Sermon Tone Analysis

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.