God’s Covenant Love
What is a Covenant?
Covenant is key to understanding how God relates to His Creation.
Covenant is what God has used through Scripture to describe His Love (320 times)
Humans made in His image are the main focus of God’s ‘Covenant Love’
The Scriptural story of God’s revelation to us is the unveiling of His Covenants
The ultimate revelation of His ‘Covenant Love’ is Jesus Christ
As followers of Jesus Christ Our Lord, we have committed to be HIS disciples
And as His disciples we are to love as He loves
As Followers of Jesus, guided by Scripture we express love in covenant relationships
God’s people throughout history have used a covenants to express love in the most important of all human relationships: Biblical Marriage…The Marriage Covenant
So as Christ’s body, HIS church, HIS ‘Called Out Ones’ we are expressing love in our relationship with each other in this ‘Family’ by instituting ‘Covenant Membership’.
There is only one requirement to be qualified to enter into such a Covenant Membership: That you have come to the place of Biblical Salvation in Christ Jesus!
From there we enter in by choice, conviction, obedience, commitment, and LOVE
Today I want to share with you the biblical story of God’s Covenant Love in preparation for that commitment some of us will make today and in the coming weeks and months here at Midtown Church.
It is the story of redemptive history, culminating in Christ Jesus
The progressive revelation of God’s love (He knew the best order)
I hope today you clearly hear God speaking to you in love thru His Covenant Love
The original covenant of life God made with Adam in the beginning was broken with the fall of man and sin entering into the world.
It is downhill from there, so bad God destroys the world with the great flood
God begins to rebuild the relationship with His Creation & Mankind:
The Story of Noah: The Covenant Love with ‘Fallen Mankind’
Genesis 6:17-18
I am going to bring floodwaters on the earth to destroy all life under the heavens, every creature that has the breath of life in it. Everything on earth will perish. But I will establish my covenant with you, and you will enter the ark—you and your sons and your wife and your sons’ wives with you.
- God ‘Establishes’ the Covenant
- It is with ALL mankind (one race,the human race)
God’s Covenant is all inclusive: everyone has access
The Story of Abram (who becomes Abraham): Big Picture of Covenant Love
Genesis 12:2-3
“I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.”
- God is going to form a Covenant People that He will bless ALL PEOPLES thru
God’s Covenant Love will be displayed through a certain Nation that will bless ALL
Genesis 15:6
Abram believed the Lord, and he credited it to him as righteousness.
- This is the basis of relationship with God: Total Faith in HIM
- This is how we access all of God’s Covenant Love!
Genesis 17:7
I will establish my covenant as an everlasting covenant between me and you and your descendants after you for the generations to come, to be your God and the God of your descendants after you.
- Eternal Nature of God’s Covenant Love
- Covenant is extended to all future generations & descendants of Abram’s faith
- God is the God of all who would put their faith in Him as HE reveals Himself
The Story of Moses: Covenant to Clarify a People and a Place to Birth Blessing
Exodus 6:2-4
God also said to Moses, “I am the Lord. I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob as God Almighty, but by my name the Lord I did not make myself fully known to them. I also established my covenant with them to give them the land of Canaan, where they resided as foreigners.
- Same God, same Covenant Love, now further revelation of that love / plan
- God’s Love can change you from a foreigner to an owner
Exodus 24:8
Moses then took the blood, sprinkled it on the people and said, “This is the blood of the covenant that the Lord has made with you in accordance with all these words.”
- Foreshadowing of Christ all over this revelation of God’s Covenant Love
- The Passover
- Covenant in Blood (Covenant Requires Sacrifice)
- Specifics spelled out ‘The Law’ (previous 4 chapters was God giving the laws)
Story of David: Pointing to The Messiah and The New Covenant in God’s Love
Psalm 89:3-4 & 28-29
You said, “I have made a covenant with my chosen one, I have sworn to David my servant, ‘I will establish your line forever and make your throne firm through all generations. I will maintain my love to him forever, and my covenant with him will never fail. I will establish his line forever, his throne as long as the heavens endure.
- This Covenant Love story is going to culminate with a Person
From David forward the Prophets declare the coming of a ‘New Covenant’
Jeremiah 31:31-32a & 33b
“The days are coming,” declares the Lord, “when I will make a new covenant with the people of Israel and with the people of Judah. It will not be like the covenant I made with their ancestors”… “I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people.”
- This will be an Internal / Spiritual experience vs External / Natural one
- Not only will God be our God (Gen 17) but WE will be His People
The Gospel of Jesus Christ is the fulfillment of of all the covenant promises
The entire Bible is pointing to Jesus Christ
Luke 22:19-20
And he took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body given for you; do this in remembrance of me.” In the same way, after the supper he took the cup, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you.”
- The New covenant is God revealing the fullness of his covenant love in Christ
- Here Jesus is telling us how he will seal the deal
Lay out the Gospel in terms of redemptive history
2 Corinthians 1:19-22
For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, who was preached among you by us—by me and Silas and Timothy—was not “Yes” and “No,” but in him it has always been “Yes.” For no matter how many promises God has made, they are “Yes” in Christ. And so through him the “Amen” is spoken by us to the glory of God. Now it is God who makes both us and you stand firm in Christ. He anointed us, set his seal of ownership on us, and put his Spirit in our hearts as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come.
- The culmination of all human history is the advent of Christ
- God enables it all, we receive it in faith
- Because of what He did we ‘speak the Amen’ which is that we Surrender