The Nature of Covenant

The Nature of Covenant 

Danny Silk

If you take a cross-section of relationship at Bethel you will see covenant. Some relationships going back 40 years. Covenant is at the heart of everything we do. It is the backbone of this church. You get to benefit from this momentum.

The nature of the covenant:

• a binding agreement requiring death
   - Genesis 15 - God & Abram
   - Old Testament sacrifices on alter
   - Baptism & resurrection
   -Old testament covenant required walking through death - literally through the separated halves of the sacrifice. Then they look back and say “may this happen to us if we break this covenant”. It is saying I am willing to walk through blood, through death, to protect our relationship.

John 12:23–24Proverbs 18:1

“I would take a bullet for you” - I would sacrifice to see you succeed. It’s my job to convince the people around me that I would die to protect our relationships. Even more, telling is, who would take a bullet for you?

Are you isolated or are you in a covenant? Are you looking at what will benefit me? Or are you seeking to lay your life down for others?

The heart of The Father is "sacrifice":

• Sacrifice needs to be at the core of all the things you pursue… or you’re a narcissist.
• “you can do anything” must be tempered with “your life is a life of sacrifice”
• - Put the Father on display.

- Danny uses the California Redwood trees as an example of a covenant. The root systems intertwine and hold each other up.

Knowing people of covenant makes it possible, contagious, and even a standard

- Who have you surrounded yourself with? What covenant-geniuses have you surrounded yourself that will push your further? Nourish yourself with hope.

- Embrace covenant in a culture of “selfish”.

The purpose of a covenant is to point to the Father.