“The Promise of a Covenant”

Genesis 9:12-13

INTRODUCTION:

JEREMIAH 31:31-34

1) If we are to know the playbook, we have to read it and follow the instructions for ourselves.

*The Bible… “What is this?” (The Bible) “What are you supposed to do with it?” (Read it!)

O.T…“This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success.” Joshua 1:8

N.T…“Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth.” 2 Timothy 2:15

2) If we are to train to be in shape, we have to set up reminders.

• I am a list maker!
• I use my phone to set up reminders of upcoming meetings and events.

O.T…“Bind them on your heart always; tie them around your neck. When you walk, they will lead you; when you lie down, they will watch over you; and when you awake, they will talk with you.”    Proverbs 6:21-22   (This echoes Deuteronomy 6:7; 11:19)

N.T… “But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.”     2 Timothy 3:14-17

3) Listen to the Coach, because communication is key!

O.T… “You shall be careful therefore to do as the Lord your God has commanded you. You shall not turn aside to the right hand or to the left. You shall walk in all the way that the Lord your God has commanded you, that you may live, and that it may go well with you, and that you may live long in the land that you shall possess.”    Deuteronomy 5:32-33

N.T… “And Mary said, “Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.” And the angel departed from her.”    Luke 1:38

4) If we are to work as a team, we need to show everyone Who’s team we are playing on!

Children’s song: “When we all work together”

O.T… “if my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land.”     2 Chronicles 7:14

N.T… “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God.”     Colossians 3:16

O.T… “Now therefore fear the Lord and serve him in sincerity and in faithfulness. Put away the gods that your fathers served beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve the Lord.”      Joshua 24:14

N.T…“But in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect,”      1 Peter 3:15

Benediction:

Paul writes in Romans 15:5-6: “May the God of endurance and encouragement grant you to live in such harmony with one another, in accord with Christ Jesus, that together you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Resource:

Live Like a Champion: Victory Through the Promises of God!”

“The Promise of Security!”

Romans 8:37-39 (NAS95)

In this sermon series, we are learning how to live like a champion by learning how to live according to the Victory of the promises of God. Our guiding image for this series is being a member of an NFL team who wins the Superbowl. Never forget, the Superbowl celebration is in our future and we are invited to play like a championship team, today.

Through January, we established the foundation for this series by teaching through 2 Peter 1. Then, last week, I taught the first promise of the series—the promise of forgiveness and its corresponding memory verse of 1 John 1:9. Today, I will teach you the promise of security from Romans 8:37-39.

Never forget the larger vision of why we are learning these lessons: We live like champions so that others will come to know the One who gave us His Victory—Jesus Christ, crucified, risen, and coming again!

STEP #1:  Know God’s playbook—the Bible—by learning the promises of God. Our promise for this week comes from Romans 8:37-39, with emphasis upon our memory verse for the week, verses 38-39:

But in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Please memorize our play of the week because there is great reward from God in doing so. By focusing your mind, you will saturate your heart, and in doing so join with King David’s testimony from Psalm 19:7-11:

The law of the Lord is perfect, restoring the soul; The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple. The precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart; The commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes. The fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever; The judgments of the Lord are true; they are righteous altogether. They are more desirable than gold, yes, than much fine gold; Sweeter also than honey and the drippings of the honeycomb. Moreover, by them Your servant is warned; In keeping them there is great reward [emphasis added].

Friends, we must do more memorize Romans 8:38-39. The promise of security was given to us to become our assurance of salvation, which then dictates how we live our lives—how we think and feel!

An example of this is found in the everyday practice of parenting. Whether the child feels secure or insecure in his or her parents’ love will determine and shape the child’s ability to trust his or her parents and respond to their discipline and instruction. But not only the parents—all authority figures through the child’s life.

How much more with God and how we view our Heavenly Father and learn the promise of His security!

STEP #2:   Train in godliness by learning to live according to the promises of God. Now we are going to learn how to apply this promise to ourselves. For the promise of security this is called “assurance.”

“My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me; and I give eternal life to them, and they will never perish; and no one will snatch them out of My hand. My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand. I and the Father are one.”

“For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.”

Eternal life is just that—eternal, which means lasting or forever; it endures! It’s not temporary life, insecure life, intermittent life, or potentially eternal life if you do everything right and be a good boy or girl.

“In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.”

“But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”

You live like a champion because you are secure in God’s perfect love and that security is unthreatened by God’s creation! Never forget that “there is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear” (1 John 4:18).

It is so important that you know this—God’s love is secure! God is never insecure and He is never threatened by any created thing, including you and your insecurities and fears! Never forget that your death has been swallowed by His life, your fear has been cast out by His love, and your condemnation is forever gone! As Paul said in Romans 8:1, “Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.”

With that context in place and explanation in mind, listen again to Romans 8:38-39, our memory verse for this week,

“For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Step #1 is knowing the promise (head) and step #2 is learning to live with it as an assurance (heart). This is God’s covenant faithfulness us, which then invites us to be faithful to others. Let’s check out Step #3.

STEP #3:   We are invited to learn how to listen to the Coach’s voice so that we play the right play at the right time. God has secured us in His love so that we can be safe people to shine His light as the beloved of God.

We live in an insecure, divided, fearful, and hateful world. Do you believe that love works in the real world?

Please think about this question at the practical level of your everyday responsibility: Does love work?

“Above all, keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins. Show hospitality to one another without grumbling.”

Love that is given to another person is evidence of your faith in God and His power to forgive sins! Apart from love, is there any evidence we can offer beyond our addiction to words and arguments with them?

“A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.”

“We love, because He first loved us. If someone says, ‘I love God,’ and hates his brother, he is a liar; for the one who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen. And this commandment we have from Him, that the one who loves God should love his brother also.”

This is the practical proof and this is the hardest work of being a Christian. Christianity is not a life of rules, does and don’t, religious activities, or intellectual beliefs. Christianity is about the God who is love saving us through His love for the sake of being love to the world!

If you are not loving, you are missing the whole point, because this is not just a play in the Playbook, this is God’s strategy of the whole Playbook. This is the banner over God’s Team—we are the beloved of God, chosen and called to show the world His love!

Start by loving those immediately around you and then those you encounter directly in your days. Yes, love moves us to the ends of the earth, but love must begin and end wherever you are.

And we gather as the Beloved of God to know this and to practice this. This moves us to the last step.

STEP #4:   Work together as one team—we are members of God’s family—His Church, the Body of Christ.

“The glory which You have given Me I have given to them, that they may be one, just as We are one; I in them and You in Me, that they may be perfected in unity, so that the world may know that You sent Me, and loved them, even as You have loved Me.”

How is our church family to attain the unity that Jesus prays for? It only happens through the vow of stability in our faith community that comes through the promise of security! Just like in marriage, the only way to thrive is to not have to focus on surviving. It is in the promise of security that the abundant life can happen!

What does this practically look like in the private and public arenas of our lives? The praxis of the promise of security is found in 1 Corinthians 12:27, 12:31—13:13. I’m going to end this teaching time by very clearly giving you the details of how to run this play from God’s playbook, by simply reading the Word of God:

Now you are Christ’s body, and individually members of it. But earnestly desire the greater gifts. And I show you a still more excellent way. If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. And if I give all my possessions to feed the poor, and if I surrender my body to be burned, but do not have love, it profits me nothing. Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails; but if there are gifts of prophecy, they will be done away; if there are tongues, they will cease; if there is knowledge, it will be done away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part; but when the perfect comes, the partial will be done away. When I was a child, I used to speak like a child, think like a child, reason like a child; when I became a man, I did away with childish things. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I will know fully just as I also have been fully known. But now faith, hope, love, abide these three; but the greatest of these is love [emphasis added].

Love is only possible with the promise of security. It is the fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22)! It is the evidence of God in us because God “sealed [us] in Him with the Holy Spirit of promise” (Ephesians 1:13)!