Tuesday, July 3, 2007
"You shall not commit adultery" (Exodus 20:14).
IDEA: Parents and children demonstrate the working of a covenant relationship.
PURPOSE: To help listeners appreciate what a covenant relationship might look like in life.
We have been looking at the nature of “covenants” in the Bible. Why?
I. What are the elements of a covenant?
A covenant is unconditional. It is not a contract or a compact.
Although a covenant is unconditional, the potential benefits or blessings provided by the covenant are conditional for entering into them.
God made the covenant unconditional but with the expectation that the covenant would become a two-way street and eventually become mutual.
God commits Himself to His people unconditionally, but within the covenant there is the desire that His people will respond to Him with love and commitment.
II. You can see this at work in a growing parent/child relationship.
Parents make an unconditional commitment to their children.
If I say to you, when your children were born, what kind of commitment did you make to them? Was it spelled out?
What commitment did your newborn children make to you?
While a parent’s commitment to children continues, a child also commits himself to the parent over time.
Are you committed to your children today? Is it as strong as when they were born?
As a child matures, it is both possible and desirable that the relationship that began as a one-way covenant will develop into a mature two-way relationship.
How does this apply to the covenants that a couple make to each other when they are married?
Is the relationship in a good marriage the same at a fiftieth anniversary as it was in a five-week anniversary?