Promises, Promises

SERMON: 2015-12-20--mt0115--promises-promises-part-1 SOURCE DURATION: 00:44:26.000 PROPOSED CUTS: 1 CONFIDENCE: 0.98 APPROVED: false REASON: The material flows continuously from theological exposition (candidates 7-14) into a final pastoral application and conclusion (candidate 15). Since there is no clear transition to non-sermon material (music, hymn, announcement), the last candidate must be selected as it represents the end of the sermon content. ACOUSTIC EVIDENCE: available ACOUSTIC MUSIC INTERVALS: none ACOUSTIC SPEECH OVERLAP: no ACOUSTIC BOUNDARIES APPLIED: none Inline CUT markers identify each proposed audio boundary after the relevant word. --- ORIGINAL TRANSCRIPT WITH PROPOSED CUTS MARKED --- My text this morning is the very first verse of the New Testament, Matthew chapter one, verse one, the verse that you will recognize, a record of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the Son of David, the Son of Abraham. Some of you perhaps remember this little verse has played a profoundly influential role in my life personally and also in my ministry. Here's the back story. The year was 1969. It was the last year of college for me. It had been a year of tremendous spiritual growth, occasioned in part by the fact that a small group of friends and I got together every night of the week, if you can believe it, for an hour and a half to study scripture and to pray together. That we pulled that off and managed to get the grades that we did surprises me to this day. But that's what we did. It was a time of unprecedented spiritual growth. It was a time when the presence of God was more real in my life than I had ever experienced it previously. And so I prayed what in retrospect proved to be one of the most dangerous prayers of my life. I said, "Lord, do anything you need to do to make me the kind of Christian that you want me to be." Well, as you've heard me say before, I thought I'd sprout wings and sport a halo. At the very least, I thought I would draw closer to God and he would draw closer to me and you cannot begin to imagine my dismay when the opposite happened. The rug, spiritually and emotionally, was pulled out from underneath me and I started on what proved to be a two-year journey that the ancient mystics used to call the dark night of the soul. And in the dark night of the soul, you lose all sense of God's presence. It's like he's not there. It's like he has abandoned you. It's like he doesn't care. And you were confronted not only by the deepest sins of your own life, but you were confronted by temptations and waves of spiritual attack that roll in like a tsunami. And I remember there were days during that lengthy stretch of time that I wished the earth would just open up and swallow me. I found life incredibly difficult. The fact that I was scheduled to attend seminary that fall didn't make that any easier because I had looked forward to preaching the good news of Jesus when I felt that he was close by but when I was no longer certain that he even existed let alone that he cared for me or anybody else. The prospect of becoming a preacher was very grim indeed. It was a tough time. I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy if truth be known. Nevertheless, roll the clock forward, a couple of months passed by, I enrolled in the seminary that fall and still not feeling really very good about a lot of different things. One of my roommates happened to pick up a book by Watchman E., some of you may have read it, it's called The Normal Christian Life. It's a book that is really a study in the book of Romans and it's not a book that I would have ever at that point picked up because I thought the book of Romans was rather heady and not terribly interesting. But as I leafed through it I found towards the end of the book a couple of pages, indeed a couple of paragraphs that described my experience to a T. For example here is what he says, he says, "God must bring us to a point, I cannot tell you how it will be but he will do it, where through a deep and dark experience our natural power is touched and fundamentally weakened so that we no longer dare trust ourselves. He has had to deal with some of us very strangely and take us through difficult and painful ways in order to get us there. At length there comes a time when we no longer like to do Christian work. Indeed we almost dread to do things in the Lord's name but then at last he can begin to use us." And he goes on to describe his own experience, "The Lord graciously laid me aside once in my life for a number of months and put me spiritually into utter darkness. It was almost as though he had forsaken me, almost as though nothing was going on and I had come to the end of everything." And then he goes on to say by degrees he brought things back again. Well that didn't fix my problem as you can imagine, didn't make my anxiety go away but it did make my anxiety about my anxiety go away if you understand what I'm saying. Because up until that point I wondered what in the world is happening to me? Has God abandoned me? Does he even exist? Has he forsaken me? What's going on? And at least I learned from the experience of this author that this too was part of the normal Christian life if we expect our lives to bear fruit. Now looking back on it in retrospect I can thank him for those times because what it taught me was to walk by faith and not by sight. To live by what God says in his word as opposed to how I'm feeling about it and that has not only enabled a certain steadiness in my own life but it has enabled me to take a lot of other people by the hand as they've gone through very difficult times and said to them listen even though you cannot believe that God is there and that he loves you let me believe for you until we come out the other end. Because you see the Bible says we live by faith not by sight. But I tell you that story this morning because as I was reading his book I noticed that he talked to Lord about what it is to be united with Christ in his death and in his resurrection. And if you're familiar this morning with the book of Romans then you will know that's one of Paul's main themes. He talks about being crucified with Christ and being raised with Christ into newness of life and intellectually I sort of understood what he was saying but spiritually I knew there was something I was missing. So what do you do when you don't quite get it and I've always been grateful for the fact that I've always known that I wasn't smart enough to get it. Well you pray. And so I began to pray fairly earnestly for a season Lord show me what it is to be united with Jesus. Show me what it is to be crucified with him and to be raised with him. Well not much happened. And so after a while you know how that goes with prayers you just sort of go on to other things roll the clock forward. It's now five years later I've graduated from seminary I'm pastoring my first congregation out west I am sitting at my desk one weekday morning when all of a sudden there is this instance that's the only way that I can describe it of the Lord saying I want you to read Matthew one verse one. I've never had an experience like that before seldom I've had an experience like that since then and it frankly puzzled me because I knew the Bible well enough to know what Matthew one verse one says. It's the start of course of the genealogy of Jesus but the Holy Spirit tells you to read something probably a smart thing to read. So open my Bible up and I read the verse Matthew one verse one a record of the genealogy of Jesus Christ the son of David the son of Abraham and I cannot begin to tell you the explosion of light that dawned in my heart and soul at that moment because I understood something about that simple verse that I had never ever understood for all the times that I had read the Bible and that is this the promises that God made to Abraham many years ago promises that are historically fulfilled partially in the reign of King David come to full expression in the person of Jesus Christ and when by faith I am joined to Jesus whatever it is that God has promised to Abraham now belongs to me the promise was made to Abraham the promise went to David the promise went to Jesus and in Christ the promise is mine. It is not an exaggeration this morning for me to tell you it blew my mind in the time that we have this morning and probably at least the next week maybe the next two weeks depending on how far we get want to walk you through that connection between Abraham David in Jesus with a view of having us understand afresh what it is to be in Christ. There is an interesting little follow up to this story because when this revelation came to me I made no connection with my previous prayer show me what it is to be in Christ and a number of months went by and all of a sudden I sensed the Holy Spirit saying this is the answer to that prayer and you know I took five years it took five years because during those five years he set up all the dominoes in place that I needed to have an understanding of this covenant connection between Abraham David and Jesus and once all of those dominoes were set up he pushed over the first one and bang there went the whole shoot and match and I saw it in ways that I have never seen it before and my hope and prayer is as we walk our way through this this week and the next maybe one or two weeks that the Holy Spirit will honor that also in your life and that he will expand our vision to show us the unsearchable riches of God in Christ Jesus our Lord because it all goes back to Abraham and the promises that God made to Abraham so let's dig into that the story of Abraham in the Bible of course and we've talked a little bit about that in Sunday night services of late begins in Genesis chapter 11 where we are told that Abraham together with his father and another relative traveled from Ur of the Chaldeans on their way to Canaan land but they got halfway and they settled in Heron if you look at the scale here that's probably about 750 kilometers Stephen tells us in the New Testament and we wouldn't know it from anywhere else that it was actually God who came to Abraham in Ur of the Chaldeans and he said leave everybody and go to Canaan and it's an interesting commentary on his faith that his dad had to take him there on this journey and then they settled halfway until of course Terah his father died and now the Lord either appeared to Abraham again or in some way Abraham was reminded of the need to move on and so when we get to Genesis chapter 12 this is what the Lord says to Abraham very familiar verses leave your country your people and your father's household and go to the land I will show you I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you I will make your name great and you will be a blessing now if you look carefully at that verse you'll see that there is a four-fold promise there there is first of all a promise for a land God says to him leave your country your people and your father's household go to the land that I will show you the land as we'll see is always critically important in scripture because it is the place where you live and where you need to live in safety then God goes on to say I will make you into a great nation that is to say I will give you offspring and I will greatly multiply your offspring bit of an issue for Abraham you'll find out later on because neither he nor his wife or at least his wife is not capable of having any children so this becomes a major issue and a major test of faith I'll make out of you a great nation God says and I will bless you that is to say my favor will be upon you I will open the windows of heaven and you will have everything that you need for this life and perhaps limited as the Old Testament understanding of that was for the life that is to come I will bless you and then God says you will be a blessing in other words the grace that I pour out into your life isn't going to be just limited to you it is going to flow through you and as the passage goes on the Bible talks about the fact that all the nations of the earth will bless themselves through Abraham and his offspring so here is the promise made to Abraham I'm going to give you a land I'm going to make you a mighty nation I'm going to bless you and I'm going to make you a blessing now we're going to belabor that a little bit because you cannot understand the biblical message of salvation you cannot understand what salvation means you cannot understand who Jesus is and what Jesus came to do unless you understand the nature of this covenant that God makes with Abraham so many years ago so to appreciate what it is that God is saying to Abraham you have to put it in the context of God's original creation purposes for Adam and you've heard me ask this question many times because I always keep coming back to it if you want to know where God is going whether in your life or in the world then you have to know what was his plan originally because salvation is a restoration to a far greater degree even of his original purposes so if I ask you this morning why did God make the whole universe and why did he create Adam and even put them in the garden what is the answer well we've talked about it many times and we can sum it up in the words of Ephesians chapter one verse five I love this verse because it so nails it whole he that is God destined us in love to be his sons through Jesus Christ according to the purpose of his will he destined us in love to be his sons through Jesus Christ according to the purpose of his will and so what the Bible teaches us is that God created this whole vast universe he created the planet earth and then he created the human race because he wanted us to be his sons don't get bent out of shape if you're a woman because the term sons in scripture is always used in the context of inheritance the son inherits the daughter typically did not male and female are included in being the sons of God the best way to picture this I think is to think of yourself and for some of us that takes a lot of imagination but think of yourself as an incredibly wealthy person I mean you've got money to burn in the bank you've got properties all over the world you've got people working for you you've got people you know bowing down to you wherever you go because you're a man or you're a woman of great importance but you have this heart full of love and you say to yourself I'm sitting on all of this stuff and who am I going to share it with and you say to yourself I have a brilliant idea I want to be get myself a family of sons you can add daughters to that if you want I'm going to be I'm going to create human beings in my image and my likeness people with whom I can have a relationship people who love me and who will honor me and who will obey me and to whom I can pour out my blessings and so you get Adam and Eve you get them in the garden and please understand this all the things that the human race has been fighting for and striving for to own and has made wars about and has tried everything to make it happen understand please Adam and Eve had it from the hand of God you get that they didn't have to work why did God rest on the seventh day not because he was tired but because it was all done it was as good as it was going to get that's what Paul means when he says he has destined us in love to be his sons he has destined us to be heirs of everything that he has made and for that in the original creation there were two things that he required of Adam and Eve number one be grateful acknowledge in grateful Thanksgiving that everything that you have here you have not because you made it happen but because I gave it to you it was there for you to walk into it was already for when I created you and day number six so God says know that it comes for me and that therefore you're having this possession depends on your relationship with me and number two do what I tell you to do make sense doesn't it if your kid lives under your roof and you put food in his table and you buy his clothing and you look after all his or her needs what is the one thing that absolutely drives parents right up the wall if it is an ingratitude and what you're looking for is at least an acknowledgement that number one what he or she receives comes from you and that therefore that relationship is very important and the number two you better do what I'm telling you to do or what they're live by the rules of this household and if you can't live by the rules of this household go live someplace else isn't that how it works that's called covenant God's covenant with Adam and Eve was very simple God says this whole playground is yours here's the whole earth I want you to subdue it I want you to build a kingdom that reflects my character and my nature I want to see a human race that knows everything comes from God a human race that is willing to obey me and to honor me and I will bless you out of your socks because the earth will yield what's it's intended to yield well you know what happened along comes the serpent and the serpent knows just how to play on Adam and especially Eve's weakness and he comes along and he says is God really good like can you really trust him to look after you and he zeros in on the one thing that God has said no to which is of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil because God says that tree will kill you don't touch it stay away from it and the devil turns that around and he says did God say you cannot eat from any of the trees of the garden and the woman makes the fatal mistake of entering into conversation with a serpent and the serpent is a lot smarter than the woman and he convinces her that she can have her cake and eat it too understand this this whole creation God says you have it because I am your father and you are in relationship with me the serpent comes along and he says you can have all this and your freedom why should you have to listen to your husband not the first woman to ask that question why should you have to listen to and why should you have to listen to God and so of course you know the story she looks at the tree of the knowledge of good and evil God said you eat from that thing it's going to kill you does it look like it's going to kill her no good for food the light to the eyes desire to make one wise that's always at the heart of temptation and so in reaching out and eating the forbidden fruit and giving it to her husband they both declared their independence from God they said thank you but no thank you we don't need you we've got this beautiful garden that we can play around with and we can do with it whatever we want to do well you can disobey and you can make your free choices but you cannot escape the consequences of your choices and so remember God had said the day that you eat thereof you will surely die and so the very creation and again this is what we need to understand the very creation they were to be Lord and master over the creation that was subject to their authority they were to subdue it now turns around and bites them in their behind because now the creation rules over them so again you know listen to the verses in Genesis chapter 3 17 18 and 19 God speaking here God says cursed is the ground because of you through painful toil you will eat of it all the days of your life it will produce thorns and thistles for you and you will eat the plants of the field vegetarianism by the way was the original design I'm not pushing that trust me but eating meat didn't come in until the days of Noah back to that verse if we can please cursed is the ground because of you through painful toil you will eat of it all the days of your life it will produce thorns and thistles for you and you will eat the plants of the field by the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground since from since from it you were taken for dust you are and to dust you will return and some of you have heard me tell the story of the young boy who said to his mom is it true that we were made from the dust and she says yes son it is true and he said is it true mom that when we die we return to dust and she said yes son it is true well he said I just looked under the bed and somebody's either coming or going dust you are to dust you will return and the curse means thorns and thistles in your life it means living by the sweat of your brow it means life for all of its pleasures and joys and good things doesn't always work the way it's supposed to work as my very wise father used to say nobody ultimately escapes the power of the curse sickness and death broken relationships disappointments and heartache they are part and parcel of the whole human race I think that's why people continue to celebrate Christmas even though a lot of people want nothing to do with the Christ of Christmas there is something about feeling good and feeling happy and having good news that stirs something very deep in the longings of the human heart cursed is the ground because of you from that day to this the question has been how do we return to paradise regained if this is paradise lost alienated from God under Satan's power selfish conflict and war John Milton you will recall wrote a great epic poem way back in the 17th century I believe it was thousands of lines of verse paradise lost how we got to where we are the big question throughout the course of history is how do we get back to paradise regained and the message of scripture is that there's only two possible methods to getting back there one is you can do it by yourself drawing on your own human ingenuity cleverness technology wisdom and strength that is the course followed in scripture by Cain and his descendants who are the ultimate city of man it always ends in violence because it doesn't deal with the underlying issue which is alienation from God so the second way back the way that is the message of scripture is that since the problem began with alienation from God the restoration comes with being restored to God and if the first way back is by human strength and human wisdom and human might trying to earn our way back then the other way back is what the Bible calls by faith that is to say I acknowledge my sin I acknowledge that I have brought this all on my own had I cannot pay the penalty I need God's mercy and again in Genesis for you not only have the genealogy of Cain who represents the city of man who represents all the nations of the world historically how they try to solve the problems of humanity now we're going to drop the world's temperature by 1.5 degrees or to limit it to that because we're going to control the climate it's a good thing to try to control the climate but I'll tell you there's somebody much bigger than you or I that is in charge of that or we humble ourselves before God and we repent of our sin and we could reconcile to him which in Genesis 4 if you want to read that chapter happens in the genealogy on the side of Seth who replaces Abel and when you get to the end of Genesis 4 in Cain's line generation number 7 you have lamech who is filled with violence and arrogance and war and on the other side you end up with Enoch who walked with God and was taken up by God because their soul characteristic their soul characteristic is that they were men and women of prayer they knew they needed God and his blessings to make it happen so back to Abraham because we're going someplace with us when God comes to Abraham and he says to him I'm going to give you a land I'm going to make you into a mighty nation I'm going to bless you guess what God is doing God is reversing the curse he enters into covenant with Abraham who was initially an idol worshipper and says Abraham you leave everything behind you that you have ever known that gives you status that gives you authority and that gives you power that makes you somebody in the world and in your community and you come follow me you won't even know where it is that I'm taking you somewhere in the land of Canaan but who knows what that looks like and I'm going to bless you with a land a place where you can dwell in safety I'm going to bless your body so that you become a mighty nation a grand to people and I'm going to bless you with every blessing that you can imagine I'm going to open the windows of heaven pour out everything you need to do life and to do it abundantly and in fact you're going to have so many blessings that you have enough not only for yourself but all the nations of the world will bless themselves by year so what God is saying to Abraham and catch this because we miss it a lot he is saying to Abraham you're going to inherit the earth listen to how Paul puts it picks up on this in Romans chapter 4 verse 13 the promise there we have it again the promise to Abraham and to his descendants that they should what inherit the world did not come through the law but through the righteousness of faith and just very quickly before we wind up this morning notice three things there are of critical importance in this passage first of all the promise is that they should inherit the world now you may say to yourself I'm not interested in inheriting the world that's only because you don't understand what you're looking for because the reality is everybody wants to inherit the world everybody wants a place of significance everybody wants a place of blessing everybody wants a place of safety everybody wants to climb the ladder to live in a bigger house drive a better car more money in your bank account and more recognition from your friends family neighbors isn't that true people kill themselves to get that they sacrifice their health their family their relationships just to take another step in that journey God says to Abraham I'm entering into covenant with you and just as I gave Adam and Eve the whole earth for them to enjoy and to subdue so I will give you the earth the world as your inheritance never lose sight of the fact that the big question in history is who is going to inherit the world who's going to be the boss is it going to be ISIS it's going to be Russia is it the United States is it Canada is it you get the you get the idea who inherits the earth second thing to notice there is that it's based on righteousness by faith so here's the big question how do I become eligible to inherit the earth and the question here is how do I get to be good enough to earn that blessing then again there are two ways righteousness under the law I'm going to try harder to be better and maybe God will take notice and he'll bless me or righteousness that comes by faith and the whole use that Paul makes of Abraham in his New Testament epistles is to demonstrate that the inheritance that was promised to Abraham which is the inheritance of the world not only in this age but in the age to come is not based on law but is based on righteousness guaranteed by faith and we don't have time to talk about this now but there are two covenants here in the Old Testament that we're dealing with one is the covenant that was made to Abraham and that is a covenant that is unconditional where God says I not only require righteousness of you but I'm going to fulfill righteousness for you so that the inheritance is guaranteed to you by faith when you're good or whether you're bad it's yours by faith the second covenant was the covenant at Mount Sinai which was a law covenant and you can read about this in Galatians chapter 3 and 4 Paul argues very persuasively that the covenant at Mount Sinai didn't replace the covenant God made with Abraham in the book of Genesis the covenant at Sinai was a covenant of law obey me keep the law I will bless you you will be in the land break the law as of course they did out of the land you go you get scattered we'll talk more about that perhaps Lord willing next time the big question to bring it back to this is how do I inherit the world how do I get the blessings of God how do I get his favor does his favor rest on goody two shoes does his favor rest on me doing everything right and obeying him the answer is no because in fact it puts you under a curse because you're now putting yourself back under law and the law says if you don't do it 100 percent right you're in big manure that's the reality by faith we become righteous and if we're righteous by faith then nothing can hinder us from receiving the inheritance we'll flesh that out more as time goes on Lord willing so there's one further phrase in there that you really have to understand and that is this phrase that it is a promise to Abraham and his descendants or his offspring now keep that word in mind because Paul does fascinating things with that in the book of Galatians because the offspring is both singular and plural the offspring is first and foremost Jesus who inherits the promise similarly to King David and it is plural in the sense that when you and I are joined to Jesus we receive the inheritance so what do you think it means to be a Christian to be a Christian is to receive the inheritance that has been promised to Abraham and that was historically realized in the life and the kingship of David and if you really get hold of that and you flesh that out in terms of what that looks like for the New Testament Christian it'll blow your mind like it blew my mind then we can all have blown minds together that'll be interesting so here's an assignment for you see if you can connect the dots see if you can trace the significance of Jesus Christ being the son of David being the son of Abraham read the book of Galatians to see what Paul does with that in the New Testament and then when Lord willing we come back to it we'll be able if we can understand it appropriate promises for ourselves that previously we didn't have the courage or the boldness to lay hold of it as you see here's our problem we know that Jesus was a descendant of David we know that Jesus was a descendant of Abraham and we know that the promise was that through Abraham and David the Messiah would come that our sins can be forgiven and that we can go to heaven it's all very fine and dead yet very true and very important but it's about more than that it's about being a son of God do you understand the difference it's about receiving the inheritance it is about getting what God has promised to Abraham not only in time but also in eternity that's where we need the revelation because that is what will change our lives and that will enable us to walk by faith and not by sight so we [PROPOSED CUT 1 START at 00:44:19.000; remove through 00:44:26.000] can lay hold of the good things that God has for his children [CUT] [CUT] [PROPOSED CUT 1 END at 00:44:26.000; resume after this marked segment]