Respecting The Covenant

as our custom and wave them around and make Jesus glad, the devil mad, amen.

Let's say this together say Heavenly Father, I'm glad for Wednesday night.

It's the right time to be replenished in the Word of God.

The Word and the Spirit are working together in my life.

I overcome in every circumstance because my faith is being developed and I'm maturing in the Word of God.

In Jesus' name, amen.

Let's turn in our Bibles, please, to Hebrews 11.

We're going to read out of verse 24.

Hebrews 11, 24 tonight, and it says by faith.

One version says by an act of faith.

Moses, when he was come to years, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter, choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season, esteeming the reproach of Christ or the reproach for Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt, for he had respect unto the recompense of the reward.

And so tonight I wanted to share a message entitled respecting respecting the covenant.

Respecting the covenant.

You know, I came across this word just in my normal reading today in the Old Testament and one of the Psalms for the day.

Today is the 14th happy Valentine's Day, by the way, I'm not wearing red.

But anyway, in Psalm 74 it asks the Lord to have respect unto the covenant.

Verse 20, psalm 74, 20, have respect under the covenant, for the dark places of the earth are full of the habitations of cruelty.

That's Old Testament, and so it reminded me of this message.

It's funny how, when you're reading your Bible, you know and I thought well, I've preached on respect in the covenant.

And so here we are, I want to share this message with you, so you know what power we have available to us, and the reason, of course, is because of our covenant.

I mean, jesus shed His blood once and for all and it's enough.

I mean, sometimes I come across situations, circumstances that look heavy, they look frankly impossible, and I just concentrate on the.

You know, the blood is enough.

Lord, blood of our covenant is up there in heaven.

It's in the mercy seat.

You look at me through the blood.

You see this situation that I'm in, and you have respect to the blood that was shed for me and I have the victory.

See, I'm always coming at things from the point of victory instead of trying to get the victory.

I'm coming from victory and it's great to respect the covenant.

We need to respect our covenant, and so the Bible, this Bible is all we need in order to operate as sons of God.

It's everything we need, and especially in the New Testament and especially the epistles.

But the rest of the Bible is valuable, Wow?

Well, because the Old Testament is written for our admonition, it's written for our warning.

This is what happens when you drift away from God, when you drift away from His word, when you're not steadfast in the covenant.

You know, most of the trouble that Israel had is because they weren't steadfast in the covenant.

They lost respect, they quit looking at it and so really not respecting the Covenant is why so many live far below where they should be.

I mean, god's paid for a level up here and we're way down here.

It kind of reminds you I've told this story several times, but it comes to my mind recently about back when they used to cross the Atlantic.

They had the Atlantic, passage was on a big steamship and they didn't have airplanes to fly across the Atlantic.

They had airplanes but they didn't go very far, just little hop here and hop there, little male plane or whatever.

They didn't fly across the Atlantic with passengers, and so you had.

If you wanted to get to England from America.

You had to go on the Atlantic Passage and it'd take four to five days.

And you bought your ticket.

And so there was this man out by the lifeboats and he was huddled down there trying to stay warm.

It's cold out there in the Atlantic in some parts of the year and somebody was walking by and he's down under that lifeboat just eating some crackers.

He said, brother, what are you doing?

He said, well, I'm eating my lunch.

I've got some crackers I brought with me.

He said, well, what are you doing down there eating crackers?

You've got.

The dining room is open, they're feeding you.

They've got a great lunch in there.

He said, oh, I can't afford that.

He said, well, it comes with a ticket.

You know he purchased the ticket and the food was supplied.

He didn't know it.

That's the way a lot of Christians live their lives.

They've got covenant blessings, they've got covenant.

You know the things that have been bought and paid for by the blood of Jesus that they're not experiencing.

So we see here in Hebrews 11, 27, that Moses' faith is noted.

It's you know Moses' faith.

He had respect under the covenant.

And it says here in verse 27,.

You can go back there, new Bible.

So I have to lick my fingers, sorry about that.

It said by faith he pursued Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king, for he endured his seeing him who is invisible.

See, so it talks about his faith.

He saw, he saw the one who was invisible.

Well, how do you see it?

He had, he had, he saw it by faith eyes and he had respect under the recompense of reward, verse 26.

Now, that respect that Moses had, that is talking about here, is the Greek word apple blepo, which means, from the Thayer's Greek dictionary, it means to turn the eyes away from other things and fix them on one thing.

Or we could say it this way it means to focus exclusively.

To focus exclusively on what?

On the promise, on the, on the recompense of the reward in his case.

So Moses then turned his eyes away from his education, he turned his eyes away from his royal privilege, he turned his eyes away from the pleasures of sin and he focused exclusively on the recompense of rewards.

See, it pays to serve God, it pays to draw near to God, it pays to obey the word.

There's blessings and obedience, and so, and it even says he embraced the suffering for Christ's sake.

What does that mean?

He doesn't know Christ.

Well see, it's all a type in a shadow.

It's a type in a shadow.

I think about Romans 8, 18.

You know, paul said I reckon the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared to the glory that shall be revealed in us.

Yeah, there's a certain amount of suffering, there's a certain amount of persecution.

He was so persecuted, especially after he killed the Egyptian, and people saw him.

He fled for his life to the backside of the desert.

But the thing is, I mean he could have stayed and fought.

I mean he was a man of great education, he had, you know, he had royal privilege, he had all those things he could have drawn upon, but he turned his eyes away and he'd rather embrace his heritage as a Jew, and so in that case he suffered for Christ's sake.

So he was covenant minded that's what I wanna get to covenant minded.

He looked to the invisible God, the covenant maker, the covenant keeper.

Now let's look at this idea of respect under the covenant.

Let's look at it from God's side.

See, from Moses side.

He's looking at the covenant from man.

Let's look at what God saw there in Exodus, chapter two.

Hadn't been very long ago I was reading in the book of Exodus and so this is kind of fresh on my heart meditating on this, this section here, exodus, chapter two, let's look at it talking about respecting the covenant.

In Exodus two it said in verse 23, it came to pass in process of time that the king of Egypt died and the children of Israel sighed by reason of the bondage and they cried and their cry came up into God by reason of the bondage, and God heard their groaning and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac and with Jacob.

And then the next verse and God looked upon the children of Israel and God had respect unto them, and so God heard, god remembered his covenant and God said see, he knew, he knew there are sorrows, you know.

It goes on down here.

In Exodus three he said, verse seven, he's talking to Moses and the Lord said I have surely seen the affliction of my people which are in Egypt.

I have heard their cry by reason of their taskmasters, for I know their sorrows and I am come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up.

They not just to deliver them out of but to bring them into that land, unto a good land, a large land flowing with milk and honey into the place of the Canaanites and the Hittites, the Amorites, so forth.

So God had respect, so he had his respect.

He remembered.

The word remember there is not like he forgot it, it's just that he likes to be put in remembrance.

Their cries stirred in God his respect to Abraham, isaac and Jacob, to whom he made each of them.

He made them, he told each of them that he did about his covenant, not just Abraham, but Isaac and Jacob also.

He made promise to all three of them.

And so he looked upon the children of Israel and he had respect, that is, he focused exclusively on them.

And so then what?

He appeared to Moses and told him the same thing.

So God reciprocated the respect that Abraham, isaac and Jacob had paid him 400 years before.

See, they received what he said, they believed, and it was counted unto Abraham for righteousness.

He believed, and so did Isaac and Jacob, because they lived their lives that way.

They never really received the promise because what?

They were sojourners and they never did really get to go into the promised land, but they still believed it for their seed.

And so, and even Joseph, all the way down to Joseph.

When Joseph was about ready to die in Egypt, he made his descendants, his children, say now, look, one of these days you're gonna get delivered out of here and you're going to the promised land.

Don't leave me here in this land, take my bones.

Let me tell you something.

The Egyptians knew how to embalm bodies.

That's where embalming, really the art of embalming, came from Egypt.

They knew how to preserve bodies.

Well, they're still digging these tombs up and finding these bodies that are preserved, and they preserved Joseph body.

I mean, he was highly revered at that time and here he was.

I mean he looked like he was still alive.

It's just asleep, you know.

And he said don't you leave me here in Egypt, you take me with you.

I just think about them going down into his tomb and bringing his body out of there and taking it all the way back to Canaan land.

I mean, that kind of blows your mind.

See, he had faith, he had respect to the covenant.

He said no, I don't want to be here and my people be in the promised land.

I want to be there.

I want my body be there with my patriarchs, abraham, isaac and Jacob.

And he was.

That's what they did.

That.

What did it take?

He took faith for them to do all that, and so this covenant respect.

See, when you think about now, moses has now delivered the children of Israel out of Egypt, and now they've crossed the Red Sea and they're in the wilderness, and he sends the 12 spies to spy out the land, and so they go across the river Jordan and they spy out the land and they come back and they have this fruit with them and they said, man, it's just like you said, it's a land that's surely flowing with milk and honey and this is the fruit of it.

Nevertheless, there's giants in the land and they got walled cities and we're we're be not able, we be not able to go in there.

We're like grasshoppers in their side and in our side They've got cities that are walled up to heaven.

So 10 of the spies focused exclusively on the circumstances.

They couldn't, they couldn't think about their covenant.

But two, joshua and Caleb, they focused exclusively.

See, it's not that they ignored the walled cities, they didn't ignore the giants.

They just said, no, we're, we're well able, they're bred for us, we're well able to go in and take the land.

They focused exclusively on their covenant.

Glory to God.

They focus exclusively on the promise and the promise keeper.

You know there's a promise keeper.

Behind the promise, amen.

There's a covenant keeping God and he is God almighty.

He's El Shaddai, he's incomparable, he's amazing, he's all powerful.

Praise God, that's who's in our camp.

And so you know, when you go through the Bible, you see Israel often cried out without any faith and murmuring and complaining is what that's called, and God is not obligated to listen to that.

But you know we can cry out in faith and you know, when they cried out under bondage and everything it did touch his heart and he said you know, I've made a covenant with Abraham, isaac and Jacob.

I'm gonna get them out of there.

It's time for them to leave.

It's time for them and see, god does everything legal.

And we've been talking about prayer the last couple of weeks and last Sunday we talked about.

You know that God allows and likes for us to put him in remembrance.

Come, let us plead together, put me in remembrance.

In other words, you know, make a legal argument about your covenant, see, because, why?

Because you have respect under that.

You know part of you doing that.

You're not arguing with God and you're not being smart alec with God.

You're letting him know that you know what the covenant says concerning your need, and he said he invites you.

So come, let us plead together.

Put me in remembrance.

Declare thou that thou mayest be justified, jeremiah.

So this murmuring and complaining, say that's a sure sign that we don't have respect for the covenant.

We're emphasizing the circumstances, so what are you exclusively focused on?

I mean, you know, we all go through things.

Sometimes we go through hard times.

We go through things that are just seemingly impossible.

They're seemingly just.

They're huge, they're giants, they're wall cities, they're just.

It just seems like there's no way forward.

Are you gonna focus on that?

Are you gonna focus on the one whose blood was shed for you and whose blood is there behind the veil?

It's in the holy of holies, it's right there at the mercy seat.

God Almighty sees that blood.

Every time he sees you, he's reminded.

So let's not act like it's not there.

Let's you know.

That's what I do.

That's what I do when I, when I'm facing something, I say well, you know.

Glory to God.

I'm so glad the blood's enough.

The blood is more than enough to take care of this situation.

There was more than enough blood was shed for this situation.

Hallelujah.

I'll let God know right from the get go that I've got respect under the covenant and I'm looking to that covenant.

So what are you exclusively focused on?

See, if we, you know we have to discipline ourselves because we're just all built like you know.

We have flesh and our flesh wants to focus on impossibilities and despair and hopelessness.

Remember, I've been there urging you not to just sit all day long and watch the news.

That's what I.

When I watch the news all day long, I just get focused.

That's what I'm focused on.

So I can't focus on it.

I might hear it, I might go by and I get a headline.

I'm behind the headline here and the headline there.

I keep up with things going on, but I don't focus on it exclusively.

Instead, I'm just always looking to His covenant.

I'm looking to what he told me about this year.

I look to what he said.

You know that everything old is new again.

Everything that was receding is advancing again.

I'm hearing about that all the time and I'm just rejoicing over it because I know I'm looking with the eye of faith, like Moses did.

So, turn your eyes away and gaze away from the circumstances and, fixing your eyes, fix your eyes entirely on the covenant.

You know Moses chose.

He had to choose to suffer a affliction with people of God.

He had to choose not to go back to Egypt.

He had to choose to leave Joshua and Caleb chose.

They could have joined in with the other 10 spies, but they chose.

And you've got to choose.

It's always a choice.

You have to choose.

You have to choose what you're going to focus on.

Are you going to focus on the trouble?

Are you going to focus on the pain?

Are you going to focus on the natural report?

Are you going to turn your eyes and focus entirely on the covenant of God?

Hallelujah.

So choose life, choose the word, choose faith and choose the reward.

Choose the rewarder.

Lift your hands and receive tonight.

Hallelujah, respecting the covenant.

Praise God.

I hope you got a little encouragement out of that.

Hallelujah to God.

Thank you, lord.

I'm so glad we're in covenant with Almighty God.

I'm so glad Jesus shed his blood 2000 years ago.

He didn't have to do it again.

He already did it once, and once was enough.

Hallelujah.