Introduction
Today we are going to relive something we started last year, the covenant service. I want us to to take some time to look at the nature of a covenant, look at the importance of making this covenant, and then enter into our covenant together for the coming year.
A New Start?
I was out somewhere the other day and on a church sign I saw an interesting message: MAY YOUR TROUBLES LAST AS LONG AS YOUR NEW YEAR’S RESOLUTIONS. May your troubles last as long as your New Year’s Resolutions. In other words, not long. Doesn’t say much for our willpower in sticking to those resolutions, does it?
The idea behind New Year’s Resolutions is certainly a good one. Because a New Year is a great time to reflect on the past and decide what we would like to change in the future. A new year is a new start – a chance to wipe the slate clean and start fresh. While New Year’s Resolutions typically include decisions to eat less and exercise more, or keep that hall closet clean, they certainly do not have to be limited to that. As Christians we have the opportunity to examine our hearts as well and resolve to deepen our relationship with Jesus Christ as well. A little later on we are going to participate in a covenant service that John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, wrote in 1755 to help people commit themselves to God for the coming year.
The Example of Josiah
Since we’re talking about covenants today, I want us to first gain some background. The Book of the Law that God had given to Moses on Mount Sinai was a covenant between God and Israel. God would be faithful to fulfill the promises he made to them about a Promised Land and becoming a great nation, as the Israelites were faithful to follow God and his laws. But throughout the Old Testament, what we find is that the Israelites wavered back and forth in their support of God over the years after they entered the Promised Land. They even set up temples to other gods and made sacrifices in front of them.
Now let us move to the book of 2 Kings and look at how the people of Israel treated their covenant with God. Enter Josiah the king of Judah. He ruled for 31 years and Scripture speaks of him as a good king. “He did what was right in the eyes of the Lord and walked in all the ways of his (ancestor) David, not turning aside to the right or to the left.” (2 Kings 22:2) It’s interesting to me that Josiah followed God, because Scripture tells us that both his grandfather and his father did “evil in the eyes of the Lord.” They encouraged the people’s idol worship.
Josiah became king at the age of 8 years old, after his father was assassinated. By then, the people of Judah had strayed so far from their covenant with God that they had even lost it. The priests in the temple did not even know where the Book of the Law was. It certainly was not something they were very concerned about finding because they did not bother to follow it. Consequently, the temple itself had fallen into great disrepair.
Eighteen years into Josiah’s reign as king, he ordered an audit of the finances of the temple because he wanted to make some repairs. And during that audit, as the high priest Hilkiah was cleaning out the temple, what do you think he found? Hidden in a corner, pushed aside behind other stuff, Hilkiah found the scrolls containing the Book of the Law that Moses had received from God. The priest decided to pass it along to King Josiah. When Josiah heard the words that were contained in the book he became very upset. Scripture tells us that he even “tore his robes,” which was a sign of great mourning. Josiah was scared because he knew his people had not been following God’s law and he had heard the punishments clearly laid out in the book for those who failed to follow God.
So King Josiah called together all the elders of Judah and Jerusalem and read all the words of the Book of the Law. He renewed the covenant in the presence of the Lord and all the people pledged themselves to the covenant. It helped for a while. All the years that Josiah was alive the people were faithful to follow God. But after he died, Josiah’s son took the throne, and he did “evil in the eyes of the Lord.” The people began to revert back to their old ways. They continued on in this pattern for many more years. They would follow God’s laws and covenant for so long and then they would forget and turn away. Follow, forget, follow, forget.
Written on the Heart
It could have all ended there. The Israelites had broken their part of the covenant with God, time and time again. But God never broke his part of the covenant with them; God remained faithful. At times the Israelites had to pay the consequences for their actions, but God never turned his back on them.
In fact, he came up with a better way. God changed the covenant when Jesus came into the world. It was no longer written on tablets of stone, or scrolls of paper. And this was foretold in Jeremiah 31: “The time is coming, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. It will not be like the covenant I made with their forefathers, when I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt, because they broke my covenant… this is the covenant I will make… I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God and they will be my people.”
Now the covenant with God is no longer an outward one about keeping favor with God by doing his commandments. Rather, the covenant made now is an inward one, reflecting the state of one’s heart. Our personal relationship with God is now the issue and the intentions of one’s actions rather than just the actions themselves become important.
Will You Do It?
Whether or not you make a list of resolutions to keep in the New Year, now is the time for us to reflect upon our personal relationship with Jesus Christ. Now is the time to remember God’s faithfulness to us and commit our hearts and lives to him again.
We need a reminder of the covenant that we make with God. When the Israelites were crossing the Jordan River into the Promised Land, Joshua had the people pickup 12 large stones, one for each tribe of Israel, and built an altar in the middle of the riverbed as a reminder of God’s faithfulness and how God had helped them in their crossing. Years later the prophet Samuel set up a stone between Mizpah and Shen and named it Ebenezer, meaning “Thus far has the Lord helped us.” It was a sign to remind all the people of Israel of God’s faithfulness to deliver from the hands of the Philistines. (I Samuel 7)
That’s what today is about. We may not be building or setting up large stones, but by participating in a covenant service we are remembering God’s faithfulness in the past, committing our present situation to him, and trusting in God for our future in the year ahead.
As we now enter into the Covenant, you are advised to make this covenant not only in word but also to “write it upon your heart.” With all reverence, lay the service before God as your act and deed of worship. And afterwards, sign the Covenant prayer insert in the bulletin and keep it as a reminder of the holy agreement between you and God to remember in the coming year when doubts and temptations arise.
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