Understanding the Old Testament 2: COVENANT
Did
you know that the name of the scriptures of the Old Testament could be better
translated as the scriptures of the Old Covenant and the New Covenant? Testament is simply an old word for
covenant. Last Sunday we began our
exploration of the Old Testament by looking at Abraham & Sarah, the couple
God chose to start His spiritual family on earth. God made a covenant or a promise with
Abraham, that his descendants would be as numerous as the stars in the heavens,
and that all people would be blessed by him.
God
has chosen a very ancient & specific legal contract as the basis of his
relationship with humanity; and that legal and binding contract is called a covenant. Let’s
look at what a definition here. Please
open your bulletins to page 2, looking at point one in the sermon notes. A covenant is a
mutual agreement between 2 parties. Unlike many legal contracts of today, God’s
covenant is quite simple: God promised to rescue, forgive, and bless his
people, and in return, we promise to worship, obey, & serve Him as our only
God.
· The oldest
covenant in the Bible is the Covenant of marriage, as created by God in the
beginning. God consecrates the union of
husband and wife, who agree to love and serve each other as long as they both
shall live. Note—that the purpose of
this covenant, like all godly covenants, is to provide a framework and
guidelines for LOVE.
So
last Sunday we said that God made a covenant or a promise with Abraham, that
his descendants would be as numerous as the stars in the heavens, and that all
people would be blessed by him as they lived in the Promised Land, which we
know as Israel. This covenant brought
together Abraham’s descendants to love God for generations and generations to
come. However, about 100 years later,
due to an extreme draught and famine, God’s family left the Promised Land of
Israel temporarily, to migrate to Egypt, to find some relief. Egypt agreed to
help them out. That worked well until the Egyptians imprisoned God’s people and
made them into their slaves. During the 400 years of their slavery, God’s
people undertook forced labor to build colossal buildings to glorify the Pharaohs;
buildings and cities which became wonders & marvels of the ancient world. God’s
family was given minimal food, and many of them died. During that 400 years, they cried to God for
deliverance. Finally, God sent them the Patriarch
Moses, who led God’s people to freedom through the Miracle of the crossing of
the Red Sea in 1500 BC.
Now, if you do not know this now, you need to
keep this in mind: The Exodus, God’s
miracle of liberation, is the pivotal event for all Jewish believers, back
then, and now.
· This event is
comparable to the Resurrection of Christ for Christians, and as the Declaration
of Independence is to our nation. All of
these 3 events, in my opinion, were all initiated by God; and they have had the
power to shape and mold people for generations and generations to come. Likewise, all the scriptures of the Old Covenant
all revolves around the Red Sea crossing and the covenant that God granted to
Moses and our spiritual forebears.
· All of God’s
people were astounded and so grateful for their deliverance from Pharaoh. In response, God’s people committed their
lives to a 2nd Covenant. God
initiated this “Mosaic Covenant” with His people and their descendants
(including us here today), in order to establish a deeper and closer
relationship because he loved them and us so dearly. One night, God spoke alone
on Mt Sinai to Moses. Let’s go back tour
sermon notes, and read together point # 2: MOSAIC COVENANT: God called upon his people to worship God,
alone, and to obey his laws; and in return, God promised to forgive and bless
them. So, the stars in the sky IS the symbol of God’s covenant with
Abraham and his descendants; and the symbol of the Mosaic covenant is the 10
commandments.
When
many modern people think of the 10 commandments ought to be called the 10
suggestions. You know, they are optional.
For the past 50 years of so, our popular culture has had an
anti-authority mindset, whereby people think they can pick and choose the civil
and religious laws of their choice. These
folks think that they know better than the who formulated the laws; indeed,
acting like they know more than God Himself. To some people, some laws just
seem outdated and silly in the 21st century.
· But that is not
the way our Jewish forebears saw God’s law.
They saw God’s law as a gift which could guide them to live a life of
Shalom…a life of shalom.
Well,
our Jewish forebears and current Jews see God’s Law differently. They loved God’s law because it marked the
way for them to live a life of Shalom. Shalom is the Jewish word for peace, but
it means much more than the absence of warfare.
It means well-being, living in inner harmony, prosperity, contentment,
communion with God, wholeness, & fulfillment. In short, shalom is the way
that you would want to live your life. King
David, who wrote the Psalms of the Old Testament, put it this way. Please
repeat after me: “Great shalom have people// who follow your law. // I can hope for
salvation //because I have fulfilled your law. // I have kept your decrees
//and I love them deeply.”
Now to best understand God’s law, we need
to look at Newtown’s 3rd Law of physical motions, and it goes like
this: For every action, there is a
reaction of equal force to the original action.
This is not only true in the laws of physics, but it is also true in the
spiritual laws of the universe. So, I am
now going to demonstrate this with something I call my Shalom machine.
·
Here
we have Shalom, which is the fullness of life.
·
Here
we have this bucket, representing God’s law.
·
And
here we have the expected response, obedience.
So—how do you achieve Shalom? God commands that you do not steal. If you do not obey that command (TOSS), then God’s presence will depart from you and you will
not have shalom. But if your response is
to obey (TOSS), then you have peace or shalom with
God.
God’s word says to honor your parents (TOSS). If you do so
(TOSS), God promises that you will live along
life.
God’s word says to love God above any
other thing, and to worship him on the Sabbath day (TOSS). If you don’t, your life will be out of
balance, and that will lead to other problems because you have abandoned
God. But when to you choose to love God
and to worship him, ( TOSS), you then
receive His love—which balances your life and enables you to receive the shalom
or peace of God.
All of us know people who do not obey
God’s laws (TOSS); and those decisions have bad
consequences. God wants us to have a balanced
life in relationship with Him. (TOSS).
I know of a man who one time took his
young child for a walk around his property.
That loving father pointed out the areas which posed some danger, like
down by the river. The father slipped on
purpose and fell into the river, not to scare the boy but the help him to
remember the proper boundaries, so that when he got older, he would not
unnecessarily get hurt. God is that
Father, and we are the children. This is
the way God showed his love for us.
He made covenants—in days of old, which we
have inherited as the spiritual descendants of Abraham and Moses. However, as Christians, God has given us an
even more precious gift----the New Covenant of reconciliation and love. In this new covenant, we are still to love God,
but we are also commanded to love one another as Jesus loved us, who died on
the cross and rose from the dead to forgive us our sins when we break God’s
laws. The symbols of the New covenant of
love are the 2 great sacraments of the church: Holy Baptism and Communion ,
through which God’s love flows through us and through our descendants in our
time and into the future.
Now as s sign of gratitude to the God of
covenants, let us stand and reaffirm our faith, using the words of the
baptismal covenant, found on page 292. ---The Rev. John Donnelly
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