New Covenant Nuggets

Let's get our Bibles out.

I want to get into the Word of God with you tonight, give you an encouraging message and let's just wave those Bibles around and make Jesus glad, the devil mad.

Let's say this together, say Heavenly Father, I've tuned in tonight because I'm hungry.

I'm hungry for more and I know there's more available more revelation, more of the Word, more of the Spirit, more of your presence and Lord.

I desire that in Jesus' name, amen, amen.

I'm going to read to you tonight out of Hebrews, chapter six, verses 10 through 20.

And I'm going to use a different version.

I'm going to use the contemporary English version, so if you have a smartphone, you might be able to find it.

If not, you can just listen or you can read along in the King James, and I'll start reading with the verse 10.

It says God is always fair.

He will remember how you helped His people in the past and how you are still helping them.

You belong to God and he won't forget the love you have shown His people.

We wish each of you would always be eager to show how strong and lasting your hope really is.

Then you would never be lazy.

You would be following the example of those who had faith and were patient until God kept His promise to them.

No one is greater than God.

So he made a promise in His own name when he said to Abraham I, the Lord, will bless you with many descendants.

Then, after Abraham had been very patient, he was given what God had promised.

When anyone wants to settle an argument, they make a vow by using the name of someone or something greater than themselves.

So when God wanted to prove for certain His promise to His people could not be broken, he made a vow.

God cannot tell lies, and so His promises and vows are two things that can never be changed.

We have run to God for safety.

Now.

His promises should greatly encourage us to take hold of the hope that is right in front of us.

This hope is like a firm and steady anchor for our souls.

In fact, hope reaches behind the curtain and into the most holy place.

Jesus has gone there ahead of us and he is our high priest forever, just like Melchizedek.

And so tonight I wanted to share a message entitled New Covenant Nuggets.

New Covenant Nuggets.

You know, I was watching Homestead Rescue the other night.

It's a series of shows about people who live off grid and their homesteaders, you know, living in usually in very desolate places, trying to live off the land, live separate from electricity, they try to get solar power and they try to make arrangements to get all kinds of innovations to get water and all this and many of them fail because they don't know what they're doing.

So this family goes around to help them.

So I was watching one of those programs.

People had a homestead up in Alaska and up in a wilderness area and half of their homestead was a side of a real steep hill.

They couldn't get up to it and it had a plateau where it was fertile and they could plant up there on the top of the hill, but they couldn't get to it.

So you know, they were kind of in trouble and so they were making a road for them to be able to drive up there when they encountered bedrock and they had this big, huge boulder that was just unmovable and it was in the way and they just couldn't.

It was on the edge of the cliff and with this big excavator it was too dangerous to try to push it off because the excavator could fall.

So anyway, the program was all about them getting that rock and tying off to it and they pulled it down and as it rolled down, some of it broke off and they discovered that it had gold.

And so they began to just break that bedrock apart and they found some rocks that they put through a contraption they had built on the river for that very purpose.

But they hadn't been successful in finding any gold on the river.

But all of a sudden, this other piece of boulder on their land and I watched it I mean they had quite a significant amount of I think they had a couple of thousand dollars worth of gold just there.

I don't know how long it took them to pan it, but they panned it.

You know old time panning, and so you know they were able to get the gold out of the mountain, you know.

But we don't have to go off grid and dig a bunch of boulders out of the ground.

All we have to do is go down to the bedrock of the Word of God.

When we're facing trouble Sometimes we're facing maybe our victory seems delayed or even lost.

Sometimes we just have situations there that are immovable.

You know, sometimes it's time for us to dig down into the Word of God, because God never lies and God never quits.

He's got it.

We have a covenant, our new covenant nuggets are available for us.

You know, I think about 1 Peter 1 7, it says you know, the, the, the trying of our faith is more precious than gold that perishes.

I tell you, the devil will pull out all the stuff.

He has no new tricks.

He will come against you with discouragement.

He will come against you and try to lie to you and get you to relax your faith stand, take all your hope away.

And of course, hope alone is not going to get anything from God.

It takes faith, but faith is the substance of things hoped for.

So if he can take your hope away from your soul, your mind, your will see, our minds are very important.

Yes, we believe in our heart, our spirit.

Faith is a spiritual force.

But hope is really born in the mind.

And if he can get you hopeless, then your faith won't have anything to give substance to.

And so you know, the devil just comes to deceive and discourage and he'll say things like well, you're never going to get your healing, you know you'll never be, you'll never break through financially, you're not worthy, you're not smart enough, it's too late, so forth, and so on.

He's got a whole litany of lies.

But God has a covenant and he has the new covenant, which is founded on better promises than the old, and so so we found some new covenant nuggets right here tonight.

God's not a liar and God is not unfair.

I know that sounds so basic, but that's where the devil will attack you.

He will try to get you, to get you to agree with him that God's word is not true For you or that somehow you've upset God and he's punishing you.

That's never the case.

It's never.

You know, if there's a problem, it's never on God's side, it's never on the Word's side.

It's always something we need to dig up.

I've had to dig in this church.

I've had to dig for nuggets from time to time, and it's always worth the time to dig down, and because I've always found them, amen.

So he talks about Abraham here, these verses.

And you know, abraham had a promise.

He said you know, I'm going to give you many descendants.

He took him out and showed him the dust of the face.

And Abraham, look at all this dust.

After, after there was a parting of the ways with his nephew, he led him out and a lot, lot left, you know, and his wife.

They went to Sodom and Gomorrah After he left.

Then God said hey, come on out here, look at this, look at the dust that your descendants are going to be more numerous than the dust.

And later on, in another time, when, when Abraham years later needed more encouragement, he said look up at the stars, your descendants are going to be as numerous as the stars.

And you know, abraham, like us, was tempted to think God, are you?

Are you really telling me the truth?

And so he asked him.

He said how will I know?

How can I know that what you're telling me is true?

And God said bring me a heifer.

He cut the covenant with Abraham and he swore he'd buy two immutable things.

God, who cannot lie, swore.

He took an oath and he and he had his promise.

The oath and the promise were the two unchangeable things, and that's old covenant.

But the Bible says we have a new covenant, we have a better covenant found upon better promises.

So the answer when we're, you know, entertaining this, when these things are coming against our mind and our soul, what we need is an anchor.

We need new covenant nuggets to anchor us to the truth, amen.

And so in Genesis 1260, god promised to make Abraham a great nation and then 15 years later, he sojourned in the land of Ham.

He went to Huron, which means parched corn or parched ground I should say parched ground which is not a fertile place and his father wanted to be there to sell idols.

He was an idol maker, so for 15 years he interrupted his travels to be in a place where he didn't belong.

And that's when he came out and he had these he's doubts.

You know what about your promise, god?

And so that's when God cut the covenant with him.

And so what we know about covenants in the old Bible days is that the covenant is an exchange.

Everything you have belongs to your covenant partner.

For instance, if you're a warrior and you're cutting the covenant with a farmer, then everything you have as a warrior belongs to your farmer, a partner, and then everything that belongs to the farmer partner belongs to you.

So it's an exchange and it's backed by blood.

And how they would go through this ceremony is that there would be an exchange of coats, and then there would be an exchange of weapons, and then there would be the shedding of blood, and the blood would be either mixed wrist to wrist this is where we get our handshake from, or sometimes they would bleed into a cup of wine and each drink it and of course, the blood stood for the life is in the blood.

So they were the blood.

Covenant was backed by the lives of those who entered in, and so when that happens, both parties gain.

It's a win-win situation for both parties.

They both come out of the agreement not with less, but they come out with more.

They come out with more than they had before.

They come out stronger, which is the reason why covenants were cut, and the covenant covered the weaknesses and turned them into strengths.

And I think about us being Abraham, being in covenant with God, and we are in better covenant with God than Abraham is.

And so then, 25 years after this covenant was cut between God and Abraham, then came Isaac, when he and his old age and his wife's old age.

So I keep saying we have a better covenant.

Well, that's, hebrews 8-6 says that we have a better covenant found upon better promises.

And I like in 1 Corinthians, chapter 11, 25, paul wasn't present at the Last Supper, but he had a revelation of what happened at the Last Supper and he goes through that whole night about how Jesus took the bread and broke it and took the cup and blessed it and in 1 Corinthians 11, 25, and the amplified, he quotes Jesus as saying this this cup is the new covenant, ratified and established in my blood.

1 Corinthians 11 · chapter mention

Oh, I tell you what you talk about, something that's my dad used to call it a lead pipe cinch.

In other words, you can't break it.

I mean, it is unchangeable.

God swore he ratified and established that covenant through the blood of his son, jesus.

And that blood went behind the veil and is there now so that every time we fall short in any way, I mean every time that we sin, every time that we miss the mark, then our advocate, jesus, he's our advocate, he's our mediator of the new covenant and he's able to point to the blood and say Father, the blood has been shed for them and they're pleading that they're admitting wrong and God is faithful and just to forgive us and cleanse us.

Praise God.

So we never have any reason to allow our shortcomings to interrupt our covenant.

And so the blood went behind the veil.

You see, that's an anchor to our soul.

The Bible says An anchor.

Why does our?

Because our soul is a part of our being that is under the influence of this world.

I mean, we get assailed on a daily basis, especially right now, with all sorts of threats, all sorts of lies, all sorts of crazy things that are going on right now.

In many cases it's confusion and so forth and so on.

Listen, we need an anchor to our soul, and so that's what I want to talk about.

I've got three of them here tonight that we can talk about, and this hope in these anchors this hope is an anchor to our soul will keep it from from being shaken in our thinking.

And remember, faith is the substance of things hope for.

So the hope is what's under attack, your hope is what's under attack.

And so let's talk about the three exchanges.

We have coats, weapons, and and uh, uh, we have, uh, yeah, coats, weapons.

What was the third one?

Sorry about that?

And uh, blood, of course.

So those three elements of the covenant, unless they, they, they signify hope that will stabilize us.

So the first one is coats, which means that we have God's own authority.

The coat was a symbol of authority.

It also was a symbol that that, uh, you know in the Bible it's, it's God's very own armor, ephesians 6, 11,.

Wherefore, take upon you the whole armor of God, and when you.

When you piece the armor together, it forms a coat.

You know, I've got the breastplate of righteousness, the helmet of salvation.

You gird your loins about with truth, your feet shot with the preparation of the gospel of peace.

You have the, the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God, the shield of faith, where, with your able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked, it says take upon you the whole armor of God.

So that's God's coat.

You look just like Jesus when you take on the whole armor of God.

And that stands for the fact that you have God's own authority.

Matthew 28,.

Jesus said all authority in heaven and earth is given unto me.

Go ye, therefore.

So he delegated that authority to you and to me, to the church, but to you personally.

See, it's so easy to forget that you have authority.

In the midst of a storm, in the midst of a circumstance that's not moving, it's easy for your hope to be assailed about your own authority.

Well, I guess my authority is just not working.

Yes, it is, and you have this anchor.

You have this anchor.

Lay, hold on the anchor that God can't lie.

God cannot lie.

He gave it to you.

You didn't earn it, he gave it to you, and, of course, ephesians 2, 6, take upon you the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand in the evil day.

We're in the evil day right now.

We're part of that evil day.

Right now we need anchors to our soul, or to our mind, our will, our intellect.

I'll tell you the devil try to chisel away at your will.

He will try to get you to relax your faith, stand, and he does it by attacking your mind.

All right, so the first, for the first anchor of hope is the coats or the whole armor of God.

The second is that we have God's own weaponry.

Remember, they traded weapons, they traded weapons, and so the weapons that we have are, first of all, the name of Jesus.

Think about Mark, chapter 16.

Mark 16 · chapter mention

You know, jesus said, going to all the world, preach the gospel to every creature.

And he said in my name.

He said cast out demons.

In my name, lay hands on the sick and they shall recover.

That was the equipment that he gave for us to go out and obey his command to spread the good news.

He gave us the name of Jesus.

That is a great weapon that we have Exclusive right to use the name of Jesus.

And when you use the name of Jesus, your covenant partner, then demons have to bow, demons have to get out of the way because he defeated them, and so when you use that name, it's the same as Jesus himself showing up on the scene.

And another weapon we have is the Word of God.

Second Corinthians, chapter 10, verse four, he said the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but they're mighty through God.

2 Corinthians 10 · chapter mention

And so one of those weapons that we found in Ephesians is the sword of the spirit, which is the Word of God.

It's the only offensive weapon that we have, and what a weapon it is.

I mean, when you speak the Word, the Word of God in your mouth, with faith in your heart, operates the same as God's Word in his mouth, and so, again, you're identical to God, that you're irresistible.

Otherwise, god lied, but we know God didn't lie and God cannot lie.

See, we have to get back to the bedrock.

We have to get back and dig in that bedrock and get down and get the nuggets of our covenant, new covenant nuggets to see us through some of the things that we're facing.

You know, I'm not saying these things we're facing are not serious, but they're nothing compared to the nuggets.

We've got Nothing compared to the promise that we have.

And so the last weapon that we have is the Holy Ghost.

Oh, what a weapon he is.

Jesus said you should receive power after a Holy Ghost comes upon you.

And so we have the Holy Ghost.

The greater one lives in on the inside, the greater is he that's in us and he that's in the world.

He's not in there to hitchhike, he's in there to bring victory If we'll lean on him in the time of trouble.

So you start putting the weapons together in this nugget and I tell you, you'll come up off of your face and out of your bed and out of your pity party and you'll stand upright on your feet and you'll begin to use those weapons and you'll realize you've got to coat on, cause you look just like him, you're wet.

You've got your armor on and let me tell you something, you've got most of the battle one right there.

But just in case, you've got the third thing, the third nugget, and that is the blood of Jesus.

The blood of Jesus, remember, the blood has been taken by the Lord behind the veil.

It's up there in the mercy seat.

It's there in heaven to prove to God that you've been made worthy.

You've been redeemed by the precious blood of Christ as of a lamb without blemish and without spot.

You've been redeemed from the power and penalty of sin, from the power and penalty of sickness and disease, the power and penalty of lack.

And you have no, there's nothing against you.

There's no, there's no indictment against you.

There's nothing against you.

Why?

Because the blood has cleansed you and oh, what a powerful thing it is.

It just, essentially, we can just say look, the blood of Jesus says that all of our enemies are God's enemies.

You know, whenever something rises up against me whether it's sickness, or whether it's disease, or sometimes it's people Sometimes people line themselves up against me and they become my enemy.

Well, I always just transfer it to God and say well, god, they're not speaking against me, they're speaking against you.

I'm just the FedEx man.

What have I got?

I'm just a messenger boy here.

I don't have anything of myself.

I'm just doing what you told me to do.

I got the message you gave me.

They're speaking against me, lord.

They're speaking against you.

Have mercy on them, lord.

I pray mercy on them because I know that I'm the only one that can really go between, but I pray God's mercy on them.

If they happen to be somebody close to me, I might have to take my pastoral covering off of them so that they, because I have to give a bad report to the Lord and say, lord, I can't be responsible for their protection any longer because they're speaking wrong and they're acting wrong.

But have mercy on them, amen.

And so I line the battle up.

I don't ever, I don't ever, I'm never on the firing line.

It's God that's on the firing line, because his blood makes my enemies his enemies.

You want to fight?

Go ahead and fight against him.

Oh, thank God for the blood.

Revelation 12, 11,.

We overcome him by the blood of the lamb and the word of our testimony.

And so we have to have that word of what the blood has done for us.

It's good to know what the blood I mean.

We can sit around and have these little sayings without understanding the relevance of them.

Like I plead the blood, I plead the blood.

Well, let's find out what we are saying.

What does that mean?

So let's have a testimony of what the blood has purchased for us.

I've been redeemed, I've been purchased.

I'm not my own.

My body is the temple of the Holy Ghost.

Devil, you're trying to press pass on God's property.

You're trying to put a virus on me.

I'm not going to receive a virus in Jesus' name and I'm not going to give one off either.

Because of why, because of the blood.

The blood has bought me.

I don't belong to myself, and so these nuggets sometimes are not just laid on top of the ground.

I know that we've talked about these nuggets tonight, but it's when we're under pressure sometimes that we've got to dig down and reacquain ourselves with what God has given us, what God has said.

He's not a man that he should lie, he's faithful.

If we're patient, his word will always work Sometimes.

You know God's never late.

He's a little last minute sometimes, but he's never late.

Don't get discouraged about the time.

You know our faith works as seed.

You know God said in the book of Genesis, chapter eight seed time and harvest will not sowing and reaping.

Seed time and harvest will not cease as long as the earth remain it.

So it takes time from the time we exercise faith until the time it shows up.

Between the amen and the, there it is is the seed time.

And so you know, listen, it's different for different things, and so if your promise hadn't showed up yet, don't give up, don't relax your stand of faith.

God is not unrighteous, he's not unfair to forget all the seed that you've sown, but he is faithful.

Who promised amen?

So let's dig down deep and retrieve these new covenant nuggets and continue walking by faith and not by sight.

Come on, let's lift our hands.

New covenant nuggets tonight.

Hallelujah, glory to God.

They're more precious than gold that perishes.

Halle, I trust you got something out of this.

I know many of us are fighting some battles, and this is the season for that right now.

But I tell you what we are winners in Christ.

Praise the Lord.