"And when He had taken some bread and given thanks, He broke it and gave it to them, saying, 'This is My body which is given for you; do this in remembrance of Me'".
-Luke 22:19
I've been listening to a podcast series by Matt Chandler about the church. Throughout the series he talked about the fact the church is based on a covenant and not a contract. One of the messages he gave was titled "What is Covenant?", where he talks about the church being established by a covenant. I really enjoyed listening to the series on church, especially the idea of a covenant relationship between the church and God. Today I just want to share some thoughts I had on covenants.
The Bible is full of covenants between God and His people. He gave a covenant to Noah, Abraham, Issac, Jacob, and others in the Bible. Many of these covenants are found in the Old Testament, before Jesus walked on the earth. When Jesus came, He established a new covenant between Himself and His people. He died on the cross, rose again, and as a result we are free from the consequence of our sins. This is great news for us, but how is this a covenant? What is a covenant?
Both the words contract and covenant refer to an agreement between two people or two parties. Most of us know what a contract is, but we are not too familiar with the word covenant. Contracts bind two people (or parties) to services that they agree to provide each other. Matt Chandler gave the example of a cell phone contract. If you own a phone, you have to have some sort of contract in order to activate the phone and use it. In the contract with your provider, you agree to pay a certain amount in exchange for some amount of data (call minutes, texts, internet) for your phone. To summarize, a contract is an exchange of services, where both parties have to hold up their end of the agreement, or the contract is voided.
Although I have been going to church for a long time, I confess that I still don't fully understand what a covenant is. However, in Matt Chandler's sermon he gave a pretty good definition of what a covenant is. A covenant is an agreement between two people where one person gives himself to the other. Chandler gives yet another great example- marriage. Marriage is a covenant relationship, not a contractual one. The relationship in a marriage is not dependent on whether or not the husband provides the wife with some service, or vice versa. Rather, the husband and wife give themselves to each other. The marriage vows are not contractual, they are covenantal. The husband and wife promise to maintain the marriage "for better or for worse", "for richer, for poorer", and "in sickness and in health". Covenants are not based on reciprocity, they are based on one giving himself for another.
God established a covenant between Himself and the church through Jesus Christ. As we learned earlier, this means that God has given Himself to the church. This is clearly seen in the life and death of Jesus. Jesus died for us, regardless of the fact that we did nothing in return. When I think of this, I am reminded of the Lord's Supper, where Jesus says "this is My body which is given for you". Jesus did not say "if you are righteous and obey Me, I will die for you"; He gave Himself to us. This is the nature of God's relationship to the church. It is not based on what the church can offer God, it is based on Him giving Himself to the church.
This is how we also should approach the church. We cannot expect to go to church and treat it contractually. We shouldn't come to church expecting people to love us, serve us, or to be perfect people. If we go to church in this way, I guarantee that we will be very disappointed. The reality is that the church is not a perfect place, because it is a place where sinners are. Knowing this, we should come to church and treat it as a covenant between us and the church. We don't expect the church to provide us with any service, we give ourselves to the church. This means that we love others, serve others, and forgive others regardless of what they do. How can we do this? By extending the grace that God has already given to us. God freely gave us His grace, so we should freely give grace to others as well.
-Smart
(Again, let me know if you have any suggestions as to what I should write about.)
