How easy is it to break a law? From going 1 mph over the limit to innocently forgetting a grocery item you forgot to pay for, all of which, intential or not, is breaking law.
Years ago, during a polygraph test for my Top Secret clearance, an FBI agent asked: "Have you ever stolen government property?" I said absolutely not. Wrong answer. He then asked me, "Have you ever kept a government pen or pencil?”. I froze. I'd never thought of that as stealing. But it was. I had taken something that didn't belong to me without even recognizing it as sin.
That's when I understood something crucial about sin. It's one thing to be unaware of what we're doing. It's another entirely to know it's wrong and do it anyway. And all of us—every single one of us in this room—we're guilty. Not just of big sins. Of small ones. Hidden ones.
Isaiah said it plainly: "Our righteousness is like filthy rags." Even the things we think are good fall short of God's holiness.
Let me ask you, when sin catches up with us, are we more sorry being caught than doing the act itself? If I'm not caught, I can lie. If I'm not caught, I can steal. If I'm not caught, I can have an affair. The whole logic of sin is built on the assumption that what matters is whether we get caught.
But Scripture tells us something different. Sin isn't primarily about getting caught. Sin is about breaking God's laws. And here's the terrifying part: we cannot hide from God.
Psalm 90:8 says: "You have set our iniquities before You, our secret sins in the light of Your presence." From the pen I took, the lie I told and speeding in the car, God sees it all. And that should terrify us.
THE PIVOT: GOD'S COVENANT. In Scripture we learn quickly, God sees everything. God knows our thoughts before we speak them. God is aware of our guilt. So what does He do? Does He expose us? Condemn us? Abandon us?
No. He makes a covenant with us.
But to understand what that means, we need to see what God's covenants actually look like. Because God has always been a God of covenants—binding commitments He makes to His people, sealed by His own faithfulness, not dependent on human performance. We are not loved by God with merit of our actions.
With Abraham, God said: "I will make you the father of many nations. I will be your God, and the God of your descendants after you." Abraham was seventy-five years old. Childless. His wife Sarah was barren. And God said: I will give you a son. I will multiply your descendants like the stars. I will be with you and your children forever. God didn't wait for Abraham to prove himself worthy. God made the promise first. God bound Himself.
And Abraham believed. Genesis 15:6 tells us: "Abram believed the LORD, and He credited it to him as righteousness." Abraham's faith didn't earn the covenant. The covenant created the faith. God's promise came first.
With Moses, God made a covenant at Sinai. The law was given—not to earn God's favor, but to show a people already loved by God how to live in relationship with Him. God had already rescued them from Egypt. He had already parted the Red Sea. He had already fed them in the wilderness. The covenant came after the rescue, not before it. God's faithfulness established the foundation. The law was the response.
With David, God promised: "Your house and your kingdom will endure forever before Me; your throne will be established forever." David was a shepherd boy. A nobody. And God said: I will make your name great. I will establish your dynasty forever. Again, God made the promise. God committed Himself to David's line, even knowing David would fail, even knowing his descendants would stumble. God's covenant didn't depend on David's perfection. God's covenant was the guarantee.
Over and over, throughout Scripture, God makes covenants—binding commitments He makes to His people, sealed by His own faithfulness, not dependent on human performance.
And here's the pattern: God's covenants never break. God keeps His promises even when we break ours.
WHAT THAT MEANS FOR YOU
And here's what that means in the real world: You can stop hiding. You can walk into this sanctuary and say plainly: "I am a sinner. I took the pen. I drove home without paying. I sped knowing better. I lied when no one was listening." And you don't have to be afraid. Because God already sees it. God already knows it. And God has already made a covenant with you that says: You belong to Me. Not because you earned it. Not because you deserve it. But because I keep My promises, and My promise is to love you, redeem you, and never let you go.
That's grace. That's what it means to be saved.
But we know what happens when humans make covenants. We break them. We fail. We leave.
There's a museum in Zagreb, Croatia, called the Museum of Failed Relationships. It holds over 1,000 objects from broken love: an axe used to splinter furniture piece by piece, a crushed lawn gnome hurled at a departing husband's car.
But the most devastating item is a wooden matchstick box. A man named Valdo made it for his wife Jelka on their wedding day—carved by hand, a labor of love that said: I promise you forever. I will love you. I will be faithful.
Eighteen years later, he left her for another woman. On their 25th anniversary, Jelka ordered a cake with "25" written on it, cut it in half, and sent him his portion. Their sons celebrated the anniversary with her first, then with him and his girlfriend.
The cake is gone. The marriage is gone. The promise carved into matchsticks is now just a relic—a witness to what was lost.
Jelka still has the box. She still has her two sons. But the covenant is broken.
GOD IS NOT LIKE VALDO
This is where we need to understand something foundational about God. God does not make promises He breaks. God does not carve a covenant into wood or stone and then walk away.
Listen to Isaiah 61:8: "For I, the LORD, love justice; I hate robbery in the burnt offering; And I will faithfully give them their recompense And make an everlasting covenant with them."
Notice that word: everlasting. Not temporary. Not conditional on whether we deserve it. Everlasting. The same word God used when He promised Abraham: "I will establish My covenant as an everlasting covenant between Me and you and your descendants after you" (Genesis 17:7).
God's justice is not delayed by forgetfulness. It is not subject to the mood He wakes up in. God's faithfulness means His justice is certain, reliable, and sure. We should not lose heart when justice seems slow. God's timing may differ from ours, but His faithfulness never fails.
And God's justice is joined to covenant grace. God does not merely judge; He redeems. He invites the oppressed into relationship with Himself, bound by a covenant that will never be broken—a covenant that stretches back to Abraham, to Moses, to David, and now to you.