Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

When was the last time you made a promise to someone?

I have to admit, I am often pretty hesitant to make promises.

I typically like to skirt around the guarantee language of “I promise to” ... do this or that.

Like I don’t say things like, “I promise I will be there on time” I say things more like “It is my plan to be there by that time”.

Do you know what I mean?

Because life is unpredictable so unless I am completely certain that nothing could get in my way I don’t want to promise anything.

/ˈpräməs/

noun

plural noun: promises

1.

a declaration or assurance that one will do a particular thing or that a particular thing will happen.

"what happened to all those firm promises of support?"synonyms:word (of honor), assurance, pledge, vow, guarantee, oath, bond, undertaking, agreement, commitment, contract, covenant"you broke your promise"Promises

“I will try to get that done”

“I am planning on it”

“That seems feasible to me”

but “I promise”? is not something that I am throwing around.

So I looked this word up in the dictionary and it said that a promise is “a declaration or assurance that one will do a particular thing or that a particular thing will happen.”

and then, as dictionaries often do, it gave an example of how to use the word in a sentence.

Listen to the examples that they chose: "What happened to all those firm promises of support?" and “You Broke your promise”.

In both cases they use negative examples to help us to understand he meaning of the word.

It is as if the writers of the dictionary know that we are more familiar with broken promises then we are with kept ones.

, where the promise wasn’t kept.

Even the dictionary recognize that the idea of a broken promises is easier to relate to than one being kept.

“a declaration or assurance that one will do a particular thing or that a particular thing will happen.”

and then, as dictionaries often do, it gave an example of how to use the word in a sentence.

Listen to the example that they chose: "What happened to all those firm promises of support?".

Even the dictionary recognize that the idea of a “Promise” is more commonly used

Then the dictionary goes on to describe synonyms or words that communicate similar or the same meaning as the word “Promise”.

Words like: giving your word (of honor), assurance, pledge, vow, guarantee, oath, bond, undertaking, agreement, commitment, contract, covenant".

We can see how these things are similar in meaning, but they don’t seem to us to be equal in weight, do they?

synonyms:word (of honor), assurance, pledge, vow, guarantee, oath, bond, undertaking, agreement, commitment, contract, covenant"you broke your promise"Promises

Let me show me what I mean.

What would you say if I asked you if you follow through on all your commitments?

Now What would you say if I asked if you always keep your promises?

There seems to be a difference in weight doesn’t there?

We often throw the idea of a promise into the light weight catagory where some of these other words carry a much higher weight with us.

Pinky Swear

Tension

The reason that this is important to us is that throughout the Bible, God has shown himself to be a promise maker and a promise keeper.

While you and I might have a hard time committing to something knowing that there are circumstances beyond our control that might keep us from following through on our promises, God is not burdened with this limitation.

He is always able to keep his promises.

That is why we cannot take out typical experience with the idea of a “Promise” and apply it to God, it is just not firm enough.

Tension

As we continue in our study in Genesis this morning we are going to encounter the promises of God to a man named Abram, and the reason that we must remember how God’s promises are firm promises that we can count on is that the promises that God made to Abraham here some 4,000 years ago are applicable all the way to us today.

Open your Bibles with me to Genesis Chapter 12, p. 8 in the Bibles in the chairs, I’ll pray, and we will learn about this ancient promise of God and how this promise made to one man, is something that we can even count on today.

Truth

When we began in the book if Genesis we said that it is broken up into two major sections.

We finished the first section, Primeval History two weeks ago and then we briefly looked at the question of suffering from book of Job last week.

When we began in the book if Genesis we said that it is broken up into two major sections.

We finished the first section, Primeval History two weeks ago and then we briefly looked at the question of suffering from book of Job last week.

A quick side note, because I forgot to mention this last week, we do have two new books on suffering in our library that could help if you want to go deeper on that subject - or if life is dragging you deeper into this subject...One new one from Ravi Zacharias and Vince Vitale called Why Suffering as you might imagine in comes from more of a philosophical perspective, and we have the brand new book from Paul David Tripp tittled simply Suffering which offers more of an interpersonal perspective.

If you are interested in those books I will put them back on the lending library shelf in the lobby.

We covered the suffering of Job last week because to the best of our knowledge it is dated during this second historical time frame called Patriarchal History, but the first 11 Chapters of Genesis are very zoomed out look at all the goings on the entire earth, Chapter 12 startes zooming in on one particular man and his family.

Next to Jesus, he is arguably the most important man in all of the Bible, particularly if we consider how much of the Bible is dedicated to his life and line.

All of this begins with God making a “promise” to this man, a man named Abraham.

In Hebrew this promise is called a “bur-eet” בְּרִית

berith (bur - eat) בְּרִית translated “covenant”

This word can refer to many of the synonyms of the word promise that we mentioned earlier.

In the Bible it is used to describe an agreement, a contract, a treaty, an alliance, a pact, but the word is most commonly translated “a covenant”.

There are basically three kinds of these covenants and the differences between them lie in the balance of power between the two parties and the expectation of benefits according to that balance.

The first kind is called a Parity Covenant.

This is a contract between 2 parties of somewhat equal standing and power.

This might be two people, two neighbors, husband and wife, or even two kingdoms where they see that they can mutually beneficial for us to formally come together clarify our relationship.

This is probably he most common kind of covenant through out the historical books of the Old Testament.

(, ; , )

Parity treaties - contract between 2 sides of somewhat equal social standing and power.

defines the relationship establishing a framework of clear expectations where both parties expect to mutually benefit from the arrangement (, ; , Samuel 20:8-16)

The second kind is called a Suzerainty Covenant - this is not a word we use very often, but it means that one of the two parties is the “suzerain” or dominant party.

The lesser party is not completely controlled by the dominant party, they have some level of freedom, but in the end the dominant party has more power and benefits the most from the agreement.

Secular Historians only recognize these first two categories, but for Christian theologians we need a third catagory because it is plain that when God’s declares a “Bur-eet” or promises it doesn’t fit neatly into either of these other two catagories.

to mankind do not fit in the first two.

It is not really a “Parity Covenant” because we could never claim that we are equal to God in power or that God benefits equally from any Covenant he makes with us.

Even if we did fully give ourselves to God, which we don’t, at the end of the transaction all God would have is us and we would get God.

There is no balance in that scale.

It is also not exactly a “Suzerianty Covenanty”, even thought some theologians would place it here.

The problem that I see though is that even though God is clearly dominant over us in power, we certainly seem to benefit more from the arrangement.

So we need a third catagory of this type of promise, rightly called a Divine Covenant.

In this covenant there is a dominant party - the Divine Creator and sustainer of all life - and yet anyone looking in on this would easily see that we end up with the greatest benefit.

What is interesting though, is that God does not seem to see it this way.

That is hard to wrap our minds around, but since this Divine Covenant provides a way for God to regain his prized creation, mankind, it actually adds to His glory.

In that way, and argument could be made that God sees his promise as benefiting Him even more than us.

He redeems us, or buys us back, ultimately for His glory, but it ends up being to our great benefit.

So if you think about it, we might call the Divine Covenant the perfect “Win-Win” scenario.

So lets take a look together at this Covenant that God made with Abraham.

Our first point this week is that....

three times in which God declares and then affirms this Divine Covenant with Abraham, and specifically how this Covenant runs through all of time to where we are one who benefit from it even today.

Open your Bibles with me to Genesis Chapter 12, p. 8 in the Bibles in the chairs, an we will learn about the Divine Covenant and it’s impact on us today.

1. God’s Covenant People are established with Abraham ()

As we dive into Chapter 12, lets not forget that the stories that we have covered over the past several weeks have really been long interruptions from a detailed genealogy.

This genealogy ends up pointing us to one man.

This man’s name is Abram, but later God changes his name to Abraham as we know him today.

In this initial interaction, God will forever redirect Abrahams life:

Right away we see God’s intentionality and his intention.

7 times he promises by saying “I Will” and what is the essence of what he is going to do for and through Abraham?

“I Will Bless”.

After story after story of mankind diving deeper and deeper into the devestaion of their sin, God offers hope through this promise to Abraham.

First off he says repeatedly, “I Will” Remember when we talked about how promises are governed by the status of power held by the two parties involved and the benefits that come in relationship to the two parties.

We don’t find the word “bur-rit” here, but we can see how God is promising to do 7 things here.

God says “I will” seven times.

Lets first look at the intentionality in this promise.

Seven times the God of truth declares what “He Will” do.