4. Covenant - The Language of Faith - Tim Mackie (The Bible Project)

welcome how are you guys today happy Sunday we're joining hundreds of millions of people around the planet today other followers of Jesus and it's the first day of the Christian week here's kind of ironic you ever did you ever notice that this on the calendar the other day you know our weeks technically began on Sunday like most calendars you know you look at a print calendar you guys use print calendars anymore okay so yeah if it looked you're you know smartphone calendar so the week begins on Sunday though technically in American Western culture Sunday is a part of what the weekend but in the Christian calendar it's the beginning of the week because it marks Resurrection Sunday every week since the empty tomb Jesus followers have been gathering on Sunday to remember that there's good news to be heard because Jesus is the risen King and so that's what we're doing here today we we do every week what we do at this time you know taking the bread in the cup and singing and worshiping Jesus together the culmination of what we do but every week to kind of lead up to that until the soil we spend some time learning from the Scriptures so that's what we're gonna do right now so I invite you to get out or turn on a Bible whatever you want to do about that so we're in this series this fall called the language of faith we're going to be landing that plane in the next couple weeks here we've been taking the whole fall - we took about a dozen of the most commonly used Christian Church kind of vocabulary words and their words that either are overused and so we've forgotten what they mean or they're so underused that we have no idea what they mean anymore because they're not actually normal normal English so words like salvation and faith and holiness and glory and so on today we're going to look at a word an idea that you didn't it didn't even cross your mind as you were driving or I think you're back here today and that's the word Thanksgiving no I'm joking joking I wouldn't do that to you that's too too cliche so no we're talking about this the word in the concept of covenant covenant my hunch is that when you think of Christianity and what Christians believe a whole bunch of words rise right to the top and the covenant is not one of them it's probably not even in your top 20 but the reason why I wanted to put it into the series is because it ought to be it actually have to be like in the top five it's one of the most important words for understanding how a follower of Jesus sees themselves sees the world and sees God so crucially important word and concept and it's interesting there's actually on in our culture Western culture there's only one ceremony or institution where the word covenant even gets used maybe what am I talking about yeah Merritt weddings wedding but usually religious wedding right like you don't often hear that word if none of the people are religious you know participating in the wedding it's a religious marriage term now in our culture and that's too bad because we're missing out on so much depth of what's happening in the Christian faith so let me first things first let me just put a run-of-the-mill occurrence of the word and concept of covenant up in front of you literally pulled at random from many many places it's a story that'll at least kind of get on the table what we're talking about when we talk about the biblical idea of covenants from first Kings chapter 5 your favorite book of the Bible so here on king of tyre kept Solomon supplied with all of the cedar and juniper logs that he wanted and Solomon gave here on a hundred thousand bushels of wheat as food for his household in addition to 110 thousand gallons of pressed olive oil Solomon continued to do this for here on year after year the Lord gave Solomon wisdom just as he promised him and there were peaceful relations between he Rama and Solomon the two of them made a covenant the riveting story I understand you're all like what happens next so what they made a covenant that's what happened so the reason why I'm showing this to you it's just they're a covenant you know like in our understanding religious marriages or something like that our first thought is something sacred and transcendent about it there are a number of times where this the word and concept occurs in stories just like this all through the Bible and it's it's two parties individuals in this case kings and they are forming a partnership between the kingdoms their neighboring kingdoms so solomon's king of israel corresponds with modern-day israel palestine tyre is roughly the area of modern-day Lebanon so these neighboring kingdoms Solomon's got a whole lot of wheat in olive oil still true today of that that part of the eastern Mediterranean and Lebanon still today produces enormous amounts of cedar and juniper at least 3,000 years ago so yeah so these two kingdoms each of them has a unique resource that they have an abundance of they partner together to help each other right to form a unified front we would call this a trade agreement some things like that and but the biblical word at least in English how it gets translated is covenant covenant now this might seem boring to you but it's helpful because it is not simply a contract this is two people representing like you know people groups and their resources and they're binding themselves together year after year after year for each other's benefit and to accomplish something together right to be this unified kind of economic force here in the eastern Mediterranean there you go and so that that at least gives us a window into the most basic meaning of the word let me just throw it up here Hebrew and Greek you know me feel free to zone out for a second if you want but you'll regret it trust me so so in Hebrew three-quarters of the Bible sitting in front of you is written in Hebrew called the Old Testaments what Christians call it and Jewish traditions just called the Bible or the Hebrew Bible so in Hebrew all the times this word occurs it's the Hebrew word not Barrett don't say Barrett say buddy got a rolled our buddy but eat yeah buddy and then the last quarter of your Bible called the New Testament was written still by Jewish authors but in Greek the language of the day and in Greek you pronounce this word sak just a kid not be a Sikh do you speak do you think it all right but eight and B say K so what are we talking about partner partnerships the Covenant is the formalizing this relationship they could just coexist and like give logs and wheat to each other but they formalize it like they draw it up there's a legal element to it but it's also personal like their neighboring kingdoms they have to coexist together and so they're going to begin sharing their relationships and they had a really positive friendship between the two of them so it's more than just like if you find a business contract you also don't sign up like will trade you know wheat and dogs and we have to be best friends so that you're like that's usually not part of a business contract but in this case there is a relationship a peaceful friendly relationship it's a part of it it's a covenant biblical covenant this is also the word used to describe what Israelite men and women did when they got married a covenant is the word the Old Testament uses to describe marriage here's a couple examples one and actually both of them are cases where the author is describing somebody being unfaithful to the marriage covenant so Malachi is angry at group of Israelite men who are bailing on their wives for no good reason and so he says the Lord is a witness between you and the wife of your use you've been unfaithful to her even though she's your partner the wife of your covenant so the this marriage is about two different individuals they both bring unique things just like Hyrum and Solomon they bring unique things the other cannot bring and together this partnership can accomplish new unrealizable unrealizable things if they weren't in the relationship together so in a marriage in the Bible is deeply connected to procreation you can't produce human sitting alone in a corner in a room by yourself let's just that's not news to you so in the biblical vision so but before God these two unique others come together and it's not however just a business relationship God's involved do you see this here God's a witness so whether here are min Solomon you know break their treatment or they say their agreement or the Covenant so in the last five years when the Covenant ends it doesn't seem like God's going to care for Solomon and hit on but it does seem like God cares about this one so this is a covenant between an Israelite man Israeli woman and then before God in some way because look at proverbs 2 which is describing an Israelite woman who's leaving her marriage for an illegitimate reason it describes her as abandoning the partner of her youth and her covenant before God so this covenant wasn't just with her Israelite husband it was also like a covenant with and before God so there's some covenants that we would call like contracts like Haram Salomon there's some covenants that have a sacred quality to them marriage biblical vision of marriage because through that covenant god's own life and love is symbolized in the Cree new life in a family and so on but in both cases the common denominator is a partnership to accomplish something that couldn't be accomplished by themselves how're you guys doing okay now if I were you that would be interesting you might be slightly bored at this point and I wouldn't hold it against you so here's here's why I'm trying to get all this on the table these are random stories and passages of marriage and Solomon or whatever here's what's most important and most interesting about this word in the Bible the character in the Bible who makes the first covenant in the storyline of the Bible if you start a page one who's the first person who makes a covenant it's God who's the second person who initiates the Covenant in the Bible God who's the third person actually it's Abram with a guy named Abimelech they're having spewed about it well so don't think about that one think about the third one where the fourth one which is cut the the first and the most repeated covenant maker in the story of the Bible is God the reason why this matters to the Christian faith it's because covenant is actually one of the most important ways that ties together the whole storyline of the Bible from the front to the back as we're going to see and a little bit Jesus drew upon the language in the idea of God's covenant promises to describe himself and what he was here to do God's covenant promises are what drives the whole story of the Bible and it's at the center of the Christian faith now here's what I could do and what I sometimes often what I sometimes often what I sometimes do what I often do either one take your pick you be the judge what I often do at this point in the message is just tell the whole story of the Bible and it usually takes me about 16 minutes but I'm not going to do that because I have some other things that I want to do and on this topic my friend John Collins and is my partner in the Bible project we work hard to make a video that does the whole thing in five minutes that's much more enjoyable let's just say you're listening to me so shall we watch it yes to it it'll get a whole thing on the table and then I it will give us I think a frame of mine to dive into a biblical story in the book of Genesis and caveat we've gotten a lot of feedback about this video because we using we depict God metaphorically as an old man and some people don't like that do you think it's sacrilegious our response has been the metaphor obviously because God's also depicted as a woman in labor in the Prophet Hosea for goodness sake so I can't wait to make that video right so so it's a it's a metaphor obviously but it's a biblical metaphor from Daniel 7 revelation 4 and 5 about God as the old wise Ancient of Days that's where we're going so don't let that hang you up from the main point of the video okay that's the caveat let's go ahead and watch it if you've been around Christians you've probably heard of the idea of having a personal relationship with God which could mean different things in the Bible like having God as a friend or your father or maybe your teacher but there's one particular way that the Bible talks about this relationship that you find all over but strangely we don't talk about it that much and that's the idea of a partnership with God a partnership like working alongside someone to accomplish a goal together right and this is actually what you see at the beginning of the Bible God creates this good world full of all of this potential and then God appoints these unique creatures humans as his partners in bringing more and more goodness out of all that potential but the humans don't want to partner with God they rebel and try to create a world on their own terms and so this broken partnership is the Bible's explanation for why we're stuck in a world of corruption and injustice and tragedy of death it's not like there's just one or two humans who have bailed on this relationship in the story of the Bible everyone has abandoned the partnership with God so what God does is select a smaller group of people out of the many and he makes a new partnership with them called a covenant and in the covenant God that makes promises and then an exchange asks his partner to fulfill certain commitment and the purpose of all of this is to somehow use this covenant relationship to renew his partnership with everybody else now there are actually four times in the Old Testament that were told God initiates a covenant relationship with Noah Abraham the nation of Israel and King David and it's through these that God is forming a covenant family into which all people will eventually be invited so let's see how these work the first one is with Noah so in this story God has just brought the flood to cleanse the world of humanity's corruption and Noah and his family are the only ones left and so God makes a covenant with Noah saying listen I know that humans will continue to be evil but despite that I'm not going to destroy it like this again instead the earth will be this reliable place for us to work together great so what does no have to do nothing and that's what's so interesting about this first covenant is that God is promising to be faithful even though he knows humans won't be the next time we see God make a covenant is with a man named Ibrahim God chooses him promises to bless him give him a large family lots of land where they can flourish and in return God asks Abraham to trust him and train up his family to do what is right and just and the whole reason for this covenant is God says it somehow he's going to bring his blessing to all families of the world through this one family so that's Abraham the next time we see God make a covenant is when Abraham's family grows into the tribe of Israel and this covenant is with the whole tribe God asks them to obey a set of laws which are these guidelines for living well as a community of God's partners and if they do this then God promises to bless them and that they will become a people who then represent him to the rest of humanity that's the covenant with Israel the last covenant is with King David yeah the tribe of Israel has become this large nation ruled by David and God asked David and his descendants to partner with him by leading Israel in obeying the laws and doing what is right in just and God promises that one day one of David's sons will come and extend God's kingdom of peace and blessing over all the nations so those are the four covenants that God makes in order to restore his partnership with the whole world but here's what happens Israel breaks the covenant they worship other gods they allow horrible injustice and so they lose their land and are forced off into exile so it seems hopeless but during this time Israel's prophets talked about a day when God would restore these covenants in spite of Israel's failure somehow yeah they called it the new covenant and this is actually what's so interesting about Jesus is that he's introduced into this story as the one who fulfills all of these covenant relationships we're told that he's from the family of Abraham and so he will bring the blessings of that family to the whole world we're told that he's the faithful Israelite who was able to truly obey the law and we're told that he's the king from the line of David and so he goes about extending God's kingdom of justice and peace to all that's really remarkable for one guy yeah and what a highlights is perhaps the most surprising claim of all made about this men that Jesus is no mere human but rather God becomes and God did this in order to be that faithful covenant partner that we are all made to be but a fail to be and so through Jesus God has opened up a way for anyone to be in the renewed partnership with him so Jesus calls people to follow him and become part of this new covenant family and despite their failures Jesus is committed to making them into partners who were becoming more and more faithful the story of the Bible ends with a vision of a fully renewed world full of goodness and peace and there's this renewed humanity they're partnering together with God to expand the goodness of his creation and so the end of the Bible story is really a new beginning yes um all right that was more interesting listen it would just be talking do you guys get it do you see why this is so important this word represents something about God's essence or or nature that God is a being whose nature it is to share to share generously and the first pages of the Bible depicts this incredible picture of the of the beautiful mind and power this behind all that is and with whom humans as the the pinnacle of God's good world are invited into a partnership that the whole point is that God wants to share existence with others and that he wants those others named humans to represent his image into the creation to partner together so that this world that we inhabit can become something it wouldn't by itself it's of two parties genuinely contributing to the future of this project and goal together that's what God wants and so the whole plotline of the Bible is this is about this fractured partnership and I mean look it's long you guys like why is it so long it's so long because because first of all humans keep failing like they're in as partners and then the character of God is to just keep keep faithful and to keep committed and to keep working forward his his great purpose and the whole plot tension comes together in this moment that we tried to were at the limits of language and visual metaphors but of the God becomes embodied as the one faithful human covenant partner that we are all made to be but failed to be the person of Jesus and so Jesus represents this culmination of the whole storyline of he is the faithful covenant partner and he's opening up the new family where you and I can find ourselves recreated as faithful human beings who were becoming who God made us to be this is the heartbeat of the whole biblical story is covenant covenant so here's what I want to do all that in mind I just want to look at one crucially important covenant making story in the first book of the Bible and what you're just going to see it leap all of this is going to leap right off the page and it's going to land us right that's the last supper with Jesus which will take us in to lead us into taking the bread and cup together you guys with me that's our mission once you turn to the first book of the Bible Genesis chapter 15 which is not on page 15 at least not my Bible but I have you know our Bibles are outlined like no other book that we like to read this cheap thin onion paper you know and then some columns I don't I don't like to read books with columns to you but your Bible format anyway so uh somehow cap chapter 15 is on page 12 but there you go I wish it were on page 15 but there you have it okay so Genesis chapter 15 first words after this pause and dear reader the question that occurs to you is after what okay so we're in a group of stories about a guy named Abram videos later going to be named Abraham after what so God called him from his land way out east in what we today call Iraq and the Middle East to journey west because God said through him and his family God was somehow going to restore blessing to all the nations of the world then after that lot didn't leave his whole family he ended up taking his nephew along what's his nephew's name lot and then lot ends up taking a sheep down into this region and gets caught up in a small civil war happening between a bunch of small they called themselves Kings but what they were the king of was their city this is called city-state Kings it was how things work back then so anyway Vlad ends up getting caught in the crossfire of the civil war between a bunch of different city leaders and he gets a kidnapped and captured and so in the story right before the one that we're reading Abram does this covert night guerrilla operation he gets 318 commandos and he goes in the middle of the night and he rescues a lot and he gets all of his stuff back that just happens you with me it just happened after this the word of the lord came to abram in a vision don't be afraid abram and now you understand why he's afraid you just performed a covert operation to steal your stuff back from five warlords how are you feeling about your life where the next morning huh you're on their most-wanted list tennis that's what's happening here okay so abram don't be afraid it's going to be okay i am your shield i am your very great reward reward now the protection stuff warms your heart if you're a hit boom right you're like oh that's good that was a bad night yeah so I made it back alive now those guys are out to get me thank you I don't want to be afraid you're my shield but you're my reward you're my future reward well speaking of future rewards God do you remember is when you appeared and spoke to me a couple decades ago and he goes on but Abram said sovereign Lord what what is that reward what can you give me since I I still don't have any kids so the promise was that he and his wife would produce children and that their family would become so huge he's going to become a people group and then a nation that was what God said to him and so there are a couple decades in to this he left his home and what do they still not have any children so I'm your future reward Abram that's very nice God thank you so how about the kids thing I remain childless and so at the moment the one who's going to inherit all my estate this is guy Eliezer of Damascus who I'm sure was a very nice man but right that's not what God said was gonna happen so Abram said you've given me no children and so it's the servant in my house who's going to be my heir so again if you've been reading through the stories about Abraham he's in he's in like a he's like great-grandpa Age they're in those that are 90s he and his wife Sarah you just imagine how they received this promise even still like in their 70s or late 60s and now we're decades and still nothing's happened so the word of the Lord came to him no eleazar's not going to be your heir a son a son of your own flesh and blood is going to be your heir then he took him which must certainly mean God took Abram outside Abram didn't take God outside because it was already there so God took Abram outside and said look up look up into the sky and count the stars now we live in a Portland which means this time of year we rarely see the stars because of the cloud cover and then if you live in the city even then it's the light pollution and so on so let me just you know pulled at random from Google image just here's what most humans have looked at for most of human history when they didn't live with so much light pollution and this is just one small sliver of a Hubble Space Telescope photograph are you with me look up and count the stars the points obvious isn't it the points obvious and God said that if indeed you can count them so God says so look at what the stars count them yeah I can't do that I'm not able to count all of those and then God says this this is what your descendants will be like and this is just one I mean you're just looking at a screen like are you with me so go out the middle of nowhere you're just overwhelmed by the density of stars hundreds millions of them it's just unbelievable and that's the promise to a 90 year old man if his wife they are decades into trusting a promise that hasn't come to fulfillment yet and God takes him out and shows him this and says yep the promise is still good that's what your family's going to be like so just stop the story so brilliantly told told slowly economically doesn't go on and on everything every word counts and you just invite yourself into the emotional journey of these characters first he's scared for his lies got involved in a regional war and now he's reflect and think with this promise for decades it did sitting with with the hope of having children unrealized there's many people in our church community who know that story very well because you're living it it's a very painful place to be and God conjures it all up again by pointing to the sky and what does Abraham's respond - this promise this was we're gonna see covenant promise that God is making what is Abraham's what would be your response right right you're a great grandpa and grandma where's your hearing this like what besides age you're not a great-grandpa that's the whole point I'm sorry I just said just hit me it's bad but it works you're the a is you're out you're in your - we're gonna think it doesn't make any sense at all look at Abraham's response is so remarkable the story story moves me every time I work through it and really ponder what's happening here what is Abraham's response Abram believed the Lord so surely there was some roller-coaster happening before he got to this point you know we're not told we're just told of just this like bold irrational radical level of trust just has on it deal it's this posture of radical trust in God's generosity and then look what God's response to Abram is and God credited to Abram as what it's righteousness now these are both words belief or faith and righteousness that we've talked about in the series so if if believe or trust in the Bible it's about relational dependence placing myself in a posture of trust and dependence and and recognizing in accounting the one who's promising to me as trustworthy and committing to it and then what God does is when he sees Abram make this bold move of radical trust in his promise God gives Abram the standing of righteous which again recall back at its core meaning the biblical word righteous righteousness means right relationship so God declares that Abram is a human who stands in right relationship with him as God and what posture does a human who is truly righteous and does right by God and isn't right what's the posture of Abram right at this moment just trust trust so the story is so powerful with a fundamental thing apparently that God wants for humans one crucial thing is just a posture of trust in the radical generosity of God and that generosity is going to mean responsibility like acting in in ways that are informed by deep convictions that may not make sense to anybody around but they make sense to you because you're trusting in the generosity of God towards you and he's calling you to something it's so powerful then God said to him so first promise you're going to have those kids trust second promise then God said to him I'm the Lord who brought you out of ur of the chaldeans to give you this land to take possession of it the first promise with kids was Abraham's Abraham's response trust second promise is you're an immigrant in this land your family's going to grow and this will become the land in which they live and what Abraham's response to that promise um now hold on sovereign lorises brûléed how can I know how could I know that I'll gain possession of it when it comes to the family that's more believable I don't know then this one how can I know and what's God's response it's wonderful my favorite part of the story what God's response to this question how can I know the Lord said go get a heifer what's what's not to do anything separate effort wasn't bring it effort no not just a heifer go get a goat oh and also a ram make sure they're all three years old and don't forget to bring a dozen a young pigeon haha so bizarre are you with me if I talk about a non-sequitur doesn't follow how can I know that this will become my family land go get a heifer it doesn't make it what and and there's this jolt in the story this brilliantly told story and the author knows that he's playing with you there's an ambiguity in a gap now that you're like what does a heifer and a goat have to do with Abraham's question and the moment the answer will come at precisely the right moment just wait for it brilliant story so what okay so he goes he gets all these animals and he brings him out then look what he then did turns into a horror story he brought all these animals to him and he starts cutting them in half no that's just a little short sentence but just what's involved in sawing a heifer in half it gets with me are you with me very bloody scene entrails the whole bit right and then the goat and then the RAM and then he took these carcass halves and he separates them opposite each other so it's the image he saw as a cow and half right just imagine the scene and then he puts the pieces like that and then he does the goat but they're right this just imagine so now they're separate all opposite lined up each other that's the image and then we're told but the birds nine didn't cut them in half so what do you do with them did you break her necks or something but then so then they're on the ground too and then as you can imagine like what is this bloody gory scene going to invite if he's out in the middle of nowhere vultures Trice and crows so birds of prey came down on the carcasses and Abraham had to drive them away shoo get out of here get her this a good story what what's happening right now this is so strange okay what is happening the storyteller doesn't give you everything that he could and this is a unique thing about especially the Old Testament these authors assume that you're constantly reading through the whole Hebrew Bible constantly and reading every piece in light of each other and so the storyteller doesn't give you the crucial information because he assumes this is like your 18th time true through or whatever and that you remember from the Book of Jeremiah what this is all about because you do write you remember from Jeremiah 34 what this is all about this is all ritual symbolism of a covent covenant making ceremony ancient Near Eastern covenant making ceremony what on earth does this bloody ritual mean in Jeremiah 34 there's some Israelite kings who had promised that they would set a whole bunch of slaves free and then those rulers in Jerusalem went back on their promise and it was a devastating moment and God was ticked that they went back on their word so through Jeremiah here's what God says to those leaders Jeremiah 34 he says those who have violated my covenant and have not fulfilled the terms of the Covenant that they made before me I will treat like the calf they cut into and walked between its pieces the leaders of Judah and Jerusalem the court officials the priests all the people of the land who walked between the pieces of the calf all delivers into the hands of their enemies who want want to kill them do you get it so now you get the symbol like the Bloods intentional sin sacrifice doesn't have to do with the toning for sins this is a ritual symbol about this covenant so these people made a promise that they would be the leaders of Israel they would be faithful to covenant with God right they use this ritual symbol and the Bible isn't the only places has mentioned there's other ancient texts among Israel's neighbors to talk about this ritual means exactly the same thing it means we're entering an agreement it threw the Covenant and the stakes are really high our choices matter and so we walk through together each partner the two partners of the Covenant we walk through and we're saying I'm going to whatever provide wheat for you and I'm going to give you olive oil or whatever right you make your covenant and then you look at the animals and you say may my fate be like that of this calf or this goat if I ever break my covenant with you do you see that's what's happening so it's a symbol of the severity and of the high stakes that this covenant involves okay so just without all that mind come back to the story so what who do you think is going to be walking through down the bloody aisle together who's making a covenant with him in the story God's making a covenant with Abram verse 12 as the Sun was setting Abram fell into a deep sleep oh no no that's not good she's supposed to be awake cuz he's gonna have to walk down the aisle he fell into a deep sleep and a sick dreadful darkness came over him he starts having a bad dream so just imagine the scene this is bloody animal seeing instead Abraham's just like boobs okay just pass it out and then he has starts having these these dreams these dark dreams that we're gonna see a God is giving to him it's a windows of his family future then the Lord said know for certain that for 400 years your descendants will be strangers in a country not their own they're going to be enslaved and mistreated there but I'll punish that nation they serve as slaves and afterward they'll come out with great possessions you however will go to your ancestors in peace and be buried at a good old age and the fourth generation your descendants are going to come back here for the sin of the amorite it's not yet reached its full measure lots of interesting things to talk about here here's the basic point what event in the biblical stories is pointing to so the Exodus story Abram is going to become a large large family and then they're going to go down to Egypt looking for food as a family then they're going to end up enslaved there Moses let my people go that whole thing right the Exodus story so the promise is going to be fulfilled but it's going to take another dark turn because of the injustice and violence of the king of Egypt and so on but don't worry the promise is all going to be fulfilled God's covenant promise now what's Abram doing this whole time it's passed out pass out verse 17 when the Sun had set and darkness had fallen a smoking fire pot this is another wonderful moment in the story a smoking fire pot with a blazing torch appeared and started doing what started going down the bloody aisle so this is again might seem very odd to you connect it back to a message in the series if you were here as we did about God's glory when God's personal presence the purity and the power that generated the universe appears concentrated in a spot the physical manifestation of God's importance and power and significance often takes the form of what fire or cloud or lightning that kind of thing super intense so we're meant to understand this is the Creator covenant making God coming in in personal presence to fulfill the covenant ceremony so we know God's made lots of covenant promises here but his covenant is with him with Abram and where's Abram God essentially slipped him sleeping pills and knocked him out and Abraham's lying there passed out on the side of this whole scene are you with me here what's happening in the story like everything's going wrong according to a traditional covenant making ceremony they're both supposed to own up to their commitments and their promises and we walk through together and what God does is slip something in Abraham's drink and so that he passes out and then God alone appears and walks through do you get what's happening here there's a million things that you're not told you're just closed to ponder and reflect so what's happening in this moment but also what does this moment say about who God is it says volumes speaks volumes about who God is so what what does God know what does God certainly know about Abraham's family and whether Abraham's family will actually be faithful covenant partners certainly Israel's failure with the golden calf or the centuries of covenant violation Jeremiah 34 like none of the surprised God so so God God initiates a covenant relationship with people with a family of Abram that he knows was going to fail him and so what does he do this is so remarkable he pretty he's protecting Abram he's protecting Abram from he and his families the worst consequences of their covenant failure but at the same time God isn't going to let their failure determine whether or not his purpose is to save the world will be fulfilled he's determined to save the world through humans and through a human family but he also knows that those very humans are going to fail and so God goes it alone which means what it means that God's going to fulfill his end of the Covenant but what's the remember what's the symbolism of all these bloody animals who's going to shoulder the consequences of Abraham's family failure to be faithful who's the only one walking through down the bloody aisle do you get it this story is remarkable you guys look at how it ends verse 18 on that day storyteller those the Lord made a covenant with Abram and said to your descendants I give this land from the wadi of Egypt all the way south up north to the great river euphrates the land of all these Canaanite people groups and that's the end of the story that's a strange story but you get it you get it this says volumes about the character of God and what that video was about was about how it's that God who's not willing to let his partners failure define the future of the world and he will both shoulder the responsibility to be faithful and apparently God is going to shoulder the consequences of Covenant failure because he exactly was protecting Abram from as he goes through okay so fast-forward to the story of Jesus will conclude here so when Jesus is going around Galilee announcing that the kingdom of God is here and he's reshaping and recreating a new family of Israel that's eventually going to include all the nations and he's calling people to a new level of Allegiance and devotion to the kingdom of God and he boils down all of God's covenant expectations to the great command he called it to love God and to love your neighbor right he's reforming a new family of covenant people around himself and yet what does what does Jesus know about the faithfulness meter of the disciples that he gathered around himself what did he know they're going to do what does Jesus know that Peter his most faithful disciple what does he know that Peters going to do and so with all of this he Jesus marches into Jerusalem for Passover it's week of conflict with the leaders and he steals away right the last to a secret room and you have a Passover meal with his disciples and just watched how this story brings everything together so remarkable this is from Luke chapter 22 when the hour came Jesus and His apostles reclined at the table and he said to them I've really desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer I tell you I won't eat it again until it finds fulfillment in the kingdom of God so he took bread he gave thanks for it and he broke it and he gave it to them saying this is my body given for you do this in remembrance of me Jesus took bread he broke it he broke it in half and he said this is my body right as the symbol the Jesus is giving his body over to the consequences of human failure and evil and injustice and his body will be broken in half so to speak just like that heifer and then Jesus says in the same way after the supper he took the cup and he said like I was hurt what more do you want this is the New Covenant in my blood it's being poured out for you Jesus viewed what was about to happen to him in the Garden of Gethsemane in his arrest and in his trial and in his execution he viewed it like he's taking the calling and the vocation in the role of that smoking fire pot and he's walking right down that aisle so that others don't have to and this isn't like God versus Jesus this is God embodied his covenant faithfulness and love embodied in the person of Jesus to save us from the consequences of the horrible failures that have heaped up over over human history and Jesus in an act of love gives himself on behalf of others that's what's happening here he's the faithful human who submits himself to the loving guidance of the Father and he offers his life as a loving gift to others he's the faithful one who is faithful in precisely the ways that you and I have failed to be I don't I actually don't treat people like Jesus did very well and if I do I feel like it's like these little bright moments in otherwise dark night and if you'd know what I'm talking about like you I know you know and this is you guys well I don't know what else to call this except good news is good news and this isn't like oh great I'm going to take some more sleeping pills just pass out and let Jesus do it also that's exactly not the right right response the right response is I get up and I and in Jesus is power and in the power of the Spirit I move towards faithfulness loving God and loving others but I know that I'll fail and God knows that I'll fail and that apparently doesn't like deter God from doing something on my behalf and this is what it means to be a Christian it means to trust in the generous covenant love of God that he has actually become the kind of human that he's made me to be but that I failed to be and that's how he calls me to get up and to follow him amen so I don't know where you're at today I don't know if you live in a world view as a Christian if you're Christian where this is like a a moral performance regimen you know and that's what you think of when you think of be faithful and obey and Oh God like built-in to the whole relationship your failure and accounting for it and a means to heal us of it and urge us forward and so some of us might have some real confessing and repentance to do some of us might feel like our covenant failures are just like this broken record and the cycle that we can't get past and there are ways to get past it and it's not going to happen by you sleeping on the ground it's going to happen by us making choices in this community by the power of the Spirit to change and to grow as we follow Jesus there might be some of us who truly feel helpless and what you need to hear most of all is that God's covenant love is asking you to simply trust in his generosity and love for you let me close in a word of Prayer you

Channel: Tim Mackie Archives

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Length: 53min 50sec (3230 seconds)

Published: Sat Aug 19 2017