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COVENANT FAITH
Faith That Is Fully Persuaded
FOUNDATION STATEMENT: As believers if we are ever going to see God's Word come to pass in our lives, then we must come to a place of being fully persuaded in faith. Faith that is fully persuaded is the only kind of faith that will produce results.
Foundation Scripture: Romans 4:16-22
I. People who waver and are double minded do not receive anything from God (James 1:4-8)
A. Fully persuaded faith doesn't waver, doubt, or second guess and it is the only kind of faith that will produce victory in your life
1. A double minded person who wavers will not receive anything from the Lord
B. As a believer you must become fully persuaded if you're ever going to receive anything from God
C. What I'm trying to figure out is how a man continues to expect that what God's Word says is coming to pass when there's no human reason to think that Word is coming to pass.
II. Understanding covenant is the basis and foundation to walking in faith that is fully persuaded (Genesis 15:1)
A. God's way of getting Abraham to a place of knowing for sure that what He promised him was coming to pass was to cut covenant with Abraham.
1. When Abraham asked, "How do I know that I'm going to inherit the promise? What's my guarantee? God's response was let's cut a covenant.
B. God cut a blood covenant with Abraham. A blood covenant agreement is the most serious covenant that a person can enter into and the only way out of that covenant is death
1. A blood covenant is not something that is entered into lightly
a. A blood covenant demands absolute, unwavering loyalty
b. A blood covenant is a lifelong contract that there is no way out of, but by death
c. A blood covenant is forever no matter what
d. A blood covenant is an agreement so powerful that it effects your spirit, soul, and body
2. A blood covenant is the total giving of oneself to another
a. The more civilized we've become the further away from covenant we've gotten. We've whittled it down to a piece of paper with ink that is subject to circumstances, situations, and the feelings of one who signed.
III. The Covenant Ceremony
A. Each man takes off his coat and gives it to the other saying this coat stands for "who I am, what I am, and all that I am, I give myself to you" - My authority
1. The coat God hands to us is the Anointing
a. Galatians 3:27 - If you're born again you've put on the anointing
b. Romans 13:14 (AMP) - Put on and clothe yourself with the Lord Jesus Christ
c. Acts 2 - The Holy Spirit came in and sat on them
2. Romans 12:1-The coat we hand to God is our physical body
a. It is our reasonable service because we're in covenant with him
i. "Lord all that I am is yours. Take this body, live in it, work through it, use my hands as your hands, my feet as your feet, and my mouth as your mouth. With this body that I present to you, I'll go anywhere you want me to go, do anything you want me to do, and say anything you want me to say."
3. John 14:10-12 - Jesus presented his body to the Lord
a. John 8:28-29 - I only do what my Father tells me to do, I only go where my Father tells me to go, and I only say what my Father tells me to say
B. They take off each other's belt of weapons (girdle) saying, I'm giving you my strength. Your enemies are mine. Even if I die, I stand with you and lend you my sword.
1. Ephesians 6 - The armor of God
2. God has chosen sides and my enemies are his enemies
a. Romans 8 - If God be for me who dare be against me
b. Psalm 118 - The Lord is on my side, I will not fear; what can man do to me?
3. The weapons that we present to God
a. Our strength or effort or diligence
b. Our mouth (Proverbs 18:21)
C. The walk of blood - Walk through the path of blood between the halves, twice through, stopping together in the middle saying, "Even as this animal has died, I will stand with you even in the midst of death. Standing in blood I make promises that I will never break."
1. Isaiah 41:10-14 - God holds our hand and walks up and down the way of the blood with us
2. Hebrews 13:5 - He will never leave us nor forsake us
3. When you are standing ankle deep in blood and you smell the warm blood and the guts, and you smell the digested hay in the bowels of a heifer you don't forget that very soon. The smell will be in your nostrils forever.
D. The promises are made by each one
1. 2 Peter 1:3 - The Bible is God speaking the covenant to you
2. My promise to God is to walk in love and do everything in my power to resist the curse, and walk in the fullness of the redemption that the new covenant offers, representing the covenant in everything that I do.
E. Each representative swears by God to keep his promises, making God the third party and witness to the covenant
1. Standing here in blood I swear by God to keep this covenant, making God the third party and the witness of the covenant that was made
2. Hebrews 6 - God swore by himself
F. The cutting of flesh
1. The wrist or hand was cut and the life blood of the family is being shed
a. The flesh that was cut was Jesus' back, his brow, his feet, and his hands
G. The hand is lifted as the oath is sworn, with blood running down the arm, to keep the terms of the covenant "so help me God!" and the blood is mingled
1. Genesis 14 - I lift my hand unto God
a. When Abraham saw the High Priest with the bread and wine, he knew those were covenant elements and that's why he said I lift up my hand unto God, telling that king I'm in covenant with God, not you
2. You lift your hand to God acknowledging your covenant with Him
a. When you lift up your hands, you're acknowledging your covenant with God and that gives him praise - I'm in covenant with God and he's my daddy. Isn't He something?
3. Isaiah 43:10 - God lifts His hand to you
H. The seal of the covenant. The scar will never go away.
1. John 20 - The holes are still in Jesus' hands and the stripes are still on his back
a. It is the sign that we are absolutely one
2. Romans 2:29 - There's a cut across your spirit that every demon in hell recognizes
a. Hebrews 4:12
I. The name change. The testimony forever - we are one family, our names are one.
1. God became the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob
2. Acts 3:1 - It wasn't done in the name of the Apostle Peter, it was done in the Name of Jesus
a. Acts 4:7 - Name represents power
3. Philippians 2:9-11
4. Ephesians 3:15
J. We have become friends. To be a friend, a covenant must have been made
1. Proverbs 18:24 - There is a friend that sticks closer than a brother
a. 2 Chronicles 20:7, Isaiah 41:8, James 2:23 - Abraham a Friend of God
b. Genesis 18 - Abraham stands before God over Sodom and Gomorrah
c. Exodus 32:11-14 - Moses for the people of Egypt
2. John 15:13-14 - No man hath greater love than to lay down his life for his friends
3. Remember I hold you in my mind (Psalm 103:4). I crown you. You are ever before me. I live in constant reality of the bond between us. It is as if I am, at this moment, standing in the blood swearing. "I am", never "I did" or "I will in the future", always now I am plotting and planning ways to bless you and surprise you as I keep the covenant terms. Knock, I'll open. Seek, you'll find. Ask and you'll receive NOW. [It however, must be received by faith because it is a benefit (Psalms 105:2-4).]
K. The covenant meal is the grand finale. The leaders are together.
1. The cup of wine they drank, saying, "Drink my life's blood as I drink your life's blood. I see you fulfilling all the terms of the covenant as I fulfill your life. This is the blood of my life. Drink my life. My life is now your life blood."
2. The piece of bread was fed saying, "Take me-all that I am. Eat of me, I am yours."
3. John 6:50-68 - You come into covenant with me and you'll have my life
L. God's answer to Abraham's question was you're going to know certainly because I'm going to make a blood covenant with you standing in blood swearing by myself that every promise that falls from my lips to you is coming to pass.
1. When you gain an understanding that God promised the New Covenant to you standing in the blood of Jesus, swearing by Himself that every one of those promises were true and so and for you, then your faith will reach the level of fully persuaded.
IV. To walk in fully persuaded covenant faith you have to be rooted in the truth that it is impossible for God to lie or break His covenant (Hebrews 6:11-19)
A. God will never break His covenant
1. Psalm 89:34
2. Matthew 24:35
3. Luke 16:17
B. God swore by Himself
1. God swore on His life that if one promise of that Word ever fell to the ground without coming to pass the way He said it would, then He would self destruct
C. When men come into a blood covenant that is the end of all discussion
1. After that covenant is made, men don't discuss the terms of that covenant anymore because it's already settled and there is nothing more discuss
2. Each one of them is going to do what that covenant says and if they don't they're going to die
D. God desired to show you the unchangeableness of His Word because he knew that a double minded man will receive nothing from Him
1. The covenant doesn't make it any more true, it was true when God said it
E. The two immutable things are the bread and the wine, the body and the blood
1. Once that covenant ceremony is finished then what you promised is the truth and if you make that promise a lie by not fulfilling it, then that's it for you
2. Hebrews 7:22 - Jesus is the surety of the New Covenant
a. His body and His blood were the end of all discussion where this Word is concerned
b. His body and His blood are the guarantee that every Word in this Covenant is true and so and coming to pass in your life
3. God can't lie because the body has been pierced, the blood has been shed, the communion elements have been presented before the Father, and the covenant agreement has been sealed
F. Settle it where the Word of God is concerned
1. There's no discussion about my prosperity. I don't care what my checking account says, what my salary says, what my boss says, what my bills say. It's no longer up for discussion. I AM PROSPEROUS.
2. I don't care what has to happen for this (God's Word) to happen, but whatever has to happen has to happen because I've got a covenant with almighty God
3. The beginning of God's Word is where the discussion about that Word in my life ended
G. That hope is the anchor for my soul
1. The fight of faith takes place in the mind, the will, and the emotions
2. That expectation is rooted in the fact that God can't lie, and it anchors my soul
V. Covenant faith in action
A. Abraham (Romans 4:16-21)
1. With no natural reason to expect that what God said was ever going to come to pass, Abraham expected in faith with a white-hot, neck stretched-out expectation
a. What drives a man to keep expecting that God's Word is true when everything around him is saying that it's not? IT'S THAT BLOOD COVENANT
2. He was so conscious of His covenant that he didn't even consider their age or their bodies
a. It wasn't that he didn't just consider it, he didn't care
b. The covenant that he cut with God said that he was the father of many nations so that was the end of all discussions
3. He didn't waver or doubt the promise of God
a. He gave glory to God like it was already done because to him it was
4. He was fully persuaded that what God promised was his
a. The smell of the blood of that heifer and the digested hay in her bowels was flowing through his nostrils. He could still feel the warmth of the blood that ran up to his ankles and between his toes. That light walking down the way of the blood replays in his mind over and over again. And God's foot prints in that blood has been tattooed in his thinking. The words of that promise rang in his ears over and over so loudly that those old bodies and that dead womb had no effect on him, "I am El Shaddi, the Almighty God. I will make covenant with you, and multiply you exceedingly. I have made you the father of many nations. I will make you exceedingly fruitful. I will make of thee a great nation, I will bless you and make your name great; and you will be a blessing. I will bless them that bless you and curse them that curse you; and in you all the families of the Earth shall be blessed."
b. HE WAS TOTALLY CONVINCED!!!
5. Abraham wasn't holding fast to his feelings, he was calling those things that be not as though they were
B. David (Psalm 23:6, 1 Samuel 17:36-37,45-46)
1. David's out there running from Saul and his army and they are trying to kill him. David's in a desert land that is parched running for his life.
a. These words come pouring from his spirit. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life.
2. Who is this uncircumcised Philistine
a. He WILL be like one of them
b. This day WILL the Lord deliver you into my hand
C. Three Hebrews (Daniel 3:17)
1. He is able and He WILL
VI. Covenant faith is faith that is fully persuaded and totally convinced that God's Word is coming to pass.
A. People who walk in covenant faith are possessed with the promise
1. Covenant faith is faith that says, "God can't lie and I don't care if all hell breaks loose and the world around me falls to pieces what God said to me is coming to pass."
2. Covenant faith people aren't moved by "impossible situations."
B. Covenant faith is faith that doesn't waver, flinch, or bat an eye in face of test, trial, or tribulation.
1. Covenant faith will take the blink out of your eye and the hesitation out of your step
C. Covenant faith doesn't struggle to believe, it just believes
1. Faith will get to a place where it doesn't even know it's faith
D. Understanding covenant will take the second-guessing, hesitating, wavering-faith, out of your life
1. Covenant faith people are people are single-minded, unwavering individuals
VII. You stand in faith with a consciousness of your covenant. Being fully persuaded, totally convinced, and sure beyond a shadow of a doubt in your faith doesn't come without a consciousness of covenant (Hebrews 10:17-23)
A. I can enter into the holiest boldly because my sins are not being remembered or held against me
1. I come right before God as though sin never existed
2. Romans 1:17 - Righteousness revealed will build and arouse faith in your heart
B. Entering in by the blood of the new covenant through Jesus' flesh that that blood poured out of
1. Walking down the pathway of blood
C. Full assurance of faith
1. A heart filled and possessed by faith
2. Not in full assurance of reasoning, feeling, and natural knowledge but in full assurance of faith
D. Covenant standing faith
1. Hold Fast (Katecho) - keep in memory, possess, retain, seize on, take
2. Without wavering
a. Without being moved by the circumstances and situations around you
3. I stand ankle deep in the blood of Jesus holding fast to my confession of faith because He is faithful to His Word and He cannot lie
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