Creation – A Covenant

I establish my covenant with you: Never again will all life be destroyed by the waters of a flood; never again will there be a flood to destroy the earth. Genesis 9:11   

Churches have a strange habit of decorating their children’s spaces with images of Noah’s Ark. Sure, the animals are cute, and the boat is a fun idea. But if we were really to examine this story even a little bit closer, then we would realize that the story of Noah’s Ark is a better theme for a haunted house or scary movie. In the story, God sees that nearly every human was doing evil in the world. So, God decided to start over. God called on Noah to build a boat and gather animals so that he could flood all of creation and begin anew with his family. Noah’s Ark is more like an apocalyptic action thriller than a feel-good story about animals, and the 2014 movie entitled Noah, gets its atmosphere about right, even if the story is a bit off.

Today, I want us to focus on the word “covenant.” A covenant is a special type of promise between two people or groups of people. It’s sort of like a holy contract, and there are penalties for violating the covenant. In Genesis 9, God issues his first of several covenants. In the story, this covenant is sealed with a rainbow.

If you think about it, There are very few covenants that you will enter into in your lifetime. One might be marriage. Another might be going into ministry. But the most important covenant that you will enter into is through the profession of faith you make in Jesus Christ. God establishes several different kinds of covenants with the people of Israel, and we will see through the story of Scripture that they break every single covenant. In the same way, we will likely break our covenant with Jesus Christ at some point. But God never will.

God will never break the covenant with us, even when we break our covenant with God. Have you entered into a covenant with God, and if so, what is the state of that covenant today?