Senior Pastor, Robert Dennison, preached this message on August 17, 2025. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Audio Transcript
And on the little tab you’ll find a copy of the Apostles Creed. The Apostles Creed is a concise tool to remember essential teachings of the Christian faith, and I would just like us to read that together today in preparation for what we do believe as we come to the Lord’s table.
I believe in God the Father Almighty, creator of heaven and earth, and in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried. He descended into hell. On the third day, he rose again from the dead. He ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of God, the Father Almighty. From there he will come to judge the living and the dead.
I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Holy Christian Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and life everlasting. Amen. Paul gives us these instructions in 1 Corinthians 11. For I received from the Lord what I also passed on to you. On the night when he was betrayed, the Lord Jesus took bread, gave thanks, broke it, and said, this is my body which is for you.
Do this in remembrance of me. And in the same way, after supper he also took the cup and said, this cup is the new covenant established by my blood. Do this as often as you drink it in remembrance of me. For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes. Everyone is invited to participate in the Lord’s Supper today if you meet these three requirements.
The first is that you have accepted the once for all sacrifice of Jesus Christ for your sin, and you are willing to outwardly identify yourself as one of his followers with others. And the third thing is that you’ve examined your heart, as Kelly Jo already mentioned, to make sure there is no unconfessed sin there today. For Paul warns us that whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy way will be guilty of sin against the body and blood of the Lord. So a man should examine himself, and in this way he should eat the bread and drink from the cup as the elements are passed. Today we ask that you partake of them, hold onto them, so that we can all take them together.
And while they’re being distributed, it’s your time to examine your heart, to confess any known sin before the Lord. May we have a word of thanks. Heavenly Father, we thank you that Jesus came to this earth to live among us in the squalor in the sin and the awfulness of this world, that he gave up the glories of heaven and the worship of angels and. And your near presence. That he might live among us a perfect life.
That he might be willing to die on the cross for our sins, to give up his body and his blood, that we might have forgiveness. But we also thank you that he was resurrected on the third day because he was able to resurrect himself. We know that he also will resurrect us from the dead to bring us to live with you in eternity one day. For all of this, we come in remembrance of these things. In your Son’s name we give thanks.
Amen.
Sa.
This is my body, which is for you. Do this and in remembrance of me.
Sam.
Sa.
Sam.
Sa.
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This cup is the new covenant established by my blood. Do this as often as you drink it in remembrance of me.
Here’s.
We’re continuing our study on covenants. Today we’re looking at the Abrahamic Covenant.
We see it in four different chapters in Genesis 12, 15, 17 and 22. I only made it through 12 and 15 in the first service, so that’s all I’m going to make you bear through today. So if you’ll take your Bibles and turn to Genesis chapter 12, we’ll begin reading there today in verses one through nine.
Genesis chapter 12, verses 1 through 9. The Lord said to Abram, go from your land, your relatives and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. I will make you into a great nation. I will bless you. I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing.
I will bless those who bless you. I will curse anyone who treats you with contempt. And all the peoples on earth will be blessed through you. So Abram went as the Lord had told him, and Lot went with him. Abram was 75 years old when he left Haran.
He took his wife, Sarai, his nephew Lot, all the possessions he had accumulated and the people they had acquired in Haran. And they set out for the land of Canaan. And when they came to the land of Canaan, Abram passed through the land to the side of Shechem, at the oak of Moreh. And at that time, the Canaanites were in the land. The Lord appeared to Abram and said to your offspring, I will give this land.
So he built an altar there to the Lord who had appeared to him. And from there, he moved on to the hill country east of Bethel and pitched his tent. With Bethel on the west and AI on the east. He built an altar to the Lord there, and he called on the name of the Lord. Then Abram journeyed by stages to the Negev.
And then, Genesis, chapter 15, verses 1 through 21.
After these events, the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision. Do not be afraid, Abram, I am your shield. Your reward will be very great. But Abram said, lord God, what can you give me since I am childless and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus? Abram continued, look, you have given me no offspring, so a slave born in my house will be my heir.
Now the word of the Lord came to him. This one will not be your heir. Instead, one who comes from your own body will be your heir. He took him outside and said, look at the sky and count the stars, if you are able to count them. And then he said to him, your offspring will be that numerous.
Abram believed the Lord, and he credited it to him as righteousness. He also said to him, I am the Lord who brought you from Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to possess. But he said, lord God, how can I know that I will possess it? He said to him, bring me a three year old cow, a three year old female goat, a three year old ram, a turtle dove, and a young pigeon. So he brought all these to him, cut them in half and laid the pieces opposite each other.
But he did not cut the birds in half. Birds of prey came down on the carcasses, but Abram drove them away. As the sun was setting, a deep sleep came over Abram, and suddenly great terror and darkness descended on him. Then the Lord said to Abram, know this for certain. Your offspring will be resident aliens for 400 years in a land that does not belong to them and will be enslaved and oppressed.
However, I will judge the nation they serve, and afterward they will go out with many possessions. But you will go to your ancestors in peace and be buried at a good old age. In the fourth generation they will return here, for the iniquity of the Amorites has not yet reached its full measure. When the sun had set and it was dark, a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch appeared and passed between the divided animals. On that day, the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, I give this land to your offspring, from the brook of Egypt to the great river, the Euphrates river, the land of the Kenites, Kenizzites, Catamites, Hithites, Perizzites, Rephaim, Amorites, Canaanites, Girgashites, Jebusites, and The termites.
So. No, that’s at camp. They always used to add that in. And I thought it was true when I was a kid.
Just again, I want to mention I’m reading through a book called God’s Kingdom Through God’s Covenants by Gentry and Wellem. It’s very helpful. There’s a lot about covenants and we’re just trying to go through them in was it six weeks? We’re doing Hunter, something like that. But it’s a much deeper study.
Just as some review we’ve looked about the Adamic covenant, which was God’s covenant with all humanity. We looked at the Noahic covenant that God made with Noah and his family. Today we’re looking at the Abrahamic covenant that God makes with Abraham and his family. And as we’ve said all along, each of these covenants is zeroing in more and more so that we might identify who Jesus Christ is in the center so that people would know who he was. Can we look at the next slide there, Deb?
There you go. Your slides don’t look. Okay, good. They look better up here. They’re all cattywampus back there.
But all of these point to Jesus. They draw us closer and closer to him because he is the climactic center. He is the new covenant. And just as we said today, every time we take the Lord’s Supper, we say that the cup represents the new covenant that we have in his blood. A covenant is a ceremony or legal process whereby people who are not kin are now bound as tightly as any family relationship.
And God has given us the marital relationship to be the closest thing to a covenant that we can understand that we have. Similarly with God. When we talk about covenant, there are two main ideas. It’s about relationship and it’s about representation. God did not need mankind.
God was fully satisfied within the Trinity with Himself, but he created mankind. Not because he needed him or that he needed something from him, but he wanted to have a relationship with all of us. And God created each of us because he wants us to be a representative of him on earth. Putting it this way, God wants a covenant relationship with each and every one of you that is personal, that is fulfilling, that is perfect, and that is intimate. And he provides that for us through the death, the burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
And then God also wants you to be a representative for him in the world. The hands and feet of Jesus displaying the love of Christ and sharing what the Gospel means. We’ve seen a pattern in each of the covenants we Started out with Adam that there was a good creation. But it became corrupted by the choice that Adam and Eve made. Adam was created to represent God in his image.
And he was also created to have this familial relationship with God in his likeness. And then we come to Noah once again. What had been good completely succumbs to evil. Every intent of the human heart and mind was evil in Noah’s day. So God destroys the world and makes a covenant with Noah that he becomes the new representative for God in this world.
And God reestablishes the family relationship that he has with him. The pattern continues. The world continues to go downhill. And we come to the Tower of Babel where people are not obeying the Lord. They want to exalt themselves instead of God.
So God disperses them in chaos by changing them to have many different languages. And at this time, Abraham becomes the new representative for God in this world. And God re establishes this close family relationship with him. There was a loss of covenantal relationship. There was a loss of representation in God.
Each and every time faithfully still steps back in to reestablish that. Because he’s pointing to the time that Christ will come and make us right with the Lord. Let’s go to Genesis chapter 12 now, as we start today, it would be helpful for all of us to identify with Abraham as much as possible. Think about you being in his situation. He was a real person.
He had ideas, he had goals for his life. He had a job that he did every day. He had friends, he had a family, he had a house, he had a home. He had fun. He also had sorrow, he had sadness, he had emotions and he had fears.
He even had a wife. The only thing that he didn’t have that some of us have today. He had no children. But to his credit, Scripture tells us that he had faith. I’d like you to take your Bibles and turn to Hebrews chapter 11.
If you have a pew Bible and you want to follow along there, it’s on page 1067. But I want us to really see what God says about faith and about Abraham. Hebrews 11 or page 1067 in your Bible.
The whole chapter in Hebrews 11 is living by faith. And God gives us a very short definition of what faith is. In verse one we read, faith is the reality of what is hoped for, the proof of what is not seen. It’s not a very long definition that God gives us. And we often have people ask the question or we stop and think, what really is faith and Instead, giving us a long dissertation on what faith is, God gives us all these examples of people in the Old Testament that show us what faith will produce in our lives.
Often we learn better by object lessons than we do just listening to a description of something. And so it is we find here in the list of heroes of the faith. We find Abraham. And we read in verse 8 about Him. It says that by faith Abraham, when he was called, obeyed and set out for a place that he was going to receive as an inheritance.
He went out, even though he did not know where he was going. And by faith, he stayed as a foreigner in the land of promise, living in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, coheirs of the same promise. For he was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose architect and builder is God. Now, when the writers of Hebrews was writing this, he just gave a short analysis or an overview of what Abraham’s life was like, because he’s expecting his readers to know what was said about Abraham in the Old Testament. And we find many chapters about Abram.
There’s. And part of those chapters have to deal with the covenant. But we have to keep in mind is that Abraham is an example to us of what faith looks like. And that is extremely important because if we go back to Hebrews, chapter 11, we read in verse 6, it says, now, without faith, it is impossible to please God. Would you read that with me?
Without faith, it is impossible to please God. If you leave here today and you do not have faith, you are not pleasing God. So it’s my prayer, it’s God’s desire, as you look at the lives of Abraham, that you’ll understand better what faith is, that you’ll examine your heart to make sure that you have true faith.
It’s you now in the narrative as we look at it. And out of the silence, you hear God speaking to you. And he’s asking you to do something that is irreversibly crazy. Have you ever just done something crazy in your life? You know, you didn’t know what was going to happen.
It can be a wonderful thing, but it can also turn out what it can turn out pretty terrible. So out of the silence you hear this voice. And the question is, are you going to hesitate when God speaks to you? Are you going to say, hey, God, I need to go home and discuss this with my wife before I do this crazy thing that you’re asking me to do? Or maybe you’re going to go and discuss it with your families.
Or you’re going to ask your Friends, do you really think I should do what God is asking, asking me to do? Or maybe you’re a very analytical person. You’re going to make a spreadsheet, and you’re going to put your gains and your losses on the other side, just like a CPA would. I’m looking at one right now. And you’re going to say, well, what’s the bottom line?
Is it going to be positive for me or is it going to be negative? Because nobody wants to go on a financial adventure if they know that they’re going to lose out. And in the midst of this, you’re not a young person. You’re 75 years old. And what is God asking you to give up?
He’s asking you to give up your land, where your house is, where your gardens are, where your golf course is, whatever it is that you have that you enjoy. He’s asking you to give up all of your relatives, all of your friends, all your relationships. And he’s asking you to leave your family. And he’s saying that you’re going to go to live in this wonderful place called the Bahamas. No, God’s just saying, I’m not telling you where you’re going.
It might be Timbuktu, it might be Massachusetts. It might be Antarctica. Would you go home and talk to your wife about that first? I would have, and I know what my wife might have asked. Okay, but what did Abraham do?
It just said that he had faith. God gave him an invitation to join him where he was going and with what God wanted to do. God made all the promises. God initiated the conversation. And all he asks is that Abraham obey him.
And in so doing, he’s telling Abraham, you have to separate yourself from three things. From where you live, from all your relations, and even from your family. He’s telling Abram that there must be willingness in your life to lose everything that you know so that you can have a relationship with me without distractions, without compromise, without influences that would cause you to do something different. I want you to leave your comfort zone. I want you to leave your friends.
I want you to leave your family so that there are no hindrances, no influences, and no temptations that would distract you from me. God gave that invitation to Abram. He gives the same invitation to all of us. But he requires that we would be willing to leave everything to follow him.
With that, God promises in verse two that he’s going to give Abraham some things. God says, I will make you into a great nation. He says, I will bless you I will make your name great and you will be a blessing. So the sacrifice that Abraham has to offer is going to be one that is going to be greatly rewarded by the Lord. And again, this is all about what God is doing.
God initiated the relationship and now God is saying, I’m going to do this, I’m going to do this, I’m going to do this, I’m going to do this. And he doesn’t ask Abraham to do anything except to have faith and to obey. The reward is going to be great. Abraham is going to become a great nation and Abraham is going to have a great name. God is going to bless him in all that he does.
But most importantly, in the middle of this isn’t just about Abraham. Because Abraham, by God, doing these things is going to become a blessing we’re going to find for all peoples, for all of the world. We become so narrowly focused when we think about our relationship with God. Our prayers are often, God, do this for me, do this for me. Why didn’t you do that?
God, I’m upset with you because this thing happened. We’ve got to learn to see that his plan for us, everything that happens has a greater purpose. That money that you gave in the offering today may go to a missionary to help them to lead someone to Christ in Africa. Or your prayer for someone may cause someone to come to faith. Everything is always bigger than you and what God is doing in your life when he invites you into a covenant relationship.
Let’s go on to read in verse three, God also said, I will bless those who bless you. I will curse anyone who treats you with contempt. And all the peoples on earth will be blessed through you. Again, it’s all about what God is doing for Abraham. It has nothing to do with what he’s doing for God or for himself.
God is going to promote him. God is also going to protect him from those that will be against him. Because God has a plan to use for his glory everything in Abraham’s life to be a blessing. That third thing is there universally to all peoples on earth. God’s plan is in making a covenant with Abraham isn’t just about Abraham.
It’s a plan for all peoples. Because God’s plan is always bigger than just us and our relationship with him. Everything he does has a purpose for others. And there’s always a bigger picture that we need to understand. That’s why we need to read God’s word.
We need to ask him. God, help me to understand where I fit in the puzzle. Because we are each and only one piece. The puzzle isn’t just about us. It’s about what God is putting together everywhere.
Verse 4. God has made the initiation to the covenant. God has made the promises of the covenant in verse 4. It doesn’t say that Abram asked questions. It doesn’t say that he went and talked to anybody.
It just says he what Abram went, he did as the Lord had told him. And he did take his family responsibilities with him. His nephew Lot and his wife and those that were in his family. And once again, Abram was how old when he did this? 75.
Abraham had faith. And once again, I just want to say faith is difficult to define. So what we have throughout Scripture are all these examples of what it looks like when we really have it. And the first thing that we see in Abram’s life is that when there’s faith, there is what’s the word up there? There is obedience.
Now, he’s not perfect. At times he’s going to have doubts. At times he’s going to question God. And at times he’s going to attempt to fix things himself. Of course, if you know the whole narrative, his remedy for himself causes family problems.
It causes marital problems, and it causes problems for all of his descendants. Even to this day, Abram is not perfect. You don’t have to be perfect to be a person of faith. At times he’s going to be fearful. At times he’s going to fail to lead and be the head of his household.
And at times he’s going to resort to lies. But God credited to him his faith because he was obedient. Let’s go on to read. It says, when they came to the land of Canaan, Abram passed through the land to the side of Shechem at the Okamorh. And at that time, the Canaanites were in the land.
And now the Lord adds to the promise. He told them, you’re going to be a nation, and you’re going to have a great name. But once again, God initiates. God shows up and tells Abram, I’m going to give you offspring, and I’m going to give you a land, a name, a nation, an offspring, a land. All of these things.
God is promising to Abram, calling him to have a covenant relationship with him. And Abram obeys. We go on to read. So he built an altar there to the Lord who had appeared to him. And from there he moved on to the hill country east of Bethel and pitched his tent.
With Bethel on the west and AI on the east. He Built an altar to the Lord there, and he called on the name of the Lord. Then Abram journeyed by stages to the Negev. If you have faith in your life, you’re going to be like Abram. You’re going to obey.
But we find two other things here that are evident in the life of a person who has true faith. The next thing is that he worshiped Lord. He built an altar there to the Lord to worship him. And as he moved on from place to place, he continued to live a life of worship and and building more altars to the Lord. But we also find here that Abram is growing in his relationship with the Lord because it says that he called on the name of the Lord.
He now knows God by name. God is now like family to him. God is like a friend. God has a personal relationship with Abraham. And just as we might call somebody or email somebody or text somebody because they are our friends, Abraham had that connection with God.
All he had to do was call out to him evidences of true faith, obedience, worship and a relationship. It goes on to say that after these events, the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision. He said, do not be afraid, Abram, I am your shield. Your reward will be very great. Again, it’s God that’s initiating the conversation.
And he promises Abraham that I’m going to be here to protect you and I’m going to be here to reward you. All of these are promises of the covenant that God is making with Abraham. But Abram says to the Lord, lord God, what can you give me since I am childless and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus. Abraham looked and continued, look, you have given me no offspring. So a slave born in my house will be my heir.
Now the word of the Lord came to him. This one will not be your heir. Instead, one who comes from your own body will be your heir. Abraham was so narrow minded. He was saying, I don’t have any kids yet.
I don’t think God can give me kids. I’m too old for that. So let me figure out how God might work this out. And well, I had this one option. I have a slave here that can be the person that receives everything I have.
Abraham in his faith was still limiting God’s ability to what Abraham understood. He didn’t quite get it, that God is bigger in his thoughts and his ways and everything that Abram could do. So God promised him, no, you are going to have an offspring and they’re going to be a direct child from You God took him outside and said, look at the sky. Count the stars if you are unable to count them. And then he said to him, your offspring will be that numerous.
Not only is he going to have one child, but he’s going to have more than the stars in the skies. And here in verse six, it tells us that Abram believed. Abram had faith in the Lord and God credited it to him as righteousness. And then the Lord said to him, I am the Lord who brought you from Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to possess. Abram’s covenant with God is he’s going to have a name, he’s going to have a nation, he’s going to have an offspring, he’s going to have a land.
And most importantly, all of this is going to be put together so that he can be a blessing to all peoples. And here we see that God specifically gave his affirmation that Abram was a man of faith. And therefore we should follow him in that example. Now, up to this time God has been promising all these things to Abraham. So in view of the covenant, it’s kind of like being engaged to someone.
You ask them to marry you and you promise all these things. But there comes a point that there’s an actual wedding ceremony. And this is what we have here In Genesis chapter 15 we have what we call the actual cutting of the covenant. The agreement was a sign was signed between the two of them. Abram said, Lord God, how can I know that I will possess it?
And God said to him, bring me a three year old cow, a three year old female goat, a three year old ram, a turtledove and a young pigeon. So he brought all these to him, cut them in half and laid the pieces opposite each other. But he did not cut the birds in half. In order for there to be an affirmation of the covenant, in order for there to be an assurance that it would happen, there had to be shedding of blood and there had to be the separation of flesh. Abraham didn’t know it, but we know the end of the story.
This was all pointing to what? The death of Jesus Christ. That he would shed his blood for us. That his flesh would be separated so that God’s covenant with us could be fulfilled. That we might have a relationship with him and be his representatives.
In verse 11 it says, Birds that prey came down on the carcasses, but Abram drove them away. And as the sun was setting, a deep sleep came over Abram. And suddenly great terror and darkness descended on Him. And then the Lord said to Abram, know this for certain. Your offspring will be resident aliens for 400 years in a land that does not belong to them and will be enslaved and oppressed.
However, I will judge the nation they serve, and afterward they will go out with many possessions. Before they cut the covenant, before it is signed. God says, I’m giving you all these blessings. I’m going to give you a land, a nation, a name. I’m going to give you offspring.
But you need to know it’s not going to be easy. There are going to be problems for your descendants. They’re going to be enslaved and oppressed.
God knows everything that Abraham doesn’t. And God isn’t telling Abraham these things to discourage him from joining him in this covenant. He’s telling them to comfort him. He’s saying, I’m God. I know these things are going to happen.
But in spite of the fact of the difficulties you’re going to have, you’re still going to be a blessing. You’re still going to receive the promise. And so it is when God comes to us and he speaks to us and says, I want to have a covenant relationship with each and every one of you. He says, it’s not going to be easy. There’s going to be persecution and there’s going to be suffering.
And God says that because he wants to be real with us, that it’s simple to follow Christ, but it isn’t an easy thing. But we know that God is in control and he will make all things right one day. God’s not trying to create fear in Abraham. He’s talking to him realistically, as a friend would, about the difficulties that he’s going to have. Verse 15 says, but you will go to your ancestors in peace and be buried at a good old age, and in the fourth generation they will return here.
For the iniquity of the Amorites has not yet reached its full measure. And when the sun had set and it was dark, a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch appeared and passed between the divided animals. And on that day, the Lord made a covenant with Abraham, saying, I give this land to your offspring. And he lists what the land will be. Fire, clouds, darkness have always been used to show God’s presence.
In the Old Testament, when he spoke to Abraham, he spoke to him out of a fiery burning bush. And when he led the Israelites through the wilderness, there was the cloud that would be like the smoke here, and there was the fire that led them. And what’s unusual here is that the way that they signed the treaty was not by writing it down, but they were to walk between the slain animals. And by walking between the slain animals, walking over that blood, the person that was signing the covenant, both sides were saying, if I break what I have promised to you, let me be like these animals that have been cut apart. Let my blood be shed.
But what’s interesting, it’s not like a marriage here where man and woman both signed the contract. And it’s not like buying a house where both the buyer and the seller signed the contract. Abram was what, asleep this whole time? Because God alone signed this contract. God alone dirtied his feet by walking between those animals.
The covenant was one sided. Because God knew, as it has been all along, that mankind will never be able to fulfill anything. Abram would not be able to fulfill any of his promises. He would always fail. So God said this contract, I had this covenant with you.
It’s only based on what I am doing for you. And so it is. When Jesus Christ died on the cross, it’s what he does for us. He doesn’t ask us to give money. He doesn’t ask us to give attendance to church.
He doesn’t ask us to do good things. Because in all these things we are imperfect. But just as God walked between those animals, so Jesus Christ let his body be slain and he let his blood be upon him. All of this was a picture of one day of what Jesus would do for us. When God the Father walked through that blood and promised that one day his son would be slain like.
Like these animals. We’re supposed to learn how we live by faith. We obey the Lord, we worship the Lord and we have a relationship with Him. Those things don’t save us. They are just evidence that we have come to saving faith.
But we also need to be reminded. How does all of this picture Christ coming? The first thing is, is Jesus promised a land, asked to leave his land, his relatives in his Father’s house. And yes, Jesus did that. In John 6:38, we read, For I have come down from heaven not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me.
Just as Abram was asked to leave his home, Jesus left his home in heaven. The near presence of God the Father, the worship of all the angels. He left his land, he left his family, he left his Father’s house. And he came to a strange place filled with sin and evil. Because he was obedient to God the Father.
God the Father promised that Abram would be a great nation one day. That he would have a great name, that he would be blessed and that he would be a blessing to others. And in the same way, Jesus Christ fulfills this prophetic picture. In Hebrews 1 we read that God has appointed him heir of all things and made the universe through him. The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact expression of his nature, sustaining all things by his powerful word.
And after making purifications for sin, he sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high. One day Jesus Christ will return and all of this world will become his nation. God has placed all things under his feet and he has given him a name that is above every name, the name of Jesus that we sang about today. Jesus Himself would be blessed, but he also, like Abraham, would become a blessing to all peoples. And last week we saw that Abram was obedient to God.
And Jesus Christ fulfills this in the same way that he was obedient to the father. In Philippians 2 we read instead He. He emptied himself by assuming the form of a servant, taking on the likeness of humanity. And when he had come as a man, he humbled himself by becoming what? Obedient to the point of death, even to death on a cross.
And because Jesus was obedient in that way, we are able to have a covenant relationship with God today. One that is personal, one that is intimate, and one that is perfect. May we pray. Heavenly Father, help us to learn to live better by faith by following the example of Abraham. Help us to examine our lives to make sure that we have true faith and that what we think may be faith isn’t something different.
Father, let us examine our hearts to see if there is obedience, if there is worship, and there is a relationship, so that we can know with confidence that we have this covenant relationship with you that you provide to us through your Son and Father. Let us appreciate what Christ did for us on the cross today as we continue to to sing a song of closing. Let us praise you for the great gift at the great cost that we might have a great reward and more importantly, a perfect relationship with you. It’s in your Son’s name that we pray. Amen.