Covenant of Redemption
Covenant part 1 • Sermon • Submitted
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Covenant of Redemption
Covenant of Redemption
For the next 5 weeks we are going to dive deep into one of the most important themes in the Bible.
Covenants are the foundation of the Gospel. We need to understand the covenants God made in the OT with His people to fully understand what you have been offered in Jesus. They act like the skeleton that gives structure and support to the entire message of redemption.
What is a Covenant?
* A covenant is a formal relationship, a partnership between God and Mankind to rescue the world.
In the Scriptures, there are 5 formal covenants listed, however, there are many occasions where an informal covenant or partnership is made. The 5 formal are the “Big Bones” of the structure. Each of these Divine-Human relationships lay the foundation of God’s Redemptive plan until it reaches fulfillment in Jesus Christ. Now, God laid all these out over time so that now in Christ, we can look back and see this incredible message of redemption.
In this first sermon, we will look at the partnership God made with Adam (mankind). This partnership sets the stage for the 5 formal covenants. (Noah, Abraham, Moses, David, New Covenant in Christ).
Understand this about these covenants. They were often accompanied with an Oath being declared or some form of a Sign, a Sacrifice or a Ceremony marking the occasion of the covenant. You will see that throughout this series.
God gives us a good illustration of a Covenant - Marriage. We will look at marriage more deeply in a couple of weeks, but in Ephesians 5, we read that the Husband is to love his wife like Christ loves the Church and the wife is to honor and respect her husband as the Church honors and respects our LORD.
in a marriage, a man and woman make a formal partnership for lifelong faithfulness and devotion. Together they are to partner to reach common goals of love, affection, security, career goals, parenting, service…Its a partnership built on Love, Honor and Respect. In a larger sense, the very institution of marriage has a spiritual significance in that it is a covenant that God created to give a picture of the covenant of salvation we can have with Christ.
You don’t want to miss the upcoming Marriage Event on October 22. A one night Marriage event where Lisa and I will be speaking. Go to yourcpc.church/events and register.
Now, in every covenant, God outlines His responsibilities and mankind’s responsibilities, even though He knew from the beginning that mankind cannot/will not live up to our obligations. Therefore, God took our responsibilities upon Himself and gave a New Covenant through His Son that fulfills each of the covenants and covers mankind’s failure.
Ok. So this is the framework you are going to see throughout this series. (1) God goes into Partnership - covenant, with His people and outlines the responsibilities, (2) We fail to keep our end of the bargain, (3) Jesus came to establish a New Covenant where He covers our broken commitments and sins and offers to empower us with HIs presence to live out the plans of God.
Let’s dive into this first Partnership we find between God and mankind. This gives us the framework for our faith.
So God created man in his own image;
he created him in the image of God;
he created them male and female.
God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, and subdue it. Rule the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, and every creature that crawls on the earth.”
The Lord God took the man and placed him in the garden of Eden to work it and watch over it. And the Lord God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree of the garden, but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for on the day you eat from it, you will certainly die.”
This is the first partnership we find in the Scriptures. Let’s look at it.
God - provided life and everything they needed.
He promised blessings and eternal life
Mankind - Take care of Creation
Don’t eat from the one tree - tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
That’s all mankind had to do in this first informal covenant with God. Guess what? We couldn’t do it!!!
Go to chapter 3 and we find Adam and Eve both rebelling against this simple command and they are eating the fruit!
Genesis 3:8,
Christian Standard Bible Chapter 3
Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden at the time of the evening breeze, and they hid from the LORD God among the trees of the garden.
That moment fractured the Divine-Human relationship. Sin had entered the heart of mankind and now death was placed upon all humanity. Not just humanity...
For the creation eagerly waits with anticipation for God’s sons to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to futility—not willingly, but because of him who subjected it—in the hope that the creation itself will also be set free from the bondage to decay into the glorious freedom of God’s children. For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together with labor pains until now.
From the moment of the “Fall” of mankind from this covenant relationship and into sin, God began revealing His plan to Redeem us through a series of formal Covenants that ultimately lead us to Christ.
TO REDEEM = TO BUY BACK, TO WIN BACK, TO RESTORE.
God makes the first promise of our redemption here in Genesis 3:15
I will put hostility between you and the woman,
and between your offspring and her offspring.
He will strike your head,
and you will strike his heel.
Have you ever wondered why Jesus had to be born of a virgin? Because Adam was supposed to lead his family and he willingly disobeyed God and brought the curse of sin upon humanity, it became recognized that sin is passed down from the father to the children. We are sinners by the choices we make, but also simply by the nature we inherit!
This is why a virgin had to conceive from the Holy Spirit, because only God‘s child would not be tainted with sin. Jesus had to be born of a woman so that He could take on flesh and fulfill this declaration in vs. 15. The seed of the woman - God in the flesh.
Now, after God makes the formal covenants with Noah, Abraham, Moses and David, we find the Israelites in bondage to the Babylonians in part because they continued to fail in their part of the covenant. Yet, in the midst of their captivity, God sends a word of Hope through the prophets Jeremiah and Ezekiel.
“Look, the days are coming”—this is the Lord’s declaration—“when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. This one will not be like the covenant I made with their ancestors on the day I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt—my covenant that they broke even though I am their master”—the Lord’s declaration. “Instead, this is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after those days”—the Lord’s declaration. “I will put my teaching within them and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people. No longer will one teach his neighbor or his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they will all know me, from the least to the greatest of them”—this is the Lord’s declaration. “For I will forgive their iniquity and never again remember their sin.
Look at the promises:
A New Covenant
God will write His Word on our Hearts.
God will restore the Relationship.
God will fill us with His Spirit.
God will forgive our sin
God will give Eternal Life
I will also sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean. I will cleanse you from all your impurities and all your idols. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will remove your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. I will place my Spirit within you and cause you to follow my statutes and carefully observe my ordinances.
God will make us New - Born Again.
Jesus is the Author and Mediator of the New Covenant.
Jesus is the Son of David
Jesus is the Seed of Abraham
Jesus offers a Covenant not of Law, but of GRACE!
Musicians play...
In the same way he also took the cup after supper and said, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you.
how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, cleanse our consciences from dead works so that we can serve the living God?
Therefore, he is the mediator of a new covenant, so that those who are called might receive the promise of the eternal inheritance, because a death has taken place for redemption from the transgressions committed under the first covenant.
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has passed away, and see, the new has come!
This is the call God has for everyone of us. Jesus came to...
To Make us New - Give us a New Start - Born Again
To write His Word on our Hearts.
To restore the Relationship between us and the Father.
To fill us with His Spirit.
To forgive our sin and give us Eternal Life
The Big Take-Away:
Jesus will keep His fulfill His responsibilities, WILL YOU receive HIM and fulfill yours?
How do you receive the New Covenant?
Everyone the Father gives me will come to me, and the one who comes to me I will never cast out.
For this is the will of my Father: that everyone who sees the Son and believes in him will have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.”
Your Role?
Make yourself AVAILABLE to Him. Surrender your life to Jesus Christ. Not as some simple prayer so you don’t have to worry about going to hell. But a sincere surrender of every part of yourself to the LORDSHIP of Christ. Inviting Him to make you New. To write His Word on your Heart. To Fill you with His Spirit. To Serve Him completely!
Response / Song - Available.