God's Promise

INTRO

I want to take a moment to introduce the theme of the weekend. I’ll read from . This passage is the foundation for this series.

(CSB) — For when God made a promise to Abraham, since he had no one greater to swear by, he swore by himself: I will indeed bless you, and I will greatly multiply you. And so, after waiting patiently, Abraham obtained the promise. For people swear by something greater than themselves, and for them a confirming oath ends every dispute. Because God wanted to show his unchangeable purpose even more clearly to the heirs of the promise, he guaranteed it with an oath, so that through two unchangeable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled for refuge might have strong encouragement to seize the hope set before us. We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure. It enters the inner sanctuary behind the curtain. Jesus has entered there on our behalf as a forerunner, because he has become a high priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek.

Now, I’m calling this series, Four Anchors for the Soul. And I think that title is a little odd based on this passage, because it’s clear that there is only one anchor and that anchor is Jesus. But, I chose four, because I see four facets of God’s work through Jesus that are evident in this passage. Today we are going to talk about God’s Promise. Then we will talk about God’s Charachter. I hope the centrality of Jesus will be evident in those. Then we will turn to look at the History of Jesus and then finally to the Hope of God in Christ Jesus, which is actually a discussion of the Old Testament charachter Melchizedek. You’re just going to have to wait until Sunday night, though, to see how that all fits together.

So, with that said, let’s pray and we will begin by talking about…

The Promise of God to Abraham

PRAY

The Promise to Abraham

The Promise to Abraham

God chase Abraham from the people of the earth to inherit a great gift. If you look at the grand narrative of the Bible, it begins in and ends in . In the beginning, God created all things and he placed Adam and Eve on the earth in the Kings Paradise and He charged them to multiply, fill the earth, and have dominion over it. Adam and Eve were to fill the earth with people and to rule over it. God chose the human race to be the agent and populous of His Kingdom.

When you get the the end of the story, after everything righteous under Jesus Christ has been redeemed and everything unrighteous has been abandoned to the abyss as an eternal resting place, there is a new heaven and a new earth. And the earth is filled with the children of Adam and Eve; it is filled with the people God chose to occupy and reign in His Kingdom for eternity.

But, we know something went awry in the middle of the story. There were some shenanigans and a few snafus—not in God’s plan, but in man’s execution of God’s purposes. Humans sinned in , angels sinned in , and everyone rejected God in . But, God wasn’t giving up on His plan just because of the arrogance of His created people. God was still going to build His Kingdom for His glory and He was still going to use humanity to do so.

So he called a man named Abram, who he would later rename Abraham, out of the region of Chaldea. God decided to use Abraham as the first of many men to execute His plan to build His Kingdom on the earth. He made Abraham a promise. Let’s read from Genesis 17,

(CSB) — When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the Lord appeared to him, saying, “I am God Almighty. Live in my presence and be blameless. I will set up my covenant between me and you, and I will multiply you greatly.” Then Abram fell facedown and God spoke with him: “As for me, here is my covenant with you: You will become the father of many nations. Your name will no longer be Abram; your name will be Abraham, for I will make you the father of many nations. I will make you extremely fruitful and will make nations and kings come from you. I will confirm my covenant that is between me and you and your future offspring throughout their generations. It is a permanent covenant to be your God and the God of your offspring after you. And to you and your future offspring I will give the land where you are residing—all the land of Canaan—as a permanent possession, and I will be their God.”

There is a two-fold promise here. First, the Lord said he would make Abraham extremely fruitful. That is to say, he will have tons of offspring—which if you know the story, is interesting because his wife was barren and here in this text Abraham is already 99 years old. But, nonetheless, the Lord God said he would father entire nations and that Kings we be born to Him. In , the Lord reiterates this promise saying,

(CSB) — I will indeed bless you and make your offspring as numerous as the stars of the sky and the sand on the seashore. Your offspring will possess the city gates of their enemies.

There will be so many of Abraham’s children that God alone could count them—as many as the stars in the sky or the sand on the seashore. But, not only that, the second half of the promise is that you Abraham would possess the gates of his enemies. Abraham was promised the land of Caanan. This was a land that was said to flow with milk and honey. It was a plentiful land, a land that could sustain multiple nations and countless people. Compared to any other land, this land was Paradise. And it was promised by the Lord to Abraham and his offspring.

As we read on in the story of Abraham we finally get to the nation of Israel and the story of Moses and the Exodus where Moses’s successor Joshua delivers Israel—Abraham’s offspring—into the Promised Land, the land of Caanan. And that is why the author of the letter to the Hebrews can say—our text for this message,

(CSB) — For when God made a promise to Abraham, since he had no one greater to swear by, he swore by himself: I will indeed bless you, and I will greatly multiply you. And so, after waiting patiently, Abraham obtained the promise.

Abraham obtained the promise. His offspring were greatly blessed and his offspring were multiplied greatly.

PAUSE

Promises are funny things though, because people don’t always keep promises. Promises are kind of meaningless among people. Not so with God, but still, God guaranteed His promise with an oath. So, let’s talk about…

The Guarantee of the Oath

An oath is like a vow and whenever I think of vows I think of weddings. When you are in a dating relationship, the relationship is based on, ‘I will love you if...’ Sort of the point of dating is to make sure you are with someone that you can remain committed to for life and to make sure that you are with someone who will remain committed to you for life. Dating is about making sure you both are ready for commitment. So, obviously a dating relationship is based on, ‘I will love you if...’ There’s no commitment yet.

One person cheats or one person gets too lazy or someone forms an addiction and you aren’t willing to bring that into your marriage, well then, it’s not the end of the world; you aren’t married yet. A dating relationship is, ‘I will love you if you are faithful,’ ‘I will love you if you work hard to develop our relationship,’ ‘I will love you if you take care of yourself and if you take care of me,’ and so on. And if, ‘if’ doesn’t fly, then you break off the relationship. There aren’t any vows yet.

But, then you get married and you take vows. And, ‘I will love you if...’ becomes, ‘I will love you even if...’ (Not everyone sees marriage this way, but this is biblical marriage, not cultural marriage.) When you get married you are deciding that you will remain committed to this person even if they do not meet every expectation you formed during the dating relationship.

When there is some kind of breach of trust during the dating relationship, you can just break it off. But, if there is a breach of trust during the marriage relationship you need to follow through with your commitments. To put this in the context of our discussion today, a dating relationship is, ‘I promise to love you if...’ And a marriage relationship is, ‘I swear to love even if...’

An oath or a vow is sworn on something greater than yourself. The idea is that you are appealing to a greater authority as a system of accountability to your oath. I hate when I hear someone say, ‘I swear to God,’ when they obviously have no idea what they are in fact saying. When you swear to God, you are appealing to the highest authority of accountability. When you say, ‘I swear to God,’ you are proclaiming, ‘May God hold me accountable to this vow.’ You may as well say, ‘May God strike me dead if I break this oath.’ And that is not usually what people mean when they say ‘I swear to God.’

And God is really the highest one to swear by. Notice what the author of Hebrews said about that.

(CSB) — For when God made a promise to Abraham, since he had no one greater to swear by, he swore by himself:

There is no one higher than God and since you have to swear by someone higher than yourself, the best God could do is swear by Himself.

But, why? Why do you swear an oath by someone or something greater?

For this reason,

(CSB) — For people swear by something greater than themselves, and for them a confirming oath ends every dispute.

We take oaths so flippantly today, but in the ancient world it was not so. A confirming oath ends disputes. It’s legally binding. If you were to say, ‘I swear on my own life,’ then the oath would be confirmed or denied, and if it is confirmed, then the oath would be legally binding. An oath is sworn for the transfer of land or other property and then one party tries to back out and it causes a dispute. Well, they can’t. The oath ends the dispute. It is legally binding.

So, let’s put this in the context of the promise to Abraham.

Isn’t a promise of God good enough? Isn’t God’s desire to bless Abraham and his descendants enough?

We want to say yes, but remember a promise is, ‘I will bless you if...’ So it says,

(CSB) — Because God wanted to show his unchangeable purpose even more clearly to the heirs of the promise, he guaranteed it with an oath.

In other words, God didn’t want Abraham to question His purposes. God didn’t want Abraham to be concerned that he might not earn God’s promises or that he might some how do something that would negate the promise of God. And we know from the stories of Abraham that he probably would have messed it up. If God’s promise were, ‘I will bless you if...’ Abraham would have messed it up. And so would I and so would you.

So, God said, no I don’t want there to be any question about my purposes so I will declare my purposes with an oath; I will guarantee this promise with an oath. And ‘I will bless you if…,’ became ‘I will bless you even if…’ So, then if Abraham lacked faith or Abraham did something stupid, he could still take solace. He knew that he had messed up, but he had not negated God’s purposes. God’s purposes would still come to pass and there was nothing that Abraham could do in ignorance or fallibility to stop God.

How’s that for an anchor?

I take a great deal of solace in this teaching, myself. I know that I do live as I ought to live and I do not pastor as I ought to pastor and I do not preach as I ought to preach and I do not parent as I ought to parent and I do not love my wife as I ought to love my wife—not all the time, at least, and never as perfectly as Jesus would. But, I don’t need to be concerned that somehow I might fail God.

Why?

Because God did not say, Anthony, ‘I will bless you if...’ The Lord God goes before me. He is building a Kingdom for His glory. He wants to use me, but He doesn’t need me. And there is nothing I can do in ignorance or fallibility to stop the purposes of God from coming about in this world. God has made a promise, but He has sealed it with an oath and His purposes will come to pass with or without me. That’s just the facts. There no dispute about it. He has guaranteed it with an oath.

The End of the Dispute

I want to make this real for us, though. This oath was not about Abraham having physical descendants in an earthly kingdom.

There is a promise made to Abraham, but more significant is…

The Promise for Us

The oath was never about the nation of Israel living in the land of Caanan. There’s something bigger and more significant. That’s why the author of Hebrews says,

(CSB) — Jesus has…become the guarantee of a better covenant.

Don’t get too hung up on the word covenant. The covenant is the stipulation of the oath. What is clear is that the oath made to Abraham and the covenant that was established by the oath are not as significant as the greater covenant that has been guaranteed through Christ. There is a new oath that comes with a better covenant. And thank God there is a better covenant, because from our place in history, the oath made to Abraham wasn’t all that great.

Think about it. It has already come to pass. We can see that. Abraham has countless physical offspring and those offspring, established in the nation of Israel, did get the promise of the covenant which was the physical land of Israel. And that’s all fine and good. But, honestly, Israel has not held onto their land very well and as I look at Israel today and all of the turmoil that they are in, I’m grateful that this is not the end-result God had in mind when he made this promise to Abraham. I’m grateful that there was another oath and a better covenant, a new covenant.

Now, I’m concerned that you might think that God failed with Israel or even that he failed with Adam and Eve in the garden. And this is some of the mystery of the will and purpose of God that is mentioned in numerous places in the scriptures, but look what the author of Hebrews says about God’s purposes.

(CSB) — Because God wanted to show his unchangeable purpose even more clearly to the heirs of the promise, he guaranteed it with an oath.

We will talk about this verse more in the next message, but I want you to see this part. God’s purposes are not just unchanging, but the author of Hebrews says they are unchangeable. That’s extremely specific language. It’s not just that God’s purposes happen not to change. It’s that God’s nature is so unwavering that His purposes are unable to change. His purpose in Adam has never changed. His purpose in Israel has never changed. And His purpose in His church today has never and will never change—His purpose in all things is absolutely unable to change and thus His promises to us are an anchor.

It doesn’t matter what happens in the world around us. It doesn’t matter what personal trials you go through. It doesn’t matter what lies of the devil are spoken to you, you as a Christian can look at those things and say, yeah, I see that, but God’s purpose for me and His church and all humanity are unable to change.

I’m preaching a bit ahead of my bigger point here, though. I want you to see the author of Hebrews analysis of the Old verses the New Covenant. He wrote,

Here’s the author of Hebrews analysis of the Old verses the New Covenant. He wrote,

(CSB) — By saying a new covenant, he has declared that the first is obsolete. And what is obsolete and growing old is about to pass away.

I can only read this one way. The old covenant, that is, the promise of countless physical descendants for Abraham, living in the land of Caanan, is obsolete. It has no purpose any more. It hasn’t changed. It’s just that it’s purpose was for a time. It had a purpose! But, it doesn’t have a purpose anymore. The promise of physical descendants of Abraham living in the land of Caanan is growing old and passing away, because there is a new covenant, a better covenant.

Now the New Covenant doesn’t negate the Old Covenant. The Old Covenant made with Abraham has already been fulfilled in promise. But, we have a New Covenant established on better promises. It’s not about the land of Israel and the people of Israel, but about something more, something greater.

In fact, the Author of Hebrews says regarding the Old Covenant,

(CSB) — Since the law has only a shadow of the good things to come, and not the reality itself of those things, it can never perfect the worshipers by the same sacrifices they continually offer year after year.

The implication is that the Old Covenant was only ever a shadow of the New Covenant. It was good, but it was a dim picture of the goodness of the New Covenant and as such the Old Covenant has no power to perfect the worshipers of the Old Covenant. But, notice the implications for us! If the Old is a shadow of the New, then we can be perfected under the New Covenant. We don’t offer sacrifices continually as in the Old, because the New has come and the once and for all sacrifice has been made by Jesus Christ.

Here’s how this all comes together. Under the Old Covenant, the promise was for an imperfect land. Under the New Covenant, the promise is for a perfect land. Under the Old Covenant, the promise was for an imperfect Kingdom. But, under the New Covenant, we are perfected and the Kingdom of God is present in us.

Any hobbiest gets how this works. Let’s say you are—idk—a guitar player. You buy a nice guitar and you’re super excited and you love to play it and all that. But, most guitar players, before they even have that brand new guitar in their hands, they have already picked out their next guitar. There is always a better guitar out there and they already have a dream for the better guitar.

If you’re a car guy, it’s the same way. You’re building your 1964 Impala, but you’ve already been on Craigslist looking at your next project.

Parents get this too. You buy your kid the greatest gift for Christmas or a Birthday. And you see how excited they are to receive it and so before the next holiday that roles around you are already dreaming of a better gift to give that kid to top the previous year. We love to see joy in the faces of our children and so we love to give good gifts like that.

And maybe that analogy hits the closest to home, because God is the greatest gift giver. He gave a great gift to Abraham when He multiplied His descendants and He brought them into the land of Caanan, the Promised Land.

PAUSE

But, listen, even when God stood with Abraham and directed his gaze to the heavens and implored him to count the stars, He was already thinking of a greater gift. When Abraham counted the stars he was thinking about his own physical offspring, but in God’s eyes, when Abraham counted the stars he counted you … and he counted me … and he counted every other devoted follower of the Lord God who has ever lived and will ever live.

So, that’s a lot of talk of covenant and oaths and promises.

God’s purposes are unchanging. Even then, thousands of years ago, the Lord saw you. Frankly, that thought should give you chills. The Apostle Paul tells us that…

(CSB) — He [God] chose us in him [Christ], before the foundation of the world, to be holy and blameless in love before him.

In , Paul says that God knew us—intimately, as a Father knows His sons and daughters—before creation even began and that at that time he decided that we would be molded into the perfect image of Jesus Christ.

(CSB) — For those he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, so that he would be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters.

How incredibly vast is the knowledge and wisdom of God, that He sees the ends from the beginning?

That should result in incredible peace to every believer. Nowhere in scripture are we called to live fearfully under religious law as if our lives our to be consumed with striving to take hold of something we cannot even grasp. And yet, if I’m honest, that is the default position of most of our hearts.

Whenever we fail, we wonder if we have fallen out of God’s graces.

This time, have I strayed too far? or have I strayed too long? This time, have I lost my grip on the promises of God?

And the author of Hebrews says, ‘No!’ The promises of scripture aren’t based on ‘if.’ It is not ‘if you obey...’ The promises of scripture aren’t even based on you at all. They are based on the obedience of Christ. He was obedient to death to pay for your disobedience. God sealed His promise with an oath and secured you as His child before the foundations of the world, because in His good purposes He planned to send Jesus to cover your sins, because He knew that you could never obey if you had to.

Under the New Covenant, the promise of God isn’t recieved ‘If you obey...’ It’s recieved, ‘Since Christ obeyed...’

Paul did not say that God chose you in your obedience; He said God chose you in Christ.

God did not look down the corridors of time and see this guy named Anthony Delgado and decided that he would choose me to be a part of His Kingdom because I was going to be such a beautiful Christian man. He looked down the corridors of time and saw that I was a wretched and hopeless sinner in need of a great a righteous savior and so he chose me in Christ.

Listen, too many Christians, maybe some of you, are wavering in your faith because you just can’t understand why God would want someone like you. Maybe your life has been so disproportionately immoral and you’re trying real hard to be good now, but you just can’t see how God would forgive all that stuff. And you’re wavering in your faith because you just aren’t sure you’re good enough now to make it into God’s Kingdom. And as you get older that becomes a greater source of fear and anxiety in your life.

Well, listen, God didn’t choose you because of your righteousness. God chose you because it pleases God to rescue sinners. He called you, He rescued you, He promised you eternity in His Kingdom, He swore an oath, and He guaranteed it with the New Covenant. If you follow Jesus Christ as Lord and savior, He will never leave you or forsake you, you belong to King Jesus and He will not go back on His unchangeable purposes. The promise offered in Jesus Christ is your anchor and you have nothing to fear in life or death.

That’s your first anchor for this weekend: God’s Promise. Let me pray for you that you might be strengthened in faith under your conviction that God has called you His own.

PRAY