Episodes
Sunday Mar 21, 2021
Sunday Mar 21, 2021
Jesus Resurrection Completes God’s New Covenant Providing His Personal Relationship with Jesus Followers; However, If Jesus Is Not in Your Life, There Is a Blot Between You and God
MESSAGE SUMMARY:
How Does God Say He Loves You: Part 5 The New Covenant
There is a difference in knowing about someone and really knowing someone. Our New Covenant with God, through Jesus, gives you and I the ability to Know God in a Personal Way. This New Covenant was fulfilled in Jesus the Christ, as Jesus tells us in Luke 22:19-20: “And he took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to them, saying, ‘This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.’ And likewise the cup after they had eaten, saying, ‘This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood.’”.
Throughout human history, God has reached out to humans for a personal relationship and to express His love for humankind. We have a God that loves us so much, and God’s love for us is expressed to us through His “covenants”. Also, God’s “covenants” reveal to us His grace and faithfulness. In today’s message, we will discuss God’s New Covenant with us. A “covenant” can be defined as an “oath or promise of God”. In a Biblical covenant: 1) God establishes the Covenant; 2) God always implies that “I am your God, and you are my people” – God desires a personal relationship with us; and 3) God sets the Covenant’s terms and rulers.
In the Book of the Covenant (Exodus 20 through 23 and Deuteronomy), the people made a Blood Covenant with God – the people promised God all that the God has said we will do. Therefore, the people would receive blessings or curses based upon what they did. However, the people always seemed to gravitate toward evil – doing what was wrong in the Lord’s sight. With the people’s sin, the kingdom was split into the “Northern Kingdom (Israel)” and the “Southern Kingdom (Judah)”; and still the people inclined their hearts and behaviors toward evil. Again, God responded by destroying Jerusalem and the Temple and exiling the people to Babylon because they broke their Covenant with Him.
However, in Jeremiah 31:31-34, God declared that that he would make a New Covenant: “Behold, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the LORD. But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the LORD: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the LORD. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.”. This New Covenant that God promised applies to us as well as the people of Jesus’ time. The New Covenant is not focused on The Law but on “Knowing God” and having a personal relationship with Him – we are all equal now before God.
With this New Covenant, the Apostle John tells us of God’s love and God’s desire for intimacy with us in 1 John 2:1-2: “My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world.". We have this New Covenant because God does for us what we cannot do for ourselves.
God desires a personal relationship with each of us, and God has given us His New Covenants upon which to build our relationship with Him. Have you asked Jesus into your life so that your sin is atoned? If not, then there is a blot between you and God. Remember, the God who made Covenant with Moses is Jesus of our Trinitarian God.
TODAY’S AFFIRMATION: Today, I affirm that because of what God has done for me in His Son, Jesus, I AM RIGHTEOUS IN GOD’S EYES. God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God. (2 Corinthians 5:21).
SCRIPTURE REFERENCE (ESV): John 4:26; Luke 22:19-20; Jeremiah 31:31-34; 1 Peter 2:9; 1 John 2:1-2
A WORD FROM THE LORD WEBSITE: www.AWFTL.org.
WEBSITE LINK TO DR. BEACH’S SERMON VIDEO – “We All Need “Hope” in Today’s World of Fear, Doubt in Our Faith, and Feelings of “Hopelessness”; and God Is this “Hope””: www.AWFTL.org/watch A WORD FROM THE LORD WEBSITE: www.AWFTL.org.
DONATE TO AWFTL: https://mygiving.secure.force.com/GXDonateNow?id=a0Ui000000DglsqEAB
Sunday Mar 14, 2021
Sunday Mar 14, 2021
Rejecting God’s Covenant Will, Eventually, Lead People to a Place of Stubbornness, Hardness of Heart, and Their Destruction
Message Summary:
How Does God Say I Love You, Part 4: Violation of the Covenant
Throughout human history, God has reached out to humans for a personal relationship and to express His love for humankind. We have a God that loves us so much, and God’s love for us is expressed to us through His “covenants”. Also, God’s “covenants” reveal to us His Grace and faithfulness. In today’s message, we will discuss God’s Covenant with Moses, which was God’s covenant with His people long after the death of Moses and into the time of King Zedekiah. A “covenant” can be defined as an “oath or promise of God”. In a Biblical Covenant: 1) God establishes the Covenant; 2) God always implies that “I am your God, and you are my people” – God desires a personal relationship with us; and 3) God sets the Covenant’s terms and rulers.
We begin by looking at Israel’s current king in 2 Chronicles 36, King Zedekiah, who was successor descendant of King David and a Godly father, King Josiah. We need to remember that King David had built the kingdom and the nation of Israel into a great nation through a foundation of a commitment to God and the Moses Covenant God had given to His people – King David made God His priority, and David made God’s priorities his priorities. God is interested in those who seek first His kingdom. Also, from King David’s life, we know that God expects one who sins to repent and return to Him. David’s son, Solomon, tells us to “fear God and keep His commandments”.
After King Solomon, God’s people experienced a series of Kings – some who kept God’s Covenant and some who did not keep God’s Covenant. Subsequently, David’s single Kingdom, that brought together the Twelve Tribes, is divided into the Northern Kingdom of Israel and the Southern Kingdom of Judah. King Zedekiah is in deep trouble and in an impossible situation with Babylon laying siege to Jerusalem. Rather than calling on God for help, King Zedekiah sends an envoy to Egypt. Zedekiah has rejected God and God’s Covenant (2 Chronicles 36:12-14): “He did what was evil in the sight of the LORD his God. He did not humble himself before Jeremiah the prophet, who spoke from the mouth of the LORD. He also rebelled against King Nebuchadnezzar, who had made him swear by God. He stiffened his neck and hardened his heart against turning to the LORD, the God of Israel. All the officers of the priests and the people likewise were exceedingly unfaithful, following all the abominations of the nations. And they polluted the house of the LORD that he had made holy in Jerusalem.". In desperation, King Zedekiah now appeals to the Prophet Jeremiah for a miracle from God, whom he had rejected, to save his kingdom from the attack by Babylon’s King Nebuchadnezzar (Jerimiah 21). God answers Zedekiah’s plea for salvation through Jerimiah in Jerimiah 21:5-7: “’I {God} myself will fight against you with outstretched hand and strong arm, in anger and in fury and in great wrath. And I{God} will strike down the inhabitants of this city, both man and beast. They shall die of a great pestilence. Afterward’, declares the LORD, ‘I will give Zedekiah king of Judah and his servants and the people in this city who survive the pestilence, sword, and famine into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon and into the hand of their enemies, into the hand of those who seek their lives.’".
Our God is a Covenant God, and He keeps His Covenants. When the people of God obey their Covenant with God they are blessed; but when they disobey, they are cursed – just like the people under King Zedekiah.
The significance of the Scripture from 2 Chronicles 36 and Jerimiah 21 for us today: 1) God is a Covenant God; 2) as recipients of the New Covenant through Jesus, we are assured of God’s forgiveness; 3) rejecting the Covenant and the God of the Covenant will eventually lead us to a place of stubbornness, hardness of heart, and then to our destruction; 4) God will try again and again to draw us back to Himself, but if we are hardened, we don’t hear God; and 5) our relationship with God is based solely on our relationship with God and not God’s relationship with others – King Zedekiah’s father was a Godly man who did great things for his people, but Zedekiah’s unfaithful relationship with God and God’s Covenant brought destruction to King Zedekiah, his kingdom, and his people.
God desires a personal relationship with each of us, and God has given us His Covenants upon which to build our relationship with Him. Have you asked Jesus into your life so that your sin is atoned? If not, then there is a blot between you and God. Remember, the God who made Covenant with Moses is Jesus of our Trinitarian God.
Today’s Affirmation: Today, I affirm that because of what God has done for me in His Son, Jesus, I AM FILLED WITH THE HOLY SPIRIT. If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him! (Luke 11:13).
Scripture Reference (ESV): 2 Chronicles 36:11-23; Jerimiah 21:1-10; Hebrews 3:12-15; Psalms 49:1-20.
WEBSITE LINK TO DR. BEACH’S SERMON VIDEO – “Jesus the Christ Is Our Hope in Life and Death and He Is “Hope” for the Wave of Loneliness and Uncertainty Sweeping Our World Today”: www.AWFTL.org/watch
A WORD FROM THE LORD WEBSITE: www.AWFTL.org.
DONATE TO AWFTL: https://mygiving.secure.force.com/GXDonateNow?id=a0Ui000000DglsqEAB
Sunday Mar 07, 2021
Sunday Mar 07, 2021
God’s Covenant with Moses Is His Perfect Agape Love that Provided the “Ten Commandments” which Show Us What Sin Is
MESSAGE SUMMARY:
How God Says He Loves Us: Part 3 -- The Covenant with Moses
Throughout human history, God has reached out to humans for a personal relationship and to express His love for humankind. We have a God that loves us so much, and God’s love for us is expressed to us through His “covenants”. Also, God’s “covenants” reveal to us His grace and faithfulness. In today’s message, we will discuss God’s Covenant with Moses. A “covenant” can be defined as an “oath or promise of God”. In a Biblical covenant: 1) God establishes the Covenant; 2) God always implies that “I am your God, and you are my people” – God desires a personal relationship with us; and 3) God sets the Covenant’s terms and rulers.
After God’s Covenant with Abraham, his son Isaac became the recipient of God’s blessings. Subsequently, Isaac had two sons. One of Isaac’s sons was Jacob, and God changed Jacobs name to Israel. Jacob had twelve sons, and they evolved into the “Twelve Tribes of Israel”. In Genesis 37, the focus begins upon Isaac’s son Joseph; and Genesis ends, in Genesis 50, with Joseph’s death in Egypt.
In Exodus 1, two hundred and fifty years have passed since the death of Joseph. During this time, God’s people and the people of Egypt forgot about Joseph. God’s people became fruitful and multiplied, but they forgot about God and God’s Covenant with Abraham; and the people began to worship idols. Exodus 2 presents the birth of Moses., and Exodus 3 includes God’s call to Moses and God’s appearance to Moses through the burning bush. Since God had a blood covenant with His people, He sent Moses to tell Pharaoh to let His people leave Egypt. Pharaoh said “no”, so God sent nine plagues on the people of Egypt – nine chances for their Repentance. Since Pharaoh continued to say “no”, God sent the tenth plague on the people of Egypt – a plague of Judgement on the people of Egypt. After the Passover for His people in the Plague of Judgement, Pharaoh relented and let God’s people leave Egypt.
In Exodus 19, God’s people wound up on Mount Sini, and God made the “Sini Covenant” with Moses in Exodus 19:4-6: “You yourselves have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles' wings and brought you to myself. Now therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession among all peoples, for all the earth is mine; and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.”. In prior covenants, God did everything; but in this “Sini Covenant”, the people had obligations. God gives His Law, the Ten Commandments, to His people as God speaks directly to them in Exodus 20. The Glory of God, when He was speaking directly to His people, was too much for the people; and they feared a direct personal relationship with God, and they wanted Moses or an intermediary to speak to them for God – they rejected a personal relationship with God just has humans have been doing ever since.
In Exodus 21, Exodus 22, and Exodus 23 (“The Book of the Covenant”), God takes His Ten Commandments, and He applies the Ten Commandments to our everyday living. In Exodus 24:3,7-8, Moses takes God’s Book of the Covenant to the people: “Moses came and told the people all the words of the LORD and all the rules. And all the people answered with one voice and said, ‘All the words that the LORD has spoken we will do.’ Then he took the Book of the Covenant and read it in the hearing of the people. And they said, ‘All that the LORD has spoken we will do, and we will be obedient.’ And Moses took the blood and threw it on the people and said, ‘Behold the blood of the covenant that the LORD has made with you in accordance with all these words.’”.
Deuteronomy 28 presents the “blessings” for the people if they adhere to their promises to God in the “Book of the Covenant”. On the other hand, Deuteronomy 28 lays out the “curses” for non-adherence to the Covenant. Within six weeks, God’s people, who had said “All the words that the LORD has spoken we will do”, had disobeyed and broken their Covenant with God. The disobedience of God’s people is significant to us today because “it shows us what sin is”. “God is unconditional love” (1 John 4:16); and in this Covenant, God made plain to all of us “what sin is”. “We are made by God to be perfect mirrors of God’s Agape love.” Our sin is our failure to act as the God of Agape love acts. Sin is our self-centeredness. “The opposite of love is not hate; sin is me.” The Ten Commandments are not negative; they are God’s Agape love because they show us what a life of love and without sin and death does not include. Jesus tells us the most important Commandment in Mark 12:28-30: “’. . . Which commandment is the most important of all?’ Jesus answered, ‘The most important is, ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.’”.
The people of Israel continued to mess up and sin, but they continued to sacrifice a lamb for their sin thinking that their sacrifice brought their lives of sin back into adherence with their Covenant. However, in both God’s impatience with our sin and in His Agape love and His adherence to this Covenant, God sent the perfect Lamb as His and our sacrifice for our sin – Jesus the Christ. This old Covenant with Moses points to God’s New Covenant – Jesus’ death on the cross and His Resurrection.
Have you asked Jesus into your life so that your sin is atoned? If not, then there is a blot between you and God. Remember, the God who made Covenant with Moses is Jesus of our Trinitarian God.
TODAY’S AFFIRMATION: Today, I affirm that because of what God has done for me in His Son, Jesus, I AM FORGIVEN. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. (1 John 1:9).
SCRIPTURE REFERENCE (ESV): Genesis 3:15; Genesis 37:1-36; Genesis 39:1-23; Genesis 41:1-57; Genesis 42:1-38; Genesis 43:1-34; Genesis 44:1-34; Genesis 45:1-28; Genesis 46:1-34; Genesis 47:1-31; Genesis 50:1-26; Exodus 1:1-22; Exodus 2:1-25; Exodus 3:1-22; Exodus 19:3-11; Exodus 24:1-18; Deuteronomy 28:1-68; 1 John 4:16; Mark 12:29-30.
WEBSITE LINK TO DR. BEACH’S SERMON VIDEO – “Jesus the Christ Is Our Hope in Life and Death and He Is “Hope” for the Wave of Loneliness and Uncertainty Sweeping Our World Today”: www.AWFTL.org/watch
A WORD FROM THE LORD WEBSITE: www.AWFTL.org.
DONATE TO AWFTL: https://mygiving.secure.force.com/GXDonateNow?id=a0Ui000000DglsqEAB
Sunday Feb 28, 2021
Sunday Feb 28, 2021
God’s Covenant with Abraham Expressed God’s Love Then and Now “so that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles {us}”
MESSAGE SUMMARY:
How God Says He Loves Us: Part 2 -- The Covenant with Abraham
Throughout human history, God has reached out to humans for a personal relationship and to express His love for humankind. We have a God that loves us so much, and God’s love for us is expressed to us through His “covenants”. Also, God’s “covenants” reveal to us His grace and faithfulness. In today’s message, we will discuss God’s Covenant with Abram and Abraham. A “covenant” can be defined as an “oath or promise of God”. In a Biblical covenant: 1) God establishes the Covenant; 2) God always implies that “I am your God, and you are my people” – God desires a personal relationship with us; and 3) God sets the covenant’s terms and rulers.
In Genesis 12:1-5, God presents His promise to Abram: “Now the LORD said to Abram, ‘Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you. And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.’ So Abram went, as the LORD had told him, and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed from Haran.".
In Genesis 15:18, God makes a covenant with Abram: “On that day the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying, ‘To your offspring I give his land . . .’”. In Genesis 17:4-5, God makes another covenant with Abram changing Abram’s name to Abraham: “Behold, my covenant is with you, and you shall be the father of a multitude of nations. No longer shall your name be called Abram, but your name shall be Abraham, for I have made you the father of a multitude of nations.". in Genesis 21-1-4, Abraham’s son through Sarah, that God had promised Abraham, is born: “The LORD visited Sarah as he had said, and the LORD did to Sarah as he had promised. And Sarah conceived and bore Abraham a son in his old age at the time of which God had spoken to him. Abraham called the name of his son who was born to him, whom Sarah bore him, Isaac. And Abraham circumcised his son Isaac when he was eight days old, as God had commanded him.”.
In Genesis 22:1-18, the final part of God’s covenant with Abraham is found when God provided the blood sacrifice of the lamb that sealed His covenant with Abraham: “And the angel of the LORD called to Abraham a second time from heaven and said, ‘By myself I have sworn, declares the LORD, because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your only son, I will surely bless you, and I will surely multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven and as the sand that is on the seashore. And your offspring shall possess the gate of his enemies, and in your offspring shall all the nations of the earth be blessed, because you have obeyed my voice.’”.
The significance of God’s covenant with Abraham includes: 1) Abraham believed God and had faith, and because of Abraham’s faith God made Abraham righteous – foretells the significance of the Gospel because God’s covenant through Jesus for us is a covenant of faith; 2) God’s covenant with Abraham foreshadows His covenant through Jesus as the Messiah, the Christ – Isaac is the first legitimate son of Abraham, and Jesus is considered the last son through Abraham, Isaac voluntarily went to the alter and Jesus voluntarily went to the cross, Abraham offered his son as a sacrifice and God gave His Son as a sacrifice; 3) God’s covenant is still being fulfilled today – in a physical sense, the covenant is fulfilled through the Arabs and the Jews since both consider Abraham as their father and fulfilled in a spiritual sense through Jesus as Paul tells us in Galatians 3:14: “so that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we might receive the promised Spirit through faith.".
Remember, the “God” who made covenant with Abraham is Jesus.
TODAY’S AFFIRMATION: Today, I affirm that because of what God has done for me in His Son, Jesus, I AM A CHILD OF GOD. Yet to all who received Him, to those who believed in His Name, He gave the right to become children of God-- children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband's will, but born of God. (John 1:12f).
SCRIPTURE REFERENCE (ESV): Romans 10:9; Genesis 9:20-29; Genesis 3:15; Genesis 12:1-9; Genesis 15:1-27; 1 Peter 3:18-21; John 3:16-17; Hebrews 11:6; Galatians 3:7-9,14-16,29.
WEBSITE LINK TO DR. BEACH’S SERMON VIDEO – “Jesus the Christ Is Our Hope in Life and Death and He Is “Hope” for the Wave of Loneliness and Uncertainty Sweeping Our World Today”: www.AWFTL.org/watch
A WORD FROM THE LORD WEBSITE: www.AWFTL.org.
DONATE TO AWFTL: https://mygiving.secure.force.com/GXDonateNow?id=a0Ui000000DglsqEAB
Sunday Feb 21, 2021
Sunday Feb 21, 2021
God Does Not See Followers of Jesus in Our Sin; Rather, God Sees Us Through the Eternal (Like the “Rainbow”) “Justifying” Covenant Blood of Jesus
MESSAGE SUMMARY:
How God Says He Loves Us: Part 1 -- The Covenant with Noah
We have a God that loves us so much, and God’s love for us is expressed to us through His “covenants”. Also, God’s “covenants” reveal to us His grace and faithfulness. In today’s message, we will discuss God’s Covenant with Noah. A “covenant” can be defined as an “oath or promise of God”. In a Biblical covenant: 1) God establishes the Covenant; 2) God always implies that “I am your God, and you are my people” – God desires a personal relationship with us; and 3) God sets the covenant’s terms and rulers.
In Genesis 6:5-22, the corruption of humanity, through mankind’s sin after the Fall, became too much for God, and He became sorry that He made mankind. From Genesis, we know that God “grieved in His heart” because of human evil, corruption, and violence. However, Noah found favor in the eyes of God. Noah was righteous and blameless, and Noah “walked with God”.
After destroying all humans and all other inhabitants of the earth, except for Noah, his family, those animals that Noah collected for His arch, God “blessed Noah in Genesis 9:1-29; and God established His covenant with Noah in Genesis 9:9-1:10,11-13: “’Behold, I establish my covenant with you and your offspring after you, and with every living creature that is with you . . . that never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of the flood, and never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth.’ And God said, ‘This is the sign of the covenant that I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for all future generations: I have set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth.’". Therefore, this covenant is not only with Noah and all other living things on the earth; but God’s covenant with Noah is with us too! The “rain’bow’” is a sign of this covenant between Noah and all humanity; and this “rainbow” is, also, a sign of God’s love, grace, and mercy.
In 1 Peter 3:18-21, the Apostle Peter relates Jesus’ sacrificial death on the cross, which is redemptive covenant for our salvation, to God’s earlier covenant with Noah: “For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit, in which he went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison, because they formerly did not obey, when God's patience waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were brought safely through water. Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ . . .". In this text from 1 Peter, we learn that our “baptism” represents our Salvation through Jesus. Like Noah and his family, we have been saved “through the water” not “by the water”. Therefore, “baptism” is another covenant between God and all humanity, through God’s Grace, to save mankind from itself if we accept God’s Grace. God does not see us, now, in our sin like humanity’s evil of Noah’s time; rather, God sees us through the eternal (like the “rainbow”) “Justifying” covenant blood of Jesus.
TODAY’S AFFIRMATION: Today, I affirm that because of what God has done for me in His Son, Jesus, I AM RIGHTEOUS IN GOD’S EYES. God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God. (2 Corinthians 5:21).
SCRIPTURE REFERENCE (ESV): Genesis 6:5-22; Genesis 9:1-29; 1 Peter 3:18-21; Psalms 28:1-9.
WEBSITE LINK TO DR. BEACH’S SERMON VIDEO – “Jesus the Christ Is Our Hope in Life and Death and He Is “Hope” for the Wave of Loneliness and Uncertainty Sweeping Our World Today”: www.AWFTL.org/watch
A WORD FROM THE LORD WEBSITE: www.AWFTL.org.
DONATE TO AWFTL: https://mygiving.secure.force.com/GXDonateNow?id=a0Ui000000DglsqEAB