Covenants Leading to Christ

Introduction

Well, good morning to everyone.

I’m not the normal guy, and that’s a good thing for y’all. and I hope it’s a treat. And no, I have not thrown up this morning, and I have no intention to. That story actually comes from a preacher when the little concept, he would walk off the stage and out the door to the side and throw up in the parking lot. So, who turned into a great evangelist, and I hope that I can be as effective as he was then. So, special thanks to the elders for trusting in me to impart some of God’s word to you this morning. there are many capable men, and I’m assuming they all had other things to do this morning. So, y’all get me. I purposefully didn’t wear a coat and tie.

One, I hate ties, but I’ll wear one. But we’re not gonna talk about anything fancy this morning, and I figured I would just display that, and I’ll be comfortable. We’re gonna stick to some fairly basic Bible that as I grew up in that little church, and I’m talking little, like 35 people, I was not exposed to. And when I went through college, I was an okay Bible student, and I was still not exposed. And as I continued on, it wasn’t until I was in my forties that I actually started to look at the covenants of the old testament and how they carry forward into the new. So, again, this is nothing earth shattering. I’m not trying to bring anything new and exciting, trying to bring something that is old and exciting this morning.

So, diving right in, we’re gonna go back to speech 101. I’m gonna tell you what I’m gonna talk about today. So, I’m gonna give you, and I have unfancy slides too. I’m gonna follow Brent’s theme there. I’m actually gonna tell you the purpose, and then we’re gonna talk about covenants and what they are, and then how the Bible’s story is shaped around God’s covenant, specifically through the Old Testament and then the new covenant as it comes through Jesus. So, again, I’m a pretty simple guy. This is gonna be simple this morning. My purpose this morning is to strengthen your faith in the Word of God, and to strengthen your understanding of what God’s plan is. So, again, I think if I draw my personal experience, I did not study the Old Testament near as much, especially growing up.

1. What's a Covenant?

We tend to default into the New Testament and then look back. And how does the New Testament look back on the old? If you flip that thinking, which is part of what we’ve been doing in the high school class, is hey, what if I study the Old Testament and I look at how it looks forward? That’s some of what we’re gonna do this morning. I have one more point for what my purpose is that’s gonna come up in a couple of slides, so no surprises there. So, what’s a covenant? We talk about covenant theology. We don’t make a lot of covenants today. I’m gonna draw a similarity to a modern day contract because we understand contracts. you’re gonna buy a house, sign a contract.

You’re gonna have insurance, you sign a contract. There’s plenty of different places and ways where we use agreements that may be legally binding, like a contract, but a covenant is similar but different. A covenant is between two or more entities, and there is a price to be paid every time. But a covenant will involve God. All of the covenants we’ll looking at we’ll look at today are initiated by God for the purpose, for the soul and express purpose of blessing mankind. And that doesn’t mean blessing some of mankind or those guys in the Old Testament whose names we can’t pronounce. That carries all the way forward.

And we see in Matthew and Mark where God’s or Jesus is teaching, he says, Hey, what God has joined, don’t let men separate. So we know that God is present in that marriage covenant. It’s not a contract. There’s more going on there. It’s not one man and one woman only. It’s not cohabitation and joint bank accounts, but there is more there that is theologically significant. Just like the covenants that we’ll talk about today. There’s more that is theologically significant. So covenant is extremely important when you look at how God uses it in his redemptive plan. We talk about the plan of salvation, we live in the New Testament, but if we look back, its pattern and its story begins way back in Genesis, in the beginning of Genesis.

And I want to make sure that we understand that just as God made his promises then and he kept every one, he’s made promises to us. And if you’ve taught one of the kids’ Bible classes or the kids have heard this, God always keeps his promises. We’re missing like half our kids. I was going to ask him to repeat it back to me, but like, we’re the little ones. They’re all camping, from what I understand. But just like the songs we sang this morning, so thanks Scott for picking those out. God always keeps his promises. They’re firm, they’re solid. We can always rely on God to do exactly what he said he would do. And that doesn’t sometimes that can be scary because if we don’t hold up our end of the bargain, God will do exactly what he says he will do.

God always remains faithful, and never once will he leave us hanging out to dry. Now we have the opportunity to walk away from him and abandon him. We’ll see that in the story that we’re about to tell. But that’s our choice. But God’s choice is always to remain faithful to his covenants. Here’s my fourth purpose. I told you it was coming. I didn’t want to surprise you. I want to show how God’s plan started in the beginning and it continues. That what we live now and the new covenant we’re under is not anything that should be that is out of the ordinary for God. So I want I want us to understand that as we walk through the Bible story, we’re going to follow God’s promises and how they relate back to the greater plan in the Bible.

So let’s go there. So I almost always start with, hey, open your Bible too. Open your Bible. Put a marker in Hebrews chapter 9 if you have it. And then we will be back, pardon me, in a moment, in Exodus chapter 19. So a short passage in Exodus 19 and a long passage in Hebrews. And those will be the two passages we look at this morning. I’m taking Brent’s advice here. He said, Daniel, you need to camp in one passage. Because I could read for probably 30 minutes about what’s going on here. But y’all don’t want to hear that.

2. God Makes a Covenant With Noah

So we’re gonna we’re gonna focus, we’re gonna tell the story of the Old Testament and the covenants that are there without going to every passage. I’ve got references and references and references. If you want them, be happy to share them. But then we’re going to talk about how those covenants affect us and how they are fulfilled through Christ. So in the beginning, God was with man in the garden land. And then comes sin. And we have this separation from God. And we see from there God trying to reunite man with him. And we happen to be a stubborn people. God says that several times. And if you’re like, I’m not stubborn, yeah, you are. Ask your wife. You are. So we see this, and so the Bible is the story of God trying to reunite man with himself and to deal with the sin problem.

And so God starts looking for partnership with men. So we have this story of the Garden of Eden and sin, and there’s a separation. And then it continues on, and we get to this point in Genesis chapter 6 where we have Noah, and Noah’s living in a in a godless world where every man is his own God and they’re following other deities than God, than Yahweh. They are not interested in what he has to say, and they have abandoned him completely. And so when mankind abandons God’s plan, God steps in and sets it right. So in this case, we know the story of the flood. God comes in and wipes away mankind with the exception of a few. And then after the ark lands, God makes a covenant with Noah.

I don’t know if you read this recently, but he makes it with Noah and with every living creature. It’s not just Noah. He actually says, Hey, all of life on earth, I will never do this again. I will never destroy the earth by water. And so, as a sign for that covenant, he seals it with the rainbow, the bow in the clouds, the bow that points towards heaven. So every time he sees it, he can remember he has made this promise, and God has always kept that promise. Even though we lived through Hurricane Harvey, and we thought that was going to be Noah’s second flood, we survived. God will always keep that promise.

3. God's Covenant With Abraham

And so he looks and he finds Abraham. Abram, who later is called Abraham, and he says, This guy, this guy has the character of what I want in a man. I can use him to restore what’s going on. I am gonna pull him out from what he knows, and I’m gonna make a covenant with him. And after Abraham shows some faithfulness and he follows God, we get three different instances where God speaks a covenant to him. We talk about the land, the nation, and the seed promises, and those are repeated to his son and his grandson later. They don’t all come together in the Genesis story. We get them in Genesis 12 and in Genesis 15, and then we get the covenant of circumcision in Genesis 17.

I don’t know if y’all remember when Stephen Chumley gave a talk about the blood path covenant, about how when Abraham in chapter 15 of Genesis said, God, what should I do? And he said, God says, Okay, get a bull and a ram and a and a and a lamb and two birds, and he takes them and he splits them in half, and there’s the there’s a channel of blood in the middle. This sounds really foreign to us because we live in 2025, but this was common. They understood it. He knew exactly what to do. Why we look at animals, and the only time we’ve cut an animal up like that is when we intended to eat it. This was a sign of a covenant. And Abraham waits, and he waits on God, and he waits long enough that the buzzards find it, and then he has to shoe them away, and then that night God appears to him and passes through.

Instead of Abraham, who is the lesser of the covenant, who would have to make the promise to the greater, God passes through and makes the promise to Abraham. He says, I will do what I said I will do. And it’s so important to me that I will show this to you with this covenant. And then there’s a sign later that men carry as a sign of the covenant, and that is circumcision.

Have you ever wondered how when Moses was put into the little ark and he’s put into the river, and Pharaoh’s daughter finds him? She’s like, Oh, look, it’s a Hebrew. It’s not because his skin was dark or you know his eyes were a certain color. He had the sign of the covenant through circumcision when it was obvious. This is different. This person is set apart. They are physically marked and made different.

And God does keep his covenant. And then he continues and he says, Hey, Isaac, those promises I made to your father, I’m going to make them to you as well. And in Genesis 26, he reaffirms his covenant. And then in Genesis 35, he reaffirms it again to Jacob, and he says, God, he says, God will be faithful. I will do everything I told your father, I’m going to do it. And I promise it to you. And remember the sign of the covenant. And then we know the story. We end up in Egypt. There’s salvation in Egypt. We have to be saved from the famine. And we go down there as the children of Israel. And then we grow into this great nation. And one of God’s promises is fulfilled.

4. God's Covenant at Mount Sinai

And then after enslavement in a 400 to 430 years, there is an exodus. We have a whole book about it. Which high school class get ready. We’re there tonight. And so we leave the gods of Egypt and we come through the water and we come to Mount Sinai. And that’s where we find ourselves in Exodus chapter 19. And at Mount Sinai, we have a people who are there who have been in a polytheistic society for hundreds of years. They knew Abraham. They knew who Father Abraham was, they knew who Yahweh was, but they also knew all these other gods of the Egyptians, and they hadn’t been worshiping Yahweh. So when Moses originally goes, he says, Hey, let my people go into the wilderness three days so we may worship our God.

He doesn’t say, you know, we get the Charlton test, let my people go. No. He says, that’s the first request to Pharaoh. Now eventually we end up at Mount Sinai in the Exodus, and Pharaoh ends up chasing and losing to God, which common theme in the Bible. But we get there, and God has to reaffirm who he is and what he expects of his people. So at Mount Sinai, he does this. Let’s look at Exodus chapter 19. We’re gonna read verses 3 through 6 as a as a show of what God does here. And let’s let’s set the scene for a moment. So we get to Mount Sinai, and there is it’s you ever been to Denver? And you’re everyone thinks Denver’s in the mountains.

Well, Denver’s on the plain next to the mountains. Or you’re driving from Amarillo and everything’s flat, because Amarillo, everything’s flat, and you keep driving and it’s still flat, and you keep driving and it’s still flat, and then there’s the mountains. Well, they’re at the base of the mountain, and it’s enveloped in cloud and thunder and fire, and God’s presence is there, and he shows himself with this mighty show of force that is loud and it is impressive, to the point where it scares them to the Israelite people to the point where they say, Hey, you know what, Moses? You do that for us, please. God scares us. But God tells them here in Exodus 19 and verse 3.

Now, therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession among all peoples, for all earth is mine, and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests, a holy nation. These are the words that you shall speak to the people of Israel. God makes a covenant here that He says, Hey, if you do what I tell you to, you won’t just be normal. You will be a kingdom of priests and set apart for my possession. Now we know those words because they pop up again in the New Testament. We are given a similar promise from God. But as we walk through the Bible story, we understand that Israel doesn’t always do what it’s supposed to. God gives them a sign, just like there’s a bow in the clouds, the sign of this covenant is the Sabbath.

We see that in Exodus 31. And they are to keep the Sabbath as a reminder of who God is and what he has done and his covenant with them so that they would be a kingdom of priests. Now, as we leave, as we walk through the Bible story, and we leave Sinai and we go and we make a mistake entering the promised land, we wander in the wilderness, and then we come back, and there’s the conquest of land of the land in Joshua. And so while we have a great nation which fulfills one of the covenants with Abraham, and then in Joshua 22, I believe. Joshua 21. There it is. In Joshua 21, we’re told that they have conquered the land, that no one else stands against them, that the land that God had promised to their father Abraham is theirs.

5. God Makes a Covenant With David

So we have now fulfilled number two. We have the land and we have the nation promises both fulfilled. Now, has every nation of the world been blessed yet? Not yet. But God was faithful, and he will keep his promise. As we continue down the path of the Bible story, we will see where God is going. So several years pass, and we end up with kings, and we get to David, and God makes a covenant with David as well.

And that his throne will be established forever, and that his son will build me a house. And there will always be a king on the throne of David.

God here is saying, I am going to bless your legacy. You have been faithful to me. No, you can’t build the temple, but Solomon can. I will bless your son. I will treat him as a son. The passage that Blake read in Hebrews is similar because he says, and when he when he steps out of line, I will chasten him with the rod of men. So God will help shape Solomon into the man that he wants him to be. And as we continue on, it looks like God’s promise fails. Because after Solomon, we have the kingdom split, and we have how many good kings do we have in Judah? We have a couple, but it doesn’t last. And then we get into Jeremiah 34 right before the Babylonians come back and take the nation of Judah.

And Jeremiah says, Y’all have broken the covenant. Y’all didn’t keep it. You’re not keeping the Sabbath. You’re not doing what God said. And because of that, here come the Babylonians. Y’all are going off to captivity. So God is walking this path next to his chosen people, and they continue to fail. Sound familiar? I look back on my life, I see a series of failures and a series of victories, and I see God’s hand and through God’s power, the ability to redeem me, just as he is about to do with Israel. So we get to this point in history, where there’s not someone sitting on David’s throne like God said would happen. And Abraham’s covenant promise of blessing all the nations, we don’t see it yet. So this is where we land.

6. Jesus Fulfills All of Those Covenants

And then there are 400 years of silence, like 400 years of captivity in Egypt. God seems to be absent. But God hears our cry. So quick kids, if you’re taking notes, this is where you make a chart. And on the left, I want you to put Noah, Abraham, Israel, and David. And then on the right, I want you to leave space because we’re going to fill in where Jesus fulfills all of those covenants. And what he does reflects back on all of all of that time I just spent talking about what happened and those individual covenants. We’re going to show where Jesus does this.

If you don’t click, it doesn’t work.

It. So just like these others, it is initiated by God, and it is for the express purpose of blessing mankind. It continues or fulfills all of the other covenants. The covenant through Jesus Christ, which we’ll talk about when we get to Hebrews, removed a curse, like the covenant of Noah, remove the curse of the ground. And like the covenant with Abraham, rather than having a physical circumcision, a, hey, here’s a physical sign of who you are. God wants us to be circumcised in our hearts. Which some of us are like, Daniel, I don’t think that way. You know, I’m way too practical, I’m way too literal. But when you understand that circumcised in your heart, there is a sign on your spirit that says, I belong to God.

Whereas that physical circumcision, where Moses comes up and she’s like, oh, yep, hey, it’s a Jewish baby. Our spirit is marked as that’s one of God’s.

Like Abraham when he walked that blood path, we’re gonna see in Hebrews where a similar thing happens. At Jesus’ death, he tears the veil in the temple is torn into top to bottom, and the separation between men and the ability to approach God goes away through Christ. So that kingdom of priests, like the Israelites were promised, happens where we have the ability to approach God. We don’t need a priest to go and sacrifice for us so that we can approach God. The sacrifice has been made so that we can approach God. And this is sealed with a sign of the resurrection of Jesus. Not only did he say he would do it, he did it, and then he comes back. And he shows his power and his ability to fulfill everything he said through his resurrection.

And then beyond that, we show that he is enthroned at God’s right hand on David’s throne, fulfilling what he has told David through Nathan in 2 Samuel 7. God, Daniel, you’ve you’ve read one scripture. You’ve said a lot, but let’s back it up. So let’s go to Hebrews. We’re actually going to begin in Hebrews 8. I will read and comment as I go. We’ll begin in 8, verse 13. It’s the last verse in Hebrews 8. And we’re going to read down through 9 1 here, and then I’ll take a pause, and then we’ll pick up an 11. Hebrews 8 13. In speaking of a new covenant, he makes the first one obsolete. That first one’s the covenant with the Israelites he’s talking about here. And what is becoming obsolete is growing old and ready to vanish.

Now even the first covenant had regulations for worship and an earthly place for holiness. For a tent was prepared in the first section where the lamp stands and the tabernacle and the bread of the presence. And he continues to talk about the difference in the tabernacle and the temple and what is coming. Let’s skip down to 9 11. We’re just going to skip that tabernacle language there. In 11. But when Christ appeared as a high priest of good things that have come, then through the greater and more perfect tent, which he’s just described, the old one, not made with hands, that is not of creation, he entered once for all into the holy places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves, but by the means of his own blood, thus securing eternal redemption.

For if the blood of bulls and goats and the sprinkling of a defiled person with the ashes of a heifer sanctify for purification of the flesh, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God. I’ll stop right there. These covenants are sealed with blood, and the blood of bulls and goats, and what we saw with Abraham, and then what we see with the daily sin sacrifice, that decontamination or cleansing sacrifice, we don’t need anymore. The old covenant was it fit for its time, but it couldn’t fulfill the ultimate purpose, it was a shadow of things to come, and that thing to come was Jesus.

And just like they did then, and they tried to tried to cleanse themselves from sin, they couldn’t really do it because they didn’t have the right sacrifice. So all of those sacrifices they made all point to Jesus, and through his blood, we secure an eternal redemption, not a temporary, not a not an earthly, but an eternal redemption for your soul that is marked out for God. Let’s continue in verse 15. We’re gonna end up reading all the way through part of chapter 10, so just buckle up. Therefore, he is the mediator of the new covenant, so that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance. Since death has occurred that redeems them from the transgressions committed under the first covenant. For where a will is involved, the death of the one who made it must be established.

For that will takes effect only at death, since this, since it is not in force as long as the one who made it is alive. Therefore, not even the first covenant was inaugurated without blood. That’s the blood of sacrifice. Verse 19. For when every commandment of the law had been declared by Moses and all the people, he took the blood of calves and goats with water and scarlet wool and hyssop and sprinkled blood both sprinkle and sprinkled both the book itself and all the people saying, This is the blood of the covenant that God commanded you. And in the same way he sprinkled with blood the tent and all the vessels and worship. Indeed, under the law, almost everything is purified with blood, and without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness of sin.

So we’re seeing this contrast here again of what happened in the Old Testament, that Exodus law of what we had to do to try to try to take our mortal bodies and try to approach a holy God. To be able to enter into the temple grounds, you had to do certain things. And you’re to decontaminate yourself physically and of sin to make that offering so that you could approach a holy space, so that you could be in the presence of God. And here all of the physical is done away. And Jesus paid that price, and through his blood, we have the spiritual ability to approach God. Because without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness of sin. That wasn’t the blood of the bulls and the goats.

That was Jesus. Continue on in 23. Thus it was necessary for the copies of heavenly things to be purified for those rites, but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these. For Christ has entered not into the holy place made with hands, which are copies of true things, but into heaven itself, not to appear in the pr now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf. Nor was it to offer himself repeatedly as a high priest enters the holy place every year with blood not his own. For then he would have to suffer repeatedly since the foundation of the world. But as it is, he has appeared once for all. At the end of the age, to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.

And just as it is appointed for man once to die, and after that comes the judgment, so Christ, having been offered once, bears the sins of many.

Temple is a copy of heavenly things. It had to be purified with earthly things. The heavenly Jesus entered for us to take away the sins of the world, to be sacrificed once for all mankind. Let’s, for time’s sake, let’s skip to chapter 10 and verse 8.

When he said above, you’ve neither desired nor taken pleasure in sacrifices and offerings and burnt offerings for sin offerings. This is all reference to what happened under the Mosaic Law. Then he added, Behold, I have come to do your will. This is Jesus. He does away with the first in order to establish the second. And by that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.

Pardon me, who offered his body once for all. And then you have the priests of the old covenant who had to continually do this every day, continually sacrifice. But Jesus did it once to sanctify us.

We often think about our life and how our life is set apart and how we don’t do things from the world. But I want you to think about how your soul is rescued from darkness and it is set apart for the kingdom of light. That’s what Jesus did. While he accomplished all these earthly things, what his real intent was to save you, not just your body, but your soul for eternity. And that happened here. That’s why his is the only sacrifice as we reflect back on the other sacrifices and all of the death and the things that sealed these covenants. Jesus is the mediator of the new covenant. Let’s skip down to verse 16. This is the covenant that I will make with them. After those days, declares the Lord, I will put my law on their hearts and write them on their minds.

Stop right there. So I was just talking about how it’s not the physical, but it is the spiritual, just like a spiritual circumcision, like a non-earthly, non-physical thing. That’s what he’s saying right here. Our worship isn’t going to be in sacrifice and daily rituals and rites. Our worship is going to be in how our soul lives and how we reflect Christ and who we are and in what we do and in how he wants us to be, as how we reflect him. Continue in 17. Then he adds, I will remember their sins and their lawless deeds no more. Where there is forgiveness of these, there is no longer any offering for sin. Therefore, since we have confidence to enter the holy place by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain that is through his flesh.

And since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart, with a full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from evil consciences, and our bodies washed in pure water. Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering. For he who promised is faithful. And let us consider how to stir up one another for love and good works, not neglecting the meeting of some is as the habit of some is, but encouraging one another, all the means as you see the day drawing near. We need to know why he did it. Everything that happens after the therefore. He did this for you. He did this so that you can fulfill the first and greatest command, so that you can love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul with all your mind and with all your strength.

And so he can write his law on your heart.

I’m going to reread. 19. Since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, fulfilling all of the covenants and establishing the new covenant. By a new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh. And since we have a great high priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart and full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. So you can put your Bibles away. I want to end on that.

Conclusion

This was Jesus’ purpose. As we look back and we can see God’s hand all through the stories of the Israelites and how God is faithful and man fails, and God is faithful and man fails.

And Jesus redeems us so that we can fail. And then Jesus comes. So that we have a hope of heaven, so that we can end up in union with him, so that our soul can be marked as His.

As adopted by Yahweh. And when you understand what the spiritual implication of that is and how that can change our life, if we start to follow Jesus in that way, that is who he truly intends for us to be. Bow with me. We’re gonna pray.

Thank you for showing us so plainly as we read through your scriptures that we can see who you are. The Lord and Redeemer, the one who makes the promise and continues to keep it, and who we are, those who have struggled and tried and failed, but you still see as worthy, and you still offer redemption, and you still have a plan through your son, through Jesus, who entered into the holy place in heaven and made the only sacrifice that can wash us clean to be in your presence, that can the only sin sacrifice that brings us into your presence. We see in the Old Testament where that was near impossible, and only one man, one time per year was in your presence. But God, through Jesus, we can enjoy your presence today.

We can understand it through prayer. We can petition you like we do now and ask for strength and understand that you keep your promise, and that if we pray faithfully, you will guide us through life, and that our life is a reflection of Jesus, and that we have an adoption and a home eternal in a place exceedingly better than what we have here and unimaginably perfect through Jesus. God, may we live our life with Jesus in mind, understanding how much you love us and what you’ve done for us, and see that our priorities should be shaped by your love so that we can love you in return with all our heart and all our mind and all our strength. This is our prayer in his name.

Amen.

But we see what Jesus did. We understand what’s coming. And we know that God is faithful to his promises. He is offered a union in doing this physical thing and a washing and regeneration so that we can be in union with him. Maybe you need that this morning. We have that. We’ll go to Brad’s house. There’s no water in there. We’ll go to Brad’s house. If you need to be baptized this morning, we have the way to do it. Maybe you’re past that point. Maybe you see that you, like hundreds of stories in the Bible, you have failed. Join the crowd. God offers redemption for you even when you fail. He understands the story. He was there the whole time. And he says, if you come back to me and live faithfully, there will be a crown of life.

Do you need help getting back on the path? Do you need to get on the path? That’s why we’re here this morning. If we can help you in any way, please come forward as we stand.