodom. And it's probably not the reason

you've been taught over the years.

I don't want to get any more into it today than that because

it's a different sermon today. I am saying all of that to say

this in order to talk about that in an authentic way.

Next week is going to be APG 13 Sunday.

Just so you know, from the sermon perspective, I'm not

going to get graphic, but I'm going to be talking about topics

that might be challenging or difficult for younger children.

And again, I'm, I'm not going to be graphic.

I'm not going to do any. But I just want to give you a

heads up so that if if you have kids or grandkids in here with

you next week, you might get some questions about what did

the pastor mean when he said that?

And, and I want to just prepare you for that.

OK, fair enough. I always like to give PG13

warnings when they are appropriate.

I don't want to surprise anyone with APG 13 sermon.

OK, sure, absolutely. Who knows, we might get a few

extra folks stopping in, you know, wait till we do the R

rated sermon. We'll get even more.

So this week, however, is about the cost of the covenant.

There are several covenants that we see God making with humanity

throughout the scripture. We see a covenant with God and

Adam and Eve. We saw a covenant with God and

Noah. There was a covenant with God

and Cain, a covenant with God and Noah and and we have seen

God make multiple promises. Covenants not it's all the same

promise phrased differently with Abram, who is now Abraham.

But but today we get the sealing of that covenant between Abraham

and God. And then we have a covenant made

with the people of Israel, the nation of Israel through Moses

as the mediator. And then finally the the

covenant that that we know of as the new covenant.

And that's why we call the the portion of the Scripture about

Jesus and after as the New Testament, that covenant is, is

what we think of and we believe to be the final and ultimate

covenant that God has made with humanity.

There is a cost to the covenant. There's a cost to the covenant

that God made with Abraham, and we're going to look at that

today. But there are costs to all of

these covenants. We're not going to look at all

of them. We're going to look at we're

going to look at the covenant God made with Abraham and the

new covenant that has come to us in and through Jesus's life,

death, and resurrection. There is a cost to the covenant,

God said to Abraham, As for you, you must keep my covenant, you

and your descendants after you. So we're going to walk through

that and we're going to walk through each of those covenants

and see what the cost was on each of them, how those costs

are similar and how those costs are different on on the most

obvious level, the cost of the covenant with Abraham is

circumcision. Arguably this is APG 13 sermon

that I didn't warn you about. Circumcision is is a cost,

certainly, particularly Abraham, 99 years old.

Ishmael at 13 probably was even less.

I mean, think about that conversation with your 13 year

old son. Hey, by the way, this is

happening today. That's a real cost.

And they're different elements to that cost.

It's a bodily cost. The cost of the covenant with

Abram, which endures to this day among the Jewish people, is a

bodily cost. You can't buy your way out of

the cost. You can't say, well, instead of

that, can I make an extra donation?

Can I give some land? Can I give some livestock?

Can I, can I provide some quality service to the cause?

The cost is a bodily cost to pay.

That is a bodily sacrifice, this cost of circumcision, and it's a

bloody cost. There is no way to pay this

cost. There is no way to participate

in this covenant as a male child of Abraham without a sacrifice

of blood. It's a bodily cost, it's a

bloody cost, and it's a permanent or ongoing cost.

Once it's done, it's not you. It can't be undone.

Once it's there, it's there. It is a sign for inappropriate

situations, whoever to see, conceive.

It can't be hidden or concealed in those situations, and it

cannot be covered up. Other than buy clothing, of

course. But it's permanent.

It's ongoing. Once that price is paid, once

that cost is paid, there's no real backing out in terms of

that cost. And this cost comes with a new

identity. It is no accident that is at the

moment of the sealing of the covenant with Abraham that God

changes Abraham's name and Sarah's name.

Well, he didn't change changed Abraham's name.

And Sarai's name and names meant something then.

They were a statement of identity, of character and, and,

and I and, and purpose and, and that identity and purpose are

the key things I want us to look at here today.

Abram, the word, the name Abram meant honored father.

The name Abraham is father of nations.

The name Sarai meant my Princess.

The name Sarah just means Princess.

God is taking their identities that were up until this point

very personal. This is my Princess.

I am an honored father or my husband is an honored father and

I'm his Princess and expanding them.

I'm not just his Princess, I'm the Princess.

I am the mother of Princess and princesses for generations to

come. I'm not just an honored father,

I'm the Father of nations. God is confirming in them His

covenant by changing their identity to confirm and signify

what it who they really are. Not just people who are honored,

not just people who have a position of respect and esteem

within their own family, but people from whom nations and

kings and Queens and princesses will come.

A new identity comes with this covenant.

This covenant could only be paid for by males.

Among the descendants of Abraham, only men can be

circumcised. Only men could pay the price of

the covenant. And so in a very real sense,

only men could fully participate within the covenant.

It is not possible for slightly over half the population to

fully participate in this covenant.

The sign of the covenant was the same as the cost of the

covenant. The sign of the covenant was

circumcision. Now with the covenant with Moses

that came later, given to the children of Israel, the children

of Abraham through Moses. Later there were other visible

signs, but at this point the sign of the covenant is the

circumcision. It is the cost, it is the sign,

it is the symbol, it is the evidence that the price has been

paid and that a person is participating in this covenant.

All right, all right, That's the covenant that God made with

Abram, now Abraham and Sarah. Let's talk about the cost of the

new covenant. The cost of the New Covenant was

and is death, specifically the death of Jesus, God's Son.

Cost of the New Covenant was and is the death of Jesus.

This was a bodily cost. There was no money that Jesus

could pay. There was no gift that God could

give. There was no active service that

could be done to circumvent this cost.

The only way to establish this covenant, the only way to make

it real, was for Jesus to die. Now at this point, I want to

pause and talk about the word covenant because it's, it's one

thing to talk about the historical and even ongoing

reality of the covenant God made with Abraham, which doesn't

really directly affect us. But this new covenant, this new

covenant is a covenant that God offers every human being on the

face of the earth to participate in.

And and that begs the question, what's a covenant?

Let's talk about that. A covenant is similar to, but

not identical with a contract. A contract is when two or more

people reach an agreement about a course of action and they each

put some, and this terminology is not accidental, it comes out

of what we just been talking about.

Each put some skin in the game. There's a cost to the contract

and, and, and then in technical terms, that cost is

consideration called consideration in legal terms.

And if there's no consideration, if the contract costs one of the

parties nothing, there's no contract.

If there's no skin in the game, if there's no cost to it, if

there's nothing they're obligated to pay or do, then

there's no contract. In a contract, whether it's

between two people as individuals or one person in a

group or two different groups in a contract, if one party breaks

the contract, the other parties to the contract are no longer

held to the contract. So Brandon and I enter into a

contract and I'm going to buy a pig from Do you have pigs still?

Not at the moment, but I wanted to, I thought, man, those

Buckley pigs are some nice pigs. I want to cut.

I want to, I want to buy a Buckley pig.

They're winning pigs over at the Buckley Ranch and, and I'm going

to get me some of that bacon. And, and so I say, Brandon, I'm

going to give you $50,000 to be able to buy your pig every year

for the next 20 years. Get some, get some pigs for

that, OK. And, and I'm going to give you

half of that money upfront. And then after what, 10 years

and I've got all my pigs, I'll give you the other half of the

money. And then and then first year

goes around and, and, and I take the pig, but I said, Brian, I'm

sorry, I don't have that money right now.

I'll give it to you next year. I was like, he's a good guy,

He's a trusting guy. He says, OK, next year comes and

I get the second pig and Brandon, I still don't have the

money at this point. If Brandon's got sense, he's a

nice guy, but he's got some sense, he's going to say, Scott,

this is very nice, but we had in a contract and you haven't given

me year end. So no more pigs until I get my

money. And that's fair, right?

I think all of us would agree that that's fair.

And they would probably say anyone, most reasonable people

would say in Blevins, you need to pay for the pigs you've

already got if you really want this to be fair.

But if there's a covenant, a covenant, again, it can be

between individuals, it can be between two groups, it can be

between an individual and a group.

It can involve multiple parties. One of the differences between a

covenant and a contract is that in a covenant, if one party

breaks the covenant, the other party is still obligated to keep

it. And and the covenant that God

made with Abraham was. I will make you and your

descendants into a great nation. Made that comment with Abraham

and with Sarah. So it's a child born from them,

not Ishmael. He made a separate promise to

Hagar. It was a similar promise.

But this is a covenant between Abraham, between Abraham and

Sarah and God. Abraham and Sarah did not always

keep the covenant. Their descendants did not always

keep the covenant. God always kept the covenant all

the way through. A lot of folks will say after

reading the Old Testament that man, the Old Testament is really

God, is an angry God in the Old Testament, then I can understand

how you get there because there's a lot of pain and

there's a lot of suffering. There's a lot of punishment.

There's a lot of consequence that comes to Abraham's

descendants because they didn't keep the covenant.

Next time you read through it though, rather than thinking we

get this is about an angry God, consider instead this is about a

patient God. Because the span of time in the

Old Testament, the Old Covenant, is hundreds and hundreds of

years, and it's generations and generations and generations of

God saying to his people, you are not keeping my covenant.

And bad things are going to come to you eventually if you don't

start keeping my covenant. And God is tremendously patient.

But even when the bad things come, God still insists on

keeping His covenant. He will not allow His people to

be wiped out, even though the political and military forces

around them and lined up against them are far superior to their

own. From the Assyrian Empire to the

Babylonian Empire to the Roman Empire.

God does not allow His people to be destroyed.

God preserves sometimes only a remnant, but God always

preserves at least that remnant to keep his covenant, even when

his people have seemingly utterly abandoned him.

So when God makes this new covenant with the world, with

Jesus, and in and through Jesus, he's making promises as well.

If you will be my you, I will be my God.

Let me try. I can really say this.

I will be your God. You will be my people.

I will pay the penalty of sin and death so that you might have

life everlasting. I will bear the cost of the

eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, so

that you might eat of the tree of life.

And there is a cost to that covenant, this promise that God

makes with us. And that cost is a bodily cost.

It cost God his body, his Son's body.

Jesus saying it, God, Jesus is both God and human.

And so there is a real, very real sense in which we say that

that God himself paid this cost, the death of himself, the death

of his Son, a bodily cost on the cross.

And it was a bloody cost. His blood was shed, far more

bloodshed than was shed in the covenant of circumcision,

spilled out on the ground through the beating with the

whips, through the the beating of the crown of thorns upon his

head, through the nails and his side and his hands, and in his

feet and the spear and his side. It was a bloody cost that Jesus

paid for this covenant, and it was a permanent and ongoing

cost. It is important to remember that

in his resurrection, Jesus still bears the scars of his

crucifixion, that our perfect Lord and Savior Jesus Christ

lives now and forever in a scarred body, a body permanently

and forever changed by the crucifixion.

Some theologians have said, I think it's no way to prove it.

I believe it. It's a fascinating idea.

I think it, and it makes sense to me that since Jesus is God,

Jesus is eternal, Jesus is outside time and space.

That there is a sense that Jesus lives not in a past, present and

in future, but in an eternal present.

That Jesus then in that scenario always has been and always will

be hanging on the cross. A permanent and ongoing cost for

this covenant. And rather than a new identity,

it was a confirmed identity. It was as he was dying that that

Roman soldier looked up at Jesus on the cross and said, surely

this man is the Son of God, demonstrated to him not by Jesus

miraculously bringing himself down from the cross and striking

his enemies dead with the Word, but because he submitted to the

crucifixion with grace and humility and compassion and

forgiveness. And in his death, when God

darkened the sun and shook the earth, that soldier, that Pagan

Roman soldier who as far as we knew, knew nothing of the

teachings of Jesus, was able to look at him and say, surely this

man was the Son of God. And in his resurrection his

disciples said the same thing. Surely this man is the Son of

God, Jesus's identity confirmed through his death and then his

resurrection. And it was a price that could

only be paid by Jesus. None of us could have bankrolled

that. Not with all of our resources

combined. Not with Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos,

and whoever all the other billionaires are out there

pitching in to help. The only one who could pay this

price was Jesus was God himself coming to us in the flesh, and

he paid that, the price that we could never pay for this new

covenant through which we are giving, we are given access to

eternal life in God's Kingdom. All of that, Scripture tells us,

is available us to us by grace through faith.

It's a gift from God, not based on anything we do to earn it, so

that none of us can boast. And yet it is equally true that

in this new covenant, well before that, the sign of the

covenant, the sign of this covenant from the side of God

and in front of us is the cross. Not circumcision, but the cross,

an ever present reminder to us of the price that God paid so

that He could be in relationship with us, we could be in

relationship with Him, and we could be in loving, faithful

relationship with each other and other human beings in this world

and with the world itself. The sign of that covenant is the

cross. And unlike circumcision, which

only the males could bear that cost, we can all take up our

cross and follow Jesus, Jesus. Only Jesus could pay the price.

But we can all take up a cross. Male, female, young, old, rich,

poor, educated, uneducated, athletic, not athletic.

Even people with hair can pay. That's how gracious God is.

Even people with hair can bear that sign, the sign of the

cross. All of that is true.

It is also true that there is a cost to us in the New Covenant.

This is a part and it's tough and it gets hard to do this

because it it's so easy to slip. And on the one side we can fall

off the road and get off the way into work's righteousness, into

this notion of I have to work really hard to get Jesus to love

me, to get Jesus to forgive me, to earn what he did for me on

the cross. No, all of that is a gift, a

gift of God's grace. The other side of the road, the

other ditch, which is equally fatal if we fall into it, is

that Jesus did all of that for me.

I'm glad that's over. That's the side that Dietrich

Bonhoeffer called cheap grace that that I like to sin.

God likes to forgive. This is a great arrangement.

Let's just go on with things as they are and, and I'll, I'll

pray my prayer, get my get out of hell free card and it'll all

be good. Cheap grace is what Dietrich

Bonhoeffer called that. You know who Bonhoeffer is?

Is that a name that's familiar to you?

Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a German theologian.

In Germany at the time Hitler and the Nazi Party were rising

to power. And as Hitler and the Nazi Party

gained more and more power, many Christians, many theologians

left because they knew that the Gospel of Jesus Christ was

antagonistic to the ideology and philosophies of Hitler and his

followers. And, and everyone knew that

Hitler was not afraid of dealing brutally with his, with his

opponents that opposed him, whether politically, militarily

or theologically. And so many theologians left and

they got out of the country before things, before everything

got too bad. Bonhoeffer refused to leave.

He said, I have a church here, I have a ministry here.

I'm responsible to people here to preach the gospel and share

the gospel no matter what it costs me.

He he was in his own life, embodied both ends of Abram's

faithfulness, humbly staying in that land when he could have

chosen better land to go to. A lot of those theologians left.

They went maybe to Switzerland, some to the States, some to

England. They went to places where where

peace and prosperity were more likely than they were going to

be in Nazi Germany. But Bonhoeffer stayed in the

less desirable land, humbly like Abram did when he allowed Lot to

choose the more desirable land. Bonhoeffer also actively

participated in a plot to assassinate Hitler.

The plot failed. The bomb went off when Hitler

wasn't in the room, or actually I think he was in the room, but

he wasn't close enough to the bomb.

Anyway, Hitler survived. Bonhoeffer was imprisoned and

eventually executed for his resistance to Hitler.

And he wrote a number of books. One is called Life Together,

which is an amazing book. Another that's more well known

is a book that he wrote called The Cost of Discipleship, and I

want to read just a short excerpt from that book.

When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.

That but some, and I'm paraphrasing well, that he

speaks more about what he calls cheap grace, and now he's

getting to. And so another part of the

quotation, that is what we mean by cheap grace, the grace which

amounts to the justification of sin without the justification of

the repentant Sinner who departs from sin and from whom sin

departs. Cheap grace is not the kind of

forgiveness of sin which frees us from the toils of sin.

Cheap grace is the grace we bestow on ourselves.

Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring

repentance, baptism without church discipline, communion

without confession, absolution without personal confession.

Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the

cross, grace without Jesus Christ living and Incarnate.

Costly grace is the gospel which must be sought again and again,

the gift which which must be asked for, the door at which a

man must knock. Such grace is costly because it

calls us to follow, and it is grace because it calls us to

follow Jesus Christ. It is costly because it costs a

man his life. It is grace because it gives a

man the only true life. It is costly because it condemns

sin. It is grace because it justifies

the Sinner. Above all, it is costly because

it cost God the life of His Son. You were bought with a price,

and what has cost God much cannot be cheap for us.

Above all, it is grace because God did not reckon His Son too

dear a price to pay for our life, but delivered Him up for

us. Costly grace is the incarnation

of God. There is a cost to following

Jesus. There is a cost for us of this

new covenant and that cost is nothing less than our lives.

CS Lewis put it this way. He said most of us when we come

to God and we come to Jesus, we invite him into our life.

We feel like, you know what if our life is a house, it's like

we got a rumor too that needs some work, that needs some re

cleaning out, that we need some remodeling.

But God comes in as the general contractor and says, no, I want

the whole thing down and we're going to build new.

The cost is our life. It's a bodily cost.

This is not metaphorical. This is not fancy imagery.

This is not allegory. God wants our lives and expects

our lives, our lives to be given to God in service, to be placed

before God and placed at God's service so that when God says

go, we go. When God says say stay, we stay.

When God says speak, we speak. When God says shut up, we shut

up. When God says be still, we're

still. When God says get busy, we get

busy. It's a bodily cost and it's a

bloody cost. To follow Jesus in this way is

to follow Jesus sacrificially and for all of us.

That doesn't mean a literal bloody cost, but for many it

does. Amy Carmichael, Irish missionary

to India, who who left behind identity and culture and adapted

herself as completely as she could to the culture in which

she was living. And her poetry measured

faithfulness of followers of Jesus Christ to by whether or

not they had scars. How can you have followed far,

she writes, if you have no scars?

When we follow Jesus in this way and a life of loving sacrificial

service and a life of resisting evil, injustice and oppression,

whatever forms they present themselves, we will be scarred,

we will be hurt. There is sacrifice that comes

along with it and it's a permanent and ongoing cost.

We don't get to retire. I can tell you Amy is looking

forward to retirement. I am not sure I have seen seen

her look forward to anything in her life other than giving

birth. She had nine months of of severe

morning sickness, so she was eager to give birth when the

time came. I think she's more eager to

retire, to be honest. There is no retiring from being

a follower of Jesus. Heaven is not now my work is

done. Let's even that is not let's go

on for eternal vacation. It is a permanent and ongoing

cost that we are servants, always at the disposal of our

Lord and our King, that we are sisters and brothers, always at

the pleasure of our brother and our Father.

A permanent and ongoing cost. And for us, like Abraham and

Sarah, it is a new identity that the names we've been called, the

labels we've been given, whether they've been given to us by

others with good intention or bad, whether we've placed them

on ourselves, in wisdom or in foolishness.

God says you are who I say you are.

You are my child, you are my daughter, you are my son.

I give you a name. I give you an identity that is

full of life and love and hope and joy, and we may not even

really see that until we stand before Jesus face to face.

But we are not what the haters call us.

We are not what those who despise us name us.

We are woo and what God calls us.

And God calls us his children, people of sacred and eternal

worth, a new identity we receive in Jesus.

And this price can only be paid by you, nobody else.

Nobody can pay it for you. I don't know who first said it.

I wish I did. I'd like to be able to give him

credit. But I heard someone somewhere

along the way say God has no grandchildren, no one's a

follower of Jesus. Because mom and dad were.

Now, they might have been the influence along the way, but you

have to pay the price. I have to pay the price for me.

You have to pay the price for you.

You can't pay the price for your kids.

You can't pay the price for your grandkids, for your husband, for

your wife, for your friends, for your sisters, brothers, cousins.

You can't. Everyone has to pay this price

themselves. And it's so much more than

walking down an aisle and praying a prayer and then going

about business as usual. It is an ongoing daily Lord, my

life is yours. Your will not mine.

Be done today. Whatever you want, God help me

to do, and if you can help me to want to do it.

But it can only be paid by you. The sign of the new Covenant on

our end is baptism. What a beautiful sign.

Unlike circumcision and like bearing a cross, anyone can be

baptized. Old, young, rich, poor, male,

female, even the people with hair.

It's harder for y'all. I've baptized teenagers who who

wanted to wear a hair thing into the water.

I'm like, you're not quite getting it here.

If you want to keep the water off of you when you're getting

in the water, a baptism. They had really nice hair

though, so I get where they're coming from.

I got no problems with that. This sign is for all, and it's

so much more than just a ritual. For those baptized by immersion,

it is a reenactment of the death and erection of death and

resurrection of Jesus Christ as he was placed in the tomb and

rises up again. For those sprinkled or poured,

it's a reenactment of the blood sprinkled on the doorposts of

the Passover of the slaves in Egypt.

When God says this one belongs to me and the Angel of death

passes over, it's a reenactment of the washing of the Holy

Spirit washing us clean inside and out, sanctifying us.

And it is permanent and ongoing. Because none of all this happens

instantaneously. The baptism happens pretty

quick, but all of that washing, all of that cleaning, all of

that, dying to ourselves and rising again, that is a lifelong

process. At least someone once said, I

don't know who said this one either.

This is another good one. The, you know, Paul talks about

present yourselves a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable

to the Lord. And someone quipped somewhere

along the way, the problem with the living sacrifice is it keeps

crawling off the altar. And and that's our challenge to

stay on the altar, to not crawl off the altar.

And it's a daily challenge. It's a daily challenge.

And that's the cost. That's the cost of the covenant.

There is no covenant, There is no relationship with God without

cost. God has paid with the life of

himself, the life of his Son and he asks us to do the same in

Jesus name, Amen. Amen.