Sign up to save your podcasts
Or
Share UNCERTAIN: People of a Great Promise | PART 5
Share to email
Share to Facebook
Share to X
Share to email
Share to Facebook
Share to X
Or
UNCERTAIN: People of a Great Promise | PART 5
God is faithful and keeps his promises. Not in our time frame, but he always keeps his Promise. It’s who he is. It’s his character. And it’s God’s desire for ALL to know him and for ALL to experience life in him. We look at his promises and how we can depend on them.
Series: UNCERTAIN: Discovering Who We are Through Difficult Times,
Speaker: Pastor Don Dodge,
Scripture: 2 Peter 3:9, Genesis 12:1-3, Exodus 19:5-6, 2 Samuel 7:16, Isaiah 49:6, Matthew 5:14, Acts 1:4-5, Acts 1:8, Hebrews 11:39-40, Hebrews 12:1-2, 2 Corinthians 1:20, Hebrews 12:2,
Video: https://www.facebook.com/avalonchurch/videos/265447084489729/,
Sermon page: https://www.avalonchurch.org/sermons/uncertain-people-of-a-great-promise-part-5/,
Sermon Notes: 2020-04-26_uncertain-part-5-people-of-a-great-promise_sermon-transcript.pdf,
Discussion Questions: 2020-04-26_uncertain-part-5-people-of-a-great-promise_discussion-questions.pdf,
Notes:
There’s a song written by Matt Langsten
Of the alternative rock group eleventyseven.It’s called All the Doubt in Town.It’s inspired by his grandpa,
…his Papa.
In the 1940’s,
…his grandpa and grandma were two young teenagers
Who got pregnant.
As a result, they got married way too young.
So they bought an old house in a low-income area of town,
And the wife was just so upset.
She told her new husband,
Maybe this was a mistake.
Maybe we should end it.
The husband’s response is the chorus of the song.
eleventyseven – All the Doubt in Town
All the doubt in town
Ain’t enough to shake the ground
That my feet have been walking on.
Cause girl, I love you now,
And ‘til I hear that trumpet sound,
Wherever you are, I belong.
The story continues with the husband losing his job
And them struggling just to make ends meet.
The wife was scared.
They had a new baby, now.
She talked about leaving
and moving back home with her parents.
And the husband with resolve said
All the doubt in town
Ain’t enough to shake the ground
That my feet have been walking on.
Cause girl, I love you now,
And til I hear that trumpet sound,
Wherever you are, I belong.
Then the story jumps to the their 60th anniversary.
Papa is in the hospital
surrounded by the kids and grandkids.
Mama is reflecting on how fast the years went by,
Praying her faithful man would not die.
Asking him how he knew they would make it this far.
And he responds,
Girl I love you now
But I hear that trumpet sound
And I gotta be moving on
Though I leave you now
I’ll be up there looking down
Keeping Heaven's porch light on.
And then the chorus repeats
No matter how much doubt,
No matter what the struggle.
I made a promise to you
And I’m going to keep that promise.
My daughter Ali and I
share a love for this song.
There’s something moving about
the willingness to sacrifice to keep a promise.
It’s inspiring.
And did you know that Scripture records
God making over 7,000 promises to people.
7,000 promises.
Some were very specific,
And not all of them relate to us.
But God is a God who keeps his word.
Many years after God in the flesh,
Died a cross to keep his promise,
Peter, one of the disciples,
was reflecting on the journey with Jesus,
…And God’s faithfulness to keep his promises,
Even in the midst of the suffering
That these young believers were facing.
He said to them,
9 The Lord isn’t really being slow about his promise, as some people think. No, he is being patient for your sake. He does not want anyone to be destroyed, but wants everyone to repent. 2 Peter 3:9 (NLT)
God is faithful.
God keeps his promises.
Not in our time frame,
But he always keeps his Promise.
It’s who he is.
It’s his character.
And it’s God’s desire
…For ALL to know him.
…ALL to experience life in him.
Review
Last week we talked about
being a people of a grand story.
That we’re part of this epic journey with God;
…Something so much bigger than we can imagine.
God is moving the story forward.
With us or in spite of us.
We have the freedom to join him
…or reject him.
But his deepest desire,
Revealed through his willingness to die on that cross,
Is to share the story with us.
The story is huge.
And we often lose sight of how we fit in it.
So God, throughout history, has given us these promises
…Kind of like
…mile markers.
The promises, they assure us
that the story is true.
It is good.
The promises arouse faith.
Those that have been fulfilled
Assure us of the promises yet to be fulfilled.
Like the lyrics I shared at the beginning,
It’s when we look back that we see
…How big and how faithful
is the God we trust.
So what are these promises?
At the end of the message
I’m going to recommend a devotion
that will lead you to discover some great ones,
But I want to quickly mention
…the greatest,
…the most ginormous and important promises
…And how they relate to our story with God,
And form us into a people of a great promise.
These are the pillars of our story with God.
In fact, I would say
Every promise we have been given
Is under God’s promise to Abraham.
Abraham was told to “go”,
And God promised,
2 “I will make you into a great nation. I will bless you and make you famous, and you will be a blessing to others. 3 I will bless those who bless you and curse those who treat you with contempt. All the families on earth will be blessed through you.” –Genesis 12:1-3 (NLT)
Through this one chosen family,
God would bless all families.
Through the nation they would become,
God would bless all nations.
This promise revealed God’s love for humanity,
And how we would participate in his story.
This promise marked the early chapter of God’s story,
Where he pursued all of us
..Offering life and restoration and redemption.
And God’s promise to Abraham’s
Led to a more specific promise to the nation of his descendants,
…Moses and the Israelites
5 “Now if you will obey me and keep my covenant… 6 you will be my kingdom of priests, my holy nation.”–Ex.19 (NLT)
Their part of the story,
God’s promise to them was --
IF they would remain faithful to God,
They would become the instrument
through which God would bring
the whole world back to himself.
They would be a nation of priests.
God’s tangible presence in the world.
But it was too hard.
They couldn’t do it.
So God made another promise,
…This time to King David,
Another mile marker in the story.
16 [David], your house and your kingdom will continue before me for all time, and your throne will be secure forever.’ ” –2 Sam 7:16 (NLT)
And then the poo hit the fan,
Because a civil war started and Israel split in two.
Then the Northern kingdom was obliterated.
And the Southern Kingdom exiled to Babylon.
Honestly, it looked like God
was not going to keep this promise.
And right in the middle of lost hope,
The prophet Isaiah makes a promise
…About a special person sent from God,
…A Messiah in the line of David,
6 [The Lord] says, “You will do more than restore the people of Israel to me. I will make you a light to the Gentiles, and you will bring my salvation to the ends of the earth.” –Is 49:6 (NLT)
Where have we heard this before?
Oh yeah, Jesus.
“You are the light of the world” – Matt. 5:14
“Baptized with the Holy Spirit” – Acts 1:4-5
“…witnesses to the end of the earth.” – Acts 1:8
He told his followers,
You are the light of the world.
And when you are filled with God’s Spirit,
You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in Judea,
in Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.
Jesus is the fulfillment of God’s promises.
And as followers of Jesus,
…We are a people of a great promise.
…We are a people PARTICIPATING in the great promise!
A letter in the NT, Hebrews,
written by one of the leaders of the early church
…Inspired a group of suffering Jewish Christians,
With these words…
39 All these people (Abraham, Moses, David, the Prophets) earned a good reputation because of their faith, yet none of them received all that God had promised. 40 For God had something better in mind for us, so that they would not reach perfection without us. –Heb 11 (NLT)
These people were given a promise from God,
…And they believed God even though
they never saw the fulfillment in their lifetime.
Abraham never saw more than 2 descendants.
Isaac and Ismael.
Moses didn’t even enter the Promised Land.
David’s kingdom fell apart after 2 generations.
They never saw the fulfillment.
But we have!
You (Application. So What?)
So the writer of Hebrews tells those Jewish Christians,
…And he tells us…
1Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a huge crowd of witnesses to the life of faith, let us strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily trips us up. And let us run with endurance the race God has set before us. –Hebrews 12 (NLT)
The men and women who went before us
…They trusted God to be faithful,
Despite never seeing the fulfillment of his promises.
If they could trust God before seeing the promise,
How much more can we
…Living on this side of Jesus?
Here’s how…
2 We do this by keeping our eyes on Jesus, the champion who initiates and perfects our faith. Because of the joy awaiting him, he endured the cross, disregarding its shame. Now he is seated in the place of honor beside God’s throne. –Hebrews 12:2 (NLT)
Don’t keep your eyes on COVID.
Don’t keep your eyes fixed on the struggle.
We are a people of a great promise.
Keep your eyes fixed on Jesus.
He is the fulfillment of that promise.
For all of God’s promises have been fulfilled in Christ with a resounding “Yes!” –2 Corinthians 1:20 (NLT)
Live your life as a disciple of the One
Who is the fulfillment of God’s epic story.
Get to know him.
Begin reading the NT stories and letters.
Pray the Psalms, the prayer book Jesus’ used.
Live as Jesus’ hands and feet to those around you.
Love as Jesus loves you.
Be someone who keeps their promises.
Do what you say you will do,
Even if it costs you something.
We follow a God who keeps his promises.
Keep our eyes fixed on our Lord of integrity.
Be a person of integrity.
There’s something powerful and moving
When people are willingness to sacrifice to keep a promise.
That’s what Jesus did.
I want to encourage you to join me
to discover more of God’s promises together.
Just go to AvalonChurch.org/PromisesDevo and accept the invite.
It’s a 5-day devotion where we can interact together.
Let’s pray together.
View all episodes
By Pastor Don Dodge
5
11 ratings
God is faithful and keeps his promises. Not in our time frame, but he always keeps his Promise. It’s who he is. It’s his character. And it’s God’s desire for ALL to know him and for ALL to experience life in him. We look at his promises and how we can depend on them.
Series: UNCERTAIN: Discovering Who We are Through Difficult Times,
Speaker: Pastor Don Dodge,
Scripture: 2 Peter 3:9, Genesis 12:1-3, Exodus 19:5-6, 2 Samuel 7:16, Isaiah 49:6, Matthew 5:14, Acts 1:4-5, Acts 1:8, Hebrews 11:39-40, Hebrews 12:1-2, 2 Corinthians 1:20, Hebrews 12:2,
Video: https://www.facebook.com/avalonchurch/videos/265447084489729/,
Sermon page: https://www.avalonchurch.org/sermons/uncertain-people-of-a-great-promise-part-5/,
Sermon Notes: 2020-04-26_uncertain-part-5-people-of-a-great-promise_sermon-transcript.pdf,
Discussion Questions: 2020-04-26_uncertain-part-5-people-of-a-great-promise_discussion-questions.pdf,
Notes:
There’s a song written by Matt Langsten
Of the alternative rock group eleventyseven.It’s called All the Doubt in Town.It’s inspired by his grandpa,
…his Papa.
In the 1940’s,
…his grandpa and grandma were two young teenagers
Who got pregnant.
As a result, they got married way too young.
So they bought an old house in a low-income area of town,
And the wife was just so upset.
She told her new husband,
Maybe this was a mistake.
Maybe we should end it.
The husband’s response is the chorus of the song.
eleventyseven – All the Doubt in Town
All the doubt in town
Ain’t enough to shake the ground
That my feet have been walking on.
Cause girl, I love you now,
And ‘til I hear that trumpet sound,
Wherever you are, I belong.
The story continues with the husband losing his job
And them struggling just to make ends meet.
The wife was scared.
They had a new baby, now.
She talked about leaving
and moving back home with her parents.
And the husband with resolve said
All the doubt in town
Ain’t enough to shake the ground
That my feet have been walking on.
Cause girl, I love you now,
And til I hear that trumpet sound,
Wherever you are, I belong.
Then the story jumps to the their 60th anniversary.
Papa is in the hospital
surrounded by the kids and grandkids.
Mama is reflecting on how fast the years went by,
Praying her faithful man would not die.
Asking him how he knew they would make it this far.
And he responds,
Girl I love you now
But I hear that trumpet sound
And I gotta be moving on
Though I leave you now
I’ll be up there looking down
Keeping Heaven's porch light on.
And then the chorus repeats
No matter how much doubt,
No matter what the struggle.
I made a promise to you
And I’m going to keep that promise.
My daughter Ali and I
share a love for this song.
There’s something moving about
the willingness to sacrifice to keep a promise.
It’s inspiring.
And did you know that Scripture records
God making over 7,000 promises to people.
7,000 promises.
Some were very specific,
And not all of them relate to us.
But God is a God who keeps his word.
Many years after God in the flesh,
Died a cross to keep his promise,
Peter, one of the disciples,
was reflecting on the journey with Jesus,
…And God’s faithfulness to keep his promises,
Even in the midst of the suffering
That these young believers were facing.
He said to them,
9 The Lord isn’t really being slow about his promise, as some people think. No, he is being patient for your sake. He does not want anyone to be destroyed, but wants everyone to repent. 2 Peter 3:9 (NLT)
God is faithful.
God keeps his promises.
Not in our time frame,
But he always keeps his Promise.
It’s who he is.
It’s his character.
And it’s God’s desire
…For ALL to know him.
…ALL to experience life in him.
Review
Last week we talked about
being a people of a grand story.
That we’re part of this epic journey with God;
…Something so much bigger than we can imagine.
God is moving the story forward.
With us or in spite of us.
We have the freedom to join him
…or reject him.
But his deepest desire,
Revealed through his willingness to die on that cross,
Is to share the story with us.
The story is huge.
And we often lose sight of how we fit in it.
So God, throughout history, has given us these promises
…Kind of like
…mile markers.
The promises, they assure us
that the story is true.
It is good.
The promises arouse faith.
Those that have been fulfilled
Assure us of the promises yet to be fulfilled.
Like the lyrics I shared at the beginning,
It’s when we look back that we see
…How big and how faithful
is the God we trust.
So what are these promises?
At the end of the message
I’m going to recommend a devotion
that will lead you to discover some great ones,
But I want to quickly mention
…the greatest,
…the most ginormous and important promises
…And how they relate to our story with God,
And form us into a people of a great promise.
These are the pillars of our story with God.
In fact, I would say
Every promise we have been given
Is under God’s promise to Abraham.
Abraham was told to “go”,
And God promised,
2 “I will make you into a great nation. I will bless you and make you famous, and you will be a blessing to others. 3 I will bless those who bless you and curse those who treat you with contempt. All the families on earth will be blessed through you.” –Genesis 12:1-3 (NLT)
Through this one chosen family,
God would bless all families.
Through the nation they would become,
God would bless all nations.
This promise revealed God’s love for humanity,
And how we would participate in his story.
This promise marked the early chapter of God’s story,
Where he pursued all of us
..Offering life and restoration and redemption.
And God’s promise to Abraham’s
Led to a more specific promise to the nation of his descendants,
…Moses and the Israelites
5 “Now if you will obey me and keep my covenant… 6 you will be my kingdom of priests, my holy nation.”–Ex.19 (NLT)
Their part of the story,
God’s promise to them was --
IF they would remain faithful to God,
They would become the instrument
through which God would bring
the whole world back to himself.
They would be a nation of priests.
God’s tangible presence in the world.
But it was too hard.
They couldn’t do it.
So God made another promise,
…This time to King David,
Another mile marker in the story.
16 [David], your house and your kingdom will continue before me for all time, and your throne will be secure forever.’ ” –2 Sam 7:16 (NLT)
And then the poo hit the fan,
Because a civil war started and Israel split in two.
Then the Northern kingdom was obliterated.
And the Southern Kingdom exiled to Babylon.
Honestly, it looked like God
was not going to keep this promise.
And right in the middle of lost hope,
The prophet Isaiah makes a promise
…About a special person sent from God,
…A Messiah in the line of David,
6 [The Lord] says, “You will do more than restore the people of Israel to me. I will make you a light to the Gentiles, and you will bring my salvation to the ends of the earth.” –Is 49:6 (NLT)
Where have we heard this before?
Oh yeah, Jesus.
“You are the light of the world” – Matt. 5:14
“Baptized with the Holy Spirit” – Acts 1:4-5
“…witnesses to the end of the earth.” – Acts 1:8
He told his followers,
You are the light of the world.
And when you are filled with God’s Spirit,
You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in Judea,
in Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.
Jesus is the fulfillment of God’s promises.
And as followers of Jesus,
…We are a people of a great promise.
…We are a people PARTICIPATING in the great promise!
A letter in the NT, Hebrews,
written by one of the leaders of the early church
…Inspired a group of suffering Jewish Christians,
With these words…
39 All these people (Abraham, Moses, David, the Prophets) earned a good reputation because of their faith, yet none of them received all that God had promised. 40 For God had something better in mind for us, so that they would not reach perfection without us. –Heb 11 (NLT)
These people were given a promise from God,
…And they believed God even though
they never saw the fulfillment in their lifetime.
Abraham never saw more than 2 descendants.
Isaac and Ismael.
Moses didn’t even enter the Promised Land.
David’s kingdom fell apart after 2 generations.
They never saw the fulfillment.
But we have!
You (Application. So What?)
So the writer of Hebrews tells those Jewish Christians,
…And he tells us…
1Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a huge crowd of witnesses to the life of faith, let us strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily trips us up. And let us run with endurance the race God has set before us. –Hebrews 12 (NLT)
The men and women who went before us
…They trusted God to be faithful,
Despite never seeing the fulfillment of his promises.
If they could trust God before seeing the promise,
How much more can we
…Living on this side of Jesus?
Here’s how…
2 We do this by keeping our eyes on Jesus, the champion who initiates and perfects our faith. Because of the joy awaiting him, he endured the cross, disregarding its shame. Now he is seated in the place of honor beside God’s throne. –Hebrews 12:2 (NLT)
Don’t keep your eyes on COVID.
Don’t keep your eyes fixed on the struggle.
We are a people of a great promise.
Keep your eyes fixed on Jesus.
He is the fulfillment of that promise.
For all of God’s promises have been fulfilled in Christ with a resounding “Yes!” –2 Corinthians 1:20 (NLT)
Live your life as a disciple of the One
Who is the fulfillment of God’s epic story.
Get to know him.
Begin reading the NT stories and letters.
Pray the Psalms, the prayer book Jesus’ used.
Live as Jesus’ hands and feet to those around you.
Love as Jesus loves you.
Be someone who keeps their promises.
Do what you say you will do,
Even if it costs you something.
We follow a God who keeps his promises.
Keep our eyes fixed on our Lord of integrity.
Be a person of integrity.
There’s something powerful and moving
When people are willingness to sacrifice to keep a promise.
That’s what Jesus did.
I want to encourage you to join me
to discover more of God’s promises together.
Just go to AvalonChurch.org/PromisesDevo and accept the invite.
It’s a 5-day devotion where we can interact together.
Let’s pray together.