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Today is the third Sunday of a sermon series Im sharing on Old Testament=2012. The aim of this series is to help us see the relevance of the Old Testament for our lives in 2012. This three week series is part of a Year of the Bible focus were taking at Chain of Lakes in 2012. Let me share where weve been so far. The first week I shared the storyline of the Old Testament. Even though the Old Testament can seem overwhelming its really one story. SLIDE Its a story of Gods relationship over about 1500 years with a group of people who

became a nation called Israel. At certain points the story pivots. There really are six pivot points. Each of them has a date. I shared these six dates with you and briefly described what happened. Last week we looked at the theme of blessing. I shared that blessing is much more of an Old Testament theme than a New Testament theme which is ironic because some of us might have the stereotype that the Old Testament is only about war and violence. Some form of the word bless occurs three times as often in the Old Testament than the New Testament. Blessing is an orientation where we get out of ourselves and look to share goodness and life with another person. When we are in a blessing mode, life is not about me and my problemsits about you. When Im in blessing mode Ill go out of my way to look for opportunities to help and bless others. We dont think about ourselveswe look toshareblessings. In the last part of our Purpose Statement at Chain of Lakes we say that we want disciples to impact the world. A synonym for impact is blessing. At the end of the sermon I asked all of you to fill out a card where you said you would bless a person in a specific way. We shared our cards on the Communion Table as an offering. I read through the cards and was touched by your commitment to bless people. I prayed over those cards and asked God to encourage us to follow-through on our blessing.

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I know this is last weeks sermon, but Im still jazzed and fired up about the theme of blessing. I would love to see us at Chain of Lakes be part of a movement that blesses the world. WOULD YOU LIKE TO SEE THAT? Ive had people ask me about what it means to be a follower of Jesusto be a disciple. Have you ever thought about that question. Essentially its the question, how do I be a Christian? To be a Christian, a disciple, a follower of Jesus means we bless people. We go out of our way to bless others. Today were looking at covenant. Id like to encourage you to get out this brochure that is in the bulletin. In this brochure Like blessing covenant is a theme that runs throughout the Old Testament. The word is used 354 times in the Old Testament and in most of the 39 books. In fact one way to think of the Bible is to think of it as a group of books sharing a covenant. The word testament is a synonym to the word covenant. In fact you could call the two parts of the Bible the old covenant and the new covenant. Let me ask you this question. How would you define the word, covenant? A covenant is like a contract, but it has more weight than a contract. The Hebrew word is berith. When I think of a covenant I think of two people getting married. When I officiate a wedding I start out by making a short statement that marriage is a gift from God. And that the two people who are standing in front of me are entering the covenant of marriage. A covenant has a solemn almost a sacred dimension to it. When we make a covenant we make a promise that we will never break. In the Old Testament a covenant is made up of two parts. The first part is a promise and the second part is a sign.

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As I said marriage is a good example. Two people make a promise to love each other for the rest of their lives; the sign of the covenant is the ring. A covenant is a promise that is backed by a sign. There are five covenants in the Old Testament. We can push into each of them by thinking of the specific promise and sign of each of these covenants. . The first one is with Noah. God promised that the earth would never be destroyed by a flood again. Remember the sign of the first covenantit was the rainbow. The second covenant was with Abram. God promised Abram that he would be a blessing and all of his ancestors would be a blessing to the world. That group of people became the nation of Israel. The sign of that covenant was circumcision. The third covenant was the one that God made with Moses. This was part of the reading that Gary shard today. God promised the people that if they obeyed God s voice and kept the covenant that the people would be a treasured possession. The sign of that covenant was the 10 commandments. That was the way the people kept the covenant. The fourth covenant was the one that God made with David. God promised David that God would establish a kingdom through David. The ancestors of David would make up this kingdom. The sign of that covenant the ancestors of David. The fifth covenant was in Jeremiah where God told Jeremiah that God was going to do a new thing and establish a new covenant. We know the sign of this covenant. The sign was Jesus. Dont worry about it if you cant remember these five covenants. Whats important to remember is the overarching themes. Whats important to remember about the Old Testament is it is this overarching story of Gods relationship with a group of people. Its a relationship of blessing and a relationship of covenant.

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I want to look at little at the third covenant that God madethe one God made with Moses. Its a fascinating story. God had just freed the Israelites from Pharaoh. They were traveling through the wilderness. The story starts out that on the third new moon after the people had gone out of Egypt they camped at a mountain. We know of the mountain. Its called Mount Sinai. Like many things in the Bible people dont completely agree about the location of Mount Sinai. SLIDE Most people think its the middle mountain of this range of mountains near the

southern edge of the Sinai Peninsula. SLIDE Heres another map that shows the location of Mount Sinai. Mount Sinai is 2285 meters high or almost 7,500 feet. Its a rocky climb up the mountain. Here is one picture of Mount Sinai. When Moses was at the top of Mount Sinai he must have felt that he was on the top of the world. SLIDE SLIDE SLIDE The Israelites camped at the edge of the mountain for a little more than two years. Moses would climb the mountain to be in conversation with God and then come down to share with the Israelites the directives of God. SLIDE Heres a painting by the artist Jean Leon of Moses at the top of the mountain. I

dont think the people could see Moses at the top of Mount Sinai. But the picture gives a perspective of being at the base of the mountain as Moses is gone talking to God. I was especially touched as I looked at the story this week of two of the verses in Exodus 19. Read them with me

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SLIDE Now therefore, if you obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession out of all the peoples. Indeed the whole earth is mine, but you shall be for me a priestly kingdom and a holy nation. It was as if God was pleading with the people, stay with me and keep my covenant and you shall be a holy people. He didnt use the words bless in this passage, but the intention of blessing was there. God was saying, if you keep my covenant you will be a holy people. This is what was happening at the base of the mountain. How does this experience at the base of Mount Sinai make a difference in our lives in 2012. I want to share two ideas. The first is how God relates to us. SLIDE Do you think of God : As wooing us into a relationship or deeper into a relationship Or waiting for us to come to God. Who initiates the relationship between God and us. The Old Testament is very clear. God is the one wooing us into a relationship or deeper into a relationship. God initiates our relationship. I was trying to think of some contemporary metaphors to describe this. God is like a lover sharing presents with us hoping that we will pay attention; God is like a French waiter at a classy restaurant trying to get us to try one of the best entrees of the place. Or to use a more modern announcement God is like a Facebok page doing everything possible to go viral; God is like a Twitter account that has a hashtag that is always available. We dont have to do anything to get Gods attention because God is always part of us. God is as natural to our existence as our breathing. We dont have to be conscious of breathing in and outour lungs do that naturally for us. This is Godalways herealways naturalalways

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availablealways wooing us. This is what God was saying at Mount Sinai. This is what God is saying to us today. Im here; Im available; I want you to go deeper with me. All throughout the Old Testament the people didnt follow the covenant. Its tragic. Resistance and doubt automatically followed the giving of each covenant. When Moses was gone for 40 days the people thought he had died. They made a golden calf out of gold and worshipped it. They violated the very first commandment. How ironic at one of the most spiritual moments in the history of the worldthe time when the people received 10 commandments directly from God the people were already violating the first commandment. They were worshipping an idol. Whats so amazing to me is that God would always welcome the people back. When each of the covenants was broken God didnt not abandon the people. There were consequences for breaking the covenant. God accepted the people back. God is faithful. There are consequences for ourselves when we leave Godnot punishment but consequences. God is always there wooing us back. Come back to me; go deeper with me; come back to me; go deeper with me. There is a lot of grace in the Old Testament. We dont often think of the Old Testament as a book of grace, but its all here. Every time God was faithful to the Israelites when they didnt deserve Gods faithfulness they received grace. This past week we had our first Unbinding the Gospel small group. In this group are learning about faith sharing. Faith sharing is really not that hard. What we need to do is learn our own story and then be aware of opportunities we have to share our story. We talked as a group about some ways we are sharing faith. One person in our group shared that she writes about our church in letters to a man in prison; another person said that she talks about God with a resident in

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a nursing home; another person shared that she liked to talk about God with people in the bar. That is faith sharing. Part of faith sharing is being clear about our own story. This past Wednesday night I asked people to share a time when God was especially meaningful to themreally when God was faithful to us. We had a lovely conversation of listening to stories. I remember a story when God was very faithful to me. During the spring of 1988 I was living in the Twin Cities. It was during my rabble rousing days. I was an organizer for a community organization called ACORN. I had already been accepted to attend seminary. I was enjoying my work as a community organizer. One day I received a phone called that rocked my world. It was from Wake Rathke. He was the founder of ACORN. He was like a hero to me. I had read many of his books and greatly admired his work. He called me up and asked me if I would go to Arkansas and be the lead organizer for ACORN in Arkansas. ACORN has started in Arkansas, so to get asked to go to Arkansas for ACORN for quite an offer. When he talked to me on the phone it was hard not to say yes immediately. I told him I needed some time to think about it. So I spent a week having to make a life decision. I knew that if I went to Arkansas I wasnt going to go to seminary. This was a pivot point decision. I was troubled the whole week. When I have to make a decision I start making lists of pros and cons. I had a debate with myself all week about the pros and cons of the decision. I was just so back and forth about it. One day I was sure I would go to Arkansas; the next day I was sure that I would go to seminary. I had no closure. Back and forth and back and forth. I was a wreck. I prayed about it, but I didnt receive any direction. I finally decided that I needed to go home to talk to my parents about the decision. I drove to Worthington on a Saturday, on Sunday we went to church at my home Presbyterian church on

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Sunday and then we did what we did for hundreds of times. We had a meal around the table. I told my parents about the job offer and how excited I was about it. I told them if I took the job that I wouldnt go to seminary. They listened. They both knew how I wanted to make a difference in the world. Finally my Dad told me that he thought I could make more of a difference in the world in the church than working as an organizer in Arkansas. I left my parents home not having made a decision. As I drove back to the Cities I was still racked with indecision. I was still going back and forth and back and forth; pros and cons and pros and cons. Finally near St. James Minnesota I got tired of myself. This is stupid, I internally told myself. This wracking my brain is not working. Finally a question came to me that I hadnt thought of. Where do I want to be in five years? Immediately an answer came to me. The answer wasthe church. The answer wasnt a voice, it was more of an impression that came from the spirit. Once this answer came to me I had the greatest peace Ive ever had in my life. I just knew that this was what I was going to do. I was going to say no to this job offer; I was going to go to seminary. All the pros and cons and wracking my brain and having to explain myself to people didnt matter to me anymore. I believe on that road God had touched me. God asked me to go into the church. This was the spring of 1988. I went to seminary and eventually started working for a church. A couple years after I started as a pastor I was going for a run. I was thinking about this story. As I thought about the story I suddenly stopped and practically lost my breath. I remember when I started working at that church. It was March 1, 1993. I thought, wow God. Your faithfulness is amazing.

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Ive never doubted my call to serve the church. For me this story is not really about me. Its a story about God. Its a story about how God is faithful. It was the same thing that God was saying to the Israelites at the base of Mount Sinai If you obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession The God who gave these words to Moses is the same God who touched me on Highway 60 near St. James, Minnesota is the same God who is wooing you right now into a deeper relationship. This God is faithful. It wouldnt surprise me if some of us are going through some hard decisions right now. We might be wracking our brains, listing pros and cons and pros and cons. We might not be sleeping well. I believe that God is faithful. God will answer our prayers. Sometimes it just takes patience to wait for God. God will gives us clarity. Our task is to keep the covenant, to follow God. The Old Testament is not a dusty book written thousands of years by a group of men who are out of touch with our reality. This book is a living reality that proclaims a God who is always faithful.