Covenant | Genesis 12:1-9

April 12, 2026 - Living The Story - 

Jerell Carper continues our series through the story of God by surveying the covenants God makes with his people. A covenant is a loyal, family partnership, and God offers life-giving instruction. If God's people live wisely as covenant partners, their community will flourish and faithfully reflect God's goodness to their surrounding nations. 

/// Second Sunday of Eastertide ///

The Story of God: Part 8

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

All right, so today uh we are the first or the second week of Eastertide, and we are jumping back into what we know as what we're calling the story of God. All right, and these are nine movements that summarize the whole story of the Bible. Um, and these are kind of the backbone of uh our DNA as citizens church, that we live the story of God, is what we call it in the city of Eugene. So we have nine movements and nine practices. You can see them there on the screen. And so we're jumping back into this book called that we call the Bible. Um, it's the most popular book of all time. Number one, number one seller. Um, and we're not viewing it as we may have been taught or be or tempted to view it as a rule book, just basic instructions before leaving Earth. I had the t-shirt, anyone? Me and just me and Billy. Um, or as a grab bag of devotional nuggets, like God has wonderful plans for you today. Um, or even just as a collection of cute stories, like if you trust God, you can slay your giants. But rather, we're approaching it as a story and what we call the true story of the whole world. It teaches us about God, about ourselves, about the world. Um, and more than being broken apart into little pieces, it's actually primarily a unified document. It's showing how all these different pieces connect to one another and support one another. Um, and what we find is God's consistent character throughout this whole story of the world and how he has this posture towards us and humankind that that's good. Um, and so from a kind of a 10,000-foot view, we've simplified this story into nine movements. We covered the first three already in the beginning of uh the church calendar year. We spent 33% of our teaching time for the whole Bible on the first 11 chapters. Uh, that is because the way that we begin is really, really important and sets the tone for the whole year. And then each of these movements of the story have a correlating practice. We've covered Sabbath, formation, and confession because we are part of this story. We are living in this story actually here in number eight. We are in the church. Um, and so we are not just learning about the Bible or what it says, but we're allowing it to transform us and shape us through these practices. We talked about a center set theology that all of us are moving toward Jesus as we practice these things and do what Eugene Peterson calls is a long obedience in the same direction. A long obedience in the same direction. And so this middle set, you can kind of see how there's a different layout. These are three major themes that I think are some of the most important themes that unite the whole Bible together and kind of carry the story forward between when Adam and Eve leave the Garden of Eden and when we get to the New Testament and when we get to Jesus. We talked about how we can have the temptation to skip from Genesis 3 to Romans 3, where the problem is that humanity sinned, and then we skip about 95% of the Bible and get to Jesus dying for our sins, and then we carry on. Well, there's a whole lot goes on in the middle chunk, right? And it can be, if you've ever tried to read through the Bible in a year, you know there's parts where you're like, what am I reading? Why would any of us want to follow this book? But here we are. Um, and so what I want to show is the next slide, these three kind of um these three movements that we have covenant, temple, king, they each have an associated practice. So today for covenant, um we're gonna talk about that, but then next week we're gonna talk about practicing wisdom as a response to the fact that God has created a covenant relationship with us. Um and there's a key figure for each of these, so the key figure today is the prophet. Um we're gonna talk then about a temple, how God wants to dwell with us, and we respond by communing with him, by dwelling with God. So if God wants to be with us, what do we do? You know, well, we abide in him. The key figure there is the priest, the mediator between God and people. And then finally, God is bringing his kingdom, and we practice justice, and the key figure there is, I know it's a surprise, king. Um, and so that's where we're going the next six weeks. I'm gonna do the Covenant Temple Kingdom sermons, and we're bringing in experts for the practices as we do. And it's gonna be a hunky-dory time. So I just want to catch us up to speed on kind of where we are at in the story of the Bible so far. We've covered creation, images, and rebellion, but let's just let's get this right in case you missed those or you forgot. Here's where it is we learned about God's original intention for creation and humanity. So God created an abundantly good world, and he desires to dwell with humanity as we partner with him to fill the earth with fruitful abundance. Okay, God created an abundantly good world, he wants to be with us, we are his partners to fill the earth with fruitful abundance. This is what this is God's plan A. Like this is what he was up to and is up to. It's what he wants, it's what it's what gives him glory, it's how we worship him. It means all good work is sacred, it means God cares about the earth and our bodies and social relationships. It's cosmic. Okay. It's his plan A. It's like if you were to design something or build something, what is it that you could dream up? What is it that you most want this thing to be? This is what God made a very, very good world. And humanity, we have all we need, and our job is to fundamentally trust in God's character and in God's capacity. And if we do that, we will receive this good world as a gracious gift, and our response is simply faith. It's simply trust. Trust that God has wisdom and knows how to live, how you should live on earth. And we talked about that, how that represented like two trees. But as we know, we got it's just a few pages in, depending on how big your Bible font is, maybe just like page two, page three. We know that humanity didn't trust God, but we took the rule for ourselves. We rejected God's wisdom. And so God's original blueprint, like this creation plan, just goes off the rails. And we find ourselves outside the sphere of God's blessing and rule. We talked about that being pictured like the wilderness, from a garden to the wilderness, from a place that God made to the world that we made, from a place where God rules to a world where we rule, and we reap the consequences of our rebellion. I told that story where I sat in the cold pool that I wanted, and my mom just let me suffer. So God hands us over to our choices and says, if you want to not trust me, here you go. You can live in the world in that way. But what we found is that a world ruled by us leads to thorns and shame and pain and blame. So we get to Genesis, you could call it Genesis 3 or Genesis 11, depending on how you want to read that. And now I think here's where we are. Like, what happens next in the story? God is in his space, we are outside in the wilderness, we've rejected him, we've rebelled, we're in this world of kind of brokenness already. God had this original picture. So now what? What is that next move? And I think that how we talk about that to our kids, and how we would talk about that to ourselves or our friends or anyone we meet or neighbors or coworkers, how we how we view that next shift is going to shape how we read the rest of the Bible and the rest of that big middle chunk. And the way that I I talk to my kids about this, I do I use a lot of like garden imagery and wilderness imagery. So we couldn't stay in the garden, we go out in the wilderness, and then my daughter knows this by heart because I try to like teach my kids about Jesus. I don't know if you've ever tried. Um, and what I say is, okay, so Adam and Eve leave the garden, and then what does God do? And Dylan will say, God chases after them. God chases after them. Because think about it, God could do any number of things, zap them, ignore them, leave. You know, your kids run away from home. What are you gonna do? Well, you let him run away from home a little bit, you know. But then what does God do? He chases after them, he pursues, like we keep seeing God in the story. He keeps showing up. And he's actually very proactive and near and um patient. And throughout the whole rest of the story, you're going to see God's patient, consistent faithfulness to pursue his original blueprint for the world. And we can run away and we can be lost and we can be rebellious, and God is going to chase after and pursue us. And the number one, the first move that he makes is what we're going to talk about today, and that is to uh to invite us into a covenant relationship with him. His first move is to play like the covenant Uno card, I guess. Um, I like to picture this as a millennial. I grew up watching The Office, you know? Okay, a few of you. Uh there's an episode where Michael, Michael Scott is pretending to be like Survivor Man and go out in the wilderness by himself, and he like rips his shirt to make a headband. And um he's out there, he thinks he's playing Survivor, but Dwight, who actually is skilled in navigating this type of situation, he follows Michael into the woods and keeps watch over him, and Michael's about to eat a poisonous berry or something, and Dwight comes in and says no. And um, in this story, in this illustration, we are Michael and God is Dwight. And he let us go try it on our own, but he has been there all the time, and he can't just he can't just let us go. He can't let us go. So he chases after us and he forms a covenant, which is this Hebrew word berit. Can you say berit? Berit. Berit, if we were from the South. All right. So this is a common way in the ancient Aris of forming a covenant or a contract or agreement between two parties. And this is initiated by God. So God's people in the ancient Aris, they're forming these berits all the time with people and with between nations. Um God chooses a form of relationship that these people already know and understand. A barit. It is a loyal family partnership. A loyal family partnership. I want to break that down a little bit. The first, let's talk, let's look at partnership. So this covenant that God makes with people, it's a partnership, is what he's always wanted from the beginning, remember? Um, and it's just simply an agreement between two parties where there's an oath to give or provide certain things. So it could be a simple in the real world of one farmer has a lot of goats and has a lot of goat milk, another farmer has a lot of wheat and has a lot of grain, and they make a covenant where let's make this deal where I give you a certain amount of goat milk and you give me a certain amount of grain, and they go through this ceremony and they have covenanted milk and grain. Um, it can also happen between nations or between a stronger party and a weak weaker party, which is what we see in the Bible, where a lord is the stronger party, provides land, blessing, and protection, and the servant offers offerings and loyalty while they live and work the land. So, like, okay, this sounds just like a contract, right? You signed papers to work your job or to sign your kid up for sports. You're like, I signed the paperwork. And that's how we think in our modern minds, but actually what's going on here is is much deeper than just a paperwork. It's familial. That the stronger idea of connection in their time is not through legal paperwork, but through the family. The family is where your identity is, where security is, where your belonging is. And so we think that the stronger, like if we were going to adopt someone, the stronger thing would be the paperwork. But for them, the stronger thing is the familial relationship. Um, so this is what uh Dr. Sandra Richter calls fictive kinship, or like um acting as if we're family. She says this if you needed someone to act like a family member and you were willing to give that person the privilege of family in return, you would invite that individual or tribe or nation into a covenant agreement, which created a fictional kingship. So if you were going to be in covenant with someone, you are basically saying you are family. We are going to treat one another with the loyalty and generosity and hospitality and love, connection as a family. And this would um lead us to the third word, which is loyal. Like covenant requires loyalty. It would be like adopting someone and then deciding you no longer want them to be your child. It's the strongest bond you can have in the ancient Near East. And so a covenant is not something you do like lightly. It's not something that like I signed some paperwork, I can get out if I want. It's this deeply ritualistic, ingrained in the family, committed, loving relationship between two parties. And there would be this whole ceremony you would go through, kind of like a wedding ceremony. I know as generations pass, we get less and less traditional with our weddings. But many of us said the exact same vows on our wedding ceremony, right? Um, and like your grandma did and her grandma did, and somehow someone made them up, right? Um, well, these covenants have something very similar. We don't have to go through all of it, but in the Bible, the way that God covenants with his people follows this exact same structure that goes on in the ancient Near East. Um He talks about who He is, how He became their Lord, and on and on and on. There's readings, there's this ratification ceremony that you get to in uh the Abrahamic covenant, Genesis 15, where animals are cut in half, laid on each side, and both parties walk down the middle. And then they're basically saying, if one of us breaks this contract, this covenant, may we be like these animals. It's kind of like, okay, this is for real. And then don't worry, they eat the animals and have a big celebration feast, which all of this goes on in the Bible. And so what I want us to think about is humanity has rebelled. We are out in our wilderness space, and God pursues us, and God initiates this deeply familial, loving, loyal covenant with his people. And throughout the whole rest of the Bible, he is a hundred percent faithful, a hundred percent faithful to his side of the covenant. We unfortunately are not still, and that's part of how we read the story. Um, and so there's this covenant with Noah, so you can put up the next the next slide. You can see how these covenants kind of build on each other. There's this covenant with Noah, and this is kind of a one-sided covenant. We get the rainbow out of this, which I'll talk about at the very end why I actually don't actually don't think it was a rainbow. Um, I know, right?

unknown 16:14

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 16:18

Who would have thought? Um it's just Bo. It just says Bo. Um this is a one-sided covenant, and basically God says, be fruitful and multiply, Adam plants a or Noah plants a garden. He's just Adam 2.0. All right, we get to Abraham and in Genesis 12, 15, and 17, there's kind of these three parts of the God's covenant with this guy named Abram that was read. Um, and so the story starts to narrow in on this one guy. And basically what God's doing is saying, all right, I had this big creation cosmic project for the whole world. Instead of trying to like rally all the troops, I'm gonna center my energy on this one person and then this one nation, out of whom will come that blessing. So it's almost as if God is creating this little Eden family, this little Eden nation and community out in the wilderness with hopes of it expanding even further. We have images of Eden like an abundant land and blessing and God's protection, and that blessing expanding and moving outward. God says, Go to the land I will show you, I will make you a great nation, I will bless you. This is something God does in Genesis 1. He blesses humanity. I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. So this is what I call. If you're in my youth group, I would say, we're blessed to be a blessing. Can you guys say blessed to be a blessing? Okay. I won't do that to you anymore. Um, but we're blessed to be a blessing. So God takes his original blueprint, concentrates it in one family. It's as if God's space has this little oasis and pocket out in the desert. And if these people are faithful to their side of the covenant, they will receive God's blessing, and then they will actually bless all nations. So from one person to many people, from one nation to many nations, from one plot of land to the whole world. And God makes his covenant with Moses a little later on in Exodus 19. So Abraham's family grows into this large nation called Israel. He frees them from slavery, and then a lot of our the first five books of the Bible that we call the Torah or the Pentateuch, a lot of this is God's covenant with Moses and covenant with the nation of Israel, much of which is what we're going to call law. Um, God says that they will be royal priests and a holy nation, royal being like kings, priests being like mediators between God and earth. Um, and this is this is language that we receive right from Genesis 1 and 2. That what God's doing throughout the story isn't necessarily something new, but constantly trying to recreate the original creation, constantly going back to that blueprint, choosing people and using the same language, the same posture, and the same movement. And so, in the very like, if we're gonna tell this story to ourselves or to our kids, it's like, all right, humanity has gone out of the garden. What does God do? He chases after us. How does he do that? He forms this deeply personal, relational, covenant promise with us where he provides land and blessing and protection, and we respond faithfully and receive that blessing. But then if we uphold our side of the deal, what ends up happening is we become Eden people in the wilderness, and God's kingdom expands and blesses all nations. And so that is what a covenant is, and fundamental to this Mosaic covenant is something called the law. And this is a lot of what we get in Exodus and Leviticus and Numbers and Deuteronomy, and this is where we all stall out when we're reading through the Bible, and it just sounds sometimes like a bunch of hocus pocus, sometimes really awesome and powerful. Um, and so just ignore the hocus pocus stuff, focus on the powerful. No. Um, so we we see this word covenant, um, and when we talk about the Old and New Testament, that word testament is just covenant. It's just the Latin translation of these same Hebrew and Greek words that we translate covenant everywhere else in the Bible, but you know, because of Latin, it says testament. So if you think about it, you're opening your Bible and you're turning to the Old Testament, what you're doing is you're reading the Old Covenants. So this word covenant is the main thread in the Bible. And you open up the New Testament, you're reading the new covenant, the old covenants and the new covenants. I think it's just helpful to remember when we're doing that. And so if we are going to live wisely and faithfully in response to these covenants that God gives his people, um, what what does that look like? And we're gonna talk about this next week, but the practice is the practice is wisdom. So I want to talk a little bit about the law and what we call Torah. Um, the first thing I want to do when we talk about this these instructions that God gives to his people is to recognize which came first. Okay, the relationship came first, right? God showed us his grace, brought us to himself, saved these people out of Egypt, and then he provides them the law. Then he provides them instruction. And we've become afraid of works versus grace. Um, I think maybe one of the negative downsides of Martin Luther is that he maybe overread the Catholic Church into the Old Testament. The story has always been about receiving God's grace through faith. The instructions for this covenant come after the relationship. Israel was not trying to earn God's favor, they already had it. They weren't trying to find relationship with God through works of the law. This was their faithful response to already being in relationship with this God. They had the relationship, and it's like God's like, all right, if we're gonna do this, here's how it, here's what it looks like to respond faithfully to me. And so all throughout the Bible, you're gonna hear God's people talking about how much they love God's law. It's sweeter than honey, it restores the soul, it revives revives me. You're like Leviticus revives you? What? Um it was such a gift. It was a gift to have a God that was clear on what it looked like to be in a relationship. It wasn't a guessing game. You didn't know if you were gonna get zapped. And he, this is God's revelation. If if God's people would have followed this and been faithful, Israel would have been this oasis of beauty and hospitality that would just shine like a lighthouse. If you were an ox, you would want to go because you would rest one day a week. You would you would take a year off every seven years. If you were a foreigner, if you were a widow, you would want to be in this nation of God's people because they wouldn't just stamp on you. They would provide for you and care for you. If you were poor, you could go glean in the fields. You could be brought into this covenant relationship with God's people. The law was a blessing. The law is life-giving instruction. It's how to respond to God's covenant and represent him faithfully in the world. It's it's how we receive abundant life. And so I think it would do us better to think about the law, less like law, statutory law, like don't speed, don't whatever you're not supposed to do in America now. Um, but more like the life-giving instruction that you give to like your kids as they grow up, or guidelines for flourishing. So if you've ever like left your kids at home for the first time, you kind of give them some rules. Maybe, hey, don't answer the door if it's a stranger, right? Like, oh, the oppression, you know. Um, make sure you turn the gas off on the stove if you're gonna light a match near it. I don't know. There's all this stuff that you could say, but what God is doing is giving us, giving his people in that time instruction on how to respond faithfully to him. And it wasn't covering every possible scenario. A lot of it is case law, meaning it's giving examples. And what we're supposed to do is connect the dots and learn how to apply that. And actually, I'm a good way to read the whole Bible. We're gonna talk about that. Um, and so one way to think about this um is good news and as the ethos of a good neighborhood. That God's Ten Commandments, the law, is if God's people could live this way, this would be a good neighborhood. Um has anyone recently gone bowling with their kids? Yeah, or taught their kids how to ride a bike? Okay, two illustrations here. Um, I think the law, and this is kind of what Paul would then look back from the New Testament and say, is kind of a lot like training wheels or bumpers on the bowling side, right? And the point of training wheels is not to actually like lean in, which I know Carlos does, and like three-wheel it around the corner, right? Uh the point of bowling on bumpers on your bowling lane is not to like see how many times you can hit it or find a strategy of like rolling down the side, or the the point is it's putting you in a direction that training wheels are there to help you learn how to ride without them. The bumpers are there to help you learn how to bowl without needing them, which I I would argue I still kind of do. I recently started trying to do the spinny thing, you know, like on TV. I'm not good. I'm not good at that. And so God gives um gives his people these kind of boundaries for here's what it looks like to be the people of God. The point isn't to lean on them or nitpick them or find ways to still serve yourself through them, but to get the point, get the direction that they're going. Um, and so what we know is that along the way, just like us, God's people kind of fail at responding faithfully to the covenant. God is always faithful. Um, and that word there is this word Hesed love that we learned in the book of Ruth. The reason it's hard to translate is because the word Hesed is wrapped up in that idea of covenant. It's both love, but it's covenant loyal love. It's it's loyalty to this covenant that you've made. Um, and so humanity, God's people keep failing over and over and over again. That's mostly what you're gonna read in the Bible. It's like, do they make it this time? Probably not. They probably don't trust God. And so God sends these prophets into the mix, which is our key figure. And they basically, a prophet is just like a preacher. They look at God's law, they look at God's people, and they just give them encouragement or rebuke or warnings of saying, hey, if you keep living like this, um, a new exile is coming, you're gonna get cast out of even this Eden, um, and you're gonna get the world that you want. So I think we often think about the prophets as if they're like telling the future. Most of it is not that, it's just basically preaching. You're you're reading God's word and you're proclaiming it to his people so that they repent. And often these prophets were not popular. Um, but I view myself kind of in that theme. Like I'm here to look at God's word and preach, and I feel like I stand on the um, I don't know, the shoulders, I guess now. Stand on the same team as the men and women that God had called to be prophets before me. And so what we're gonna find is that there's this um there's this longing for God's people to be faithful and for that law to be written on their hearts, for the way of wisdom to actually be able to live within God's people. And to do that, they're going to need a prophet like they've never had, who gives instruction and interpretation of the law like they've never heard, um, and is going to actually create a community that can live faithfully to God. That is Jesus. And I'm gonna leave that a little cliff hanging because when we get to Jesus, I want to show how a lot of these things unite. So stay tuned. But in summary, what does God do when Adam and Eve go out in the wilderness, when God's people go out in the wilderness? He chases after them. How does he do that? A covenant, a loyal family partnership. He offers them life-giving instruction in the Torah, and he sends prophets to remind them of when they are off the mark, which is most of the time, which is why most of the Bible is prophets. Um and we are left longing for a day when people when God's people can actually live faithfully in response to the covenant. Um, and we as the church are in a new covenant, which we'll get to. So, a couple applications as we as we go, just like how do we process this? Um, the first is that covenants are about God initiating a family relationship with his people. It's just I am still going to be in close, loving relationship with you, even though you rebelled against me. I think this should make us feel secure. We've all had different authority figures that have reacted to our rebellion in different ways. God reacts by pursuing us and chasing after us. He is consistently loyal and patient over and over and over again. He's absolutely patient. What we find is that throughout the text, we find little breadcrumbs where it seems that God is actually himself going to absorb the consequences of our unfaithfulness. We see this in Genesis 3, where um there is that the this person that strikes the serpent, but then the serpent strikes his heel. There's going to be some type of like pain back there. I think that in, here we go, Carlos, in uh the Noah story, the bow in the sky is almost entirely used of a bow, like a bow and arrow. Um and so God's bow in the sky is actually facing upward. It's just to say, like, if this contract is ever broken, this arrow is going to not fire down at you, which is something the gods did, but fire up at me. And then what's interesting in this covenant with Abraham, where they split the animals and walk through, what God does is actually he puts Abraham in this deep sleep and walks through it alone, almost saying that, hey, you are going to fail this contract, and the consequences of your failure are going to come into me. This is God who created the world and loves you. And the story of the Bible is God's pursuit of this relationship, his patience with us, and then his willingness to absorb the consequences of our rebellion. Like what a cool story and what a cool God. Second, the laws are life-giving instruction. So, whatever part of the Bible we're reading, we need to ask how is this meant to turn us into the type of people who reflect God's character in the world? Third, um, as a covenant family, we're meant to be an Eden-like community in the wilderness. If God's people would have listened to his instructions, they would have been like the oasis in the wilderness where everyone wanted to be. And even though it's difficult to know which of these laws still apply to us, we can have that conversation. That story has never changed. People who are in covenant with God are still meant to be an oasis in the wilderness. Um, and we should this should form us into people who practice wisdom, not kind of mindless robotic obedience. That the Bible is not just this book of laws that gives us an answer to every situ every single situation. Rather, it's teaching us what type of people to become. And so we're gonna talk about this next week. Um, Michelle Jones, who's a pastor in Portland, is gonna come down and rock the house and teach us what it means to be people who practice wisdom. So I won't spoil that, but but in a general idea, we're doing more than just reading the Bible and studying it. We're meditating on it, we're being transformed by it, and we're actually applying it. Wisdom isn't just knowing the Bible, but living it out in both Jesus and Paul. We're big on that. So I know that was a lot, and I did not have very many illustrations to give you a brain break, and I'm sorry about that. I will I will do better. But um, if you walk away, what I want you to feel is that God is awesome. He made it an incredible world. We didn't want it, and he's chasing after us, and he is patient, he's forgiving, and he has absorbed the consequences of our unfaithfulness. We are in a new covenant, and one day God's going to make all things new, and we get back to plan A. So trust him. Let's pray. Um, God, thank you for chasing after us, and we each need that kind of on an individual level. Um, as a church, we want to faithfully read the Bible, and there is a whole lot. There's a whole lot in there. And so as we think about what happens between Genesis 3 and Jesus, help us to see your goodness through these covenants that you make. And help us to always know that even when we do mistrust you, you are patient, you forgive, and you yourself have borne the consequences of our rebellion. Pray in the name of Jesus. Amen.