This article gives some more insight about the covenant with God.

4 pages. Translated by Bram Vegter.

Getting on Board

Someone compared God’s covenant with a train. Once you have boarded the train, you can ride in it until the final stop. As long as you never step off the train. The examples that people come up with!

It seems so simple, just a comparison to make something clear. It has been used in quite a few sermons to bring the gospel message closer to the people. An example because everyone gets it, right? Yes, but it must be chosen carefully, or it will do more damage than good. Often it is the examples that hang in there and start to lead their own life. Take that train for example. I understand the purpose, namely that God brings you from his promise to the fulfillment of his promise. He takes you in his arms as a shepherd. He carries you like on the wings of an eagle. So if you think you must add to these images, for clarity’s sake, then you can make the comparison with the train: “please take a seat, your ticket has been paid, your destination is on the ticket”. Though the trustworthiness of rolling transit in today’s world is clearly less that that of the shepherd in Bible times. So the eagle becomes a train. Everyone gets that. There is only the question: is this now a pure picture of God’s covenant with us? Can you compare this covenant (your part of it) with a place where you are seated? Where subsequently you only have to look out of the window? While only one thing is on your mind: do not step off the train, not ever!

Not Stepping Off?🔗

Now the train does not really bother me that much. But what touches me is the negatively stated warning, which makes all the difference apparently: “watch that you do not step off the train!”

Is our covenant with God like this, that we are in it, as long as we do not step out of it?

Yes, there is an important element of truth in there. It is something good that we cannot give up, that our small children from the very beginning completely belong to God. Our children are his children, we promise to teach them that and to let them experience that in everything, in church and at home. They are already in the covenant before they consciously have “boarded”, so they can indeed only still step off (the train, later), but they should not do that.

But in the aforementioned train not only newborn babies are travelling. There are also the preschoolers, the young boys and girls, the adolescents, the young adults, the career makers, the married couples, the fathers and mothers, the sick and the healthy, the rich and the poor and you name it. What happens to them when they specifically hear in their life what they should not be doing? What kind of impression does this create of God? What kind of climate does this produce in church?

Why does this touch me? I think it is because I recognize it. There is indeed a manner of speech among us, which is mainly negative. Well intended, I do not doubt that. But yet in such a way that every time what is wrong or what can go wrong is accentuated, along with what is no good or not quite good enough, what is not allowed, what can not be done in worship services and what people do not want to experience. If all of that indeed is not happening, then nothing is the matter, no one will walk away angry then and we receive no letters at church council. Then all is in order! For then no one steps off! Then we have (finally) peace in church.

I just write this down as it can perhaps go. Maybe somewhat exaggerated, but yet recognizable, I fear. In the hope, that all of us will react with: “but this cannot be true! This should not be so!”

Getting On Board🔗

For it is completely unthinkable that with this we do justice to God’s covenant with us.

What he means, asks for a positive climate in church. Not that we are constantly watching each other from the perspective of what is not allowed and how things should not be done, but that we reach one another with the question: “how can we do this properly? How do we love God above all else and our neighbour as ourselves?”

This touches on education, on the contacts between the generations in general, and on all mutual communication. What is it about when you speak and think? About what was not good and how it must not be done, or not done quite like that? Or is it about how someone can come closer to God, how you pray and sing (also with the children), how you cleanse your heart, focus your life, etc.?

That makes a world of difference! And if I am not mistaken, because of this there is a lot of misunderstanding in the train, and that is why many people are eager to hole up in their own compartment.

The warning “do not step off the train” has with this certainly not become superfluous. I can even add to it “do not hang out the window” and so. For there is a lot around us, that Jesus calls “dead”, as it has no contact anymore with God. Do not try to take that along, do not suck it in, and do not desire it.

But it cannot be that this is the tone of the Preacher. For you cannot (as it is called) step off, but the core question is this: “did you ever get on board?” To avoid mistakes is important, but it surely is not everything. The question is: “what are you doing, where is your focus, do you want to surrender your life to God, may he lead you and deploy you with a view to his coming kingdom?”

I continue to find it remarkable when I ask attention for this in the preaching, that as a comment you may hear that God’s covenant is getting too little attention. “What do you mean?” I ask then. Then it becomes clear that especially the negative approach is being missed. “Please clearly say Pastor, what we ought not to do!” Then people are satisfied. Then people have been properly told. The thunder-sermon, yes, that is what we are after.

Yes, is that true? Somehow that is also easy, if you permit me to say so. For the avoidance of evil is as message rather limited.

It is also not true that you are doing things right, when you do nothing wrong. I want to avoid that impression. That impression we should also avoid together. Like: “you are doing okay when I have no comments on what you do”. And subsequently there is nothing left to talk about, for all is fine, so to speak. No, it is about: “you are doing well, when you give your heart to God!”

That is what we really want to know from each other.

How do you do that, how do we help each other, how do we get in touch with each other in this? How do we bring the younger generation along? How do we help them to get on board?

Relationship🔗

It is true that those who are born into God’s covenant have from childhood a tremendous position: child of God, heir of his entire testament!

At the same time, it is also true that God’s covenant does not provide us with a seat, but a relationship.

You do not maintain a marriage by never saying bad things to each other. That is at best a condition, but not the content. When you say nothing to each other, you do not say anything bad either, but do you understand then what marriage is all about? No, you are not even getting close. On the other hand, if you know how to speak to each other’s heart, you can at times drop some words that are less flattering or upbuilding. A good relationship can weather some verbal bumps and bruises.

Also in the worship service, things can at times go a bit wrong. Actually, that is difficult to avoid as ever more people look after parts of the liturgy. (By the way, what is “wrong”?) But when together you focus your hearts on God, and you know that from each other, you listen, you pray, you sing, you give, then that is what it is all about. And everything that went a little differently is totally subservient to that; one should not really talk about that, any way, not in such a manner that it dominates things.

But it does not always go like that. It happens that after a rich and rewarding worship service, someone can only make a comment about that one moment that was different. Or that that comes back in a later conversation. “Other than that, the service was okay” they sometimes add then. “We do not have any comments on that.” No comments?! What did you with it? How were you present? How is it possible, when you meet with the God of heaven and earth, that your focus is now to nitpick on things? What is then actually the value of a worship service?

Is it a ritual that is only successful when done perfectly? Is that what you are watching for?

A Stepping Stone🔗

To do things faultless is impossible, not here on earth. Sometimes things go wrong, we can be mistaken, we can say something wrong, anything is possible. We can do our best to prevent it, which is fine. But do not let it become a goal in itself.

For what it is all about, is that God asks you for an answer from the heart and from your whole life. He gave you a tremendous position! Subsequently, his question to you is: what do you think of that? Are you getting on board now with your whole heart and all your strength?

You may grow in the answer to that question, from early childhood and onwards. It is wonderful when your parents guide you along in this! From them you notice that God is particularly important to them, and close to them. This is how you learn to pray, to trust, to speak and to sing. One day you find out that others are also praying for you. Not just your parents, but people in church are praying for you. There comes a time in your life, when you as adolescent find it easier to speak with others than with your own father and mother.

Beautiful that those people are there, and that they can give you the space to make your own discoveries. (Then sometimes things do not go quite right, but they stay with you.)

It is important when you are asked to do something in church that you find the confidence for that. (That does not go well right away, but that does not matter.) You taste the safety in God’s covenant, you do not have to be able to do everything right away, but you totally belong! (You learn from that.)

That is how someone steps on board: with a stepping stone, on which we can work together!

This is how you honour the fact that the child belongs, right from childhood: he or she does not have to earn their place among us, they get their place from God himself.

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