Senior Pastor,, Robert Dennison, preached this message on July 20, 2025. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Audio Transcript
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 drink, eat this bread and drink the cup. You proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes. Everyone is invited to partake of the Lord’s Supper today if you meet three requirements. The first is that you have accepted the once for all sacrifice of Jesus for your sin and that you are willing to outwardly identify yourself with others, that you are a believer.
And thirdly, that you have examined your heart that you would confess all known sin. Paul gives us a warning that if we don’t come to the table in this right way, this is what could happen. He said, 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. We encourage you, as the elements are being passed, that you will hold onto them so we can partake together.
It’s also a time for you to examine your heart, to confess any known sin. And there’s no shame in just passing the bread and the cup by and not partaking today. If there’s some reason why you should not do that, it’s better that you pass it by than to be guilty of sin, sin against the body and blood of the Lord. May we give a word of thanks, Heavenly Father, as we come to the table today? Father, that represents the body and blood of your son, Jesus Christ.
We come with thanksgiving in our heart for what he did, and we come with hope and anticipation of his return when we might once again share this meal together with him. In Jesus name we pray. Amen.
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This is my body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.
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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.
I invite you to take your Bibles and turn to Genesis chapter one, two and three. That’s where we will spend most of our time today. We’re not going to read all of that, but that’s where we will end up.
Kind of taking A side trip here and do several sermon series at one time. We’re going to do six messages on Covenant.
On August 3rd and 10th, we’re going to have two messages about Deacons. Our elders have spent time reading about deacons and we had a weekend, well, a Saturday retreat. And we really want to make our deacon ministry more robust and involve more people and making it not just a team, but actually what scripture says, that they are presented to the church and the church selects them, much like we do elders. So we’ll have two messages on that August 3rd and 10th, and the elders will be available after those times to answer questions. We’re doing this because our present deacons have been doing a great job.
Bill and Dave are rotating off, so it’s kind of a good time to make some changes and make it a more robust commitment. Then we’re going to have 12 doctrinal messages. Every third Sunday, we’re going to be going over our doctrinal statement that our church believes in just so that we can refresh that in our mind. And there are 12 sections there. 10 of those are based on the EFCA doctrinal statement.
And then we have two more that our church has added. And of course, there’ll be a couple seasonal messages and then we’ll get back Going through Luke. Luke takes a long time to go through, and it’s like eating food. If all you do is eat dessert all the time, you’re just not going to be healthy. So we kind of need to stop and get some meat and potatoes and vegetables and other things going on.
Once again, those messages on August 3rd and 10th, they will be about the need for deacons, the ministry of deacons, the qualifications and how they are selected and appointed. Just as a word of special credit today on this series for covenants, I’m reading this book called God’s Kingdom Through God’s Covenants by Gentry and Wellem. As with any other book, I can recommend it, but I can’t tell you that I believe or agree with everything in that book. Okay, I’m going to read that as a help, but I’m going by what I believe that scripture teaches. I want to read just a selection of verses today that had this idea of covenant that is throughout Scripture.
I’ll begin in Jeremiah 31:33 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. Then in Jeremiah 32, he writes, they will be my people, and I will be their God.
The prophet Ezekiel writes in chapter 37, I will make a covenant of peace with them. It will be a permanent covenant with them. I will establish and multiply them, and will set my sanctuary among them forever. My dwelling place will be with them. I will be their God, and they will be my people.
When my sanctuary is among them forever, the nations will know that I, the Lord, sanctify Israel. Then we come to the New Testament. First Corinthians 11. As we read earlier, with the Lord’s Supper, Jesus, on the night when he was betrayed, took the bread and when he had given thanks, broke it and said, this is my body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.
And in the same way also, he took the cup after supper and said, this cup is the. Here’s the word, the new covenant in 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. Second Corinthians we read, for we are the temple of the living God.
As God said, I will dwell in and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they will be my people. And then we come to the last book in our Scriptures, where we read in Revelation 21, then I heard a loud voice from the throne. Look. God’s dwelling is with humanity, and he will live with them. They will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them and will be their God.
May we pray. Heavenly Father, as we begin to look at covenants today, we see them throughout Scripture, and they all point to the coming of your Son, Jesus Christ. We thank you that he is the new covenant, and that by his blood and his body, he has established for us a permanent relationship with you, one that is filled with love and concern and friendship, Father. And intimacy. May we understand this better so so that we appreciate you more for what you do for us continually.
In your Son’s name we pray. Amen. You can look at Scripture in a number of different ways. Structurally, we have the Old Testament, we have the New Testament. We can look at Scripture as the law and the prophets in the New Testament.
These are different ways to divide it. You could be even more specific. The Torah, which would be the first five books of Moses, followed by the historical, historical books, the poetical books, the major prophets, the minor prophets. Then in the New Testament, we have the Gospels, Acts, which is a book of history. The letters that were written to the churches and individuals, and finally the prophecy of revelation.
You can also look at scripture dispensationally and talk about the dispensation of innocence and then of conscience, government, promise, law, grace, and kingdom. All of these ways are appropriate ways to just categorize scripture in your mind as if it was a file cabinet, just trying to get a better grip on it. But another way to look at scripture is through the different covenants that are there. And there are six that we’re going to be looking at in this series. The Adamic, which a covenant with Adam.
The Noah, which is a covenant with Noah. God made a covenant with Abraham, one with Moses, one with David. And finally, Jesus Christ comes and brings us the new covenant. You’ll see that it starts out as a broad category. The first covenant was with all of humanity.
And then it narrowed down to Noah’s family. It narrowed down further to Abraham’s family, then to Jacob’s family, to King David’s family, and finally to Jesus, the Messiah. Now, it’s not as if these are all one after another, and then they come to an ending, because as you can see up here, they continue on and they overlap. But the key to all of this is that every single one of them is pointing closer and closer to the coming of the Messiah, to the coming of Jesus Christ. The covenants pull us closer and closer to the climactic center.
Each covenant narrows our focus until we come to Jesus, and He is the new covenant. So it is that whenever we have the Lord’s Supper, that when we take the cup, that we are reminded that this is the new covenant that is given by his blood. So we’re wanting to understand what covenants are. And there are two words that I want you to keep in mind. Covenant is about a relationship, and covenant is about representation.
In every instance. God created mankind because he desired to have a relationship with people. God created mankind because he wanted mankind also to be his representative on earth. So I want you to read this next statement with me. All right, it’s in blue.
If you only get two things today, know that God wants a covenant relationship with you. He wants a personal, fulfilling, perfect covenant, an intimate relationship with you. And secondly, he wants you to represent him in the world. If you only get one thing today, it’s these two things. Or I could say, if you only get two things today, this is it.
In every covenant, we find God either choosing a person or a family, or a tribe or a nation or a people that he wants to have this special intimate relationship with and to represent Him. Let’s go back and see this in the scriptures that we read earlier, how this comes out, this idea of relationship and representation. In Jeremiah 31:33, he said, I will be their God and they will be my people. Again in 32 they will be my people and I will be their God. It’s this special relationship, but they’re also representing him in this world.
Then Ezekiel, again it said, I will be their God and they will be my people. 2nd Corinthians 6 I will be their God and they will be my people. And finally at the end of Scripture it says, they will be his peoples and God himself will be with them and will be their God. How does long does God want to have a relationship with us? What does it sound like?
He wants to have it with us forever. And he wants us to represent him every day. Forever. That’s what covenant is about. The Hebrew word Beirut is used to describe a diverse number of oath bound commitments in various relationships in the times of the Old Testament and in the Bible.
It can be treaties between kings and countries. It can be alliances between individuals. It can be an agreement that is made. And we’re not just talking about a contractual agreement here, we’re talking about a covenant. And we’re going to be seeing the differences today.
But most importantly, the best example in scripture of what a covenant is, what we know marriage to be today, that two people unrelated are united and become one. Here are some definitions that have been given by different scholars. Bruce Walkey says a covenant is a solemn commitment of oneself to undertake an obligation. Hugenberger says that an elected as opposed to a natural relationship of obligation under oath. A natural relationship would be people that are related by blood.
And it’s saying it’s unnatural. They’re unrelated and they decide to come together. Daniel Lane says a covenant is an enduring agreement which defines here. It is a relationship between two parties involving a solemn binding obligation or obligations specified on the part of at least one of the parties toward the other. And it’s made by oath under the threat of divine curse.
Now, have you ever bought a car or a house or entered into a contract where there was a divine curse attached to it? I mean, a covenant goes beyond just a contract and it’s ratified by a visual ritual of some type. Gentry and Welland put it this way. A covenant is a ceremony or a legal process whereby people who are not kin are now bound as tightly as any family relationship. And that’s what God wants with us.
And marriage is the closest thing to a covenant relationship with God that we have. So in Genesis 1 through 3, today we’re going to see that God establishes man in a covenant relationship. And then we have the picture of that when he puts man and woman together for the first marriage. Covenants and Contracts There are some differences here. What is the occasion for a contract?
A contract is written up between two parties or more when they expect a benefit from each other. If I go and buy a house, somebody wants to get what for me. They want my money and then I want their house. We are each going to get some benefit from it. But when it comes to covenant, it isn’t about getting the benefit of a thing.
It’s about a desire to have a relationship with someone. Thus it is in marriage. You don’t marry someone, hopefully just to get their money. You marry them because you want to have a what? A relationship with them.
What’s the initiative? Well, in a contract there’s this mutual agreement. Two equal parties get together and they both have something to offer. But in scripture, when it comes to a covenant, there is one stronger party that initiates everything and really doesn’t need anything. They just want to give the covenant, and that person is God.
What’s the orientation in a contract? It’s a negotiation. It’s thing oriented. You’re transferring property or goods or services. But when it comes to a covenant, it’s not emphasizing and focusing on things.
It’s focusing on individuals. What’s the obligation? Well, when you have a contract with someone, you perform what you’re supposed to do and they perform what they’re supposed to do. And everybody’s happy, happy. But when it comes to a covenant, we’re not asking for someone to perform something.
We’re just asking them to be loyal to us, that they will always be there with us and always for us. Again, these are how God wants to relate with us. He doesn’t expect us to perform. He just wants us to be loyal to Him. What about the termination?
Well, contracts usually have a date or sunset clause, something that says it’s going to end at this point. But covenants are indeterminate. They can go on forever and forever. Can there be violations of contracts? Yes, and there can be violations of covenants.
But the important thing to know is God will never violate his covenant. If there’s any violation, it’s always on man’s part. Let’s go back to Genesis chapter one, and what we want to see here is that the covenant that Adam and Eve had with God was one of relationship and representation. There was no need for them to initiate a contract. I mean a covenant.
There was no need to establish one because God actually created people in covenant relationship with Him. It tells us in Genesis 1 that the creation was good. Mankind was created in a perfect relationship with God. And he was placed into a perfect environment. And because everything that God made was good, when everything together was put there, he said it was very good.
We know that God’s character is always what God is good. That’s all that he made, that which was good. Relationship and representation. It’s all based on these two words that talk about how man was created. One is image, and the other word is likeness.
In Genesis 1:26, we read this. Then God said, let us make man in our image. That’s one key word. According to our likeness, they will rule the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, the livestock, the whole earth, the creatures that crawl on the earth. This word likeness indicates a special family relationship.
And we’ll be seeing that in just a minute. And the word image indicates one who is representing someone else. And it’s important for us to realize it wasn’t just Adam that was created this way. Because in verse 27 it says, God created man in his own image. He created him in the image of God.
And then he specifies that he created them, male and female. So both men and women are called by God to have a covenant relationship with him and a covenant representation of Him. Both man and woman were created as children of God. And both of them were here to represent God on earth through the rule of all the creation. They were to be servant leaders.
They were to be gardeners who would care for and nurture what God had made. And in all of this, God is doing the initiation of wasn’t a decision left to the man and the woman. Do we want God to create us? No. He made them this way.
And therefore, the relationship and the representation are in these. These two key words. They sound alike, but they’re actually different. Let’s look at the word image first. I’ve got the Hebrew word up there.
Salem. It means an image. It means a statue. It’s a model or a drawing or a shadow. This same word is talking about carved stone, things made out of metal that were idols.
The Salem or the image was not actually the God. It was a statue or something that represented the God on earth. So when people went and spoke to their God in their temple, they didn’t see their God. They just saw an image there. God made man in his image, meaning that we are a model.
To others of what God is to look like. Not that we know how he looks exactly, but he’s there. We’re there to represent him. And we do this by being rulers of all of creation. So Salem is used of idols that represent false gods.
Salem is used of mankind that we represent the true God. And we can look at some other nations, and we can look at Egypt, where they borrowed this idea because God. I mean, Satan is always counterfeiting what God does. But the pharaohs were understood to be the Salem of one particular God. The pharaoh was the image, the presence of one God.
You know who that God was first? Anybody know Ra. Okay. The sun God. The pharaoh was there to represent the God that was out there.
He was not the God. He was just a living statue. Statue. He was a model. He was a selim.
And when people wanted to talk to that false God, Ra, they couldn’t go and see Ra, but they could go and see the image of him, which to the Egyptians was the living Pharaoh. When they wanted to talk to Ra, they would go to his image. They would go to Pharaoh. So Adam and Eve, people in the same way. We are this image, image of God.
We are here to represent him on this earth. And just as Pharaoh was seen to rule everything, God has established a relationship with us that we rule in his place. We are his representative. But the other word here is demut. And now we’re not talking about the image.
Now we’re talking about a simile that is used to compare two unlike things. It’s when God said that we are created in his likeness, we’re not exactly like God. Are we even 90% like God? 50%? I mean, we couldn’t be more different.
But yet God is saying there’s this comparison here. We are made in his likeness. We go back to verse 26. Let us make man in our image according to our likeness. And they will rule the fish, of the sea, the birds, and all of the creatures.
We can see this same word used again in Genesis 5. And as I read through this, what I want you to see. When we’re talking about this likeness, we’re talking about this family relationship. It’s the relationship of a father to a son. We’ll see the two words here in Genesis 5.
This is the document containing the family records of Adam. On the day that God created man, he made him in the. What does it say? The likeness of God. He created them, male and female.
And when they were created, he blessed them and called them mankind. Now we’re going to see the same term used again. When Adam was 130 years old, he fathered a son. And what’s the same term here in his likeness. So in the same way that God was the father of all people, we see that Adam was the father of all people.
So being in the likeness of someone shows this special, unique relationship that we only have with family members. You might really enjoy the people you work with. You might have some great friends, you might have some wonderful neighbors, but your family’s always going to be, what, closer than everybody else. And that’s what it means. When God created man in his likeness, he wanted this unique bonding between them as a father to a son.
Seth in the likeness of Adam was the son of Adam, but Seth in the image of Adam, that’s going back to the first word. He became the representative that took took on the leadership role of his father. Adam had other sons and daughters that he had this relationship with. But his son Seth became the family leader, the representative, just as Adam and Eve were to be the representatives and the rulers that God placed on this earth. Daymut often used as a simile to compare two unlike things.
The point here is that God made mankind to have a family relationship with people. I don’t think there’s any other religion where the God wants to have this intimate relationship with people. And because of this intimate relationship, this father child relationship, it shows us that God has a desire for intimacy with us, that, that he loves us, he is concerned about us, he wants to protect us, he’s proud of us. Any word that you can think of that you would feel towards your children or your family, this is the type of relationship that God wants to have with us. Going back to the Egyptians, they kind of had an equivalent with this.
Not only did Pharaoh represent them in the image of God, but he was in the likeness of God. And to them, the God Ra had sent his son to be there with the Egyptian people. And he did that to show that he wanted to have this special relationship with them. Just trying to help you understand how this was really common to the Hebrews when they were reading their scripture, that they understood these two concepts.
Genesis 2. Now we look and see how Adam and Eve are created in covenant with God. But then he gives us this primary example of what covenant really looks like. And that is the covenant of marriage. The Lord God said, it is not good for the man to be alone.
I will make him a helper corresponding to him. When God first created Adam, he did make him what he made him alone, but he made him Alone, knowing that he was going to do what? Provide someone to help him. It tells us in verse 19 that the man gave names to all the livestock, to the birds of the sky, and to every wild animal. God brought the animals pair by pair, and Adam gave names to them.
He was going to have authority over them and rule them. And every time animals came, they came in what sets of two? What do you think Adam started noticing after a while he was only one. And he looked at the giraffe and he thought, the giraffe doesn’t look like me. He looked at the cat, and cat didn’t look like him.
He had this desire in him. He knew that he needed someone because God intended that man and woman would have this covenant relationship together. And for that reason, it tells us that God made Eve in this way. The Lord God caused a deep sleep to come over the man, and he slept. God took one of his ribs and closed the flesh at that place.
And then the Lord God made the rib he had taken from the man into a woman and brought her to the man. And the man said, this one at last is bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh. Every pair of animals that walked by, he said, oh, that’s neat. That’s cool. That’s fun.
But what this says, when Eve walked by, Adam said, wow. All right, husbands, you need to look at your wives and think, wow, that’s what you’re supposed to see in them. I see Sherry looking at Bill back there, because all of a sudden, God made someone that they could be united together. This is why a man leaves his father and mother, and it says they do what he bonds with his wife. And it’s not just a bonding like this, but they’re so intertwined together.
What does it say? They now become one flesh.
Jesus referred to this in Matthew, chapter 19, when he was questioned about divorce. And I will say this passage doesn’t address it. There is a time that is proper biblically for divorce, but God’s intention is that marriages, if they can all be perfect, are going to be a picture of this covenant relationship that we’re supposed to have with him. Some Pharisees approached him to test him, and they asked, is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife on any grounds? Jesus said, haven’t you read?
He who created them in the beginning made them male and female. And he also said, for this reason, a man will leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife in this covenant relationship. The two are going to become one flesh. They’re no Longer two. They are one flesh.
Therefore, what God has joined together, let no one separate. Why did God make marriage? He made it to be a picture of the relationship that he wants to have with people. And in the New Testament, we know specifically that it pictures the relationship of Jesus Christ to the Church. We are not in a contract relationship with the Lord.
We are in a covenant relationship with Him. So let’s go back to looking at the contracts and the covenants. What’s the occasion for this covenant that God wants to have with us? God didn’t want Adam and Eve to do anything for him because God had need of absolutely nothing. God didn’t need a friend.
He existed in the Trinity with the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. There was no need for people to be created. God was completely happy in his relationship with the Trinity. But he made man because he wanted to have. And what’s the first key word?
He wanted to have a relationship with people. What was the initiative? God did not come to a mutual agreement with Adam and Eve before creating them. He didn’t sit down and discuss this. I’m about to create you.
What are you going to do? And what am I going to do? And he didn’t bargain with them after they were created. They had no power in themselves. They were helpless.
So God, the stronger party here, he initiated. He did everything, he took care of everything so that he could have this covenant relationship with them. What was the orientation? God didn’t ask Adam and Eve to produce anything for him. He gave the covenant to them as just a gift.
It was free of cost because he was interested in them. He wasn’t interested in things that they could do. What about the obligation? God wasn’t looking for anything in the relationship. He was just looking for them to be loyal to them.
Loyalty which would be shown by obeying his one command. Do not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. But when Adam and Eve did that, they changed their loyalty from God to their loyalty to themself and ultimately to Satan. What about the termination? The covenant that God offers to people has no specified ending.
It is an offer of permanent, eternal covenant relationship with him. Can it be violated? Yes, people can violate the covenant. But God Himself, we know, will never be in violation of his promise. When we think about the creation story and the creation of Adam and Eve, it takes us back to our gospel.
A good creation, a destructive choice, a deadly condition, a gracious cure and a new creation. God created the world, all good. There was no sin. There was no death. There was no danger or harm.
There was no disease in what he made. And God made Adam and Eve in a covenant with relationship with himself. They were to be like him as a parent is to a child. And they were also to bear his image as his representatives in the world. But Adam and Eve, they gave up on the loyalty idea.
They made a choice that was destructive and in violation of the covenant relationship. Because of that, it left them with a deadly condition. Eventually that condition would be that they would die physically. But more importantly, it was going to be spiritual death and separation from God. And like Pandora’s box, it wasn’t just death that came out of it.
Disease, arguing, shame, all of these problems that we now have in the world, especially in relationships, came about because they were not loyal to God. So sin entered the world, and with it became illness, came illness, lying, blame, shame, violence, hatred, jealousy, and death. And at that point, Adam and Eve realized that they needed something. What did they feel when God came into the garden? They felt ashamed because they realized that they were naked.
And all of a sudden they realized, if we’re going to stand before God, we need some type of clothes on. All right. And God met their need by doing something. He sacrificed an animal, which meant that he had to spill the animal’s blood. And then he took that animal and he took the skin off of it.
And what did he make them? He made them clothes. He made them a covering. And then they could stand in God’s presence again. That points to the cure.
Not only did God make for them, but it was pointing to what Jesus Christ does for us. Because when Jesus died on the cross, like that animal in the Garden of Eden, his blood was shed for us. And just like that animal’s skin was removed. It talks about in the Scripture that we are clothed in Christ’s righteousness so that when God looks at us, he doesn’t see a naked, powerless, hopeless human being. He sees us in his son, Jesus Christ.
And that’s giving to us in a gracious way. There is no cost to us. Adam and Eve didn’t have to pay God for those first clothes that they had to wear. They didn’t have to pay for the animal that was sacrificed. And that led to a new beginning with them.
And eventually it leads to the final new creation when everything will be made right. Adam and Eve realized their need for a covering. So God provided the gracious cure for them. And at that time, God promised that there would be a seed of the woman, talking about one particular child, a man who would come one day to make all things right by destroying the serpent, the evil one. And Eve showed her faith by declaring in Genesis 4, when she had her child, that now God has given me a son.
She was hopeful that maybe that son, if not one coming after him was, would bring salvation to the world. How does all of this point to Jesus? When we get to the new covenant we’re going to be seeing in the New Testament, it says that Jesus is the second Adam. And we’re going to see how sin entered the world by one man in the Old Testament. But in the New Testament, salvation comes by one man.
We’re going to see that we can become a new creation. But when we place our faith in him, and we’re going to see how we’re joined with him in a covenant relationship as his bride, and also that we are his representative body on earth. Now, I told you to remember one thing, which was really two things. The first one is that God wants to have what? A personal relationship with you.
And the second thing is once he has that, he wants you to do what in this world? To be a representative of him. Sharing the Gospel story with people, displaying his love in the way that we live, the things that we do and the words that we say. May we close in prayer. Heavenly Father, we thank you for this unexplainable commitment that you have to be in covenant relationship with us.
Father, it’s our prayer that if anyone here today does not understand that relationship with you, that they would come today to you, Father in faith and say, I believe that Jesus died on the cross for my sins and rose from the dead. And I accept his covering that he has for my life. And I accept what his blood has done for me to cleanse me of my sin. Father, help me to enter into a relationship with you today, today, and to represent you ably in this world. In your Son’s name we pray.
Amen.