Covenant Community

Covenant Community

(Hebrews 8:6-12)

10:30 am,  Sunday, June 2, 2013, Windsor UBC, J G White

We are putting our house up for sale.  People wonder why?!

1: to spend less on where we live and more on things like study and travel. We plan to go back to renting around here.  

2: We now have full responsibility for a cottage property, about 50 kms from here.  We might want to invest more in that, and it become our retirement home. And keep the lawn mowed!

3:  It was mortgage time anyway; time to think over all our options.  And it’s nice to try selling when you don’t have to sell.

Financial matters are not my forte, but I see a Mortgage as a contract, an agreement, a covenant of sorts.  If we sell, agreements need to be made and contracts need to be signed.  

Covenant = ?  An agreement between two parties.  Terms of the agreement.  

Old Testament Covenants: Noah, Abraham, Moses, etc.

New Testament Covenant = Jesus Christ, cross & blood

As a community, a family, a body, the New Covenant is at the heart of our fellowship.

Hebrews 8 and 9 - all manner of convoluted covenant stuff.

Our theme scripture for this season, 8:6.  

Jesus has been given a greater work to do for God.

He is the go-between for the new covenant.

That covenant is better than the old one.

It is based on better promises.

There are covenants between people and God. There are also agreements among people, among God’s people. So we have a Church Covenant, an agreement among us, under God.

A vital part of Baptist congregations through our history.

Our own church history tell us we were founded with articles of faith and a covenant.  1819.

Our covenant has changed through the years.

Our present Covenant has this as its introduction...

Because God’s love compels us to love, serve and obey Him and because Christ desires His church to be holy and without blemish, we the membership of the Windsor United Baptist Church, do, before God and one another, cheerfully ascribe to and voluntarily agree to the following Biblical guidelines for Christian conduct.

God’s love compels us to love. 1 John 4:7 says: Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.  It is incredible to know that even when we are not capable of - or willing to - love everyone around here, God does.  Our Lord is the source of our love.  Rooted in Him, we can love others better than we can do this on our own. This is a bit of wonderful grace, eh?  Let us love one another, because love is from God.  We can do it because love is from God.

God’s love compels us to serve and obey Him.  Jesus said to his disciples, If you love me you will keep my commandments. (John 14:15)  He loved us enough to die for us, in our stead.  Today we remember His actual human body and blood, wrecked for our sakes. As it says back again in 1 John 4, In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins. (10)

So our agreement with one another, to be a family of God, is rooted in the love of God for us, most powerful in Jesus, and in the obedience this can bring in our lives.  

Our Covenant can be useful, good for something.

A Church Covenant can be the basis of a good life together.  Making a commitment together helps us all.

Elected leaders in trouble... in a sense, their covenant with the public seems to have been broken.  Senators.  Mayors.  Bank CEO salaries!  Breaking an unwritten covenant?

In the Old Testament, the people often complained about their leaders, yet they had been just as much the covenant breakers.  How many times did the children of Israel try to reject Moses’ leadership, or simply reject Moses?  Read Exodus, read Numbers, and find out the repeating story.  The people had the tablets of the Ten Commandments, kept in the Ark of the Covenant.  Again and again they did not keep the agreement; again and again they were brought back to the good life with the Lord. Worshipping only the LORD, living right with each other.

Even we who know Jesus keeps looking for the good life.  We can read books like Your Best Life Now - by Joel Osteen, or The Life you’ve Always Wanted - by John Ortberg, or Life Without Limits: Inspiration for a Ridiculously Good Life - by

Nick Vujicic.  And many more.

It is a ridiculously good kind of life Jesus lived, and that we can live because of Him.  But remember - all of his story, the whole thing, is ridiculously good.  Our agreement together is based upon the New Covenant in His blood.  And as the book of Hebrews teaches, Jesus covenant is the greatest.  It surpasses all the went before, it completes them.

A Church Covenant can be the basis of Church discipline.

So taught Bill Brackney, in a session a few years ago with our Deacons at the time.

The basis of our restoration of people in fellowship is the New Covenant in His blood.

Way back in our history, people were disfellowshipped, with a view to restoring them.  Again and again in the minute book we can read this sort of thing.

Would we dare do this today?  But does membership here mean very little if very little is required?  No covenant need be kept, apparently.  I’ve grown up with this, you have too.  Shall the be a new age of meaningful membership in the local church?  

As Elton Trueblood wrote, 50 years ago, we, Church, can be the Company of the Committed. And, committed to a special way of living this life with the Lord, others see and come to understand.  

So our Church Covenant can be the basis of a good reputation.  If life really is better in our fellowship than outside it, what do you suppose those outside will do?

We can take a cue from 1 Thessalonians 5.  We CAN do this... if the Lord tells us to, we can, with Him.

Therefore encourage one another and build up each other, as indeed you are doing. ...Be at peace among yourselves.

And we urge you, beloved, to admonish the idlers,

encourage the fainthearted, help the weak,

be patient with all of them.

See that none of you repays evil for evil,

but always seek to do good to one another and to all.

Rejoice always, pray without ceasing,

give thanks in all circumstances;

for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.

Do not quench the Spirit.

Do not despise the words of prophets, but test everything;

hold fast to what is good; abstain from every form of evil.

When this happens among us, what will others see and say?  The good life is available; it comes from Jesus.

Yesterday I was paying tribute to an old, deceased friend, who was a big football fan, so this story is appropriate now.

A football game was being played in Badger Stadium in 1982 in Madison, Wisconsin with more than 60,000 fans in attendance. The home team was losing. But out of the blue during time outs, when play was a at stop, the fans would jump up and roar with excitement. Why?

Many of those in the stadiums were listening to a game being broadcast on the radio from 70 miles down the road. What they were listening to was the Milwaukee Brewers beating the St. Louis Cardinals in game three of the 1982 World Series. Their team on the field was losing, but they were turned into something better down the road.

The Christian life is like that for us today. Our circumstances are bad at times but we must be tuned into something better down the road. We must place our hopes not in this world but in Jesus Kingdom that is breaking into this world!  Do we seem to others like those who know something greater is going on than they know about?  God is up to something, really good!

This is the hope that shines in us for others.  

Small group Bible study... song we used to sing...

Written in the Word, In the good good Word

Is a message from our God, Gonna tell you all about  

How to get to the kingdom, the good life

I love Jesus Na na na na...

Livin’ in the world, Where the big grapes grow

Milk and honey flow, From the morning to the night

And everybody’s singin about Jesus

Our reputation can be: those who have real hope and real life.  The basis of our reputation is our reliance upon the New Covenant in His blood.

This summer I will take us through our rather long Church Covenant, and explore the agreement we have with one another under God about this life: how to live it.   Aside from the role of these in our covenant relationship, they are practical topics to seek the Lord about today.

Lordship of Christ

Relationships with Other Members

Christian Growth

Stewardship

Family Relationships

Social and Moral Issues

Witness

These things are all important to our commitment - to one another - to our Lord.  They are important to our lives.

Jesus is the go-between for the new covenant.

It is based on the best promises.  

Stand on His promises.