Covenant = God Revealed

[Re-Cap]

Why Covenant?

A contract is transactional

A covenant is relational

A contract is about interests (what is in it for me), whereas a covenant is about identity. It is about you and I coming together to form an "US"

One of the main objectives of covenant is:

Revelation

It’s hard to trust someone you don’t know

Covenant is God’s initiative to reveal Himself.

God Revealed in Covenant:

Increased knowledge of God

Expand our limited small view of God

“We so easily impoverish ourselves by embracing an idea of God that is too limited and small.”

Increased Christ-likeness in the believer

Increased participation in the mission of God

Here are a few important scriptures that carry this covenant - revelation - know God theme.

Habakkuk 2:14 “For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.”

Isaiah 11:9 “They will neither harm nor destroy on all my holy mountain, for the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.”

Psalm 67 “For the director of music. With stringed instruments. A psalm. A song. May God be gracious to us and bless us and make his face shine on us— so that your ways may be known on earth, your salvation among all nations. May the peoples praise you, God; may all the peoples praise you. May the nations be glad and sing for joy, for you rule the peoples with equity and guide the nations of the earth. May the peoples praise you, God; may all the peoples praise you. The land yields its harvest; God, our God, blesses us. May God bless us still, so that all the ends of the earth will fear him.”

Genesis 12 themes here.

Matthew 28:19-20

God initiates covenant, to reveal Himself to those He is in Covenant with, so that we RE - PRESENT him to the nations and teach them about who He is.

So let’s read about the new covenant-

Hebrews 8:6–13 (NIV)

But in fact the ministry Jesus has received is as superior to theirs as the covenant of which he is mediator is superior to the old one, since the new covenant is established on better promises. For if there had been nothing wrong with that first covenant, no place would have been sought for another. But God found fault with the people and said: “The days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the people of Israel and with the people of Judah. It will not be like the covenant I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt, because they did not remain faithful to my covenant, and I turned away from them, declares the Lord. This is the covenant I will establish with the people of Israel after that time, declares the Lord. I will put my laws in their minds and write them on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people. No longer will they teach their neighbor, or say to one another, ‘Know the Lord,’ because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest. For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more.” By calling this covenant “new,” he has made the first one obsolete; and what is obsolete and outdated will soon disappear.

The next 3 weeks we will be doing nothing but learning and expounding from Scripture:

Who is God?

What is God like? / What are His attributes?

Imagine your bestest friend, and I don’t know them. So write about them.

So you write down or tell me the attributes of your friend, that tells me about them. But that’s not the end of it, now I want to know them in relationship and intimacy.

No here is the thing with our situation:

The analogy falls short, because God has to reveal Himself personally…

If we are to have knowledge of God, we are entirely dependent on God making himself known to us.

And the way we know about God is also the way in which we experience God.

So as we discuss the attributes of God, may the Father, Son, Holy Spirit be experienced.

WHO IS GOD?

When I speak of “God”:

I am not speaking of a higher power, an energy, a force, a vibe, a power… but rather,

I am specifically referring to the “Triune God” of “Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.” - God can’t be explained, he can only be described.

I plan on teaching an entire message on the “Holy Trinity” and it is exciting because of the anticipation of both now (to a degree) and the future of enjoying/experiencing the very fullness of joy and satisfaction between the the trinity eternity past and eternity future.

The excitement of the fullness of New Creation is not a mansion or a bunch of stuff or any worldly ambition - it’s the experience of the triune God’s relationship.

WHAT ARE GOD’S ATTRIBUTES? WHAT IS GOD LIKE?

First, when we talk about how we come to know what God is like...

There are 2 pre-suppositions from our Scriptural authors.

God exists

God reveals himself to his creation.

Revelation:

Again, If we are to have knowledge of God, we are entirely dependent on God making himself known to us… Revelation

Revelation: is not a disclosure of truths about God; it is the self-revelation of God.

God revelas himself - he cannot be explained, but he can be described. He cannot be fully known but he can be truly known

3 Modes of Revelation:

Natural Revelation

Special Revelation

Christological Revelation

Natural Revelation

The natural order of things points to a Creator and a Designer of the universe.

The inanimate objects of the cosmos are animated with testimony to their Creator.

Psalm 19:1-8 “The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they reveal knowledge. They have no speech, they use no words; no sound is heard from them. Yet their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world.

How is it that people don’t see God? Paul talks about why? - Sin bad, Jesus good

Sin is the worst, it warps everything about God and reality to to the point, where you are convinced you believe in God but you live like an atheist. Sin makes people anti-God. Sin of the human heart will give glory to none but its own.

Every day! Day in an day out the cosmos are screaming that there is a God and He is beautiful.

Lamentations 3:22-23 “Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.”

Isaiah 45:6 “So that from the rising of the sun to the place of its setting people may know there is none besides me. I am the Lord, and there is no other.”

Special Revelation

God’s unique and supernatural communication of himself

Revelatory historical events (exodus and resurrection of Christ)

God acts in history, and that history communicates something of God.

Inspired Preaching (prophets and apostles)

1 Peter 1:12

Inscripturated revelation (God breathed Word through human authors to produce written texts)

To draw near to God in Scripture is to allow the wisdom and power of God’s Word to dwell in you richly.

We are not only hearing facts about God, but we are genuinely encountering God.

I can manipulate my prayer/worship times but i can’t with integrity manipulate the Scriptures.

Divine illumination

(Holy Spirit brings understanding to believers about His Word)

Christological Revelation

The incarnation of Jesus Christ

It is a direct and unmediated (uncensored, uncut, unedited) communication of God.

He is the reality of God - it is the single greatest act of God’s self-revelation.

The identity of God is bound up with the identity of Jesus Christ - John 1:18

And it also shows what God intended humanity to be and what it finally will be. “God became what we are, so that we might become what He is.” - Athanasius.

As Michael Bird says, “God’s revelation of himself is historically rooted, evangelical at heart, covenantal by nature, scriptural in form, and christological by design.”

So do you trust God?

-What do you boast in? Where is your confidence?

Jeremiah 9:23-24 “This is what the Lord says: “Let not the wise boast of their wisdom or the strong boast of their strength or the rich boast of their riches, but let the one who boasts boast about this: that they have the understanding to know me, that I am the Lord, who exercises kindness, justice and righteousness on earth, for in these I delight,” declares the Lord.”

The source of our joy and sense of importance ought to come not from our own abilities or possessions, but from the fact that we know him.

We have a far greater privilege than mere knowledge of facts about God. We have relationship, we speak, we commune in his presence, He personally dwells among us and within us to bless us.

John 17:3

God’s Attributes:

Broken up into 2 categories: Communicable and Non-Communicable