When
Abram was ninety-nine years old, the Lord appeared to him and said,
“I am El-Shaddai—‘God Almighty.’ Serve
me faithfully and live a blameless life. I will make a covenant with you,
by which I will guarantee to give you countless descendants.” At this, Abram fell face down on the ground. Then God said to him, “This is my
covenant with you: I will make you the father of a multitude of nations! What’s more, I am changing your name. It will no longer be Abram. Instead, you will be called Abraham, for
you will be the father of many nations. I will make you extremely
fruitful. Your descendants will become
many nations, and kings will be among them!
“I will confirm my covenant with you and your descendants after
you, from generation to generation. This
is the everlasting covenant: I will
always be your God and the God of your descendants after you.
Then
God said to Abraham, “Regarding Sarai, your wife—her name will no longer be
Sarai. From now on her name will be
Sarah. And I will bless her and give you
a son from her! Yes, I will bless her
richly, and she will become the mother of many nations. Kings of nations will be among her
descendants.” Genesis 17:1-7, 15-16
Then Jesus began to tell
them that the Son of Man must suffer many terrible things and be rejected
by the elders, the leading priests, and the teachers of religious law. He would be killed, but three days later he
would rise from the dead. As he talked
about this openly with his disciples, Peter took him aside and began to
reprimand him for saying such things. Jesus
turned around and looked at his disciples, then reprimanded Peter. “Get
away from me, Satan!” he said. “You are seeing things merely from a
human point of view, not from God’s.” Then,
calling the crowd to join his disciples, he said, “If any of you wants to
be my follower, you must give up your own way, take up your cross, and follow
me. If you try to hang on to your life,
you will lose it. But if you give up
your life for my sake and for the sake of the Good News, you will save it. And what do you benefit if you gain the whole
world but lose your own soul? Is anything
worth more than your soul? If anyone is
ashamed of me and my message in these adulterous and sinful days, the Son of
Man will be ashamed of that person when he returns in the glory of his Father
with the holy angels.” Mark 8:31-38(NLT)
When I was nearing the end of High
School my parents wanted to know what plans I had after graduation. My answer was something of an insignificant,
non-committal shrug…I don-know!
(Russell was a very articulate 17 year-old). Our discussion about college was something
like:
Mom
& Dad: We
can send you to college, so you can learn something, get a degree and then a
good job.
Russell: Uh….OK.
(Remember…I was articulate)
Mom
& Dad:
You’ll have to work hard in college.
Russell: Yeah…oh, hey, is that cheesecake? (Add focused to articulate)
Mom
& Dad:
We mean it…hard work, study, graduate…grow up.
Russell: Sure, no problem…is there any whipped
cream for that cheesecake?
Articulate, focused, and sincere…what
else could parents want?
What I took away from that
conversation was that Mom and Dad were going to pay for my tuition, room, board
and books, and I was going to go to a strange, exotic faraway destination
called Yankton, South Dakota (the only college in America that would have me
with my GPA), where I will have a thrilling, fun-filled adventure that will end
up in me getting a prestigious and fulfilling job that pays a little more than
Donald Trump earned last year. In sum,
all I took away was the stuff I wanted to hear; I ignored the real meaning of
that conversation entirely! College was
hard work, and it was a lot of study, and I was unprepared, not equipped to
deal with being an adult, and didn’t last past the first semester. It didn’t help that the most gorgeous
girlfriend in the world was back home!
And this is what happens to so many
people who carelessly, unthinkingly, and/or frivolously think they’re accepting
the covenant our Heavenly Father wants to make with us. And by covenant we do NOT mean a
business transaction, where if you accept God’s terms, you get to keep eternal
life. Rather we understand it is an
ongoing conversation with our eternal God, Almighty, El Shaddai!
Today, let’s look at how easy it is
to miss the meaning of the God-conversation. Many people have completely misunderstood this
down through the ages. It begins with
Abraham being promised a son who would bless all nations.
The Promise to Abraham
God said to Abram (Abraham), this
is my covenant with you.
God’s promise was for eternity, never to be withdrawn. People who have a problem with the Jews,
Jerusalem, or the cherished children of Abraham occupying any part of the whole
of Palestine from Egypt’s border to the Euphrates[2]
are either not Christian, or need to bone-up on the Biblical promise to
Israel. The so-called “West Bank” is a
modern invention; it belongs to God who created it first, and is Abraham’s
inheritance in God’s covenant to the Nation of Israel. Frankly it does not belong to Ishmael’s
offspring; Scripture declares they will be wanderers perpetually.
That being said, it’s easier to understand
the whole conflict issue between the sons of Isaac and Ishmael (the descendants
of Abraham), because they have fought ever since Sarah and Hagar were jealous
over each other.
This contention for the Middle East
has always put the covenant in peril.
It’s not that God withdraws his promise; just that, in free will, when we
kick against the promise, we prevent the kind of peace God wills. If you tell a child to stop being a brat to
his sister and be happy with each other, it doesn’t necessarily mean he won’t
kick her in the shins when you’re not looking.
Isaac and Ishmael have been kicking each other in the shins for a long
time. It’s not the promise of God that
is failing in the Middle East, it’s the brat syndrome; some call it human
nature.
Something that is critical about the
promises of God, whether to Abraham or us, is that God does NOT promise to live it
out for us. God EXPECTS
US to live the promise. God
told Abraham he would make him the father of many nations, kings
among his and Sarah’s descendants. You
recall that it only takes a moment of passion to BECOME a father
biologically; on the other hand it takes a lifetime of caring: being there, pitching-in, and sacrifices if
you want to BE a real father.
The promise of God to Abraham was
that God would empower a living covenant; Abraham had
to cooperate with God to live out the promise in the covenant. And that’s where the New Covenant comes
in; the Gospel lets us in on the fact that it takes a bit of spiritual
discernment and a whole lot of practice with self-discipline in order to do
that.
The Problem with Peter
As a general rule, like the Apostle
Peter, we humans have something of a problem with following God’s leading. Our Gospel text tells us Jesus started
talking about what was ahead for him; the cross, tomb and resurrection. Scripture declares that Jesus didn’t stumble
in telling his disciples this plainly.
But Peter (ever the leader of the band with an open mouth and closed
mind) takes Jesus off to one side and wants to know what Jesus has
been smoking. After all, if you want to
build a movement you don’t do it by scaring potential investors with promises
of hardship and execution. That’s
not a strategy, Jesus! C’mon!
To say Jesus went-off on Peter
would be putting it mildly; he called him Satan! Now, the devil is known by many names, and
one of the more common handles Lucifer is known-by is ADVERSARY. Satan is the opposition…at all times. Jesus told Peter he was opposing God’s will,
and to back-off.
In the next heartbeat Jesus tells the
crowd of onlookers and wannabe disciples that if they’re serious about
following him it would mean self-denial, giving up being in charge, picking up
a cross with their name on it, and following Jesus. Now, that’s not a euphemism for going to
church every Sunday or giving a tithe into the offering plate, or even visiting
nursing homes. What it is was
plain-speak to a crowd who needed to know what covenant was all about: death!
In Genesis 15 when God made His
promises to Abraham it was sealed with the blood of a sacrificed animal. The animal was cut in two and then Abraham
fell into a deep sleep and watched as the presence of God passed through the
space between the halves. It was the
ancient customary ritual of making a promise under penalty of death. God was swearing the promise on his own name:
…there
was God’s promise to Abraham. Since
there was no one greater to swear by, God took an oath in his own name,
saying: “I will certainly bless you, and
I will multiply your descendants beyond number.” Hebrews 6:13b-14(NLT)
God was actually saying to Abraham, if I
break my promise, what has happened to this bull laying in two pieces will be
me; I, the author of life will die.
Peter had trouble seeing this. He, like every other Israelite, and like me,
and like you can only imagine the Father as in charge, stern, penalty-imposing
– a judge! But here we have El Shaddai,
the Almighty Creator and Sustainer of all which exists making a promise to one
of His creation. It’s no wonder we
humankind can’t come up to God’s level; we can’t even admit we have a problem
with gambling, or porn, or stealing, greed, lust, or jealousy. We wouldn’t put our 401K on the line to save
a life; God puts his life on the line to save our eternity; and He makes the
promise to sinners!
Why Would God Do That?
I’m glad you asked. God did that because God knows that sinners can’t
help themselves. Sinners do bad things
because they’re sinners, and they don’t know how to be righteous. Sinners are into grabbing, getting,
holding-onto what they’ve gotten, and holding others away, or in anger
retaliating when they’ve been done wrong.
Sinners are into being like Cain standing behind Abel with a rock. Do you honestly think it was a righteous,
good boy who carried an AR15 into Parkland, Florida’s High School a week ago?
God knew we were like that, Abraham
was like that; God knew nobody short of God can save sinners like that. And so he made a covenant – a promise to save
us.
And that covenant was nailed to a
tree on Good Friday. Frankly, it doesn’t
make sense, but it is the only way to bring peace between a righteous God and
the unrighteous, the sinners like you and me.
And that peace is something the world does not understand…it is utterly
beyond human reason. It’s like most
everything God does, including when He tells us if we want to really find our
life, we have to lose it first…in Him.
That is…
The Profit of Loss
Jesus said if you try to hold onto
life and all you can get you will lose everything. If you release all you have and are to His
keeping, you’ll find you have immeasurably more than you could have imagined.
So…how do I get in on this? Simple answer: Become a Jesus person. Here are three Scripture verses that tell us
all about the gain in the profit of loss:
His Light will Overcome My
Darkness
No
one lights a lamp and then puts it under a basket. Instead, a lamp is placed on a stand,
where it gives light to
everyone in the house. Matthew 5:15(NLT)
If you have a genuine light it will
light up other people’s path as well as your own. If you try to hide a real light you have to
work at it. God’s covenant with us is
about spreading the light around; His children will do the same.
His Nearness will Strengthen
My Weakness
And
now, dear children, remain in fellowship with Christ so that when he returns,
you will be full of courage and not shrink back from him in shame. 1
John 2:28(NLT)
Sharing covenant with others is a
matter of fellowship – Jesus called his disciples friends. When you are in fellowship with Christ you
develop covenant relationship. That’s
why He came; that’s what He sends us to.
His Life is Eternal
All
who are victorious will be clothed in white. I will never erase their names
from the Book of Life, but I will announce before my Father and his angels that
they are mine. Revelation 3:5(NLT)
The mere fact that there is a
heavenly eraser presupposes that your name can be erased from the Book
of Life. I believe this book, symbolic,
or literal, has each human soul registered.
We don’t earn being in that book – it is God’s free grace, His gift to
sinners who simply turn to Him in faith.
The eraser is for those who choose to reject the offer of salvation.
The New Covenant was sealed in the
blood of Heaven’s Lamb; that covenant is all the strength we need for the
trials that come our way.
You can come to this altar and ask
God to help you with living the covenant.
That’s what altars are for.
That’s how we build strength for the trials.
Let the church say Amen in
the Name of the Father, Because of the Son, Cooperating with the Spirit…Amen!
