Yahweh Faithful covenanter

Have you ever made a promise? Have you ever broken a promise? I would assume the answer to these two questions would be YES! But if God was answering, he would say yes to the first and then would throw the second away. Yahweh is faithful to his promises and fulfills every promise he gives.

Transcript

WILDFIRE, the youth branch of Hope to Families, seeking unity and community,  helping people come to know Jesus  and pointing people  to the local body.  These are our Lord's words. Let me read them to you. As they were eating,  Jesus took some bread and blessed it. Then He broke it in pieces and gave it to the disciples saying, take it, for this is my body. And He took a cup of wine and gave thanks to God for it. He gave it to them and they all drank from it. And He said to them, this  is my blood. Which confirms the covenant between God and His people. It is poured out as a sacrifice for many. I tell you the truth.  I will not drink wine again until the day I drink it again in the kingdom of God We've most likely all heard about the Lord's Supper or the Eucharist at some point in our lives We are well acquainted with this meal that is inaugurated by our Lord, but we must ask ourselves the question Why? Why is it that Jesus would do this on the eve of his betrayal his torture his crucifixion his resurrection his ascension? His sending of the Holy Spirit,  all of which  would make it possible for church to be possible. This gathering of people right now, why would Jesus  inaugurate this meal on the first day of unleavened bread? The practice of the Jewish people who on this day would sacrifice a Passover lamb. It would be easy for us to split into two camps into this room. In one camp there are those of us who simply hold this as tradition. It's what people do. This is a normal thing in Christian practices, but we don't understand the significance  or the purpose or what this meal actually accomplishes. And then there are others  in a camp who think, I can be apathetic when it comes to this.  I can lack  motivation or drive. I've heard all of this before. I know about this meal. I can tell you about it. That scripture that we just read, the words of Jesus,  I've heard that. again and again and again and we can let it  wash over us. Oh, we don't let it wash in us. We don't let it do anything. We don't let it change us. Let me encourage you tonight that there is something very beautiful and quite remarkable that our great God wants to teach you tonight, regardless of whether you're hearing this for the first time or the one thousandth time. Our God is an infinite God, yes, and his scriptures are infinite in value. So there should be nobody in this room who says I knew everything there is to know about God and I knew everything there is to know about his scriptures. So we all agree that there's something more for us to encounter with God from his word. Doesn't that excite you? Would you pray to God now and say God what is that that you want to teach me tonight? Let me just pray for us tonight. Our great God, thank you so much that we can gather here tonight as your people. We know your presence is among us. We want your Holy Spirit to speak. I want you to speak Holy Spirit through me and I want your scriptures to go forth and accomplish all that you want to accomplish tonight. In your name we pray, Jesus. Amen. With everything, there is usually a backstory. And with communion it is no different. But the difference is with communion it has the best backstory known for anything that's ever existed. It has the greatest why. The why of this meal started by Jesus is the history of humanity which starts with  our sin. Romans 5-12 says this, when Adam sinned, sin entered the world. Adam's sin brought death, so death spread to everyone for everyone. sinned. You see this letter of Romans summarizes what we read in Genesis. The creation account of our world and of humanity. In Genesis we read about our eternal personal God and his creation of the world and everything in it. Then we read of humanity being the jewel of God's creation. And humanity was different to any other creation. It had a distinctive design and that design feature was free will. It was choice.  Yeah, what did we do with that choice? We rebelled against God. We chose our own way. The consequence of this was everything that was not of God. Our pain, suffering, death,  sin  ravaged our world and it ravaged  our lives. The sin of Adam brought death and this death affected everyone. Not just because of one man. but our sinful actions justify our own involvement in the sinful offense of humanity against our creator, against our creator God, our actions, our sin. And we can just sit here right now and say, oh, Christianese language, sin, but behind that word sin is your personal horrific actions against God. Your thoughts, your desires, your words,  my thoughts, my words, my desires is the content of the statement,  sin against God. Separation against God. That Arsalan would separate humanity from God, that is the power of sin. So we find ourselves separated from God. There was a time when humanity would have walked with God in the garden in perfect communion, and yet now humanity lives their lives mindlessly away from him, having to be convinced of God's existence. Arson! Yet  our God promises to save. Turn to Genesis chapter 15 verse 9 to 18. I don't know how, but some way, some how, whenever I say Genesis, or we talk about Genesis or Old Testament books, we sort of get a little bit deflated. How has that happened? Genesis is one of the most remarkable books, and what we're about to read right now is Yahweh's words. It's him, it belongs to him. And it speaks something very amazing, and what you need to know about this Is that this is  Abraham, later to be Abraham, who was a human, just like me and you, but he was chosen by God to be a vehicle of God's grace, his mercy and love. And here in this account that we are about to read, we reading of God making a covenant that is a promise to  humanity. Specifically to Abraham. Verse nine. The Lord told him, bring me a three year old heifer, a three year old female goat. three-year-old ram a turtle dove and a young pigeon so Abraham presented all of these to him and killed them then he cut each animal down the middle and led the have side by side he did not however cut the birds in half some vultures swept down to eat the carcasses but Abraham chased them away as the Sun was going down Abraham fell into a deep sleep and a terrifying darkness came down over him then the Lord said to Abraham you can be sure that your descendants will be strangers in a foreign land. They will be oppressed for 400 years, but I will punish the nation that enslaves them, and in the end, they will come away with great wealth.  As for you, you will die in peace and be buried at a ripe old age. After four generations, your descendants will return here to this land, for the sin of the Amorites do not yet warrant their destruction.  After the sun went down and darkness fell, Abraham saw a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch pass between the halves of the carcasses So the Lord made a covenant with Abraham that day What does that mean? What does all that mean? And there's a lesson in there for us because it would be easy for us to read that Move on confused not actually getting it into the depth of what has just been talked about in this passage God is represented  by the smoking fire pot and the burning torch. That knowledge alone should help you to start to unlock that passage. And right now I should be seeing amazed faces. God is communicating to Abraham that the nation of Israel would come from him, but by their sin they would be held captive for 400 years. But God is promising that there will come a time where freedom will reign. And knowing this helps us understand something amazing about what God is actually doing here that will radically alter our view of the nature of God and how we understand him  as a God who saves. You see this ritual that we just read of sacrificing animals that were of value and then walking through them, picture that, was a common practice in the ancient Near East. Used at the time to which Abraham was alive, but what did that symbolize? What does it mean to take a pile of animals to actually cut their carcasses in half, split them on either side and walk through them? Why is God usually not there to communicate to Abraham. Get ready for this. In this specific instance, God's symbolic passage between the animal halves emphasise that he would hold himself accountable to the covenant he was making.  Even if Abraham or his descendants failed, God is making a unilateral promise. What does that mean? A promise that was based not on Abraham, but instead, God alone. Abraham's involvement was simply to be a recipient of the promise David Guzik summarizes what we read here this way Therefore the certainty of the covenant of God made with Abraham was based on who God was not on who Abraham was or what Abraham would do This covenant could not fail because God cannot fail Israel and the Exodus account of them being trapped for 400 years and then being freed is a picture used by our God to showcase our freedom,  our captivity. This picture starts here with this  promise. What is God saying? Let me say it to you straight. He's saying to Abraham, I'm a God who wants to save. I'm a God who wants to save so much that I will  make the promise to save  And I will ensure that that promise becomes a reality. To what point? My death. God is saying my death to make this promise possible. How dare we shrug our shoulders at God saying he would give his life for us. How dare we say that we've heard that before? How dare we come to this table and say, God, you're obligated to die for my sin. God, you're obligated to make the promise to me. Now you may ask what does this have to do with the supper inaugurated by God? Just as God is making a promise here and saying that he would die to make the promise a reality, so too Jesus is God. He's making a new and better covenant, a promise that would actually see him die and give his whole life to make reality, you and me sitting here today as children of Almighty God. He's saying to Abraham, you're gonna be in sin and captivity, but I want your freedom, I wanna save you so  much. that I'm willing to die and what happens? God dies. Jesus dies on a cross. God and man dying on a cross, making true what he said to Abraham all those years ago. Guzik summarizes it this way, in a sense, the father walked through the broken and bloody body of Jesus to establish his covenant with his people and God signed it for both parties. Believers merely enter the covenant by faith. They don't make or create the covenant with God Our God desires to save us It's crazy that we would sin against them and then God in his nature. He says I want to save you That's just who I am and I'm willing to give my whole life God doesn't just promise to save God has saved It says that Moses called all the elders of Israel together and said to them, pick out a lamb or a young goat for each of your families and slaughter the Passover lamb. Then when you enter the lamb the Lord has promised to give you, you will continue to observe this ceremony. Then your children will ask, what does this ceremony mean? And you will reply, it is the Passover sacrifice to the Lord. How he spared you. We see that God is faithful to his promise to save Israel from captivity. This means that the salvation to which Israel got their freedom was a spotless lamb. This was the covenant promised to save and this is the covenant that shows God does actually save. With this context,  our sin, God's promise to save and a saving in the past, we now come to our final triumphant truth  as displayed by the inauguration of this meal from our Lord. We started off reading Mark. Let's go back to it again. This is what is amazing, is that whenever we read it first, we didn't have the knowledge, the understanding of everything that was behind this. God promising to save, willing to give his own life, God saving Israel, and then God then saying here and now to his disciples this. As they were eating, Jesus took some bread and blessed it. Then he broke it in pieces and gave it to the disciples saying, take it for this is my body. and he took a cup of wine and gave thanks to God for it. He gave it to them and they all drank from it and he said to them, this is my blood, which confirms the covenant between God and his people. Jesus God who made that covenant with Abraham said I want to save you so much I will walk through and die for you to make that possible and Now we read all these thousands of years later Jesus saying to his disciples I Want to save you so much I'm going to die I'm going to die on a cross That's how much I love you That's how much I want you. Our taking of this meal is a remembrance of the faithful, promise-keeping nature of our God. The God who created, the God who watched his creation sin, and yet the God who promised to save, the God who did save,  the God who does save, and the God who always will  save. Jesus said, I will not drink wine again until the day I drink it in the new kingdom of God. Jesus is giving us a messianic. prophecy what that means is it's forward-looking to a time where we will have perfect communion with God where  we will eat and drink with him in perfect communion as we were created to be with him and this here meal is us  signposting towards that the consummation the fullness the completion of that meal the marriage supper of the lamb This here meal is a remembrance  of a new and better covenant that sees us look not to animal carcasses, but instead to the actual body and blood of our Savior and our Lord and our Creator. God himself saying, I'll die so that I might be with you, so that I might complete and fulfill my desire, which is to be with you. What an incredible story. that God shows us from Genesis to Mark's gospel to us sitting here today. We are a part of that amazing and great and grand story. There's so much that could be said there. There's so much that has been said. There's so much that the Lord  desires to teach you and desires to give you. whether you like it or not, this here is some depth,  mana,  real scripture, but it does require you to actually go away and meditate on it, to think about it, to pray about it, to read about it, and say, God, what is this story that you're inviting me into? Whenever we take this communion meal, it's not us  coming with apathy, with lack of motivation, or with tradition. It's us saying, God. You promised to save so much so that you would die for me. And so we remember that. We don't deserve it, but it's His good news to us  that we are sinners  saved by grace. If we distill these deep truths that we looked at tonight, what would we say?  Are God safe? So let us remember you.