All right. Before I get into today's
sermon, I just want to give a heads up about next week as
we're working through Genesis. We are, we are approaching and
we'll be there next week the story of the destruction of
Sodom and Gomorrah. And I'm going to be preaching
next week. I'm going to spend two weeks on
that particular topic. The first week is on the sin of
Sodom and the second week will be on how Abraham was pleading
for Sodom and God to have mercy on Sodom.
Next I'm going to do a kind of next week is the sin of Sodom.
And, and I'm going to just say today that it's if you know that
story and you think when I say the sin of Sodom that you, that
you know what I'm talking about, you probably don't because the
sin of Sodom is probably not what you've been taught or is is
not what you have probably been taught.
It was the Bible is very clear about what the sin of Sodom was
and why God destroyed Sodom. And it's probably not the reason
you've been taught over the years.
I don't want to get any more into it today than that because
it's a different sermon today. I am saying all of that to say
this in order to talk about that in an authentic way.
Next week is going to be APG 13 Sunday.
Just so you know, from the sermon perspective, I'm not
going to get graphic, but I'm going to be talking about topics
that might be challenging or difficult for younger children.
And again, I'm, I'm not going to be graphic.
I'm not going to do any. But I just want to give you a
heads up so that if if you have kids or grandkids in here with
you next week, you might get some questions about what did
the pastor mean when he said that?
And, and I want to just prepare you for that.
OK, fair enough. I always like to give PG13
warnings when they are appropriate.
I don't want to surprise anyone with APG 13 sermon.
OK, sure, absolutely. Who knows, we might get a few
extra folks stopping in, you know, wait till we do the R
rated sermon. We'll get even more.
So this week, however, is about the cost of the covenant.
There are several covenants that we see God making with humanity
throughout the scripture. We see a covenant with God and
Adam and Eve. We saw a covenant with God and
Noah. There was a covenant with God
and Cain, a covenant with God and Noah and and we have seen
God make multiple promises. Covenants not it's all the same
promise phrased differently with Abram, who is now Abraham.
But but today we get the sealing of that covenant between Abraham
and God. And then we have a covenant made
with the people of Israel, the nation of Israel through Moses
as the mediator. And then finally the the
covenant that that we know of as the new covenant.
And that's why we call the the portion of the Scripture about
Jesus and after as the New Testament, that covenant is, is
what we think of and we believe to be the final and ultimate
covenant that God has made with humanity.
There is a cost to the covenant. There's a cost to the covenant
that God made with Abraham, and we're going to look at that
today. But there are costs to all of
these covenants. We're not going to look at all
of them. We're going to look at we're
going to look at the covenant God made with Abraham and the
new covenant that has come to us in and through Jesus's life,
death, and resurrection. There is a cost to the covenant,
God said to Abraham, As for you, you must keep my covenant, you
and your descendants after you. So we're going to walk through
that and we're going to walk through each of those covenants
and see what the cost was on each of them, how those costs
are similar and how those costs are different on on the most
obvious level, the cost of the covenant with Abraham is
circumcision. Arguably this is APG 13 sermon
that I didn't warn you about. Circumcision is is a cost,
certainly, particularly Abraham, 99 years old.
Ishmael at 13 probably was even less.
I mean, think about that conversation with your 13 year
old son. Hey, by the way, this is
happening today. That's a real cost.
And they're different elements to that cost.
It's a bodily cost. The cost of the covenant with
Abram, which endures to this day among the Jewish people, is a
bodily cost. You can't buy your way out of
the cost. You can't say, well, instead of
that, can I make an extra donation?
Can I give some land? Can I give some livestock?
Can I, can I provide some quality service to the cause?
The cost is a bodily cost to pay.
That is a bodily sacrifice, this cost of circumcision, and it's a
bloody cost. There is no way to pay this
cost. There is no way to participate
in this covenant as a male child of Abraham without a sacrifice
of blood. It's a bodily cost, it's a
bloody cost, and it's a permanent or ongoing cost.
Once it's done, it's not you. It can't be undone.
Once it's there, it's there. It is a sign for inappropriate
situations, whoever to see, conceive.
It can't be hidden or concealed in those situations, and it
cannot be covered up. Other than buy clothing, of
course. But it's permanent.
It's ongoing. Once that price is paid, once
that cost is paid, there's no real backing out in terms of
that cost. And this cost comes with a new
identity. It is no accident that is at the
moment of the sealing of the covenant with Abraham that God
changes Abraham's name and Sarah's name.
Well, he didn't change changed Abraham's name.
And Sarai's name and names meant something then.
They were a statement of identity, of character and, and,
and I and, and purpose and, and that identity and purpose are
the key things I want us to look at here today.
Abram, the word, the name Abram meant honored father.
The name Abraham is father of nations.
The name Sarai meant my Princess.
The name Sarah just means Princess.
God is taking their identities that were up until this point
very personal. This is my Princess.
I am an honored father or my husband is an honored father and
I'm his Princess and expanding them.
I'm not just his Princess, I'm the Princess.
I am the mother of Princess and princesses for generations to
come. I'm not just an honored father,
I'm the Father of nations. God is confirming in them His
covenant by changing their identity to confirm and signify
what it who they really are. Not just people who are honored,
not just people who have a position of respect and esteem
within their own family, but people from whom nations and
kings and Queens and princesses will come.
A new identity comes with this covenant.
This covenant could only be paid for by males.
Among the descendants of Abraham, only men can be
circumcised. Only men could pay the price of
the covenant. And so in a very real sense,
only men could fully participate within the covenant.
It is not possible for slightly over half the population to
fully participate in this covenant.
The sign of the covenant was the same as the cost of the
covenant. The sign of the covenant was
circumcision. Now with the covenant with Moses
that came later, given to the children of Israel, the children
of Abraham through Moses. Later there were other visible
signs, but at this point the sign of the covenant is the
circumcision. It is the cost, it is the sign,
it is the symbol, it is the evidence that the price has been
paid and that a person is participating in this covenant.
All right, all right, That's the covenant that God made with
Abram, now Abraham and Sarah. Let's talk about the cost of the
new covenant. The cost of the New Covenant was
and is death, specifically the death of Jesus, God's Son.
Cost of the New Covenant was and is the death of Jesus.
This was a bodily cost. There was no money that Jesus
could pay. There was no gift that God could
give. There was no active service that
could be done to circumvent this cost.
The only way to establish this covenant, the only way to make
it real, was for Jesus to die. Now at this point, I want to
pause and talk about the word covenant because it's, it's one
thing to talk about the historical and even ongoing
reality of the covenant God made with Abraham, which doesn't
really directly affect us. But this new covenant, this new
covenant is a covenant that God offers every human being on the
face of the earth to participate in.
And and that begs the question, what's a covenant?
Let's talk about that. A covenant is similar to, but
not identical with a contract. A contract is when two or more
people reach an agreement about a course of action and they each
put some, and this terminology is not accidental, it comes out
of what we just been talking about.
Each put some skin in the game. There's a cost to the contract
and, and, and then in technical terms, that cost is
consideration called consideration in legal terms.
And if there's no consideration, if the contract costs one of the
parties nothing, there's no contract.
If there's no skin in the game, if there's no cost to it, if
there's nothing they're obligated to pay or do, then
there's no contract. In a contract, whether it's
between two people as individuals or one person in a
group or two different groups in a contract, if one party breaks
the contract, the other parties to the contract are no longer
held to the contract. So Brandon and I enter into a
contract and I'm going to buy a pig from Do you have pigs still?
Not at the moment, but I wanted to, I thought, man, those
Buckley pigs are some nice pigs. I want to cut.
I want to, I want to buy a Buckley pig.
They're winning pigs over at the Buckley Ranch and, and I'm going
to get me some of that bacon. And, and so I say, Brandon, I'm
going to give you $50,000 to be able to buy your pig every year
for the next 20 years. Get some, get some pigs for
that, OK. And, and I'm going to give you
half of that money upfront. And then after what, 10 years
and I've got all my pigs, I'll give you the other half of the
money. And then and then first year
goes around and, and, and I take the pig, but I said, Brian, I'm
sorry, I don't have that money right now.
I'll give it to you next year. I was like, he's a good guy,
He's a trusting guy. He says, OK, next year comes and
I get the second pig and Brandon, I still don't have the
money at this point. If Brandon's got sense, he's a
nice guy, but he's got some sense, he's going to say, Scott,
this is very nice, but we had in a contract and you haven't given
me year end. So no more pigs until I get my
money. And that's fair, right?
I think all of us would agree that that's fair.
And they would probably say anyone, most reasonable people
would say in Blevins, you need to pay for the pigs you've
already got if you really want this to be fair.
But if there's a covenant, a covenant, again, it can be
between individuals, it can be between two groups, it can be
between an individual and a group.
It can involve multiple parties. One of the differences between a
covenant and a contract is that in a covenant, if one party
breaks the covenant, the other party is still obligated to keep
it. And and the covenant that God
made with Abraham was. I will make you and your
descendants into a great nation. Made that comment with Abraham
and with Sarah. So it's a child born from them,
not Ishmael. He made a separate promise to
Hagar. It was a similar promise.
But this is a covenant between Abraham, between Abraham and
Sarah and God. Abraham and Sarah did not always
keep the covenant. Their descendants did not always
keep the covenant. God always kept the covenant all
the way through. A lot of folks will say after
reading the Old Testament that man, the Old Testament is really
God, is an angry God in the Old Testament, then I can understand
how you get there because there's a lot of pain and
there's a lot of suffering. There's a lot of punishment.
There's a lot of consequence that comes to Abraham's
descendants because they didn't keep the covenant.
Next time you read through it though, rather than thinking we
get this is about an angry God, consider instead this is about a
patient God. Because the span of time in the
Old Testament, the Old Covenant, is hundreds and hundreds of
years, and it's generations and generations and generations of
God saying to his people, you are not keeping my covenant.
And bad things are going to come to you eventually if you don't
start keeping my covenant. And God is tremendously patient.
But even when the bad things come, God still insists on
keeping His covenant. He will not allow His people to
be wiped out, even though the political and military forces
around them and lined up against them are far superior to their
own. From the Assyrian Empire to the
Babylonian Empire to the Roman Empire.
God does not allow His people to be destroyed.
God preserves sometimes only a remnant, but God always
preserves at least that remnant to keep his covenant, even when
his people have seemingly utterly abandoned him.
So when God makes this new covenant with the world, with
Jesus, and in and through Jesus, he's making promises as well.
If you will be my you, I will be my God.
Let me try. I can really say this.
I will be your God. You will be my people.
I will pay the penalty of sin and death so that you might have
life everlasting. I will bear the cost of the
eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, so
that you might eat of the tree of life.
And there is a cost to that covenant, this promise that God
makes with us. And that cost is a bodily cost.
It cost God his body, his Son's body.
Jesus saying it, God, Jesus is both God and human.
And so there is a real, very real sense in which we say that
that God himself paid this cost, the death of himself, the death
of his Son, a bodily cost on the cross.
And it was a bloody cost. His blood was shed, far more
bloodshed than was shed in the covenant of circumcision,
spilled out on the ground through the beating with the
whips, through the the beating of the crown of thorns upon his
head, through the nails and his side and his hands, and in his
feet and the spear and his side. It was a bloody cost that Jesus
paid for this covenant, and it was a permanent and ongoing
cost. It is important to remember that
in his resurrection, Jesus still bears the scars of his
crucifixion, that our perfect Lord and Savior Jesus Christ
lives now and forever in a scarred body, a body permanently
and forever changed by the crucifixion.
Some theologians have said, I think it's no way to prove it.
I believe it. It's a fascinating idea.
I think it, and it makes sense to me that since Jesus is God,
Jesus is eternal, Jesus is outside time and space.
That there is a sense that Jesus lives not in a past, present and
in future, but in an eternal present.
That Jesus then in that scenario always has been and always will
be hanging on the cross. A permanent and ongoing cost for
this covenant. And rather than a new identity,
it was a confirmed identity. It was as he was dying that that
Roman soldier looked up at Jesus on the cross and said, surely
this man is the Son of God, demonstrated to him not by Jesus
miraculously bringing himself down from the cross and striking
his enemies dead with the Word, but because he submitted to the
crucifixion with grace and humility and compassion and
forgiveness. And in his death, when God
darkened the sun and shook the earth, that soldier, that Pagan
Roman soldier who as far as we knew, knew nothing of the
teachings of Jesus, was able to look at him and say, surely this
man was the Son of God. And in his resurrection his
disciples said the same thing. Surely this man is the Son of
God, Jesus's identity confirmed through his death and then his
resurrection. And it was a price that could
only be paid by Jesus. None of us could have bankrolled
that. Not with all of our resources
combined. Not with Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos,
and whoever all the other billionaires are out there
pitching in to help. The only one who could pay this
price was Jesus was God himself coming to us in the flesh, and
he paid that, the price that we could never pay for this new
covenant through which we are giving, we are given access to
eternal life in God's Kingdom. All of that, Scripture tells us,
is available us to us by grace through faith.
It's a gift from God, not based on anything we do to earn it, so
that none of us can boast. And yet it is equally true that
in this new covenant, well before that, the sign of the
covenant, the sign of this covenant from the side of God
and in front of us is the cross. Not circumcision, but the cross,
an ever present reminder to us of the price that God paid so
that He could be in relationship with us, we could be in
relationship with Him, and we could be in loving, faithful
relationship with each other and other human beings in this world
and with the world itself. The sign of that covenant is the
cross. And unlike circumcision, which
only the males could bear that cost, we can all take up our
cross and follow Jesus, Jesus. Only Jesus could pay the price.
But we can all take up a cross. Male, female, young, old, rich,
poor, educated, uneducated, athletic, not athletic.
Even people with hair can pay. That's how gracious God is.
Even people with hair can bear that sign, the sign of the
cross. All of that is true.
It is also true that there is a cost to us in the New Covenant.
This is a part and it's tough and it gets hard to do this
because it it's so easy to slip. And on the one side we can fall
off the road and get off the way into work's righteousness, into
this notion of I have to work really hard to get Jesus to love
me, to get Jesus to forgive me, to earn what he did for me on
the cross. No, all of that is a gift, a
gift of God's grace. The other side of the road, the
other ditch, which is equally fatal if we fall into it, is
that Jesus did all of that for me.
I'm glad that's over. That's the side that Dietrich
Bonhoeffer called cheap grace that that I like to sin.
God likes to forgive. This is a great arrangement.
Let's just go on with things as they are and, and I'll, I'll
pray my prayer, get my get out of hell free card and it'll all
be good. Cheap grace is what Dietrich
Bonhoeffer called that. You know who Bonhoeffer is?
Is that a name that's familiar to you?
Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a German theologian.
In Germany at the time Hitler and the Nazi Party were rising
to power. And as Hitler and the Nazi Party
gained more and more power, many Christians, many theologians
left because they knew that the Gospel of Jesus Christ was
antagonistic to the ideology and philosophies of Hitler and his
followers. And, and everyone knew that
Hitler was not afraid of dealing brutally with his, with his
opponents that opposed him, whether politically, militarily
or theologically. And so many theologians left and
they got out of the country before things, before everything
got too bad. Bonhoeffer refused to leave.
He said, I have a church here, I have a ministry here.
I'm responsible to people here to preach the gospel and share
the gospel no matter what it costs me.
He he was in his own life, embodied both ends of Abram's
faithfulness, humbly staying in that land when he could have
chosen better land to go to. A lot of those theologians left.
They went maybe to Switzerland, some to the States, some to
England. They went to places where where
peace and prosperity were more likely than they were going to
be in Nazi Germany. But Bonhoeffer stayed in the
less desirable land, humbly like Abram did when he allowed Lot to
choose the more desirable land. Bonhoeffer also actively
participated in a plot to assassinate Hitler.
The plot failed. The bomb went off when Hitler
wasn't in the room, or actually I think he was in the room, but
he wasn't close enough to the bomb.
Anyway, Hitler survived. Bonhoeffer was imprisoned and
eventually executed for his resistance to Hitler.
And he wrote a number of books. One is called Life Together,
which is an amazing book. Another that's more well known
is a book that he wrote called The Cost of Discipleship, and I
want to read just a short excerpt from that book.
When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.
That but some, and I'm paraphrasing well, that he
speaks more about what he calls cheap grace, and now he's
getting to. And so another part of the
quotation, that is what we mean by cheap grace, the grace which
amounts to the justification of sin without the justification of
the repentant Sinner who departs from sin and from whom sin
departs. Cheap grace is not the kind of
forgiveness of sin which frees us from the toils of sin.
Cheap grace is the grace we bestow on ourselves.
Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring
repentance, baptism without church discipline, communion
without confession, absolution without personal confession.
Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the
cross, grace without Jesus Christ living and Incarnate.
Costly grace is the gospel which must be sought again and again,
the gift which which must be asked for, the door at which a
man must knock. Such grace is costly because it
calls us to follow, and it is grace because it calls us to
follow Jesus Christ. It is costly because it costs a
man his life. It is grace because it gives a
man the only true life. It is costly because it condemns
sin. It is grace because it justifies
the Sinner. Above all, it is costly because
it cost God the life of His Son. You were bought with a price,
and what has cost God much cannot be cheap for us.
Above all, it is grace because God did not reckon His Son too
dear a price to pay for our life, but delivered Him up for
us. Costly grace is the incarnation
of God. There is a cost to following
Jesus. There is a cost for us of this
new covenant and that cost is nothing less than our lives.
CS Lewis put it this way. He said most of us when we come
to God and we come to Jesus, we invite him into our life.
We feel like, you know what if our life is a house, it's like
we got a rumor too that needs some work, that needs some re
cleaning out, that we need some remodeling.
But God comes in as the general contractor and says, no, I want
the whole thing down and we're going to build new.
The cost is our life. It's a bodily cost.
This is not metaphorical. This is not fancy imagery.
This is not allegory. God wants our lives and expects
our lives, our lives to be given to God in service, to be placed
before God and placed at God's service so that when God says
go, we go. When God says say stay, we stay.
When God says speak, we speak. When God says shut up, we shut
up. When God says be still, we're
still. When God says get busy, we get
busy. It's a bodily cost and it's a
bloody cost. To follow Jesus in this way is
to follow Jesus sacrificially and for all of us.
That doesn't mean a literal bloody cost, but for many it
does. Amy Carmichael, Irish missionary
to India, who who left behind identity and culture and adapted
herself as completely as she could to the culture in which
she was living. And her poetry measured
faithfulness of followers of Jesus Christ to by whether or
not they had scars. How can you have followed far,
she writes, if you have no scars?
When we follow Jesus in this way and a life of loving sacrificial
service and a life of resisting evil, injustice and oppression,
whatever forms they present themselves, we will be scarred,
we will be hurt. There is sacrifice that comes
along with it and it's a permanent and ongoing cost.
We don't get to retire. I can tell you Amy is looking
forward to retirement. I am not sure I have seen seen
her look forward to anything in her life other than giving
birth. She had nine months of of severe
morning sickness, so she was eager to give birth when the
time came. I think she's more eager to
retire, to be honest. There is no retiring from being
a follower of Jesus. Heaven is not now my work is
done. Let's even that is not let's go
on for eternal vacation. It is a permanent and ongoing
cost that we are servants, always at the disposal of our
Lord and our King, that we are sisters and brothers, always at
the pleasure of our brother and our Father.
A permanent and ongoing cost. And for us, like Abraham and
Sarah, it is a new identity that the names we've been called, the
labels we've been given, whether they've been given to us by
others with good intention or bad, whether we've placed them
on ourselves, in wisdom or in foolishness.
God says you are who I say you are.
You are my child, you are my daughter, you are my son.
I give you a name. I give you an identity that is
full of life and love and hope and joy, and we may not even
really see that until we stand before Jesus face to face.
But we are not what the haters call us.
We are not what those who despise us name us.
We are woo and what God calls us.
And God calls us his children, people of sacred and eternal
worth, a new identity we receive in Jesus.
And this price can only be paid by you, nobody else.
Nobody can pay it for you. I don't know who first said it.
I wish I did. I'd like to be able to give him
credit. But I heard someone somewhere
along the way say God has no grandchildren, no one's a
follower of Jesus. Because mom and dad were.
Now, they might have been the influence along the way, but you
have to pay the price. I have to pay the price for me.
You have to pay the price for you.
You can't pay the price for your kids.
You can't pay the price for your grandkids, for your husband, for
your wife, for your friends, for your sisters, brothers, cousins.
You can't. Everyone has to pay this price
themselves. And it's so much more than
walking down an aisle and praying a prayer and then going
about business as usual. It is an ongoing daily Lord, my
life is yours. Your will not mine.
Be done today. Whatever you want, God help me
to do, and if you can help me to want to do it.
But it can only be paid by you. The sign of the new Covenant on
our end is baptism. What a beautiful sign.
Unlike circumcision and like bearing a cross, anyone can be
baptized. Old, young, rich, poor, male,
female, even the people with hair.
It's harder for y'all. I've baptized teenagers who who
wanted to wear a hair thing into the water.
I'm like, you're not quite getting it here.
If you want to keep the water off of you when you're getting
in the water, a baptism. They had really nice hair
though, so I get where they're coming from.
I got no problems with that. This sign is for all, and it's
so much more than just a ritual. For those baptized by immersion,
it is a reenactment of the death and erection of death and
resurrection of Jesus Christ as he was placed in the tomb and
rises up again. For those sprinkled or poured,
it's a reenactment of the blood sprinkled on the doorposts of
the Passover of the slaves in Egypt.
When God says this one belongs to me and the Angel of death
passes over, it's a reenactment of the washing of the Holy
Spirit washing us clean inside and out, sanctifying us.
And it is permanent and ongoing. Because none of all this happens
instantaneously. The baptism happens pretty
quick, but all of that washing, all of that cleaning, all of
that, dying to ourselves and rising again, that is a lifelong
process. At least someone once said, I
don't know who said this one either.
This is another good one. The, you know, Paul talks about
present yourselves a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable
to the Lord. And someone quipped somewhere
along the way, the problem with the living sacrifice is it keeps
crawling off the altar. And and that's our challenge to
stay on the altar, to not crawl off the altar.
And it's a daily challenge. It's a daily challenge.
And that's the cost. That's the cost of the covenant.
There is no covenant, There is no relationship with God without
cost. God has paid with the life of
himself, the life of his Son and he asks us to do the same in
Jesus name, Amen. Amen.