Trusting in God’s Promises – 18th January 2015 Summary: Our eternal destiny is based on the Promises of God. Scripture: Hebrews 6:13-6:20 Sermon: When I was a boy aged about six I was in a convalescent home in Haverfordwest having spent nearly 18 months in hospital with a kidney disease and for the first time in 18 months my father came to visit. That was about 54 years ago and I can still remember his smart sports jacket, cavalry twill trousers, shiny brown brogue shoes and immaculately groomed hair and moustache. I remember his smell. My Dad always wore 4711 cologne and he still does. This unprecedented and unusual visit was to tell me that he and mum were separating. He tried to explain the reasons but even though I remember all sorts of non-essential things about the visit I can’t remember them. What I do remember was his promise to come and see me again and that he would always be there for me. A few weeks later my mother and my new step father came to collect me and take me to our new home in Bristol and for more than 17 years I never saw or heard from my father again. He broke his promise to me. As a Captain in the Boys Brigade here at Fulham Baptist Church I organised a trip out to a paintballing company for the older boys one Saturday afternoon. I organised a mini bus and driver and contacted former company members and got several of them to sign up for the trip. I even obtained sponsorship from a local charity to help cover the costs. It was going to be the biggest BB event of the year, and on the Wednesday before I got bitten by our cat and the wound became so septic that I was hospitalised for a week and the trip was cancelled. Some boys were so upset by this broken promise that they never came back to Boys Brigade. Life has taught us that “promises are made to be broken.” Sometimes the breaking of the promise is deliberate, sometimes we are just forgetful and sometimes it’s due to circumstances beyond our control and it’s for this reason that we have learned to take most of them with a grain of salt. The Christian Faith on the other hand calls on us to stake our eternal destinies upon the promises of God. For this reason it is important that we understand the nature of those Godly promises and how they are realised in our lives. Firstly God’s Immutable Purpose. Hebrews 6:17 says that because God wanted to make the unchanging nature of his purpose very clear to the heirs of what was promised. So important is it to our God that His children, that’s you and I, believe in His promises that He on several occasions confirmed them by a sacred oath’s. He has voluntarily sworn by the highest power in the universe—Himself in Genesis 22:16; Isaiah 45:23; and Jeremiah 22:5 and it is as if God raises His right hand to us and says, “I will keep my promises, so help Me, Me!” God’s promise and God’s oath’s are “two unchangeable things” (v. 18). They are fixed and they are immutable. They are as certain as the setting of the sun (Jeremiah 33:20, 21). Our Lord God makes oaths to Abraham and to Moses and the whole of the Jewish nation and its history is based upon those promises and because we have those promises and their history to refer to and read we can see that God’s promises are credible, they are real and He is faithful too them. That’s because God’s promises are grounded in His character. He has the absolute ability and the uncompromising integrity to fulfil them. They are, therefore, completely credible. But we need to understand that God’s promises are also conditional. The author of Hebrews repeatedly warns us that not all of God’s children “inherit what has been promised” (Hebrews 6:12). This is not due to any failing on the part of God. It is due to some failing on the part of man. Attached to God’s promises to man are his expectations of man. One may see this all throughout scripture. It was true of his promise to David in 1 Kings 2:4 and 1 Kings 9:4-7). It was true of his promises to the people of Israel through Moses in Deuteronomy 4:23. And, in the example which the author cites here, it was true of his promise to Abraham. The condition which the Hebrews author says the believer then, and the believer today, must meet if he or she is to enjoy the fulfilment of God’s promises is “patience” (v. 15). As God made Abraham wait for his child of promise, so also does God makes us wait to see the ultimate fulfilment of his promises to us. Our faith is thus tested to ensure it is genuine and it is firmly grounded in God and His son Jesus. By this testing of time the genuineness of our faith is proved. Next, Man’s Immovable Prospect. God did this so that … we who have fled to take hold of the hope offered us may be greatly encouraged. We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure (Hebrews 6:18 - 19). There is nothing more Christian than hope. Along with faith and love, it is one of the three principle graces of the Christian life (1 Corinthians 13:13). We are a people who are “saved by hope” (Romans 8:24) and who live “resting on the hope of eternal life” (Titus 1:2). Those cheerful expressions—”all will be well,” “look on the bright side,” “hope for the best”—that we often use are mostly just sentiment, wishful thinking, empty optimism. The paths of life are strewn with the victims of such misplaced and ungrounded hope. Christian hope, however, is not based upon the empty wishes of men but upon the nature and character of God. As long as our hope is founded in Him, it will never fail us, it will never let us down. Hope is the Christian’s place of asylum. As the ancient Israelite could cling to the altar in the hope of redemption, so can the believer in Christ cling to hope as a temporary asylum until the time of our final vindication (v. 18). Hope is also the Christian’s anchor. It functions like a spiritual mooring to bind us to the “Rock of our salvation” Jesus Christ. (v. 18; Psalm 95:1). This hope is immoveable and unbreakable. It is strong and it is like no other form of hope because it is based firmly on the promises and assurances of eternity with God. In Conclusion the hymn writer tells us that; We have an anchor that keeps the soul Steadfast and sure while the billows roll, Fastened to the Rock which cannot move, Grounded firm and deep in the Saviour’s love.
Posted on: Sun, 18 Jan 2015 22:18:02 +0000
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