Promises, Pledges, & Covenants - November 30, 2014

Promises, Pledges, & Covenants

 

Jeremiah 31:31-34, Matthew 1:18-25

November 30, 2014

Grace Presbyterian Church

Rev. Dr. Richard E. Miller

Happy New Year  The first thing I would like to do this morning is wish each and every one of you a Happy New Year! What? You think I’m a month early to be issuing such felicitations? Not at all. This is the beginning of Advent, is it not? And since Advent is the beginning of our Church liturgical year, Happy New Year greetings are definitely in order. So from now until midnight Christmas Eve, we will be preparing our hearts to celebrate the coming of Jesus into the world and into our hearts. This morning, as we embark on our Advent journey, I would like to direct our attention this to the Promises, Pledges and Covenants of God.

Promises  Let’s look at promises for a moment. When we were children, and someone promised to do something for us, we might say, “Scout’s Honor?” “Honest to God?” “Swear on a stack of Bibles?” or “Cross your heart and hope to die.” Or we might do a “Pinky Promise” by hooking our little fingers together. Statements such as these were used to give us the assurance that promises would be kept. When we became adults, many promises were sealed with just a handshake. After all, people were as good as their word. But if you’re buying or refinancing a house, a handshake just doesn’t cut it. You must sign, with witnesses, about a jillion documents.

Promises in our Life  If we think about it for a moment, we realize that  the foundation of our lives and our society is built on promises made and promises kept. We promise to pay our rent or mortgage; our taxes; our credit card debt; and our utilities. How important are such promises? For some people, its very important. Almost sacred.

 

For instance, Booker T. Washington once met an ex-slave from Virginia. The man had made a contract with his master several years before the Emancipation Proclamation to buy his freedom at a certain amount each year and to work where ever he chose. The slave went to Ohio where better wages could be earned. While there, the Emancipation Proclamation passed and he was free. But he still owed his former master three hundred dollars. Although he was now released from any obligation to repay his debt, he walked from Ohio to Virginia and placed the last dollar, with interest, in the hands of his former master. He had kept his promise. He felt that he could not enjoy his freedom till he had fulfilled his promise. [see Booker T. Washington, “Up from Slavery”]

Covenants However, there is another level of promise making and promise keeping called a covenant. The word “Covenant” is derived from the Hebrew word “berith” and means bond or fetter. It comes into being when two parties bind themselves together in an agreement, seal it by a vow, with no means of enforcement. For instance:

A bride and groom establish a covenant of marriage by pledging their faithfulness to each other. That pledge is sealed with a kiss.

Parents promise God that they will raise their children in the knowledge of Christ. That covenant is sealed with baptism.

When we accepted Jesus as Lord and Savior, we made a covenant with God that we would be faithful disciples. That covenant is renewed every time we partake of Holy Communion.

God’s Covenants  If we look to the Bible, we find many covenants - covenants between tribes [I Samuel 11:1], covenants between kings and his people [II Kings 11:4], covenants between husbands and wives [Malachi 2:13-15]. However, the most important covenants were those that God made with his people. God would act. His people would respond. The primary Old Testament example was the covenant God made with the Israelites on Mt. Sinai. In this covenant, God said to the Israelites, “I will be your God.” This was wonderful news and they responded, “We will be your people.” So a covenant was made. The sign of the covenant was circumcision and the terms of the covenant were the Ten Commandments. For Christians, this became known as the Old Covenant or Old Testament.

Unable to Keep the Covenant  But the Israelites were unable to obey the Commandments and thus broke their sacred covenant with God. And so God took action. In our morning scripture from Jeremiah it says, “The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. I will forgive their iniquity and remember their sin no more.” This new covenant wasn’t written on tablets of stone but instead upon the hearts of his people.

Promise of a Messiah  God then became very specific on how this New Covenant would come into being. The prophet Isaiah wrote, "Behold, a young woman shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel." [Isaiah 7:14] "For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.” [Isaiah 9:6]

Promise to Bethlehem Through his prophet, Micah, God promised that the Messiah would be born in the little town of Bethlehem. [Micah 5:2]

Promise of Ancestry   Through his prophet Isaiah, God promised that the Messiah would be a descendant of Jesse, father of King David. He says, “A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse; from his roots a Branch will bear fruit. The Spirit of the Lord will rest on him - the Spirit of wisdom and of understanding...” [Isaiah 11:1]

Fulfillment of New Covenant Prophecy  Each of God’s promises was fulfilled in Christ. He was born of a virgin in Bethlehem of the lineage of David. He grew up to be Savior and King.

As Matthew said in our New Testament reading for this morning: An angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, ‘Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.’

All this took place to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet’" [Matthew 1:20ff NRSV]  Yes, Jesus was the anointed one of God, the Messiah foretold in the Old Testament.

All of the Old Testament Messianic promises, pledges and covenants find their “Yes” in Jesus. This means that Jesus, as both God and human, kept both sides of the Covenant.

God Keeps His Promises  Yes, the Bible is full of God's promises, and he has kept each and every one of them. God said in Isaiah, “As the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return to it without watering the earth and making it bud and flourish, so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater, so is my word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.” [Isaiah 55:10-11 NIV] So the promises, pledges and covenants of God will always be carried out for God keeps his promises.

Keeping Our Promises to Each Other  What about us? How well do we keep our promises, pledges and covenants? Are we trustworthy? Are we as good as our word? When we say “yes” can people depend upon us to do as we say? Sometimes we can say “Of course, I am trustworthy.” However, then there’s those other times that occur far more frequently than they should when we failed someone’s trust. The fact is that in spite of our good intentions that our pledges and covenants will be kept, all of us have a trail of broken promises littering our past.

Selfie  As you know, one of the popular things to do these days is take a selfie. What if we had a camera that took a selfie of our moral lives - of how well we have been faithful to the New Covenant that Jesus established on the Cross? A selfie that revealed how well we have been faithful in promises, pledges and covenants we made with others. If the resulting selfie revealed every flaw, every sin that we’d ever committed, I dare say that each one of us, including me, would try to make sure there was no film in that camera.

Standing on the Promises R. Kelso Carter, born in 1849, was both a student and later a professor at the Pennsylvania Military Academy in Chester, Pennsylvania.

While teaching, he wrote the hymn, “Standing on the Promises.” based upon 2 Corinthians 1:20 in which Paul writes: “For in (Christ) every one of God’s promises is a ‘Yes.’ For this reason it is through him that we say the ‘Amen’, to the glory of God.” The words to this hymn start this way: “Standing on the promises of Christ my King, through eternal ages let his praises ring; glory in the highest, I will shout and sing, standing on the promises of God.

Trust  All promises are built upon the foundation of trust - trust that the promises made will be kept and fulfilled. Trust between two people is a precious and fragile trait. But it means so much to know that the other person will do everything possible to carry out the promise. And it means so much to them to know that you will do the same. The best way to keep the promises we make is to stand firmly on the promises of God..

Remember During Advent  So what do we need to remember and treasure during Advent and the coming year?

God's Word became flesh in Christ. That’s Christmas.

God gave us a sign of his New Covenant in Christ. That’s Baptism.

The New covenant between God and us was sealed by the shed blood of Christ on the Cross. That’s Good Friday.

The great promise of life after death was guaranteed by Christ. That’s Easter.

Jesus gave us a means of renewing and strengthening our faithfulness to the New Covenant. That’s Holy Communion.

So once again, remember that all the promises, pledges and covenants of God find their "Yes" in Christ.

I leave you with the words of Norman Vincent Peale: “Promises are like crying babies in a theater, they should be carried out at once.”

Let us pray.
Jeremiah 31:31-34 NRSV 

The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. It will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt—a covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, says the Lord. But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, ‘Know the Lord’, for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the Lord; for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more.

Matthew 1:18-25 NRSV

 Now the birth of Jesus the Messiah took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been engaged to Joseph, but before they lived together, she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. Her husband Joseph, being a righteous man and unwilling to expose her to public disgrace, planned to dismiss her quietly. But just when he had resolved to do this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, ‘Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.’ All this took place to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet:

‘Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel’, which means, ‘God is with us.’ When Joseph awoke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him; he took her as his wife, but had no marital relations with her until she had borne a son; and he named him Jesus.