Promises are made to be broken. That’s what it seems like in the world isn’t it? It’s what seems to be going on in scripture too. A Covenant is of course just a promise, like in the covenant of marriage, & it can be between human beings alone or God & human beings. A very important part of a covenant is that it is 2 sided, so a promises to do x & b in return promises to do y.
Whenever promises or covenants break down in the world it is often the case that there is fault on both sides. Often when relationships break up people say things like ‘we were both to blame’. The government recognised this & so the law changed so that finding & identifying fault & proportioning blame when people divorce is no longer required.
Sometimes though like in conflicts (i.e. World War 2, invasion of Iraq) it is obvious to everyone where the fault lies isn’t it?
But when we are talking about God’s promises & His covenant with us the fault is always on our side of the deal. Adam, Moses or us walk away & do the wrong things, but as we know deep down if we are in a relationship with God He is always faithful.
The problem is that it seems human beings fall away; which is why God instituted the incredible new covenant of Jeremiah 31.
But how will this be any different to everything that went before?
Well the obvious up front difference is that this covenant is written according to Jeremiah on our hearts, not on tablets of stone or parchment or paper.
Also remarkably God wants to proclaim clearly for the whole world to understand that He knows in advance that we are going to fall & so the impetus is not on our shoulders but on His. We do not deserve or earn God’s favour & never can. The good news is we do not have to. It is all about His loving kindness, His immense mercy & His amazing love & grace; these are the basis of relationship with Him.
Having recognised that we need to understand what our response to this offer is. All covenants are 2 sided, & if God starts our by saying He knows we have nothing to offer what is our side?
Well God wants you & me, all humanity to choose to be in relationship with Him. He doesn’t want to force people to love Him; indeed we all know you can’t force people to love. So it is a very lopsided agreement – we get to say yes to God & He does so much in return.
God instituted this covenant because He wants to be in relationship with us – for us to share with Him for all eternity in His kingdom of justice joy & peace. He wants us to enjoy Him, revel in Him, & sing in the choirs of heaven for all eternity. God’s vision for us is that we would share in the laughter of heaven for ever. He offers all of this & in return longs for us to get to know Him, for us to say yes to Him.
Saying yes to God, responding to God’s love, is something we have to do individually. No-one gets into the Kingdom of Heaven on the coat tails of another; there are no grand children in the heaven. The faith of our grandparents or spouse will not get us in, we need to respond personally.
It is vitally important that each one of us understands this simple gospel truth that God requires a response from us.
Not one person will ever be forced to enter into His family, so we have to respond to His love & say yes to Him. If you haven’t done that yet you can, you must do that today for you do not know whether there will be a tomorrow to make that choice.
But before we get all carried away with thinking this is all about us & our own personal Jesus, I believe the Holy Spirit wants us to understand that we do not exist in isolation. Just as when we get to heaven we will be part of a huge family, there is a corporate side to our commitment to God here on earth.
The scriptures tell us that we have to love one another & that if we cannot love our sisters & brothers we can see then we cannot love the Lord who we can’t. We need to understand this covenant as part of God’s call to being family.
The Bible says nothing about a solitary witness or as I once heard someone say there are no lone ranger Christian’s - & even he had Tonto!
I often hear people say that they do not go to Church, or meet with other Christians but that they are Christian’s on their own at home existing on a diet of the occasional Songs of Praise. Now though I recognise that might be true for some of our shut in’s & housebound, it is for 99.9% of us a ridiculous lie.
I think, our tradition thinks, our God thinks that is impossible. In order to be a Christian you have to be part of the fellowship of the Church, the body of Christ.
We need one another. In Hebrews the writer says in 10:23-25 (NRSV)
‘Let us hold fast to the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who has promised is faithful. And let us consider how to provoke one another to love and good deeds, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day approaching.’
We are supposed to hold fast to the hope we have received, we are supposed to be about encouraging one another. Something we clearly cannot do if we do not meet together & share our journey. Indeed the writer warns us quite clearly against thinking we can stop worshipping together like some have.
In the Methodist Church our understanding of Church is importantly wide. We are not congregational, so we belong not just to the local Church but also to Circuit. Then we are at the same time part of an even bigger picture – the District & Connexion.
Yet even that is no-where near a full picture, for we hold dear that we are ecumenical. Our sisters & brothers are in Anglicanism, Catholicism & Pentecostalism. We believe all these are part of this Church we belong to, which is why it is important that we worship together & meet together. We should be spurring one another on, when instead often when we are planned for a united worship with the URC or Baptist’s or Anglicans we just don’t bother turning out. What we end up with is an anorexic faith missing all the colour & variety our God longs for us to experience.
What a shock we will get if & when we get to heaven for we will find that worship is not split up into denominational groupings – you certainly won’t be able to just sit with the Methodists’!
Today as we renew our Covenant let us hear the challenge of the Holy Spirit to get personal with God by renewing our commitment to Him, & to one another.
Let us look for opportunities to encourage each other this year instead of finding fault. Let us commit to being encouraging & supportive of our brothers & sisters in Christ so that we jump at every opportunity to worship with them.
You could start by putting the Week of Prayer service here on January 24th at 7.30 p.m. in your diaries. You could make sure that we all make the effort to journey through Lent in our United services beginning a month later at the start of Lent.
To the glory of Christ forevermore, Amen.
