We are I was talking to Pastor G and Brother Travis about our Sunday school plans, and so we are we've decided. After we did our church. Statement of faith that we should go through the church covenant and so we're going to go through the church covenant. Many most of you. Well, everybody here is a member. Most of you have heard it, probably read it. You've probably heard it, if you've been here any period of time, you've probably heard it read several times, because we read it every time we get a new member. And so, those of you coming in from outside, if you could let everybody know that we're starting, that way they can come on in, or somebody go out there and let them know. Anyhow, I'm going to read our Church Covenant again, and then we're going to get into introduction to the Church Covenant. I'm going to try to get through that whole lesson today. Next week, we'll begin with paragraph 1 of the Church Covenant, and we'll begin to break it down. I'll be talking to Pastor G and Brother Travis about who's going to take on next week to go over that first paragraph. So having been led as we believe by the Spirit of God to receive the Lord Jesus Christ as our Savior and on the profession of our faith having been baptized in the name of the Father and the Son and of the Holy Ghost we do now in the presence of God angels and this assembly most solemnly and joyfully enter into covenant with one another as one body in Christ and We engage, therefore, by the aid of the Holy Spirit to walk together in Christian love. We strive for the advancement of this church in knowledge, holiness, and comfort. to promote its prosperity and spirituality, to sustain its worship, ordinances, discipline, and doctrines. We contribute cheerfully and regularly to the support of the ministry, the expenses of the church, the relief of the poor, and the spread of the gospel through all nations. We also engage to maintain family and secret devotion, to scripturally educate our children, to seek the salvation of our kindred and our acquaintances. to walk circumspectly in the world. We are just in our dealings, faithful in our engagements, and exemplary in our deportment, to avoid all tattling, backbiting, and excessive anger. We abstain from the sale and use of intoxicating drink as a beverage, keep ourselves unspotted from the world, and endeavor to be zealous in our efforts to advance the kingdom of our Savior. We further engage to watch over one another in brotherly love, to remember each other in prayer. We will aid each other in sickness and distress to cultivate Christian sympathy and feeling and courtesy in speech. We will be slow to take offense, but always ready for reconciliation. and mindful of the rules of our Savior to secure it without delay. We moreover engage that when we remove from this place we will as soon as possible unite with some other church where we can carry out the spirit of this covenant and the principles of the Word of God. So we are beginning our Church Covenant series here, our class on Church Covenant to review. How many of you were here the last time we went through this series? By show of hands. You were not. You probably were not. You were, I know. You were. My kids were. Brother Bella, were you here when we went through the Church Covenant series? It's been a while. It's been a while. So anyhow. The. We're today we're going to do it that just introduction to church covenant, like introduction to the concept of church covenant. Come on in, y'all. So. The. Glory Baptist Church Church covenant is our covenant between each other and God. All right. we want to define each of these things, right? So, I actually just have, like, the title of the document there is Glory Baptist Church, Church Covenant. So I put GBC, you know, as part of the title. That's our church name, right? And then, or the initials of our church name. And then I have Church, for Church Covenant, right? A church, this is a covenant for a church, which is a local visible assembly. And then covenant, what's a covenant? Yeah, it's a it's a an agreement between more than one party, right? So we're going to look at some examples, some scriptural examples of covenants between God and man and covenants between man and man. And if I think we'll probably have, hopefully. No one will die of whatever sicknesses. No, I'm just kidding everybody all at the same time. I say we're going to talk about. You know, so everybody just starts dying all at once. It's OK. It is the season to be sneezing. All right. So covenants between God and man. First one we'll see is between God and Noah. Now, there were covenants before that, but the first major covenant we'll look at is the covenant between God and Noah. We can also look at the covenants. We can also look at a covenant that God made with Adam and Eve and all of that. But the first major covenant here we see is between God and Noah. If you turn over to Genesis chapter number 6. Genesis chapter number 6. Genesis chapter 6. Yes, sir? That is why I did not title it, the particular covenant with God and Noah. Instead, I just said, the covenant that God made with Noah. So, I've heard it pronounced multiple ways. Some call it the Noahic covenant. Some call it the Noahic covenant. I don't know. That's why I just said the covenant between God and Noah. There was also the covenant between God and Adam, you know, and so you have that. But anyhow, we'll we'll start here today with the covenant between God and Noah. And so in Genesis chapter number six, God says in verse number 18, he says, but with thee will I establish my covenant. And thou shalt come into the ark thou and thy sons and thy wife and thy sons wives with thee now notice here What's going on? This is in the 600th year of Noah's life at this point man has Gotten to the point where God says I am done and he's going to destroy man and everything else that he's created everything in whose nostrils is the breath of life and so God is about to send a flood, but he says to Noah, you know, you've found grace in my sight. And he then offers the salvation by faith in God, physical salvation from the flood. And so he tells Noah, this is what you need to do. You need to build an ark and get on there. you and your sons and your sons your wife and your sons wives and And you know the animals that I'm gonna send to you all of that, right? That's what we see over the next little bit of time here God says it's gonna happen God tells Noah what to do. Noah does it. God says. Before Noah gets started, he says, I'm going to put I'm going to make a covenant with you. Now, what were the conditions? Of the covenant between God and Noah, the initial conditions for the covenant in order for Noah to receive the the blessings of the covenant, what were his conditions? What did he have to do? He had to build an ark. And he had to get in it. Now, this is not a covenant for spiritual salvation. This was a covenant for physical salvation. So God gave a covenant to Noah. Noah had to build the ark, right? If Noah didn't build the ark, Noah would have died also, and we wouldn't be here today. And Noah had to follow the instructions that God gave him. He had to bring the animals on the ark. He had to bring his family on the ark. That had to happen. We know also by other passages in the Bible, later in the Bible, that Noah also preached to the world around him, trying to reach them. Brother Bell, you had your hand up? Yeah, he needed to follow God's instructions. Yes, yes. And no, he didn't have pancakes on the ark. What or refined sugar in any way now? What's that? Yeah, no roundup either. But God did round up the animals. What do you say, brother? Yeah, yep, and there was enough room on the ark for people to get on there, too Like it wasn't just like those pictures that you see of the animals sticking out of the ark because they barely fit It wasn't like that there was lots and lots and lots of extra room that they could have used for people to live in but people didn't want to They probably had their own sets of All right, so Anyhow, anybody ever been to the ARC exhibit down in Kentucky? All right. Yeah, yeah. Pretty cool. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. All right. So chapter nine, Genesis chapter nine, it's down in Kentucky. Genesis chapter nine. Let's look at verse number eleven. Nine, eleven, yes. Genesis nine, eleven. Through seventeen. All right. And I will establish my covenant with you, neither shall all flesh be cut off any more by the waters of the flood, neither shall there any more be a flood to destroy the earth. God said, this is the token of the covenant which I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you for perpetual generations. I do set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a token of a covenant between me and the earth. And it shall come to pass, when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the bow shall be seen in the cloud, and I will remember my covenant. which is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh. And the waters shall no more become a flood to destroy all flesh. And the bow shall be in the cloud, and I will look upon it that I may remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is upon the earth. And God said unto Noah, This is the token of the covenant which I have established between Me and all flesh that is upon the earth." There you go. So that's the covenant God made. Now, we're not trying to do a full, deep study on every covenant and everything. The idea is that God established covenants and that it is not something that is to be shunned necessarily, right? Amen, husbands and wives? God established covenants as marriage is a covenant as well. God made a covenant with Abraham. Turn to Genesis Chapter 15. Genesis Chapter 15. We're not like I said, we're not going to go to every covenant in the Bible. We're just looking at some examples here. Did I say Chapter 18? I'm at 15. Alright, Genesis 1518 is what it is actually so. Verse number 18 says, In the same day, the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying unto thy seed, Have I given this land from the River of Egypt? You know what? What's that river? The River of Egypt, which whichever river is that now the River of Egypt. The Nile, is that what you said, the Nile? I just didn't, yeah, Nile, all right. Unto the great river, the river Euphrates, that's a pretty big bit of land. Big old chunk of land, that's a lot bigger than that little sliver that Israel's currently occupying. Oh, yeah, we'll probably talk about that a little bit this morning in the morning service. I have a I have a sub point in one of my points that says current events. That one will probably be one of the longer ones. Just a heads up. Anyhow. God says, I'm going to make a covenant. What was this covenant for here? This was for land, right? Are we good? We did its job. Well, amen. Amen. I heard some clicking, so it sounds like it did its job. Praise the Lord. What's that? And a flash. Yeah, yeah. Internet still up. Yeah, that's why we have uninterrupted power supplies for our essential items. Well, those were pretty old. Those were like six years old, eight years old, something like that. So we just replaced them all. So it's not cheap. Anyhow, covenants turn over chapter 17. So did you all answer my question? What what did God what was the covenant God was giving? What's that land covenant for land? Chapter 17, verse number 2. And this one's a little longer. We're going to look all the way down to verse number 14. I will make my covenant between me and the and I and will multiply the exceedingly neighbor and Abram fell on his face and God talked with him saying as for me behold my covenant is with the thou shalt be a father of many nations. So God gives him a promise with this covenant of what. All right. A seed, right? Nations. Progeny. As for me, behold, my covenant is with thee. Thou shalt be a father of many nations. Verse number five. Neither shall thy name be any more called Abram, but thy name shall be called Abraham for a father of many nations. Have I made thee? I love the way that God puts that he's saying. Not not that I'm going to make you. Now he does say I will make my covenant and I will multiply thee and then he says. That thou shalt be a father of many nations and so he gives the promise and then he follows up the promise with saying I. Made thee. He says for a father of many nations have I made thee. How many nations did Abraham have as his children at that moment? None. Zero. Zero. It was Abraham and the 300 some odd servants in his house. He had no children at this point. Well, wait a minute. I'm sorry, he had Ishmael, sorry. So he had Ishmael, but God says, I'm gonna make you the father of many nations. So, and he says, I'm going to make you this, and then when he says that, you know, your name is, I'm changing your name as a token because I have, made you what I said I was going to make you. And how did so Abraham? All I'm saying is when God makes a promise. He keeps it, yeah, and and not only did he make a promise to keep it, but he changed Abraham's name so that he could know that God has as that it is as though God has already done it. And in God's eyes, he already had. As soon as he decided to do it, it's done. Yes, sir. That's right. We're seated with him in heavenly places. When we get set, when we trust Christ, we're seated with him in heavenly places. It's done. Now, are you all sitting in heaven physically right now? No, but we're seated with him. You know, sometimes you think about the future, you think about what's coming ahead, and anybody ever do that, you're looking forward to something? You got something planned, and you're like, oh man, looking forward to this, right? We got missions conference planned, and looking forward to all the fun talking about missions, and exciting things, and seeing the missionaries, and hanging out with these guys, and getting to know them and stuff, and we're so excited about it. I just looked down and saw the mission conference. That's right. And we're so excited about it. And we're trying to go. We're and we're like, come on, clock, get on over to October 28th. Right. And so on Roundup Sunday, we're looking forward to that. We're excited about that. Right. And, you know, it's it's just it's. It's really neat, you know, and bigger than that, we're looking forward to heaven. We're looking forward to heaven. We're excited about heaven. We're excited about getting there, excited to to just grab the feet of Jesus and and and love on him and and and worship him. We're excited about being there and singing his praises and and shouting and just being just being excited about what God's done and about who God is and about being there with him. But we're already there. because it's promised. It's set. It's settled. He's made us his Children. What's that? He's made us his Children and we're seated with him in heavenly places. And so Just the same, God made a covenant with Abraham. He goes on, he says, I will make the exceeding, verse number 6, I will make the exceeding fruitful and I will make nations of thee and kings shall come out of thee and I will establish my covenant between me and thee and thy seed after thee in their generations for an everlasting covenant. To be a God unto thee and to thy seed after thee and I will give unto thee and To thy seed after thee the land wherein thou art a stranger all the land of Canaan for an everlasting possession and I will be their God And God said unto Abraham. So again, reinforce the promise of the land. He made the promise of the seed. And he says, God said unto Abraham, thou shalt keep my covenant. Therefore, thou and I seed after thee in their generations. This is my covenant, which Ye shall keep between me and you and I seed after thee every man child among you should be circumcised and and he goes into how that all works and then And he says that the one who doesn't verse number 14 He says in the uncircumcised man child whose flesh of his foreskin is not circumcised That soul shall be cut off from his people He hath broken my covenant And so this was a conditional covenant for not for Abraham. Although there were conditions and Abraham had to. Fulfill that same command that God gave. But he had to trust what God was telling him and obey. In verse number 19. says in God said Sarah thy wife shall bear the a son indeed and thou shalt call his name Isaac and I will establish my covenant with him for an everlasting covenant and with his seed after him. And as for Ishmael. He says I have heard the behold I have blessed him, and will make him fruitful, and will multiply him exceedingly. Twelve princes shall he beget, and I will make him a great nation. But my covenant will I establish with Isaac. Which Sarah shall bear unto thee at this time in the next year. So God made a covenant with Abraham. We just looked at those two examples of the covenants God making is making with man. We could go through the Bible. We could look at lots of other covenants that God has made throughout the Word of God. But the point of doing this was just simply to say, look, God makes covenants. God makes covenants with man. God keeps His side of the deal, right? And so just as God makes covenants with man, there is a continuation of that concept. Man making covenants with man. Abraham made a covenant with Abimelech. Or Abimelech. Abimelech. Genesis chapter 21. Genesis chapter 21. And we're just doing introduction to the church covenant next week. Either Brother Travis or Pastor G probably one or the other will cover the first or begin to cover the first paragraph. Genesis chapter number 21. And let's see, look at verse number 27. Verse number 27, Abraham took sheep and oxen and gave them, Genesis 21, 27, and gave them unto Abimelech, and both of them made a covenant. Abram Abraham set seven you lambs of the flock by themselves and a bemolek said unto Abraham What mean these seven you lambs which thou has set by themselves and? He said for these seven you lambs shalt thou take of my hand and that they may be a witness unto me that I have digged this well. Therefore he called the place Beersheba because there they swear both of them. Thus they made a covenant at Beersheba then of them like rose up and if I call the chief captain of his host and they return unto the land of the Philistines. So we have a covenant between man and man about what? A well. simple thing, right? What was their contract? Abraham digged the well, as he said, and Abimelech says, this is your well. Abraham says, okay, let's make a covenant together, and they took sheep and oxen, and, you know, did the swap. Abraham paid for the land, for the well, right, with sheep and oxen, and then he gave him additionally seven ewe lambs to be, these are little girl lambs, right, and gave them to him as a token to remind him, right? Because they'll take a while for him to grow up, and he can look over into the flock and see those lambs and say, oh yeah, I remember Abraham and I had a covenant about that well. Or maybe if he takes those lambs to go water them at the well, he might be reminded, oh yeah, this is Abraham's well. There was a token for the covenant, something to remind them. Just like God did, there was a token of the covenant to remind Noah and all of the world about you know his covenant with man and that's that's the bow in the clouds right the rainbow. And so. Another covenant Jacob and Laban. Jacob and Laban Y'all kind of getting the point the covenants make sense. Okay, Jacob and Laban Genesis 31 44. I've got it all typed out here So I'm just gonna read it to you Genesis 31 44 says now therefore come thou Let us make a covenant. I and thou and let it be for a witness between me and thee Okay, so a Jacob and Laban who are these guys? Yeah, Jacob or Jacob is is the grandson of Abraham and he is Laban is his father in law. All right, or at least to be at this point. So verse number 45, it says, and Jacob took a stone and set it up for a pillar. And Jacob said unto his brethren, gather stones. And they took stones and made a heap and they did eat there upon the heap. It's always good to have a meal surrounding a covenant. That's nice. Chapter 31 and verse number 50. Thou shalt afflict my daughters. This is Laban speaking to Jacob or if thou shalt take other wives and by the way this the the brothers of Jacob here would had to have been his in-laws Because we're talking about he's leaving Was a pedant pedant aram. He's leaving there to go back to to see his brother Esau, right? Or at least to go back to his homeland. And it says here that he set up, they gathered these stones and set them up together. Jacob said unto his brethren, would have been his kinsmen in Laban's family, because he didn't take anybody with him when he went, right? And then he got there, and he joined Laban's family through marriage, and then he had brethren. Does that make sense? In case somebody ever says, well, what brothers is it talking about here? Y'all know that people do that, right? They'll pick things apart in the Bible and say that there's contradictions, and then, how many brothers did Jacob have? Well, we're talking about his in-laws, all right? Laban says, don't abuse my daughters, basically. All right. So he says, and no more wives for you, he says, or if thou take other wives beside my daughters, no man is with us. See, God is witness betwixt me and thee. And so there was a The major thing to point out here was in that covenant. I just wanted to give you a couple of examples of covenants for covenants between man and God, God and man, and covenants between man and man, right? What's that? vertical and horizontal. So just want to give you a couple of examples. However, recognize that a covenant with man is also a covenant with God. When you say that when you make a covenant or you you make a promise, we'll say, are you give an oath or you vow a vow? That vow is always before God. And because it is before God, it includes him in that covenant. Does that make sense? All right. That's why later Solomon says it's better to not vow a vow than to vow a vow and break it. Now, that does not mean that you don't ever vow vows, right? So the scriptural examples that we gave gives us assurance that there is nothing wrong with making a covenant with our brethren before God. That's the whole point, really, of the introduction is, hey, covenants are a thing and they're an OK thing. Make sense? Uh, our church covenant should be a reminder. That's our token, right? A reminder of what we are to do as Christians and together as a church. That is why now we don't have it posted here. It's in my office on the wall posted. But, um, Pastor G was telling me this morning that you go to the Philippines and they've got Copies of the Church Covenant posted, he said, everywhere. So I just pictured, oh, every church building. Okay, I just pictured them, you know, wallpapering the walls with the Church Covenant when he said that they have them everywhere. But he meant every church, not every square inch of every church's walls. That could well, never mind anyway, so as a reminder, right? I saw one actually When I was out in Sioux Falls, they have a slightly different covenant and that's fine for them to do took a picture of it Don't know where the I know where the picture is I got to go back and find it some somewhere in my photos in October of 2022 but Anyhow, so coming down the steps, I think from the sanctuary to the either the fellowship hall or the, well, they had like a landing where you go to the fellowship hall or you go out the front door. As you're coming down the steps, they had the church covenant up there. And I was like, that doesn't look like our church covenant. So I took a picture of it. and it's got some neat stuff in there. But they have their own version of it. We just kinda went off of the church that we came from. So, and that's what a lot of people do, unless you're out in the middle of nowhere, South Dakota, and you're like, we're just gonna be our own thing, and we're gonna do our own thing. And that's okay, what's that? That's right, yeah, I mean, they came from somewhere else, but they, you know, anyhow, yes, sir. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. Moses. It probably was. It was probably an association of churches or or maybe. Maybe it was. It may not be that old and I I haven't. I haven't really researched the the history. I have a book on the Church Covenant somewhere. But and it might have some of the history in it wasn't really planning to get into the history. look into that a little bit for future classes on this subject. I don't mean future times we go through, I mean just like while we're going through this, if one of you wanna look that up and run it by me and we can throw it into a class, say, by the way, started here and, I mean, it works whether it started in a great place or not, but anyhow, so, Now, to put the balance here, there can be some dangers concerning the church covenant, though. And here's what we will say those are. This is kind of as a concluding concept here. First of all, holding to the letter of the covenant in disregard for the scriptures that it is based upon. Same thing with our church statement of faith. We believe what we say we believe, right? But holding to the exact wording of our church statement of faith as opposed to the scripture itself that it's supposed to be based upon, you kind of missed the point, right? So memorizing the church covenant and trying to live that just perfect, you know, I got to do this and this is what I, you know, this is my responsibility and it's my only responsibility. The full extent of all my responsibilities as a member of the church is in the church covenant. No, no, no. What's that? The word of God, yeah. Also, so it doesn't have the full extent of your responsibility as a member of the church, nor does it limit Completely right and so anyhow The second thing here is not keeping our end of the covenant at all But thinking that we are spiritual because we have a church covenant That's a danger. People make a big deal out of it. The reason I'm bringing this up is because when we did this series before, there weren't any, maybe there were some in our congregation at that time, but there is a tendency to make a major emphasis of the church covenant and it becomes a pride thing. And then it's like, well, are you doing this thing in the church covenant? And then it becomes a test of membership all the time, where people are challenging each other, and there's division in the church. That's like not following the church covenant, first of all. But secondly, people will take words and phrases and try to condemn someone else For them not following this part or whatever. So again Not keeping it by breaking one point to emphasize somebody else is breaking another point. Does that make sense? That's a that's a danger. And there's nothing wrong with the Covenant in that sense. That's something wrong with the the keeper. Holding the Covenant above the Word of God, which we already kind of mentioned. Holding the Covenant and even the Word of God. Or holding to the Covenant or and even the Word of God without holding to the God of the Covenant. and the God of the Word. Having a form of godliness but denying the power. This is what Israel did concerning the law. The Pharisees were, in many ways, they were great followers of the law. And that's why when Jesus said, accept your righteousness, exceed that of the scribes and Pharisees, you know, wise enter into the kingdom of heaven. The reason that was such a big deal is because everyone recognized that the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees exceeded the righteousness of everyone else. And Jesus says, you need to be more righteous than them. So in other words, perfect. And that's not possible. And so you're not worthy. The only way in is by grace. And so. Just the same. Deciding to follow a law, whether that's a covenant or a statement of faith, or even the word of God. deciding to follow a law for your righteousness, whether you're saved or not, your righteousness is not based solely upon your obedience. It's based upon the obedience of Jesus Christ. Now, if you have trusted Christ, then your faith in Christ will eventually result in obedience. But it is obedience because of the faith. Grace because of the obedience. Does that make sense? So we are to obey. And and we are. We are to follow God's Word, but following the letter as a matter of this is how I prove that I am. Super Christian. That doesn't gain you any sort of credit with God. because all you're doing is saying, hey God, look what I can do. And right at the same time you're doing that, you are violating the Word of God with your magnificent and glorious pride. So the words church and covenant together reveal unity in the local assembly. Covenanting together denotes unity of faith, unity of doctrine, unity of holiness and unity of service. These are very important things to have unity on, and I put in all caps if time permits, discuss them further, but time does not permit. So unity of faith, doctrine, holiness and service that that could be a series of messages by themselves. But so we're just just kind of kicking off here. Church covenant. And I want to say this is. A three to six month series. I've got all the notes here. I emailed them to you this morning, both of you. So we'll kind of tag team it. So we'll go through, how many messages was it on the last time through? Was it like 13 or 14 or something? Okay. Well, that would be like three months, so. Anyhow, we'll go through it. I've got some broken down if they end up needing to be split and made, you know, into multiple, that's okay. Some of them, lots of notes, some of them like three bullet points, and you'll spend possibly three whole messages on each one, or not on each one, but like a whole message on each short little bullet point. And so, most of the work's done for you, but, But some of them you'll have to do a little prep work unless you've got a lot memorized. Then you read the point and start quoting.