What is the Covenant (Matt. 1:23)
Hello! So, I was praying about what the remnants need to hear because I didn’t want to just say things that weren’t relevant to them. I was thinking to myself, the remnants always say things like, “I want to hold onto the covenant and hold onto the gospel,” but how many remnants actually know what that means? You know what, this is for older remnants, too, like Naysay, Camren, Hei Chri, Grace, Tiffany, it’s not just for the younger kids, but the older kids, too. “I want to hold onto the covenant, I want to hold onto the gospel,” what does that mean to you? So today, we are going to talk about, what is the covenant?
What is the Covenant (Matthew 1:23)
It talks about Jesus Christ Who is Immanuel, meaning God with us. In a nutshell, this is what the covenant is, but what does it mean to us? If you look at the Bible and at God’s promises, it boils down to three main promises. The first promise is the promise of Jesus Christ. The second promise is the promise of God’s Kingdom. The third promise is the Holy Spirit.
1st Promise – Jesus Christ
2nd Promise – God’s Kingdom
3rd Promise – Holy Spirit
All of these promises were given to us for our mission of what?
Mission: Saving Lives
That includes our lives and everyone else’s lives. What is the promise of Jesus Christ?
1st Promise – Jesus Christ
Gen. 3:15
What is the promise God gave to Adam and Eve? He promised us the offspring of the woman, Who is going to come and crush Satan’s head and Satan was going to strike His heel. That was the first promise God ever made to us, this promise of Jesus Christ. When was this promise of Jesus Christ given to us?
1. Separated from God Isaiah 59:2
It was when we were separated from God, and according to Isaiah 59:2, why did we become separated from God? It’s because of our sin
2. Sin Gen. 3:4-5
What is sin? In Gen. 3:4-5 it says that Satan went to Adam and Eve and deceived them, “Don’t listen to God, what He is telling you is not true. God said this, but actually, this is true, and if you eat this fruit, guess what? You will be like God, knowing good and evil.” Let me see a show of hands, how many of you today made a judgment of what is good or evil? All your hands should be up right now, right?
So today, for example, I did that, because I’m working on a case, and I have a 13-year-old who committed 14 robberies and some of them are with guns. Where does a 13-year-old even get a gun? My boss and I are trying to figure out what is the correct outcome that this case should have. He can’t even go to kid jail because he’s too young. All we can do at best is to send him to a facility and hope he recovers there.
From the perspective of a prosecutor, I have to think, “Is this good or is this bad?” Also, not only did he rob so many people, but there’s one case where he and a bunch of friends beat the tar out of a homeless guy. In the police report, it’s said that when the police walked by, they heard the group of friends laughing about what they had just done to the guy. They were laughing and saying, “Hahaha, can you believe what we did to that guy back there?” He’s 13, he barely hit puberty, and when you see him come into court, he’s a tiny little dude. He looks like a baby.
So from a prosecutor point of view, I have to decide what is good and what is evil. But on a human level, even if you’re not a prosecutor, we judge what is good or evil every day. “That thing that person said to me, is it good or evil? This punishment from my parent, is this good or evil? The fact that Teacher Esther brought me from the back of the pews and brought me to the front two rows and took away my phone, is that good or evil?” When you decide what is good or evil, what is the common factor? It is “me,” trying to be like God.
Me – god
I am falling into Satan’s age old lie, “You can be like God, knowing the difference between good and evil.”
Exodus 20:4
Just like in Exodus 20:4, we start making idols for ourselves, “I need money so I’m going to make money. I need success so I’m going to get success. I need fly clothes so I’m going to get fly clothes.” Whatever it is, we make something an idol and we convince ourselves, “I need it because I want it.” It’s like Ariana Grande, it’s like Satan’s song, “I want it, I got it.” That’s what I call Satan’s anthem because, what we want, our idol worship, all stems from greed.
Col. 3:5 Greed
Why is this sin a problem?
3) Satan – John 8:44
He lies to us and deceives us, why? He wants to kill us. In Eph. 2:2, it talks about the ruler of the kingdom of the air. It says he moves the ways of the world.
Eph. 2:2 ways of the world
When you live according to the ways of the world, you live according to Satan. What are the ways of the world? “I want it, I got it. I want it, buy it. I want it, steal it. I want it, hurt someone for it.” How many of us do that?
This is a confession but when Tiffany and I were kids, you know how we always split food? As an older sister, I should share equally, because I love my little sister, but I always took a little bit more. “It’s okay, she won’t know,” she’s saying, “I knew.” The funny thing is, sometimes what I would do is eat more and then say, “Hey Tiffany, can I have some of yours?” So I’d eat even more of it. That’s like a smaller thing but greed makes us do that. Greed makes us forget about the people we care about, the people we love. The people we should be taking care of. You just take it. That’s what everybody does.
Now, if you look at Gal. 5:19-21, what does it say? When you live according to your sinful nature and according to what you want, the ways of the world, what happens? The acts of the sinful nature are obvious: sexual immorality, idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. Remnants, as you go day-by-day, how many of you see this wherever you go, in your schools, your campuses, or your workplaces.
How many of you feel it in yourself? How many of you, this week, felt angry about something, even though you knew it wasn’t something to really be angry about? How many of you felt sad or depressed about something, even though you knew there was no reason for you to? How many of you guys tried to convince yourselves, “No, think happy thoughts,” or, “Just get out of this, just get through this,” how many of you give yourselves pep talks, “You can do this”?
How many of you hype yourself up for school? “New semester, new me”? “My ways of laziness and procrastination are behind me; no more of that. I’m going to study so hard, I’ll get straight A’s, and my parents will be like, ‘Wow!’” then the first day of semester hits and what happens? “This is so much reading, I’ll just do it tomorrow. I’m so tired, I just need to get into the swing of school again,” and the reason I know how this works is because I did that, right? And that’s what it is.
When you are full of the ways of the world and your sinful nature, all that comes out are things like idolatry; you’re going to do what you want to do. You want what you want to want, you become jealous or sad because others have better lives than you. You become depressed because you think, “How come that person’s life is so much better than mine, but my life is like this?” Or you have anger and hatred, “How dare that person say that to me”?
We live with all of these things from our sinful nature, and guess what? It’s okay because the first step is to realize you guys have no choice but to be like that. That’s what the sinful nature is, that’s what everyone is born with. When you guys do things that you want to do, but it ends up hurting other people, or when you do something you know you shouldn’t do, but you do it because you want to do it, when you talk smack about someone, how many of you talked smack about someone this week? How many of you talked smack about your friends? I’ve done that, it’s funny though, in law school, I only had two other friends, and then out of those two friends, if one pissed me off, I’d go to the other and talk smack about the other friend. When I’m mad about that person, I’d go to the other person and talk smack about the other person. I couldn’t even treat the two friends I had very nicely. That’s what we do because that is our sinful nature.
Gal. 5:22-23, what does it say? “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.” How many of you guys want that in your life? Carlos, all of that money-making things you do, why do you do it? It is because you wanna feel joy, right? Right? Money makes you happy, right? Fanny, why do you wanna look good? Why do you want all the fashions? It’s because you want love, right? You want everyone to look at you and be like, “Oh, she’s such a baddie, look at her clothes,” right? It’s the same thing with everybody. Who doesn’t want love, joy, and peace?
Who wants peace? I want peace, Naysay, every day when you lay in bed and you’re thinking, “I shouldn’t be laying in bed,” do you feel peace? You don’t, right? Because you’re resting but you feel like you should be doing something, right? It’s the same thing. I know Tiffany’s felt that, I’ve felt that. How many of you think, as you’re trying to distract yourself from your worries, scrolling on your phone, are thinking, “This isn’t working”? All the fruits of the Spirit we want, all the things we want in our lives, all the idol worship we are doing is all for these things, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. But how do we enjoy those fruits? We enjoy those fruits by Galatians 2:20.
Gal. 2:20
If the ways of the sinful nature bring out the acts of the sinful nature, then the fruit of the Spirit is when we accept Jesus Christ. Why is that? It is because that was the whole reason God gave us the promise of Jesus Christ. He knew that you couldn’t come out of this, your love for money that makes you hurt other people, God knew that you couldn’t come out of this. Your powerlessness that makes you lay in bed all day, or your procrastination or laziness because you want to do what you want to do at that moment, God knew you couldn’t come out of this, so that is why God made a way through Jesus Christ.
Jesus Christ is the only One Who can solve all of these problems. All the acts of the sinful nature come from sin, that is given by Satan. We live separated from God, but it feels like death. The first step to enjoying the fruit of the Spirit is to acknowledge, “I cannot do this, Jesus, so that’s why You need to live through me. I’ve died at the cross because I can’t do this. That was God’s first promise to us, Jesus Christ. All of our life’s problems stem from that.
How many of you believe that? Maybe some remnants, maybe some not remnants, but just know that all of your family problems, your mental suffering, your loneliness, anger, depression, and problems of sadness, all of those things, your obsession of money, of people liking you, of popularity, all of that, you can’t come out of it, and it’s okay. That’s why we confess Jesus is my Christ. Now, once we enjoy this first promise, we can then enjoy God’s second promise.
2nd Promise – God’s Kingdom
“I will be with you”
From the Old Testament, God has continually told us that He will be with us.
Gen. 12:1
God said, what was the first promise, even before God promised Abram, “I will bless you, I will make nations from you, I will make your children like the stars,” before that promise, what was God’s promise? “Go to the land I will show you,” right? This means that God isn’t like, “Hey, here’s where you are. Go to point B, good luck,”
I will show you
God didn’t say that. He says, “I will show you,” meaning God is with you, showing you from beginning until end where you need to go. That was the first promise God made to Abram. Then, after that, it says, “I will bless you and make you into a great nation. I will make your name great, and I will make you into a source of blessings.” All those blessings followed because God is going to be with us. How many of you right now say, “Yeah, yeah, but that’s a promise He made to Abraham in the Old Testament, and we’re in the time of the New Testament right now”? I got you because in Gal. 3:29, what does it say?
Gal. 3:29
If you belong to Jesus Christ, you are an heir to this promise, meaning God being with you and giving you all these blessings, this is a promise we enjoy if what? If we have Christ. Guys, how many of you guys think it would be great to become a great nation? It means you’re powerful, it means you have so many resources at your disposal, it means you have so many people following you, “You’re such a great leader!” How many people want to be blessed?
Simply, how many of you want to be blessed? How many of you want your names to be great? “Forbes top 100 richest 20 year old to walk this earth”? Right? Or, “Top 10 prettiest person alive on this earth.” What’s People magazine do? “Hottest person of the year”? It means people know you and adore you and respect you and they love you. Even National Geographic has the Person of the Year, they are the most influential.
But God promised all of that to you because He is with you. You inherit this promise because you have Jesus Christ. This is what it means for the background of the throne to be with you. It means God is the King and through Christ you are the child of a king, so you have all the rights and authority of a prince or princess. All of you remnants who work so hard to gain success and education and money and people to like you, what are you doing that for? God already promised it to you. Right? In Matthew 28:18, what does it say?
Matthew 28:18
Jesus says, “All authority in heaven and on earth is mine, I have it,” right? He is the King of everything Who has all authority and guess what? Did He just end it there? “See you later, suckers”? He says in Matt. 28:20, “Surely I am with you always.”
Surely I am with you always
Always. God didn’t just say, “Get to Point B, good luck, ready, set, go!” God said, “I will be with you, always.” That’s the background of the Throne of Heaven, and what it means to live in God’s Kingdom. How do we enjoy God’s Kingdom? Step 1, Jesus Christ. Then these are the promises we inherit. How do we enjoy God being with us?
*How do we enjoy?
– Word
It’s through the Word. I know you remnants are always thinking, “Why is the message so long? Why do we have 5000 messages? I’m so tired, I just want to sleep,” right? That used to be me. On Sunday, I would stay all day and at 4:30pm or 5pm, I would sit in the back and glare at him. I’d look at my watch and point at it. Then Pastor Park used to say, “I’d better end the message, Esther is glaring at me.” When you guys don’t want to be in worship, I feel you, I understand you.
That heart comes from the sinful nature of just doing whatever I want to do, but the reason why it’s so important is because worship is where God is with us with the Word. We don’t have a chance at holding onto Jesus Christ if we forget the Word.
How many of you, when reading through the Old Testament, used to make fun of the Israelites? “Those idiots lost hold of the covenant again!” Especially when Moses went up the mountain for 40 days to get the Ten Commandments? Then they made a golden calf and was like, “This is god.” I used to think, “They’re so stupid, they couldn’t even last 40 days,” until I realized that I’m like that, too. I receive the word and then just in one day, on Monday, I’m already back to thinking about me. I’m already back to thinking what I want, feeling what I want, wanting what I want, and that’s just one day. The Israelites were way better than me.
God reminds us of the Word and that’s why worship is so important. Once we enjoy worship, once we enjoy God’s Kingdom, what was the third promise God gave us?
3rd Promise – Holy Spirit
It’s the Holy Spirit
John 14:26 – Teach and Remind
Jesus says, “The Father will send the Holy Spirit in My name, the Holy Spirit, the counselor, to teach you and remind you,” so all of these words, all of these promises we learned from Christ, the Holy Spirit will now teach us and remind us. Here, we confess, “God we can’t do this by ourselves, I can’t overcome my sinful nature,” but guess what? We can’t hold onto the Word by ourselves, either. We can’t understand the Word by ourselves, either, so that is why He promised us the Holy Spirit Who will teach us and remind us.
John 16:13 – Holy Spirit guides towards the Truth
The Holy Spirit guides us towards the truth. What is the Truth? It’s this, we need Jesus Christ because we can’t come out of this by ourselves, it’s that we have to be with God because we can’t do anything by ourselves. The Holy Spirit guides us to realize we can’t do anything by ourselves. That’s what it means to be a slave to Satan. You want to change but you can’t. You wanna stop hurting yourself, you want to stop hurting your parents, you want to stop hurting the people you care about, or even just random people, but you can’t. But that’s why Jesus said, “After I’m gone, the Holy Spirit will teach you, remind you, and guide you.”
Acts 1:8 Power
What is promised to us? When the power of the Holy Spirit comes upon you, He teaches us, He reminds us, He guides us, and when we finally know the Truth, He gives us the power to hold onto that. So, literally from beginning until end, we cannot do anything unless we are with Jesus Christ, with God, and with the Holy Spirit. That is why we hold onto the covenant of the Triune God. Everything we need, all the fruits of the Spirit, the love, the joy, everything we want in life is with God. He promised all of that to us, but if we leave that promise and turn back to our sinful ways, we become a slave to Satan and we’re separated from these blessings.
What do we do about all of that? If we don’t have the power to enjoy it, what do we do? What do we do about that? That’s why we pray.
Pray John 15:7, 14:14
In John 15:7, “If you remain in Me and My Word remains in you, ask whatever you wish and it will be given to you.” In John 14:14, Jesus says, “Ask for anything in My Name and I will give it to you.” So it’s okay every day, if you don’t pray for your field, at minimum, hold onto these promises and pray. When these promises are yours, that’s when you get the power. Then, God will lead you towards the mission of saving other lives.
Mission: Saving Lives
Have you ever tried saving someone while you are dying? One time, someone threw my mom in the pool and Tiffany was in the pool with floaties, and the pool was deep so my mom was freaking out, pressing my sister’s head under the water. She was freaking out, I don’t even think she knew it was Tiffany she was pushing down, She probably thought it was a wall or something, right? That’s what it’s like. You have to first save yourself, and you save yourself by praying. You pray, “God, I can’t overcome these problems by myself. I’m stuck in all these problems, my family problems, my emotional and mental problems, I keep doing bad things because I want to, and I keep hurting other people. I can’t come out of that, so can Jesus Christ be my Master? God I want You to be the King of my life, I just want to be with You and receive the blessings, but I keep forgetting Your Word so give me the filling of the Holy Spirit Who will teach me, remind me, guide me, and give me power.” Then, you guys come to the mission of saving lives where you get to hold onto God’s command.
Matthew 28:19-20
Go and make disciples of all nations. A lot of you skip all of this and try to do this and find this to be a burden. The college students going to the USC evangelism camp feel it, “Should I go to them? Should I not go to them?” Some of you say, “Have you heard about the good news, Jesus Christ?” but even that, you don’t have to worry about because in Luke 12:12, Jesus was like, “Don’t even worry about it. When the time comes, the Holy Spirit will teach you what to say.” Nothing is a burden, nothing is a hardship, nothing is a problem, only if we hold onto the promise of the Triune God, then literally everything else will be given to us.
That’s what it means to hold onto the covenant, remnants. You don’t have to keep forcing yourself, to say, “Jesus is the Christ, Jesus is the Christ,” to hold onto the covenant. The first step to receiving Christ as your Master is to acknowledge, “Hey, I can’t do this.” Remnants, I hope you guys are all able to make this confession tonight. Holding to the covenant is not difficult, but it starts with the confession, “God, I need Jesus Christ because I can’t do this.” So, let us close our eyes and pray.