Sermon 01.13.13 :: Covenant as Love and Law

Bound 

Most relationships change over time.  Friends from years ago are now acquaintances.  What makes a relationship last?  God is so serious about his relationship with us that he binds himself to his people in a covenant, a binding promise.  A covenant demonstrates love and trust through laws, commands, and obedience.  In Deuteronomy, we look at how God has bound himself to us and how we are called to bind ourselves to him.  The most radical part of this covenant relationship with God is that his binding promise stands even when our commitment falters.  

 Deuteronomy 4:32-40

The Lord Alone Is God

“For ask now of the days that are past, which were before you, since the day that God created man on the earth, and ask from one end of heaven to the other, whether such a great thing as this has ever happened or was ever heard of.  Did any people ever hear the voice of a god speaking out of the midst of the fire, as you have heard, and still live?  Or has any god ever attempted to go and take a nation for himself from the midst of another nation, by trials, by signs, by wonders, and by war, by a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, and by great deeds of terror, all of which the Lord your God did for you in Egypt before your eyes?  To you it was shown, that you might know that the Lord is God; there is no other besides him.  Out of heaven he let you hear his voice, that he might discipline you. And on earth he let you see his great fire, and you heard his words out of the midst of the fire.  And because he loved your fathers and chose their offspring after them and brought you out of Egypt with his own presence, by his great power, driving out before you nations greater and mightier than you, to bring you in, to give you their land for an inheritance, as it is this day, know therefore today, and lay it to your heart, that the Lord is God in heaven above and on the earth beneath; there is no other.  Therefore you shall keep his statutes and his commandments, which I command you today, that it may go well with you and with your children after you, and that you may prolong your days in the land that the Lord your God is giving you for all time.”

Sermon posted at reliantchurch.org