Covenant Relationships

Good morning, Christ Community Church.

Y'all come on in, let's get started.

You guys stand with us and sing along.

Here we go.

Now I looked over Jordan and what did I see?

Come in for the carrying me home.

There's a band of angels coming after me.

Come for the carrying me home.

Swing low.

Sweet cherry.

Come for the carrying me home.

Swing low.

Sweet cherry.

Come after carrying me home.

I'm sometimes up, I'm sometimes down.

Come for the carry me home.

I know my soul is heavily bound.

Come for carrying me home.

Sing it out.

Swing home.

Switch area.

Come up for carrying me home.

Swing home.

Switch area.

Come up for carrying me home.

Now if you get there, before I do, come before the carry me home.

Tell all my friends I'm a comin' too.

Come for the carry me home.

Swing low.

Switch area.

Come before the carrying me home.

Swing low.

Sweet cherry up.

Come and for the carry me home.

Single.

Switch area.

Come for the carrying me home.

Swing low.

Switch area.

Come for the carrying me home.

They come for the carrying home.

They come for the carry me home.

Morning, good morning.

Come on in.

Come on in the house.

I will bless the Lord at all times, and his praise shall forever be in my mouth.

My soul shall make her boast in the Lord.

The humble will hear thereof and be glad.

Good morning, C3.

It is so good to be here today.

Our 2023 budget was presented to the leadership team and it has been approved.

If you have any questions about the budget or anything, please see Larry or Alan Boland.

Alan is the old man in the back with the white ponytail.

Or Terry Townsend.

If you have any questions and would like to know anything else about that.

So as we prepare for our worship service this morning, let's um turn our minds and our hearts to Hebrews the 10th chapter, the 16th and the 17th verses.

This is the covenant I will make with them after that time, says the Lord.

I will put my laws in their hearts and I will write them on their minds.

Then he adds, their sins and lawless acts I will remember no more.

Amen.

That's enough.

If I do nothing else, that is enough.

My friend says he will throw them in the sea of forgetfulness.

He will remember them no more.

Let us pray.

Heavenly Father, I praise and thank you for your goodness and your grace to all who have trusted in Jesus as Savior.

Thank you that the blood of Jesus has washed away the remembrance of our sins.

Hallelujah.

And that He took our judgment on Himself on Calvary's cross to open our minds and our hearts to hear what the Spirit has to say.

Amen.

Still inside the storm, the promise of the sure.

And I trust the power of your word enough to seek your kingdom first.

Beyond the barren plains, beyond the ocean waves.

When I walk through the waters, I won't be overcome.

When I go through the rivers, I will not be drowned, I got take away.

So I am not afraid.

You keep the promises to make There isn't a one that is delayed.

So I will not lose.

Everything you say is life to me.

Or if you got low register like Zach, I don't wanna miss one word you speak.

So quite my heart, I'm listening.

Cause when you speak, confusion fades in just a word.

And suddenly I'm not afraid 'cause you speak, and freedom rains.

There is hope.

And every single word you say, sing it.

I don't wanna miss one word you speak.

I don't wanna miss one word you speak.

So quiet my heart, I'm listening.

You whisper peace.

We don't have the words to say.

I don't wanna miss one word you speak.

Everything you say is live to me.

Oh I don't wanna miss one word you speak.

Quite my heart, I'm listening, you know this one.

I trust it just one- I trust this thing put up and I don't want it forward, it's everything you say, you start work, it's quite my heart, I miss the name I don't wanna miss one word everything's like to me.

Oh I don't wanna miss one word you speak.

Cry my heart, I'm listening, and I don't wanna miss one word you speak.

Cause everything you say is life to me, and I don't wanna miss one word you speak.

So quiet my heart, I'm listening.

If you're a student, you're dismissed.

If you're a guest, welcome to Christ Community Church.

We're very happy that you have chosen to be with us today.

Christopher, what a great song.

What a great prayer.

Lord Jesus, I don't want to miss a single word that you say to me.

Because everything you say is life to me.

Let that be so, Lord Jesus.

Um, real quickly, restrooms are out that door and down the hall.

Um, thank if you came early to help set all this up.

Bless you, thank you.

Thank you for your faithful giving.

Bless the Lord.

The budget was finalized and approved.

And if you do have any, like, well, what do y'all spend the money on at this church?

I'm thinking about giving to the church, but I'm not sure how y'all use the money.

You can come see me or Brenda or Alan or Terry.

And uh Alan's the old guy in the back with the ponytail.

Alan's the old guy in the back with the ponytail, and uh they'll tell you we have no secrets.

There's nothing uh yeah, you will we'll tell you more than you want to know.

So uh just ask those people and they'll tell you anything you want to know.

Um we had our first Thursday night Bible uh study and prayer gathering Thursday night at our house.

It was great.

Brenda, what'd you think?

Was it worth coming to?

Yeah.

Robin, you liked it?

It really was a it was it was good.

The Lord was there.

It was good.

And uh we'll meet again at our home.

Um yeah, right there.

Thank you, Colin.

Uh we started about two or three minutes uh after six, and we were through two or three minutes before seven.

So it was it was good.

And um, yeah, we're gonna we're gonna do it again this Thursday night.

So you come if you can.

We'd love to have you.

Uh if you will text me that you're coming, I'll send you a passage to look at and to read and to prepare you for our study.

And I'll also let you know, uh well, I'm gonna let you know right now that this we we'll try to pick a different topic every Thursday night to for our the focus of our prayers.

And um this Thursday night I think we're gonna pray for our children.

And so if you'd like to come and join us in praying uh for our children, whether they're 55 or 55.

But uh if you'd like to come and pray for our for your children and pray for one another children, um that's what we're gonna pray for.

If you don't have children or grandchildren, those young people that are coming up behind us are ours.

We're responsible for those.

Yes.

Thank you.

And and um I would add to that, you know, the Bible says repeatedly that one of the neat things about God is He will not let us miss the joys of life.

Now we can miss them, but we have to step over Him to do that.

We can do that, we can miss the joys of life.

We can get all muled up and angry and embittered and you know, and all that, but we literally have to jump over the blessings of God if that's the way you want to live, if that's the way we want to live.

And uh one of the one of the passages that he says a number of times that I love is if you do it my way, even women that didn't have children will have a multitude of children.

Even children that didn't have parents will have a multitude of parents.

I'll make sure that the desires and the needs of your heart, if you give me a chance, I'll I'll I'll meet that need bigger than you would have hoped.

And so, if you don't have kids, come and pray for other people's children and um your own.

Make them your own.

Own those children.

And um some of y'all would love to give the ownership of your kids to other people, so that's that's uh that's a that's another deal.

Um welcome.

We're glad that you're here today.

Bless you if you've been around Christianity at all, then you know like I know that, or you'll hear it said, God wants to have a personal relationship with you.

And the Bible gives us lots of symbols or images or metaphors of the relationships that God wants to have with us that communicate that intimacy, that that personal relationship.

What are some of those, friends?

Like um a marital relationship, a husband, or a parental relationship.

He's a God the father, um shepherd.

It's a hard job.

The sheep go where they want, and they have to be the dumbest animal on the planet, yeah.

They have to be shepherded uh friend.

He wants to be our friend.

Yeah, there's all these relational images that the Bible is filled with that all communicate in different ways, the same message.

I Yahweh, I want to have this intimate, close relationship with you.

Let me.

Let me.

There's another relationship that God created us to have with him, and that he desires very much to have with us, that is not as well known.

Um it's not as familiar to many of us, and yet, if you read the Bible, if you read the Bible with me through this year, now you're gonna go, well, dad gummit, the Bible is filled with references to this relationship that God wants to have with me.

And that is the relationship of being our partner.

The Bible repeatedly tells us that God wants to partner with us.

He wants to have a partnership with us.

Uh, and it's literally from the first story in the Bible with Adam and Eve through through the last book of the Bible, repeatedly God says in different ways, but it's the same message, I want to have a partnership with you.

And I don't know if the Bible ever uses that word.

The word that it uses most often is the word covenant.

I want to have a covenant relationship with you.

But don't let that word us like, ooh, that's an ominous word.

No, no, no.

It just literally means a partnership that God wants to have with us.

The idea of covenant or partner it it meant in Bible times.

Exactly what it means now.

No difference at all.

A partnership, at least a good, strong, healthy partnership, just literally means someone or two people that are going to work together in an atmosphere of commitment, trust, honor, loyalty.

There's an understanding and a good partnership that this person is, they're out for my good.

They're committed to doing me good.

And it, you know, between those two partners, that's the atmosphere that they create.

Just some of you will like this.

I love it.

The original word, Hebrew word for covenant, really can be traced back to an agrarian idea or term.

And where it came from was in the time of Moses and even David, farmers that would grow vines.

Sometimes these vines would do this naturally, and sometimes the farmer would intentionally make this happen.

But the word covenant comes from this agrarian idea of two vines that wrap themselves around each other for support so that they can grow up out of the dirt and the shade and get up where they can enjoy the sunlight.

And it really ultimately became the word covenant, is connected with the idea of clinging.

Two vines that would cling together for support.

And that's ultimately where we get the other another Hebrew word in the Old Testament, and that's the word wait.

Wait.

The word wait in the Bible has to do with clinging together.

Now we we want to associate waiting with time.

We inject or interject time into that.

I'm waiting for a bus, I'm waiting for a phone call, I'm waiting for a, you know, whatever.

But in the Bible, that's not what waiting, waiting didn't have anything to do with time.

It had to do with this idea that we're in partnership and I'm gonna wait on you, I will not move forward without you.

Isn't that a lovely idea?

That idea that we're in partnership.

I want to move forward.

I want to, but because I'm in partnership with you, I'm not gonna go without you.

I'm not gonna leave you behind.

It's a lovely idea.

Psalm 37, my favorite psalm in the Bible, um, talks repeatedly of this idea of waiting on the Lord, clinging to the Lord out of my confidence that He is clinging to me.

I pray that for you on a, I'm not gonna say everyday basis, but more days than not, I pray for you by name, and one of the things that I pray for you by name is God, help us see, open our eyes to this truth that you are clinging to us, and may that give us the desire to cling to you.

In Psalm 63, David said it this way Lord God, I will cling to you, for you cling securely to me.

Isn't that lovely?

I'm gonna cling to you, Lord, because you're clinging so securely, so snugly to me.

Covenants could be made uh between people, between families, between tribes, between nations.

Okay?

And Shirley, uh, when you think of a covenant relationship, a partnership relationship, any jump out at you?

There's there the Bible's filled with these.

Yeah.

But any that jump out at you.

Well, we were talking about David and Jonathan, so you you might be familiar with that.

Um, but that David and Jonathan had such uh David was to be king, and Jonathan was the current king's son.

Um and he, if you think about it, David was going to, in this process, usurp the throne from Jonathan.

That that's what would have happened.

He wouldn't have taken it, but that was he was God's choice.

And so, but those two guys were such good friends that Jonathan did not respond, in my opinion, like a uh normal person would.

I'm mad at you, I'm gonna hate you because you're gonna take what's rightfully mine.

It was just the opposite.

How can this clinging thing Larry's talking about?

How can I make you as my friend and the next king that God has chosen more successful?

How can I help you?

How can I love you?

How can I keep you safe because Jonathan's dad ended up being in kind of going mad and tried to kill everybody?

Including Jonathan and David.

That's right.

Crazy.

Yeah.

And um Jonathan, even to the point of being willing, I think David too, but willing to sacrifice him not only his position, but his life for his friend.

And then once Jonathan died, um, David came along and took care of all of Jonathan's children.

Yes.

So it just was a that that image of these two vines growing together.

That's really that's real.

Yeah.

And it and it happens between it can happen between human beings.

And it happened between Jonathan and David.

Right?

Yeah, no, I'm just thinking about what you've said and how um was selfless.

Yeah, and there was a selflessness to it.

And in that culture, in Jewish culture, family was everything.

Family ruled, family was all.

Well, for one thing it was tribal, and so you had to, what kind of tribal?

And you had to uh you had to physically take care of your people.

Yes.

Hide them and you know, when when bad guys came.

And Jonathan and David chose each other because they had this covenant relationship, they chose each other over family.

And over tribe.

They were not even from the same tribe.

Yeah.

Right?

But they chose, they entered into this covenant relationship with each other, and at the end of the day, they chose each other over their own families.

That's significant to us.

It was unbelievable and unheard of in that culture.

Yahweh invites people throughout the Bible into these partnerships, these covenant relationships.

And I would just say, not going to dwell here, but if you study the gods of the Old Testament, the gods of the other nations, Gods didn't do that.

Gods did not enter into covenants with people.

That was a very unique activity or action or choice of Yahweh.

He he chose to enter into covenants with people, and we're going to talk about a few of those right now.

But just so you get it, I don't want you to miss this.

God did that to communicate something.

If you entered into a covenant with somebody, what you're communicating is I honor you.

I value you.

I I want, I don't want to go through life without you.

You are important, you are significant.

I I am intentionally entering into this relationship to bless you, to include you.

Thank you.

I will listen to you.

I will honor you.

I am committed to blessing you.

I don't want you to miss that.

That God offers us a covenant relationship because he is so impassioned to communicate to you.

I think you're great.

I value you.

I honor you.

I don't want to move forward through life without you.

I want to include you in what I'm doing.

All right.

For the sake of time, the Bible is filled with covenant relationships.

And in fact, the Bible is not only filled with covenant relationships, the Bible is not filled, but there's probably a dozen examples of covenant relationships that God enters into with people.

Clearly, we don't have time to go through all of those.

Okay?

So I chose five.

Clearly, I think they're pretty significant.

You might say, well, you left out another one that was significant.

You're right.

Okay?

But just so you know, but let me run through these with you real carefully, quickly, I should say.

First covenant that we see God entering into with people is his covenant with Adam and Eve, the Adamic covenant.

God created Adam and Eve, placed them in this garden, and he invited them into a partnership, a covenant relationship, to join him in ruling over creation, giving care for creation, and to expand creation.

It's one of my things my wife is always talking to me about.

She reads all this stuff about how the universe is expanding all the time.

Well, if you think through that God was inviting Adam and Eve to expand the garden, to expand creation with him.

That's a whole other study for another time, but it's it's really interesting, you know, to think about that.

It's very important, and you don't need to hear me say it, but I'm gonna say it anyway.

Clearly, God's invitation to partner with Adam and Eve was not based upon need.

God wasn't wringing his hands going, oh my gosh, I've I bought this big new house, I've overspent, I've overcommitted, I need some help.

No, no.

God did not invite Adam and Eve into this covenant relationship to care for and protect and expand uh the all of creation.

He invited them in out of sheer delight.

Just like you would, uh Becky, you or Rodney or Sherry and I would uh we're gonna make some cookies or we're gonna work in the yard, and our grandchild says, I want to help.

Well, come on and help.

Or we might say, Hey, come help me.

It's not out of need, it's out of delight.

I I want my grandson to help me.

Now, it might take ten times longer, but that's okay.

The joy of him doing it with me far outweighs how efficient the work is done, and I love that idea.

The second covenant is the Noadic covenant, the covenant with Noah.

And um that's an interesting covenant.

Um you want to talk about that for a minute, Brian?

Well, I'll talk about it a little bit, um, and you'll have to fill in the blanks.

We we think that covenant, it's two parts, right?

We think that covenant is, if this were a quiz, you I might say, you know, what what do you think the covenant with Noah is, and it's about the rainbow, and then he'll no longer flood the earth, and that's part of it.

But it's the second part in the bee-teen part of that covenant.

Yeah, read you say that part.

Yeah, okay.

Because I want to say it correctly.

If I she said, you know, everybody knows God made a covenant with Noah not to flood the earth anymore with water, not to destroy the world with water.

He did say that.

That's the second part of the covenant, and it's the the less important part of that covenant.

If you read the verses before he says that, what he says is this I want you to watch how I have created the world.

I've set the world up to operate by certain principles.

We're gonna follow the rising and the setting of the sun.

We're gonna follow the seasons, we're gonna follow the look at outer space and how that operates.

Look at my creation and look at the way I relate to my creation, and the way I do that, that's how I'm gonna relate to you.

You're gonna learn if you just open your eyes and see what I created, how it works, and how I relate to it, you're gonna discover who I am and how I and how I operate, what I value, and how I will relate to you.

It's a very interesting idea, isn't it?

To look at the at the earth and the systems of the natural world, which was the first created thing.

Yes.

Before us.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And and for all of those days, God set that going and then all of it, and then said, This is good, this is good.

It's reflective of me.

And so I think that's interesting, right?

I mean, all through the Old Testament, I'm just gonna read a passage, I mean, a short little verse or something from um Isaiah 40, but it's all through Job as well at the end.

Who else has held the oceans in his hands?

Who has measured off the heavens with his fingers?

Who else knows the weight of the earth or has weighed the mountains and hills on a scale?

Um, he picks up the whole earth as though it were a grain of sand.

So paying attention to the beauty, but also the the awesomeness of creation is impossible.

Beauty, the the Yeah, it's it's you if you know me, you know I like to look at the sky.

And sometimes um, it happened last night.

I was outside just looking at stars for just a second, and thought about the this and thought about the vastness of that, and that it's endless, that it never stops, that that that it is mathematically accurate, predictable, really is very overwhelming.

Like think of the depth of the sea.

How dark, how deep.

It's overwhelming and and a little bit intimidating.

And I think that's our relationship with nature that way is is a part of our relationship with God.

He is overwhelming.

And he's supposed to be that's right.

Who wants a who wants to worship and trust and follow a God that isn't?

In all that movement of all those countless stars, God holds this one and all of them.

He picks it up and holds it in his hand.

That image.

That's what we're supposed to be.

We're supposed to be in awe of this.

And Isaiah says that God calls every star by an intimate name.

Every star has an intimate name that God refers to when he describes that star.

In Isaiah 40, the prophet, or God says through the prophet, look up and behold all that I have made.

Stop looking down.

Look up, look, look out, look around, open your eyes.

And if you will, you will see who has you will see who it is that has created all of this.

We'll learn about God and his ways and how he relates to us by how he relates to his creation.

Didn't Jesus basically say the exact same thing?

Yes.

I had to think about it.

Yes, yes, he said, consider the birds of the field, consider the flowers.

Look at the look at the systems.

I I read this thing, uh, I think it was Einstein, who said that if the bees, the system of just the bees on earth, the intricacy of how they continue the plants to grow and move, if the bees were gone, it would take three years, and mankind could not support, it could not survive.

And that's just not that's not the only system.

Look at the systems of the worms underneath the ground that keep everything stirred up.

If they didn't do that, we couldn't plant.

It would be so hard and dense we couldn't plant.

All of that reveals so much.

God set into into motion.

It reveals not only the glory of himself, but the intricacies of him.

God made a covenant with Noah.

And that covenant was designed to communicate.

You are important, you're invaluable, you're precious.

I am intricately involved in your life to the very smallest of details.

And if you'll just look around you, you'll see how involved I am in all of creation.

And if and if that's true, how much more so?

Am I involved in the lives of my favorites?

My favorites.

Um the next covenant that I'll mention is the Abrahamic covenant, the covenant that God made with Abraham.

And just to there's a lot going on there, and we're going to come back to it for just a minute.

Uh, but let me just say this.

If you read the Bible up until Genesis chapter 12, first 11 chapters, what you discover is that mankind as a whole came to a place where they said to God, I doubt your love.

Genesis 12 · chapter mention

I doubt your wisdom.

I doubt your faithfulness.

I don't want you to be my boss.

Thanks, but no thanks.

And so in Genesis chapter 12, there's this big, huge, if you'll just listen as you read it, you can hear the screeching of breaks.

Genesis 12 · chapter mention

And God says, okay, then I'm gonna choose one man, one person, and I'm gonna focus on him.

I'm gonna focus, I'm gonna, I'm gonna offer him this partnership, this relational, this relationship, this partnership with him, this covenant with him, and I'm gonna reveal to all those that rejected me, that don't trust me, that don't think I am committed to them and love them and am wise enough, I'm gonna relate to this one person.

And if the rest of the world will just watch, will just watch how I relate to this one person, how I treat this person, then they'll learn who I am and how I will relate to them as well.

I will reveal my character, my priorities, my plans, my ways.

God went from offering a covenant to all of mankind to offering it to one person.

Quickly, let's go on.

The next covenant that I'm going to focus on is the covenant that God made with Israel.

Israel is enslaved in Egypt.

They're crying out to God for help and deliverance, and God comes down and he sets them free.

And brings them across the Red Sea and literally creates a nation of people.

And there's a lot going on with the Mosaic Covenant.

I understand that.

Okay.

But if you'll step back and see the big picture, what you'll discover is this God picks one nation out of all the peoples of all the nations, and God says, I want to show you what a people, what a nation will look like whose God is Yahweh.

Now we want to get out all bogged down into the Levitical laws and the sacrifices and the tabernacle and the uh dietary laws and What happens when you get a leprosy and all that.

And I'm not saying that stuff's not very important.

I read it every year.

I value it.

But if you can just step back and see that what is the what was God offering Israel when he offered them a covenant?

What he simply was doing is he picked one people group and he said, I'm going to lay out for you how to live life.

And I want you to follow this.

But it's not just for your sake.

It's so that the rest of the world can see what a nation would look like when Yahweh was their God.

How God, I'm going to show the world what it looks like for a people group, for a community to have God dwell with them, lead them, protect them, provide for them, defend them.

I'm going to, I want, I want to reveal to the world what it looks like when a people group follow the direction of Yahweh.

How are they going to treat each other?

And how are they going to respond to me?

So important that we see that, guys, and we don't.

We see this covenant that God offered to Israel almost like we would win in the lottery.

You know, I go into a 7-Eleven, which I've I've never done this, but go into a 7-Eleven and pay some good money to buy a ticket that I would more likely get a meteorite hit me on the head than win the money.

But nonetheless, it must be a good investment because many people do it.

And lo and behold, I don't even know how you find it if you won, but somehow I am notified that you won the lottery.

Woohoo! My whole life's changed.

But that's Israel was enslaved to the Egyptians.

Their lives were miserable.

And God came down and offered them a covenant relationship.

But God didn't just come down, zap Egypt with ten plagues, set the Israelites free, and send them on their way.

Love you.

Here's your freedom.

Bye.

Good luck.

Good luck.

Go and live life and prosper.

No, no, no.

We make God almost like the drive-thru at McDonald's.

I'm hungry.

Hey, there's a place that's got what I want.

I'll drive and I'll speak into this little box.

Hey, I want a number one in the Diet Coke.

And then I go around and the lady at the thing hands me the food and the Diet Coke.

Bah.

And if I if they forget the fries, I am mad.

You see what I'm saying?

If I don't get exactly what I think I'm supposed to get from this.

I wouldn't get mad at that.

Okay.

You just got mad at that.

Yeah, I did.

Idiots.

Anyway.

But if if we're using that as a metaphor, all right, so I'm, you know, I'm gonna drive through.

You better give me, you said you're gonna do it, you better give me exactly what I what I want.

God didn't just offer Israel freedom from slavery.

God offered Israel an invitation to be in a family.

You see, that's God didn't just get them out of slavery and then say, y'all go live the way you want.

Do what you want.

No, no, no.

God said, I want to form you into a community, into a family where I am right in the middle of it.

That's what God was, and that's what the Mosaic covenant, we want to get all bogged down and all.

God was offering the Israelites an invitation to be in a community where God was right in the middle.

And you might think, well, no infidel would say, God, give me what I want.

Thanks, bye.

How about the prodigal son?

Isn't that the story of the prodigal son?

Dad?

I'd like my wealth.

Bye.

The father wasn't offering the prodigal wealth.

Sure, if that's all you want, take it.

But that's not what I'm offering you.

I'm offering you a family.

You're a part of the family where I'm the dad.

And it is going to operate differently than the way you want, you selfish knucklehead.

But it's going to be wonderful.

It's going to be wonderful.

And then finally, the Davidic covenant.

That's the, again, there's lots of these that we can go on and on and on.

But God, you mentioned it about David and Jonathan.

God comes to David when he's very young, and he says, David, you'll never believe this, but I've chosen you to be the king of my people.

And I've got some very clear instructions on how I want you to do that.

Because I don't just want you to be successful.

Everything you do as king is going to teach my people about me.

How I will rule.

The kind of king I will be for my people.

So I want you to follow me.

David did he got a good strong C.

Let's just leave it at that.

He did okay.

He did okay.

Better than most, but he still didn't do great.

But he told David something very interesting.

He said, David, I'm giving you this great opportunity, and there's great responsibility with it, and I'm going to help you do good.

But you're not, you're going to fail.

You're going to mess up, just like everybody else messes up in all these covenants.

But one of your great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandchildren, he's going to be special.

I'm going to send somebody that is connected to your bloodline one day.

And he's going to be the real king.

And he's going to make right everything that you and everybody else has messed up.

And he's going to restore, he's going to create this new kingdom, this restored kingdom, and he's going to put back and make right everything that's been messed up since I offered Adam and Eve the very first covenant.

Do you see how it goes full circle?

God's not doing something new.

He's just restoring what he started from the very beginning of time.

I have a question.

What might that be?

Of all five of those covenants, and you could add all the other covenants that you want to, that you could discover from the Bible.

Of all of those covenants, there's only two that are regularly of all those covenants, there's only two that are repeated regularly throughout the rest of the Old Testament and throughout the New Testament.

Do you know what those two are?

Full disclosure.

I failed at this quiz miserably on the back porch.

Does anybody know?

There's only two.

Anybody raise your hand?

Does anybody know the two covenants?

Out of all these covenants, there's only two that God focuses on after they were established and pretty much done with.

What are those two, Patty?

Okay?

The Davidic covenant.

And thank you.

Gold Star.

What do you go, dude?

And the other one is the Abrahamic covenant.

Of all the other covenants in the Bible, God establishes them, but then he moves on.

It's like, but the two covenants that God established, and he went back over and over and over and over again to emphasize and to remind us of were the Abrahamic covenant and the Davidic covenant.

And it's God is, and if you if you read the Bible with me, if you'll read through the Bible with me this year, one of the things you'll start seeing it over and over and over again, God makes this kind of a statement.

I'm going to help them because of my servant Abraham.

I'm going to forgive them because of my servant David.

I'm going to deliver them or rescue them or provide for them or heal them.

But he always says, or he regularly says, I'm going to do it because I made two covenants that are special.

One was with Abraham and one was with David.

They go like this.

Let me just give you an example.

There are hundreds of examples.

Dare I say thousands of examples, but at least hundreds.

Like in Exodus 2, the Bible says, Israel cried out for help, and God heard them.

And he remembered his covenant with Abraham and came to their aid.

Why?

Why, when Israel cried, when God's people cried out for help, why did God respond?

Because he remembered that he made a promise to Abraham, I'm going to take care of your children.

It's crazy.

And you'll start seeing it.

Another one, talk about David, 1 Kings 15.

God says, Because of my covenant with David, I will not abandon my people, but I will help them and bless them.

It's a huge principle that runs through the Bible.

God shows special love, forgiveness, deliverance, provision, protection, special to the people that are connected with the covenant that he made with Abraham and the covenant that he made with David.

And you might say, well, dude, I'm out of luck.

I'm not Jewish.

I don't have any of Abraham or David's DNA flowing through my blood.

No.

But let's see who God made that covenant to.

Look at Isaiah 55.

Listen to what God says.

Come, all who are thirsty and all who are hungry, but you have no money to buy water or bread.

Come, drink, and eat.

I will make with you an everlasting covenant based on my steadfast and sure love for David.

Who gets to get in on the benefits of God's covenant with Abraham?

Who gets to benefit from the covenant that God made with David?

People that are hungry and thirsty.

It doesn't say people who are circumcised, or people that celebrate the Passover, or people that go to the synagogue, people that are hungry and thirsty.

The Old Testament and the New Testament regularly declare that people that come to God with the faith of Abraham and with the faith of David get to benefit from the covenant that God made with Abraham and with David.

I've said this to y'all many times, but I just want you to get it.

Don't you find it, or should we not find it significant that the very first verse in the New Testament, which means New Covenant, the very first verse in the Bible, and I in the New Testament, Matthew 1.1.

You know what it says?

This is the genealogy of Jesus, the Messiah, the son of David, the son of Abraham.

Not the son of Adam, not the son of Noah, not the son of Moses, of all the associations that the New Testament writers could have focused on.

This is the genealogy of Jesus, the Messiah, the one that's been prophesied to come to make right what people screwed up.

And his relationship, what's important about his relationships, human relationships, is that he's the son of Abraham and the son of David.

Paul did not miss that.

Listen to what Paul says in Galatians 3.

Remember, people, those who have faith like Abraham are the children of Abraham.

The Old Testament scriptures saw that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, and it revealed the gospel in advance to Abraham.

It said, All nations will be blessed through you, Abraham.

So people who rely on faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith.

Let me give you two quick takeaways.

First one is this.

The Bible, I believe, would want us to know this as much as any message in Scripture.

And that is that the God of the Bible, Yahweh, the God of the Bible, Jesus Christ in the New Testament, he delights in making covenants and in keeping covenants.

Do you understand that?

Do I understand?

Do I live my life operating under the premise that I am in relationship, in partnership with somebody who delights in making covenants and delights in keeping covenants?

He is a God that is perpetually and continually inviting people into partnerships.

We were designed for covenant relationships.

See, we don't, we, we are a society of people.

We don't want to make covenants with God or with anybody else out of fear and out of selfishness.

I'm not going to promise Brenda, hey Larry, come do something with me every week for the rest of your life.

Uh, no thanks.

I'll try to do it sometimes when I can.

That's what, hey, would you come help me every week for the rest of your I might get a better offer.

Or I might stop liking that activity.

I'm not, mm-mm.

We don't like making.

That's why people don't want to get married anymore.

And I'm not throwing stones at anybody.

I don't mean that.

She probably feels the same way, but I I but um only sometimes.

But we don't we don't want to make promises.

We don't want to enter into partnerships where we have committed forever.

We don't want to do that.

I read an article just this morning.

I got up about 3 45 and I walked in, sat down in my favorite chair with my coffee and my Bible, and I looked at the news.

This, I'm not making this up.

How could I?

I opened up my little uh Google news or whatever the thing was.

First article.

First article said that there's been a Harvard study done that at the it's it's a multi- I think it was a 10-year study.

And you know what they discovered?

People who live the longest and who live the happiness, happiest are people that enter into the most committed relationships.

Gosh, I'm glad they discovered that.

Woo! I'd have missed it.

Isn't that what God is saying?

I don't make you promises that I will do when it's convenient or when you act nice.

I'm committed to you, I am giving you myself, I am, I promise you that I will be with you, I will walk with you, I will love you, I forgive you, I will bless you, I will, I will, and I will do it forever.

It sounds like this in the book of Job, where he says, even though he slays me, I will trust in him.

Even though he doesn't produce what I want when I want, which is what a petulant child wants.

Even though, yet will I trust in him?

That's what it sounds like.

Yes.

Job entered into a covenant with God, clearly, and God entered into a covenant with Job.

It didn't go the way Job had thought until the end.

You got to get to the end to say, dang, God did that well.

Which is what we will all see one way or the other.

One way or the other.

God created us for covenant relationships.

That's part of our identity as image-bearers of God.

God operates and relates to people via covenants, via partnerships.

God didn't want to do it alone.

We want to stay at home behind our little TVs and computer screens and our locked doors because the world is bad and inconvenient and disappointing.

And we want to hide.

We can do that.

But you won't live as long or as happy.

God says, I created you for covenant relationships with me and with each other.

And that's where you and I will find the greatest life.

Second thing that I want to remind us of is this.

If you read the book of Ezekiel, which that's an intimidating book, and the book of Jeremiah, both of those basically say the same thing.

And it's what Chris, I didn't tell Chris to sing that song this morning, but you did.

Let me read to you what Ezekiel 36 says.

God says, I will take you out of all the nations and I'll bring you home.

I'll wash you and you'll be clean from all your impurities and your idols.

I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you.

I'll remove your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh, and I'll put my spirit in you, and I will move you to follow my decrees and keep my laws.

And I will bring you home.

And you will be my people.

And I will be your God.

One common thread that connects all of the covenants that I mentioned today is simply this.

God made a covenant with different peoples or people groups, and God lived up to his part of that covenant relationship, that partnership perfectly.

But everybody on the other side failed miserably.

Not one person on the other side of the partnership lived up to their part of the bargain.

So God declared that there would be a day when he would send his son, Jesus Christ, the God man, and he would come and live a perfect life, obey everything that God asked him to do, and offer his life as a sacrifice for the sins of mankind.

And then Jesus says this I honored my half of the covenant with my Father.

You did not.

But I'm going to give you my righteousness.

All of my obedience, all of my faith, all of my love, all of my holiness, everything that the Father asked of me and he asked of you, and you failed at, I'm going to impute to you.

I'm going to give it to you as if you did live that life.

So that when my dad sees you and relates to you, he relates to you and sees you as if you're me, Jesus Christ.

You could not fulfill your half of the covenant, but I can in your place, and I give as a gift to you that righteousness, that goodness, that holiness, I impart that, I impute that into your life.

That is an overwhelming thought.

You think about that.

That is an overwhelming thought.

That that is the system.

Of love.

When I was growing up, uh when we were we were in high school, I hated math.

Hated it.

And did not flourish in that.

Actually, I didn't really flourish in school until I went to college.

But nonetheless, I hated math.

I struggled with it.

I didn't get it.

I didn't understand why anybody would want to know it.

I drove my teachers, which were her teachers too, I drove them crazy.

Can you imagine on my worst day?

I'm sitting there frustrated and angry and confused and failing.

And Albert Einstein walks in and sits beside me.

And he says, Hey, let me take that test for you.

It'd be okay.

I slid that test over and let him take that test for me.

And then he slid it back over and said, Now let Miss uh what was her name?

Miss uh Cal Cal Cal anyway, it doesn't matter what her name was, slides it back over and says, Now let her grade it.

That's what Jesus Christ did for us.

He gave us his grade.

And he took our grade.

That's how much the God of the Old Testament and the God of the New Testament loves you and loves me.

Oh.

Thank you, friend.

We're gonna take the Lord's Supper.

Uh, Sandra, would you and Robin come up here and help me?

You got a little sun on your shirt and you got little hearts on yours, so y'all are gonna be good.

Y'all come up and sort of stand right sort of beside me, if you will, just maybe right about there.

Yeah, come on over here.

Yeah, that'll be good.

Um, we're gonna take the Lord's Supper.

And um, I I bathed, I bore deodorant.

Come on, come on.

There you go.

Well, you ain't gonna be that close, but uh no, I love that.

Um yeah.

But um, yeah, we're gonna take bread, and we're gonna take juice, and you can take this kind of real bread and real wine in the little open cups, or you can take the whatever that is in there, and uh which and you can take that either way, and we're gonna eat and we're gonna drink.

Literally, Jesus told his disciples on the night before he was crucified, he said, I am creating a new covenant.

Not a replacement covenant, as much as it is the fulfillment of all of the covenants that my dad made with y'all.

I'm gonna fulfill all of that, complete all that, and make that something that is now applied to you so that you don't get an F by your name anymore.

You get an A plus.

I'll make sure of that.

If that reflects your belief in what Jesus Christ did on the cross for you, He died for your sin, took your sin, and gave you His righteousness so that you and I could live our days on this earth and forevermore after, then in a new covenant with God, a new partnership with God.

If that's your belief, then I invite you to come and eat and drink and to give thanks for that covenant relationship.

You come so lost only confess, do the shoe holy single week, John Feel.

Just to end the service today, just a little differently.

I want you to do something for me.

I want, and I realize for a couple of y'all this will be a little uncomfortable, but be be brave.

Be big boys and girls.

I want you to reach over and take the hand of the person next to you, closest to you.

At least one side.

Okay?

I want you to just grab somebody's hand.

Okay?

Friend or foe, okay?

In Psalm 132, God says this to you and to me.

He says, Because of my covenant with David, I promise to give you a horn.

And that's not a do-do-do-do, that's a bull's horn.

A horn of power.

I promise, because of my covenant with David, I promise to give you a horn of power, a lamp to guide you, and a crown.

You weary?

You feel like you're in the dark?

You don't feel like a prince or a princess?

I want you just real quickly to bow your heads and close your eyes, and just as to the best of your ability, ask God right now, just to bless your neighbor.

With a horn of power, a lamp of light, and a crown of royalty.

Lord God, we are here today and declare that because of what Jesus did when he came and lived and died and rose again, we are now the beneficiaries of all of your covenant promises.

Your promise of power and strength, your promise of light when we're in darkness, and your promise that we are now joint heirs and the adopted children of the King of the universe.

It's true because you declare it to be so, whether we feel it or not.

Let us have faith that when you make a promise, when you make a covenant, when you enter into a partnership with someone, you will see it through to the end.

Thank you for being a God that makes and keeps covenants.

Bless you.

Lord, and please be with Nancy Rumsey's daughter, Valerie, as she's about to go on a mission trip.

Please bless her and her team.

Please keep them safe.

Help them to make all of their connections, to get all their luggage to their final destination, bless the ministry that they'll be involved in.

Use them, keep them healthy and safe, and bring them home at the end of the project, happy and whole and safe.

Please let it be so.

We ask in Jesus' name.

Amen.

You're dismissed.