Sermon Tone Analysis

Our Response to God’s Covenant Love

Today is our last sermon in our series God’s Covenant love.

I hope you now have a greater understanding and appreciation of God’s loyal and steadfast love toward you, His New Covenant people, the church.

Recap of God’s covenant love.

Hesed.

Just to give you a picture of the Hesed, God’s Covenant Love.

The words in the Hebrew used here are goodness and Hesed (God’s Covenant love), and the word for follow is actually pursue.

The kind of word used for relentlessly pursuing your enemy in battle.

But what the psalmist is really saying is that instead of the curse and punishment that we deserve, because of the forgiveness that we have in Christ, God’s covenant love will hunt us down relentlessly all the days of your life.

But what practical application can we get from this series on God’s Covenant love?

The title of my message today is “The Covenant Life” and the big idea is this: God's Covenant Love leads us to live a life of loyal love to others.

Loyalty - a word I want to talk about today.

Last week we talked about commitment.

Today we are going to explore another word that describes the Covenant Love of God and that is LOYALTY.

People today just just mouth loyalty, but it’s not a reality in their life.

In the world today we hear so many people making wedding vows just to divorce in the end.

LOYALTY

People stop being best friends with someone because they have nothing to offer them anymore.

It’s all about what I can get from a relationship, it’s all about me and my personal happiness.

The “selfie” generation.

Members of the church who once seemed to be happy at church or even served at that church start to back off from their commitment because they started seeing so many negative things with people around them.

True loyalty is not affected by people nor by circumstances.

What is loyalty?

What is loyalty?

LOYALTY

A commitment to an ongoing relationship and to the attitude and behaviour demanded by it.

It is evident in human relationships and also in the covenant relationship between God and his people.

Manser, M. H. (2009).

Dictionary of Bible Themes: The Accessible and Comprehensive Tool for Topical Studies.

London: Martin Manser.

The ultimate object and source of loyalty is God.

See also ; ; ; ;

God is the Person Who most deserves it.

He is also the Person Who best exemplified it.

We have human bosses, but our ultimate loyalty is not to men but to God.

1. God’s Covenant Love is loyal.

The story of John Kenneth Galbraith.

God is also the one who best exemplified loyalty.

Scripture tells us that even if we are faithless, He remains faithful, for He cannot deny who He is.

() He is a loyal covenant God.

We are going to read from a passage in scripture where Jesus washed His disciples’ feet.

A lot of times we associate with the topic of humility but today we are going to study it from a different lens.

The lens of our response to God’s loyal love by our loyal love to Him and His God’s covenant people.

John 13:1

Loyal love is not affected by circumstances.

Love for God is commanded

Here we have a snapshot of Jesus speaking to His disciples just hours before He will depart from this world.

He knew that within a matter of hours the full wrath of God the Father would be upon Him, and His response to the disciples is a response of love, a love to the very end.

Who among you here have hard days?

Or opposite question.

That was the kind of day for Jesus, in the weeks leading to this scene, Jesus was working miracles, but He also preached to huge crowds and also battled His enemies where He would typically expose their hearts and walk away in triumph.

Often when we have a hard day, we think that we should be treated special.

That people should cater to us and be considerate to us and we deserve to be pampered.

Well, whatever kind of hard day we have had, we have never had a day where we knew that in a matter of hours that the God of heaven and earth was going to pour out His full wrath on us.

Well, whatever kind of hard day we have had, we have never had a day where we knew that in a matter of hours that the God of heaven and earth was going to pour out His full wrath on us.

Jesus, the One who was about to face the difficulty, the hardship, the challenge that has never been faced before by any human, is thinking about His disciples.

John said in verse 1: “having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.”

The greatness of the love of Christ.

In face of the cup of suffering He still thought of others first.

That is a tall order.

If we are the ones faced with stress, we care about our feelings.

We cause drama over the slightest intrusion on our security.

And mind you that security does not involve life and death.

It is about our feelings, don’t you hurt me!

Yet with Jesus, faced with suffering the punishment for the sins of the whole world.

He still thought of others and He loved them.

Loyal love is not affected by circumstances.

I want to be like the Lord.

Imagine the emotional hurts that we will be spared from if we just love others like the way Jesus loved.

You’ll walk into a room, instead of thinking don’t annoy me, don’t invade my private space, don’t hurt me, you’ll be thinking: there are people in this room who need my love and encouragement today.

I have to find them!

What Jesus did next was even more amazing:

John 13:2-

2. Loyal Love Serves Others.

What Jesus did in washing the feet of His disciples was not only a display of service He did not only do a servant’s job.

He did the lowliest job of all.

There was a hierarchy in the households of first century Palestine..

See also ; ; ; ; ;

Why did Jesus do it?

Loving God involves loving Jesus Christ

We may think it is just a lesson in humility.

If you want to be first, you have to be last.

In God’s economy, when we humble ourselves God exalts us.

This may be a perfectly reasonable thing to conclude.

But this is not the answer that the passage gives us.

When we ask the question: How could Jesus do this thing?, the answer is found in verse 3: “Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going back to God.”

If you want to be first, you have to be last.

If you want to live, you must die.

Everything is upside down.

We might be inclined to say this is what Jesus has in mind here.

In God’s economy, when we humble ourselves God exalts us.

This may be a perfectly reasonable thing to conclude.

But this is not the answer that the passage gives us.

When we ask the question: How could Jesus do this thing?, the answer is found in verse 3: “Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going back to God.”

This text does not take us to an example of humiliation to glory, but from glory to humiliation.

The reason why Jesus is about to do this is not because He aspires to be glorified one day, but because He came from glory and gives a picture of God’s loyal love that He sent His only Son, the Only One Who can truly cleanse us.

See also ;

Expressing love for God

John 13:6

Delight in worship and in God’s house