"Confidence in God's Covenant" - 2 Samuel 23:1-7

How can David's final words give us greater confidence in God's covenant plan, promises & protection?

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Transcript

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Amen.

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Well, again, church, I want to say I love you so, so very much, and it's my joy to be with you as we are now, again, knee deep in the month of June, and uh we're coming towards the end of a journey together that we've been in for several months now in the book of 2 Samuel. Uh today marks our second to last message in this series, Lord willing. Uh we'll land the plane on this at the end of the month. This is our 14th message in the series. We've been looking at so many different things. You can see on the screen, our series is entitled Faithful and Flawed, as we've been looking at the life of King David. And I've said that uh David was a man of great faith who ran after God's own heart, but also a man of great flaws who ran after God's amazing grace. And as we've looked at the series, we've seen the highs, the lows, and the buffaloes when it comes to King David. The first ten chapters, we see a lot of highs. We see a king that's teaching us about God's kingdom and God's promises. We've seen him show us true worship and gratitude. We've seen him show us true grace, and then all of a sudden in chapter 11, we do learn from David, but we learn the hard way about sin. We learn about the stages of sin and the spread of sin and the solution to sin and the scars that sin can leave. And then in the last few weeks, we've learned about God's discipline. We've learned about the gospel, we've learned about God's justice. Last week we talked about seeking God in every storm, how he is the rock that we can set our feet on, he's a fortress that we can find protection in. Well, today, as we get towards the end, these are gonna be the last official words of David. It won't be the last thing David does in the book, and I wish it was, because next week is not a strong way for him to end his reign. But today he does give us some strong words in this kind of final benediction as we're gonna be looking at 2 Samuel chapter 23, verses 1 through 7. And our title here is Confidence in God's Covenant. Confidence in God's Covenant. I love the songs that Jody picked. I think he always picks great ones. And uh if you think of the songs that we sang and we talk about the confidence that we have that he is going to finish what it is that he starts in our life, and he's gonna finish what it is that he started in terms of the church. Because God is a covenant God and he is one that keeps his covenant. Now, as we get started, I'm gonna give you something to picture in your mind. And I'm gonna start with it now, and I'm gonna keep bringing it up throughout the rest of this message, okay? So imagine if you can for just one minute, okay? Imagine that you are five or six years old, that you're a child, and you're in a boat with your daddy, and you're fishing on a pond, and something happens in that boat, and you fall out of the boat into the water, and you feel like you're drowning. Alright? You may be doing the doggy paddle, you're trying to keep your head above water, you feel like you're sinking, and all of a sudden you look at the surface of the water and you see a hand reach down and grab you, and you grab the hand, and the hand grabs you and begins to pull you back into the boat. My question to you is this if you were that five-year-old, where would your confidence be? In your grip on that arm or that arm's grip on you? Today we're gonna be talking about God as a covenant God, and I know we all struggle with our faith from time to time. But but the argument that I'm gonna make, beginning, middle, and end, of this message is this you are here today, not because of your grip on God, because our grip is only as strong as a five-year-old's. You are here today because of God's grip on you. And he, when he holds on, he will not let go until you are safely back in the boat again. And how do I know this? Our God is a covenant God. He says what he's gonna do, and then he does it to completion, because that's the God that we serve. We serve a covenant God, and we're gonna learn from David how you can have confidence in the covenants that God makes. So, what's our big idea? I want to jump right into this. In one sentence, here's our big idea as we begin to look at 2 Samuel 23, 1 through 7. David's final words reveal how to have full confidence in God's covenant plan, promises, and protection. I'll say it again. David's final words reveal how to have full confidence in God's covenant plan, promises, and protection. So here's what I'm gonna do as we read this. I'm gonna show you what David meant in terms of the covenant that he was experiencing as the king of Israel. And then I'm gonna talk about how this covenant has been fulfilled in Christ and what it means for the church today. And then I'm gonna talk about you and your own walk with God and how this applies right where you are in the pew. Do not read these words and think these do not apply to us today. God's truth is eternal, and all the yeses and amen in God are found uniquely in Jesus Christ. We can trust our covenant God. So let's open up, if you would, and join me in the book of 2 Samuel. Again, if you're new to the Bible, it's after 1 Samuel, it's before 1 Kings. If you don't have a Bible, just grab the Pew Bible in front of you or beside you. We're on page 324 in your Pew Bible. And if you would stand at this time, out of the reverence of the reading of God's holy, infallible, inerrant, and fully sufficient word, we are in 2 Samuel chapter 23, and we're going to be reading the first seven verses. Hear God's word to us, starting in verse 1. Now, these are the last words of David, the oracle of David, the son of Jesse, the oracle of the man who was raised on high, the anointed of the God of Jacob, the sweet psalmist of Israel. The Spirit of the Lord speaks by me. His word is on my tongue. The God of Israel has spoken. The rock of Israel has said to me, When one rules justly over men, ruling in the fear of God, he dawns on them like the morning light, like the sun shining forth on a cloudless morning, like rain that makes grass to sprout from the earth. For does not my house stand so with God? For he has made with me an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things and secure. For will he not cause to prosper all my help and my desire? But worthless men are all like thorns that are thrown away, for they cannot be taken with the hand. But the man who touches them arms himself with iron and the shaft of a spear, and they are utterly consumed with fire. Let's pray. Oh Lord, we thank you. And everything that we have been reading from the Psalms and singing and worship and now reading in your word, Lord, I we confess that you are good, that you are good, that you work all things together for good, that you are a God who makes big promises and you keep every promise it is that you make. Lord, as we're in this room right now, our faith is in a thousand different stages, each of us in a different stage of our walk with you. And yet at every stage, Lord, I know that you're calling us to have a greater confidence in you, a greater trust that you will finish what you start. That as you reach into the water to save the drowning child, and all of us were drowning when you found us. It is your grip on us, not our grip on you, that brings us back into the boat. So Lord, I pray that you be with us. My prayer, Lord, is that at the conclusion of this message, that each of us would leave your house with more confidence in you than we did before we walked in. Be with us right now, I pray. In Jesus' name and God's people said. Amen. So the key word today is covenant. It's something I really want to try to explain the best I can so that you and I can understand, again, that our faith is based on his grip on us, not our grip on him. Now, that doesn't mean that we should not reach out and grab for him, right? That's our faith. We confess with our tongue that Christ is Lord. We believe in our heart that God raised him from the dead, and then we walk in the Spirit every single day. That is gripping him with everything we have. But our faith is not based on how strong our grip is, because you know we slip all the time. Our faith is based on his grip on us, and he reveals his grip on us through a covenant that he makes with us. Now, to some degree, we all understand covenant, even if you're not a Christian. All right, every day we experience covenants in this world. Uh if you are a business owner or if you've ever entered into a business agreement, perhaps the terms of that agreement may say on the actual terms, covenant. All right, for those of you that are married, you entered into what is called a sacred covenant. All right, if you join this church and you sign that document, you are agreeing to enter into our church covenant. These are terms that are mutually agreed upon. But the covenant that God has with human beings is different than any other covenant that we have here on this earth. And I'm going to tell you why. In fact, I wrote this down. I want to read it word for word, so I don't, so I try to make it as clear as I can. What I want to say is a biblical covenant is an agreement between God and man, always initiated and established by God alone, and sealed and symbolized through blood. All right, you and I do not initiate any covenant with God. God sets the terms. God reaches out to man, God explains here's what he's going to do, and here's how we're going to respond, and we can choose to accept it or reject it, but he sets the term and it's sealed and it's symbolized through blood. Now, man can never negotiate with God or change the terms of the covenant. He can only accept the covenant obligations or reject them. Now here's a key: God may establish a new covenant by fulfilling the terms of the old one, but the terms themselves are unbreakable. If God sets terms, he's never going to break those terms. Now, he may fulfill those terms and establish a new and greater covenant, but he's never just going to wipe out an erase and break the covenant that he made. Alright? And what am I speaking about? Right now you're saying, okay, Bo, make it clear. Well, the two great covenants that we're going to talk about here today is the old covenant that God made with Israel and the new covenant that God has made with the church. Alright, if you're new to the Bible, let me just try to make it as plain and as clear as I can. God wants to have relationship with human beings. In the book of Genesis, we see that God was in the garden, walking with them in the cool of the day. Why are we not still walking with God in intimate fellowship where we can see him with our eyes right now? And the answer is sin. Adam and Eve disobeyed God, okay, and because they disobeyed him, they were cast out of his presence because he is holy and cannot be in the presence of sin, and God could have left it that way. God could have said, We tried this once. I don't want to try it again. You didn't want to obey me. This whole human experiment, it's over. That's not what happened. In Genesis chapter 3, verse 15, he prophesied, he said, There would come a seed of a woman who would come and crush the head of Satan, defeating sin, hell, and the grave. And when that seed, that Messiah, that promised one comes, he is going to reunite God and reunite man, and we will have fellowship together forever. He made the promise in Genesis 3.15, and the rest of the Old Testament begins to unfold this promise. Now it goes from Genesis 3.15 to Genesis 12. In Genesis 12, you have this faithful man named Abram who's walking with God. And God comes down and visits Abram and makes a promise to him. He says, You know that promise I made in Genesis 3.15, I'm going to do it through you. He said, Take a look at the sky, and you will not be able to number all your descendants like the stars that are in that sky. But through your lineage, through your descendants, all the other nations of the earth will be blessed. And so this plan of God starts to come into focus. God wants to reach all nations. God wants to have fellowship with every tribe, every tongue, every nation. God loves all ethnicities. God loves all made in his image, and he desires to have fellowship with all. But for for that sin to be reconciled, for God and man to be reunited, God's plan began with a person, Abram, and then it led to his descendants that became a nation. We know that nation is Israel. In Genesis 17, God speaks to Abram again and he renames him Abraham. And he begins to establish the sign of this new agreement, this new covenant between God and man. And the sign, again, established by blood, is circumcision. Every male of the household is to be circumcised as a symbol that they trust and are living in the agreement that God had made with Abraham. And then you fast forward, Abraham had a son named Isaac, Isaac had a son named Jacob. Jacob had twelve sons that became the twelve tribes of a growing nation called Israel. They flee to Egypt for a physical salvation because of a famine, and they're in Egypt for hundreds of years, and then Moses is sent to deliver them from the slavery of Egypt. And in the book of Exodus, they're traveling in the wilderness. And we get to Exodus chapter 19 through 24, and God says, Okay, we're at the point where I'm ready to give you the actual terms of the covenant. And I laugh when I, you know, you guys laugh when I say this, but you always think of Charlton Heston, right, in the Ten Commandments. He goes up the mountain at Mount Sinai, comes down with the tablets. He sees the Israelites dancing around a golden calf, gets angry and breaks the stone tablets. But God says, Let's try this again. He goes up Sinai again, and he comes down with the tablets, and he establishes a covenant with Israel. And it starts with Ten Commandments. It actually ends with 613 commandments. Some of them are moral, some of them are uh ceremonial, some of them are civil, but he's establishing a covenant and he's saying, I want to have relationship with you, and you are to live according to my law, and when you break the law to stay in covenant with me, your sins need to be atoned for by the shedding of blood, and that's when he instituted in Leviticus the the animal sacrificial system. So human beings in the nation of Israel before Jesus, they were in covenant with God by grace through faith, but if they if they sinned and if they fell short of the glory of God, if they broke the law, they had to have the shedding of blood so that their sins would be forgiven and they would remain in the covenant. That's the nation of Israel. That's the old covenant. If you're new to the Bible and you look at the first 39 books of the Bible, all right, that is known as the Old Testament. Other people call it the Old Covenant. That's how God was dealing with human beings. But in Jeremiah 31, God prophesied through the prophet Jeremiah. He says, I am coming with a new and everlasting covenant that will fulfill the old covenant. I'm going to take the law of God and I'm going to write it on the tablet of your heart, and you will walk in intimacy with me, and there will be an eternal king who will come and fulfill all the terms of the old covenant. You and I are Christians. We live in the new covenant established by Jesus Christ. Now we're going to talk about this at the end of the message. When Jesus was in the upper room and he held the cup, he said, This cup is the new covenant in my blood shed for you for the forgiveness of your sins. What he was saying is, I am fulfilling the old covenant, because if I don't, you're going to be killing animals forever and ever and ever because the sin continues forever and ever and ever. I'm going to be the final Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. So if you want to have fellowship with God, you put your faith and your trust in me, and I will live perfectly, I will die sacrificially, I will rise supernaturally, I will ascend heavenly to send you a helper, and I'll come back one day to make all things new. And he said he would establish the church, which is what we are, and we are under the new covenant. We are his adopted children, not by how good we are, but by how good he is. And we are in faith and in union with him, not by what we do, but by trusting in what he does, because he's a covenant God and he doesn't break his covenant. Now David's at the end of his life, and he's basically proclaiming that of all the sin that he committed, and all the people that wanted to kill him, and all the things that could have happened to derail him as the king of Israel, God protected the covenant, and so he had great faith. And so should we. So as we look at the passage here together, I'm trying to make this as practical as I can. I know covenant can be a bit of a deep concept for us. I want, as we look at the passage together, to look at God's covenant plan with Israel, and then God's covenant plan with the church, and then for you today in 2026, with all you have happening in your life right now, with all the uncertainties that are happening in your life right now, with all the things that you've done wrong behind closed doors, things that you've said and thought and done that you know do not honor God, and you're sitting there wondering, does God still love me? Am I truly a Christian? Am I gonna go to heaven one day? I hope today's gonna answer some of those questions. And you're gonna see the grip he has on you is a lot stronger than the one that you have on him. So let's look at this together. I want to look at the plan, the promises, and the protection of God's covenant that David had confidence in. Number one, David had full confidence in God's covenant plan. Listen to verses one through four. It says, Now these are the last words of David, the oracle of David, the son of Jesse, the oracle of the man who was raised on high. David's not bragging here, he's just acknowledging he's God's chosen man for a chosen plan. He says that he's the anointed of the God of Jacob, the sweet psalmist of Israel, the Spirit of the Lord speaks by me, his word is on my tongue, the God of Israel has spoken, the rock of Israel has said to me, When one rules justly over men, ruling in the fear of God, he dawns on them like the morning light, like the sun shining forth on a cloudless morning, like rain that makes grass to sprout from the earth. A lot of things we can see with this. God made a covenant plan with Israel, and David knew his part of that plan. God wanted to establish a kingdom, and he chose a nation of Israel, and through that nation he wanted a king and whose bloodline would go all the way to the Messiah. And he chose King Saul. But Saul was disobedient and did not have a heart for God, and so when Saul was removed, the prophet Samuel anointed David and said, That is a man after my own heart, and I'm going to establish his house forever. David understood. God made a promise to David to fulfill the plan of Israel. And how do I know that? What does David call himself? He says, I'm the anointed of the God of Jacob. I'm the sweet psalmist of Israel. The Spirit of the Lord speaks by me. His word is on my tongue. A couple things I want to say from that. The first is when you're reading the Psalms, you don't ever have to guess if the Psalms are the Word of God. David makes it plain. When I speak, I speak as the word of God is on my tongue. I pray the Psalms every morning because I know every one of those words is inspired by the Spirit of God. I am praying the very words of God. There's nothing more sacred than God's word. And David was chosen of God to speak on God's behalf. Now, David was an earthly king, but he pointed to the coming of an eternal king. How do I know this? God made a plan, a covenant plan that he would establish his church one day. It would be an eternal kingdom established through the royal blood of a king. And as I'll talk about in a moment, Jesus comes from the same bloodline as David, the same lineage, the same descendants of David. David's reign points to a good and better king, and that's King Jesus. God kept his promise century after century after century. He had a plan. It started with David establishing a kingdom, and it's carried all the way to another king named Jesus, who's going to establish a heavenly kingdom here on earth that will last forever and ever and ever. And that is where your confidence needs to be today in the plan of God that will never change. Began through David, it's fulfilled in Christ, and you and I should trust it. I know day to day there's so many things happening in the world right now. In your own life, there's so many things happening that are uncertain right now. And the question is where are you gonna put your confidence? Are you gonna put your confidence in your own strength? That's not a safe place. You're gonna put your confidence in your parents, no matter how great they are, they're not perfect. You're gonna put your confidence in your wisdom. Your finances, they could be here today and gone tomorrow. You're going to put your confidence in politicians, even if you get a good one, you gotta hold your breath every four years. Where are you gonna put your confidence? The word says that he has made covenant agreements and he is not going to break the terms, he's going to uniquely fulfill them. Jesus is going to come back and establish his heavenly kingdom here on this earth. And how do I know that? Because he told David there was going to come a king from his bloodline that would show up, and hundreds of years later, Jesus did everything that God said he was going to do. And you can trust his plan. And you can trust his word. God will carry his plan from beginning to middle to end. You know, I've shared this many times. Growing up, not really trusting in the Bible, is God's word. And even when I came to faith, it was two years, two full years after I gave my life to Jesus in my late 20s, where I finally surrendered to the authority of the Bible. I didn't know what to trust. And I did what a lot of us do today. When you've got physical ailments, you go to Dr. Google and you try to self-diagnose, right? Don't tell me you don't. I'll look at your search engines. All right? Well, when you're trying to trust God's work in your life, some of you are still running to Google, and I'm not knocking you if you have, because I did. I used to Google all the time. How can I trust the Bible as the Word of God? And I'd get five answers that were from good, godly, conservative scholars who believed the Bible was the Word of God, and then these skeptics that would attack it. But as I began to study over and over and over again, those attacks began to become less and less trustworthy. And the indisputable facts of the Bible became stronger and stronger and stronger. And that's why I committed these facts to memory. And anyone that wants to challenge the Bible, I say this all the time. There's nothing in human history like the Bible. Nothing. There's no other holy writing and any other religion that can hold a candle to the Bible. It was written over the course of 1,500 years by more than 40 different authors on four different continents in three different languages. You can trust the word. You can trust the word. For those of you college students in here, if you haven't, you're going to sit under a liberal professor that thinks he knows more. Where are you going to put your trust in some really smart guy that has a beef with God or in a book that has lasted for two millennia and continues to be affirmed over and over and over again? You can trust God's plan because you can trust his word and what it is that he has done for us through Jesus Christ. That's number one. Number two, David had full confidence in God's covenant promises. For it says in verse 5, for does not the house stand so with God? For he has made with me an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things and secure. For will he not cause to prosper all my help and my desire? God makes promises and God keeps them. By the way, I'm thinking in my head what I said about the Bible. It was 1,500 years, 40 different authors, three different continents, three different languages. I want to be clear. God's word is perfect. I am not. Africa, Asia, and Europe. Three continents, three languages, Greek, Hebrew, Aramaic. All right, we're clear on that. Good. But God made covenant promises with Israel. He said he would establish an eternal lineage through Abraham that led to David, that leads to Jesus. He would establish an eternal kingdom on earth, and he would establish an eternal throne. There will always be a king in the kingdom of God from David moving forward. And we know that king to be Lord Jesus. Now here's the promise that God made to David in 2 Samuel chapter 7, verse 16. We looked at this, I think, several weeks ago. He said to David, And your house and your kingdom shall be made sure forever before me, your throne shall be everlasting forever. How is that possible? That the house of David would be established forever. Well, guess what? Read Matthew chapter 1 and read Luke chapter 3. In Matthew chapter 1, it shows that the legal descendants from David go all the way to Joseph, the caretaker of Christ. And you say, well, that's just legal, that's not blood. Well, look at Luke 3. Luke 3 shows the blood of David going all the way to Mary, his mother. Jesus is in the direct descendant and bloodline of David. If you don't believe me, think of the Christmas story. Why in the world did a pregnant woman get on a donkey and go to Bethlehem? It wasn't so that we could have a really cool Christmas pageant. Alright? It wasn't so that we could have a really interesting Christmas story in a Bethlehem manger. It is because they were going to register at the town where Joseph was from in the tribe that Joseph was from. They were going to Bethlehem, and he was part of the tribe of Judah, which is the tribe of David, and the bloodline goes from David to Jesus. He is the eternal king who will sit on a throne forever. This is the promise that God made to David, and it is fulfilled in Jesus Christ. And the promises that God made to David fulfilled through Christ, he makes promises to you. You know what I love in Philippians chapter 1? It says, He who began a good work in you will see it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ. Sometimes when we're in trials, here's what happens: we think God, God worked in our life and he got us right to where we are right now, and right where we are right now, God steps back and says, Whew, even that problem is bigger than I am. I don't know how you're going to get through that one. Good luck. If God brought you all the way to where you are right now, and Thomas was so right when he said, we are easy to remember the trials that we've had, we're easy to forget the blessings and the and the promises that God has kept to bring us to where we are. When you and I get serious with God and start to name our blessings one by one in all the things that God has done, when we begin to do that, we recognize it's God that got us right where we are. And it is God who will see us through. Now, I will tell you, this is practical, okay? I don't do this every night. I did it last night. I try before I go to bed. In fact, again, if you go to Google, there's an ancient word for it. It's called the examine prayer, E-X A-M-E-N. And it's a prayer that Christians have been praying for hundreds of years. And it's a time typically before bed, sometimes people do it in the morning. But you sit quietly and you begin to reflect. And for me, I have to write these things down, or they'll be like monkeys going around in banana trees I can't get out of my head. So the first thing I write is God's praise. What are three things I can praise God for today? The second is God's presence. Where was God present today? That text message that somebody sent me was so encouraging today. Where did that come from? God knew I needed encouragement today. All right. That person I ran into in Food Lion, that's not a coincidence. God's God lined that up today. All these things that happen, you go from God's praise to God's presence, and then you name your sin. Lord, here's some thoughts and words and actions and attitudes that have not honored you today. Please forgive me. And then the next section is God's grace. God, please forgive me. Here's where I need your strength. And then typically I have one sentence at the end, a one-sentence conviction of what I want to do tomorrow and how I need God's help to do it. I'm telling you this right now. My faith did not really take off until I started getting specific with God in prayer. And if you start writing down your days and you start acknowledging your blessings, it's going to be a picture that gets clearer and clearer and clearer how his hand has been on your life. But just like Thomas said, the world, the flesh, and the devil are constantly going to remind you of your pains and your trials, which by the way, God's in charge of those two. He's going to bring good out of them. But if we don't remember the good things, we're going to really struggle in a time of trial thinking God has let go of us. And remember, it's not your grip on him, it's his grip on you that makes the difference. That's number two. Third and finally, David had full confidence in God's covenant plan, God's covenant promises, and third, God's covenant protection. God finishes what he starts, and his plan will come to fruition no matter how many people attack it. Listen to verses six through seven. But worthless men are like thorns that are thrown away, for they cannot be taken with the hand. But the man who touches them arms himself with iron and the shaft of a spear, and they are utterly consumed with fire. What does he mean by that? I'll tell you what he means. We have an enemy, the world of flesh and the devil, constantly attacking us, made in God's image, who are part of God's covenant promises. We need protection. And God will carry things through to the very end. And David was attacked his whole adult life, and God did not spare him from all pain, but God protected him until his mission was complete. And he says, All those that attack the plan of God, they're evil. They're like thorns that are thrown away. Now it says, man who touches them has to arm himself with iron in the shaft of a spear. That means you don't have the power to overcome evil by yourself. All right, you need the power of God to overcome the world, the flesh, and the devil. But greater is he who is in us than he who is in the world. Where's your trust? Is your trust in your own protection, your own wisdom, or is your own trust that God will finish what he starts? You know, we just finished graduation season, and I try I sign every graduation card or note that I send to a graduate is David calling out these words The Lord will fulfill his purpose for me. Great is your faithfulness. If you're walking with God in covenant fellowship with him, even if you get detoured once in a while, even if your sin causes trials that God did not want you to have, he will still fulfill his purpose for you. David Jeremiah one time said, A Christian who is walking with God is immortal until their mission is complete. When you and I look at all the things that happen to people when they die of disease or they die in car accidents and they're like, oh, they died much too soon. If they're Christians, guess what? God called them home at a time that was perfect in his plan. But he protects his children until the plan is complete. If you don't believe me, listen to Psalm 91. This is how God protects his covenant children in verses 1 through 3. It says, He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will abide in the shadow of the Almighty. I will say to the Lord, my refuge and my fortress, my God in whom I trust, for he will deliver you from the snare of the fowler and from the deadly pestilence. It doesn't mean that you're going to have a life of health, wealth, and finance. I mean, that doesn't mean that you're going to have heaven on earth. It means that God has a mission for you, and that mission will be complete. Those terms, Shadow of the Almighty, that's the title of one of the best missionary biographies that's ever been written, Jim Elliott. Jim Elliot, who was ministering to a very, very hostile tribe that had never heard the gospel, and his life was taken. I forget what year, what how old he was when he died, but he was young. I think he was still in his 20s. He may have been 30. And the Shadow of the Almighty was the title of his biography. It wasn't a tragedy that he died sharing the gospel in a hostile people group that did not know the Lord. God fulfilled his plan for Jim Elliott, and his wife Elizabeth carried on that mission for a very, very long time. And if you don't know Elizabeth Elliot, she is one of the best writers and godliest women I have ever read, and I commend her to you. God is going to fulfill his purpose. If we walk with him, he will do what he set out to do. He will see you through to the completion of your mission here on this earth. Now, I don't always know what that mission is. I may have made jokes about it. There's been 11 pastors that came before me at this church. I'm number 12. I don't know when lucky number 13 is coming. It could be next week, it could be next decade. I don't know, but I know this. If I be faithful, God will fulfill his purpose and he will make it clear for me. He'll make it clear for you whenever his will for your life is. Do you trust him? Do you trust his covenant protection that he will see it through to the end? As far as the church goes, if you're worried about the church, the Capital C church, hear the words of Jesus in Matthew 16. He says, I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it. Sometimes we look at the news and we're like, what's going to happen to the church? Guess what's going to happen? The church is going to be fulfilled. God's will is not going to be thwarted. Now, that does not mean that Cedar Street's going to last until Jesus comes back. And that does not mean the church in the United States of America is going to last until Jesus comes back. So we have to fight and pray and be faithful and raise up the next generation of sowers. We need to be disciples who make disciples. We need to be active in the Great Commission until there's no people left and there's no tribes, tongues, or nations left that have not heard the good news. That will carry on, and Jesus will come back when the last unreached people group is reached with the good news. And we've got a lot of work to do until then. But we also don't need to be scared that somehow the enemy is going to derail God's plan and the church is going to fail. The church is plan A, and there is no plan B. Jesus will fulfill his plan and he will come back and get his church. And how do I know this? Well, I want to sum it up with this in one sentence. David's confidence in God's old covenant through Israel should give us greater confidence in God's new covenant through Christ. David's confidence in God's old covenant through Israel should give us greater confidence in God's new covenant through Christ. Now you see the passage up there, Luke 22. I want to leave everybody in this room with an image. So everybody, take a look up here for just a minute. Alright, I hold in my hands a cup. We call this a chalice. This was given to me when I was in grade school. It's got my name engraved on it. So it's one that's a pretty special cup for me. My mother would put, she'd lay out a table for special occasions, and every single one of us had a chalice with our name engraved on it. We typically had sparkling apple cider. If you're wondering what your pastor was drinking in this chalice, just putting that out there. But I want you to remember this, okay? I'm going to put this image and I want to imprint this image on your heart. Alright, the upper room. The final meal that Jesus had with his disciples. Now you may have heard this story a hundred times. Alright, but as the meal, they're entering into the meal, and he holds up the bread and breaks it and says, This is my body, then he holds up the cup and he says this in Luke 22. He says, This is the new covenant in my blood, which has been shed for you for the forgiveness of sins. When Jesus held that cup up, he said, This is the only way and the final way that I am going to relate to human beings until I come back and establish my kingdom on this earth. That is the new covenant, it is the eternal covenant. There's not another covenant between God and man coming until Jesus returns. And I say that because year after year there are cults and all kinds of movements that are birthed out of people believing that God came down from heaven and established another covenant. And when that happens, what they're saying is number one, Jesus is a liar and his blood is insufficient. We need to add to his blood with something else. Oh no. You look at this cup. He said, This is how I'm going to relate to human beings from this point until I come back. So what does that mean for you? Your role is to repent of your sins and trust that the blood of Jesus is enough. It is sufficient, it is complete for you to have an eternal relationship with God. His blood, that's the Father's grip on you. That's the agreement that he made that what he began in you, he will carry it through to completion. If you're in this room and you may have sinned some great sins and you may face some great earthly consequences for your sins, but as long as you have put your trust that the blood of Jesus is how you come to God, then that blood is rich enough to carry you through your best days and your worst days, and God wants you to put confidence not in your grip on him, but in his grip on you. Don't forget the cup. Don't forget the cup. He says, This is how I'm going to deal with human beings at this point moving forward. Now he did say after he drank, he said, I will not drink of the fruit of the vine again until I drink it anew with you in my kingdom. So when Jesus arrives to establish his heavenly kingdom, we're going to be married to him forever. We're going to celebrate that marriage at the marriage supper of the Lamb. Maybe he'll lift the cup and he'll add the fulfillment of that covenant and the beginning of another one for eternity. I don't know. I know this. Until he comes back, you keep your eyes on that cup. This is the new and everlasting covenant. And David trusted in the old covenant. Jesus fulfilled the old covenant. He fulfilled every law of the old covenant. And he says, at this point, if you want to have a relationship with God and be in his kingdom forever, I'm shedding my blood. You simply put your total trust in me. So as we draw to close here and have a time of invitation, here's the invitation. What are you putting your confidence in? If you're living in a trial, maybe you feel like a child that's drowning in the pond. And yes, you need to reach out to the hand of the Father. But whose hand, what grip are you trusting? Don't trust in your own grip. It could be strong today and you could slip and completely let go tomorrow. You trust in the Father's hand. His grip on you. He wants you to have confidence in his covenant. Let's pray. Father, as I stand here trying in my best effort with the help of your spirit to explain this, I know it is still bigger and deeper than I could ever explain. Lord, I pray if anything, as we leave here today, that we would trust that you're a good God and you will finish what you started. You will finish what you started. I know, Lord, you're going to come back and get us and establish a new kingdom. How do I know? Because you've already kept every other promise that you've ever made. And we're just waiting on that one to be fulfilled. Lord, I trust what this cup represents. I trust your blood. It's sufficient. It covers over every one of my sins, past, present, and future. I can come boldly to the throne of grace, not by anything that I've done, but because you've made me holy and you've washed me white as snow by your perfection and not mine. By your promises and not mine. By your goodness and not mine. Help us to trust you, Lord. Help us to stop looking in other areas for meaning and purpose in our lives, for our mission to be fulfilled, Lord. Help us to trust that you will fulfill your purpose for us. If we would simply trust in you. Open our eyes right now as we enter into this invitation. Speak to our hearts about areas that maybe we're not trusting you that we need to. Be with us right now, I pray. In Jesus' name. Amen.