Sermon

There is a New Covenant

By

Eldridge E. Fleming, Ph.D.

New Hope Presbyterian Church

Rienzi, Mississippi

March 12, 2000

Children's Message:

How are you? Good? Good! We have responses this morning and that is great. So good to see all of you. You've had the week off, those of you who are in school. You've been resting all week and haven't done anything. Right?

This week has been a long week for me, but I did not play golf with Barnabas this week. Remember from last week -- those of you who were here -- that I ran into this dog when I was playing golf the week before and he stayed with me. He'd get my ball and then he'd bring it back and all that sort of stuff; well, he wasn't there this week and I had to play without him. I don't have any tales to tell about Barnabas, but I do have a tale to tell.

I went, yesterday, and worked in a place where they give out clothes and food. Do you know about those kind of places? Where people who don't have food or don't have clothes can go and get some things? My job was to build coat hanger racks, and that means that I was there to put up some racks so that they could hang clothes on coat hangers.

You know what coat hangers are, don't you? Even you boys know what coat hangers are? I know the girls all know what coat hangers are, but boys sometime don't know what they are. At least in our house, we didn't think they did because they always threw their clothes on the bed or on the floor. But you don't do that, do you?

So I had this plan of how I was going to get some pipes and two-by-fours and build a rack to hang coat hangers on. In the middle of all of this, people were coming into the next office from where I was to get groceries. The rule there is that you can get enough food for four persons for a week. That sounds like a lot of groceries and I guess it would be if you had to go buy them. What they give you there for a week kind of surprised me, but there are enough foodstuffs in there for four people to have three meals a day for a week.

People would go and get that food next door and then they would come into our area to look for clothes. I suspect you all don't think too much about it, but what do you do with your old clothes? Do you share them with others? That would be the reasonable thing to do, wouldn't it? Just share them with other people.

People bring their clothes that they don't need anymore and give them to this place and then they hang them up and get them ready for others to take them home. That's why they needed all of these racks to hold coat hangers. So people would get their food and then come in to get clothes.

All kinds of people would come in. Big ones, little ones, tall ones, short ones, broad ones, skinny ones, young ones, and old ones. In this one case, they came in and they had a little girl with them. It was about 11:30 a.m. and one of the workers said, "I'm getting hungry, it's about lunchtime. Are you getting hungry?" And the little girl said, "Yeah, I'm hungry, because I didn't get any breakfast."

It made me stop and think that there are some folks who don't have breakfast. Now that is different from not having breakfast because we slept too late and didn't have time to eat before we went to school or came to church and so forth. That is different when we don't have anything to eat.

I was thinking that when you share your clothes with other people and when you share your food with other people, you are doing what Jesus wanted us to do. Loving one another -- all of us, and all those folks outside -- loving and sharing what we have with them, that is what Jesus was all about. He was showing us how to do that.

So if you have any clothes that you have outgrown or that you don't want anymore, I'll bet there is a place in Corinth or somewhere nearby that would take them. Only one request: clean them before you take them, because most places have a kind of a rule that if you bring in dirty clothes, they throw them in the trash. Does that make any sense? We had a fellow yesterday -- an older man -- who brought in his old clothes to trade them and get new clothes. His old ones were dirty. So we do need to clean our clothes before we bring them in to be shared with others.

I'm so glad you are here. You are a good-looking group. Let us bow our heads for prayer.

Father, we thank you for the blessings you give us of being able to come to this special place and learn and love and share. Be with each one of these. Give them a special blessing from you. In Jesus' name we ask. Amen.

Thank you for being here.

The Scripture Reading:

Our Old Testament reading this morning is from Genesis, the ninth chapter, beginning at verse eight and reading through the twenty-second. This is in the section of the Old Testament that has to do with the flood and Noah. After the flood had ended, Noah is in a communicating situation with God.

Our New Testament reading comes from I Peter, the third chapter, verses eighteen to twenty-two. This is one of those that begins in the middle of a paragraph as we've divided off the translations.

Now when you get home, you'll need to reread that and study it for a while, because Peter does a little Pauline thing there and goes on and on throwing in phrases and definitions along the way. Sometimes it is hard to read so that it makes good sense. So if you would, read that again when you get home. I Peter 3:18-22.

The gospel this morning if from the first chapter of Mark, verses nine through fifteen, and if you can and would like, would you stand with us as we hear the gospel?

My friends, this is the good news. The word of God for the people of God. Thanks be to God.

The Sermon:

I want to remind you that you have homework for next week and I want to give it to you now before I forget it. Those who are listening will have it as well. As was announced earlier, beginning next Sunday evening at six o'clock, we will have the series on The Journeys of Paul in which I will be showing some of the slides we captured while we were there. Basically, we will be going over the second and third missionary journeys of the Apostle Paul. Those were the places that we visited.

So for next Sunday evening, March 19, this is your scripture assignment and I would like you to read that in preparation. All of these are from the Book of Acts. The first one for March 19 is Acts 13:1 -- 16:10. Then the second Sunday -- two weeks from today -- will be Acts 16:11 -- 18:18. The third week -- three weeks from today -- April 2, will be Acts 18:19 -- 21:16. We are going to stop at the point where they reach the Palestinian land on the east side of the Mediterranean, because from there on it is a different story and a different issue in the Book of Acts. Next Sunday at six we'll be here, the following week we'll be in Booneville and the next week we'll be back here, so let us be ready for that.

This has been one of those four-week weeks. You know what I'm talking about -- a four-week week. It means that a week of time has been divided with major events that take up a lifetime, except you put them into a day or two and it seems like a whole week. Someone asked me this morning, Mr. McCord asked me, "How was your trip?" I said, "Which trip?" I forgot that last Sunday when I was here, we left immediately after the service to go to the airport and get on the plane and fly down to my brother's reception and retirement party. That was a good experience.

His wife did a really neat thing with him, so you ladies can take notes on this sort of thing. It was his birthday, of course, and she had said to him, "Well, we'll go down to Marcia's house this afternoon for cake." And that was okay with him because he knew all of his daughters would be present, so they would go to Marcia's house and that would be okay.

So how did he go? He went to church casually that morning. They are joining a new church that requires you to attend three membership development classes before you can become a member -- it is a Baptist church in case you are wondering. And so they went and he had on a casual shirt and she looked nicely dressed in a black and white trimmed outfit, and they were going to Marcia's house. It so happened that she had a particular time that she wanted to be at Marcia's house, so she takes off and they go. It also happened that to get to Marcia's house they had to go right by their church where they had been members for all of these years. There was a huge crowd at the church. He says, "What's going on?" She said, "I don't know." He said, "I wonder if somebody has died?" She said, "Why don't we go in and see?" Of course, he agreed! And in they walked to see what had happened. The place was packed and erupted when they walked in with a welcome. It worked out beautifully and they had a good time, and we did, too. We got there in time to enjoy that with him. But that takes up a whole week to do all that moving around and flying.

Well, I came back and I had a car here at the airport, so on Monday I celebrated with some of the men of the church in that holy activity called golfing. I told you a little bit about last week, but we didn't have a dog to chase us around so that one went okay.

Then on Wednesday, I had a different kind of experience. How many of you have been to an Ash Wednesday service? Three or four of you. Ash Wednesday service is a special service. It is the day after Fat Tuesday. How many of you know what Fat Tuesday is? About the same number. Okay. Some of you are beginning to loosen up a little and you're going to confess in a minute that you know what I'm talking about.

Ash Wednesday begins the season of Lent and that day is a day when you make new pledges, new activities of consecration, so that you can prepare yourself for the coming of Easter. And in the preparation for the coming of Easter, you renew your vows of commitment. One of the ways that you seal that vow of commitment is by being consecrated or by having some kind of service of consecration. In this particular church we went to, they had the service of consecration by the minister taking ashes from the palm branches of last year -- branches he had burned -- and with some oil mixed in with the ashes and his thumb, he makes the sign of the cross on the forehead of the participant. Then you go out into the world with the mark of the cross, the sign of the cross, on your forehead.

We were there, Martha and I and some friends, participating in this service, and it came time to go down to the front to kneel and to have the mark put on our foreheads. When you have the mark on your forehead and you leave the service quietly, you go out into the world. Sometimes you go to have a snack, sometimes you go by the grocery store, sometimes when those services are held in the morning at noon, you go to work. And all day long, you have this cross on your forehead. It is the sign, you see, of a new covenant. It is a new agreement you have made with God and you have accepted that sign.

As the participants were sealed by the sign of the cross, they would come back to their places and eventually the service was over and we went into the world. We were conscious of the fact that we had a cross on our forehead. Somewhere in my mind there is a scarlet letter and the letter was red. In the story, I think, some of you English literature persons can tell me, it seems it was carved. But in this case, it is rubbed on.

Oh, it washes off easily so that you can get it off in a hurry. And no doubt there are those who under some circumstances would wash their forehead before the day was over. But then, I have thoughts about that, for you see, if the sign of Christ on you is so easily defaced as to be washed off, what about that part that is within you -- down inside?

Martha and I had this done in the evening service and we went home. My brother, who is a nice Baptist man, and his wife were coming to spend the night. The first thing she asked Martha was, "What is that on your forehead?" She didn't know about it. Then the first thing he asked me was, "What's that on your forehead?" I had a chance to explain to him what it was all about. He said, "Oh, makes sense to me!"

This is the same brother of mine who sings, the same brother of mine who made his profession of faith at the end of a service where I was preaching. This is the same brother of mine who has the cancer in his eye. And on Thursday, I went with him to Memphis to see what the results were of his treatment. We found that it had shrunk a little, like the doctors had hoped it would. This is the same brother of mine who asked for prayer because of not only his eye, but because of a heart -- a heart that is being tugged by the Spirit of God to do something more than what he has been doing. He doesn't know what. So I ask you today to remember him when you pray.

Now that got me to Thursday of the past week. You heard what happened yesterday. So when I say it has been a long week, a four in one, that is what I'm talking about. I guess the other thing that really lightened my spirit physically and mentally was that one of those dreaded court cases that I had consulted on has been settled without going to court. That always makes me feel greatly relieved when that happens. So I came away last night about eleven o'clock, caught up to date on my reports, on my work, and my stress -- and all I had to do then was to get ready for this morning. I'd already started on that so it was all right. I share with you those things because it seems to me that in the living of our lives, it is that covenant relationship with God that keeps us moving and keeps things happening in our lives.

Would you look now at that relationship that was created by God with Noah? Just think about it for a few moments with me. In the passage that we read, the flood has finished. It is over. The rains have stopped. The land had reappeared. The stench had subsided. The birds were singing. The wind was blowing. The buds were bursting. All was calm -- except the heart of anxiety in the persons who had survived the ordeal. Would there be another flood? Would a flood come again? What was that flood?

Humanity, we are told in the passages beginning at the sixth chapter of Genesis, had engaged in all types of vile, evil, wicket behaviors. Instead of improving with time, it deteriorated over time, and that which was wholesome and good was being defaced and destroyed, and judgment was inevitable because the sins of the people were too great. One of the verses tells us that God even said He was sorry for what He had done, even though that word is not the appropriate interpretation. It is a word that can be translated as "troubled," God was troubled by what He had created in the form of people. The way they were behaving showed no respect for Him, no respect for one another, and no respect for anything that they touched.

So much of that seems appropriate to our day for so many people. Because of that attitude, that growing deterioration of conduct and behavior and beliefs, judgment was coming. So God said, "There's going to be a flood," and Noah stood out among all the people. The Bible tells us in one translation, "And Noah was perfect." Or "Noah was complete." The word in Hebrew means that he was completely committed to God and was giving of himself to God only. That was why he was perfect, not that he didn't have a sin, because no doubt he did. But the point was, he had a complete relationship with God. That was together and that was perfect, and because of that, God said, "Here is one I can trust with the story." He told Noah what was about to happen and gave him the dimensions for building the boat.

You have to remember that Noah is living in a place where there is not a lake. There is a river running by, but there is not a lake, and he is supposed to build what is called an ark, a tiva in Hebrew. Tiva is the same word used for that basket that carried Moses on the Nile. Same word. We translate it "an ark," because it is so huge. It would carry the life of the planet, we suppose. The size of it was quite big. A cubit in the Old Testament is that measure from the elbow of a man to the tip of his finger. Some arms are not as long as others. My arm is not as long as some of you fellows' arms. It is somewhere between eighteen and twenty-four inches, usually, from the elbow to the end of the fingertip. That is a cubit.

The dimensions that Noah was given were 300 cubits by 50 cubits by 30 cubits. If you just sort of average that out as between eighteen and twenty-four inches to a cubit, you come up with an ark about 525 feet long, about 87 ½ feet wide, and 52 ½ feet high. And you're going to build it on dry land. That is a fairly good sized boat and it is supposed to carry all those animals that are going to survive this particular destruction. If you want to ask me what all went in it, you will get conflicting stories. There is the story of two by twos. One book says there were seven of the good and two of the bad. And somebody wrote a book about "why didn't Noah swat the mosquito?" It is a good question. The point is, this was the tiva. This was the ark, as we call it. The same word as was used to carry the remains as the children traveled through the wilderness. The Ark of the Covenant. Same word.

Noah and his family, and all the animals that were supposed to be on board, survived the flood. It is believed by most scholars that it was the Mesopotamian Valley flood. There is very little, if any, theological studies that show there was a worldwide flood, but we think in those terms. But that area was destroyed, and it is after this that Noah and his family -- three sons and their wives and Noah and his wife -- that is eight all together to survive the flood.

We are told that the reason for the flood was because of sin. You raise the question: "Was sin bad enough to cause God to destroy all the living things?" Indeed it was. This is what the book tells us. The outcome of the flood was God's establishment of a covenant of Grace which provided sustenance for man. This involved an anticipated order in society. The covenant was unconditional, there was no requirement laid on man unless it was the instruction to "be fruitful and multiply." Otherwise, God was the one who is speaking to Noah and doing all the giving. "I will establish My Covenant with you and your sons and with everything living and with all flesh." Now obviously there had been some contention in the Ark. The animals and humans had kind of had their day with each other.

What is that God wants us to have? He wants us to have peace. He wants His whole creation to be at one with one another. This is what we read about in the New Testament. "There is groaning," Paul says, "within all of creation for the perfecting of God's Kingdom in this world." And when we say, "Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done," as we will in a few moments, we are talking about for the kingdom of God, the rule of God, the love of God, the caring of God, to be shown throughout everything we are involved in.

Yes, the new covenant. Not only the rainbow in the sky, but a new covenant in the heart. All the way from Genesis, the ninth chapter, all the way to the end of Malachi, there is the story in that Old Testament of God trying to get the people to understand His love. Matthew opens with the birth of Jesus and all the lineage back links him up with all the past. It is in that covenant with the Son of God coming on earth that we have another chance and another covenant, a new covenant of love, and you and I are living in that covenant.

Every time it rains, every time there is a heavy mist in the air on a spring or summer or fall or winter day, we may see those light rays form what we see as a rainbow. Sometimes we see it from end to end, and anytime we see it, we are reminded that this is the picture of God's love. This is a reminder of the promise of God that He will not destroy humankind and creation by water again. But you see, that was a one-way covenant, wasn't it? Noah and his sons and all of those who came from them have struggled and struggled and often broken the relationship. Even though God gave it all.

You and I stand, then, at this season of the year in that challenge, too. As we come through this season in preparation for Easter, let us prepare our hearts and minds and bodies and lives as a sacrifice unto God. May we be faithful servants to Him in everything that we do. We are to live according to the best we can. Shun evil. Cling to that which is good. Lent is the time when we reflect on the covenant in our practice of good or evil. We petition God for forgiveness of our sins. May God give us strength to live well and practice holiness in this season of the year. Amen.