The Covenant Community | Deuteronomy 7:6-9 & Hebrews 8:6-13 | United in Christ, Secured by Promise
When we think of memberships today, we often think of cards in our wallet or apps on our phone—things that can expire if we miss a payment or fail to keep up. But God’s covenant community is entirely different. Belonging to Him isn’t a subscription we manage or a benefit program we maintain. It is His gracious claim on us through Christ, an eternal promise written on our hearts.
In this fourth message of the Everlasting Covenant series, Pastor Mark explores how God set apart Israel by His choice and faithfulness, not because of their merit. Then, looking at Hebrews 8, he shows how Jesus mediates a better covenant—one that brings people from every tribe, tongue, and nation into God’s family.
Watch the full sermon below to be encouraged in your identity as part of God’s covenant community.
📖 Click to Show the Transcript of this Sermon
Thank you for joining us for this week's sermon from First Reformed Church in Edgerton, Minnesota. Each week, we dig into God's word, trusting that the Holy Spirit will continue the good work of sanctification in us.
So there are many pros and cons with modern technology and different things. I'm specifically thinking of the modern smartphone. But one of the pros that I have realized recently is the way that it has thinned out my wallet. In fact, I could actually forget my wallet and still be able to do much of what I need to do if I have my phone, like make a payment using, just tapping it on the payment area.
But in years past, my wallet swelled with all of the cards that you need for assorted things. And honestly, it got so big. I think that's why I have problems with my lower back because I was kinda sitting like this because my wallet was so thick. Right? Of course, you need your driver's license. Then you need methods of payment for personal accounts, for work accounts, maybe for different stores. And those are necessities. But on top of that, you end up with multiple cards for say, a membership store. Then you inevitably sign up for some sort of reward program for a handful of stores.
Well then, many years ago when I lived in Ohio, I had to have my season pass to Cedar Point, the best amusement park in the world, on hand because I never knew when I would feel like swinging over and riding a roller coaster. I had to have that in there. It became a substantial stack of plastic in my wallet. Well, now that I don't have these physical cards for all those things, the truth is I probably have more memberships to things, stuff, because I can sign up and I don't have to keep track of anything. I don't need a card. It's all just on my phone.
But here's the thing with those cards and those memberships. All of those come with some sort of a condition. Right? You need to pay your dues. You need to keep your account current. Or you need to, you know, use the benefits occasionally. As long as you're in good standing, you have access to the benefits of those memberships. But if you stop paying, if you miss a deadline or the company changes the terms of the program, your access to that can be denied. All of those memberships are temporary. They can be canceled.
Now let's contrast that with God's covenant community. Belonging to God is not like being in some sort of earthly membership. There's not some fee that you pay. God's covenant people belong to Him because He has saved us by His gracious love. He has showed mercy to us in Christ. And our membership isn't a card that goes inactive. Our membership in the covenant community of God isn't something that can be taken away from us. We are a part of the family of God because He has laid claim to us because He has made us His own.
And as we come to our fourth week in this everlasting covenant series, we're gonna take a look at an important part of our understanding of covenant. This is not just something that we experience individually. When we are brought into the covenant of God's grace in the Lord Jesus Christ, we are brought into a community. A community of others who have also been saved by grace. A group of others who have been united to Christ by grace through faith. And this becomes a significant part of who we are. A significant part of our life as a child of God. And this idea is something that's not only something that we talk about. It's not just a new covenant idea, but we get the underlying importance of this so much from the Old Testament because of the way the people were called out and gathered.
This book of the Bible, Deuteronomy, it really helps us to understand its purpose. So deuter means second, and the word nomos is the word law. And so Deuteronomy means second giving of the law. So the context of this book is as the Israelites come to the close of that forty years where they were wandering in the wilderness, and they are on the verge of going into the promised land, they're being reminded of the law that God gave to them. They're reminded of God's grace shown to them. It's an important part of who they're going to be in the promised land.
They're set apart. They're different. They're set apart because God called them. This is an important reminder of how they are to live once God brings them into the promised land. And it's also a reminder that they are a particular people. They are a special people. They're set apart. And that's literally what the word holy means, remember. To be set apart to God, and they're set apart for a purpose. They are his treasured possession. There are many different people groups all around them, but God has set them apart for a purpose.
Now we know what that purpose is. Those people are the ones who pass on the genetic line to the promised Messiah. They are the ones through whom the promise made in the garden will be accomplished. They are set apart for the line that will end up at the one who is to crush the head of the serpent. They are the people of God. The ones aligned with the one who will crush the head of the serpent. These are the people of God. They are on His side. All the others, they are children of the serpent.
This is why they are set apart. This is why they are to do things differently, live differently. This is why God is making them holy. None of the other people on the face of the earth were chosen for this task. It was them. The Messiah can't just pop up out of nowhere. He will come from the line that God has ordained and it runs through Adam and Eve, through Seth, to Noah, and Shem, then on to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And from there, it will continue on through the tribe of Judah. But it is from these people set apart that the one who fulfills the promise will come.
And here, God makes sure that they understand that this isn't because of anything that they've done. It isn't because their genetics were superior. It isn't because they were more intelligent. And it isn't even because they are the most moral group of people around, that God found the best behaving folks. And it isn't even due to their numbers that he set them apart. It's because of his choice. The Lord set his love on them, and it tells us that even though they were the fewest of peoples and the idea here couldn't be any clearer. The point is that he loved them. And he made a promise to them. And he is a covenant God who keeps his promise to his people.
And notice here, the reminder that is connected to this. He made a promise, and he has brought them out of the house of slavery of Egypt and from the hand of Pharaoh. The people of God were in bondage in Egypt. They were slaves, but that didn't mean that God had forgotten them. God had made the promise a long time ago, and they end up in slavery. That hardship through those hundreds of years did not mean that God was not going to be faithful to His promise. It did not mean that He had forgotten them. No. God keeps His promises.
And now they have been in the wilderness for forty years. And even after they go into the promised land, there are going to be more difficulties. There will be more challenges that will come, but that will not mean that God has forgotten His promise. Remember that Christian. God keeps His promises. When even when things are dark, when you're in the wilderness, God does not forget His promise. That's who He is. He keeps His promises to His people. Despite appearances, God is faithful no matter what. He is going to fulfill his promise to his people.
And throughout scripture, we see this. We see God doing these things, bringing these hardships in the most difficult of circumstances. What does it show us? That it's only God who can save. Standing at the edge of the Red Sea, could the people have saved themselves? No. God brought them to that place to remind them and us that He is the one who saves. He is the one who brings His people to Himself, and He is the one who rescues.
And we see here that he is a faithful God who keeps his covenant and steadfast love on those who love him and keep his commandments, and it says to a thousand generations. But notice here that it says, to those who love him and keep his commandments. This makes it seem as though the covenant love of God is somehow dependent upon the behavior of the people. But if that were true, Israel would have been disqualified nearly as soon as the promises were made. Right? Think of all the times that Israel turned away. Was God ever unfaithful? No. He kept his promise despite their rebellion, despite their sin.
And so the idea here is that we are being told that this is the fruit that is exhibited by those who love God. Those who love God keep his commandments. The people of God do these things because they are already the object of God's covenant love and grace. His faithfulness isn't rooted in our obedience. Our obedience is the evidence of His faithfulness at work in us. So the point of verse nine isn't, if you behave, God will love you, but rather because God has loved you and made you His treasured possession, you will love Him. You will walk in His ways.
And as we move through this idea of the covenant community, I think it's really important that I make a very clear point here about how God is speaking about his people. We live in a very individualistic society. We naturally tend to think of faith as an extremely personal matter, and it is. Don't get me wrong. We see faith as a very individualistic thing. But let's look at how the Bible talks about this. The Bible makes it clear that we are saved as individuals. Absolutely. But when God does this, when He saves someone, He makes them a part of His people. He brings them into the covenant community together.
We are saved individually, yes, but we are not saved apart from each other. We are brought together. When we are saved, we become a family. You've heard me say it so many times. Because we are united to Christ by faith, we are united to one another. We have union with Christ, and we have unity with one another. And when we talk about the importance of the covenant, we're talking about more than just our individual experience of faith. We need to understand we're in this together. We do this together as the people of God in Christ Jesus.
This is really amazing because we see that God is calling people into the community of faith from more than just one family, more than just one ethnicity, more than just one nation. The new covenant community is a people from every tribe, tongue, and nation. And this is an important theme as we move forward in the history of God's salvation of his people and look at the book of Hebrews where we see that though Israel was set apart for God's glory and to bring the Messiah, ultimately Israel was pointing to something greater. There was something better in mind. The people of God would no longer just be one ethnic people, but a people for God's own possession called to Him from all the peoples of the earth.
And so as we turn to Hebrews 8, we see this idea here that the new covenant is a greater covenant because Jesus is a better mediator. Remember, in the old covenant, the people of God were able to go before Him. Their mediator was a group of priests, the Levites. It was the blood of lambs and goats. But now in the new covenant, Jesus himself is how we are able to go before God. And while the first covenant was good, it most certainly wasn't faultless. We talked about this last week, the repeated shedding of blood in the temple. It was over and over and over. And this causes us to naturally long for forgiveness of sins that is once and for all, not something that needs to be repeated continually.
And the temple also reminds us that the people that God was relating to through this old covenant system, they were from one people group. The Levites were Hebrew Jewish people. They were the ones who mediated it, and the temple was in Jerusalem, a particular nation. The temple itself brings us this idea that there needs to be something better. There needs to be something that isn't this repeated shedding of blood. There needs to be something that isn't just one thing from one people group in one particular place on earth. That first covenant being exclusive shows us the need for this mediator who is better. A mediator who brings all tribes, tongues, and nations into the family of God.
And here in Hebrews 8, we see the promise that we looked at last week in Jeremiah expressed in verses 10 and 11. This promise is written on our hearts and that all will know Him from the least to the greatest. The covenant community is made up of those who have been saved by the grace of God. And they are to be united with one another. And it's essential that we understand that this unity comes not from any earthly marker that we usually identify ourselves with. Right? Your standing in society, your income level, your vocation, anything else. That is not how the people of God are united. Because those things so easily bring division. Instead, the people of God are united by the gospel that has saved them. The fact that God has come to them by his grace. He has laid hold of them in Christ and He has said, these are my people.
But it's important that we understand that being the people of God in Christ Jesus is a privilege, and with that privilege also comes responsibility. Just like the people in the old covenant were called to holiness, the new covenant people are called to obedience to the commands of God as well. And we follow God not out of obligation, but out of gratitude for the mercy that has been so abundantly given to us.
So what does this mean for us? If belonging to God's covenant community isn't something we earn, something we pay for, or something we keep up like a membership, well then, we understand that we live in this covenant community together out of gratitude, not out of obligation. And that changes not only how we approach God, but how we approach one another. If I am forgiven and you are forgiven, we understand that we are to show grace to one another.
I want you to think back to all those membership cards I talked about that I used to have in my wallet or I have on my phone now. Each one of them is tied to a particular benefit of some kind. Whether that's earning rewards points, they give you a discount on something, or the benefit of being able to buy something because it accesses your bank account. All those cards in our wallet have something that we have to do, something that we have to keep up. It provides us a benefit. But in the covenant community of God, being together, being united to one another isn't about us advancing our own interests, about getting benefits for ourselves. It's about belonging to Christ and belonging to one another.
And that means when life gets hard, we don't cancel each other. When someone struggles, we bear one another's burdens. We forgive as we've been forgiven, and we walk together as the people of God. So here's the call on us as we depart from here into God's world this week. Don't treat your place in God's covenant family like another card in your digital wallet. Something optional, something temporary, something disposable, something that I use when I need to or I feel like it. Instead, treasure your place in the covenant family of God. Live like someone who understands that they have been saved from the wrath of God and brought into the family of God. Someone who has been redeemed.
Live in such a way that you feel the joy of knowing that you've been claimed by God's mercy, and that you have been surrounded by others who have been redeemed. Show the world that belonging to Christ is deeper, richer, and far more secure than any worldly membership you can possibly hold. Think of it this way. Your membership in God's covenant community isn't a card that you keep in your wallet. It's an eternal promise. It is written on your heart. A promise sealed by God's grace because of the work that Jesus has done for us.
And so, not as consumers looking for spiritual benefits, but as a people that have been united to Christ and united to one another, we share this gospel. We share this love. We serve others to the glory of God. And as you serve in God's world, treasure not only the identity that you have in Christ, but rest in the fact that you have fellowship with the community of faith. You can do that by praying for your brothers and sisters, by caring for them, by building them up in faith, by reminding them of the love that God has shown them in Christ. Because together, we are the treasured possession of God. And when we rest in that, we will have a unity centered in Christ. And it is a witness. It is a light in a dark and dying world. Amen.
Let us pray. Great and merciful God, we thank you that you have saved us by your grace, that you have saved us individually, but we also thank you that you have brought us together. That we have unity because we look to you as the sole source of our salvation. We pray that we would love one another as you have called us to do. We pray that we would treasure the fact that we are the people of God in Christ Jesus. May we serve you and serve one another to your glory as a witness in a world of division. It's in the name of Jesus that we pray. Amen.
Thank you for joining us for this week's sermon. For more information about First Reformed Church, head to our Facebook page or website edgertonfrc.org.
Key Themes:
God’s people are chosen by grace, not by merit.
Covenant love produces obedience as its fruit, not its condition.
Salvation brings us not only to Christ, but into community with His people.
The new covenant unites believers from every nation in Christ.
Belonging to God’s covenant family is more secure than any earthly membership.
Scripture: Deuteronomy 7:6–9; Hebrews 8:6–13
