Amazing Grace

Intro:

I grew up in a church culture where many of the worship songs at church and in youth group were written or sung by Chris Tomlin. Tomlin took old hymns and rewrote the melodies and some of the lyrics but embodied the ideas of the scripture. There can be much debate as to how helpful it was to rewrite historically important, theologically rich hymns but I am grateful for his music in my early Christian walk.

His most meaningful lyric to me “Amazing love how can it be, that you my king would die for me.” Tomlin actually introduced me to what became my favorite hymn “And Can it Be” from which he borrowed those words and ideas about God’s amazing grace. The original hymn written by the famous hymn writer Charles Wesley explodes with thoughts on the relentless love of God that gifts unconditional and sufficient grace to undeserving sinners. His third stanza of the hymns states,

 He left His Father's throne above, So free, so infinite His grace; Emptied Himself of all but love, And bled for Adam's helpless race; 'Tis mercy all, immense and free; For, O my God, it found out me. [Refrain]

Amazing love! how can it be That Thou, my God, should die for me!

With these next chapter of 1 Samuel, the Holy Spirit wants to show us how amazing the grace of God is for sinners. Wait, there is grace in the OT? I thought that was a NT thing. Grace that comes from God is rooted in God and therefore, we see his grace woven throughout the tapestry of His work in history.

Look with me the 1 Samuel 12:22 “22 “For the Lord will not abandon His people on account of His great name, because the Lord has been pleased to make you a people for Himself.”

The Lord gifts grace to His people on account of his great name. This is unmerited grace for sinners…this is Amazing Grace. All of history builds to the time of Jesus coming into the world to save sinners and be the pathway to unconditional grace for His church but the Lord displayed grace to Israel as well. He chose them from among all the nations. He set his love on them through covenants with them that were kept faithfully throughout history.

In this next chapter, we are going to look at God’s covenant love with his people so that even though they failed him, he would not abandon them for the sake of His great name and glory.

Review:

1. The Renewing of the Covenant 11:14-15

We stopped shy of finishing chapter 11 last week because these last few verses fit contextually with an introduction to chapter 12’s exhortation from Samuel to Israel. It is also a transition and natural response to the victory the Lord gave Saul as the new king of Israel over the Ammonites.

What is important in these verses are two points in v 14:

Where Samuel sends Israel

What they go to do

A. The Place for the Covenant people

In v 14, Samuel sends the people to Gilgal to renew the kingdom under their new leader Saul. Now Gilgal is special and so we need to see why Samuel would send the people there to renew the kingdom. It feels like the kingdom under their king Saul has just started.

First we understand that Gilgal is a special place in relationship with God’s covenant with his people. We need to remember that in the life of Israel, there are two major crossings in their life….there is the crossing the Red Sea in their escape from Egypt. This crossing of the Red Sea was the beginning of God’s faithfulness to rescue his people as He promised as their covenant keeping God. Now they wandered through desert for 40 years because of their disobedience and self-reliance. But upon the entering into the promised land, they expereinced their 2nd crossing. Here they crossed the Jordan River to end to that sinful phase of life . One crossing began their escape from captivity and it was their redemption. The 2nd crossing looked at their entrance into the promised land.

Look back with me at Joshua 4:1–7

“1 Now when all the nation had finished crossing the Jordan, the Lord spoke to Joshua, saying, 2 “Take for yourselves twelve men from the people, one man from each tribe, 3 and command them, saying, ‘Take up for yourselves twelve stones from here out of the middle of the Jordan, from the place where the priests’ feet are standing firm, and carry them over with you and lay them down in the lodging place where you will lodge tonight.’ ” 4 So Joshua called the twelve men whom he had appointed from the sons of Israel, one man from each tribe; 5 and Joshua said to them, “Cross again to the ark of the Lord your God into the middle of the Jordan, and each of you take up a stone on his shoulder, according to the number of the tribes of the sons of Israel. 6 “Let this be a sign among you, so that when your children ask later, saying, ‘What do these stones mean to you?’ 7 then you shall say to them, ‘Because the waters of the Jordan were cut off before the ark of the covenant of the Lord; when it crossed the Jordan, the waters of the Jordan were cut off.’ So these stones shall become a memorial to the sons of Israel forever.””

Now when they leave the Jordan River, the Lord instructs Joshua to take these twelve stones from the Jordan and set them up in the city of Gilgal as a memorial for God’s faithfulness. He also tells Joshua to circumcise all the men of Israel because a generation had passed in the wilderness wanderings. Circumcision was a sign of the covenant between Israel and the Lord as it represented the purity that the Lord brought upon those who were under the covenant.

After they are purified symbolically by circumcision, the Lord instructs Joshua to take the people to Gilgal.

Joshua 5:8–12 “8 Now when they had finished circumcising all the nation, they remained in their places in the camp until they were healed. 9 Then the Lord said to Joshua, “Today I have rolled away the reproach of Egypt from you.” So the name of that place is called Gilgal to this day. 10 While the sons of Israel camped at Gilgal they observed the Passover on the evening of the fourteenth day of the month on the desert plains of Jericho. 11 On the day after the Passover, on that very day, they ate some of the produce of the land, unleavened cakes and parched grain. 12 The manna ceased on the day after they had eaten some of the produce of the land, so that the sons of Israel no longer had manna, but they ate some of the yield of the land of Canaan during that year.”

Therefore, Gilgal is a place where the covenant of the Lord was renewed with the next generation who followed the ark of the covenant through the wilderness with Joshua as their leader. The covenant was renewed in Gilgal, making it a special place to remind the people that God has alway cared for and led his covenant people, even in their disobedience. This is a covenant of God’s grace towards his people who led them out of bondage and who led them through the sinful wanderings of their wilderness to the land of promise.

It is not a surprise then that Samuel wants to send the people there to Gilgal to officially install Saul as king. Here is a place that exudes the idea of God’s covenant keeping and so it is in Gilgal that Samuel will transition the people of Israel to the Kingdom of God’s people. Here the age of the judges will end and the monarchy begins. This monarchy will still function under the helm of the Lord, who is our covenant keeping God.

Have you ever wished that Christianity had a place to visit, to make pilgrimage to as a remembrance of all God has done. You could say visiting the Holy Land is such a trip. I would agree that it would be a wonderful experience to go to there, but visiting the Holy Land is not required for Christians. We are not instructed to go anywhere to remember God’s covenant with his people. There is no Mt Sinai, no Jerusalem, No Gilgal. Why?

All who belong to the church, the Bride of Christ, walk around everyday as something new, something better than all those holy places. This is true because when we have Jesus living in us by His spirit.

Jeremiah 31:31–34 “31 “Behold, days are coming,” declares the Lord, “when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, 32 not like the covenant which I made with their fathers in the day I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, although I was a husband to them,” declares the Lord. 33 “But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days,” declares the Lord, “I will put My law within them and on their heart I will write it; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. 34 “They will not teach again, each man his neighbor and each man his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they will all know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them,” declares the Lord, “for I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more.””

Quoting from Hebrews 10

Hebrews 10:14–23 “14 For by one offering He has perfected for all time those who are sanctified. 15 And the Holy Spirit also testifies to us; for after saying, 16 “This is the covenant that I will make with them After those days, says the Lord: I will put My laws upon their heart, And on their mind I will write them,” He then says, 17 “And their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more.” 18 Now where there is forgiveness of these things, there is no longer any offering for sin. 19 Therefore, brethren, since we have confidence to enter the holy place by the blood of Jesus, 20 by a new and living way which He inaugurated for us through the veil, that is, His flesh, 21 and since we have a great priest over the house of God, 22 let us draw near with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. 23 Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful;”

Friends, we are all united to Christ by faith in Him and therefore His holiness bearing fruit in us is the testimony that reminds us daily that He is a faithful covenant keeping God. He was faithful to rescue his people from Egypt, parting the waters of the Red Sea, and he was faithful to rescue His church from their bondage to sin, parting the waters of death so that we could be free by the blood of Christ. The Lord was faithful to lead Israel through the wilderness, forgiving their continual failures, parting the water of the Jordan River so they could safely pass into the land promised for their inheritance. The Lord will also lead us through the trials of this life with our continual failures against him, parting the waters of the final death so that we might inherit eternal life by the resurrection of Jesus Christ. The work of Jesus brings the Spirit into our lives to testify that we are people of the New Covenant because we abide in Christ forever.

Let me encourage you this week to rejoice in your daily pilgrimage to nowhere. The Spirit lives within you and helps you remember all Jesus has done. There are no stones erected, no temple built on a mountain, no cross to carry, no tomb to visit. I don’t want to discourage you from visiting the Holy Land one day. I am sure it is lovely to see the place where Jesus walked and lived. But….Jesus accomplished all of redemption so we can freely enjoy blessing of the New Covenant in Him now!

B. The Actions of a Covenant People

Remember back with me in chapter 10,

1 Samuel 10:17–19 “17 Thereafter Samuel called the people together to the Lord at Mizpah; 18 and he said to the sons of Israel, “Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, ‘I brought Israel up from Egypt, and I delivered you from the hand of the Egyptians and from the power of all the kingdoms that were oppressing you.’ 19 “But you have today rejected your God, who delivers you from all your calamities and your distresses; yet you have said, ‘No, but set a king over us!’ Now therefore, present yourselves before the Lord by your tribes and by your clans.””

I showed you in chapter 10 how Samuel leads the people to discover Samuel as the appointed King by lot. It was here that I told you that this event was not a time of celebration, but of judgment. This act of establishing Saul as king was in direct result of Israel rejecting the Lord as King over them.

Now compare this event to the end of chapter 11,

1 Samuel 11:15 “15 So all the people went to Gilgal, and there they made Saul king before the Lord in Gilgal. There they also offered sacrifices of peace offerings before the Lord; and there Saul and all the men of Israel rejoiced greatly.”

They made Saul king before the Lord

They offered sacrifices before the Lord

They rejoiced greatly.

The renewal of the kingdom are the proper actions of a covenant people. It is here at Gilgal, that the monarchy of man is established properly…BEFORE THE LORD. It is here in Gilgal that Samuel is passing the baton as their leader and judge (he will still operate as prophet). But now the king and his people have come to understand, by the help of the Spirit, that this is the LORD’s KINGDOM. He is King and Saul has been appointed as the earthly King under the headship of the Lord.

It was at Gilgal that offerings were made. It is noteworthy that the peace offering was mentioned as being offered at Gilgal. It is the peace offering that is the final offering in a montage of offerings. First the Sin offering, representing atonement from Sin, then the burnt offering, where the consecration and purtification takes place. Finally the peace offering reflects the intimate relationship that the Lord has with his people.

Mark Rooker writes in his commentary on Leviticus.

Leviticus (2) Sacrifice

In its turn this evidence of renewed commitment issues finally into shared peace offerings, that sacrifice which brought worshipper and Deity together and which was thus emblematic of fellowship established.

Therefore in this peace offering in Gilgal, the people there are reflecting on a covenant with God which the Lord never abandoned it with their groanings. He never forsook it with their idol worship or blatant acts of disobedience. He never got exasperated with His people because the covenant is always about his glory and his faithfulness in spite of human weakness. Biblical Covenants highlight the Lord who never leaves nor forsakes his people.

Kenneth Matthews makes this connection to the NT,

Leviticus—Holy God, Holy People Command to Complete the Mission (vv. 12–15)

The peace offering, as the name indicates, was a celebratory feast that was shared with the priests and invited guests. An Israelite presented it as an offering of thanksgiving and praise to God for answering prayer or simply offered it as a freewill gift (

Let us see then the Lord’s Supper as a celebratory feast looking to Jesus as accomplishing all that was necessary for His faithfulness to be the focal point. He is the author and mediator of the New Covenant and that is a covenant of grace whereby he fulfills all of its obligations. We are still responsible for living as people of holiness and full of grace and truth. But this New Covenant cannot have covenant breakers because it is fulfill in the Only Perfect Son of God. He is always faithful.

Hebrews 12:22–24 “22 But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to myriads of angels, 23 to the general assembly and church of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the Judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, 24 and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood, which speaks better than the blood of Abel.”

Jesus ratified the new covenant with his blood so that He is promise that all sins are forgiven, total peace has been reconciled to his people, and all requirements of the covenant fall upon his perfect obedience.

Author Stephen Wellum has been very helpful to me in the area of New Covenant Theology. He summarizes Jesus’ fulfillment of the New Covenant as follows:

In Wellum's covenant theology, Jesus fulfills the New Covenant by:

Establishing it through His blood

Perfectly obeying as the last Adam and true Israel

Mediating it as the final priest and king

Securing forgiveness and the gift of the Spirit

Creating a new covenant people united to Him

As Wellum frequently summarizes, all of God's covenant promises reach their fulfillment in Christ, who is both the mediator and the embodiment of the New Covenant itself.

Conclusion:

Again from And Can It Be

 No condemnation now I dread; Jesus, and all in Him is mine! Alive in Him, my living Head, And clothed in righteousness divine, Bold I approach th'eternal throne, And claim the crown, through Christ my own. [Refrain]

Amazing love! how can it be That Thou, my God, should die for me!

The work of redemption fulfilled in Jesus Christ, the mediator of the New Covenant leads His people to worship with the a fullness of gratitude and it calls sinner to repentance and faith in him!

2. The Servant of the Covenant 12:1-5

3. The Betrayers of the Covenant 12:6-19

4. The Keeper of the Covenant 12:20-25