Closer To Heaven
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You can view an in-depth discussion of “Covenant Faith” in the Hope Sabbath School class led by Pastor Derek Morris. Click on the image to view:
With thanks to Hope Channel – Television that will change your life.
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This video is produced by the South Pacific Division Discipleship team.
Week 12_ Covenant Faith_ study this lesson for June 19 from SPD Discipleship on Vimeo.
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There is a story told about the famous Cardinal Bellarmine, the great Catholic apologist who all his life fought the message of justification by an imputed righteousness alone. As he lay dying, he was brought the crucifixes and the merits of the saints to help give him assurance before death. But Bellarmine said, “Take it away. I think it’s safer to trust in the merits of Christ.”
Image © Dave OConnell at Goodsalt.com
For many people as they near the end of their lives, they look back and see how vain, how futile, how useless their deeds and their works are for earning salvation with a holy God, and thus how much they need the righteousness of Christ.
Yet the good news is that we don’t have to wait for the approach of death to have security in the Lord now. The whole covenant is based on the secure promises of God now, promises for us now, promises that can make our life better now.
Psalm 34:8 (How can you taste God’s goodness?)
Matthew 11:30 (What is it about what Christ has done for us that makes this yoke easy?)
Romans 5:1 (What does justification have to do with peace?)
Philippians 2:7-8 (What have you gained from Christ’s experience?)
| Prayerfully examine your life and ask yourself, what things am I doing that are strengthening my relationship with God, and what things are hurting it? What changes do I need to make? |
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The Lord is a friend to those who fear him. He teaches them his covenant. Psalm 25:14 NLT
We’ve all heard it said, parents and teachers cannot be friends with their children. They have to be disciplinarians instead. I saw a meme on Facebook where a mother was telling her child, “I am not your friend. I will discipline you when you need it. I will always be watching you and needing to know where you are every second.” To me, that sounds exactly like a friend! When talking about parents and teachers being friends with their kids, maybe we just need a broader view of friendship. There is more to being friends than going shopping or golfing together and then out to eat. Actually I have many friends with whom I have never done any of those things. To me, the discipline and accountability all fall under friendship.
A friend of mine in Texas summed it up wisely I believe. She said, “While I can’t be friends with my child who is rebellious, I can be friends with my child who is obedient.” Of course I still believe she was being a real friend by disciplining her child who was rebellious. Even so I appreciate the point that she made that a parent and teacher can be friends with an obedient child. As the psalm above tells us, that the Lord is a friend to those who fear (respect) Him. I understand that the goal of the covenant He teaches us is friendship.
Image © Lars Justinen from GoodSalt.com
The goal of the atonement is friendship. The goal of the covenant is friendship. While I have never had children of my own, I have had countless students over the years in the Adventist schools where I have helped out. Disciplining children to learn has opened my eyes to my own teachers so long ago. The teacher who I despised for making me stay after school to get my work done I now see was truly my friend. At dismissal time she could have told herself that she had done all she was paid to do and gone on about her day, but instead she gave up her own time to make me succeed. It did not matter to her that it made me upset with her. She cared so much about my future successes that she was willing to make me hate her if that is what it took for me to succeed. Now that is what I call a real friend!
Now as a teacher and mentor, I often have to be the “enemy” when I am really being a friend. As a matter of fact, as I was just now writing this, it occurred to me that if a child is set on self-destruction then, in their mind, I really am their enemy by foiling their self-destruction. Even so, in my mind I am still being a friend. I am at peace with the fact that there are several young people out there who consider me an enemy because I held them accountable to be their best. At the same time, while gift cards and treats are nice during teacher appreciation week, nothing is more meaningful to me than when years later former students call me up or even send a text, asking me a Bible question or sharing a prayer request. Sometimes they will share a warm memory assuring me my time and efforts were worthwhile. Even though I have never “hung out” with them, even so with all the time spent in the classroom together I still consider them my friends. The fact that they contact me years later when they have a need tells me they consider me a friend. Again there is a lot more to friendship than golfing and sharing nachos together.
When I study the covenant I see that Jesus is interested in my friendship. If I am respectful and obedient I am more than His servant. I am His friend.
You are my friends if you do what I command. I no longer call you slaves, because a master doesn’t confide in his slaves. Now you are my friends, since I have told you everything the Father told me. John 15:14-15 NLT
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Looking again at Genesis 15:6, we can see that various translations have rendered the term counted (Hebrew, chashab) or “reckoned” or “credited” (RSV, NIV) or “accounted.” (NKJV)
The same term is employed in other texts in the books of Moses. A person or a thing is “reckoned” or “regarded” as something that person or thing is not. For instance, in Genesis 31:15, Rachel and Leah affirm that their father “reckons” (“regards” or “counts”) them as strangers, although they are his daughters. The tithe of the Levite is “reckoned” (“regarded” or “counted”) as though it were the corn of the threshing floor, although it is obviously not the corn (Num: 18:27, Num 18:30, NIV).
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The King James Version uses the word imputed to translate chashab. If a particular sacrifice (“peace offering”) is not eaten by the third day, its value is lost, and it shall not be “reckoned” (Leviticus 7:18; Hebrew, chashab) to the benefit of the offerer. Leviticus 7:18 speaks of a situation in which a sacrifice is “reckoned” to the benefit of the sinner (compare Leviticus 17:1-4) who then stands before God in righteousness. God is accounting the sinner as righteous, although the individual is actually unrighteous.
The great truth, that of being declared righteous, not because of any act that we can do but only because of faith in what Christ has done for us, this is the essence of the phrase “righteousness by faith.” Yet, it is not that our faith itself makes us righteous; rather, faith is the vehicle by which we obtain the gift of righteousness. This, in essence, is the beauty, the mystery, and the glory of Christianity. All that we believe as Christians, as followers of Christ, finds an important root in this wonderful concept. Through faith, we are accounted righteous in the sight of God. All else that follows; obedience, sanctification, holiness, character development, love, should stem from this crucial truth.
| How do you respond to someone who seeks to be a Christian yet says, “But I don’t feel righteous”? |
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