Messages

Date:2/14/21

Series: Exodus

Passage: Exodus 24:1-18

Speaker: BJ Chursinoff

"Covenant" is not a word normally used in our everyday lives. We may not even know what a covenant is! But we need to know because covenants are a central theme that runs through the entire Bible. The Bible is actually made up of two covenants, or "testaments" – an old one and a new one. In Exodus 24, we witness Israel enter into a covenant with God. And in this message, we'll learn what that meant for them back then, and what it means for us as followers of Jesus today.


Transcription (automatically-generated):

The magnitude and the significance of Exodus Chapter twenty four can't be exaggerated is one of the central pieces of scripture in the entire Bible. This passage not only helps us to understand what the Old Testament is all about, it also helps us understand what the New Testament is all about as well. It's an Exodus 24 that we see God officially enter into a covenant with the nation of Israel. There's been covenant talk up to this point. Back in Exodus, chapter 19 in verse five, God told Moses to relay this message to Israel.

He says now, therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession among all peoples for all the earth is mine. And then last week, we saw near the end of Exodus in chapter twenty three thirty two, God said this to Israel. You shall make no covenant with them. That's the Canaanites and their gods. So there's been some talk of covenant up to this point. But now here in Exodus Chapter 24, both parties, God and Israel, are going to sign on the dotted line, so to speak.

God is going to be Israel is God, and Israel is going to be his people officially.

And we don't use the word covenant that much in our vocabulary today.

But we need to grasp the meaning of the word if we're going to understand what's going on in our text. In his book, God has a Name, John Mark Colmer says this about the word covenant, and I quote. Covenant isn't a word we really use anymore, when I read my New York Times app in the morning, it doesn't report that President Trump made a covenant with China. Covenant is a word from another time, another place in the ancient Near East.

A covenant was essentially a hybrid between a promise and a legal contract. It was relational.

Two or more people would make a promise and then sign a contract with clearly defined blessings and curses for keeping or breaking that promise. The closest thing we have in the modern world to a covenant is marriage going on 15 years ago, when Tammy and I started stared into each other's eyes on a warm June night in front of all our family and friends and said, I do. We made a covenant, a promise. Think of the call and response. Wedding vows.

Do you so promise? I do. Marriage is a covenant, a promise to love and stay faithful to your spouse. But a covenant is also a binding contract. When you get married, you sign your life away.

There are consequences if you don't keep your promise, end quote. Comber says the closest thing we have in the modern world to a covenant is marriage. Interestingly, throughout the Old Testament, God is referred to as the husband to the nation of Israel. Here are some examples in Isaiah. Chapter fifty-four, verse five. It reads, "For your maker is your husband. The Lord of Hosts is his name and the holy one of Israel is your redeemer. The God of the whole earth."

He is called and the Lord of Hosts. Chapter two verses 16 and 19 reads like this: "And in that day declares the Lord, you will call me my husband, and no longer will you call me my bail and I will betroth you to me forever. I will betroth you to me and righteousness and injustice and steadfast love and in mercy."

And finally in Jeremiah chapter thirty-one verse thirty-two. It reads like this, "Not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt. My covenant that they broke though I was their husband, declares the Lord." So, with this picture of marriage in our mind and the fact that God is referred to as the husband of Israel, we can better understand the covenant that God enters into with his people in Exodus Chapter twenty-four.

So now let's jump right in and take a closer look at the events that unfold in this incredible chapter in the Bible. So, Exodus Chapter twenty-four starting in verses one to three. It reads like this. Then he God said to Moses, "Come up to the Lord, you and Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu nd 70 of the elders of Israel and worship from afar. Moses alone shall come near to the Lord, but the other shall not come near, and the people shall not come up with him." So, Israel has been delivered from Egypt and they're now camped at the bottom of Mount Sinai, all two million of them, and here Moses receives another call to come up the mountain. This time he has the call to come up with a select group of men. He's already been up and down Mount Sinai a few times up to this point.

He doesn't go up right away here, he ends up going up In verses nine, he's only receiving the invitation from God to go up in these verse is.

And like we just saw, this invitation is not for him alone, God calls an entourage to come up with him. In total, it's a group of 74 men that are called to go up the mountain. This group includes Moses. It includes Aaron Moses, his brother, and the first high priest of Israel, Nadav Annabi, who are Aaron's sons, who would be the next generation of priests in Aaron's lineage. And it says 70 of the elders of Israel.

If you remember, back in Exodus, chapter three, verse 16, God sent Moses to appeal to the elders of Israel for support before he went to address Pharaoh. I think that these 70 elders that go up Mount Sinai with Moses are most likely the same elders of Israel that we saw Moses deal with when he was back in Egypt. Let's move on verse three, Moses came and told the people all the words of the Lord and all the rules and all the people at said with one voice and said all the words of the Lord that the Lord has spoken, we will do.

So before Moses goes up the mountain, he passes on God's word to the people aurally, God's words haven't been written down yet.

We will see that Moses writes the words down when we get to verse four. But here in verse three, he speaks the word to the people. What did he say to them? Well, it says that he told the people all the words of the Lord and all the rules. I think Moses told them a lot in this address. I think Moses spoke the words of Exodus 19 verses five to five to six to them. I've already read this verse once, but I'll read it again here where God said now, therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession among all peoples for all the earth is mine, and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.

So I think Moses spoke that to the people. I think Moses spoke the Ten Commandments to the people. I think Moses spoke the Book of the Covenant to the people. I think Moses spoke everything they needed to know up front about the covenant that God was inviting them into.

Again, it says all the words of the Lord and all the rules. And what was the people's response to God's words when they heard them? Yes, we will do it. And here we have a marriage parallel.

We have a proposal and a yes see, when a man gets on his knee and asks his potential bride to be if she will marry him, he's asking her, will you be mine at the expense of all other potential husbands? And if she says, yes, it's a verbal agreement at this point, nothing is set in stone yet, pun intended. But here in Verse 8 three, the people are saying yes to God's proposal, yes, lord, we give ourselves to obey you alone and no other.

Verse four and Moses wrote down all the words of the Lord. Now the words were put down in writing. We do the same thing when people get married today. There's a contract in writing, it's binding. And you see the marriage pattern unfolding so far in these verse is, the people have verbally agreed to the arrangement God has laid up before them. Moses has written the words of God down. And now it's time to make this covenant official with the symbols of the covenant and again, we do the same thing when people get married today, we use symbols.

What are the symbols that we use in marriage today? Rings, the vows are made and the rings are put on the fingers, but this man belongs to this woman and this woman belongs to this man, a covenant has been made between them. And how can we tell the rings around the finger and God puts a ring on Israel in this text? Let's pick things up halfway through Verse is for he Moses rose early in the morning and built an altar at the foot of the mountain and 12 pillars, according to the 12 tribes of Israel.

This altar was the symbol that represented God's participation in this covenant. And the 12 pillars was the symbol that represented the twelve tribes of Israel's participation in the Covenant. And the twelve tribes represented the whole nation of Israel. The picture, the symbol there that day, God and Israel, one altar, which was God surrounded by the 12 pillars, which were the people. When anyone saw these stones set up, they would know what the symbols represented, just like we know what rings on a finger represent.

So you could say that things are getting pretty serious here between God and his people.

Verse 8 five. And he again, as Moses sent young men of the people of Israel who offered burnt offerings and sacrificed peace offerings of oxen to the Lord.

The burnt offering, as the name suggests, was a sacrifice that was completely burned out before God. The peace offering was different in that the one who offered it as a sacrifice could also enjoy some of the meat that came from the offering.

The meal that we're going to see a little later on in Verse 8 11 could have come from this peace offering. Verse 8 six. And Moses took half of the blood and put it in basins and half of the blood he threw against the altar. So the blood was drained from the sacrificed animals and half of it was thrown on the altar and the other half was put into containers to be used shortly after this.

There would have been a lot of blood. And this is kind of gross to our modern sensibilities, but it's really, really important. Blood's not a laughing matter. When we see blood, we know something really serious is going on. This makes me think of a prank that I pulled on my mom when I was a kid, and if there are any kids watching this message, watching this service with your parents, kids, listen to me, please.

Whatever you do, don't ever pull this prank on your mom or dad. Here's what here's what I did. I was when I was a kid, my mom was either in another room in the house or she was out running errands. And it just gave me some space and some time to prepare this prank. I set up the scene this way. I lied myself on the couch.

I squirted some ketchup on my skin and I placed a knife beside me and I lay there unconscious.

And when I saw that, she freaked out at first and then that freaking out quickly turned to anger as soon as she realized it was a prank. Like I say, kids don't do this at home. But why did my mom freak out when she saw that? Well, because when we see blood, we know that it's a matter of life and death.

Leviticus, chapter 17, verse 11 says, For the life of the flesh is in the blood.

So when blood is shed, that means a life has been given.

This is a serious covenant God is making with Israel. As seen in the blood that was shed in your spare time, go back and reread the agreement God made with his people in the Ten Commandments and the Book of the Covenant. You could die if you didn't fulfill your end of this deal. That's what the blood signifies. The blood that was drained from the sacrifice animals was then split into two parts. And we see here in verse six that the first part of the blood was put on the altar.

The first part of the blood was put on God. Verse seven. Then he again, as Moses took the Book of the Covenant and read it in the hearing of the people and they said all that the Lord has spoken, we will do and we will be obedient here.

The written word was spoken to the people and now they formally agree to it. There are early agreement back in verse three could be understood like an engagement the man proposes and the woman says yes. But now the moment has come to make it official. Now we're both up front in the church with our family and friends in attendance. Now, the one who's officiating the ceremony asks the question. And this, yes, right here is weightier than the engagement.

Yes, this. Yes. Is the wedding. Yes. That's what the people are doing here. They are saying yes to God. They are saying they understand the relationship they are entering into.

They understand the gravity of the situation. Verse 8 and Moser's took the blood and threw it on the people and said, behold the blood of the covenant that the Lord has made with you in accordance with all these words. Now, Moses took the other half of the blood that was drained back in verse six, and now he threw it on the people. In my study this week, I came across a couple of ways to imagine how this would have played out the first way we can imagine the scene playing out as literal.

We could imagine Moses chucking blood on those who were in the first row at the base of Mount Sinai that day, like those sitting up front in the aquarium.

When the killer whale makes us jump out of the water, the first row is getting wet. The second way we can imagine the scene playing out is symbolic. You remember the 12 pillars that Moses set up back in To verse for what some scholars suggest that the blood in the basins was put on these 12 pillars, which was a symbol for all the people, because it was not likely that there was enough blood to sprinkle on all of the two million people that were there.

But the blood could have been put on each of the 12 pillars, and in that way, symbolically, all the people were covered by the blood. If the blood was on the pillars, what a picture, the altar and the stones blood on both signifying that God was in this with his people, now they were bound together by this covenant. These were the rings. These were the symbols of the covenant. Now that the ceremony was done, it was time to go up the mountain to meet with God Verse is nine to 11.

Then Moses and Aaron, Nadav, AB and Abbey, who and 70 of the elders of Israel went up and they saw the God of Israel there was under his feet, as it were, a pavement of Sapphire's stone, like the very heaven for clearness.

And he did not lay his hand on the chief man of the people of Israel. They beheld God and ate and drank. One of the highlights of any marriage covenant is the celebratory dinner that takes place after the ceremony, after a marriage has taken place. Both families that have now just come together as one celebrate this moment by enjoying a meal together. And that's what we see happening here in our text, the entourage of 74 men that we were first introduced to back in the first couple verse is in Chapter twenty four, they have now made their way up the mountain and Verse 8 11 says they ate and drank in the presence of God.

This was unlike any other wedding dinner that has ever taken place before or after.

That's because of who the husband is. God was literally there. He made an incredible appearance. Now we have to pause and take a few moments to talk about this scene. God showed up on the mountain in a big time way and the scripture says they saw him.

If you're new to the Bible, this might be news to you, but seen God in the Bible is no joke.

We get a hint of the severity of this in our text when it says In verses 11 that he God did not lay his hand on them, meaning this God didn't kill them. They're right on the spot even though they were in his presence. God is so holy God is so powerful, he's so mighty, he's so awesome that people cannot just waltz into his presence and then live to talk about it later in Exodus. It even says this Exodus, chapter three, verse 20.

And he God said, you cannot see my face for a man shall not see me and live. And so what's happening here, how are these men seeing God and not dying? I'm going to share a succession of thoughts with you about this and then try to put it all together. First thought is this.

It's impossible to completely understand God. God cannot be put into a box. He cannot be put down into a petri dish and studied. He cannot fit into our brains. We can know him, but it's impossible to know everything there is to know about him.

This is this is not a cop out for a preacher who already knows he won't be able to give a satisfactory answer to this question that we're dealing with here.

No, this is the position that we have to take when we're trying to figure out more about God. We will never know everything fully about him. We can't. That's the first thought, here's the second thought, and this is going to be the first fill in on your outline. God is spirit. God is spirit, which means he is invisible and can't be seen. Listen to Jesus and John, chapter four, verse twenty four, where it says God is, he says God is Spirit and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.

The apostle John in his letter, the first, John for 12, says this No one has ever seen God. And in First Timothy, chapter six, verse 16, the apostle Paul writes this God alone has immortality who dwells in unapproachable light, whom no one has ever seen or can see to him be honor and eternal dominion, a Amen you cannot see a spirit and God is spirit. So that means we can't see him. Third thought, and this is the next film on your outline.

Jesus is God, and he is the revelation of God that can be seen by human beings, Jesus is God and he is the revelation of God that can be seen by human beings.

Listen to John, chapter one, verse 18, where it says No one has ever seen God, the only God who is at the father's side. He has made him known.

And in John, 14 Verse 8, eight to nine, we read this, Philip said to him, speaking to Jesus, Lord, show us the father and it's enough for us, he's asking Jesus, Jesus, show us the unseeable one, and that will be enough for us.

And then Jesus said to him, verse nine, have I been with you so long? And you still still do not know me, Philip. Whoever has seen me has seen the father, how can you say show us the father? We can see the son of God and not die, and in seeing the sun, we can see the father who is unseeable and in this way we can see God and live. And so put in these three thoughts together, we can come to one of two conclusions.

I think conclusion number one in verse ten in our text, they saw a vision of the glory of your way, not the actual essence of your way, but a manifestation of his glory.

Those who were there that day realized he was there in some kind of phenomenal capacity, but they didn't actually see his true form or essence because God is an invisible spirit. They saw something of God, but it wasn't really him. That's one conclusion we can draw. Here's a second one we can draw.

In verse ten, they saw a Cristoff in the pre and carnet Jesus revealing yaha way to his people in the Old Testament in a way that they could see him and not die.

They saw Christ in his glory, much like Peter, James and John saw Jesus glory on the Mount of Transfiguration in Matthew Chapter Seventeen Jesus is the revelation of the father and the group of seventy four men on that day may have seen Jesus on Mt. Sinai. So whatever happened here, they saw God and didn't die. That's what the Bible says, it's mysterious. But I can assure you this, whatever however it happened, however, however it played out, that was the day that they would never, ever forget.

Let's go on to Verse is, 12 to 14 in our text in Exodus. Twenty four. The Lord said to Moses, Come up to me on the mountain and wait there, that I may give you the tablets of stone with the law and the commandment which I have written for their instruction. So Moses rose with his assistant Joshua and Moses went up into the mountain of God and he said to the elders, Wait here for us until we return to you.

And behold, Erin and her are with you. Whoever has a dispute, let him go to them again. There's one of two scenarios happening here, happening here. In scenario one, God called Moses further up the mountain from where the 74 had eaten together In verses 11. And he took Joshua with him. And then Moses left Erin and her in charge of the seven men that were still there somewhere halfway up the mountain.

That scenario one or scenario number two, all 74 of the original entourage that went up the mountain with Moses and eight with God in his presence, they all went back down the mountain after their meal with God was finished. And then God called Moses back up and Joshua went with him and the Moses would have left her in her in charge of all the people of Israel at the bottom of Mount Sinai. This second scenario would tie in to Exodus Chapter thirty two, where we see Moses come down from this mountaintop experience to find the people worshipping the golden calf that Aaron had made them.

So that scenario to either of these two scenarios work in my mind. And you can come to your own conclusion after some further personal study, if you like. Let's move on to Verse is, 15 to 18. Then Moses went up on the mountain and the cloud covered the mountain. The glory of the Lord dwelt on Mount Sinai and the cloud covered it six days. And on the seventh day he called to Moses out of the midst of the cloud.

Now, the appearance of the glory of the Lord was like a devouring fire on top of the mountain in the sight of the people of Israel. Moses entered the cloud and went up on the mountain, and Moses was on the mountain. Forty days and 40 nights. So the glory of God came down on the mountain cloud fire, pure awesomeness that God has been revealing himself to his people in the wilderness this way, according to Exodus, chapter 13, verse twenty one, he's been leading them by a pillar of cloud by day and leading them by a pillar of fire by night.

But here is both of these manifestations wrapped up into one display of glory, cloud and fire.

Everyone down the mountainside and everyone down the mountain saw Moses go into the cloud and he was there for 40 days and 40 nights.

The Bible says now during this meeting on the mountain, God gives Moses a ton of information. This included the Ten Commandments written on the tablets of Stone by God himself.

Moses also receives complete instructions on how to build the tabernacle, the ark of the Covenant, the altar specifications for the priestly garments, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, which we're going to read when we eventually get to Mass Exodus. Chapter twenty five all the way through thirty one, we can see the account of what Moses was told on the mountain here in those chapters. So now let me just recap where we've been so far at this point in Israel's history, they officially become God's people, God's bride, if you will.

The vows have been made, the symbols were established. The meal was had. They belonged to one another. Now, God is Israel's God and Israel is his special people. Officially, this is Exodus, chapter twenty four. Now, what does this mean for you and me today? This event took place roughly 35 hundred years ago with ethnic Israel.

What do we do with it in North America? Thirty five hundred years later.

Well, let's take a look, shall we? We know this covenant In verses 20, exodus twenty four by a certain name today. Do you know what it's called? We know it as the old covenant. Bonus question, do you know another word that we can use for covenant? The Old Testament is the Old Covenant, the Old Testament details not only how Israel came into this covenant with Yahweh, but it details her subsequent faithfulness or faithlessness to God in it.

Now, do Christians have a relationship with God today, according to this old covenant? No, we don't. We know God according to a different covenant, a new covenant, the New Testament.

God later provided a new, better covenant that made this covenant that we read in Exodus Chapter 24 obsolete. Listen to what the author of Hebrews wrote concerning the relationship between the old and the New Covenant, Hebrews Chapter eight, starting in verse six.

But as it is, Christ has obtained the ministry that is as much more excellent than the old as the covenant he mediates is better since it is enacted on better promises. For if that first covenant had been faultless, there would have been no occasion to look for a second. But he finds fault with them when he says behold. The days are coming to cleanse the Lord when I will establish a new covenant with the House of Israel and with the House of Judah.

Not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, for they did not continue in my covenant, and so I showed no concern for them, declares the Lord. For this is the covenant that I will make with the House of Israel. After those days, declares the Lord. I will put my laws into their minds and I and write them on their hearts, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.

And they shall not teach each one his neighbor and each one his brother. Same nor the Lord, for they shall all know me from the least of them to the greatest, for I will be merciful towards their iniquities, and I will remember their sins no more. In speaking of a new covenant, he makes the first one obsolete, and what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away. God provided a new covenant for people to enter into with him, and the new one did away with the old one.

Well, why did they need a new covenant? Why do we need a new covenant? Because no one could ever uphold their end of the bargain in the first one. And that was part of the point. The old covenant said this to summarize, be faithful to me. Only God says, do these things that I lay out before you and I will bless you failed to do these things. And there will be consequences like death. Remember the blood on the Stones?

It was a serious covenant. When Israel obeyed, things were great, but they rarely obeyed. They couldn't obey perfectly anyway because of their sin. They were like an adulterous wife who continually, continually went around being unfaithful with any man she could find. If you had a pulse, you could have gotten with Israel back in the day. We see this in the way they constantly rejected God and followed other gods, instead, we see this happen all throughout the Old Testament.

They violated the terms of the covenant continually.

God couldn't continue with them based on this covenant, and they couldn't continue with God based on this covenant.

They needed a better covenant to know God by one that didn't involve them dying when they failed to uphold their end of the agreement.

And it's this new covenant that Jesus came to offer them and us here are the terms of the new covenant that Jesus offers.

And I want you to hear this as Jesus speaking directly to you.

You still need to be perfect to be accepted by God, but because of your sin, you can't be perfect. So I will be sinuously perfect for you in your place and that sin that you have in your life. Don't worry about that either. I will pay the price for that sin. I will be your perfection. Jesus says I will live the perfect life and then I will die as sinners. Death in your place. I will rise from the dead.

I will offer you a forgiveness that removes all your sin from you. And I will make you a people that is acceptable before God and acceptance that is based on my performance now, my faithfulness now, not yours. And you will be my people starting today and forever into eternal life. You will be with me forever. And nothing will ever get between us, not even your imperfections. That's pretty good. We hear that and then we say something like, OK, well, what do we do then?

What's our side of the covenant that we need to uphold? And Jesus says this. Believe in me. Believe in me, if you believe in me, you will turn from the life that you've lived apart from me and you will turn to me instead.

If you believe in me, you will give your life to follow me and my ways.

If you believe in me, I will fill you with my presence and put my seal of approval in you. And I will empower you to live for me. And then we say, OK, that sounds like a great deal, Jesus. So what do I have to do again to have that? And Jesus says, OK, let's go through this one more time. Believe in me, don't try to fix your life first, don't try to make me promises of what you're going to do and not do for me.

Just believe in me and I will take care of everything. Those are the terms of the new covenant, the new one sounds pretty good, right?

And we come into a relationship with God based on the terms of this covenant, we are saying, yes, I do to the Lord like a bride with her groom at the front of the church. Do you take this man? I do. I do. And what's the symbol of this new covenant, the old covenant was made in blood, blood of the sacrifice poured out on both the altar and the people, the new covenant is also made in blood.

Listen to what Jesus says in Matthew, Chapter 26 versus twenty six to twenty nine on the night that he was betrayed.

Starting To verse twenty six now, as they were eating, Jesus took bread and after blessing it broke it and gave it to the disciples and said, Take, eat, this is my body. And he took a cup. And when he had given thanks, he gave it to them saying, Drink of it, all of you. Verse twenty eight for This is My Blood of the Covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.

I tell you I will not drink again of this fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new with you in my father's kingdom.

Jesus instituted communion that night and communion is the symbol for what took place on the cross.

Blood of the sacrifice was painted on the altar of the cross. Blood of that same sacrifice was painted on. The people apply to us by faith, by believing. The blood of our sacrifice in this new covenant doesn't come from any bull or goat, the blood of our sacrifice of this new covenant comes from the sinless Lamb of God, none other than the son of God, Jesus Christ himself, who shed his blood for us.

Communion for the Christian is the ring that we wear, identifying us as the people of God. Communion is our covenant symbol. And lastly, we have a celebratory meal to look forward to as well. We are going to party hard with God one day.

Seventy four men went up to Mount Sinai in Exodus Chapter 24, and they saw God and they ate and they drank with him to celebrate the covenant the people had just entered into with him back then. But Christians, we are still waiting for our celebratory meal. Listen to what the apostle John says in Revelation, Chapter 19, Verse is six to nine. Then I heard what seemed to be the voice of a great multitude, like the roar of many waters and like the sound of mighty peals of thunder crying out Hallelujah for the Lord, our God, the Almighty reigns.

Let us rejoice and exalt and give him the glory. For the marriage of the lamb has come and his bride has made herself ready. It was granted her to clothe herself with fine linen, bright and pure, for the fine linen as the righteous deeds of the saint. And the angel said to me, right, this blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb. And he said to me, These are the true words of God.

We will celebrate this meal when our King comes back for his people, for his bride. And in that day we will begin a celebration. That will never, ever and. A new covenant built on better promises made possible by the blood of a better sacrifice Christian.

This is the covenant by which we know God. And so I want to I want to just encourage you and remind you, Christian, today you have a special relationship with God that's not based upon your successes or your failures.

You have a relationship with God that's based upon his love and his righteousness towards you. And you've entered into this relationship through faith in Christ.

Your goodness didn't make you good enough for God and your failures aren't going to separate you from him either. Remember that every day. And now I also want to address anyone who's watching this message with us right now in the service or watching the recording at another time. If you're watching this and you're not a Christian and you've never entered into this covenant relationship with Jesus and through Jesus. If the Holy Spirit is working on your heart right now and you want to be a friend of God, you want to have a relationship with God, you want to have your sins forgiven and you want to have eternal life, then take him at his offer and enter into this covenant relationship with him right now.

How do you do that? You believe in him. You believe that Jesus lived, died and rose again. He died for your sins. He conquered death for you. And now if you simply believe upon him and his name, he will wash your sins away, put his spirit in you, make you a child of God, and bring you into his people where you will serve him now and enjoy him forever. Do that right now. You've never done that before.

I implore you. And at the end of this message, I invite you to go to my new hope not see a gospel.

And there's more information there for you pertaining to this brand new life in Jesus that we have because of this covenant that he's made with us. So with that said, church and friends, you blow your heads and pray with me. God. Thank you. It never seems to be enough, but it's all we have to offer you as our as our gratitude.

There's no way in a trillion years that we can pay you back for what you've offered to us. You've pursued us. You reached out to us. You made the sacrifice for us. You lived the perfect life for us. You rose for us. You have a plan for us. You want to be good to us. And none of us deserve any of it. We deserve the opposite. We deserve to be punished for our sins.

But instead of giving us what we deserve, you offer to us what we don't deserve. And it's grace upon grace upon grace.

We worship you, Jesus. We simply worship you as your church, as your bride. We thank you for everything that you've done for us. And we and we tell you, Lord, with the power that you've given to us, with the new life that you've given to us by your son. We just want to follow you the rest of our days, as imperfectly as that looks for us.

Lord, we say again and again, here's all of our life. We lay it at your feet and say, Lord, we want to follow you. We want to live our lives according to your ways. So take our lives again and again and again. Renewing the commitment like renewing the marriage vows again and again and again. Take it again now, Lord.

And I pray, Lord, that if we have any friends watching this message with us right now who don't know you save them right now. Do that supernatural work of making them born again in their hearts. Right now we pray, Lord, so that they can enjoy you with us forever. In Jesus name we pray Amen Amen.

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